2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

explains that the Athenians were afraid that Corinth was going to stir up a revolution in Potidaea as a

means of revenge for the interference of Athens through forming an alliance with Corcyra.

Furthermore, Thucydides further opines, that the Athenians “were afraid that the Potidaeans

persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians would revolt and cause the rest of the allies in Thrace to

revolt with them” (LVI, 95, 2014).

Consequently, the Athenians were attempting to weaken the influence of Corinth which resulted in

Athens being seen as a threat by the Peloponnesians and Sparta. Additionally, Thucydides further

focuses on Athens as the aggressor as he states, that “the Corinthians [were] aggrieved because the

Athenians were besieging Potidaea, a colony of theirs with [their own men in it] (LXVI, 107, 2014).

Athens’ actions against Corinth further escalated tensions between the two powers which

contributed to the notion that Athens was a threat to the Peloponnesians and Sparta which caused

the Peloponnesian War to occur. Moreover, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Munich

- Meier, suggests that the siege of Potidaea performed by Athens gave the Corinthians enough

reason to urge Sparta to declare war on Athens. Meier writes that “the Corinthians used the ensuing

[Athenian] siege [of Potidaea] … as grounds to ask Sparta to declare war on Athens. Athens had

broken its treaties, they said, and the treaty partners should not tolerate this.” (1999, 448). This

demonstrates that the aggressive actions of the Athenians towards Potidaea pushed the Spartans to

the point declaring war on Athens at the behest of the Corinthians.

This is corroborated by Kagan who also argues that Athens was trying to start a war with Sparta and

the Peloponnesians, so Athens could fight a war on her own terms. Kagan opined that Pericles “was

already trying to bring [a war with Sparta] on … he hoped to fight a strictly defensive war, avoiding

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