Peloponnesian War: the fortification of the
Attica coastline
BY
Paul Montgomery
Thesis M.A.
Ancient culture and society Masters
Program
University Utrecht, Netherlands
Illustration: "Mourning Athena" Relief from Athenian Acropolis, showing Athena reading a stele,
perhaps containing inscribed names of war dead, arranged by tribes. Marble, 470-460 BCE. Acropolis
Museum, Athens. (http://www.goddess-athena.org/Museum/Sculptures/Alone/Mourning_Athena.jpg)
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Title page
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Thesis Introduction
History of the Peloponnesian war
Spartan Tactics by land and by sea
Athenian tactics by sea and “luck”
Fortification of Attica: location and motivations
The loss of Dekelia in 414-413 B.C: the revenge of Alcibiades?
Archeological information on the fortifications at Rhamnous and Sounion
Spartans change of tactics
Conclusion
Bibliography
Appendices A
Appendices B
Appendices C
Appendices D
Appendices E
Appendices F
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Peloponnesian War: the fortification of the Attica coastline
Introduction of the thesis question
This thesis will be a combination of the archaeological and historical research into the
military tactics used in the Peloponnesian war. The basis of the text will be an
examination and explanation of the fortification of the coast of Attica during the
Peloponnesian war. In this thesis, I will use a number of historical texts by writers
such as Thucydides as a guide to link to the locations and motivations of the
construction of forts on the coast of Attica during the Peloponnesian war.
The war itself started in 431 B.C and did not end until 404 BC. The time period I will
be dealing with is focused on the later part of the war. Athens, due to their naval
supremacy, did not fear the naval invasion from the Peloponnesus; it did little to
fortify their costal defenses. The loss of Dekelia to the Peloponnesians in 414-413
B.C. cut off the only overland supply route to Athens forcing them to use the coast to
bring supplies to their city. As the war progressed, the Peloponnesians developed a
full size fleet that had the possibility to attack the coast of Attica. The normal tactics
of the Spartans during the opening parts of the war has been to invade northern Attica
by land, but as they developed a navy they started to disrupt the flow of grain, money
and supplies that the Athens needed to keep the war and the city going. The logical
reaction to the move of the Peloponnesians to the supplies of Athenians would have
been to try to remove the embargo by securing a supply source or by keeping control
of some part of Attica so they could feed the city. Due to defensive strategies of
Athens, which it maintained during the war, Athens should have opted for the
securing of their supply source. Athens weakness in land based military actions meant
that they focused on their coastal defenses.
In light of this situation I have looked at a number of sites on the coastline in Attica
which were under direct control of Athens running from the North East coast along
the coast until where Attica meets Megara on the Saronic Gulf. I have investigated
these sites for any recorded indication of archaeological evidences of fortification at
the start or during the Peloponnesian war. In that process I have consulted texts such
as the The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites and referenced my findings by
The History of the Peloponnesian War By Thucydides. The result was that only three
sites with any fortifications which had been built excluding the major ports of Athens
and Island of Salamis which were already in use before the start if the Peloponnesian
war. Out of these sites noted below with a #, three of them can be confirmed as
having been built during the Peloponnesian war, Rhamonous, Thorikos and Sounion.
 Oropus
 Rhamonous #
 Marathon
 Araphen
 Halae Araphenides
 Brauron
 Coroneia
 Thorikos #
 Lavrion
 Sounion #
 Cape of Zoster
 Phalerion Port of Athens
3
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Peiraeus Port of Athens
Asropyrgos
Kalopiaedi
Eleusis
Aulis Port of the Island of Salamis
The two sites which can be confirmed as part of the Attic coastal defense were
Rhamnous which was fortified in 412 B.C. and Sounion in the same year, both of
which were set up in reaction to the loss of northern attic town of Dekelia in the same
year. In the case of Thorikos it was fortified at an earlier date than the other two. As
opposed to them this site was fortified to function not as a port but rather as a base for
the nearby silver mines of Laurion1. Therefore, I will no longer consider this site in
my discussion. The information I have found points to two coastal forts that are
linked to the homeport of Athens in the coastal supply line. This supply line was
multifunctional tool of the state bring in food, trade goods as well as the state
revenues and facilitating the working of the empire. In light of the size of Attica as
one of the largest states in Greece, the fact that only two points on this huge western
coast existed to which Athens was connected seems to make little sense considering
Athens was a major naval power.
There are a number of reasons for Attica to fully fortify her coastline. Firstly, the fact
that the Peloponnesians were at Dekelia 414-413 B.C. would have been a major
motivator. Also the lack of any major damage to the forts at Rhamnous and Sounion
during the Peloponnesians war as was the case during the Persian wars and the
rebuilding after indicates that they were still functioning part of the state. If this is the
case, this meant that there were no outside factors stopping them from fortifying their
coastline to deal with problems of coastal attack as they arose. This leaves me with
the question of why were both sites chosen to be fortified and for which role?
The other part of the thesis will be the archeological examination of the layout and
purpose of the fortifications at Rhamnous and Sounion. I hope to fully examine the
lay out of the forts to find out if they were constructed to keep a possible invading
fleet out of Attica. This question is motivated by the fact that only one of the forts has
naval capabilities as well as the fact that all of them have most of their fortifications
aimed at the land rather than at the sea. This brings up the following question since
we know they were built to aid shipping it remains unclear as to why there were not
more fortified like Piraeus to protect it from the Peloponnesians taking them by sea. Is
it possible that Athens was already weakened by Dekelia and the misfortunes of later
half of the war since they were already losing the sea war? Hoped to draw the
Spartans back on to land?
When we consider the developments of the Peloponnesian war and the vital use of the
power of Athens at sea and in the later half of the Peloponnesians at sea. It seem be
possible that the lack of Attica’s fortifications could be explained by the idea that
Athens wanted the Peloponnesians to fight them on land. This may seem strange
considering that the Peloponnesians were the best land solders in Greece. However
the Athenians would stand no chance if the Peloponnesians were to control the sea as
well as the land. Could it be that the Athenians who were already in a bad position,
hoped to rely one their great strength the fleet, that could keep them supplied at the
1
Xenophon: Hellenica . I,II,1.
4
port of Piraeus? By drawing the Peloponnesians onto land, they could remain stable
by relaying on there skill at sea. The question of what the Athenians would have
preferred remained open: Attica filled with the Peloponnesians troops and the city
supplied by ship safe behind its walls or Attica half empty and their real empire the
sea of the Aegean and their supplies cut off. It could be pointed out that the Athenians
did not need to fortify Attica, as they were safe behind their walls. However as we can
see from the pressure being applied on them by the Spartans, Athens needed either a
secure supply lines by fortifying the routes along the coastline or a bigger fortified
area with in Attica itself.
The response to this question of the possibility of an Athenian plot to trick the
Peloponnesians into fight the war by Athens rules, is what was the possible gain was
or loss for the Peloponnesians to invest all their resources is a total land invasion. For
the Spartans, the possible gains were vast, as they would take over the position of the
Athenians as the dominant power in Aegean. However there was much to gamble as
well, because of their position as the best land army that would be weakened by the
creation of navy, as they would need to invest their already dwindling amount of
troops in risky seafaring venture. As well as risking an uprising from the rest of the
Greek states under Athens and in their own Peloponnesian league by trying to take the
places of Athens with the help of the Persians, the age old enemy of Greece.
History of the Peloponnesian war
( Map of Greece at the start of the Peloponnesian war )
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Peloponnesian_War.png)
5
Before I go any further in this text, I will first chronologically lay out the events of the
Peloponnesian war. There are a number of opinions as to when we should pinpoint the
start of the war and the reasons behind it. For my purpose of military evaluation of the
event, I will decided on the commonly agreed upon date of 431 B.C. or the start of the
so-called Archidamain war2. As for the reason of the war, there have been hundreds of
books written on the subject, but in general the following explanation is given with
the manipulation by Athens of the Greek conflict with Persian Empire as the major
enemy after the Persian wars, Athens was finally enabled to follow a policy of
imperialistic expansion and therefore became a major power block that endangered
the well being of the other powerful state in Greece, Sparta.
Between 433 and 431, a series of events occurred that finally drove the Spartans to
war. The first of these began as a dispute between Corinth, a member of the
Peloponnesian League (a modern name for the Spartan-led alliance) and its colony of
Corcyra. When the Corinthians began assembling a fleet to crush Corcyra, the
Corcyrans appealed to Athens for assistance. By this point, war between Athens and
the Peloponnesian League was regarded as inevitable by both sides. Since the
Athenians were unwilling to let the large Corcyran fleet fall into the hands of future
enemies, they chose instead to augment their naval strength by signing a defensive
alliance with Corcyra. A small Athenian naval force helped the Corcyrans repulse the
Corinthian fleet at the Battle of the Sybota Islands in September 4333.
The Corinthians, now firmly opposed to Athens tried to bring the Spartans into war
against the Athenian empire. The Athenians handed them a golden opportunity the
following year. The city of Potidaea in the Chalcidice, a member of the Athenian
empire, also maintained close ties with Corinth, its mother city. The Athenians,
anticipating that the Corinthians might induce the Potidaeans to lead a general revolt
of the cities in the region, demanded that Potidaea expel its Corinthian magistrates
and tear down its walls. Instead of averting the revolt, this Athenian ultimatum
triggered it. Before the Athenians could react, a force of 2,000 "volunteers"
commanded by the Corinthian general Aristeus had reached the city4. The Athenians
immediately gathered their own forces in response, and after a short battle outside
Potidaea, Aristeus' army was driven back into the city. With the arrival of Phormio5
with 1,600 more hoplites, the Athenians settled in for a siege6. The Spartans decided
that Athens had finally gone too far. In the spring of 431, the Spartan alliance
formally voted for war against Athens7. All of Greece began to prepare for war. While
the armies mustered, several months were spent in futile last-minute negotiations
between the two sides. Open hostilities began when a Theban attempt to take the
Athenian-allied city of Plataea by treachery was bloodily repulsed8.
2
Called after Archidamus II was a king of Sparta who ruled from approximately 469 B.C to 427 B.C
the opening of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides. Book I. LXXIX.
3
Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military
history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927. Page 3. Thucydides .Book I, XLVLV.
4
Thucydides .Book I, LX, 2.
5
Phormio, the son of Asopius Naval commander of the fleet of Athens during the opening part of the
Peloponnesian war. Thucydides, Book I, LXIV.
6
Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military
history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927. Page 8-9
7
Thucydides .Book I, CXXV.
8
The attack did not go as planed as the majority of the Theban forces were taken or killed. Bernard
W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military history of
Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London. Page 69-72.
6
Due to the length and complicated nature of the Peloponnesian war, i will briefly give
a chronological outline of the Peloponnesian war, noting the major battles, events and
figures that played a role in it development which can be found in appendices A. The
war itself is usually broke up in to four sections, which have been given a number of
names. The first phase of the war was 431 B.C. to 421 B.C. or the Archidamain war,
Second phase or peace of Nicias 421 B.C. to 415 B.C, third phase the Sicilian
Expedition 415 B.C. to 413 B.C. and the fourth phase 413 B.C. to 404 B.C or the
Deke-leian war9. Throughout the war the two major power blocks, the Peloponnesians
under Sparta and the Athenian Empire, fought countless battles all over the Greek
world from South Italy to Asia Minor both on sea and land. When a third power
block, Persia entered the scene, it became a major factor about midway into the
conflict.
Spartan tactics by land and by sea
The Spartan military machine was one of the most effective soldier producing systems
in the ancient world. The mode of operation of Spartan state was to produce as many
hoplite soldiers and to use them as effectively as they could. In order to do this, the
state took in hand every male child born to a Spartan family and was responsible for
his education and upbringing, which’s only focus, was on war. This system using
pseudo-military social organizations such as the Agoge10, was able to produce a brand
of soldier that was by far superior to any found in Greece or the rest of eastern
Mediterranean. In the three hundred years before the start of the Peloponnesian war,
Sparta was considered to be one of the strongest military states in the entire Greek
world. Sparta had many minor battles against other Greek states over the years which
were held in high regard but her proudest moments came during the Persian wars at
Plataea in 479 B.C. including her “moral victory” at Thermopylae in 480 B.C11. These
battles enshrined the ideal of Sparta’s position as the Army of the hoplite par
excellence.
All of these successes were based on a well-structured and highly respected military
and social code, that was engraved in the minds of every Spartan 12. The ideas of
adherence to these rules and tradition also made them very conservative. This
conservatism had its good and bad points. On the positive note it produced the most
effectively trained land based soldiers in the world, which in the typical formalized
pitched battle such as the one fought against the Persians at Plataea resulted in victory
of the Spartans. On the other hand, it limited them to fighting in set manner on flat
ground and information. A military wing such as the cavalry and naval forces were
insignificant parts the Spartan army. The military conservatism also meant that in
their development they were confined for the most part to the Peloponnesus, as there
land based army was only able to travel to locations over land. This meant that the
Spartans were able to keep control over the Peloponnesus but would rarely stray away
from the Peloponnesian peninsula. This also was due to the economic infrastructure of
9
R. E. Dupuy and T. N. Dupuy, The Encyclopedia of Military History; from 3500 B.C. to Present,
Macdonald and Janes, 1970.Page 29-32.
