Leuctra 371 BC: The Destruction of Spartan Dominance

Post Script to the Peloponnesian War

Leuctra 371 by Sean O'Broghan

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I came to this after reading Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War. Kagan's book had whetted my interest in Greek antiquity. The Peloponnesian War had been a decades-long struggle between the Athenian Empire (aka the Delian League) and Sparta and its allies lasting from 457 BC to 404 BC. The war was a close run thing that could have gone either way on various occasions. However, in the end, Sparta won. Sparta then imposed a hegemony on Greece, betraying the ideal of Greek autonomy with which it had begun the war.

Spartan hegemony was shorter than the war. The Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC; Sparta lost its hegemony to Thebes in Boeotia in 371 BC. Thebes was an odd contender for the Greek crown. Thebes had sided with the Persians in the Greek-Persian War and had been on the wrong side at Platea. During the Peloponnesian War, Thebes had been an ally of Sparta against Athens, but while it was a regional player, it was not one of the heavy-weights like Sparta, Athens, or Corinth. However, as the author points out, given its location and geography, the region where Thebes had predominance, Boeotia, was the dance floor of battles, with many major engagements being fought in Boeotia.

However, at Leuctra in 371 BC, the Theban general Epaminondas was able to take a technique that had proven successful against Spartan hoplites previously and combine it with its revived “Sacred Band” military tradition. The Sacred Band were Thebes elite troops composed of 300 paired homosexual lovers. The notion was that the pairing of lovers gave the unit more commitment for the fight. It appears that the Sacred Band was man for man the equal of Sparta's elite troops.

The tactic that Epamonindas used was to overweight his left side with a phalanx that was 25 to 50 soldiers deep and occupied the first ranks of the phalanx. Epaminondas also presented his qualitatively weaker right side in echelon so that it would not come into contact with the Spartans until his left side had crushed the strong Spartan right side. Part of Epaminondas' tactic - a traditional move in Greek hoplite battles - was to go after the leaders of the opposing forces. In this, he was successful and the death of the Spartan king and its best fighters gave him the tactical victory and ultimately the war since Sparta could not make up for the losses.

After Leuctra, the legend of Spartan invincibility was destroyed. Spartan allies abandoned Sparta. Thebes marched into Laconia and re-established Messenia. thereby freeing the Helot slaves on whom the Spartans depended.

Theban hegemony lasted about as long as Spartan hegemony had. Ultimately, it was exterminated by the rising power of Macedonia:

“The Theban Sacred Band had a prestigious existence from its formation (around 378 BC) until it was wiped out to a man at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC (Plutarch Pelopidas 18.5).”

Dahm, Murray. Leuctra 371 BC (Campaign) (p. 59). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

The battle of Leuctra is described in a variety of sources, including Plutarch, Xenophon, Diodoros, and Pausanias. The author considers Xenophon to be untrustworthy concerning the battle of Leuctra because of an anti-Theban bias.

This is an Osprey campaign book so it follows the usual format of providing information on background, forces, battlefield, order of battle, and the battle itself. It is filled with helpful maps and pictures to illustrate the battlefield and the equipment of the combatants.