Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander

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12. The Peloponnesian War and Athenian Life

Athens and Sparta had cooperated during the Persian War, but relations between these two most powerful states in mainland Greece deteriorated in the decades following the Greek victories of 479 B.C. The deterioration had progressed to open hostilities by the middle of the century. The peace struck in 446/445 formally ended the fighting, supposedly for thirty years. New disagreements that arose in the 430s over how each of the two states should treat the allies of the other led to the collapse of the peace, however. When negotiations to settle the disagreements collapsed, the result was the devastating war of twenty-seven years that modern historians call the Peloponnesian War after the location of Sparta and most of its allies in the Peloponnese, the large peninsula that forms the southernmost part of mainland Greece. The war dragged on from 431 to 404 B.C. and engulfed almost the entire Greek world. This bitter conflict, extraordinary in Greek classical history for its protracted length, wreaked havoc on the social and political harmony of Athens, its economic strength, and the day-to-day existence of many of its citizens. The severe pressures that the war brought to bear on Athens were expressed most prominently in the comedies produced by Aristophanes on the Athenian dramatic stage during the war years.

12.1. The course of the Peloponnesian War

The history of the Peloponnesian War reveals both the unpredictability of war in general and the particular consequences of the repeated unwillingness of the Athenian assembly to negotiate peace terms with the other side. The other side of that same coin, of course, is the remarkable resilience shown by Athens in recovering from disastrous defeats and losses of population. Athens kept fighting no matter how dismal the situation until the very moment that an unbreakable Spartan blockade locked the city in a strangle hold in 404. The losses in population and property that Athens suffered in the war had a disastrous, albeit temporary, effect on its international power, revenues, and social cohesiveness.

• The peace struck in 446/445: Thuc. 1.115 [Text]; Plut. Per. 24.1 [Text]
• New disagreements that arose in the 430s over how each of the two states should treat the allies of the other: Thuc. 1.118 [Text]
• Peloponnese: Peloponnese with Sparta [Atlas]
• comedies produced by Aristophanes: Aristoph. Ach. [Text]; Aristoph. Wasps [Text]; Aristoph. Peace [Text]; Aristoph. Lys. [Text]; All extant works [Primary Text Index]; Aristophanes [Encyclopedia]

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OCLC: 33900145
ISBN: 0300069561

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