Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC)

by Terry Buckley

  In the second half of the sixth century (549–500) the Spartans undertook a policy of expelling tyrants and establishing pro-Spartan oligarchies. In 508, King Cleomenes and the Spartans intervened in the internal politics of Athens, attempting to establish a pro-Spartan narrow oligarchy against the wishes of the Athenians, but were forced to withdraw in humiliating circumstances (see Chapter 4 for a fuller discussion). Therefore, in accordance with the terms of the alliances, the Spartans called upon their allies to supply their military contingents without telling them the precise objective of the expedition. It was only when the Peloponnesians reached the borders of Attica that Cleomenes’ objective became clear. At this point the Corinthians refused to fight, rightly fearing that any interference in a state’s government would set a dangerous precedent for them all. Their withdrawal, followed by Cleomenes’ co-king Demaratus and the rest of the allies, forced the Spartans to abandon the expedition (Herodotus 5.75–76). This was the first time that the Spartans’ authority to do whatever they wanted militarily and to make the allies comply with their wishes had been challenged. Soon after, the allies were invited to Sparta in order to discuss a further invasion of Attica; the majority of the allies were opposed and so the Spartans gave up their plans (Herodotus 5.91–93). This was the key turning point in the history of Sparta’s relations with her Peloponnesian allies: it was from this event that the Peloponnesian League could be said to have come into existence.

  Constitution of the Peloponnesian League

  It is easier to establish the constitution of this League than that of the Delian League owing to the fact that Thucydides clearly shows the operation of the League’s decision-making process, and states some of the major terms of agreement. It was a bicameral league with the Spartans in one chamber, i.e. the Spartan Assembly, and the rest of the allies in the other. Each chamber was constitutionally equal and therefore the veto by one chamber would prevent any proposed policy from being implemented. However, the Spartans did have one vital advantage in that they alone had the formal power to initiate policy. If the allies themselves wanted action on any particular issue, they had to persuade the Spartans to discuss and vote upon the matter in the Spartan Assembly; then and only then, if there was Spartan approval, would formal discussion be allowed in their chamber. If the Spartans in their chamber decided upon no action, then no meeting of the allies’ chamber and no discussion on the issue would take place. The best evidence of the League in operation comes from the events of 432 in the build-up to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431.

  By 432, relations between Corinth, Sparta’s ally, and Athens had deteriorated dramatically and they had clashed in open warfare (see Chapter 17). The Corinthians wanted the Spartans and the League to declare war on the Athenians. Their first task was to encourage the Spartans to discuss the issue:

  The Corinthians therefore immediately urged the allies to go to Sparta. They, upon coming there, violently attacked the Athenians for having broken the truce and for committing injustices against the Peloponnese.

  (Thucydides 1.67.1)

  As a result the Spartans issued an invitation to all her allies and to anyone else who claimed to have suffered from Athenian aggression (Thuc. 1.67.3). Representatives from various states came forward and put their complaints before the Spartans in their Assembly (Thuc. 1.67.4–78). It is now that the first stage of the decision-making process comes into operation:

  When the Spartans had heard the complaints made by her allies against Athens … they, removing everyone else, discussed the present situation among themselves.

  (Thucydides 1.79.1)

  After much discussion (Thuc. 1.79.2–86), with King Archidamus arguing against any hasty action and the ‘Ephor’ Sthenelaidas urging war:

  The Spartans, standing up, split into two divisions. The great majority were of the opinion that the treaty had been broken.

  (Thucydides 1.87.3)

  The Spartans immediately informed the representatives of the allies who were present of their vote for war (Thuc. 1.87.4). These representatives returned home, and then the Spartans summoned a League Congress since:

  they [i.e. the Spartans] wanted to put to the vote the issue of whether war should be declared.

  (Thucydides 1.119)

  The second stage of decision-making was now underway. The allies in their chamber had a general debate about the issue (Thuc. 1.119–24), in which the Corinthians played the leading role:

  The Spartans, when they had heard everyone’s opinion, put the vote city by city to all the allies, who were present both great and small. The majority voted to go to war.

  (Thucydides 1.125)

  Thus with both chambers having voted in agreement, war could now be declared. In the same way both chambers’ agreement would be needed to declare peace.

  All the states in the League Congress had to accept the majority verdict, even though they may have voted against the proposal. However, there existed an opt-out clause which allowed a state to refuse to comply with the majority decision –‘unless the gods or heroes prevented it’ (Thuc. 5.30.3). An excellent example of this opt-out clause in operation comes from the events following the Peace of Nicias in 421. Both chambers of the League had voted in favour of the peace treaty (Thuc. 5.17.2). The Corinthians, however, had voted against acceptance in the allies’ chamber because, among other things, they had not received back some of their former territory from the Athenians (Thuc. 5.30.2). This dissatisfaction led the Corinthians to refuse to accept the peace treaty and even to contemplate leaving the League. When the Spartans rebuked them for not abiding by the majority vote of the allies (Thuc. 5.30.1), the Corinthians claimed that it was impossible for them to agree to the terms of the Peace of Nicias. They claimed that they could not betray their allies in Thrace, to whom they had sworn separate oaths earlier in 432 and had given other guarantees later. Therefore they were not breaking their oaths to the Peloponnesians:

  For, having sworn guarantees in the name of the gods to those in Thrace, they would betray them if they did not stay true to their oath; the phrase used was ‘unless the gods or heroes prevented it’ and this seemed to them to be a situation of the gods preventing it.

