GENERAL TRENDS OF THE EARLY 4^TH CENTURY BC: THE DECLINE OF THE GREEK POLIS

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Click Here for the following images: Alcibiades, Leuctra Monument, Messenian Gate

Broader Trends in Greek history: Particularism vs. Panhellenism

Particularism: Identity with one’s local community (polis) vs. identity with Greece as a whole

Panhellenism: Recognition of wider Greek common cultural attributes (language, religion, gymnastic educational system)

Persian Wars 499-478 BC – The Hellenic League (Sparta was hegemon – commander in chief of allied military campaign), the city states of Greece banded together to resist the threat of conquest by Xerxes I, King of Persia. Persian expedition was defeated on sea at the Battle of Salamis (480) and on land at the Battle of Plataea (479). Spartan unwillingness to lead a crusade to liberate the rest of the Greek world from Persian Domination led to the formation of the Delian League (478 BC), with Athens as hegemon, but still member of Sparta’s Hellenic League. Overlapping jurisdictions inevitably led to tension. Delian League was a joint voluntary military alliance in which each state contributed military contributions (phoros) according to its means.

Congress Decree 448 BC, Pericles announced that the Delian League must continue, as well as its phoros (cash contributions) despite cessation of hostilities with Persia. At this point the Delian League became an Athenian Empire. See External Conflict in the Greek World lecture for Athenian Tribute Lists

Peloponnesian War 431-404 BC – Sparta and its allies called on the subject states of Athens to rise up and join the liberation of the Greek world from the tyranny of Athens.

Alcibiades of Athens

Athens and Delian League v. Sparta and the Peloponnesian League (Sparta Argos, Corinth, Thebes). First half of the war (431-421 BC, Archidamian War) ended in a draw with the Peace of Nicias obtaining the “status quo” for 6 years. In 415 BC, the Athenian leader, Alcibiades (ward of Pericles, student of Socrates) convinced the democracy to attempt to conquer Syracuse in Sicily. He was soon indicted for sacrilege prior to the departure of the fleet but he escaped and fled to Sparta where he was welcome as a guest friend of the Spartan king and advised the Spartans to defeat Athens: 1. by assisting with the defense of Syracuse, 2. by invading Attica and remaining there throughout the year (Decelean War, 415-404 BC), and 3, by dispatching an embassy to the Persian King to demand financial assistance with which to build a fleet to compete with Athens at sea. This brought success including the annihilation of the Athenian expeditionary force at Syracuse (412 BC); however, Alcibiades’ affair with the queen of Sparta in her husband’s absence led again to flight, this time to the palace of the Persian satrap (governor)_in Sardis (Lydia). Again, he wisely advised the Persians to support both Sparta and Athens to wear both parties down so that Persia could benefit from their mutual destruction. His support of Athens led to his recall (409) and exoneration from past charges. He actually led the Athenian naval retaliation vs. Sparta in the waning years of the war. However, the resurgence of Athens and reorganization of the Persian hierarchy in the Aegean (King Artaxerxes II send his brother Cyrus II to assume command of Persian interests in the region), resulted in a renewed understanding between Cyrus and the Spartan general Lysander. A secret deal was struck by which Cyrus would fund Lysander at sea and defeat Athens; in exchange, the Spartans would cede all previous Persian possessions in the region (the cities of Ionia) back to Persia. Mismanagement of the Athenian navy soon led to Alcibiades further indictment, flight and abandonment of the Athenian cause. He was later killed by the Persian satrap of Bithynia on Cyrus’ orders. The Spartan-Persian alliance ultimately led to Lysander’s defeat of the last remaining Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami (404 BC), the naval blockade and siege of Athens and Athenian surrender (401). A pro-Spartan hierarchy was imposed on Athens (the 30 tyrants, led by Socrates’ student Critias) who purged hundreds of leaders of the democracy, and the Long Walls that defended the Piraeus were brought down.

