OK, since you asked about breakdown of peace of Nicias, let's try another Thucydides run to sort through the mess.
Peace of Nicias
So the peace came about because everyone was exhausted. And it would have come about years earlier if not for the two war-mongerers, Brasidas in Sparta and Cleon in Athens, prolonging it. (acc. to
Plutarch). (Aristophanes, in his
Peace (
play), characterizes Brasidas & Cleon as the "mortar and pestle" grinding the Greeks into a paste.)
But they had now died. So peace was quickly negotiated in 421 between the two big doves, Athenian politician Nicias and the Spartan (Agiad) king Pleistoanax.
Basic terms (
Thuc)
* Peace for fifty years
* Common exchange of prisoners
* Everything return to pre-war status except:
---- Nisaea (to Athens)
---- Plataea (to Thebes)
---- Corinthian colonies of NW Greece (to Arcananians and other local Athenian allies)
* Athens dismantles a series of coastal forts.
* Athens given a free hand to take Amphipolis and rebellious Chalcidician towns by force. Sparta will not interfere.
Why peace?
*-- Sparta was demoralized. Its military reputation had suffered a lot from a series of defeats, and was likely to be damaged further if war continued. Moreover, it was now facing its usual trouble: Helot slave revolts and not enough Spartiate citizens to put them down. Athenian navy had been hitting the Peloponnesian coast hard and establishing safe strongpoints (notably Pylos) for rebel slaves to operate out of. The war had taken a heavy toll on elite Spartiate manpower. Athens had a substantial amount of Spartiate POWs and Sparta needed them back pronto. So the main Spartan goal was to get the Athenians to dismantle their strongpoints and to release the prisoners immediately.
*-- Athens was materially and financially exhausted. And still in trouble because its economically vital imports from the north - Black Sea grain for its citizens, Macedonian timber for its navy, and gold & silver from the Pangaeaon mountains - were threatened by the revolts of Chalcidice and Amphipolis. The northern revolts had been kept going by Spartan interference and support. Athens's goal: to get the Spartans to quit messing around there and let them crush the northern rebels in peace.
The Peace of Nicias met the primary goals of Athens and Sparta. Problem is, they
only met the goals of Athens and Sparta. Their allies's goals were ignored. Yet some of the terms (e.g. prisoner releases, surrender and restoration of lands) required their allies' cooperation.
Rejection
The Peace of Nicias was really a private Athenian-Spartan deal, and their allies were essentially ignored or fuggered. This was the Achilles heel of the treaty.
Obviously, Amphipolis rejected the treaty. They were not about to surrender and the Spartan garrison commander Clearidas was powerless to force them.(
Thuc). But this was
not the cause of the breakdown. This was fine. It was expected. It was generally understood Athens would have to use force to take Amphipolis. The Spartans' only obligation was to evacuate their garrison - which they did. Rest was up to the Athenians.
(And Amphilpolis was probably right to refuse. Athenians were not exactly luring the rebels with kindness. That very summer, the Chalcidice rebel town of Scione fell, and the Athenians genocided it - all men killed, women & children enslaved. (
Thuc).)
The real problem was the rest of the Spartan allies of the Peloponnesian League. They had more independence of thought and action than Athenian allies in the Delian League. And almost all of Sparta's Pelop League allies - Corinth, Thebes/Boeotia, Megara, Mantinea, Elis, etc. - rejected the Peace of Nicias.(
Thuc). AFAIK, only Tegea actually ratified the treaty.
Corinth in particular was furious. It would lose numerous colonies in NW Greece (Leucas, Anactorum, Ambracia, Astacus, etc.) These were vital to her. Corinth's livelihood depended on trade with colonies in Italy and Sicily. The NW Greek colonies had been its essential staging posts. Thus Corinth refused to ratify the peace. (
Thuc)
Boeotia (Thebes) refused to ratify too. And why should they? War had been going good for them. Plataea was destroyed, they had control of Megara, they had loads of Athenian prisoners, they had the border fortresses commanding the passages to Attica. Things were going fine, they had the upper hand. And now they're supposed to give stuff up? For nothing? Because Sparta says so? Forget it. Thebes was only willing to make ten-day truces with Athens - and roll them over indefinitely. (
Thuc) But Thebes would not ratify the treaty. (neither did Megara, of course - citing Nisaea, but essentially because Thebes said so, as noted before).
