LII. End as of 11/22/95
1. Persia sends a new supervisor, Prince Cyrus, and Sparta sends a new admiral, Lysander.
2. Notion (off Ephesus) brings Alcibiades down in 406. Conon can't hold off Mytilene
3. Fortunately, the Spartans had temporarily replaced Lysander with Callicratidas and sent out their best men and best ships to Arginusae. Unfortunately...
4. Aegospotamoi, 405. Oops.
A. Down come the Long Walls, down comes the Democracy: Critias and the Thirty
a) B3 p. 317: Idealism saved Athens vs. guilt at the sellout and the chance to keep a friendly threat to Corinth and Thebes.
b) Essentially the 400 reconsitituted, down to and including the execution of those who'd opposed the earlier coup.
c) Theramenes the moderate vs. Critias the extremist
(1) Theramenes had authored the 5000/representative system Cleophon had destroyed.
(2) Critias (like Xenophon, Plato, and Alcibiades was a student of Socrates--could argue and didn't have a lot of faith in tradition.
(3) Lysander appoints the system with a harmost (explain) here and in other "liberated" areas.
(4) The right to bear arms is restricted to 3,000 of the 30's closest friends--do you see why the founding fathers considered it so important?
d) Spartan support does not prove enough.
(1) Admiral Thrasybulus returns and seizes and keeps old fortress of Phyle.
(2) The 30 don't help matters any by executing people for their property and trying to involve people (such as Socrates) in their crimes.
(3) Theramenes is branded an extremist and executed in 403--no more use in talking.
(4) Since talking's out, Thrasybulus seizes Piraeus and occupies Munychia and (O Joy!) Critias gets killed in the fighting.
(5) Amnesty granted, and the old constitution restored. People like Thrasybulus are useful weapons against obstructive cynicism.
I. The Fourth Century: Sparta Drops the Ball Again
A. First some deaths:
1. Cleophon, for having kept the soldiers fighting just one time too many, is executed as a draft-dodger.
2. Alcibiades had made Tissaphernes, Sparta and the 30 mad at him, and got his in 404.
3. Socrates gets executed in 399
a) War hero at Delion.
b) Athens was getting jittery already under a barrage of bad luck and Higher Education (the sophists)
(1) Absolutely best demonstration of this is Aristophanes magnificent The Clouds (423), like much of comedy, is this angst embodied.
(2) No REAL hostility--Plato put him in the dialogues, and Socrates mentions the play in the Apology.
c) When the "traditional" democracy was just staggering back to its feet, you want respect for tradition-- something for which Socrates had no respect AT all.
d) Traditional political charge of Inventing New Gods, but Socrates wouldn't do the right thing and go into exile. Instead, he rammed their insecurity right down their throats and died for it.
4. And Prince Cyrus gets his...
a) Sparta feels that turnabout is fair play and is DELIGHTED to encourage a civil war in Persia.
(1) Spartans send 700
(2) 10,000 heavy infantry, 3,500 slingers and light troops
b) Sweet Queen Parysatis (Yeesh! gets Tissaphernes in 395--Plutarch's life of Artaxerxes), Tissaphernes and Artaxerxes set up the events at Cunxa, 401
(1) Cyrus killed, Clearchus and Greek officers murdered by Tissaphernes at Parley BUT
(2) Old Dorian ethic of council prevails, and Xenophon the war correspondent and others end up getting the 10,000 all the way out of Persia by 399 regardless of what the Persians try and do about it.
(3) A LOT of people read (and are reading) Xenophon's book (Easy Greek!)
B. Sparta gets all set to re-fight the last war (the old paranoia, again)
1. Effort to "Mantinea" all of Greece: garrisons and harmosts and oligarchies (decarchies) everywhere BUT
a) People resented that, especially since the Spartans had fought the last war for the "freedom" of Greece
b) AND the Spartan army could not quite be everywhere at once to support all these new governments.
2. Remember what I said about the Spartans: It's their system to ruthlessly exploit and suppress others.
a) Notoriously corruptible: Gylippus
b) The Spartans themselves were getting sick of all that "Equality" jazz (consider Brasidas!)
