What is Aegospotami?
Aegospotami is a river in modern day Turkey that was once the battlefield for the ancient Greece battle of Aegospotami. Aegospotami went through an open beach and flowed into the sea. The battle of Aegospotami was a Naval battle between ancient Sparta and ancient Athens. This was the final battle in the Peloponnesian War and ultimately was the deciding factor on whether Athens will lose or if they will continue fighting.
What Happened During the Battle?
The Battle of Aegospotami (405 B.C.) was the final battle in the Peloponnesian War. It was a naval battle between Sparta ad Athens. But how did Sparta possibly defeat Athens, the city state with the most powerful navy, in a naval battle? Although Sparta is not as skilled as Athens when it comes to their Navy, they are still amazing at battle strategy and tactics. Sparta's main goal during the Battle of Aegospotami was to remove Athens from the sea so that they would have a better chance at winning. Luckily for Sparta they were led by the Spartan General Lysander. The Spartans managed to get together 200 ships while Athens had 180. Athens planned to fight Sparta over 4 days, but Sparta did not respond to their challenge. While Athens was distracted on the 5th day, Lysander ordered a full speed charge across Aegospotami which caught Athens completely by surprise. The Spartan navy ended up destroying around 170 out of the 180 ships that the Athenian navy had and ended the Battle of Aegospotami and the Peloponnesian War.
The Aftermath
The Battle of Aegospotami was the final battle of the Peloponnesian War and led to many important events in the period of Ancient Greece. Soon after the battle Lysander captured around 4,000 Athenian prisoners who fought at Aegospotami. He ordered the immediate execution of all of them. Even after the battle and execution, Lysander was not yet ready to stop. He knew that he had severely weakened Athens, and that it would be the perfect time to challenge Athenian command over Greece. He went along the coast of Asia minor and pushed out all Athenians back to Athens. Athens now faced the issue of overpopulation and limited resources due to the sudden increase of Athenians in Athens. Another contribution to this problem was that after the battle of Aegospotami, many Athenian ships were destroyed. Along with the fact that Athens no longer had control over the sea, and lacked ships, they had no way to get enough food imported to sustain the large number of Athenians now in Athens. Now Athens was starved due to lack of trade and resources. Athens then offered surrender to Sparta thus ending the Peloponnesian War and making Sparta the new empire over Greece.
Alexander Rodriguez
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