The Peloponnesian War 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 with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Sicily; this ushered in the final phase of the war referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. In this phase, now receiving support from the Achaemenid Empire, supported rebellions in Athens's subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens's empire, depriving the city of naval supremacy; the destruction of Athens's fleet in the Battle of Aegospotami ended the war, 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. 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"; the Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world. On the level of international relations, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece; the economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece. The war wrought subtler changes to Greek society. Ancient Greek warfare, meanwhile a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece.

The Peloponnesian War was soon followed by the Corinthian War, although it ended inconclusively, helped Athens regain a little of its former greatness. As the preeminent Athenian historian, wrote in his influential History of the Peloponnesian War, "The growth of the power of Athens, the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable." Indeed, the nearly fifty years of Greek history that preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. Its empire began as a small group of city-states, called the Delian League—from the island of Delos, on which they kept their treasury—that came together to ensure that the Greco-Persian Wars were over. After defeating the Second Persian invasion of Greece in the year 480 BC, Athens led the coalition of Greek city-states that continued the Greco-Persian Wars with attacks on Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. What ensued was a period, referred to as the Pentecontaetia, in which Athens became in fact an empire, carrying out an aggressive war against Persia and dominating other city-states.

Athens proceeded to bring under its control all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, ushering in a period, known to history as the Athenian Empire. By the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens. At the same time, Athens increased its own power; this tribute was used to support a powerful fleet and, after the middle of the century, to fund massive public works programs in Athens, causing resentment. Friction between Athens and the Peloponnesian states, including Sparta, began early in the Pentecontaetia. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action at this time, they "secretly felt aggrieved". Conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC; the Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent, but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain.

According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots. When the rebellious helots were forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the state, the Athenians settled them at the strategic city of Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth. In 459 BC, Athens too

Zebrida adamsii is a distinctively striped species of crab that lives in association with a sea urchin in the Indo-Pacific region. It is cryptically coloured with vertical stripes and has special adaptations to its legs to enable it to cling to its host's spines. Z. adamsii is a small crab, described as "a torpid, though elegant little crustacean" by the English naturalist Arthur Adams when it was first discovered by him and the Scottish zoologist Adam White during the surveying voyage of HMS Samarang in the Far East between 1843 and 1846. The carapace and limbs are adorned with long spines; the colour is pink with reddish-brown vertical stripes. Z. adamsii has a wide distribution in shallow water in the tropical Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean. The type locality is the estuary of the Pantai River in Borneo at a depth of about 35 ft. Z. adamsii lives in symbiosis with a sea urchin, living among its spines. Sea urchins on which it has been found include Asthenosoma ijimai, Diadema setosum, Heliocidaris crassispina, Pseudocentrotus depressus, Salmacis bicolor, Salmacis virgulata, Toxopneustes elegans, Toxopneustes pileolus, Tripneustes gratilla and a species of Acanthocidaris.

Adaptations for this lifestyle include a specialist joint between the propodus and dactylus on the walking legs enabling the crab to cling to its host, cryptic colouring in the form of vertical stripes. Females are larger than males and live singly on a sea urchin while males move from one urchin to another searching for females. Z. Adamsii feeds on its host's tube feet and on the epidermal tissue covering the test and the base of the spines; this does little harm to the host which regenerates both the tissue and the tube feet. Z. Adamsii larvae are planktonic and pass through four zoeal stages, one megalopa stage before settling on the seabed and undergoing metamorphosis into juvenile crabs. Photos of Zebrida adamsii on Sealife Collection

Duror Duror of Appin is a small, remote coastal village that sits at the base of Glen Duror, in district of Appin, in the Scottish West Highlands, within the council area of Argyll and Bute in Scotland. Duror is known for the first building of the Telford Parliamentary churches by the Scottish civil engineer and stonemason, Thomas Telford, from 1826, the first in a series of 32, built in Scotland. William Thomson was the architect. Duror is the location of the famous Appin Murder. Although no direct evidence for this connection exists, the murder event and the kidnap of James Annesley provided the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson writing the novel Kidnapped. Duror is a ancient settlement, at least 5000 years old, when the Achara stone, described below, was placed close to the shore of Loch Linnhe and was a religious meeting place for pagan Iron Age settlers, who worshiped a pantheon of Gods and Goddesses, with religious ceremonies conducted by Druids who spoke a form of a Celtic language.

