Bibliography
Andrewes, A. CAH vol. 5, 2nd edn, ch. 11.
——‘The generals in the Hellespont, 410–407’, JHS 73.
Hignett, C. A History of the Athenian Constitution, ch. 10.
Hornblower, S. The Greek World 479–323 BC, ch. 12.
Kagan, D. The Fall of The Athenian Empire, chs 1, 5–10.
Rhodes, P. J. A Commentary on the Aristotelian ‘Athenaion Politeia’, pp. 362–415.
——‘The Five Thousand in the Athenian revolutions of 411 BC’, JHS 92.
de Ste. Croix, G. E. M. ‘The constitution of The Five Thousand’, Historia 5.
24
SPARTAN FOREIGN POLICY, 404– 387/6
In the first ten years of this period the aims of Spartan foreign policy were twofold: to succeed Athens as the leader of an Aegean-based naval empire, and to strengthen Sparta’s hold on the ‘hegemony’ (leadership) of Greece. However, the success of the armed resistance of Corinth, Boeotia (dominated by Thebes), Argos and a revitalized Athens in the Corinthian War (395–387/6) forced the Spartans in the remaining years to give up their ambition of acquiring Athens’ former naval empire and to concentrate on restoring themselves as the undisputed leaders of Greece. The decisive factor in shaping Spartan foreign policy throughout this period was Persia – Persian gold had paid for the Spartans’ victory over their Greek super-power rival in 404; Persian naval success in the East Aegean and financial help to the Spartans’ opponents in mainland Greece ended their imperial ambitions in Asia Minor and threatened their hegemony of Greece; finally, Persian support of Sparta in the terms of the Peace of Antalcidas (also known as the King’s Peace), in return for Sparta’s betrayal of the Asiatic Greeks to the Persians, ensured Spartan dominance in Greece.
The seeds of discontent and fear among Sparta’s leading allies, Corinth and Thebes, were sown in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Athens in 404. Both allies had wanted the destruction of Athens, but their wishes were ignored by the Spartans who turned Athens into a puppet state by installing a brutal pro-Spartan oligarchy, known as ‘The Thirty Tyrants’ (Diodorus Siculus 14.3.5–7; Xenophon, Hellenica 2.3.2 – the abbreviations ‘D.S.’ and ‘Xen.’ will be used for these works in the rest of the chapter). The Corinthian and Boeotian mistrust of Sparta’s imperial ambitions in Central Greece, exacerbated by the Spartan refusal to share the rich spoils of war, marked the beginning of passive resistance to Sparta which finally broke out into active warfare in 395, when the Quadruple Alliance of Corinth, Boeotia, Argos and Athens engaged in the Corinthian War – so called because most of the fighting on land took place around Corinth. The chief cause of this war was the growth of Spartan power over the Asiatic Greeks at the expense of Persia, and the fear that this caused among the leading states of Greece. They believed that the Spartans, if successful against the Persians, would use their supremacy by land and by sea, on both sides of the Aegean, to establish a Spartan Empire in Greece – signs of which were evident from Sparta’s aggressive behaviour in Greece during this period. Although there is a direct interrelation between Sparta’s conflict with Persia in Asia Minor and that with the states of the Quadruple Alliance in Greece, it is probably easier to gain an understanding of the first period of Spartan foreign policy (404–395/4) and the causes of the Corinthian War by concentrating on the events in each region in turn.
Asia Minor, 404–394
The decisive turning-point in the Peloponnesian War (431–404) came after the signing of the so-called Treaty of Boiotios in 407 by the Spartans and Darius II, the King of Persia (see Chapter 22). Darius agreed to support the Spartan war effort far more effectively than before, sending his son Cyrus as the commander of all the Persian forces in the West (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.9.7) to liaise closely with the Spartans, and giving him sufficient gold to pay for the Peloponnesian fleet. It is reasonable to believe that the Spartans, for their part, recognized the Persian king’s right to collect tribute from the Ionian Greeks, although they were allowed to be in some way autonomous – possibly a guarantee of no Persian garrison – provided that they paid their tribute. The Spartans probably also agreed to remove their armed forces from Asia Minor at the end of the war. The personal rapport and close cooperation between Cyrus and Lysander, the naval commander of the Spartan forces in Asia Minor, brought about the defeat of the Athenian fleet at Aegospotamoi in 405 and the Athenian surrender in 404. Then, it is believed, the Spartans removed their armed forces from Asia Minor in that year.
