The decline of Spartan power from Pausanias and the Persian Wars through the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, including the rise of the Theban hegemony

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to trace the arc of Spartan power from its peak as leader of the Greek alliance against Persia (480 BC) to its collapse at Leuctra (371 BC), naming the key episodes (Pausanias, the Ithome revolt, the Peloponnesian War, the King's Peace, Agesilaus II, Leuctra), explaining both structural causes (oliganthropia, Helot threat) and contingent factors (poor diplomacy, the Theban response), and engaging with the modern historiography.

The answer

Peak: the Persian Wars and the Pausanias affair (480 to 470s BC)

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.

In 478 BC Pausanias led the Greek fleet across the Aegean, accepted the surrender of Byzantium, and was accused of imperious conduct and pro-Persian sympathies. Sparta recalled him. Athens stepped into the leadership void with the Delian League (478 BC).

Pausanias was tried, suspected of conspiring with the Helots and with Persia, and around 470 BC took refuge in the temple of Athena Chalkioikos on the Spartan acropolis. The ephors walled him in; he starved to death. Thucydides (1.94 to 134) gives the detailed account.

The first phase of decline was already underway: Sparta had lost the strategic initiative in Greek foreign policy.

The Ithome revolt and the breach with Athens (460s BC)

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 Spartans, struggling to suppress the revolt, requested Athenian help. The Athenian general Cimon arrived with 4,000 hoplites. The Spartans, unsettled by the Athenians' presence and fearing their sympathy with the Helots' revolutionary potential, sent the contingent home alone.

The episode broke the Spartan-Athenian alliance. Athenian democratic reform accelerated (the reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles, 462 to 461 BC). Cimon was ostracised. The First Peloponnesian War (460 to 446 BC) followed.

Thucydides (1.101 to 103) is the principal source.

The Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC)

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

Archidamian War (431 to 421 BC). 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. The Peace of Nicias (421 BC) was a temporary truce.

Sicilian Expedition (415 to 413 BC). 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). Athenian sea power was crippled.

Ionian War (412 to 404 BC). 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. Sparta imposed the Thirty Tyrants on Athens.

The war established Sparta as the dominant Greek power but at the cost of accepting Persian gold and developing a fleet that contradicted the traditional Spartan land orientation.

Spartan hegemony and the Corinthian War (404 to 387 BC)

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.

The Corinthian War (395 to 387 BC) saw a coalition of Thebes, Athens, Argos, and Corinth (funded by Persia) against Sparta. The Spartan fleet was destroyed at Cnidus (394 BC) by the Athenian commander Conon (returning from exile). Sparta's land victory at Coronea (394 BC) was inconclusive.

The King's Peace (the Peace of Antalcidas, 387 BC) was imposed by Persia. Sparta accepted Persian terms in return for nominal hegemony; the Greek cities of Asia Minor were ceded to Persia. The peace was widely seen as a Spartan capitulation.

Agesilaus II and the Theban response (387 to 371 BC)

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

• The Asia Minor campaign against Persia (396 to 394 BC), aborted by the Corinthian War
• The seizure of the Cadmeia (the Theban acropolis) by the Spartan commander Phoebidas (382 BC), in a flagrant breach of the King's Peace
• The dissolution of the Boeotian League and the installation of a Spartan-backed oligarchy at Thebes

The Theban response was led by Epaminondas and Pelopidas. The pro-democratic faction recaptured the Cadmeia in 379 BC, expelled the Spartans, and reconstituted the Boeotian League. Theban infantry training intensified; the Sacred Band (an elite unit of 300 hoplites organised in pairs) was raised.

The Battle of Leuctra (371 BC)

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's tactical innovation was the oblique formation. He stacked his left wing 50 ranks deep (compared with the standard 8 or 12), with the Sacred Band at its head. The left advanced ahead of the rest of his line. It struck the Spartan right (where Cleombrotus and the elite Spartiates fought) before the Spartan left could engage. Cleombrotus was killed.

Around 400 Spartiates died, out of perhaps 700 present at the battle. The total Spartiate citizen body at this time was around 1,500 to 2,000. The casualties were a generation of Spartiate manhood.

After Leuctra: Theban hegemony (371 to 362 BC)

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.

Thebes dominated Greece until Epaminondas's death at the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC). Sparta never recovered its hegemony.

Structural causes

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.

The Helot threat. 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.

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

Spartan decline at a glance

Historiography

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.

G.L. Cawkwell (various articles) emphasises the diplomatic and military mistakes of the post-404 BC period.

Anton Powell (Athens and Sparta, 2001) compares the Athenian and Spartan trajectories.

How to read a source on this topic

Section II sources on Spartan decline typically include extracts from Thucydides (the Peloponnesian War), Xenophon (Hellenica), Plutarch (lives of Pelopidas, Agesilaus, and Lysander), or Diodorus Siculus (book 15). Three reading habits.

First, distinguish contemporary from later sources. Thucydides and Xenophon are contemporary; Plutarch is centuries later. Use both, but identify their distance.

Second, weigh the structural against the contingent. Aristotle's oliganthropia is a long-term structural fact; Leuctra is a contingent battlefield event. Strong responses integrate both.

Third, watch for the pro-Spartan or anti-Spartan bias. Xenophon is pro-Spartan (he was exiled and lived at Sparta); his Hellenica downplays Spartan failures. Diodorus is more critical.

Common exam traps

Treating Leuctra as a sudden reversal. Sparta's decline was a century-long process. Leuctra was the symptom, not the disease.

Missing the liberation of Messenia. The 369 BC foundation of Messene ended the Helot economy. This is the decisive structural change.

Confusing the Spartan kings. Cleombrotus I died at Leuctra (371 BC). Agesilaus II survived and led the desperate defence of Sparta in 369 BC.

Skipping oliganthropia. Aristotle's analysis is the canonical structural cause and routinely tested.

In one sentence

Spartan power declined from its peak as leader of the anti-Persian alliance (Thermopylae 480 BC, Plataea 479 BC) through the Pausanias affair, the Ithome revolt of the 460s BC, the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) won with Persian gold, the Corinthian War and the King's Peace (387 BC), and the seizure of the Cadmeia (382 BC), to the catastrophic defeat at Leuctra (371 BC) where Epaminondas's oblique formation killed 400 Spartiates and ended the Spartan myth, before the liberation of Messenia (369 BC) destroyed the Helot economy that had sustained the polis for centuries - a decline Cartledge attributes to structural oliganthropia (Aristotle, Politics 1270a) interacting with the contingent failures of Agesilaus II's policy.