The resistance to Sparta began with the acceptance of Athenian refugees, the exiled opponents of the Thirty Tyrants, by Corinth, Megara, Elis, Argos and especially Thebes, contrary to Spartan orders (D.S. 14.6.2–3; Demosthenes 15.22; Xen. 2.4.1). Furthermore, the Thebans encouraged and helped Thrasybulus to launch his democratic coup against the pro-Spartan Thirty Tyrants in the winter of 404/3 (D.S. 14.32.1; Xen. 2.4.2–19). When King Pausanias arrived in Attica with the Peloponnesian League forces to resolve the factional strife inside Athens:
All the allies followed him except the Boeotians and the Corinthians. For these said that they would not be keeping their oaths if they were to make an expedition against the Athenians who had not broken the treaty. But they did this because they knew that the Spartans wanted to make the territory of the Athenians their own definite possession.
(Xen. 2.4.30)
This disobedience greatly angered the Spartans and, although they were not able at this time to punish the Boeotians, it was one of the Spartans’ motives for attacking them in 395 (Xen. 3.5.5).
The Spartans, however, did have the power to attack Elis in 401, and thus restored Spartan supremacy in the Peloponnese (D.S. 14.34.1). Their grievances against the Eleans were that they had made an anti-Spartan alliance with the Athenians, Argives and the Mantineans after the Peace of Nicias; had prevented the Spartans from competing in the Olympic Games; and had forbidden King Agis from sacrificing there (Xen. 3.2.21–22). The Spartans imposed harsh terms upon Elis, including the establishment of a harmost and a garrison – probably the only one in the Peloponnese (Xen. 3.2.29). Once again, the Boeotians and the Corinthians showed their disapproval of this Spartan high-handed behaviour by refusing to send their quota of troops (Xen. 3.2.25).
The Spartans, apart from consolidating their hold on the Peloponnese and central Greece, were also determined to become the dominant power in northern Greece, especially in Thessaly. There is evidence that Sparta was playing a major role in c.400 in the politics of Thessaly, which at this time was a loose federation with three major centres at Larissa, Pharsalus and Pherae. In the speech ‘About the Constitution’ by ‘Herodes’, the citizens of Larissa in Thessaly were urged to join the Spartans in fighting King Archelaus of Macedon who had seized the border land between the two states. In addition, it is known from Diodorus (14.82) that a Spartan garrison had been installed at Pharsalus in Thessaly; and from Xenophon (6.4.24) that Lycophron of Pherae was a Spartan ally. Thus the Spartans were very influential and active in the three major political centres of Thessaly. Furthermore, Herippidas was sent out as a harmost in 400 to restore Spartan rule in Heraclea in Trachis, a Spartan colony (established in 426) situated in the south of Thessaly, close to Thermopylae (D.S. 14.38.4–5). This colony was strategically very important as it commanded the road into Thessaly and was an excellent base for operations against Boeotia. It is hardly surprising that the Boeotians feared this encirclement of their territory, and saw in it the Spartan desire to curb Boeotia’s growing influence as an important Greek power in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War.
The Spartan campaigns in Asia Minor under Thibron (400) and Dercylidas (399–397), although conducted officially to liberate the Asiatic Greeks from Persia (Xen. 3.1.3–4), were viewed with increasing concern by the major cities in Greece. The Athenians had already shown in the fifth century that an empire, based upon the Aegean and Asia Minor, had the potential to bring the whole of Greece under its control – as Alexander confirmed later in the fourth century. They feared that, if the Spartans were to add this same empire to their dominant position in the Peloponnese and to their military influence in central and northern Greece, it would be only a matter of time before they were all crushed: Boeotia, Corinth and Argos would be encircled by land and by sea, and the Athenians’ supply of grain from the Black Sea would be cut off by the Spartan occupation of the Hellespont, as happened under Lysander in 405–404. However, the current strength of Sparta by land and by sea, the lack of finance to wage a long war and the hostility between the Boeotians and the Athenians militated against active opposition in the first few years of the 390s. It was only in 396 and 395, when the threat from Agesilaos’ expedition to Asia became too powerful to be ignored and when these factors, which had limited the ability of Sparta’s enemies to hit back, were resolved, that the Quadruple Alliance came together to stop Spartan expansionism.
