Corinthian War (395–387 BC)

In 404 BC after Peloponnesian War, Sparta emerged victorious, claiming Athens' title of hegemon. Sparta's domineering attitude soured its relations with its allies, and in 399 BC the Spartan–Persian alliance collapsed.

King Agesilaus and Lysander (the admiral who had been responsible for Athens' defeat) started Sparta's reign as hegemon with lots of support from the other Greek city-states.

However, Sparta claimed all of the plunder from the Peloponnesian War and it had totally disregarded the wishes and interests of her allies. Sparta had pursued a policy of aggressive expansion in the Peloponnese, central and northern Greece and the Aegean which had at times seemed directed specifically against them.

The name called Corinthian War (395–386) because much of it took place on Corinthian territory, was fought against Sparta by a coalition of Athens (with help from Persia), Boeotia, Corinth, and Argos.

In 394 BC Athenians, Thebans, Corinthians and Argives assemble near Corinth. The Spartans generally demonstrated the superiority of their heavy infantry in pitched battles such as that at Nemea, though in 390BC light peltasts under the Athenian Iphicrates defeated a Spartan hoplite unit in a running battle at Lechaeum. This prevent Spartans from entering central Greece through the isthmus;

Sparta eventually won the war, but only after the Persians had switched support from Athens to Sparta.

With its powerful ally as guarantor, Sparta was able to dictate the terms of the so‐called King's Peace in 386 BC.
Corinthian War (395–387 BC)

Battle of Tanagra in 426 BC

The Battle of Tanagra in 426 BC was a minor Athenian victory won close to the city of Tanagra.

Tanagra is located north of Athens in Boeotia, not far from Thebes. In the battle Thebes took lead in resistance, helping Tanagra and holding the place of honor on right wing at Delion.

In this war, Athenians commander Nicias landed in Boeotia with 2000 hoplites and advanced on Tanagra to support the field army under Hipponicus and Eurymedon marching north from Athens.

 The main Boeotian army escaped the trap. But at Tanagra the Athenians defeated the Tanagrans (along with some Thebans) then returned to Athens.
Battle of Tanagra in 426 BC

Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC

In 420 BC during the Peloponnesian war, Mantinea joined and anti-Spartan alliance of Athens, Argos and Elis.

The battle of Mantinea brought something like peace and conclusion to the forty year period of confusion following the fall of the world order of 405 BC.

Thebes stood in the ascendant, Sparta on the decline and Athens in a useful and international flexible position.

In this battle, the Spartans faced the Boeotians and the Athenians the Arcadian auxiliaries and Eleans; the cavalry was stationed on the wings, that the Athenians facing that of the Thebans, which reinforced by an immense number of skirmish.

Mantinea troops fought on the Spartan side and shared in the Spartan defeat at the second Battle of Mantinea, where Theban commander Epaminondas was killed in his hour of victory.

In the end superior Spartan soldiering won the day as the Spartan right wheeled around and rolled out the enemy, who retreated under pressure.
Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC

Battle of Tanagra (457 BC)

Battle of Tanagra in 457 BC was a battle in the Megarid between the Athenians and Corinthians, and campaign of Lacedaemonians in Doris.

An Athenian army, 15,000 strong, under the conduct of Myronides, entered Boeotia to protect its independence and delivered battle at Tanagra in 457 BC. The two armies met at Tanagra in a battle marked by bloody slaughter on both sides.

Spartan warrior

Animated by this exhortation, they fought with so much valour that they all perished; but the Athenians lost the battle by the treachery of the Thessalian. This defeat, however, was repaired a few weeks afterwards, by a complete victory over the Thebans at Cenophytam in the plain of Tanagra.

There was great slaughter on both sides; but the Thessalian horsemen deserted during the combat, and the Lacedaemonians gained victory.

The Spartan won the day but quickly withdrew fighting through the Megarid, their ability to capitalize in the victory an early sign of vulnerability to casualties because of the chronic lack of citizen manpower at Sparta.

The victory was not sufficiently decisive to enable the Lacedaemonians to invade Attica; but it served to secure them an unmolested retreat, after partially ravaging the Megarid through the passes of the Geraneia.
Battle of Tanagra (457 BC)

Battle of Mantinea (418 BC)

Thucydides describes Battle of Mantinea as the greatest battle that had taken place for a very long time among Hellenic states.

In the years before this great battle, the Spartans under Brasidas, the most energetic and daring of Sparta’s warriors at the time, had actively campaigned in northern Greece in an attempt to widen Spartan dominance.

While at the same time, the confusion of Athenian domestic politics was reflected in an erratic foreign policy. In 420 BC, Alcibiades was elected general, and proceeded to make an alliance with Argos and other cities of the Peloponnese, directed against Sparta.

But the following year he was not reelected and the new Board of Generals refused to carry through the policy which Alcibiades had initiated. The result was that when the rival armies of the Spartans and Argives met in battle at Mantinea only a few Athenians hoplites were on hand to aid the Argives and their other allies.

In the Battle of Mantinea which was fought n June 418 BC the Spartan army probably had a total strength of some 7000 to 8000 men and was slightly stronger than the opposing Mantineans, Argives and Athenians.

The Athenian phalanx was in danger of being surrounded and destroyed after their allies broke and fled. According to Thucydides, they would have suffered more heavily than any other part of the army if they had not had their cavalry with them to help them.

