Peleponnesian War Flashcards
What was the conflict of Corcyra and Epidamnus?
Corinth founded Corcyra, which founded Epidamnus. Corcyra and Epidamnus got into a fight, and Corinth sided with Epidamnus. Athens sided with Corcyra. Corinth saw this as unwarranted and a threat to their dominance of the western coast of Greece, and gave them a reason to urge Sparta to war with Athens. Other reasons exist, but this is a major one; Athens does very little to anger Sparta, but angers other Greeks very much, and those other Greeks get Sparta on their side.
What was Piraeus?
the port of Athens, connected to Athens by the Long Walls so Athens could survive land sieges by importing from its colonies safely. This becomes Pericles’s strategy to survive the Peloponnesian War, but a plague strikes the crowded city and kills 1/3rd of its population in 429.
What was the Sphacteria?
425 BC; the Athenians blockaded the Spartans on the small island near Pylos, cornering them and eventually leading to the surrender of 121 Spartans.
Who was Cleon the Tanner?
demagogue of Athens, aggressive in military policy. Led Athens’s second attempt to recapture Amphipolis in 422, but died there.
What was Amphipolis?
422 BC; An Athenian expedition to recapture Amphipolis, its largest and most important colony in Thrace, from the Spartans, who captured it in 424. Led by Cleon, the Athenians failed miserably, and both Cleon and the Spartan king Brasidas were killed. The Spartans only lost eight men, while the Athenians lost about 600. This defeat led to the Peace of Nicias.
What was the Peace of Nicias?
421-415 BC peace during the Peloponnesian War, named after the Athenian who engineered it. Suggested by Athens then because they had just been devastated at Amphipolis. A weak peace, during which both sides recovered for more fighting. This ends the Archidamian War, the first 10 years of the Peloponnesian War.
Who was Alcibiades?
prominent Athenian general who proposed the Sicilian Expedition and set out to lead it. However, charges of mutilating the herms (cutting off the genitalia of sacred statues) and mocking the Eleusinian Mysteries in front of non-initiates, who could not know of the rituals, came back to haunt him, and he fled to Sparta before he could be and arrested tried. He helped Sparta against Athens before fleeing from Sparta due to an affair with the king’s wife, went back to helping Athens, then ran to Persia.
What was the Sicilian Expedition?
415-413 BC; Athenian decision during the peace in the Peloponnesian War to aid the colony of Segesta against Syracuse. Proposed by Alcibiades, who abandoned it due to charges placed against him. Effectively led by Nicias, who resisted the idea in the first place. A terrible failure, and the Athenians sent the general Demosthenes to save the fleet. Nicias refused to leave then because of superstition, and both were killed along with the majority of the Athenian military. A crippling blow from which Athens would never truly recover.
What was the Arginusae?
- 406 BC; Eight Athenian strategoi save the blockaded forces at Mytilene in a pitched naval battle, but a fierce storm prevents them from rescuing the survivors. For this, 6 of the 8 strategoi were executed, despite their victory
What was the Aegospotami?
405 BC; Lysander ambushes the Athenian fleet when they land to hunt/camp, crushing their main force and ending the Peloponnesian War. Only Conon and his ship escape for the Athenians. Aegospotami means “Goat’s River
Who was Lysander?
Spartan general who won at Aegospotami in 405, forcing Athens to surrender. Dies during the ensuing Corinthian War.
Who are the Thirty Tyrants?
oligarchic group imposed on Athens by Sparta after the Peloponnesian War, in 404. Led by Critias and Theramenes, they oppressed the citizens’ rights, imprisoned, exiled, and killed political opponents, until the exiled general Thrasybulus returned with Theban support and drove them out a year after their installment. Democracy was reinstated.
Who was Thucydides?
the historian of the Peloponnesian War, who only wrote about things he was alive to experience or things other living people had experienced. More technical and scientific than Herodotus.
