Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Persians razed Athens to the ground. The Persian naval campaign, however, was not suc-
cessful. By skilful manoeuvring, the Greek warships trapped the larger Persian ships in
the narrow waters off Salamis, where the smaller, more agile Greek vessels carried the
advantage. Xerxes returned to Persia in disgust, leaving his general Mardonius to subdue
Greece. The result was quite the reverse: a year later, the Greeks, under the command of
the Spartan general Pausanias, obliterated the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea.
The Peloponnesian Wars
The Peloponnesian League was essentially a military coalition governed by the iron hand
of Sparta, who maintained political dominance over the Peloponnesian region. Athens'
growing imperialism threatened Spartan hegemony; the ensuing power struggle was to
last almost 30 years.
In
The Peloponnesian War,
Thucydides sets out a historical narrative of the quarrels and
warfare between Athens and Sparta.
First Peloponnesian War
One of the major triggers of the first Peloponnesian War (431-421 BC) was the Corcyra
incident, in which Athens supported Corcyra (present-day Corfu) in a row with Corinth,
its mother city. Corinth called on Sparta to help and the Spartans, whose power depended
to a large extent on Corinth's wealth and allegiance, duly rallied to the cause.
Athens knew it couldn't defeat the Spartans on land, so it abandoned Attica and with-
drew behind its mighty walls, opting to rely on its navy to put pressure on Sparta by
blockading the Peloponnese. Athens suffered badly during the siege; plague broke out in
the overcrowded city, killing a third of the population - including Pericles - but the de-
fences held firm. The blockade of the Peloponnese eventually began to hurt and the two
cities negotiated an uneasy truce.
THE SPARTANS
Maybe you saw the gory but brilliant film300, imaginatively based on the battle of
Thermopylae in 480 BC; one of the most talked about battles in history. Three hun-
dred elite Spartan soldiers held an entire Persian army (whose force numbered
several thousand) at bay at the pass ('hot gates') of Thermopylae, near today's
Lamia. For three days, wave upon wave of Persian soldiers fell upon their deadly
