Chapter LXXVII

FROM THE SUBJUGATION OF OLYNTHUS BY THE LACEDÆMONIANS DOWN TO THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA, AND PARTIAL PEACE, IN 371 B.C.

At the beginning of 379 B.C., the empire of the Lacedæmonians on land had reached a pitch never before paralleled. On the sea, their fleet was but moderately powerful, and they seem to have held divided empire with Athens over the smaller islands; while the larger islands (so far as we can make out) were independent of both. But the whole of inland Greece, both within and without Peloponnesus,—except Argos, Attica, and perhaps the more powerful Thessalian cities,—was now enrolled in the confederacy dependent on Sparta. Her occupation of Thebes, by a Spartan garrison and an oligarchy of local partisans, appeared to place her empire beyond all chance of successful attack; while the victorious close of the war against Olynthus carried everywhere an intimidating sense of her far-reaching power. Her allies, too,—governed as they were in many cases by Spartan harmosts, and by oligarchies whose power rested on Sparta,—were much more dependent upon her than they had been during the time of the Peloponnesian war.

Such a position of affairs rendered Sparta an object of the same mingled fear and hatred (the first preponderant) as had been felt towards imperial Athens fifty years before, when she was designated as the “despot city.[160]” And this sentiment was farther aggravated by the recent peace of Antalkidas, in every sense the work of Sparta; which she had first procured, and afterwards carried into execution. That peace was disgraceful enough, as being dictated by the king of Persia, enforced in his name, and surrendering to him all the Asiatic Greeks. But it became yet more disgraceful when the universal autonomy which it promised was seen to be so executed, as to mean nothing better than subjection to Sparta. Of all the acts yet committed by Sparta, not only in perversion of the autonomy promised to every city, but in violation of all the acknowledged canons of right dealing between city and city,—the most flagrant was, her recent seizure and occupation of the Kadmeia at Thebes. Her subversion (in alliance with, and partly for the benefit of, Amyntas king of Macedonia) of the free Olynthian confederacy was hardly less offensive to every Greek of large or Pan-hellenic patriotism. She appeared as the confederate of the Persian king on one side, of Amyntas the Macedonian, on another, of the Syracusan despot Dionysius on a third,—as betraying the independence of Greece to the foreigner, and seeking to put down, everywhere within it, that free spirit which stood in the way of her own harmosts and partisan oligarchies.

[160] Thucyd. i, 124. πόλιν τύραννον.

Unpopular as Sparta was, however, she stood out incontestably as the head of Greece. No man dared to call into question her headship, or to provoke resistance against it. The tone of patriotic and free-spoken Greeks at this moment is manifested in two eminent residents at Athens,—Lysias and Isokrates. Of these two rhetors, the former composed an oration which he publicly read at Olympia during the celebration of the 99th Olympiad, B.C. 384, three years after the peace of Antalkidas. In this oration (of which unhappily only a fragment remains, preserved by Dionysius of Halikarnassus), Lysias raises the cry of danger to Greece, partly from the Persian king, partly from the despot Dionysius of Syracuse.[161] He calls upon all Greeks to lay aside hostility and jealousies one with the other, and to unite in making head against these two really formidable enemies, as their ancestors had previously done, with equal zeal for putting down despots and for repelling the foreigner. He notes the number of Greeks (in Asia) handed over to the Persian king, whose great wealth would enable him to hire an indefinite number of Grecian soldiers, and whose naval force was superior to anything which the Greeks could muster; while the strongest naval force in Greece was that of the Syracusan Dionysius. Recognizing the Lacedæmonians as chiefs of Greece, Lysias expresses his astonishment that they should quietly permit the fire to extend itself from one city to another. They ought to look upon the misfortunes of those cities which had been destroyed, both by the Persians and by Dionysius, as coming home to themselves; not to wait patiently, until the two hostile powers had united their forces to attack the centre of Greece, which yet remained independent.

[161] Lysias, Frag. Orat. xxxiii, (Olympic.) ed. Bekker ap. Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Lysiâ, p. 520-525, Reisk.

... Ὁρῶν οὕτως αἰσχρῶς διακειμένην τὴν Ἑλλάδα, καὶ πολλὰ μὲν αὐτῆς ὄντα ὑπὸ τῷ βαρβάρῳ, πολλὰς δὲ πόλεις ὑπὸ τυράννων ἀναστάτους γεγενημένας.

... Ὁρῶμεν γὰρ τοὺς κινδύνους καὶ μεγάλους καὶ παντάχοθεν περιεστηκότας. Ἐπίστασθε δὲ, ὅτι ἡ μὲν ἀρχὴ τῶν κρατούντων τῆς θαλάσσης, τῶν δὲ χρημάτων βασιλεὺς ταμίας· ~τὰ δὲ τῶν Ἑλλήνων σώματα, τῶν δαπανᾶσθαι δυναμένων~· ναῦς δὲ πολλὰς αὐτὸς κέκτηται, πολλὰς δ’ ὁ τύραννος τῆς Σικελίας....

... Ὥστε ἄξιον—τοὺς προγόνους μιμεῖσθαι, οἱ τοὺς μὲν βαρβάρους ἐποίησαν, τῆς ἀλλοτρίας ἐπιθυμοῦντας, τῆς σφετέρας αὐτῶν ἐστερῆσθαι· τοὺς δὲ τυράννους ἐξελάσαντες, κοινὴν ἅπασι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν κατέστησαν. Θαυμάζω δὲ Λακεδαιμονίους πάντων μάλιστα, τίνι ποτε γνώμῃ χρώμενοι, ~καιομένην τὴν Ἑλλάδα περιορῶσιν~, ἡγεμόνες ὄντες τῶν Ἑλλήνων, etc.

... Οὐ τοίνυν ὁ ἐπιὼν καιρὸς τοῦ παρόντος βελτίων· οὐ γὰρ ἀλλοτρίας δεῖ τὰς τῶν ἀπολωλότων συμφορὰς νομίζειν, ἀλλ’ οἰκείας· οὐδ’ ἀναμεῖναι, ἕως ἂν ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς ἡμᾶς αἱ δυνάμεις ~ἀμφοτέρων~ (of Artaxerxes and Dionysius) ἔλθωσιν, ἀλλ’ ἕως ἔτι ἔξεστι, τὴν τούτων ὕβριν κωλῦσαι.

Ephorus appears to have affirmed that there was a plan concerted between the Persian king and Dionysius, for attacking Greece in concert and dividing it between them (see Ephori Fragm. 141, ed. Didot). The assertion is made by the rhetor Aristeides, and the allusion to Ephorus is here preserved by the Scholiast on Aristeides (who, however, is mistaken, in referring it to Dionysius the younger). Aristeides ascribes the frustration of this attack to the valor of two Athenian generals, Iphikrates, and Timotheus; the former of whom captured the fleet of Dionysius, while the latter defeated the Lacedæmonian fleet at Leukas. But these events happened in 373-372 B.C., when the power of Dionysius was not so formidable or aggressive as it had been between 387-382 B.C.: moreover, the ships of Dionysius taken by Iphikrates were only ten in number, a small squadron. Aristeides appears to me to have misconceived the date to which the assertion of Ephorus really referred.