Sparta was made to look like chumps by their Pelop League allies. It was very awkward for Sparta. As Sparta was unable to force her allies to fulfill the peace terms she promised, the Athenians accused Sparta of bad faith and refused to meet their own obligations. (
Thuc) But Sparta was desperate for prisoner releases and the dismantling of Pylos.
So the Spartans made a sudden alliance with Athens. It was a very scary alliance - a
symmacha (both defensive and offensive) - giving the duo the right to re-draw any borders of any state they wished. This was the stick the Spartans hoped would intimidate her Pelop League allies into ratifying Peace of Nicias. (
Thuc,
Plut)
Argive League No. 1 (Corinth's)
Every action induces a counter-reaction. And Corinth counter-reacted. ("did what they could to disturb the arrangement",
Thuc).
Corinth's reckoning was simple. Sparta had sold them down the river, so f*** Sparta. Let us form a new Peloponnesian league, this time without Sparta, to continue the war on Athens.
Of course, Corinthians did not dare to actually withdraw from the old Pelop league, and were too smart to lead the new league themselves. So the Corinthians persuaded Argos (the eclipsed has-been of the peninsula, who had long nurtured aspirations of hegemony) to serve as its figurehead. (
Thuc). They roped in the Peloponnesian League states of Mantinea and Elis, and even got distant Chalcidician Olynthus and Amphipolis to sign up (
Thuc).
But Boeotia (& thus Megara) refused to join the Argive League.(
Thuc). This brought the whole Corinthian scheme to a screeching halt. How are they supposed to get to Attica? Swim there? Without Thebes & Megara, there was little hope for any action against Athens.
Why did Thebes refuse? Because, like I said before, things were fine. The ten-day truces were good enough for them. While Boeotians didn't want to comply with Spartan demands to ratify the peace, they also didn't want to annoy it by re-starting the war. No point risking getting hit by the scary Athens-Sparta alliance. Besides, acc to Thuc, the oligarchic Boeotians were suspicious of the Argives - they're filthy democrats. Not trustworthy.
But not everyone in Sparta was happy with the peace. Two Spartan Ephors in particular wanted the war to resume. But they were overruled by the others. So the Ephors went into secret dealings on their own. They persuaded the Boeotians to go ahead and join the Argive League, to resume the war on Athens. The Ephors assured them that once war restarted, Sparta would find it irresistible, abandon the Athenian peace and duo alliance, and join in, taking up their natural leadership position. (
Thuc).
But miscommunication happened. The treaties signed by the Theban ambassadors in Argos were rejected back in Thebes. The Boeotian council feared joining the Argive League would annoy Sparta (they hadn't realized the Spartan Ephors actually
wanted them to join). (
Thuc). The ambassadors tried to explain that. But the Theban council had just received contradictory orders from Sparta (not the Ephors). Sparta was pressing hard for Thebes to at least give Panactum border fortress back to the Athenians. Reluctantly, the Thebans complied. Literally. They dismantled the fort of Panactum and mailed it to the Athenians piece by piece. ("You wanted your fort back? Here it is! Some assembly required") (
Thuc)
Hearing of the unexpected Theban compliance, Argos panicked - thinking that Thebes might be joining the Sparta-Athens duo alliance, and turn it into an even scarier tripartite alliance against its own budding league. The Argives rushed to negotiate a 50-year truce with Sparta. (
Thuc). However, some old border matters (Cynuria) mucked up the negotiations and the Argives began looking for alternative options. This is when Alcibiades reached out to them.
This heady stuff is all still in 421/20, within one year of Nicias.
Argive League No. 2 (Alcibiades's)
Thus enters the spider into the mix. Alcibiades. Young, brilliant, glamorous, amoral sociopath. Alcibiades had inherited the leadership of Cleon's old war party and began agitating against the Peace of Nicias in the Athenian assembly.(
Thuc,
Plut's Life)
Alcibiades - mad, bad and dangerous to know.
