Dr. Owen Rees

That includes from leagues, as in like alliances and things like that.

So you cannot assert control, even if you're not controlling the city itself.

I mean, it's within like five years.

It is quick.

And the misstep is one of those historical questions of did the Spartans do it on purpose or not?

So a Spartan commander basically enters Thebes.

It's them again.

Remembering what I said earlier, Thebes has become the bugbear of the Spartans, and in particular, Agesilaus himself.

We mentioned the Asia Minor campaign he went on.

There's a story in which he basically tries to present himself as the next Agamemnon.

Then he took the Greeks to war with Troy, and he goes to Aulis, much like Agamemnon did, to give a sacrifice.

Yeah, exactly that.

Not his own daughter on this occasion.

No, no, just a normal sacrifice.

But it's interrupted by the Boeotian cavalry.

So basically the Theban-led League's cavalry interrupt it, and he is not happy about this at all.

And this sort of hatred of the Thebans kind of just grows throughout his reign.

So the idea that a Spartan army sort of, without any orders from kings, entered Thebes, takes control of the Cadmea, which is basically the Acropolis of Thebes, and garrisons it.

which again goes against everything that they've agreed and are supposed to be upholding throughout the Greek world.

The idea that that happened, whilst they're trying to maintain that they're the ones who are asserting the king's peace, that they're the ones asserting the status quo, is laughable.