Opposite Spartan Warrior
This Greek (c. 480 B. C.E.) pottery shows a Spartan soldier. The Spartans based their entire society on military service.
AT THE END OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, SPARTA TORE down Athens’s long walls and declared Greece free from the Delian League. Corinth pressed Sparta to completely destroy Athens, but the Spartans wanted to be sure a weaker Athens still existed as a counterbalance to Corinth. The Spartans established a new government in Athens-a group of leaders who came to be called the 30 Tyrants. This group of wealthy oligarchs reigned just eight months, but their rule was so severe (their members had no qualms about executing Athenian citizens in order to grab their property) that Thebes, Athens’s long-time foe, expressed sympathy for the Athenians. Rather than see Thebes and Athens become friendly, Sparta stood quietly by while Athenians overthrew the 30 Tyrants in 403 B. C.E.
Athens went about restoring its democratic government, but the city-state did not have the finances it had enjoyed a few decades earlier. Food was scarce and the city was more crowded than ever. There was no income from the silver mines after Sparta freed the mine slaves, and golden objects in the temples were melted down to pay war debts. The Athenian empire, after a glorious half-century, was finished. Historian, M. I. Finley wrote in The Ancient Greeks that the devastation of Athens in the Peloponnesian War was disastrous for all of Greece, because Athens was the one city that might have been able to unify the city-states and thus maintain peace. Perhaps that could have led to a genuine nation, instead of the collection of city-states whose days of independence were nearly over.
World History
