End of Greece

Sparta and Athens sometimes teamed up to fight an outside invader - like Persia.  Usually these battles took their toll on the city-states.  Therefore, the Greeks formed a special fund to help fight other empires.  All city-states put money (taxes) into a shared fund to make new weapons and ships and to train soldiers.  Athens guarded this money.  Corinth, another city-state, probably would have been a better choice since they were good with money and had an actual bank but this was not discussed.  Athens just started collecting and this made Sparta mad.  Sparta just went along with it though because all city-states needed to be protected. 

It was also decided during this time to have a peace or truce of 30 years to give everyone a chance to recover from the past wars.  It became a time of great prosperity, especially for Athens.  Sparta was very jealous of this richness or prosperity for Athens.  As the empires of Sparta and Athens grew, they both became very suspicious of the other and did not trust each other. Eventually, Sparta began to get worried that Athens would take over all of Greece so they encouraged others to be suspicious of Athens too. Finally, war broke out between Sparta and Athens. It is called the Peloponnesian War because Sparta was located in an area called the Peloponnesus. 

In the beginning, it was pretty even. But soon, Sparta surrounded Athens. They hoped the Athenians would come out and fight. However, the Athenians stayed hidden behind their city walls because they knew they would lose to the Spartans in an open battle. They stayed put and had food and supplies delivered to them by their great navy of ships. Unfortunately, being inside was bad for the Athenians. Disease spread and killed many of them. Still, they held off the Spartans. This standoff continued for over 20 years. 

Desperate to win, Sparta made a deal with their old enemy Persia. Sparta gave Persia some land they wanted and Persia gave Sparta much needed money to build a navy and their own ships.  Soon, Sparta's new navy destroyed Athens' ships. Without a navy, Athens had no way of getting food or supplies. Without these needed items, Athens had to surrender to Sparta.

The constant fighting among the city-states had a devastating effect.  A nearby civilization in Rome was gaining power and would eventually overtake all of Greece.