The Peloponnesian War

“Hundreds of states joined the Delian League, but it came to be dominated by Athens”

WHAT AND WHEN WAS THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR?

During the fifth century BC, battles raged on land and at sea in a protracted and bloody conflict between the two leading city-states of Ancient Greece: Athens and Sparta. On one side was the supreme naval power of Athens and on the other the dominant Spartan army, with each heading an alliance that involved nearly every single Greek state. The Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BC would reshape the Hellenic world.

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE WAR?

The pre-eminent account of the war was written by Thucydides, who, despite serving as a general in the Athenian army, is remembered as a forefather of impartial historical study. He began his masterly work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, in the first year of the conflict, 431 BC, “believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it”.

Although the war, and Thucydides’ work, came to be named after the peninsula