Professor Donald
Kagan: In the year 401 the
prince of Persia,
Cyrus, who was a younger son
and had recently succeeded the
King of Persia,
Artaxerxes, his older brother,
was in power.
Cyrus had always been ambitious
for achieving the job of Shah in
Persia and his mother had worked
on his behalf,
but it hadn't paid off.
He was not prepared to accept
the verdict and so he set out in
the year 401 to launch a scheme
that would bring him to the
throne of Persia,
and his scheme was to hire a
good sized army of Greek
mercenaries and to trick them
into becoming the army that
would defeat the army of his
brother Artaxerxes,
and make him king.
As it turned out,
one of the men who joined up on
that expedition was an Athenian
cavalryman by the name of
Xenophon,
and he left an account of that
experience in a work that is
called in Greek,
the Anabasis,
which means "the march back."
But it's the story of how
this body of roughly 10,000
Greek hoplite mercenaries,
marched into the heart of the
Persian Empire,
defeated the army of the great
king--but in the process Prince
Cyrus himself was killed and
since the whole point of the
expedition was to make him king
there wasn't any point any
longer.
The great question--I've told
you about this earlier in the
semester, what should these
10,000 Greeks do?
They end up,
after their generals are put to
death by treachery,
to elect new generals and to
fight their way out of the
empire back to the Black Sea,
which was the easiest way for
them to get home,
and then to do whatever it was
they would do.
It was a very important
event because--and I think
Xenophon's account of it was
very,
very important because it
planted in the minds of many
Greeks a new notion that the
vast,
powerful, wealthy empire of the
Persians was remarkably
vulnerable, and that it was
possible,
and many thought highly
desirable, for the Greeks to
turn the tables on the Persians,
to invade Persia,
and to take from it,
to subdue it,
and to take from it the vast
wealth that the Persians had,
and we shall see down through
the years of the fourth century
different speakers will come out
and speak or write urging that
the Greeks do exactly this.
Isocrates, the Athenian teacher
of rhetoric, was the foremost
figure who kept seeking somebody
who would undertake this chore.
One of the reasons that he
gave for it more than once was
that Greece was suffering,
and, of course,
had been for some time,
from poverty produced by war
and most particularly by civil
wars between democrats and
oligarchs that became more and
more common in the fourth
century,
and his solution was if you
need money, steal it.
So, take it from the Persians
and that would put an end to the
troubles.
Well, of course,
none of the Greek city states
was capable of establishing
leadership in Greece during the
period we're studying now,
so that it could carry out
Isocrates' wishes.
So, he turned to a man that the
rest of the Greeks regarded as,
or many of the Greeks regarded
as a barbarian,
the King of Macedon Philip,
and urged him to take on that
course, and apparently whether
it was Isocrates or simply the
idea itself,
Philip himself did intend to do
exactly that,
to conquer the Persian Empire,
but he was killed before he
could do it and the job was left
to his quite young son,
Alexander, who in fact
accomplished it;
but we're looking down the road.
Let's go back to 401 and
there we see this expedition of
10,000 Greeks accomplishing what
I mentioned to you.
That there could be 10,000
Greek hoplites available for
such a purpose I think is a
consequence of the Peloponnesian
War.
It shows us how much that war
had helped to uproot people and
to impoverish many of them,
so that the idea of becoming a
mercenary soldier for a Persian
prince was attractive enough to
take them away from home,
something that would have been
less likely in the prosperous
years before the Peloponnesian
War.
Well, of course,
that aside, that is a kind of a
side show, it doesn't very much
affect what is happening to the
Greek cities on the coast of
Asia Minor who remain the issue
as to what will happen.
You remember,
these were under Athenian
control during the Peloponnesian
War,
and when the war was over they
were taken over in many cases by
Lysander.
What was to happen to them
ultimately still had to be
decided, because the King of
Persia claimed that territory
still for his own.
The Spartans had really agreed
to that in the treaties they
made with the great king during
the Peloponnesian War,
but now Lysander didn't see any
reason for carrying out those
promises and so there was at the
very least conflict.
Of course, what the cities
would have liked best of all was
to achieve autonomy for
themselves and they claimed that
and regarded the rule either by
Persian or by Spartan as
improper and something to be
resisted.
Well, Tissaphernes the
satrap of the region of
Lydia and to the west,
the ones that included the
Greek cities,
attacked those cities,
which he claimed for the great
king but which cities were
holding out.
Those cities in turn,
because the great menace to
them for the moment was Persian,
turned to Sparta the great
victorious power,
and asked the Spartans to help.
In the year 400 and 399 the
Spartans sent an army under a
general by the name of Thibron,
who recruited about 6,000 of
those 10,000 men who had marched
into the Persian Empire and who
still sought service as
mercenaries rather than go home
to poverty,
plus about 5,000 or so
Peloponnesians.
All of the overseas activities
of the Spartans in these years
include practically no Spartans.
They are just too short of
troops to be risking them in
overseas ventures.
So, they use their
Peloponnesian allies,
they sometimes use mercenaries,
and they also use some of these
folks I told you about the last
time who were neither this nor
that.
The ones that they used on
these campaigns are the ones
that we are calling
neodamodes,
people who had been helots,
but who were liberated and
permitted to fight for the
Spartans,
and the notion of sending
neodamodes overseas to
fight was very attractive to the
Spartans,
because it got them out of
Laconia, for one thing,
and provided them with soldiers
as well.
So, that kind of army is the
one that Thibron is now using to
fight against the Persians,
who just a few years ago had
been the allies of the Spartans
for control of the Greek cities
of Asia Minor.
Now, meanwhile we have to
turn our attention to the sea,
and especially to the island of
Cyprus.
It's a Persian possession,
but on that island there are
some cities that have a degree
of autonomy.
One of them has as its king a
man called Evagoras,
and he is very ambitious for
himself and for the Cypriotes,
and so he is eager to fight
against the Spartans,
presumably on behalf of the
great king,
although his motives are not
made clear by our sources.
Reasonable guess is that he may
have hoped by achieving
something great for the great
king he might receive back
thanks from the great king in
whatever form you can imagine.