Of the two common enemies,—Artaxerxes and Dionysius,—whom Lysias thus denounces, the latter had sent to this very Olympic festival a splendid Theôry, or legation to offer solemn sacrifice in his name; together with several chariots to contend in the race, and some excellent rhapsodes to recite poems composed by himself. The Syracusan legation, headed by Thearides, brother of Dionysius, were clothed with rich vestments, and lodged in a tent of extraordinary magnificence, decorated with gold and purple; such, probably, as had not been seen since the ostentatious display made by Alkibiades[162] in the ninetieth Olympiad (B.C. 420). While instigating the spectators present to exert themselves as Greeks for the liberation of their fellow-Greeks enslaved by Dionysius, Lysias exhorted them to begin forthwith their hostile demonstration against the latter, by plundering the splendid tent before them, which insulted the sacred plain of Olympia with the spectacle of wealth extorted from Grecian sufferers. It appears that this exhortation was partially, but only partially, acted upon.[163] Some persons assailed the tents, but were, probably, restrained by the Eleian superintendents without difficulty. Yet the incident, taken in conjunction with the speech of Lysias, helps us to understand the apprehensions and sympathies which agitated the Olympic crowd in B.C. 384. This was the first Olympic festival after the peace of Antalkidas; a festival memorable, not only because it again brought thither Athenians, Bœotians, Corinthians, and Argeians, who must have been prevented by the preceding war from coming either in B.C. 388 or in B.C. 392,—but also as it exhibited the visitors and Theôries from the Asiatic Greeks, for the first time since they had been handed over by Sparta to the Persians,—and the like also from those numerous Italians and Sicilian Greeks whom Dionysius had enslaved. All these sufferers, especially the Asiatics, would doubtless be full of complaints respecting the hardships of their new lot, and against Sparta as having betrayed them; complaints, which would call forth genuine sympathy in the Athenians, Thebans, and all others who had submitted reluctantly to the peace of Antalkidas. There was thus a large body of sentiment prepared to respond to the declamations of Lysias. And many a Grecian patriot, who would be ashamed to lay hands on the Syracusan tents or envoys, would yet yield a mournful assent to the orator’s remark, that the free Grecian world was on fire[164] at both sides; that Asiatics, Italians, and Sicilians, had already passed into the hands of Artaxerxes and Dionysius; and that, if these two formidable enemies should coalesce, the liberties even of central Greece would be in great danger.

[162] See Pseudo-Andokides cont. Alkibiad. s. 30; and Vol. VII. of this History, Ch. lv, p. 53.

[163] Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Lysiâ, p. 519; Diodor. xiv, 109. ὥστε τινας τολμῆσαι διαρπάζειν τὰς σκηνάς.

Dionysius does not specify the date of this oration of Lysias; but Diodorus places it at Olympiad 98—B.C. 388—the year before the peace of Antalkidas. On this point I venture to depart from him, and assign it to Olympiad 99, or 384 B.C., three years after the peace; the rather as his Olympic chronology appears not clear, as may be seen by comparing xv, 7 with xiv, 109.

1. The year 388 B.C. was a year of war, in which Sparta with her allies on one side,—and Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos on the other,—were carrying on strenuous hostilities. The war would hinder the four last-mentioned states from sending any public legation to sacrifice at the Olympic festival. Lysias, as an Athenian metic, could hardly have gone there at all; but he certainly could not have gone there to make a public and bold oratorical demonstration.

2. The language of Lysias implies that the speech was delivered after the cession of the Asiatic Greeks to Persia,—ὁρῶν πολλὰ μὲν αὐτῆς (Ἑλλάδος) ὄντα ὑπὸ τῷ Βαρβάρῳ, etc. This is quite pertinent after the peace of Antalkidas; but not at all admissible before that peace. The same may be said about the phrase,—οὐ γὰρ ἀλλοτρίας δεῖ τὰς τῶν ἀπολωλότων συμφορὰς νομίζειν, ἀλλ’ οἰκείας; which must be referred to the recent subjection of the Asiatic Greeks by Persia, and of the Italian and Sicilian Greeks by Dionysius.

3. In 388 B.C.—when Athens and so large a portion of the greater cities of Greece were at war with Sparta, and therefore contesting her headship,—Lysias would hardly have publicly talked of the Spartans as ἡγεμόνες τῶν Ἑλλήνων, οὐκ ἀδίκως, καὶ διὰ τὴν ἔμφυτον ἀρετὴν καὶ διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἐπιστήμην. This remark is made also by Sievers (Geschich. Griech. bis zur Schlacht von Mantinea, p. 138). Nor would he have declaimed so ardently against the Persian king, at a time when Athens was still not despairing of Persian aid against Sparta.

On these grounds (as well as on others which I shall state when I recount the history of Dionysius), it appears to me that this oration of Lysias is unsuitable to B.C. 388—but perfectly suitable to 384 B.C.

[164] Lysias, Orat. Olymp. Frag. καιομένην τὴν Ἑλλάδα περιορῶσιν, etc.

It is easy to see how much such feeling of grief and shame would tend to raise antipathy against Sparta. Lysias, in that portion of his speech which we possess, disguises his censure against her under the forms of surprise. But Isokrates, who composed an analogous discourse four years afterwards (which may perhaps have been read at the next Olympic festival of B.C. 380), speaks out more plainly. He denounces the Lacedæmonians as traitors to the general security and freedom of Greece, and as seconding foreign kings as well as Grecian despots to aggrandize themselves at the cost of autonomous Grecian cities,—all in the interest of their own selfish ambition. No wonder (he says) that the free and self-acting Hellenic world was every day becoming contracted into a narrower space, when the presiding city Sparta assisted Artaxerxes, Amyntas, and Dionysius to absorb it,—and herself undertook unjust aggressions against Thebes, Olynthus, Phlius, and Mantinea.[165]

[165] Isokrates, Or. iv, (Panegyr.) s. 145, 146: compare his Orat. viii, (De Pace) s. 122; and Diodor. xv, 23.

Dionysius of Syracuse had sent twenty triremes to join the Lacedæmonians at the Hellespont, a few months before the peace of Antalkidas (Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 26).

The preceding citations, from Lysias and Isokrates, would be sufficient to show the measure which intelligent contemporaries took, both of the state of Greece and of the conduct of Sparta, during the eight years succeeding the peace of Antalkidas (387-379 B.C.). But the philo-Laconian Xenophon is still more emphatic in his condemnation of Sparta. Having described her triumphant and seemingly unassailable position after the subjugation of Olynthus and Phlius, he proceeds to say,[166]—“I could produce numerous other incidents, both in and out of Greece, to prove that the gods take careful note of impious men and of evil-doers; but the events which I am now about to relate are quite sufficient. The Lacedæmonians, who had sworn to leave each city autonomous, having violated their oaths by seizing the citadel of Thebes, were punished by the very men whom they had wronged,—though no one on earth had ever before triumphed over them. And the Theban faction who had introduced them into the citadel, with the deliberate purpose that their city should be enslaved to Sparta in order that they might rule despotically themselves,—were put down by no more than seven assailants, among the exiles whom they had banished.”