In 420, a Spartan embassy went to Athens to assuage Athenians that they were doing their best to get Pelop League members to adhere to the Peace of Nicias. Alcibiades pulled a rather sleazy stunt. As an aristocratic host, Alcibiades received the Spartan ambassadors kindly in his private home, and offered them advice and instruction on what to say to the prickly Athenian assembly. But once in public, before the assemly, Alcibiades turned on the Spartan ambassadors and denounced the very speech he gave them as proof that Sparta wasn't serious about fulfilling the Peace of Nicias. Alicibiades led the assembly in jeering the ambassadors out. A pretty dishonorable low blow.(
Thuc) (
Plut ver.1,
Plut ver.2)
Having run the Spartans out of town, Alcibiades urged the Athenian assembly to - surprise! - join the Argive League. Athenians were persuaded and Athens now made an alliance with Argos - Argive League No.2. In principle, it was only a defensive alliance, and notionally it did not cancel the 421 Sparta-Athens duo alliance. But it was patently conflicting. (
Thuc)
The Argive League, remember, was concocted by Corinth to resume the war on Athens. But now that Athens was part of that league, Corinth saw no further point in the project and lost interest. Sparta was shocked by the turn of events. Athens had deftly turned the Argive League into an anti-Sparta instrument.
Superficially, Alcibiades's grand scheme seemed a stroke of strategic genius. Geographically, the main members of the Argive League - Elis, Mantinea & Argos - constituted a cordon saintaire, stretched horizontally across the Peloponneses pennsula that seems to isolate and confine Sparta to its homelands in the south (Laconia & Messenia). There was, of course, still the danger of Corinth and Thebes-Megara to the north, but if Sparta was contained, they wouldn't be able to count on Spartan assistance and would be less likely to cause trouble to Athens.
(If you need maps:
southern Greece,
northern Greece, Pelop war
alignments 431, And a gigantic all-purpose
reference map)
[Side-note on Argive league members:
* --
Argos had been neutral during Pelop war. It had a checkered diplomatic history, having medised with Persia in 480, then became an Athenian ally 461, but then in 451 signed a separate 30-year peace with Sparta which had allowed it to sit out the Peloponnesian war. (That peace had expired in 421, which is why it was thinking of renewing it.) Argos, of course, had long aspirations to be dominant in the Peloponneses. Legendarily, Argos was connected with ancient Mycenae (of King Agamemnon) and Tiryns (of King Diomedes), but also in more recent memory, Argos had dominated the Peloponneses, notably under the tyrant Pheidon, a hegemony chipped away by Sparta in the 6th C. Argos may now be confined to the small Argos plain, but it had a long memory and territorial aspirations east, to the Argolid peninsula (Epidaurus, Troezen, and Hermione were part of ancient Argolis), to the north (Phlius, Cleonae and Sicyon were traditional frontierlands of Argos), and to the south, the region of Cynuria (currently occupied by Sparta). So Corinth's approach to Argos in 421/20 had stoked up a not-so-dormant desire to challenge Sparta for supremacy.
* --
Mantinea (in Arcadia, central Peloponneses) was a Pelop League member and had fought alongside Sparta during the war; but it had territorial border issues with Tegea just south of it. Small border clashes had broken out between the two already before, in 423 (
Thuc); as Sparta backed Tegea's claims, Mantinea had been the first to sign up with the Argives, receiving Argive garrisons to hold some border forts in the region of Parrhasia (
Thuc)
* --
Elis (west Peloponneses) had territorial quarrels with Sparta over the town of Lepreum and Triphaliya region; this had been aggravated recently when Sparta began settling "new citizen" colonies (upgraded periokoi and freed helot war veterans) in that area.(
Thuc). Elis was the host of the Olympic Games, and brashly humiliated Sparta by denying Spartan athletes participation the 420 games (on grounds that Sparta had violated the Olympic truce by assisting Tegea in their quarrel with Mantinea) (
Thuc)
(Actually, Alcibiades screwed up his grand strategy a bit - Argos was actually doing some deft diplomacy of its own, re-luring Corinth back, and Boeotia had recently done some naughtiness by seizing a Spartan fortress in Thessaly in early 419 (
Thuc). There was actually a real prospect that at least Corinth might re-join the Argive League. But Alcibaides, elected general in 419, led a little Athenian expedition to raise a fortress at Patrae in Achaea, on the Corinthian gulf, mightily offending the Corinthians, who promptly intervened to prevent it. (
Thuc). It soured any prospect of Corinth joining.
