The
Corinthian War was an
ancient Greek conflict lasting from 395 BC until 387 BC, pitting
Sparta against a coalition of four allied states,
Thebes, Athens,
Corinth, and
Argos, who were initially backed by
Persia. The immediate cause of the war was a local conflict in northwest Greece in which both Thebes and Sparta intervened. The deeper cause was hostility towards Sparta provoked by that city's "expansionism in
Asia Minor, central and northern Greece and even the west".