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*''[[VideoGame/HegemonySeries Hegemony: Gold]]'' has two campaigns based on the war: Athens during the Archidamian War, and Sparta during the Ionian War.
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The immediate cause of the war was the Theban incident, where Thebes got into conflict with Platea who were backed by Athens. This sparked a small civil war. The Spartans decided to intervene on the side of Thebes, and this led to a stealth invasion which saw vicious streetfighting and notably one of the few times where Platean women and slaves actively participated in house-to-house combat in the Ancient World. Plateans allied with Athens, and the Spartans and Thebans upon victory summarily executed and killed all the rebels after swearing peace, an act of violence that shocked the Greek World and set the stage for the SerialEscalation of violence on both sides that would ensue in the course of the war.
The war can be separated into three phases:
The war can be separated into three phases:
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The immediate cause of the war was the Theban incident, where Thebes got into conflict with Platea who were backed by Athens. This sparked a small civil war. The Spartans decided to intervene on the side of Thebes, and this led to a stealth invasion which saw vicious streetfighting and notably one of the few times where Platean women and slaves actively participated in house-to-house combat in the Ancient World. Plateans allied with Athens, and the Spartans and Thebans upon victory summarily executed and killed all the rebels after swearing peace, an act of violence that shocked the Greek World and set the stage for the SerialEscalation of violence on both sides that would ensue in the course of the war.
war. In terms of actual responsibility for the outbreak of war, there's a real debate and doubt as to who's responsible for it. Athenians, under Perikles, claimed that the Spartans had refused all offers of arbitration by a neutral party to resolve their diplomatic dispute. According to the Thirty Year Peace agreement, any dispute between them could be settled by a neutral third power, and refusal to arbitrate meant war. Historians point out that by the onset of the Peloponnesian War, Athens and Sparta had spread their wings so far across the entire Greek World, that it was virtually impossible for them to find a neutral third party. By that time both states had burned bridges with neighbors or bribed other neighbors that literally no one was uninvolved or indifferent to both Athens and Sparta. So Perikles making an issue of arbitration was his way of making Sparta look like the bad guy. The Spartans for their part were paranoid about helot uprisings and quite private and committed to secrecy, and likewise set nothing down in writing, which makes it hard to assess their actual behavior in this conflict.
!! The war can be separated into three phases:
!! The war can be separated into three phases:
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The Peloponnesian War [431-404 BCE] was the largest conflict in the Greek City State era. It pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire or Athenian Hegemony) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC. It ended with a stalemate after the Battle of Amphipolis where the Athenians lost but the Spartans scored a PyrrhicVictory and this led to the Peace of Nikias.
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC. It ended with a stalemate after the Battle of Amphipolis where the Athenians lost but the Spartans scored a PyrrhicVictory and this led to the Peace of Nikias.
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The Peloponnesian War [431-404 BCE] was the largest conflict in the Greek City State era. It pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire or Athenian Hegemony) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The causes of the war was the result of a century plus simmering conflict in Ancient Greece that resulted from the development of Democracy in Athens, and its consequent triumph and expansion in power, wealth, and influence in the UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars. Sparta was wary of Athens' rise in power and influence even if they had allied with Athens during the Second Persian Invasion. A society that was always paranoid about helot uprisings inwards always believed in maintaining stability across Greece to better defend their society. The Athenians for their part were flush with success, confidence, and pride at their institutions and military success and under the statesman Perikles, launced an extensive investment in public works that resulted in several majestic works of sculpture and architecture, of which the Parthenon is the most famous and enduring monument.
The Athenians dominated naval trade across the Aegean Sea, and established extensive colonies and polis (i.e. city-settlements) across Greece and in process exported their form of democracy across Greece. The catch was their colonies were expected to pay taxes, and attempts to rebel or resist Athenian Hegemony was dealt with harshly. Athenians found allies in those communities who supported or welcomed their democracy such as the village of Methymna in the island of Lesbos but found opponents among oligarchs who clamored for old privileges and who looked to Sparta to restore order. The Spartans for their part, were reeling from some incidents close to home, namely an earthquake in 463 BCE which destabilized the region and led to a helot uprising that the Spartans put down harshly. The Spartans even called its allies across Greece, including Athens, for help in putting down some of these uprisings, but famously, when the Athenians showed up to help, the Spartans turned them away which the Athenian general, Cimon, saw as a snub but which the Spartans believed was necessary because they believed the Athenians would back the helots. Athens and Sparta did sign a pact called the Thirty Year Peace which identified and recognized different spheres of influence and non-intervention but this was tested when the Athenians intervened and put down a rebellion in Potidaea (where Sokrates himself served in battle). Then there was the Corinthian War where Corinth went into a clash with the island settlement of Corcyra who turned to Athens for help, leading the Athenians to fight the Corinthians and repelling and making the Corinthians then turn to Sparta to agitate for war against the Athenians.
The immediate cause of the war was the Theban incident, where Thebes got into conflict with Platea who were backed by Athens. This sparked a small civil war. The Spartans decided to intervene on the side of Thebes, and this led to a stealth invasion which saw vicious streetfighting and notably one of the few times where Platean women and slaves actively participated in house-to-house combat in the Ancient World. Plateans allied with Athens, and the Spartans and Thebans upon victory summarily executed and killed all the rebels after swearing peace, an act of violence that shocked the Greek World and set the stage for the SerialEscalation of violence on both sides that would ensue in the course of the war.