(1) Spartans impoverished by the wars fromed the "Inferiors" for whom the system was no longer working.
(2) Lysander even tried to expand the Kingship via a bogus Delian prophecy but
(3) Ended up playing king-maker to Agesilaius (398). Oops (Plu. Ages. 7-8)
3. Sparta tries to regain the moral high ground by Thibron's (400) and Agesilaius' (396) invasions of Asia to undo the damage they'd done by selling out the Greeks of Ionia. A lot of soldiers died, but it didn't work because of the failures in their domestic policy.
II. End as 11/27/95
1. Corinth, Thebes (sacrifice at Aulis anecdote, Plu. Ages. 6), Argos and Athens all end up federated against Sparta by 395, The Corinthian War of 395- 387.
2. Artaxerxes and Tissaphernes thank Agesilaius for his invasion (and support of Cyrus) by providing Conon with a fleet:
a) Starts off by persuading the Rhodians to revolt and there goes Sparta's best fleet base (395)
b) Annihilates the Spartan fleet at Cnidus in 394.
c) THE PERSIANS pay for the reconstruction of the Long Walls by 392
d) Thrasybulus even laid the groundwork for the refoundation of the Delian League in 389: If the Persians don't get you, the Spartans will!
(1) Killed the harmost of Lesbos
(2) Formed an alliance with Thasos, Samothrace, Byzantium, and Chalcedon
(3) Killed in his tent at Aspendus
A. Things look bad for Sparta: They'll look worse!
1. Sparta spends 392-0 battering at the Isthumus with some success BUT
2. Iphicrates does the impossible and wipes out a Spartan regiment (mora) with his light troops (peltasts) at Corinth in 390 (return to Demosthenes' old tactics at Sphacteria). Could this be the end of Sparta?
3. Iphicrates cleans the Anaxibius and the Spartans out of the Bosphorus region in 388.
B. When in doubt, abandon all principle:
1. Antalcidas back to Persia in 392, Conon gets imprisoned but the man is hard to kill, and Persia wants to watch Sparta bleed a bit.
2. Athens tries to support Evagoras on Cyprus, loses Persian support, and starts to lose...
3. Persia decides to dictate a peace, 387: Conscious parody of the goals of the Delian League:
a) Greeks of Asia shall be free vs. shall be the Great King's.
b) Alliance against Persia vs. No alliances allowed (and Sparta the enforcer!)
c) No Persians in Greece vs. Persians will interfere any time they damn well feel like it.
C. Sparta: The Enforcer, with the Persians to Back Them (Medizing/Laconizing, Plu. Ages. 23)
1. Goobye Mantinea! Walls, identity as a polis, existence as a political power! That's one traditional enemy disposed of!
2. Amyntas of Macedonia had long been supporting the cities of the Thraceward region and the Chalcidean League in their bid for independence from Athens.
a) For some reason, he seems to have wanted them to be entirely independent (Heh heh).
b) Encouraged them to draw together into a single target...excuse me, fortress at Olynthus...
c) Sparta got invited in when Acanthus and Apollonia didn't WANT in (Gee! Why would they be suspicious? And they'd had such good luck with leagues in the past!)
d) Remember, King's Peace: No leagues! Chalchidean League destroyed in 379. Nowhere to go for help but Macedonia (heh heh).
3. On the way back, Phoebidas had a chance to support a group of Theban Oligarchs in a coup in 382
a) The next thing you know (King's Peace be damned) Sparta's controlling the Cadmeia! (Plu. Age. 23 Pel. 5-6).
(1) One sop to their conscience: Fining Phoebidas
(2) Another: Re-establishing Plataea (and take that, Thebes!)
4. Coups tend to bring out the best or the worst in People: Pelopidas liberates Thebes, 379/8.
a) Two lessons: Read all mail immediately!
b) Make very sure you know who's sitting next to you (Plu. Pel. 8-12)
c) Athens has vacillated: Two generals were punished for moving their troops to support the liberators
d) Sphodrias, however, was even dumber: attempted attack and successful devastation.
