Spartan Mora regiments at Battle of Plataea

[Ghostmojo]

Sometimes I think just about every internecine war in Greece should have been called a Social War. The war you suggest would merely have been the 867*th Social War (or thereabouts) since Troy! After all, virtually every Greek state, federation or kingdom that fought another had at one time previously been its ally. The Greeks were in fact terribly anti-social if you think about it :roll: . The Athenians of course brought about that strife via their typically high-handed approach during their Second Confederacy (you might have hoped they would have learnt from the Peloponnesian War) and ultimately Persian involvement was sufficient to settle matters.

Athens' relationship with Thebes and Sparta is worthy of serious study as a fatal ménage à trois. How the three needed each other, whilst plotting against each other, in every conceivable combination makes fascinating reading. There is also something of a historical domino effect within Greece as first one then another state becomes powerful, intimidates and fights just about everybody it can, wears itself out and then wanes. By the time the Romans arrived there might well have been practically nobody left standing! :lol: Hindsight is a great thing but there is something frighteningly predictable about this process which saw the rise and fall of Argos, Athens, Sparta, Thebes, Thessaly, Epeiros, Makedon, Akhaian and Aitoilian leagues in succession - and that is just the mainland Greeks. It all reminds me of one of those drunken bar-room brawls from an old western ...










[size=85:94m3bz5t](* a figure I plucked from the air obviously)[/size]