Why Didn’t Alexander the Great Conquer Sparta?

In 338 B.C., at the Battle of Chaeronea, King Philip II crushed the two strongest city-states of Ancient Greece and firmly established Macedonian hegemony. The armies of Athens and Thebes suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Macedonian phalanx, and a new era began. From that point on, no Greek dared call their northern neighbors mere barbarians fit only to herd cattle. Even the legendary Spartans silently acknowledged their power — although perhaps they, too, would not have minded getting a beating from Philip, if at that same time they had not been busy helping their ally, distant Tarentum.

The last stand of the Sacred Band of Thebes at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C. Artist: Marek Szyszko.

After the victory at Chaeronea, the Macedonian king created the League of Corinth, which included all the cities of Greece.

All except Sparta.

According to legend, King Philip sent the Spartans the following message:

“If I invade your land, do not expect mercy.”

To which the proud men of Lacedaemon replied with one word:

“If.”

Philip did not punish them for their arrogance. He had no desire to waste time on a small but haughty fish. All his energy was being spent preparing for his great military magnum opus: the conquest of vast Persia, whose riches were legendary. The League of Corinth was created precisely for that purpose, and the absence of a weakened Sparta — already beaten many times by its neighbors — did not trouble Philip much.

King Philip II. He lost his eye during the siege of Methone in 354 B.C. Joan Francesc Oliveras Pallerols.

Unfortunately for Philip, a successful assassination was organized against him before he could even begin the eastern campaign. In 336 B.C., at his daughter’s wedding, he was stabbed by his own bodyguard, Pausanias. The killer had kept a dagger hidden under his cloak until the right moment came. The assassin, of course, was later publicly crucified as a traitor.

After that, Philip’s son Alexander became Alexander III. He inherited enormous territories, the strongest army in the region, and an extraordinary group of talented commanders.

It may seem that Alexander was extremely lucky with the starting resources he needed to conquer much of the known world. But not everything went smoothly. The twenty-year-old king faced serious obstacles on his road to greatness. News of Philip II’s death filled the Greeks with hope for independence. And not only them: a little north of Macedonia, the Thracians briefly began thinking about a sovereign path of their own. Alexander brought the full force of the Macedonian army down on them first and crushed that rebellious thought in its infancy.

Alexander destroys Thebes. Artist: Angus McBride.

The most terrible punishment fell on the Thebans, who had driven out the Macedonian garrison. Then, under siege, they dared to put up fierce resistance against Alexander, bringing the full fury of the young commander upon themselves. None of the other city-states interfered when he took Thebes and became the city’s executioner. As a warning to the rest of Greece, the king executed the male population, sold the women and children into slavery, and burned the buildings. The Spartans merely watched from the sidelines and did nothing.

In 335 B.C., Alexander crushed the last centers of rebellion, and the very next year he set out on his legendary campaign against the Persian king Darius III.

He never touched Sparta.

And frankly, there was not much to “touch” there.

Leadership in the Peloponnesian League and costly wars with neighbors had exhausted the city-state. The war with Thebes had taken from the Spartans their most important resource: the semi-enslaved helots who literally fed the elite warrior class of the Spartiates. Thebes had freed the region of Messenia, where most of the helots lived, from centuries of Spartan domination. Later, Philip confirmed the region’s independent status. After that, Sparta no longer even had enough people to work the largest iron mines. From a practical point of view, the city-state no longer held any real interest.

Meanwhile, the Spartiates… Artist: Cătălin Drăghici.

Still, the Spartans remembered perfectly well who they were and who their ancestors had been. They had lost their former power and influence, but not their personal pride. The dominance of yesterday’s “shepherds” gave no peace to the inhabitants of a city where every stone was soaked in the spirit of war.

And then financial support appeared in the form of Persian silver. The defeats of the Persian army at the Granicus and at Issus forced Darius to look for new ways to put pressure on his enemy.

In 331 B.C., the Persians convinced the Spartans to enter open confrontation with Macedonia. In particular, the Spartan king Agis led an army — mostly made up of mercenaries and allies who had answered his call — into battle at Megalopolis against Antipater, Alexander’s governor in Macedonia.

It ended in the predictable defeat of the Spartan forces, if they can even be called fully Spartan, and in the death of Agis.

Alexander dismissed the whole affair as “a battle of mice.”

And that was it. From that day on, the Spartans lowered their self-esteem a little and went off to build a line of city fortifications.

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