Sparking a slave revolt as a way of undermining an opposi...

Sparking a slave revolt as a way of undermining an opposing polis in classical Greece. Here the Spartans do it to the Athenians. Later on the Thebans would do it to the Spartans in spades. Hard to maintain that classical Athens, at least did not heavily rely on slavery: Thucydides: Harming the Athenians https://sententiaeantiquae.com/2019/09/18/harming-the-athenians/: "Decelea was first invested by the whole enemy army in that summer and later was held by the garrisons coming from different cities coming in turn to ravage the land, it was causing great harm to the Athenians. Indeed, this undermined Athenian affairs first by loss of property and then by the death of men. Previous attacks were brief and did not keep the Athenians from deriving benefit from their land the rest of the time. But once they were continually invested in Attica and they were sometimes attacking in force and at other times using a single garrison attacking the country and pillaging to supply itself. The Spartan king Agis was also present and he was no slacker in prosecuting the war. The Athenians were greatly harmed; they were deprived of their whole land. More than twenty thousand slaves freed themselves and a great number of these were craftspeople. All of the sheep and pack animals perished. And the Athenian horses, because the cavalry was deploying every day to attack Decelea and guard the land, either went lame because of working on rocky ground or they were wounded...

#noted