Barbarians and Neighbors: Differentiating the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian Wars

David G. Terrell
02 July 2009

Except for the geographic theater of operations centered on Hellas, and the individual and crew-

served weapon systems of the belligerents, almost every strategic and operational characteristic of the two

Greek wars of the fifth century BC differed. This essay will attempt to broadly describe the differences

between the Greco-Persian War and the Peloponnesian War in terms of their origins; the belligerents’

ideologies and aims; the respective military strengths of the opponents; and, the manner in which the wars

were prosecuted.

When discussing the origins of the two wars, the most important difference arises from the fact

that the Greco-Persian War was between two very different ethnic and cultural groups; while the

Peloponnesian War was fought between two coalitions of Greek-speaking peoples with similar myths,

customs, and mores. The beginnings of the Greco-Persian War were also facilitated by the Athenians all

too human failure to understand the import of Persian rituals and customs; after all, the Greeks lived at the

far edge of the Persian world. For example, the Persian ritual of offering and receiving of token amounts

of earth and water, used to symbolize and invoke a sacred suzerain-vassal covenant, was completely

trivialized by Athenian diplomats seeking foreign aid from the Persians. Later, when the Athenians broke

the conditions of the covenant, the righteous wrath of the Persian king—probably intensified by the

prospect of other vassal states following suit—set his war machine in motion so as to reclaim the

Athenians into the Persian Empire.

The Peloponnesian War, on the other hand, was very much an internecine affair. In the wake of

the Greek coalition victory in the Greco-Persian War, the two principal defenders of Hellas, Sparta and

Athens, became political rivals. Sparta, with its traditional domination as a land power and equally

traditional oligarchic form of government, looked askance at the rising asymmetric threat posed by the
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Athenian state, backed by its substantial naval and commercial fleets and energized by a radical

egalitarian streak of democracy. Eventually, seeing democracy as an ever-encroaching threat to Sparta’s

control of the helots that were the core of their economic and agricultural infrastructure and, in the face of

perceived economic imperialism, they chose to go to war to reestablish Sparta’s sole hegemony of Hellas.

The ideologies and aims of the belligerents in the Greco-Persian War are somewhat related to the

conditions already described. The Greeks and Persians had very different concepts of hegemony and the

relations between states. According to Sage, the Persians were accustomed to a strict system of suzerainty

and vassalage. While the Persians were tolerant of local religions and were used to enjoying local support

from the subjects of their vassal states, they did not allow local government but rather invested sovereign

power in hand of governors reporting directly to the king.1 The Greeks were abhorrent of the idea, having

enjoyed enough isolation after the Bronze Age to develop—in Persian eyes—a semi-anarchic system of

independent poleis. Coming to grips with the implications of the Persian ideology—being forced into a

suzerain-vassal relationship—made the Greeks conscious of their collective cultural and ethnic identity

and allowed them to view the prospects as an archetypical battle between freedom and despotism that

transcended earlier internecine disputes.2

After the Greco-Persian War, the Pan-Hellenic unity lasted for several decades, to varying

degrees. Two spheres of influence arose. One was centered on Sparta, where the insular geography of the

Peloponnese and the mixed fear and respect of their hoplite-centered armed forces attracted (or extorted)

the allegiance of their neighbors and several other oligarchic poleis. The second looked to Athens, whose

naval contributions to the Greek victory in the Greco-Persian War and their dominant maritime

commercial power attracted (or encouraged) the association of many poleis in northern Hellas and around

the Aegean. Athens became increasingly radical in their approach to government, investing evermore

1
Michael M. Sage, Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook, (New York: Routledge, 1996), 81.
2
Sage, 87, 93.
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sovereign power in the hands of individuals, without much regard to property or wealth. This egalitarian

approach to Athenian democracy threatened the rule of oligarchic minorities in Sparta and other like-

minded poleis. Time passed, and the death of those who remembered the unifying reasons behind the

Greco-Persian War and the absence of an external threat to feed a communal spirit finally allowed the

perceived differences between Greeks to overcome any fraternal bonds; discord between Greeks

returned—and the Peloponnesian War resulted.

The Persians, at the time of the Greco-Persian War, were the regional superpower of a large part

of the world east of Hellas. Persian military power was based on forces drawn from the Empire’s many

vassal states; each adding their unique style, equipment and capabilities to the Persian military machine.

The Persians therefore fielded, as a matter of course, a vast, diverse combined arms force including

various heavy and light infantry, cavalry, naval, logistics, and engineer units. They were adept at logistics,

siege warfare, bridging and information warfare (i.e., diplomatic maneuvers); able to resupply large

expeditionary forces over long lines of communication.3 The Greeks had smaller but higher quality,

disciplined land and naval forces, short supply lines and the desperate courage and intimate knowledge of

the battlefield arising from fighting in and for your homeland.