10
Spartan military training for all citizens from early child hood to there late adult years. Pavel Oliva,
Sparta and her social problems. Academia Prague, 1971. Page 29.
11
The two major land battles of the Persian wars the Spartans took part in. Wees, Hans van: Greek
warfare.: Duckworth, London, 2004. Page 180-181.
12
The Spartans laws were given to them by their lawmaker Lycurgus and according to legends could
only be changed by him. Pavel Oliva, Sparta and her social problems. Academia Prague, 1971. Page
63-70.
7
the state that was dependant on a huge stock of Messenian slaves or helots13. The
Spartans were always worried that the helots would revolt and take over the state.
The military tactics that the Spartans employed during the Peloponnesian war saw a
slow shift from the classical constructive hoplite war, into a total war that was fought
all over the Greek world on land and sea. When we view the start of the
Peloponnesian war, the Spartans had three main sources of military resources open to
them, firstly their army the Spartan hoplites; secondly the land support of Theban
cavalry and minor amounts of infantry and lastly Corinth’s navy14. It must be noted
that both of these allies were not under Spartan total control, and at points during the
war gave little or no support to Sparta. The Spartan strategy during the first part of the
war, known as the Archidamian War after the Spartan king Archidamus II15.
Archidamus was a classical Spartan military strategist, who employed his troops in
431- 430 B.C to invade Attica during the warmer months. His goal was to hopefully
push Athens into fighting a pitched battle by surrounding Athens and cutting them off
from their lands. Archidamus II was reluctant to go to war with Athens as he realized
that the war would not be finished with in his own lifetime. In reality there was little
possibility of them taking over the city due to their military conservatism, they lacked
the knowledge of siege warfare needed to takeover Athens. While this attack deprived
Athens of the productive farmland around their city, Athens itself was able to
maintain access to the sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica
abandoned their farms and moved inside the long walls, which connected Athens to
its port of Piraeus16. The Spartans could only occupy Attica for only a few months in
the summertime. In the classical tradition of hoplite warfare they need to live off the
land if possible only during summer as a well as the fact that the soldiers needed to go
home to take care of their own harvest. Moreover, the Spartans slaves who formed the
bigger part of the population of the Spartan homeland, needed to be kept under
control, and could not be left unsupervised for long periods of time constraining the
Spartans military actions17.
One of the side effects of this siege of Athens was that in 430- 429 B.C a plague
broke out in Athens due to the overcrowding of the city by refugees driven into the
city by the Spartans18. A huge part of the population died, including the main military
stagiest and leader of Athens, Pericles who was replaced by Cleon 19. By 429B.C, the
Spartans come to the conclusion that simply invading Attica every year was not going
to end the war. So they started to look for a new way to defeat Athens. That marching
season, the Peloponnesian army gathered at the Isthmus of Corinth, but rather than
13
The Spartan economy was based on work of the helot that had held in slavery for 300 years from
Messenia. Peter Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians, Cambridge University
Press: UK.1998. Page 76- 82.
14
Officially all the states in the Peloponnesus were their allies except Argos and Achaea. Thucydides,
Book II, IX.
15
Thucydides Book I, IXXIX, 2.
16
See Appendices C, City of ancient Athens.
17
This draw back was a result of the Spartan states need to free citizen population to be hoplites. Peter
Hunt, Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians, Cambridge University Press:
UK.1998.Page 1.
18
The plague of Athens wiped out at least a huge amount of it population. Thucydides Book II, XLVIILIII.
19
With Pericles death two years after the great plague, Cleon a high-ranking citizen in Athens became
leader. Thucydides ,Book II, LXV.
8
invading Attica it headed north and attacked the centrally located pro-Athenian city of
Plataea. Despite the fact that the Plataeans could gather less than 500 soldiers to hold
their defenses, the city resisted the best efforts of the Peloponnesians to take it. This
was, in fact, typical of Greek warfare at the time. Only very rarely was a fortified city
taken by storm. The usual method was simply to surround the city and wait for it to
surrender, either by starvation or by treason (which was a commonplace event). After
a summer of frustration, the Peloponnesians dismissed most of their allies and the rest
settled in for a siege it was to last almost two years 429-427 B.C. To aid them in the
siege of Plataea, the Spartan – Theban force made double ring fortification wall
around the town. One to keep the native Plataeas in and the other to keep any force
from Athens sent to lift the siege, out20. During this period the Spartans also started to
pay more attention to other parts of the Athenian empire. The Spartans spent the next
three-year encouraging revolts all over Greece; while their allies Corinth tried taking
up the front line on the sea. A small Athenian fleet of 20 triremes under Phormio had
arrived in Naupactus to blockade the Gulf of Corinth. Early in 429, the Spartan
general Cnemus managed to slip across into Acarnania with 1,000 hoplites to help an
Ambraciot army attack the city of Stratus. The Corinthians sent out a fleet of 47
triremes to reinforce him, which was intercepted by Phormio's 20 ships. The result
was victory for Athens due to Athens maritime skills21. The Peloponnesians were not
quite finished. Upon learning that the Megarans had 40 triremes laid up in Nisaea, the
Peloponnesian commanders decided on an audacious plan. The Athenians, overly
confident in their own naval superiority, had left the harbor of Piraeus open and
unguarded. Taking their crews across the Isthmus of Corinth, the Peloponnesians took
over this new fleet and left Nisaea by night with nothing to stop them from sailing
into Piraeus and possibly ending the war at one stroke. But then their nerve failed
them, and instead they contented themselves with plundering the island of Salamis off
the coast of Attica.
The summer of 428 B.C again saw a Peloponnesian invasion of Attica, but far more
dangerous for the Athenians was the news that the Crocyra and the city of Mytilene
on Lesbos was preparing to revolt supported by the Spartans. In 425 B.C. the Spartan
found themselves trying to keep out invaders, as an Athenian army took over Pylos
resulting in the loss of their tiny fleet and the capture of a number of their troop on
Sphacteria22. The loss of these troops and their being held as hostages resulted in an
inactive year for Spartans in 424 B.C.23. The next year the Spartans put in action their
new war plan for beating Athens, to attack her other Greek holdings, in 424-423 B.C.
The Spartan general Brasidas invades Thrace and Chalcidice with an army of mostly
freed helots or neodamodeis by land taking the city of Amphipolis. Over the next two
years Athens mounted the pressure on Brasidas24, resulting in the battle of
20
The siege ended with Spartans held a sham trial of Plataeans, The Thebans later razed the city to the
ground. Thucydides ,Book III. LXVII.
21
Corinthians adopted a purely defensive formation, forming their ships into a circle with the prows
facing outward. Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to
the Military history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927.Page 100.
22
Island of the cost of Pylos in the Pelopennes. Thucydides ,Book IV.III.
23
292 troops were taken by Athens may of home were taken back to Athens to show the public. Victor
Davis Hanson, The wars of the Ancient Greeks and their Invention of Western Military Culture, Cassell
and Co, London 1999 Page 111.
24
422 B.C. Cleon and Nicias take a Athenian army north to deal with Brasidas attacks on their
settlement in north Greece, who falls back to Amphipolis. Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War
9
Amphipolis in 422 B.C., which Sparta won at the price of their general’s life25. This
battle marks what can be seen as the lull of the war as in 421 B.C. Athens and Sparta
make the 50 year truce the peace of Nicias, which returns all lands to there prePeloponnesian war holders26. Over the next 8 years both sides do not openly fight
each other but do come into conflict with each other’s allies, Sparta’s allies came into
conflict with Athens allies in 418 B.C at the Battles of Mantinea and Elis27. In 414
B.C. in reaction to the Sicilian Expedition. The Athenians in foolhardy attempt to
changes their run of military failures launch and attacks on the pro-Spartan city of
Syracuse on the island of Sicily28. Sparta dispatch a general, one Gylippus with a
force of four ships and 2,000 men to aid Syracuse in their resistance to Athens
attack29. 413 B.C. After a long struggle the Athenian fleet at Syracuse was defeated
by a Syracuse-Corinthian fleet, which started a rout of all the Athenian forces in
Syracuse30.
This defeat marks the resumption of warfare and the start of the last part of the war
with the invasion of Attica in 414 B.C. This land invasion is unsuccessful as it was at
the start of the war, by 412 B.C. at the same time a naval struggle for control of Ionia
coastline and Aegean Sea is being waged. The lack of successes on both land and sea
coupled with the near collapse of the Spartan state due to lack of man power as well
as money induces them to seek aid outside the Greek world in the most unlikely of
places, her sworn enemy Persia.
In 412 B.C. Sparta and the Persian Empire came to an agreement of sorts, a treaty of
non-aggression with a large amount of funds being invested in propping up Sparta and
the creation of a new fleet31. On the agreement that the Ionian coastline in Asia Minor
be returned to the Persians when its present holders Athens were defeated. One of the
results of this interaction is the putting into action of some of the military suggestions
of the exiled guest the Athenian general Alcibiades, the most importuned being the
sending of an army to the frontier fort of Attica, Dekelia. Dekelia after its fall to
Sparta became a permanent base camp for a Spartan army to attack Athens at any
time it wanted to. The location of the Dekelia was vital to the Spartans being the main
mountain pass over which the Athenians transported food from the northern Aegean.
between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co
Limited London, 1927. Page 281-286
25
The Athenian commander Cleon also dies in the battle. Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War
between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co
Limited London, 1927. page 285-286.
26
The peaces of nicas, Athens and Sparta make the 50 year truces which returned all lands held during
the war to there pre- Peloponnesian war holders. Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian
Expedition ,Cornell Universty press: Ithaca and Londen ,1974. Page 17-18.
27
In both battles Sparta’s with her allies attacked allies of Athens Argos and Mantinea, while not
breaking the peaces treaty.
28
Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military
history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927. Page 357-366.
29
Gylippus supposedly came from the same social back ground as Lysander, his troops were also made
up of large amount of free slaves and none Spartans solders. Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and
the Sicilian Expedition, Cornell Universty press: Ithaca and Londen ,1974. Page 257-258.
30
The loss of the fleet cut the Athenian invasion army off form there supply as well as there only
retreat, resulting in the capture of large number of them. Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War
between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co
Limited London, 1927.Page 367-398.
31
Thucydides. Book VIII, XVIII.
10
It also due to its central location within striking distances of both Athens and the
south coastline of Attica that was essential to the functioning of the Athenian state.
Over the next four years 411 B.C to 408 B.C Spartan and her new allies failed to
show their combined power by losing a string of naval battles of Cynossema 411 B.C,
Cyzicus 410 B.C. In these Battles Athens won a naval battle as well as a land battle
over the Spartan and Persian army in the sea of Marmora. Subsequently by 408 B.C,
Athens had recaptured Byzantium and control of the Bosporus grain supply32. Sparta
after these failures is weakened to the point that she offers peace but this was refused
by the Athenian leader Cleophon.
With this low point of the war, a new figure made his presence know in the Spartan
military command, the navel commander Lysander33. Under the control of Lysander
and with the support of the Persian princes and Satrap Cyrus, a new fleet was
constructed at the port of Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor. With the money of the
Persians, the fleet was made with a huge contingent of paid rowers, many of them
being drawn from Athens and her allies, as the Spartans offered a much higher rate of
pay34. By 406 B.C the new fleet of Sparta was ready to be used, the Athenians sent a
fleet to Ephesus to try and goad the untested fleet into a battle. The Spartans did not
react; they rather waited until some of the Athenian fleet was away and then attacked,
resulting in victory for Spartans. At the end of 406 B.C in line with Spartan law
Lysander steps down from control of the fleet, as his one-year in office had come to
an end35. The year ended with the Spartan fleet, now lead by Callicratidas blockading
the port of Mitylene, in which the remains of the Athenian fleet after the battle of
Ephesus were hold up. The Spartans besieging fleet was crushed by the newly
created Athenian fleet that was made to raise the siege at Mitylene at the battle of
Arginsae in late 406 B.C36. The spring of 405 B.C. saw the reinstatement of
Lysander due to Spartan desperation and Persian pressure to put a reliable person in
charge of the fleet. Lysander attacked the Hellespont coast blocking all maritime
traffic in order to cut of the food supply from that region going to Athens. This action
leads to the meeting of the fleets of both sides at the northern Aegean port of
Aegospotami. The Spartan fleet was helled up by on the other side of the Hellespont,
and for four days Conon rowed his fleet over to it, trying to engage the Spartans, who
remained inactive. On the fifth day, after repeating this maneuver once more, the
Athenians returned, beached their ships and scattered to look for food, water and
supplies. In the mean time the Spartan commander Lysander had sent a number of
ships as scouts, to shadow the Athenians and report back on there movements. Upon
hearing that the ships were unguarded, Lysander quickly brought his troops across
and burned nearly all of Conon's 170 ships. Only 9 escaping in time, the flagship of
the fleet returning to with news Athens and the other 8 fleeing to Cyprus 37. The loss
32
The commander of all of these endeavors was the now back in favorer Athenian general Alcibiades.
Plutarch Lives; ALCIBIADES, XXVII-XXXI.
33
Lysander came from poor family and not a member of the Spartan royal families. Details of his early
life and career are not known.. Plutarch Lives; Lysander. II.
