Can anyone tell me about the Peloponnesian war? I'm thinking

it was all anime for Alcibiades until he ran out of keikaku

then Lysander picked up the pace and ended the entire thing with the help of the power of friendship and Persian investments

>>2407569

Thucydides is incredibly dry, but also incredibly informative.

But you're asking about a war (2, really, in a lot of ways) that lasted decades. Can you narrow your question down? What exactly do you want to know?

>>2407601

Well, why did Sparta decide to side with Persia? Would this not piss off other Greeks, or at least remove the Lacedaemonian moral high ground? How does a stronger sea power give a superior land power so much trouble?

>>2407628
>Well, why did Sparta decide to side with Persia?

Why not? Persia was a wealthy supporting state, and the war was bankrupting and crippling struggle. Yes, it cost them some legitimacy, but realpolitik means more than a vague concept of moral high ground. Ultimately, they couldn't afford to build and maintain a fleet without Persian support, so Persian support they sought and Persian support they got.

>How does a stronger sea power give a superior land power so much trouble?

You have to remember that this is an era where the state of siegecraft on the defensive is enormously more advanced than the state of siegecraft on the offensive. For all of Sparta's land hegemony, they were unable to actually directly breach the Long Walls, and they couldn't even do things like hit Larium, it was just too expensive and unfeasible to embark on long campaigns (the Helots would stir up trouble if unwatched, if nothing else).

Meanwhile, wealth often came from trade, and that usually meant sea contact; the greater naval power could secure their own and interdict the enemy's. And in an absence of an ability to decisively strike at the enemy, those sort of economic harassing actions were the best you could really hope to do, and Athens was a lot better at it than Sparta was.

>>2407628
>How does a stronger sea power give a superior land power so much trouble?
mobility
>why did Sparta decide to side with Persia?
to remove said mobility by having their own fleet of tiremes, courtesy of Cyrus the Younger

>>2407663

Did they feel dirty about dealing with the perfidious Mede? It's funny how they act mighty for defeating Persia, and yet they need Persian help. I don't imagine whatever treaty they signed lasted long.

>>2407683
>Did they feel dirty about dealing with the perfidious Mede


I doubt it. Greek politics as a whole is full of double-dealing and backstabbing and selling out your neighbor to anyone who might be offering a price for it.


But seriously, if you're going to study history for /int/ tier memes and dickwaving, you might want to reconsider your life. And I would certainly stay away from Thucydides.

File: 387px-Pelopennesian_War,_Key_Actions_in_each_Phase,_431_-_404_B.C..jpg (39KB, 387x599px) Image search: [Google]

39KB, 387x599px

>be athens
>recovering from failures in sicily
>mostly winning against spartan ships
>lose one
>best admiral self exiles
>win another battle but can't save ships/men
>kill 6 of our best admirals because of it
>lose war

>>2407683
> It's funny how they act mighty for defeating Persia, and yet they need Persian help.
Sparta and Persia had a thing for eachother for a long time. Even after the second Greeco-Persian war Xerxes was plotting a third invasion with Leonidas nephew and regent of Sparta who was seen as the great leader and Hero of the Battle of Platae. Of course the entire thing never happened after Athenians discovered the plot (when he started releasing Persian prisoners from the 2nd war and started dressing/take on Persian culture).
Then there is the Corinthian war that was heavily Persian/Spartan favoured, eventhough it was originally about stopping Sparta where the Athenians/Boeotian league united with the Persians. But Sparta and Persia ended up fucking Athens in the ass instead and forced them into a unfavourable peace deal.

Hell, during Alexanders conquest, King Agis III of Sparta came to the aid of the Persian empire and fought the Macedonians at Megalopolis dying in battle heroically and everything.

There relation wasn't as black and white as Hollywood is trying to make it out to be.

>>2407703

Wtf were they thinking..

>>2407569
If you want to learn about ancient Greece you have to learn how to go in dry.

can someone explain to me the reasoning behind the sicilian expedition

>>2408169

Athens was riding really high at that point. Sure, Sparta and her allies had an advantage on land, but they couldn't actually do anything with it. Athenian strategy was simply to hold on, interdict the Peloponeasan trade, and wait for them to collapse.

Meanwhile, Syracuse, the main city in Sicily, had made some rather minor but still annoying pro-Spartan gestures. They needed to be taught a lesson, and isolate Sparta still further, since remember, this is a war of trade and morale, not something where Athens can directly strike at their enemies. And while Syracuse was far away, Athens thought they could handle it, especially since they, with some justification, believed their fleet was invincible and could bail them out if things went badly.

>>2408093
what is olive oil

Read Donald Kagan first IMO

If you really want to start with Thucydides, pick up the "Landmark Thucydides", it's a superb omnibus and incredibly annotated to guide you through it. I own the Herodotus, and consider it the definite one to own. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0684827905/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1487860234&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=landmark+thucydides&dpPl=1&dpID=51olpAOAAlL&ref=plSrch

>>2407569
>Thucydides
>incredibly dry

Maybe you're a total fucking pleb. The book focuses in on small case studies like women killing trained soldiers by throwing bits of roof tile at them and how it represents the catatstrophe of civil war, Athenian troops being brutally massacred as they try desperately to drink water from a stream in the height of summer and the Melian dialogue.

“The absence of romance in my history will, I fear, detract somewhat from its interest, but if it is judged worthy by those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the understanding of the future, which in the course of human things must resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content.
In fine I have written my work not as an essay with which to win the applause of the moment but as a possession for all time.”