The war finally ended in 404 BC with Athens losing all sovereignty and falling under complete control of the Spartan Empire.Īs the old saying goes, history doesn’t necessarily repeat. Within a few months the Spartan navy was ravaging Athenian territory, and soon laying siege to Athens itself. Yet Athens’ military was now led by inexperienced admirals and generals, since they had just executed their best commanders. They just wanted peace.īut they were so distracted by infighting and arguing about who to execute next, and who to blame, that the Assembly rejected Sparta’s peace offering. This was the entire reason that Athens had built a new fleet. The mob realized that they shouldn’t have executed their military commanders, so they then voted to execute the people within the Assembly who had proposed the executions to begin with.ĭuring this insane dumpster fire of ancient democracy, Spartan leaders approached Athens with a peace deal, offering to end the war once and for all. Then, only a few days later, the Athenian Assembly had a change of heart.
Socrates was one of the lone voices of dissent yet the death sentences were still carried out despite his protest.
So then the Athenian mob voted to execute eight of their top military commanders the very same generals and admirals who had just won the battle and been called heroes, were now being put to death. The Assembly suddenly became furious, crying that the souls of those drowned sailors would wander purgatory for all of eternity because they didn’t have a proper burial. Sparta was on the ropes, and the Assembly cheered when news of their fleet’s victory reached Athens.īut then the Assembly found out that 25 of the 150 ships had been sunk by the Spartans, and that the Athenian crews of those 25 sunken ships had drowned in a storm. And their new armada vanquished the Spartan navy in the Battle of the Arginusae Islands in 406 BC. So the citizens gathered together in their public assembly– essentially a democratic mob of 6,000 people– and voted to build a new, costly fleet of ships. They wanted a decisive victory to end the war once and for all. The balance of power is shifting right in front of their very eyes…īy the late the fifth century BC, after decades of war with its chief rival Sparta, the ancient Greek city-state of Athens was desperate for peace. You’d think this would be a massive wake-up call to the US federal government.