Agesilaos and the Campaign of 378

The war known to us as the Boiotian War was surely referred to as the Theban War by the Spartans.^[35] It had begun with a slaughter of Spartan

supporters at Thebes, and retribution for those murders was the justification for Sparta's military reaction. The primary objective of the Spartans in the spring of 378 was the same as it had been under Kleombrotos: to isolate and reduce Thebes. Unlike Athens, Thebes was landlocked and surrounded by hostile bases. The Spartans had every reason to hope that the preparations made by Kleombrotos could now be brought to fruition. By denying the Thebans the produce of their land and by over-whelming them in numbers if they chose to come out and fight, the Spartans could expect to grind them down, by siege if necessary, as they had recently done to the Phleiasians and Olynthians.^[36]

If Athens had been forced to stand aloof from Thebes, as had seemed possible until the raid of Sphodrias backfired, there is every reason to believe that the beginning of summer would have seen the beginning of the Peloponnesian siege of Thebes. Now the situation was more complicated. Athenian support for Thebes was a significant obstacle, but not an insuperable one. Combined Athenian and Theban forces were by no means equal to the Peloponnesian army, but they were strong enough to prevent Thebes from being easily invested. Proof of this, if proof were needed, was furnished by the fieldworks under preparation around Thebes. This, and all other defensive preparations undertaken by their foes, would not have gone unnoticed by the Spartans.

With the adherence of Athens to the Theban side, the Spartan strategy for the war necessarily changed. Now the Spartans had to pre-pare to engage the combined forces of Thebes and Athens in the open field. If that could be done at an opportune moment, then the Spartans could still reasonably hope that the strength of their forces would tell and that the armies, and the resolve, of the Thebans and Athenians would be broken. The situation called for considerable skill and, more than that, the nerve to press home, at the right moment, a frontal attack that was bound to be bloody on both sides. On both counts, the long experience of Agesilaos recommended him as the commander for this campaign. Skill as a commander Agesilaos had amply demonstrated in all his previous campaigns. He had outgeneraled his enemies on many occasions, especially in the course of his Asian campaigns of 396-394, for which, according to Diodoros (15.31.3-4), Agesilaos' leadership was acclaimed. Of requisite nerve Agesilaos had given signal proof at Koro-

neia sixteen years earlier, when he had had the opportunity to allow the Theban army to flee, but instead he had deliberately led his phalanx into a collision with the Thebans in an effort to destroy them outright.^[37] Such resolve was needed now, if Sparta was to break the link between Athens and Thebes and to begin the blockade of Thebes in earnest.

The defeat of Thebes, therefore, was the ultimate objective of Agesilaos' campaign. But if Agesilaos could weaken Thebes by first attacking Athens, there would be every reason to do so. Agesilaos had given ample demonstration in the past of his ability to deceive his foes about his immediate objective, attacking where he was least expected.^[38] The Athenians had to be prepared for that possibility. If they were not, Agesilaos could easily plan to include the devastation of at least a portion of Attica in his campaign, with the immediate hope that he might divert the Athenians away from Thebes or even overman and cut up the Athenians in the field.

The demonstration of preparedness by the Athenians forestalled such a strategy. Through their signal system, the Athenians were assured of timely information about the movement of Agesilaos' army. More important, the Dema wall displayed what the Athenians were pre-pared to do in the event of an invasion of Attica. Numbers, speed, and ingenuity might gain the plain of Eleusis for Agesilaos, but none of these qualities would allow him to pass beyond it into the greater part of Attica. The Athenians, in other words, were making a clear demonstration of what they were prepared to give up in exchange for limiting Peloponnesian depredations to a tolerable and ineffectual minimum. The Dema position was an exceedingly strong one—much stronger by nature than the protracted line of the Theban stockade—and his spies would surely inform Agesilaos of its strength. Knowing its strength and knowing that the Athenians would make light of whatever else the Peloponnesian army might do west of this position, Agesilaos was strongly discouraged from opening his offensive with an invasion of Attica.

The decision to proceed directly against Thebes in the summer campaign of 378 was thus the most logical one, for there Spartan preparations were the strongest and there, though the Thebans and Athenians had gone to great lengths to attempt to redress the balance, his foes were clearly the most vulnerable.

Agesilaos could not assume that passage through Kithairon would be easy, regardless of the advantages enjoyed by the Spartans in having one

end of the route anchored in the allied territory of Megara and the other end secured by a garrison at Plataia and an army at Thespiai. Though their patrols might move through Kithairon regularly, and lookouts could keep watch over the approaches, control of the heights could be challenged by the enemy at any moment. No moment was more likely for a challenge than when the Peloponnesian levy was on its way.

The army at Thespiai was the principal operational force in Boiotia for the Spartans, and patrols across Kithairon likely originated from it. Movements from Thespiai were no doubt closely watched by the The-bans, who could expect that preparations for the arrival of Agesilaos' army would be observed first at Thespiai. Agesilaos therefore took care to secure the Kithairon passes from the Megarian side in order to assure that no advance warning of preparations for his arrival would be given. He arranged for a mercenary force, temporarily diverted for this purpose from their employment at Kletor in Arkadia, to precede him from the Peloponnese to Kithairon. If the Athenians and Thebans had been expecting to challenge him during his crossing, he successfully headed them off by this maneuver. As a further precaution, Agesilaos also seems to have moved his army from the Isthmus across Kithairon with greater speed than was usual for a force of its size.^[39]

The employment of the mercenaries from Kletor had a further strategic value to Agesilaos. They were to take control of the passage through Kithairon not only for Agesilaos' passage into Boiotia but also to remain there for the duration of his campaign, assuring him of a safe passage out of Boiotia afterward. He did not want to be forced to take the difficult route via Kreusis and Aigosthena, as had Kleombrotos, nor to risk surprise by any strong enemy force gathered in his rear. Freed of this concern, he could concentrate the maximum numbers of the Peloponnesian army, both that accompanying him and that already at Thespiai, on the task awaiting him at Thebes.