Athens vs Sparta was ancient Greece's greatest rivalry – but who came out on top?

In 480 BC, Athens and Sparta joined forces to repel one of the greatest invasion forces the world had seen. Yet just a few decades later, they faced off against each other – with dire results for the people of Greece. Adrian Goldsworthy reveals how these great cities, once allies, became deadly foes

A black‑figure ancient Greek vase showing a line of armoured warriors advancing in a tight phalanx. Each soldier carries a large round shield decorated with geometric or mythic emblems, and wears a crested helmet while holding a spear pointed forward. The figures are painted in dark silhouette against a pale background, typical of Archaic Greek pottery

Published: June 10, 2026 at 4:00 PM

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No one has ever had much reason to go to Sphacteria. This tiny island, less than 3 miles long, sits off the south-west coast of the Greek Peloponnese. On the nearby shore the land is poor for agriculture, while the rocky island is even less appealing. In 425 BC, no one lived on the island and even the mainland was sparsely populated, making this just about the least important stretch of territory belonging to the city-state of Sparta.

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That all changed when the Athenians, in the seventh year of their conflict with the Spartans, decided to fortify a small base on a headland. This provocation – largely symbolic – prompted an immediate Spartan response. They besieged the fort and rowed some 400 soldiers over to Sphacteria, so that they could help surround the Athenians. However, soon afterwards a squadron of the powerful Athenian navy arrived and took control of the bay. Instead of helping to blockade the Athenian fort, the Spartans on Sphacteria were themselves isolated.

Even so, they were Spartans, the most famous fighting men of all the Greeks, which meant that the Athenians hesitated before attacking Sphacteria directly. Then luck intervened: a cooking fire started a wildfire that burned away the scrub which up until then had concealed the defenders. The Athenians also managed to achieve surprise, killing the slumbering guards left to watch the landing spot. Though outnumbered many times over, the remaining Spartans hefted their big round shields and adopted the close formation known in ancient Greece as the phalanx, advancing to meet the attackers in battle.

A coastal landscape viewed through a rough stone archway, with sunlit blue water, a green hillside in the middle distance, and a steep rocky peninsula stretching into the sea under a clear blue sky.

The craggy isle of Sphacteria, pictured from the site of the ancient Greek fortress of Pylos. The battle fought on the island in 425 BC ended with victory for the Athenians and surrender by Spartan warriors | Credit: Alamy

The approach of a Spartan phalanx, those hardy warriors marching in step and in eerie silence, must have been immensely daunting for the Athenians. The Spartans’ indomitable reputation had been sealed in 480 BC, when 300 warriors had famously held the pass at Thermopylae for three days against vastly more numerous Persian forces until the invaders had found a way to circle round and attack them from behind.

Unsurprisingly, then, the Athenians wanted to avoid hand-to-hand fighting, and had brought hundreds of archers and other missile-armed troops. For hours under a baking sun, the Spartans, charged; the Athenians dodged out of the way and, one by one, the Spartans were shot down, their leader killed and his deputy felled. Soon the survivors were surrounded.

At Thermopylae, the 300 had fought to the last man under a hail of Persian arrows, their valour and determination striking awe into allies and enemies alike. But 55 years later, the men on Sphacteria made a different choice. One-hundred-and-twenty Spartans and 172 allied soldiers laid down their weapons and submitted – this time, accepting capture over death. When an Athenian suggested that the bravest men were those who had died, one Spartan prisoner responded that the arrow “would be worth a great deal if it could distinguish the brave”. The captives were marched off to Athens – and, to make matters worse, the Spartans were forced to halt their annual summer invasions of Athenian territory.