The Spartans won the battle decisively, and restored much of their damaged reputation by the victory.
Battle of Mantinea (418 BC)

Fourth Sacred War

In the fourth Sacred War, Philip II of Macedon defeated the Athenians and Thebans. This victory paved the way for domination over Greece by Philip and later by his son Alexander, whose conquests were of vast historical consequence.

Fourth Sacred War (339–338 BC) was short. The Athenians were accused in the Amphictyony in impiety by the Amphissans; Aeschines, representing the Athenians, reacted with a counter charge that the Amphissans had been cultivating the cursed land of Cirrha, dedicated to the god Apollo in the First Sacred War.

A dispute between Athens and Thebes escalated when ambassadors to the Amphictyonic meeting, including Aeschines were attacked by the men of Amphissa during an inspection of the sacred plain. 

The next day the Amphictyony attacked Amphissan houses and port facilities on the sacred plain. Amphictyony declared war on Amphissa and appointed Philip as a military leader of the Amphictionic League in the fall of 339.

Philip brought his army south through Thessaly into Doris but instead of continuing south to Delphi he turned east and occupied Elateia, close to the border with Boeotia.

This provocation convinced Athens and Thebes to resolve their differences and mount the final resistance to Philip.

A few months later the war was renewed, but was overshadowed by the alliance made between Athens and Thebes and the resulting conflict with Philip at Chaironeia in 338. The alliances which were including Athens, Thebes the Euboean cities, Megara, Corinth, Achaea and several other islands was defeated at the Battle of Chaeronea in August 338.
Fourth Sacred War

Third Sacred War

The Third Sacred War was the last great internecine conflict of the classical Greeks, the culmination of continuously series of wars that began as early as 465 BC, only to be ended by Philip of Macedonia in 346 BC.

In the twenty years after the mutually disastrous battle of Mantinea, the leaderless, Greek city-states further exhausted themselves in continued and confused civil warfare.

The so-called Social War (357- 55 BC) or ‘War of the Allies’ of Athens, only weakened the Athenian fleet.

From small beginning, this war threatened to involve all of Greece. Thebans and other Thessalonians in the Amphictyonic League charged their ancient enemy Phocis with cultivating lands sacred to Apollo.

Phocis was fined as was (belatedly) Sparta for its seizure in 382 of the Cadmea at Thebes.  Under Philomelus, Phocis refused to pay; it armed, captured the Delphic shrine and its treasury in 355. The Phocians had taken possession of the sanctuary and were meting down the offerings and the contents of the treasury for their military expenses and the service of the oracle had been almost suspended.

Thebes declared war in 355, defeating Philomelus at Neon in 354 and causing a Phocian retreat in 353. Philip helped Thebes conquer Phocis from 351 to 347, seeking peace with Athens at the same time.

The Third Sacred War lasted until 346 BC, where King Philip II of Macedonia gained control of Delphi. The war was concluded with Peace of Philocrates and Philip II became the chairman of the Amphictyonic League.
Third Sacred War

Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)

The Battle of Chaeronea was fought in338 BC, near the city of Chaeronea in Boeotia, between the forces of Philip II of Macedon and an alliance of Greek city-states (the principle members of which were Athens and Thebes).

The Battle of Chaeronea was one of the most important battles in the history of Greece, and the last real stand of the old Greek states against the new Macedonian power from the north. Phillip’s victory and his eventual establishment of a unified Greece marked the end of the city-state and beginning of the imperial age.

The battle was the culmination of Philip’s campaign in Greece (339-338 BC) and resulted in a decisive victory for the Macedonians.

The Allies had a large force of more than 35,000 men from Athens, Corinth, Euboea, Megara and Thebes, among others, Philip’s forces numbered a little less at about 30,000 but he had 1,800 cavalry.
The forces of Athens and Thebes were destroyed and continued resistance was impossible; the war therefore came to an abrupt end.

Thousands of the Greek allies lost their lives at Chaeronea, and Philip took several thousand more prisoners.

Philip was able to impose a settlement upon Greek, which all states accepted, with the exception of Sparta.
Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)

Peloponnesian War

The history of the Peloponnesian War is an account of the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece, fought between the Peloponnesian League (led by Sparta an d the Athenian league (led by Athens).

In the second half of the 5th century BC the two leading powers in Greece were Athens, which was democratic and innovative and whose navy built up an empire in the Aegean Sea and Sparta, which was oligarchic and conservative and whose army of heavy infantry enabled it to dominate the southern part of the Greek mainland.

It was fought between 431 and 404 BC, Athens foresaw the war, and knew they could not defeat the Spartan Army in a straight up battle.

So they constructed a walled corridor between Athens and their port of Piraeus. When the Spartans invaded, the Athenians withdrew behind their walls and the Spartans could not successfully storm the long walls.

War came on a winter in early March 431. Some three hundred men from Thebes, a city allied with Sparta’s Peloponnesian League, made a treacherous attack upon neighboring community of Plataia an ally of Athens.

The Thebans were natural enemies of the Plataians,since they had long been striving to bring all the Beotian towns under their direct overlordship.

This neighborly clash quickly touched off hostilities all around Greece, and soon a Spartan was marching on Athens, while Athenian fleets were sailing and raiding around the Peloponnesos.

At the same time that Athens was under attack from Sparta, the city state also suffered a terrible plaque, beginning in 430s BC.

The plaque killed about a third of Athens’s citizens, This contributed to Athens’s eventually defeat at the hands of its Spartan rivals during the Peloponnesian War.

The conflict marked the end of Athenian command of the sea. The war between the two city-states ended in a victory for Sparta.

Peloponnesian War