{"id":69420,"date":"2022-11-16T01:00:22","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T06:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=69420"},"modified":"2023-09-20T11:10:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T15:10:33","slug":"qotd-did-sparta-actually-aspire-to-supremacy-in-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/11\/16\/qotd-did-sparta-actually-aspire-to-supremacy-in-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: Did Sparta actually aspire to supremacy in Greece?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It is hard to say to what degree Sparta ever really pursued this goal. Several Spartan leaders \u2013 kings like Cleomenes I, the regent Pausanias, Agesilaus II, along with men like Lysander \u2013 once on campaign outside Sparta seemed to have envisaged a much wider sphere of Spartan control over Greece and worked to achieve it. At the same time, the ever cautious Gerousia<\/a><\/em> (along with the Ephors<\/a><\/em>) almost always worked to restrain and eventually destroy such men. This should remind us that no state \u2013 not even Sparta \u2013 is really a unitary entity with one set of goals held by everyone; within the state there is a complex set of competing interests. For the Spartan kings and influential commanders, success outside of Sparta was an alluring way to potentially build power outside of the systems which restricted them within Sparta; for the Gerousia<\/em> and the Ephors<\/em> \u2013 who were that system \u2013 success abroad was a threat to stability at home.<\/p>\n

Given Sparta’s inherent resources, the goal was not unrealistic: Sparta was by land area, if not by population, the largest polis<\/a><\/em> in Greece. But Spartan hegemony lasted less than a decade, primarily because of the ineptness of Spartan diplomacy. While victory over Athens in 404 BC made Sparta the preeminent Greek state, the mistakes started almost immediately: the occupation\/collaboration government (the “Thirty Tyrants”) in Athens was so cruel and unpopular that Sparta was forced to acquiesce to its removal after just eight months. Meanwhile, Spartan imperiousness \u2013 including a refusal to share the spoils of victory, as well as military activity against little Elis and big Persia unsanctioned by the Peloponnesian League \u2013 turned Sparta’s allies against them. Sparta’s efforts to restore their alliance militarily led to the Corinthian War in 395, which would prove that while Sparta was still strong, it was not strong enough to enforce its alliances by force of arms. If any of the Spartans ever aimed for hegemony or preeminence among the Greeks, it is safe to say they failed<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Bret Devereaux, “Collections: This. Isn’t. Sparta. Part VII: Spartan Ends”, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry<\/em><\/a>, 2019-09-27.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is hard to say to what degree Sparta ever really pursued this goal. Several Spartan leaders \u2013 kings like Cleomenes I, the regent Pausanias, Agesilaus II, along with men like Lysander \u2013 once on campaign outside Sparta seemed to have envisaged a much wider sphere of Spartan control over Greece and worked to achieve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1526,7,5,41],"tags":[1527,732,1457,432,1152,1101,1151],"class_list":["post-69420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-greece","category-history","category-military","category-quotations","tag-ancientgreece","tag-athens","tag-bretdevereaux","tag-diplomacy","tag-peloponnesianwar","tag-persia","tag-sparta"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-i3G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69420"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77970,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69420\/revisions\/77970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}