Nothing like this had ever happened before. For those familiar with the fight-to-the-death Spartan stand at Thermopylae, the outcome of the battle of Sphacteria would have appeared shocking, even humiliating. But that was not the only way in which the events of 425 BC diverged from the heroics of ‘the 300’. At Thermopylae the Spartans had made their last stand as the head of an alliance of Greek states with the Athenians as the most important of these allies. Together, they had turned back invasion by Persia, the superpower of the age, in a victory against the odds that both celebrated as their finest hour. Yet afterwards both cities became suspicious of the other, then rivals and finally enemies, in a conflict that tore apart the Greek world. How did allies become deadly foes?

Allies against invaders

At the start of the fifth century, the Athenians and Spartans had been drawn together to defend against a massive invasion of the Greek mainland by Persian forces. Thermopylae, for all its heroism, was a defeat. But it was followed later that year with victory by a Spartan-led – albeit predominantly Athenian – fleet off the island of Salamis. A year later, in 479 BC, a Spartan commanded the coalition army that smashed the Persians on land at Plataea. This time, Sparta’s warriors played the most prominent role, though the Athenians also made a telling contribution.

The Spartans had the reputation of being the strongest military power among the Greeks. It was they who had originally called for an alliance of independent city-states from across the Greek peninsula to unite in opposition to the Persians. Their prestige ensured that a Spartan was always in command – even at sea, though they had scarcely any prior experience of ships and sea-fighting.

A red‑figure Greek vase showing a hoplite lunging with a spear toward an opponent in patterned clothing who raises a curved sword and holds a bow. The figures stand out in red against a black background, framed by a geometric border near the base.

A decorated amphora, likely made soon after victory by Spartan-led forces at Plataea in 479 BC, depicts an ancient Greek warrior attacking a Persian archer | Credit: Topfoto

The Greek alliance comprised dozens of independent cities, bonded by a common language intelligible to all and by shared stories and cults, in particular of the Olympian gods. Independent cities were neighbours, often very close neighbours. Only a minority of their inhabitants had political rights: adult male citizens, who were invariably outnumbered by women, children, resident foreigners and slaves. The city was the physical centre but the citizens were really what mattered. Belonging to any of these communities was a source of immense pride, and political rights were always tied to a willingness to fight on behalf of the community.

Some city-states were tiny, with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and barely 10 square miles of land. Athens and Sparta were among the largest. Sparta, in the south-east Peloponnese, controlled considerably more territory than Athens but had few citizens in proportion to its size. Spartiates, or ‘peers’, comprised an elite group freed from the need to work because labour was undertaken by the helots who tended the land, their status somewhere between slaves and serfs. These descendants of a conquered race were mocked and humiliated. As the poet Tyrtaeus put it, helots were forced to hand over half of all they produced to masters, then to feign sorrow when a master died. Meanwhile, peers devoted themselves to being full-time citizens, debating, exercising and, above all, training for war.

Attica, the region controlled by Athens, was less extensive and less fertile than the rich plains of Sparta. Athenian society was very different to its Spartan equivalent: there was, for example, no equivalent to the helots, though there were slaves. More men owned farms, and most worked the land alongside hired and servile labour.

A round bronze relief with a rugged, uneven surface, its green‑brown patina highlighting raised and recessed textures that resemble an abstract landscape or geological form.

A bronze shield captured by Athenian troops at the battle of Pylos in 425 BC – part of the engagement that humbled the Spartans on Sphacteria | Credit: Alamy

Citizens and sailors

Not too long before the Persian invasions, the last tyrant to rule Athens was expelled, and the city became a democracy – ruled by the people, or demos. Wealth still mattered, but any citizen (men only) could vote and voice his opinion in the frequent meetings of the People’s Assembly. There were significantly more Athenian citizens than there were Spartan peers, and they were more outward-looking. Athens, close to a natural harbour, had ready access to the sea and to trade.

Democracy and the wider world view came together when Athenians voted to use profits from communally owned silver mines to create a fleet of 200 triremes – the supreme warships of the day. Without this newly created armada, the victory at Salamis would have been impossible and the Persian invasion would have succeeded.

