Financing and Maintaining the Peloponnesian Navy

The Spartans have been portrayed as inexperienced in launching and maintaining fleets (Grote), so their victory in the Ionian War (414-404 B.C.) has been explained by Athenian mistakes, and the darics of the Persian king. Thucydides disparages the Peloponnesian navy, thereby influencing these portrayals of the Spartans as unimaginative in waging war at sea (cf. Thuc. 1.141-142; 3.31-32; 8.96-97). But Hodkinson’s review of the literary, epigraphic and numismatic sources indicates otherwise (Hodkinson). Sparta was the hegemon of a naval alliance since the mid-sixth century B.C. In 412 B.C., the Spartans assigned quotas to their perioikoi and allies to launch a new fleet in the Aegean Sea (Thuc. 8.3). Contributions consisted of ships, grain, and money. An inscription, dated to 428/7 B.C., records similar contributions from allies (Meiggs & Lewis 62). Although the Spartans obtained money under treaties negotiated first with the satrap Tissaphernes and then Cyrus the Younger, they had to build the triremes, hire crews, and prove they could win at sea. Only twice, did Persian assistance prove decisive. After the defeat at Cyzicus (410 B.C.), the satrap Pharnazabus provided Sparta the timber and facilities to rebuild the fleet. Cyrus the Younger likewise provided Lysander money and materiel to restore the fleet after its catastrophic defeat at Arginusae (406 B.C.). After 404 B.C., the Spartans clashed with Persia, but they readily employed the numerous Athenian tetradrachmae circulating in the former Athenian Empire (demonstrated by coin hoards) so they could maintain both an imperial navy and a mercenary army – an achievement never attempted by Athens. If the history of Sparta had been recorded by authors as favorable as Polybius and Livy were to Rome, the Spartans’ victory at sea in 405 B.C., and their ensuing thalassocracy, would be hailed as a triumph rather the onset of inevitable decline.