Which was an advantage of Sparta during the Peloponnesian?

Answer 1

"What" was the Spartan advantage during the Peloponnesian War? Persian Gold, a feared army on land, and Athenian hubris. Through most of the first two decades of the war there was mostly stalemate: the Spartan boxed the Athenians inside their walls and raided Attica, while the Athenians roamed the seas at will and raided the Peloponnese. The Athenians knew better than to fight the Spartan phalanx (they lost on the two occasions there were major hoplite engagements) and the Spartans knew better than to fight the Athenians at sea (where they lost on the occasions they or their allies tried). The big turn of the tide came in the Sicilian Expedition, where most of the Athenian fleet and some 50,000 Athenian Imperials sailors, soldiers and marines were wiped out, along with most of the Imperial fleet of over 200 triremes (warships). The Spartans, advised by the able Alcibiades (a former Athenian) used Persian gold to build their own massive fleet, which was now on par with the Athenian fleet as they were both composed of inexperienced, newly-raised crews. The Spartans still lost (see the Battle of Arginusae) but they could raise more money (from the Persians!) to build more ships and hire more sailors, and the Athenians could not. The Spartans on a number of occasions offered the Athenians peace terms of status quo ante bellum ("the status before the war") but the Athenian assembly, a very radical, almost communist organisation, refused. So the Spartan admiral Lysander finally and utterly defeated the Athenian navy at the Battle of Aegospotamia in 405. Now stripped of their navy--and so access to their colonies, and their source of gold and food--the Athenians could not continue to fight, as the Spartan army (never defeated by the Athenians) was right outside their Long Walls. So what was the Spartan advantage? A highly feared army on land to hold the Athenians in check, but a good navy and Persian gold to finally defeat them at sea.