1. Introduction

After Athens was destroyed in Sicily (415-413 BC), the enemies of the city tried to eliminate the decimated superpower. Different interests and aims contributed to the formation of a miscellaneous and unstable alliance.¹ The members of the Delian League, actually subjected to Athens, had the initiative to communicate with the Spartans as they hoped to be liberated. A delegation from Lesbos met King Agis of Sparta, who had camped at Dekeleia of Attica. Ambassadors from Erythrae and Chios arrived in Sparta asking the Lacedaemonians to send a fleet that would encourage the Ionians to defect. The delegates of the Persian satraps appeared in Sparta with the same purpose; they had been ordered by Darius II to collect taxes from the cities of their territory that belonged to the Delian League.² Pharnabazus of the Hellespontic Phrygia sent Calligeitus from Megara and Timagoras from Cyzicus with 25 talents. Tissaphernes of Lydia, who had also been assigned the task of suppressing the uprise of Amorges in Caria, was supported by Alcibiades. The latter’s advice to the Spartan ephor Endius and the Spartan aspiration of using the Chian fleet, so that they could later campaign to the Hellespont, turned the scales in favour of Tissaphernes and the Chians. The allied fleet, consisting of 40 ships, was decided to be financially supported by the Lydian satrap and sent to the island.³ They also relied on reinforcements from the Sicilian and the Italian expeditionary corps under Hermocrates of Syracuse and the exiled Rhodian Dorieus from Thourioi.

2. The Opposing Forces before the Confrontation

Although Athens was facing problems, it was still hopeful about the determination of its experienced leaders and its ability to overcome the consequences of a long-lasting naval war. The main disadvantage was the eagerness of its allies to change sides and the necessity to make war on several fronts with meager funds. The Athenian strategy was focused on the region of the Hellespont, the only outlet of the city in order to be supplied with breadstuffs, while operations in Ionia were launched only when there was a clear advantage or a serious danger of further decrease in the city’s influence there. The final defeat came because of wrong military movements and financial troubles.

Although Sparta seemed to be able to terminate the war, it was finally involved in something it had not been prepared to complete, as it faced problems with both its military funds and the quality of its navy. The administration was in dispute: each Spartan admiral followed his own policy, while the corps of the Ephoroi in Sparta had often different opinions from King Agis, who was in Dekeleia. However, Sparta enjoyed the luxury of the economic and diplomatic support from the Persians, who were happy to start the conflict under the most favourable circumstances. Without having to mobilise additional troops, the latter used the Peloponnesians almost as mercenaries and at the end of the war their territory occupied the area it covered before 479 BC. This development was also in danger of being hindered because of the endless conflicts between the main representatives of the imperial power in Asia Minor, the satraps of Lydia and Hellespontic Phrygia. On military level Sparta was practically non-existent.

The Greeks of Asia Minor and the Aegean were at the same time protagonists and victims of the war. Although some of them fervently participated in the initial operations of the Spartans and their allies, most of them were reluctant to actively contribute to the war against Athens and waited for some kind of protection in order to defect. They found themselves encircled by the three superpowers. The Spartans depended on the Persian financial power and, thus, they had to abandon them soon.

3. The First Operations in Ionia and the Aegean Islands

In the spring of 412, the Lacedaemonian fleet landed on Chios. Alcibiades and the Spartan Chalkideus managed to enter the city and helped the city defect. Erythrae was the next to follow, while Clazomenae was persuaded because of the presence of a small naval power.⁴ Despite the Athenian resistance, the allies captured Teos as well.⁵

In the summer of the same year, thanks to the personal contacts of Alcibiades, Miletus defected from the Delian League and became the centre of the anti-Athenian alliance in Asia Minor.⁶ They were soon followed by Lebedus and Erae, despite the defeat of the alliance fleet by the Athenians at Dio Hieron.⁷Ephesus must have rebelled in the same period and remained on the anti-Athenian side throughout the war, just like Phocaea.⁸

