The idea of the Common Peace (Κοινὴ Εἰρήνη, Koinē Eirēnē ) was one of the most influential concepts of 4th century BC Greek political thought, along with the idea of Panhellenism . The term described both the concept of a desirable, permanent peace between the Greek city-states ( poleis ) and a sort of peace treaty which fulfilled the three fundamental criteria of this concept: it had to include all the Greek city-states, it had to recognise the autonomy and equality of all city states without regard for their military power, and it had to be intended to remain in force permanently.
157-715: The advocates of the Common Peace saw it as a way to end the endemic warfare which engulfed the Greek poleis from the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. From the King's Peace of 387/6 BC down to the foundation of the League of Corinth in 338 BC, the idea of the Common Peace influenced all peace treaties between Greek poleis . In the end, however, it turned out that only a strong hegemonic power could maintain
314-683: A mercenary , fighting in the Persian Empire and for Sparta in Asia Minor , Thrace and Greece. Exiled from Athens for these actions, he retired to live in Sparta, where he wrote Hellenica around 40 years after the war had ended. His account is generally considered favourable to Sparta. A briefer account of the whole war is provided by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus in books 12 and 13 of his Bibliotheca historica . Written in
471-447: A "state of peace", developed the related meaning of "peace agreement" at the beginning of the 4th century BC. This was a consequence of a change in attitudes to war and peace more generally. Already in the 5th century BC, wars between Greek poleis were ended with treaties, which were known as spondai ( σπονδαί ), synthekai ( συνθήκαι ) or dialyseis polemou ( διάλυσεις πολέμου ). All these terms ultimately only indicated
628-467: A common occurrence in the Greek world. Ancient Greek warfare , originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states , complete with mass atrocities. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and
785-525: A common peace. That both attempts, unlike the King's Peace, were rejected is a result of the fact that the Great King had lost power as a peace-broker, as a result of the revolt of Ariobarzanes and other satraps. The most important reason for the course of events, however, may have been the experiences of the Greek cities with Paris after the King's Peace. Due to the growing Theban pressure on Athens (such as
942-562: A comprehensive peace for long. In modern times, the concept has been revived and in the 20th century, the principle of the Common Peace was a foundation stone of international organisations like the League of Nations and the United Nations . The idea of the Common Peace developed out of older ideas which had gradually taken form in the political interactions of the 5th century BC in Greece. Its temporary enforcement however owes less to
1099-577: A congress of their allies to discuss the possibility of war with Athens. Sparta's powerful ally Corinth was notably opposed to intervention, and the congress voted against war with Athens. The Athenians crushed the revolt, and peace was maintained. The more immediate events that led to war involved Athens and Corinth. After a defeat by their colony of Corcyra , a sea power that was not allied to either Sparta or Athens, Corinth began to build an allied naval force. Alarmed, Corcyra sought alliance with Athens. Athens discussed with both Corcyra and Corinth, and made
1256-669: A defensive alliance with Corcyra. At the Battle of Sybota , a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. In order to uphold the Thirty Years' Peace, the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in the battle unless it was clear that Corinth would invade Corcyra. However, the Athenian ships participated in the battle, and the arrival of additional Athenian triremes
1413-538: A desire for peace, but also a wish to ensure their own hegemony. The Spartan interpretation of autonomy required the dissolution of all leagues except their own Peloponnesian League , since this was not unified or centrally organised, but instead was a system of bilateral treaties which the Spartans had made with each individual member. In the Spartan view, bilateral treaties between individual states were not included in
1570-498: A great victory at the Battle of Sphacteria . In a shocking turn of events, 300 Spartan hoplites encircled by Athenian forces surrendered. The Spartan image of invincibility took significant damage. The Athenians jailed Sphacterian hostages in Athens and resolved to execute the captured Spartans if a Peloponnesian army invaded Attica again. After these battles, the Spartan general Brasidas raised an army of allies and helots and marched
1727-510: A guarantee of free navigation. Only the Spartans refused to join this league. The other states were to send representatives, who would meet in a synedrion (council). They then entered into a personal alliance with Philip II, making him the Hegemon of the League. Theoretically, the freedom and autonomy of the Greek state were thus assured. In practice, however, the general ban on conflict marked
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#17327733848311884-442: A land attack and subject to Spartan control. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action then, they "secretly felt aggrieved". Conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent (4,000 hoplites ), but upon its arrival, this force
2041-469: A minor Spartan victory by their skillful general Lysander at the naval battle of Notium in 406 BC. Alcibiades was not re-elected general by the Athenians and he exiled himself from the city. He would never again lead Athenians in battle. Athens won the naval battle of Arginusae . The Spartan fleet under Callicratidas lost 70 ships and the Athenians lost 25 ships. But, due to bad weather, the Athenians were unable to rescue their stranded crews or finish off
2198-407: A multilateral treaty, which would also encompass all the parties that were not involved in the conflict, as far as possible. A third characteristic is not explicitly mentioned but can be inferred from the absence of set time limit. In the 5th century, it was the norm for peace treaties to have a specified period of validity. The Thirty Years' Peace of 446/5 BC between Athens and Sparta was named for
2355-459: A number of other states. For a time during this conflict, Athens controlled not only Megara but also Boeotia . But at its end, a massive Spartan invasion of Attica forced Athens to cede the lands it had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems. The war was officially ended by the Thirty Years' Peace , signed in
2512-504: A peace agreement was a Common Peace or not is uncertain for some treaties. In the following, a wide definition is used in order to make the development of the idea of the Common Peace clear. Criteria for inclusion are the autonomy clause and the permission for all Greek poleis to join, regardless of whether that option was actually taken up. In 392/1 BC, in the course of the Corinthian War , Sparta submitted an initial peace offer to
2669-655: A period now called the Athenian Empire . By mid-century, the Persians had been driven out of the Aegean and had ceded control of vast territories to Athens. Athens had greatly increased its own power; a number of its formerly independent allies were reduced, over the course of the century, to the status of tribute-paying subject states of the Delian League. This tribute was used to fund a powerful fleet and, after
2826-529: A powerful Peloponnesian state that had remained independent of Lacedaemon. With the support of the Athenians, the Argives forged a coalition of democratic states in the Peloponnese, including the powerful states of Mantinea and Elis . Early Spartan attempts to break up the coalition failed, and the leadership of the Spartan king Agis was called into question. Emboldened, the Argives and their allies, with
2983-516: A practical aspect. The successive hegemonial powers were not individual poleis , but several opposing poleis or leagues of roughly equal strength. With them, peace was only possible if all agreed together. For the general acceptance of such a multilateral agreement, the autonomy clause was the first requirement. The Greek term autonomia signified the right and ability of the citizens of a polis to use their own legal system or nomos (νόμος) and to be free from all submission to other poleis . Since
