090 - The Road to War

In this episode, we discuss the two events over 433/2 BC that led Pericles to claim that he could see war "coming out of the Peloponnese" (the Potidaea Revolt and the Megarian Embargo); the speeches given by the Corinthians, Spartans, and Athenians on the eve of war; and both sides' financial and military resources, war arms, and tactical strategies

Primary Sources: 
Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 1)
Plutarch's Life of Pericles
Diodorus Siculus' The Library of History (Book 12)



Supplementary Resources (Videos, Photos, Other Podcasts)


Video/The Peloponnesian War (Khan Academy)



Video/The Peloponnesian War (Epimetheus)

Video/Part 1 of the Peloponnesian War (History Den)



Video/Part 2 of the Peloponnesian War (History Den)

Map/Macedonian Kingdom and the Chalcidice

Photo/Drawing of Socrates Saving Alcibiades at the Battle of Potidaea



Map/The Athenian Empire in 431 BC

Map/Peloponnesian War Alliances in 431 BC



Map/The Peloponnesian War

Map/Long Walls Protecting Athens and Piraeus




Recommended Podcast Episodes:
***Antiquitas Ep 1.4 Pericles
***Antiquity in Question - The Peloponnesian War, the End of an Independent Greece?
***History in the Making Ep 16 The Olympian has Fallen

Suggested Readings:

* Kagan. 1996. On the Origins of War: And the Preservation of Peace.

* Cartledge. 2004. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece.

* Kagan. 2004. The Peloponnesian War.

* Hale. 2010. Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy.

* Powell. 2016. Athens and Sparta.