Athens vs. Sparta: Early War Strategies

The Lion and the Shark

The Peloponnesian War is often described as a conflict between a lion and a shark. Sparta, the lion, was the undisputed master of the land, possessing the most formidable infantry army in the Greek world. Athens, the shark, ruled the sea with its unrivaled navy and vast maritime empire. The central strategic problem for both was how to force their strength upon an opponent who fought on a different element.

This asymmetry in military power shaped the entire conflict. To understand the thinking of the commanders, let's start by looking at how they saw their own strengths and their enemy's weaknesses.

As you've read, both leaders had a remarkably clear-eyed view of the situation. Sparta had the hoplites, but Athens had the ships, the walls, and the money. This understanding formed the basis of their opening moves.

Sparta's Plan: The Archidamian Strategy

Sparta's strategy was named after its king, Archidamus II. It was rooted in the traditional Greek way of war: seeking a decisive, glorious battle.

The plan was straightforward:

1. Invade Attica: Every year, at the start of the campaign season, the Spartan-led Peloponnesian army would march into Attica, the agricultural heartland surrounding Athens.
2. Ravage the Land: They would systematically burn crops, chop down olive trees, and destroy farmsteads.
3. Seek Decisive Battle: This destruction served two purposes: to inflict economic pain and, more importantly, to enrage the Athenians and provoke their army to march out and fight. The Spartans were confident that in a pitched hoplite battle, their victory was assured.

However, King Archidamus himself was more cautious than his allies. He suspected this traditional approach might not work against an unconventional enemy like Athens. The following video explores his more nuanced perspective.

Archidamus's strategy was therefore a blend of tradition and necessity. He hoped to either lure the Athenians out or that the psychological pressure of seeing their lands destroyed would force them to seek terms.

Athens's Plan: The Periclean Strategy

The Athenian leader Pericles, anticipating Sparta's every move, devised a radical and deeply controversial counter-strategy. He understood that playing by Sparta's rules meant certain defeat.

The Periclean strategy had three core components:

1. Abandon the Land: The entire population of Attica was to evacuate their farms and homes and take refuge within the Long Walls, the formidable fortifications connecting the city of Athens to its port, Piraeus.
2. Become an Island: With the population safe behind the walls, Athens would use its navy to maintain control of the sea lanes. This allowed them to import all the grain and supplies they needed from their empire, making the destruction of Attica's farms strategically irrelevant.
3. Harass the Enemy: While enduring the siege on land, the Athenian navy would be used offensively. It would launch raids all along the coast of the Peloponnese, disrupting Sparta's allies, encouraging helot revolts, and making the war as costly for them as possible.

This plan was psychologically difficult, requiring the Athenians to passively watch as their property was destroyed. Pericles's job was to convince them that their homes and farms were expendable, but that their lives and the empire were not.

To explore the ultimate goal of this strategy, let's return to the Strategy Stuff video, which discusses two scholarly interpretations.

While a defensive "wait-them-out" strategy is plausible, the "strategic offensive" view—that Pericles was playing a long game to dismantle the Spartan alliance—better accounts for the aggressive naval raids Athens undertook from the very beginning.

A Clash of Philosophies: Annihilation vs. Exhaustion

The competing plans of Athens and Sparta represent two fundamentally different approaches to warfare, what military theorists call strategies of annihilation and exhaustion. The paper by Athanassios Platias you looked at earlier introduces this framework perfectly.

• Strategy of Annihilation (Sparta): This strategy aims to win the war by destroying the enemy's main military force in a single decisive battle. All efforts are focused on achieving this one climactic confrontation. This is a classic "Clausewitzian" approach.

• Strategy of Exhaustion (Athens): This strategy avoids a decisive battle and instead aims to win by gradually wearing down the enemy's resources, morale, and political will to fight. The goal is to make the war so costly and prolonged that the enemy gives up. Victory is achieved not by a single knockout blow, but by winning a war of attrition.

This theoretical distinction provides a powerful lens through which to understand the entire first phase of the war.

The First Year: Strategies in Action

In the summer of 431 BC, the plans were put into motion. King Archidamus led the Peloponnesian army into Attica. The Athenians retreated behind their walls. As the Spartans burned the fields, the Athenian fleet set sail.

So, who won the first round? While the sight of a burning countryside was demoralizing for Athens, the Periclean strategy proved remarkably effective in its first year.

As the paper argues, Sparta's ravaging did less long-term damage than believed, while Athens's naval operations secured key strategic locations (like the islands of Aegina and Cephalonia) and struck fear into the Spartan heartland by raiding near the territory of the helots. From a purely strategic standpoint, Round 1 went to Athens.

Conclusion

Today we've compared the opening strategies of the Peloponnesian War, seeing how they were a direct reflection of the unique strengths and geographies of Athens and Sparta.

Key Takeaways:

• Strategic Asymmetry: The war pitted Sparta's land power ("the lion") against Athens's sea power ("the shark").
• Sparta's Archidamian Strategy: A traditional strategy of annihilation, aiming to use annual invasions of Attica to force a decisive land battle.
• Athens's Periclean Strategy: A novel strategy of exhaustion, aiming to avoid land battle by hiding behind the Long Walls, using the navy to import supplies, and launching retaliatory raids to wear down the enemy's will.
• Initial Results: In the first year, the Athenian strategy proved more effective, achieving concrete strategic gains while frustrating Sparta's plan for a quick victory.

Preview of the Next Lesson:

Pericles's strategy was based on cold, hard logic. He calculated that Athens could withstand the psychological pressure and financial strain of a long war better than Sparta. But war is full of unforeseen events. In our next lesson, we will see how a biological catastrophe—the great Plague of Athens—shattered Pericles's calculations, decimated the city's population, and changed the course of the war.