Introduction

The decisive Theban defeat of Sparta at Leuktra in 371 shocked the Greek world. It upset the balance of power, such as it was, and shook almost to the breaking point nearly every existing alliance. Sparta would never again regain her former prominence; Athens pulled back from Thebes and aligned with her old enemy Sparta; Thebes suddenly found herself on a seemingly unobstructed path to dominance not merely of Boiotia but of the Peloponnese and even northern Greece. Yet less than a decade later, after the battle of Mantineia in 362, in the words of the contemporary historian Xenophon, ‘‘there was even more confusion and disorder in Greece... than before’’ (Hellenika 7.5.27). Within three years the balance of power would shift north with the phenomenal rise of Macedonia under Philip II.

Beginning with the Peloponnesian War the Greek states embarked on a series of lengthy and debilitating internecine wars. These wars were often funded and eventually even refereed by the Persian Great King. The Athenian navy had effectively shut out Persia from Greek affairs since the mid fifth century. But after the Athenian disaster at Syracuse the Great King again began to play an increasingly important role in the Greek world. Persian coffers financed Lysander’s victory over Athens in 404 and with the King’s Peace of 387/6 the Great King became the official arbiter of Greek political affairs. Yet after wrecking Athens’ imperial might the Spartans themselves were unable to wield power for much more than a generation, despite Persian backing, when they faced a resurgent Athens at the head of a new sea league and a new Theban-led democratic Boiotian Confederacy, the brainchild of the brilliant Epameinondas. Throughout the period the quest for hegemony caused alliances to shift with breath-taking rapidity; this year’s friend frequently was next year’s enemy.

Paradoxically, and perhaps understandably, this same period of Greek disunity saw a widespread popularity of panhellenic rhetoric; the theme permeates the works of contemporary writers such as Xenophon and Isokrates. Panhellenism urged Greeks to set aside their competition for hegemony and instead work together against Persia. This had deep emotional appeal for fourth-century Greeks on two levels. First, it drew directly on the Greek successes against Xerxes of the previous century, victories which ushered in the era of Greek self-rule and imperialism. This spoke to the humiliation many Greeks must have felt at the increasingly central role Persia played in Greek affairs. Second, and more importantly, it also addressed mounting Greek frustration at individual cities’ inability to relinquish hegemonic dreams for the sake of greater Greek unity or even simply for peace. In fact no major Greek state ever voluntarily gave up its pursuit of hegemony, nor were there serious factions within individual cities which advocated a panhellenist foreign policy. Strong though its appeal may have been on an emotional level, panhellenism rarely had any lasting impact on a practical level. The speeches of Isokrates, for example, which call for a panhellenic expedition against Persia are for the most part thinly disguised propaganda for an alliance dominated by one state or another, usually his native Athens.

By the middle 350s, in the wake of the battle of Mantineia and the Social War, it seemed evident that no Greek state was powerful enough to win a military hegemony. Both Isokrates 8 ( On the Peace) and Xenophon (De Vectigalibus) wrote treatises urging the Athenians to abandon their efforts to regain their former imperial greatness via military means. Instead both writers exhorted the Athenians to gain prestige by winning commercial prominence and by striving to defend the independence of all Greek cities. Athens, of course, continued to pursue an aggressive if not imperialist policy in the northern Aegean. This brought her into conflict with the rising power of Philip II of Macedon. The famous orator and statesman Demosthenes championed anti-Macedonian sentiment in Athens and urged the Athenians to act aggressively to protect their interests in the north, especially the vital grain route to the Black Sea. His rhetoric drew on panhellenic sentiment, but with Philip replacing the Great King as the barbarian threat to Greek freedom. Indeed, Demosthenes hoped Persia would play a key role in the struggle on the Greek side (Diodoros 9.71).