3140-602: A practical policy. In the year after Leuctra, the Thebans clearly established their hegemony. Through a campaign into the Peloponnese, they established the independence of the Messenians , who had been ruled by the Spartans for centuries, and supported the establishment of the Arcadian League . A further war against an alliance of Sparta, Athens and Dionysius I of Syracuse proved inconclusive. Thus in 369/8 BC, all
3297-485: A real peace. He invoked the panhellenic ideal, while idealising the project of the common peace. As he did this, however, he omitted the fact that the Ionian cities for whose freedom Athens had gone to war with Persia some hundred years earlier, would be abandoned as a result of this treaty. In the end the Athenians rejected the treaty because of this (and because after their alliance with Struthas , they believed they were in
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#17327733848313454-582: A retreat to Athens, but Nicias at first refused. After additional setbacks, Nicias seemed to agree to a retreat until a bad omen, in the form of a lunar eclipse , delayed withdrawal. The delay was costly and forced the Athenians into a major sea battle in the Great Harbor of Syracuse. The Athenians were thoroughly defeated. Nicias and Demosthenes marched their remaining forces inland in search of friendly allies. The Syracusan cavalry rode them down mercilessly, eventually killing or enslaving all who were left of
3611-589: A striking limitation on independence. In addition, the Macedonians retained garrisons in the Cadmea of Thebes, the Acrocorinth , and at Chalcis – ostensibly to maintain the common peace. The League of Corinth therefore marked the end of the Common Peace as the foundation for full equality between states and linked the idea of peace strongly with the guarantee of a hegemonic power once more. The alliance and
3768-463: A stronger position). The successes of the Athenian fleet in 390 BC, however, led to a reevaluation at the Persian court, which did not want the Athenians to get too strong. Struthas was replaced two years later by his predecessor Tiribazus , who negotiated a peace with the Spartan envoy Antalcidas . The resulting agreement, known as the 'Peace of Antalcidas' or the 'King's Peace' essentially accepted
3925-446: A threat to autonomy, but the second was claimed to be its protector. In order to prevent the Athenians from reassuming a hegemonic position, the new league was organised in accordance with the principles of the common peace. This is a sign that these principles were generally accepted by this time. When the war with Sparta stagnated in 375 BC, a willingness to make peace developed in Sparta and Athens. The Spartans could no longer hope for
4082-509: A threat to their right to autonomy. Further factors were also relevant: if the Spartans refused the proposed league, the Athenians would have been forced to fight two wars at once. Therefore, the Athenians decided to overlook the fate of Plataea and invited the Thebans to a peace conference in Sparta. The Spartans were even more willing to make peace now, since their actions in Phocis had been unsuccessful. Threatening Thebes thus became unlikely, but
4239-412: A truce or temporary break from war. But as a result of the unending warfare from the middle of that century, the idea gradually developed that a state of peace rather than war should be the normal state of international affairs. This is reflected in the increased prominence of the term Eirene and in its use as a term for peace treaties. The term "Common Peace" was first used in 391 BC, in reference to
4396-531: A victory and the Athenians had achieved their goals: the freedom of Thebes from Spartan control and the recognition of the sea league as compatible with the terms of the Peace of Antalcidas. Diodorus reports an embassy of the Great King came to secure a renewal of the peace, since the Persians needed peace in Greece in order to free the mercenaries up for a war they wanted to undertake in Egypt. The Greek states accepted
4553-640: A violation of the clauses of the Peace of Antalcidas. But it is possible that a majority of the Aegean islands and coastal states now saw Athens as a better advocate of the principle of autonomy, as a result of their support for the Thebans. The league treaty was explicitly concluded: for the good fortune of the Athenians and the allies of the Athenians: so that the Spartans shall allow the Greeks 10 to be free and autonomous and to live at peace, possessing securely all their own (territory), [[and so that [the peace and
4710-456: Is not entirely clear whether he was acting on the king's orders or in accordance with his own interests. In the course of further clashes, Dionysius II of Syracuse withdrew his aid from the Spartans, leading them to turn to the Persians for assistance once more. Thus, in 367/6 BC, Greek envoys to the court of the Great king engaged in what the ancient historian Karl Julius Beloch referred to as
4867-399: Is that it is incomplete: the text ends abruptly in 411 BC, seven years before the conclusion of the war. The account was continued by Xenophon , a younger contemporary, in the first book of his Hellenica . This directly follows Thucydides' final sentence and provides a similar record, on the topics of the war's conclusion and aftermath. Born in Athens, Xenophon spent his military career as
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5024-747: The Aegean . He had his satrap Tissaphernes make alliance with Sparta against Athens . In 412 BC, this led to the Persian reconquest of most of Ionia . Tissaphernes also helped fund the Peloponnesian fleet. Facing the resurgence of Athens, from 408 BC, Darius II decided to continue the war against Athens and give stronger support to the Spartans . He sent his son Cyrus the Younger into Asia Minor as satrap of Lydia , Phrygia Major and Cappadocia , and general commander ( Karanos , κἀρανος) of
5181-422: The Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC. The Macedonians reacted harshly only against the Thebans, wishing instead to take advantage of the power of Athens and the other states by means of a league. The treaty establishing this league contained an express ban on interfering in the constitutions of other states by force (essentially an autonomy clause) and general bans on conflict and piracy for the first time, as well as
5338-473: The Delian League (Athens' alliance) raided the Peloponnesian coast to trigger rebellions within Sparta. The precarious Peace of Nicias was signed in 421 BC and lasted until 413 BC. Several proxy battles took place during this period, notably the battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, won by Sparta against an ad-hoc alliance of Elis , Mantinea (both former Spartan allies), Argos , and Athens. The main event
5495-538: The Erechtheion temple and Grave Stele of Hegeso , both in Athens; these provide no information on military activity but do reflect civilian life during the war. Several plays by the Athenian Aristophanes were written and set during the war (particularly Peace and Lysistrata ), but these are works of comedic fiction with little historical value. Thucydides summarised the situation before
5652-530: The Great King needed to be convinced that no new Greek power would form in the Aegean which might challenge Persian control of the Ionian cities. The agreement that would solve all these problems was that Sparta and Persia would guarantee the autonomy of all Greek states (except those in Asia Minor). The Spartans would then have been able to point to the protection of a generally recognised principle as
5809-552: The Great Satraps' Revolt against the Persian king in Asia Minor, many scholars have seen a positive element. According to this viewpoint, the Greeks had managed to control themselves and establish a peace on their own. The opposing view is that the basis of this new common peace was simply the military and economic exhaustion of all parties, which also made an intervention in Asia Minor completely unthinkable. The terms of
5966-824: The Greco-Persian Wars were over. After defeating the Second Persian invasion of Greece in the year 480 BC, Athens led the coalition of Greek city-states that continued the Greco-Persian Wars with attacks on Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. What ensued was a period which Thucydides called the Pentecontaetia , in which Athens increasingly became an empire, carrying out an aggressive war against Persia and increasingly dominating other city-states. Athens brought under its control all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, ushering in
