Peloponessian War
The Archidamian War is name of the first part of the Peloponnesian War. This was the great war between Athens and Sparta. It is named after the Spartan king Archidamus II. This war started in 431 and ended in 421, with something that came close to an Athenian victory and a Spartan defeat. However, Athenian diplomatic mistakes, Spartan stubbornness, and a disastrous Athenian attempt to overpower the island of Sicily were enough to change the balance of power, so that Sparta got a second chance in the Decelean or Ionian War.
The Archidamian War did not start without serious disturbances in the Greek balance of power. In 433, Athens had concluded an alliance with Corcyra, and had started to besiege Potidaea. This threatened to reduce Corinth, until then an important city, to a third-rank power. To Sparta, this was dangerous: it needed the Corinthian navy.
The Spartans started to fear that Athens was becoming too powerful but still tried to prevent war. Peace was possible, they said, when Athens would revoke an economical decree against Megara, a Spartan ally. The Athenian leader Pericles, refused this, because Sparta and Athens had once agreed that conflicts would be solved by arbitration. If the Athenians would yield to Sparta's request to revoke the Megarian Decree, they would in fact allow Sparta to give orders to Athens. This was unacceptable, and war broke out between two regional empires: Athens and its Delian League, and Sparta and its Peloponnesian League.
When Sparta declared war, it announced that it did so to liberate Greece from Athenian oppression. And with some justification, because Athens had converted the Delian League, which had once been meant as a defensive alliance against the Persian Empire, into an Athenian empire.
To achieve victory, Sparta had to force Athens into some kind of surrender; on the other hand, Athens simply had to survive the attacks. Pericles' strategy was to evacuate the countryside, leave it to...
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