The Peace of 375
Xenophon describes the peace of 375 as an agreement between Athens and Sparta and as the product of Athenian initiative:
[65] Xenophon Hell . 5.4.62-66; cf. Diodoros 15.56.5; Nepos 13.2.1; Isokrates 15.109.
[67] Xenophon Hell 6.1.1, 6.2.1. On the chronology, see Cawkwell 1963, 88-91, and Buckler 1971.
The Lakedaimonians and their allies were gathering together with the Phokians, and the Thebans had withdrawn to their own country and were guarding the passes. As for the Athenians, since they saw the Thebans were growing in power through their support, and were making no financial contribution toward the fleet, while they themselves were being worn down by war levies [eisphorai ], and by raids from Aigina, and by guarding the countryside [
], conceived a desire to put an end to the war, and sending ambassadors to Lakedaimon, they made peace.[68]
There is no reason to doubt any of the information Xenophon provides in this instance. The various considerations listed by Xenophon that led the Athenians to prefer peace at this moment are confirmed elsewhere, and other accounts demonstrate that the peace of 375 served Athenian interests above all others. Although the other combatants had reasons enough to support a cessation of hostilities at this time (a peace initiative could not succeed otherwise), the moment was of most immediate concern to the Athenians. The report of Diodoros that peace was brought at the initiative of the Persian king so that he might more readily gain the service of a large army of mercenaries for his campaign against Egypt deserves no more credit than his account of the occasion for the recall of Chabrias at the beginning of the war. In both instances, the interests of the Persian king coincided with those of Athens, and now the Athenians themselves were ready to introduce the wishes, if not even the emissaries, of the king into the process of negotiation to further their own agenda. But the king's ponderous and retarded preparations for war on Egypt can have had little immediate bearing on the peace process of 375, especially by comparison to the urgency felt by the Athenians at this moment.[69]
The reasons for that urgency are those listed by Xenophon, and their priority is, by and large, in the order that he gives them. "The Thebans were growing in power through their support." The combustible dichotomy of Athenian opinion about the advisability of cooperating with Thebes had been amply demonstrated in the double volte-face that took place between the campaigns of Kleombrotos and Agesilaos in 378. After Kleombrotos, the Athenians were prepared to leave the Thebans to face Sparta alone. Only the providential failure of Sphodrias changed their minds. Thereafter they became committed to the Thebans for their mutual preservation. Now, after the failure of Kleombrotos in 376 and the naval victories of Chabrias and Timotheos in 376 and 375, the preservation of both was amply assured. The longer the fighting went on, however, the greater were the gains made by the Thebans. The last thing that the Athenians wanted out of their alliance with Thebes was to make it the vehicle for the Theban restoration of the Boiotian confederacy. That was rapidly beginning to happen in 375, so it was time for the Athenians to halt the process.[70]
Diodoros' account of the Thebans' disaffection with the form of this peace treaty is to be believed and not discounted as a doublet of the later and more famous Theban complaint of 371.[71] The treaty was made by
[70] These are precisely the reasons why the date of Hekatombaion 16 (based on the scholion to Aristophanes Peace 1019), i.e., barely a month after Timotheos' victory at Alyzeia (Skirophorion 12: Polyainos 3.10.4), normally only a few weeks after the summer solstice, is eminently plausible for the peace of 375. The full effect of the sudden conjunction of circumstances in this summer has not previously been appreciated by modern historians, who have been reluctant to admit a date as early as that indicated by the celebration of the peace at Athens on Hekatombaion 16 because seemingly too many events must have preceded the peace. As a result of this impression, as well as the alleged presence of the usual defects in our sources for this period (see, e.g., note 71 below), the date of the peace has been much debated. Arguments in favor of Hekatombaion 16, in the summer of 375, have been advanced by Cawkwell 1963, 88-91, and supported by Buckler 1971, and Gray 1980, 307-15, where previous scholarship on the question is cited.
[71] The resemblances between Diodoros 15.38-39, on the peace of 375, and 15.50.4-6, on the peace of 371, have given rise to the widely accepted view that Diodoros has created a doublet (in this case, 15.38 is generally regarded as spurious). See the discussion of arguments in favor of this view, and earlier scholarship on the subject, by Lauffer 1959. Those who have held this view more recently include Ryder (1965, 60, 124-25), Cawkwell (1972, 257), Seager (1974, 50), and, to a limited extent, Andrewes (1985, 191-93). Arguments in support of Diodoros 15.38 as an account of events of 375 have been advanced by Judeich (1927, 182-85) and Sealey (1956, 189-92).
