The Corinthian War
Sparta beat Athens in 404 BC and by 395 BC was at war with Thebes, Corinth, Argos and Athens together, financed by Persia. The victory had made it intolerable. Spartan governors and garrisons were installed in cities across the Aegean, tribute was collected on a scale Athens had never managed, and Lysander's personal position was resented even in Sparta. The Persian contribution is the diplomatic hinge. Sparta had bought Persian money during the last phase of the Peloponnesian War by abandoning the Greek cities of Asia Minor, and then, once the war was won, campaigned in Asia to protect them — at which point Persia found that a strong Sparta was worse than a strong Athens and financed the other side. A Persian fleet commanded by an Athenian, Conon, destroyed the Spartan navy at Cnidus in 394 BC, and Persian money rebuilt the long walls of Athens that Sparta had pulled down eleven years earlier. The land war round Corinth ground on inconclusively, and the most instructive engagement was a small one: Iphicrates destroyed a Spartan regiment with light-armed peltasts who would not close, which demonstrated that hoplites without support could be beaten by troops that ran away faster. The war was ended in 387 BC by the King's Peace, dictated from Susa: the Asian cities to Persia, everyone else autonomous, and Persia to make war on any state that refused. Greek states had invited an arbitrator with no interest in Greece. The King's Peace is also the first time the autonomy of Greek cities was guaranteed by a foreign power in a written document. Every subsequent Greek settlement of the fourth century took the same form, and Philip's league of 338 BC is the last of them.
- Year: 395 BCE
- Category: Military