In 396, King Agesilaos, having gained the disputed Spartan kingship in c.400 with the direct help of Lysander, was appointed to lead a military campaign in Asia Minor. No Spartan king had previously campaigned on the mainland of Asia Minor, and this clearly showed the increased importance that the Spartans were giving to this theatre of war. Furthermore, he was to be helped by Lysander who:
wanted to campaign in person with Agesilaos in order to restore, with his help, the decarchies which had previously been established by him in the cities.
(Xen. 3.4.2)
Memories of Lysander’s blatant imperialism during 405–403, his likely future intentions and his influence with Agesilaos spread great alarm among the other states, especially when Agesilaos made known his intention to sacrifice at Aulis, like a latter-day Agamemnon, before leading the Greeks against Troy (Xen. 3.4.3) – thus signifying Agesilaos’ belief that he could win a decisive victory over the Persians in Asia Minor. The Boeotians, the Corinthians and, for the first time since 404, the Athenians refused to send their required contingents of troops to Agesilaos. More evidence of Sparta’s growing imperial ambitions beyond Greece is shown by the despatch of 30 ships to help Dionysius I, the tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, against the Carthaginians (D.S. 14.63). The Spartans had been cultivating these political links with Dionysius I from 404, when they sent the Spartan Aretes to consolidate the tyrant’s recently acquired (405) and seriously threatened position (D.S. 14.10). Thus, by 396, Spartan expansion in Greece, Asia Minor, Sicily and even Egypt (equipment and grain was sent by the rebel Pharaoh in 396 to help the Spartans in their war against Persia – D.S. 14.79) provided a greater incentive for their enemies to go to war.
The Boeotian Confederacy, dominated by Thebes, was the first to show open opposition by deliberately sending a force of cavalry to break up Agesilaos’ sacrifice at Aulis (Xen. 3.4.4) – a Boeotian insult which he never forgot nor forgave.
The apparently unending chronicle of Spartan military success received its first major (and, for the campaign in Asia Minor, the most decisive) setback when the Athenian Conon, acting as a vice-admiral of the Persian fleet, brought about the revolt of Rhodes, their chief naval base, in summer or autumn of 396 (D.S. 14.79.5). This was a severe blow for the Spartans, since the loss of Rhodes prevented them from organizing a combined land and naval attack on Tissaphernes in Caria and threatened to disrupt communications between the land army in Asia Minor and Sparta. It also raised hopes in Boeotia and in Athens of mounting a successful opposition against Sparta, although a rapprochement between the two was an essential pre-condition.
Almost certainly as a result of the revolt of Rhodes, Pharnabazus, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, sent Timocrates of Rhodes to give gifts of money to the leading anti-Spartan politicians in Boeotia, Corinth, Athens and Argos in order to win their support for a war against Sparta in mainland Greece (Oxyrhynchus Historian 7.2–3). This was not the cause of the Corinthian War, as Xenophon believed (3.5.1), but the offer of further financial assistance from Persia was another factor in persuading these states to adopt an actively aggressive policy towards Sparta. The Athenians were further encouraged by the continuing successes of Conon in 395 and began to revive their ambitions of regaining their naval empire. It only remained for the Athenians to bury their differences with the Boeotians, which rapprochement came about when the Boeotians successfully appealed to them for help against the impending attack on their territory by the Spartans (Xen. 3.5.8–15; D.S. 14.81.2). The main motivation for the Athenians was their fear of and need to prevent Spartan expansionism into central Greece at the expense of B
oeotia.
But the Spartans had made a grave strategic blunder in their decision to launch an all-out campaign in Asia Minor before securing their military hegemony in Greece. This failure allowed the Boeotians to provoke them into a fatal conflict in central Greece. The Boeotians persuaded their allies, the Western Locrians, to levy taxes on a piece of land, which the Phocians claimed was theirs, correctly expecting Phocis to invade Locris in retaliation. This gave the Boeotians the excuse to invade the land of the Phocians who in turn appealed for military help from the Spartans:
The Lacedaimonians happily seized on an excuse to make an expedition against the Thebans, having been angry with them for a long time … and they reckoned that this was an excellent time to lead out an army against them and stop their arrogance towards themselves. For their campaigns were going well in Asia through the victories under Agesilaos, and there was no other war in Greece to hinder them.