So Sparta initially led the military action in the coalition, but Athens played a vital role – and expected to be honoured accordingly. Then, after Athens became the greatest naval power in the Aegean, it spearheaded efforts to drive Persian influence back beyond the coast of Asia – something Sparta was neither equipped nor prepared to do. As a result, the Athenians came to lead an alliance that transformed into more of an empire, comprising more than 150 city-states.

For the tiny coastal and island communities in the alliance, this was an arrangement with strings attached. They contributed money to enjoy the protection of the Athenian navy, and it was soon made clear that they were not allowed to break loose.

A Greek kylix viewed from below, showing black‑figure paintings of sailing ships on an orange clay surface. The cup’s round base has concentric circles, and its two handles frame the maritime scene with fine line work depicting sails and rigging.

An ancient Greek war-galley (right), depicted on a drinking cup from c520–500 BC. In the following century, the Athenians built the biggest and most efficient navy the Greek world had ever seen | Credit: Trustees of The British Museum

Athens grew powerful, wealthy and bullishly confident, believing that this success was the Athenians’ natural due, reflecting their own inherent worth and the superiority of their political system. Pericles, the prominent statesman and general, captured Athenians’ pride in this political system perfectly when he declared: “It is true that our government is called a democracy, because its administration is in the hands, not of the few, but of the many.”

Drama, comedy, art and architecture celebrated the glory of the Athenians, symbolised most powerfully by the temple built at the top of the Athenian Acropolis: the Parthenon.

The Spartans were willing to honour the Athenians – but not to accept them as equals. Sparta’s status, in the eyes of the helots, their allies and themselves, rested on the certainty that they were acknowledged as the supreme military power in the Greek world. Nothing could be allowed to erode that status, because the privileged lifestyle of the peers depended on it.

Yet the Spartans found it increasingly hard to maintain this primacy. In c465 BC, a series of major earth tremors devastated much of their region. Many lives were lost, but worse followed when a number of the helots saw the resulting chaos as a chance to rebel, leading to a war that lasted almost 10 years. In 462 BC, the Spartans asked for help, and many allies, including the Athenians, responded by sending troops to aid them.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis, shown in bright daylight, with its tall Doric columns partly ruined and scattered stones around the base. The beige stone stands against a vivid blue sky with light clouds.

The Parthenon, a temple on Athens’ Acropolis, was built from 447 BC in thanks for Greek victory over the Persians three decades earlier | Credit: Dreamstime

The relationship sours

Athens’ assistance should have cemented its alliance with the Spartans, but something went badly wrong. Did the Spartans treat these strangers in their land poorly? Did the Athenians conduct themselves in a way that offended their hosts? Did they show some sympathy for the helots? It’s impossible to know. What we do know, though, is that the Spartans told the Athenians – and only the Athenians – that their services were no longer required, and sent them home. This humiliating dismissal prompted the 10-year exile of the pro-Spartan Athenian commander, who had claimed that Athens and Sparta were the two legs supporting the Greeks, each of mutual benefit to the other.

Relations between these two Greek superpowers now lurched into a downward spiral. Over the following decades, Athens and Sparta came to view each other as dangerous rivals rather than useful allies. By then, the Persians no longer seemed much of a threat, their vast empire preoccupied with internal power struggles. With no prospect of a further Persian invasion, all of the Greek city-states became more concerned with getting one over on their rivals. Each sought every opportunity to make themselves stronger and to diminish everyone else’s power and reputation.

The bitter rivalry between Athens and Sparta added an extra dimension to this competitive spirit, simply because both city-states were so big and powerful. No one could stay out of any resulting conflicts, not least because there was always the danger that a local rival would enlist the Athenians or Spartans as powerful allies.

And conflict between Athens and Sparta duly followed – most notably in the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC. Their armies never actually clashed in a major land battle throughout this long conflict; even in skirmishes such as that at Sphacteria, they rarely confronted one another face to face. That didn’t stop the Peloponnesian War exacting an appalling cost in lives but, more often than not, it was allies who were doing the fighting and dying, rather than the men of Athens and Sparta themselves.

