What Caused The Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War lasted from roughly from 431 BC to 404 BC. The two major players in the war were Athens and Sparta. Athens was a democratic state with a strong naval-based military. Sparta was on the other hand an oligarchical state with a disciplined land army. After the Persian Wars, Athens became more powerful, and the fear of Athenian dominance would spark the Peloponnesian Wars. However this thirst for power along with poor leadership would be the downfall of Athens. Sparta was the dominant force in the Hellenic world for a long time. With Athenian power growing quickly, Sparta felt threatened. Sparta had a militaristic form of government, which was its form of government for over four hundred years. It allowed them to develop
Epidamnus was a small colony with ties to both Corcyra and Corinth. Corcyra felt that Corinth was interfering by providing aid. They looked to Athens for support, but Athens could only interfere if Corinth directly attacked. Corinth argued that Athens took offensive action and thus broke the truce. This would set off a domino effect sending the city-states into a major war. Another cause that led to war was when Athens attempted to strengthen control on their ally Potidaea. This didn’t help with the fear of Athenian power. The Athenians ordered Potidaea to take down their walls and hand over hostages, and their reasoning behind is was the fear of revolt in other areas that would hurt Athens both politically and economically. Because of this Potidaea allied itself with Corinth and Sparta, refusing to pay tribute to Athens. Here we begin to see Athens overreaching for
Their aims had increase over the years of war. Athens cloaked its reasons for expansion on the ideas of protecting itself but quickly turned to be seen as a desire for conquest and imperial domination. For example the Sicilian expedition was masked as an expedition to put down the Syracusans who were looking to destroy the power of Athens but in reality it was an expedition of conquest. Athens was more then eager to capture the resources of Sicily and they didn’t know much of the people who lived there. The leader of Athens, Nicias argued that conquering Sicily would be difficult and even more difficult to control if conquered. The Athenian people however want the benefits of victory and without a strong leader such as Pericles the benefits of victory clouded their judgment. The expedition turned out to be a grave mistake and Athens had miserably