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As soon as the Persian survivors had put to sea, the Athenians marched as quickly as possible to Athens. They arrived in time to prevent Artaphernes from securing a landing in Athens. Seeing his opportunity lost, Artaphernes ended the year’ s campaign and returned to Asia.
The Battle of Marathon was a watershed in the Greco–Persian wars, showing the Greeks that the Persians could be beaten. It also highlighted the superiority of the more heavily armoured Greek hoplites, and showed their potential when used wisely. The Battle of Marathon is perhaps now more famous as the inspiration for the Marathon race.
2. Battle of Salamis萨拉米斯战役
Victory at Thermopylae meant that all Boeotia fell to Xerxes; and left Attica open to invasion. The remaining population of Athens was evacuated, with the aid of the Allied fleet, to Salamis. The Peloponnesian Allies began to prepare a defensive line across the Isthmus of Corinth, building a wall, and demolishing the road from Megara, abandoning Athens to the Persians. Athens thus fell to the Persians; the small number of Athenians who had barricaded themselves on the Acropolis were eventually defeated, and Xerxes then ordered Athens to be razed.
The Persians had now captured most of Greece, but Xerxes had perhaps not expected such defiance; his priority was now to complete the war as quickly as possible. If Xerxes could destroy the Allied navy, he would be in a strong position to force an Allied surrender; conversely by avoiding destruction, or as Themistocles hoped, by destroying the Persian fleet, the Allies could prevent conquest from being completed. The Allied fleet thus remained off the coast of Salamis into September, despite the imminent arrival of the Persians. Even after Athens fell, the Allied fleet remained off the coast of Salamis, trying to lure the Persian fleet to battle. Partly because of deception by Themistocles, the navies met in the cramped Straits of Salamis. There, the Persian numbers became a hindrance, as ships struggled to maneuver and became disorganised. Seizing the opportunity, the Allied fleet attacked, and scored a decisive victory, sinking or capturing at least 200 Persian ships, therefore ensuring the safety of the Peloponnessus.
According to Herodotus, after the loss of the battle Xerxes attempted to build a causeway across the channel to attack the Athenian evacuees on Salamis, but this project was soon abandoned. With the Persians’ naval superiority removed, Xerxes feared that the Allies might sail to the Hellespont and destroy the pontoon bridges. His general Mardonius volunteered to remain in Greece and complete the conquest with a hand–picked group of troops, while Xerxes retreated to Asia with the bulk of the army. Mardonius over–wintered in Boeotia and Thessaly; the Athenians were thus able to return to their burnt–out city for the winter.
3. Battles of Plataea and Mycale普拉提亚战役
Over the winter, there was some tension between the Allies. In particular, the Athenians, who were not protected by the Isthmus, but whose fleet was the key to the security of the Peloponnesus, felt hard done by, and refused to join the Allied navy in Spring. Mardonius remained in Thessaly, knowing an attack on the Isthmus was pointless, while the Allies refused to send an army outside the Peloponessus. Mardonius moved to break the stalemate, by offering peace to the Athenians, using Alexander I of Macedon as an intermediate. The Athenians made sure that a Spartan delegation was on hand to hear the offer, but rejected it. Athens was thus evacuated again, and the Persians marched south and re–took possession of it. Mardonius now repeated his offer of peace to the Athenian refugees on Salamis. Athens, with Megara and Plataea, sent emissaries to Sparta demanding assistance, and threatening to accept the Persian terms if they were not aided. In response, the Spartans summonded a large army from the Peloponnese cities and marched to meet the Persians.
When Mardonius heard the Allied army was on the march, he retreated into Boeotia, near Plataea, trying to draw the Allies into open terrain where he could use his cavalry. The Allied army, under the command of the regent Pausanias, stayed on high ground above Plataea to protect themselves against such tactics. After several days of maneuver and stalemate, Pausanias ordered a night–time retreat towards the Allies’ original positions. This maneuver went awry, leaving the Athenians, and Spartans and Tegeans isolated on separate hills, with the other contingents scattered further away near Plataea. Seeing that the Persians might never have a better opportunity to attack, Mardonius ordered his whole army forward. However, the Persian infantry proved no match for the heavily armoured Greek hoplites, and the Spartans broke through to Mardonius’ s bodyguard and killed him. After this the Persian force dissolved in rout; 40, 000 troops managed to escape via the road to Thessaly, but the rest fled to the Persian camp where they were trapped and slaughtered by the Greeks, finalising the Greek victory.
