ABSTRACT
The defeat of Athens by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War brought an end to the Athenian empire. But it did not bring a general backlash against democracy. Spartan behaviour saw to that. The problems with Spartan supremacy emerge from the events at Athens itself. There Lysander, the Spartan general most responsible for Sparta’s military victories, not only saw to the surrender of the city and the pulling down of its defences, but lent his support to a small group of Athenians who installed themselves as a violent junta, the so-called ‘Thirty Tyrants’. The Thirty were united by dislike for radical democracy rather than by shared positive ideals. They engaged in wanton violence against those who could be presented as public enemies – wealthy nonAthenians resident at Athens, such as the father of the orator Lysias, and Athenians whose activities as prosecutors in court had made them unpopular. But the Thirty became split over just how narrowly or broadly based their régime should be, and the hard core of the junta maintained their power only by bringing over to their side, by bribes and other buttering up, Kallibios, the commander of the Spartan garrison which they had procured
3 4 5 61 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1711 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
The behaviour of the Thirty provoked a mass movement to restore democracy. Those who fled from the Thirty were harboured by the Boiotians, despite an express Spartan order to their allies to the contrary. A core of Athenian opponents of the Thirty gathered at the border fort of Phyle and marched on Athens, gathering further support as they came. A battle was fought in the Piraeus in which Kritias, the hardline leader of the Thirty, was killed. The Spartan king Pausanias, who had been sent to Athens to deal with the situation, initially opposed the rising against the Thirty, but he then chose to move his support to the returning democrats and the Thirty collapsed. Democracy was restored, and the Spartans departed. Pausanias was brought to trial in Sparta and acquitted by a narrow margin because, although the members of the Gerousia were equally split, he managed to command the support of all five ephors elected for that year (Pausanias 3.5.1-2).