Early Fourth Century Politics in Greece: Greek warfare continued unabated following the Peloponnesian War. As destructive as the Peloponnesian War proved, the level of violence in Greece continued to rise in the following era. Conflict remained incessant during the fourth century as city states continued to realign themselves into shifting alliances in order to combat the threatening military ascendancy first of Sparta (404-371), then Thebes (371-362), and then Athens (362-357). The bewildering rotation of alliances appears to reflect the innate tendency of Greek city-states to restore particularism, city-state autonomy, by weakening whatever power appeared to be on the verge of asserting political ascendancy over others. The result was to leave the Greek mainland divided and resentful of one another at the very moment that outside powers were again threatening to exert their influence over Greece as a whole.

Era of Spartan Hegemony, 401-371 BC – Sparta attempted to assume control of the member states of the Athenian Empire following the defeat of Athens in 404-401 BC. It had secretly colluded with Persia to raise the money to defeat Athens at sea. It had agreed to surrender the Greek states of Ionia to Persia in exchange. Sparta’s allies became alarmed at the growing ascendancy of Sparta and mounted a conflict against it.

(Alliance structure at this time: Sparta vs. Corinth, Argos, Thebes, and Athens)

King Agesilaus of Sparta, a great king who nonetheless witnessed the dismantling of the Spartan hegemony on his watch – growing evidence of manpower shortages in Sparta (for the Spartan hoplite aristocracy, see Archaic Greece and the Rise of Tyranny.

Xenophon, the March of the 10000, and Cyrus II – 401-399 BC. Cyrus II, brother to Persian King Artaxerxes II and favorite son of the dowager queen, was assigned to the Persian command of the Aegean as military satrap to resolve Persia’s role in the Peloponnesian War. He forged an alliance with the Spartan “admiral” Lysander that successfully brought Athens to surrender. His ulterior motive was to recruit Greek mercenary support for his bid to overthrow his brother as king. Some 10,000 Greek mercenaries, many of them exiles, joined his expedition, including Xenophon, an Athenian aristocrat and student of Socrates. At the Battle of Cunaxa outside Babylon, Cyrus and his combined Persian-Greek force defeated the arm of his brother on the battlefield. He himself was killed, leaving the Greek contingent stranded, deep in Persian territory. Devoid of its leader Cyrus and soon deprived of its Greek mercenary generals, this Greek army marched over a 1-year period and fought its way out of “Persia” by heading north to the Black Sea. Most of the warriors successfully made their way back to Greek territory, Byzantium, by which time Artaxerxes and the Spartans were at war, led by King Agesilaus. Xenophon reports that many of the survivors reenlisted for this new conflict. This expedition demonstrated the inferior state of readiness of the Persian military establishment, vis-à-vis Greek hoplite warfare, and inspired many military and political thinkers in Greece to conceive of the day when Greek armies would conquer Persia.

Spartan weakness, the helot situation in Messenia (see Archaic Greece and the Rise of Tyranny). Messenia – helots – serfs, Messenian (Greek) farmers tied to the land to support the families of Spartan full-blooded hoplite warriors and their families. The presence of this suppressed population limited the range of Spartan military ventures. The Spartan Council of Elders (Gerousia) never wanted the army too far from the Peloponnesus in the event of a helot uprising.

Peace of Antalcidas 387 – Brought the temporary end to hostilities following the Corinthian War (Sparta vs. Greece). The Peace was imposed by the Persian King Artaxerxes II and “enforced” by King Agesilaus of Sparta. It lasted briefly.

Boeotian League of Thebes – Thebes became hegemon to a military empire based on its native region of Boeotia. Ignored by Greece since the Persian Wars, Thebes had avoided participation in the Peloponnesian Wars and had grown in population and power in its home region of Boeotia at the end of the Fifth Century BC. It was still vulnerable to Spartan assault, but its leadership was determined to establish the city state as a leading force in Greece.

Seizure of the Cadmeia 382 BC – Spartan army seized the acropolis of Thebes and imposed a garrison. This insult led to the emergence of generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas in Thebes. Hatred of Sparta led to the expulsion of the Spartan garrison by Theban patriots led by young Pelopidas (378 BC), soon to be commander of the Theban Sacred Band in 378. The Theban Sacred Band was an elite force of 600 young aristocrats sworn to sacrifice themselves for the good of Thebes. Rushing out ahead of the Theban oblique phalanx at the Battle of Leuctra, the Sacred Band caught the Spartan right flank in lateral motion and broke the line of the Peloponnesian League Army. Homosexual relationships among their ranks bonded the warriors of the Sacred Band emotionally as well as patriotically.