The war can be separated into three phases:
'''PhaseOne''', One''' lasted from 431-421 BC. It ended with a stalemate after the "Archidamian War," Battle of Amphipolis where the Athenians lost but the Spartans scored a PyrrhicVictory and this led to the Peace of Nikias. This phase established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC. It ended The Spartans laid siege on Athens but its long walls and its navy allowed Athenians to hold them at bay, with the two sides (a major land power against a stalemate after major sea power) effectively balancing each other out. The Athenians suffered a major setback in the Plague of Athens which broke out in 428 BCE and killed thousands in the city including Perikles himself. In the aftermath, the Athenian General, Demosthenes scored a brilliant victory at the Battle of Amphipolis Sphacteria where the Athenians lost but he forced the Spartans scored a PyrrhicVictory to surrender (something Spartans are usually not supposed to do) and this led to the Peace Spartan General Brasidas in a brilliant counter-campaign to win over moderate allies in the North of Nikias.
Greece. At the Battle of Amphipolis, Brasidas died, as did Kleon, Athens' WarHawk political leader. The death of both figures allowed for a period of peace. Between the two phases, both Athens and Sparta recuperated while still putting down rebellions. The Athenians most famously submitted the Island of Melos to harsh reprisals during this time.
The Athenians dominated naval trade across the Aegean Sea, and established extensive colonies and polis (i.e. city-settlements) across Greece and in process exported their form of democracy across Greece. The catch was their colonies were expected to pay taxes, and attempts to rebel or resist Athenian Hegemony was dealt with harshly. Athenians found allies in those communities who supported or welcomed their democracy such as the village of Methymna in the island of Lesbos but found opponents among oligarchs who clamored for old privileges and who looked to Sparta to restore order. The Spartans for their part, were reeling from some incidents close to home, namely an earthquake in 463 BCE which destabilized the region and led to a helot uprising that the Spartans put down harshly. The Spartans even called its allies across Greece, including Athens, for help in putting down some of these uprisings, but famously, when the Athenians showed up to help, the Spartans turned them away which the Athenian general, Cimon, saw as a snub but which the Spartans believed was necessary because they believed the Athenians would back the helots. Athens and Sparta did sign a pact called the Thirty Year Peace which identified and recognized different spheres of influence and non-intervention but this was tested when the Athenians intervened and put down a rebellion in Potidaea (where Sokrates himself served in battle). Then there was the Corinthian War where Corinth went into a clash with the island settlement of Corcyra who turned to Athens for help, leading the Athenians to fight the Corinthians and repelling and making the Corinthians then turn to Sparta to agitate for war against the Athenians.
The immediate cause of the war was the Theban incident, where Thebes got into conflict with Platea who were backed by Athens. This sparked a small civil war. The Spartans decided to intervene on the side of Thebes, and this led to a stealth invasion which saw vicious streetfighting and notably one of the few times where Platean women and slaves actively participated in house-to-house combat in the Ancient World. Plateans allied with Athens, and the Spartans and Thebans upon victory summarily executed and killed all the rebels after swearing peace, an act of violence that shocked the Greek World and set the stage for the SerialEscalation of violence on both sides that would ensue in the course of the war.
The war can be separated into three phases:
'''Phase
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'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans besieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BC.
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'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans besieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, and under the leadership of its general Lysander, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BC.
BC.
The Aftermath of the Peloponnesian War lingered for decades afterwards. After conquering Athens, Lysander ordered the destruction of its walls and forced Athens to enter the Peloponnesian League and then demanded that the Athens remove its democratic system in favor of an oligarchy run by Thirty Tyrants. These Thirty Tyrants, of which the most notable is Critias, [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedEvil a former student]] of Sokrates, submitted Athens to a ReignOfTerror that was especially violent and shocking by the standards of its time, with thousands murdered for political reasons by the Thirty until a revolution led by Thrasybulus deposed the Thirty and restored the democracy. The Spartan King Agis II had grown vary of Lysander and disliked the Thirty and so [[DefeatMeansFriendship eventually the Spartans helped the Athenians to restore democracy]]. However in the aftermath of that, a climate of fear and disgust persisted leading to the Trial and Execution of Sokrates in 399 BCE. At the end of the war, Sparta reigned as the superpower of Ancient Greece which lasted until their defeat at the Battle of Leuctra and the rise of the Macedonians as the Hegemon of Ancient Greece.
The Aftermath of the Peloponnesian War lingered for decades afterwards. After conquering Athens, Lysander ordered the destruction of its walls and forced Athens to enter the Peloponnesian League and then demanded that the Athens remove its democratic system in favor of an oligarchy run by Thirty Tyrants. These Thirty Tyrants, of which the most notable is Critias, [[APupilOfMineUntilHeTurnedEvil a former student]] of Sokrates, submitted Athens to a ReignOfTerror that was especially violent and shocking by the standards of its time, with thousands murdered for political reasons by the Thirty until a revolution led by Thrasybulus deposed the Thirty and restored the democracy. The Spartan King Agis II had grown vary of Lysander and disliked the Thirty and so [[DefeatMeansFriendship eventually the Spartans helped the Athenians to restore democracy]]. However in the aftermath of that, a climate of fear and disgust persisted leading to the Trial and Execution of Sokrates in 399 BCE. At the end of the war, Sparta reigned as the superpower of Ancient Greece which lasted until their defeat at the Battle of Leuctra and the rise of the Macedonians as the Hegemon of Ancient Greece.
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The Peloponnesian War, one of the largest conflicts in the Greek City State era, pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BC, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BC, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BC, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BC, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
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The Peloponnesian War, one of War [431-404 BCE] was the largest conflicts conflict in the Greek City State era, era. It pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire) Empire or Athenian Hegemony) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421BC.
