Athens Vs Sparta

The Exploration Of
The Peloponnesian War

Participants: Dylan Tse, Tyler Pang, Hunter Morton

Senior Division
Media (Web) Project

The Peloponnesian War happened in Peloponnesus and Attica in what we know as

modern day Greece. It involved the two powers of ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta,
and their allies. The war was eventually won by Sparta and its allies. The idea of this
topic came from the movie 300, because it piqued our interest in ancient Greek warfare.
It is a requirement in our curriculum for Mililani High School.
The research sources used were found mostly on Ebscohost. The most valuable
sources used in this paper came from Ancient History Encyclopedia. The topics
changed while doing research from originally culture based project to that of an
encounter. The information included in the essay was from only credible sources and
whether they were from credible authors as well sites. The essay was grouped into 3
main points cultural exchange, social exchanges, and political encounters and then
further explained the encounters into great depth. The essay then explained the whole
topic and finished it off with a conclusion. Problems overcame while doing this essay
were that there were very few sources actually credible towards the topic as this was a
very old encounter. Other problems were the health of the group as many people were
sick at the same time and or prolonged sickness prevented the group from meeting up.
The topic of the essay related to the theme of national history day because the theme
is Encounter, Exploration, and Exchange and this war covered all of those topics first
was the encounter which was the actual war itself. The theme of exploration was
covered by their scientific exploits during the war that they needed to win the war the
delved into science to help them win the war. The final exchange was the political
structure of Athens and Sparta as they both were changed in this war Athens had to
renounce its Democracy and Sparta became the dominant power in ancient Greece

when it took over Athens spot. This war was very important to history as it allowed
Macedonia a bystander in the war to challenge the strength of them as their power was
severely reduced from the prolonged war and it caused more wars which further
weakened Sparta and Athens and left the two powerhouses of Greece shadows of their
former selves. It's important to study this topic as back then Athens was the start of
democracy and Sparta the greatest warrior race most people know of went into war
most people only know the battle of Thermopylae but didn't know that Athens and
Sparta had actually fought each other after for power over Greece. Conclusions drawn
from research the war was an inevitability as Athens pride and refusal to back down to
Sparta sparked the war and Spartas warrior like nature only exacerbated the situation.