Spartan Hegemony - Sparta's Post Peloponnesian War Regime

Sparta's Post Peloponnesian War Regime

Lysander was the Spartan who after the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE established many of the foreign pro-Spartan governments throughout the Aegean. He also established many Spartan garrisons. Most of the polis ruling systems he set up were ten man oligarchies called decarchies. Harmosts, Spartan military governors, were left as the head of the decarchies. As the men appointed were loyal to Lysander rather than Sparta, this system has been described as Lysander's private empire. In this establishment of a new Aegean order, many lost their lives or were exiled but on the other hand Agina and Melos were restored to their former inhabitants.

Sparta was divided over what to do about Athens itself. Lysander and King Agis were for total destruction as were Sparta's leading allies Corinth and Thebes. However, a more moderate faction led by Pausanias gained the upper hand. Athens was spared but her long walls and the fortifications of Piraeus were demolished. Lysander did manage to insert the significant condition that Athens recall her exiles.

The return of the exiles to Athens contributed to the political instability of Athens allowing Lysander to establish shortly the oligarchy that has come to be known as Thirty Tyrants, composed of men beholden to him. The danger of so much power being in the hands of one person had become sufficiently clear that the both King Agis and King Pausanias agreed that Lysander's wings needed to be clipped. The decarchies were declared abolished and Athens quickly benefited when Sparta permitted democracy to be restored at Athens