important cities in the north (Thuc. 4.102–116). Nevertheless, it was only when both Cleon and Brasidas (the “pestles” of war in Aristophanes’ Peace) died in the course of the unsuccessful Athenian attempt to recover Amphipolis that both sides finally agreed to negotiate for peace (Thuc. 5.16.1).
The resulting Peace of Nicias, named after the leading Athenian negotiator, was signed in 421 and essentially restored both Athens and Sparta to the status quo, as both sides were required (with a few exceptions) to restore any territorial gains they had made during the war (Thuc. 5.18–19). In other words, it addressed none of the issues that caused Sparta’s allies to push for war, and it revealed the hollowness of the Spartan claim to be the “liberators” of Greece (Thuc. 2.8.4, 3.32.2, 3.59.4).26 Thus, the Greek world returned to the state of unstable polarization with which the war had begun, and the peace that was supposed to last for a period of 50 years endured only for 6 (Thuc. 5.25.3). A coalition of the Spartans’ disgruntled allies began to jeopardize their control of the Peloponnesian League, a situation exploited by the charismatic young Athenian aristocrat Alcibiades, who negotiated a defensive alliance between Athens and Sparta’s traditional rival of Argos, as well as some other Peloponnesian cities (Thuc. 5.43–48). These anti-Spartan movements within the Peloponnese culminated in the Battle of Mantinea in 418, identified by Thucydides (5.74.) as the largest hoplite battle to have occurred for a considerable time, where at one fell swoop the Spartans reasserted their hegemony of the Peloponnese (Thuc. 5.75.3). As the uneasy peace continued, both sides began to seek out potential resources beyond mainland Greece and to search for new ways of achieving total defeat of their enemies, including the massacre of civilians (the Spartans at Hysiae in Argos, and the Athenians upon the reduction of the Dorian island of Melos; Thuc. 5.83, 5.85–111).
This new mindset left the Athenians vulnerable to the grandiose ambitions of the unscrupulous Alcibiades, who persuaded his fellow citizens (contrary to the caution urged by the seasoned general Nicias) to mount a large expedition to Sicily, ostensibly in support of their Italian allies, but in reality to gain an upper hand against their enemies in Greece (Thuc. 6.1, 9–24). Despite the unprecedented magnitude of the Sicilian expedition (415–413), it went wrong for the Athenians right from the start. The night before the ships were to set sail, busts of the god Hermes (the patron god of travelers) were mutilated, and in the course of their investigations the authorities uncovered evidence of the profanation of the Eleusinian Mysteries; public opinion considered these religious scandals to be part of a plot to overthrow the democracy in which Alcibiades himself was implicated.27 Thus, the expedition began under a cloud and the situation did not improve once the Athenian armada reached Sicily. The Athenians discovered that their so-called allies were unwilling to support the effort against Syracuse (the most powerful and aggressive city in Sicily), and they failed to follow up their initial successes.28 Worse yet, Alcibiades was recalled to stand trial for the profanation of the Mysteries (Thuc. 6.61), but escaped en route and made his way to Sparta (Thuc. 6.88.9), where he gave the Spartans two ultimately devastating pieces of advice: to intervene in Sicily and to fortify Decelea in Attica (6.91–92), which would cut the Athenians off from accessing supplies by land (cf. Thuc. 7.27–28). In the meantime, the Athenians successfully besieged Syracuse by sea, but failed to complete the circuit walls that would have blockaded the city completely. Athenian morale began to plummet, especially in light of the arrival of Peloponnesian reinforcements under the Spartan commander, Gylippus, and the chronic illness of the sole remaining Athenian general, Nicias, who requested to be recalled. Neverthless, the Athenians at home believed victory was still possible and sent a large fleet of reinforcements, commanded by the capable Demosthenes. Correctly surmising that the Athenians’ only chance lay in striking immediately (Thuc. 7.42.3–5), he attempted a bold night attack, but was unsuccessful because many of the new recruits were unfamiliar with the terrain. At this point, Demosthenes advised cutting Athenian losses and withdrawing from Sicily, but was overridden by Nicias (Thuc. 7.47–49). Nicias only agreed to retreat after the Athenian position became untenable, but was further delayed by the seers’ advice after an eclipse of the moon (Thuc. 7.50.3–4). Following a final desperate attempt to break out of the Great Harbor in Syracuse, the Athenians were forced to abandon their remaining ships and retreat by land, where they were slaughtered by the pursuing Syracusans and forced to surrender. Nicias and Demosthenes were executed, and the surviving Athenians were imprisoned in horrific conditions in the quarries in Syracuse (Thuc. 7.86–87.4).
