Sacred Band of Thebes

[Ghostmojo]

The Spartans (and other Greeks) would make use of Persian influence or money or even military activity as a lever against each other. That is true of course. Never so much as during either Peloponnesian war or uprisings against Makedonian Hegemony. But neither Spartan nor Athenian was ready to live directly under the rule of the Persian Great King. Let other Greeks (Ionia) suffer that fate if it was expedient or unavoidable - but not in Mother Hellas! The Athenians might have threatened an alternative (to up sticks en masse and re-settle in Sicily) but the Lakedaimonians were going nowhere. I agree Spartan pan-Hellenism wavered from time to time. I agree all Greeks were self-interested (I think I said that before as a basic caveat) and the Spartans no less than anybody else.

But unlike Thebes - they never acquiesced to the notion of the foreigner taking over mainland Greece. Squabbles amongst themselves were perhaps 'in the family' and notwithstanding the fate of poor Plataia, or indeed later that of Thebes itself by Alexander, there was no selling out or allowing the Persians to rob them of their poverty.