WI: Athenian victory in Peloponnesian War

RousseauX

Donor
The Peloponnesian was really a war of the underdog Sparta against the much more powerful Athens. Indeed, the reason why Sparta fought was because it felt that Athens was already more powerful than itself and that it was still growing in terms of population, economics and influence. It was a "fight now or fight later under worse circumstance" against an imperial democratic republic.

In the end Sparta won by building a navy with Persian subsidies, but the victory was fleeting and Athens came back fairly quickly, Spartan hegemony over Greece collapsed and was replaced by a Theban and later Macedonian one in quick order.

What if Athens had won the war outright?

Let's say Athens do what they did otl at Sphacteria and Pylos earlier and on a larger scale: which is to build a fort near Sparta for Helots to escape to, and then force the Spartans into a battle under unfavorable circumstances and force a large number of them to surrender. In otl the capture of a few hundred was enough to get Sparta to make peace. Let's say ttl out of the 5,000 or so total Spartan citizens the Athenians capture maybe 1,500 in a stroke of luck and the Spartans surrender.

The Athenians imposes on Sparta what the Thebens later did, it creates free fortified city of Helots that permanently undermines Spartan society, and rings Sparta with democratic states which has a natural interest in keeping Sparta down.

Let's suppose the Athenians gets lucky some more and the otl failed attempt to help Egyptians revolt against Persia succeeds. The Athenian population and economy keeps expanding through control over commerce in the eastern Mediterranean.

How does imperial Athens with Greek hegemony assured handle Macedon, does it go on to start its own pan-hellenic crusade against a weakened Persian empire? Could a strong Athenian Empire hold the eastern half of the Mediterranean against a rising Rome? What kind of society emerges from a renewed golden age of Athens? Does a democratic Athens spread democracy at spearpoint all around the Mediterranean?
 
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Athens decides against the disastrous Sicilian expedition. AFAIK things didn't look too bad for them until then. Or they even manage to win, although I have no idea how. - Couldn't the Athenians use their silver to buy Persia as an ally?
 

RousseauX

Donor
Athens decides against the disastrous Sicilian expedition. AFAIK things didn't look too bad for them until then. Or they even manage to win, although I have no idea how. - Couldn't the Athenians use their silver to buy Persia as an ally?
The POD and victory here was well before the Sicilian expedition was even planned

If the Athenians had entered the war with the same plan they executed in 425 BC on a larger scale and more luck they could have won a full decade before the Sicilian expedition
 
What Athens should do is start reforming its empire, I mean, the Delian League, turn it into a 'league of parts' so to speak. Replace 'City State' identification with Circuit. (So think a Greek Social War.)

In time, the League would make an effort to expand in the Black Sea and unify these Greek Cities there. I doubt Athens would try and conquer Persia, nor would Persia would try and conquer Greece beyond trying to take Egypt back, or fighting over Asia Minor Greek States.

Macedonia and Epirus will be exploited in due time.


The League with its strong trade focus, and relatively large army since it is pre-Alexander could easily take the role of Epirus and then some in Italy. There be rivalry with it and Carthage, but they would focus on trade.

Athens decides against the disastrous Sicilian expedition. AFAIK things didn't look too bad for them until then. Or they even manage to win, although I have no idea how. - Couldn't the Athenians use their silver to buy Persia as an ally?

The Sicilian expedition could have very well been a success, just have Alcibiades not being accused of the profanation of the Eleusian Misteries. He was a very skill commander and skill strategist of the era and with him leading it, Athens would have avoided that massive screw up.
 
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What Athens should do is start reforming its empire, I mean, the Delian League, turn it into a 'league of parts' so to speak. Replace 'City State' identification with Circuit. (So think a Greek Social War.)

In time, the League would make an effort to expand in the Black Sea and unify these Greek Cities there. I doubt Athens would try and conquer Persia, nor would Persia would try and conquer Greece beyond trying to take Egypt back, or fighting over Asia Minor Greek States.

Macedonia and Epirus will be exploited in due time.


The League with its strong trade focus, and relatively large army since it is pre-Alexander could easily take the role of Epirus and then some in Italy. There be rivalry with it and Carthage, but they would focus on trade.



The Sicilian expedition could have very well been a success, just have Alcibiades not being accused of the profanation of the Eleusian Misteries. He was a very skill commander and skill strategist of the era and with him leading it, Athens would have avoided that massive screw up.

Why wouldn’t the Persians attack Athens though? They always involved themselves in the affairs of Greece, either by aiding a side against the other, or by actively waging war upon the leading city of the moment.
 
Why wouldn’t the Persians attack Athens though? They always involved themselves in the affairs of Greece, either by aiding a side against the other, or by actively waging war upon the leading city of the moment.

