¹ Kahrstedt, U., Griechisches Staatsrecht I (1922) 81–118, 267–72Google Scholar, and Busolt, G. and Swoboda, H., Griechische Staatskunde II (1926) 1320–37Google Scholar are the principal standard accounts. Schaefer, H., Staatsform und Politik (1932) 200–11Google Scholar is of especial importance. Wickert, K., Der Peloponnesische Bund von seiner Entstehung bis lum Ende des archidamischen Krieges (1961) surveys the history of the League to 421Google Scholar. Larsen, J. A. O., Class. Phil. 28 (1933) 257–76Google Scholar, and 29 (1934) 1–19 gives the evidence for and discusses the League in the age of Thucydides. Croix, G. E. M. de Ste, The origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972) 101–24 and 333–46Google Scholar is the most notable modern account.

² Thuc. 3.4.5f., 15.1. The Mytilenean envoys address their speech to ‘Spartans and allies’ (9.1) but since it was delivered at Olympia (8.1) the Spartans addressed must be representatives at the League assembly. Thucydides does not say explicitly that the Spartan assembly voted for alliance and therefore war, but it must have done so and indeed one would suppose that some warning would have been given to the allies as to what their representatives should expect; presumably such major business was not normal at the Olympic Festival.

³ Xenophon makes it seem that the envoys from Acanthus and Apollonia to Sparta in 382 were made by the Ephors to address the Spartan assembly and their allies at the same time (Hell. 5.ii.I If.) and at the end of their speech the Spartans threw the matter open for discussion by the allies; ‘those who wished to please the Spartans’ were most pressing for war (§ 20). How did they know what Sparta wanted if a decision had not previously been taken? One suspects a somewhat careless compression on Xenophon's part. When he comes to the Peace of 372/1, he has the Athenians speak before ‘the εκκλμτοι of the Spartans and the allies’ (6.iii.3) but they address themselves simply to the Spartans (§§4,7,10) and at the end of the debate the Spartans ‘voted to accept the peace' (§18); the peace is then sworn to seemingly without the allies having a say. Again one suspects that Xenophon has not taken the pains that Thucydides would have taken. Busolt-Swoboda G. S. 1332 and n. 3 postulate a change of procedure. Perhaps they are right to adhere strictly to Xenophon, but he certainly is unmethodical. At 3.iv.2, where the expedition to Asia in 396 is under discussion, the allies are summoned to Sparta, and that is all we are told of their part.

⁴ For the Phocian appeal of 395 and the Achean appeal of 389, v.i. p. 366.

⁵ Thuc. 5.17.2, 18.1, though the allies did not share in the exchange of oaths (19.2); cf. Xen, . Hell. 6.iii. 19Google Scholar.

⁶ Thuc. 4.118 is a curious document indeed, but at §9 it is declared to be a decree of‘the Spartans and the allies’.

⁷ Xen, . Hell. 2. ii. 19Google Scholar, 3.V.5–7, 6.iii.19.

⁸ 7.18.4,19.1. The Spartan aid for Syracuse in 414 was very small, consisting of one Spartiate and a body of Neodamodeis and Helots (Thuc. 6.93.2f., 7.2.5, and 58.3); there was no alliance or declaration of war. So the allies apart from Corinth (6.88.10) had no interest in the affair. It is unclear how or why Sicyonians were compelled to join in (7.19.4, 58.3).

⁹ Although Thucydides said that ‘the embassies from the Peloponnese’ had been summoned for ‘the fifty-year peace and afterwards the alliance’ (5.27.1), there is no trace of the allies in the text of the Athenian-Spartan alliance as we have it (5.23.1). Perhaps the decision of the League authorising the peace embraced alliance too.

¹⁰ Cf. Thuc. 5.48.2.