This did not mean, however, that the Spartans gave up all connections with the Greeks in Asia Minor. Lysander was the dominant figure in Spartan politics at this time, and his and Sparta’s aim was as far as possible to take over the Athenian Empire, although there was a major difference of opinion with regard to the means of imperial control:
Lysander established oligarchies in some cities, and decarchies in others.
(D.S. 14.13.1)
‘Decarchies’ were brutal narrow oligarchies with political power vested in a ruling committee of ten men. It is impossible to know, due to a lack of evidence, which of the two constitutions was more widespread or how they differed in operation, but it is believed that the decarchies were more common, since they were filled with the personal supporters of Lysander (Plutarch, Lysander 13) who was in charge of establishing Spartan control over Athens’ former subjects. These oligarchies and decarchies were usually supported by a garrison of troops under the command of a Spartan ‘harmost’ (controller). The surrender of Athens in 404 would have led to the removal of the harmosts and garrisons in Asia Minor, but not the decarchies. It was only in late 403 or early 402, when Lysander’sinfluence was on the wane, engineered by his political rival King Pausanias, that the Spartan ‘Ephors’ (see Chapter 4) abolished the unpopular decarchies (Xen. 3.4.2). This action, far from a Spartan pullout of Persian Asia Minor, was merely the prelude to a series of military campaigns against Artaxerxes II, the elder son and successor in c.404 of Darius II.
In 404, Cyrus, although suspected of plotting to overthrow his brother, returned through the help of his influential mother to his ‘satrapy’ (province) in western Asia Minor, except that the cities of Ionia were now under the responsibility of Tissaphernes, the ‘satrap’ (provincial governor) of Caria. From 404 to 401, Cyrus made his preparations to launch his coup against Artaxerxes II. He encouraged the Ionian cities to revolt from Tissaphernes, placed garrisons in their cities as protection and secretly gathered a force of Greek mercenaries (Xenophon, Anabasis 1.1.6–9). Then he appealed to Sparta for help:
Cyrus, having sent messengers to Sparta, appealed to them to be the same sort of friends to himself as he had been to them in the war against the Athenians. The ephors, thinking that his was a reasonable appeal, ordered Samius, their admiral at that time, to help Cyrus in whatever way he wanted. Indeed that man eagerly carried out whatever Cyrus asked of him.
(Xen. 3.1.1)
With the active military support of the Spartans Cyrus rebelled from Artaxerxes in 401, and launched his expedition against Persia. The march of his army, the battle of Cunaxa against Artaxerxes, the death of Cyrus in this battle and the return to Greece of Cyrus’ 10,000 Greek mercenaries under the command of Xenophon are recounted in Xenophon’s Anabasis (March Up-Country). It is clear that the Spartans’ military aid to Cyrus was motivated, not only by the obligation to repay a favour, but also by the expectation of a reward: the campaigns of 400–394 suggest that the addition of the Asiatic Greeks to their growing Empire was in the forefront of their minds. Instead they gained the bitter hatred of Artaxerxes.
Artaxerxes repaid Tissaphernes’ loyalty by giving him Cyrus’ satrapy, including the cities of Ionia. Tissaphernes’ prestige and pocket had been affected by the revolt of these cities to Cyrus, and so:
he immediately demanded that all the Ionian cities should be his subjects. But they, wanting to be free and fearing Tissaphernes because they had chosen Cyrus, while alive, instead of him, did not receive him into their citi
es, but sent ambassadors to the Spartans to appeal to them, as the champions of the whole of Greece, to protect also the Greeks in Asia, so that their land might not be devastated and that they themselves might be free.
(Xen. 3.1.3)
It seems likely that Tissaphernes intended to occupy the cities of Ionia on the grounds that the Spartans had broken the so-called Treaty of Boiotios (407) by aiding the revolt of Cyrus, and therefore the autonomy of these Asiatic Greeks was forfeit. This appeal gave the Spartans the legitimate (in their opinion) excuse to intervene in Asia Minor, and so a force was despatched under the command of the Spartan Thibron who was supported by troops from the Asiatic Greek cities:
For at that time all the cities obeyed whatever order was given by a Lacedaimonian [i.e. a Spartan].