It might be allowing him to
rule over Cyprus,
it might mean to give him
wealth,
who knows, but also on the
island of Cyprus where he had
taken refuge was the Athenian
Admiral Conon,
who had been one of the
admirals at the final defeat at
Aegospotomi.
He had escaped from that
battle and had not gone home to
Athens;
he felt that the air there
would not be healthy for
somebody who lost the entire
fleet at Aegospotomi and so he
went to Evagoras,
who it took good care of Conon
and he was a great sailor.
One of the very most
distinguished admirals in Greek
history, and he too now
continued his feeling that
Sparta was the enemy.
So, he joined Evagoras in
urging the great king to build a
navy, which would then defeat
the Spartan navy,
which would by itself rid Asia
of the menace of Sparta and be a
great thing for the Persians.
Conon, I suspect,
had some other hopes out of
this activity,
which in fact will come to
fruition and I'll tell you about
them in due course.
Well, the Spartans have their
fleet out there and the king
agrees and he starts building a
fleet of his own,
which will ultimately be a very
large one indeed--some 300
ships, and the king puts Conon
in charge of that fleet,
which is smart in a way because
Conon is a great admiral.
Maybe not so smart if you look
at what Conon is really up to.
In the face of these
activities, the Spartans decided
to raise the ante and they sent
an expedition into Asia Minor.
Thibron had not done very well
and after about a year the
Spartans replaced him with
another general by the name of
Dercyllidas,
who does better,
but there's no decisive victory
out there.
The war is dragging on and so
they choose to send the new King
Agesilaus, who is the son of
Aegis,
whose characteristics are among
other things,
that he was born lame;
he probably would not have been
allowed to live had he not come
from the royal family,
but he did and he grew to be an
ambitious, aggressive Spartan
King, who I suspect--I mean,
a cheap psychology when you
have a handicap like that in a
society which values physical
valor and strength,
and military success so highly
as the Spartans did,
you're twice as aggressive,
and twice as ambitious as an
ordinary Spartan.
In any case,
that was the way Agesilaus
turned out to be.
Another interesting thing about
Agesilaus is that he had been
the tent mate of Lysander and
it's hard to believe that
Lysander could ever have
achieved the eminence that he
did,
the command that was given to
him, had he not been a friend of
the young man that people looked
to as the next king,
or possibly the next king.
But as yet, Agesilaus,
being a much younger man than
Lysander, he seemed to be
deferential and everything was
okay and so he was very keen on
doing what the Spartans did,
which was to send Agesilaus out
with a new expedition to win the
war against the Persians out
there.
Agesilaus, it is plain,
had extremely lofty plans for
himself and for this expedition.
The way the expedition worked,
Agesilaus chose to leave with
his fleet from the town of
Aulis, which is located in
Boeotia.
Does anybody recognize the name
and think why Agesilaus should
have wanted to leave from Aulis?
Tell us about
it.Student:
[inaudible]Professor
Donald Kagan: That's right.
Agamemnon took off for the
Trojan War at Aulis,
and you remember how the legend
goes.
The winds were against the
Greeks, they wouldn't let the
ships get away,
and they asked a holy man to
tell them what the gods were up
to and the gods said,
well you can't go until you
sacrifice your daughter,
your little daughter Iphigenia
to the god for that purpose.
So Agamemnon did and the winds
relented, and Agamemnon would
pay the price when he got back
from Troy.
But it is precisely that the
Greek fleet against the
barbarian, against the
non-Greeks,
the most important ones in all
of their legends,
namely the Trojans,
it was at all Aulis that they
left and Agesilaus wanted to
bring that to the mind.
He was the new Agamemnon and he
was not leading a Spartan fleet
against the Persians,
he was the spokesman for the
Greeks.
He was the leader of the Greeks
revenging that original offense,
whatever that might be.
He was trying to make the case
for a panhellenic motive for
what was absolutely a strictly
Spartan one and raising himself
to a legendary level
practically.
Well, that turned out to be a
mistake, because the Thebans
happened at that moment to be,
as far as we can tell,
led by a faction that was very
hostile to the Spartans.
So, as Agesilaus' people were
setting up the altars for
sacrifices before they took off,
along the road came a Theban
army, knocked over all of the
altars, and asked them who the
hell invited him into Boeotia in
the first place,
to get the hell out of there,
grossly insulting Agesilaus and
forcing him to skulk out of
Aulis,
not in the grand way that he
had imagined.
This turned out to be very
significant.
Agesilaus took it personally.
He didn't like that,
and I suppose--well,
never mind I was about to make
a bad joke, let it go.
It had an enormous impact
on him because for the rest of
his life Agesilaus will be
hostile to Thebes,
and when he could he would
promote a policy of attacking
Thebes, of trying to defeat it,
to subject it to Sparta,
and a whole piece of Spartan
foreign policy,
which was to be very costly and
damaging to Sparta was the
result of Agesilaus' attempt at
vendetta against the Thebans.
Well, he goes to Asia and
begins to encounter the
Persians.
He does pretty well,
as always, Greek hoplites if
they can get the Persians to
fight them in a nice flat field
will beat them,
and he did that on several
occasions, but he was never able
to bring a large force of
Persians to battle,
so that he could really destroy
a good chunk of Persian power in
the region so that the victories
were not decisive.
They could not win the war,
he could win the battles,
but you couldn't win the war,
at least he didn't.
Meanwhile,
things turned around against
the Spartans from the side that
you might expect,
that is to say,
from the sea.
Conon, with the Persian fleet,
sailed against the very
important Island of Rhodes and
captured it and brought it back
to--took it away from the
Spartans in any case.
Where the Spartans went,
you will remember,
they establish oligarchic
governments,
and in this case the victorious
Athenian admiral removed the
oligarchic government and in its
place there rose up a democracy.
I'm sure the great king didn't
care what kind of regime it was
for the moment,
he just wanted to get rid of
the Spartans,
which he did.
But it was, of course,
on the Greek scene,
it was a great defeat for the
Spartans and it was a challenge
to the Spartans.
