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A harbor, a deadline, and a failed march
Xenophon places Sphodrias at Thespiae in Boeotia, where the Spartan king Cleombrotus had left him in command with troops and resources. The episode is conventionally dated to 378 BCE. His target was Piraeus, the harbor serving Athens. The opportunity, in Xenophon’s account, involved gates that had not yet been fitted. That is a more specific claim than saying the entire port had no defenses.
Sphodrias intended to arrive before dawn. Instead, daylight found his force in the Thriasian area, near Eleusis, with the objective still ahead. Surprise was lost. He turned back, and his men plundered property as they withdrew. A modern map can explain the regional relationship between Boeotia, Eleusis, and Piraeus, but the narrative does not supply a surveyed route or precise positions for every stage of the march.[1]
Who encouraged the attack?
The motives are less secure than the basic failure. Xenophon reports suspicion of Theban encouragement or bribery. Plutarch, writing much later, describes an ambitious commander attracted by the fame that another Spartan, Phoebidas, had gained through seizing the Theban citadel. He also transmits a story that Theban leaders manipulated Sphodrias into attempting the operation. The competing emphases matter: an allegation in a narrative is not proof of a secret payment or an official order.
Plutarch even includes a report of a frightening light from sanctuaries at Eleusis. It belongs to the literary memory of the expedition, not to a verified explanation of what the soldiers saw. The military point needs no supernatural addition: a plan dependent on darkness was exposed by daylight. A useful account can retain the dramatic failure while making clear where later storytelling has supplied atmosphere and judgments of character.[2][1]
The acquittal became a second crisis
The Spartans brought a capital charge against Sphodrias, who did not appear for trial. His eventual acquittal surprised Xenophon. Both Xenophon and Plutarch connect the outcome to personal relationships: Sphodrias’s son Cleonymus was close to Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus II, and an appeal for help reached the king. Agesilaus is represented as condemning the act while valuing Sphodrias as a soldier.
This was not an acquittal by a king acting alone, and the narrative should not turn influence into a constitutional power Agesilaus did not possess. Nor are the private conversations preserved as transcripts. Plutarch uses the episode to examine a ruler’s judgment and attachment to his family. Xenophon’s account also places the verdict beside its public consequences. Together they expose a tension between the reputation of an individual commander and Sparta’s need to make its assurances credible.[2][1]
Why Athens could not shrug it off
Mark Munn’s study of Attica’s defenses situates the raid within a larger strategic problem. Spartan forces in Boeotia could threaten routes into Athenian territory. Athens therefore had to think about protecting its countryside and maintaining a workable relationship with Thebes, rather than treating the harbor as an isolated target. A failure to capture Piraeus did not remove the vulnerability demonstrated by the attempt.
Munn also emphasizes the economic stakes of defending land and property. Those stakes help explain why a short incursion could matter beyond the army’s immediate gains. This perspective changes the scale of the question: instead of asking only how many troops fought or whether a fortress fell, it asks what confidence allies and opponents could place in the existing order. Sphodrias returned without his intended prize, but Athens still faced decisions about defenses, resources, and partners.[3]
An alliance written in stone
A contemporary Athenian decree offers another kind of evidence. Dated to the civic year 378/377 BCE, it invites states to join what historians call the Second Athenian League. The surviving text frames the alliance in terms of Greek freedom and autonomy against Spartan interference. It promises prospective members safeguards including freedom from an imposed garrison or governor and from tribute.
The inscription is a public statement of policy, not an account of the raid, and it does not establish that one commander’s mistake single-handedly created the alliance. It does show the wider political language through which opposition to Sparta was organized. Read beside the narratives, it keeps the aftermath from becoming only a story about personalities at court. The failed attack matters because military decisions, diplomatic trust, and a public promise of autonomy were now entangled. The campaign’s missing battlefield victory was not the measure of its consequences.[4]
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
References & further reading
- Ancient textXenophon, Hellenica 5.4.20–34 ↗
H. G. Dakyns translation; command, failed march, trial, and Athenian response.
- Ancient textPlutarch, Life of Agesilaus 24–26 ↗
Bernadotte Perrin translation; later biographical treatment and its reported motives.
- Modern scholarshipMark H. Munn, The Defense of Attica, chapter 5 ↗
University of California Press, 1993, “Reckoning the Balance”; strategic context.
- ArchaeologyDecree inviting states to join the Second Athenian League ↗
Attic Inscriptions Online, RO 22 / IG II² 43, 378/377 BCE; contemporary inscribed policy.