Cleomenic War

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The Cleomenic War took place from 228 BC. BC to 222 BC Between Sparta and its king Cleomenes III. , after which the war is named, on the one hand and the Achaean League on the other, which other states joined in the course of the war - above all Macedonia under the Antigonids and the Ptolemaic Empire .

background

Cleomenes was 235 BC BC came to power in Sparta and set in motion a policy of reform that Agis IV had tackled before him , but which had ultimately failed. The aim was to restore the Lycurgus constitution , with internal consolidation being the prerequisite for regaining the Spartan supremacy in Greece, which was established in the course of the 4th century BC. Was lost first to Thebes, then to Macedonia.

War against the Achaean League

The occasion of the war was the conquest of Belbina, which belongs to Megalopolis, by Sparta, whereupon Megalopolis, traditionally opponent of the Spartans, called for help from the Achaean League, whose policy was led by the strategist Aratos of Sikyon . Aratos feared that Sparta could become a rival for hegemony in southern Greece and decided to intervene. A first attack by the Achaiians against the cities of Orchomenos and Tegea , which were ruled by Sparta, initially failed, but instead Cleomenes succeeded in taking Methydrion. The attempt of Aratos to attack from Elis , i.e. from the west, was repulsed by Cleomenes on Mount Lykaion, but he could not prevent the Achaeans from conquering the fortress of Mantineia in Arcadia (227 BC). Then Cleomenes, who had come under criticism for the defeats in Sparta, succeeded in breaking free at Megalopolis, in which the Achaean general Lydiadas fell. Cleomenes then had the opposition ephors forcibly removed. In 226 BC The Spartans advanced as far as Corinth and the Argolis. The Achaean League suffered another heavy defeat at Hekatombaion near Dyme, so that the League turned to King Antigonus III for help . Doson of Macedonia turned against the Macedonians , although the Achaean-Macedonian relationship had been strained a few years before , at the latest since Aratos of Sikyon had expelled the Antigonid garrison from Corinth in a flash: Aratos had for years staged himself as the defender of Greek freedom against the Macedonians, but now he gave up this stance because Sparta was too dangerous for him. Cleomenes then allied himself with the Ptolemies , who rivaled Antigonus for influence in southern Greece. So two of the dominant great powers were drawn into the conflict.

Macedonia's intervention

In their plight, the Achaeans undertook to return Corinth to Macedonia if Antigonus would assist them against Sparta. 224 BC At a meeting in Aigion , BC Antigonus accepted the alliance on the condition that he himself was given the chairmanship of the Synhedrion and as strategist, which was granted to him. The situation for the alliance had meanwhile deteriorated, since Sparta now ruled almost the entire Peloponnese peninsula and was able to establish a defensive position against the Macedonians on the Isthmus of Corinth; but failed Kleomenes in trying to Sicyon to conquer, whereupon Argos rose against him and he had to withdraw from Corinth to Arcadia. The following campaign in 223 BC BC in Arcadia was changeable and sometimes extremely bloody: On the one hand, Cleomenes conquered the city of Megalopolis, which he had razed to the ground, on the other hand, Antigonos took the cities of Tegea, Orchomenos and above all the important fortress Mantineia . The situation turned out to be increasingly desperate for Cleomenes, as he was numerically inferior to the Macedonians and Achaeans and finally also the financial support of Ptolemy III. lost, so that he felt compelled to release the Spartan helots in order to replenish his war chest.

Defeat of Sparta

Finally the troops of the anti-spartan coalition penetrated into the Spartan heartland Laconia and it came in the summer of 222 BC. BC at the gates of Sparta near Sellasia for the decisive battle . The Spartans were defeated and Cleomenes had to flee to the Ptolemies in Egypt, where he died a little later. Antigonus treated the defeated Sparta with generosity, but Sparta's position of power was finally destroyed by the defeat of Sparta and from then on there was little more than a shadowy existence in the Greek world, and a few years later the city was annexed by the Achaean League.