[166] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 1. Πολλὰ μὲν οὖν ἄν τις ἔχοι καὶ ἄλλα λέγειν, καὶ Ἑλληνικὰ καὶ βαρβαρικὰ, ὡς θεοὶ οὔτε τῶν ἀσεβούντων οὔτε τῶν ἀνόσια ποιούντων ἀμελοῦσι· νῦν γε μὴν λέξω τὰ προκείμενα. Λακεδαιμόνιοί τε γὰρ, οἱ ὀμόσαντες αὐτονόμους ἐάσειν τὰς πόλεις, τὴν ἐν Θήβαις ἀκρόπολιν κατασχόντες, ὑπ’ αὐτῶν μόνων τῶν ἀδικηθέντων ἐκολάσθησαν, πρῶτον οὐδ’ ὑφ’ ἑνὸς τῶν πώποτε ἀνθρώπων κρατηθέντες. Τούς τε τῶν πολιτῶν εἰσαγαγόντας εἰς τὴν ἀκρόπολιν αὐτοὺς, καὶ βουληθέντας Λακεδαιμονίοις τὴν πόλιν δουλεύειν, ὥστε αὐτοὶ τυραννεῖν ... τὴν τούτων ἀρχὴν ἑπτὰ μόνον τῶν φυγόντων ἤρκεσαν καταλῦσαι.

This passage is properly characterized by Dr. Peter (in his Commentatio Critica in Xenophontis Hellenica, Hall. 1837, p. 82) as the turning-point in the history:—

“Hoc igitur in loco quasi editiore operis sui Xenophon subsistit, atque uno in conspectu Spartanos, et ad suæ felicitatis fastigium ascendere videt, et rursus ab eo delabi: tantâ autem divinæ justitiæ conscientiâ tangitur in hac Spartanorum fortunâ conspicuæ, ut vix suum judicium, quanquam id solet facere, suppresserit.”

What must have been the hatred, and sense of abused ascendency, entertained towards Sparta by neutral or unfriendly Greeks, when Xenophon, alike conspicuous for his partiality to her and for his dislike of Thebes, could employ these decisive words in ushering in the coming phase of Spartan humiliation, representing it as a well-merited judgment from the gods? The sentence which I have just translated marks, in the commonplace manner of the Xenophontic Hellenica, the same moment of pointed contrast and transition,—past glory suddenly and unexpectedly darkened by supervening misfortune,—which is foreshadowed in the narrative of Thucydides by the dialogue between the Athenian envoys and the Melian[167] council; or in the Œdipus and Antigonê of Sophokles,[168] by the warnings of the prophet Teiresias.

[167] See Vol. VII. of this History,—the close of Chapter lvi.

[168] Soph. Œdip. Tyr. 450; Antigon. 1066.

The government of Thebes had now been for three years (since the blow struck by Phœbidas) in the hands of Leontiades and his oligarchical partisans, upheld by the Spartan garrison in the Kadmeia. Respecting the details of its proceedings we have scarce any information. We can only (as above remarked) judge of it by the analogy of the Thirty tyrants at Athens, and of the Lysandrian Dekarchies, to which it was exactly similar in origin, position, and interests. That the general spirit of it must have been cruel, oppressive, and rapacious,—we cannot doubt; though in what degree we have no means of knowing. The appetites of uncontrolled rulers, as well as those of a large foreign garrison, would ensure such a result; besides which, those rulers must have been in constant fear of risings or conspiracies amidst a body of high-spirited citizens who saw their city degraded, from being the chief of the Bœotian federation, into nothing better than a captive dependency of Sparta. Such fear was aggravated by the vicinity of a numerous body of Theban exiles, belonging to the opposite or anti-Spartan party; three or four hundred of whom had fled to Athens at the first seizure of their leader Ismenias, and had been doubtless joined subsequently by others. So strongly did the Theban rulers apprehend mischief from these exiles, that they hired assassins to take them off by private murder at Athens; and actually succeeded in thus killing Androkleidas, chief of the band and chief successor of the deceased Ismenias,—though they missed their blows at the rest.[169] And we may be sure that they made the prison in Thebes subservient to multiplied enormities and executions, when we read not only that one hundred and fifty prisoners were found in it when the government was put down,[170] but also that in the fervor of that revolutionary movement, the slain gaoler was an object of such fierce antipathy, that his corpse was trodden and spit upon by a crowd of Theban women.[171] In Thebes, as in other Grecian cities, the women not only took no part in political disputes, but rarely even showed themselves in public;[172] so that this furious demonstration of vindictive sentiment must have been generated by the loss or maltreatment of sons, husbands, and brothers.

[169] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 6: compare Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 29, p. 596 B.

[170] Xenoph. Hellen. v, 4, 14.

[171] Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 33, p. 598 B, C. ᾧ καὶ μεθ’ ἡμέραν ἐπενέβησαν καὶ προσέπτυσαν οὐκ ὀλίγαι γυναῖκες.

Among the prisoners was a distinguished Theban of the democratic party, named Amphitheus. He was about to be shortly executed, and the conspirators, personally attached to him, seem to have accelerated the hour of their plot partly to preserve his life (Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. p. 577 D, p. 586 F.).

[172] The language of Plutarch (De Gen. Socrat. c. 33, p. 598 C.) is illustrated by the description given in the harangue of Lykurgus cont. Leokrat. (c. xi, s. 40)—of the universal alarm prevalent in Athens after the battle of Chæroneia, such that even the women could not stay in their houses—ἀναξίως αὐτῶν καὶ τῆς πόλεως ὁρωμένας, etc. Compare also the words of Makaria, in the Herakleidæ of Euripides, 475; and Diodor. xiii, 55, in his description of the capture of Selinus in Sicily.

The Theban exiles found at Athens not only secure shelter, but genuine sympathy with their complaints against Lacedæmonian injustice. The generous countenance which had been shown by the Thebans, twenty-four years before, to Thrasybulus and the other Athenian refugees, during the omnipotence of the Thirty, was now gratefully requited under this reversal of fortune to both cities;[173] and requited too in defiance of the menaces of Sparta, who demanded that the exiles should be expelled,—as she had in the earlier occasion demanded that the Athenian refugees should be dismissed from Thebes. To protect these Theban exiles, however, was all that Athens could do. Their restoration was a task beyond her power,—and seemingly yet more beyond their own. For the existing government of Thebes was firmly seated, and had the citizens completely under control. Administered by a small faction, Archias, Philippus, Hypatês, and Leontiades (among whom the first two were at this moment polemarchs, though the last was the most energetic and resolute)—it was at the same time sustained by the large garrison of fifteen hundred Lacedæmonians and allies,[174] under Lysanoridas and two other harmosts, in the Kadmeia,—as well as by the Lacedæmonian posts in the other Bœotian cities around,—Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Platæa, Tanagra, etc. Though the general body of Theban sentiment in the city was decidedly adverse to the government, and though the young men while exercising in the palæstra (gymnastic exercises being more strenuously prosecuted at Thebes than anywhere else except at Sparta) kept up by private communication the ardor of an earnest, but compressed, patriotism,—yet all manifestation or assemblage was forcibly kept down, and the commanding posts of the lower town, as well as the citadel, were held in vigilant occupation by the ruling minority.[175]

[173] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 6.

See this sentiment of gratitude on the part of Athenian democrats, towards those Thebans who had sheltered them at Thebes during the exile along with Thrasybulus,—strikingly brought out in an oration of Lysias, of which unfortunately only a fragment remains (Lysias, Frag. 46, 47, Bekk.; Dionys. Hal. Judic. de Isæo, p. 594). The speaker of this oration had been received at Thebes by Kephisodotus the father of Pherenikus; the latter was now in exile at Athens; and the speaker had not only welcomed him (Pherenikus) to his house with brotherly affection, but also delivered this oration on his behalf before the Dikastery; Pherenikus having rightful claims on the property left behind by the assassinated Androkleidas.

