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Tides of History

The Peloponnesian War, Part 1: Plague, Attrition, and a Decade of Bloodshed

Tides of History

Wondery / Patrick Wyman

Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.86.3K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2024

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta finally broke out in 431 BC, it was small conflicts on the fringes of the Greek world that pulled the two states into conflict. Thousands upon thousands would pay the price for that over the first decade of the war.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:04.4

Join Wunderry Plus in the Wundery the air, thick and gray.

0:14.0

Occasional gusts of wind blew through the narrow alleys of the town and sent it

0:24.8

swirling along, but always it returned, replenished by the buildings still smoldering and flaming in the

0:30.4

early morning light. The sun rose over a town at war with itself.

0:36.0

Here and there, bodies lay on the packed dirt of the streets

0:39.0

surrounded by drying pools of blood.

0:42.0

The light of dawn glistened off the bald head of an older man who had

0:45.6

nearly made it inside a temple. Nearly, but not quite. His corpse was sprawled on the steps

0:51.3

leading up to the entrance, close to the promise of asylum, but too far.

0:55.4

A woman stood over the man's body weeping softly, while her two young girls looked on, stone-faced with shock, not understanding what had happened. A few hours ago, the girl's

1:05.8

father had been one of the town's leading citizens in oligarch. No longer, the

1:10.7

Polish was under new management. The surviving oligarchs,

1:15.0

oligarchs, a dozen men were penned in the town's Agora, the marketplace at the center of the houses and shops.

1:20.0

Soldiers and bronze helmets carrying long spears stood guard over them.

1:25.0

Their ships long lean triremes sat at anchor in the harbour down below.

1:30.0

The Athenians had come up the hill in the night, led into the town by the oligarchs opponents,

1:34.1

Democrats who were willing to open the gates and return for control of the polis.

1:38.9

They, not the soldiers, had wielded the knives, swords, and spears that took the lives of the oligarchs.

1:44.7

No conflict was bloodier than civil conflict, nothing more bitter than the settling of

1:49.3

long simmering scores.

1:52.0

The Democrats had suffered in the past, their fathers and uncles executed.

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