Sea levels were some 14 metres higher, during that time in pre-history, indicating the Achara stone may have been sited next to the seashore. This can be explicitly seen in the Clach Thoull - The Holed Stone, considered the mythical entrance to the nether regions under the sea, where the hole in the stone has been created by sea erosion. During that time, there were many more islands in Cuil Bay. A female deity, worshiped in the Duror area during the first millennium BC, was represented by a large figure, crudely carved in wood, found buried in peat, at Alltshellach in North Ballachulish; this Sheela na gig is kept in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. Traces of wicker suggest the remains of a wooden shrine, her identity was unknown, but was an early example of a Celtic nature goddess. One Celtic deity, whose cult originated in Gaul, was the warrior-god Camulus, whose worship spread to the British Isles by the 1st century AD, with religious ceremonies conducted by Druids and who spoke a form of Celtic language.

Around 1300BC, the climate changed with temperatures dropping and rainfall levels doubling within 10 years. Evidence indicated this caused the whole population of the Scottish Highlands, to move to the Central Belt, with the tree line dropping from about 750 metres to 500 metres, equivalent to a temperature drop of 1.5°, seen in England as a reduction in elm growth. The climate became more suitable and settlers returned to the Scottish Highlands, around between 100 and 600AD. From the 6th century AD to the 8th century AD, Duror was part of the kingdom of Dál Riata part of the Loarn mac Eirc, the Kingdom of Lorne, one of the four main northerly clans or kindreds of Dál Riata; the Dál Riatas, people who were called the Scoti, who were Irish immigrants from Ireland, introduced the Gaelic language and Christianity into Scotland, gave Scotland its name. At the centre of Dál Riata Christianity was the monastery founded by Saint Columba on Iona, the small island in the Inner Hebrides. Duror has a medieval church, now a ruin located in Kiel, dedicated to Saint Columba.

It was disused in the days of James Stewart. It is possible that Saint Columba visited Duror, on the dedication of the church. During the 9th century and 10th century, like much of western Scotland, was conquered by the Vikings. During the 14th century and 15th century, the district of Durer was incorporated into lands owned by the Lord of the Isles; this was part Scottish Gaelic speaking principality, ruled by the Clan Macdonalds. Towards the end of the 15th century, the MacDonald Lords lost their power, when in 1493, John MacDonald forfeited his estates and titles to King James IV of Scotland, to their disadvantage. Clan Campbell, from their heartland in Loch Awe and Loch Avich, began to expand their territory across mainland Argyll and into the Hebrides islands The expansion of Clan Campbell meant that the Lord of Lorne, whose title derived from their control of the mid-Argyll district of that name, whose family name was Stewart, who had their family seat at Dunstaffnage Castle lost control of the jurisdiction of the Appin area.

For the next 300 years, the branches of the Clan Campbell's, operating from their stronghold, Barcaldine Castle controlled the land surrounding Appin, an area that the Stewart Lords of Lorn expected to be theirs indefinitely. The Stewarts fought back, John Stewart's son, Dugald Stewart, retreated from Lorn but stubbornly refused to subordinate themselves to their new masters. In the bloody Battle of Stalc, fought in Portnacroish, 7 miles southwest of Duror, now a graveyard. Colin Campbell organized a massive raid against Dugald and his clan losing many men, Dugald destroyed the military strength of the MacFarlanes and killed Alan MacCoul, his father's murderer; the battle solidified Dugald's claim to Appin and the surrounding area, formally granted to him by King James III on 14 April 1470. At the battle of Battle of Inverlochy in 1645, the third battle at Inverlochy, Daniel Colquhoun was granted land at Duror but most of Appin land was retained by the Clan Stewart of Appin until 1766, when the Appin Estate was sold to Hugh Seton of Touch.

In the 1760s, the primary school at Duror was established, where 29 scholars, from a wide range of backgrounds were declared in 1777 to have reached a satisfactory level in reading of English and writing. In 1788, Hugh Seton employed the firm responsible for the Forth and Clyde Canal in project jointly funded by the Forfeited Estates Commission to improve the Water of Duror, long su