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[[File:PEP ONE.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|A bust of Pericles]]
One of the most important wars in the Ancient World was the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE). The conflict was a long drawn out war between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies. It convulsed Greece and changed the course of the Classical world. The war ended the Golden Age of Athenian Culture and arguably weakened the Greek world forever. What was the cause of the Peloponnesian War? The origins of such a conflict are complex. The ultimate origins of the war primary causes were in Sparta’s fear that Sparta feared of the growing might power and influence of the Athenian Empire.
====Background====
[[File: PEP THREE.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px|Statuette of a Spartan Warrior]]
The origins of the Peloponnesian War lay in the Greece's victory over the Persian Empire. The Greeks had combined under the leadership of Sparta and Athens to defeat the Persians, then the most powerful empire in Asia. In the aftermath of the Persian Wars, the Greeks were unable to maintain their unity. Cultural and ethnic differences were driving the Greek world apart. People’s first loyalty was often to their Polis or local city.
While there was a definite sense of ‘Greekness’ and a common cultural heritage, it did not override the more local loyalties.<ref>Kagan, Donald. <i>[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801495563/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0801495563&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=a72c6923cec3d4d8a05a33168424d78d The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War]</i> (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 56</ref> This notion of Greekness was not enough to overcome deep divisions within the Greek world. As soon as the Persians left, the Greeks immediately began to quarrel with each other. Sparta, a deeply conservative society, had opted out of the war with Persia after their invasion was repelled. Athens continued the war against Persia and it formed the Delian League. This League was an alliance of city-states and islands that vowed to continue the war against the Persians until they no longer represented a threat to their alliance.<ref>Kagan, p. 113</ref>
====Conclusions====
The Peloponnesian War changed Greece in every way. Nothing was the same after the war and Athens was never to be as powerful. The causes of the war, are that the Athenian Empire upset the balance of power in the Greek world. This greatly alarmed Sparta and its allies. The aggressive policies of Athens did not help the situation- the ambitions of the city-state certainly provoked the Spartans. Increasingly, the Spartans became very nervous about the growing naval and commercial power of Athens. At first, they resisted the calls of its allied to declare war on its arch-rival. Once Athens had issued the Megarian degree, it initiated a chain of event that led to the Spartan invasion of Athenian territory. The deep cultural differences between the two Greek powers was also a contributory factor to the increasing tensions that later exploded into an all-out war that consumed the entire Greek world.
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