Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

Initially, they thought the Spartans could help them get it.

But then when the Spartans sort of take suzerainty over that area, they kind of reclaim it for themselves for a Spartan empire.

That obviously doesn't sit well with the Persians.

And so they covertly start building up, they start cultivating this asset, which is Konon, the Athenian general who fled from the fatal battle of Agospotamoi with a couple of ships.

He fled to Cyprus and the Persians are basically marinating him and building a fleet around him.

So they're preparing to potentially challenge Spartan control of the sea in order to push them back.

And because the Spartans get more and more involved in Asia Minor to, say, support the continued independence of the Greek states there from the Persians, it becomes more and more difficult for the Persians to leave them at it.

Eventually, they just have to say, OK, well, we've got to do something about these guys.

That happens pretty quickly, actually, after the end of the Polynesian War.

They also kind of have to because Sparta makes this sort of great strategic mistake, right?

They owe Cyrus for their victory in the Peloponnesian War.

Cyrus is this prince of Persia, right?

So he is the second oldest son of Darius II.

When Darius dies, his son Artaxerxes takes the throne.

Cyrus doesn't like it, so he starts a bid to take the throne for himself.

It's essentially rebellion, an internal struggle within Persia.

Sparta, because they owe Cyrus, because they feel they have a personal bond with him rather than an abstract bond with Persia for winning the war for them, they back him.

But Cyrus loses.

He dies in the Battle of Cunaxa.

So Artaxerxes II is affirmed as king, at which point, obviously, Sparta finds itself having backed the wrong side in a struggle for the throne, you know, on the wrong side of the Persians.