The Peloponnesian Wars

             The Peloponnesian Wars were a series of wars fought by the Greek city-states after the Persian Wars. By city-states I mean Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and others. Here, I have written an essay about the Peloponnesian Wars and the outcome, also some about the Persian Wars.

            The Persian Wars started when Greece decided that they didn’t like the person set up to rule over them. This led to the Persian Wars. The city-states of Greece came together on defensive mode whenever the Persians came to invade Greece. However, eventually Athens and most of the other city-states of Greece decided to move to offensive mode and attack the Persians. Sparta, on the other hand, did not agree on this, so they backed out. Athens then formed the Delian League, overpowered and conquered the Persians, and became very powerful, and it remained powerful until the Peloponnesian Wars.

            As I said, Athens was now very powerful and gaining more power. Sparta did not like this very much, so Sparta tried to prevent Athens from rebuilding their walls. After a couple other situations, a war broke out between Athens and Sparta in 459 BC, and other city-states joined in on either side. Finally, after fifteen years of war, they made a peace treaty which was called the thirty years peace. However, the Peloponnesian Wars started again.

            The next part of the Peloponnesian Wars is called the Archidamian War. After a while of fighting, an unexpected plague struck Athens in 430 BC and killed about thirty-thousand people. This greatly weakened Athens, which led to its almost fall, and Sparta continued to win victories with the help of the Ionians, Syracusans, and even the Persians.

           The only reason Athens was still there was because its enemies wouldn’t take the initiative and sense of urgency to fight. You might want to know that Athens had a very strong navy, and the Spartans had a strong land army. However, with the help of the Persians, who also had a strong navy, could be very powerful. Athens eventually got close to winning a battle but were unsuccessful in defeating the Spartans due to bad weather. Sparta then went and conquered Hellespont, which was the place where Athens grew all its grain. After destroying this, Athens would not stand a chance because they would starve, so they surrendered. To surrender, Athens had to tear down its walls, and give up its fleet and its colonies.

           If you liked this essay, I encourage you to learn more about the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, as well as the Corinthian War. The Corinthian War is another war after the Peloponnesian Wars; however, this time it was against Sparta. I think it is so interesting to learn about different wars and all the dates and what happened, and I cannot wait to learn about something new next week.