Athens, Sparta, and the End of the Greek City-State
Sparta’s victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War was the defeat of the Greek city-states as a whole, inadvertently ending Greece’s Golden Age, Greek influence on the ancient world and rendered a constant struggle for hegemony status that was the demise of the individual Greek city-state.
The Peloponnesian War was the result of years of tension between two of the leading powers in the world of Ancient Greece, Athens, and Sparta. Athens was determined to build a widespread alliance that stretched all corners of the Mediterranean named the Delian League to provide protection against the Persians.
In doing so being the de facto leader they requested tribute to amass naval power and a crew to support it. Sparta was unsettled by this growing alliance and the power it wielded fearing that Athens’s intentions were more imperialistic and less a simple alliance.
By 431 B.C. the reserved feelings that Sparta held could no longer be contained resulting in a multi-decade-long war that ended with a shift of power and the downfall of Greek society. Sparta’s victory in the Peloponnesian War and the defeat of imperialistic Athens’s intentions had an ill effect on the Greek world.
The outcome of this war was more than just the decline of the once-great city-state of Athens, the rest of Greece crumbled around it. Sparta’s victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War was the defeat of the Greek city-states as a whole, inadvertently ending Greece’s Golden Age, Greek influence on the ancient world and rendered a constant struggle for hegemony status that was the demise of the individual Greek city-state.
Athens vs. Sparta
The Greek city-states provide us with an interesting look at history, a civilization connected by language and religious belief but separated by geographical nature.
Although each of these city-states remained within close proximity of each other, and some of less geographical obstruction, little alliances were formed. For the majority of their existence, they remained and operated as individual city-states only joining in the defense of one another in times of war to protect the sanctity of their society.
Of the Greek city-states, two of them stood out from the rest and have survived the test of time by both providing their individual contributions to the ancient world which have left a lasting impact on society today. These Greek city-states were Athens and Sparta, two that could not have been more different, and two of whose internal strife would be the ruin of the Greek city-states.
The most distinguished difference between Athens and Sparta was their individual choice of government with each constructed to fit their societal ambitions. Athenians were notably democratic, which objectively defied the Spartan’s oligarchical form of government that supported its militaristic way of life.
Athens obtained this government identity following the Dark Age through the reforms of Solon who first rid the poor from debt slavery to the rich through an act of “disburdenment” a method he proudly boasts about in his poems when talking about mortgaged lands,
“He took away the record-stones that everywhere were planted, Before, Earth was in bondage, now she is free”
and when talking about citizens enslaved in foreign lands that he set free,
“uttering no longer Attic speech, So long and far their wretched wanderings And some who here at home in shameful servitude Were held.”[1]
Solon’s reforms would further establish a method of government that represented the people of Athens with his creation of a multi-tiered government to include a council (boule) of four hundred men who were chosen to hear public matters of the people before the matters were carried on to an elected assembly.[2]
Men like Cleisthenes and Pericles would help Athens to further develop its democratic progression by instilling further reforms that helped to better represent the Athenian citizens becoming an influence to later democratic styles of government to come.
The Spartan government was ruled by the few, a senate or Gerusia made of 30 members who were elected for good conduct and were “absolute masters of the mass of citizens.”[3] In an attempt to avoid corruption between the two kings and 28 council members of the Gerusia, five ephors were elected from the public to serve as moderators, and of whom did not rise within the presence of the kings as the members of the Gerusia did, for they served the people.[4]
This style of government was supportive of the Spartan way of life whose male population entered training for military service at the ripe age of 7 years old and whose service lasted a lifetime. The Spartans thought very highly of their way of life and questioned the rise of Athenian democracy regarding it as weak as evidenced by the words of Lycurgus. When Lycurgus was questioned about democracy in Sparta, he simply answered
“Do you first establish a democracy in your house,”
He further downplays the significance of democracy and further promotes the effectiveness of Sparta’s oligarchy through his analogy of two puppies, both of which were of the same kin but each had notably different upbringings, one was catered to, lived indoors, and was fed regularly, the other hunted and trained in the field.[5]
When Lycurgus later presented the dogs before an assembly of the public he did so by placing food the dogs were accustomed to before them, and as expected the house-trained dog opted for the cheap food while the hunter sought the wild hare in response to these actions Lycurgus said,
“You see, fellow-citizens, that these dogs belong to the same stock, but by virtue of the discipline to which they have been subjected they have turn out utterly different from each other, and you also see that training is more effective than nature for good.”[6]
These societal differences would end up with the two leading Greek city-states entering into an unlikely alliance when the Athenians sought protection against Spartan interference in their own government by promising King Darius of the Persian Empire “earth and water” which was a sign of submission required of all alliance seekers with the Persian Empire, and when Athens did not fulfill their promise King Darius sought retribution against all of Greece.[7]
The Peloponnesian War
The outcome of the Persian War was not enough to preserve the unlikely alliance between Athens and Sparta, and for the next several decades they would walk separate paths as equal to their societal differences until they met once again but this time as enemies on the battlefield.
