What do you think?
Rate this book
The Peloponnesian War #4
The Fall of the Athenian Empire
In the fourth and final volume of his magisterial history of the Peloponnesian War, Donald Kagan examines the period from the destruction of Athens' Sicilian expedition in September of 413 B.C. to the Athenian surrender to Sparta in the spring of 404 B.C. Through his study of this last decade of the war, Kagan evaluates the performance of the Athenian democracy as it faced its most serious challenge. At the same time, Kagan assesses Thucydides' interpretation of the reasons for Athens' defeat and the destruction of the Athenian Empire.
455 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Donald Kagan
114 books220 followersDonald Kagan (May 1, 1932 – August 6, 2021) was a Lithuanian-born American historian and classicist at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece. He formerly taught in the Department of History at Cornell University. Kagan was considered among the foremost American scholars of Greek history and is notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 19, 2011
With The Fall of the Athenian Empire I've finished this year's reread of Donald Kagan's monumental history of the Peloponnesian War. In the 10 years following the disastrous defeat Athens suffered in Sicily, they found themselves checked on land by the Spartan fort at Decelea which threatened all of Attica. Taking advantage of a weakened Athens, Sparta also expanded its naval strength into the eastern Aegean while at the same time forging the diplomatic ties with Persia which brought them financial strength. Meanwhile Athens was plagued by revolts of their colonies in the eastern Aegean which spread homeward to threaten their democracy. Their treasury depleted by the Sicilian campaign and by defections among its allies, they found it increasingly difficult to maintain their fleet, the backbone of Athenian empire. These slow, steady increments of Spartan ascendancy and Athenian decline eventually resulted in Spartan naval victory in the Hellespont in 405 BC. Their navy shattered at the Battle of Aegospotami, their lifeline for grain supplies from the Black Sea region cut and their population besieged and starving in the city, Athens had no recourse but to surrender in 404. The 27-year war was over.
On p111 of this final volume Kagan writes about a decline in the quality of leadership coupled with the heavy financial burdens facing Athens at the time. It's one reason the Peloponnesian War holds such fascination for us: its course so arrestingly mirrors our own times. No doubt those ancient Greeks were very different from us yet were, incredibly, like us. They were motivated by the same political issues that have repeated themselves time after time to the present day. In the Peloponnesian War we can see the ambition, the human striving and political impulses which brought us Stalingrad and the Vietnam War. And one of the things most impressive about Kagan's history is that he can relate history so well that it shows this without his stating it directly. Reading history this grand and comprehensive shows us how the tidal sweep of history we've experienced recently--Napoleon again, Gallipoli and Afghanistan again--had already happened 2400 years ago in the Aegean.
On p111 of this final volume Kagan writes about a decline in the quality of leadership coupled with the heavy financial burdens facing Athens at the time. It's one reason the Peloponnesian War holds such fascination for us: its course so arrestingly mirrors our own times. No doubt those ancient Greeks were very different from us yet were, incredibly, like us. They were motivated by the same political issues that have repeated themselves time after time to the present day. In the Peloponnesian War we can see the ambition, the human striving and political impulses which brought us Stalingrad and the Vietnam War. And one of the things most impressive about Kagan's history is that he can relate history so well that it shows this without his stating it directly. Reading history this grand and comprehensive shows us how the tidal sweep of history we've experienced recently--Napoleon again, Gallipoli and Afghanistan again--had already happened 2400 years ago in the Aegean.
August 1, 2016
Not going to lie, this book isn't exactly a page turner, but as I like history, I did find it fascinating!
And as this was not a subject covered in any history class I took, I learned a lot of new things.
Will I remember much of the details in this book? Honestly, probably not. I'd need to read a few more books on this topic to really learn it, but should I ever pick up another book about this period in history, I'm sure I'll have a few moments of, I've read that before!
Overall, I'm glad I read it. I wouldn't have picked it up had it not been on the Rory Gilmore Reading challenge, but alas it was and so I did get to read it. How lucky am I? ;-)
And as this was not a subject covered in any history class I took, I learned a lot of new things.
Will I remember much of the details in this book? Honestly, probably not. I'd need to read a few more books on this topic to really learn it, but should I ever pick up another book about this period in history, I'm sure I'll have a few moments of, I've read that before!
Overall, I'm glad I read it. I wouldn't have picked it up had it not been on the Rory Gilmore Reading challenge, but alas it was and so I did get to read it. How lucky am I? ;-)
October 8, 2011
Donald Kagan's 4th volume on the Peloponnesian War is just as strong and steady in its awesome scholarhip as are the three preceding volumes (The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War; The Archidamian War; The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition). Well done, Professor Kagan!
