Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

Historical Outline 29
greatest disturbance in Greek history” (1.1.2), are highly complex.
Both sides claimed that they were fighting in the name of freedom
(autonomia or eleutheria )—a slogan that fast became meaningless in
the context of interstate rivalry, as it has done in more recent times.
The Spartan claim, however, had more credibility, because their
objective was to free Greece from Athenian imperial domination
(2.8.4). They also placed the blame for the outbreak of hostilities
on Perikles, claiming that he had encouraged his countrymen to
go to war in order to distract their attention from domestic affairs.
However, it is difficult to see what advantage Perikles could hope
to gain from war in view of the fact that Athens’s power was
steadily increasing. It is far easier to argue in support of the theory
that it was the Spartans and their allies who engineered the war.
As G.E.M. de Ste. Croix points out in his definitive study The Origins
of the Peloponnesian War (1972), it was the Spartans who voted
for war, they who committed the first warlike act, and they who
launched the first major offensive.
The aims of the two protagonists were not identical: that of the
Peloponnesians was to bring about the destruction of Athens; that
of the Athenians was to convince the enemy that they were unbeatable.
The Peloponnesians had the more powerful army, whereas the
Athenians held undisputed mastery of the sea. On Perikles’ recommendation,
the Athenians abandoned their farms and took shelter
within the walls that surrounded the city and the port of Piraeus.
The hardship resulting from the move can hardly be exaggerated,
because it meant that the population of Athens doubled overnight.
As Thukydides tells us, the refugees took up residence not only
in Athens and the Piraeus, but also in the space between the Long
Walls, a narrow corridor some five miles in length joining the two
cities. By turning their state into an island, the Athenians therefore
nullified Peloponnesian superiority by land. Perikles was
convinced that they could not be forced into submission if they
adhered unwaveringly to this policy. What he failed to allow for,
however, was the effect upon Athenian morale of having to watch
the Attic countryside being devastated. In addition, and as a direct
result of his strategy, there was a severe outbreak of plague, which
is estimated to have carried off about one-third of the population.
Among the plague’s victims was Perikles himself.
The first part of the war ended in stalemate in 421 b.c.e. Then, in
415 b.c.e., Athens launched an expedition to conquer the island of
Sicily. It was the failure of this expedition that led to the resumption
of hostilities in 413 b.c.e. Athens’s final defeat came about in 404