(Xen. 3.5.5)
Lysander was ordered to go to Phocis in order to gather an army from the Spartan allies in central Greece, and to rendezvous with King Pausanias, who was leading an army from the Peloponnese, at Haliartus on an appointed day (Xen. 3.5.6–7). It was now that the Boeotians launched their appeal for help to the Athenians. Lysander persuaded Boeotian Orchomenus to desert to the Spartan side but, instead of waiting for Pausanias, attacked Haliartus. This decision by Lysander to fight without Pausanias may well reflect a split in Spartan foreign policy: Lysander still pursuing a policy of open imperialism, while Pausanias preferred a more modest policy of ensuring Spartan supremacy in the Peloponnese and maintaining a balance of power in the rest of Greece. Lysander’s rash action led to his death and the defeat of his army. When Pausanias arrived with his forces, he found the Boeotians and the Athenians lined up and ready for battle. Reflecting on the success of the Boeotians against Lysander, the refusal of the Corinthians to send their contingent, and the reluctance of the other Peloponnesians to fight, Pausanias agreed to a truce on the condition that he removed his forces from Boeotia (D.S. 14.81.2–3; Xen. 3.5.21–24).
The battle of Haliartus in 395 marked the beginning of the Corinthian War and the beginning of the end of Spartan imperial ambitions in Asia Minor. The Spartans, fearing that their enemies in Greece had become too powerful and that Sparta was in danger, recalled Agesilaos from Asia Minor (D.S. 14.83.1; Xen. 4.2.1–3). He set out in spring 394, retracing the steps of King Xerxes of Persia in 480, through Thrace, Macedon and Thessaly. The defeat of the Spartan navy by Pharnabazus and Conon in August 394 at the battle of Cnidus brought the Spartans’ grandiose ambitions in Asia Minor to an end (D.S. 14.83.4–7). Although some attempts were made in 391 to renew the war there, Spartan imperial ambitions in Asia were finally laid to rest in 389/8 and confirmed in the terms of the King’s Peace (or Peace of Antalcidas) in 387/6. The main aim of Spartan policy from 395–394 was to break up the Quadruple Alliance which was threatening their hegemony of Greece.
The Corinthian War, 395–387/6
The defeat of the Spartans at the battle of Haliartus in 395 and the humiliating withdrawal of the army of King Pausanias, who was condemned to death but fled into exile, were the incentive for the rallying of the anti-Spartan forces in Greece. In the summer and winter of 395/4, a Quadruple Alliance was formed by Athens, Boeotia, Corinth and Argos (D.S. 14.82.1; Xen. 4.2.1). The coalition was further strengthened by the membership of the Locrians, most of Thessaly, Euboea, Acarnania, Chalcidice and other minor states. These allies gathered their forces at the Isthmus of Corinth in the spring of 394, and in the discussion about the coalition’s strategy a Corinthian suggested:
‘I think that the best course of action by far is to fight the battle in Lacedaimon itself, and if not there, as near as possible.’
(Xen. 4.2.12)
It is hardly surprising that the Spartans were filled with fear and demanded the return of Agesilaos from Asia to defend Sparta (D.S. 14.83.1; Xen. 4.2.2).
The Spartans then showed commendable speed to meet this threat. They raised a Peloponnesian army under the command of Aristodamus, the acting-regent for Pausanias’ under-age son Agesipolis, and marched to Nemea in the north-east of the Peloponnese; there they met the coalition’s forces in a battle which resulted in a Spartan victory (D.S. 14.83.2; Xen. 4.2.16–23). Meanwhile Agesilaos, making haste from Asia by the land route, was forced to fight his way through Thrace (D.S. 14.83.3) and Thessaly (Xen. 4.3.3–9) until he reached Boeotia. His main aim, apart from bringing his considerable booty safely to Sparta, was to restore the Spartans’ control in the northern half of central Greece, which would be an excellent spring-board for regaining their dominant position in northern Greece. The news of the destruction of the Spartan fleet at Cnidus spurred on Agesilaos to win the battle of Coroneia in August 394 (D.S. 14.84.1–2), and he was able to return to the Peloponnese, but only by sea, because the Quadruple Alliance controlled the Isthmus (see below).
