Publisher's Synopsis
As one of the two Spartan kings, Agesilaos II presided over Sparta's greatest imperial expansion and its collapse as a major power. At his accession in 400 BC, Sparta had recently defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War and was the undisputed leader of the Aegean Greek world; at the time of his death some forty years later, Sparta had been reduced to the status of a mere Peloponnesian squabbler, its role indistinguishable from that of any of a number of other Greek states. "Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta" is an account of this critical period of Greek history, focusing on a single career. Progressing both chronologically and thematically, the author reveals the principal aspects of Spartan politics and society and appraises the possible causes of Sparta's preciptous decline and fall.
