[In the following excerpt, Hamilton summarizes the significance of factional political rivalry in Sparta during the pre-Corinthian War period of the early fourth century b.c.]

The period from 405 to 386 opened on a note of joy and optimism, when the Spartans and their allies tore down the walls of Athens, the symbol of imperial oppression, to the music of flute playing. Many thought that that day heralded the beginning of freedom and peace for Greece, but such hopes were premature and short-lived. Within less than a decade, the victors of Aegospotami had alienated their former allies and were responsible, in large measure, for the outbreak of a new war among the Greeks. This war marked a breakdown of the traditional political alliances in Greece.

Spartan politics were characterized by three distinct factions: one quite conservative in regard to domestic and foreign policy; the other two willing to change the traditional Lycurgan institutions and to admit wealth into Sparta, but divided on questions of foreign policy. Both were imperialist, but the faction of Lysander wanted Spartan expansion in the Aegean and Asia Minor and an overseas empire such as Athens had enjoyed, while that of King Agis, and later of his brother King Agesilaus, wanted to concentrate Spartan domination on the Peloponnesos and central Greece, areas of previous Spartan interest. Throughout this period there was an almost constant rivalry and interplay among these factions, with several significant temporary alliances and changes of policy. Thus the failure of Sparta to achieve a lasting peace or a generally acceptable settlement in 404 need not necessarily be attributed solely to her political inexperience, or to her selfishness, or to her limited resources, as many scholars have suggested. Rather, Sparta failed because her policies were constantly subject to revision and change through the workings of factional rivalry. Had Sparta been directed by a single, strong political faction able to dominate and to overpower its rivals from 404 to 395, the Corinthian War might never have happened.

In Thebes, Athens, and Corinth, as in Sparta, several factions vied for power during this same decade. There is a demonstrable link between the foreign policy of Sparta and the prominence of the different factions in these other states. In Thebes especially, the pro-Spartan faction of Leontiades was able to maintain its position when the moderates of Pausanias were influential in Sparta, but when the Spartan imperialists, either Lysander's followers or the Agis-Agesilaus group, dominated foreign policy, the anti-Spartan group of Ismenias gained control of Theban policy. In Athens also, the moderate democrats whom Thrasybulus represented seem to have been in control of policy throughout the period, and on several occasions they restrained the impulsive actions of the radicals. Nonetheless, the continued aggression and imperialistic threats of Sparta finally caused even Thrasybulus and his supporters to unite with Thebes in a war to stop Spartan control and expansion in Greece. A combination of economic interests and politics persuaded the Corinthians to seek the same war against Sparta. Finally, the Spartan threat in Asia Minor impelled the Persians to foment intrigues in Greece and to help cement the anti-Spartan coalition. Thus the real key to an understanding of the period from 404 to 395, and of the coming of the Corinthian War, is Spartan politics and policy, and the reactions of the other states to these. Sparta's position, and the policies that became the focus of the factional struggles within the polis, were largely the result of the Peloponnesian War and its effects on the political, social, and economic structure of the Spartan state.

Throughout the course of the Corinthian War, as in the period that led up to it, internal politics determined both military and diplomatic developments. The very strategy of the allies was directed by certain cardinal points of mutual interest, such as the security of Corinth and the prevention of Spartan armies from entering central Greece. Here once again the threat to the allies' position in Corinth, represented by a pro-Spartan faction in Corinth, brought on the Corinthian revolution and the establishment of a democracy there. Fear of a general peace between Sparta and Persia with the normal return of exiles moved the Corinthians to seek protection for the new democracy in a close and novel political alliance of isopolity with Argos. The two attempts at peace in 392 were sponsored by rival factions at Sparta: the earlier attempt by the traditionalists, who wished Sparta to abandon her overseas imperialism, and Agesilaus' group; and the second attempt by Agesilaus' opponents, the former followers of Lysander, who preferred Sparta to look eastward and to erect an empire in the Aegean. Neither of these attempts succeeded, principally because factional interests in some of the opposing states felt that their own ambitions were sacrificed by the peace terms.

After the fruitless peace negotiations of 392, the nature of the war began to change. Thebes and Corinth took less and less interest in it, and Argos turned her efforts to securing total dominance of Corinth rather than to checking Spartan power. Athens alone continued to fight directly against Sparta to any significant degree, but her efforts were increasingly designed to achieve a new maritime empire for herself. The complex course of events in the Aegean from 392 to 387 reflects the struggle for mastery of policy in Sparta between imperialists of both factions; the question whether Athens should erect a new empire on the sea, as most advocated, or on land, as Iphicrates wanted; and the larger question of the relations of both these powers with Persia. As Athenian power grew greater and became more threatening, Artaxerxes reacted by changing the personnel of his Lydian and Hellespontine satrapies, and this in turn produced a similar shift in policy in Sparta. Once again, the tight and direct connection between internal politics and foreign policy in all the states, the poleis as well as the Persian Empire, is of the utmost importance to a clear understanding of the development of international relations.

The ultimate settlement of the war was the result of these changes in internal policy and foreign affairs. The conclusion of a peace between Sparta and Persia forced Athens, Argos, Corinth, and Thebes to accept the conditions dictated to them by Artaxerxes in 387. But even then differences of policy among the factions in the various states prevented an easy acceptance of the terms of peace and provided Agesilaus with an early opportunity to demonstrate exactly how Sparta was going to interpret the terms of the peace in the future. If the King's Peace of 387/86 seemed to some to herald a fair settlement through its insistence on the principle of autonomy for every polis, this optimism was just as false and misplaced as that of 404. The principle of autonomy was a noble concept, but in actuality it was rigidly interpreted by Sparta and used by her as a tool of imperialism. Once again, the narrow interests and internecine struggles of the poleis themselves, and of the factions within them, had prevented the anti-Spartan coalition from uniting in effective opposition to Spartan domination. To be sure, there were some significant differences between the situation in 387/86 and that in 404. Athens was no longer a weak and impotent power. She had regained complete independence, her fortifications, and a fleet, as well as the nucleus of a new empire. Thebes, on the other hand, was again split into rival factions, and in a few short years the group of Leontiades would succeed in delivering over both their opponents and the city into the hands of Sparta. Sparta emerged as the dominant power in Greece, but at a terrible cost: she had forfeited the respect and friendship of the other Greeks; she had betrayed the Asiatic Greeks to Persia; and she had gained the fear and hatred of many, so that when she was decisively defeated in battle at Leuctra and reduced forever to the status of a second-class power, few mourned her passing. In the aftermath, the Greeks would continue to seek the same solution to their perennial problems of autonomy and security, but the decades between 405 and 386 had shown their efforts to turn back to ancient paths a fruitless one. Only time separated the King's Peace and Philip's victory at Chaeroneia.