The Spartans had won two battles, but these military successes were of little consequence as they had done nothing to relieve the Spartans’ very precarious position. For they had suffered within a year a massive reversal of fortune. They had lost their naval empire in the Aegean and on the coast of Asia Minor; with the exception of Phocis and Orchomenus, they had lost control of central and northern Greece; and, far more worryingly, their supremacy in the Peloponnese, which underpinned their status as a superpower, was under threat from a coalition that included their two strongest former League allies (Boeotia and Corinth) and their deadliest enemy in the Peloponnese (Argos). They were now trapped in the Peloponnese as a result of their enemies’ strategy, which was designed to bottle them up there. The Quadruple Alliance’s forces had occupied the territory of Corinth, which stretched between the Corinthian and Saronic gulfs at the Isthmus, and built long walls from Corinth to its western port Lechaeon and to its eastern port Cenchreae. There was now no land passage via the Isthmus from the Peloponnese to central Greece and beyond, unless these fortifications were captured. The Corinthian War takes it name from the fighting that took place around Corinth, but in reality this theatre of war soon settled into a stalemate. The Spartans, operating from Sicyon, eventually managed to capture Lechaeon, but not Corinth itself, where the resident armed forces were always threatening, especially the lighter-armed mercenary troops of the Athenian Iphicrates who wiped out half a Spartan regiment in 390 (D.S. 14.91.2; Xen. 4.5.12–17).
The position of the Spartans in the Peloponnese was further weakened by Conon’s capture of Cythera (393), the supply of Persian funds to the coalition (393) and the political ‘union’ of Corinth and Argos (392). Pharnabazus and Conon, having sailed around the Aegean after the battle of Cnidus in order to drive out the Spartan harmosts and garrisons, then brought the war to Spartan territory. They ravaged the coasts of Laconia and Messenia, and established a garrison on Cythera, an island off Laconia near Malea (D.S. 14.84.4–5; Xen 4.8.8). When Nicias did the same thing in 424 during the Archidamian War (see Chapter 19), it caused great panic among the Spartans who feared that the garrison would provoke a ‘Helot’ uprising (Thucydides 4.55.3–4). Similar feelings must have been present among the Spartans in 393, since it was only five or six years earlier that they had detected the alleged conspiracy of a certain Cinadon, who had planned to overthrow the Spartan state by forming a coalition of underdogs – Helots, emancipated Helots, Inferiors (disfranchised Spartiates) and ‘Perioeci’ (Xen. 3.3.4–11).
When Pharnabazus arrived at the Isthmus, his liberal gifts of Persian money improved the fighting capacity of the Quadruple Alliance’s forces: the Corinthians fitted out a new navy, and Iphicrates’ mercenary force was stationed permanently in Corinth from 393–389; but, most of all, the Athenians re-established themselves as a major Greek power. They rebuilt their fortifications and Long Walls (joining Athens to the Piraeus), and began to recover their former Aegean Empire, because Conon was using the Persian fleet in Pharnabazus’ absence for their benefit (Xen. 4.8.9; 4.8.12). Even worse for the Spartans was
the political ‘union’ of Corinth and Argos in 393 or 392 by which both states accepted a common citizenship (Xen. 4.4.6). The Spartans, for the last 100 years, had deliberately stirred up hostility between these two states so that, by a policy of ‘divide and rule’, they could ensure their own supremacy in the Peloponnese. Therefore, by 392, the Spartans were in desperate trouble and their hegemony of Greece was in danger of collapse. It was time for a major foreign policy rethink.
The Spartans realized that they had made a grave error in breaking their alliance with Persia in 400, and were now paying a high price for that folly. Therefore they decided that peace with Persia would provide the solution to their problems in Greece, but realized that they would have to make a substantial concession to win over the Persians to their side. The Spartan Antalcidas, in 392, was despatched to Tiribazus, the new Persian commander in the west (based at Sardis), in order to make an offer that Artaxerxes could not refuse:
Antalcidas said to Tiribazus that he had come wanting peace and the sort of peace that the king wished for. For the Spartans were putting forward no claim against the king for the Greek cities in Asia, and that it was enough for them that all the islands and the other cities were autonomous.
(Xen. 4.8.14)
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 62