Argive War
The war Alcibiades longed for was not long in coming. Border clashes immediately broke out between Elis and Mantinea and Sparta and Tegea. But things got more real in 419, when Alcibiades persuaded Argos to invade Epidaurus, a statelet on the strategic Argolid peninsula (just across the gulf from Attica - a perfect landing spot for Athenian troops to enter Peloponneses, side-stepping the isthmus).(
Thuc)
The Epidauran action was too much. Spartans could not allow that, and in 418, Sparta called on the Peloponnesian League (Corinth and Boeotia-Megara raced to the call) and launched a massive three-pronged invasion of Argos. (
Thuc)
An Athenian expeditionary force was sent to fight alongside the Argives - but technically, it was purely "defensive". Athenians claimed it was not a repudiation of the Peace of Nicias nor even a breach of the Sparta-Athens alliance (although that's really what Alcibiades wanted and hoped would happen, but the peace parties in Athens and Sparta were willing to overlook it and tolerate the fiction for the sake of preserving an overall peace). (
Thuc)
But things were over too quickly. Argives were thoroughly defeated by the Spartans at the Battle of Mantinea in 418.(
Thuc). The Argives promptly sued for peace with Sparta, despite Alcibiades (who happened to be in Argos) objections and promises to help them keep fighting. (
Thuc).
So Alcibiades's big gambit failed. The Argive League was humbled, broken up and peace restored.
[....with a little mopping up. After the peace with Argos, Sparta thought it over, and decided it ought to really make sure by engineering a oligarchic coup in Argos in late 418. But there was then a democratic counter-coup a few months later, and some more messiness. Alcibiades leaped in again, and provided Athenian engineers to rapidly build a wall from democratic Argos to the sea, but Spartans came back and tore them down. Spartans would be kept busy the next couple of years trying to re-insert the oligarchs into Argos. But peace was otherwise preserved.(
Thuc;
Plut)]
Aegean operations
In the Athenian assembly, old Nicias upbraided the young upstart, denouncing his grand strategy as a grand idiocy. The Athenians should be concentrating on recovering rebel Chalcidice and Amphipolis, vital economic interests, not "overthrowing" Sparta's power in the Peloponneses.
(In a cute footnote: Alcibiades and Nicias tried to ostracize each other in 417. They failed - neither had enough votes to remove the other, but since
someone might as well be ostracized now that the process had started, they pooled their votes to ostracize a local two-bit demagogue called Hyperbolus (from which "hyperbole") (
Plut Nic;
Plut Alc).
In 417-16, Athenian policy seemed to follow Nicias's advice rather than Alcibiades.
A large naval expedition to recover Chalcidice set out in 417, under Nicias, but was canceled when they heard that King Perdiccas II of Macedon, an intriguer in Chalcidice, had renounced his agreements with Athens. Without his cooperation, any operation in the Chalcidice was going to be impossible. So only a detachment was sent, to punitively blockade Macedonian ports and try to harass Perdicass II back into compliance. (
Thuc)
In the meantime, all dressed up with nowhere to go, the main Athenian fleet decided to go to Melos/Milo in 416.
The expedition to Milo/Melos was one of the more shameful episodes of Athenian history. A former Spartan colony in the Cycade islands, Melos had been all nice and (largely) neutral through the wars thus far. Years earlier, during the Pelop war, an Athenian fleet under Nicias had attacked Melos (in 426 -
Thuc), but were unable to take its citadel then. So now, in 416, Nicias again in command, they decided to go there again. Despite the peace, they demanded that Melos join the Delian League. When Melos refused, preferring to remain neutral, the Athenians seized the island, massacred all the men and enslaved all women and children. The "Melian dialogue" - a discusion posing the right of justice of Melos and the "Might makes Right" logic of the Athenians, reproduced in Thucydides - should be in every anthology of readings on imperialism & fascism. (
Thuc)
Then came the Sicilian expedition.
Before we get into that, let's recap the peace thus far:
- Sparta wants Peace of Nicias implemented, but has been having a hard time persuading its allies (notably Corinth, Boeotia) to go along with it.
- Boeotia (Thebes) has hemmed and hawed, complied with some terms here and there, but prefers to conduct its own independent policy and is just rolling over truces.
- Corinth wants war resumed. It wants to recover NW Greece. Its strategy of using Argos to reignite war on Athens failed without Boeotia's participation.
