Farms were the most important source of income for Greeks, and were usually tended by the owner or renters. Huge plantations were very rare at this point.
Non-agrarian labour such as tanning, pottery etc was relatively unimportant and a lot of it was done by women.
Slaves: slaves were probably not very abundant around 500, because farming was of a smaller scale and therefore there wasn't much need for slaves. Slaves wree a status symbol though, and besides were important for light industry (pottery and various crafts)This lead these occupations to getting a stigma of being a "slaves job". If you were really unlucky, your master sent you to work in the mines...
Women: women were pretty bad positioned in Ionian cities. Because they were seen as inferiour, but also to guard their decency, they were practicly always kept indoors. Women usually wed at an early age, to older males- around 14 years and 20 years respectively in Athens.
In Sparta, and other Doric communities, women had it better but weren't equal to men by a long shot.

Wars
After the Persian wars Sparta turn isolationist for fear of her own position on the Peloponnesse, the Helot revolts are a perfect example of that. Athens however became powerful as they managed to achieve hegemonia over the Agean sea.
The Dellian-Attic league, named so because the treasury was located on Dellos and Athens was the chief contributor, de facto became an imperium. The treasury was relocated to Athens around 450, supposedly for safety reasons.
The stages had been set for the Peloponnesian war.

When conflict started Perikles chose a defensive strategy, retreating behind walls. Most of Attika was abandoned and all food was delivered by sea. This strategy worked well enough but an epidemic in 430-429 behind the walls cost the lives of many, including Perikles.
After that Athens started making offensive moves, largely due to the politician Alkibiades. Many of them were disastrous, especially the Siciliy expedition: Alkibiades fell from grace and then betrayed Athens as he convinced the Spartans to intervene.
Alkibiades treachery wasn't limited to that, he fell out of favour of the Spartans and he defected to the Persians, to whom he proved a valuable advisor. The Persians supported the Spartans with money wich is why the Spartans won in the end, chiefly because it could afford them a huge navy.
Finally the Spartans, under leadership of Lysander crushingly defeated the Athenian navy at the Hellespont in 405, after wich Athens was unable to get their much needed grain from the Black Sea. The nex year Lysander took his fleet to Piraeus, the Athenian harbour, and Athens was forced to capitulate.

That was an incomplete summary. I now own "The Peloponnesian War" by Donald Kagan, but I haven't started on it yet.