May 5, 2024
The last book in Kagan's saga of the Peloponnesian War, this work is once again proves his sagacity. Anyone interested in this period of history will find this book indispensable. From the fickle mood of the Athenian masses, the shores of Cyzicus, to the campaigns of Lysander, to the negotiation of peace marking the end of the war, Kagan is always insightful and always grants a much greater understanding of what is going on, and why each faction reacted as it did. Having read Thucydides and Xenophon, I found Kagan's volumes especially important in identifying what each of the classical historians got wrong, as he offered a much greater command of external sources and a much closer analysis of the text than I do when reading casually.
I first started reading Thucydides and Kagan's shorter volume on the Peloponnesian War over a year ago, and have spent the past 16 months immersed in the titanic struggle between Sparta and Athens. Finishing this book truly felt like the end of an era, and I leave it with a melancholy feeling not knowing what to study next. But I can fullheartedly recommend this incredible series of books not just for the joy that they are to read, but for the great insight into human nature and the geopolitical world that these pages and events reveal, purely distilled through Kagan's efforts.
I first started reading Thucydides and Kagan's shorter volume on the Peloponnesian War over a year ago, and have spent the past 16 months immersed in the titanic struggle between Sparta and Athens. Finishing this book truly felt like the end of an era, and I leave it with a melancholy feeling not knowing what to study next. But I can fullheartedly recommend this incredible series of books not just for the joy that they are to read, but for the great insight into human nature and the geopolitical world that these pages and events reveal, purely distilled through Kagan's efforts.
Read
February 20, 20241/5 of these type of books on the Rory list, pumped Hahahha
March 4, 2024
It does not get bigger than this. The final volume of a long-drawn saga – 455 pages, 16 chapters:
1. After the Sicilian Disaster
2. The War in the Aegean
3. Athens Responds
4. Sparta’s Riposte
5. The Revolutionary Movement
6. The Coup
7. The Four Hundred in Power
8. The Establishment of the Five Thousand
9. The War in the Hellespont
10. The Restoration
11. The Return of Alcibiades
12. Cyrus, Lysander, and the Fall of Alcibiades
13. The Battle of Arginusae
14. The Trial of the Generals
15. The Fall of Athens
16. Conclusions
I neither am trained enough nor in possession of writing proficiency that could evaluate the extent of determined research of the author. All I can try and make a weak attempt at is, to effort and present a capsule summary of this tome.
To begin with, on the evidence of Herodotus and Thucydides, we know that Athenian authority was resented by her empire and she was unpopular. It goes without saying that 'empire was tyranny' and it entailed loss of autonomy on the part of the subject allies, and this was against Greek political instinct.
The conversion of the confederacy of Delos into an empire had its conse- quential results in the transfer of the treasury of the League of Athens, abolition of the Synod and the transformation of the Board of Hellenotamiae into an Athenian magistracy.
Further, the jurisdiction of the Athenian law courts had been extended to the whole of the empire in respect of criminal and commercial suits. Chios, Lesbos and Samos were the only three of the allies who were allowed to retain their autonomy.
Now, to the next part of the analysis. Let’s look at it point-wise:
1) The fall of Athens was related to many factors which began to manifest themselves as soon as the myth of Athens naval invincibility was exploded as a result of the Sicilian debacle. Sicilian catastrophe had consequences more than what met our eyes immediately. It had by a single stroke annihilated her navy.
2) However, what was worse, the Athenians themselves confessed that affairs in Athens were hopelessly bad. Two consequences naturally followed: the subject allies took it as the right moment to break off from the Athenian empire. The Persians were roused to a feel- ing of wresting the dominions lost to Athens in Asia Minor and the coast some seventy years ago.
3) The Athenians were themselves to be principally blamed for their love of novelty that had led them to under- take more than they could accomplish. The expedition to Sicily was one such enterprise. The demoralisation that began with the news of the Sicilian catastrophe reaching Athens, showed itself in the condemnation the generals after the victory at the Battle of Arginusac.
4) Athens could certainly have prevented the war to become an Annihilation War had they made peace at the right moment. Had it not been for the Spartans, Athens would have been destroyed as desired by the Peloponnesian confederates. Another cause that helped Athenian downfall was the combination of resources of Persia with the extra- ordinary ability of Lysander.
5) Of the more profoundly seated causes one was the tendency of the Athenian character and Athenian policy as compared with that of Sparta. While strict discipline prevailed in Sparta, the individual being accustomed to render unreflecting obedience to the commands of his superiors, in Athens, the principle of Laissez-faire generated a certain weakness in the individual.