- Nicias (in Athens) wants the peace treaty implemented, so Athenians can focus on what is important - Chalcidice & Amphilopolis. But this has been put on ice because of Macedon's fickleness.
- Alcibiades (in Athens) wants war, glorious war, a war that will crush Sparta and forever and destroy her as a threat. His grand strategy to break Spartan power via Argos failed at Mantinea. But he is still bent on his great war.
Sicilian Expedition
The Sicilian expedition is the centerpiece of Thucydides's history. This is why he even wrote it. Everything else is just background to explaining this fiasco.
The Sicilian expedition was
not about restoring peace. It was about provoking war, or at least, in Alcibiades's grand strategy, a preparatory step for a future grand war that would finish off Sparta once and for all. It ended up nearly finishing off Athens instead.
But a little background first. Forgive me for deviating from Thucydides for a moment.
Greek colonies had been popping up in southern Italy and Sicily since the 8th C. The big colonizers in the west were (Dorian) Corinth and Megara and (Ionian) Chalcis. But Corinth was really the only one who maintained interest since (Megara and Chalcis also had other colonies elsewhere - Chalcidice, Bosphorus, Aegean - that drew their attentions.)
If you need maps:
ancient Sicily,
Greek colonies in west)
The Dorian colonists had settled primarily in southern Sicily (Syracuse, Gela, Camerina, Selinus, etc.) and in the southeast parts of mainland Italy (Croton, Taras). Ionian colonists mainly in northern Sicily (Leontini, Zancle/Messina, Himera) and the west coast of southern Italy (Rhegium, Cumae, Neapolis). There were many local wars and two loose general alliances had emerged, roughly arranged on the Dorian and Ionian divides, somewhat emotionally mirroring the Spartan-Athenian divide in Greece.
There were also Phoenician/Carthaginian colonies on the western tip of Sicily and the interior was primarily inhabited by native Sicilian tribes (Elymi, Sicani and Siculi).
In the course of the previous century or so, the Dorian colonies had grown bigger and encroached on their neighbors. Dorian Syracuse, in particular, had emerged as the leading city of Sicily, its fleet the dominating the coasts of Sicily and Calabria, and imposing itself on its neighbors.
Athens didn't care about Italy or Sicily. Its interests were traditionally drawn eastwards, to Asia Minor and the Hellespont. For over a century, Athens and Corinth had an tacit understanding that the western seas were Corinth's "sphere of interest", and the eastern seas were Athens's "sphere", and they would stay out of each other's zones.
[Note: It is true Athens sponsored the Thurii colony in southern Italy in 443. But it was largely as a favor to some displaced prior colonists, and Athens was careful to make it non-intrusive. Thurii was declared a "pan-Hellenic" colony, open to all Greeks, and that Athens was
not its mother state, and would not rescue it.]
But the Athenian involvement in the Corcyra crisis in 430s had brought their attention to the west. Only then did they realize just how rich the western colonies were, and just how much Corinth's livelihood was tied up in her commerce with Sicily and Italy.
Thoughtlessly, the Athenians had made treaties with the Elmyian city of Segesta (non-Greek Sicily) in 457 and sometime after, with the Ionian cities of Leontini (Greek Sicily) and Rhegium (Greek Calabria). These alliances were renewed in 433/32.
In 427, war in Sicily broke out between (Dorian) Syracuse and (Ionian) Leontini. All other local cities aligned accordingly and it extended to a general war. But Syracuse had a damn good fleet, and got the better of it. So Leontini called on Athens in 427 to honor its treaty. Although they were in the middle of Peloponnesian War, the Athenians dispatched a fleet of 20 ships under Laches to Sicily that year. (
Thuc). Not really because they cared, but more as an opportunity to disrupt the grain trade into Corinth. Laches helped the Leontinians out with some local operations 427/26, but the Syracusan fleet was too strong for them. So the Athenians sent a second fleet of 40 ships, under Eurymedon & Sophocles in 426/25 (
Thuc). This fleet ended up getting deviated into the Pylos adventure in 425, and by the time it reached Sicily, it was all over. Syracusan politician Hemocrates had arranged a Pan-Sicilan conference at Gela in early 424 and negotiated an all-around peace in Sicily, ending the war in the region. Athenians got nothing for their pains. (
Thuc)
Upon their return, the Athenian captains were duly convicted of incompetence by an angry Athenian assembly (
Thuc). This may seem odd. Weren't they supposed to save Leontini from a Syracusan onslaught? There is peace now. How is that not good?
