During a long time discrepancy reigned between the big powers Sparta and Athens. Athens was expanding his power steadily since long ago and infringing once and again the 30 years old peace agreement. The decisive action that started the war was the claim of the Athenians of the demolition of the traditional relation between Chalkidike and Corinth, together with the simultaneous shutting of all the ports of the Attic Alliance to the ships from the city Megara.

Because of this, all the partners of the Alliance pushed the Spartans to war against the Athenian tyranny, which started officially in 432 BC leaded by Sparta. The political power of Athens had many enemies, since towns were still forced to pay the contribution of the Alliance. The result was the blocking by Athens of the channels of distribution of the Spartans and the evacuation of all Attica.

From 431 to 425 BC, the troops from the Peloponnese invaded Attica every year at harvest time. In 430/29, a plague killed around one third of the population of Athens, which could still manage to fight in Sicily and central Greece without much success. In spring of 421 the war got to an end with a kind of draw and the so-called peace of Nikia, which duration was limited to 50 years and contained a common defensive alliance.

However, the piece did not last long and, after new attacks from Athens against the Spartan sovereign territory in 414 BC, the Spartans took up again their yearly attacks. A political commotion seized Athens and democracy was put out of action for a couple of years until 410 BC. In the year 405 BC the whole fleet of Athens, devastating in Aegospotami, got completely exterminated by the Spartans. At the same time, many colonies in Athens were violently dissolved and its channels of distribution got cut off.

The Spartan siege ended in 404 BC with the total surrender of Athens. Sparta established then a transition government composed by 30 members that turned out to be a terror system where many encountered their death.