The Peloponnesian War was a long battle between the two greatest city-states of Greece, Athens and Sparta. The war took nearly thirty years until its final end; it was from 431-404 B.C. In the beginning of the war Athens controlled one of the strongest empires, at the end of the war Athens could barely maintain itself. Why? Thucydides, an Athenian general at the time left us with an excessive amount of knowledge on this war, as he wrote a textbook on the war called “History of the Peloponnesian war.” In the text Thucydides elaborates what happened between the Athens and Sparta during the end of the Golden Age of Greece. The war started when both Athens and Sparta were strong city-states until Athens power grew larger and larger while Sparta
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He stated that Athens perform as an island and to not meet Sparta in any type of open battle but rather stay inside the city. The wall went from the harbor all the way into Piraeus, a city in the region of Attica. It was a strong stoned, no getting in wall. The corridor they built allowed them to still securely manage to get food and resources through the passage. Athens had a strong belief that they would all survive for however long behind the walls and they were somewhat right because Sparta could not manage to get past that wall. Instead of battling Sparta head on, the Athens plan was to attack with their strong navy at sea and let the Spartans come to them, doing so made the Athenians and Pericles believe that this would make the Spartan army weak and tired since the Spartans did not have that much strong of a navy. Stated in the Peloponnesian War article written by Jona Lendering, she states “Pericles' strategy was to abandon the countryside to the Spartans and concentrate all Athenians in the city itself, which could receive supplies from across the sea. As long as the "Long walls" connected the city to its port Piraeus, as long as Athens ruled the waves, and as long as Athens was free to strike from the sea against Sparta's coastal allies, it could create tensions within the Spartan alliance” (Lendering, Livius.) Pericles’s plan could’ve worked although nobody knew an outbreak of a plague disease would
He stated that Athens perform as an island and to not meet Sparta in any type of open battle but rather stay inside the city. The wall went from the harbor all the way into Piraeus, a city in the region of Attica. It was a strong stoned, no getting in wall. The corridor they built allowed them to still securely manage to get food and resources through the passage. Athens had a strong belief that they would all survive for however long behind the walls and they were somewhat right because Sparta could not manage to get past that wall. Instead of battling Sparta head on, the Athens plan was to attack with their strong navy at sea and let the Spartans come to them, doing so made the Athenians and Pericles believe that this would make the Spartan army weak and tired since the Spartans did not have that much strong of a navy. Stated in the Peloponnesian War article written by Jona Lendering, she states “Pericles' strategy was to abandon the countryside to the Spartans and concentrate all Athenians in the city itself, which could receive supplies from across the sea. As long as the "Long walls" connected the city to its port Piraeus, as long as Athens ruled the waves, and as long as Athens was free to strike from the sea against Sparta's coastal allies, it could create tensions within the Spartan alliance” (Lendering, Livius.) Pericles’s plan could’ve worked although nobody knew an outbreak of a plague disease would