It was obvious that Conon,
at least, and who knew what
might happen on the part of
other Greeks,
were going to resist Spartan
power and Spartan
aggressiveness,
and that if he wanted to come
back,
then he would have to have a
navy.
The Spartans set out to
increase their navy to meet this
challenge and just to look ahead
a few years,
as I think we need to at this
moment, it was that Spartan
fleet that Conon defeated
thoroughly and decisively a few
years later in 394 at the Battle
of Cnidus,
which really puts an end for
considerable time the whole idea
of Sparta fighting at sea
entirely.
It really means that that
approach--remember we were
talking last time about the
three different possibilities
that the Spartans had to choose
among,
and they chose for a while this
thoroughly aggressive one
overseas, that's out now.
If you had been defeated at
sea, you don't have a navy that
can challenge your opponents,
you can't do it.
As a matter of fact it will not
be very much longer when events
in Greece compel them to
withdraw their army under
Agesilaus and bring him back
home and no Spartan army ever
goes back to Asia again.
We're looking ahead but the
action that caused that was the
victory at Cnidus.
Now, of course,
with the Spartans being
defeated in that part of the
world, the Greek cities that
have been under Spartan rule now
typically rebel against the
Spartan rule,
and we must imagine that for a
few years there are really quite
confused conditions in Asiatic
Greece.
Some places may have continued
to be under Spartan rule,
some may have continued to be
under Persian rule,
no doubt about it,
some of them became autonomous.
We just don't know what the
numbers were and there could
have been mixtures of things
going on too.
I make that point because when,
later on, a final settlement is
produced there,
it is imposed upon a condition
of confusion rather than simply
overthrowing a single thing that
was characteristic across the
board.
Still, many of those towns as I
say did return to Persian rule
as well.
That's the situation which
leads us to the next great event
in Hellenic history across the
board.
The Corinthian War,
as it is called,
which breaks out in 395 and
runs down to 387-386,
so called because the bulk of
the fighting on land was around
the city of Corinth.
But it was a war that engaged
all of the major cities of
Greece right around its core and
its center.
I think a fair way to see it is
the cause of that war was,
in its most fundamental sense,
Sparta's tyrannical behavior
towards the other Greek cities
which produces a variety of
reactions.
Let me remind you of some and
tell you about some others that
we haven't talked about.
Remember there were these
grievances that lingered from
the end of the Peloponnesian War
when Spartan allies like Corinth
and Thebes had been very
dissatisfied with the way the
booty had been shared that came
from the defeat of the
Athenians,
and you remember those two
cities were aggrieved also
because the Spartans ignored
their wishes as to what should
happen to Athens and went their
own way there too.
I think I mentioned as well
that in all contacts with
non-Spartans in this period,
the Spartans seemed to be very
arrogant, very hard to get along
with, and they certainly inspire
considerable unhappiness and
discontent.
Those things you know about.
Now in 402, the Spartans
launched a war against the
polis of Elis located up
in the northwestern corner of
the Peloponnesus.
Olympia is included in that
area, just to help you fix it in
your mind.
Now, the Spartans called upon
their allies to join them in
this expedition,
as is their right,
according to the traditional
rules of the game in the
Peloponnesian League.
Thebes and Corinth refuse to
send their contingents.
That is practically an act of
rebellion against the Spartans.
It's a violation of their
treaty agreements and it shows
you how much irritation there
existed between them.
The whole campaign seemed to
these states very annoying
because why were the Spartans
attacking Elis,
partly because they had a
continuing debate,
a conflict with them about a
border town,
the old stuff.
But also I think as an act
of revenge, because the Elians
had been disloyal during the
Peloponnesian War,
during the Peace of Nicias
after 421, Aulis was one of the
four democracies that joined up
in this new separate league that
ended up fighting against the
Spartans for a period of time.
At the great Battle of
Mantinea, in which the very
existence of Sparta was at
issue, Elis was on the side of
the enemies of Sparta.
So, that was why the Spartans
suddenly decided to attack them
and the allies didn't think that
was right, the ones who were
discontented in any case.
So, that's in the
background, and all these other
irritations that I have
mentioned,
but it wasn't enough because
even if you were as mad as you
could be at the Spartans and
determined to try to undo their
effort at hegemony over the
Greeks,
there was no easy way to think
of fighting them successfully.
All of these states that were
discontented Thebes,
Corinth, and as we will quickly
see, Athens as well,
were isolated from each other.
They didn't belong to any
common activity and they all
were not strong enough,
individually,
to take on the Spartans.
Moreover, there was the problem
if you wanted to fight these
people, it would require money,
and all of them were short of
funds for that purpose.
So the critical element
necessary to create a coalition
that could undertake a war
against Sparta--that decision
was made by the Persians.
The King of Persia
presumably, although it very
much looks like the new
satrap in that
region--there were two
satraps in the western
part of the Persian Empire
remember;
the one whose capital is at
Sardis in Lydia,
and the one whose capital,
or whose territory is along the
Hellespont and the straits in
general,
Pharnabazus,
our old friend Pharnabazus from
the Peloponnesian War,
and a new sIatrap in Sardis,
both want this to happen and so
they find a Rhodian Greek and
give him a batch of money and
send him to the Greek cities
seeking out those factional
leaders who were known to be
hostile to Sparta and offering
to give them some of the money
that he was carrying,
which was not in itself a vast
amount and certainly not enough
to fight in any war,
but was obviously a sign of
good faith saying the King of
Persia and his satraps in
this region are against the
Spartans and would like for you
to put an end to the things you
don't like that are happening in
the Greek world and he will
support you with his money.
That, I think,
turned out to be an absolutely
critical act.
He went to a town I have
not mentioned that belongs in
the company of the anti-Spartan
people at this point,
of course is Argos,
the traditional enemy of Sparta
running back at least into the
eighth century and perhaps
further than that,
who seem to find themselves in
a war with the Spartans at least
once a century and it looks like
this is the time in the fourth
century for them.
Argos is a democracy too,
and as you know that is a
relevant fact.
Corinth is not a democracy,
but they are so angry they want
to play too and they join up.
Thebes, again,
it's hard to tell what the
government is.
