Leuctra, Battle of, Greece, 371 B.C.

The Battle of Leuctra (Ancient Greek: Λεῦκτρα, Ancient Greek: [lêu̯k.tra]) was fought on 6 July 371 BC between the Boeotians led by the Thebans, and the Spartans along with their allies. The battle occurred in the context of the King's Peace, or Peace of Antalcidas, which had ended the Corinthian War in 386 BC. The Peace was formally renewed in 375 BC, but a disagreement between the Spartans and the Thebans over the protocol for renewing the Peace again in 371 led directly to the battle, which took place in the vicinity of Leuctra, a village in Boeotia in the territory of Thespiae. The mainly Theban victory shattered Sparta's immense influence over the Greek peninsula, and the wider Aegean Greek world, which Sparta had gained with its victory in the Peloponnesian War a generation earlier.