6123-481: The Persian satrap of Lydia , Tiribazus . The Spartans were under pressure to extract themselves from their hopeless war in Asia Minor and simultaneously reassert their military supremacy in mainland Greece. For this it was necessary, firstly, to concede Persian control of the Greek cities of Ionia , and, secondly, to end the Persians' alliances with the Greek opponents of Sparta, especially Athens. Simultaneously,
6280-540: The Thirty Tyrants , a reactionary regime set up by Sparta. In 403 BC, the oligarchs were overthrown and a democracy was restored by Thrasybulus . Although the hegemony of Athens was broken, the Attic city completed the recovery of its autonomy in the Corinthian War and continued to play an active role in Greek politics. Sparta was later defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. A few decades later,
6437-407: The Thirty Tyrants . The Peloponnesian War was followed ten years later by the Corinthian War (394–386 BC), which, although it ended inconclusively, helped Athens regain its independence from Sparta. The Peloponnesian War changed the ancient Greek world. Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as
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6594-679: The Wettkriechen (wager-creep), in which the Theban Pelopidas was ultimately successful. The Persians now recognised Thebes as the organising power in Greece in the same way that they had recognised Sparta in the King's Peace twenty years earlier. Henceforth, the Messenians were to be independent from Sparta and Amphipolis from Athens, while the Eleans were granted the neighbouring area of Triphylia . Furthermore, all armies and
6751-483: The golden age of Greece . The main historical source for most of the war is the detailed account in The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides . He states that he began writing his history as soon as the war broke out and took his information from first-hand accounts, including events he witnessed himself. An Athenian who fought in the early part of the war, Thucydides was exiled in 423 BC and settled in
6908-415: The polis had become the characteristic form of the state in Greece, there was an unwritten law in their relationships with one another that each of them – even the most insignificant ones – should be autonomous. The only exceptions to this were the small cities of Attica and Laconia , which had long been completely integrated into the Athenian and Spartan poleis . It was a source of substantial tension in
7065-616: The 17th year of the war, word came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicily was under attack from Syracuse, the main city of Sicily. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian (as were the Spartans), while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicilia, were Ionian. The Athenians felt obliged to help their ally. They also held visions, rallied on by Alcibiades , who ultimately led an expedition, of conquering all of Sicily. Syracuse
7222-518: The 4th century, when the Thebans attempted to incorporate the cities of Boeotia into a single polis in the same way. Following the Persian Wars, however, the willingness to form leagues, called koina or symmachiai under the leadership of a hegemonic power or hegemon increased. These were entered into voluntarily, so that the principle of autonomy was theoretically not infringed. But as
7379-399: The 5th century BC between Athens and Sparta largely ignored the interests of other parties – including their own allies, who were not even consulted. Even the treaty of 404 BC, which ended the Peloponnesian War and was in practice a diktat from the Spartan side, was formally a treaty between Sparta and Athens. It did not contain any terms regarding the allies of Athens in the Delian League and
7536-435: The Aegean, and Sparta's other allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. The Ionian states that rebelled expected protection, and many rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians were slow to send promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans. At the start of the war, the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100 ships that were to be used only as a last resort. These ships were then released, and served as
7693-491: The Aegean. The Thirty Years' Peace, however, lasted only fifteen years and ended after the Spartans had declared war on the Athenians. During the peace, the Athenians took steps in undermining the truce by participating in the dispute over Epidamnus and Corcyra in 435 BC, which angered the Corinthians, who were allies of Sparta. Athens put into effect trade sanctions against the Spartan ally Megara for participating in
7850-445: The Athenian cause. But instead of attacking, Nicias procrastinated and the campaigning season of 415 BC ended with Syracuse scarcely damaged. With winter approaching, the Athenians withdrew into their quarters and spent the winter gathering allies. The delay allowed Syracuse to request help from Sparta, who sent their general Gylippus to Sicily with reinforcements. Upon arriving, he raised a force from several Sicilian cities, and went to
8007-484: The Athenian fleet, in 405 BC, at the Battle of Aegospotami , destroying 168 ships. Only 12 Athenian ships escaped, and several of these sailed to Cyprus , carrying the strategos (general) Conon , who was anxious not to face the judgment of the Assembly . Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege , Athens surrendered in 404 BC, and its allies soon surrendered as well. The democrats at Samos , loyal to
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#17327733848318164-449: The Athenian population died. Athenian manpower was correspondingly drastically reduced and even foreign mercenaries refused to hire themselves out to a city riddled with plague. The fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy. After the death of Pericles, the Athenians turned somewhat against his conservative, defensive strategy and to
8321-480: The Athenians had broken the peace, essentially declaring war. The first years of the Peloponnesian war are known as the Archidamian War (431–421 BC), after Sparta's king Archidamus II . Sparta and its allies, except for Corinth, were almost exclusively land-based, and able to summon large armies which were nearly unbeatable (thanks to the legendary Spartan forces ). The Athenian Empire, although based in
8478-468: The Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent another hundred ships and another 5,000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies decisively defeated the Athenians on land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which defeated the Athenian fleet when they tried to withdraw. The Athenian army tried to withdraw overland to friendlier Sicilian cities, but
8635-536: The Corcyraean fleet, and the Corinthian fleet. If the Corinthians were to get control of the Corcyraean fleet first, Athens would see two of them become one, and it will have to fight against the Corcyraean and the Peloponnesian fleets at once. If Athens accepted the Corcyraean request to join forces, it would be able to fight the Peloponnesian with the help of the Corcyraean fleet. The Corinthian counterargument
8792-611: The Corinthian-Corcyran dispute. In 432, Athens attacked Potidaea , which was a listed ally but a Corinthian colony. The disputes prompted the Spartans to declare that the Athenians had violated the treaty. Sparta declared war, the Thirty Years' Peace was void and the Second Peloponnesian War began. The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens's powerful ally, Samos , rebelled from its alliance with Athens. The rebels quickly secured
8949-520: The Great King's threat to go to war with anyone who refused to do so. This fact and the aforementioned exceptions show that a common peace was not fully achieved. Nor would one be achieved subsequently. While the autonomy and the inclusion of all cities was guaranteed, they were entirely dependent on the interests of those same powers which initiated and guaranteed the common peace. Artaxerxes did not intend to provide Greece with an enduring peace, but to divide and weaken it politically. The Spartans displayed