Samos and Lesbos defected almost at the same time. In Samos, the oligarchic exiles in Anaea, opposite the island, returned and joined the Spartans. However, the democratic side soon managed to regain control with the help of the crews of three Athenian ships and exiled their rivals. The Athenians managed to maintain control over the strategic island and turn it into a vital naval base, although they had to grant it greater autonomy this time.⁹ Lesbos defected with the help of a military force from Chios but soon an Athenian force of 25 ships managed to capture first Mytilene and then the rest of the island despite the resistance of Astyochus, the Spartan harmost of Chios. Not before long, the Athenians disembarked on Chios and plundered it three times. The Spartans suppressed internal conflicts by murdering democratic political leaders and exiling several citizens.

4. Diplomatic Developments in Asia Minor: the Treaties between the Spartans and the Persians

In the summer of 412, after Miletus had defected, Tissaphernes and the Spartans formed the first treaty of alliance. The terms of the treaty were particularly favourable to Tissaphernes: the Persian king would regain all the cities that had belonged to his ancestors, while both sides would share the taxes paid by the allies. The Peloponnesians would consider those who would defect from the Persian state their enemies, while the same would apply to the Persians. Finally, none of the contracting parties had the right to make peace with Athens.¹⁰ As a result, the Lacedaemonians at first hoped for economic and then for tactical benefits. They aimed to prevent Athens from economically exploiting its allies. Of course, their main strategic aim was their victory over Athens on the Greek front.

When the Athenians, helped by an Argive force, tried to recapture Miletus, they encountered stiff resistance from the locals and the Lacedaemonians.¹¹ On the other hand, the coordinated allied forces bore fruit. The Lacedaemonians with the Lycians from Xanthus suppressed the uprise of Amorges, whom the Athenians had supported already from 414 BC, thus violating the peace treaty they had with the Persians. Iassos, the seat of the rebellion, was captured and subjugated to Tissaphernes, while its inhabitants were sold as slaves.¹² Tissaphernes in the south caused the defection of Cnidus, which the Athenians failed to recapture.

The reluctance of the satrap to pay the amounts owed to the Lacedaemonians resulted in a temporary conflict, which was soon settled.¹³ Maybe after this conflictIt, the Spartans demanded a new treaty, which was made in the winter of 412-411 BC, after the terms had been previously approved by the administration in Sparta as well. The text of the new treaty permitted the Lacedaemonians to satisfy the Greek public opinion. The treaty was this time drawn up in the name of the Persian king and his sons, and included the positive assurance that the latter would finance the operations that would take place in their territory¹⁴. The Spartans positively assured that they would not attack Asia Minor, while the king withdrew his claim on the Greek cities, which did not alter the gist of the initial agreement.¹⁵

Alcibiades, who had defected from the Spartan army already from the mid-summer of 412 because Astyochos had demanded his execution, escaped to Sardis. He foresaw his possible return to Athens and attempted to break down the loose front of the Spartans and Tissaphernes. The latter was advised to contact Athens. In addition, Alcibiades communicated with the Athenian fleet in Samos and suggested that he intervene with Tissaphernes and the king on behalf of the fleet. He also met the ambassadors from the Greek cities, who asked the satrap of Lydia for money, and sent them away.

