Why sparta attack athens

The so-called golden age of Athenian culture flourished under the leadership of Pericles B. Pericles transformed his One of the greatest ancient historians, Thucydides c. Leonidas c. Although Leonidas lost the battle, his death at Thermopylae was seen as a heroic sacrifice because he sent most The Athenian philosopher Plato c.

In his written dialogues he conveyed and expanded on the ideas and techniques of his teacher Socrates. The Academy he The Battle of Marathon in B. The battle was fought on the Marathon plain of northeastern Attica and marked the first blows of the Greco-Persian War. With the Persians closing in on the Greek capitol, Athenian general Sparta was a warrior society in ancient Greece that reached the height of its power after defeating rival city-state Athens in the Peloponnesian War B.

Spartan culture was centered on loyalty to the state and military service. At age 7, Spartan boys entered a Viewed by many as the founding figure of Western philosophy, Socrates B.

Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. The War Begins In B. Athens vs. Recommended for you. Peloponnesian War. The Peace of Nicias was concluded in It was in the main a victory for Athens, especially since she kept her empire intact while her enemies were divided, Corinth and Boeotia refusing to sign the Peace. The Peace of Nicias was unstable, however, and broke down completely in when Athens, under the influence of Alcibiades, sent a great fleet to attack Syracuse.

The Sicilian Expedition was a disaster, ending in with the defeat of the Athenian fleet and army and the exhaustion of their finances. Sparta, meanwhile, was developing a good fleet of her own, financed by Persia. The war at sea continued to go Athens' way for several years, but in the Spartan commander Lysander destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami.

Besieged by land and sea, without money or allies, Athens capitulated in April and became virtually the subject-ally of the victor. In the tradition of Greek historical writing Thucydides does not betray influence but rather shows radical innovation. The early 5th Century BCE produced several prose narratives—now preserved only in fragments—of genealogies beginning with the mythical past or of traditional stories centered on one particular geographic area.

With a few notable exceptions, his authorial voice is withheld after Book One: once begun, the narrative is impersonal, analyses and generalizations being offered by the characters themselves in speeches to each other. These historiographical innovations are matched by Thucydides' distinctive prose style.

Even in antiquity his Greek was considered notoriously difficult to parse and is seldom imitated in modern translations.

The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian like the Spartans, and Sicily and their allies, the Athenians, were ethnically Ionian.

The Athenian force consisted of more than ships, approximately 5, infantry, and lightly armored troops. However, their cavalry was limited to about 30 horses, which proved to be no match for the large and highly trained Syracusan cavalry. Meanwhile, the Syracusans petitioned Sparta for assistance in the matter, and Sparta sent their general, Gylippus, to Sicily with reinforcements. This ushered in the final phase of the war, known as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. The Lacedaemonians were no longer content with simply sending aid to Sicily as a means of supporting their ally.

Instead, their focus shifted to an offensive strategy against Athens. As a result, Decelea, a town near Athens, was fortified in order to prevent the Athenians from making use of their land year-round, and to thwart overland shipments of supplies.

Nearby silver mines were also disrupted, with Spartan hoplites freeing as many as 20, Athenian slaves in the vicinity. Due to this disruption in finance, Athens was forced to demand increased tribute from its subject allies, further increasing tension and the threat of rebellion throughout the Athenian empire. Members of the Peloponnesian League continued to send reinforcements to Syracuse in hopes of driving off the Athenians, but instead, Athens sent another ships and 5, troops to Sicily.

Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens be destroyed and all its citizens enslaved, but Sparta refused to destroy a city that had done good service at a time of great danger to Greece, and took Athens into their own alliance system. Following the Peloponnesian War, Athens underwent a period of harsh oligarchic governance and Sparta enjoyed a brief hegemonic period.

The Peloponnesian War ended in victory for Sparta and its allies, and led directly to the rising naval power of Sparta. However, it marked the demise of Athenian naval and political hegemony throughout the Mediterranean.

The destruction from the Peloponnesian War weakened and divided the Greeks for years to come, eventually allowing the Macedonians an opportunity to conquer them in the mid-4 th century BCE. Lysander, the Spartan admiral who commanded the Spartan fleet at Aegospotami in BCE, helped to organize the Thirty Tyrants as a government for the 13 months they maintained power.

The Thirty appointed a council of to serve the judicial functions that had formerly belonged to all citizens. Despite all this, not all Athenian men had their rights removed.

In fact, 3, such men were chosen by the Thirty to share in the government of Athens. These men were permitted to carry weapons, entitled to jury trial, and allowed to reside with the city limits. Eventually, the level of violence and brutality carried out by the Thirty in Athens led to increased opposition, stemming primarily from a rebel group of exiles led by Thrasybulus, a former trierarch in the Athenian navy.

In the aftermath, Athens gave amnesty to the 3, men who were given special treatment under the regime, with the exception of those who comprised the governing Thirty and their associated governmental officials. Athens struggled to recover from the upheaval caused by the Thirty Tyrants in the years that followed. As a result of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, which had primarily been a continental culture, became a naval power. At its peak, Sparta overpowered many key Greek states, including the elite Athenian navy.