[174] Diodor. xv, 25; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 12; Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 17, p. 586 E.

In another passage of this treatise (the last sentence but one) he sets down the numbers in the Kadmeia at five thousand: but the smaller number is most likely to be true.

[175] Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 4, p. 577 B; c. 17, p. 587 B; c. 25, p. 594 C; c. 27, p. 595 A.

For a certain time the Theban exiles at Athens waited in hopes of some rising at home, or some positive aid from the Athenians. At length, in the third winter after their flight, they began to despair of encouragement from either quarter, and resolved to take the initiative upon themselves. Among them were numbered several men of the richest and highest families at Thebes, proprietors of chariots, jockeys, and training establishments, for contending at the various festivals: Pelopidas, Mellon, Damokleidas, Theopompus, Pherenikus, and others.[176]

[176] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 7, 8.

Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 17, p. 587 D. Τῶν Μέλλωνος ἁρματηλατῶν ἐπιστάτης.... Ἆρ’ οὐ Χλίδωνα λέγεις, τὸν κέλητι τὰ Ἡραῖα νικῶντα πέρυσιν;

Of these the most forward in originating aggressive measures, though almost the youngest, was Pelopidas; whose daring and self-devotion, in an enterprise which seemed utterly desperate, soon communicated itself to a handful of his comrades. The exiles, keeping up constant private correspondence with their friends in Thebes, felt assured of the sympathy of the citizens generally, if they could once strike a blow. Yet nothing less would be sufficient than the destruction of the four rulers, Leontiades and his colleagues,—nor would any one within the city devote himself to so hopeless a danger. It was this conspiracy which Pelopidas, Mellon, and five or ten other exiles (the entire band is differently numbered, by some as seven, by others, twelve[177]) undertook to execute. Many of their friends in Thebes came in as auxiliaries to them, who would not have embarked in the design as primary actors. Of all auxiliaries, the most effective and indispensable was Phyllidas, the secretary of the polemarchs; next to him, Charon, an eminent and earnest patriot. Phyllidas, having been despatched to Athens on official business, entered into secret conference with the conspirators, concerted with them the day for their coming to Thebes, and even engaged to provide for them access to the persons of the polemarchs. Charon not only promised them concealment in his house, from their first coming within the gates until the moment of striking their blow should have arrived,—but also entered his name to share in the armed attack. Nevertheless, in spite of such partial encouragements, the plan still appeared desperate to many who wished heartily for its success. Epaminondas, for example,—who now for the first time comes before us,—resident at Thebes, and not merely sympathizing with the political views of Pelopidas, but also bound to him by intimate friendship,—dissuaded others from the attempt, and declined participating in it. He announced distinctly that he would not become an accomplice in civil bloodshed. It appears that there were men among the exiles whose violence made him fear that they would not, like Pelopidas, draw the sword exclusively against Leontiades and his colleagues, but would avail themselves of success to perpetrate unmeasured violence against other political enemies.[178]

[177] Xenophon says seven (Hellen. v, 4, 1, 2); Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos say twelve (Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 2, p. 576 C.; Plutarch, Pelopidas c. 8-13; Cornel. Nepos, Pelopidas, c. 2).

It is remarkable that Xenophon never mentions the name of Pelopidas in this conspiracy; nor indeed (with one exception) throughout his Hellenica.

[178] Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 3, p. 576 E.; p. 577 A.

The day for the enterprise was determined by Phyllidas the secretary, who had prepared an evening banquet for Archias and Philippus, in celebration of the period when they were going out of office as polemarchs,—and who had promised on that occasion to bring into their company some women remarkable for beauty, as well as of the best families in Thebes.[179] In concert with the general body of Theban exiles at Athens, who held themselves ready on the borders of Attica, together with some Athenian sympathizers, to march to Thebes the instant that they should receive intimation,—and in concert also with two out of the ten Stratêgi of Athens, who took on themselves privately to countenance the enterprise, without any public vote,—Pelopidas and Mellon, and their five companions,[180] crossed Kithæron from Athens to Thebes. It was wet weather, about December B.C. 379; they were disguised as rustics or hunters, with no other arms than a concealed dagger; and they got within the gates of Thebes one by one at nightfall, just when the latest farming men were coming home from their fields. All of them arrived safe at the house of Charon, the appointed rendezvous.

[179] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 4. τὰς σεμνοτάτας καὶ καλλίστας τῶν ἐν Θήβαις. Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 4, p. 577 C.; Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 9.

The Theban women were distinguished for majestic figure and beauty (Dikæarchus, Vit. Græc. p. 144, ed Fuhr.).

[180] Plutarch, (Pelopid. c. 25; De Gen. Socr. c. 26, p. 594 D.) mentions Menekleidês, Damokleidas, and Theopompus among them. Compare Cornel. Nepos, Pelopid. c. 2.

It was, however, by mere accident that they had not been turned back, and the whole scheme frustrated. For a Theban named Hipposthenidas, friendly to the conspiracy, but faint-hearted, who had been let into the secret against the will of Phyllidas,—became so frightened as the moment of execution approached, that he took upon himself, without the knowledge of the rest, to despatch Chlidon, a faithful slave of Mellon, ordering him to go forth on horseback from Thebes, to meet his master on the road, and to desire that he and his comrades would go back to Attica, since circumstances had happened to render the project for the moment impracticable. Chlidon, going home to fetch his bridle, but not finding it in its usual place, asked his wife where it was. The woman, at first pretending to look for it, at last confessed that she had lent it to a neighbor. Chlidon became so irritated with this delay, that he got into a loud altercation with his wife, who on her part wished him ill luck with his journey. He at last beat her, until neighbors ran in to interpose. His departure was thus accidentally frustrated, so that the intended message of countermand never reached the conspirators on their way.[181]

[181] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 8; Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. c. 17, p. 586 B.; c. 18, p. 587 D-E.

In the house of Charon they remained concealed all the ensuing day, on the evening of which the banquet of Archias and Philippus was to take place. Phyllidas had laid his plan for introducing them at that banquet, at the moment when the two polemarchs had become full of wine, in female attire, as being the women whose visit was expected. The hour had nearly arrived, and they were preparing to play their parts, when an unexpected messenger knocked at the door, summoning Charon instantly into the presence of the polemarchs. All within were thunderstruck with the summons, which seemed to imply that the plot had been divulged, perhaps by the timid Hipposthenidas. It was agreed among them that Charon must obey at once. Nevertheless, he himself, even in the perilous uncertainty which beset him, was most of all apprehensive lest the friends whom he had sheltered should suspect him of treachery towards themselves and their cause. Before departing, therefore, he sent for his only son, a youth of fifteen, and of conspicuous promise in every way. This youth he placed in the hands of Pelopidas, as a hostage for his own fidelity. But Pelopidas and the rest, vehemently disclaiming all suspicion, entreated Charon to put his son away, out of the reach of that danger in which all were now involved. Charon, however, could not be prevailed on to comply, and left his son among them to share the fate of the rest. He went into the presence of Archias and Philippus; whom he found already half-intoxicated, but informed, by intelligence from Athens, that some plot, they knew not by whom, was afloat. They had sent for him to question him, as a known friend of the exiles; but he had little difficulty, aided by the collusion of Phyllidas, in blinding the vague suspicions of drunken men, anxious only to resume their conviviality.[182] He was allowed to retire and rejoin his friends. Nevertheless, soon after his departure,—so many were the favorable chances which befel these improvident men,—a fresh message was delivered to Archias the polemarch, from his namesake Archias the Athenian Hierophant, giving an exact account of the names and scheme of the conspirators, which had become known to the philo-Laconian party at Athens. The messenger who bore this despatch delivered it to Archias with an intimation, that it related to very serious matters. “Serious matters for to-morrow,” said the polemarch, as he put the despatch, unopened and unread, under the pillow of the couch on which he was reclining.[183]

[182] Xenophon does not mention this separate summons and visit of Charon to the polemarchs,—nor anything about the scene with his son. He only notices Charon as having harbored the conspirators in his house, and seems even to speak of him as a person of little consequence—παρὰ Χαρωνί τινι, etc. (v, 4, 3).

