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The destruction of the Athenian fleet and army at Syracuse turned the war on its head. Athens had fended off Sparta and her allies for more than two decades. It had devised a strategy to, if not win the war, at least not lose it. Then the Athenians just threw it away, voluntarily choosing to fight two major conflicts at the same time.
Athens was in shock as messengers brought back the news about Sicily. They launched a rapid shipbuilding program to reconstitute their fleet as fast as they could. They searched for money wherever they could find it to rebuild their army. They expected any day to see the Syracusan and Corinthian fleets on the horizon, their triremes filled with Spartan hoplites.
Meanwhile, the Peloponnesians could not believe their luck. They too rushed to raise new fleets and armies, ensuring they maintained the superiority of forces they now had over Athens. They also reached out to all the Athenian imperial subjects, offering to support them however they could and as fast as they could.
All the while, the Greek world’s old nemesis, Persia, decided now was the time to reengage in the Aegean. The Persians reached out to the Peloponnesians, offering them money and naval resources to assail Athenian imperial holdings along the Anatolian coast. Persia also began moving her own army back into the region, looking to reclaim lands it had lost during the Greco-Persian War.
Athens’ fleet rushed from one brushfire to the next, trying to keep a hold on their subjects, and so keep the money flowing in that would allow the empire to remain. The civilian government in Athens buckled under strain and, encouraged by fellow oligarchs in the Peloponnese, there was a coup in Athens, with the democratic government overthrown. While Alcibiades and others later drove out the oligarchs, Athens never really recovered.
Thucydides died before he could finish The History of the Peloponnesian War, which may have been for the best. The last he knew, Athens was winning the war again. Alcibiades and others had regained the strategic initiative after a series of naval actions. However, Sparta did eventually win, and then in turn, many feeling Sparta was now the onerous imperial power, encouraged Thebes to overthrow Sparta. The power struggle for Greece, begun over small islands in the Adriatic more than thirty years before, only ended with Philip of Macedon, and his more famous son Alexander, conquering all of Greece. In the end, no one really won the Peloponnesian War.
If you’re interested in the final discussion of the book, check out my Substack.
The History Doctor 
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