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T he Olynthian-Spartan War (382-379) saw the
Spartans intervene in northern Greece in an attempt to limit the power of the
Chalcidian League. The Chalcidian League had been formed in around 423, several
years after the city of Olynthus in Chalcidice had broken away from the
Athenian Empire. The League had survived an attempt to dissolve it at the time
of the Peace of Nicias in 421. After that little is known of it until around
393, when the new king of Macdeon, Amyntas III, was threatened by an invasion
from Illyria. In an attempt to preserve at least some of his kingdom, he asked
Olynthus to take over some of his border lands. By the mid 380s Amyntas felt
more secure, and asked Olynthus to return his border lands. Unsurprisingly they
refused, and in the fighting that followed advanced further into Macedon,
capturing the capital at Pella. In 382 Amyntas sent an envoy to Sparta asking
for help. At about the same time ambassadors arrived from Acanthus and
Apollonia, near neighbours of Olynthus, complaining that they were being forced
into the League, and also asking for assistance. The Spartans decided to
intervene in Thrace. According to Diodorus their motive was a desire to uphold
the King's Peace, which included a clause guaranteeing the autonomy of the
cities of Greece. Xenophon reports a longer debate, in which the potential
threat of an alliance between the Chalcidian League, Athens and Thebes was the
main argument for intervention. The Spartan army moved north in two waves. The
Acanthians wanted immediate help, and Eudamidas was sent north with around
2,000 men. His brother Phoebidas followed with the larger part of the
Peloponnesian force (Diodorus reverses this order, with Eudamidas replacing
Phoebidas after the occupation of Thebes). Eudamidas reached the Thracian
theatre during 382, and was welcomed into Potidaea, clearly an unenthusiastic
member of the Chalcidian League. Phoebidas had a more eventful journey. As he
passed through Boeotia he was tempted to intervene in Theban politics.
Leontiades, one of the Theban polemarchs for the year, is said to have asked
for Spartan help against his local rivals, and Phoebidas was happy to occupy
the Cadmea (the acropolis of Corinth). In the short term this appeared to be a
major Spartan success, but Thebes soon threw off Spartan rule, and it led
directly to the decisive Spartan defeat at Leuctra in 371. The reaction in
Sparta was mixed - Phoebidas was recalled, put on trial, and fined, but the
Spartan garrison remained in Thebes. After his early successes Eudamidas bogged
down (probably because most of his army got stuck in Boeotia). In the autumn of
382 a new army or around 10,000 men, commanded by the harmost Teleutias (a half
brother of Agesilaus II), was sent north. He reached Potidaea, and encouraged a
more active pursuit of the war. Late in the year the Spartans suffered a near
defeat in battle outside Olynthus, but were saved by King Derdas, one of their
Thracian allies. In the spring of 381 Derdas defeated an Olynthian cavalry raid
at Apollonia (a northern neighbour of Olynthus), but later in the same year
Teleutias was killed in a second battle outside Olynthus while conducting a
raid against the city. Sparta reacted by sending the junior king, Agesipolis I,
with thirty advisors. He captured Torone, but then fell ill, and died of a
fever in the summer of 380. Agesipolis was replaced by a new harmost,
Polybiades, who arrived late in 380 or early in 379. He was finally able to
bring the war to a conclusion. After winning a number of very badly documented
battles he laid siege to Olynthius, and probably in the summer of 379 the city
surrendered. The Olynthians agreed to become Spartan allies - to have the same
friends and enemies as Sparta, and to follow Sparta's lead. The Chalcidian
League was also probably dissolved, but this didn't last for long, and the
League survived until 348, when it was destroyed by Philip II of Macedon.
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Sparta at War, Scott M. Rusch. A study of the rise, dominance
and fall of Sparta, the most famous military power in the Classical Greek
world. Sparta dominated land warfare for two centuries, before suffering a
series of defeats that broke its power. The author examines the reasons for
that success, and for Sparta's failure to bounce back from defeat.
The Spartan Supremacy 412-371 BC, Mike Roberts and Bob Bennett. . Looks
at the short spell between the end of the Great Peloponnesian War and the
battle of Leuctra where Sparta's political power matched her military
reputation. The authors look at how Sparta proved to be politically unequal to
her new position, and how this period of supremacy ended with Sparta's military
reputation in tatters and her political power fatally wounded
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