What Caused The Decline Of Spartan Power?

What caused the decline of Spartan power until 362BCE?

All dates are BCE unless specified

Sparta was one of the most powerful Greek city states, admired by her contemporaries and seen as a model state by later historical figures, such as Machiavelli. Her power reached its climax in the few decades between the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 and the Battle of Leuctra in 371. At the end of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta had finally defeated her primary rival, Athens, after nearly a 30 year struggle. She sat at the head of the Peloponnesian League, a powerful coalition of allies and satellite poleis. By the end of 362, following the Battle of Mantinea and the disastrous Battle of Leuctra, Sparta was left crippled, alienated from her allies, with enemies on her doorstep and with no viable means of regaining her former splendour.

How best can we understand this Icarian fall from grace? It tempting to claim that this decline in power was due to the Spartan victory in the Peloponnesian War. After all it is only after the war that Sparta`s power appears to decline, and in just three decades after its conclusion, Sparta was brought down to her knees. While this is without doubt a major factor for Sparta`s fall from power, it does not quite go far enough. The Spartan victory in the war simply provided the environment in which the problems already present within the polis could flourish. To really understand Sparta`s decline we must, instead, look for the roots of the problem.

We can identify three broad categories that were at the heart of Sparta`s downfall: population and economy, military and interstate affairs, and philosophy. The population decline, or oliganthropia as it has been called, and the economic crisis go hand in hand and have been identified as serious flaws by both modern and ancient scholars.[1][2] Others have argued that it is Sparta`s decaying military, her martial mistakes and her poor interstate relations that are to blame[3]. This argument, again, ties into the population decline, suggesting that Sparta`s failure to field armies based off her elite homoioi, especially at Leuctra, is to blame whilst also considering the questionable foreign policy of Sparta that left her alienated by the end of her glory days. The philosophy category, encompasses the hypothesis that the Spartans simply did not have the correct mind-set in order to thrive as an empire, whether that be either being too conservative and unwilling to adapt their constitution, or by not committing wholeheartedly to imperial endeavours. This essay will, therefore, be split into sections based on the aforementioned factors. In each I will discuss how the Peloponnesian War exacerbated these issues, but also that Sparta`s decline in power was deeply rooted within her system.

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