34
Lysander paid his men 4 obls as day; with money he got form Cyrus. Plutarch Lives; Lysander, IV.
35
Spartan military law states that a person can only hold the same command one year at a time, with a
mandatory number of years elapsing before reelection. Plutarch Lives; Lysander , VII.
36
The defeat results in the death of the Spartan navel commander Callicratidas. Bernard W.
Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military history of
Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927.Page 451.
37
Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military
history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927.Page 451-463.
11
of the majority of Athens' naval power, which was in turn the basis of her empire, and
brought Athens to her knees. This victory opened the way for the Spartan king
Pausanias to attack Athens by land since the safety of Sparta was no longer at stake.
Lysander sailed up to the Athenian port Piraeus and blockaded it, while no allies
appeared to help. After enduring six’s month siege of the city, Athens finally
surrendered her empire and was dismantled. Furthermore its walls were torn down
and Sparta imposed a new government and with that the Peloponnesian War was over.
Athenian tactics by sea and “luck”
The Athenian military state at the start of the Peloponnesian War was one that had
been heavily shaped by the Persian wars and the development of the Delian League.
During the Persian wars Athens took the back seat on the land offensive battles of
Plataea 480 B.C but also at Marathon 490 B.C in which the Athens begged Sparta for
help, but were lucky to win on their own. But at the battle of Salamis they established
their naval supremacy38. This position of naval power control led Athens in the years
after the Persian wars to found the Delian League39: An anti- Persian alliance of
Greek city states in Greece and Asia Minor, whose goal was to revenge themselves on
Persia as well as keep the Ionian coastline free from Persian control. One of the main
features of the league was that is was primarily a naval power based in the Aegean
Sea. Between the end of the Persian Wars and the start of the Peloponnesian War
Athens made themselves the rulers of the league, moving the base and its funds from
Delos to Athens in 454 B.C40. Their involvement in the league encouraged Athens to
form a military structure based not on land power but on sea power, as it needed to
keep control of states all over the Aegean.
The composition of the military of Athens was that of large fleets that could control
the sea, so that Athens was able to move its small citizens-based army around its
empire to put pressure on their subjects’ states. The basic material of the army of
Attica was the money, which it extracted from its member states, which paid for ships
and rowers. This structure is in complete contrast to the Spartan army, which was
based on the manpower it could draw from its states and allies. The reality of this can
be seen in the development of Athens military action during the Peloponnesian War.
At the opening of the war, the leader and main strategist of Athens was Pericles (c.
495 BC - 429 BC). Pericles’s position of power in Athens was due to his skill in
politics as well as being a member of one of the most powerful families in the state of
Attica, the Alcmaeonids41. During the Peloponnesian War Athens engaged in a twosided strategy, the first of which was the tactic of non-confrontation on land. In short,
38
In this battle the fleet of Athens 368 destroyed the much bigger fleet of the Persian invasion forces of
1200 Persian loss were about 200, ships. Victor Davis Hanson, The wars of the Ancient Greeks and
their Invention of Western Military Culture, Cassell and Co, London 1999. Page 99.
39
The league was found by Athens, Chios, Samos, and Lesbos, but many of the principal islands and
Ionian cities joined the league, whose base was on the island of Delos. Wees, Hans van (1958-) : Greek
warfare.: Duckworth, London, 2004. Page 14-15.
40
Athens moved the treasury of the league to their own city on the pretext of keeping it secure. Anton
Powell. Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social History From 478 B.C.,
Routledge, 1988 Page 45.
41
The Alcmaeonidae or Alcmaeonids were a powerful noble family of ancient Athens who claimed
descent from the mythological Alcmaeon, the grandson of Nestor. Also main enemies of the Pisistratus
clan tyrant rulers of Athens. Among its famous members is Alcibiades. Plutarch lives; Alcibiades,
XIX.
12
Pericles realized that if he followed the normal form of ritualized set hoplite battle he
would have no possibility of standing up to the Spartans. So he utilized some of the
features of the polis of Athens: her walls and her navy. The majority of the people in
Attica and their mobile positions concentrated within the city wall of Athens. From
this point the city was linked by sea with supplies of food and resources and was also
able to keep control of the rest of its empire. This strategy that was implemented in
the opening part of the war had some major drawbacks, some that could be openly
seen and some which were harder to see or even predict. In 431- 430 B.C Athens
withdraws all land troops to the city in the face of the Spartan invasion force, then
starts to send some contingents of ships to attack the coast of the Peloponnesus by sea
in hope of razing the siege. In 430- 429 B.C due to the huge amounts of people in the
city of Athens, a plague spreads in the city large amounts of the population die.
Among them is Pericles who is replaced by Cleon42. In 429 B.C Athens had a string
of successful navel battles at Chalcis and Naupactus both of which were credited to
the Athenian navel commander Phormio.
429 B.C to 426 B.C Athens remains in the defensive mode only confronting the
enemy when it was desperate, such as at the two-year siege of Plataea. In 427 B.C two
members of the Delian League revolt, Corcyra and Lesbos, these events encourage
them to take a more active role in the war. Over the next two years Athens fights five
large battles, a land offensive in Aetolia against Thebes and Boeotia in 426 B.C,
unsuccessfully43. One of Athenian generals, Nicias, attacks the island of Boeotia
resulting in the Battle of Tanagra, but fails to win44. In 426 B.C, Athens, under
Demosthenes, successfully ambushes a bigger Spartan force, at the Battle of Olpae.
This success encourages Athens to attempt a full-scale sea invasion of the
Peloponnesian coastline. In 425 B.C Demosthenes takes and fortifies Pylos defeating
a Spartan contingent capturing their fleet in what is called the battle of Pylos or
Navarino bay and stranding them on the island of Sphacteria. In the ensuing battle of
Sphacteria, Demosthenes, aided by Cleon, defeats the marooned Spartan army,
remarkably taking a number of Spartan captives. Sparta offers terms; Athens refuses.
Athens uses these troops as leverage over the heads of the Spartans for a number of
years. This allowed Athens to attempt to take control of Spartan allies in Boeotia, but
was unsuccessful and was beaten at the battle of Delium in 424 B.C45. For the rest of
the first phase of the Peloponnesian War Athens had to deal with the Spartan takeover of Thrace and Chalcidice in 424-423 B.C, culminating in the 422 B.C. Battle of
Amphipolis. This, due to its cost and losses forces them in 421 B.C to accept a peace
agreement with Sparta brokered by the Athenian general Nicias.
From 421 to 416 B.C both sides remain on a war footing but do not deploy troops in
battle but rather come into conflict with each other through their allies46. 416 to 415
B.C marks the start of the third phase of the war known as the Sicilian Expedition. On
the suggestion of newly elevated politician and General Alcibiades, Athens attacks
42
Cleon d. 422 B.C., Athenian political leader ruled Athens form 430 B.C until death. Thucydides
Book III, XXVI,2.
43
All of which were led by Demosthenes General of Athens. R. E. Dupuy and T. N. Dupuy, The
Encyclopedia of Military History; from 3500 B.C. to Present, Macdonald and Janes, 1970. Page 30
44
Led by Nicias general of Athens. Thucydides Book I, CVII-CVIII.
45
Hippocrates attacks but is defeated by the Theban under Pagondas . Thucydides ,Book V, XIV,1.
46
418 B.C. Battle of Mantinea, the Spartans invaded Argos and Mantinea, Athens aids them, 417-416
B.C. Athens aids Argos. Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, Cornell
Universty press: Ithaca and Londen ,1974. Page 107-137
13
Syracuse with a huge fleet and army under Nicias, Alcibiades47 and Lamachus48.
Syracuse, with the aid of Sparta and Corinth, defeats the Athenian fleet in 413 B.C
which starts a rout of all the Athenian forces in Syracuse. The last part of the war, 413
to 404 B.C, sees a continuation of the tactics used by Athens earlier in the war:
Athens as defensive base using its navy to fight the war. From 411 B.C onwards
Athens, due to actions of its naval commander Alcibiades, has some major
successes49. The battlefront is mainly in the northern Aegean. In 411 B.C Alcibiades
wins the navel battle of Cynossema, while in 410 B.C., at the battle of Cyzicus,
Alcibiades wins a naval and land battle over the Spartan and Persian army in the sea
of Marmora and in 408 B.C. Alcibiades with an Athenian fleet recaptures Byzantium
and control of the Bosporus grain supply. The last part of the war revolves around the
conflict between the opposing fleets, which was drawn out over 4 years. This conflict
comes to its head at the battle of battle of Aegospotami in 405 B.C, where Sparta
under Lysander destroys the navy of Athens. The last movements of Athens’ struggle
were enduring a six-month land and sea siege: Spartan king Pausanias attacks Athens
by land and Lysander by sea. In 404 B.C. the city of Athens surrenders, her walls and
empire are dismantled.
Fortification of Attica: location and motivations
With the build-up of tension between the two major power blocks of prePeloponnesian War Greece, the Athenian Empire and the Peloponnesian league, both
sides slowly prepared themselves for war. One part of these preparations is the
formation of a battle strategy as I have already noted in my short summaries of the
actions on both sides during the Peloponnesian War. In the case of Athens its prime
designer of military actions was Pericles. To make clear why Pericles adopted the
strategies he did, I will first inform you of the facts about the task that he and Athens
were facing. The location of Attica is at a meeting point of the central Greek mainland
and the Peloponnesian peninsula. Attica has huge land borders with states in both of
these regions50. This means that it was possible for armies from both the central Greek
mainland and the Peloponnesian peninsula to travel overland into Attica. The
geographic border of the region is set by a number of middle-sized mountain groups
that function as a natural border. In the mountain range there are at least seven routes
by which an army can pass in or out of the region51. The other front, the coastline, was
kept in order by two costal forts and with the city port of Attica, Piraeus, as the central
costal point52. All of these sites were manned by the numerically large but qualitywise poor citizen’s army of Athens, at the center of which was the fleet. Athens fleet
47
Is removed from command and flees to Sparta afther being accused of profaning the Hermes of
Athens. Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition, Cornell Universty press:
Ithaca and Londen ,1974. P192-209.
48
Lamachus, Son of Xenophanes. Thucydides , Book VI, VIII.
49
Alcibiades was requested to return to Athens from exile as of the failure of the Sicilian wars and the
Spartan -Persian treaty of 412 B.C, to aid his state. Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire
,Cornell Universty press: Ithaca and Londen ,1974. Page 287-292.
50
See Appendices B.
51
I .G. Spence notes 7 different routes by which a land army could enter the heart of Attica. I. G.
Spence, Perikles and the defense of the Attika during the Peloponnesian war. The Journal of Hellenic
Studies, Vol 110, 1990, Page 91-109. Page 94.
52
Rhamnous and Sounion, note Thorikos included by Hanson is not a coastal fort but rather a fort for
the silver mines at Laruiem. Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece.
Giardini Editori E Stampatori in Pisa, 1983. Page75-76.
14
was not of the best quality as it due to the inter-workings of the Athenian state was
more of policing force for the naval empire of Athens, deal more is controlling trading
routes and something shows of forces, if needed. Athens feet was in short not a battle
fleet. With these tools the leaders of Athens were presented with the task of keeping
the combined forces of the Peloponnesian league from taking over Athens and her
empire, part of which was the Spartan hoplite army. Pericles must have realized that if
his troops would come into a pitched battle with the Spartans that would result most
likely in a defeat, losing on average a high percentage of his troops, and leaving the
rest either prisoners or totally demoralized. Therefore, in order to avoid this he
brought the majority of citizens in Attica within the city walls, relying on its naval
supremacy to keep the city free and in control of the rest of its empire. This strategy
also avoided the one advent that would signal a defeat of Athens, the loss and
subsequent treaty that would have followed a hoplite battle. In this age and in years
before, the common way of formalized battles was that the both parties would meet
and hold a pitched battle, the victor winning and pushing the loser off the field. In turn
the loser would ask for a cessation of battle to get back there dead, thereby conceding
defeat53.
So as to avoid having to concede damaging defeats Pericles refrained from sending a
major army into the field, unless it was sure that they would have a good possibility of
winning such as the invasion of Pylos in 425 B.C. He chose a time that was
advantageous to him, when the majority of the army of the Spartans was not at
home54. He also stationed in troops in Attica at important points so as to be able to
keep some kind of security on the areas around the walls and at major points such as
the ports of Attica. These troops, most likely a mixture of cavalry and light infantry,
were in place to hinder any forces that were in Attica. The effectiveness of these
troops is debatable but there are two certainties, one that they would be of no use
against a major hoplite army, secondly that they could be used to keep some kind of
control of the farmer areas around the city, which were subjects to raids by small
groups of enemy soldiers in search of plunder and food55. The use of these light troops
was to range over large amounts of land, searching for small parties of foragers who
due to their small number would not be able to form a defensive formation such as a
phalanx to protect themselves56. This tactical advantage is one of the reasons that in
the opening phases of the war Athens was not badly damaged, because the presence
of these troops in attack would have made the destruction of Athenian farmlands
difficult. There also is a psychological aspect to the use of light infantry and cavalry
in this context, if you consider what the long-term effect of a siege would be on the
citizens of Athens. The majority of citizens would, after a short number of years, have
come to the point of surrendering to Sparta just to end their constant mental strain and
position of being seen a nation of cowards for not entering into battle with an enemy
53
This formality of removal of the dead signified the end of the conflict, sometimes known as the
custom of the Greeks. Victor Davis Hanson, The wars of the Ancient Greeks and their Invention of
Western Military Culture, Cassell and Co, London 1999. Page 53-54.
