The End of Athens’s Golden Age, 431–403 B.C.E.

A war between Athens and Sparta (431–404 B.C.E.) ended the Golden Age. This long conflict is called the Peloponnesian War because it matched Sparta’s Peloponnese-based alliance against Athens and the Delian League. The war started, according to Thucydides, because the growth of Athenian power alarmed the Spartans, who feared that their interests and allies would fall to the Athenians’ restless energy. Pericles persuaded Athens’s assembly to take a hard line when the Spartans demanded that Athens ease restrictions on city-states allied with Sparta. Corinth and Megara, crucial Spartan allies, complained bitterly to Sparta about Athens. Finally, Corinth told Sparta to attack Athens, or else Corinth and its navy would change sides to the Athenian alliance. Sparta’s leaders therefore gave Athens an ultimatum—stop mistreating our allies. Pericles convinced the Athenian voters to reject the ultimatum on the grounds that Sparta had refused to settle the dispute through the third-party arbitration process called for by the 446–445 B.C.E. treaty. Pericles’ critics claimed he was insisting on war against Sparta to revive his fading popularity. His supporters replied that he was defending Athenian honor and protecting foreign trade, a key to the economy. By 431 B.C.E., these disputes had shattered the peace treaty between Athens and Sparta that Pericles had negotiated fifteen years before.