The anecdote is mentioned in both the compositions of Plutarch (De Gen. Socr. c. 28, p. 595; and Pelopidas, c. 9), and is too interesting to be omitted, being perfectly consistent with what we read in Xenophon; though it has perhaps somewhat of a theatrical air.

[183] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 10; Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 30, p. 596 F. Εἰς αὔριον τὰ σπουδαῖα.

This occurrence also finds no place in the narrative of Xenophon. Cornelius Nepos, Pelopidas, c. 3. Æneas (Poliorcetic. c. 31) makes a general reference to the omission of immediate opening of letters arrived, as having caused the capture of the Kadmeia; which was, however, only its remote consequence.

Returning to their carousal, Archias and Philippus impatiently called upon Phyllidas to introduce the women according to his promise. Upon this the secretary retired, and brought the conspirators, clothed in female attire, into an adjoining chamber; then going back to the polemarchs, he informed them that the women would not come in unless all the domestics were first dismissed. An order was forthwith given that these latter should depart, while Phyllidas took care that they should be well provided with wine at the lodging of one among their number. The polemarchs were thus left only with one or two friends at table, half-intoxicated as well as themselves; among them Kabeirichus, the archon of the year, who always throughout his term kept the consecrated spear of office in actual possession, and had it at that moment close to his person. Phyllidas now conducted the pretended women into the banqueting-room; three of them attired as ladies of distinction, the four others following as female attendants. Their long veils, and ample folds of clothing, were quite sufficient as disguise,—even had the guests at table been sober,—until they sat down by the side of the polemarchs; and the instant of lifting their veils was the signal for using their daggers. Archias and Philippus were slain at once and with little resistance; but Kabeirichus with his spear tried to defend himself, and thus perished with the others, though the conspirators had not originally intended to take his life.[184]

[184] The description given by Xenophon, of this assassination of the polemarchs at Thebes, differs materially from that of Plutarch. I follow Xenophon in the main; introducing, however, several of the details found in Plutarch, which are interesting, and which have the air of being authentic.

Xenophon himself intimates (Hellen. v, 4, 7), that besides the story given in the text, there was also another story told by some,—that Mellon and his companions had got access to the polemarchs in the guise of drunken revellers. It is this latter story which Plutarch has adopted, and which carries him into many details quite inconsistent with the narrative of Xenophon. I think the story, of the conspirators having been introduced in female attire, the more probable of the two. It is borne out by the exact analogy of what Herodotus tells us respecting Alexander son of Amyntas, prince of Macedonia (Herod. v, 20).

Compare Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 10, 11; Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. c. 31, p. 597. Polyænus (ii, 4, 3) gives a story with many different circumstances, yet agreeing in the fact that Pelopidas in female attire killed the Spartan general. The story alluded to by Aristotle (Polit. v, 5, 10), though he names both Thebes and Archias, can hardly refer to this event.

It is Plutarch, however, who mentions the presence of Kabeirichus the archon at the banquet, and the curious Theban custom that the archon during his year of office never left out of his hand the consecrated spear. As a Bœotian born, Plutarch was doubtless familiar with these old customs.

From what other authors Plutarch copied the abundant details of this revolution at Thebes, which he interweaves in the life of Pelopidas and in the treatise called De Genio Socratis—we do not know. Some critics suppose him to have borrowed from Dionysodôrus and Anaxis—Bœotian historians whose work comprised this period, but of whom not a single fragment is preserved (see Fragm. Histor. Græc. ed. Didot, vol. ii, p. 84).

Having been thus far successful, Phyllidas conducted three of the conspirators,—Pelopidas, Kephisodôrus, and Damokleidas,—to the house of Leontiades, into which he obtained admittance by announcing himself as the bearer of an order from the polemarchs. Leontiades was reclining after supper, with his wife sitting spinning wool by his side, when they entered his chamber. Being a brave and powerful man, he started up, seized his sword, and mortally wounded Kephisodôrus in the throat; a desperate struggle then ensued between him and Pelopidas in the narrow doorway, where there was no room for a third to approach. At length, however, Pelopidas overthrew and killed him, after which they retired, enjoining the wife with threats to remain silent, and closing the door after them with peremptory commands that it should not be again opened. They then went to the house of Hypatês, whom they slew while he attempted to escape over the roof.[185]

[185] Xen. Hell. v, 4, 9; Plutarch, Pelop. c. 11, 12; and De Gen. Socr. p. 597 D-F. Here again Xenophon and Plutarch differ; the latter represents that Pelopidas got into the house of Leontiades without Phyllidas,—which appears to me altogether improbable. On the other hand, Xenophon mentions nothing about the defence of Leontiades and his personal conflict with Pelopidas, which I copy from Plutarch. So brave a man as Leontiades, awake and sober, would not let himself be slain without a defence dangerous to assailants. Plutarch, in another place, singles out the death of Leontiades as the marking circumstance of the whole glorious enterprise, and the most impressive to Pelopidas (Plutarch—Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum—p. 1099 A-E.).

The four great rulers of the philo-Laconian party in Thebes having been now put to death, Phyllidas proceeded with the conspirators to the prison. Here the gaoler, a confidential agent in the oppressions of the deceased governors, hesitated to admit him; but was slain by a sudden thrust with his spear, so as to ensure free admission to all. To liberate the prisoners, probably, for the most part men of kindred politics with the conspirators,—to furnish them with arms taken from the battle-spoils hanging up in the neighboring porticos,—and to range them in battle order near the temple of Amphion,—were the next proceedings; after which they began to feel some assurance of safety and triumph.[186] Epaminondas and Gorgidas, apprised of what had occurred, were the first who appeared in arms with a few friends to sustain the cause; while proclamation was everywhere made aloud, through heralds, that the despots were slain,—that Thebes was free,—and that all Thebans who valued freedom should muster in arms in the market-place. There were at that moment in Thebes many trumpeters who had come to contend for the prize at the approaching festival of the Herakleia. Hipposthenidas engaged these men to blow their trumpets in different parts of the city, and thus everywhere to excite the citizens to arms.[187]

[186] Xenoph. Hell. v, 4, 8; Plutarch, Pelop. c. 12; De Gen. Socr. p. 598 B.

[187] This is a curious piece of detail, which we learn from Plutarch (De Gen. Socr. c. 34. p. 598 D.).

The Orchomenian Inscriptions in Boeckh’s Collection record the prizes given to these Σαλπιγκταὶ or trumpeters (see Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. No. 1584, 1585, etc.).