Herodotus recounts that, on the afternoon of the Battle of Plataea, a rumour of their victory at that battle reached the Allies’ navy, at that time off the coast of Mount Mycale in Ionia. Their morale boosted, the Allied marines fought and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Mycale that same day, destroying the remnants of the Persian fleet, crippling Xerxes’ sea power, and marking the ascendancy of the Greek fleet. Whilst many modern historians doubt that Mycale took place on the same day as Plataea, the battle may well only have occurred once the Allies received news of the events unfolding in Greece.
Background Knowledge 背景知识补充
希波战争是人类历史文化的一次前所未有的大融合，其影响远远超出波斯、希腊的范围。它大大加强了东西方文化交流，促进了东西方文化发展和科学、艺术的进步，打破了东西方几乎完全隔绝的局面，从而推动了人类社会发展进步。这是希波战争最重要的影响。
希腊在希波战争中取胜，使得西方世界的历史中心由两河流域向地中海地区推移，希腊文明得以保存并发扬光大，成为日后西方文明的基础。而且希腊胜利也确保了希腊诸城邦的独立及安全，使得希腊继续称霸东地中海数百年。 斯巴达：对斯巴达来说，大量战利品的流入和与外界接触，使斯巴达原有的经济和朴素生活失去平衡，原已平息的矛盾重新出现，斯巴达在希腊城邦中的军事统帅地位受到来自雅典的挑战。
雅典：对雅典来说，希波战争爆发后，迅速转移了雅典内部平民和贵族之间的矛盾。雅典海战的胜利，一方面削弱了贵族所依赖的陆军的社会作用；另一方面提高了在海军中服役的第四等级公民的政治地位和经济地位，使民主力量得以壮大。战争后期雅典霸权的建立及奴隶制经济的发展，则保障了民主制度的有效实施。因此，希波战争及希腊方面的胜利，为雅典民主政治的繁荣创造了十分有利的客观条件。
波斯在这场战争里战败，使其对外扩张的气焰受挫，并逐渐走向衰落，最后被马其顿的亚历山大大帝所灭。
希腊城邦的衰落
以雅典和斯巴达为代表的希腊城邦，在公元前5世纪经历了繁荣时期，从公元前4世纪起逐渐衰落。由于公民中贫富分化加剧，公民权与土地的关系日趋松弛，公民集体内部矛盾增加，公民兵制开始瓦解。公元前338年马其顿国王亚历山大大帝的征服以及公元前323至前30年的希腊化时代，许多国王对希腊的奴役，剥夺了希腊绝大多数城邦的政治独立，瓦解了原有的公民集体，使这些城邦演变成在庞大的中央集权管辖下的地方自治单位。
Reading in a single sitting 一口气读完这段历史
If the Persian Wars were the great epic of Greek history, the century of conflict between Greek poleis from 431 to 338 B.C. E. was its great tragedy. During this time, the Greeks wasted their energies fighting one another and left the way open for an outside power, Macedon, to come in and take over. There were three main lines of development that led to the final fall of the polis in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. E.
Economic and military changes
First of all, the Persian wars exposed the Greeks to a wider world of trade as well as different military tactics that could threaten the powerful, but largely immobile hoplite phalanx. Athens especially adapted to these new challenges, relying more on trade, foreign grain, and a money economy, along with the navy and Long Walls to protect its empire. Growing fear of Athens and the resulting Peloponnesian War would force other poleis to adapt in order to be able to compete with Athens. Sparta, in particular, built a navy and, after the Peloponnesian War, relied increasingly on mercenaries to bolster its power. In addition, lightly armed troops known as peltasts were used to give Greek armies more flexibility.
As a result, more and more Greeks were drawn from the countryside by the lure of riches to be made as traders and mercenaries. Trade and a money economy grew in importance compared to the small family farms that had previously been the mainstay of the polis’ economy. Also, warfare became professional, sophisticated, chronic, and expensive. This contrasted sharply with the previous style of cheap, amateur, and less destructive warfare waged by hoplite farmers over the last 250 years. Rising taxes to support this new style of warfare put increasing burdens on the farmer hoplites who started to decline economically, militarily, and politically. Gradually, large estates worked by tenant farmers or slaves would replace the small family owned farms worked by independent farmers. And once these farmers, the backbone of the traditional polis, went into decline, so did the polis itself. The Greeks were still a dynamic people, but the polis itself was starting to decay.