A marble Greek relief showing two standing figures: a nude male with a cloak over one shoulder, and a warrior holding a round shield and spear. Both are carved in high relief within a rectangular frame, with faint inscriptions along the top edge.

An Athenian funerary stele depicts two warriors, Chairedemos and Lykeas, probably killed c420 BC during the Peloponnesian War, which brought death and chaos to the region | Credit: Bridgeman Images

One reason why the two superpowers rarely confronted one another directly in battle was that the Athenians feared and avoided the Spartan phalanx, trusting more in naval might. That didn’t always suffice. Overconfidence, fuzzy strategy and abysmal leadership led to disaster in Sicily in 413 BC, when the city-state of Syracuse, assisted by a single Spartan officer as military advisor, routed an Athenian invasion force.

One of the greatest ironies of the Peloponnesian War was that the Athenians and, especially, the Spartans sought funds from Persia to help them fight their fellow Greeks. War was expensive – particularly war at sea, which required great fleets of triremes.

In the war’s early years, the Persians were content to let their former enemies, so long allied against them, slaughter one another. But the Spartans kept sending envoys to the Persian king requesting aid, while remaining vague about what they could offer him in return. The Athenians captured a letter sent by the Persians in reply to one of these entreaties, in which the latter expressed bafflement at what it was the Spartans actually wanted. If the Spartans really were (as they claimed) fighting to free the Greek states from the tyranny of Athens, why were they willing to allow some of those states to fall back under Persian rule as they offered?

Sea change

The Athenians continued to flirt with the Persian satraps, but failed to secure significant support. The Spartans, meanwhile, obtained plentiful Persian gold to fund the creation of new fleets, but still suffered setbacks against the more experienced maritime fighters of Athens. In 410 BC, the Spartan admiral Mindarus was defeated and killed at Cyzicus (in what’s now western Anatolia, Turkey) after being lured into an Athenian trap. His successor’s report was blunt: “Ships lost. Mindarus dead. Men starving. Don’t know what to do.”

Two ancient Greek stone reliefs: the upper panel shows a row of warriors marching with round shields, legs in stride; the lower panel depicts a battle scene with one figure falling and another armoured fighter raising a shield. Both carvings emphasise movement, musculature, and drapery.

A fifth-century BC frieze (top) shows hoplites in a phalanx formation. The Spartans were such masters of this way of fighting that Athenians refused to face them in a pitched battle | Credit: Topfoto

Despite such defeats, the Spartans’ ability to secure more Persian gold than their enemies ultimately proved decisive. It enabled the Spartans to replace the ships and sailors they’d lost at Cyzicus, and it provided them with the military hardware
to grind down the Athenians.

The moment of truth came in 405 BC, when the Spartan commander Lysander obliterated an Athenian fleet at Aegospotami on the Hellespont, the narrow strait separating Europe from Asia. The Athenians could not replace the money and manpower they had exhausted in this fatal reversal. The following year, they were forced to lay down their arms and surrender.

Athens lost the Peloponnesian War and also its empire. Sparta was supreme, although the moment proved fleeting, for soon the Spartans were widely resented and in time humbled. In contrast Athens soon revived its democracy, growing wealthy and strong again – if never quite as strong as before the war.

This, of course, is not just a tale of Athens and Sparta. It’s also the story of the dozens of city-states that made up the ancient Greek world. The rumbling rivalry between those two powers made all of them weaker – too weak, in fact, to resist Philip II of Macedon’s campaign of conquest in the mid-fourth century BC. Philip was succeeded by an even greater conqueror: his son, Alexander the Great. And when Alexander set his sights on global domination from 336 BC, Spartan and Athenian hegemony over the Greek world was consigned to history.

Adrian Goldsworthy is a historian of ancient civilisations. His latest book, Athens and Sparta: The Rivalry That Shaped Ancient Greece, was published by Apollo in April

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This article was first published in the June 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine

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