spartan army at Mantinea 418 BC

[Paralus]

Luckily for the Athenians, they did not destroy Athens as Melos had been sacked and their Theban allies suggested..

The romantic notion that Athens was allowed survival by Sparta largely due to its previous service to Greece is about as cogent as Agesilaos' panhellennic crusade to liberate Asia. The rising power of Boeotia would appear to have much more to recommend it. It is no coincidence that Thebes was disaffected from Sparta - as in very short order would be Megara and Corinth - at this time and , in fact, "disobedient". Athens, as a Spartan ally, would form the check. Their services in the reduction of Elis over 402-400 are an indicator.

You are forgetting that they were quite free while Agiselaos romped through Anatolia, when the Athenians sold them out not for ships to save the very existance of their polis, but for some share of 10,000 darics.

Their polis was, at the time, quite secure. Agesilaos replaced two dilatory Spartan commanders who had waved the flag for some three yaers. He achieved, on the whole, remarkably little when placed in contrast with Xenophon's admiring description of his aims. Indeed, the far less biased Oxyrinchus historian (and Diodorus) note that he decided a peace with Tissaphernes' replacement Tithraustes was in order.

Agesilaos' campaign, those of Thibron and Derkylidas before it and the lukewarm tacit support of Cyrus the Younger are all sops to Spartan guilt. When reality presented itself, the hard heads at Sparta had no worries about the resale of the Asia minor Greeks (and some islanders) to the King. On several occasions.

The flreet under Pharnabazus - and Konon - was a Persian fleeet and it served Persian interests. Well as it turned out. Persian gold had, in the end, little to do with the Corinthian War; this was a certainty before any money arrived as the Oxyrinchus historian - again with no Spartan sympathies to protect - makes clear.

As suggested though, perhaps this might make another thread?