Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

Like these oligarchs get thrown out.

And the Spartans kind of sit by and let that happen.

And it's a real question of why they're doing that, like why they think that that is the better move for them.

But it's likely that they think that it's just never going to stop otherwise.

It's just going to be this continuous civil war in Athens.

And also it might have something to do with internal factional strife between Pausanias, who is overseeing this, and Lysander, who we've already mentioned, the admiral, who is very much in favor of keeping all these regimes everywhere that are pro-Spartan, but who is getting a little bit too important and too influential in Sparta.

Especially for a non-royal.

for a non-royal, exactly.

There are some concerns about Lysander, which Pausanias is trying to nip in the bud, in part by essentially sawing off the legs of the chair he's sitting on by taking away these regimes.

Really quick, yeah.

In fact, these regimes that we mentioned that are put in place by Lysander, so he puts in these so-called decarchies, these rules of the 10, which are even more narrow than the 30 at Athens.

and they're widely hated, and they get thrown out very quickly.

And so there's already this kind of low-key rebellion against what the Spartans have done, although that doesn't mean a rebellion against Spartan interest, just in the regime that they have put in place.

And it's clear from the sources that there is increasing just displeasure, discomfort with the fact that Sparta is now the undisputed hegemon.

And especially the larger powers, Corinth and Thebes and Argos are really unhappy with this.

And they're increasingly starting to think that something should be done.

They're putting in these kind of moments of rebellion whenever they can to kind of show that they want to retain some or regain some level of autonomy.

It's easy to skip ahead to when there's an actual war, but what you see in the period before that already, I'm always pointing this out to my students, when you look at individual campaigns, when all the allies of Sparta are meant to march with them, they're meant to follow orders, but you keep seeing them just not doing it.

And that is itself a sign that they're just not willing to do Sparta's bidding and fight and die for Sparta's interests.

So when the Spartans are going to war against the rebels in Athens, the Thebans refuse to march with them.