Athenians learned from the Persian War that they were at a financial disadvantage in warfare when compared to the Spartans who were a militaristic state that had an ample supply of endless soldiers, and to the likes of the Persian Empire with a vast network of client states.
When Athens took the helm of the alliance of Greek city-states later known as the Delian League that sought to protect all of Greece from future Persian invasions from the eastern Mediterranean and in doing so, they adopted the Persian method of funding war knowing that the funding that a single city-state could provide alone was not enough to yield the success they were trying to accomplish so the payment of a fixed tribute from each alliance member annually was necessary.[8]
This decision served to be favorable for the Delian League allowing them to make quick use of the funds in its continuous campaign to expel Persians from harbors across the Aegean Sea, to destroy Persia’s fleet, and to liberate Ionia’s poleis.[9]
This financial arrangement would prove to be even more favorable to the Athenians when they undermined other league members to create an Athenian Empire to which they were subject and their financial contributions allowed the funding of elite Athenian sailors and hoplites who could endure campaigns and sieges lasting from a few months to a few years.[10]
Sparta, who was the original intended leader of the alliance that became the Delian League slipped back into its isolationistic state shortly after its formation and after Sparta was replaced as its leader by Athens. Even from Sparta’s state of isolation, Sparta watched on as Athens gained momentum in its rise of becoming an empire and its ascendance into the Golden Age afforded by the funds of the Delian League’s tributes. As this unfolded Sparta’s fear of an Athenian shift into imperialism heightened, and with justification.
Athens’s transformation into an imperialistic empire is best described by a certain characteristic quality that further distinguished itself from its closest competition the Spartans. This quality is known as “daring” and encompasses Athens’s traits of restlessness and expansionism in its rise to power and is best described by Thucydides in his recording of Pericles’ Funeral Oration that occurred during the Peloponnesian War where he records Pericles’s attention to the sacrifices made by fallen Athenians whose courage, virtue, and “daring” should be a model for Athenians who have survived for it has allowed Athens to compel every sea and every land to yield to their “daring” enabling them to be immortalized through monuments everywhere of themselves.[11]
Furthermore, Athenian “daring” is a catalyst for a theory that was composed by Thucydides that he believes explains the inevitable war that happened between Athens and Sparta. This theory is the theory of Hegemonic War.
Thucydides’ theory of Hegemonic War is a concept that he believed to be as true as human nature and one that is to be repeated throughout all of human history with one civilization driven by three fundamental influences: interest, pride, and fear, to advance its position of wealth and power until another civilization of the same interests intervenes in an attempt to stop them.[12]
Athens’s use of its position within the Delian League as a vessel in its ascendance to power saw the city-state grow ruthless, and become an aggressive bully when its authoritative role was challenged by league members who no longer sought an alliance with them. This issue was not self-contained and true to Thucydides’ theory of Hegemonic War when Athens and Sparta butted heads when Athens failed to resolve conflicts of interest that created issues with members of Sparta’s own alliance, the Peloponnesian League, leading to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.
In short, the cause of the Peloponnesian War can be attributed to Athenian’s “daring,” its own justification for imperialism, and Athens’s interference in the Peloponnesian Leagues matters. Sparta tried to settle conflicts of interest between Athens and its own league the Peloponnesian League through questionable measures when it threatened the act of war against Athens and its allies if Athens did withdraw its siege of Potidaea, a rebelling member of the Delian League with connection to Corinth of the Peloponnesian League, and abstain from its imposed economic sanctions against the Megareans in all ports within the Athenian dominion, which Athens saw justification for doing because they had tilled holy grounds and received revolted Athenian slaves.[13]
Additionally, Sparta’s stern ultimatum to the Athenians was heavily influenced by one of its strongest allies in the Peloponnesian League, Corinth, who urged the Spartans to a speedy intervention to the injustices being carried out by Athens, or Corinth itself and other Peloponnesian League members would seek a new alliance to join.[14]
Moreover, Athens’s refusal to meet the terms of Sparta’s ultimatum resulted in a three-decade-long war that saw Sparta fight against the injustices of Athenian Imperialism which they successfully accomplished by standing as victors at the end of the war. However, the war had adverse actions on the Greek city-states as a whole, many fell into economic hardships as a result of the war, and some were influenced by the two prominent Greek city-states of opposing governments to carry out civil conflict against their own people.
