![]() ![]() As it turned out, Athens preferred the second option, and when the Spartan king Agis II marched to the north, the Athenians supported the democrats. In 418, the Spartans attacked the allies, and forced Athens to choose between either its Spartan alliance (which meant abandoning its allies), or its treaty with Argos, Mantinea, and Elis (and risking an open war with Sparta in its backyard). ![]() In the next years, Athens concluded a new alliance with the democratic states on the Peloponnese: Argos, Mantinea, and Elis. Even worse, its reputation of invincibility was destroyed when 292 Spartans surrendered at Sphacteria, and it appeared to have abandoned its allies Thebes, Megara, and Corinth, which were deeply disappointed: whereas they had suffered most, Sparta gave up first. Sparta, which had gone to war "to liberate Greece" had not succeeded in dissolving Athens' Delian League had had, in one word, lost. After eight years of fighting and an uneasy truce of two years, the Archidamian War was over. ![]() ![]() In the spring of 421, the Athenians and Spartans concluded the Peace of Nicias. Battle of Mantinea (418 BCE): important battle, in which Sparta restored its reputation as superpower, by defeating a coalition of Argos, Mantinea, and Elis, supported by Athens. ![]()
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