It looks throughout this entire
period as oligarchy and
democracy may well have been
very close to one another,
so that at any time one faction
or the other may have the upper
hand.
And, of course,
Athens, which is a democracy
again.
Now, the Athenians have been
very, very reluctant to do
anything to annoy the Spartans
for very good reasons.
They have no navy,
they have no walls,
and they have no money so to
buck the Spartans would be an
act almost of suicide,
because all the Spartans needed
to do was coming marching into
Attica and they have no defense.
Up to now therefore they've
been very, very careful not to
annoy.
In fact in 402 when the Thebans
and Corinthians refused to go to
Elis with the Spartans,
the Athenians sent their force,
as they were required to do by
their treaty with the Spartans.
But the new situation changed
things in Athens just as it did,
perhaps even more than it did
in other cities.
Now the great king--the
Persians were not the enemy,
the Persians were going to
support the war,
if they were ready to launch it
against the Spartans.
There was no war yet I should
point out when this money is
being handed out.
This is an effort to stir up
that kind of activity.
Of course, the enemies of the
policy refer to these transfers
of money as bribes and there's
nothing in Greek practice or
Greek tradition to reject the
idea that some of these Persian
coins ended up in the pockets of
the men that they were given to,
but I don't think we really
should think of them as bribes.
Most of the money was used for
the purpose for which it was
intended, to help these leaders
stir up support for a war
against Sparta.
It was something they believed
in anyway, it was a source of
their ability to carry out their
wishes.
But as I say,
the Greeks didn't think there
was anything wrong with picking
up a few bucks along the way.
Now, a war breaks out on the
frontier between Phocis and
Locris, two towns in central
Greece,
both of which are quite close
to Boeotia, the land ruled by
the Thebes.
The Spartans,
and I think this was
probably--well,
I'm pretty confident that it
was what--motivated by the
Spartan unhappiness about
Thebes,
the Spartans assist Phocis
against Locris,
knowing that Thebes is allied
to Locris,
and that this would be,
they believed and hoped,
a pretext for war.
This was their chance to get
even with the Thebans for all
the things that the Thebans had
done that irritated them since
the war.
So, Sparta invaded Boeotia;
their strategy to win this war
was that they would invade
Boeotia from two sides.
One army coming from central
Greece, from the region of
Phocis and Locris,
where they were assisting the
Phocians,
and another army being sent up
from the Peloponnesus itself;
they do finally meet in 395 at
a town in western Boeotia called
Haliartus where there is a
battle,
and where by the way,
Lysander is killed in the
fighting and removed from the
scene.
But even before that
happened, as it was clear that
the Spartans meant to fight the
Thebans,
the Thebans went to Athens and
asked the Athenians for help and
of course they had a case that
was very attractive.
First of all,
they certainly reminded the
Athenians of the roll Thebes had
played in liberating Athens by
giving a home to Thrasybulus and
his free Athenians when they
were in the position of
defeating the Thirty Tyrants and
driving them out.
I have a feeling they didn't
remind the Athenians about that
little congress they had after
the war in which they suggested
that they destroy all the
Athenians and take away their
land and turn the whole place
into a great big cattle farm.
I think they probably didn't
remember to mention that.
But they had that reason,
but more important than that,
was what they were saying,
you have a chance now to escape
from your bondage to the
Spartans, where the Athenians
certainly were and to
re-establish yourself as an
autonomous polis along
with us and all the others who
want to take away power from the
Spartans,
which they are abusing so
terribly.
Now, the remarkable thing
to me is that Xenophon,
who very likely was there,
reports that the Athenian
assembly voted unanimously in
favor.
Well, it's worth pointing out,
of course, that the number one
advocate of doing that,
of joining the rebellion
against Sparta,
was Thrasybulus the great hero
of the time that certainly made
a big difference.
Thrasybulus had been one of the
cautious leaders before who had
been against getting the
Spartans mad,
because he knew Athens was
incompetent to fight them now,
but with the Persian support
and with the prospect of forming
a coalition against Sparta,
the strategic situation had
changed and Thrasybulus now came
out a hundred percent for the
war.
But unanimous vote in favor of
the war, I can't imagine the
Athenian assembly giving
unanimous vote in favor of
getting a drink of water.
It's just so incredible to me.
So, how do I explain it?
Well, I got to make it up.
I think if there was an
overwhelming sentiment in favor
obviously the attractions were
great but there were reasons to
fear.
If you lose the price could be
very, very high.
But I think what happened was
that the emotion was so strong
at the moment that once it was
evident that there was a large
majority in favor of the motion,
nobody wanted to be seen as
being against it.
It would had the look of
cowardice, of a lack of
patriotism, and people in these
circumstances,
it has been my experience,
hate to seem not to be going
along when everybody is
enthusiastically going in a
particular direction.
So that's how I interpret
Xenophon's remarkable testimony,
but whatever the truth of it,
what is clear is the great
enthusiasm, overwhelming
majority, they are prepared to
fight for their true autonomy in
the war to come.
So, the coalition is
finally formed.
Athens, Thebes,
Corinth, Argos,
those are the main states on
the mainland and they'll do most
of the fighting,
but it's worth pointing out
that there are other places that
join too.
Euboea, the island to the east
of Attica, not surprising;
they're so thoroughly
influenced by the Athenians.
That's not a great surprise but
it's interesting that many a
town up in the north of the
Aegean,
on the Chalcidice also joined
in this anti-Spartan coalition,
and likewise,
the region in the west on the
Ionian Sea of Acarnania also
join, which I think suggests
that there was quite a lot of
anti-Spartan sentiment in the
Greek world at this time,
which very often comes about if
any state seems to be too
strong, too powerful,
too much of a threat to what
everybody else wants,
people tend to cut it down.
Political scientists tend
to formulize this into the
notion of--if you join up with
the most powerful state that's
called bandwagoning,
what do they call it if you're
against the--balancing,
that's the word.
Sorry, I am weak in my
political science technology.
Balancing is what's supposed to
happen;
the truth of the matter is that
you never can tell which way
states will go in these
situations and there you are.
