The Peloponnesian Wars and its Impact on the Plague in Athens (431- 404 BC)

Ancient Greece was involved in conflict and civil war from 431 to 404 BC. On one side the Peloponnesian League accompanied by Sparta, and on the other, city-states league of Athens and its allies were facing each other. Perhaps the economic, social, and cultural splendor of Athens compared to other city-states can be considered as the reason of civil war. Moreover, naval supremacy of Athens was probably one of the main factors contributing to the ignition of civil war flames in Greece. At the same time as the Peloponnesian War, Artaxerxes I of Persia (465-424 BC) succeeded Xerxes and supported Sparta. The Achaemenid emperor put the policy of disunion and discord among Greek city-states on the agenda of his foreign policy. It should be noted that the Greek civil war ended with the decisive conquest of Sparta and the surrender of the Athenians in 404 BC. This paper aims to examine the plague from 429 to 430 BC, at the time of the first phase of the Greek civil war from 431 to 421 BC.

This historical research is carried out as a desk study and studies the Peloponnesian War and its effect on the outbreak of the plague in Athens from 431 to 404 BC through histography, which is specific to natural sciences.

Plague of Athens was one of the most common diseases in Athens during the Ancient Greece and caused many casualties. In this article, various aspects of this disease are examined with the help of historical sources, New research and scientific articles.

Some believe that the outbreak of the plague started from Egypt while some others believe that it started from the east. In any case, the damages of this contagious and horrific disease, which wiped out a large number of Athenians, indicate the significance of this issue. The outbreak of this disease ended when Hippocrates cured it.