(Xen. 3.1.5)
The Spartans’ ultimatum to Tissaphernes –‘not to bear arms against the Greek cities’ (D.S. 14.35.6) – portrayed them as defenders of the Asiatic Greeks, and thus allowed them to install harmosts and bring the cities under their control.
The Spartans had openly declared war on Persia, and thus had committed themselves to extensive campaigning in Asia Minor, which could be successful only if large military forces (including a siege train) were deployed. Consequently the campaigns of Thibron in 400 (D.S. 14.36–37.4; Xen. 3.1.4–7) and his successor Dercylidas from 399–397 (D.S. 14.38.2–3, 39.5–6; Xen. 3.1.8–10, 1.16–2.11) were only moderately successful owing to a lack of cavalry and effective siege equipment. Dercylidas’ most prominent success was to gain control of the Troad, the territory on the eastern side of the Hellespont, which had belonged to Pharnabazus, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia. Yet, by the end of 399, he had made truces with both Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes, which he was pleased to renew in 398, while he strengthened Spartan influence in the Thracian Chersonese, on the western side of the Hellespont (D.S. 14.38.3, 6–7; Xen. 3.2.8–10).
By 397, the Ionian cities wanted their autonomy from Tissaphernes, which had been achieved by Spartan armed intervention, to be established on a formal, legal basis. Therefore they sent an embassy to Sparta, claiming:
if Caria, where Tissaphernes had his home, were to suffer badly, he would very quickly allow themselves [i.e. the Ionian cities] to be autonomous.
(Xen. 3.2.12)
The Spartans were attracted by this strategy and ordered Dercylidas to invade Caria. In the event Dercylidas was forced to return when he heard that a large army, under the command of Tissaphernes with Pharnabazus as his second-in-command, had made a move against Ionia (D.S. 14.39.4; Xen. 3.2.14). A truce was made between both sides in order to establish the terms on which peace could be made: Dercylidas required the Persians to allow the Greek cities to be autonomous; Tissaphernes required the removal of the Greek army from what the Persians considered the King’s land and of the Spartan harmosts from the cities in Asia Minor (D.S. 14.39.5–6; Xen. 3.2.20). The truce was to last until these proposals were reported to Sparta and Artaxerxes. However, both sides were preparing for an intensification of the war.
Artaxerxes was by now very worried about the Spartans’ aims in Asia Minor and their capability of carrying them out. The Spartans were in possession of the former naval empire of the Athenians, but unlike them, also had the means as a formidable land power to strike deep into the King’s territory in Asia Minor. It was in 397 that Pharnabazus gave the King excellent advice – to concentrate on the war at sea. If the Spartan fleet, based at Rhodes, was decisively beaten, then communications between the army in Asia Minor and mainland Greece would be cut, thus forcing the recall of this army. Artaxerxes, therefore, authorized a major naval rearmament programme, and the truces with Dercylidas and his successor King Agesilaos were designed to buy time for the build-up of this fleet. This policy was supported by Evagoras, the ruler of Salamis in Cyprus, who used his influence to secure the appointment of the very able Conon, one of the two Athenian generals to escape from the battle of Aegospotamoi in 405, as admiral of the fleet (D.S. 14.39.1). This decision by Artaxerxes proved to be the turning point in the war in Asia Minor, culminating in the naval battle of Cnidus in 394 when the Spartans were totally defeated and Persia regained control of Ionia.
But in 397, the Spartans were still confident that they could maintain their control over the Asiatic Greeks – hence Dercylidas’ conditions to Tissaphernes for peace. However, news of the build-up of the Persian navy under Conon provoked the Spartans into a more ambitious foreign policy against Persia. Extra forces from the Peloponnesian League allies were summoned and the new King Agesilaos, supported by Lysander, was appointed to lead the expedition (D.S. 14.79.1; Xen. 3.4.1–3). No Spartan king had ever previously campaigned in Asia Minor, and his appointment is clear evidence of the increasing importance that the Spartans attached to Asia Minor. This campaign of Agesilaos also had major repercussions in Greece, where the major anti-Spartan cities, fearing that Spartan success in Asia Minor would lead eventually to their subjection, began to turn their thoughts to active resistance (see next section).