Although during the darkness surprise was the prevalent feeling, and no one knew what to do,—yet so soon as day dawned, and the truth became known, there was but one feeling of joy and patriotic enthusiasm among the majority of the citizens.[188] Both horsemen and hoplites hastened in arms to the agora. Here for the first time since the seizure of the Kadmeia by Phœbidas, a formal assembly of the Theban people was convened, before which Pelopidas and his fellow-conspirators presented themselves. The priests of the city crowned them with wreaths, and thanked them in the name of the local gods; while the assembly hailed them with acclamations of delight and gratitude, nominating with one voice Pelopidas, Mellon, and Charon, as the first renewed Bœotarchs.[189] The revival of this title, which had been dropped since the peace of Antalkidas, was in itself an event of no mean significance; implying not merely that Thebes had waked up again into freedom, but that the Bœotian confederacy also had been, or would be, restored.

[188] The unanimous joy with which the consummation of the revolution was welcomed in Thebes,—and the ardor with which the citizens turned out to support it by armed force,—is attested by Xenophon, no very willing witness,—Hellen. v, 4, 9. ἐπεὶ δ’ ἡμέρα ἦν καὶ φανερὸν ἦν τὸ γεγενημένον, ταχὺ δὴ καὶ οἱ ὁπλῖται καὶ οἱ ἱππεῖς σὺν τοῖς ὅπλοις ἐξεβοήθουν.

[189] Plutarch, Pelop. c. 12.

Messengers had been forthwith despatched by the conspirators to Attica to communicate their success; upon which all the remaining exiles, with the two Athenian generals privy to the plot, and a body of Athenian volunteers, or corps francs, all of whom were ready on the borders awaiting the summons,—flocked to Thebes to complete the work. The Spartan generals, on their side also, sent to Platæa and Thespiæ for aid. During the whole night, they had been distracted and alarmed by the disturbance in the city; lights showing themselves here and there, with trumpets sounding and shouts for the recent success.[190] Apprised speedily of the slaughter of the polemarchs, from whom they had been accustomed to receive orders, they knew not whom to trust or to consult, while they were doubtless beset by affrighted fugitives of the now defeated party, who would hurry up the Kadmeia for safety. They reckoned at first on a diversion in their favor from the forces at Platæa and Thespiæ. But these forces were not permitted even to approach the city gate; being vigorously charged, as soon as they came in sight, by the newly-mustered Theban cavalry, and forced to retreat with loss. The Lacedæmonians in the citadel were thus not only left without support, but saw their enemies in the city reinforced by the other exiles, and by the auxiliary volunteers.[191]

[190] Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. p. 598 E.; Pelop. c. 12.

[191] Xenophon expressly mentions that the Athenians who were invited to come, and who actually did come, to Thebes, were the two generals and the volunteers; all of whom were before privy to the plot, and were in readiness on the borders of Attica—τοὺς ~πρὸς τοῖς ὁρίοις~ Ἀθηναίων καὶ τοὺς δύο τῶν στρατηγῶν—οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ~ἀπὸ τῶν ὁρίων~ ἤδη παρῆσαν (Hellen. v, 4, 9, 10).

Meanwhile, Pelopidas and the other new Bœotarchs found themselves at the head of a body of armed citizens, full of devoted patriotism and unanimous in hailing the recent revolution. They availed themselves of this first burst of fervor to prepare for storming the Kadmeia without delay, knowing the importance of forestalling all aid from Sparta. And the citizens were already rushing up to the assault,—proclamation being made of large rewards to those who should first force their way in,—when the Lacedæmonian commander sent proposals for a capitulation.[192] Undisturbed egress from Thebes, with the honors of war, being readily guaranteed to him by oath, the Kadmeia was then surrendered. As the Spartans were marching out of the gates, many Thebans of the defeated party came forth also. But against these latter the exasperation of the victors was so ungovernable, that several of the most odious were seized as they passed, and put to death; in some cases, even their children along with them. And more of them would have been thus despatched, had not the Athenian auxiliaries, with generous anxiety, exerted every effort to get them out of sight and put them into safety.[193] We are not told,—nor is it certain,—that these Thebans were protected under the capitulation. Even had they been so, however, the wrathful impulse might still have prevailed against them. Of the three harmosts who thus evacuated the Kadmeia without a blow, two were put to death, the third was heavily fined and banished, by the authorities at Sparta.[194] We do not know what the fortifications of the Kadmeia were, nor how far it was provisioned. But we can hardly wonder that these officers were considered to have dishonored the Lacedæmonian arms, by making no attempt to defend it; when we recollect that hardly more than four or five days would be required to procure adequate relief from home,—and that forty-three years afterwards, the Macedonian garrison in the same place maintained itself against the Thebans in the city for more than fourteen days, until the return of Alexander from Illyria.[195] The first messenger who brought news to Sparta of the conspiracy and revolution at Thebes, appears to have communicated at the same time that the garrison had evacuated the Kadmeia and was in full retreat, with a train of Theban exiles from the defeated party.[196]

[192] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 10, 11. προσέβαλον πρὸς τὴν ἀκρόπολιν—τὴν προθυμίαν τῶν προσιόντων ἁπάντων ἑώρων, etc.

Diodorus, xv, 25. ἔπειτα τοὺς πολίτας ἐπὶ τὴν ἐλευθερίαν παρακαλέσαντες (the successful Theban conspirators, Pelopidas, etc.) ~συνέργους ἔσχον ἅπαντας τοὺς Θηβαίους~.

[193] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 12.

[194] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 13; Diodor. xv, 27.

Plutarch (Pelopid. c. 13) augments the theatrical effect by saying that the Lacedæmonian garrison on its retreat, actually met at Megara the reinforcements under king Kleombrotus, which had advanced thus far, on their march to relieve the Kadmeia. But this is highly improbable. The account of Xenophon intimates clearly that the Kadmeia was surrounded on the next morning after the nocturnal movement. The commanders capitulated in the first moment of distraction and despair, without even standing an assault.

[195] Arrian, i, 6.

[196] In recounting this revolution at Thebes, and the proceedings of the Athenians in regard to it, I have followed Xenophon almost entirely.

Diodorus (xv, 25, 26) concurs with Xenophon in stating that the Theban exiles got back from Attica to Thebes by night, partly through the concurrence of the Athenians (συνεπιλαβομένων τῶν Ἀθηναίων)—slew the rulers—called the citizens to freedom next morning, finding all hearty in the cause—and then proceeded to besiege the fifteen hundred Lacedæmonians and Peloponnesians in the Kadmeia.