Era of Theban Hegemony 371-362 BC – By defeating Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra, Thebes assumed the hegemony of combined Greek forces (these at first included Athens, Corinth, and Argos) to weaken Sparta both in the Aegean but most particularly in the Peloponnesus, where repeated invasions by Epaminondas led to the dismantling of Sparta’s Peloponnesian League. Epaminondas successfully liberated Messenia and the helots and created the fortified settlement of Messene.

Battle of Leuctra Diagrams Showing Use of the Oblique Phalanx by Placing Deep Ranks of Theban Hoplites on the Left Flank to Attack the Exposed Right Flank of the Spartan Army.

Victory Monument erected by Epaminondas of Thebes at Leuctra

Battle of Leuctra 371 – Using the Oblique Phalanx and ‘Joint Force Operations’ of cavalry, peltasts, slingers and archers, the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas outmaneuvered the Spartans on the battlefield and decimated the Spartan hoplite army. The Spartan army suffered an irreversible setback (loss of elite troops), and Spartan hegemony over the Peloponnesian league was undone. Sparta was suddenly exposed to repeated (4) invasions of Laconia by Thebes, supported by many former Peloponnesian League allies. Epaminondas liberated states such as Messenia and Mantinea from Spartan domination and helped to construct urban defenses.

Megalopolitan Gate at Messene

While Epaminondas dismantled the Spartan hegemony in the Peloponnesus, Pelopidas exerted Theban hegemony to the north, to Thessaly and Macedonia. During one expedition, ca 368 BC, Pelopidas took the Macedonian prince, Philip II, hostage as leverage toward the good behavior by his older brother Perdiccas, the king. As a teenager Philip observed and participated in Theban military operations and learned the advantages of “joint force operations” and the “oblique phalanx”. Pelopidas died soon afterward in a campaign in the Thessaly (Battle of Cynoscephalae 364 BC).

Battle of Mantinea 362 – Epaminondas again relied on the tactical flexibility of the oblique phalanx to outmaneuver Sparta, Mantinea, and Athens outside the walls of the Peloponnesian state of Mantinea. Though victorious on the field, Epaminondas was wounded in battle and died at the moment of victory on the field. This followed Pelopidas’ demise in northern Greece 2 years earlier. For all their success and brilliance, Epaminondas and Pelopidas had no successors capable of sustaining the Theban military supremacy. Thebes reigned in its influence and interests to the immediate vicinity of Boeotia.

(Alliance structure at this time: Thebes vs. Sparta, Athens, Corinth)

2^nd Athenian Naval Confederacy 378 – 357 (Social War) – While all this was going on, Athenians had been attempting to reconstitute the Delian League alliance of the 5^th century BC, without resorting to tribute collections. Without guaranteed funds the alliance was doomed. When Athens finally attempted to impose force contributions, the allies rebelled (Social War, 357 BC) and the alliance collapsed. The Social War 357 BC, demonstrated the inherent weakness of the Athenian naval position: the financial impossibilities of the confederacy and the collapse of Athenian naval power.

Emerging Trends of 4^th Century BC Greek warfare:

Ø MERCENARIES - Xenophon, March of the 10000 (Anabasis) 401-399 BC; Evolving professionalism of hoplite tactics: Oblique phalanx, Epaminondas and Pelopidas of Thebes, Battle of Leuctra 371 BC Professional skirmishers – peltasts, slingers, archers; large cavalry formation used as an offensive weapon; Coordination of complementary units on the battlefield: ‘Joint Force Operations’

Ø 2. Individualism – disengagement (disenchantment) of elite members of society from their respective city states. A growing tendency to see themselves as men of the world, not the polis.

Ø 3. Political Apathy – withdrawal from political life at the local level; Example: Athenian liturgies – voluntary philanthropy, from wealthy individuals maintaining triremes during the 5^th century BC to avoidance of such responsibilities during the 4^th.

Ø 4. DECLINE IN THE IMPORTANCE OF THE POLIS – emerging elements of mercenaries, financiers and dignitaries who saw themselves as existing in a world that transcended the polis.