It is evident that the Athenian strategy on the west had already taken shape by this time:
* -- (1) to economically strangle Corinth, and the Peloponnesian League, by disrupting their trade with the western colonies
* -- (2) destroy the powerful Syracusan fleet, the only significant fleet out there besides Athens's own, before it was sent east to assist the Peloponnesian League
.
Peace did not serve this purpose. This was the mission the captains failed at.
War between Syracuse and Leontini erupted again in 422, this time after a internal coup in Leontini. (
Thuc) This was more low key , an irregular war in the backlands. But hearing of the war, an Athenian embassy under a guy called Phaeax was dispatched to Sicily to investigate. Phaeax had secondary instructions to weave an anti-Syracuse coalition among the cities of Sicily and widen the local quarrel into a bigger war. He didn't do too shabbily - Phaeax even managed to persuade the Dorian cities of Camarina and Acragas to launch wars against Syracuse. (
Thuc). His job done, Phaeax returned to Athens.
Then, in the middle of the Peace of Nicias, came round three. Emissaries from Leontini and Segesta arrived in Athens in 416, and reported that Syracuse and her ally Selinus were being all imperialistic again, and invoked the alliance. Athenians this time were uninterested. But the Segestans offered to pay for the cost of the expedition. Athenians were dubious, and told them to show them the money first. An Athenian embassy went back with the Segestans, and returned in 415 with 60 talents. It was a bit less than expected - enough to fund about a month's pay for 60 ships. But the Segestans assured them they could find more.(
Thuc)
The Sicilian expedition was debated in the Athenian assembly. As expected, Nicias spoke out against it - another distraction from pressing Athenian needs, needlessly creating more enemies. But Alcibiades urged enthusiastically for it. The way things had been going lately - Argos, Melos - a renewed war with Sparta was merely a matter of time. Athens needed to take steps now to ensure Sicily doesn't "rescue" Sparta from destruction. Sicily is a rich country, its grain can feed Sparta and the rest of the Pelop League, and the Syracusan fleet is strong enough to break through any Athenian naval blockade. Syracuse needs to be brought to heel and its navy reduced or destroyed, if Athens is to have any hope for success against Sparta in a future war. And it is cheap! Segesta will pay for it.
The Athenian assembly was persuaded by Alcibiades and voted to go ahead and send 60 ships to Sicily. They elected Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamaches as its commanders.
Thuc)
Both
Thuc &
Plut say the real reason for Alcibiades's enthusiasm was because he was filled with delusions of grandeur, that he envisoned himself as an imperial conqueror of Sicily and thereafter, Carthage and Italy. Maybe. But that's
not what the Athenian assembly voted for.
Note that 60 ships is not really a big commitment. They don't come with troops - just sailors. Athens had sent 60 ships to Sicily before remember? 20 went with Laches in 427 and another 40 in the follow-up fleet of 426/25. And that was in the height of wartime. They can certainly spare them now.
But the next day everything changed. Nicias tried one last time to cancel the expedition and spoke up in the assembly again. Nicias made a long speech against it, and personally accused Alcibiades of aspiring to personal glory and even tyranny. (
Thuc). Offended, Alcibiades responded to the
ad hominem attack, and counter-accused that Nicias was evidently putting personal spite against himself above Athens's interests and public policy [
Thuc] So Nicias made a second speech, explaining that no, what he meant was that Sicily isn't a cakewalk, it has mighty cities with large armies, and this is a difficult endeavor that a handful of Athenian ships will have trouble handling. (
Thuc)
Nicias's speech totally backfired. Nicias was hoping to scare the assembly into quitting the expedition. But instead he only alarmed the assembly into revising its size upwards!(
Thuc) Rather than a modest fleet of 60 ships and no soldiers, the assembly voted now for a massive expedition - 134 triremes plus 140 cargo vessels and transports, carrying over 5,000 hoplites, plus cavalry, archers, peltasts, etc. and an additional 30 merchant support ships. It was no longer a strike force intervening to help an ally. It was now an invasion force, capable of conquering Syracuse and perhaps all of Sicily.(
Thuc;
Thuc list)
I won't give the details of the Sicilian expedition. You can certainly turn to Thucydides for the narrative in loving detail. But worth noting that Sparta did
not consider it a violation yet. Peace was not broken and war was not declared.