9106-415: The Greek states responded to the call to meet in a peace conference at Delphi , issued by Ariobarzanes , the satrap of Phrygia . However, the negotiations foundered in the face of the Spartans' refusal to accept Messenian independence – a position which was supported by the Athenians and by the Persian representative, Philiscus. Since Ariobarzanes went into rebellion against the Great King a little later, it
9263-495: The Messenians continued to be independent. Since half the land owned by the Spartans lay within Messenia, they did not accede to this common peace, but they were in no condition to carry on the war. After Mantinea, Greek politics continued along the same lines as before. When conflict with the rising power of Philip II of Macedon became more intense in the 350s, the idea of the Common Peace was revived once more. Philip first made
9420-425: The Peace of Antalcidas as the first example of a common peace. Hermann Bengtson viewed the common peace as a side-effect of the treaty, which was originally only a decree of the Great King (from which it derives its name). The Spartans were appointed as guardians ( prostatai ) of the peace, with the power to interpret and enforce its provisions. All the Greek states swore to abide by this decree at Sparta – in light of
9577-426: The Peloponnese (Sparta's chief area of influence) were relevant. Even more important for the continued development of idea of peace were rules which provided for all sides to demobilise their troops and fleets and which allowed the treaty partners to help one another in the event of an attack. The final clause, which did not impose a duty to help, was included at Athenian request. They intended to use it later to maintain
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#17327733848319734-504: The Peloponnese, where he spent the rest of the war collecting sources and writing his history. Scholars regard Thucydides as reliable and neutral between the two sides. A partial exception are the lengthy speeches he reports, which Thucydides admits are not accurate records of what was said, but his interpretation of the general arguments presented. The narrative begins several years before the war, explaining why it began, then reports events year-by-year. The main limitation of Thucydides' work
9891-547: The Peloponnese. Athens stretched their military activities into Boeotia and Aetolia , quelled the Mytilenean revolt and began fortifying posts around the Peloponnese. One of these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Sphacteria , where the first war turned in Athens's favor. The post off Pylos exploited Sparta's dependence on the helots, slaves who worked the fields while its citizens trained to be soldiers. The Pylos post began attracting helot runaways. In addition,
10048-796: The Peloponnesian League would respect each other's autonomy and internal affairs. A further provocation was Athens in 433/2 BC imposing trade sanctions on Megarian citizens (once more a Spartan ally after the First Peloponnesian War). It was alleged that the Megarians had desecrated the Hiera Orgas . These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree , were largely ignored by Thucydides , but some modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with
10205-438: The Persian alliance with Athens. A few months later, the Spartans attempted to come to terms with their Greek enemies in a conference in their own city. Once more, they made the autonomy principle the basis of any agreement, this time with concessions to Athens and Thebes. The Athenians would have retained the islands of Lemnos , Imbros , and Skyros , while the Thebans' possession of Orchomenus would have been recognised. It
10362-459: The Persian threat declined in significance, it seemed that the Athenians wished to convert the Delian League which they controlled into a naval empire which they ruled. Thus the Athenians violated the foundations of autonomia : the freedom of poleis to live under their own political systems, to be free of garrisons , cleruchies , external legal jurisdiction, and tribute. The introduction of phoros (φόρος, i.e. contributions for military purposes),
10519-401: The Persian troops. There, Cyrus allied with the Spartan general Lysander . In him, Cyrus found a man willing to help him become king, just as Lysander himself hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince. Thus, Cyrus put all his means at the disposal of Lysander in the Peloponnesian War. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his dying father Darius , he gave Lysander
10676-589: The Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the revolt of Athens's tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt. The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships. Revolt and faction threatened in Athens itself. The Athenians managed to survive for several reasons. First, their foes lacked initiative. Corinth and Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into
10833-405: The Spartan assembly. This debate was also attended by an uninvited delegation from Athens, which also asked to speak, and became the scene of a debate between the Athenians and the Corinthians. Thucydides reports that the Corinthians condemned Sparta's inactivity until then, warning Sparta that if it remained passive, it would soon be outflanked and without allies. In response, the Athenians reminded
10990-420: The Spartan elite forces to defeat them. The result was a complete victory for the Spartans, which rescued their city from the brink of strategic defeat. The democratic alliance was broken up, and most of its members were reincorporated into the Peloponnesian League. With its victory at Mantinea, Sparta pulled itself back from the brink of utter defeat, and re-established its hegemony throughout the Peloponnese. In
11147-407: The Spartan fleet. Despite their victory, these failures caused outrage in Athens and led to a controversial trial . The trial resulted in the execution of six of Athens's top naval commanders. Athens's naval supremacy would now be challenged without several of its most able military leaders and a demoralized navy. Unlike some of his predecessors, the new Spartan general, Lysander, was not a member of
11304-428: The Spartan proposals of 392/1. The most important terms were the inclusion of all Greek states and the guarantee of their freedom and autonomy. Only the Ionian cities, Cyprus and Clazomenae , which remained under Persian control, and the three aforementioned islands under Athenian rule were excluded. The Athenians had to surrender all other possessions and the dissolution of all leagues was the unavoidable consequence of
11461-582: The Spartan royal families and was also formidable in naval strategy; he was an artful diplomat, who had even cultivated good personal relationships with the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger , son of Emperor Darius II . Seizing its opportunity, the Spartan fleet sailed at once to the Dardanelles , the source of Athens's grain . Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet had no choice but to follow. Through cunning strategy, Lysander totally defeated
11618-424: The Spartans agreed to allow the Athenians to keep Naupactus . It also ruled out armed conflict between Sparta and Athens. Neutral poleis could join either side, Sparta or Athens, which implies that there was a formalized list of allies for each side. Athens and Sparta would keep all other territories pending arbitration. It also recognised both Leagues as legitimate, a boost for Athens and its newly-formed empire in
11775-400: The Spartans did not consider themselves to be in any danger. The common peace which was now proposed at the initiative of the Athenians, again saw critical innovation. The Athenian interpretation of autonomy prevailed and according to Xenophon, the Spartans committed to removing all their harmosts from cities of the peace. This was a difficult situation, since after 375 BC, only the cities in
11932-467: The Spartans of Athens's record of military success and opposition to Persia, warned them of confronting such a powerful state, and encouraged Sparta to seek arbitration as provided by the Thirty Years' Peace. The Spartan king Archidamus II spoke against the war, but the opinion of the hawkish ephor Sthenelaidas prevailed in the Spartan ecclesia . A majority of the Spartan assembly voted to declare that
