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The policy of Pericles succeeded in arousing the fear of both
Sparta and Corinth, who might expect in the event of a war to be aided by
dissident cities of the League who wished to escape from the domination of
Athens. In 431 b.c, the league that
had been organized by Sparta launched a preventive war,
known to history as the Peloponnesian War, one of the
most destructive wars of the ancient world. In general,
it may be said that the Spartans and their allies were
successful by land, while the Athenians were successful
by sea. But after the death of Pericles about a year after the beginning of
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Edgar Degas chalcography (1860). Young Spartans
exercising.
war, the leadership in Athens fell
into the hands of less moderate statesmen. Although for a time a peace was
patched up under the influence of a conservative Athenian statesman, the
war-party, evidently supported by the mass of the people, soon renewed the war.
In 415 b.c, under the leadership of
Alcibiades, a brilliant but erratic genius, a great expedition which ought to
have succeeded was launched against Syracuse, a colony of Corinth.
But the enemies of Alcibiades, though unable to prevent the launching of the
expedition, were strong enough to force his recall before he had won any
successes in Sicily. This left the command in the hands of a general who had
from the first disapproved of the expedition. He wasted time and took no
decisive action, while Alcibiades, who had refused to come home to stand trial
for a supposed impiety he had committed, went to Sparta and divulged the
strategic secrets of Athens. The Spartans sent out an effective general named Gylippus, who destroyed the entire Athenian expedition.
The Athenians were so shocked by their defeat that they abolished
the democracy for a period of about a year. The new government, however, was
unpopular and did not achieve much. In despair the Athenians recalled Alcibiades
and gave him the command. Though he won several victories he soon fell from
favor, accused this time of intriguing with the Persians for his own profit. The
Persians, in fact, regarded Alcibiades as their most dangerous enemy, but dealt
with him as well as with his Spartan opponent, the able admiral Lysander (son of
a helot woman) in their attempts to accomplish the defeat of Athens by means of
well-placed bribes. It was Lysander whom the Persians really favored, and he who
won the crucial battle of Aegos potami in 404 B.C., after Alcibiades had once
more been driven into exile. The victory enabled him to cut off the Athenian
grain supply and compelled the surrender of the city. Sparta, ever mindful of
the fact that Athens had played a noble part in defeating the Persians a century
before, refused to accept the advice of her allies that the city should be
destroyed and contented herself with dismantling its defences. Nevertheless,
Athens was not able in the following century to recover the leadership in Greece
which she lost through the Peloponnesian War.
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