Spartan Empire

After its defeat of Athens in the Second Peloponnesian War, Sparta established a short-lived empire in mainland Greece and western Asia Minor.

Date: 404-371 b. c.e.

Category: Cities and civilizations

Locale: Greece, Aegean Sea, western Asia Minor (later Turkey)

Summary Sparta exercised its military power primarily through the Peloponnesian League, an alliance founded in the sixth century b. c.e. Allies were drawn primarily from the Peloponnese but also included the city of Thebes and a few other outside cities. League members were allied directly to Sparta and, at least originally, agreed to follow the Spartans wherever they led. The Spartans promised to aid their allies in the event of attack. The Peloponnesian League had no standing army, navy, or treasury. Armies were raised for specific expeditions, and the Spartans determined what forces each ally was to supply.

When the Persian king Xerxes I launched his invasion of Greece in 480 b. c.e., the Greeks chose the Spartans to lead them in the defense of their country. Sparta’s hoplite infantry proved itself at Plataea (479 b. c.e.), but the Spartans then turned their attention to internal affairs and allowed the Athenians to continue the war against Persia. Later events drew Sparta and Athens into the Peloponnesian Wars (460-404 b. c.e.), and the Athenian surrender (404 b. c.e.) made Sparta the undisputed military power of the Greek world.

The Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War to free the Greeks from Athenian imperialism. In victory they proved just as oppressive. The Spartans imposed tributes, installed pro-Spartan governments, and placed military governors (harmosts) and garrisons in the cities freed from Athens. Resistance to Spartan power first came from Persia. In 400 b. c.e., the Persians demanded the submission of the Greek cities of western Asia Minor. The Spartans had recognized Persian control over these cities in return for

Ancient Sparta. (F. R. Niglutsch)

Persian support during the final phase of the Peloponnesian War, but they now reversed that policy and dispatched forces to Asia Minor to protect the Greeks there (400-394 b. c.e.).

While the Spartans campaigned against Persia, resentment against Spartan rule in Greece mounted and led to the outbreak of the Corinthian War (395-386 b. c.e.). A coalition consisting of Thebes, Corinth, Athens, and Argos achieved some modest success against the Spartans, but with the recall ofthe Spartan king Agesilaus II from Asia Minor (394 b. c.e.), coalition forces were driven into Corinth, and the war in Greece reached a stalemate. At sea, a Persian fleet commanded by the exiled Athenian general Conon defeated the Spartan fleet at Cnidus (394 b. c.e.), ending Spartan ambitions in Asia Minor. The Spartans once again reversed their policy and secured the backing of Persia by abandoning the Greeks of Asia Minor. The King’s Peace (386 b. c.e.), also known as the Peace of Antalcidas (the Spartan Antalcidas negotiated its terms), ended the Corinthian War by guaranteeing the autonomy of all Greek states except for those of Asia Minor, which now became Persian subjects.

Withthe King’s Peace, Sparta reached the height of its power. The Spartans acted as guarantors of the peace and used the peace terms as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of Mantinea, Phlius, and the Chalcidian League (385-379 b. c.e.). Spartan imperialism culminated in the seizure of the Cadmea, the citadel of Thebes (382 b. c.e.), by a Spartan commander. This act outraged other Greeks, but although the Spartans fined the responsible commander, they kept a garrison in Thebes in blatant violation of the King’s Peace. The Thebans expelled the Spartans with some assistance from the Athenians (379 b. c.e.), and when another Spartan commander attempted a raid on Piraeus, the port of Athens (378 b. c.e.), the Athenians joined the Thebans in war against Sparta.

The Athenians formed the Second Athenian League to resist Spartan aggression (378 b. c.e.). On land, fighting was indecisive, but at sea, an Athenian fleet defeated the Spartans at Chios (376 b. c.e.). A peace treaty was signed in 375 b. c.e., but fighting broke out again in 373 b. c.e. and ended with peace negotiations at Sparta (371 b. c.e.). When a dispute arose between the Thebans and Spartans over the signing of this peace treaty, the Spartans dispatched an army to Boeotia to punish Thebes. The Thebans, however, led by their general Epaminondas, defeated this Spartan army decisively at Leuctra (371 b. c.e.).

The loss at Leuctra was the product of a combination of socioeconomic, political, and military causes, including a sharp decline in Spartan manpower. It also signaled the end of Spartan military power in Greece. Epami-nondas soon led an army into the Peloponnese, freed the Messenian helots, and set up a new state in Messenia (369 b. c.e.). The Spartans never recovered from the loss of Messenia, and although they played a role in later Greek wars and politics, their military power became a thing of the past.

Significance The Spartans were the preeminent warriors of the ancient Greek world. Their strength derived from their control of Messenia, a region in southwestern Greece, which the Spartans conquered in the First and Second Messenian Wars (c. 736-600 b. c.e.). The Messenians worked their land as state slaves for the Spartans. Thus freed from agricultural labor, the Spartans devoted their lives to warfare. Spartan boys were taken from their families at age seven. Their education stressed obedience and endurance along with military training. At age twenty, Spartan men became full citizens, but they lived in communal barracks until age thirty and remained on active duty until the age of sixty.

Further Reading

Cartledge, Paul. Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.

_. Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History, 1300-362 B. C. 2d ed.

New York: Routledge, 2002.

_. The Spartans: An Epic History. London: Channel Four Books,

2002.

_______. The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient

Greece, from Utopia to Crisis and Collapse. Woodstock, N. Y.: Overlook Press, 2003.

Cawkwell, G. L. “The Decline of Sparta.” Classical Quarterly 33 (1983): 385-400.

Hamilton, Charles D. Agesilaus and the Failure of the Spartan Hegemony. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991.

Ober, Josiah. “The Evil Empire.” MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 10 (1998): 24-33.

Powell, Anton. Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social History from 478 B. C. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2001.

James P. Sickinger

See also: Agesilaus II of Sparta; Epaminondas; King’s Peace; Leuctra, Battle of; Messenian Wars; Peloponnesian Wars; Plataea, Battle of; Xerxes I.