The Ancients Podcast: Fall of Sparta

Host: Tristan Hughes
Guests: Dr. Roel Konijnendijk (Lincoln College, Oxford), Dr. Owen Rees (Birmingham Newman University)
Date: January 8, 2026

Overview

This episode explores the dramatic rise and rapid fall of Sparta's power in 4th-century BC Greece. Starting at Sparta’s “golden age” after defeating Athens in the Peloponnesian War (404 BC), the discussion traces Sparta’s military, political, and diplomatic zenith before its swift collapse, delving into the causes, critical battles, and the wider significance for Greece and the ancient world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Scene: The Rise and Peak of Sparta

• After defeating Athens (404 BC), Sparta became the undisputed hegemon in Greece, even absorbing the remnants of the Athenian empire.
• Roel: “Sparta starts as the undisputed hegemon of the Greek world and ends as a minor state in the Peloponnese. All of its power is stripped away, all of its allies fall away.” (02:34)
• They briefly held naval dominance, primarily funded by Persia, but their hegemony was always fragile.

Sources for the 4th Century

• Xenophon is the primary source, providing vivid, firsthand accounts and insight, though not always objective.
  • Owen: “When you're reading someone like Xenophon, you get moments. You're like, you were clearly there. This is a bit too vivid.” (05:41)
• Plutarch, Diodorus Siculus, Athenian orators, Plato, and Aristotle add “patchwork” evidence, providing a multifaceted if sometimes contradictory, picture.

2. The Immediate Aftermath: Oligarchies, Rebellions, and Persian Diplomacy

The 30 Tyrants and Political Instability in Athens

• After Sparta’s victory, they installed oligarchic “pro-Spartan” governments in Athens and elsewhere, often deeply unpopular.
• Roel: “It became known even already in ancient tradition as the 30 tyrants. But it's initially just the oligarchy of the 30. So it's such a narrow oligarchy […]” (15:21)
• Internal divisions in Sparta, between leaders like Pausanias and Lysander, factored into their inconsistent interventions.

Deteriorating Alliances

• Former allies (e.g., Thebes, Corinth, Argos) soon grew resentful as Sparta expanded its influence, contrary to earlier isolationism.
• Owen: “There is a bit of an obsession in Sparta after the Peloponnesian War in what's going on with Thebes and the growth of Thebes potentially as a rival.” (20:05)
• Factionalism and non-compliance among allies signaled the erosion of hegemony.

Persian Opportunism

• Persia manipulated Greek conflicts, supporting rising discontent against Sparta and funding Athenian resurgence when necessary.

3. Wars and Internal Strife: Asia Minor and the Corinthian War

Campaigns in Asia Minor

• King Agesilaus II led an ambitious but ultimately unsustainable campaign in Asia Minor (400 BC+).
• Roel: “Initially, [Persians] thought the Spartans could help them get it, but then when the Spartans sort of take suzerainty over that area… For a Spartan empire, that obviously doesn't sit well with the Persians.” (11:16)

Rising Internal Trouble

• Cynadon’s conspiracy (399 BC) revealed deep class resentment among non-citizens and disenfranchised groups within Sparta itself (27:31).

The Corinthian War (395–387 BC)

• Major Greek coalition (Athens, Thebes, Argos, Corinth) challenged Sparta.
• Sparta remained strong in land battles but lost its entire navy at the Battle of Knidos (394 BC), a turning point for Spartan ambitions at sea.
  • Roel: “The battle of Knidos in 394… destroys almost for good the Spartan ambition to also rule the sea.” (29:36)

4. The King’s Peace—A Pyrrhic “Victory”

• The war ended not by Greek negotiation but by Persian diktat (the “King’s Peace,” 387 BC), resetting alliances and “guaranteeing autonomy”—which no one truly honored.
• Roel: “It’s not a treaty. It’s a diktat from the Persian king… all of these Greeks are also like, well, I don’t want to pay tribute. So it’s great if I can say…he’s not obeying the king’s peace.” (33:15)
• Sparta briefly used its status as “enforcers” of the King’s Peace to meddle and suppress federations, but this bred more resentment.

5. Sparta’s Fatal Misstep: Occupation of Thebes

• A rogue Spartan commander (possibly at the instigation of Agesilaus) garrisoned Thebes, violating the very peace Sparta claimed to uphold.
• Owen: "The idea that that happened whilst they're trying to maintain that they're the ones…asserting the king's peace, that they're the ones asserting the status quo is laughable..." (36:18)
• Even Xenophon, a Spartan sympathizer, called this “completely immoral, unethical, wrong,” a hinge moment that led to divine retribution (38:05).

