In 431 BCE, King Archidamus II led the Peloponnesian League into Attica, torching fields around Eleusis and Acharnae while Athens stayed behind its Long Walls. Pericles refused a hoplite showdown and answered with bronze prows instead—raiding the Peloponnese by sea as smoke rose over the plain.
What Happened
After Plataea, the question was not if but where the war would press hardest. Sparta had superior hoplite levies—Phalanxes from Laconia, Corinth, and Arcadia—while Athens possessed docks, silver, and oak: a fleet. King Archidamus II, experienced and cautious, assembled the coalition north of the Isthmus and crossed into Attica as the barley ripened around Marathon and Rhamnous [1, 16].
The invasion moved methodically. Heavy shields glinted bronze under the sun; the sound of iron on iron carried toward the city. Into the Thriasian plain they marched, then toward Acharnae—only 60 stades from Athens’ walls. Farmsteads burned. Olive groves crackled. Yet the Athenian hoplites did not deploy beyond the shadow of the Acropolis [16].
Pericles, the leading Athenian statesman and general, had laid out the logic years before: avoid decisive land battle, concentrate on naval strength, protect citizens behind the Long Walls linking Athens to Piraeus, and let the fleet raid the Peloponnese at will. On the Pnyx he persuaded a fractious Assembly to endure insult for advantage. “Our city,” Thucydides has him argue elsewhere, “is open to the world”—and its strength would be measured in oar-strokes, not spear thrusts [1].
So the Athenians listened to taunts from the Acharnians, saw the scarlet of Spartan cloaks on their own horizon, and held. Within days, Athenian squadrons under experienced commanders like Phormio steered south, then west. They struck at Methone, Elis, and around Epidaurus, the creak of oarlocks answering the crackle of Attic fires. The Peloponnesians could not catch ships with marching columns. The Athenians would not chase hoplites with citizen levies beyond the walls [16].
The Long Walls—two parallel stone lines nearly 40 stades from the city to the harbor—became the spine of strategy. Grain from Euboea and the Hellespont kept arriving; refugees from the countryside crowded into cramped quarters in the Asty. The agora choked with carts and goats. The port of Piraeus thrummed, ships’ hulls painted black and red, crews shouting over the slap of cables [1, 16].
Archidamus eventually withdrew to Laconia to husband supplies for the next summer’s work. The Athenians counted losses in vineyards and orchards, not in ranks of the dead. It felt like a victory to nobody—except perhaps to strategy, which had held its first test.
Why This Matters
The first invasion set the rhythm of the Archidamian War. Spartans would ravage Attica nearly every year; Athens would refuse a set-piece hoplite battle and retaliate by sea, turning geography and finance into weapons. The city traded land for time while protecting its lifeline to Piraeus and the Aegean [1, 16].
This is fear and balance of power rendered operational. Spartan fear of Athenian growth compelled direct pressure on Attica; Athenian fear of Spartan hoplites kept citizens behind stone. Each side fought where it was strongest and tried to force the other into disadvantage. The Long Walls and triremes converted Athenian wealth into military resilience [1, 16].
But the policy carried costs. Crowding inside the walls made the city brittle. In 430 BCE, disease found that vulnerability, turning defensive prudence into a public health catastrophe. The smoke seen from Acharnae would soon be joined by funeral pyres within Athens itself [1, 16].
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