During the years between the two wars, the Greeks rested, feeling secure in the belief that their

form of warfare, buttressed by the moral and spiritual strength they thought inherent in free men fighting

for a righteous cause, was invincible. Accordingly, there were essentially no changes in the military art in

the interregnum and everyone stuck with what worked for them. Sparta continued to rely on the

deterrence of its solidly professional hoplite-based land forces to dominate its immediate neighbors and

give heart to their allies. Athens, however, spent a great deal of funds to wall the city and its port,

nullifying much of any land-based threat; and enlarging and maintaining its dominating naval fleet,

therefore protecting the city’s maritime lines of supply. As the Peloponnesian War began, the Athenian

3
Sage, 82.
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defenses were very effective against the Spartan incursions. The plagues that afflicted Athens did more

damage than the Spartiates. The Athenian naval forces, carrying out costal raids in Laconia, were often

able to induce the Spartans to retire from Attica. Eventually, Sparta had to begin building its own fleet but

overcoming Athenian naval superiority proved very difficult and may have proved impossible but for the

Athenian’s ill-starred Sicilian Expedition, which allowed the Spartans to catch up.

Extant records of the Greco-Persian War are dominated with reports of large battles between

against massed combined arms forces or major fleet actions involving hundreds of vessels and thousands

of sailors. The Persians were operating at the end of very long lines of supply while the Greeks were

operating in friendly and familiar territory. The Persian forces were made up of vassal troops from many

different cultural and linguistic groups, under the leadership of dominant leaders. Their operational

paradigms were based around absolute obedience, enforced by capital punishment. This potentially

imparted to them the sense of fear and loathing commonly seen in the armies of totalitarian regimes—and

may have contributed to their vulnerability to defeat at the loss of senior leaders. Greek forces, though

subject to internecine strife, were forced to seek common objectives by the common danger—which, in

turn compelled them to agree to a unity of command that would have been impossible previously.4 This

was facilitated by their common language and culture. The Greek forces in the Greco-Persian War were

aristocratically organized, with assignments to infantry, cavalry and ship’s crews being based on the

family and financial status of the individual. The Greek’s exposure to Persian units of combined arms,

fighting effectively, opened the door to their eventual consideration of similar solutions in the future.5

The Peloponnesian War was different. There were a few pitched battles between large land

forces—much smaller than those of the Greco-Persian War. These classic battles also dominate the

written records of this war. However, there are accounts indicating that the land war consisted mostly of

4
Alfred S. Bradford, With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World, (New York: Fall
River Press, 2001), 69.
5
Sage, 141.
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small unit actions fought by infantry and cavalry units patrolling the belligerent’s home territories. The

Spartans, striving to maximize their combat strengths continually tempted the Athenians to classic hoplite

conflict. The Athenians attempted to wear the Spartans down by remaining behind their walls while

making harassing maritime raids in their rear areas. As the war continued, exhaustion of funds and

reduced population weakened the Athenian’s ability to rely on aristocratic modes of filling the ranks.

Eventually the system broke down and the military became as egalitarian as the political structures. The

Spartans also suffered from losses that eventually resulted in their employment of subjugated peoples in

combat roles—previously an anathema.

As I have briefly described, the Greco-Persian War and the Peloponnesian War were different—

especially in terms of the wars’ origins and the belligerents’ ideologies, aims and the basis of their

military power. The Greco-Persian War unified the multitudinous Greek poleis against an external threat

and the Greek victory against the Persians set the stage for Western Civilization. The Peloponnesian War

was a fight among brothers who had forgotten the lessons bought dearly by their fathers and grandfathers;

the weakening in blood and treasure suffered by the Greeks ensured that Western Civilization would have

a harsher, Roman flavor.

David G Terrell
Herndon, VA
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David G. Terrell

Works Considered

Bradford, Alfred S. With Arrow, Sword, and Spear: A History of Warfare in the Ancient World. New
York: Fall River Press, 2001.

Burn, Andrew R. Persia and the Greeks: The Defense of the West 546-478 B.C. New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1962.

Cartledge, Paul. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, from Utopia to
Crisis and Collapse. Woodstock, New York: Overlook Press, 2002.

Green, Peter. The Greco-Persian Wars. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.

Hanson, Victor Davis. A war like no other: how the Athenians and Spartans fought the Peloponnesian
War. New York: Random House, 2006.

—. The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1994.

Herodotus. The Histories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Kagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.

Kitto, K D F. The Greeks. New York: Pelican Books, 1951.

Martin, Thomas R. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1996.

Sage, Michael M. Warfare in Ancient Greece: A Sourcebook. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Thucycides. The History of the Peloponnesian War. Translated by Richard Crawley and Donald Lateiner.
New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2006.

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