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After 404 B.C., Sparta imposed oligarchic governments in allied cities of the former Athenian Empire. Ancient authors and modern scholars have exaggerated the extent of Spartan demographic, institutional, and moral decline. The Spartans reasonably expected to maintain their hegemony over the Greek world, and King Agesilaus gave Sparta charismatic leadership for the next generation. The Spartans, however, refused to surrender the Greeks of Asia; thus, they backed the abortive bid of Cyrus the Younger for the Persian throne in 401 B.C. and found themselves in a general war with King Artaxerxes II. In 396 B.C., Artaxerxes resorted to diplomacy and subsidies to raise a coalition of Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Argos against Sparta. The ensuing Corinthian War (396−386 B.C.) ended in a peace dictated by the Persian king. The Spartans assumed a lesser role in Greece, returning the Ionian cities to Persian rule and recognizing Athenian independence. Victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian War gained Sparta not primacy in the Greek world but a succession of desultory wars that ended in Spartan defeat at Leuctra in 371 B.C. and undermined the order of Greek city-states which had been in place since the 6 th century B.C. Peace and unity would be imposed by the king of Macedon, Philip II, and Alexander the Great.
