Thucydides contends that the treaty of 421 did not bring genuine peace (5.26.2). Powerful members of Sparta’s alliance rejected it, and although the Spartans recovered the soldiers captured at Pylos, few of the other terms of the treaty were carried out. But the respite from battle offered both sides a chance to regroup. As early as 419 the impetuous Athenian aristocrat Alcibiades was stirring up trouble in the Peloponnese. The Spartans showed signs of their old selves when they defeated the Argive alliance in a hoplite battle at Mantinea. In 416 the Athenians captured the island of Melos, a Spartan colony, then put to death the adult males and sold the women and children into slavery (5.116.4). In the same year the Athenians voted to send a large expedition to Sicily under the command of Nicias, Alcibiades, and Lamachus. Technically the Peace still held; not until 414 would the Athenians openly break it by sending help to Argive allies under attack by the Spartans (6.105.1).
By 413 the Athenians seemed to be on the brink of defeat. By this time Alcibiades had fled to Sparta after being recalled to stand trial on charges of impiety in Athens (Thucydides 6.61.1) and for two years had been helping the enemy. The Spartans were at Athens’ back door; the Attic deme of Decelea had been transformed into an outpost for the enemy and a haven for runaway slaves (7.27.3-5). The Athenians had suffered the total destruction of their forces in Sicily (7.87) and feared both a direct attack on the city and revolt among their allies. In response to the crisis the Athenians appointed a board of elders, including the poet Sophocles, to govern the city (8.1.3). The following year, Chios, one of the few allies still in possession of its navy, went over to the Spartans (8.14.2).
Over the final seven years of the war the Athenians showed remarkable resilience. Although consistently short of funds, they rebuilt their navy. With the help of Alcibiades, who had shifted his allegiance once again and had been elected general of the fleet stationed at Samos (Thucydides 8.81), the Athenians would go on to win a number of impressive victories in the east.
Alcibiades eventually returned to Athens (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.4), but his recall was a mixed blessing. He furthered the cause of oligarchs in Athens, who overturned the democracy in 411 (Thucydides 8.64-70). Their violent reign was unstable and short-lived. The fleet at Samos swore to remain democratic and to continue to fight the Peloponnesians (8.75). They went so far as to form an assembly and elect their own generals. In effect, they became an Athenian government in exile.
According to Thucydides, internal divisions were the real cause of Athens’ defeat (2.65.11), and Xenophon’s account of the final years of the war seem to bear him out. After winning naval victories at Cynosema and Cyzicus (Thucydides 8.104-7; Xenophon, Hellenica 1.1) and regaining control of much of the Hellespont (Hellenica 1.3), the Athenians failed to drive home their successes. Without tribute to fund the fleet, commanders had to extort pay for their rowers from cities in Asia Minor and the islands. During one such excursion to raise money, Alcibiades made the mistake of leaving his forces in the hands of a subordinate, who foolishly exposed the fleet to a successful attack by the Spartan commander Lysander (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.5). The Athenians, as Alcibiades well knew, were unlikely to accept his excuses. Rather than risk their wrath he fled to a stronghold he had prepared for himself in the Chersonese (Hellenica 1.5).
Despite a resounding naval victory, the Athenian generals at Arginusae (406) were less fortunate than Alcibiades. In the aftermath of battle, a storm prevented them from rescuing rowers who had been swept overboard. When they were brought to trial for neglecting their duty, they felt the full force of the Athenians’ anger. Collectively (and therefore illegally) condemned, some fled the city, while others were put to death (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.6-7). Because of the trial the Athenians forfeited the services of some of their most capable commanders, including the younger Pericles (Jameson 1956, 222-24). They also rejected yet another Spartan offer of peace (Aristotle, Constitution 34).
Through jealousy, suspicion, or sheer incompetence, in the following year (405), Athenian commanders assigned to the fleet at the Hellespont failed to take to heart a warning from Alcibiades that their position at Aegospotami was vulnerable to attack by the Peloponnesian fleet. The details of the battle of Aegospotami are not clear, but the outcome is. Of the 180 ships in the Athenian fleet, only nine survived. The Athenian general Conon sailed with eight to Cyprus; one ship returned to Athens with the appalling news. Some Athenians escaped overland to Sestos; the rest, perhaps three to four thousand men, were captured and put to death (Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1). Lysander controlled the Hellespont and with it Athens’ grain. By forcing all the Athenians he found in Asia to return to the city, he hastened the famine that eventually forced Athens to submit (Hellenica 2.2). By 404 the Athenians had torn down their walls, and with Sparta’s blessing the city was ruled by a council of Athenian oligarchs, the so-called Thirty Tyrants.
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