

#Ancient wars sparta persian campaign series
It continued to exist under a series of tyrants and then a democracy. The balance in power in Greece was shifted when Athens was absorbed into the Spartan Empire. The Peloponnesian War marked the end of the Golden Age of Greece, a change in styles of warfare and the fall of Athens, once the strongest city-state in Greece. Lysander decimated the Athenian fleet in battle and then held Athens under siege, forcing it to surrender to Sparta in 404 B.C. Under the Spartan general Lysander, the war raged for another decade. Who Won the Peloponnesian War?Īthens did not crumble as expected, winning a string of naval victories against Sparta, which sought monetary and weapons support from the Persian Empire. Sparta sided with Syracuse and defeated the Athenians in a major sea battle. when Athens received a call to help allies in Sicily against invaders from Syracuse, where an Athenian official defected to Sparta, convincing them that Athens was planning to conquer Italy. Meant to last 50 years, it barely survived eight, undermined by conflict and rebellion brought on by various allies. In 423 B.C., both sides signed a treaty known as the Peace of Nicias, named for the Athenian general who engineered it. The Spartan campaign is based on the imminent Persian invasion of Greece and the disagreements that the various Greek factions have about whether to resist or not. The Spartan slogan for that period was “Freedom for the Greeks,” and its stated aim was to liberate the states under Athenian rule by destroying its defenses and dismantling its structure. Why did Sparta and Athens unite during the Persian Wars The two had a common enemy in the Persian Empire which gave rise to an alliance to repel their invasion of the Greek mainland in 480 BCE. The first 10 years of the conflict are known as “Archidamian War,” after Spartan King Archidamus. These efforts conflicted with Pericles’ agenda and the Athenians rejected peace. During that time, Sparta sent three delegations to Athens to avoid war, offering proposals that could be viewed as a betrayal of Corinth. A year passed before Sparta took aggressive action. Sparta was hesitant to enter the war directly, but was eventually convinced by Corinth to do so, though this was not a popular decision among Sparta’s other allies. Athens, convinced it was about to enter war with Corinth, strengthened its military hold on its various territories in the region to prepare. and 431 to 404 B.C.E.) and the Corinthian War (396 to 387 B.C.E.).All forces met at the Battle of Sybota, in which Corinth, with no support from Sparta, attacked and then retreated at the sight of Athenian ships. Not long after, however, the two cities began fighting each other in the two Peloponnesian Wars (460 to 446 B.C.E. However, in 480 B.C.E., Sparta allied with Athens, to prevent the Persian king Xerxes from invading Greece. Cyrus conquered one area after another, but allowed the conquered people to worship as they pleased, as long as they gave the great king annual tribute and military service. Persia was a mighty empire, created by Cyrus, the Great. Sparta fought both foreign and neighboring adversaries. The Greco-Persians Wars were two wars fought between the Persian Empire and some of the independent Greek city-states. The Spartan army was known for its skill in on-land combat. Soldiers were trained as hoplites, or heavily armed foot soldiers. This was meant to prepare them for life in the army. At the academy, the boys lived communally with others in their age group.

At the age of seven, boys left home to begin training at a military academy called an agoge (a-go-je). Military activity was essential to Sparta. A council of elders advised the kings in addition to serving as judges and hosting public assemblies. This ensured that when one king ventured out on a military campaign the other could continue to rule the city. Two kings from two different families ruled Sparta. Spartan citizens required this support because they focused solely on athletic and military training, and politics. Helots were responsible for agricultural duties and other day-to-day tasks that supported the Spartans. Even lower than the conquered population was a group called the helots. Spartan society was separated into social classes, and conquered people were not given political rights or citizenship. Though Sparta absorbed this population, it did not integrate the conquered people into society. Sparta grew to rival the size of the city-states Athens and Thebes by subjugating its neighboring region of Messenia. Sparta was a city-state located in the southeastern Peloponnese region of ancient Greece.
