The Peloponnesian Wars were a collection of three wars between Sparta and its allies and Athens and it’s allies. In the wars Sparta and Athens were the main cities fighting each other. They started in 459 B.C, just after the Persian wars ended in 481 B.C. They started because Sparta and Athens had always had a rivalry which crossed the breaking point after Athens started its own empire and Sparta refused to join. Sparta teamed up with several other cities to fight the Athenian empire and they called themselves the Peloponnesian League. For 15 years Athens had the upper hand and won most of the battles before Sparta marched its entire army right up to the city of Athens and conquered it. They knew they couldn’t keep their army at Athens indefinitely and destroy it, so they forced Athens into agreeing to the 30 Years Peace. The 30 Years Peace was a peace agreement that said Athens and Sparta were not allowed to interfere in any cities that were not in an alliance with either of them or were allied with the other one. Athens broke the treaty in 431, which was 16 years after the treaty was signed, by enforcing trade taxes on Megara. They did it again by backing up Corcyra when it went to war with Corinth. Sparta eventually decided Athens had violated the treaty and declared war. The Athenians then made Pericles the general of their army. Pericles wasted no time in sending ships to Sparta and keeping trading ships away, or, better yet, sending them to Athens. Sparta was doing very badly and wasn’t able to fight the Athenians because they had no ships. They did manage to get a land army to the Hellespont, which was where Athens got the majority of its food. While there they got a disease into the food, and it was shipped down to Athens. The disease quickly turned into a plague that wiped out 1/3 of the Athenians, including Pericles. Athens was severely weakened and could’ve been destroyed by the Spartans if they hadn’t been so scared of the plague. Athens recovered somewhat and sent a very small sea army to continue their old plan, but the Spartans had already sent their army to Thrace. Thrace was the main silver mine for the Athenians and was central to their empire. Athens got Thrace back, but both Sparta’s general and Athens’s general died in the battle. There was a pause in the war as both sides recovered. In Italy Athens had a colony that was being attacked by a city called Syracuse. As Athens went to defend its colony Sparta allied itself with Syracuse to attack Athens. Athens lost the battle and was destroyed by Sparta. Sparta then went to Athens and made it part of Sparta.
School Essays 