This is the History of the World Podcast with me Chris Hasler and you're listening to volume three the classical world

episode 13 the Peloponnesian War, Part 1. Oh, Last time on the history of the World Podcast we described the events that

concluded the second Persian invasion of Greece and the subsequent aftermath

which in turn saw tensions simmer between the Greeks and the Persians.

The Greeks had successfully repelled the Persians and sent them back to Asia and it was thanks to the ability

of the two greatest Greek polis, Athens and Sparta being able to work alongside one another. Let's be honest, Athens and Sparta

were like chalk and cheese. Neither Polis particularly trusted the other and both were ideologically different, with Athens

showing more democratic traits and Sparta showing more totalitarian traits.

The biggest issue between Athens and Sparta was the fact that they were geographically

close to one another.

Both were very influential and powerful and both presented

the same potential threat to the security of the other one. Often smaller polace or estranged factions would approach one and play them off against

the other.

And we can see a great example of this kind of thing when we look back to episode 7 and 8 and the

actions of the Alkmyanid family who were an estranged Athenian family trying to overthrow the pisses' strataed tyranny who were

ruling over Athens at the time. Their strategy for dealing with the situation would be to approach the Spartans and involve them in

the situation, which was really just an Athenian civil dispute.

However, this is just one example of how two major nations in close

proximity to each other will inevitably become involved in each other's

politics and how two major nations in

close proximity will always have a deep paranoia about what the other nation's

intentions are. This is the fundamental basis for the escalation of what we

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