Athens and Sparta, and the remaining warring states would have been included in it only as allies of the two mutually acknowledged great powers.[72] Theban disapproval was the inevitable result of an agreement made between the Spartans, who had gone to war to crush the independent Thebans, and the Athenians, whose championship of Thebes was motivated only by the desire to check the power and influence of Sparta and who did not wish to promote the growth of Theban power and influence. It was, in other words, a treaty explicitly designed to hold the Thebans in check. No wonder, then, that in discussion preliminary to ratification of the treaty by the allies of Athens, Epameinondas announced the refusal of the Thebans to endorse the treaty under any name other than "the Boiotians," that is, as the leaders of all Boiotia (or at least those parts of it now under Theban control). By the remonstrance of Kallistratos and the vote of all other Athenian allies, the Thebans were denied this privilege and were judged to be excluded from the treaty, according to Diodoros (15.38.3). Isokrates informs us that after their exclusion, the Thebans yielded to the consequences of their isolation and came to be included in the peace as allies of Athens (Plataikos 37; cf. 21-22, 33). As in 371, the isolation of Thebes must have meant that it would be left now, with no Athenian support, to face the Spartan army gathered in Phokis. The Thebans were not yet in so strong a position in Boiotia as they would be in 371, so after registering their protest, they submitted to form and endorsed the treaty as "the Thebans." In fact, as their actions in the coming years were to demonstrate, their dominance in Boiotia was in no way diminished by this concession.[73]
The fact that the Thebans "were making no financial contribution toward the fleet" is an amplification of the first concern of the Athenians listed by Xenophon, since in 375 the Athenian fleet had actively contributed to strengthening the Theban position in Boiotia. It also introduces the following concern, which identifies the Athenians alone as bearing the expense of the naval campaign. In fact, none of the allies of Athens at this time made any regular contribution to the maintenance of a
[72] There has been much uncertainty whether this treaty was bilateral or multilateral. The evidence of this study shows that it was certainly bilateral; see appendix VII.
[73] This concession in 375, and the de facto power in Boiotia that the Thebans were nonetheless able to secure, make the initial Theban compliance with the treaty of 371 (Xenophon Hell . 6.3.18-20) more comprehensible. The wonder is that they changed their mind (cf. Plutarch Ages . 27.4-28.2). On the mutual bitterness already felt by the Thebans and the Athenians in 375, despite their common interests, see appendix V.
fleet.[74] The eisphorai imposed upon the residents of Attica yielded the funds by which fleets were manned, but they were never enough to maintain them on campaign for long. The Athenians relied upon the ingenuity of their commanders and counted on their success in battle to provide what the state could not. Xenophon notes the financial straits of Timotheos after his victory in Akarnania, when "he kept sending for money from Athens; for he needed a great deal, inasmuch as he had a great many ships" (Hellenika 5.4.66). Years after the event, Isokrates turned this difficulty to Timotheos' account, by claiming that Timotheos had achieved his victory at a cost to the city of only thirteen talents—pay for only thirteen days.[75] The austerity that lay behind this meager allowance is emphasized by Demosthenes:
You know how it stood with our city in the last war with the Lakedaimonians when it seemed unlikely that you could dispatch a fleet. You know that vetches were sold for food. But when you did dispatch it, you obtained peace on your own terms.[76]
This austerity was not the brink of either financial collapse or starvation, although a shortage of cash may well have been hitting home with those liable to pay the eisphora . "Raids from Aigina," preying primarily upon the shipping along the Attic coast, must have created some hard-ship among those whose livelihoods depended upon the mercantile activity of Peiraieus, further reducing the availability of cash. Raids affecting the maritime commerce of Peiraieus also directly affected the Athenian state, which depended heavily upon harbor dues and the metics
[74] They were not required to do so. The syntaxis , or contribution of the allies for the maintenance of the fleet of Athens and its allies, was almost certainly not instituted until after the peace of 375, probably in 373; see Cawkwell 1963, 91-93, and Brun 1983, 91-93 (but note the arguments for earlier syntaxeis arrayed by Mitchell 1984).
[75] Isokrates 15.109. Xenophon Hell . 5.4.63 and 65 reports that Timotheos sailed with sixty ships. With two hundred men per ship, thirteen talents (468,000 obols) would suffice to pay each man three obols a day for thirteen days (three obols is the rate at which Athenian sailors were paid in the later years of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides 8.45.2). This money could be made to stretch over a longer period of time. Two obols a day is attested as a standard subsistence allowance (siteresion , Demosthenes 4.28; see the discussion of types and rates of pay by Pritchett 1971, 3-29), and this was often all that was paid by the generals while on campaign, while the trierarchs often had to provide the difference, and sometimes bonuses, to prevent desertion (Demosthenes 50.7, 10-23). At two obols per day per man, thirteen talents would last for 19.5 days, a figure sufficiently irregular to demonstrate that this was not the rate at which the money disbursed by the state was meant to be paid. Timotheos clearly did resort to this expedient, but even this ration soon ran out; see [Aristotle] Oik . 2.2.23 (1350a-b).
tax for its routine administrative budget.[77] The cost of foodstuffs generally went up, as Demosthenes' comment indicates, but there is no reason to posit a serious shortage. There had been a scare in 376, when the Black Sea grain fleet had been held up by Spartan naval activity, but that momentary worry was soon resolved.[78] Although it is impossible to quantify these difficulties, on balance it seems safe to say that the feeling at Athens was one of growing resentment at having to endure hard-ships—bearable hardships, however—in a cause that now promised, in the long run, to benefit others more than themselves.