But in this case I'm simply
making the point that there was
a lot of hostility to Sparta out
there and some people you
wouldn't think of joined in
this,
but it's the big four that
really matter and they do most
of the fighting in the war.
Well, there's no point in going
through the war in great detail;
just a few highlights,
I think, need to be mentioned.
The largest highlight of all
being how in the world are you
supposed to win this war,
what is the strategy on each
side?
It's remarkable how similar
they are.
The Spartans want to gain
control of the isthmus of
Corinth, it's Corinth and Megara
especially,
so that they can get out into
central Greece and defeat their
opponents individually in
Boeotia for the Thebans and
Attica for the Athenians and
Corinth,
of course, right there in the
isthmus.
The other folks,
the big four,
want to push into the
Peloponnesus where they can
raise up rebellion of the helots
and the perioikoi and
defeat the Spartans right there
and strip away their allies in
the Peloponnesus.
So, each side basically has to
gain control of the isthmus and
then move forward to carry out
the conclusion of the war in
their favor,
and the bottom line is neither
side is able to do it.
The bulk of the fighting
throughout the years of that war
surround the city of Corinth,
walls are put up by the
Corinthians meant to keep the
Spartans out,
they do so for a great chunk of
time,
Spartans can take part of the
walls but they can't manage to
take everything and to punch
through,
and so for all these years
that's what happens.
There are some big battles
that are fought.
There's one in 394,
soon after the beginning of the
war at Nemea,
which is located to the south
of Corinth.
It's a very big tough standard
hoplite battle,
both sides having strong
armies, both sides fighting well
and determinedly.
The Spartans technically
winning--it's one of those
victories where you know who won
because they put up the trophy
and they were able to collect
their dead,
and the other guys had to ask
permission to collect their
debt.
But it was another one of these
victories that did not have
strategic consequences,
neither side had been able to
destroy the other,
neither side could now advance
into the region that they had to
get to in order to make a
difference,
so that I think is the major
story of that war.
There's another event in there
that has interesting
consequences for future Greek
warfare that deserves
mentioning.
At a certain point in that
war the Athenians,
under an extraordinary general
by the name of Iphicrates,
had put together a force of
light-armed troops,
not hoplites,
people without hoplite armor
and shields who threw missiles
at the other side,
probably mainly slingers,
but they also would have been
spear throwers,
throwers not thrusters,
and bowmen, and these guys
could never confront the phalanx
in the normal way and they would
normally not even be able to do
much harm in an extraordinary
way,
but what was new was that
Iphicrates had trained them as a
professional force,
so that they could move swiftly
and together as a body in such a
way as to be as effective as it
was possible for light-armed
troops to be against a phalanx.
It happened that Iphicrates was
able to maneuver a whole
division of Spartan soldiers in
such a way that they got stuck
in a dead end,
in a cal du sac,
and were absolutely victimized
by Iphicrates light-armed forces
and about 600 men making up this
division of the Spartan army
called a mora,
were wiped out and the Greek
world was astonished by this,
because no such thing had ever
happened before,
and it led to the increased use
of well trained,
light-armed infantry who play a
larger role.
They never replace the
phalanx as the major form of
land warfare but things become
more complicated in the fourth
century as they have already
begun to be in the Peloponnesian
War,
as you have different branches
that are able to perform more
usefully than they were
typically expected to do in the
past.
Perhaps as big an event as any
that occurred in that war was
the event I mentioned earlier.
Conon, using the Persian fleet,
defeating the Spartan fleet at
the Battle of Cnidus in 394.
But what does he do?
Conon takes his victorious
fleet, sails back to Athens,
the Athenians have already
begun the process of rebuilding
their walls,
but now with the help of
Conon's men and the money that
he carries and gives to them,
they are building those walls
at a much faster clip and before
the war is over the Athenians
will once again be a walled
city,
with a walled port,
and with long walls connecting
them.
In other words,
the basis for having an
independent naval policy will be
in place thanks to Conon's
victory.
On top of which,
he takes the Persian fleet and
goes to the Athenians and says,
this is now your fleet and
suddenly the Athenians have
again probably the biggest fleet
in the Greek world,
just like that.
Similarly, or rather as a
consequence of all this,
because for a while at least
they are able to dominate the
Aegean Sea with these forces and
with Conon around they regain
those famous islands that are so
crucial to them,
the stepping stones to the
Hellespont: Lemnos,
Imbros, Skyros--become Athenian
owned again.
They also gain control of the
scared Island of Apollo at
Delos.
They also make an alliance with
the important Island of Chios
and suddenly you have what are
the bare beginnings of the
reconstruction of the old
Athenian naval alliance;
you might want to call it an
empire.
Let me make it very clear that
even when they become far more
powerful in years to come,
they are never able to recreate
the old Athenian Empire.
They never reach the point
which was so decisive for their
power where it is truly an
empire where almost every state
in the league is contributing
money,
which allows the Athenians to
not only build but to sustain in
peace time and war time the
biggest navy and the best navy
around.
They never get there.
They do become very
important as a naval power
again, they are going to be a
very significant state again,
but even though they are
turning in that other direction
they never get there.
But I think we need to remember
that probably there's a very
good chunk of the Athenians,
who regard those days as the
good old days and as the natural
state of things,
and is the place to which they
ought to be going towards that
empire.
Certainly a lot of their
behavior in the Corinthian war
and afterwards suggests that
that was a widespread opinion.
There was, undoubtedly,
also hostility to that opinion
as people look back on the
experience of what happened last
time, look at the consequences.
There were important
socioeconomic political
significance of pursuing such a
policy;
it meant democracy,
it meant a naval democracy,
it meant the most extreme
democracy,
and a lot of people's memories,
especially those of the rich
were of the mistakes and defeats
that that democracy had brought
about.
When you read Plato,
particularly about the Athenian
democracy, or even Aristotle,
I think you have to remember
that these people were very,
very critical of what the
Athenian democracy had done in
the fifth century,
blamed the democracy for that
defeat, and then that was tied
up with their political views in
general that democracy was a
very bad wicked thing,
and that should help you
understand this very strong bias
against democratic government on
the part of such people.