BC. It ended with a stalemate after the Battle of Amphipolis where the Athenians lost but the Spartans scored a PyrrhicVictory and this led to the Peace of Nikias.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415BC, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism.BC. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. The Athenians expected support and help from local anti-Syracusan states but this support never materialized upon their arrival. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BC, changing the tide of the war. This section Alkibiades, the commander who proposed this invasion was called back to face, what are most likely, highly trumped up charges of religious impropriety and blasphemy. Instead Alkibiades defected to Sparta after reaching Sicily, and warned the Syracusans of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered Athenian presence and expedition, and further advised Sparta to build a fortress in Attika, called Dekelia, from which the Spartans could more permanently and lastingly besiege and attack the Athenian countryside. Alkibiades' back-and-forth switching of sides in this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
time would make him proverbial, and controversial.
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415
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* ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedOdyssey'' takes place in and around 431 BC, at the beginning of the Archidamian War.
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* ''VideoGame/EmpireEarth'' has the war during its Greek campaign. The mission consists first of getting your citizens inside the walls, surviving a plague, getting food from allied cities, defending allied cities, and defeating the Spartans.
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The Peloponnesian War, one the largest conflicts in the Greek City State era, pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
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The Peloponnesian War, one of the largest conflicts in the Greek City State era, pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
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* AthensAndSparta: The TropeMaker and TropeCodifier as the two city-states who formerly allied during the UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars launched into a hegemonic struggle for all of "Hellas", with the two civilizations being paired eternally as contrasts, with Athens being, as Pericles noted, "the School of Hellas" while Spartans being a warlike bunch of semi-barbarians. Of course the histories we have come entirely from Athenians but it's forgotten that the history is not so generous to the Athens what with Alcibiades RunningBothSides, Creator/{{Xenophon}} being an Athenian who fought ''for'' Sparta and more or less wrote about how rad they were, and the most famous section in Thucydides deals with Athenian brutality.
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* AthensAndSparta: The TropeMaker and TropeCodifier as the two city-states who which were formerly allied during the UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars launched into a hegemonic struggle for all of "Hellas", with the two civilizations being paired eternally as contrasts, with Athens being, as Pericles noted, "the School of Hellas" while the Spartans being were a warlike bunch of semi-barbarians. Of course the histories we have come entirely from Athenians but it's Athenians. It is often forgotten that the history is not so generous to the Athens Athenians, what with Alcibiades RunningBothSides, Creator/{{Xenophon}} being an Athenian who fought ''for'' Sparta and more or less wrote about how rad they were, and the most famous section in Thucydides deals dealing with Athenian brutality.
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* AthensAndSparta: The TropeMaker and TropeCodifier as the two city-states who formerly allied during the UsefulNotes/GrecoPersianWars launched into a hegemonic struggle for all of "Hellas", with the two civilizations being paired eternally as contrasts, with Athens being, as Pericles noted, "the School of Hellas" while Spartans being a warlike bunch of semi-barbarians. Of course the histories we have come entirely from Athenians but it's forgotten that the history is not so generous to the Athens what with Alcibiades RunningBothSides, Creator/{{Xenophon}} being an Athenian who fought ''for'' Sparta and more or less wrote about how rad they were, and the most famous section in Thucydides deals with Athenian brutality.
* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: ''The Melian Dialogue'' deals with Athenians sacking and destroying Melos, to MakeAnExampleOfThem by invoking DontMakeMeDestroyYou and warning them that ResistanceIsFutile.
* ObligatoryWarCrimeScene: ''The Melian Dialogue'' deals with Athenians sacking and destroying Melos, to MakeAnExampleOfThem by invoking DontMakeMeDestroyYou and warning them that ResistanceIsFutile.
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'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, having able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC.
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'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, having able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BC.
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'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BC.
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'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged besieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BC.
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Removed troping of real life.
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!!The Peloponnesian War is often associated with the following tropes:
* AllForNothing: The Spartans had three concrete war aims at the outset: The demolishing of the Long Walls, destruction of the Athenian fleet, and displacement of the Athens’s democratic government. In 404 BC, all three were accomplished. And within a generation a democratic Athens, protected by Long Walls, was once more the premiere naval power in the Aegean. Well played, Sparta.
* {{Anticlimax}}: The Athenian fleet was destroyed when the Spartans caught it on shore with all the crews looking for food and wiped it out without a battle.
** Something similar had happened in one of the four battles of Syracuse harbour.
* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land. (Though the Spartans are something of a subversion of the trope in this context: As Aristotle quipped, what was amazing of the Spartans was not the quality of their drill, but that they drilled at all). The Athenian imperial navy played this trope razor-straight, succeeding in destroying no less than three entire Spartan fleets during the Ionian War and only meeting defeat when it was caught on land at Aegospotami.
* BalanceOfPower: Sparta was afraid that Athens was unbalancing this.
* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BC, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Alcibiades started with Athens, went to Sparta, went back to Athens, went back to Sparta. Xenophon didn't speak well of him.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.[[note]]Which he then went on to mess up, with the Athenian defeat at the Battle of Notium, which happened because Alcibiades left the wrong guy in charge.[[/note]]
* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, a certain Philip of Macedon (who had a [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat rather famous son]]) was able to come in and get warmed up.
* EasilyForgiven: Alcibiades, who betrayed everyone. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why in the world did no one give him some hemlock]]?
** The man was a [[FourStarBadass scary competent strateg]][[GratuitousForeignLanguage os]]. The Athenian navy was MadeOfWin with him in command. This made Athens a bit {{Tsundere}} for him, and vice versa.
* ForeverWar: I doubt anyone remembered how it began by the end.