The last item mentioned on Xenophon's list, "guarding the countryside" (
Concerning this peace it is once again Philochoros who has a discussion, saying that it was very similar to that of the Lakonian Antalkidas, and that [the Athenians] gladly accepted it because they were exhausted by the cost of maintaining mercenary troops and had for some time been worn down by the war. This was the occasion that the altar of Peace was built.[79]
The mercenaries of Chabrias had been a significant factor in Athenian planning and strategy since before the outbreak of the war. Nowhere are their numbers given, but we may estimate that Chabrias had, at a minimum, something on the order of 550 to 1,600 men under his leadership at the time of the Theban uprising in 379/8 (see appendix III). The force of mercenaries employed by the Athenians 'would certainly have grown over the course of the war. In 377, immediately following Agesilaos' second campaign, Chabrias went to the support of Athens' new Euboian allies by making an expedition into the Histiaiotis, where he established a garrison to press the war against Oreos, still allied with Sparta.[80] This garrison was probably mostly, if not entirely, a mercenary
[78] Diodoros 15.34.3; Xenophon Hell . 5.4.60-61. On the effects of such a blockade on the grain market in Peiraieus, see Lysias 22, esp. 22.14-15, and Demosthenes 50.6.
[80] Diodoros 15.30.2, 5. On the date of this expedition, see note 55 above.
force, and although it must have become self-supporting either through plunder or by maintenance provided by Euboian allies, it was a force brought by an Athenian commander, initially at Athenian expense. This expedition took place at a moment when, by virtue of the installation of Panthoidas at Tanagra, the Athenians had even more reason to be vigilant along their frontiers when the Thebans and Athenians were together making the plans that would lead to the closing of Kithairon to the Spartans the following spring.
A great number of mercenaries must therefore have been available to the Athenians at this time. As discussed earlier, I have estimated that at least 2,500 men were needed to garrison the fortresses and outposts of Attica, and the number was very likely significantly higher.[81] Garrison and patrol duty and raiding the enemy provided the most cost-effective employment for mercenary troops when they were not being used on campaign, and Chabrias' mercenaries had had field experience along this frontier since before the outbreak of the war. These men, certainly augmented by citizen troops and possibly by additional mercenaries, must have formed the frontier garrison force. If this force, mercenary and citizen, hoplite and peltast, numbered only 2,500, then at this time it would have been costing the Athenian state roughly one hundred talents a year.[82] Although the Athenians could offset or defer much of the
[81] See note 61 above and appendix VI.
[82] For a contemporary opinion on the utility of mercenaries for garrison duty in the countryside, see Xenophon Hieron 10.5-8 (quoted in chapter 1, p. 30). The expense of maintaining 2,500 soldiers for a year (using the 354-day bouleutic year as a basis for calculation) can be roughly estimated at 2,500 x 354 x 4 obols per day = 3,540,000 obols, or 98 talents 2,000 drachmas. The calculation must be qualified in several respects. First of all, the official rate of pay in this period is not quite certain. There is evidence that 3 obols was the normal rate for sailors at this time (see note 75 above). The figure of 4 obols derives from a rough Attic equivalent of the 3 Aiginetan obols (4.375 Attic obols would be a more precise figure) determined by the Peloponnesian league to be adequate payment to replace a hoplite on expeditionary service (Xenophon Hell . 5.2.21). That peltasts, or any light-armed troops, would be paid at the same rate as hoplites is attested by the convention of Athens and its Peloponnesian allies in 420 (Thucydides 5.47.6). The figure of 4 obols is also supported by Aristotle AthPol . 42.3 as the maintenance pay later provided to Athenian ephebes on garrison duty. That all citizens, and not just ephebes of the Lykourgan era, were paid for garrison duty in Attica is established by AthPol . 24.1 and 3 (see note 61 above). Second, the relationship between the official rate of pay and actual pay disbursed was at all times quite variable. As is clear in the case of Peloponnesian practice (Xenophon Hell . 6.2.16), the sum paid to a commander to replace soldiers, 3 Aiginetan obols per day, was not necessarily paid out by him at the same rate to the mercenaries he hired. Just as for naval service (see note 75 above), commanders often paid only a subsistence allowance and anticipated payment of the balance due, plus bonuses, out of booty taken from the enemy. Often enough, they even relied on plunder to provide for subsistence (cf. Aristotle Rhet . 3.10.7, 1411a). However, when service was within one's own territory, there would be considerable incentive to provide full pay, or at least full subsistence pay, to prevent the despoiling of one's own property (cf. Xenophon Mem . 3.6.11). But even this was difficult for the Athenians to do at all times (Xenophon Poroi 4.52; cf. 4.9).
