Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

And yeah, Justin is problematic, but Justin is one of those authors who talks about when Sparta built a wall for the first time for the incident.

So there are important things that are reported by Justin that otherwise we would find much more difficult.

I mean, it's right to be harsh on Justin, but you know, he also, we also can't afford to throw anything out.

That's the problem of ancient history in general.

No, it's my fault for bringing it up.

So this is the point when Sparta is at the height of its power, right?

Essentially, it has subjected Athens and it has signed this surrender agreement, essentially, which makes Athens into one of its subject allies.

So they are basically now made to do Sparta's bidding.

Their fleet has been scrapped, essentially.

Their empire has been dissolved.

But it's not exactly clear, but it seems to be, Diodorus seems to be quite certain about this, that the Spartans don't just dissolve the Athenian empire and say, okay, that's done now.

They actually just take it over.

So they are now the ones who are having all these allies that used to be formally subject to Athens.

They are drawing in the tribute, a thousand talents a year, we're told.

The Spartan Empire, exactly.

So this is a period when Sparta still has its fleet that was funded by the Persians, of course.

So they still have naval hegemony.

They have no rivals on the sea, and they control basically the entire Greek world, or at least the mainland and the islands in the Aegean.

It's a complex picture, but the Persians, obviously, what they want is they want to regain control of Asia Minor.

That's what they've been doing by funding these Greeks.