The Golden Era of Athens and its influence on the ancient world ended, and the shift of power to Sparta as the leading Greek city-state proved to be an utter failure, as previous foreshadowed in its leading role as a member of the what became the Delian League, resulting in years of conflict to follow allowing the Greeks to become susceptible to its latter absorption into the Macedonian Empire.
The End of the Greek City-State
Sparta’s victory in the Peloponnesian War and its overnight ascendance to hegemony over Greece proved to have detrimental consequences for all of the city-states.
Sparta, as Athens did before them, flexed its power throughout Greece proving to be just as bad or even worse for the Greek people than Athens was before them as evidenced by the choice of Sparta’s former allies aligning themselves with Athens in an attempt to hinder its control. Thriving in victory Sparta promoted Admiral Lysander to carry out an instilled aggressive policy that reformed city-state governments throughout Greece by placing harmosts (military governors) who forcibly established oligarchies as well as required tribute from all those they had conquered even though before feeling such power they had not even used coined money but now benefitted from the annual tribute of more than a thousand subjects.[15]
In response to these actions and backed by Persian money an alliance was formed between Athens, Argos, Corinth, and Thebes who swore to defeat Sparta.[16] This conflict was the Corinthian War (395–387 B.C.).
The Corinthian War finished in a similar fashion to the Peloponnesian War with Sparta standing in victory benefiting from late financial support from Persia, when Persia switched sides leaving behind its original alliance with Athens, Argos, Corinth, and Thebes. This would not be the final conflict between the Greek city-states in their pursuit of hegemony status, alliances would be reformed and reconstructed, and the title of hegemony would be passed amongst city-states until the mid-fourth century B.C. During this period of time, the Spartans suffered a dreadful defeat at the hands of the Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra (471 B.C.) that halted Sparta’s reign of power.[17]
This nearly century-long struggle to obtain the status of hegemony left adverse actions among the Greek city-states. The nearly century-long constant warring exhausted resources, depleted civilizations, and rendered each city-state barely capable of maintaining its own state, each becoming susceptible to rising power to the North.
The Macedonians under the leadership of King Philip II took advantage of the exhausted Greek city-states in pursuit of gaining hegemony status for his growing empire with little resistance to his efforts besides a single conflict against Athens and Thebes in 338 B.C. known as the Battle of Chaeronea. Athens and Thebes refused to yield to King Philip and the Macedonians like northern Greek city-states had done before them because as explained by the Athenian orator Demosthenes the Macedonians were not Greek or even related to the Greeks and not even a barbarian from an honorable place of mention so submitting to them was insulting to the sanctity of Greece.[18]
The defeat of Athens and Thebes by Macedonia proved to be the last nail in the coffin of the Greek power. Even though they retained a sense of freedom, any influence the Greek people once held on the Ancient World through their acts of politics and foreign policy completely ceased to exist, now they were subjects to the Macedonian Empire.
The outcome of the Persian War set the scene for the inevitable war between two of the greatest Greek city-states of their time, Athens, and Sparta. Following the war, Athens accepted a position as leader of the alliance of Greek city-states later known as the Delian League, with great ambitions to rid the Persian Empire from the east Mediterranean and the rest of Greece.
They were successful, to say the least, but with a stronghold on this great power, their ambitions turned personal. As the Spartans watched on from isolation following the Persian War, Athens used the Delian League for its own personal gain, in the hold of a massive and lethal navy, and with ample funds supplied by Greek city-state tributes they grew into a formidable empire.
Athens’s growth did not end there, soon they turned imperialistic, whether it was for Sparta’s own personal feelings of disdain for Athens, or its urge to protect Greece, the two city-states met with war in 431 B.C. The results of the Peloponnesian War would prove to yield irrevocable and unintentional consequences when the victor proved to be just as bad as the perceived threat they dethroned.
Sparta’s victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War was the defeat of the Greek city-states as a whole, inadvertently ending Greece’s Golden Age, Greek influence on the ancient world and rendered a constant struggle for hegemony status that was the demise of the individual Greek city-state.
Thank you for taking the time to read this post!
