The Peace of 375
Xenophon describes the peace of 375 as an agreement between Athens and Sparta and as the product of Athenian initiative:
The Lakedaimonians and their allies were gathering together with the Phokians, and the Thebans had withdrawn to their own country and were guarding the passes.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
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
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
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" (
, literally, "watches of the countryside") was burdensome to the Athenians precisely because it was the most considerable item in their war budget. An excerpt from Didymos' commentary on Demosthenes makes explicit in what this burden consisted:
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
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
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-
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]