31 Alcibaides and Sparta, 414-412 B.C

In 415 B.C., Alcibiades was well received in Sparta. He had powerful friends there, including King Agis II and Endius, ephor of 412 B.C. Thucydides credits Alcibiades with the recommendations that gained Sparta victory eight years later, but the historian has exaggerated the role of his fellow Athenian aristocrat. Alcibiades, who was likely the source of Thucydides’s information on the later years of the war, emphasized his central role in events of 415–411 B.C. Alcibiades chose voluntary exile rather than face prosecution on charges of sacrilege, which were likely trumped up by his political opponents, Athenian aristocrats who despised the democracy. Alcibiades added his voice to those denouncing Athenian actions in Sparta. In 414 B.C., the Spartans declared war because they viewed the Athenian attack against Syracuse as a violation of their treaty. The Spartans fortified Decelea and besieged Athens for the next 10 years, but they could not gain the advantage, and the Athenians sent a second expedition against Syracuse in 413 B.C. In 412 B.C., with news of the Athenian defeat, Sparta ordered a new fleet and courted Chios, Miletus, and other Ionian cities to raise rebellions in the Athenian Empire. Sparta opted to cooperate with Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap at Sardis, rather than his colleague Pharnabazus, satrap of the Hellespontine regions. Sparta had to agree to a high price for Persian support: the return of the Greeks of Asia to the Great King. Alcibiades, however, fled again and offered his services to Tissaphernes, who pursued a policy of limited support of Sparta in hopes of wearing down both Greek powers. For his part, Alcibiades planned a return to Athens.