The Spartan fleet of 100 ships arrived in Cnidus, where Lichas, who had assumed lots of military and diplomatic duties, demanded a third treaty because the terms of the previous ones were so blatant that they not only compelled Sparta to transfer the control over the Greeks of Asia to the Persians but also left room for the king to claim all the Balkan peninsula down to Boeotia as patrimonial land. He claimed that the Spartans were able to continue the war without Persian money. The intervention of the fleet in Rhodes and the defection of the island from Athens gave the Spartans the chance to follow a policy independently of Tissaphernes.¹⁶

Tissaphernes was annoyed and started to consider a potential agreement with Athens. However, this attempt failed mainly because the Persian satrap could not abandon the Spartans, whom he was afraid of, but also because Alcibiades finally tried to reap more benefits for the Persians by asking the Athenian ambassadors to even grant the king the right to build a fleet on the coast, which endangered the Athenian domination of the seas.¹⁷

Following negotiations in Caunus, the third treaty between the Persians and the Spartans was signed in the valley of Meander in the summer of 411 BC. The Persian representatives were Tissaphernes, the sons of Pharnakes (Pharnabazus and his brother) and some Hieramenes. This treaty dispelled any doubts about the former possessions of the Achaemenids in Europe, which Darius II had permanently lost. However, the clause stating that Asia belonged to the king and that he had the right to command his possessions any way he wanted was included again. The treaty also included his obligation to help by sending a fleet of Phoenician ships to patrol the Aegean. Tissaphernes should back the Peloponnesian fleet until the Persian fleet arrived.¹⁸

5. The Reversal of Sparta

The Phoenician fleet reached Aspendus and stopped there, either because Tissaphernes never wanted to send it to fight, according to Thucydides, or because disorder in Egypt and Arabia did not allow the fleet to operate in the Aegean, according to Diodorus.¹⁹ The fact is that the satrap of Lydia did not fulfill his obligation to help, possibly on the advice of Alcibiades, who escaped Samos and went to Caunus and Phaselis. As a result, the Spartans started to be more favourable towards the case of cooperating with Pharnabazus as the latter promised to back the fleet.

In the meanwhile, the Greek cities of Asia Minor except Ephesus did not easily go with the flow.²⁰ Clazomenae returned to the Athenian side, which led the Spartan Astyochos, in cooperation with the Egyptian lieutenant of Tissaphernes, to take action against the city.²¹ The Milesians turned Tissaphernes’ guard out and, as a result, the Spartan commander Lichas, although he was opposed to the humiliating terms of the third treaty, was forced to call them to order.²² Cnidus, which had originally accepted the satrap’s guard, rebelled.²³ Later on, when the Hellespont became the main war theatre, there were only sporadic events: Iassos defected (410 BC), turned the Spartan harmost and the Persian guard out and established a democratic regime.²⁴ Chios faced internal conflicts: exiled ‘friends of the Lacedaemonians’, helped by the Spartan admiral Kratesippidas, returned to the island and chased out 600 political opponents of theirs, who settled at Atarnea on the Asia Minor coast and started to fight against their compatriots.²⁵

Sparta decided to send its fleet to the Hellespont. The new admiral was Mindarus, who sailed with the fleet to the north apart from 12 ships that were sent to Rhodes because the admiral never saw the Phoenician fleet coming. Tissaphernes tried to make him change his mind by imprisoning Alcibiades, who shortly later escaped.²⁶

6. Military and Diplomatic Operations in the Hellespont

The joined action of Mindarus and Pharnabazus in 411-410 BC worked: Abydus defected and became the naval base of the Lacedaemonians until the end of the war, the region from Rhoition to Sigeion was occupied by Dercylides and was retained under control; Lampsacus defected temporarily, although it was later recaptured by the Athenian general Strombichides, Cyzicus defected twice, Byzantium and Chalcedon defected and Illium was captured.²⁷Antandros, which had revolted in 412, was strongly pressed by Arsaces, an officer under Tissaphernes. With the Spartan help and the tolerance of Pharnabazus, the citizens turned the Persian guard out, became politically independent and joined the Lacedaemonians.²⁸

However, the Athenian reaction was unexpectedly strong: in 411, thanks to the reinforcements from Alcibiades, who intervened suddenly, defeated the coalition forces in the sea battle of Abydus. Alcibiades, who actually overthrew the oligarchic goverment of the "Four Hundred", was summoned by his fleet to Samos. In 411-410 BC the Athenians collected the money and the provisions they needed in order to continue the war untrammeled.