Another special event in the
course of the Corinthian War,
which would have some
consequence for Greek life later
on,
during that war there was a
union between the cities of
Corinth and Argos.
It was brought about by a
special emergency situation
created by the war in which all
the fighting was around Corinth
in which there was terrible
destruction of Corinthian
property,
in which poverty came to be a
problem with Corinth in a way
that it had never been.
There was a topsy-turvy
situation.
It had been throughout the
whole fifth century back into
the sixth century--an oligarchic
government,
a broad oligarchic government,
one that was widely thought to
be a good government,
and that so far as we know was
never touched until sometime
here in the Corinthian War when
these extreme conditions
produced what looks like a
democratic faction,
which seized power,
which murdered the leaders of
the opposition in a brutal way.
By the way, on a holy day,
it was a memorable and horrible
event.
So, it was after that event had
taken place that you see this
union between Argos,
which is a democracy,
and this democratic government
in Corinth, which is under siege
for the reasons that I have
suggested,
and what they do is they
arrange for a new situation
where citizens of one state will
be citizens of the other as
well.
So, theoretically,
if you lived in Corinth and you
wanted to go to Argos to sit in
on the Argive Assembly you could
do it and vice versa.
This is something absolutely
new.
The idea of anything but a
polis being by itself or
being on top of other
poleis,
but the notion of their being a
sharing of a regime
interpoleis sharing of
governmental responsibilities is
really new,
and it becomes more usual in
the course of the next century
and the century after that.
This one hardly lasts at all;
it's just a few years as a
consequence of the war,
and it's undone at the end of
the war.
But it's an indication of what
people might be thinking about
and we shall see that in the
course of this century there
will grow up federations--that's
something different,
but still it's the same thing
in a way.
A federation is a political
union that allows for the
maintenance of local powers on
the part of the original
members,
but also takes some powers for
a central body,
which is made up of more than
one.
We Americans of course have
some idea about that,
but there was the Arcadian
League that came into being,
and the Achaean League that
came into being,
and the Aetolian League which
came into being,
and as a matter of fact our
founding fathers read very
carefully about these
experiments in federal
government as they were writing
the American Constitution,
we have hard evidence about
that.
The best evidence for those
confederations does not occur in
our period, it occurs later,
typically in the third and the
second centuries B.C.,
and the accounts of them are in
the works of Polybius,
if you're ever interested.
So, Polybius was a very
important figure for the
American founding fathers who
wrote the Constitution.
But the first seed of this kind
of interstate cooperation on a
basis that was not merely
alliance,
but was co-citizenship is in
the case of Corinth and Argos in
the course of this war.
Well, as the war dragged
on, it became clearer and
clearer that neither side had
any way of prevailing.
But another thing that happened
that was to play a very
important part in how the war
came to an end was that the
Athenian control of the sea was
rapidly making Athens stronger
and stronger,
and more like that scary thing
which Athens had been to its
neighbors and its opponents in
the fifth century B.C.,
such that the Persians,
who after all,
had started the war by virtue
of encouraging the anti-Spartan
factions to get together and had
been supporting it to some
degree during the war in
general,
began to feel that maybe Athens
was becoming more frightening
from the Persian point of view
than Sparta was.
After all, Sparta was out of
the navy business now and they
were not likely to be able to
get back into it,
and if you don't have a navy
you really can't threaten Persia
very much, at least until
Alexander came along and figured
out a way to do it.
So, all of that gives the
Spartans, who really want to get
out of this war,
because it isn't going
anywhere,
the hope that they can bring
about a peace and so the
Spartans try to make peace with
the aid of Persia.
There's a Spartan political
figure by the name of Antalcidas
who emerges on this scene,
and we shall see in his life,
the few times we hear about him
he's always engaged in
attempting to contain Sparta's
ambitions,
to certainly exclude the
possibility of overseas
commitments and I would argue,
I think most scholars would
agree, even not to be engaged
outside of the Peloponnesus very
far.
He seems to represent a
traditionalist point of view,
which obviously comes to the
fore as this war,
which the Spartans have started
really as part of Agesilaus'
aggressive policy,
isn't working.
The Spartans are having to
constantly fight,
they are suffering casualties,
their allies are becoming more
and more restive,
and look what's happened,
suddenly Sparta which was
absolutely in charge of
everything is practically on the
defensive.
So, for all these reasons
there's opposition to the bold
policy and Antalcidas represents
that.
He gets the Spartan assembly or
the Spartan gerousia in
efforts to support a mission to
the King of Persia in which he
tries to negotiate a peace.
It doesn't work in large
part, because the enemies,
that is Athens and Thebes
particularly,
and perhaps the others--sorry
Corinth and Argos also,
and I'll tell you why in a
moment,
are not ready to do what is
necessary from the Spartan point
of view.
What the Spartans really want
is to break up this coalition
and all anti-Spartan coalitions.
That's really the bottom line
for Sparta.
There's no sense making peace,
if you leave these people in
tact.
What's to stop the whole thing
from happening again in the
future?
That's the bottom line and they
are unable to persuade the
Greeks to make the concessions
that are necessary.
So, the war continues and
nothing really changes except
things get worse.
This time Antalcidas again
negotiates a peace and he really
negotiates it with the great
King of Persia.
The King of Persia has
changed his mind about where the
great threat comes from.
Thrasybulus in the 390s,
in the latter part of the 390s,
engages in a series of naval
campaigns all around the Aegean
Sea in which he recovers one
city after another that used to
be under Athenian rule and once
again puts it under Athenian
rule.
He even once again starts
collecting money from them.
He did something also that the
Athenians had done late in the
Peloponnesian War;
he establishes a customs house
in the Hellespont in the
Bosporus and every ship that
goes through pays a tax to the
Athenians.
So, there's a real feeling in
Persia obviously that the
Athenians are coming back to
rebuild their empire,
and we better stop them and the
Spartans are safer from our
point of view having been
chasing by events,
and so I think that's probably
the single most important reason
why the great king comes out and
backs,
and as we shall see,
insists on a peace in Greece
which meets Sparta's needs and
the needs are that all these
international organizations
should be broken up.
