The Peloponnesian War continues, from 425 BCE to 418 BCE

In 425, six years into the war, Sparta again invaded Attica. The Athenian navy subdued a fleet of enemy ships at Navarino Bay on the southwest coast of Peloponnesus and cut off a battalion of Spartans there. Feeling pressured by this setback, Sparta promised Athens peace and requested an armistice -- without having consulted its allies. Cleon rejected Sparta's offer. He wanted to wait for Sparta's unconditional surrender and to press what he saw as his city's advantage. The Athenians took 292 Spartan captives back to Athens as hostages and warned Sparta that they would kill these hostages if Sparta again invaded Attica.

Cleon continued his hardline ways. Believing that Sparta had been neutralized, Athens attempted a large-scale assault by land against Sparta's Boeotian allies. It was the only major use of land forces by Athens in the war, and the Boeotians defeated them. And now the sign of weakness that Cleon wanted to avoid was apparent to cities in Chalcidice. They resented an increase in tribute demanded by Athens. Cleon convinced an assembly to allow him to lead a force against the rebellion in Chalcidice. There, Cleon defeated some of the rebellions, but on the way to the city of Amphipolis his bravado failed him. He was killed and his army defeated.

Athens was now financially exhausted. Replacing Cleon as the Athenian leader was a more moderate man, a military commander, Nicias, who was willing to end the war. Sparta wanted its hostages back, and, in 421, Sparta agreed with Athens to end the fighting, an agreement that included a return of prisoners and captured lands. The war between Athens and Sparta seemed to have ended. In Athens, rejoicing erupted inspired by weariness of war. The Athenian playwright Euripides, who had also wearied of the war, wrote with enthusiasm in one of his plays: "Down with my spear! Let it be covered with spider webs!"

Allies of Sparta, namely Megara, Corinth and Elis, refused to sign the peace treaty. Desperately wanting peace, Sparta offered Athens an alliance in addition to peace, Sparta pledging that it would be an ally of Athens for fifty years. Athens accepted, and the two city-states pledged to defend each other, including Athens helping Sparta should the Helots revolt.

Technically, Megara, Elis and Corinth remained at war with Athens. And Corinth, which had a small empire of its own, was still competing with Athens for advantages in empire. While Sparta and Athens tried to remain at peace with each other, tensions and sporadic fighting among others continued.

Athens allowed the return of the original cause of the war -- it own aggressions. Athens employed force against cities that rebelled against its rule. It retaliated against rebellion in Scione (the western most finger of Chalcidice) by killing all of that city's adult males and making slaves of its women and children. As Diodotus had argued in his debate against Cleon, such action brought no advantage to Athens. Other cities that wished to be free of Athenian rule responded to Athenian cruelty at Scione with a greater determination to win their independence.

Within two years of having made peace, Sparta felt it had recovered from war. With Athenian imperialism creating tensions and Athens interfering in Peloponnesian affairs, Sparta feared that its alliance with Athens might break down, and it renewed its ties with Corinth, Megara and Elis. Athens asked Sparta to sever its ties with these cities and Sparta refused. In 418, Athens and Sparta went to the assistance of Peloponnesian cities at war with each other, Sparta on one side and Athens on the other, and the armies of Sparta and Athens came to blows. It was the largest land battle since the beginning of the Peloponnesian War -- while officially Sparta and Athens were still at peace with each other. The Spartans won easily. The Spartans felt a renewed sense of military superiority and enjoyed a new prestige across Greece.

Off and On Again War