What is Peloponnesian War?
[[File:Alliances in the Pelopennesian War, 431 B.C. 1.JPG|thumbnail|220px]] The '''Peloponnesian War''' (431–404 BC) was an [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] military conflict, fought by [[Athens]] and its allies, against the ''Peloponnesian League'', led by [[Sparta]]. Athens was the greatest sea power, and Sparta the greatest land power in [[5th century BC]] Greece. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of [[Attica]], while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the [[Peloponnese]]. This period of the war ended in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC Athens dispatched a large force, led by [[Alcibiades]], to attack [[Syracuse, Italy|Syracuse]] in [[Sicily]]. The attack failed, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC. This made Athens vulnerable. The final phase of the war is called the Decelean War, or the Peloponnesian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from the [[Achaemenid Empire]], supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the [[Aegean Sea]] and [[Ionia]], undermining Athens' empire. Eventually, Athens lost its naval supremacy. The destruction of the Athenian fleet in a battle in 405 BC effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year. == Results == The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world. Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece before the war started, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection. Sparta became the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, Athens was completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity.<ref name=Kagan>Kagan, Donald 2003. ''The Peloponnesian War''. New York: Viking. hardcover {{ISBN|0-670-03211-5}}; Penguin paperback {{ISBN|0-14-200437-5}}</ref><sup>p488</sup><ref>Fine, ''The Ancient Greeks'', 528–33.</ref> The war also brought subtl