** Except obviously for Thucydides. He was a former Athenian commander who was sent into exile after a defeat and wrote a history of the war that is generally considered to be the first work of "proper", i. e. critical history. He started it with a summing up of what the two sides said were the reasons for the war and what he thought were the real reasons, and for good measure chronicled the 50 years leading up to it.
* FourStarBadass: Kleon of Athens, who was largely responsible for forcing Sparta to terms at the end of the Archidamian war. For the Spartans Brasidas and Lysander were the great heroes of the war.
* GambitPileup
* GameChanger: The failed invasion of Sicily by Athens and the destruction of their army was this; this crippling defeat would be a major factor leading to their loss of the entire war.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: A classic example.
* HeyItsThatGuy: Creator/{{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The invasion of Syracuse by Athens.
* KingmakerScenario: Persia played the kingmaker part in the last phase of the war.
* LawfulStupid: Nicias. While the Athenians were cutting their losses and preparing to leave Syracuse, there was a lunar eclipse. According to the auspices taken afterward, Nicias had the army wait on [[LawfulStupid Syracuse's doorstep for 28 days]]. [[FromBadToWorse Guess what happened]].
** To be fair there was no way people at the time could be sure that they wouldn't [[TemptingFate offend "someone important".]]
* MagnificentBastard: Alcibiades and Lysander.
* NotSoDifferent: Athens and Sparta ended up being guilty of things they accused each other of.
** Sparta's stated objectives were to ensure that each polis (city-state) would be independent and free of slavery, yet they hated anyone who seemed to have so much as a ''hint'' of sympathy for helots. Sparta also prided itself on being pure, free of corruption, and having nothing to do with the Persians, yet in the end they had to pay the Persians to help them against Athens.
** Athens was a democracy, but also openly imperial.
* OneSceneWonder: Diodotus, an otherwise unknown Athenian who almost single-handedly prevented the Athenians from brutally punishing the people of Mytilene for revolting against Athenian rule. After a mission had been dispatched to Mytilene with instructions to kill all the men and enslave all the women and children, the Athenians began to have second thoughts. The ensuing debate saw Cleon call the Athenians out for being cowards, but Diodotus -- in his only appearance ever in history -- persuaded the Athenians that the rest of the world would perceive it as DisproportionateRetribution, and a second mission went out after the first one to countermand the order. It got there [[JustInTime just as the commander of the first mission was reading the sentence to the Mytilenians, but before it had been carried out]].
* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victors wer resurgent Persia and rising Thebes and Macedonia.
* RammingAlwaysWorks: [[TruthInTelevision Truth in Television]] at its finest! …or is it? The scholarly community does not question that trireme warfare was a close-quarters affair, but the exact tactics utilized by the Athenians remain a debated. Tended to be played straight by Spartans during the Ionian War.
* RegimeChange: In the end, Sparta stuck the Thirty Tyrants in Athens and called it a day.
* TheSiege: From Athens' point of view much of the war was this as the Spartans were always held back by the city's wall and the "Long Walls" that connected it to its harbour Piraeus. However, the cramped conditions inside the walls facilitated [[ThePlague the plague]] that decimated the Athenian population, killing Pericles among others.
* TheSpartanWay: Well, ''duh''.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Specifically many Spartans like Lysander.
* WarIsHell: It was at this time that the first antiwar plays were made; ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}'' is the one that has stood the test of time.
* AllForNothing: The Spartans had three concrete war aims at the outset: The demolishing of the Long Walls, destruction of the Athenian fleet, and displacement of the Athens’s democratic government. In 404 BC, all three were accomplished. And within a generation a democratic Athens, protected by Long Walls, was once more the premiere naval power in the Aegean. Well played, Sparta.
* {{Anticlimax}}: The Athenian fleet was destroyed when the Spartans caught it on shore with all the crews looking for food and wiped it out without a battle.
** Something similar had happened in one of the four battles of Syracuse harbour.
* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land. (Though the Spartans are something of a subversion of the trope in this context: As Aristotle quipped, what was amazing of the Spartans was not the quality of their drill, but that they drilled at all). The Athenian imperial navy played this trope razor-straight, succeeding in destroying no less than three entire Spartan fleets during the Ionian War and only meeting defeat when it was caught on land at Aegospotami.
* BalanceOfPower: Sparta was afraid that Athens was unbalancing this.
* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BC, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Alcibiades started with Athens, went to Sparta, went back to Athens, went back to Sparta. Xenophon didn't speak well of him.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.[[note]]Which he then went on to mess up, with the Athenian defeat at the Battle of Notium, which happened because Alcibiades left the wrong guy in charge.[[/note]]
* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, a certain Philip of Macedon (who had a [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat rather famous son]]) was able to come in and get warmed up.
* EasilyForgiven: Alcibiades, who betrayed everyone. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why in the world did no one give him some hemlock]]?
** The man was a [[FourStarBadass scary competent strateg]][[GratuitousForeignLanguage os]]. The Athenian navy was MadeOfWin with him in command. This made Athens a bit {{Tsundere}} for him, and vice versa.
* ForeverWar: I doubt anyone remembered how it began by the end.
** Except obviously for Thucydides. He was a former Athenian commander who was sent into exile after a defeat and wrote a history of the war that is generally considered to be the first work of "proper", i. e. critical history. He started it with a summing up of what the two sides said were the reasons for the war and what he thought were the real reasons, and for good measure chronicled the 50 years leading up to it.
* FourStarBadass: Kleon of Athens, who was largely responsible for forcing Sparta to terms at the end of the Archidamian war. For the Spartans Brasidas and Lysander were the great heroes of the war.
