|
Where are the paintings? This article is in need of more images and/or better quality pictures from official media in order to achieve a higher status. You can help the Assassin's Creed Wiki by uploading better images on this page. |
The Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 BCE) was a military conflict fought in ancient Greece between Delian League and Peloponnesian League. At the head of these leagues were the main city states of Athens and Sparta respectively, who fought for dominance over the Greek world.
While the conflict engulfed the area, the misthios known as Kassandra would sometimes employ herself and her men in the service of either League.[5]
History
Archidamian War
Sparta and its allies, with the exception of Corinth , were almost exclusively land-based powers, able to summon large land armies which were very nearly unbeatable (thanks to the legendary Spartan Forces). The Athenian Empire, although based in the peninsula of Attica , spread out across the islands of the Aegean Sea; Athens drew its immense wealth from tribute paid from these islands. Athens maintained its empire through naval power. Thus, the two powers were relatively unable to fight decisive battles.
The Spartan strategy during the first war, known as the Archidamian War (431–421 BC) after Sparta's king Archidamus II was to invade the land surroundingAthens . While this invasion deprived Athenians of the productive land around their city , Athens itself was able to maintain access to the sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica abandoned their farms and moved inside the Long Walls, which connected Athens to its port of Piraeus . At the end of the first year of the war, Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration.(431 BC).
The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in the harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long periods of time. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430 BC, lasted just forty days.
The Athenian strategy was initially guided by the Strategos, or general, Pericles , who advised the Athenians to avoid open battle with the far more numerous and better trained Spartan hoplites, relying instead on the fleet. The Athenian fleet, the most dominant in Greece, went on the offensive, winning a victory at Naupactus In 430 BC an outbrek of a plauge hit Athens. The plague ravaged the densely packed city, and in the long run, was a significant cause of its final defeat. The plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, includingPericles and his sons. Roughly one-third to two-thirds of the Athenian population died. Athenian manpower was correspondingly drastically reduced and even foreign mercenaries refused to hire themselves out to a city riddled with plague. The fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy.
After the death ofPericles , the Athenians turned somewhat against his conservative, defensive strategy and to the more aggressive strategy of bringing the war to Sparta and its allies. Rising to particular importance in Athenian democracy at this time was Kleon , a leader of the hawkish elements of the Athenian democracy . Led militarily by a clever new generalDemosthenes. The Athenians managed some successes as they continued their naval raids on the Peloponnese.Athens stretched their military activities into Boetia and Aetolia , quelled the Mytillean revolt and began fortifying posts around the Peloponnese. One of these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Spahcteria where the course of the first war turned in Athens's favour. The post off Pylos struck Sparta where it was weakest: its dependence on the helots, who tended the fields while its citizens trained to become soldiers. The helots made the Spartan system possible, but now the post off Pylos began attracting helot runaways. In addition, the fear of a general revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby Athenian presence drove the Spartans to action.Demosthenes , however, outmanoeuvred the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender. Weeks later, though, Demosthenes proved unable to finish off the Spartans. After boasting that he could put an end to the affair in the Assembly, the inexperienced Kleon won a great victory at the Battle of Sphacteria. The Athenians captured 300 Spartan hoplites. The hostages gave the Athenians a bargaining chip.
After these battles, the Spartan general Brasidas raised an army of allies and helots and marched the length of Greece to the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in Thrace, which controlled several nearby silver mines; their product supplied much of the Athenian war fund. Thucyididies was dispatched with a force which arrived too late to stop Brasidas capturing Amphipolis; Thucydides was exiled for this, and, as a result, had the conversations with both sides of the war which inspired him to record its history. Both Brasidas and Kleon were killed in Athenian efforts to retakeAmphipolis . The Spartans and Athenians agreed to exchange the hostages for the towns captured byBrasidas , and signed a truce.
Peace of Nicias
With the death of Kleon and Brasidas , zealous war hawks for both nations, the Peace of Nicias was able to last for some six years. However, it was a time of constant skirmishing in and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported in this by Argos , a powerful state within the Peloponnese that had remained independent of Lacedaemon. With the support of the Athenians, the Argives succeeded in forging a coalition of democratic states within the Peloponnese, including the powerful states of Mantinea and Elis . Early Spartan attempts to break up the coalition failed, and the leadership of the Spartan king Agis was called into question. Emboldened, the Argives and their allies, with the support of a small Athenian force under Alcibiades, moved to seize the city of Tegea , near Sparta .
