Archidamian War. History

Named after King Archidamus II of Sparta, the Archidamian War was waged between Sparta and Athens from 431 to 421 during the early part of the Peloponnesian War. Based mainly on land, the Spartan forces were nearly invincible. The Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta, controlled most of the Peloponnese in southern Greece.

The Athenian Empire, nearly exclusively naval, controlled the Aegean and could summon resources from all over the eastern Mediterranean. With its recent treaty and alliance with Corcyra, Athens now had the largest and third-most-powerful navy under its control. After Athens attacked Potidaea, a Corinthian colony under the control of Athens, Sparta could no longer hold back due to threats of Corinth breaking with its league.

The real reason for the war was Sparta’s belief that Athens was bent on taking over the entire Greek world. This could be seen as having some validity since Athens had converted the Delian League, a defensive group originally formed to stop and push back the Persians after the Persian Wars in 479, into an offensive empire against the rest of the Greek world.

Sparta proclaimed that it had decided to liberate the Greek world from Athenian domination. It issued an ultimatum that Athens revoke a decree against Megara prohibiting the sale of Megarian goods in Athens. Athens ignored the demand, and war began in 431.

The Spartan strategy centered on trying to knock out Athens quickly in a decisive land battle. The war started when Thebes attacked Plataea in the hope of clearing the route to and from the Peloponnese. If Thebes had been successful, the Peloponnesian League would have had the ability to take over the north. When the Thebans failed, with Plataea being a continual bone of contention, Athens was in an ideal position.

The Spartans sent delegates to Persia, but they were rebuffed when the Athenians captured the delegation. The Spartans attacked Attica by land in an attempt to force a land battle in the first year of the war. Athens under Pericles decided to abandon its territory to the ravaging Spartan army, moving its rural population into the area between the great long walls from the Piraeus harbor to Athens. Pericles decided to send the fleet round the Peloponnese, attacking with hit-and-run tactics. While it was a wise move in the sense that Athens did not have to engage in a land battle, it was also costly because Athens would see its crops ruined and countryside ravaged.

The Spartans now marched to Plataea and besieged the city, which finally fell in 427. Worse yet, the plague hit Athens during the second year of the war, killing at least a third of the population. During the third year, Sparta did not attack, while the plague, although less damaging, took Pericles’s life. With the loss of Pericles, the demagogues, led by Cleon, now embarked on more costly adventures while forcing their Athenian subjects to pay more.

Cleon became the leader of the new war party, wishing to increase his prestige and attempt to fill the shoes of Pericles. Thinking that Athens would fall due to the ravages by Archidamus and the fall of Plataea, the island of Lesbos revolted.

Athens spent three years, until 427, to take back the island, but it now went on the offensive. The Athenians under their new leaders began an expansive campaign. They launched their new aggressive powers against the Western Peloponnese, even sending a small expeditionary force to Sicily. The Athenians attacked islands near the Peloponnese such as Minoa, which commanded the port of Megara. With the new tribute from the Delian League, the Athenians were able to extend their power.

The culmination of this policy was the attack on Pylos, on the western coast of the Peloponnese, leading to the capture in 425 of nearly 300 Spartans, of which 120 were Spartiates, full landholding citizens. This development led to Archidamus abandoning his yearly ravages on Attica for fear of the Spartan captives being executed. The Athenians also built a fortress at Pylos allowing nearby helots (state-owned serfs who worked the land and could not be sold) to flee Sparta, hurting their economy and prestige.

Pericles

Pericles (c. 495-429), the son of Xanthippus, was a member of the Alcmaeonid family through his mother rising to become Athens's greatest leader during the Classical or Golden Age. He held the office of general or strategos for most of his political career, from 461 until his death. Rising to prominence in the 460s, he successfully had his political opponent, Cimon, ostracized in 461.

Pericles was now free to pursue his policy of full democracy and expansionism. Unlike Cimon, who proposed coexistence with Sparta, Pericles now pursued a confrontation with the land power, attempting to create both a sea empire (i.e., the Delian League) and a land empire. During this time, he aided the Egyptians in their rebellion in 454, and with the fleet's loss, he moved the treasure from Delos to Athens, creating the Athenian Empire. He won some success on the Greek mainland, but Thebes defeated Athens in 447, ending the Athenian attempt to create a land empire to join its sea empire.

In domestic policy, Pericles successfully curtailed the power of the Areopagus, expanded payment for jurors, and limited citizenship to those with both parents as citizens. He successfully kept the empire together when subject cities rebelled due to high taxes. When the Peloponnesian War broke out, Pericles, believing that it was inevitable, argued that the Athenians should not engage Sparta directly, but rather wear it down through hit-and-run tactics.

Sparta invaded and ravaged Attica two years in a row, but Pericles avoided conflict, arousing the anger of the Athenians, who stripped him of his generalship and fined him. In the second year of the war, 430, a plague broke out, ravaging the city, and in 429, the city populace forgave Pericles and elected him general again. In this year, the plague returned, claiming his two sons and then Pericles himself. The loss of Pericles doomed Athens to defeat

The fall of Plataea, however, allowed the Spartans to march north to Thessaly, Macedon, and the Chalcidice Peninsula, where the Spartan commander Brasidas convinced the city of Amphipolis, an Athenian colony, to rebel. Using the city as a base, Brasidas was able to raise multiple rebellions in the north.