Why not? Largely because the expedition was expected to fail. No city in Italy or Sicily was going to host the Athenian fleet and gigantic army, or open hostilities with Syracuse. Syracuse hardly bothered preparing defenses itself (e.g. Syracuse debate in
Thuc). The Athenian fleet was expected to sail around, find no place to park, and return sheepishly home. So why start a war in Greece over nothing?
And that is nearly what happened. The Athenian fleet was basically shunted along from port to port, nobody willing to take them in. After sailing around for a bit, Nicias proposed going home - nobody wants us here, let's just sail around the island and show off our fleet, flash our teeth, that'll be enough to intimidate the locals to play nice in the future, and call it a day. But Alcibiades said it was disgraceful, after coming all this way, with such a grand fleet, to do nothing.(
Thuc)
Still, it was immensely difficult to find a host. But eventually Alcibiades finally managed to sweet-talk Catania into taking them in.(
Thuc) Once the siege of Syracuse was in place, there was no going back.
That broke the peace of Nicias. Only upon receiving news from Syracuse that a siege was actually laid is when Sparta finally declared war.
Of course, even then, the Spartans needed convincing. It was
Alcibiades that actually got the Spartans to declare war! For, as many of you might be aware, Alcibiades defected to Sparta by now.
Alcibiades in Sparta
Alcibiades's treason was a result of a stupid Athenian affair known as the "mutilation of the herms". "Herms" were popular pedestal statues, usually of the god Hermes, with bust and genitals exposed, commonly found outside private Athenian homes (
example of Herms). A few nights before the Sicilian expedition sailed out of Athens, a bunch of drunken frat boys went around town knocking off the genitals from many herm statues for kicks and giggles. (
Thuc;
Plut) Suspicion immediately fell upon Alcibiades & his circle of friends - frat boys par excellence, always into drunken pranks. But Alcibiades was about to set sail with the Sicilian expedition, so didn't have time to defend himself properly. Investigations continued in Athens in his absence, in the course of which it was revealed the Alcibiades & pals had been holding some pretty riotous drunken parties in his home, where great acts of impiety were conducted. Most offensively, they had held parodies of the Eleusian mysteries, using prostitutes as stand-ins for priestesses. The aristocratic priestly families felt deeply offended, formal charges were lodged at the Areopagus and a ship sent to Sicily to pick up Alcibiades and bring him back for trial.(
Thuc.)
Alcibiades got word they were coming. He knew he had too many enemies in Athens to survive a trial. So shortly after negotiating his deal with Catania, he suddenly vanished. Jumped ship in Thurii, and just disappeared.(
Thuc) He re-emerged a few weeks later in Sparta.(
Thuc;
Plut) (Alibiades went on to be sentenced to death in absentia in Athens).
Once in Sparta, Alcibiades fell in with the hawkish Spartan Ephors. In the early summer of 414, Alcibiades was orating on the floor of the Spartan assembly, urging the Spartans to declare war on Athens. (
Thuc). Still fancying himself the grand strategist, Alcibiades laid out the plan which the Spartans ought to adopt to defeat Athens (i.e. set up a permanent fort in Attica and and raise a fleet). The Spartans adopted his plan, declared war on Athens and invaded Attica in the Spring of 413.(
Thuc).
And that was the end of the Peace of Nicias.
So Alcibiades would have the grand war he wanted after all - just for the other side.
------------------
In sum:
The Peace of Nicias was messed up to begin with because it ignored the allies. So the allies set about undermining it, refusing to meet its terms, and conspiring to continue war. This stoked up war parties in Athens (Alcibiades) and Sparta (Ephors). And it was the Athenian war party - Alcibiades in particular - that launched the whacky endeavors (Argive war, Sicilian expedition) as part of a grand strategy of containing and isolating Sparta as much as possible, so that she would be weak and vulnerable when the inevitable war resumed.
Alcibiades's strategy failed - the Argive war failed completely. And the Sicilian expedition failed catastrophically - the entire Athenian army and fleet were wiped out by late 413.
But the war in Greece was on by then - with Alcibiades now advising the Spartans.