(1) Sphodrias's son and Agesilaius's son were REALLY CLOSE (Plu. Ages. 25-6) and
(2) Sparta acquitted Sphodrias and drove Athens right into the arms of Thebes (Plu. Pel. 15).
5. Callistratus formalized the 2nd Athenian Confederacy in 378 (King's Peace Ignored--and the Persians don't do anything... Hmm.) and Timostheus sails around the Peloponnese in 376! We're ba-ack!
6. It gets even better when Athens and Sparta go at it over Corcyra from 374-3 until THEY've had enough.
7. Agesilaius keeps invading Boetia and not doing well AT ALL:
a) Alcidas's remark "You taught them how to fight. Looks like they learned well!" (Plu. Ages. 26). Remember what Tyrtaeus had said about not fighting any one enemy too long?
b) Agesilaius's counter about "how many soldiers (Plu. Ages. 26) vs. the Theban Sacred Band (Plut. Pel. 18): TWO can play at the professional game.
III. Thebes picks up the Ball and Runs With It: The Hegemony 0f 371-365
1. Do Personalities matter? Agesilaius vs. Epaminondas at the negotiations for the Peace of Callias, 371. Freedom of Boetia vs. freedom of Laconia.
2. Never get an authentic military genius that mad at you.
a) Cleombrotus brought his army down from Thessaly
(1) Jason of Pherae needed all the watching he could get.
(2) He'd united Thessaly and its cavalry under him and hired a huge mercenary army, and
(3) In 370, just after things had gotten really bloody in Greece and during the usual truce for the Olympics had mobilized his army!
(4) Good thing he got assassinated! Why, a strong power coming down from the North could have taken over all Greece like that...
b) Forgetting that, Cleombrotus tried to annihilate Thebes.
c) Leuctra, 371. Epaminondas took the traditionally thick Theban phalanx, and aimed it at a single point in the enemy's line, "The Oblique Line of Battle." (Plu. Pel. 23)
(1) Would it interest you right now to know that Amyntas of Macedonia would soon be sending his son Philip as a hostage/for safekeeping to Thebes?
(2) Would it interest you to know that Philip seems to have learned a great deal about how to build a phalanx at this time?
d) THAT DOES IT. 1000 Spartans (400 homoioi, about 1 in 4) die, and Sparta never recovers.
3. It gets worse: Epaminondas wasn't one of those generals who lets the enemy get up again.
a) Mantinea and the other cities of Arcadia are joined into the Arcadian league with a HUGE fortress capital at Megalopolis.
b) The Spartans get to watch (having barely saved their city, thanks ladies!) while Epaminondas frees their helots and REBUILDS Messenia, 370! Supposedly Aristomenes had visited the battlefield at Leuctra.
c) Epaminondas also KEEPS INVADING Laconia, which bruises feelings, as does Athens efforts to keep Thebes from getting too strong or Sparta from getting too weak
d) Pelopidas gets his (368) trying to keep Alexander of Pherae from putting Jason's army back together, Plu. Pel. 29-34. Works, though.
A. Everybody gets frightened enough to form "The Quintuple Alliance" against Thebes after Pisa and Elis start fighting over Olympia again. Aren't old wars lovely?
1. Sparta's still backing Elis, and Athens is allied with Sparta and some unhappy members of the Arcadian League
2. Thebes backs the rest even after their army ATTACKS Olympia DURING the games of 364 and LOOTS the sacred treasuries! There's a boost to Greek morale!
B. Mantinea, 362. Epaminondas wins, but dies along with his staff
1. Thebes becomes the Headless Monster while
2. Sparta and Agesilaius get their own chance to cope with the burden of History.
3. Who's left standing?
a) Thebes allies have mostly broken off by 357.
b) Athens' second confederation (with a lot of help from Mausolus of Caria) disintegrates by 356 (Social War)
c) Syracuse has had so many coups that people have lost track, although Timoleon (another one of those decent people we hear about from time to time) does manage to save the city from Carthage, 344.
IV. End as of 11/29/95