12089-407: The Thebans and their allies. After the battle, in which the foremost Theban commander Epaminondas was killed, both sides considered themselves the victors and again concluded a common peace. For the first time, the agreement was reached neither at the instigation of one of more leading powers, nor as a result of the power of the Persian king. In this and in the refusal of the Greek states to support
12246-538: The Thebans did not agree to the treaty, since a common peace was inconsistent with their ambitions for their newly won hegemony. H. Bengtson saw this common peace as nothing more than an Athenian "gesture against Thebes, without practical value." If the idea of the Common Peace had any chance to be based on equal rights for all states, it was in the short period between 375 BC and the Battle of Leuctra. Only then were there three Greek powers of roughly equal strength such that
12403-517: The Thebans). The Thebans were thus the main beneficiaries of the Common Peace of 375. The Spartans had begun the war on the same grounds that the Athenians now wished to end it: to prevent the further growth of Theban power. However, in the end the departure of the Spartan troops on the pretext of the autonomy principle left the Thebans with a free hand in Boeotia. Even so, the Athenians were clearly on
12560-498: The agreement and the Common Peace was renewed. At this point, the Common Peace was extended in one respect: as already foreseen in the terms of the Second Athenian Confederacy, it was required that all foreign garrisons be removed from all cities. This was directed particularly at the Spartans who had garrisons in some south Boeotian cities, such as Thespiae (actually at their request, as protection against
12717-416: The agreement particularly indicate that they arose from widespread war weariness and a desire to make peace as quickly as possible. They allowed each state to hold whatever they actually possessed at the time when the treaty was concluded. Territorial conflicts were not resolved at all – they no longer even posed an obstacle to agreement. The Arcadian League remained split into a northern and a southern half and
12874-515: The balance of power in Greece in Thebes' favour. After the battle, military activity ceased. At first, the Thebans undertook no further military action against the Spartans, who eventually sent troops to the Isthmus of Corinth to ward off any chance of a Theban attack on the Peloponnese. In this situation, the Athenians seized the initiative and called a peace conference, at which they could swear to
13031-469: The ban on leagues controlled by a hegemonic power, although in practice this is exactly what the Peloponnesian League was. Therefore, the Spartans remained the strongest military power in Greece. Under the pretext of protecting the autonomy principle, they maintained a hegemonic position over the next few years which greatly abused the autonomy of other states, such as the Chalcidian League and
13188-554: The battle, the Athenians obliterated the Spartan fleet, and succeeded in re-establishing the financial basis of the Athenian Empire. Between 410 and 406, Athens won a continuous string of victories, and eventually recovered large portions of its empire. All of this was due, in no small part, to Alcibiades. From 414 BC, Darius II , ruler of the Achaemenid Empire had started to resent increasing Athenian power in
13345-458: The bitter last, held on slightly longer, and were allowed to flee with their lives. The surrender stripped Athens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its overseas possessions. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved. However, the Spartans announced their refusal to destroy a city that had done a good service at a time of greatest danger to Greece, and took Athens into their own system. Athens
13502-548: The city of Mantinea . In 382 BC, the Spartans seized the Cadmea , the citadel of Thebes, whose increasing strength was a thorn in their side. This act costed them the rest of their credit as protectors of autonomy and led to the Boeotian War with the Thebans and their Athenian allies. In the course of this, in spring 377 BC, the Second Athenian Confederacy was established. This league represented
13659-488: The common peace once more and negotiate a new treaty. This was motivated by the desire to prevent further increase in Theban power. An innovation in this new peace treaty was that the possibility of aiding a treaty partner in attacking a disturber of the peace was transformed into a duty. This was a logical development of the previous failed peace and was found at the start of all future common peace treaties. Some researchers see
13816-399: The common peace were interlinked in the league treaty. The Panhellenic idea of a unified Greece and a campaign of vengeance against Persia were enabled by this Common Peace. Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War ( Ancient Greek : Πόλεμος τῶν Πελοποννησίων , romanized : Pólemos tō̃n Peloponnēsíōn ),
13973-723: The conflict commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War , which had been raging since c. 460 BC. The purpose of the treaty was to prevent another outbreak of war. Ultimately, the peace treaty failed in achieving its goal, with the outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. Athens was forced to give up all possessions in the Peloponnese, which included the Megarian ports of Nisaea and Pagae with Troezen and Achaea in Argolis , but
14130-467: The conquest of all of Italy and Carthage , and to use the resources and soldiers from these new conquests to conquer the Peloponnese. The Athenian force consisted of over 100 ships and some 5,000 infantry and light-armored troops. Cavalry was limited to about 30 horses, which proved to be no match for the large and highly trained Syracusan cavalry. Upon landing in Sicily, several cities immediately joined
14287-402: The core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of the war. An oligarchical revolution occurred in Athens, in which a group of 400 seized power. Peace with Sparta might have been possible, but the Athenian fleet, now based on the island of Samos , refused the change. In 411 BC, this fleet engaged the Spartans at the Battle of Syme . The fleet appointed Alcibiades their leader, and continued
14444-521: The end of the Persian Wars . With Persian money, Sparta built a massive fleet under the leadership of Lysander, who won a streak of decisive victories in the Aegean Sea, notably at Aegospotamos , in 405 BC. Athens capitulated the following year and lost all its empire. Lysander imposed puppet oligarchies on the former members of the Delian League, including Athens, where the regime was known as
14601-401: The expedition without being tried (many believed in order to better plot against him). After arriving in Sicily, Alcibiades was recalled to Athens for trial. Fearing that he would be unjustly condemned, Alcibiades defected to Sparta and Nicias was placed in charge of the mission. After his defection, Alcibiades claimed to the Spartans that the Athenians planned to use Sicily as a springboard for
14758-429: The failed negotiations between Athens and Sparta to end the Corinthian War . The Athenian politician Andocides advised his fellow citizens in a speech for the acceptance of a settlement which he called koine eirene . Possibly the term had already come into general parlance before this, but this speech is the first attestation. The first treaty in which the terms eirene and koine eirene were actually used
14915-404: The failures of the preceding years. Thus, 371 BC once more saw the outbreak of a general conflict. In Athens, however, the moderate politicians considered the best outcome for their city to lie in a policy of neutrality and proposed a new common peace. To support Thebes would decisively strengthen their position. Support of Sparta, on the other hand, would have alarmed their allies, who saw them as
15072-476: The fear of a revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby Athenians drove the Spartans to attack the post. Demosthenes outmaneuvered the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender. But weeks later he proved unable to finish them off. Instead, the inexperienced Cleon boasted in the Assembly that he could end the affair, and did win
15229-471: The first century BC, these books appear to be based heavily (possibly entirely) upon an earlier universal history by Ephorus , written in the century after the war, which is now lost . The Roman-Greek historian Plutarch wrote biographies of four of the major commanders in the war ( Pericles , Nicias , Alcibiades and Lysander ) in his Parallel Lives . Plutarch's focus was on the character and morality of these men, but he does provide some details on
