Corinthian War
Corinthian War
Part of the Spartan hegemony
Hoplites in combat
Date
395-387 BC
Location Mainland Greece
Result
Inconclusive;
Peace of Antalcidas dictated by Persia
Belligerents
Sparta
Peloponnesian League
Athens
Argos
Corinth
Thebes
Other allies
Commanders
Agesilaus and others
Numerous
The Corinthian War was an ancient Greek
conflict lasting from 395 BC until 387 BC, pit-
ting Sparta against a coalition of four allied
states; Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos;
which were initially backed by Persia. The
immediate cause of the war was a local con-
flict
in northwest Greece in which both
Thebes and Sparta intervened. The deeper
cause was hostility towards Sparta provoked
by that city’s "expansionism in Asia Minor,
central and northern Greece and even the ...
west".[1]
The war was fought on two fronts, on land
near Corinth and Thebes and at sea in the
Aegean. On land, the Spartans achieved sev-
eral early successes in major battles, but
were unable to capitalize on their advantage,
and the fighting soon became stalemated. At
sea, the Spartan fleet was decisively defeated
by a Persian fleet early in the war, an event
that effectively ended Sparta’s attempts to
become a naval power. Taking advantage of
this fact, Athens launched several naval cam-
paigns in the later years of the war, recaptur-
ing a number of islands that had been part of
the original Athenian Empire during the 5th
century BC.
Alarmed by these Athenian successes, the
Persians stopped backing the allies and
began supporting Sparta. This defection
forced the allies to seek peace. The Peace of
Antalcidas, commonly known as the King’s
Peace, was signed in 387 BC, ending the war.
This treaty declared that Persia would con-
trol all of Ionia, and that all other Greek cit-
ies would be independent. Sparta was to be
the guardian of the peace, with the power to
enforce its clauses. The effects of the war,
therefore, were to establish Persia’s ability to
interfere successfully in Greek politics and to
affirm Sparta’s hegemonic position in the
Gr