But after thus much of agreement, Diodorus states what followed, in a manner quite inconsistent with Xenophon; thus (he tells us)—

The Lacedæmonian commander sent instant intelligence to Sparta of what had happened, with request for a reinforcement. The Thebans at once attempted to storm the Kadmeia, but were repulsed with great loss, both of killed and wounded. Fearing that they might not be able to take the fort before reinforcement should come from Sparta, they sent envoys to Athens to ask for aid, reminding the Athenians that they (the Thebans) had helped to emancipate Athens from the Thirty, and to restore the democracy (ὑπομιμνήσκοντες μὲν ὅτι καὶ αὐτοὶ ~συγκατήγαγον τὸν δῆμον~ τῶν Ἀθηναίων καθ’ ὃν καιρὸν ὑπὸ τῶν τριάκοντα κατεδουλώθησαν). The Athenians, partly from desire to requite this favor, partly from a wish to secure the Thebans as allies against Sparta, passed a public vote to assist them forthwith. Demophon the general got together five thousand hoplites and five hundred horsemen, with whom he hastened to Thebes on the next day; and all the remaining population were prepared to follow, if necessary (πανδημεί). All the other cities in Bœotia also sent aid to Thebes too,—so that there was assembled there a large force of twelve thousand hoplites and two thousand horsemen. This united force, the Athenians being among them, assaulted the Kadmeia day and night, relieving each other; but were repelled with great loss of killed and wounded. At length the garrison found themselves without provisions; the Spartans were tardy in sending reinforcement; and sedition broke out among the Peloponnesian allies who formed the far larger part of the garrison. These Peloponnesians, refusing to fight longer, insisted upon capitulating; which the Lacedæmonian governor was obliged perforce to do, though both he and the Spartans along with him desired to hold out to the death. The Kadmeia was accordingly surrendered, and the garrison went back to Peloponnesus. The Lacedæmonian reinforcement from Sparta arrived only a little too late.

All these circumstances stated by Diodorus are not only completely different from Xenophon, but irreconcilable with his conception of the event. We must reject either the one or the other.

Now Xenophon is not merely the better witness of the two, but is in this case sustained by all the collateral probabilities of the case.

1. Diodorus represents the Athenians as having despatched by public vote, assistance to Thebes, in order to requite the assistance which the Thebans had before sent to restore the Athenian democracy against the Thirty. Now this is incorrect in point of fact. The Thebans had never sent any assistance, positive or ostensible, to Thrasybulus and the Athenian democrats against the Thirty. They had assisted Thrasybulus underhand, and without any public government-act; and they had refused to serve along with the Spartans against him. But they never sent any force to help him against the Thirty. Consequently, the Athenians could not now have sent any public force to Thebes, in requital for a similar favor done before by the Thebans to them.

2. Had the Athenians passed a formal vote, sent a large public army, and taken vigorous part in several bloody assaults on the Lacedæmonian garrison in the Kadmeia,—this would have been the most flagrant and unequivocal commencement of hostilities against Sparta. No Spartan envoys could, after that, have gone to Athens, and stayed safely in the house of the Proxenus,—as we know from Xenophon that they did. Besides,—the story of Sphodrias (presently to be recounted) proves distinctly that Athens was at peace with Sparta, and had committed no act of hostility against her, for three or four months at least after the revolution at Thebes. It therefore refutes the narrative of Diodorus about the public vote of the Athenians, and the public Athenian force under Demophon, aiding in the attack of the Kadmeia. Strange to say,—Diodorus himself, three chapters afterwards (xv, 29), relates this story about Sphodrias, just in the same manner (with little difference) as Xenophon; ushering in the story with a declaration, that the Athenians were still at peace with Sparta, and forgetting that he had himself recounted a distinct rupture of that peace on the part of the Athenians.

3. The news of the revolution at Thebes must necessarily have taken the Athenian public completely by surprise (though some few Athenians were privy to the scheme), because it was a scheme which had no chance of succeeding except by profound secrecy. Now, that the Athenian public, hearing the news for the first time,—having no positive act to complain of on the part of Sparta, and much reason to fear her power,—having had no previous circumstances to work them up, or prepare them for any dangerous resolve,—should identify themselves at once with Thebes, and provoke war with Sparta in the impetuous manner stated by Diodorus,—this is, in my judgment, eminently improbable, requiring good evidence to induce us to believe it.

4. Assume the statement of Diodorus to be true,—what reasonable explanation can be given of the erroneous version which we read in Xenophon? The facts as he recounts them conflict most pointedly with his philo-Laconian partialities; first, the overthrow of the Lacedæmonian power at Thebes, by a handful of exiles; still more, the whole story of Sphodrias and his acquittal.

But assume the statement of Xenophon to be true,—and we can give a very plausible explanation how the erroneous version in Diodorus arose. A few months later, after the acquittal of Sphodrias at Sparta, the Athenians did enter heartily into the alliance of Thebes, and sent a large public force (indeed five thousand hoplites, the same number as those of Demophon, according to Diodorus, c. 32) to assist her in repelling Agesilaus with the Spartan army. It is by no means unnatural that their public vote and expedition undertaken about July 378 B.C.,—should have been erroneously thrown back to December 379 B.C. The Athenian orators were fond of boasting that Athens had saved the Thebans from Sparta; and this might be said with some truth, in reference to the aid which she really rendered afterwards. Isokrates (Or. Plataic. s. 31) makes this boast in general terms; but Deinarchus (cont. Demosthen. s. 40) is more distinct, and gives in a few words a version the same as that which we find in Diodorus; so also does Aristeides, in two very brief allusions (Panathen. p. 172, and Or. xxxviii, Socialis, p. 486-498). Possibly Aristeides as well as Diodorus may have copied from Ephorus; but however this may be, it is easy to understand the mistake out of which their version grew.

5. Lastly, Plutarch mentions nothing about the public vote of the Athenians, and the regular division of troops under Demophon which Diodorus asserts to have aided in the storming of the Kadmeia. See Plutarch (De Gen. Socrat. ad fin. Agesil. c. 23; Pelopid. 12, 13). He intimates only, as Xenophon does, that there were some Athenian volunteers who assisted the exiles.

M. Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, etc. p. 38-43) discusses this discrepancy at considerable length, and cites the opinion of various German authors in respect to it, with none of whom I altogether concur.

In my judgment, the proper solution is, to reject altogether (as belonging to a later time) the statement of Diodorus, respecting the public vote at Athens, and the army said to have been sent to Thebes under Demophon; and to accept the more credible narrative of Xenophon; which ascribes to Athens a reasonable prudence, and great fear of Sparta,—qualities such as Athenian orators would not be disposed to boast of. According to that narrative, the question about sending Athenians to aid in storming the Kadmeia could hardly have been submitted for public discussion, since that citadel was surrendered at once by the intimidated garrison.

This revolution at Thebes came like an electric shock upon the Grecian world. With a modern reader, the assassination of the four leaders, in their houses and at the banquet, raises a sentiment of repugnance which withdraws his attention from the other features of this memorable deed. Now an ancient Greek not only had no such repugnance, but sympathized with the complete revenge for the seizure of the Kadmeia and the death of Ismenias; while he admired, besides, the extraordinary personal daring of Pelopidas and Mellon,—the skilful forecast of the plot,—and the sudden overthrow, by a force so contemptibly small, of a government which the day before seemed unassailable.[197] It deserves note that we here see the richest men in Thebes undertaking a risk, single-handed and with their own persons, which must have appeared on a reasonable estimate little less than desperate. From the Homeric Odysseus and Achilles down to the end of free Hellenism, the rich Greek strips in the Palæstra,[198] and exposes his person in the ranks as a soldier like the poorest citizens; being generally superior to them in strength and bodily efficiency.

[197] The daring coup de main of Pelopidas and Mellon, against the government of Thebes, bears a remarkable analogy to that by which Evagoras got into Salamis and overthrew the previous despot (Isokrates, Or. ix, Evagor. s. 34).

[198] See, in illustration of Greek sentiment on this point, Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 4, 19; and Xenophon, Enc. Ages. i, 28.

