In 404 BC, Athens faced total defeat. Once the dominant power of the Greek world, their navy was shattered, their food supply cut off, and on the horizon an armada of Spartan ships signalled the city’s final reckoning.In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor Alastair Blanshard to explore the dramatic downfall of Athens in the final years of the Peloponnesian War. They discuss the decades-long struggle between Athens and Sparta, the key figures who shaped its outcome - like Lysander and Alcibiades - and how Persian support helped turn the tide. From epic battles to political intrigue, discover how this war reshaped the ancient Greek world for generations.Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here.
Chapter 1: What events led to the fall of Athens?
404 BC. Panic sweeps through Athens. After decades of dominance, total defeat is nearing for the city and its people. Their navy has been destroyed, their food supply cut off, and now on the horizon, an armada of enemy ships can be seen. The Spartans are coming. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we're telling the story of the Fall of Athens.
At the end of the 5th century BC, Athens was the loser of a major decades-long war known as the Peloponnesian War. It's been termed something of an ancient Greek world war. Athens versus Sparta, plus their many allies, and the various theatres of combat that stretched from Sicily to the Black Sea.
Ultimately, it was Sparta who emerged the victor, thanks largely to help from the looming superpower of the time, the Persian Empire. And Athens would lose its empire and its dominant position in the Greek world. It is a huge event that completely reshaped the ancient Greek world, featuring larger-than-life generals on both the Spartan and the Athenian side, figures like Lysander and Alcibiades.
Chapter 2: What was the significance of the Peloponnesian War?
To talk through Athens' downfall and the many twists and turns in this story, I was delighted to interview my old professor Alistair Blanchard from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Now in the past, Alistair and I have covered topics ranging from Heracles to Achilles to the plague of Athens and homosexuality in ancient Greece. This was great fun to do and I hope you enjoy it.
Alistair, what a pleasure. It is great to have you back on the podcast. Thank you very much. Always great to be here. And this time, first time ever, we're doing it in person. We've brought you to the Ancients HQ, to History Hit HQ, and we are doing it in person. You're not the other side of the world in Australia. Yes, it's so nice to be actually in the same time.
So I'm no longer either waking up or going to bed or... Well, normally I'm waking up about seven or eight o'clock in the morning and it's evening your time, isn't it? But that's what you get for living in Brisbane, which is a lovely part of the world. But we, of course, are going to another topic close to your heart. We've done Heracles in the past. We've done Achilles.
But Athens, the city of Athens and the fall of Athens. It feels quite a weird thing to say because we think of Athens even today as this great glorious city of Greece. But back in ancient times, it was the loser in one of the great, or it was the great world war of the Greek world.
Chapter 3: Who were the key figures in Athens' downfall?
That's right. Yes, the Peloponnesian War, the war that dominates the final third of the 5th century BC, the clash of the two greatest mainland powers in Greece, the mighty Sparta, Athens with a great naval empire, and an extraordinary secret for battles that goes on for 30 years and eventually leads to the destruction, the pulling down the walls of Athens.
Well, set the scene first of all, Alistair. So you've kind of highlighted it there, but let's get it right for the background and in the good detail. So what is this great war that occurs, the so-called Peloponnesian War? Why is it so significant?
Well, the 5th century is really the Athenian century. So we see Athens, which is in earlier periods much more of a backwater, suddenly rise to power after the end of the Persian Wars. Athens really dominates the geopolitical space. It establishes this extraordinary naval empire, and it really is almost unrivaled within mainland Greece.
And this is quite unusual, because up until this point, Greece had been a patchwork of independent city-states. But over the course of the fourth century, we see that patchwork of independent city-states developing into a kind of bipolar system, dominated by two great powers, Athens and Sparta.
And this kind of system, I mean, how does Athens gain so much power going from one city-state to becoming such a powerful entity in the central Mediterranean?
Well, essentially, it's a kind of protection racket, basically. Greece had been invaded by Persia, and so Athens offers itself up as the great defender against the Persians. They'd, of course, been terribly important in mobilising the opposition to Persia. They'd Persia at the Battle of Marathon.
The Battle of Salamis had been a great turning point where the might of the Persian Empire had been humbled by a combined fleet of Greeks led primarily by Athens. They'd really hounded the Persians out of Greek area, mainland Greece, and also freed the Ionian coast.
And so as part of that, they've said, well, look, we're going to establish a league, the so-called Delian League, based initially on the island of Delos, which is going to protect
And that's in the center of the Aegean, isn't it?
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Chapter 4: What was the role of Alcibiades in this period?
And I'm always just astonished by how quickly the Lysander and the Persians, they're able to create that new navy or get that new navy together. So as you say, this is like within a year or so, isn't it? So it's incredibly quick that they bounce back and are able to inflict this devastating loss on the Athenians.
Yeah, absolutely. And it's a brutal, brutal loss. I mean, Lysander slaughters all the Athenian naval people. And this is terrible. I mean, he captures them, they debate about what to do with them, and the fleet is eager for blood. They start reciting all the kinds of war crimes that the Athenians had committed.
In particular, one that they keep coming back to is the time that some Athenians seized a Corinthian ship and essentially threw all the Corinthian soldiers and sailors overboard and let them drown. And so it's in memory of these kinds of atrocities that the Athenians have committed that no mercy is given to the Athenian soldiers and the Spartans slaughtered them all.
So the game's up, they've got control of the Hellespont now, so they've got control of that grain supply. Is the next aim, I mean, is it full speed ahead to Athens at that point?
Yes. There's a little bit of mopping up that needs to do. Samos needs to be sorted out, which is what they do.
That's an Athenian ally, is it?
Athenian ally at this point. In fact, Lysander is actually worshipped as a god on Samos. He's famously declared to be the first living person who's worshipped as a god, and a festival, the Lysandreia, is established. But Lysander heads to Athens. At this point, the allies of Sparta, particularly Corinth and Thebes, are baying for Athenian blood. They want the city wiped out.
They want the whole place to be erased from the map.
How many people do we think are in Athens at that time? Tens of thousands?
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