Spartan Policy and Strategy in the Archidamian War

Abstract

THE AVOWED AIM of the Spartans in 431 was to liberate the subjects of Athens (2.8.4; cf. 1.139.2);1 but, according to Thucydides, truest motive for making war was the growth of Athenian power and the fear it inspired which forced to fight (1.23.6), and the Spartans voted for war in 432 so much persuaded by the speeches of allies as because they were afraid that the Athenians would acquire greater power, for they saw that the larger part of Greece was already subject to them (1.88). Thucydides indeed held that the Spartans were normally reluctant to enter on wars, unless they were forced into them, a condition that in his view was now fulfilled; they at last resolved to check the Athenians when their power was patently growing and when they were striking at the Spartan confederacy (1.118). It is no part of my plan to re-examine fully the true cause of the Peloponnesian war. I believe that Thucydides' explanation will stand in essence. The truth is, however, perhaps a little more complex than he makes explicit. The allies of Sparta at whom Athens was directly striking in 432 were Corinth and Megara. Thucydides makes the Corinthians threaten to abandon the alliance with Sparta and turn elsewhere, if Sparta refused support (1.71). This was surely an empty threat and known to be such at Sparta. There was no reason to think that Corinth could obtain help against Athens from any other quarter, if Sparta failed her. Argos, the only strong city in Greece which was uncommitted, had a secular feud with Sparta over Cynuria or Thyreatis; she never abandoned her claim to this border-land, and would make no permanent peace with Sparta, only truces;' with Athens she had no quarrel, but an ideological link by reason of her democratic institutions.' In any event Argos was not strong enough to give Corinth effective aid.4 Corinth