The war was instigated by the greed of the Athenian-led Delian league. The Spartans, along with several other city-states in the region, organized the Peloponnesian League and resisted the various taxes, tariffs, levies, and tributes which Athens demanded from cities.
Athens had a powerful navy with which to reinforce its dictates. The Peloponnesian War was a long series of confrontations between the Athenian navy and the Spartan army, with their respective allies.
When the war was over, Greece was weakened: Politically weakened, because leaders and governments had lost credibility and moral authority, and because the people were psychologically too exhausted from the war to generate enthusiastic support; Economically weakened, because wars are expensive and not very productive; Socially weakened, because the casualties from the war, along with its attendant plagues and famines, not only reduced the population, but eroded social structures and the willingness of people to rely on those structures; Militarily weakened, because the war consumed men and material, leaving less for the military, and because men were less inclined to engage in warfare, having seen enough of it.
On paper, the Spartans won, and the Athenians lost, the war. On a macro-level, all the Greek cities lost. Many historians regard the war as the beginning of the end of the Classical “Golden Age” of Greece.
In the wake of the war, the weakened Greeks seemed less likely to generate those works of art, poetry, and philosophy which had marked the apogee of the Classical Age.
The implications of Greece’s post-war condition were not lost on their neighbors to the north, the Macedonians. One axiom of history is that “weakness is provocative.”
Beginning first under King Philip II, the Macedonians proceeded with the military and political conquest of the Greek city-states, one by one. Some negotiated to be annexed into Philip’s empire diplomatically; others were defeated in battle.
After Philip II’s death in 336 B.C., his son Alexander the Great took over and accelerated Philip’s conquests.
Greece lost most of its geopolitical significance, being first a province within the Macedonian Empire, then a province within the Roman Empire, later a province within the Byzantine Empire, and finally a beleaguered independent nation-state, clinging to survival against repeated attacks by Islamic Caliphates.
Although the Macedonians conquered the Greeks, it might be equally true to say that the Greeks did themselves in. Through internal bickering, they created the perceptions in the minds of the Macedonians that they were weak and therefore an easy target.
Any country which is perceived as weak will, of necessity, eventually be attacked - if not by another country, then by some type of organization or alliance. Weakness is provocative.