Agesilaos was successful in his land campaigns, causing great damage to and gaining much booty from the satrapy of Pharnabazus in 396 and 395, and inflicting an overwhelming defeat on Tissaphernes’ strengthened army at the battle of Sardis in 395. This disastrous Persian failure led to the execution of Tissaphernes by order of Artaxerxes and the appointment of Tithraustes, the Grand Vizier of the whole Persian Empire, as his successor (D.S. 14.80.7). Tithraustes’ offer from Artaxerxes reaffirmed the autonomy of the Ionian cities, which Tissaphernes had attempted to remove:
The King thinks it right that Agesilaos should sail home, and that the cities in Asia should be autonomous and pay the ancient tribute to the king himself.
(Xen. 3.4.25)
In other words, Artaxerxes was offering a return to the so-called Treaty of Boiotios of 407, which would result in the Spartan evacuation of Asia.
This offer was the real test of the honesty of Sparta’s intentions in Asia Minor, since the cities of Ionia had only appealed to the Spartans in 400 because of Tissaphernes’ intentions to violate this agreement. Agesilaos replied that he needed to refer this proposal to the authorities in Sparta; but the hollowness of the Spartans’ claim to be the protectors of the Asiatic Greeks and the extent of their imperialistic aims were revealed by Agesilaos’ immediate attack on Pharnabazus and by his appointment as joint commander of the army and the navy:
The Spartans did this in the belief that, if the same man was in command of both, the land army would be much stronger, for the strength of both would be combined into one; and this would be the same for the fleet, for the army would appear wherever it was needed.
(Xen. 3.4.27)
In addition, Agesilaos ordered the islands and the coastal cities to build a new force of ‘triremes’, which resulted in an increase of 120 ships for the Spartan fleet (Xen. 3.4.28). The Spartans’ aim to increase their Empire in Asia Minor was apparent for all to see, both in Persia and in mainland Greece.
Thus it was in the interests of both the Persians and the anti-Spartan states in Greece to cooperate in their opposition to Sparta. Persia had begun this process by sending Timocrates of Rhodes in 396 with gold to persuade Thebes, Corinth, Argos and Athens to make war upon the Spartans, although they needed little persuasion (Xen. 3.5.1–2, although wrongly dated). The opening battle of the Corinthian War at Haliartus in 395 was brought about by the Thebans who tempted the Spartans into a campaign against Boeotia. The defeat of one Spartan force under Lysander, who had returned previously to Sparta, and the humiliating retreat of the other under King Pausanias led to the recall of Agesilaos and most of his forces from Asia Minor (D.S. 14.81.2–3, 83.1). Finally, the destruction of the Spartan fleet under Peisandros, who had been appointed as admiral by Agesilaos despite his lack of naval experience, by Conon and Pharnabazus at the battle of Cnidus in 394 destroyed forever the Spartans’ naval empire in Ionia, the Hellespont and the Aegean islands (D.S. 14.83.4–7).
The main aim
of Spartan foreign policy in the second period (395/4–387/6) was to prevent the loss of their hegemony of Greece by waging war against the coalition of Greek states, which were being aided by Persian gold and military support. It is necessary, therefore, to give an account and explanation of how Spartan imperial ambitions in Greece, in addition to (but interlinked with) those in Asia Minor, increased the fears of the main cities in Greece and finally stirred them from passive resistance (404–395) to open warfare in the Corinthian War (395–387/6).
Greece, 404–395
The realization of Sparta’s imperial ambitions in Greece began with the installation of the Thirty Tyrants in Athens in 404, thus creating a Spartan puppet state, but the planning can be dated to 413 after the Athenians’ disaster in Sicily:
The Spartans reckoned that they themselves, having defeated the Athenians, would now securely dominate the whole of Greece.
(Thucydides 8.2.4)
Spartan foreign policy had radically changed since 431, when they had gone to war against Athens, proclaiming the liberation of the Greeks as their objective (Thuc. 1.139.3). The Corinthians had already harboured doubts about Spartan intentions as far back as 421, when they feared that Sparta’s fifty-year defensive alliance with Athens was designed to enslave the Peloponnese (Thuc. 5.27). Although the Boeotians had not shared these anxieties in 421, they were now deeply concerned by the Spartan refusal to destroy Athens, rightly thinking that Lysander would impose a rabidly proSpartan decarchy (in the event, a thirty-man committee) on Athens, as he had done throughout the Athenian Empire, in order to challenge Boeotian dominance in central Greece. The employment of decarchies, garrisons and harmosts, combined with the levying of tribute of over 1,000 talents per year from Athens’ former subject-allies (D.S. 14.10.2), bore all the hallmarks of imperialism.
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 61