* GambitPileup
* GameChanger: The failed invasion of Sicily by Athens and the destruction of their army was this; this crippling defeat would be a major factor leading to their loss of the entire war.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: A classic example.
* HeyItsThatGuy: Creator/{{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The invasion of Syracuse by Athens.
* KingmakerScenario: Persia played the kingmaker part in the last phase of the war.
* LawfulStupid: Nicias. While the Athenians were cutting their losses and preparing to leave Syracuse, there was a lunar eclipse. According to the auspices taken afterward, Nicias had the army wait on [[LawfulStupid Syracuse's doorstep for 28 days]]. [[FromBadToWorse Guess what happened]].
** To be fair there was no way people at the time could be sure that they wouldn't [[TemptingFate offend "someone important".]]
* MagnificentBastard: Alcibiades and Lysander.
* NotSoDifferent: Athens and Sparta ended up being guilty of things they accused each other of.
** Sparta's stated objectives were to ensure that each polis (city-state) would be independent and free of slavery, yet they hated anyone who seemed to have so much as a ''hint'' of sympathy for helots. Sparta also prided itself on being pure, free of corruption, and having nothing to do with the Persians, yet in the end they had to pay the Persians to help them against Athens.
** Athens was a democracy, but also openly imperial.
* OneSceneWonder: Diodotus, an otherwise unknown Athenian who almost single-handedly prevented the Athenians from brutally punishing the people of Mytilene for revolting against Athenian rule. After a mission had been dispatched to Mytilene with instructions to kill all the men and enslave all the women and children, the Athenians began to have second thoughts. The ensuing debate saw Cleon call the Athenians out for being cowards, but Diodotus -- in his only appearance ever in history -- persuaded the Athenians that the rest of the world would perceive it as DisproportionateRetribution, and a second mission went out after the first one to countermand the order. It got there [[JustInTime just as the commander of the first mission was reading the sentence to the Mytilenians, but before it had been carried out]].
* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victors wer resurgent Persia and rising Thebes and Macedonia.
* RammingAlwaysWorks: [[TruthInTelevision Truth in Television]] at its finest! …or is it? The scholarly community does not question that trireme warfare was a close-quarters affair, but the exact tactics utilized by the Athenians remain a debated. Tended to be played straight by Spartans during the Ionian War.
* RegimeChange: In the end, Sparta stuck the Thirty Tyrants in Athens and called it a day.
* TheSiege: From Athens' point of view much of the war was this as the Spartans were always held back by the city's wall and the "Long Walls" that connected it to its harbour Piraeus. However, the cramped conditions inside the walls facilitated [[ThePlague the plague]] that decimated the Athenian population, killing Pericles among others.
* TheSpartanWay: Well, ''duh''.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Specifically many Spartans like Lysander.
* WarIsHell: It was at this time that the first antiwar plays were made; ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}'' is the one that has stood the test of time.
to:
* AllForNothing: The Spartans had three concrete war aims at the outset: The demolishing of the Long Walls, destruction of the Athenian fleet, and displacement of the Athens’s democratic government. In 404 BC, all three were accomplished. And within a generation a democratic Athens, protected by Long Walls, was once more the premiere naval power
*
**
* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land. (Though the Spartans are something of a subversion of the trope in this context: As Aristotle quipped, what was amazing of the Spartans was not the quality of their drill, but that they drilled at all). The Athenian imperial navy played this trope razor-straight, succeeding in destroying no less than three entire Spartan fleets during the Ionian War and only meeting defeat when it was caught on land at Aegospotami.
* BalanceOfPower: Sparta was afraid that Athens was unbalancing this.
* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BC, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Alcibiades started with Athens, went to Sparta, went back to Athens, went back to Sparta. Xenophon didn't speak well of him.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.[[note]]Which he then went on to mess up, with the Athenian defeat at the Battle of Notium, which happened because Alcibiades left the wrong guy in charge.[[/note]]
* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, a certain Philip of Macedon (who had a [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat rather famous son]]) was able to come in and get warmed up.
* EasilyForgiven: Alcibiades, who betrayed everyone. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why in the world did no one give him some hemlock]]?
** The man was a [[FourStarBadass scary competent strateg]][[GratuitousForeignLanguage os]]. The Athenian navy was MadeOfWin with him in command. This made Athens a bit {{Tsundere}} for him, and vice versa.
* ForeverWar: I doubt anyone remembered how it began by the end.
** Except obviously for Thucydides. He was a former Athenian commander who was sent into exile after a defeat and wrote a history of the war that is generally considered to be the first work of "proper", i. e. critical history. He started it with a summing up of what the two sides said were the reasons for the war and what he thought were the real reasons, and for good measure chronicled the 50 years leading up to it.
* FourStarBadass: Kleon of Athens, who was largely responsible for forcing Sparta to terms at the end of the Archidamian war. For the Spartans Brasidas and Lysander were the great heroes of the war.
* GambitPileup
* GameChanger: The failed invasion of Sicily by Athens and the destruction of their army was this; this crippling defeat would be a major factor leading to their loss of the entire war.
* GreyAndGrayMorality: A classic example.
* HeyItsThatGuy: Creator/{{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The invasion of Syracuse by Athens.
* KingmakerScenario: Persia played the kingmaker part in the last phase of the war.
* LawfulStupid: Nicias. While the Athenians were cutting their losses and preparing to leave Syracuse, there was a lunar eclipse. According to the auspices taken afterward, Nicias had the army wait on [[LawfulStupid Syracuse's doorstep for 28 days]]. [[FromBadToWorse Guess what happened]].