Bibliography
Demosthenes. “Dem. 20 107.” Essay. In Against Leptines. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.%2020.107&lang=original#note-link1.
Demosthenes. “Dem. 9 31.” Essay. In Philippic 3. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.%209.31&lang=original.
Forde, Steven. “Thucydides on the Causes of Athenian Imperialism.” The American Political Science Review 80, no. 2 (1986): 433–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/1958267.
Gilpin, Robert. “The Theory of Hegemonic War.” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 4 (1988): 591–613. https://doi.org/10.2307/204816.
Herodotus. “Hdt. 5.73.” Essay. In The Histories, edited by A. D. Godley. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.%205.73&lang=original.
Plutarch, and Bernadotte Perrin. “Plut. Sol. 15.” Essay. In Solon. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.%20Sol.%2015&lang=original.
Plutarch. Apophthegmata Laconica. Loeb Classical Library Ed.ed. Vol. 3, 1931. https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartans*/Lycurgus.html.
Pritchard, David M. “Public Finance And War In Ancient Greece.” Greece & Rome 62, no. 1 (2015): 48–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43297511.
Siculus, Diodorus. “Diod. 14.10.1.” Essay. In Library. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0084%3Abook%3D14%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D1.
Thucydides. “Thuc. 1.139.” Essay. In History of the Peloponnesian War, edited by Thomas Hobbes. Accessed October 20, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0247%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D139.
Thucydides. “Thuc. 1.71.” Essay. In History of the Peloponnesian War, edited by Thomas Hobbes, n.d. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.%201.71.4&lang=original.
Xenophon, E C Marchant, and G W Bowersock. “Xen. Const. Lac. 15.6.” Essay. In Constitution of the Lacedaimonians, n.d. Accessed October 20, 2023.
Xenophon. “Xen. Hell. 3.5.1–3.5.2.” Essay. In Hellenica, edited by Carleton L. Brownson. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0206%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D2.
Xenophon. “Xen. Hell. 6.4.4- 6.4.14.” Essay. In Hellenica, edited by Charleton L. Brownson. Accessed October 21, 2023. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0206%3Abook%3D6%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D14.
[1] Plutarch and Bernadotte Perrin, “Plut. Sol. 15,” essay, in Solon, accessed October 20, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plut.%20Sol.%2015&lang=original.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Demosthenes, “Dem. 20 107,” essay, in Against Leptines, accessed October 20, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.%2020.107&lang=original#note-link1.
[4] Xenophon, E C Marchant, and G W Bowersock, “Xen. Const. Lac. 15.6,” essay, in Constitution of the Lacedaimonians, n.d., accessed October 20, 2023.
[5] Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica, Loeb Classical Library Ed., vol. 3, 1931, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartans*/Lycurgus.html.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Herodotus, “Hdt. 5.73,” essay, in The Histories, ed. A. D. Godley, accessed October 20, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.%205.73&lang=original.
[8] Pritchard, David M, “Public Finance And War In Ancient Greece,” Greece & Rome 62, no. 1 (2015): 48–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43297511.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Forde, Steven, “Thucydides on the Causes of Athenian Imperialism,” The American Political Science Review 80, no. 2 (1986): 433–48. https://doi.org/10.2307/1958267.
[12] Gilpin, Robert, “The Theory of Hegemonic War,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 4 (1988): 591–613. https://doi.org/10.2307/204816.
[13] Thucydides, “Thuc. 1.139,” essay, in History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Thomas Hobbes, accessed October 20, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0247%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D139.
[14] Thucydides, “Thuc. 1.71,” essay, in History of the Peloponnesian War, ed. Thomas Hobbes, n.d., https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Thuc.%201.71.4&lang=original.
[15] Diodorus Siculus, “Diod. 14.10.1,” essay, in Library, accessed October 21, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0084%3Abook%3D14%3Achapter%3D10%3Asection%3D1.
[16] Xenophon, “Xen. Hell. 3.5.1–3.5.2,” essay, in Hellenica, ed. Carleton L. Brownson, accessed October 21, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0206%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D5%3Asection%3D2.
[17] Xenophon, “Xen. Hell. 6.4.4- 6.4.14,” essay, in Hellenica, ed. Charleton L. Brownson, accessed October 21, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0206%3Abook%3D6%3Achapter%3D4%3Asection%3D14.
[18] Demosthenes, “Dem. 9 31,” essay, in Philippic 3, accessed October 21, 2023, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Dem.%209.31&lang=original.