6) Even this would not have been so serious, a more important fault on the part of the Athenians and which was more decisive factor, was that while Athens treated her own citizens with indulgence, represented the principle of despotism to outsiders. This ran counter to the Greek ideas and feelings. Athenian League being irksome to its members, survival of the empire depended on Athens having good generals and whenever Athens became incapable of using her good generals, she was bound to fall.
7) Athenian collapse was also due to the fact that she followed a new movement in the 5th century, of new philosophy, new spirit of enquiry and intellectual pursuit which made emancipation from every kind of authority extremely forceful.
8) It was also suspected that the oligarchs had been for many years past deliberately planning to place the city at the mercy of the enemy for the purpose of destroying democracy. The attempt of the government of Four Hundred to come to terms with Sparta lends support to this view.
9) Lastly, the conduct of the Athenian generals in fixing their station at Aegospotami despite Alcibiades’ sane advice to withdraw to Sestos, and delivering the sailors to the foe like sheep led to the altar, seems to be such a measure of folly that suspicion of treachery becomes confirmed. The battle was won practically without a fight.
It may be concluded that the Athenian empire went down not because her enemies had any greater strength compared to her, but because there had been a systematic bad management of the empire, imperial administration as also of the military and naval forces. as particularly seen in Aegospotami.
Thucydides’ judgment of the last part of the war appears at the end of his long eulogy of Pericles and his policies: This is what he has to say: ‘…..Yet after their defeat in Sicily, where they lost most of their fleet as well as the rest of their force, and faction had already broken out in Athens, they nevertheless held out for ten more years,1 not only against their previous enemies and the Sicilians who joined them and most of their allies, who rebelled against them, but also later against Cyrus, son of the Great King, who provided money to the Peloponnesians for a navy. Nor did they give in until they destroyed themselves by falling upon one another because of private quarrels….’
The author of this tome says: ‘This passage implies that even after the disaster in Sicily and the new problems it caused, Athens might still have avoided defeat but for internal dissension. A study of the last decade of the war enables us to evaluate Thucydides’ interpretation of the reasons for Athens’ defeat and the destruction of the Athenian Empire…’
Recommended for all aficionados of Greek History.
1. After the Sicilian Disaster
2. The War in the Aegean
3. Athens Responds
4. Sparta’s Riposte
5. The Revolutionary Movement
6. The Coup
7. The Four Hundred in Power
8. The Establishment of the Five Thousand
9. The War in the Hellespont
10. The Restoration
11. The Return of Alcibiades
12. Cyrus, Lysander, and the Fall of Alcibiades
13. The Battle of Arginusae
14. The Trial of the Generals
15. The Fall of Athens
16. Conclusions
I neither am trained enough nor in possession of writing proficiency that could evaluate the extent of determined research of the author. All I can try and make a weak attempt at is, to effort and present a capsule summary of this tome.
To begin with, on the evidence of Herodotus and Thucydides, we know that Athenian authority was resented by her empire and she was unpopular. It goes without saying that 'empire was tyranny' and it entailed loss of autonomy on the part of the subject allies, and this was against Greek political instinct.
The conversion of the confederacy of Delos into an empire had its conse- quential results in the transfer of the treasury of the League of Athens, abolition of the Synod and the transformation of the Board of Hellenotamiae into an Athenian magistracy.
Further, the jurisdiction of the Athenian law courts had been extended to the whole of the empire in respect of criminal and commercial suits. Chios, Lesbos and Samos were the only three of the allies who were allowed to retain their autonomy.
Now, to the next part of the analysis. Let’s look at it point-wise:
1) The fall of Athens was related to many factors which began to manifest themselves as soon as the myth of Athens naval invincibility was exploded as a result of the Sicilian debacle. Sicilian catastrophe had consequences more than what met our eyes immediately. It had by a single stroke annihilated her navy.
2) However, what was worse, the Athenians themselves confessed that affairs in Athens were hopelessly bad. Two consequences naturally followed: the subject allies took it as the right moment to break off from the Athenian empire. The Persians were roused to a feel- ing of wresting the dominions lost to Athens in Asia Minor and the coast some seventy years ago.
3) The Athenians were themselves to be principally blamed for their love of novelty that had led them to under- take more than they could accomplish. The expedition to Sicily was one such enterprise. The demoralisation that began with the news of the Sicilian catastrophe reaching Athens, showed itself in the condemnation the generals after the victory at the Battle of Arginusac.
4) Athens could certainly have prevented the war to become an Annihilation War had they made peace at the right moment. Had it not been for the Spartans, Athens would have been destroyed as desired by the Peloponnesian confederates. Another cause that helped Athenian downfall was the combination of resources of Persia with the extra- ordinary ability of Lysander.
