Did Sparta win the battle with Athens?
The cities of the Boetian Confederacy under Theban leadership were Sparta’s allies from the first. Syracuse and other Sicilian cities gave active help in the last part of the war. Argos, her hand tied by a treaty with Sparta, remained neutral during the first ten years, but as a democracy, was benevolently inclined towards Athens. Persia at first held aloof, waiting for an opportunity to regain her dominion over the Greek cities of the Asiatic seaboard, which Athens had liberated, but finally provided the crucial financial and logistic support required by Sparta to conduct a maritime offensive. Athens, was unpopular with many members of her own empire, but held most under control by her maritime supremacy.
