SOURCE: Piper, Linda J. “Sparta after Alexander.” In Spartan Twilight, pp. 5-23. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1986.

In the following essay, Piper details the period of Spartan military and political decline from 371 to 260 b.c.

In 371 b.c., the Greek world heard with disbelief that a small Theban force had defeated a larger Spartan army at Leuctra. The Spartan military had seemed invincible for so many years that victory was almost a commonplace in Spartan foreign affairs. Yet if the other Greeks were shocked by the news, the men and women within Sparta took it in a typically calm and stoical fashion, firm in their belief that it was merely a temporary setback. This was not to be so, however. Discontent with Spartan hegemony had been festering in the Peloponnesus for many years, suppressed only by Spartan military supremacy. The news of the Theban victory brought...