¹¹ A text, somewhat different from that of Gschnitzer, F., Ein neuerspartanischer Staatsvertrag (1978)Google Scholar, is to be found in the supplement to the second edition of Meiggs-Lewis, Greek Historical Inscriptions (1989) p. 213Google Scholar. The first editor, Peek, W. ‘Ein neuerspartanischer Staatsvertrag’ Abhandlungen der Sächs Akad. der Wissenschaft zu Leipzig LXV 3 (1974)Google Scholar suggested a date early in the fifth century, but Cartledge, P. A. (‘A new fifth century Spartan treaty’ Liverpool Classical Monthly 1 [1976] 87–92)Google Scholar argued more credibly for a date in the 420s, and Kelly, D. H. (‘The new Spartan treaty’ Liverpool Classical Monthly 3 [1978] 133–41)Google Scholar, even more credibly perhaps, for a date in the early fourth century.

¹² The Corinthian War began as a mere defensive action on behalf of Phocis which culminated in the battle of Haliartus. After the formation of the Grand Alliance opposed to Sparta, the war proper began. Cf. Diod. 14.82.

¹³ De Ste Croix, op. cit. 345f. and Andrewes, Historical Commentary on Thucydides ad. loc. represent the conflicting views.

¹⁴ In 386 Agesilaus did not send out call-up officers (ξεναγοι) until the army was in Tegea (Xen. Hell. 5.i.33). The message sent to the allies in 419 after the Spartans had been forced by unfavourable omens to return home may have been to make up for time lost (Thuc. 5.54.2).

¹⁵ Cf. Andrewes, op. cit. ad 5.31.5Google Scholar.

¹⁶ It originated with Larsen, J. A. O., ‘Sparta and the Ionian Revolt’ Class. Phil. 27 (1932) 139–43Google Scholar, and has been accepted by many, e.g. by Andrewes, op. cit. p. 26Google Scholar andCroix, de Steop. cit. 117fGoogle Scholar. (but not wholeheartedly).

¹⁷ Was he to return to Sparta and announce that he had done such a thing? Or did he presume the wild act could pass unnoticed? He was not immune from prosecution (cf. Hdt. 6.82). Such things are more easily uttered in slander than seriously entertained and carried through (cf. Tritle, L. A., Historia 87 [1988] 459)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Opinion has divided on the significance of the Corinthian part in the Spartan campaign against Samos. Cf. Wickert, op. cit. 16fGoogle Scholar. I follow Schaefer op. cit. 201.

¹⁹ v.i. p. 373.

²⁰ The dates of the two Spartan kings are not exactly known. (‘We have no other means than calculation by generations’ — Beloch, Griechische Geschichte I ² 2, 190Google Scholar.)

²¹ Cf. e.g. Kahrstedt, op. cit. 81Google Scholar and Hammond, N. G. L.CAH III ² 3, 335Google Scholar.

²² Thuc. 5.54.1 (for the site of Leuctrum, P. W. XII.2 Col 2308). Cf. Loring, W., ‘Some ancient routes in the Peloponnese’, JHS 15 (1985) 36 ffGoogle Scholar. (and see Plate 1).

²³ Cf. Jacoby, F.CQ 38 (1944) 15fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. ( = Abhandlungen 342f.).

²⁴ Cf. Bengtson, H., Die Vertrdge der griechisch-romischen Welt no. 112Google Scholar. The reason for choosing a fifth-century or a sixth-century date is rarely discussed. Cf. Kahrstedt, op. cit. 109Google Scholar and Schaefer, op. cit. 230Google Scholar.

²⁵ Cartledge, P. A., Agesilaus (1987) 13Google Scholar.

²⁶ This was the way of translating the sentence preferred by Gomme ad. loc.

²⁷ Such, perhaps, as the annual declaration of war by the Ephors against the Helots and the secret police (Plut, . Lycurgus 28)Google Scholar.

²⁸ Scholars have sharply differed over Plato's mention of a Messenian war which prevented the Spartans from supporting Athens in time in 490 (Laws 698 ED). The diverse evidence is reviewed by Cartledge, (Sparta andLakonia 153f.)Google Scholar who keeps ‘an open mind’. I side with those who believe that on balance Plato's statement is to be credited.