5) Of the more profoundly seated causes one was the tendency of the Athenian character and Athenian policy as compared with that of Sparta. While strict discipline prevailed in Sparta, the individual being accustomed to render unreflecting obedience to the commands of his superiors, in Athens, the principle of Laissez-faire generated a certain weakness in the individual.
6) Even this would not have been so serious, a more important fault on the part of the Athenians and which was more decisive factor, was that while Athens treated her own citizens with indulgence, represented the principle of despotism to outsiders. This ran counter to the Greek ideas and feelings. Athenian League being irksome to its members, survival of the empire depended on Athens having good generals and whenever Athens became incapable of using her good generals, she was bound to fall.
7) Athenian collapse was also due to the fact that she followed a new movement in the 5th century, of new philosophy, new spirit of enquiry and intellectual pursuit which made emancipation from every kind of authority extremely forceful.
8) It was also suspected that the oligarchs had been for many years past deliberately planning to place the city at the mercy of the enemy for the purpose of destroying democracy. The attempt of the government of Four Hundred to come to terms with Sparta lends support to this view.
9) Lastly, the conduct of the Athenian generals in fixing their station at Aegospotami despite Alcibiades’ sane advice to withdraw to Sestos, and delivering the sailors to the foe like sheep led to the altar, seems to be such a measure of folly that suspicion of treachery becomes confirmed. The battle was won practically without a fight.
It may be concluded that the Athenian empire went down not because her enemies had any greater strength compared to her, but because there had been a systematic bad management of the empire, imperial administration as also of the military and naval forces. as particularly seen in Aegospotami.
Thucydides’ judgment of the last part of the war appears at the end of his long eulogy of Pericles and his policies: This is what he has to say: ‘…..Yet after their defeat in Sicily, where they lost most of their fleet as well as the rest of their force, and faction had already broken out in Athens, they nevertheless held out for ten more years,1 not only against their previous enemies and the Sicilians who joined them and most of their allies, who rebelled against them, but also later against Cyrus, son of the Great King, who provided money to the Peloponnesians for a navy. Nor did they give in until they destroyed themselves by falling upon one another because of private quarrels….’
The author of this tome says: ‘This passage implies that even after the disaster in Sicily and the new problems it caused, Athens might still have avoided defeat but for internal dissension. A study of the last decade of the war enables us to evaluate Thucydides’ interpretation of the reasons for Athens’ defeat and the destruction of the Athenian Empire…’
Recommended for all aficionados of Greek History.
May 25, 2021
What I’ve said in reviews of the first 3 books can be copied and pasted here as well. Top notch history and an absolute must read once you’ve been grounded in the Peloponnesian War by reading Thucydides and another general history or two. I don’t even know where to go with the Peloponnesian war from here, reread and the rereread Thucydides I suppose.
May 28, 2017
Awesome,!
Complete, captivating, thoughtful review addressing all aspects of this historic 30 year war. A must / good read for history buffs.
Complete, captivating, thoughtful review addressing all aspects of this historic 30 year war. A must / good read for history buffs.
October 3, 2021
A warning to us all.
Donald kagan, with his 4 volume history of the Peloponnesian war has opened up the clouds of my ignorance of these important events of so long ago that can teach us so much about are own current situation. In the last 3/5 months I’ve dedicated to reading his work couldn’t have been better spent. Thank you so much and that god may bless you.
Donald kagan, with his 4 volume history of the Peloponnesian war has opened up the clouds of my ignorance of these important events of so long ago that can teach us so much about are own current situation. In the last 3/5 months I’ve dedicated to reading his work couldn’t have been better spent. Thank you so much and that god may bless you.
April 11, 2023
The final book of Donald Kagan’s 4 volume study of the Peloponnesian War. This is a definitive log of the final chapter of the war after Athens defeat in Sicily. It is remarkable that the Athens continued to conduct the war for so long after such a total catastrophe. The war shifts to the East including the involvement of Persia. Athens is done in by internal disharmony and an empty treasury. Kagan proposes had Athens only continued to inflict naval defeats on Sparta, they could have dissuaded Persia’s full commitment to Sparta, and ultimate defeat.
December 7, 2016
The war between the Athenians and Sparta is a very intense war that is put into a very detailed book. This book emphasize the Athenian falling from Sparta in a great bloody war. This book goes out to show how many loses the Athenian lost to Sparta and to how many Sparta lost to the Athenians. This book showed the weaknesses of their empire and why they lost to Sparta. Athenians had some flaws that shattered them and which made them surrender to the Sparta. Through the last years of study Kagan the author of this book has been studying for years about the surrender of the Athenian war and put all of his studies into a book. After reading this book you will know about the Athenian war and how bad their lost was.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews