in his view the greatest that had ever occurred in Greece, lasted from 431 to the downfall of Athens in 404. The genius of Thucydides has given to the struggle the importance of an epoch in world history, but his view is open to two main criticisms—(1) that the war was in its ultimate bearings little more than a local disturbance, viewed from the standpoint of universal history; (2) that it cannot be called a war in the strict sense. The former of these criticisms is justified in the article on Greece: History (q.v.). Unless we are to believe that the Macedonian supremacy is directly traceable to the mutual weakening of the Greek cities in 431–403, it is difficult to see what lasting importance attaches to the war. As regards the second, a few chief difficulties may be indicated. The very narrative even of Thucydides himself shows that the “war” was not a connected whole. It may be divided into three main periods—(1) from 431 to 421 (Lysias calls it the “Archidamian” War), when the Peace of Nicias, not merely formally, but actually produced a cessation of hostilities; (2) from 421 till the intervention of Sparta in the Sicilian War; during these years there was no “Peloponnesian War,” and there were several years in which there was in reality no fighting at all: the Sicilian expedition was in fact a side issue; (3) from 413 to 404, when fighting was carried on mainly in the Aegean Sea (Isocrates calls this the “Decelean” War). The disjointed character of the struggle is so obvious from Thucydides himself that historians have come to the conclusion that the idea of treating the whole struggle as a single unit was ex post facto (see Greece: History, § A, “Ancient” ad fin).
The book itself affords evidence which goes far to justify this view. A very important problem is presented by bk. v., which is obviously put in as a connecting link to prove a theory. Thucydides expressly warns us not to regard the period of this book as one of peace, and yet the very contents of the book refute his argument. In 419 and 417 there is practically no fighting: the Mantinean War of 418 is a disconnected episode which did not lead to a resumption of hostilities: in 420 there are only obscure battles in Thrace: in 416 there is only the expedition to Melos, and finally from 421 to 413 there is official peace. Other details may be cited in corroboration. Book v. (ch. 26) contains a second introduction to the subject; ὅδε ὁ πόλεμος in i. 23 and iv. 48 is the Archidamian or Ten Years’ War; in v. 26 we read of a πρῶτος πόλεμος, a ὕστερος πόλεμος and an ἀνακωχή. Some critics think on these and other grounds that Thucydides wrote and published bks i.–v. 25 by itself, then bks. vi. and vii. (Sicilian expedition), and finally revising his view joined them into one whole by the somewhat unsatisfactory bk. v. 26 and following chapters, and began to round off the story with the incomplete bk. viii. (on this see Greece: History, as above). It is perhaps most probable that he retained notes made contemporarily and worked them up some time after 404, in a few passages failing to correct inconsistencies and dying before bk. viii. was completed. The general introduction in bk. i. was unquestionably written shortly after 404.
The causes of the war thus understood are complex. The view taken by Thucydides that Sparta was the real foe of Athens has been much modified by modern writers. The key to the situation is in fact the commercial rivalry of the Corinthians, whose trade (mainly in the West) had been seriously limited by the naval expansion of the Delian League. This rivalry was roused to fever heat by the Athenian intervention in 434–33 on behalf of Corcyra, Corinth’s rebellious colony (see Corfu) and from that time the Corinthians felt that the Thirty Years’ Truce was at an end. An opportunity soon offered for making a counter attack. Potidaea, a Dorian town on the western promontory of Chalcidice in Thrace, a tributary ally of Athens—to which however Corinth as metropolis still sent annual magistrates—was induced to revolt,[1] with the support of the Macedonian king Perdiccas, formerly an Athenian ally. The Athenian Phormio succeeded in blockading the city so that its capture was merely a question of time, and this provided the Corinthians with an urgent reason for declaring war.
Prior to these episodes Athens had not been in hostile contact with any of the Peloponnesian confederate states for more than ten years, and Pericles had abandoned a great part of his imperial policy. He now laid an embargo upon Megara by which the Megarians were forbidden on pain of death to pursue trading operations with any part of the Athenian Empire. The circumstances of this decree (or decrees) are not material to the present argument (see Grote, History of Greece, ed. 1907, p. 370 note) except that it turned special attention to the commercial supremacy which Athens claimed to enjoy. In 432 a conference of Peloponnesian allies was summoned and the Corinthian envoys urged the Spartans to declare war on the ground that the power of Athens was becoming so great as to constitute a danger to the other states. This might have been urged with justice before the Thirty Years’ Truce (447); but by that truce Athens gave up all her conquests in Greece proper except Naupactus and Plataea, while her solitary gains in Amphipolis and Thurii were compensated by other losses. The fact that the Corinthian argument failed to impress Sparta and many of the delegates is shown by the course of the debate. What finally impelled the Spartans to agree to the war was the veiled threat by the Corinthians that they would be driven into another alliance (i.e. Argos, i. 71). We can hardly regard Sparta as the determined enemy of Athens at this time. Only twice since 461 had she been at war with Athens—in 457 (Tanagra) and 447, when she deliberately abstained from pushing the advantage which the revolt in Euboea provided, she had refused to help the oligarchs of Samos in 440. Corinth however had not only strong, but also immediate and urgent reasons (Potidaea and Corcyra) for desiring war. It has been argued that the war was ultimately a struggle between the principles of oligarchy and democracy. This view, however, cannot be taken of the early stages of the war when there was democracy and oligarchy on both sides (see ad fin.); it is only in the later stages that the political difference is prominent.
The Opposing Forces.—The permanent strength of the Peloponnesian confederacy lay in the Peloponnesian states, all of which except Argos and Achaea were united under Sparta’s leadership. But it included also extra-Peloponnesian states—viz. Megara, Phocis, Boeotia and Locris (which had formed part of the Athenian land empire), and the maritime colonies round the Ambracian Gulf. The organization was not elaborate. The federal assembly with few exceptions met only in time of war, and then only when Sparta agreed to summon it. It met in Sparta and the delegates, having stated their views before the Spartan Apella, withdrew till the Apella had come to a decision. The delegates were then invited to return and to confirm that decision. It is clear that the link was purely one of common interest, and that Sparta had little or no control over, e.g. so powerful a confederate as Corinth. Sparta was the chief member of the confederacy (hegemon), but the states were autonomous. In time of war each had to provide two-thirds of its forces, and that state in whose territory the war was to take place had to equip its whole force.
The Athenian Empire is described elsewhere (Delian League, Athens). Here it must suffice to point out that there was among the real and technical allies no true bond of interest, and that many of the states were in fact bound by close ties to members of the Peloponnesian confederacy (e.g. Potidaea to Corinth) Sparta could not only rely on voluntary co-operation but could undermine Athenian influence by posing as the champion of autonomy. Further, Thucydides is wrong on his own showing in saying that Sparta refused to tolerate democratic government in confederate cities: it was not till after 418 that this policy was adopted. Athens, on the other hand, had undoubtedly interfered in the interest of democracy in various allied states (see Delian League).
No detailed examination of the comparative military and naval resources of the combatants can here be attempted. On land the Peloponnesians were superior: they had at least 30,000
- ↑ The importance of this revolt lay in the fact that it immediately involved danger to Athens throughout the Chalcidic promontories, and her north-east possessions generally.
