quotation at 3.98.4.
164. Th. 3.100.1.
165. This much is known from Thucydides. The treaty between the Spartans and Aitolians (T48) has been attributed by several scholars to this episode, which if correct would not change the Thucydidean picture radically; see the commentary to T48 in the epigraphic dossier.
166. Th. 3.100.2–102.5. Molykreion: 3.102.2.
167. Makyneia was certainly Aitolian by 329/8, when a decree of the Delphians bestowed proxeny upon an Aitolian from Makyneia (Bourguet 1899: 356–57 with La Coste–Messelière 1949: 229–36 for the date). That Makyneia was probably Aitolian by the fifth century is implied by Hellanikos (FGrHist F 118). Cf. Bosworth 1976: 168 with n. 35.
168. Th. 3.102.5.
2
The Fourth Century
During the first half of the fourth century the loose cooperative practices of the Achaians and Aitolians were transformed into a set of formal political institutions that bound the poleis and communities of each region together into regional states. Although the evidence is not plentiful, it is unmistakable. For Boiotia rich literary sources allow us to trace the struggle against Sparta and the unambiguous domination of the Boiotian koinon by Thebes, which itself begins to reveal the remarkable fragility of the koinon as a set of institutions, a theme we shall pick up in greater detail in chapter 6. The narratives of the fourth-century historians also allow us to trace, more broadly, the problem of the relationship between polis autonomy, hailed as a pan-Hellenic political goal in this period, and participation in a koinon. The creation of a common, regional polity was increasingly seen as a solution to the problem of how small poleis could survive in a world in which some states, and rulers, had grown exceptionally large, wealthy, and powerful. The story of the latter half of the fourth century, and indeed the Hellenistic period as well, can be seen as a story about the tremendous success of this solution, as well as about its limitations.
COMMON WARS, COMMON PEACES, COMMON POLITIES, 404–371
The end of the Peloponnesian War left the Aitolians and Achaians apparently independent but pro-Spartan. The Aitolians still lacked access to the Corinthian Gulf but had no immediate means of regaining it. Boiotian feelings toward Sparta, however, now ran tepid, and they grew even cooler in the first years of the fourth century. Of all the Spartans’ Peloponnesian War allies, only the Boiotians and Corinthians refused to join the Spartans when they made war on the Elians in 398.1 Relations between Sparta and Boiotia continued to deteriorate until outright hostility emerged in 395 in a series of engagements called by some sources the Boiotian War, which became only the first act in the longer play known as the Corinthian War. While there may have been lingering anger over the fallout of the Peloponnesian War, there were certainly more immediate causes for offense. The Spartans were interfering in factional Theban politics.2 Farther afield, they were aggressively prosecuting a war with the Persians in the eastern Mediterranean that revealed imperialist ambitions, of which the Boiotians had expressed their disapproval.3 They were also beginning to become involved in Thessaly (much to the alarm of the Boiotians), Sicily, and even Egypt.4 These are the background conditions against which the Boiotians, according to Xenophon, were open to the suggestion, made by agents of the Persian king, that they should stir up a war against the Spartans in Greece in order to draw Agesilaos away from Asia. They were joined by the Corinthians and Argives, at least in part because of political divisions and strong anti-Spartan tendencies within each of the cities.5 The Thebans took the lead in drumming up a war against Sparta indirectly, by exploiting an old conflict between the Lokrians, allies of the Boiotians and Athenians, and the Phokians, loyal allies of Sparta.6 They were correct in their assumption that the Spartans would come to the aid of the Phokians if summoned, and their actions marked the beginning of the Corinthian War.
It was probably around this time, when long-simmering discontent with the Spartans was about to boil over into outright conflict, that political divisions within Thebes affected all Boiotia.7 According to Xenophon, it was a political faction led by Androkleidas and Ismenias that encouraged the Boiotians to invade Phokis in defense of their Lokrian allies. The Spartans agreed readily to a Phokian appeal for help, and the Boiotians (or at least some of them) had what they wanted: a war with Sparta.8 In response to a damaging Boiotian invasion of western Phokis, the Spartans ordered a general mobilization and sent Lysander ahead to Phokis, from where he exploited the internal divisions of the Boiotians to Spartan advantage, inducing Orchomenos to revolt, once again, from Thebes.9 While the main Spartan army was making its way north, the Thebans persuaded the Athenians to make an alliance with the entire Boiotian koinon.10 This was probably part of the process of forming a larger coalition against Sparta, including Argos and Corinth, which only Diodoros recounts in detail, but which is implicit in several passages of Xenophon’s account.11
Lysander, flushed with his success at Orchomenos, then moved on to Haliartos and had just persuaded the city to become autonomous when the Thebans got wind of his actions and attacked him there. A fierce battle took place beneath the walls of the city, in which Lysander himself was killed and the Boiotians emerged clearly victorious.12 But they did not manage to regain Orchomenos, which was held by a Spartan garrison until the King’s Peace in 386; the military burden of holding it was indeed one reason why the Spartans were eager for that settlement.13 The complex events that unfolded in western Boiotia in 395 illustrate for us one reason why those Boiotians who were fighting for a regional state fought so hard: it is, geographically speaking, a relatively open region, and as soon as complete coherence breaks down, the entire region becomes exceptionally vulnerable. This defensive motive is thus an important part of the problem, but it should by no means be regarded as the only one.
From this point the Corinthian War assumes a familiar shape, and the issue of regional political organization and division receives no particular illumination from the sources, so a quick résumé of events should be sufficient. In 394 the Spartans enjoyed two important (but narrow) victories, one at Nemea and one at Koroneia, in the heart of Boiotia.14 From 393 to 390 Corinth became the center of the allied struggle against Sparta.15 In 392/1 the Spartans and their allies were sufficiently discontented with the pace of progress in the war, and alarmed by recent developments in the Aegean war, that they were willing to approach the negotiating table at Sardis. It is clear from Xenophon’s account of the breakdown of peace talks at Sardis that the main principle of the proposed agreement was universal polis autonomy: the Argives were unwilling to surrender Corinth, which they had seized in 393; the Athenians feared the loss of their cleruchies on Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros, and the implications of full autonomy for the Greek poleis of Asia Minor; and the Thebans were unwilling to allow the Boiotian poleis to become autonomous.16 The Persian King Artaxerxes was likewise unwilling to accept Sparta’s terms. Implementing the concept of autonomy in interstate agreements was always a slippery business, and the difficulty of it has led to debates over whether it was a clearly designated political status with legal backing or something more akin to an ideological concept around which partisans could rally.17 The problem seems in fact to lie somewhere between these positions: as Martin Ostwald demonstrated, the concept developed over time, and the mistake seems to be in assuming that by the early fourth century it had assumed a fixed meaning independent of context. The Sardis negotiations were derailed in part by the Boiotians’ refusal to grant the autonomy of their poleis, which would not have resulted in the immediate dissolution of the koinon, as is so often repeated, but in the Boiotians’ being compelled to allow any member polis to break away if it no longer wished to be a part of the regional state. A second conference was apparently held at Sparta, where a concession was made to the Boiotians’ understanding of polis autonomy: they would have only to renounce their claim to Orchomenos and allow the city to be autonomous.18 This second attempt foundered too, at least in part because the Athenians refused to sign what had to be a multilateral agreement. The Boiotians could continue to fight for a unified regional state incorporating every polis that was conceived of as belonging (ethnically, culturally, politically, and economically) to Boiotia.
The