Alcibiades

6 Pages 1559 Words

The history of Greece includes many “great” men: some led them to glory, and some led them to destruction. Assess the qualities, weaknesses and contributions of Alcibiades and review the war between Athens and Sparta.


Alcibiades was one of the so-called “great” men during the Peloponnesian Wars’ between Athens and Sparta. The Peloponnesian War took place in ancient Greece from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C. There are many factors that led up to the Peloponnesian war. One of these factors came from the Persian defeat. Yet another was Alcibiades himself. This along with the overall arrogance of the Athenians in general brewed a pot of war ready to boil over.
The war between Athens and Sparta was ready to erupt far before it actually did. Athens’ always knew that Sparta was the only other power in Greece that could contend with them. Many of the Delian League (a group of counties formed to keep the Persians in line after the Persian War, Western Civilizations pg 137) city-states began to rebel against Athenian control shortly after the defeat of the Persian Empire. Athens, needing the control of these lands and money, quickly squashed these rebellions and imposed Athenian citizens into the city-states. This obviously started the further dislike of Athenians by the rest of Greece. With this further content the Corinthians persuaded Sparta that war with Athens was inevitable.
Once the war finally erupted in 431 B.C., the Athenians came to the quick conclusion that they could not possibly defeat the Spartans in land warfare. Thus they devised a new strategy. They brought all the Athenians inside the walls of Athens. They then set out against the Spartan forces by sea. Since the Spartans had almost no naval war ships, they suffered tremendous defeats to Athens navy time and time again. This strategy was a simple plan based on waiting out the Spartan forces inside the walls of Athens while the Helots (a person...