** To be fair there was no way people at the time could be sure that they wouldn't [[TemptingFate offend "someone important".]]
* MagnificentBastard: Alcibiades and Lysander.
* NotSoDifferent: Athens and Sparta ended up being guilty of things they accused each other of.
** Sparta's stated objectives were to ensure that each polis (city-state) would be independent and free of slavery, yet they hated anyone who seemed to have so much as a ''hint'' of sympathy for helots. Sparta also prided itself on being pure, free of corruption, and having nothing to do with the Persians, yet in the end they had to pay the Persians to help them against Athens.
** Athens was a democracy, but also openly imperial.
* OneSceneWonder: Diodotus, an otherwise unknown Athenian who almost single-handedly prevented the Athenians from brutally punishing the people of Mytilene for revolting against Athenian rule. After a mission had been dispatched to Mytilene with instructions to kill all the men and enslave all the women and children, the Athenians began to have second thoughts. The ensuing debate saw Cleon call the Athenians out for being cowards, but Diodotus -- in his only appearance ever in history -- persuaded the Athenians that the rest of the world would perceive it as DisproportionateRetribution, and a second mission went out after the first one to countermand the order. It got there [[JustInTime just as the commander of the first mission was reading the sentence to the Mytilenians, but before it had been carried out]].
* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victors wer resurgent Persia and rising Thebes and Macedonia.
* RammingAlwaysWorks: [[TruthInTelevision Truth in Television]] at its finest! …or is it? The scholarly community does not question that trireme warfare was a close-quarters affair, but the exact tactics utilized by the Athenians remain a debated. Tended to be played straight by Spartans during the Ionian War.
* RegimeChange: In the end, Sparta stuck the Thirty Tyrants in Athens and called it a day.
* TheSiege: From Athens' point of view much of the war was this as the Spartans were always held back by the city's wall and the "Long Walls" that connected it to its harbour Piraeus. However, the cramped conditions inside the walls facilitated [[ThePlague the plague]] that decimated the Athenian population, killing Pericles among others.
* TheSpartanWay: Well, ''duh''.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Specifically many Spartans like Lysander.
* WarIsHell:
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* WeHaveReserves: The Spartan naval campaign during the Ionian War ran on this trope, as the Spartans built and crewed a navy from scratch using Persian gold following the Sicilian Expedition, and proceeding to do it ''four'' more times after being defeated at Abydos, Cynossema, Cyzicus, and Arginusae.
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'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, having able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BCE.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BCE.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BCE.
to:
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, having able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BCE.
BC.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415BCE, BC, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, BC, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404BCE.
BC.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415
'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404
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* AllForNothing: The Spartans had three concrete war aims at the outset: The demolishing of the Long Walls, destruction of the Athenian fleet, and displacement of the Athens’s democratic government. In 404 BCE, all three were accomplished. And within a generation a democratic Athens, protected by Long Walls, was once more the premiere naval power in the Aegean. Well played, Sparta.
to:
* AllForNothing: The Spartans had three concrete war aims at the outset: The demolishing of the Long Walls, destruction of the Athenian fleet, and displacement of the Athens’s democratic government. In 404 BCE, BC, all three were accomplished. And within a generation a democratic Athens, protected by Long Walls, was once more the premiere naval power in the Aegean. Well played, Sparta.
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* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BCE, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
to:
* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BCE, BC, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
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* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
to:
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to TheAmericanCivilWar, UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
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* OneSceneWonder: Diodotus, an otherwise unknown Athenian who almost single-handedly prevented the Athenians from brutally punishing the people of Mytilene for revolting against Athenian rule. After a mission had been dispatched to Mytilene with instructions to kill all the men and enslave all the women and children, the Athenians began to have second thoughts. The ensuing debate saw Cleon call the Athenians out for being cowards, but Diodotus -- in his only appearance ever in history -- persuaded the Athenians that the rest of the world would perceive it as DisproportionateRetribution, and a second mission went out after the first one to countermand the order. It got there [[JustInTime just as the commander of the first mission was reading the sentence to the Mytilenians, but before it had been carried out]].
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Changed line(s) 22 (click to see context) from:
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
to:
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.[[note]]Which he then went on to mess up, with the Athenian defeat at the Battle of Notium, which happened because Alcibiades left the wrong guy in charge.[[/note]]
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* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victor was resurgent Persia and rising Thebes
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* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victor was victors wer resurgent Persia and rising ThebesThebes and Macedonia.
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* AllForNothing: The Spartans had three concrete war aims at the outset: The demolishing of the Long Walls, destruction of the Athenian fleet, and displacement of the Athens’s democratic government. In 404 BCE, all three were accomplished. And within a generation a democratic Athens, protected by Long Walls, was once more the premiere naval power in the Aegean. Well played, Sparta.
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* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land, the Athenians at sea.
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* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land, land. (Though the Athenians Spartans are something of a subversion of the trope in this context: As Aristotle quipped, what was amazing of the Spartans was not the quality of their drill, but that they drilled at sea.all). The Athenian imperial navy played this trope razor-straight, succeeding in destroying no less than three entire Spartan fleets during the Ionian War and only meeting defeat when it was caught on land at Aegospotami.
* RammingAlwaysWorks: [[TruthInTelevision Truth in Television]] at its finest! …or is it? The scholarly community does not question that trireme warfare was a close-quarters affair, but the exact tactics utilized by the Athenians remain a debated. Tended to be played straight by Spartans during the Ionian War.
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* WeHaveReserves: The Spartan naval campaign during the Ionian War ran on this trope, as the Spartans built and crewed a navy from scratch using Persian gold following the Sicilian Expedition, and proceeding to do it ''four'' more times after being defeated at Abydos, Cynossema, Cyzicus, and Arginusae.
