A History of the Classical Greek World by P. J. Rhodes

Author:P. J. Rhodes
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2011-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

The Origins of the Common Peace

When the Peloponnesian War ended, Sparta was committed to the unqualified return of the Asiatic Greeks to Persia if the treaty of 411 was still in force, perhaps to their becoming tributary to Persia but otherwise autonomous if the sending of Cyrus had been preceded by a Treaty of Boeotius in 408/7 (cf. pp. 156, 196). In fact it took over the cities in Asia Minor along with the other cities of the Athenian empire; and when Cyrus revolted against Artaxerxes, in 402 (cf. pp. 256–7), he was supported by nearly all of the Asiatic Greeks and by Sparta. When Artaxerxes reinstated Tissaphernes as satrap of Sardis, he demanded the submission of the Asiatic Greeks, they appealed to Sparta, and Sparta agreed to support them: it is more likely that there was a treaty of 408/7 which Tissaphernes regarded as obsolete after the Greeks’ support for Cyrus than that Sparta was wilfully breaking the treaty of 411. The first Spartan forces were sent to Asia Minor in autumn 400.

Sparta’s intervention was originally on a small scale, with men other than kings as commanders, and the fighting was punctuated by truces. In 398 Spartan envoys went to the Persian court (Ctesias FGrH 688 F 30 §74 [63]). After some truces which the Spartan Dercylidas made with one enemy in order to concentrate on another (cf. p. 242), in 397 he accepted a truce offered by Tissaphernes to explore the possibility of a treaty by which the Asiatic Greeks would be autonomous and Sparta would withdraw its troops and commanders (Xen. Hell. III. ii. 12–20, Diod. Sic. XIV. 39. iv-vi). In 396 king Agesilaus went to Asia and took reinforcements: on arrival he accepted a truce to enable Tissaphernes to consult the King about the autonomy of the Asiatic Greeks, but Tissaphernes in fact asked for a large army (Xen. Hell. III. iv. 5–6, Ages. i. 10–11, Plut. Ages. 9. i, Polyaenus Strat. II. 1. viii). In 395, after a victory of Agesilaus near Sardis, Tissaphernes was executed and replaced by Tithraustes, who announced the King’s terms: that Sparta should withdraw and the Asiatic Greeks should be autonomous but pay ‘the ancient tribute’. Agesilaus said he could not agree without authority from Sparta, but let Tithraustes pay him to move into Pharnabazus’ satrapy of Dascylium (Xen. Hell. III. iv. 25–6, Diod. Sic. XIV. 80. viii, Plut. Ages. 10. vi-viii). In 394 there was a meeting between Agesilaus and Pharnabazus but not another proposal for a settlement (Xen. Hell. IV i. 29–40: cf. p. 243).

In Greece Sparta had been alienating its former allies, and showing an interest north of the Isthmus of Corinth as well as in the Peloponnese.Timocrates of Rhodes was sent, probably by Pharnabazus in 397, with money to subsidise opponents of Sparta. In 395 a border dispute between Phocis, backed by Sparta, and Locris, backed by Boeotia, led to the outbreak of the Corinthian War against Sparta; Lysander was defeated and killed at Haliartus, and in 394 Agesilaus had to return from Asia to fight for Sparta in Greece.

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