The Battle of[1]Mantinea was the largest land battle fought withinGreece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos ,Athens , Mantinea, and Arcadia . In the battle, the allied coalition scored early successes, but failed to capitalize on them, which allowed the Spartan elite forces to defeat the forces opposite them. The result was a complete victory for the Spartans, which rescued their city from the brink of strategic defeat. The democratic alliance was broken up, and most of its members were reincorporated into the Peloponnesian League. With its victory at Mantinea, Sparta pulled itself back from the brink of utter defeat, and re-established its hegemony throughout the Peloponnese.
In the 17th year of the war, word came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicilly was under attack from Syracuse. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian (as were the Spartans), while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicilia, were Ionian. The Athenians felt obliged to assist their ally.
The Athenians did not act solely from altruism: rallied on by Alcibiades, the leader of the expedition, they held visions of conquering all of Sicily. Syracuse, the principal city of Sicily, was not much smaller than Athens , and conquering all of Sicily would have broughtAthens an immense amount of resources. In the final stages of the preparations for departure, the hermai (religious statues) ofAthens were mutilated by unknown persons, and Alcibiades was charged with religious crimes. Alcibiades demanded that he be put on trial at once, so that he might defend himself before the expedition. The Athenians however allowed Alcibiades to go on the expedition without being tried (many believed in order to better plot against him). After arriving in Sicily, Alcibiades was recalled to Athens for trial. Fearing that he would be unjustly condemned, Alcibiades defected to Sparta and Nicias was placed in charge of the mission. After his defection, Alcibiades claimed to the Spartans that the Athenians planned to use Sicily as a springboard for the conquest of all ofItaly and Carthage, and to use the resources and soldiers from these new conquests to conquer the Peloponnese.
The Athenian force consisted of over 100 ships and some 5,000 infantry and light-armored troops. Cavalry was limited to about 30 horses, which proved to be no match for the large and highly trained Syracusan cavalry. Upon landing in Sicily, several cities immediately joined the Athenian cause. Instead of attacking at once, Nicias procrastinated and the campaigning season of 415 BC ended with Syracuse scarcely damaged. With winter approaching, the Athenians were then forced to withdraw into their quarters, and they spent the winter gathering allies and preparing to destroy Syracuse. The delay allowed the Syracusans to send for help from Sparta , who sent their general Gylippus to Sicily with reinforcements. Upon arriving, he raised up a force from several Sicilian cities, and went to the relief of Syracuse. He took command of the Syracusan troops, and in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces, and prevented them from invading the city.
Nicias then sent word to Athens asking for reinforcements. Demosthenes was chosen and led another fleet to Sicily, joining his forces with those ofNicias . More battles ensued and again, the Syracusans and their allies defeated the Athenians. Demosthenes argued for a retreat to Athens , but Nicias at first refused. After additional setbacks,Nicias seemed to agree to a retreat until a bad omen, in the form of a lunar eclipse, delayed any withdrawal. The delay was costly and forced the Athenians into a major sea battle in the Great Harbor of Syracuse. The Athenians were thoroughly defeated. Nicias and Demosthenes marched their remaining forces inland in search of friendly allies. The Syracusan cavalry rode them down mercilessly, eventually killing or enslaving all who were left of the mighty Athenian fleet.
The Second Peloponnesian war
The Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they fortified Decelea, near Athens , and prevented the Athenians from making use of their land year round. The fortification of Decelea prevented the shipment of supplies overland to Athens , and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at increased expense. Perhaps worst of all, the nearby silver mines were totally disrupted, with as many as 20,000 Athenian slaves freed by the Spartan hoplites at Decelea. With the treasury and emergency reserve fund of 1,000 talents dwindling away, the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from her subject allies, further increasing tensions and the threat of further rebellion within the Empire.
The Corinthians, the Spartans, and others in the Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, in the hopes of driving off the Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent another hundred ships and another 5,000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies were able to decisively defeat the Athenians on land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which was able to defeat the Athenian fleet when they attempted to withdraw. The Athenian army, attempting to withdraw overland to other, more friendly Sicilian cities, was divided and defeated; the entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold off into slavery.
Following the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire was at hand. Their treasury was nearly empty, its docks were depleted, and many of the Athenian youth were dead or imprisoned in a foreign land.
Following the destruction of the Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the revolt of Athens's tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt against Athens . The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships. Revolt and faction threatened in Athens itself.
The Athenians managed to survive for several reasons. First, their foes were lacking in initiative. 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. The Ionian states that rebelled expected protection, and many rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians were slow to furnish promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans.
At the start of the war, the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100 ships that were to be used only as a last resort.
