Athenian Victory in the Peloponnesian War?

I know nothing about this conflict, save for bits and pieces; Athens was doomed after a disastrous attempt to conquer Sicily and a plague, then suffered a temporary Spartan oligarchy before bouncing back as a democratic empire- albeit one that never had the same level of influence and power as it had done before. So my questions are; what are the likely short term affects of a Spartan defeat in the war, and how would this come about? Would it even be possible due to Achaemenid support for Sparta? Discuss.
 
Hrm. I think some serious issues are still there. The Delian League was in some way s a protection racket, making it an Athenian Empire. But the allies and members of the League are going to grow restless at some point regardless.

Can the Athenian Empire stumble onto federalism? I don't know. The developments of Greek federalism OTL do seem markedly different than those here.
 
If you cancel the Sicilian Expedition, Athens may well have been able to win the war. The disaster at Syracuse cost too many men and resources, and demoralized Athens. If the city had followed Nikias' plan and concentrated their resources on their own backyard, they may have been able to outlast Sparta.

As I recall, it was only after the Sicilian Expedition that Sparta was able to build a navy and compete with Athens at sea. Once Athenian maritime hegemony was no longer absolute, they had ever more difficulty keeping their 'allies' in line, and putting up with the annual Spartan land siege of the city.

(Sorry if some of this is incorrect... just my thoughts some 6 or 7 years after taking that Greek history class :rolleyes:)
 

Susano

Banned
I think the main problem was that after Sicily, Athens didnt rbeuilt the fleet quickly enough, even though they could have. This way, Sparta won land AND naval superiority, and the game was over for Athens.

Of course, Faeelin is right: A more fundamental change probably giving even better results would be if Athens didnt constantly have to fight uprising of League members. If the League could somehow be reformed, that would surely be quite contributive to victory...
 
If you cancel the Sicilian Expedition, Athens may well have been able to win the war. The disaster at Syracuse cost too many men and resources, and demoralized Athens. If the city had followed Nikias' plan and concentrated their resources on their own backyard, they may have been able to outlast Sparta.

As I recall, it was only after the Sicilian Expedition that Sparta was able to build a navy and compete with Athens at sea. Once Athenian maritime hegemony was no longer absolute, they had ever more difficulty keeping their 'allies' in line, and putting up with the annual Spartan land siege of the city.

(Sorry if some of this is incorrect... just my thoughts some 6 or 7 years after taking that Greek history class :rolleyes:)


I think that, rather than canceling the Sicilian Expedition, it would be more useful to have Athens reroute it somewhere else (perhaps the Pelopponesus Peninsula itself).

Alternatively, I think that a victorious League in the Battle of Mantinea (which was certainly a good possibility) would reduce Sparta to a significantly weakened state, making any renewed war a likely Athenian victory.

Perhaps if the truce between Argos and Sparta was more of a carte blanche, they, too, could provide a powerful ally for Athens and lead to such a victory.
 
I know nothing about this conflict, save for bits and pieces; Athens was doomed after a disastrous attempt to conquer Sicily and a plague, then suffered a temporary Spartan oligarchy before bouncing back as a democratic empire- albeit one that never had the same level of influence and power as it had done before. So my questions are; what are the likely short term affects of a Spartan defeat in the war, and how would this come about? Would it even be possible due to Achaemenid support for Sparta? Discuss.

The way for Athens to beat Sparta decisively would have been on the field of battle, hopites vs hoplites. If this had been accomplished, there would have been a huge psychological impact across Greece with the puncturing of the myth of Spartan invincibility. I anticipate that Sparta would have then declined to the status of a second-order power, much as it did in 371 BC following Epaminondas' great victory at Leuctra, and particularly if (as is likely) the Peloponesian League would have been broken up or (less likely) Messenia (with its fertile lands and servile Greek population) detached from Spartan control.

People often forget that the earthquake of 465-464 BC did enormous damage to Sparta, leading to a Helot revolt and the death of an unknown number of elite Spartan 'Equals' (citizen-soldiers). Sparta was never the same again, and it can be argued very strongly that Sparta's "legendary" period was well behind it by 431 BC. I would say they lived off the glory of Thermopylae and Plataea for decades longer than their underlying social and economic situation should have allowed. I think it was only Persian gold that made the difference - enabling Sparta to compete on level terms with Athens way beyond its demographic and economic "punching power".

As for what Athens would have done with such a victory, it is tempting to imagine that - with unchallenged dominance in Greece - they could have unified the country and taken Greek history in a fascinating new direction. Alas, I think the innate tendencies of the democracy to ill-conceived adventurism abroad, to exploitation of subordinate Greek states and to the endless wranglings of factions surrounding the big persoanlities would have undone any hope of an effective "union of Greece". It was only tremendous outside threat that had brought Greeks together in 480 BC; similarly, the later Achaean and Aetolian Leagues achieved more balanced constitutions (under the threat of Roman expansion) than the various Athenian Leagues ever managed - but by the 2nd century BC it was always extremely unlikely that weak, depopulated, Greece could resist, without the help of a superpower benefactor like the Seleucids, the might of a whole Italian peninsula unified under Rome.
 
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