The The In 382 BC, a Spartan commander named Foybadas was leading troops to reinforce a campaign in northern Greece.

They were passing by Thebes. This is not out of the ordinary.

Greece is very small. There's not a lot of room to move armies in neutral territory.

But suddenly they turned and made a surprise attack on Thebes.

On the surface is not so strange.

Sparta is a unique, emotionally disciplined and authoritarian place.

They're often at odds with other Greek city states because of their differences and their desire to rule.

And Thebes was a frequent enemy given their strong democratic leanings,

and focus on including love in their military ideals, which Sparta didn't really like that.

This triggered a series of events that led to Thebes ascending to at least equivalence with Athens

and Sparta, turning it into a recurring conflict between three city-states,

something far more complex than a war between two powers, a tale of three city-states,

if you will.

Each will take turns, or did take turns, allying with one another against the other,

or others, with various involvement from foreign powers, and each took turns dominating

the other powers in the region. As fans of a song of Ice and Fire, we know this very well.

We know the rise and fall and general chaos that revolves around these sorts of engagements

and these sorts of situations. Even when much of the

narrative in the Game of Thrones was focused on Stark versus Lannister, it was more than clear

that the Baratheon brothers and DeNaris and maybe the Ironborn would make their claims to the

Iron Throne or at least get very involved. As Varus told Illyrio very early in the book,

this is no longer a game for two players if it ever was. And truly it never was.

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