54
It was reliably assumed that the Spartans would either be in Attica or in one of the other Athenian
states persuading revolt in the summer season, as was their habit from the start of the Peloponnesian
war.
55
I. G. Spence, Perikles and the defense of the Attika during the Peloponnesian war. The Journal of
Hellenic Studies, Vol 110, 1990,( Page 91-109). Page 97.
56
When a phalanxs formed it was able to stop a full-on cavalry charge. I. G. Spence, Perikles and the
defense of the Attika during the Peloponnesian war. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol 110, 1990,
(Page 91-109). Page 98.
15
who was destroying their homelands in full view. The use of these troops solved the
huge amount of negative opinions in the city that would have formed, by sending
them into a controlled conflict in which the real enemy remained clear in hope of then
venting the collective anger of the people of Athens, preventing the formation of antiAthenian feeling within the city.
This strategy of land defense was coupled with a cautious use of the offensive
capability of the navy of Athens. Athens realized that it was in a superior position in
relation to its naval capabilities just as it was inferior in land-based troops to the
Spartans. The fleet of Athens at the start of the Peloponnesian War was the largest in
Greece, with a total of about 300 ships57, without any real competitors such as
Corinth58 who was only barely within distance of it. We can be sure of its dominance
in both numbers and skill as there leadership of the of the Delian league, gave them a
huge amount of resources. This naval advantage had both good and bad sides to it. In
the opening years of the war the Athenian admiral Phormio fermented the domination
of the sea at the naval battles of Chalcis and Naupactus for the majority of the war 59.
But this faith in its ability and naval supremacy could also result in things not going
its way in major problems. The best example of this is the events surrounding the
Sicilian Expedition (415 B.C), the wayward brainchild of Alcibiades. Athens assumed
that the distance from Greece to Sicily by sea would keep the ill prepared
Peloponnesian fleet and therefore its army from intervening in their conquest of
Syracuse. But as history showed its single loss to a Syracuse-Corinth fleet in 413 B.C
coast Athens a whole marine invasion force as well60. These expeditions reflect both
sides of the coin in using your assets during a war: they are vital to your survival but
if used too much they can be your downfall. The logic behind this defense strategy
has been debated over the centuries. One of the more common perceptions is that in
the minds of the leaders of Athens the only option open to them was a defense. As one
military historian, H.D. Westlake, formulated the strategy of it: the longer the city
could hold out the more likely it was that the attacks on Peloponnesian League
territory would achieve their purpose and cause the enemy to sue for peace61.
The loss of Dekelia in 414-413 B.C: the revenge of Alcibiades?
If there was one major point during the Peloponnesian War that outlines the
effectiveness of the Athenian and Spartan military tactics the events of the years 414
B.C/ 413 B.C would be it. Athens up to this point had been keeping up its defensive
policy of withdrawal into the city, coupled with its use of its maritime power to keep
control of its empire. The limit of the effectiveness of this strategy can be seen to have
been reached with the Sicilian expedition, which, regardless of the offensive nature of
the plan, was in short an expanded model of Pericles’s plans for Athens during the
57
Athens was able to expand its fleet after the Persian wars using the Delian league. Victor Davis
Hanson, The wars of the Ancient Greeks and their Invention of Western Military Culture, Cassell and
Co, London 1999. Page 105.
58
Had 120 ships at the start of the war. Thucydides ,Book I. XXV. 4.
59
Both battles were fought in the context of a blockade of Corinth, both of which cost Corinth large
parts of its fleets. Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to
the Military history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927. Page 98-109.
60
It consisted of 136 ships and 5000 troops plus some allies. Thucydides, Book VI. XLIII. 3
61
Westlake quoted. I. G. Spence, Perikles and the defense of the Attika during the Peloponnesian war.
The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol 110, 1990, Page 91-109. Page 92.
16
war, when seen in the light of the invasion of Pylos in 425 B.C62. Sparta at this point
was running out of ideas. From the start of the war there were regular invasions of
Attica and Sparta’s attempts to break up the empire of Athens had been of minimal
success. It is believed that at the start of the Sicilian expedition, Alcibiades the general
of Athens from fear of being put to death for mocking and committing sacrilege on
the Eleusinian Mysteries and the Hermes statues of the city of Athens, fled from
Sicily to Sparta as a defector63. While in Sparta as an honored guest he gave the
Spartans a number of pieces of advice on how to beat Athens. One of these points was
that the Spartans should make a permanent base camp inside of the geographic region
of Athens64. This suggestion, whether intended or not was taken into account and in
413 B.C was implemented. The reason I question his motivations for telling this to the
Spartans are that there may have been a pro-Athenian motivation behind it. Alcibiades
as a general of Athens would have known that the greatest threat to Athens was the
loss of her control over the sea. So why did he not tell them to concentrate on the sea
empire and destroy Athens’ fleet?, rather then concentrating their allies’ naval forces
at Athens fleet.
His advice to Sparta outlines a number of points; firstly pressure on the city of Athens
from a land force not the most effect strategy as the early battle of the war showed,
secondly the long-term investment of troops in a land attack of Athens, a positive
effect. Lastly the presences of Spartan troops in the area forced the closer of the
valuable mines at Laureion, destabilizing as the more Athens.
In the view of their strength and weakness, he had in fact placed Sparta in the position
of attacking Athens’ strongest points on land. When compared to the possible side
effects of his advising them to attack the fleet, he chose the lesser of two evils. In
short Alcibiades had got Sparta to do the one thing that, when we consider the
strategy of Athens, would have insured Athens’ survival from his point of view.
When taking into consideration, the later cunning actions of Alcibiades’s in
abandoning the Spartans and convincing the Persian Satrap Tissaphernes to not aid
them fully, thereby keeping the possibility of Persia-Athens treaty alive65. It seems a
good possibility that either on his own or with Athens’ support. Alcibiades followed a
plan to keep Athens alive, but was undone by the development of the Peloponnesian
fleet. An event that prompted his desertion to the Persians in the hope of stopping this
development from happening is attested to in Plutarch live of Alcibiades66. This idea
can be disputed as me reading too much into the actions of Alcibiades, but when I
look at the representation of him in ancient works such as Plutarch’s life of Alcibiades
the person I find represented in these work seems to me as a person who is capable of
engineering his position of power within three of the most powerful bodies in the
Peloponnesian war, Athens, Sparta and Persia. I do not consider it to be beyond the
limits of reason, that while in exile Alcibiades was able to play on the desires and
weaknesses of his hosts and to influence them to take actions, such as the takeover of
Dekelia, with the final goal of keeping himself safe and sound and at the same time
62
It should also be pointed out that Alcibiades the author of the plan was a relative of Pericles, as this
may have been the reason the people of Athens supported him at the start. Plutarch’s Lives :Alcibiades
Vol IV, I.
63
Plutarchst Lives :Alcibiades Vol IV, XVIII- XXIII.
64
Alcibiades tells the Spartans to invade and take over Dekelia, Thucydides, Book VI XCI. 4-7 .
65
Plutarchst Lives :Alcibiades . Vol IV, XXV.
66
He in his negations with Persia had his own line of interests, his well being, and at times they were
compatible with Athens: making sure that the Spartans did not win over the Persians. Plutarch’s Lives
:Alcibiades . Vol IV, XXV.
17
maintaining the stability of the one state he had any real loyalty to, Athens. This
cannot be questioned, as before the battle of Aegospotami he, regardless of the fact
that he was in exile and no longer in any state’s protection, attempted to warn the
generals of the error of their tactics but was rebuffed67.
The fortification of Dekelia was no small feat; Thucydides notes that the Spartan
contingent that arrived at Dekelia came ready to construct a major fortification 68.
From the strategic point of view there are a number of factors that must be pointed out
in order to understand the significance of this action. The first vital factor was the
location. The site chosen to be the new base camp of a full time attacking force in
Attica, it was approved of by the Spartans for number of reasons, all of them related
to the Spartan plan of attack. Dekelia, northwest of the city of Athens was, before its
fall to the Peloponnesians, one of the major land routes from the north of Greece to
Athens69. Before the start of the war the pass was already a major viaduct for supplies
that the city of Athens consumed. It is most likely that there was a small fort /
guardhouse on the site before the start of the war, which served as monitor for traffic.
The geographic location of the site, being elevated on a hillside, gave it a clear view
of the area around it as well as a view of the city of Athens to the south east of it. This
factor meant that the fort would be within striking distance of the very walls of the
city of Athens70. Therefore the city could be in theory under constant harassment from
the Spartans at Dekelia.
The location also meant that other sites such as the silver mines at Laurion near the
coastline south east of Attica were shut down, as there was no reliable way for
working the mines with the Spartans at Dekelia. Also the mines were worked by a
huge army of slaves who, if taken by the Spartans, would be a major problem for
Athens. This problem also actually affected the city of Athens as during the war it was
noted that up to 20.000 slaves that ran away from their masters and were at Dekelia,
serving as a makeshift laborer source/army for the Spartans71. There were also other
major economic factors to be taken into account; the Spartan presence in Attica also
had a huge affect on the day-to-day economic working of the state and its people. As
we already know the Spartans had, in the years of the war before 413 B.C., invaded
the land of Attica randomly during the summer months for a short period up to 40
days, disrupting and destroying the agricultural infrastructure of Attica. But due to the
limitations of time and supplies and the possibility of helot uprising in Sparta, they
could only do this when the conditions were ideally suited to it. The actual effect of
these short raids into Attica before the fortification of Dekelia was not very affective.
Hanson in his book on Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece72, points out that
during the opening phase of the war, the Archidamian war, the amount of damage was
67
Plutarch Lives: Alcibiades Vol IV, XXXVII.
The Spartans brought steel and tools for working stone with them. Thucydides. Book VII, XVIII, 4.
69
It was a link in the internal structure, with a major road from Oropos to Athens, that was usable by
carts. Josiah Ober. Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athens Land frontier 404-322 B.C. E.J. Brill Leiden,
Netherlands, 1985. Page 115.
70
It was 120 stades from Dekeleia to Athens or 18 km by line of sight. Thucydides. Book VII, XIX, 3.
71
Many of these slaves also would have been skilled craftsmen, further damaging the economy of
Athens. Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece. Giardini Editori E
Stampatori in Pisa, 1983. Page 128.
72
Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece. Giardini Editori E Stampatori in
Pisa, 1983.
68
18
minor73. This lack of damage to agriculture was due to the fact that the Spartans were
only in for short periods of time, while the strength of plants such as vines and olive
trees made them able to return to bloom after damage, and the grain, unless it was
fully ripe (not green) was very hard to destroy74. With the setting up of a fort at
Dekelia, the yearlong possibility of stopping the people of Athens from farming
became feasible; their livestock was either taken or degenerated from lack of pasture.
In terms of people lives, the fatality rate must have started to rise as on a regular base
the citizens of Athens and the Spartans came face to face in the countryside of Attica.
In monetary terms there were two major costs endured by Athens. Firstly, the area
around Athens was one of the richest areas in Attica. I assume that its location near
the city made it attractive to many of wealthy citizens of Attica, who took part in the
political life of Athens75. With the destruction of their lavishly decorated homes and
slaves, much of the private-owned wealth of Athens would have fallen into Spartan
hands. The second major cost would have been the loss of locally produced
foodstuffs. This would have forced the city to import massive amounts of food from
the northern Aegean. These imports were made even more costly because with the
loss of Dekelia all imports were shipped from the north via the ports of Rhamnous
and Sounion76. The damage that was inflicted on Attica was not totally the Spartans’
doing, as, the area of law and order of Athens was confined to the city, and the rest of
Attica was open to plundering by neighboring state such as the Boiotians as well,
some of who were not at war with Athens77. Also as well as the economic cost there
were also effects on the everyday life of the people of Athens, which went further
than the cost of grain. During this period the city of Athens was in a state of mental
decay as in this period, unlike the Archidamian war, Athens became a battleground. In
the Archidamian war the attacks on the city of Athens were infrequent and short, the
longest lasting 40 days, and there was a lack of a major destruction of the fields and
crops of Athens due to everything from lack of time to harassment by Athens’
cavalry. But during the Dekeleian war, there was a major force of enemy troops in
Attica year-round, any possibility of conducting a normal life was gone. Incessantly
year after year the crops of Attica were taken over and either eaten by the enemy
troops or destroyed. Little remained of their old lives, after the effects of the great
plague of 430 B.C and the failed Sicilian Expedition 415 B.C, trapped in their own
city which was now badly supplied. This state resulted in a slow falling of power of
Athens on all fronts, but as we will see the real loss of Athens only started with the
arrival of the new Peloponnesian fleet.
73
Hanson admits that the amount of damage to land was minor but the population and mental damage
from the plague and seeing the land ravaged by the Spartans was major. Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare
and Agriculture in Classical Greece. Giardini Editori E Stampatori in Pisa, 1983.Page 126-127.