  (Thucydides 5.30.3–4)

  Each of these alliances was probably an individual one between Sparta and the individual state, since the League developed from these individual alliances in the sixth century. This meant that wars between individual members of the Peloponnesian League, who were not necessarily allied to each other, could and did occur, whereas in the Delian League with its oath ‘to have the same friends and enemies’, sworn communally by all the members, private wars were forbidden (although they did sometimes take place, for example, Samos and Miletus in 440). The alliances were permanent and no ally was allowed to secede unless it could claim that the Spartans had broken the terms of the alliance, thereby releasing the ally from its obligations to Sparta. Firm evidence for this comes from the Corinthian speech to the Spartans in 432, when they put the point that Sparta’s inactivity towards Athenian aggression could lead to a mass secession from the League:

  ‘Do not let your friends and kinsmen fall into the hands of their bitterest enemies. Do not drive the rest of us in despair to seek a different alliance. … The people who break alliances are not those who join others because they have been deserted, but those who do not give the help they swore to give.’

  (Thucydides 1.71.4)

  Once the fighting began Sparta completely controlled all military operations, deciding the campaigns to be fought, the strategy to be employed and supplying the generals in the field.

  Sparta, 478–462/1

  In 478/7, the Athenians helped to found the Delian League and took over the leadership of Greece in the war against Persia. This was bound to cause some reaction on the part of the Spartans, who had previously been the undisputed leading power in Greece and had just led the Greeks in a stunning defence of their homeland. There is an apparent conflict between the literary so
urces over the Spartans’ reaction to Athens gaining this new position of authority. On the one hand, Herodotus believed that Athens’ promotion arose from political opportunism:

  The Athenians, using the arrogance of Pausanias as an excuse, seized the leadership from the Spartans.

  (Herodotus 8.3)

  If the Spartans perceived the Athenians exploiting this embarrassing episode for advancing their position, they are likely to have felt aggrieved at the Athenians’ opportunism and fearful of their ambition. These feelings of anger and fear were given expression in a debate, recorded by Diodorus under the year 475, in which the Spartans were discussing in their Assembly a motion about regaining the hegemony of Greece by force:

  The Spartans, having let slip the leadership of the sea for no good reason, were moved to anger. … Having convened the Gerusia, they discussed about making war on the Athenians. … In the same way, when a general Assembly was convened, the younger men and a majority of the others were keen to recover the leadership.

  (Diodorus 11.50.1–3)

  It is clear that a large majority were eager to attack Athens and to re-assert by warfare Sparta’s position as the dominant state in Greece. It was the speech of a certain Hetoemaridas that convinced them that it was not in Sparta’s interest to lay claim to the sea. He presumably realized that Sparta, owing to its unique situation with the Helots and its natural inclination towards land warfare, could not easily and safely adapt to becoming a successful sea-power.

  On the basis of Herodotus and Diodorus, the Spartans resented Athens taking over the leadership of Greece and were even prepared to wage war against a fellow Hellenic League ally. On the other hand, Thucydides records a very different reaction on the part of the Spartans:

  they[the Spartans] wanted to be rid of the Persian wars, and thought that the Athenians were quite able to exercise leadership and were currently friendly to them.

  (Thucydides 1.95.7; AE7 p. 13)

  According to Thucydides, the transfer of the leadership appeared to be very amicable with Sparta being most willing to pass over the burdensome task to Athens. These sentiments reflect the attitude of Hetoemaridas in the above debate in Diodorus. However, there is no need to see a conflict between these sources, as they reveal the existence of two factions, which vied with each other throughout the fifth century for control of Spartan foreign policy. In modern politics it is customary to refer to those who contend for influence over or control of foreign policy as ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’, and these terms will be used for the two Spartan factions.

  The Spartan hawks resented the Athenians’ success in the Persian War, but of much greater concern was their fear of the Athenians’ growing power and confidence. This fear was shown most clearly in 479 immediately after the battle of Plataea, when the Athenians were attempting to rebuild their city walls. The Spartans sent an embassy to dissuade the Athenians:

  It was partly that they themselves would rather see neither the Athenians nor anyone else having a wall, but more that their allies were urging them, frightened of the size of the Athenian fleet … and of the daring which the Athenians had shown in the Persian war.

