Pausanias, a young man flushed from his success at Plataea and now admiral of the Greek fleet, wins victories in Cyprus (a temporary conquest) and the Bosporus, and captures Byzantium in 478.

Aristides commands the Athenian contingent of thirty ships in the fleet that Pausanias leads.

While Pausanias is at Byzantium, his arrogance and his adoption of Persian clothing and manners offend the other Greeks, “not least,” Thucydides says, “the Ionians and the newly liberated populations,” and raises suspicions of disloyalty.

Recalled to Sparta, he is tried and acquitted of the charge of treason but is not restored to his command and is instead replaced by Dorcis; yet Dorcis and others like him lack Pausanias' charisma, and Sparta sends out two more commanders.

When the Athenians separate from the Spartans to form the Delian League, Pausanias returns to Byzantium “in a private capacity,” setting himself up as a tyrant to intrigue with Persia, and holds the city until his expulsion by the Athenians (probably in 477).

The architect Callicrates in 449 BCE designs the Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis.

Stylistic grounds are the basis for the theory that Callicrates may be the designer of the Illissos Temple completed around the same time.

Thucydides, son of Melesias (not the historian) and a relative of Cimon, who had inherited some of his political support among conservatives, denounces both the extravagance of Pericles' building project and the immorality of using allied funds to finance it.

Pericles argues that the allies are paying for their defense, and, if that is assured, Athens does not have to account for how the money is actually spent.

In addition to domestic criticism, there is also some initial allied resentment at the continuation of tribute, and some scattered revolts.

Pericles meets the situation in part by extending a network of Athenian settlements throughout what may now be called the empire, thus strengthening Athenian control and providing new land for the growing Athenian population.

The argument between Pericles and Thucydides ends the latter's ostracism in 443; he goes into exile for ten years, leaving Pericles unchallenged.

The Samian War, a military conflict between Athens and Samos, is initiated by Athens' intervention in a dispute between Samos and Miletus.

The result is an Athenian victory; Samos surrenders.

The end of the revolts elsewhere in the Athenian empire, known formally as the Delian League, follows rapidly on this success.

Although Athens succeeds in restoring order to the empire, the situation in 440 BCE is very severe, particularly because of the threat of Spartan intervention.

The immediate causes of the Peloponnesian War vary from account to account, but three causes are fairly consistent among Thucydides and Plutarch.

Corinth and one of its colonies, Corcyra (modern-day Corfu), enter into a dispute in 435 BCE over the new Corcyran colony of Epidamnus, and war breaks out between Corinth and Corcyra.

Sparta refuses to become involved in the conflict and urges an arbitrated settlement.

Corcyra in 433 BCE, seeks the assistance of Athens in the war against Corinth, as that city-state is a traditional enemy of Athens.

Emphasizing the strategic locations of Corcyra itself and the colony of Epidamnus on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, Corcyra promises that Athens will have the use of Corcyra's navy, the third largest navy in Greece.

Accordingly, Athens signs a defensive alliance with Corcyra.

Corinth and Athens argue in the next year over control of Potidaea (near modern-day Nea Potidaia), eventually leading to an Athenian siege of Potidaea.



Athens in 434-433 BCE had issued the "Megarian Decrees", a series of economic decrees that places economic sanctions on the Megarian people.

Sparta and her allies accuse Athens of violating the Thirty Years Peace through the aforementioned actions, and, accordingly, formally declare war on Athens.

The war will last twenty-seven years, partly because Athens, a naval power, and Sparta, a land-based military power, will find it difficult to engage with each other.

Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases.

In the Archidamian War, the first phase of the Great Peloponnesian War, Sparta launches repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens takes advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese in attempts to suppress signs of unrest in its empire.

A devastating epidemic strikes Athens in ancient Greece during the second year of the war, when an Athenian victory still seems within reach.