The Persian Wars (500–449 b.c.) made Athens the strongest Greek city-state. Much smaller and less powerful than Sparta at the start of the wars, Athens was more active and more effective in the fighting against Persia. The Athenian heroes Miltiades, Themistocles, and Cimon were largely responsible for building the city's strength. In 490 b.c. the Greek army defeated Persia at Marathon. A great Athenian fleet won a major victory over the Persians off the island of Salamis (480 b.c.). The powerful fleet also enabled Athens to gain hegemony in the Delian League, which was created in 478–477 b.c. through the confederation of many city-states; in succeeding years the league was transformed into an empire headed by Athens. The city arranged peace with Persia in 449 b.c. and with its chief rival, Sparta, in 445 b.c., but warfare with smaller Greek cities continued.
During the time of Pericles (443–429 b.c.) Athens reached the height of its cultural and imperial achievement; Socrates and the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were active. The incomparable Parthenon was built, and sculpture and painting flourished. Athens became a center of intellectual life. However, the rivalry with Sparta had not ended, and in 431 b.c. the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens began.
The war went badly for Athens from the start. The Long Walls built to protect the city and its port of Piraiévs saved the city itself as long as the fleet was paramount, but the allies of Athens fell away and the land empire Pericles had tried to build already had crumbled before his death in 429 b.c. The war dragged on under the leadership of Cleon and continued even after the collapse of the expedition against Sicily, urged (415 b.c.) by Alcibiades. The Peloponnesian War finally ended in 404 b.c. with Athens completely humbled, its population cut in half, and its fleet reduced to a dozen ships.
Under the dictates of Sparta, Athens was compelled to tear down the Long Walls and to accept the government of an oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants. However, the city recovered rapidly. In 403 b.c. the Thirty Tyrants were overthrown by Thrasybulus, and by 376 b.c. Athens again had a fleet, had rebuilt the Long Walls, had re-created the Delian League, and had won a naval victory over Sparta. Sparta also lost power as a result of its defeat (371 b.c.) by Thebes at Leuctra; and, although Athens did not again achieve hegemony over Greece, it did have a short period of great prosperity and comfort.
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