Following the massive Athenian defeat in the ill-fated Sicilian expedition, the theater shifted to Ionia, as the Spartans resolved to make total war on the Athenians and become the undisputed leaders of Greece (Thuc. 8.2.4) in the final phase of the Peloponnesian War (413–404). To this end, the Spartans began to build up their fleet (Thuc. 8.3.1), foster revolts among the Athenian naval allies (Thuc. 8.5–6), and pursue Persian support in both aims. Although influential at first, Alcibiades soon lost the trust of both the Spartans and the Persians, and began agitating for a return to Athens, promising Persian help in return for the overthrow of the democracy. Mistrusted also by the leaders of the successful but short-lived oligarchic coup d’état,29 ironically Alcibiades was recalled by the Athenian democracy, now embodied in the fleet at Samos, which immediately elected him general (Thuc. 8.81–82.1). Under Alcibiades’ leadership, the Athenian fleet handily won a number of sea battles, as described by Xenophon in the first book of his Hellenica (Thucydides’ narrative ends with the Athenian victory at Cynossema in 411), and the success of the navy provoked the restoration of the Athenian democracy. Alcibiades’ string of successes ran out, however, with the defeat of his second-in-command at Notium in 406 (Xen. Hell. 1.5.10–14), and he failed to be re-elected general (Xen. Hell. 1.5.16–17). Even without Alcibiades, the Athenians were victorious over the Spartan fleet at a battle in the Arginusae Islands between the island of Lesbos and the coast of Asia Minor (Xen. Hell. 1.6.24–34), but the aftermath of the victory left a tragic stain on the reputation of the Athenian democracy, for the commanders were put on trial in Athens for failing to recover the shipwrecked sailors (having been prevented by a storm) and were condemned to death (Xen. Hell. 1.7.1–35). The Spartan nauarch Lysander, whose friendship with the Persian prince Cyrus enabled him to strengthen the Spartan fleet with Persian subsidies, attacked the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami unprepared (in spite of the advice of Alcibiades, in his final appearance before his mysterious assassination) and was easily victorious in the last battle of the Peloponnesian War in 405 (Xen. Hell. 2.1.22–32). Thereupon Lysander blockaded the Piraeus and starved the Athenians into surrender in 404. The Athenians had no choice but to tear down their Long Walls and the Piraeus fortification walls, surrender all of their ships except 12, relinquish their overseas possessions, accept back their (mostly oligarchic) exiles, and acknowledge Spartan hegemony.30 So ended the Peloponnesian War, with the Athenian exiles demolishing the walls of Athens to the music of pipe girls, “believing that this day was the beginning of freedom for Greece” (Xen. Hell. 2.2.23).
The Corinthian War (395–387/386)
The generation-long Peloponnesian War resulted in the collapse of the polarization between Athens and Sparta and left a lasting legacy on Greece.31 The optimism that the defeat of Athens would bring freedom to the Greeks was demonstrated almost immediately to be illusory, as the insular Spartans proved utterly incapable of managing an empire beyond the Peloponnese and the brutality of their rule soon made them even more unpopular than the Athenians.32 Furthermore, the Spartans’ failure to destroy Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War left their allies restless and unsatisfied (Xen. Hell. 2.2.19–20). Thebes, Megara, Argos, and Corinth immediately defied the Spartans by receiving exiles from the Spartan-backed government of the Thirty in Athens,33 and the Boeotians and Corinthians refused to participate in the Spartan attempt to dislodge the Athenian democratic forces from the Piraeus (Xen. Hell. 2.4.30; cf. 3.5.5). Shared animosity to Sparta soon resulted in a rapprochement between Thebes, Corinth, and Athens, whose individual goals (respectively the hegemony of Boeotia, greater independence in the Peloponnese, and restoration of their sea empire) would all be furthered by challenging Spartan imperialism.34 It was not until the Persians intervened directly by offering financial support for this anti-Spartan coalition (now joined by Argos) to foment war against Sparta in Greece