AGESILAOS II AND THE POLITICS OF SPARTA, 404-377 B.C.

摘要

Agesilaos, though not destined by birth for the kingship, came to preside over the zenith of Sparta's power and influence. Rigorous Spartan discipline cloaked his ability and ambition while he was a private citizen, but when he became king under unusual circumstances, these latent characteristics surged to the fore.; He quickly humbled Lysander, who had hoped to be the real leader of the Asian expedition in 396 B.C. His lucrative forays and great popularity induced the ephors to make him supreme commander by land and sea in 395, a decision unique in Spartan history. He suppressed his bitter disappointment that the Korinthian War forced his recall from Asia Minor, but as the war of attrition dragged on, he emerged the most powerful man in the state. In order to secure a favorable peace, however, he endured a second disappointment, abandoning his hope to free the Asian Greeks from Artaxerxes. With the formal conclusion of the King's Peace (386 B.C.), the Spartans under Agesilaos embarked on a policy of hegemonism in European Greece. As architect of this aggressive new stance, the king suppressed external opposition by imposing docile pro-Spartan oligarchies wherever resistance occurred. Adversaries at home he won over or left to ineffectual dissent. From 386 to 379 B.C. Spartan expansion by intimidation, force and deceit reached as far north as Makedonia and Thrace before the Thebans overthrew their pro-Spartan government to join with Athens' new maritime league in a war of liberation. The study concludes with an account of Agesilaos' failure to retrieve the situation in Boiotia militarily and an evaluation of the Spartan hegemony at zenith--an hegemony of which Agesilaos was the chief architect.