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In the winter of 447/6, Athens and Sparta negotiated a thirty‐year peace treaty. During the Thirty Years’ Peace, the power of Athens continued to grow. In fact, Thucydides says (1.23.6) that it was Sparta’s fear of the growing power of Athens that sparked the PELOPONNESIAN WAR, which lasted from 431–404.

The war began after a series of confrontations between Athens and the allies of Sparta. In 432, the Spartans sent an embassy to Athens, threatening to declare war unless the Athenians submitted to a series of demands, including dismantling their empire (Thuc. 1.126–27). Athens rejected this ultimatum, and beginning in 431, the Spartans ravaged the countryside of Attica nearly every year until 425. Pericles convinced the Athenians to abandon their farms and move to the city during the campaigning season, arguing that they could not be harmed by Spartan attacks as long they had their walls for protection and their empire to supply their needs (Thuc. 2.13). Pericles’ defensive strategy failed in the second year of the war with the outbreak of a plague that killed roughly one‐third of the population, including Pericles himself (Thuc. 2.47–55, 65).

In 421, after a series of setbacks on both sides, the Athenians and Spartans struck an uneasy truce, known as the Peace of Nicias after the Athenian general who negotiated it. The peace was meant to last fifty years, but broke down by 415, when Alcibiades convinced the Athenians to launch an expedition to SICILY. Ostensibly, the purpose was to aid their allies at EGESTA in their conflict with SYRACUSE. Upon reaching Sicily, Alcibiades was almost immediately recalled to stand trial for SACRILEGE. Rather than face prosecution, Alcibiades defected to Sparta, where he began advising the Spartans on how to defeat the Athenians, including sending a Spartan general to Sicily to lead the Syracusan forces. Despite reinforcements from Athens almost totaling the numbers of the original expedition, the Spartan‐led Syracusans destroyed the entire Athenian force in 413. All told, Athens lost half her fleet and more than 40,000 men (Thuc. 6.1–53, 6.61–7.87; Hornblower 2011, 168–78).

Despite this disaster, Athens managed to rebuild an effective fleet, and launched several successful expeditions in the eastern Aegean (Thuc. 8.1–11; Xen. Hell. 1.1.11–16, 1.2.1–1.3.22). The Spartans, now backed by Persian money, expanded their own fleet and harassed the Athenians in the Hellespont, which was a vital trade route for maintaining the grain supply for Attica. During 411, the conflict in the eastern Aegean reached a stalemate. Alcibiades, who had taken refuge in Persia after being driven out of Sparta, convinced the Athenians that he could secure desperately‐needed Persian funding if the Athenians would overthrow the democracy and recall Alcibiades himself from exile (Thuc. 8.47). Prominent oligarchs then passed measures restricting voting rights to 5,000 citizens, but before this could take effect, revolutionaries in Athens suspended the democracy and instituted a more limited Council of Four Hundred. The Four Hundred ruled by terror, assassinating opponents and exiling and imprisoning political enemies. Within four months the Four Hundred were deposed, and by 410 full democracy was restored (Thuc. 8.65–69; [Arist.] Ath. pol. 29–34).

Despite his failure to secure the promised Persian money, the Athenian fleet appointed Alcibiades general, and over the next several years he won victory after victory for the Athenians (Xen. Hell. 1.4.10–23). He once more fell out of favor in 406, when his forces suffered a major defeat at Notium, after which he took refuge in Persia (1.5.11–17).

In 405, the Spartan commander Lysander sailed to the Hellespont, with the intention of capturing the straits and cutting the Athenians off from their EUXINE (Black) Sea trade routes. The Spartan fleet attacked and defeated the Athenians at AEGOSPOTAMI, utterly destroying the Athenian navy (Xen. Hell. 2.1.28). Lysander then sailed to Peiraeus and blockaded the harbor. In 404, after four months of starvation, the Athenians surrendered. The Spartans forced the Athenians to dismantle the Long Walls, give up their empire and fleet, and form an offensive and defensive alliance with Sparta (Xen. Hell. 2.2.20). Additionally, the Spartans installed a board of thirty men to oversee affairs and to reform the constitution. These so‐called Thirty TYRANTS began a pogrom, executing 1,500 political rivals and confiscating their property (Xen. Hell. 2.3.11–23, 2.4.1; [Arist.] Ath. pol. 35–37; cf. Lysias 12). In 403, exiled Athenian democrats, led by Thrasybulus, defeated the forces of the Thirty in battle at Peiraeus, and democracy was once more restored, though Athens never again regained its former power and influence (Xen. Hell. 2.4.2–28; [Arist.] Ath. pol. 38).

SEE ALSO: Archaic Age; archē; Athens and Herodotus; Autochthony; Callias (2) son of Hipponicus; Date of Composition; Harmodius and Aristogeiton; Naval Warfare; Persian Wars