Sparta's Second Attic War: The Grand Strategy of Classical Sparta, 446-418 B.C.
Paul A. Rahe
Abstract
In a continuation of the multivolume series on ancient Sparta, this book details the second stage in the six-decades-long, epic struggle between Sparta and Athens that first erupted some seventeen years after their joint victory in the Persian Wars. The book explores how and why open warfare between these two erstwhile allies broke out a second time, after they had negotiated an extended truce. It traces the course of the war that then took place, examining the strategy each community pursued and the tactics adopted, before explaining how and why mutual exhaustion forced on these two powers ye ... More
In a continuation of the multivolume series on ancient Sparta, this book details the second stage in the six-decades-long, epic struggle between Sparta and Athens that first erupted some seventeen years after their joint victory in the Persian Wars. The book explores how and why open warfare between these two erstwhile allies broke out a second time, after they had negotiated an extended truce. It traces the course of the war that then took place, examining the strategy each community pursued and the tactics adopted, before explaining how and why mutual exhaustion forced on these two powers yet another truce doomed to fail. At stake for each of the two peoples caught up in this enduring strategic rivalry, as the book shows, was nothing less than the survival of its political regime and of the peculiar way of life to which that regime gave rise.
Keywords:
Sparta,
Athens,
open warfare,
Persian Wars,
war
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2020 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780300242621 |
Published to Yale Scholarship Online: January 2021 |
DOI:10.12987/yale/9780300242621.001.0001 |