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** Sparta's stated objectives were to ensure that each polis (city-state) would be independent and free of slavery, yet they hated anyone who seemed to have so much as a ''hint'' of sympathy for helots. Sparta also prided itself on being pure, free of corruption, and having nothing to do with the Persians, yet in the end they had to pay the Persians to help them against Athens.
** Athens was a democracy, but also openly imperial.
** Athens was a democracy, but also openly imperial.
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* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, a certain Philip of Macedon (who had a [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat rather famous son]] was able to come in and get warmed up.
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* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, a certain Philip of Macedon (who had a [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat rather famous son]] son]]) was able to come in and get warmed up.
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* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat was able to come in and get warmed up.
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* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat a certain Philip of Macedon (who had a [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat rather famous son]] was able to come in and get warmed up.
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->''"Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote this history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, from the moment the conflict broke out, for he believed that it would be a great war and more worthy of remembrance than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds."''
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* GameChanger: The failed invasion of Sicily by Athens and the destruction of their army was this; this crippling defeat would be a major factor leading to their loss of the entire war.
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* NotSoDifferent: Athens and Sparta ended up being guilty of things they accused each other of.
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* RegimeChange: In the end, Sparta stuck the Thirty Tyrants in Athens and called it a day.
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* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Alcibiades started with Athens, went to Sparta, went back to Athens, went back to Sparta. Xenophon didn't speak well of him.
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* DarkHorseVictory: Thanks to Sparta and Athens beating the snot out of each other, then Sparta and Thebes beating the snot out of each other, UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat was able to come in and get warmed up.
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* HeyItsThatGuy: {{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
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* HeyItsThatGuy: {{Socrates}} Creator/{{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
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'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, in what can only be described an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
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'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, in what can only be described as an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
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->''"Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote this history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, from the moment the conflict broke out, for he believed that it would be a great war and more worthy of remembrance than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds."''
The Peloponnesian War, one the largest conflicts in the Greek City State era, pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, having able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BCE.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, in what can only be described an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BCE.
----
!!The Peloponnesian War is often associated with the following tropes:
* {{Anticlimax}}: The Athenian fleet was destroyed when the Spartans caught it on shore with all the crews looking for food and wiped it out without a battle.
** Something similar had happened in one of the four battles of Syracuse harbour.
* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land, the Athenians at sea.
* BalanceOfPower: Sparta was afraid that Athens was unbalancing this.
* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BCE, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
* EasilyForgiven: Alcibiades, who betrayed everyone. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why in the world did no one give him some hemlock]]?
** The man was a [[FourStarBadass scary competent strateg]][[GratuitousForeignLanguage os]]. The Athenian navy was MadeOfWin with him in command. This made Athens a bit {{Tsundere}} for him, and vice versa.
* ForeverWar: I doubt anyone remembered how it began by the end.
** Except obviously for Thucydides. He was a former Athenian commander who was sent into exile after a defeat and wrote a history of the war that is generally considered to be the first work of "proper", i. e. critical history. He started it with a summing up of what the two sides said were the reasons for the war and what he thought were the real reasons, and for good measure chronicled the 50 years leading up to it.
* FourStarBadass: Kleon of Athens, who was largely responsible for forcing Sparta to terms at the end of the Archidamian war. For the Spartans Brasidas and Lysander were the great heroes of the war.
* GambitPileup
* GreyAndGrayMorality: A classic example.
* HeyItsThatGuy: {{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The invasion of Syracuse by Athens.
* KingmakerScenario: Persia played the kingmaker part in the last phase of the war.
* LawfulStupid: Nicias. While the Athenians were cutting their losses and preparing to leave Syracuse, there was a lunar eclipse. According to the auspices taken afterward, Nicias had the army wait on [[LawfulStupid Syracuse's doorstep for 28 days]]. [[FromBadToWorse Guess what happened]].
** To be fair there was no way people at the time could be sure that they wouldn't [[TemptingFate offend "someone important".]]
* MagnificentBastard: Alcibiades and Lysander.
* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victor was resurgent Persia and rising Thebes
* TheSiege: From Athens' point of view much of the war was this as the Spartans were always held back by the city's wall and the "Long Walls" that connected it to its harbour Piraeus. However, the cramped conditions inside the walls facilitated [[ThePlague the plague]] that decimated the Athenian population, killing Pericles among others.
* TheSpartanWay: Well, ''duh''.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Specifically many Spartans like Lysander.
* WarIsHell: It was at this time that the first antiwar plays were made; ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}'' is the one that has stood the test of time.
** Some parts of Thucydides' "Peloponnesian War" also stick in the mind, e. g. the war of Athens against Melos (featuring the famous "Melian dialogue") which ended with the Athenians killing all adult male Melians and selling the women and children into slavery.
----
!!Depictions in fiction:
* ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}''
* Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' is one of the first modern analyses of a war. He died sometime before the end of the war, so it doesn't cover the last few years, but nevertheless, it's usually accepted as a nice (generally) unbiased version.
----
The Peloponnesian War, one the largest conflicts in the Greek City State era, pitted the Athenian-led Delian League (sometimes also known as the Athenian Empire) against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. The war can be separated into three phases:
'''Phase One''', the "Archidamian War," established the Athenian Navy as a preeminent dominant force in the sea, having able to suppress dissent in its empire as well as foil Spartan invasions in the Athenian home state of Attica. This phase lasted from 431-421 BCE.
