|
|
Article: ON THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR: In His Own Words
- Article from:
- Humanities
- Article date:
- May 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Superintendent of Documents May/Jun 2005. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
|
From the perspective of the fifth-century Greeks the Peloponnesian War was legitimately perceived as a world war, causing enormous destruction of life and property, intensifying factional and class hostility, and dividing the Greek states internally and destabilizing their relationship to one another, which ultimately weakened their capacity to resist conquest from outside. It also reversed the tendency toward the growth of democracy. When Athens was powerful and successful, its democratic constitution had a magnetic effect on other states, but its defeat was decisive in the political development of Greece, sending it in the direction of oligarchy.
The Peloponnesian War was also a conflict ...