At the same time, the Thebans defeated an Athenian force at Delium. Both events caused the two sides to agree to an armistice for a year, and upon the end of the peace in 422, Brasidas and the Athenian general Cleon renewed the war near Amphipolis, where both were killed in battle, with the Spartans victorious. The result led to the Peace of Nicias, named after the Athenian general and statesman, which attempted to undue ten years of war.

The Peace of Nicias brought an end to the Archidamian War, which Athens could portray as a victory. Not only had it weathered the war relatively unscathed, it even increased its influence in the West with its treaty with Corcyra. Although it lost Amphipolis in the north, Athens was able to maintain its empire and even increase its tribute. This treaty between Athens and Sparta was supposed to last fifty years and hence was probably known as the Fifty-Year Treaty. In March 421, both sides agreed that they wanted the war to end, and Sparta asked to have its prisoners returned.

The peace was negotiated by Nicias of Athens and King Pleistoanax of Sparta. Pleistoanax was the son of Pausanias, the victor at Plataea in 479 over the Persians, who had been disgraced after being accused by the Ephors of conspiring with Xerxes after the battle and then died soon afterward. Pleistoanax reigned as king from 458 to 409, and about 445, he was exiled for taking bribes from Pericles to withdraw from the battlefield from Eleusis in 446.

In 428, during the war, he was allowed to return, supposedly by order of the Delphic Oracle, but more likely so that the Spartans could keep an eye on Pleistoanax during the war. He was accused by many in Sparta of being responsible for some of the disasters, and so he would have been eager for the war to end.

Nicias was an Athenian statesman from a wealthy family involved in the Laurium silver mines. He had begun his rise to power during the rule of Pericles, and when he died, Nicias became the leader of the conservative or aristocratic party. He was in opposition to Cleon, the leader of the people’s or democratic party.

Nicias was able to use his wealth to win support from the people since his oratory skills were not as good as those of Cleon. His wealth was used to put on plays, build temples, and outfit ships, all actions that favored the lower classes so that he could win their votes. He served as a general in 427 and 425, where he engaged in some small operations but avoided the potentially dangerous campaigns, which could have led to disaster.

He was not a coward, and when he fought, he was seen as courageous, but he was cautious, not desiring to fight if possible. Peace treaties normally occurred when one side defeated another, forcing a complete political solution, such as when Sparta defeated Argos, forcing it to remain neutral. However, this was not the case in this instance.

The peace was meant to return everything to where it had been ten years earlier. All would give up what they had conquered, except that Athens would retain Nisaea and Thebes, Sparta’s ally, would keep Plataea. This would mean that Sparta would give up Amphipolis, while the Athenians would return the prisoners it had captured at Sphacteria near Pylos. Delphi would maintain its independence, and the temples once again were open to all.

Athens could continue to collect tribute but could not force anyone to join the league. In addition, Athens would come to Sparta’s aid if the helots rebelled. Sparta could not secure the agreement of Corinth, its chief ally, the Boeotians, Elis, and Megara, which all were important for help in the isthmus region. While Athens honored the return of the Spartan captives, Sparta was able to negate the transfer of Amphipolis to Athens, which was the Athenians’ chief goal.

Athens, therefore, did not return Pylos. As such, the treaty was already broken before it was even in place. Sparta had betrayed its allies, since Corinth and Megara did not regain their possessions. Corinth now openly attempted to undermine the league by diplomatic action.

The first real test was when the Spartan allies Elis and Mantinea, along with Sparta’s perennial enemy Argos, began to break away. King Agis of Sparta could not break up the plan, and when the allies received aid from Athens under Alcibiades, they planned to seize Tegea from Sparta.

The Battle of Mantinea in 418 became the largest one in the Peloponnesian War. Sparta, with the Lacedaemonians and their neighboring ally, Tegea, faced Mantinea, Athens, Argos, and Arcadia, and successfully defeated them. As a result, Sparta avenged its humiliation at Pylos. Also, Athens was put in a difficult situation when it supported the allies in opposition to Sparta, its nominal ally.

Finally, the allies were broken and forced to return to the alliance, while Argos now became neutral. The Peace of Nicias lasted from 421 to 415, but the battle at Mantinea effectively ended the peace treaty, although it was only negated in 415 with the Sicilian Expedition.

The Archidamian War resulted in both sides experiencing extensive damage and fatigue. When Brasidas and Cleon were killed, the two most adventurous and strongest advocates of continuing the war were gone. The Peace of Nicias resulted in both sides having a temporary truce, allowing them a chance to recover.

The peace did not succeed in ending the Delian League (Athenian Empire) or freeing it from Athenian control. The treaty did not end the real hostilities, though, since Alcibiades of Athens desired more power and now proposed a new plan—the conquest of Sicily.