expense through various means, even this minimum estimated cost of garrisoning Attica represented the most substantial recurrent item in the military budget of Athens over the course of the war.[83] The Athenian preoccupation with mercenaries, moreover, is attested indirectly through the association of the peace of 375 with the Persian king's interest in hiring mercenaries. Having assembled a substantial force of mercenaries on their home soil, the Athenians required an immediate outlet for their smooth transfer out of Attica as soon as peace was arranged. As with Chabrias' withdrawal from Egypt in 379, the Athenians found Pharnabazos amenable to their needs.[84]
The peace treaty of 375 was cause for joy and thanksgiving on the part of the Athenians. It was celebrated by the institution of an annual sacri-
[83] The cost of building up the navy, in accordance with the resolutions passed at the beginning of the war (Diodoros 15.29.7, Polybios 2.62.6) would have been the next major expense, and one that made a more inflexible demand upon immediate resources than the payment of soldiers for service (see note 82 above). Robbins (1918, 363-67) has calculated the cost, beginning in 378, of building and fitting new triremes and refitting old ones to achieve a total of one hundred ships, at 150 talents. Modifying his calculations according to the estimates by Sinclair (1978, 49-51 ) of the number of triremes already on hand, this total might be reduced to around 130 talents. This expense would have been divided over two to three years, and to it would have been added some amount, probably no more than 20-30 talents, for the construction of ship sheds and harbor facilities (Robbins 1918, 372). Expeditionary expenses, both naval and continental, are elusive figures, and I do not propose to enter into a detailed discussion of them here. Both Robbins and Brun have ventured to calculate them for the period of this war, and I cite their figures here with the caution that, for a variety of reasons, I believe them to be excessively high as estimates of real expenses incurred by the Athenian state. Robbins, whose calculations take into account booty taken by Chabrias and Timotheos in their two naval battles but who, by placing the peace in 374, exaggerates the expenses of Timotheos' campaign by assuming that he was abroad for over a year, places the expeditionary costs for the period 378-374 at 400 talents (1918, 378-85). Brun, calculating only expeditionary pay, arrives at a figure of 389 talents for the period 378-375 (1983, 154-56, 158). These calculations serve at least to demonstrate that a minimal estimate of the cost of garrisoning Attica (not considered by either Robbins or Brun) at 100 talents a year for three years was indeed a conspicuous item in the Athenian military budget.
[84] The appointment of exagogeis , agents to see to the evacuation of garrisons (Diodoros 15.38.2),as one of the stipulations of the peace treaty underscores the importance to the peace process of quickly removing unwanted mercenaries. As suggested above, notes 11 and 69, I believe it likely that this was the moment at which Iphikrates entered the service of Pharnabazos as commander of the Greek mercenaries, who numbered 20,000 according to Diodoros (15.41.1, 3) or 12,000 according to Nepos 11.2.4. Whether or not this chronological conjecture is correct, the fact that an Athenian, Iphikrates, served as commander of the mercenaries now brought from Greece to Persian service, emphasizes the importance of these arrangements to the Athenians in particular.
fice to Peace on an altar founded for the occasion[85] By all accounts, it was remembered as the most glorious outcome for the Athenians in all of their wars with Sparta. Twenty years later, Isokrates spoke of this as a peace
that so transformed the relative positions of the two cities that, from that day on, we commemorate it in sacrifice as having benefited the city more than any other peace. For since that time no one has seen a Lakedaimonian fleet sailing this side of cape Malea, nor Lakedaimonian infantry making an expedition across the Isthmus.[86]
This war had enabled the Athenians to bring into existence a new naval confederacy, with themselves as its leader. Secured by victories in two great sea battles, the Athenians saw this confederacy as a rebirth of Athenian ascendancy and the end of unchallenged Spartan domination in much of Greece and the Aegean. For some time previously, the Athenians had felt, as Isokrates expressed it on the eve of this war, that "formerly our city justly held sovereignty of the sea and now not unjustly lays claim to the hegemony."[87] Now, with things so advantageously arranged by this peace, it is easy to understand why the Athenians celebrated their achievement of hegemony. For that status, though not formally acknowledged in the terms of the treaty, was a de facto product of the treaty that so opportunely concluded the war of 378-375.[88]