Quick questions on Spartan decline from Pausanias to Leuctra (371 BC): HSC Ancient History

Sparta led the Greek alliance against Persia in the great defensive campaigns. Leonidas's 300 Spartans at Thermopylae (August 480 BC) bought time for the Greek fleet; Pausanias (Agiad regent for the young Pleistarchus) commanded the Greek victory at Plataea (479 BC), ending the Persian land invasion.

A massive earthquake around 464 BC devastated the Eurotas valley. The Helots (mostly Messenian) revolted and held out at Ithome (in Messenia) for several years.

The 27-year war between the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League and the Athenian-led Delian League. Three phases.

Sparta's post-war hegemony alienated former allies. The high-handed administration of Spartan harmosts (governors) in the Aegean and the punitive treatment of Athens generated resistance.

King Agesilaus II (Eurypontid, reigned around 400 to 360 BC) dominated Spartan policy. His aggressive foreign policy included:

The decisive battle of the period. Cleombrotus I, the Agiad king, invaded Boeotia with around 11,000 troops. Epaminondas met him at Leuctra in southwest Boeotia with around 7,000 Thebans.

Epaminondas invaded the Peloponnese in 370 to 369 BC, marched to Sparta itself (which the unwalled city defended desperately), and crucially liberated Messenia. The new polis of Messene (founded 369 BC) ended the Helot economy that had sustained Sparta for centuries. The Helot foundation of Spartiate citizenship was destroyed.

Oliganthropia. Aristotle (Politics 1270a) treats the decline of Spartiate numbers as the structural cause. From around 8,000 at Thermopylae (480 BC), the citizen body declined to around 1,500 to 2,000 by Leuctra. Land consolidation in fewer families and the strict qualification requirements (failure of the syssition contribution meant loss of citizenship) drove the decline.

Paul Cartledge (Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta, 1987) treats the reign of Agesilaus II as the prism through which the decline can be analysed. Structural causes (oliganthropia, Helot threat) and contingent factors (Agesilaus's aggressive policy) interact.

Named for the Spartan king Archidamus II. Annual Spartan invasions of Attica produced no decisive result; Athens's naval supremacy kept her supplied. The plague at Athens (430 to 426 BC) killed Pericles and around 25 per cent of the population.

Athens launched a major invasion of Sicily. After initial promise, the expedition collapsed catastrophically. Around 40,000 Athenians and allies were killed or enslaved (Thucydides 6 to 7).

Sparta, with Persian funding (the Treaty of Miletus, 412 BC), built a fleet. The Spartan admiral Lysander, supported by Cyrus the Younger, defeated the Athenian navy at Aegospotami (405 BC). Athens surrendered in 404 BC.

Aristotle (Politics 1270a) treats the decline of Spartiate numbers as the structural cause. From around 8,000 at Thermopylae (480 BC), the citizen body declined to around 1,500 to 2,000 by Leuctra. Land consolidation in fewer families and the strict qualification requirements (failure of the syssition contribution meant loss of citizenship) drove the decline.

Internal policing absorbed military and political energy. The Helot revolt of the 460s BC showed the depth of the threat. After Leuctra, the loss of Messenia removed Sparta's economic foundation.

Sparta's high-handed conduct after 404 BC alienated allies and produced the coalitions that defeated her.