Continuing warfare after the Peloponnesian War (404–355 B.C. E. )
We have already seen in detail how Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War. However, Sparta’ s victory hardly meant peace for the Greek world. Many of Athens’ subjects had joined Sparta, believing they would be free to run their own lives. Instead, the Spartans installed pro–Spartan oligarchies that were watched over by Spartan governors and garrisons in many poleis. Sparta also failed to turn over Ionia to Persia in return for its aid against Athens. Naturally, such high–handed actions angered both Persia and most other Greeks. Leading the way were the Athenians who replaced the Spartan backed and repressive oligarchy of The Thirty with a new democracy.
All this led to the Corinthian War (395–387 B.C. E. ). The Spartans in Ionia could more than hold their own against the Persian forces there. However, what Persian armies could not accomplish, Persian gold could by funding Athens, Thebes, and Corinth against Sparta, which drew the Spartan forces out of Ionia and back to Greece. Persia also gave Athens a navy that crushed the Spartan fleet, sailed to Athens, and oversaw the rebuilding of the Long Walls. Sparta’ s gains from the Peloponnesian War were quickly slipping away.
Faced with such a powerful coalition, Sparta made peace with Persia, handing Ionia over in return for help against the other Greeks. In 387 B.C. E. Persia dictated a treaty called the King’ s Peace to all the Greeks, taking Ionia for itself, and putting its ally Sparta back on top of the Greek world. The irony of it all was that the Persians, without striking a blow, had accomplished what Xerxes’ huge army had failed to do a century before.
Naturally, the Greeks, did not abide by this decision for long, with Thebes and Athens leading the resistance against Sparta. The Thebans drove the Spartan garrison from their citadel and formed the Boeotian League in direct defiance of Sparta and the King’ s Peace. At Leuctra in 37l B.C. E... the Theban general, Epaminondas stacked one flank of his phalanx 50 ranks deep, crushed the opposing Spartan wing, and then rolled up the rest of their army. A similar battle at Mantinea nine years later destroyed the mystique of Spartan invincibility, and with it most of Sparta’ s power and influence. Unfortunately for Thebes, Epaminondas was killed, and with him died Thebes’ main hope to dominate the Greek world.
Meanwhile, the Athenians had formed a second Delian League with various Aegean states, promising to treat them better than they had treated the first Delian League. But Athens soon reverted to its old imperialist behavior. This triggered a revolt known as the Social War that ended Athens' imperial ambitions once and for all. Thus by 355 B.C. E., after 75 years of almost constant warfare, Athens’ empire was gone, Sparta’ s army and reputation were wrecked, and Thebes’ hopes for dominance were virtually laid to rest with Epaminondas. The polis’ resulting exhaustion combined with the long–range forces undermining the polis due to the Persian Wars and Greek colonization left the polis was in serious decline opened the way for a new power to step in.
The rise of Macedon (355–336 B.C. E. )
Macedon was a country north of Greece inhabited by tribes speaking a dialect related to Greek. While the Greeks considered them barbarians, the Macedonians liked to think of themselves as Greeks, and had played a minor role in Greek history from time to time. However, Macedon had never been a strong power until Philip II came to the throne in 359 B.C. E. after invading tribes from the north had killed his predecessor.
Philip was one of the most remarkable figures in Greek history, only being overshadowed by his son Alexander. He was a shrewd, ambitious, and unscrupulous politician who knew how to exploit the hopes, fears, and mutual hatreds of the Greeks to his own advantage. The key to much of Philip’ s success was control of the gold mines of Amphipolis, which gave him the money to do three things: build roads to tie his country together, bribe Greek politicians, and build up his army. Philip was an outstanding organizer and general who built what was probably the best army up to that point in history. Its main striking arm was an excellent cavalry, but it also utilized a phalanx armed with thirteen–foot long pikes (spears) and lightly armed peltasts. Together, these gave him the flexibility and coordination to deal with almost any situation on a battlefield.
Preferring diplomacy to fighting whenever possible, Philip was able to work his way into the confidence of various Greek states to undermine their resistance to him when he finally decided to strike. For example, he gained a foothold in Greece by defending Delphi from another city–state, Phokis. He also undermined Athens’ power by taking and then freeing one of its allies and posing as the champion of all Greek liberties. Bit by bit, Philip worked his way southward, with only a few Greeks recognizing what was happening. Among these was Demosthenes, probably the greatest orator of the ancient world. In a masterful series of speeches known as Philippics, he repeatedly warned the Athenians of the danger to the north, but they did little.
