social war

(1) In Greek history a name given to the war between Athens and her allies (B.C. 357-355), which was caused by the exactions imposed by the Athenian generals upon the allied States. Artaxerxes, the Persian king, threatened to support the allied forces with a fleet of three hundred ships, so that Athens was obliged to consent to a peace by which her most important allies became practically independent of her. It was this war that forced Athens to remain quiet while Philip of Macedon was initiating some of his far-reaching measures of aggrandizement.

(2) In Roman history a name given to the war between Rome and the eight Sabellian nations (B.C. 90-89)—the Marsi, Paeligni, Marrucini, and Vestiniani, with the Picentines, Samnites, Apulians, and Lucanians. The war is also known as the Marsic War. After several defeats, the Romans under Pompeius Strabo and L. Porcius Cato defeated the allies, whose general was Papius Mutilus, and the war ended with the surrender of the Sabellian forces; but Rome by a Lex Plautia Papiria granted nearly everything that the allies had demanded, especially an easy access to the Roman franchise. In this war 300,000 men are said to have perished.