Persia had given up on trying to conquer Greece for awhile now, and as you said, praying proxy with Sparta against Athens.

Egypt and Greek Asian Minor States aside, they have better things to do then warring with the other.
 
Persia had given up on trying to conquer Greece for awhile now, and as you said, praying proxy with Sparta against Athens.

Egypt and Greek Asian Minor States aside, they have better things to do then warring with the other.

You’re right on them abandoning the prospect of conquering Greece, but I doubt they would let Athens grow so much in power and not try to keep her in check, having a powerful and potentially hostile neighbor is not something any State is keen on, and war would be almost inevitable. That’s how the Punic Wars and the Macedonic Wars started.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Why wouldn’t the Persians attack Athens though? They always involved themselves in the affairs of Greece, either by aiding a side against the other, or by actively waging war upon the leading city of the moment.
Because Athens kept on raiding Persian territory with its Navy after the Persian wars ended and aided rebellious satraps, the Egyptian revolt in the 460s bc was good example of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Delian_League
 
Because Athens kept on raiding Persian territory with its Navy after the Persian wars ended and aided rebellious satraps, the Egyptian revolt in the 460s bc was good example of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Delian_League

So? All the more reason to fight back. Considering that the Persians did fight Sparta IOTL not long after the Peloponnesian War ended, I still don’t see why they wouldn’t go to war against Athens.
 
One idea that's been discussed before (by @SlyDessertFox) is a Spartan defeat at Mantinea (in 418 BCE); there's also the ever discussed Sicilian Expedition (415-12); and there's also the Coup of 411 (of which I expect Athens would have fared better had it not happened).
The Athenians are still going to have the same problem that plagued them, and that is they treated the other members of the Delian League like subjects, not partners. This will always encourage revolt, and coalitions against them that powers outside the league would try to exploit. I'm not sure how you would get the Athenian Empire to reform significantly. Even the modest reforms in the Athenian Confederation that emerged in the mid-late 4th century were only really possible because Athens had learned from defeat that giving the other members of the league virtually no say would end badly. And yet they didn't learn enough, and the Athenian Confederacy disintegrated.

So let's assume you go with the victory at Mantinea. Spartan power is crushed, the Athenians encourage a Helot revolt, and the Spartans sue for peace, severely weakened by the war in a way they would not be until Leuctra IOTL. Athens still has Thebes and the Boeotian League to contend with egging on revolts in their empire and the Persians likely providing coin to encourage this as well, since any strong Greek state is not really in their interests. Unlike Sparta however, Athens certainly has the military, economic, and naval capabilities to maintain their hegemony, or to at least put up a significantly stronger resistance than the Spartans were ever capable of. So you won't see Athenian hegemony merely result in bowing at the feet of the Persian king to prop them up like the Spartans were forced to do. Athenian naval supremacy would still be intact, and in any case, on its own Thebes is not yet capable of posing any significant threat to the Athenians in a way they were when backed up by the Peloponnesian League.

Citizen armies will still decline, to be replaced with more effective professional mercenaries, who provide more campaigning flexibility (Mercenaries have no farms to return to, so it opens up more of the year for potential campaigning, for example). You're still likely to see significant threats to emerge from Thessaly like the Thessalian tyrants (think, Jason of Pherae) of OTL, though I imagine the Athenians would be much better positioned to intervene in Thessalian affairs than the Spartans were. The Thebans will have a lot of influence in this region like IOTL.
 
Persia aside*, what would be interesting is the ATL Greek colonisation. You can have Greeks move up the Don, Dneiper and Danube river valleys, founding colonies in modern Russia and Hungary. (These Greeks could be those fleeing from Athenian rule.) They'll certainly have to be very martial to hold off the cavalry of the steppes.

Since Egypt is freed from Persian rule, you would likely see Greek colonies springing up along the Nile and down the Red Sea, bringing in Indian trade to the Mediterranean.

(*We can have a sort of 'Cold War' between the League and Persia. Neither side have the strength, or the will to go all out on the other.)
 
Persia aside*, what would be interesting is the ATL Greek colonisation. You can have Greeks move up the Don, Dneiper and Danube river valleys, founding colonies in modern Russia and Hungary. (These Greeks could be those fleeing from Athenian rule.) They'll certainly have to be very martial to hold off the cavalry of the steppes.

Since Egypt is freed from Persian rule, you would likely see Greek colonies springing up along the Nile and down the Red Sea, bringing in Indian trade to the Mediterranean.

(*We can have a sort of 'Cold War' between the League and Persia. Neither side have the strength, or the will to go all out on the other.)

I can totally see Athens supporting Cyrus in his bid for the throne against Artaxerxes, it would be interesting to see if things would go as IOTL or not.
 
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