Sparta and Her Allies in the Sixth Century

Abstract

In the first book of his History Thucydides shows ‘the Spartans and the Allies’, to give the Peloponnesian League its formal title, making the decision that Athens had broken the Thirty Years Peace. After receiving the complaints of various allies, the Spartans discussed in the assembly the conduct of Athens and what should be done about it (ch. 67ff.) and ended by voting that the treaty had been broken and that the Athenians were in the wrong (ch. 87). This decision they communicated to the allies who had come complaining, and declared that they wished to summon all the allies and submit it to the vote, ‘in order that after general consultation (κοινμ βονλενομενοι) they might make war, should it so seem good“ (87.3 & 4). Then, after the Excursus on the Pentekontaetia, Thucydides records the congress of the League in which the Spartans put to the vote whether it was necessary to go to war and the majority voted for war (119–125). Thus Sparta proposed and the allies disposed.