Theban–Spartan War

Theban-Spartan War
Part of the Theban hegemony
Hoplites in combat
Date 378–362 BC Location Mainland Greece Result Theban victory, end of Spartan hegemony
Commanders and leaders
Agesilaus and others	Epaminondas Pelopidas

The Theban–Spartan War of 378–362 BC was a series of military conflicts fought between Sparta and Thebes for hegemony over Greece.

In the years following the Spartan takeover, the exiled Thebans regrouped in Athens and, at the instigation of Pelopidas, prepared to liberate their city. Meanwhile, in Thebes, Epaminondas began preparing the young men of the city to fight the Spartans. In the winter of 379 BC, a small group of the exiles, led by Pelopidas, infiltrated the city. They then assassinated the leaders of the pro-Spartan government, and supported by Epaminondas and Gorgidas, who led a group of young men, and a force of Athenian hoplites, they surrounded the Spartans on the Cadmeia. The following day, Epaminondas and Gorgidas brought Pelopidas and his men before the Theban assembly and exhorted the Thebans to fight for their freedom; the assembly responded by acclaiming Pelopidas and his men as liberators. The Cadmeia was surrounded, and the Spartans attacked; Pelopidas realised that they must be expelled before an army came from Sparta to relieve them. The Spartan garrison eventually surrendered on the condition that they were allowed to march away unharmed. The narrow margin of the conspirators' success is demonstrated by the fact that the Spartan garrison met a Spartan force on the way to rescue them as they marched back to Sparta. Plutarch portrays the Theban coup as an immensely significant event:

...the subsequent change in the political situation made this exploit the more glorious. For the war which broke down the pretensions of Sparta and put an end to her supremacy by land and sea, began from that night, in which people, not by surprising any fort or castle or citadel, but by coming into a private house with eleven others, loosed and broke in pieces, if the truth may be expressed in a metaphor, the fetters of the Lacedaemonian supremacy, which were thought indissoluble and not to be broken.

The Sacred Band first saw action in 378 BC, at the beginning of the Boeotian War. It was during the famous stand-off between the Athenian mercenary commander (and later strategos) Chabrias (d. 357 BC) and the Spartan King Agesilaus II (444 BC–360 BC). Prior to the creation of the Sacred Band under Gorgidas, the Athenians had helped the Theban exiles retake control of Thebes and the citadel of Cadmea from Sparta. This was followed by Athens openly entering into an alliance with Thebes against Sparta. In the summer of 378 BC, Agesilaus led a Spartan expedition against Thebes from the Boeotian city of Thespiae (then still allied to Sparta). His force consisted of 1,500 cavalry and 28,000 infantry. At least 20,000 of the infantry were hoplites, while 500 were of the elite band of Sciritae (Σκιρῖται) light infantry vanguard. Learning of the impending invasion, Athens quickly came to the aid of Thebes by sending a force of about 200 cavalry and 5,000 men (both citizen and mercenary, including hoplites and peltasts) under the command of the Athenian strategos Demeas and mercenary commander Chabrias.

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