Environmental determinism essentially means where you live has a direct correlation with how you live. Countries that need to focus on hunting and gathering cannot focus on other aspects of their society like military power, religion, technology and education. Geographic luck is another factor of environmental determinism. Geographic luck means that people have strong advantages to their lives because of where they currently live. Environmental determinism allowed countries to grow their military power and allowed them to enhance their weaponry, which was shown during the Peloponnesian War, the Punic Wars and the Viking Invasions. During the period of Ancient Greece, the Peloponnesian War showed military changes because of …show more content…

The Athenians sent 130 ships in one final effort to attack in Sicily ("Peloponnesian War."). Because of environmental determinism however, the Syracusians were able to upgrade their navy with a new piece of equipment, which rammed the ships and damaged them on water, which made them not mobile and sink. In this battle the Athenians lost twenty thousand people, and that was enough for the Persians to get involved in the war and ally with Sparta. Environmental determinism takes a big part in this move, because the Persian army was now attacking from the east, while the Spartans were attacking from the west and the Athenians were conquered. Because of where Athens was situated, they could not even flee from the incoming attacks, because they were surrounded by the Persians coming over the water, and the Spartans coming by land.
In conclusion, the Spartans were successful in defeating the Athenians by outsmarting them with new tactics that were studied and by defeating them with a stronger army, which they were able to create because of environmental determinism. Environmental determinism influenced other parts of history too, as shown in Punic Wars in the period of Ancient Rome.

During the three Punic Wars fought by Rome and Carthage, Rome was successful because of military power and strategies they could develop because of environmental determinism. Before the Punic Wars started, Carthage extremely wealthy and was the most technologically advanced city in