<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> <Ul> <Li> Sybota </Li> <Li> Potidaea </Li> <Li> Spartolos </Li> <Li> Rhium </Li> <Li> Naupactus </Li> <Li> Mytilene </Li> <Li> Tanagra </Li> <Li> Aetolia </Li> <Li> Olpae </Li> <Li> Idomene </Li> <Li> Pylos </Li> <Li> Sphacteria </Li> <Li> Megara </Li> <Li> Delium </Li> <Li> Amphipolis </Li> <Li> Mantinea </Li> <Li> Hysiae </Li> <Li> Orneae </Li> <Li> Melos </Li> <Li> Sicilian Expedition </Li> <Li> Syme </Li> <Li> Eretria </Li> <Li> Cynossema </Li> <Li> Abydos </Li> <Li> Cyzicus </Li> <Li> Notium </Li> <Li> Arginusae </Li> <Li> Aegospotami </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> Sybota </Li> <Li> Potidaea </Li> <Li> Spartolos </Li> <Li> Rhium </Li> <Li> Naupactus </Li> <Li> Mytilene </Li> <Li> Tanagra </Li> <Li> Aetolia </Li> <Li> Olpae </Li> <Li> Idomene </Li> <Li> Pylos </Li> <Li> Sphacteria </Li> <Li> Megara </Li> <Li> Delium </Li> <Li> Amphipolis </Li> <Li> Mantinea </Li> <Li> Hysiae </Li> <Li> Orneae </Li> <Li> Melos </Li> <Li> Sicilian Expedition </Li> <Li> Syme </Li> <Li> Eretria </Li> <Li> Cynossema </Li> <Li> Abydos </Li> <Li> Cyzicus </Li> <Li> Notium </Li> <Li> Arginusae </Li> <Li> Aegospotami </Li> </Ul> <P> The Peloponnesian War (431--404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought by the Delian League led by Athens against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta . Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases . In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese and attempt to suppress signs of unrest in its empire . This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias . That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese . In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily; the attack failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC . This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War . In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens' empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy . The destruction of Athens' fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year . Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved, but Sparta refused . </P> <P> The term "Peloponnesian War" was never used by Thucydides, by far its major historian: that the term is all but universally used today is a reflection of the Athens - centric sympathies of modern historians . As prominent historian J.B. Bury remarks, the Peloponnesians would have considered it the "Attic War". </P>

How was sparta finally able to defeat athens at the end of the peloponnesian war