Athens Surrenders to Sparta
The final phase of the Peloponnesian War was decided at sea. Lysander, the ablest Spartan naval commander, defeated the Athenian fleet at Notium in 407 BCE, driving Alcibiades into final exile. Athens then lost its entire remaining fleet — 170 ships — when Lysander surprised them beached and off-guard at Aegospotami on the Hellespont in 405 BCE. Only nine Athenian ships escaped. Athens was now cut off from the Black Sea grain route on which its population depended. The city was blockaded by land and sea. Starvation set in quickly. After months of siege the Athenians sent Theramenes to negotiate. The Corinthians and Thebans demanded Athens be razed and its population enslaved — the same fate Athens had inflicted on Melos. Sparta refused, citing Athens' role in the Persian Wars, but imposed harsh terms. In spring 404 BCE Athens surrendered. The Long Walls and the fortifications of Piraeus were demolished to music — a calculated humiliation. Athens was reduced to ten ships, its empire dissolved, and exiles recalled. Sparta installed a puppet government of thirty men, soon notorious as the Thirty Tyrants. The surrender ended the Athenian empire and closed the classical city-state period at its height. Yet Athens would recover with remarkable speed: democracy was restored within a year, and the city would remain a cultural and philosophical center for centuries. But the political unity that had defeated Persia was gone permanently.
- Year: 404 BCE
- Category: Political