These ships were then released, and served as the core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of the war. An oligarchial revolution occurred in Athens , in which a group of 400 seized power. A peace with Sparta might have been possible, but the Athenian fleet, now based on the island of Samos , refused to accept the change. In 411 BC this fleet engaged the Spartans at the Battle of Syme. The fleet appointed Alcibiades their leader, and continued the war in Athens's name. Their opposition led to the reinstitution of a democracy in Athens within two years.
Encounter between Cyrus the Younger, Achaemenid satrap of Asia Minor and son of Darius II , and Spartan general Lysander , in Sardis. The encounter was related by Xenophon.
Alcibiades, while condemned as a traitor, still carried weight in Athens . He prevented the Athenian fleet from attacking Athens ; instead, he helped restore democracy by more subtle pressure. He also persuaded the Athenian fleet to attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus in 410. In the battle, the Athenians obliterated the Spartan fleet, and succeeded in re-establishing the financial basis of the Athenian Empire .
Between 410 and 406, Athens won a continuous string of victories, and eventually recovered large portions of its empire . All of this was due, in no small part, to Alcibiades.
From 414 BC,Darius II , ruler of the Achaemenid Empire had started to resent increasing Athenian power in the Aegean and had his satrap Tissaphernes enter into an alliance with Sparta againstAthens, which in 412 BC led to the Persian reconquest of the greater part of Ionia. Tissaphernes also helped fund the Peloponnesian fleet.
Facing the resurgence of Athens , from 408 BC, Darius II decided to continue the war against Athens and give stronger support to the Spartans. He sent his son Cyrus the Younger into Asia Minor as Sattrap ofLydia, Phrygia Major and Cappodocia, and general commander (Karanos, κἀρανος) of the Persian troops.[25] There, Cyrus allied with the Spartan general Lysander. In him, Cyrus found a man who was willing to help him become king, just as Lysander himself hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince. Thus, Cyrus put all his means at the disposal of Lysander in the Peloponnesian War. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his dying father Darius, he gave Lysander the revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor.
Cyrus the Younger would later obtain the support of the Spartans in return, after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war againstAthens ", when he led his own expedition to Susa in 401 BC in order to topple his brother, Artaxerxes II.
The faction hostile to Alcibiades triumphed inAthens following a minor Spartan victory by their skillful general Lysander at the naval battle of Notium in 406 BC. Alcibiades was not re-elected general by the Athenians and he exiled himself from the city. He would never again lead Athenians in battle. Athens was then victorious at the naval battle of Arginusae. The Spartan fleet under Callicratidas lost 70 ships and the Athenians lost 25 ships. But, due to bad weather, the Athenians were unable to rescue their stranded crews or to finish off the Spartan fleet. Despite their victory, these failures caused outrage in Athens and led to a Controversial. The trial resulted in the execution of six of Athens 's top naval commanders. Athens 's naval supremacy would now be challenged without several of its most able military leaders and a demoralized navy.
In 404 BC, the Athenian General Alcibiades, exiled in the Achaemenid Empire province of Hellespontine[2]Phrygia, was assassinated by Persian soldiers, who may have been following the orders of Satrap Pharnabazus II, at the instigation of Sparta's Lysander.[30][31][32] La mort d'Alcibiade. Philippe Chéry, 1791. Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Rochelle.
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 . Seizing its opportunity, the Spartan fleet sailed at once to the Dardanelles, the source ofAthens 's grain. Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet had no choice but to follow. Through cunning strategy,Lysander totally defeated the Athenian fleet, in 405 BC, at the Battle of Aegospotami, destroying 168 ships and capturing some three or four thousand Athenian sailors. Only twelve Athenian ships escaped, and several of these sailed to Cyprus, carrying the strategos (general) Conon, who was anxious not to face the judgment of the Assembaly.
Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege, Athens surrendered in 404 BC, and its allies soon surrendered as well. The democrats at Samos, loyal to the bitter last, held on slightly longer, and were allowed to flee with their lives. The surrender strippedAthens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its overseas possessions. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved. However, the Spartans announced their refusal to destroy a city that had done a good service at a time of greatest danger toGreece , and tookAthens into their own system. Athens was "to have the same friends and enemies" as Sparta .
Appearances
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey novel
- Assassin's Creed: Rebellion
References
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – The Final Push
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – Call to Arms
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – The Battle of Pylos
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – We Will Rise
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Assassin's Creed: Rebellion – Spears for Hire
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedACRB_spears - ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Assassin's Creed: Rebellion – For Democracy!
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||