Ancient Greece, Late Classical Period, Theban Hegemony (371-362 BC): Eastern Aegean

In the fourth century BC the acceptance of the King’s Peace did not preclude action against Persia. In 366 BC Athens gave Timotheus the command of thirty ships and eight thousand mercenary peltasts, and ordered him to support the satrap Ariobarzanes who was in revolt. An attack on the Asian mainland would have been a breach of the peace. Timotheus, however, found a Persian garrison installed on Samos (Persia’s occupation of the island was a breach of the peace), expelled it and laid siege to the city. When it fell after ten months, Timotheus expelled the Samian inhabitants and installed a large number of cleruchs.

In 365 BC Autophradates satrap of Lydia (r.388-355 BC) who was besieging Ariobarzanes, an ally of Sparta, at Assos in southern Troad, had to abandon his siege when Agesilaus arrived in Asia to raise money for his country. In the Chersonese, Sestus and Crithote at this time were held by Ariobarzanes; and the Thracian king Cotys-I (r.384-359 BC) was besieging Sestus from the land while Mausolus (r.377-353 BC), satrap of Caria, (r.377-353 BC) was blockading the city from the sea. Timotheus and Agesilaus drove Cotys off and persuaded Mausolus to leave. Timotheus then ‘received’ Sestus and Crithote from Ariobarzanes. Timotheus went on, with the aid of Perdiccas III who had succeeded in ridding himself of his guardian Ptolemy, to capture Potidaea, Torone and other cities in Chalcidice and, at Perdiccas’ expense, Pydna and Methone on the coast of Macedonia.

In 364 BC Epaminondas persuaded the Thebans that to enforce the peace they needed to achieve naval hegemony. In 363 BC with a hundred ships he entered the eastern Aegean seeking to win over Rhodes, Chios and Byzantium. Athenian opposition dissipated in front of him and he reached Byzantium, which seems to have revolted from Athens along with Chalcedon and Ceos. Although Epaminondas received a pro-Theban reception from both Rhodes and Chios, neither seems to have actually revolted. In fact, the only apparent successful outcome of the Theban Aegean venture seems to have been the permanent withdrawal of Byzantium from the Athenian Alliance, damaging because of its control of the grain route.