Historians through the ages have blamed the Athenians for their failure to react well to the Macedonian threat. However, in all fairness, the Athens faced a difficult dilemma, since acting against Philip could have been as ruinous as not moving to stop him. On the one hand, failing to act against Philip would allow him to conquer Greece. However, on the other hand, without an empire to provide it with the full treasury it had the previous century, Athens could no longer sustain a prolonged war against such a power as Macedon. Therefore, fighting such a war very likely would have wrecked Athens’ finances and given Philip the victory anyway.
Athens and Thebes did finally band together to meet the Macedonians at Chaeronea in 338 B.C. A tricky back–stepping maneuver by the Macedonian phalanx lured the Athenians out of position, exposing the Thebans to the decisive cavalry charge led by Philip’ s eighteen–year old son, Alexander. Demosthenes and others fled the field, leaving their shields and Greek liberty in the dust. For all intents and purposes, the age of the Greek polis was dead. The age of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic kingdoms was about to dawn.
古代希腊最强大的城邦中，雅典第一，斯巴达第二。所谓城邦，就是一个国家，它以城市为中心，周围是乡镇。
所有希腊城邦都是小国。希腊城邦的居民按照政治地位可以分为三大类： 拥有公民权因而能够参加政治活动的自由人。
没有公民权的自由人。他们或是来自外邦的移民（例如雅典的 “异邦人” ），或是由于特定的历史原因而与当权的公民集体处于不平等地位者（例如斯巴达的 “边民” ），或是因贫困而失去公民资格者，或是因违法而被剥夺了公民权者，或是被释放的奴隶。
处于被剥削、奴役地位的奴隶。奴隶多系非希腊人，但也有一部分是希腊人，例如斯巴达的 “黑劳士” 。
adapt to：变得习惯于……, 使适应于, 能应付……
rely：信任，信赖，依赖，依靠
flexibility：柔韧性，机动性，灵活性，易曲性，适应性，弹性
contrast：对比，对照，差异，差别
warfare：战争，战争状态
oversaw（oversee的过去式）：视察，观察
accomplish：完成，贯彻，实现（计划）
ambition：抱负，雄心，野心
remarkable：异常的，不寻常的，非凡的
Key Words in History 历史关键词
1. Peloponnesian war 伯罗奔尼撒战争
War fought between the two leading city–states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta. Each stood at the head of alliances that, between them, included nearly every Greek city–state. The fighting engulfed virtually the entire Greek world, and it was properly regarded by Thucydides, whose contemporary account of it is considered to be among the world’ s finest works of history, as the most momentous war up to that time.
2. Macedon 马其顿王国
Amyntas had three sons; the first two, Alexander II and Perdiccas III reigned only briefly. Perdiccas III’ s infant heir was deposed by Amyntas’ third son, Philip II of Macedon, who made himself king and ushered in a period of Macedonian dominance of Greece. Under Philip II, (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians, Thracians, and Illyrians. Among other conquests, he annexed the regions of Pelagonia and Southern Paeonia.
Philip redesigned the army of Macedon adding a number of variations to the traditional hoplite force to make it far more effective. He added the hetairoi, a well armoured heavy cavalry, and more light infantry, both of which added greater flexibility and responsiveness to the force. He also lengthened the spear and shrank the shield of the main infantry force, increasing its offensive capabilities.
Philip began to rapidly expand the borders of his kingdom. He first campaigned in the north against non–Greek peoples such as the Illyrians, securing his northern border and gaining much prestige as a warrior. He next turned east, to the territory along the northern shore of the Aegean. The most important city in this area was Amphipolis, which controlled the way into Thrace and also was near valuable silver mines. This region had been part of the Athenian Empire, and Athens still considered it as in their sphere. The Athenians attempted to curb the growing power of Macedonia, but were limited by the outbreak of the Social War. They could also do little to halt Philip when he turned his armies south and took over most of Thessaly.
Control of Thessaly meant Philip was now closely involved in the politics of central Greece. 356 BCE saw the outbreak of the Third Sacred War that pitted Phocis against Thebes and its allies. Thebes recruited the Macedonians to join them and at the Battle of Crocus Field Phillip decisively defeated Phocis and its Athenian allies. As a result Macedonia became the leading state in the Amphictyonic League and Phillip became head of the Pythian Games, firmly putting the Macedonian leader at the centre of the Greek political world.