15386-409: The first time, a peaceful system seemed to be possible without enforcement by a hegemonic power. Two opposing political groups had already developed in Athens before the treaty of 375 BC: one sought an agreement with Sparta, the other a strengthening of the alliance with Thebes. However, the anti-Spartan forces over-estimated Athens' position after the peace and supported a democratic insurgency against
15543-405: The fleet of the Athenians were to be reduced in size. This attempt at a common peace was rejected by Sparta and Athens. The Thebans did not manage to enthuse other city-states with the agreement either. These two attempts at a common peace under Theban hegemony represent a return to the idea of peace presented in 387 BC: the Persians attempted to use the influence of a Greek hegemonic power to force
15700-401: The fleet. The Athenian fleet, the dominant Greek naval force, went on the offensive, winning at Naupactus . In 430 BC, an outbreak of a plague hit Athens. The plague ravaged the densely packed city, and in the long run, was a significant cause of its final defeat. The plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles and his sons. Roughly one-third to two-thirds of
15857-495: The friendship which the Greeks] and the King [swore] shall be in force [and endure] in accordance with the 15 agreements]] The Athenians had thus taken clever advantage of the situation and the restoration of the naval confederacy clearly brought with it the undertaking to maintain the King's Peace. It had taken less than thirty years of Spartan hegemony to reverse attitudes on the Athenian empire. The first league had been presented as
16014-403: The future. Outraged, the Corinthians encouraged Potidaea to revolt and assured them that they would ally with them should they revolt from Athens. During the subsequent Battle of Potidaea , the Corinthians unofficially aided Potidaea by sneaking contingents of men into the besieged city to help defend it. This directly violated the Thirty Years' Peace, which stipulated that the Delian League and
16171-532: The government of the island of Corcyra , which was allied with Sparta. Thus the Spartans, who were anything but satisfied with the result of the preceding clashes, already had grounds to go back to war a year and a half after the peace. At the same time, the situation was further complicated by the fact that Thebes destroyed the city of Plataea in 374/3 BC, which had an ancient alliance with Athens and had also been allied with Sparta since 380 BC. The Spartans therefore sent troops to Phokis , to threaten Thebes and undo
16328-416: The harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430 BC, lasted just 40 days. The Athenian strategy was initially guided by the strategos , or general, Pericles , who advised the Athenians to avoid open battle with the far more numerous and better trained Spartan hoplites, relying instead on
16485-418: The hostages for the towns captured by Brasidas, and signed a truce. With the death of Cleon and Brasidas , both zealous war hawks for their nations, the Peace of Nicias was able to last six years. However, it was a time of constant skirmishes in and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported in this by Argos ,
16642-407: The leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece, poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens was devastated and never regained its pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society, the conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made war
16799-619: The length of Greece to the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in Thrace. Amphipolis controlled several nearby silver mines whose that supplied much of the Athenian war fund. A force led by Thucydides was dispatched but arrived too late to stop Brasidas capturing Amphipolis; Thucydides was exiled for this, and, as a result, had conversations with both sides of the war which inspired him to record its history. Both Brasidas and Cleon were killed in Athenian efforts to retake Amphipolis (see Battle of Amphipolis ). The Spartans and Athenians agreed to exchange
16956-481: The middle of the 5th century BC. The took up the complaints of the Athenians' allies as their own: during and after the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans presented themselves as the protectors of the freedom of all Greek states. Thus the autonomy clause was not only a key component of every Common Peace because smaller poleis saw it as a way to ensure their independence, but also and more importantly because larger powers could use it to advance their own interests. Whether
17113-465: The middle of the century, massive public works in Athens, causing resentment. Friction between Athens and the Peloponnesian states, including Sparta, began early in the Pentecontaetia. In the wake of the departure of the Persians from Greece, Sparta sent ambassadors to persuade Athens not to reconstruct their walls, but was rebuffed. Without the walls, Athens would have been defenseless against
17270-446: The mighty Athenian fleet. The Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they fortified Decelea , near Athens, and prevented the Athenians from making use of their land year round. The fortification of Decelea prevented overland supplies to Athens, and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at greater expense. More significantly,
17427-410: The more aggressive strategy of bringing the war to Sparta and its allies. Rising to particular importance in Athenian democracy at this time was Cleon , a leader of the hawkish elements of the Athenian democracy. Led militarily by a clever new general Demosthenes (not to be confused with the later Athenian orator Demosthenes ), the Athenians managed some successes as they continued their naval raids on
17584-512: The nearby silver mines were totally disrupted, with as many as 20,000 Athenian slaves freed by the Spartan hoplites at Decelea. With the treasury and emergency reserve of 1,000 talents dwindling, the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from her subject allies, further increasing tensions and the threat of rebellion within the Empire. Corinth, Sparta, and others in the Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, to drive off
17741-432: The outcome of the war. At the same time, this would allow the Spartans to split the Greek world into a number of weak individual states, ensuring the Spartan hegemony and satisfying the Persian desire for security. The Greek city-states naturally rejected the treaty out of hand. The Persian king Artaxerxes II was also inclined to reject it. He recalled Tiribazus and replaced him with a new satrap, Struthas , who strengthened
17898-546: The peace treaties which the 1st century BC historian Diodorus consistently refers to as a koine eirene . The fact that Diodorus based his account of the period from 386 to 361 on the contemporary author Ephorus makes it very likely that the term was in general use at the time. It also appears in mid-4th century BC inscription from Argos , known as the Reply to the Satraps , whose exact date and circumstances are unclear. In
18055-432: The peace. In the Peace of Antalcidas, this had been accomplished by the threat of the Great King. In an agreement between free states, it had to be an agreement to oppose an attack on a treaty partner together. At the planned swearing of the treaty, however, a serious rift arose between Thebes and Sparta. The Theban envoys had initially sworn to the agreement in the name of their own city and allowed that name to be placed on
18212-458: The peninsula of Attica, spread out across the islands of the Aegean Sea; Athens drew its immense wealth from tribute paid by these islands. Athens maintained its empire through naval power. Thus, the two powers were relatively unable to fight decisive battles. The Spartan strategy during the Archidamian War was to invade the land around Athens. While this invasion deprived Athenians of the productive land around their city, Athens maintained access to
18369-400: The period of time it was expected to last. The Peace of Nicias of 421 BC was meant to last for fifty years, while treaties with a set period of one hundred years were practically intended to last forever. This derives from the idea that peace was not being made between the states as such, but rather between their populations, and thus the longest possible period of time that a treaty could last