74
The plants would lose at most one season’s harvest from the damage, which was irregularly applied
to Attica by wandering parties. Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece.
Giardini Editori E Stampatori in Pisa, 1983. Page 112 -123.
75
As pointed out by I.G. Spence, the closer to the walls land was the safer it would be in theory; there
fore it would be owned by the wealthier class. I. G. Spence, Perikles and the defense of the Attika
during the Peloponnesian war. The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol 110, 1990, Page 91-109. Page
103.
76
Thucydides, VII. XXVII, 1-3.
77
Archeological data finds from excavation in remote parts of Attica from the period, show, due to the
lack of objects, support for the idea of wide spread plundering. Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare and
Agriculture in Classical Greece. Giardini Editori E Stampatori in Pisa, 1983. Page 128-129.
19
Archeological information on the fortifications at Rhamnous and Sounion
As I have already outlined in 413 B.C the forces of the Peloponnesian league invaded
Attica and set up a permanent base at the mountain pass of Dekelia in the northwest of
Attica. This point marks the start of the failure of power of Athens, which resulted in
the loss of the war to the Peloponnesian league. But the Athenians did attempt to
lessen the affect of the Spartans in Attica. One of the ways in which they did so was
to change the layout of their defensive system within Attica. With the loss of the
mountain pass of Dekelia and its strategic location within range of all of the other
north-to-south supply routes of Athens, as well as the year-round presence of enemy
troops within sight of the city, cutting off any possibility of getting a suitable amount
of food from the farmland around the city, supplying the city with food became a
major problem. To solve this problem Athens had two options: one was to remove the
Peloponnesians from the pass or, alternatively, to secure food from somewhere
outside Attica that the Peloponnesians could not affect. The Athenians took on this
problem logically; they realized that the possibility of them being able to confront and
remove the Peloponnesians, their land-based military superiors, from Dekelia was
very small. Even in the best possible conditions78 they would fail and in the worst be
drawn into a major pitched battle, which would result in a massive loss of troops and
possibly losing the war. So Athens used the one major offensive advantage they had
over the Peloponnesians, their naval supremacy.
The Athens reaction to Sparta’s occupation was to set into motion a plan that fortified
a number of points on their coast to serve as stop points for the ships, which would
bring food to the city. This coastal defense system was formulated to fit into the prePeloponnesian war shipping structure of Athens. The origin of the majority of Athens’
grain was the Greek colonies friendly to Athens in the north of the Aegean and the
Black Sea via Byzantium79. The course of the fleet would be from the Hellespont
down along the cost of Greece heading south; they could hold this heading until they
reached the north of Attica, as in 413 B.C the only enemy of Athens was Boeotia,
which had a small fleet based in a number of small ports on the west coast of central
Greece. But they were in no position to attack the fleet of Athens, as during the
Peloponnesian war they were a major cavalry power and later, due to the fading of the
Spartans after the end of the Peloponnesian war, became a hoplite power. From their
entry in Attic coastal water there were only two points at which they could stop so
that they could be assured to get supplies or shelter from a bad weather, before they
reached Athens. These two points on the coastline of Attica were Rhamnous and
Sounion. Of one of these points, Sounion, we can be sure without any archeological
information, as it is noted by Thucydides as being fortified in 413 in reaction to the
fall of Dekelia80. The importance of the fortification of Dekelia and the subsequent
reaction in the fortification of these points on the Attic coastline have major
significance in relation to the strategies for the rest of the war.
Before I go any further I will outline the layout and structure of both sites, calling on a
number of archeological sources as well as observations I made when present at both
78
The advantage of surprise, numerical advantage and lack of enemy support from allies. All three
factors would have come into play due to its location within enemy lines.
79
Thucydides Book I , CXLIII, 4-5.
80
Thucydides Book VIII, IV, 2.
20
sites during the spring of 2005, during a field trips we made to both sites as well as
others as part of the “Ancient Tourism Pausanias” course of the University of Utrecht.
My motivation for elaborating on these sites is that when looked at in the context of
the developments of the later half of the Peloponnesian war, there is a question about
some aspects of their construction that I have observed as to their real purpose during
the war.
The initial point that I noted was the fact that the ships on their way to Athens would
have stopped at would have been Rhamnous81. The region of Rhamnous,82 was an
ancient deme in northeast Attica, on the Euboian gulf. The site has had a religious
importance as it is one of the most prominent sanctuaries of the goddess Nemesis on
mainland Greece83. Archaeological evidence shows that there was a sanctuary here
from the late 6th or early 5th century B.C84. The archaic temple, which stood on the
site, was destroyed by the Persians in the attack of 480-479 B.C, as were many other
buildings in Attica85. Due to its location Rhamnous was a major link in the workings
of the Athenian state and played a major role at one point during the Peloponnesian
war, in 414-413 B.C. This cut off the only route of supplies to come overland to
Athens, forcing them out onto the coast86. The most famous story told about
Rhamnous tells us that the Persians, when they took Rhamnous during the Persian
wars, brought a stone block with them to make a monument to mark their victory over
the Greeks. The goddess Nemesis took offence at their hubris and the destruction of
her temple, and aided the Greeks in their fight and the battle of Marathon87. Pausanias
tell us that the stone block that the Persians left behind was made into the statue of
Nemesis that was found in Rhamnous88.
As you stand on the road, the site is elevated as the temple and later fortifications
were built on higher ground overlooking the sea. The site of the temple is relatively
flat as the peak of the hill was removed to enable building of a platform. This
platform is made of a terrace, which is about 150 feet wide89. On this platform there
are two temples, the smallest being the temple of Themis and the larger being the
temple of Nemesis. The first you come to is the smaller temple90 of the goddess
Themis91.
81
Appendices E
The region gets it name from small shrubs of the same name that is common in it. J.G. Frazer, 1900.
Page 163.
83
The site was noted by number of authors from the classical period and after as the site of the worship
of Nemesis. Miles, M. 1989. Page 138.
84
By the 5th century B.C. it had its own garrison of soldiers. Richard Stillwell ed, Macdonald and
McAllister aed, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Princeton University Press: Princeton
New Jersey, 1976. Page 753.
85
Like the temple of Poseidon at Sounion most monumental buildings were destroyed in 480 B.C.
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971. Page 8.
86
Thucydides. Book VII. 2-XIX.I.
87
Herodotus tells of a number of people who saw sprits or immortals during the battle like the blinding
of one Eqizelus. David Grene, 1987. Herodotus Book VI, Pha 117 .
88
The statue showed Nemesis with a crown. It was probably made by Pheideas or his student
Agorakritos. Pausanias ,Peter Levi, 1971. Book I Line 201-204 page 95-96.
89
There is a terrace wall and it is filled in to form a flat surface. Richard Stillwell, 1976. Page 753.
90
The temple is 21x 35 feet and consisted of a cella in antis with a Doric portico of columns. Raymond
V. Schoder S.J, 1971.Page 181.
91
Themis was the titanid-goddess of custom, assemblies and right order, and the goddess who presided
over the feasts of the gods on Olympus. Huge Lloyd-Jones, 1971. Page 166.
82
21
Moving closer to the sea on the platform you come to the biggest temple of the site:
the temple of Nemesis. The original site had held an archaic temple that was
destroyed in 480 BC by the Persians. The temple was a peripteral building with 6
columns by 12 columns on the outside. The temple was lavishly decorated with ionic
friezes above each porch and griffins as part of the corners of the roof92. Its
construction was supposedly begun on the Athenian celebration day in 436 B.C after
the end of the Persian threat and was rededicated in 45 AD, but was never totally
finished93.
The main archaeological feature of the site, which concerns us, is the fort of
Rhamnous, which is located 500 meters north of the sanctuary on a hill at the
shoreline. Due to the fact that the Persians took this site during the invasion of Attica
it can be assumed that its pre-Peloponnesian war defenses were poor or possibly none
at all, due to Athens’ control of the adjoining region of Oropia94. The fortress of
Rhamnous comprises an outer system wall of 800 m. long and a smaller interior
circuit enclosing the top of the hill95. The main entrance of the outer system is at the
south and it is protected by square towers at each side of the gate. Within the circuit,
private and public buildings have been found, notable among which are the theatre
and the gymnasium. Within this same area is also the agora of the deme. Military
establishments such as the barracks of the soldiers who were stationed there stood at
the top of the hill - within the interior circuit of the fortification. From walls to coast
the town is laid out in three areas of use and, due to its role as fortification, of a
defense. As the outer ring was the wall on the lowest part of the hill it was required to
be built wide with a high outer point of the wall. This lay out can be confirmed by the
part of the wall around the hill that can still be seen today. It had two major
advantages: it gave the defenders a high point to defend the wall – even though the
location of the closest high ground is within a kilometer, any approaching enemy
would have go down below the wall level to get near it. Secondly there was only one
entrance in and out of the fort, which was surrounded by two towers on the side of the
wall flanking this only weak point in the wall96. This position meant that any enemy
trying to force their way into the gate would have had to endure rocks and other
projectiles being dropped on them from the height of the tower and walls above. The
middle circle of the fortification was the urban settlement of the homes of the people
who lived in the fort. The demarcation point between the urban area and the middle
and also highest point on the hill that served as the barracks as well as citadels, was a
smaller defensive wall. This meant that even if the outer wall of the site would fall to
an enemy, the inner wall could also be used as a defense point. The only drawback I
can see is that the gates of both walls are almost in line facing south; this is a flaw in
its design as it means that the enemy has a short route to take to the next gate. If they
had constructed the inner gate as facing east or west, it would have been much more
secure. In the layout of the site there seems to be one major problem: on the coast
below two small inlets - facing the eastern and the western side - served the ships that
92
Raymond V. Schoder S.J, 1971.Page 181.
It was never completed, as a numbers of columns were never decorated. Richard Stillwell, 1976.
Page 753.
94
Thucydides Book II, XXIII, 3.
95
Richard Stillwell ed, Macdonald and McAllister aed, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites,
Princeton University Press: Princeton New Jersey, 1976. Page 753.
96
Richard Stillwell ed, Macdonald and McAllister aed, The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites,
Princeton University Press: Princeton New Jersey, 1976.Page 753.
93
22
patrolled the Euboian channel as well as the safe harbours for the grain ships of
Attica. However, these harbours lie on the most eastern and western points of the site
with only one part of the walls covering the shore of the harbors. It seems illogical to
me for the Athenians to build a major fortification for a set purpose but not take in the
most vital parts of the port.
The second stop point is on the eastern coastal plain of Attica, to the southernmost
point of the peninsula, at a site called Sounion97. The site at the southernmost part of
the Attica mainland is a rock outcrop that juts out into the sea, which surrounds it on
three sides. The sanctuary of Poseidon is one of the most important points of worship
in Attica. Sounion location as a staging point for ships traveling to and from Athens
meant it was used as anchorage as well as a sacred point to sacrifice to the god of the
sea, Poseidon98. There are some archaeological fids that indicate that it was staging
point for ships coming from Egypt99. The earliest recorded mention of Sounion is in
Homer’s Odyssey in which "Sounion Hiron" (sanctuary of Sounion) is first mentioned
as the place where Menelaos100 stopped during his return from Troy to bury his
helmsman, Phrontes Onetorides101. The site was under the control of the Athenians in
the classical age, as we know that every four years there were festivities at Sounion,
which involved a battleship race in honor of the god Poseidon102.
Walking up the road toward Sounion, the first monument you come to on the eastern
side of the road is a sanctuary of the goddess Athena about 500 m. from the sanctuary
of Poseidon. The sanctuary had in times past a set of walls; there are still two parts of
it remaining today: a western wall 46.50 meters long and a south wall 44 meters
long103. The largest building in this sanctuary is the temple of Athena. It has a
rectangular shape, measuring 14.62 x 19.175 m104. The temple is almost unique as
there is an outer colonnade only on the east and south sides. In between the
sanctuaries that hold the temples of Athena and Poseidon is the fortress that was
fortified in 412 B.C. during the Peloponnesian War, in order to control and secure the
ships carrying cereals to Athens105. The fort wall starts at the northeast corner, extends
to the north and turns to the west; the sanctuary of Poseidon occupies the south end of
the fortress. The wall is 146 meters long and has 11 towers with a large bastion on the
northeast, as you can see on the map of the site in Appendix F106. Some of the towers,
numbers 4 and 5, have steps that would have let the defender mount them to gain
advantage over their attackers; they were also put there as at this point in the level of
the ground and the wall they are at their closest, making it the weakest point in the
wall107. The wall itself is about 3 meters thick, made of the local limestone’s 108. It
97
Appendices F
The port was commonly used by corn ships passing form Euboea to Piraeus. W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr.
1971. Page 29-30.
99
A large number of Egyptian objects have been found at the site. Raymond V. Schoder S.J, 1971.Page
198.
100
Menelaos king of Sparta and brother of Agamemnon. Jasper Griffin, Landmarks in world
Literature: Homer the Odyssey, Cambridge university press, 1987. Page 36.
101
Phrontes Onetorides was killed by the wrath of the god Zeus. Pausanias, Peter Levi, 1971. Book 5
line 145 page 470.
102
The event is noted in Herodotus, the histories. David Grene,1987. Book V Pha 87 Page 444.
