Peloponnesian War · War Crimes & Atrocities
The Peloponnesian War is a chronicle of the progressive collapse of the moral norms that had regulated Greek warfare. The Persian Wars generation had developed shared codes — the exchange of prisoners, the return of the dead, the immunity of temples and neutral states. The Peloponnesian War systematically violated every one of these: Plataea's garrison was executed on a legal pretext, Melos was annihilated and enslaved, Mycalessus was massacred by Thracian mercenaries, and the Athenian prisoners in the Syracuse quarries were left to die of exposure. Thucydides explicitly traced this moral collapse — what he called 'stasis,' the war of all against all within cities — as the Peloponnesian War's most devastating legacy.
225+
deaths
Victims: 200 Plataeans and 25 Athenians
2,000+
deaths
Victims: All adult male citizens of Melos(All men of military age killed; women and children enslaved; estimates vary 2,000–4,000 killed)
2,000+
deaths
Victims: Entire population of Mycalessus, including schoolchildren(Entire city population killed; exact numbers unknown but included all students in the city's school)
7,000+
deaths
Victims: Athenian and allied prisoners from the Sicilian Expedition(Up to 7,000 imprisoned; most died of exposure, starvation, and disease; exact deaths uncertain)
1,000+
deaths
Victims: Citizens of Mytilene, Lesbos (threatened but not carried out)(Approximately 1,000 ringleaders executed after the reversal; the general massacre was averted)