Obviously,
the league of four states that
have conducted the war must
stop, but on top of that,
the union between Argos and
Corinth must be broken up;
that's especially critical to
the Spartans.
That's right next door.
Argos would be strengthened by
its association with Corinth and
if it were allowed to continue,
it would be a problem in the
future.
So, it had to be broken up.
Thebes, of course,
was a great problem for the
Spartans and they insisted that
before peace was to come,
the Thebans had to give up
their control of Boeotia.
They had used the war as an
opportunity to reconstruct the
old Boeotian League,
which left Thebes at the head
and in control of the bulk of
Boeotia that was to be broken up
in order to reduce Theban power.
Originally,
the Spartans had wanted the
Athenians to give up the things
that they had acquired in the
course of the war but they
couldn't do that.
Athens was still too strong in
the one field that they couldn't
be challenged in easily -- their
control of the sea and so a
compromise had to be made if a
peace was to be made.
Athens would not join unless it
was allowed to keep Lemnos,
Skyros, Imbros.
So, that was permitted.
So the peace came and the
critical part--Xenophon reports
the exact language of a message
that King Artaxerxes sent to the
Greeks that was in effect the
instrument that made the peace.
Here's what it said,
"King Artaxerxes thinks it just
that the cities in Asia,
and the islands of Klazomenai
and Cyprus shall belong to him.
Further, that all the other
Greek cities,
small and great,
shall be autonomous."
Listen to that word,
that's critical.
This peace is associated with
the principle of autonomy,
there shall be no breach of
autonomy except,
says the king,
"Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros
which shall belong to Athens as
in the past.
If any refuse to accept this
peace, I shall make war on them,
along with those who are of the
same purpose,
both by land and sea and with
both ships and money."
Ancient writers and modern
writers have disagreed as to
what is the name of this peace,
some of them speak of the Peace
of Antalcidas,
more of them I think speak,
and I think they're right in
this decision,
as the King's Peace.
This is not the product of
a negotiation and the king is
very careful even though it
really is,
but he's very careful to make
it clear that that's not the way
he sees it.
This is a command leveled by
the king at the Greek states
saying, this is how you will be,
I say so, and if you don't like
it I will beat the hell out of
you.
That's the message that comes.
But, of course,
the reason he can say that,
with as much confidence as he
does, is that his partner in the
peace is Sparta.
This is a peace that will
benefit Persia and benefit
Sparta at the expense of
everybody else.
The Spartans take it as a
license to run Greece in the way
that they see fit.
Notice nobody says that the
Spartans have to break up the
Peloponnesian League,
that doesn't count as any kind
of a violation of autonomy and
so that's the nature of the
peace,
whether among the results are
that the Asiatic Greeks are
abandoned by the Greek states
once and for all,
and of course that means Sparta
mainly, until finally Alexander
will impose his rule when he
conquers the Persian Empire.
The Boeotian League is
dissolved, Argos and Corinth are
split, and Athens loses all that
has been gained except for those
three islands that are
mentioned.
Sparta regains,
and in a certain sense,
gets greater control of the
mainland Greek situation.
It is the hegemon of
Greece now as a kind of a
partner of the great king,
and the great king leaves
Greece essentially to the
Spartans without any
interference.
How did he do that?
In the same way that they did
it to win the Peloponnesian War.
An enemy of the Spartans would
say because they were Medizers,
they had done the work of the
Persians;
they had collaborated with the
Persians against the Greeks.
That's now how the Spartans saw
it of course;
they would have something
like--I guess there's a crack in
Plutarch somewhere,
it says, we have not Medized;
it's the Persians who have
Spartanized, but that's a very
kind way of looking at it.
It is without question,
if you look back on it,
we're talking just about 100
years after the Persian war and
it's a reversal of the Persian
Wars.
The Greeks won the Persian
Wars and the proof of it was
they chased the great king out
of Europe,
eager to stay alive and
completely unable to do anything
about what the Greeks were to do
with the coastal regions of the
Persian Empire.
Now the King of Persia is
telling the Greeks what they
must do.
It was widely seen as a cause
for great shame and by those
people who were not friendly to
Sparta a great cause of anger
against the Spartans,
who were responsible for this
condition of things.
But the Spartans didn't care
much, because they were now in a
position to exercise the power
that the dominant force in
Sparta,
who is Agesilaus and his
supporters, wanted to do.
So, in 385 we see the Spartans
attacking the city of Mantinea.
Once again, the story is very
much like the story of Aulis in
402.
This time Mantinea had been
again, one of those states in
the Peloponnesus that had joined
in a quadruple alliance against
Sparta in 421,
the great battle that so much
threatened Spartan existence in
418 had been fought on the
territory of Mantinea.
It had a democratic history and
democratic tendencies.
So, with no pretext really
at all, the Spartans invaded
their territory,
besieged the city,
managed finally to defeat
Mantinea by diverting the waters
of a river that ran through
Mantinea to the point where it
undermined the walls and they
had to surrender.
Xenophon learns an important
lesson about warfare from this
event and he concludes his
account of this by saying,
well, that shows you that you
should not build your city
around the river.
So, if any of you are planning,
keep that in mind.
Then soon afterwards,
the Spartans turn on another
city in the Peloponnesus,
the city of Phlyus,
which is to the southwest of
Corinth, not a very big city but
not a small tiny one either,
and what it turns out here is
that the thing that the
Phylasians have done that the
Spartans don't like is that they
have been a democracy for part
of the time.
King Agesilaus basically
removes the government after
fighting a war and besieging the
city.
It was not an easy task,
it was expensive and time
consuming, but they do gain a
victory and Agesilaus puts in a
new government made up not just
of oligarchs,
which of course they were,
but they were the personal
friends of Agesilaus.
If you look at it,
historically it resembles the
stuff that Lysander was doing at
the end of the Peloponnesian War
and afterwards in placing these
decarchies of his friends
in the cities,
so that they would not be only
pro-Spartan but pro-Lysander,
and here Agesilaus did the same
thing in Phylus and it's not the
only place that he did.
Then enormity followed enormity
as the Spartan power was
unchecked in this period of
time.
