Peloponnesian War

(431-404 BCE) The Peloponnesian War was a long and bloody conflict between Athens and Sparta for the domination of Greece.

Athens was the undisputed power in Greece before the war but after twenty-seven years of constant warfare, Sparta assumed hegemony (leadership) of all the Greek speaking people; the history of the Peloponnesian War is largely preserved by the works of Thukydides (Thucydides) and Xenophon with detailed, and often, confusing accounts of the battles and politics which perpetuated the war.

One interesting consequence of this long war was that an entire generation of men had no skill other than that of warfare and thus, after the war, Greece had thousands of men who had no practical contribution to make to a peaceful society.