Rhodes during the Corinthian War: from strategic naval base to endemic stasis

Abstract

The island of Rhodes was a naval base of great strategic interest for the Greek states fighting for hegemony, especially Athens and Sparta in the Classical period. This situation influenced the Rhodian civic community, where there were several episodes of stasis between democrats and oligarchs, supported respectively by Athenians and Spartans. In this paper we focus on one of these episodes, in the framework of the so-called Corinthian War (395-386 B.C.), on the development and implications of which our two main sources (Xenophon and Diodorus of Sicily) disagree.