  (Thucydides 1.90.1; AE4 p. 10)

  The Greek dead were hardly cold in their graves and already the Spartans were less concerned with Persia and were directing their attention towards the Athenians. Athens without defensive walls would leave the Athenians totally exposed and vulnerable to a Spartan land invasion, and thus they could be blackmailed at any time to do Sparta’s bidding. The Spartans had as much to fear as their allies of Athens’ massive navy and daring, and would have needed very little urging to ensure Athens’ vulnerability. The foundation of the Delian League and the Athenians’ potential to increase their power through its leadership would have provoked even greater fear among the hawks. Fundamentally the Spartan hawks refused to accept Athens as an equal, independent super-power. They believed that the only guarantee of safety for Sparta was to possess the sole hegemony of Greece by land and by sea.

  The Spartan doves on the other hand accepted the limitations on their foreign policy in Greece. They were well aware of the constant threat that the Helots posed and that a dynamic foreign policy would expose the Spartans to excessive risk. If they were to over-stretch themselves, there was every danger of their suffering a serious defeat, which would inevitably provoke a Helot revolt. A successful Helot revolt would undermine the whole basis of Spartan power and lead to its collapse. Therefore the policy of the Spartan doves was twofold: first, the Spartans must maintain their supremacy in the Peloponnese, as this guaranteed her status as an influential super-power in Greek affairs; second, they had to accept the policy of ‘dual hegemony’, i.e. the sharing of the leadership of Greece with the Athenians. Athens’ sea power and control of the Aegean were vital for the liberty of Greece and Sparta. If the Athenians were crushed and the Delian League broke up, there would be a power vacuum in the Aegean, which Sparta as a traditional land power would find the greatest difficulty in filling. The obvious inheritor of the Athenians’ position in the Aegean would be Persia, whose hopes of conquering Greece would have been greatly improved, since Greece would have been severely weakened by the loss of the Athenians’ fleet.

  At different times throughout the fifth century these two factions held sway over Spartan foreign policy, according to their ability to win over the Spartan Assembly to their views, and in the immediate aftermath of the Persian War there was a struggle between the hawks and doves to gain control. The hawks supported Pausanias’ vigorous campaign with the Hellenic League fleet against Cyprus and Byzantium in 478 (Thuc. 1.94; AE7 p. 13) and most probably his later activities at Byzantium and at Colonae in north-west Asia Minor (Thuc. 1.131), even though it was claimed that he was acting as a private individual. It is very possible that Hetoemaridas was a supporter of the policy of the Spartan doves, but he may have favoured a third foreign policy option that was available to the Spartans in 478, which was a less ambitious version of the policy of the hawks: the abandonment of the war at sea against Persia, but the extension of Spartan power in central and northern Greece, especially Boeotia and Thessaly. The rewards for gaining control of Thessaly were particularly attractive: first, it was wealthy and fertile (Xenophon, Hellenica 6.1); second, its cavalry was the best in Greece; third, it was strategically well-positioned for access to Thrace and, even more importantly, to the Hellespont through which the Athenian grain-ships – so vital for the feeding of the Athenian population – had to sail; finally, it had the presidency of and controlled the Amphictyonic Congress (a religious league whose function was to run the Delphic sanctuary but possessing political influence). The Spartans had already attempted, probably in 478, to have the medizing states of Thessaly, Boeotia and Argos expelled as members in order to guarantee Spartan domination of the Congress, but were thwarted by Themistocles’ oratory (Plutarch, Themistocles 20). However, at some time between 478 and 476, King Leotychidas, the victor at Mycale in 479, was sent on a military expedition to Thessaly, but a massive bribe allegedly prevented him from bringing Thessaly under Spartan control. As a result he was brought before a court, exiled from Sparta and went to live in Tegea (Herodotus 6.72).

  By 475, however, the aggressive foreign policy of the hawks had been discredited by the disgrace of its two most powerful advocates, Leotychidas and Pausanias, and the doves seem to have regained the initiative. Hetoemaridas had persuaded the Spartans not to go to war with the Athenians in order to regain the hegemony of Greece by force. Moreover, it was probably argued, the Persians were still a danger to Greece and the Athenians were doing a fine job by gradually removing this threat; the pro-Spartan Cimon was the dominant politician in Athens (see Chapter 11); and the Athenians were treating their Delian League allies fairly. However in c.471 serious cracks in the Delian League’s unity began to appear. Naxos had revolted and, after being crushed by the Athenians, became the first subjectally (Thuc. 1.98.4; AE29 p. 21). Then in 469 at the battle of Eurymedon Persia suffered an
overwhelming defeat, which virtually removed any future Persian danger to the Aegean (Thuc. 1.100.1; AE29 p. 21). Soon after this the Delian League allies, feeling that the aim of the League had been achieved, became increasingly restless and rebellious. The Athenians’ response was tough and imperialistic, putting down revolts and creating more subject-allies (Thuc. 1.99; AE29 p. 21). From 471, the Athenians’ behaviour would have confirmed the worst fears of the Spartan hawks, and it would have been expected of them to demand military action to curb the growing power of the Athenians. Yet there is no recorded Spartan reaction to the Athenians’ growing imperialism until 465 and the revolt of Thasos. Why was this? The clue lies in a fragment of Philochorus, a much-respected Atthidographer (see Glossary):