Sparta after the Peloponnesian War

After the Peloponnesian War, Spartan hegemony of Greece would seem to have been assured. A single generation, though, would have seen Sparta at the peak of its power, and its defeat by the Thebans at Leuctra, effectively turning it into a second rate power. The victory in the Peloponnesian War was a significant factor in bringing about this change in fortune, but other long term factors have also been identified which suggest that Spartan undoing …

…became a power of negligible significance. The Peloponnesian War eliminated Sparta’s most powerful enemy and put Sparta in the position to establish hegemony, but this hegemony and power brought about resistance and fear in the rest of Greece which induced resistance, and also an overconfident meddling by the Spartans in foreign affairs. This brought about attacks on Sparta by new hostile coalitions, which were successful because of long term factors in Sparta’s decline.