The Peloponnesian War
- Date
- 431–404 BCE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Greece and the Aegean
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
From 431 to 404 BCE the Greek world was convulsed by the Peloponnesian War, a struggle for hegemony between the Athenian-led Delian League and the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. Mounting fear of Athenian naval power and imperial expansion brought decades of rising tension to open conflict.
The opening Archidamian phase saw repeated Spartan invasions of Attica and an Athenian strategy of withdrawing behind its walls and relying on its fleet, while a devastating plague struck crowded Athens and killed Pericles. After an inconclusive peace, Athens overreached with the catastrophic Sicilian Expedition (415–413 BCE), losing an entire army and fleet. In the final phase Sparta, financed by Persian gold, built a navy that challenged Athens at sea; the decisive defeat at Aegospotami in 405 BCE cut Athens' grain supply, and a besieged, starving Athens surrendered in 404 BCE. Its empire was dissolved, its walls dismantled and an oligarchy briefly imposed. Chronicled in the analytical history of Thucydides, the war exhausted the Greek city-states, ended Athens' golden age of power, and ushered in a period of shifting hegemonies that left the Greek world vulnerable to the later rise of Macedon.
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Empires active in 431–404 BCE
- Achaemenid Empire550 BCE – 330 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE – 27 BCE
- Carthaginian Empire650 BCE – 146 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
- Scythians800 BCE – 300 BCE
- Odrysian Kingdom480 BCE – 46 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis480 BCE
- Alexander the Great invades the Persian Empire334 BCE
- Death of Cyrus the Great in Battle Against the Massagetaec. 530 BCE
- Battle of Gaugamela destroys the Achaemenid Empire1 October 331 BCE
- Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and the start of the Exile587/586 BCE
- The Kalinga War and Ashoka's turn to Dhammac. 261 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
Gripping popular narrative of the Republic's fall.
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