What were the causes of the peloponnesian war?

Question

What were the main causes of the peloponnesian war?

Answer 1

The underlying cause of the war was Sparta's fear of the growth of the power of Athens. This is Thucydides' own final judgment. The whole history of the rise and power of Athens in the 50 years preceding justifies this view, though the immediate occasion of the war concerned Corinth, Sparta's chief naval ally. Since the peace of 445 B.C. Pericles had consolidated Athenian resources, made Athens' navy incomparable, concluded in 433 B.C. a defensive alliance with the strong naval power Corcyra (Corinth's most bitter enemy), and renewed alliances with Rhegium and Leontini in the west. The very food supply of the Peloponnese from Sicily was endangered. In the Aegean Athens could always enforce a monopoly of seaborne trade. To this extent the Peloponnesian War was a trade war and on this ground chiefly Corinth appealed to Sparta to take up arms.
THE CAUSES OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR:
THUCYDIDES’S REASONS:
I. THE DISPUTE OVER EPIDAMNUS
- COLONY OF CORCYRA, A COLONY OF CORINTH
- DEMOCRATIC AND OLIGARCHIC FACTIONS
- EPIDAMNIANS SEEK CORINTHIAN SUPPORT
II. THE ATHENIAN ALLIANCE WITH CORCYRA
-CORCYREAN FLEET ATTRACTIVE TO THE ATHENIANS
-THE ATHENIAN EXPEDITION TO CORCYRA
-THE BATTLE OF SYBOTA
III. THE REVOLT OF POTIDAIA
-CORINTHIAN COLONY
-MEMBER OF THE ATHENIAN EMPI
-THE MEGARIAN DECREE
-ATHENIAN AGRESSION
-CORINTHIAN FEARS

Answer 2

What Caused The Peloponnesian War

Answer 3

I'd like to put out too that before the Peloponnesian War, all (or at least most) of Ancient Greece was fighting the Persians. After managing to decisively defeat the Persians in battles like Plataea and Salamis, the Greeks became relatively safe from further invasion, but at a rather great cost. The coalition against the Persians had been (if informally) led by two of the greatest Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta. Athens eventually formed an alliance with other city-states (called the Delian League) where it persuaded them to work together and pay for the the defence of the Greek peninsula in case of another invasion. However, Athens soon used, or rather abused, the League's funds for the expansion of its own power, making it the leading naval power in the Aegean, as well as making its other supposed "allies" to become resentful of it. In the face of Athens' rising power, the Spartans decided to create a league to counteract Athens' influence over the Greek peninsula (called the Peloponnesian League). When Pericles pridefully began invading the Sparta-allied neighbouring territories of Athens, Sparta, and therefore the Peloponnesian League decided to play along and began fighting with the Delian League. The first and third causes sound the same, you should change either one of those. Hope this helps! :)

Answer 4

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What were the causes of the peloponnesian war?
What were the main causes of the peloponnesian war?

Answer 5

The Peloponnesian War (431 BC–404 BC) was an Ancient Greek military conflict fought by Athens and its empire and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese while attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily; the attack failed disastrously with the destruction of the entire force in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War or the Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens' empire and eventually depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens' fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year.

Answer 6

The two main causes were the rivalry of Athens and Sparta. Athens was dominant on the sea. Sparta on land. They built small empires of allied city states and it was clashes of these that brought the two major powers into direct conflict. Athens won at first, and if Alcibiades their great general had not turned traitor to avoid almost certain execution on trumped up heresy charges might well have won the war. But their invasion of Sicily and siege of Syracuse, loss of the entire expeditionary force, with Alcibiades advice to the Spartans turned the tide. It went on for years with Alcibiades repeatedly changing sides. The end result was when Sparta became a naval power itself and developed their own great general/admiral in Lysander. Even though Sparta did eventually conquer Athens a revolt threw them out in a few years.

