Shifting Alliances and Enervating Warfare Greek Poleis in the Early Fourth Century BCE.

Shifting Alliances and Enervating Warfare

Greek Poleis in the Early Fourth Century BCE

Disintegrating Poleis: Cracks in the Foundation of the Classical World?

Anabasis: Xenophon and the March of the 10,000 Paymasters (Persian king, Jason of Pherae, Phocians)

and Mercenaries Separation of statesman and general Weakening allegiance to the polis Prototypes of the mercenary commander:

Iphicrates, Conon

March of the Ten Thousand

Instability in Fourth-Century Polis

Internal and External Factors

Isocrates, 4.115-117; cf. Lysias, 33.3

“Who could desire a situation in which pirates occupy the sea and light mercenary troops occupy the cities? Instead of fighting for their land against others, citizens fight each other inside the city walls. More cities have been taken prisoner than before we made the peace. So frequent are revolutions that men who live in their own cities are more despondent than those punished with exile; the former fear the future, the latter expect to return at any moment. So far are cities from “freedom” and “autonomy,” that some are under tyrants, others under Spartan governors, others are in ruins, others are under barbarian masters.”

Thebes After 380 BCE

Background (370s BCE)

Intermittent Warfare between Sparta and Hostile Allies (Thebes and Athens)

Spartans reject Theban claim to Boeotian hegemony The Battle at Leuctra (371 BCE) and the lukewarm

reception at Athens

Thebe’s Imperial Moment (360s BCE)

Invasions of the Peloponnesus (370/369, 367, 364, 362, 361, and 352)

Liberation of Messenia as a free and autonomous state (369)

Arcadian League refounded as a counter to Spartan power in Peloponnesus (369); foundation of Megalopolis (369)

Defeat of Spartans at Mantinea (362; cf. Xenophon, Hellenica, 7.5.27)

Consolidation of central and northern Greece

Theban Eclipse in the 350s BCE

Deaths of Epaminondas (362) and Pelopidas (364)

Costly war with Phocis from 355 to 347 BCE (see Isocrates, 5.54)

Cantonal arrangement of Boeotia (difficult to establish centralized authority)

Competition with Orchomenus for Boeotian leadership

Athens after 380 BCE

Defensive Alliance with Peloponnesian states in 370 (Thebes or Sparta?)

Reconstituted power in Aegean (Samos in 365, Chersonese from 365, much of Chalkidike in 364, Euboea in 357)

Social War: Chios, Rhodes, Byzantium, Cos, aided by Mausolus of Caria (357/356)

Concentration on Black Sea region (from 355)

Decree of Aristoteles377 BCE: Constituting

Second Athenian League

Fourth-Century Crises at AthensDifficult Finances and Patriotic Shortcomings

Trierarchies and Liturgies (antidosis): reports of confiscations by state (390-387)

Growing Disparity of Wealth and Euergetism Aristocratic Shirking of Liturgical Responsibilities (no

vested interest in the “Second Athenian League”) Athens as Case Study of 4th-century Enervation of the Polis