6. Theban Resistance and Military Innovation

• Thebes rebelled, expelled the garrison, and, together with allies, survived repeated Spartan invasions by employing:
  • Strong cavalry and territorial defense,
  • Fortifications (e.g., Megalopolis) and innovative tactics,
  • An elite military unit, the “Sacred Band,” sometimes said to be made up of pairs of lovers (though the evidence is debated; 46:18).
• Roel: “They have very good agricultural resources...defending territory by building this long palisade...and now have this increasingly effective hoplite militia...the Sacred Band.” (43:50)

7. The Battle of Leuctra (371 BC): The Shattering of Spartan Myth

• Facing another Spartan invasion and outnumbered, Theban general Epaminondas insisted on battle, strategizing to “crush the head of the snake” (the Spartan command).
  • Tristan: “Is that what they say? Do they actually say that?”
  • Owen: “That's supposed to be a quote of Epaminondas himself.” (52:21)
• Thebes won, killing the Spartan king Cleombrotus and his guard, causing an unprecedented collapse.
• Psychological and social impact: Sparta lost a huge portion of its citizen class; traditional laws on cowardice were suspended to avoid further demoralizing the shattered society (56:13).
• Owen: “Sparta has now been defeated. I mean, that’s very much how it was perceived...the entire status quo of 40 years ago...was now gone entirely.” (55:13)

8. Aftermath: The Descent

• Thebes and its Boeotian allies, seizing the initiative, liberated Messenia (a key source of Spartan power), supported Arcadian unification at Megalopolis, and isolated Sparta in its own region.
  • Roel: “What they do is [Thebes] liberate Messenia...it is now liberated. It is set up as an autonomous state.” (58:58)
• Sparta’s attempts at revival were limited to regional skirmishes, mercenary work abroad, and fruitless campaigns to recapture lost lands.
• Owen: “[Agesilaus] becomes a mercenary for hire, but as a commander, fundamentally… I don’t see Sparta as really exerting itself…It is never fully recovering.” (61:47)

9. The Endgame: Mantinea and The Final Fall

• The Battle of Mantinea (362 BC) is seen as a final “hurrah”.
  • Owen: “For me, I very much follow Xenophon…he quite categorically ends [Greek history]…this brought an end to sort of 150 years of how the Greek world thought it worked.” (66:20)
  • Dr. Roel counters, arguing that even with power gone Sparta did not “fall” in a single moment; the city survived, stubbornly refusing to sign treaties recognizing Messenian independence.
• Later, Sparta would be humbled further by Macedon (e.g., the pithy “if” response to Philip II).

10. Was Sparta’s Fall Key to Macedonian Ascendancy?

• Both guests agreed that while Sparta’s decline created a multipolar Greek world, Macedon’s rise depended more on circumstances and the exhaustion of all the major Greek states—not a direct result of the Spartan fall.
  • Owen: “I often dismiss it as trying to explain through the Greeks how the Macedonians were able to rise up. Because it's not that the Macedonians are superior, it's that they learned from the Greek greatness...” (71:22)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Roel (on the start of the century):
  “Sparta starts as the undisputed hegemon of the Greek world and ends as a minor state in the Peloponnese.” (02:34)
• Owen (on sources):
  “It is almost like a jigsaw of evidence… whilst you navigate… the Spartan mirage.” (07:50)
• Roel (on Knidos):
  “The battle of Knidos in 394… destroys almost for good the Spartan ambition to also rule the sea.” (29:36)
• Owen (on the garrisoning of Thebes):
  “The idea that that happened whilst they're trying to maintain… they're the ones asserting the king's peace... is laughable.” (36:18)
• Roel (on Leuctra):
  “Crush the head of the snake and then the rest of the body is useless. That is how Epaminondas supposedly sells his plan.” (52:31)
• Owen (on the psychological shock):
  “Sparta has now been defeated… the entire status quo... is now gone entirely... They literally have to suspend a century of culture and of social norms to allow the society to try and recover from this.” (55:13)
• Roel (on the refusal to give up):
  “Sparta never gives up, right? They never stop seeing themselves as this hegemonic power, even when at this point they've been humiliated…” (62:17)

Important Timestamps

• [02:34] Sparta’s peak: undisputed hegemony, then rapid decline
• [05:41] Value and nature of Xenophon as a source
• [15:16] The Thirty Tyrants; Spartan oligarchy in Athens
• [18:13] Allies’ discontent and refusal to support Sparta
• [27:31] The Cynadon conspiracy—internal unrest in Sparta
• [29:36] Battle of Knidos: End of Spartan naval power
• [33:15] The King’s Peace: Persian intervention and “autonomy”
• [35:52] Spartan occupation of Thebes; a fatal overreach
• [43:50] Theban military strengths and innovations
• [52:31] The Battle of Leuctra (“crush the head of the snake”)
• [55:13] Aftermath and psychological impact of Leuctra
• [58:58] Theban dismantling of Spartan power in the Peloponnese
• [66:20] Was Mantinea (362 BC) Sparta’s real “fall”?
• [71:22] Sparta’s decline and the path for Macedon

Episode Tone

A highly engaged, occasionally irreverent discussion between three experts who blend in-jokes and academic debate, making the complexities of Spartan and Greek history lively and relatable.

For Listeners

This episode richly details how Sparta’s own overreach, internal dissent, changing military realities, and agile enemies—coupled with shrewd Persian intervention—brought an abrupt downfall to what, for a time, was the most feared city in Greece. The legacies of its defeat echoed through the rise of Thebes, the survival and resurgence of Athens, and set the chaotic stage for Macedonian domination.

Further exploration: The episode refers listeners to earlier podcasts on the March of the Ten Thousand and the Sacred Band for deeper dives into specific stories from the period.