'''Phase Two''' saw an attempted Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415 BCE, in what can only be described an act of wanton imperialism. The war pitted Athens against the city-state of Syracuse, which was nominally supported by Sparta. In a shocking turn, the entire invading Athenian army was massacred in 413 BCE, changing the tide of the war. This section of the Peloponnesian war is widely remembered to this day as an example of the disastrous results that can happen if a war is undertaken poorly or without proper justification.
'''Phase Three''', the "Ionian War," was the final phase of the conflict. The Spartans sieged Athens by land, and the Athenian Navy was unable to break the siege, though it could supply itself with grain due to the lack of a significant Spartan naval presence. With support from the Persians, Sparta began to develop a powerful navy, and it began to fight the Athenian navy across the Aegean Sea. With the Battle of Aegospotami (near modern-day Turkey) the Spartan Navy won a decisive victory over that of Athens. This defeat marked the end of the Athenian Empire, which surrendered in 404 BCE.
----
!!The Peloponnesian War is often associated with the following tropes:
* {{Anticlimax}}: The Athenian fleet was destroyed when the Spartans caught it on shore with all the crews looking for food and wiped it out without a battle.
** Something similar had happened in one of the four battles of Syracuse harbour.
* BadassArmy: The Spartans and Thebans on land, the Athenians at sea.
* BalanceOfPower: Sparta was afraid that Athens was unbalancing this.
* TheCassandra: For all of his political betrayals, Alcibiades wasn't one to give bad or dishonest military advice. In 405 BCE, the Athenians were moored at Aegospotami on a beach that left them exposed to attack. When Alcibiades, who happened to be living near by, advised the Athenians of their position and offered help. He was told to get stuffed, and Athens lost the battle which led to their surrender in 404.
* CrowningMomentOfAwesome: For many, Pericles' eulogy of the dead of the first year of the war, as recorded (or rewritten) by Thucydides, which also sets out why Athens and its democracy was so great. What the (much shorter) Gettysburg Address was to TheAmericanCivilWar, this was to the Peloponnesian War.
** While a great speech, this is a pretty rubbish Crowning Moment of Awesome given the magnitude of the war. Possibly the greatest one was Alcibiades' return to the Athenian Army, stationed at Samos, in the latter stages of the war. Athens was losing, badly, and could barely hold on to what little territory they had left. Alcibiades rejoined the army from exile, gave a bad-ass, balls-out speech about how they need to man-the-hell-up, then led them in a campaign of reconquest, destroying the Spartan fleet, defeating multiple Persian armies, reconquering all the cities from the Hellespont to the Bosporous and returning home to Athens in glory, with the Athenian ships glittering from captured shields hung about their prows and with dozens of enemy vessels in tow. The Athenians rushed out to the shore to meet him as they returned, and crowned him with garlands, made him general at land and sea and virtual dictator of the city and its empire, and Athens was firmly back in the war. That, my friends, is a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
* EasilyForgiven: Alcibiades, who betrayed everyone. [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim Why in the world did no one give him some hemlock]]?
** The man was a [[FourStarBadass scary competent strateg]][[GratuitousForeignLanguage os]]. The Athenian navy was MadeOfWin with him in command. This made Athens a bit {{Tsundere}} for him, and vice versa.
* ForeverWar: I doubt anyone remembered how it began by the end.
** Except obviously for Thucydides. He was a former Athenian commander who was sent into exile after a defeat and wrote a history of the war that is generally considered to be the first work of "proper", i. e. critical history. He started it with a summing up of what the two sides said were the reasons for the war and what he thought were the real reasons, and for good measure chronicled the 50 years leading up to it.
* FourStarBadass: Kleon of Athens, who was largely responsible for forcing Sparta to terms at the end of the Archidamian war. For the Spartans Brasidas and Lysander were the great heroes of the war.
* GambitPileup
* GreyAndGrayMorality: A classic example.
* HeyItsThatGuy: {{Socrates}} ThePhilosopher was a hero at the Battle of Delium.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The invasion of Syracuse by Athens.
* KingmakerScenario: Persia played the kingmaker part in the last phase of the war.
* LawfulStupid: Nicias. While the Athenians were cutting their losses and preparing to leave Syracuse, there was a lunar eclipse. According to the auspices taken afterward, Nicias had the army wait on [[LawfulStupid Syracuse's doorstep for 28 days]]. [[FromBadToWorse Guess what happened]].
** To be fair there was no way people at the time could be sure that they wouldn't [[TemptingFate offend "someone important".]]
* MagnificentBastard: Alcibiades and Lysander.
* PyrrhicVictory: The war weakend the victor Sparta as much as the defeated Athens. The true victor was resurgent Persia and rising Thebes
* TheSiege: From Athens' point of view much of the war was this as the Spartans were always held back by the city's wall and the "Long Walls" that connected it to its harbour Piraeus. However, the cramped conditions inside the walls facilitated [[ThePlague the plague]] that decimated the Athenian population, killing Pericles among others.
* TheSpartanWay: Well, ''duh''.
* StrangerInAFamiliarLand: Specifically many Spartans like Lysander.
* WarIsHell: It was at this time that the first antiwar plays were made; ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}'' is the one that has stood the test of time.
** Some parts of Thucydides' "Peloponnesian War" also stick in the mind, e. g. the war of Athens against Melos (featuring the famous "Melian dialogue") which ended with the Athenians killing all adult male Melians and selling the women and children into slavery.
----
!!Depictions in fiction:
* ''Theatre/{{Lysistrata}}''
* Thucydides' ''History of the Peloponnesian War'' is one of the first modern analyses of a war. He died sometime before the end of the war, so it doesn't cover the last few years, but nevertheless, it's usually accepted as a nice (generally) unbiased version.
----
