How long was the peloponnesian war

The antecedents of Archidamus are mentioned by the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus:

King Leotychidas had a son Zeuxidamus, whom some of the Spartans called "puppy".

This man did not become king of Sparta, because he died before Leotychidas, leaving a son Archidamus. After the loss of Zeuxidamus, Leotychidas married a second wife Eurydame [], by whom he had no male issue, but a daughter Lampito, whom Archidamus the son of Zeuxidamos took in marriage.^note[Herodotus, Histories]

The year of Zeuxidamus' death is not known, but we know that Leotychidas II was forced to leave Sparta, probably in , to live in exile in Tegea, because an expedition to Thessaly had ended without success and he had been accused of accepting bribes.

Archidamus ii peloponnesian war victor thomas He had his satrap Tissaphernes make alliance with Sparta against Athens. With winter approaching, the Athenians withdrew into their quarters and spent the winter gathering allies. Archidamus had predicted that the war would be bequeathed to the children. In the 17th year of the war, word came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicily was under attack from Syracuse, the main city of Sicily.

It is not clear whether he remained king, and it is possible that Archidamus' rule started as early as Alternatively, he became king when his exiled grandfather had died in

Because ancient sources usually focus on military events, we know most about Archidamus' military career. In , he proved himself a capable commander in the war against the helots, who revolted when a terrible earthquake destroyed Sparta.

Immediately after the disaster, Archidamus led the survivors out of the town, organized them as army, and forced a group of rebellious helots, who wanted to attack Sparta, to return to their homes. It is possible that he also played a role in the confused negotiations with Athens: the Spartans asked reinforcements from that city, but once they had arrived, they were sent back, after which the insulted Athenians declared war and sided with the Messenians.

The latter held out until , and the war with Athens lasted until

Archidamus' colleague as king was Pleistoanax, who was sent into exile in As a result, Archidamus was for some time sole king of Sparta.

Wordsmith of old They had a son Agis II. General Brasidas was to invade Thrace , and hit the Athenians where it hurt. In BC, an outbreak of a plague hit Athens. Athens' treasury was nearly empty, its docks were depleted, and many of the Athenian youth were dead or imprisoned in a foreign land.

During the peace negotiations with Athens, he became friends with the enemy leader, Pericles.

The conflict with Athens was renewed in During the negotiations that resulted in the declaration of war, Archidamus warned the Spartans and their allies against ill-conceived judgments and tried to prevent or postpone the conflict, which, he said, "they would bequeath to their children".

He pointed out that the Spartans needed a navy, because as long as Athens controlled the sea, the city could not be defeated. Other Spartans, like the ephor Sthenelaedas, were convinced that war was inevitable and argued that Sparta should strike immediately. Athens, they argued, could be defeated if the Peloponnesians wasted the Athenian countryside; it was impossible that their enemy would hold out for more than two or three years.

And the war came.

In the summer of , king Archidamus led the Peloponnesian forces to Attica, where he laid waste the countryside. This was repeated in and shocked the Athenians so profoundly, that they called the conflict the Archidamian War. However, as Archidamus had already predicted, it was not a successful strategy against a city with large walls that could be supplied from the sea.

Sparta needed a navy and the spectacular naval victories of the Athenian Phormio suggested that getting even at sea would be difficuly.

In , Archidamus laid siege to Plataea, and in , he invaded Attica again.

Archidamus ii peloponnesian war victor Corinth and Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into the Aegean, and Sparta's other allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. In the final preparations for departure, the hermai religious statues of Athens were mutilated by unknown persons, and Alcibiades was charged with religious crimes. This article includes a list of general references , but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian as were the Spartans , while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicilia, were Ionian.

He must have died in the summer of , although the winter cannot be excluded. In any case, his son Agis II was on the throne in the summer of He was still young and inexperienced, so a guardian was appointed. It was under these circumstances, with no obvious war leader, that the Spartans embarked upon new strategies. General Brasidas was to invade Thrace, and hit the Athenians where it hurt.

Archidamus had predicted that the war would be bequeathed to the children.

Archidamus ii peloponnesian war victor f Written in the first century BC, these books appear to be based heavily possibly entirely upon an earlier universal history by Ephorus , written in the century after the war, which is now lost. He would never again lead Athenians in battle. Unlike some of his predecessors, the new Spartan general, Lysander, was not a member of the Spartan royal families and was also formidable in naval strategy; he was an artful diplomat, who had even cultivated good personal relationships with the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger , son of Emperor Darius II. But at its end, a massive Spartan invasion of Attica forced Athens to cede the lands it had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems.

He was right. The Peloponnesian War lasted until and in the end settled nothing. Athens was ultimately defeated, but recovered very soon.

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