103
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr. 1971 . Page 39.
104
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971.Page 42.
105
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971 .Page 29
106
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971. Page 30.
107
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971. Page 34.
98
23
should be noted that the wall itself was not very well constructed as it was made of a
weak limestone and at number of points it is made out of rubble such as at the wall at
tower 1 109. The gate of the wall was probably in between towers 2 and 3 as that was
where the only road leading to the site went to the temple; the fortification on the site
was fitted onto the layout of the sanctuary. Also large amounts of worked stone have
been found at this point, a necessity for the construction of a gate house to strengthen
the weakest point of the wall110 The military installation also has a shipyard for the
sheltering of two small war ships which were built on the coast, at the west end of the
north branch of the fortification111. Inside the fortress wall, excavations have brought
to light part of a central town street, remains of houses, and water cisterns, all of
which was at its peak inhabited by 800 people or less112. Seemingly the site was
constructed to be an isolated location from the city of Athens as all the things a citizen
of the city of Athens would need if in residence in this fort was there. The temple of
Poseidon’s outer sanctuary wall is linked to the bastion of the fortress. It is situated in
the southernmost, highest part of the promontory. The area was evened off and
supported by means of retaining walls on the north and west sides. A stoa was
constructed on the north side with porticoes along the north and the east for the
accommodation of the pilgrims coming from the city of Athens 113 or possibly for
soldiers during times of war. There were two points that ships could be put into: a
small cove on the east side of the peninsula and a much bigger harbour on the west
side. Oddly it seems that both of these ports were not enclosed by the fortress wall,
such as at Piraeus, just as at Rhamnous the harbours were not. There seem to be two
possible reasons for this mistake in the construction: firstly, regardless of the ports the
wall had to be located on the slope of the hill so as to aid in the defenses of the site,
with walls being on the hill it gave the defenders the upper ground on any attacking
forces from their position on the walls. Secondly, in the cause of Sounion, the fact that
the two slips for small guard-attack boats on the south side of hill meant that the
Athenians who when they constructed this fort believed that their dominance of the
waves would enable them to control the sea traffic of the fort. Considering that the
forts were constructed in 412 B.C before the loss of the larger fleet to a combined
Syracuse-Corinth fleet during the invasion of Sicily, it is not hard to believe that
Athens in 413 B.C, when looking at any aspect of the war and its possibility of
victory, always took their power on the waves as something that would remain the
same for ever. But as I will explain in the next section on the changes in Spartan
military strategy, it did. Yet during the reminder of the war 413 B.C to 405 B.C there
are no indications that they attempted to change the form or function of the
fortification on the coast of Attica.
Spartans change of tactics
In the case of the Spartans at the start of the war, their plan was simple: They
launched a string of offences on Athens, as their military ideology was to attack and
conquer. During at least the first half of the war the basis of the Spartans attack was
based on two of the traditional pre- Peloponnesian war tactics. Firstly, to meet,
108
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971. Page 30.
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971. Page 31
110
The gate was 1.47 meters wide. W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971. Page 31.
111
Their dry docks were cut out of the base rock of the cliff side. W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971 . Page 35.
112
W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., Sounion, Lycabettus press, 1971 .Page 6.
113
Most likely date of construction 450-400 BC. W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., 1971 .Page 11
109
24
confront and enter into a formalized pitched Hoplite battle, which would result in a
victory for one of the sides. In this manner the winner would concede land, money or
some other stake that had been the reason for the conflict. Secondly, in the case of the
enemies unwillingness to meet in a pitched battle, invading forces would engage in a
destruction of the major assets of the state; their crops as well as any mobile assets
such as cattle, slaves or personal goods. As you can see from looking at the conduct
of the Spartans during the war, they pushed this strategy to the extreme, by staying
year round in Attica. Nevertheless, the Spartans were by 408-407 B.C exasperated by
their lack of progress on the land offensive, even though their garrison at Dekelia
slowly choked Athens. In the course of the Peloponnesian war they resorted to
another strategy that would change the war and its outcome. During this period the
formation of what is known as the Peloponnesian fleet can be seen; the new fleet that
was made up of large numbers of ships and men from the Peloponnesian league. This
fleet was based at the Greek city of Ephesus on the coast of Asia Minor, which was at
this point in time under the control of the Persian Empire. The reason for this is that
even though there had been a treaty between Sparta and Persia from 412 B.C in the
making, it was not until 407 B.C with the removal of Alcibiades and his partner, the
Persian satrap Tissaphernes, that the Peloponnesian fleet finally got paid and supplied
well. The change in the conditions of the Peloponnesian fleet was due to the arrival of
two major figures: the Persian princes Cyrus and the new Spartan naval commander
Lysander114. Lysander is a very odd figure being a member of the elite upper class of
Sparta society, but also being considered very poor as well as being a half-breed
Spartan or mothakes 115. With the injection of money and good leadership, the navel
power of Athens that always seemed so unstoppable, started to be slowly stripped
down to the point of it being of no use to Athens.
When Athens realized that there was a possibility that Sparta and Persia combined
could possibly form a fleet that would rival their own, Athens took a more proactive
stance in the war. In 406 B.C, before the Sparta and Persia fleet was nearly ready for
battle, Athens sent the bulk of its navy to Ephesus in the hope of surprising the
Spartan and Persian fleet with the goal of destroying it before they even got the fleet
ready for battle. The Athenians entrusted this job to one man, who they believed was
capable of it, the newly repatriated Alcibiades. The fleet of Athens arrived at Ephesus
to find the enemy fleet still docked at the port. Alcibiades attempted to goad the fleet
into coming out and fight on open water, but he was sadly to be disappointed. The
new commander of the Spartan and Persian fleet Lysander was a realist about the
risks of battle, as well as his possibilities of winning. After a number of days of
waiting, Alcibiades took a small contingent to get some necessary food supplies. He
left one of his trusted aids in command of the fleet 116, with orders not to enter into
battle. Lysander took this opportunity and he attacked the remaining fleet, the battle
ensued and became later known as the Battle of Ephesus. The result was a victory for
Lysander but neither he nor his defeated foe were able to build on the events of that
battle, by the end of the year both commander were removed from control of their
114
Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military
history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927.Page 444, 445.
115
Mothakes were generally considered second-class citizens, but a number of them made names for
themselves such as the leader Syracuse forces Gylippos. Pavel Oliva, Sparta and her social problems.
Academia Prague, 1971. Page 176.
116
One Antiochus the pilot of his flagship. Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens
and Sparta: A Companion to the Military history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London,
1927. Page 446.
25
respective fleets117. The removal of both commanders had effects on both sides of the
battle line. Sparta, which was now in control, blocked the remaining fleet of Athens
at Mitylene at the island of Lesbos. Athens formed in desperation a new fleet to raise
the blockade. Sparta, still confident of their win at Ephesus, entered into battle
resulting in the battle of Arginusae in which the fleet of Sparta and its commander,
one Callicratida were bested by Athens. This was, however, a short-lived victory for
Athens, as it resulted in Lysander’s reinstatement due to Persia’s pressure to take
control again of the fleet. By 405 B.C., Lysander had attacked the Hellespont
coastline, cutting Athens off from most grain supply. In a last desperate attempt, 170
ships under commander Conon, the majority of the navy of Athens, sailed to northern
Aegean to confront the enemy fleet in 405 B.C. This brought about the last major sea
battle of the Peloponnesian war. Lysander chose, just as at the battle of Arginusae, the
best possible time to attack the Athenian fleet; he attacked when the fleet was beached
and the troops were looking for food. 161 ships out of the original 170 of the fleet of
Athens, which were present at the Battle of Aegospotami, were destroyed. This battle
left Athens without any real defenses other than her walls. After a six-month siege by
the Spartans, the city of Athens surrendered. Her walls and empire were dismantled
by 404 B.C.
Athens coastal: defensive line or open door?
The central issue of this thesis concerns the attempts of the military of Athens to
defend itself during the Peloponnesian war. As already established that after 413 B.C
the state of Attica outside the city of Athens was occupied by a Spartan army based at
the mountain pass at Dekelia. This meant that Athens was forced to supply the city by
ships. To aid them in this they fortified the coast at Rhamnous and Sounion. By 407
B.C the sea routes to Athens were under pressures from the Spartan fleet, inhibiting
Athenians capacity to supply itself. This presented Athens with two options: one, to
try to fortify their line of supplies or two, keep control of some part of the land area of
Attica, so that they could supply the city. It is presumed that Athens plan of action
would have been to use their secure line of supplies from somewhere outside Attica
and ensure that they were able to safely bring the supplies to the city. Hence the
reason for the fortification of Rhamnous and Sounion. However, during my
archeological examination of the coastal fortification system that was built to
supposedly secure the supply lines of Athens, I found some information that casts
doubts on this theory. From this information I came to the conclusion that neither of
the sites were properly constructed to defend against a coastal attack by land or sea.
Only one of the forts (Sounion) had naval capabilities that would be usable during an
attack. Also, all of the coastal forts had their major defenses (walls) were aimed at the
land not at the sea, unlike the earlier built fortified port of Athens, Piraeus. At both
sites the harbors are out side of walls of their respective fortifications. This meant that
their ability to control the shipping of Athens regardless of the mode of attack, either
by land or by sea would not be effective. My interpretation of the layouts of both sites
is that they were made to function as Redoubts for parts of Attica that Athens kept
under its control. When looking at what the options of Athens were and what it did,
there seems to be some disparities in the actions of Athens. These pieces of
information could be dismissed on the grounds that it is wrong to assume that the
leaders of Athens should have acted in a logical way as leaders of semi-democartic
117
Lysander year as naval commander was over by Spartan law Book I ,IV, VI and Alcibiades was
removed for his failure to win. Book I.V. Carletoni Brownson, Xenophon: Hellenica,. Cambridge, MA.
Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd, 1981. Vol I book I-IV
26
state in which leaders were accountable to the people of Athens. However as we can
from the many well-formulated logical plans carried out by both sides during the war,
neither of them can be branded as inept in the military arts.
My explanation of this disparity is based on Athens action during the war, the logical
options that they were presented with to solve its supply problems and the
archeological information I found at both sites. The conclusion is that Athens did not
want to set up an effective coastal defense, as it would not be to their advantage in the
long run. In 413 B.C the setting up of the “coastal defiance” fort at Rhamnous and
Sounion was aimed at keeping the shipping links of Athens in working order. Both of
these forts have been constructed to defend against land offenses, as in 413 B.C
Sparta had no fleet. But by 408-407 Sparta did have a fleet to attack Attica, yet there
was no change to the fortification of Attica. The failure to update the defenses is
rather odd, as we know that both sites were under the control of Athens up to the end
of the war. In short both sites were constructed to endure short sieges not to defend
their harbors. Also, it was not a matter of finances, as even in 406 B.C at the Blockade
of Mitylene, Athens was able to raise a whole new fleet to aid their ships. So why did
they not deal with the problems which presented itself to them? I believe that Athens,
who had started to lose control of the sea in the period of the last part of the
Peloponnesian war, chose not to fortify Attica. Athens hoped to draw the Spartans
into Attica by not updating its coastal defenses, in essence leaving the door open for
them to come right in. The fortification of both these points was not to save the port
but rather to serve as redoubt, which could draw some of the troops away from Athens
and keep these vital locations under Athenian control. In essence it created an elusion
of naval power that the Spartans would see and choose not to risk a naval war. They
would rather rely on there major military strength, (just as Athens) did their land
based military power to over come Athens. It would be then that the forts major
fortification walls would come in to play, as the Spartans would have to split there
forces to deal with both Rhamnous and Sounion. This would have been a necessity or
the Spartan troops would have been open to attack from cavalry form both sites. This
would have been a major problem for Sparta as with the huge number of troops it
would need for all three sites, the necessity for supplies would be paramount. There
only way to feed themselves would have been to send out large numbers of small
party’s to find food. In these small groups they would be vulnerable to attack by
cavalry. This strategy would have a major effect on the position of Athens as the
Spartans would need to invest huge amounts of resources of both men and money to
keep upper hand in Attica, and being that the only major source of money for Sparta
was the Persian fleet money. The fleet of Peloponnesian would dwindle as it funds
were put into an Attica land based campaign, leaving Athens to secure there control
over the waves.
This idea is supported by the layout of the defensive structure for the forts, such as
Rhamnous, with a second wall, to lengthen the siege of the site. This may seem
strange being that the Peloponnesians were the best land soldiers in Greece, but when
we consider the possible threat that Sparta posed as a land power verses a sea power,
the Athenians would have no chance of surviving the war if it controlled the sea as
well as the land. As I have already noted, Athens worst possible loss that could result
from losing this war was that it would no longer would have control of the sea.