In the spring of 410 BC the naval forces of Mindarus and the ground forces of Pharnabazus confronted the Athenians in Cyzicus again. Thanks to a contrivance of Alcibiades, the Peloponnesians were completely defeated, while Pharnabazus and his forces collapsed as soon as they saw their mercenaries desert the battlefield.²⁹ The Athenians settled a control station in Chrysopolis outside Byzantium and imposed tariffs of 10 % to all ships crossing the Hellespont.³⁰

The desperate Spartans sent Endoios to Athens to make peace on condition that each power would keep its possessions. However, the most influential leader, Cleophon, persuaded the Ecclesia (the Assembly) to vote down the proposal.

Pharnabazus gave the Peloponnesians and their allies the opportunity to build a new fleet in Antandros.³¹ In the meanwhile, the Syracusans walked out in order to fight off the Carthaginians, who had attacked Sicily. Alcibiades continued his successful war in the Hellespont.³² On the other hand, there was less progress on the Ionian front. At first, the Athenians landed on Pygela (near Kuşadasi), defeated the Milesians and entered Colophon. Thrasyllus invaded Lydia, looted it and destroyed the crop³³, but the Athenian attack to Ephesus was repelled by the strong resistance of the Ephesians, who had been reinforced by Syracuse, Selinus, Sparta and a force sent by Tissaphernes³⁴. The Athenian army was forced to withdraw and escape to Lampsacus, which they fortified.

In the spring of 408 the Athenians besieged Chalcedon. After he communicated with the Spartan commandant Hippocrates, who tried to leave the city, Pharnabazus wanted to raise the siege. Alcibiades defeated him heavily and Hippocrates was killed.³⁵ The Athenian admiral attacked even against the Thracians of Bithynia.³⁶ In the summer of the same year the Spartans seem to have unsuccessfully asked for peace with Athens for a second time.³⁷

Disappointed by the successive defeats and fearing that Chalcedon might fall, Pharnabazus made truce with the Athenians provided that he would pay war indemnities of 20 talents and Chalcedon would pay taxes to Athens amounting to the taxes it had been paying before it rebelled as well as taxes for the period of defection. Pharnabazus should also escort an Athenian delegation to Susa.³⁸ The Athenians spent the winter in Gordium and towards the late 408 they met the Spartan delegation of Boeotius and later Cyrus the Younger, who was sent by the king to continue the war and help the Lacedaemonians by all means.³⁹

The Athenians continued the war successfully: Selybria and Byzantium were captured, while the entire region of the straits except for Abydus was soon under their control.⁴⁰ Alcibiades left Samos and campaigned to Caria, where he collected the amount of 100 talents. He had already been elected general and returned to Athens triumphantly with a large number of captives and lots of loot; he was given the command of sea and land operations.⁴¹ The operations in the Hellespont were continued by Thrasybulus, who occupied Thasos, which had rebelled in 412. In the early 407 Athens had recovered almost all its positions in the Hellespont, although it had to grant some privileges to the regained cities, while in Ionia it controlled Samos, Kos, Clazomenae, Iassos, Colophon, Notium, Teos and Delphinium in Chios. Cyme of Aeolis was still an ally of Athens only in name.

7. Developments: Cyrus and Lysander in Asia Minor

After having been awarded by his father Darius II the title of satrap of Cappadocia, Great Phrygia and Lydia as well as the title of karanos (commander-in-chief), the sixteen-year old Cyrus took over the command of operations on the entire front. He was expressly ordered to provide full financial support to the Spartans, thus, he had 500 talents with him.⁴² Tissaphernes, who was under detention in Caria, and the defeated Pharnabazus were ordered to be placed under Cyrus. The fact that Cyrus took over the command proves that the two previous commanders had failed in their fight against Athens. Cyrus ordered Pharnabazus to arrest and keep the delegation in Gordium; they were finally liberated three years later.⁴³ Tissaphernes suggested that they should make a war of attrition against Athens; however, his proposal was rejected without discussion.⁴⁴