²⁹ Hdt. 7.170.4, Diod. 11.66.1–3, Paus. 5.26.4–5, on the basis of which last passage the fragmentary inscriptions on three bases of statues at Olympia have been restored (Inschriften von Olympia 267–9; cf. Meiggs-Andrewes, , Sources b107)Google Scholar.

³⁰ For the battle of Tegea, Hdt. 9.35.2 and Andrewes, , Phoenix 6 (1952) 1–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and for the troubles of the 480s, Hdt. 9.37, from which chapter one may not be wrong to extract from the barely credible story of the escape of the seer Hegesistratus to Tegea the statement that Tegea was ‘not on good terms with Sparta at that moment’. When exactly that was, one can only guess. By 479 Tegea was again on good terms (Hdt. 9.26), and ‘the many dreadful things’ the Spartans had suffered through him were probably the troubles of 490.

³¹ Herodotus (9.26.4) has the Tegeans assert that the right for ever to be stationed on the left wing had been accorded in ancient times. There would therefore be no reason to use their place in the battle as an argument for Tegea being the first state to enter into the new relationship with Sparta. It has nonetheless been the almost universal opinion that the Tegean treaty was the start of the Peloponnesian League (cf. the firm assertion of Kahrstedt, op. cit. 81f.)Google Scholar.

³² A parallel is often found in the story of Plutarch (Cimon 8.5f.) of Cimon searching in Scyrus for the Bones of Theseus, and bringing them back to Athens. As in the case of the Bones of Orestes, this was in obedience to an oracle. If it was understood to symbolise the foundation of the Delian League, Plutarch does not say as much.

³³ The word επιταρρμος is used in Homer to describe a god who helps and protects (e.g. Od. 24.182).

³⁴ Cf. Schol. Euripides, Orestes 46Google Scholar μανερον οτι εμ ‘ργει τομ ςραματος νποκειται’ ‘ομνρος ςε εν Μνκμναις μνιν ειμαι τα βαοιλεια τον ‘αγαμεμονος ςε και ειμωνιςνς. The name Philachaeus, which is often called into play, is probably not sixth century and possibly not Spartan (cf. Jeffery, L. H., Archaic Greece 131 n. 6)Google Scholar.

³⁶ According to Lewis, D. M., Supplement to Greek Historical Inscriptions (1989) n. 67 p. 213Google Scholar, ‘the surest result [of the discovery of the Aetolian Treaty- v.s. n. 11] seems to be the confirmation of the view of de Ste Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War (108.110) that the alliance formula of lines 4–10 was the primitive formula of Spartan alliances’. This is, I believe, the inverse of the truth. Lines 16–23 are the primitive formula of the sixth century. One can only regret that we do not have whatever followed.

³⁶ Cf. Cartledge, P. A., Sparta and Lakonia (1979) 148: the proposal to reinstate Hippias as tyrant of Athens ‘destroys the myth of Sparta's principled opposition to tyranny’Google Scholar.

³⁷ Of the list in Plutarch, , de Malignitate Herodoti 859DGoogle Scholar, only Corinth and Sicyon are within the range of the conceivable for the sixth century. Of these Sicyon is perhaps rendered more respectable by the Rylands Papyrus n. 18 (= FGH 105.1); Corinth has been perhaps too contumaciously dismissed, for the Cypselid family may have lingered on after the murder of the last tyrant (FGH 90 F60), just as there were Pisistratids at Athens after the expulsion of Hippias. The scholiast on Aeschines 2.77 has only three of the names on Plutarch's list to offer. The cases in Herodotus are Athens and Polycrates of Samos.