Athens Empire was one that was united by the sea not divided; the major sources of
food (the north Aegean), its wealth (the money of the Delian League), as well as its
primary weapon (the fleet of Athens) were all linked to the sea. For Athens to loose
27
control of the waves would be the greatest loss, even compared to the loss of the city
to an enemy, such as fall of the city of Athens to Xerxes I in 480 B.C118. Athens
without her city was still an empire, Athens without here fleet would not even be a
city, never mind a polis. The Athenians, who were already in a bad position by the
fortification of Dekelia and the later development of a proficient Peloponnesian fleet,
hoped to play on the great strength of their own fleet to keep them supplied at the port
of Piraeus, banking that if that could draw more of the Peloponnesians on to land,
they could remain stable by relaying on their skill at sea. The Spartans, with their
limited man power and land based fighting tradition, would be more inclined to invest
their forces in land attacks than risk a possible naval loss. On the other side of the
battle line when the leaders of Athens asked themselves which would have been
worse for Athens, to see Attica filled with the Peloponnesians troops and them safe
behind its wall or south Attica empty and their real empire (the seas of the Aegean)
and see supply lines cut off, it could be pointed out that the Athenians did not need to
fortify Attica as they were safe behind their walls. However, as we can see from their
position of being under pressure from the Peloponnesians, they needed either a secure
supply line from the north Aegean or a bigger fortified area neither of which the did to
a satisfactory level during the war.
One other factor that has to be taken into account before a conclusion can be drawn
from the actions of Athens, are the reactions of the Spartans as in any battle there are
always two sides to every strategy. If we are going to consider the possibility of this
Athenian ploy, we should also look at what was the possible gain or loss for the
Peloponnesians for taking the bait. If I am correct about the Athenian defensive ploy
then I must be able to find a correlation in the actions of the Peloponnesians with the
events of the Peloponnesian war. Up to this point I have established that from the
opening part of the war the Peloponnesians had up to the fortification of Dekelia in
413 B.C been waging a costly and predominantly unsuccessful war on Athens. The
presence of the Spartan army in Attica amounted to a major damage on the
economical functions of the state, rather than any directed possibility of attacking the
city of Athens. This force at Dekelia was commanded by the Agis, the Spartan King
and primary commander of the Peloponnesian leagues army119. After a slow start
Sparta had by 407 B.C., with the aid of the Persians, built a fleet that could contend
with Athens. The fleet of the Peloponnesians was considered by Athens to be its
biggest problem that had to be dealt with, as even with the attacks of Agis on
Athens120. Athens sent a bulk of its fleet and forces to try and keep the fleet of
Lysander (that was being formed at Ephesus) under control rather than try and remove
the forces at Dekelia. If the Peloponnesian fleet was the most powerful weapon to
attack Athens, why was it entrusted to Lysander? A man who despite his skill as a
naval commander was not of any really importance until after he was given this job. Is
it possible that as I have already established during my elaboration of the actions of
Sparta that changing the way in which they waged war, regardless of its usefulness
was not desirable to say the least. This was the reason that the fleet of the
Peloponnesians was led by Lysander, rather then by the Spartans’ warrior king Agis,
118
The city was emptied of people most of who were on Salamis, they were set alight by the Persians
before the sea battle of Salamis. Victor Davis Hanson, The wars of the Ancient Greeks and their
Invention of Western Military Culture, Cassell and Co, London 1999. Page 97.
119
Bernard W. Henderson, The Great War between Athens and Sparta: A Companion to the Military
history of Thucydides, Macmillan and Co Limited London, 1927. Page 400.
120
Thucydide .Book VIII, LXXI, 1.
28
who remained at Dekelia for most of the war. When you look at the conservatism of
the Spartans, which was a part of every part of their world and in their idealization of
the citizens hoplite soldier, it is not such a great leap to see that from the view of
Athens it would be very attractive to lure Sparta into a situation in which the Spartans
could wage war in their traditional land based if they would engineer a situation,
where the Spartans would see the possibility of waging this war on land in there
traditional manner that would regardless of what they saw as the small risk of losing
have been a very attractive. The prove of this Spartan disposition of not investing
there troops in military strategies that were different in any way from their set hoplite
invasion strategies can be seen in their lack of support of the invasion of Thrace
Brasidas and the forces sent to aid Syracuse. In both cases the leaders of Sparta chose
not to invest any Spartan solders in these vital missions, due to the risk of losing
troops. Who would they have viewed the creation of a huge fleet, for a goal that even
if they were to win would be a possible treaty to them? There also seems to be one
other factor, which should be looked at before this matter can be settled: What would
be the possible repercussions if they did put all their forces into a fleet and did win?
Without a question, the possible gains which they would have would be vast, as they
would take over the position of the Athenians as the dominant power in Aegean. A
victory over Athens at sea would not only secure their position as the leader of the
Peloponnesian league, it would de facto give them all the wealth of the Delian
League, funds as well as the pre-established infrastructure of Athens empire for
producing a massive fleet. This would have, regardless of the Spartan - Persian treaty
of the Peloponnesian war, been used on Persia as soon as the Spartans would have the
opportunity121. However, with a possible naval victory would come some gambles,
firstly in the investment of manpower in building a major fleet. Furthermore, the
Spartans position, as the best land army would be threatened, as it was a major
gamble to invest their already dwindling amount of troops in risky seafaring venture.
The Sicilian Expedition in 414 B.C is an example of the risk involved in setting up a
major fleet. Athens defeated the Spartan fleet and their land army as a direct result. If
Sparta would have been defeat on the same scale as Athens did, they would have been
a state without a people.
When seen from the point of view of the smaller states of both the Empire of Athens
and the Peloponnesian league, the result of Sparta’s victory would be just a change of
masters. A victory over Athens could put the Spartans in a very undesirable position,
namely in the shoes of a new “Athens”. A position in which, unlike the Athens be foe
her, they might have found themselves on the receiving end of the attacks of both the
members of the Empire of Athens and the Peloponnesians league. The Spartans would
most probably have invoked negative reactions from the remaining members of the
Empire of Athens, if they had attempted to act like the new Athens. As well as the rest
of the Peloponnesians league, who up to that point would have been relatively free
from total domination, would find themselves under the control of an all to Athens
like state who was not only the strongest land power in Greece’s but the strongest
naval power as well. Lastly the fact that Sparta was being funded the one major
enemy of all Greeks, Persia in return for the enslavement of the Greeks on the Coast
of Asia Minor, would have cased a negative reaction.
Conclusion
121
After the end of the Peloponnesian war Agesilaus II king of Sparta lead an invasion of the Persian
Empire for 3 years. Wees, Hans van (1958-) : Greek warfare.: Duckworth, London, 2004.Page 27
29
In this thesis I have tried to find answers to the following three questions: Firstly,
what were the defensive land and sea strategies of Athens during the Peloponnesian
war? Secondly, how were coastal defenses of Athens implemented? Thirdly, was the
implementation of these coastal defenses in line with the defensive needs of Athens?
Regarding the first question, we have seen during this paper that Athens defensive
strategies had a number of problems. For example, the geographical location and lack
of high quality hoplite soldiers resulted in a reliance on their naval power. This meant
that Athens chose a defensive strategy, drawing all its people as well as portable
assets within its walls, leaving only a number of vital points in Attica occupied. On
the other side of its strategy, the naval operations, Athens took a more laid back
approach and employed its naval power as tool to weaken Sparta and not so much as
to try to defeat her. Athens used its already established naval empire as an economical
viaduct to transport supplies from around the empire to the city. However, the
Athenians also used it as an offensive weapon to divert the Spartans attention away
from Attica and keep their own state safe from naval invasions. In short, the
Athenians played a strategy, originally invented by Pericles, to avoid fighting Sparta
on Sparta’s terms. Instead Athens let the Spartans spend their money and energy
while Athens conserved both. This plan was ingenious by design, but, as we have
already established, flawed by application. For this strategy to work two conditions
had to be satisfied; firstly, the city of Athens must maintain stability and secondly, be
in control of the sea. Events like the plague of Athens, the disastrous Sicilian invasion
and the fortification of Dekelia by the Peloponnesians in 414-413 B.C pointed out its
weaknesses in application. The strategy of Pericles regardless of it pros or cons was
at the heart of Athenian actions for the duration of the Peloponnesian war. This
adherence to the basic principles of the Athens defensive plan also made it possible
for the disgruntled Athenian general Alcibiades, to give the Spartans the advice that
would enable them to put pressure on the city of Athens, a fate that from the start of
the Peloponnesian war, had evaded Sparta. Sparta’s strategic advantage, which I have
already explained, was the fortification of the former Athenian outpost of Dekelia that
far outweighed any drain on their manpower resources. This tactical maneuver
allowed the Spartans to place a full time garrison in the vicinity of the city. From this
point onwards, the city of Athens was no longer a city but rather a fort at the center of
a major region. All of the facilities that the city and its citizens had used and were part
of their everyday life was denied to them. Athens became a city under siege, with no
lands of it own; it became completely reliant on imports of every kind to keep the city
in working order. The purpose of the Spartans in Attica was not to convince the city
but rather force the city to do one of two things: send out its army to do battle or to
force them via the destruction of their lands to surrender immediately to their
besiegers. The most practical way forward for the Spartans was to engage themselves
in the destruction of the farmland of Attica. They were also able to make huge impact
on the economical infrastructure of Athens, most prominently the importation of food.
Due to the strategic location of Dekelia, all land imports from Athens major food
sources in the north Aegean and the black sea coast were slowed down as well as
made much more expensive to accomplish. Athens started a tactical maneuver to
import the bulk of it goods by sea in ships that sailed down the coastline of the North
West coast of central Greece. This trip was relatively safe due to the lack of naval
powers in the northern Aegean other then Athens. This meant that the coastal
defensive stature of Athens was based within Attica. The basic plan of the defensive
system was that as long as the coastlines had a number of points where the ships could
30
get their supplies or shelter for bad weather in secure ports. In theory they would sale
from Rhamnous to Sounion and then onto Athens, not stopping at ay other places on
the coast out of fear of being taken by the Spartans, while they were on shore looking
for food or stopping at night to rest there rowers. The distances between each of these
points meant that it could take much longer for them to get from Rhamnous to Athens.
All of this extra time and cost was made even harder by the eventual loss of number
of ships, to the Spartans.
These points were, as has been shown in this paper, the strategic points for Athens
and both of them were already significant parts of Attica. Both Rhamnous and
Sounion have a number of factors, which made them suitable to be made into coastal
defensive points. During my archeological investigation of Rhamnous and Sounion, I
have come across a number of points motivated by strategic location, religious
significance, psychological importance, economic and military motivations. Firstly,
Rhamnous in north Attica bordering with Oropos and in view of the island of Euboae
and Sounion at the tip of the peninsula of Attica were both strategic locations for the
defense of Attica. The religious significance and psychological importance of both of
these sites can be seen with the Rhamnous temple of Nemesis and in Sounion with the
temple of Poseidon. Two major religious sites, both of which have major links with
the psychology of the minds of the people of Athens. Nemesis is the goddess that the
Athenians believed aided them in the battle of Marathon during the Persian wars. In
the case of Poseidon, the god of the sea who secured Athens role as master of the
waves would have meant that the Athenians would have gone to great lengths to keep
this temple safe. Lastly, the economical/ military motivations were both due to the
sites location, in proximity to major points of economic imports and exports.
Rhamnous was for example closely located to the island of Euboae, which was a
major source of income and point of control for Athens. Euboae was also one of the
members of the Delian League. As for Sounion, the archeological findings from other
countries such as Egypt outline its position as a major economic point of interest, as
well as being the military departure point of ships going to the south western islands
of the Aegean.
Now that we have established why and where the coastal fortifications of Attica were
constructed, the second point of the text can be addressed. How were the Athenian
coastal defenses implemented? This second issue can be explored with reference to
the archeological examination of the layout and purpose of the fortifications at
Rhamnous and Sounion?
As I have outlined in my archeological description of the both sites, the location of
these fortifications involved three major factors; the location of the walls, the location
of the harbors and the defensive / offensive possibilities of the fortifications. Before I
go any further let me just restate the reason why Athens had set up these coastal
defenses. Athens built these coastal defenses to protect the vital imports of food
coming from the North Aegean to Athens. Due to the fortification of Dekelia in 413412 B.C, Athens was prompted to fortify Rhamnous and Sounion. With this in mind,
when we look at both sights in relation to fortification walls, Rhamnous and Sounion
have defensive walls, which was one of the more reliable ways to ensure protection
for the city in the event of being besieged. This point is highlighted by reference to
the city of Athens, and with the legendary walls that encompass not only the city, but
the heart of the naval empire of Athens as well; the old port and new port of Athens,
Phaleron and Piraeus. In both cases, both Rhamnous and Sounion built major walls
31
straight after the fall of Dekelia in 413-412 B.C. Both walls were constructed of local
limestone, an easy shaped rock for speed of construction, but one which is a soft stone
and can weaken in a short time as a result of weathering. This choice is certainly not
the most stable for walls. In both cases the layout of the walls were, however, well
suited to the defense of the fort. In the case of Rhamnous, the location of the wall is at
the slope of the hill giving the defender an advantage and it has a defensively
constructed interior layout, as well as a heavily fortified single enter point. At
Sounion, the wall fully encompasses the landside of the site. This wall was well made
to handle attacks and consisted of 11 towers with large bastions on the northeast. The
thickness of the walls also allowed usage as a defensive projectile platform.
The second factor was the location of the harbors at both sites in relation to the walls
of the fortification. At Rhamnous, there were two small inlets - facing the eastern and
the western – that served as harbors for the ships of Attica.
