Before the War...

A Unifying War

       Nearly two decades before the Peloponnesian War, the Hellenistic world was deep in the Greco-Persian war. After the Persian defeat at the Battle of Marathon, King Darius I of Persia retracted his attempts to conquer the Greek world. Following his death, his son King Xerxes I intended to mend the Persian Empire's damaged reputation as an invincible force leading to the Battle of Thermopylae. After a series of battles in which the Greeks would come out victorious and united, the city-states of Athens and Sparta, rival civilizations, would come at peace with one another after centuries of war and bloodshed.

(Spartan and Athenian Peace)