³⁸ Perhaps the source of Aristotle's, general statement (Pol. 1312b7)Google Scholar was Ephorus, and it is instructive to note how few Peloponnesian states are mentioned in the Politics; there is no mention, for example, of Tegea, Orchomenus, Epidaurus, Achaea (save for sharing in the colonisation of Sybaris). No wonder that the large number of lesser places like Cleonae or Nemea or Pallantion or Lepreum do not come into it. Mantinea is mentioned twice (1318b25, 27), once for its fourth-century constitution, once for its fifth (one presumes). There is no need to go on. It may be that he just happened not to think of Peloponnesian examples for his well-stocked book, but one cannot help concluding that he lacked the precise detailed histories of Peloponnesian states that would have informed him, at least when he was writing the Politics. When he took to writing up his 158 Constitutions, he may have done a lot of precious research, but it would be wrong to presume that they were necessarily all as full or of the same nature as the Constitution of the Athenians. We have fragments of 64. It is to be hoped that they are no index of the quality of the whole, but, quite apart from their value as history (which, fortunately, is not here relevant), many of these Constitutions may have been no more than a survey of the institutions in Aristotle's own time and experience. It is not surprising that we know of so few tyrannies, pace Ruschenbusch, E., Untersuchungen zu Staat und Politik in Griechenland (1978)Google Scholar; probably few were dealt with by historians.

³⁹ Herodotus wrote of Clisthenes, only because he needed to explain how it was that Athens took part in the Ionian Revolt. Apart from that and the Ath. Pol., we would be pretty much in the dark about him. Yet Athens was news. Elsewhere, full many a short-lived flower may have blushed unseen.

⁴⁰ Adopting Schweighäuser's change of αομναιοι at Hdt. 5.63 to αακεςαιονιοι Cf. Forrest, W. G.GRBS 10 (1969) 281Google Scholar.

⁴¹ A number of tyrants may have been suppressed in the 550s and exiled aristocrats restored. Elsewhere the threat of tyranny may have been removed and the aristocracy reassured by the new sort of oaths exchanged.

⁴² Eusebius, Chron. (ed. Schoene, ) II 96/97Google Scholar, Diog. Laert. 1.68.

⁴³ With 1.68.6 (κατεοτραμμενμ), cf. 5.91.1 (ετοιμονς εοντας πειοεοαι ομιοι).

⁴⁴ V.s. n. 35.

⁴⁵ CQ 26 (1976) 71ffGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁶ Curiously, members could conduct wars against each other (cf. Thuc. 4.134, 5.65.4, Xen, . Hell. 5. iv. 37)Google Scholar, though not when a League expedition had been called, and they could also make private alliances (Thuc. 5.30.2).

⁴⁷ For Ehrenberg, , PWIUA col. 1384Google Scholar, this is ‘sehr wahrscheinlich’, for Schaefer, , op. cit. 204Google Scholar ‘es fehlt auch jede innere Wahrscheinlichkeit’, that handy criterion.

⁴⁸ V.s. n. 17.

⁴⁹ Cf. n. 35.

⁵⁰ V.s. p. 366.

⁵¹ Although the Aetolian treaty (cf. n. 11) belongs to the Peloponnesian War or later, one would dearly like to know how it continued. If it is right to see in lines 16ff. the sixth-century substratum (cf. n. 35), it might have gone on to provide for the situation of Hdt. 5.74f.

⁵² As Wickert, , op. cit. 62Google Scholar, points out, the phrase κορινθιοι μετα των ενμμαχων in 105.3 can hardly be supposed to include the Spartans and the first full League expedition with Sparta leading is the Tanagra campaign. Their absence from the Corinthian incursion into the Megarid might be variously explained. One notes that in 429 the operations in the Corinthian Gulf involved κορινμιοι και οι ενμμαχοι (Thuc. 2.83.3), just as one sees the Corinthians acting seemingly independently in 426/5 (3.114.4), and the fact that the Spartans were not involved in operations before Tanagra does not prove that the foundation of the full symmachic league must come after the operations of Thuc. 1.105.3. A different account of Sparta's role in the First Peloponnesian War is given by Holladay, A. J., JHS 97 (1957) 54ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ At 7.157.1 (if that is the right text) seems to stand for the Hellenic League.

⁵⁴ It is to be noted that one manuscript read the authors of The Athenian Tribute Lists (III 97) regard Herodotus 7.157.1 and this passage as the formal designation of the Hellenic League. Is a much stronger candidate (cf. their n. 12 on p. 97).

⁵⁵ Cf. Thuc. 1.15.2.

⁵⁶ I take the allies of Thuc. 1.90.1 to be members of the Hellenic League.