Up in the north the city of
Olynthus, in the Chalcidic
peninsula was gaining control of
that peninsula,
basically establishing itself
as the hegemonal power over
cities in that region.
In 383, a couple of cities up
in that region came to Sparta
complaining of what the
Olynthians were doing and urging
the Spartans to defend them and
to undo these things,
using as the basis for their
appeal the King's Peace.
This was a violation of their
autonomy;
the Spartans were to be the
upholders of Greek autonomy
according to the King's Peace,
and so they ought to send a
force up.
The Spartans did so and in
the course of that war which
lasted from 382 to 379,
they defeated Olynthos,
dissolved the confederacy,
and destroyed again any notion
of a league other than the
Spartan League.
There was an event that was
connected with that movement up
towards the northeast,
up to the Chalcidice,
which was the most famous,
I think--there's a small
competition for a couple of
events,
but one of the most famous
anyway in this period
illustrating the arrogance and
power of the Spartan hegemony,
a Spartan force was sent off
ostensibly to reinforce their
Spartan army up there in the
Chalcidice.
It was led by a general named
Phoebidas.
As he was moving north on a
route that would not have been
the normal route to take,
a route that took him right
past the city of Thebes,
he camped out at night and on
his way there he was contacted
by an important official in the
government of Thebes,
an oligarch, a friend of Sparta.
The next day the Spartan army
seized the Acropolis of Thebes,
which is called the
Cadmea.
They did so on a sacred day,
a holiday was being celebrated,
everybody was in the same shape
people are on a holiday.
Nobody was ready,
they took the city;
the enemies of the dominant
party that had invited the
Spartans in were put to death,
if they could not flee
successfully.
The Spartans left a
garrison on the Cadmea
and took control of the city and
had their stooges run the city
thereafter.
Now, this had not been
determined by the Spartan
assembly, this was not the
consequence of a policy decision
that the Spartan officials or
people had made.
When Phoebidas came back to
Sparta he was put on trial and
there was great anger against
him and there was great anger
against Sparta of course
throughout the Greek world.
There was no real case for him,
but surprisingly enough,
even though he was not a member
of Agesilaus' faction.
Agesilaus got up at the trial
and simply said,
you guys are all talking about
the wrong thing.
There's only one question that
should be asked about the
behavior of Phoebidas.
Was what he did good or bad for
Sparta?
Well, it was obviously good.
Why in the world do you want to
punish him?
He was not punished with any
severity;
a mild fine or at least a fine
was imposed.
We don't know if he ever paid
it.
In any case,
the critical thing was what
would Sparta do about the action
itself?
The fact that it had a garrison
up there on the Cadmea.
If they thought it had been the
wrong thing to do,
if it had been the idea that
Phoebidas and what didn't
represent Spartan policy,
then they should have withdrawn
the garrison.
The garrison stayed,
so that Sparta now--this was
something that rang all around
the Greek world.
This was the worst thing
anybody could remember in peace
time with no allegation of
cause,
they had simply seized another
city, an ancient city,
a great city,
and they refused to back off.
Finally there's one other
example of this same kind of
behavior.
The government in Thebes was
tyrannical, imposed upon an
unwilling people;
some of the people who had fled
did a reverse of what happened
in the time of the Thirty
Tyrants in Athens.
They fled to Athens,
and, of course,
the Athenians gave them
support, and protected them and
then in 379 a small number of
these exiles launched a clever
plot that allowed them to sneak
into Thebes and to make their
way to the Cadmea and to
kill the oligarchic leaders of
the city in the dark when nobody
could really do anything about
it,
and to drive away a number of
the Spartans and to free the
city.
Thebes became free,
it became democratic too,
because these people now
belonged to a democratic faction
and more and more,
if you're a democrat,
you're anti-Spartan,
if you're an oligarch,
you're a pro-Spartan,
and so all of this is the
beginning of what we will get to
next time, which is the
flowering of Theban power.
It's going to happen as they
get stronger and stronger,
but the event I wanted to
mention as the twin of the
Phoebidas thing is that in 379,
a Spartan harmost of the
one of the garrisons in Boeotia
by the name of Sphodrias took a
force by night,
marched into Attica,
ostensibly his plan was to
reach the Piraeus and then that
would allow them to take control
of Athens,
because they could cut them off
from their port at the sea.
He didn't get it quite right.
By the time morning broke and
they were visible he was still
miles and miles,
and miles away from the Piraeus
and so all he could do was to do
some harm to the Athenian
territory and then to go home.
Well, when he got home again he
hadn't gotten any vote from the
Spartan assembly or from the
gerousia or from the
ephors to do anything,
another thing that he had
apparently done on his own.
So, there was another trial and
this time the only thing he had
going for him apparently--well,
he still had Agesilaus' general
approach, but he was the lover
of the son of Agesilaus,
and so Agesilaus who ostensibly
was hostile to what had happened
was made to speak in his defense
and this time his argument was
simply,
Sparta has too few men of
quality to be able to execute
any for whatever reason
whatsoever and so we shouldn't
do anything to Sphodrias.
So, they didn't.
That was yet another signal and
it had fantastic consequences.
In Athens they had been
holding some Spartan ambassadors
when the Sphodrias' raid had
taken place and they were
holding them in effect as
hostages,
but the Spartans said,
look we had nothing to do with
it, this was--Sphodrias did it
all on his own,
and he'll certainly be
condemned when he gets back to
Sparta.
So, the Athenians said okay,
you can go home,
and then he wasn't and so the
Athenians now were determined
that they would have to fight
Sparta.
In the process,
they set about organizing an
alliance, a general alliance,
meant against Sparta,
which they were able to do in
considerable part,
because of all of the
irritation that had been felt
all around Greece by these
terrible actions of the
Spartans,
and as I think I'll tell you
next time, they put together
what we call the Second Athenian
Confederation,
and they made an alliance with
the newly liberated Thebes.
Thebes, which is going to get
stronger and stronger,
and stronger and so we have now
a threat once again to the
Spartan hegemony which will be
very serious,
but of a different kind from
the one we had before.
I'll tell you about it next
time.
 