In the continuing conflict with Athens Philip marched east through Thrace in an attempt to capture Byzantium and the Bosphorus, thus cutting off the Black Sea grain supply that provided Athens with much of its food. The siege of Byzantium failed, but Athens realized the grave danger the rise of Macedon presented and under Demosthenes built a coalition of many of the major states to oppose the Macedonians. Most importantly Thebes, which had the strongest ground force of any of the city states, joined the effort. The allies met the Macedonians at the Battle of Chaeronea and were decisively defeated, leaving Philip and the Macedonians the unquestioned master of Greece.
Background Knowledge 背景知识补充
从希波战争到丧失独立的公元前5世纪上半叶，希腊诸邦进行了数十年反抗波斯侵略的战争，并取得最后胜利。雅典在希波战争中起了重大作用，一跃成为公元前478年建立的提洛同盟的首领。这大大促进了雅典奴隶占有制经济的发展，引起雅典公民内部不同阶层力量对比的变化，导致公元前462年（或公元前461年）厄菲阿尔特和伯里克利所领导的改革。这次改革剥夺了由卸任的执政官组成的战神山议事会（即贵族会议）的权力，将其分别交给公民大会、民众法庭和五百人议事会，使民主政治发展到一个新阶段。军事殖民制度、各种社会公益捐献和对公民的津贴以及大兴土木，使占公民多数的小生产者享有得到一定保障的物质生活和精神生活。在伯里克利当政时期（公元前443至前429年），雅典在经济、政治和文化方面臻于极盛，成为左右希腊世界局势的霸国和主要文化中心。
公元前 431年，雅典及其同盟者与以斯巴达为首的伯罗奔尼撒同盟之间爆发战争，公元前404年，战争以雅典失败告终。提洛同盟瓦解。雅典一度屈从于斯巴达。公元前404年，民主政体被推翻， “三十僭主” 肆虐一时。公元前403年，民主政治得到重建。公元前4世纪上半叶，雅典利用波斯和忒拜等希腊城邦与斯巴达的矛盾，在一定程度上恢复了自己的势力，于公元前378年建立了第二次雅典海上同盟。国内政局比较稳定，经济、文化都有一些发展。但公民内部贫富分化加剧，矛盾加深。从公元前4世纪50年代起，新兴的马其顿日益严重地威胁着在色雷斯和黑海海峡地区有重大利益关系的雅典的独立和安全。雅典内部反马其顿派和亲马其顿派之间展开了激烈的斗争，两派交替占据上风。公元前338年的喀罗尼亚之役，马其顿击败了希腊各邦的反抗，从而确立了对包括雅典在内的许多希腊城邦的霸主地位。公元前323–前322年，雅典与马其顿战于拉米亚，结果失败，附属于马其顿，从此完全失去政治独立，民主政体名存实亡。公元前2世纪中叶并入罗马版图。
伯罗奔尼撒战争
伯罗奔尼撒战争，英文名为Peloponnesian War，是提洛同盟与伯罗奔尼撒联盟之间的战争，战争的双方是雅典和斯巴达之间。该战争使雅典走出了全胜时期，结束了希腊的民主时代。
Reading in a single sitting 一口气读完这段历史
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily; the attack failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens’ subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens’ empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens’ fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year.
The Peloponnesian War reshaped the Ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, Athens, the strongest city–state in Greece prior to the war’ s beginning, was reduced to a state of near–complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre–war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made civil war a common occurrence in the Greek world.
Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all–out struggle between city–states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece.
伯罗奔尼撒战争（Peloponnesian War）是以雅典为首的提洛同盟与以斯巴达为首的伯罗奔尼撒联盟之间的一场战争。这场战争从公元前431年一直持续到公元前404年，其中双方几度停战，最后斯巴达获胜。这场战争结束了雅典的经典时代，结束了希腊的民主时代。几乎所有希腊的城邦都参加了这场战争，其战场几乎涉及了整个当时希腊语世界。在现代研究中也有人称这场战争为古代世界大战。
invasion：侵略，入侵
attempt：企图，试图，努力做某事
suppress：平定，压制
conclude：结束，终止
renew：重新开始，继续
effectively：有效地，实际上，事实上
establish：建立，成立
widespread：分布广的，普遍的，广泛的
Key Words in History 历史关键词
1. Peace of Nicias 尼西阿斯和平
With the death of Cleon and Brasidas, zealous war hawks for both nations, the Peace of Nicias was able to last for some six years. However, it was a time of constant skirmishing in and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported in this by Argos, a powerful state within the Peloponnese that had remained independent of Lacedaemon. With the support of the Athenians, the Argives succeeded in forging a coalition of democratic states within the Peloponnese, including the powerful states of Mantinea and Elis. Early Spartan attempts to break up the coalition failed, and the leadership of the Spartan king Agis was called into question. Emboldened, the Argives and their allies, with the support of a small Athenian force under Alcibiades, moved to seize the city of Tegea, near Sparta.
