Peloponnesian War Strategies
"Just before the Peloponnesian War began, Pericles of Athens and King Archidamus of Sparta provided net assessments of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the two sides. Evaluate their projections."
A study of the strategies and projections of King Archidamus of Sparta as compared to those of Pericles of Athens reveal Archidamus' understanding of the "superiority of land power as a basis for success at sea" in the ancient Mediterranean - as well as Pericles' naiveté as to this tenet.
Background
The Peloponnesian War between the city-states of Athens and Sparta (and their respective allies) lasted from 431-404 BC. Conflicts between the two cites dated back further, however, with skirmishes from 460-445 effectively ending in a draw. Major fighting in the Peloponnesian War occurred from 431-421 and ended in Athenian victory. Renewed conflict raged from 413-404, ultimately concluding in Spartan victory.
An understanding of these very different cultures is illustrative of their leaders' ultimate strategies and projections before the conflict. At the time of the war, Greece was divided into two great alliances. Sparta dominated the Peloponnesian League, an alliance in the Peloponnese region. These "allies" included small states close enough to the militant Sparta to be easily controlled; stronger (and more remote) states over which Sparta still had considerable influence; and the truly strong, independent cities of Thebes and Corinth.
Spartan dominance rose from its unquestionable position as the preeminent continental army of the region. The farming and manual labor of the city was provided by slaves, which freed the male citizens to serve in the army. Spartan boys ...
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... as their homes and farms were destroyed, their friends and family fell to the plague, and the war dragged on for yet another generation.
King Archidamus, on the other hand, realized the protracted nature of the engagement. He worked hard to avoid it and harder to prepare for it. By realizing Sparta's own weaknesses early and aggressively seeking ways to ameliorate them, he showed sound leadership and tactical prowess. Sun Tzu would have approved.
Bibliography:
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gray, Colin S. The Leverage of Sea Power. The Free Press: New York, NY. 1992.
Kagan, Donald. On The Origins of War. Doubleday: New York, NY. 1995.
Sun Tzu (translated by Samuel B. Griffith). The Art Of War. Oxford University Press: New York, NY. 1971.
Thucydides (translated by Rex Warner). History of the Peloponnesian War. Penguin Books: New York, NY. 1972.
Hale, John. Lords of the Sea: Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy. New York: Viking, 2009.
The French Revolution, the American Civil War, the constant civil conflicts in certain parts of Africa in recent history and even today; these are all historical clashes of countrymen. They all also contain stories of immense atrocities. The violence, bloodshed, and ruthlessness that were seen throughout these events were appalling. They were made perhaps even more so by the fact that theses horrors were inflicted upon one another by countrymen, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. The civil war or stasis at Corcyra during the Peloponnesian War was no different. This paper will detail the events surrounding the conflict and attempt to give scope to it as a mirror into the rest of the conflict.
Athens government and military is considerably different from their neighbors. According to Pericles, Athens government is not a copy of our neighbors...
Imagining a general with great wealth, integrity, and great perverseness can only begin the learning of Pericles and his ways of being a leader of Athens. His risk-taking, leadership, and his intelligence truly show what type of person he was. Although there were people that thought he was not worthy of his position, he had many supporters and people that idolized, admired, and trusted him, making him one of the most brilliant people ever to step foot in Athens.
Compare and contrast a prominent political and cultural element of the Athenian and Spartan poleis and how this was reflected by the Athenian Army at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC and the 300 Spartan hoplites at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Peloponnesian War (ancient Greek History)."Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Dec. 2013. Web. 05 Apr. 2014
Throughout the Ancient Greek world, there have been many wars and standoffs. However, there has been only one which changed the course of Greek history forever; the Peloponnesian War. Caused by the growing tension between Athens and Sparta, it came and left, leaving only destruction in its wake. The defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War caused the downfall of Greece, and the end of the Classical Age.
The causes of the Peloponnesian War proved to be too great between the tension-filled stubborn Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. As Thucydides says in Karl Walling’s article, “Never had so many human beings been exiled, or so much human blood been shed” (4). The three phases of the war, which again, are the Archidamian war, the Sicilian Expedition and the Decelean war, show the events that followed the causes of the war, while also showing the forthcoming detrimental effects that eventually consumed both Athens and eventually Sparta effectively reshaping Greece.
The Peloponnesian War is the conflict between the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, and the Delian League, led by Athens. Much of our knowledge on the causes and events of the Peloponnesian War, depends on the Athenian Thucydides 460-400 BC, writer of the History of the Peloponnesian War. He served as an Athenian commander in Northern Greece during the early years of the war until the assembly exiled him as he lost an outpost to the enemy. During this exile, he was able to interview witnesses on both sides of the conflict. Unlike Heredotus, he concentrated on contemporary history and presented his account of the war in an annalistic framework that only occasionally diverts from chronological order.
Dating back to 449 B.C., Sparta and Athens always had an alliance, but as time grew that balance slowly began to fall as one felt threatened by another. Before any sight of unsteadiness the Spartans and Athenians had a bound partnership. Beginning after their domination of the Persian war, the two states slowly became aware of one another’s growing power. More time went by, and the Spartans began to grow conscious of the other states, feeling wary and paranoid around them (Fox, 170). No state was particularly to blame for the strain on their peace treaty, nor for the war, it came as the two states developed. Eventually the two states had clashed enough and declared war. Although the Spartans gave the Athenians a chance to back down and temporarily stall war, the two states would never be equal, their allies resented one another far too much. The growing urge for power was bound to take over sooner or later. Finally, after 7 years of uneasy tension, Sparta could wait no longer and declared war against Athens (Fox, 167). Although the Athenians and Spartans lived together in peace for so long, they existed in a fragile balance that was bound to eventually lead to war.
Compare and Contrast the Persian War and the Peloponnesian War? Focus on answering the following questions: What led to the beginning of each war? Who were the major parties involved on either side of each of the conflict? At the conclusion of each war, who was victorious? Most importantly, how were the parties involved impacted immediately after each conflict? Why is each war important in the development of Ancient Greek history?
Herodotus. “Greece Saved from Persian Conquest.” Readings in Ancient History. Eds. Nels M. Bailkey and Richard Lim. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
Clarke, Fiona, and Mark Bergin. Greece in the time of Pericles. Hemel Hempstead: Simon & Schuster, 1909.
Thucydides. "History of the Peleponnesian War." Internet Archive. Edited by Charles Forster Smith. 1956. http://archive.org/stream/thucydideswithen01thucuoft/thucydideswithen01thucuoft_djvu.txt.
In the year approximately 500 B.C., the Greek civilization came upon a time of peace. Because of the tranquil times, the civilization’s society had more time to focus on writing, math, astronomy, and artistic fields, as well as trade and metallurgy. Out of all the city-states of Greece, two excelled over all the rest, Sparta and Athens. Even though they were the most advanced and strong civilizations, they were bitter enemies. While Athens focused mainly on the people’s democracy and citizen rights, Sparta were ferocious and enslaved its original inhabitants, making them unable to leave