18526-486: The possibility of holding the balance of power between the other two powers. Considered in isolation, this peace treaty could be taken as a skilled piece of Athenian diplomacy. But since it never actually came into effect, it can only be speculated whether it could have formed the basis of an enduring peace. After all, the treaty partners had taken account of the idea that sufficient force needed to be made available for use against potential treaty breakers in order to maintain
18683-403: The progress of the war that are not recorded elsewhere. Written in the first century AD, Plutarch based his work on earlier accounts which are now lost. More limited information on the war is derived from epigraphy and archaeology , such as the walls of Amphipolis and grave of Brasidas , excavated in the 20th century. Some buildings and artworks produced during the war have survived, such as
18840-487: The prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and so have considered the sanctions a contributing causing of the war. Historians who attribute responsibility for the war to Athens cite this event as the main cause. At the request of Corinth, the Spartans summoned members of the Peloponnesian League to Sparta in 432 BC, especially those who had grievances with Athens, to make their complaints to
18997-459: The realisation of the need for a permanent peace, than to the fact that it seemed to serve the interests of several successive hegemonic powers. The history of the Common Peace is therefore not only part of the history of ideas , but also of the diplomatic history of Greece in the decades between the Peloponnesian War and the arrival of king Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great . The Greek word Eirene , which originally only signified
19154-489: The relief of Syracuse. He took command of the Syracusan troops, and in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces, and prevented them from invading the city. Nicias then sent word to Athens asking for reinforcements. Demosthenes was chosen and led another fleet to Sicily, joining his forces with those of Nicias. More battles ensued and again, the Syracusans and their allies defeated the Athenians. Demosthenes argued for
19311-405: The relocation of league's treasury from Delos to Athens and the forced introduction of democratic constitutions based on the Athenian model in some members of the league all seemed to violate the principle of autonomia . The Spartans, whose Peloponnesian League was comparatively loosely organised, began to use the demand for autonomia as a diplomatic means to weaken the Athenian league from
19468-422: The revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor. Cyrus the Younger would later obtain the support of the Spartans in return, after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war against Athens", when he led his own expedition to Susa in 401 BC in order to topple his brother, Artaxerxes II . The faction hostile to Alcibiades triumphed in Athens following
19625-481: The rivalry between Athens and Sparta ended when Macedonia became the most powerful entity in Greece and Philip II of Macedon unified all of the Greek world except Sparta, which was later subjugated by Philip's son Alexander in 331 BC. Thirty Years%27 Peace The Thirty Years' Peace was a treaty signed between the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta in 446/445 BC. The treaty brought an end to
19782-504: The sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica abandoned their farms and moved inside the Long Walls , which connected Athens to its port of Piraeus . At the end of the first year of the war, Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration (431 BC). The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare, the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in
19939-476: The second treaty of 371 as the foundation of a military alliance ( symmachia ), as a result of this duty to intervene. The Spartans joined this new agreement immediately for their own sake. Their neighbours, the Eleans had already sought to take advantage of the defeat of Sparta in the meanwhile and they refused to recognise the autonomy of some of their border cities, which they had given up in 399 BC under Spartan compulsion, but had retaken after Leuctra. Fatally,
20096-494: The seizure of Oropus in 366 BC), the Athenians became hostile once more, especially when actual help from their allies failed to materialise. None of the Greek states were able to gain full dominance in the following years. The conflict arising from the split in the Arkadian League also remained unresolved. This culminated in 362 BC with the Battle of Mantinea , in which the Spartans, Athenians and their allies faced down
20253-427: The speech of Andocides and the provisions of the King's Peace two characteristics are revealed which were new for peace treaties at this time. One of these was that all Greek poleis (with a few exceptions) were to be autonomous. The other was that each of these draft treaties were sent to all poleis . Peace is therefore no longer presented as a bilateral agreement between two formerly hostile poleis or leagues, but as
20410-501: The strategic city of Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth . In 459 BC, there was a war between Spartan allies Megara and Corinth , which were neighbors of Athens. Athens took advantage of the war to make an alliance with Megara, giving Athens a critical foothold on the Isthmus of Corinth . A 15-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War , ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina , and
20567-418: The strongest could be controlled by an alliance of the other two. Before and after this there was a clearly dominant hegemonic power (first Sparta, then Thebes) which either sought to use the common peace for their own purposes or rejected it altogether. Both approaches led to further military conflict. With the failure of the negotiations of 371 BC, the concept of the common peace largely lost credence as part of
20724-573: The suggestion of replacing the Peace of Philocrates which had ended the Third Sacred War with a common peace. In the next few years, Demosthenes and other advocates of a decidedly anti-Macedonian approach gained preeminence in Athens. They rejected the proposal and called for war against Philip of Macedon. In 340/39 BC, the Athenians successfully brought together an alliance of Greek states, but their forces were decisively defeated by Philip at
20881-407: The summer of 416 BC, during a truce with Sparta, Athens invaded the neutral island of Melos , and demanded that Melos ally with them against Sparta, or be destroyed. The Melians rejected this, so the Athenian army laid siege to their city and eventually captured it in the winter. After the city's fall, the Athenians executed all the adult men, and sold the women and children into slavery . In
21038-400: The support of a Persian satrap , and Athens found itself faced with the prospect of revolts throughout its empire. If the Spartans intervened at that moment, they would be able to crush the Athenians, who were in a vulnerable situation, but when the Spartans called a convention to discuss whether or not they should go to war, it decided not to go to war. The Corinthians were notable for opposing
21195-491: The support of a small Athenian force under Alcibiades , moved to seize the city of Tegea , near Sparta. The Battle of Mantinea was the largest land battle within Greece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Arcadia . In the battle, the allied coalition scored early successes, but failed to capitalize on them, which allowed
21352-559: The treaty. But the next day, they demanded that the name of Thebes be replaced with that of the Boeotian League , since they claimed to be entitled to represent it. The Spartans categorically rejected this, since in their view the Boeotian cities ought to be autonomous. The split led to war and only twenty days later, the Battle of Leuctra took place, which proved to be the first Spartan defeat in open battle and decisively altered