The Battle of Mantinea was the largest land battle fought within Greece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Arcadia. In the battle, the allied coalition scored early successes, but failed to capitalize on them, which allowed the Spartan elite forces to defeat the forces opposite them. The result was a complete victory for the Spartans, which rescued their city from the brink of strategic defeat. The democratic alliance was broken up, and most of its members were reincorporated into the Peloponnesian League. With its victory at Mantinea, Sparta pulled itself back from the brink of utter defeat, and re–established its hegemony throughout the Peloponnese.
2. The Second War 二次战争
The Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they fortified Decelea, near Athens, and prevented the Athenians from making use of their land year round. The fortification of Decelea prevented the shipment of supplies overland to Athens, and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at increased expense. Perhaps worst of all, the nearby silver mines were totally disrupted, with as many as 20, 000 Athenian slaves freed by the Spartan hoplites at Decelea. With the treasury and emergency reserve fund of 1, 000 talents dwindling away, the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from her subject allies, further increasing tensions and the threat of further rebellion within the Empire.
The Corinthians, the Spartans, and others in the Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, in the hopes of driving off the Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent another hundred ships and another 5, 000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies were able to decisively defeat the Athenians on land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which was able to defeat the Athenian fleet when they attempted to withdraw. The Athenian army, attempting to withdraw overland to other, more friendly Sicilian cities, was divided and defeated; the entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold off into slavery.
Following the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire was at hand. Her treasury was nearly empty, her docks were depleted, and the flower of her youth was dead or imprisoned in a foreign land. They overestimated the strength of their own empire and the beginning of the end was indeed at hand.
Background Knowledge 背景知识补充
伯罗奔尼撒战争给希腊世界带来前所未有的破坏，促使小农经济与手工业者破产，不少城邦丧失了大批劳动力，土地荒芜，工商业停滞倒闭。大奴隶主、大土地所有者、投机商人和高利贷者乘机而入，大肆兼并土地、聚敛财富和奴隶，中小奴隶制经济逐渐被吞没，代之而起的是大地产、大手工业作坊主为代表的大奴隶主经济。大批公民破产，兵源减少，城邦的统治基础动摇了。贫民过着衣不蔽体，食不果腹的生活，不满富人和豪强的统治。柏拉图曾经写道： “每个城邦，不管分别如何的小，都分成了两个敌对部分，一个是穷人的城邦，一个是富人的城邦。” 因此，在斯巴达、科林斯等城邦，都曾先后发生贫民起义，打死了许多奴隶主，瓜分了他们的财产。风起云涌的起义打击了奴隶主的统治，进一步加速了希腊城邦的衰落。伯罗奔尼撒战争不仅结束了雅典的霸权，而且使整个希腊奴隶制城邦制度逐渐退出了历史舞台。
这场战争，使得斯巴达称霸于全希腊，使其寡头政制得以推行；各邦民主势力同时遭到迫害。寡头政制的蛮横统治又引起各国的强烈不满，许多城邦起兵反抗，伯罗奔尼撒同盟趋于瓦解。接着，几个比较强大的城邦如底比斯、雅典又为争夺希腊霸权继续战争。公元前3世纪前半期，希腊境内战火不绝，各邦力量彼此消耗下去，后来终于被早已对其觊觎的外敌马其顿所灭。
伯罗奔尼撒战争在古代军事史上占有相当地位。对抗双方对海上通路的争夺，从海上对敌的封锁和侵入都达到了很大规模。夺取要塞创造了许多新方法，如使用水淹、火焚和挖掘地道等。方阵虽还是战斗队形的基础，但步兵能以密集队形和散开队形在起伏地机动行动。职业军人开始出现……这些都对希腊以及西欧军事产生了深远影响。