Ancient Greece, Late Classical Period, Decline of Sparta: Cyprus and Egypt, Mantinea and Phlius

Decline of Sparta (386-371 BC)

Cyprus and Egypt: Citium

After the peace, Artaxerxes was free to deal with Hakor and Evagoras. He began by attacking Egypt, but after a three-year war (386-383 BC) he was repulsed by Hakor supported by Chabrias. In 381 BC Evagoras was defeated in a sea battle off Citium and compelled to flee to Salamis. There, although blockaded, he held his own until in 376 BC dissensions among the Persian commanders enabled him to conclude a peace that allowed him to remain nominally king of Salamis, but in reality a vassal of Persia to which he paid a yearly tribute. In 374 BC he was assassinated in palace intrigue.

Mantinea and Phlius 

As the self-appointed guardians of the peace the Spartans used their military dominance to establish their own interpretation of autonomy on the states of mainland Greece. Under the peace the Spartans restored exiled oligarchs to Corinth and other states, where they promptly seized power and then voted as Sparta wished in the Congress of Allies. Some of the states resisted and Sparta decided to discipline them one by one before they could combine against her.

In 385 BC the Spartans, under Agesipolis, attacked the obstinately democratic city of Mantinea. After a long siege the Spartans dammed the Ophis River, which flowed through the centre of the city, at its exit from the city. The resulting flood covered the stone foundations, causing the saturated section of the mud-brick defensive wall above to collapse. The defeated Mantineans were forced to demolish what was left of the walls and return to the five villages from which the city had originally been formed. The democratic leaders were allowed to depart and oligarchic governments took over.

In 384 BC at Phlius, Sparta’s demand for the restoration of the oligarchic exiles was obeyed but in autumn 381 BC the restored oligarchs went to Sparta and complained of unfair treatment in the Phliasian courts. Agesilaus ignored all offers from the democrats of Phlius and demanded the surrender of the acropolis. When his demand was refused he besieged the city, which fell as a result of famine in 379 BC.

During the siege the Phliasians had held assembly meetings in full view of the Spartans with 5000 men attending – a very large number for a relatively small state. At the end of the siege Agesilaus established a board of a hundred and apparently an oligarchic constitution resulted. Xenophon comments: ‘that there were many Spartans who complained that for the sake of a few men (the oligarchic exiles) they were incurring the hatred of a city of over 5000 men’.