WI: Athen defeats Sparta

WI Athen had won the Peleponesian war?
Victory would mean at least, that the Peleponesian League falls apart and Sparta at least lose Messian like after Leuktra IOTL, in any case that Sparta stops to be a great power, and that Athen stays at least in full control of the Delphian League.
Sparta as a nation was in demografic free fall at this time, so I think if there would be no break of the war in 421 BC or if Athen didn´t had the disater of the Sicilian Expedition in 415 BC that its been possible that Sparta would collapse because of exhaustion.
What would be the result of an athenian victory? Would Athen be able to unite Greece like Rome united Italy?
 
Athens would have been clearly exhausted by the war, even assuming the city isn't deprived from silver mines as IOTL.
Revolts within the alliance existed already before the war, and would likely continue afterwards, making the city loosing his influence (while not as nearly than IOTL) little by little. Eventually, an agreement with Persia (as Sparta did IOTL) is likely would it be only to save their presence in Northern Agea.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Butterflies aside, even if Athens wins the war it will likely leave Greece as a whole exhausted and easy prey for the emerging Macedonian power.
 
Butterflies aside, even if Athens wins the war it will likely leave Greece as a whole exhausted and easy prey for the emerging Macedonian power.

Not necessarily-the Peloponnesian War didn't make Greece easy prey for the Macedonians-what happened between the 370's-340's did. That was when the various Greek powers beat each other up terribly as they all tried to gain hegemony-Thebes and Athens crush Sparta, Athens creates a new Athenian Empire-loses it in a war in the 350's, etc. And even then, the Greeks were not as easy prey for Macedon as you think.

Still, Macedon isn't an emerging power by any stretch of the imagination. When Phillip II took power, Macedon was on the verge of collapse. A more likely scenario is that Macedon does collapse.
 
Sparta's military was impressive but Athens was really the stronger power going into the war and the other Greeks knew it. That's why I think that if it had won the Peloponnesian war, Athens would have emerged far more powerful and more clearly as a "leader" of the Greek world than Sparta was able to manage during its short-lived "hegemony". Athens had more population, more wealth, more cultural prominence within Greece, and more naval power and more aggressive ambition than Sparta. It was, in fact, already an empire and, wityh its Greek rivals defeated and its power consolidated, it could have continued expanding this empire.

If Sparta is defeated, it is probably defeated for good. Spartan society was too reliant on Helots and with its bizarre military, social and comic system broken by war, it could probably not reform itself into a major power. Thebes however is a bit of a tougher problem and would surely challenge Athens. It was probably strong enough, if not to inflict a "Leuctra" on Athens, to at least present a major difficulty to its expansion. Whether this would all prevent Macedon's rise to power I cannot say but, as was mentioned, the Macedonians took on a greatly weakened Greece. To avoid falling prey to an opportunistic state like Macedon, Athens would certainly need to avoid exhausting itself with internal fighting. I suspect doing so might require the same level of brutality in dealing with resistance that the Macedonians showed in Thebes when they conquered Greece IOTL.

Though the Athenian empire itself might not be stable enough to last, Greek influence and settlement in the Mediterranean might be even greater than it was OTL given the maritime and colonial ventures. With Macedonian power potentially checked and Alexander the Great's fate changed however, the Hellenistic world's reach would be be much less pronounced in the Near East and Persia. I have difficulty imagining Athens undertaking the sort of Eastern expeditions that Alexander did.
 
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An Athenian victory is simple: prevent the plague. Pericle's strategy was working: the Spartans were getting frustrated, their annual campaigns ending failure after failure, while the Athenian navy was launching successful raids into the Peloponnesus. The plague sapped Athens' strength and bought the Spartans time to gain their sea legs, as it were.
 
Sparta's military was impressive but Athens was really the stronger power going into the war and the other Greeks knew it. That's why I think that if it had won the Peloponnesian war, Athens would have emerged far more powerful and more clearly as a "leader" of the Greek world than Sparta was able to manage during its short-lived "hegemony". Athens had more population, more wealth, more cultural prominence within Greece, and more naval power and more aggressive ambition than Sparta. It was, in fact, already an empire and, wityh its Greek rivals defeated and its power consolidated, it could have continued expanding this empire.

