In the first part of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans had considerable successes, while a great calamity befell the Athenians, who had collected all the inhabitants of the country dis tricts of Attica within the walls of the city; and in consequence a pestilence broke out which carried off thousands of the inhabitants, and among them Pericles himself. From this blow, however, the city soon recovered, and in 425 the early successes of the Spartans in Attica were compensated by the capture of Pylos in Mes senia by the Athenian general Demosthenes, who at the same time succeeded in shutting up 400 Spartans in the small island of Sphacteria, opposite Pylos, where they were ultimately starved to surrender. The person to whom the surrender was made was the demagogue Cleon, who, in consequence of his military suc cesses, obtained the command of an army which was sent to operate against the Spartan general Brasidas in Thrace. But in 422 he was de feated by Brasidas before the town of Amphi polis, and himself slain, after which the op posite party in Athens got the upper hand, and concluded the peace with Sparta known as the Peace of Nicias (421 a.c.).
The effect of this peace was to divide the Spartans and the Corinthians, who had hitherto been allies. The latter united themselves with Argos, Elis and some of the Arcadian towns to wrest from Sparta the hegemony of the Pelo ponnesus. In this design they were supported by Alcibiades, a nephew of Pericles, a man of handsome figure and great personal accomplish ments. The war which was now waged between Sparta and Corinth with her allies resulted, however, in favor of the former, whose arms were victorious at the battle of Mantinea in 418.
Soon after this the Athenians resumed hos tilities, fitting out in 415 B.C. a magnificent army and fleet, under the command of Alcibiades, Nicias and Lamachus, for the reduction of the Dorian city of Syracuse in Sicily. This under taking, which renewed the race hatred between Sparta and Athens, was a complete failure. Alcibiades was accused in his absence of sev eral offenses against religion and the constitu tion, and deprived of his command. Thirsting for revenge, he betook himself to Sparta, and exhorted the city to renew the war with Athens. By his advice one Spartan army was despatched to Attica, where it took up such a position as Prevented the Athenians from obtaining sup plies from Eubcea, while another was sent under Gylippus to assist their kindred in Sicily. These steps were ruinous to Athens. Lamachus fell in the siege of Syracuse, and the Athenian fleet Was totally destroyed. The reinforcements sent
out under Nicias and Demosthenes were de feated (413 a.c.) by the combined Spartan and Syracusan armies. All the Athenians who escaped death were made captives and com pelled to work as slaves in the quarries of Sicily, although it may be mentioned as an inter esting fact that many of these captives ob tained their liberty by being able to recite frag ments of Euripides.
After this disaster many of the allies of Athens joined the Spartans, who now pressed on the war with greater energy. The Atheni ans recalled Alcibiades, who returned in 407, and was received by his fellow-citizens with enthusiasm as their expected deliverer. A few months later he was again an exile, having been deprived of the command because one of his subordinates had lost a naval battle fought off Ephesus in his absence. During the rest of the war the Athenians had only one success, the naval victory won off the islands of Arginusm over the Spartan Callicratidas in 406. In the following year (405) the Spartans made them selves masters of the whole of the Athenian fleet except nine vessels, while the majority of the crews were on shore at /Egospotamos on the Hellespont. The Spartans now easily sub dued the islands and states that still maintained their allegiance to the Athenians, and laid seige to Athens itself. In 404 a.c. the war was ter minated by the Athenians' surrender. Sparta immediately imposed upon Athens an aristo cratic form of government, placing the supreme power in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants. Only a year later, however, (403), Thrasybulus was able to overthrow this hated rule and re established the democracy.
The fall of Athens resulted in Sparta's lead ership or hegemony in Greece, which lasted till the battle of Leuctra, 371 B.C. The Spartans now abused their power and speedily roused the hatred and jealousy of the other states. The Greek states which had up to this time been, and still continued to be, leaders, had now lost almost entirely their manliness and independent spirit, and no longer maintained the hereditary war against Persia, but each sought the aid of that power for its own purpose. The Spar tans did indeed send an expedition into Asia Minor, but it came to nothing; and the states of Greece, the Spartans included, at last, in 387, agreed to the disgraceful Peace of Antalcidas, by which the whole of the west coast of Asia Minor was ceded to the Persians, and the Greek colonies there thus deprived of the independence that had been secured to them by the Peace of Cimon.