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The Peloponnesian War

The Archidamian War

In 429, Pericles—the man who had authored and engineered Athenian politics for a generation—had died of the plague. Pericles' reforms had created tensions between the oligarchs and the common folk, but his long-running political success had kept tensions from breaking out into open conflict. After his death, the split between the oligarchs (who favored a settlement with Sparta) and the democrats (who favored all-out war) became more pronounced.

The democrats soon gained the upper hand, led by Cleon. This man, a tanner by trade, argued for an invasion of the Peloponnese and an assault on Sparta itself. The Spartans, he said, would never dare attack Attica with an Athenian army in their homeland, and an invasion would likely spur a revolt of the helots.

So, Cleon got an army and he invaded the peninsula in 425 at Pylos. The invasion nearly succeeded, but the invading force got bottled up on a waterless island just off shore. After two years and a huge expenditure of funds, the expedition failed utterly. Then, in 422, Cleon died in battle.

This whole period is called the Archidamian war, after one of the kings of Sparta at the time. In general, despite the effort at Pylos and audio gif Sphacteria, the first ten years of the war are marked by minor defeats and minor victories, with neither side able to do the other serious harm. All the time, of course, trade suffered and there were problems with allies (for a famous example, read the Melian Dialog. And all the time, the oligarchs were urging peace.