If Sparta is defeated, it is probably defeated for good. Spartan society was too reliant on Helots and with its bizarre military, social and comic system broken by war, it could probably not reform itself into a major power. Thebes however is a bit of a tougher problem and would surely challenge Athens. It was probably strong enough, if not to inflict a "Leuctra" on Athens, to at least present a major difficulty to its expansion. Whether this would all prevent Macedon's rise to power I cannot say but, as was mentioned, the Macedonians took on a greatly weakened Greece. To avoid falling prey to an opportunistic state like Macedon, Athens would certainly need to avoid exhausting itself with internal fighting. I suspect doing so might require the same level of brutality in dealing with resistance that the Macedonians showed in Thebes when they conquered Greece IOTL.

Though the Athenian empire itself might not be stable enough to last, Greek influence and settlement in the Mediterranean might be even greater than it was OTL given the maritime and colonial ventures. With Macedonian power potentially checked and Alexander the Great's fate changed however, the Hellenistic world's reach would be be much less pronounced in the Near East and Persia. I have difficulty imagining Athens undertaking the sort of Eastern expeditions that Alexander did.

Another potential problem for Athens in the future is Jason of Pherae, who more or less controlled Thessaly by the time of his assasination in 370. He's kind of a proto-Phillip and Alexander, and I could see him possibly allying with Thebes if he feels Athens is too powerful. I don't think an Athenian victory would necessarily butterfly him away, either. He spoke about invading the Persian Empire as well...
 
Another potential problem for Athens in the future is Jason of Pherae, who more or less controlled Thessaly by the time of his assasination in 370. He's kind of a proto-Phillip and Alexander, and I could see him possibly allying with Thebes if he feels Athens is too powerful. I don't think an Athenian victory would necessarily butterfly him away, either. He spoke about invading the Persian Empire as well...

There is a good chance that had he eliminated Athens and the Macedonians, he might have been able to attempt an invasion of the Persian empire. It wouldn't have been a cake walk but a sufficiently strong army with good leadership should have stood a very good chance against the Persians. He seems to have had sufficient leadership qualities to accomplish this. On the other hand, perhaps there was some element of skill, personality or luck that worked for Alexander and wouldn't have worked for Jason.

But above all, for this to succeed, Jason would absolutely have to eliminate any Athenian (and possibly Macedonian) threats first. I'd expect a still-powerful Athens to immediately turn against him and his allies at home if he were away on a campaign in the East.
 
There is a good chance that had he eliminated Athens and the Macedonians, he might have been able to attempt an invasion of the Persian empire. It wouldn't have been a cake walk but a sufficiently strong army with good leadership should have stood a very good chance against the Persians. He seems to have had sufficient leadership qualities to accomplish this. On the other hand, perhaps there was some element of skill, personality or luck that worked for Alexander and wouldn't have worked for Jason.

But above all, for this to succeed, Jason would absolutely have to eliminate any Athenian (and possibly Macedonian) threats first. I'd expect a still-powerful Athens to immediately turn against him and his allies at home if he were away on a campaign in the East.

I don't think he would have as much success as Alexander, nor would that be his intention-he was more level headed than that I think. At most, depending on his level of success, I can see him pushing for a maximum extent to the Euphrates border.

You are right, he'd likely have to crush the Athenians. He did possess a decent navy, something Alexander lacked early on, so that gives him an advantage that the Macedonians didn't have.
 
I don't think he would have as much success as Alexander, nor would that be his intention-he was more level headed than that I think. At most, depending on his level of success, I can see him pushing for a maximum extent to the Euphrates border.

You are right, he'd likely have to crush the Athenians. He did possess a decent navy, something Alexander lacked early on, so that gives him an advantage that the Macedonians didn't have.

If he manage to occupuy the Bospurus he can be a Major threat for the Athenians. They
got most of the Food-stuff from southern Russia (Obvious it wasn´t called Russia at this time).
 
The Peloponesian War was like our Cold War in some ways with local Greek populations being divided between oligarch and democrat factions. Yes, Athens was brutal towards its "allies" (who were more like unhappy client states) but it also offered a beacon of hope to these democratic factions within Greece. An Athenian victory could create a new class of allies for Athens are are not directly part of its empire. If the POD is no Sicilian campaign maybe this Athens would be more reserved in its use of power and thus able to consolidate its empire winning more goodwill amongst common Greeks. Enough perhaps for Athens to successfully lead Greece in resistence to the upcoming Macedonian invasion.
 
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