What was the cause/ effect of the peloponnesian war and why was it significant?

Question

help

Answer 1

The Peloponnesian War was actually the second Peloponnesian War.  The cause was the First Peloponnesian War, where things didn't end they way they could've have; and the fact that allies of Sparta kept attacking allies of Athens (I don't remember which ones).  The effect of the Peloponnesian war was the destruction of the Golden age of Athens and the beginning of the dominance of Sparta in Greece.

It was significant because it was, essential the first World War.

Answer 2

I'm not sure of the cause, but the major effect and significance was that it brought an end to the Golden Age of Athens.

Answer 3

The cause of the P. war was Spartan jealousy over the growing power of Athens.  The war pitted Sparta and her allies vs. Athens, her empire, and her allies.  

It is significant because it ended the supremacy of Athens.  Spartan was dominant for about fifty years after the end of the war, including a time when Athens was ruled by tyrants appointed by Sparta.  This lasted till about 350 bc, when Sparta itself was humbled by Thebes.  (The Theban specialty in war was the flying wedge formation, which was ironically invented by Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae.)  About 330, the Macedonians under Philip and then ALexander the Great conquered Greece; and the days of an independent Greece were essentially over, until 1830 ad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponesia...

Answer 4

What is now known as the Peloponnesian War was actually the second war between the Athenian and Spartan coalitions. The conflict between Athens and Sparta had its roots in the Persian Wars earlier in the fifth century B.C. After the Persian expedition led by Xerxes against Greece had been repulsed in 479, the Athenians assumed the leadership of the war against Persia in the Greek coastlands of Asia Minor. The Delian League, formed in 478 as an alliance against Persia, assumed the form of an empire as the Athenians began using force to prevent any of their "allies" from withdrawing from the League.

The First Peloponnesian War began in 460 when Megara withdrew from the Spartan alliance .......

EPILOGUE

Considering the circumstances, the peace terms offered by the Spartans were surprisingly lenient. The Athenian empire was gone, of course, and the Athenians had to destroy the Long Walls and the walls around Piraeus. Only ten ships were left to the Athenian navy. Athens was also required to join the Spartan alliance and follow Sparta's lead in foreign policy. Nevertheless, Athens retained its independence and its land, more than the Athenians might have expected and more than some of Sparta's allies wished.

Although the war ended in a complete Spartan victory, Sparta's hegemony over Greece proved ephemeral. Sparta's claim to be fighting for the freedom of Greece was belied already by the price of Persian support, returning many Greek cities in Asia Minor to Persian domination. Much of the former Athenian Empire became subjects to an equally onerous Spartan rule. But not for long--within three decades of the end of the war Thebes had replaced Sparta as the dominant Greek power.

The long years of warfare had weakened the entire fabric of Greek civilization. The economic ........

http://www.warhorsesim.com/epw_hist.html

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getR...

http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/History/...

http://amapedia.amazon.com/view/The+Hist...