- [Instructor] As we've already seen, the 5th Century BCE
starts off with Athens and Sparta and various Greek
city-states fighting on the same side against
the Persian invaders.
But as we saw in the last video, as soon as the Persians
are dealt with, tensions start to rise between Athens
and Sparta and their various allies.
Sparta gets worried that the Athenian Navy is looking
maybe a little bit too strong, they were decisively
important in the Second Persian Invasion,
and they build this Delian League, whose purpose
is to go on the offensive against the Persians,
but more and more so it was starting to look like
an Athenian empire.
And a lot of this you can imagine, it's like a game of Risk.
The more you take over, the more resources you have,
the more that you can build more ships and have
more soldiers so that you can take on even more.
So as Sparta and Athens are starting to become more
and more rivals, Sparta's getting insecure about Athens'
influence and their resources, and their military power.
And we even saw it in the last video, you have
an earthquake in Sparta, potentially right around
the same time that Sparta was planning an invasion
of Athens, leaving the Spartans vulnerable.
There's a Helot uprising, these Spartan slaves.
The Athenians send Hoplites to apparently help the Spartans
but the Spartans are suspicious of it and they
send them back.
And then it culminates with the skirmish you have
between Megara and Corinth, which were historically
two Spartan allies, but Athens decides to take sides,
gets an alliance with Megara, and that's one thing too many
for the Spartans, and so they declare war,
and you have what's called the First Peloponnesian War.
But that's not the Peloponnesian War, that's the first
time that you start having very open conflict
between the Spartans and the Athenians.
And these conflicts last for, on the order of about
15 years, and they're ended with what's called
the Peace of 30 Years.
But as we will see, this Peace of 30 Years only lasts
about 15 years.
And the whole time, tensions continue to arise.
The Delian League, or you could call it the Athenian power,
the Athenian empire I should say,
is getting more and more powerful.
The Athenian Navy is getting more and more powerful.
And once again, things culminate, and now this is
the beginning of the actual Peloponnesian War,
the thing that people are referring to when they talk
about the Peloponnesian War.
In 431 BCE, the King of Sparta is
convinced or is, I guess you could say he is
influenced to, even though he himself was somewhat skeptical
of the idea, he decides to invade Attica.
Attica's something you'll hear a lot about.
It is this region right over here, this little
out-jutting of land, that Athens is on.
And this first phase of the Peloponnesian War
is called the Archidamian War, named for the King of Sparta
who somewhat reluctantly decides to invade Attica.
And so that's stage one, Archidamian War.
And the Archidamian War, its essential ingredients
are you have Sparta with its dominant army
going and having repeated attacks onto Attica,
and the Athenians with their dominant navy
going and having raids throughout the Peloponnese
and along the Aegean Coast.
So here you have the Athenians, let me do the Athenians
and the Spartans in two different colors, actually.
So here you go.
Let's do the Spartans in this red color,
attacking Attica with their army, and now let's have
the Athenians with this light blue color coming here
and attacking various points, various points
on the Peloponnese and in the Aegean, further extending
their influence.
Now that first phase ends, and it goes on for quite a bit,
it goes on for about 10 years, ends with
the Peace of Nicias, but as you will see
and that was actually intended to be a 50-year peace,
but you'll see it doesn't last long at all.
The skirmishes continue, and in 415, the Athenians
say hey, we want to extend our power.
Remember, it's like this game of Risk, the more
city-states you take over, the more citizens that
you're able to tax, the more soldiers you will have,
the more wealth you will have, the more shipbuilding
capability you will have.
So the Athenians get this great idea to sail all the way
to Syracuse and just to be clear where Syracuse is,
Syracuse is over here on the coast of Sicily.
Now this is a long distance in this ancient world.
They get this idea to sail all the way to Syracuse
to try to take it over, and essentially to extend
their empire.
So this right over here is in 415, this long voyage
to take over Syracuse, and it is disastrous.
The fleet that tries to go is able to be destroyed,
and they get the folks in Syracuse are able to get
the assistance of the Spartans, and so that Greek fleet
is destroyed.
And this is often viewed as the second phase
of the Peloponnesian War.
And so this is the Attack at Syracuse.
Attack at Syracuse, the failed attempt of the Athenians
to get Syracuse, to get Syracuse.
And this is a two-year period of time, because once again,
this is no joke to send your navy and to try to get
at Syracuse.
And then that takes us into the third phase,
the third phase of the Peloponnesian War,
let me scroll this over a little bit.
The third phase is often called the Ionian War.
Ionian War.
Ionia is this region that's now in modern day,
off the coast of modern-day Turkey.
You have many of the city-states that were part of
this Athenian empire, they're starting to revolt.
You can imagine that the Spartans are trying to help
those revolts because they're trying to get the Athenians
wherever they are.
This is often also called the Decelean War.
Decelea, I'm probably not pronouncing it well,
is a little village right over here at the top of Attica,
and it was a strategic location that went over
to the Spartans and that's where the Decelean War
gets its name.
But over the course of this third phase, the Spartans
get help from the Persians.
Remember this was their enemy, they had unified the Spartans
and Athenians had unified against the Persians,
but some time has passed.
We're now 70 or 80 years later, and the Spartans say hey,
we want to win this thing decisively.
They get the help of the Persians and finally in 405 BCE
there's decisive naval battle at Aegospotami,
and I'm sorry to all of you Greeks out there that might
be listening, I know my pronunciation is not perfect
or close to perfect, but this is a decisive victory
right over here for the Spartans.
They're able to destroy the Athenian Navy,
and that causes, that's the decisive victory,
and then in 404, this is in 405, in 404,
the Athenians surrender and the famous Peloponnesian War
is over, the Spartans are victorious.
But it's not a great victory because as you can imagine,
you have towns that have been destroyed, large parts
of Greece have been weakened, and it leaves the whole area
open to attack from others.
And as we will see in the next century, in the 4th century,
we have Phillip of Macedon, or Macedon depending on how
you want to pronounce it, who's able to use that
vulnerable, and the Macedonians or the Macedonians
they are related to the Greek people, but he's able
to use that vulnerability that happens over the course
of the 5th century to attack the city-states of Greece,
but he actually is able to unify them.