21509-617: The treaty. The key passage comes from Xenophon , whose Hellenica is the most important source for this period: Artaxerxes the king thinks it is just that the cities in Asia be his as well as the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, but that all the Greek cities great and small should be allowed to be autonomous, except for Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which should be Athenian, as of old. And if anybody does not accept this peace, I will go to war against them, with those who want these things, on foot and by sea, with ships and with money. Most scholars see
21666-596: The war as: "The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon , made war inevitable". The nearly 50 years before the War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. Its empire began as a small group of city-states, called the Delian League – from the island of Delos , on which they kept their treasury – that formed to ensure that
21823-413: The war in Athens's name. Their opposition led to the reinstitution of a democratic government in Athens within two years. Alcibiades, while condemned as a traitor, still carried weight in Athens. He prevented the Athenian fleet from attacking Athens; instead, he helped restore democracy by more subtle pressure. He also persuaded the Athenian fleet to attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus in 410. In
21980-538: The war into three phases. The first phase (431–421 BC) was named the Ten Years War, or the Archidamian War, after the Spartan king Archidamus II , who invaded Attica several times with the full hoplite army of the Peloponnesian League , the alliance network dominated by Sparta (then known as Lacedaemon). The Long Walls of Athens rendered this strategy ineffective, while the superior navy of
22137-530: The war with the Athenians. The war between Corcyra and Corinth caused trouble in the peace and was one of the immediate causes of the end of the Thirty Years Peace and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The quarrel was over a small distant land, Epidamnus . Corcyra went to Athens to ask for help. Their argument was that there were three fleets worthy of mention in Greece: the Athenian fleet,
22294-414: The winning side: their success lay in the recognition of a new confederacy. Neither the Spartans nor the Persians could do anything about this, as they had done ten years earlier. Despite the Persian diplomatic involvement, the Common Peace of 375 can be seen as the first which derived principally from Greek initiative and in which all parties were of roughly equal strength and thus received equal terms. For
22451-405: The winter of 446/5 BC. The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens's powerful ally Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens . The rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap , and Athens faced the prospect of revolts throughout its empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a massive war to determine the fate of the empire, called
22608-410: Was "to have the same friends and enemies" as Sparta. The overall effect of the war in Greece proper was to replace the Athenian Empire with a Spartan empire. After the battle of Aegospotami , Sparta took over the Athenian empire and kept all its tribute revenues for itself; Sparta's allies, who had made greater sacrifices in the war than had Sparta, got nothing. For a short time, Athens was ruled by
22765-441: Was actually concluded despite the opposition of the Spartans' allies. The treaty therefore entirely reflects the conditions and ideas of the 5th century, in which there were only two major hegemonic powers in Greece, to which all other poleis were subordinated. The idea of a multilateral panhellenic agreement was not actually new, however. After the defeat of Xerxes' invasion , a general peace had been concluded in 481, although it
22922-421: Was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world . The war remained undecided until the later intervention of the Persian Empire in support of Sparta. Led by Lysander , the Spartan fleet (built with Persian subsidies) finally defeated Athens which began a period of Spartan hegemony over Greece. Historians have traditionally divided
23079-403: Was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans did this out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots; the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta. When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the state, the Athenians settled them at
23236-410: Was divided and defeated. The entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold into slavery. Following the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire was at hand. Their treasury was nearly empty, its docks were depleted, and many of the Athenian youth were dead or imprisoned in a foreign land. After the destruction of
23393-429: Was during these negotiations that the formula of a 'Common Peace' for all Greeks was first used. The Athenian orator Andocides used it in a speech, in which he vainly urged his countrymen to accept the Spartan offer: Consider this too, Athenians: right now you are negotiating peace and freedom common to all the Greeks and causing everyone to share control over everything. Andokides makes a distinction between treaties and
23550-416: Was enough to dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of the routed Corcyrean and Athenian fleet. Following this, Athens instructed Potidaea in the peninsula of Chalkidiki , a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, send hostages to Athens, dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and refuse the magistrates that Corinth would send in
23707-428: Was not much smaller than Athens, and conquering all of Sicily would bring Athens immense resources. In the final preparations for departure, the hermai (religious statues) of Athens were mutilated by unknown persons, and Alcibiades was charged with religious crimes. Alcibiades demanded that he be put on trial at once, so that he could defend himself before the expedition. However, the Athenians allowed Alcibiades to go on
23864-478: Was temporary. In 450 BC, Pericles is reported to have desired to convene a general peace conference in Athens. It is reported that the refusal of the Spartans to participate on account of their fear of Athenian hegemony meant that it never actually took place. Apart from some multilateral treaties between individual poleis in Sicily and Ionia , the religious association of the Amphictyonic League
24021-425: Was that although the treaty said that any unenrolled cities may join whichever side it likes, the clause was not meant for those who join one side with the intention of hurting the other. The Athenian decision was to enter an alliance that was only defensive ( epimachia ), instead of a both offensive and defensive was unusual ( symmachia ) and is the first such relationship that is known. The decision led to war with
24178-672: Was the Sicilian Expedition , between 415 and 413 BC, during which Athens lost almost all its navy in the attempt to capture Syracuse , an ally of Sparta . The Sicilian disaster prompted the third phase of the war (413–404 BC), named the Decelean War, or the Ionian War, when the Persian Empire supported Sparta to recover the suzerainty of the Greek cities of Asia Minor , incorporated into the Delian League at
24335-457: Was the "King's Peace" imposed by the Spartans and Persians in 387/6 BC. The phrase koine eirene only appears in an official document for the first time in the peace treaty made after the Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC. Generally, the term koine eirene is only sparsely attested in contemporary sources. Authors like Isocrates , Demosthenes and Xenophon do not use it at all. But they do refer to its essential characteristics for each of
24492-418: Was the lifetime of a single generation – which could only make agreements for itself, not its descendants. By contrast, a koine eirene was in principle designed to endure forever. Although this was not actually explicitly stated in the treaties, it is clear from the internal logic of the autonomy clauses, since an independence with chronological limits would not be independence. The bilateral peace treaties of
24649-427: Was the only multilateral agreement of ancient Greece which was enduring and significant. The Amphictyonic oath forswore the destruction of member states in war or the removal of their water. Poleis that broke this oath would themselves be threatened with destruction. This might be a forerunner of the koine eirene . That it became ever more common to make peace treaties on the basis of a koine eirene after 387 BC had
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