In 407 BC Lysander was nominated admiral of the Spartan forces. After he toured Rhodes, Kos, Miletus and Ephesus, where he was warmly welcomed, he met Cyrus in Sardis and they planned a common strategy. Thanks to his personal relations with the aristocracies of the Greek cities and his ability to establish communication with the Persians, Lysander changed the course of the war. Based in Ephesus, he concentrated a fleet of 70 ships, which later became 90.⁴⁵

Athens tried to communicate with Cyrus but failed. It was decided that they would counter-attack Ionia. They first captured Phocaea, where they started to build a wall in order to use it as a base for their subsequent operations. In Clazomenae, where the followers of oligarchy seemed to have regained control, Alcibiades was summoned to intervene so that the city could be still considered a loyal ally of Athens.⁴⁶

In the spring of 406 BC Sparta finally managed to win a victory, whose consequences were far-reaching for the outcome of the war. The officer of Alcibiades, Antiochus, whose forces were arrayed in Notium, despite the opposite instructions he had been given, fought a sea battle against Lysander and was heavily defeated. Then, Alcibiades tried unsuccessfully to capture Cyme, an alleged ally of Athens. The two failures triggered strong reaction in Athens against Alcibiades, with whom Cleophon and the extreme democratic followers had problems. Although he was not convicted, Alcibiades was not elected general and abandoned the fleet before he took refuge in his properties in Thrace. He was replaced by Conon, who launched small-scale invasions in order to find the necessary supplies for his men.

8. The End of the War

In 406 Lysander’s service ended and he was replaced by Callicratidas, who changed his predecessor’s policy and tried to make war in the traditional Spartan way without the Persian funds, though. As a result, he came into conflict with Cyrus. After he took ships and money from the allied cities, he sailed the Aegean, where he managed to capture Teos, the Athenian bridgehead in Chios, Delphinium and Methymna in Lesbos. He then besieged Conon in Mytilene. Athens and its allies sent their last reserves and in the sea battle of Arginoussai, in the summer of 406, they fought down and killed Callicratidas.⁴⁷

This glorious victory may have been the reason why Athens was finally defeated. The generals did not manage to collect the castaways from 12 ships, probably because of the wild tempest; they stood trial and the most efficient military leaders of the city were convicted and killed.⁴⁸ The morale of the fleet in Samos declined. In the meantime, Sparta realised that they would win again only if Lysander returned, which happened when he went back to Asia Minor in 405 BC as epistoleus (second in command), though actually as the undisputed leader. With the financial help of Cyrus he reorganised the army in Ephesus and built a new fleet in Antandros. When Cyrus walked out of Asia Minor, he remained the leading figure of the anti-Athenian side, authorized to collect the taxes on behalf of Cyrus. He started with small-scale operations. In Miletus he supported the extreme oligarchic followers and exiled 1000 citizens, who took refuge in Pharnabazus. The latter settled them in Blaundos, while Lysander captured Iassos and Kedreae in the Ceramic golf, and enthralled or killed the inhabitants.⁴⁹

He continued to fight in the Hellespont and besieged and captured Lampsacus. On the opposite bank, at Aegospotami, Lysander and the allies of Sparta gave the decisive blow to the Athenian fleet. The Athenians were caught off their guard while still on land. Only 12 out of the 180 Athenian ships survived thanks to Conon.⁵⁰ The Athenian domination of the seas ended. The cities of the Hellespont either surrendered to Pharnabazus or accepted Spartan armostes, while in the Aegean all allies defected from Athens and even the democratic followers of Samos surrendered and abandoned the city. Not being able to withstand the siege from sea and land any more, Athens submitted and the Peloponnesian War ended.

9. Historical Evaluation