ABSTRACT
The defeat of Athens by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War brought an end to the Athenian empire. The events at Athens did not reveal Spartan imperialism in a good light. Athens was not the only beneficiary of Spartan caprice and heavy-handedness. In retrospect, the activities of the Thebans brought one Philip, a member of the Macedonian royal house, to be for a period a hostage in Thebes. Philip turned the Macedonian army into something completely different from earlier Greek city-state armies, as his opponents came eventually to recognise. Philip's willingness to leave the Greek cities largely alone was occasioned by his interests being elsewhere. Philip's heir was his twenty-year-old son, Alexander. In the case of the city of Thebes, Alexander captured and razed the town amid scenes of extreme violence: even Greeks from neighbouring cities that had been oppressed by the Thebans joined in the slaughter, and according to Diodorus over 6,000 Thebans perished and more than 30,000 were captured.