Answer 7

The main cause was Sparta's fear of the growth of Athenian power. Athens broke the 30-year's treaty by trying to extend their empire and becoming allies with Corcyra, a colony of Corinth, but Corinth was an ally of Sparta. Sparta accused Athens of aggression, incited by Corinth, and threatened war. Athens and their leader, Pericles, refused to back down. In 431, war began when Thebes, a Spartan ally, attacked Plataea, an ally of Athens.

I hope this helps a little.

Answer 8

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Which Peloponnesian war are you talking about? If you're referring to the conflict that started 431 BC, then it might be worth mentioning that this conflict followed 15 (intended to be 30) years of peace which was the result of the first Peloponnesian war. The first conflict was more of a subplot to the Athenian's wider campaign of imperialism. Sparta had taken the lead in the early part of the Greco-Persian wars, as the head of the Hellenic league. But Sparta, despite its wealth of power on land, lacked a sizable navy, and the desire to take the war across the sea and into Persian territory. Athens, on the other hand, was a naval power with imperialist ambitions. Sparta took a back seat, Athens came to the fore, forming the Delian league, and sought to expand its territories. Animosity between Sparta and Athens already existed. Because of the nature of ancient Greece, it's not really appropriate to refer to it as one entity. The city states that made up ancient Greece were primarily bound by a common language and certain cultural elements, but were in reality more akin to small, individual countries than states of one united nation. Athens and Sparta were the two most powerful, and were natural rivals. They asserted their power over other city states in a variety of ways, forming blocs that were allied to them. Sparta was the dominant power on the largest land mass - Peloponnese - whilst Athens was the dominant power on the smaller Attica, and its territories and allies were far more reliant on the sea. The first Peloponnesian war saw Athens aggressively asserting itself in both Persian and Greek territories. This drew opposition from a number of city states which felt threatened by Athenian expansionism - Sparta's allies were amongst those states that declared themselves opposed to Athens. Sparta itself played a small role in the wider war (compared to its role in the second), but was instrumental in curbing Athenian ambitions in Peloponnese. Athens was unable to make significant gains on the mainland largely due to Sparta's defense of its interests there. Peace solidified the positions of both Sparta and Athens, allowing both to maintain their empires. Greece was effectively divided into two power blocs - Sparta on the mainland, Athens on Attica, with control of the Aegean. The peace, which was intended to last for 30 years, ended after 15. It had seen Athens struggling to maintain its empire, whilst at the same time antagonizing city states, like Corinth, which were allies of Sparta. The rivalry between Sparta and Athens hadn't dissipated, and eventually, Athenian antagonism prompted Sparta to invite its allies to air their grievances, and counselled them on what action should be taken. The majority of the Spartan assembly voted that Athens, due to its involvement in a feud between Corinth and a former Corinthian colony, Corcyra, had broken the terms of the peace treaty, and that heralded the start of the second war. You're right to highlight the differences in style of government - Spartan oligarchy vs. Athenian democracy - but I suggest that that itself is a symptom of larger cultural differences between the two, and not enough in itself to cause war. The same can be said of political views and "military status," though I'm not sure the latter can be factored in as a cause for war. If you're not asked to go into too much depth with regards to the history of the cultural differences, then it's perhaps best to stick to realpolitik. For that, the summary I've given (very brief and criminally vague though it is) should allow you to come to a number of conclusions. The Peloponnesian war was the culmination of tensions between Sparta and Athens that had existed at least since the first Peloponnesian war, which had concluded with two very powerful blocs, both of which would surely had still harboured ambitions for more, if not total, power over Greek territories. The Athenians' actions against Sparta's allies would have prompted some action from Sparta, but given the relatively unstable nature of the Athenian empire, it would have been seen as an opportunity by Spartan warmongers to press their advantage against the Athenians, whose aggressive expansionist and interventionist foreign policy would have been seen as a threat to the power of Sparta.

Answer 9

The spartans thought it was ok to eat beans so they hated the clowns