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 Cnidus

It was a military operation conducted in 394 BC by the Achaemenid Empire against the Spartan naval fleet during the Corinthian War. A fleet under the joint command of Pharnabazus and former Athenian admiral, Conon, destroyed the Spartan fleet led by the inexperienced Peisander, ending Sparta's brief bid for naval supremacy.

The Spartan fleet was based at Cnidus, at the western tip of the Carian Chersonese. Conon and Pharnabazus had their fleet at Loryma, at the southern tip of the Rhodian Chersonese, further east along the coast of Asia Minor, so the two fleets were facing each other across the gulf between the two peninsulas.

The fighting began with a clash between Conon's squadron of the Persian fleet and Peisander's fleet. The battle turned when the Phoenician fleet under Pharnabazus entered the fighting. Sparta's allies, on the left of the fleet, fled to land, leaving the Spartans to fight on alone. The fleet of Sparta and her allies under Peisander later was destroyed by the fleet under Conon and Pharnabazos.

In the battle of Cnidus, the Spartan fleet was decisively defeated; Peisander's first battle with the fleet would be his last. Various sources attest that this was such a crushing blow that the days of Sparta's naval power were over that followed the end of the Great Peloponnesian War. At the end of the war Athens had been eliminated as a naval power.

After the battle, Conon and his Persian patron Pharnabazus put to sea again to induce the subject cities to secede. The Spartan garrisons were expelled; Conon and Pharnabazus were welcomed as saviors and liberators everywhere they landed.12 Upon his return to Athens, Conon received the extraordinary honor of a statue in the agora.
Battle of Cnidus

Battle of Coronea

The Battle of Coronea in 394 BC was a battle in the Corinthian War.

In this war Spartans and their allies under King Agesilaus defeated a force of Thebans and Argives that was attempting to block their march back into the Peloponnese. 

In 396 BC Agesilaus took 8000 troops to Asia Minor to protect the Spartan-allied Greek cities from the Persian attack.

He was recalled and began an overland through Thrace and Thessaly, he descended southward into hostile Boeotia.

Upon Agesilaus and his army’s entry into Boeotia on 14 August 394, he encountered a defending force of Thebans was waiting with its Boeotian allies and its contingent of Argives, Athenians and Corinthians.

The battle was fought on the plain of Coronea. Agesilaus had been joined by two units of Spartan and he had his neodamodeis, the mercenaries, the Greeks from Ionia and some additional troops recruited on the march and in Boeotia.

Wounded and with his army now too weak to occupy Boeotia, Agesilaus withdraw to Sparta.

Victory in a major battle of Coronea secured Agesilaus’ safe passage through Boeotia to Sparta, but it failed reestablish Spartan preeminence in central Greece. The victory failed to gain any strategic advantage.
Battle of Coronea

Corinthian War

Name given by modern historians to the conflict of 395-387 BC fought between Sparta with allies and an alliance of Corinth, Athens, Boeotia, Argos, Euboea and the kingdom of Persia. It was so named because much of the war occurred in Corinthian territory.

The grand alliance was remarkable for combining traditional enemies in a united campaign against Spartan supremacy.

The background of the Corinthian War is Sparta’s victory over Athens on the huge Peloponnesian War (404 BC), and established herself as hegemon of the Greek world and marked the beginning of Sparta’s oppressive rule over all the Greek states, former friend and foe alike.

Corinth and Thebes rejected hegemony and openly refused to participate in Peloponnesian League activities. In 395 Thebes maneuvered Locris into conflict with Phocis, which was still an Ally of Sparta. The Spartan response, triggered what became the Corinthian War. Thebes, Corinth and Locris were joined by Athens, Argos and cities in Euboea and Thessaly against Sparta.

Sparta eventually won the war, but only after the Persian had switched support from Athens to Sparta. In fact, the winning side was the old combination that had proved victorious in the Peloponnesian War.

The treaty called King’s Peace which was signed in 387 BC, ending the Corinthian War.

The Corinthian War resulted in the appearance of several new features in relations between the Greeks and Persian, including , diplomacy by conference in the form of peace negotiation at Sardis and Sparta of 393-392 BC.
Corinthian War