At Sounion, there were two points at which ships could put into a small cove on the
east side of the peninsula and a much bigger harbor on the west side. But oddly it
seems that the fortresses walls did not enclose both of these ports, such as at Piraeus.
This lack of fortification of the ports, which is the very reason the Athenians set up
these forts, is very hard to fully explain. During my investigation of this feature of
both sites I have found a number of possible facts that contributed to this lack of
fortification, but no archaeological reason that logically explains it. In short, the ports
on both sites were open both to land or sea attack as there were no walls around them,
and the forts on both sites did have protective walls.
Last is the issue of the defensive / offensive possibilities of the fortifications. As I
have already established, the defensive possibilities of both sites was good in every
respect, except the points of their building material and some minor points of
construction technique. However, in the case of offensive possibilities there seems to
be little or none at all, except for the shipyards for two small war ships at Sounion. I
base this analysis on the lack of any archeological fortification in front of the walls
indicating that the only kind of possible offensive tactic they could employ would be
the use of cavalry, a tactic that, as we have already established, is useful for protecting
agricultural land, but has no use against a major hoplite force, which is intent on
taking over the ports of both sites.
The last question to be answered is whether the coastal fortifications of Attica were in
line with the defensive needs of Athens. As already has been established in this thesis,
Athens constructed these forts in reaction to the Spartans in Attica in 413 B.C. In
theory, the Athenians built these forts to protect their shipping, but as we have now
proven, they would have not been able to maintain control of these ports, regardless of
the mode of attack; a land or naval one. This situation would have not been helpful in
413 B.C as the Spartans would have been able to enter the port area whenever they
saw a ship was coming in to collect supplies. But by 407 B.C with the construction of
a major Peloponnesian fleet, it would have become a major hazard, as now the ships
that did remain in open water would also be under threat of being taken by the Spartan
navy.
This poses the question, why would Athens have left its major viaduct for the imports
vital to their survival as well as a major line of defense so badly protected? I have
attempted to find a logical reason for this, with the possibilities of lack of knowledge
of its military value or lack of funds excluded judging on evidence of the Athenian
32
empire during the war. This is consistent with idea that they may have not wanted to
remove the Spartans from Dekelia. For example, there are no records of any major
military forces sent to deal with the Spartans at Dekelia, in spite of the huge amount
of damage they were incurring. It would have been logical that at the point that the
Spartans started to strangle the supplies of the city, the Athenians would have been
forced to act.
I can only suggest that the reason for Athens did not attempt to remove the Spartans
from Dekelia was that need for Sparta to remain there represented a significant drain
on their resources, which meant less soldiers to attack other areas. The reason for this
is that the Spartans would not be able to maintain an effective attack on the city of
Athens. If this were not the case there would have been some attempt by Athens to
remove the Spartans during the later part of the war, which there was not.
When I take into account the information I have found, I am left with the impression
that they did it for a reason. With this in mind I have examined the possible positive
outcomes of the lack of coastal defenses. I have come to the conclusion that the only
probable outcome of this policy would have been the invasion and subsequent
presence of the majority of the forces of the Peloponnesian army in Attica. Their
presence in Attica would have left much of the rest of the Athenian empire free, with
Athens and her impregnable walls still well supplied and in control of their empire. In
essence to maintain this state identified by H.D. Westlake meant that by keeping the
Spartans the longer in Attica the more probable it was that they would in time sue for
peace. However, history tells us that this was not the way it worked out. During my
investigation I have also found in the origins of the plan to fortify Dekelia a possible
explanation that shows that this strategy was in fact chosen by Alcibiades for purpose
to tempt Sparta to focus all of it energy in a land campaign by lack of coastal
fortification. This would keep the naval power of Athens safe from interferences from
Sparta. Athens gambled that regardless of how many troops Sparta sent to Attica their
skills as sailors, which in light of their control of the Delian League the most powerful
naval power of it day, their control of the waves would be maintained. They based
their plan on the assumption that given the proper circumstances Sparta would regress
to their natural state of large-scale land war.
As I have now reviewed the Athenian strategy, the next step is to review the reasons
why Sparta did not walk into this trap. I do not think it was because they realized it
was a trap, rather they knew the possibility a land war would not succeed. As a result,
they did the one thing that Athens had not predicted, namely to deviate from tradition.
Sparta did maintain a small presence in Attica, but after the alliance with Persia these
tactics changed. Their investment in the creation of a fleet was one of the most
worrying events of the war for Athens, as can be shown by its reaction in the battle of
Ephesus of 406 B.C. This move in strategy by the Spartans can been as one of the
major events of the war. Sparta, even if only hesitantly, allowed the formation of a
fleet under the leadership of Lysander, for the singler purpose of defeating Athens,
not replacing it. However, this new development was at best half-hearted. Their use of
Lysander and the lack of input from the kings of Sparta, the primary commanders of
the military, would indicate that in the event of a possible loss they could distance
themselves from any defeat. There are a number of facts that support this idea. Firstly
the commander of the fleet was a commissioned officer not a king, and secondly in
the case of Lysander his low social status would prevent him from getting support
33
from the upper realms of Spartan society, thirdly his “friendship” with the Persian
Princes Cyrus would have made him a popular scapegoat. Finally, the fact that the
fleet was kept as a separate body from the army and assembled in the Persian harbor
of Ephesus meant that the Spartans could destroy it if needed. The fact that Sparta
took great pains to distance themselves from their new navy is consistent with the idea
that from a social point of view, the creation of a navy represents a threat to the
hierarchical and militaristic nature of Spartan society.
In this policy by the Spartans, the one major flaw of the plan by Athens can be seen.
The Athenians counted on Sparta’s adherence to its own military traditions and
therefore underestimated the flexibility of the Spartans to deal with situations that
differ from their normal war context. This view of the tactics of Athens may be seen
by some as a complication of simple matters. In short, I believe that I have found a
number of facts about the defensive strategy of Athens during the Peloponnesian war
that seem logical in the events that ensued during the war when viewed from the
standpoint of the strategy of Athens. It seems that Athens would have attempted
anything to get out of the situation it was in. From the military point of view the role
of fortification of the coastline of Attica in relation to its use against the Spartans
serves to outline both the traditional form of military strategies that dominated the
per-Peloponnesian war period and the changes to what can only be labeled as the
strategies of “total” war that were used during the Peloponnesian war. Thus, the
small-scale one-off military engagements were replaced by highly structured long
term tactical war plans of the Peloponnesian war. The manipulation of role of the forts
on the coastline can be seen as an example of the ingenuity and determination of
Athens to survive the war regardless of the cost.
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Miles, M. 1989: “A reconstruction of the temple of nemesis at Rhamnous” in
Hesperia 58, pages 133-249.
Pavel Oliva, Sparta and her social problems. Academia Prague, 1971.
Josiah Ober. Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athens Land frontier 404-322
B.C. E.J. Brill Leiden, Netherlands, 1985.
Carletoni Brownson. Xenophon: Hellenica, Cambridge, MA. Harvard
University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd, 1981. Vol I book I-IV.
A.N. Dinsmoor, Rhamnous, Lycabettus press, 1972
Anton Powell. Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social
History From 478 B.C., Routledge, 1988.
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. (last modified 25 November 2004 19:02)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Peloponnesian_War.png)
Plato and his dialogues. Last updated November 16, 1998 (http://platodialogues.org/tools/attica.htm 0
Goddess-Athena originations, Last update unkown. ( http://www.goddessathena.org/Museum/Sculptures/Alone/Mourning_Athena.jpg)
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Appendices A. Chronology of the Peloponnesian war.
Based on the chronology of the war given in R. E. Dupuy and T. N. Dupuy, The
Encyclopedia of Military History; from 3500 B.C. to Present, Macdonald and Janes,
1970.
The first phase of the war was 432 B.C. to 421 B.C.
 432 B.C. Sparta declares war on Athens on the grounds that they broke the
Thirty years Peace. The Peloponnesian and Boeotians support Sparta.
 431- 430 B.C Sparta invades Attica to the city of Athens, Athens with draws
all land troop to the city and attacks the coast of the Peloponnesus by sea.
 430- 429 B.C. plague of Athens population decimated, Pericles dead replaced
by Cleon.
 429 B.C. Navel battle of Chalcis and Naupactus, led by Athens navel
commander Phormio.
 429-427 B.C. siege of Plataea by Spartan – Theban force double ring
fortification of the town.
 427 B.C. revolts of Corcyra and Lesbos against Athens
 426 B.C. Athens led by Demosthenes take the land offensive in Aetolia
against Thebes and Boeotia , unsuccessfully.
 426 B.C. Battle of Tanagra led by Nicias attacks the island of Boeotia but
fails.
 426 B.C. Battle of Olpae, Athens under Demosthenes ambush as bigger
Spartan forces, successfully.
 425 B.C. The battle of Pylos or Navarino, Demosthenes takes and fortifies
Pylos defeating a Spartan contingent capturing their fleet and stranding them
on island of Sphacteria.
 425 B.C. The battle of Sphacteria, in which Demosthenes and Cleon take
Spartan captives, Sparta offer terms, Athens refuses.
 424 B.C. battle of Delium, Athens under Hippocrates attack Boeotia but are
defeated by the Theban under Pagondas.
 424-423 B.C. Spartan general Brasidas invades Thrace and Chalcidice by land
beating two Athenian Armies on the way, taking Amphipolis but not Eion due
to Thucydides.
 423 B.C. Due to Brasidas successes in the north, Athens make a truces, but
Brasidas stays in the North taking Athenian lands.
 422 B.C. Cleon and Nicias Take a Athenian army north to deal with Brasidas,
who falls back to Amphipolis.
 422 B.C. Battle of Amphipolis, Cleon attacks the city but is beaten by
Brasidas with a surprise attack, both commanders die in the fighting.
Second phase peace of Nicias 421 B.C. to 415 B.C.
 421 B.C. Athens and Sparta make the 50 year truces which returns all lands to
there pre- Peloponnesian war holders, Sparta come into conflict with Athens
allies, Argos Mantinea and Elis.
 418 B.C. Battle of Mantinea, the Spartans invaded Argos and Mantinea,
Athens aids them both but all are defeated in the largest battle of the war by
Sparta.
 417-416 B.C. Athens aids Argos but doesn’t declare war on Sparta.
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416 B.C. Rise of Alcibiades, politician and general author of the idea to attack
Syracuse.
Third phase the Sicilian Expedition 415 B.C. to 413 B.C.
415 B.C. Athens attacks Syracuse under Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachus
unsuccessfully, ( Alcibiades flees to Sparta ).
414 B.C. Sparta send a general, one Gylippus to aid Syracuse
414 B.C. The Athenian fleet at Syracuse are defeated by a Syracuse-Corinth
fleet, which start rout of all the Athenian forces in Syracuse.
Fourth phase 413 B.C. to 404 B.C.
413 B.C. Sparta declares war on Athens, besieging the city.
412 B.C. Naval struggle of control of Ionia and Aegean, Persian treaty of
Sparta, new fleet of Athens.
411 B.C. Alcibiades returns to good graces of Athens, as he convinces the
Persians to lessen there support of Sparta, he is made commander of fleet of
Athens and sails to north Aegean, where he win naval battle of Cynossema.
4010 B.C. Battle of Cyzicus Alcibiades win a navel and land battle over the
Spartan and Persian army in the sea of Marmora. Sparta offer peace but a
refused by Cleophon.
408 B.C. Alcibiades with an Athenian fleet recapture Byzantium and control
of the Bosporus grain supply.
408-407 B.C. Sparta and Persia marshal there forces new fleet is build at
Ephesus under the control of Lysander supported by the Persian satrap Cyrus.
406 B.C. Battle of Ephesus, Alcibiades with the Athenian fleet try an goat
Lysander to flight him, both commander are removed form control of there
fleets.
 406 B.C. Blockade of Mitylene, Callicratidas blocked the Athenian fleet at
Mitylene, Athens raises the blocked by building a new fleet.
406 B.C The battle of Arginsae, Athens beats the Sparta led by Callicratidas,
resulting in his death.
405 B.C. Lysander is reinstated due to Persian pressure to control of the fleet,
he attacks the Hellespont to cut of Athens grain supply, he is confronted by
Athenian navy led by Conon.
405 B.C. Battle of Aegospotami Sparta under Lysander destroy the Navy of
Athens and Spartan king Pausanias attacks Athens by land.
404 B.C. After six’s month siege of the city Athens surrenders, her walls and
empire are dismantled.
Appendices B
Map of the region of Attica
( http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/attica.htm )
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Appendices C
City of ancient Athens during the classical age
( http://plato-dialogues.org/tools/athens.htm)
Appendices D
Rhamnous, Fort ;Distant view of main gate
Photograph courtesy of Thomas Martin and Ivy S. Sun
Perseus Digital Library Project. Ed. Gregory R. Crane. date of last site update (see
below). Tufts University. 30-06-2005. <http://www.perseus.tufts.edu>.
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Appendices E. A.N. Dinsmoor, Rhamnous, Lycabettus press, 1972. Page 28.
Map of
Rhamnoues.
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Appendices F. W.B. Dinsmoor, Jr., Sounion, Lycabettus press, 1971. Map of Sounion
. page 9.
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