As the revolution in Thebes acted forcibly on the Grecian mind from the manner in which it was accomplished, so by its positive effects it altered forthwith the balance of power in Greece. The empire of Sparta, far from being undisputed and nearly universal over Greece, is from henceforward only maintained by more or less effort, until at length it is completely overthrown.[199]

[199] If, indeed, we could believe Isokrates, speaking through the mouth of a Platæan, it would seem that the Thebans, immediately after their revolution, sent an humble embassy to Sparta deprecating hostility, entreating to be admitted as allies, and promising service, even against their benefactors the Athenians, just as devoted as the deposed government had rendered; an embassy which the Spartans haughtily answered by desiring them to receive back their exiles, and to cast out the assassins Pelopidas and his comrades. It is possible that the Thebans may have sent to try the possibility of escaping Spartan enmity; but it is highly improbable that they made any such promises as those here mentioned; and it is certain that they speedily began to prepare vigorously for that hostility which they saw to be approaching.

See Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 31.

This oration is put into the mouth of a Platæan, and seems to be an assemblage of nearly all the topics which could possibly be enforced, truly or falsely, against Thebes.

The exiles from Thebes, arriving at Sparta, inflamed both the ephors, and the miso-Theban Agesilaus, to the highest pitch. Though it was then the depth of winter,[200] an expedition was decreed forthwith against Thebes, and the allied contingents were summoned. Agesilaus declined to take the command of it, on the ground that he was above sixty years of age, and therefore no longer liable to compulsory foreign service. But this (says Xenophon[201]) was not his real reason. He was afraid that his enemies at Sparta would say,—“Here is Agesilaus again putting us to expense, in order that he may uphold despots in other cities,”—as he had just done, and had been reproached with doing, at Phlius; a second proof that the reproaches against Sparta (which I have cited a few pages above from Lysias and Isokrates) of allying herself with Greek despots as well as with foreigners to put down Grecian freedom, found an echo even in Sparta herself. Accordingly Kleombrotus, the other king of Sparta, took the command. He had recently succeeded his brother Agesipolis, and had never commanded before.

[200] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 14. μάλα χειμῶνος ὄντος.

[201] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 13. εὖ εἰδὼς ὅτι, εἰ στρατηγοίη, λέξειαν οἱ πολῖται, ὡς Ἀγησίλαος, ὅπως βοηθήσειε τοῖς τυράννοις, πράγματα τῇ πόλει παρέχοι. Plutarch, Agesil. c. 24.

Kleombrotus conducted his army along the Isthmus of Corinth through Megara to Platæa, cutting to pieces an outpost of Thebans, composed chiefly of the prisoners set free by the recent revolution, who had been placed for the defence of the intervening mountain-pass. From Platæa he went forward to Thespiæ, and from thence to Kynoskephalæ in the Theban territory, where he lay encamped for sixteen days; after which he retreated to Thespiæ. It appears that he did nothing, and that his inaction was the subject of much wonder in his army, who are said to have even doubted whether he was really and earnestly hostile to Thebes. Perhaps the exiles, with customary exaggeration, may have led him to hope that they could provoke a rising in Thebes, if he would only come near. At any rate the bad weather must have been a serious impediment to action; since in his march back to Peloponnesus through Kreusis and Ægosthenæ the wind blew a hurricane, so that his soldiers could not proceed without leaving their shields and coming back afterwards to fetch them. Kleombrotus did not quit Bœotia, however, without leaving Sphodrias as harmost at Thespiæ, with one third of the entire army, and with a considerable sum of money to employ in hiring mercenaries and acting vigorously against the Thebans.[202]

[202] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 15-18.

The army of Kleombrotus, in its march from Megara to Platæa, had passed by the skirts of Attica; causing so much alarm to the Athenians, that they placed Chabrias with a body of peltasts, to guard their frontier and the neighboring road through Eleutheræ into Bœotia. This was the first time that a Lacedæmonian army had touched Attica (now no longer guarded by the lines of Corinth, as in the war between 394 and 388 B.C.) since the retirement of king Pausanias in 404 B.C.; furnishing a proof of the exposure of the country, such as to revive in the Athenian mind all the terrible recollections of Dekeleia and the Peloponnesian war. It was during the first prevalence of this alarm,—and seemingly while Kleombrotus was still with his army at Thespiæ or Kynoskephalæ, close on the Athenian frontier,—that three Lacedæmonian envoys, Etymoklês and two others, arrived at Athens to demand satisfaction for the part taken by the two Athenian generals and the Athenian volunteers, in concerting and aiding the enterprise of Pelopidas and his comrades. So overpowering was the anxiety in the public mind to avoid giving offence to Sparta, that these two generals were both of them accused before the dikastery. The first of them was condemned and executed; the second, profiting by this warning (since, pursuant to the psephism of Kannônus,[203] the two would be put on trial separately), escaped, and a sentence of banishment was passed against him.[204] These two generals had been unquestionably guilty of a grave abuse of their official functions. They had brought the state into public hazard, not merely without consulting the senate or assembly, but even without taking the sense of their own board of Ten. Nevertheless the severity of the sentence pronounced indicates the alarm, as well as the displeasure, of the general body of Athenians; while it served as a disclaimer in fact, if not in form, of all political connection with Thebes.[205]

[203] See Vol. VIII. of this History, Ch. lxiv, p. 196—about the psephism of Kannônus.

[204] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 19; Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 14.

Xenophon mentions the Lacedæmonian envoys at Athens, but does not expressly say that they were sent to demand reparation for the conduct of these two generals or of the volunteers. I cannot doubt, however, that the fact was so; for in those times, there were no resident envoys,—none but envoys sent on special missions.

[205] The trial and condemnation of these two generals has served as the groundwork for harsh reproach against the Athenian democracy. Wachsmuth (Hellen. Alterth. i, p. 654) denounces it as “a judicial horror, or abomination—ein Greul-gericht.” Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, etc. p. 44, 45) says,—“Quid? quia invasionem Lacedæmoniorum viderant in Bœotiam factam esse, non puduit eos, damnare imperatores quorum facta suis decretis comprobaverant?” ... “Igitur hanc illius facinoris excusationem habebimus: Rebus quæ a Thebanis agebantur (i. e. by the propositions of the Thebans seeking peace from Sparta, and trying to get enrolled as her allies,—alleged by Isokrates, which I have noticed above as being, in my judgment, very inaccurately recorded) cognitis, Athenienses, quo enixius subvenerant, eo majore pœnitentiâ perculsi sunt.... Sed tantum abfuit ut sibimet irascerentur, ut, e more Atheniensium, punirentur qui perfecerant id quod tum populus exoptaverat.”

The censures of Wachsmuth, Rehdantz, etc. assume as matter of fact,—1. That the Athenians had passed a formal vote in the public assembly to send assistance to Thebes, under two generals, who accordingly went out in command of the army and performed their instructions. 2. That the Athenians, becoming afterwards repentant or terrified, tried and condemned these two generals for having executed the commission entrusted to them.

I have already shown grounds (in a previous note) for believing that the first of these affirmations is incorrect; the second, as dependent on it, will therefore be incorrect also.

These authors here appear to me to single out a portion of each of the two inconsistent narratives of Xenophon and Diodorus, and blend them together in a way which contradicts both.

Thus, they take from Diodorus the allegation, that the Athenians sent to Thebes by public vote a large army, which fought along with the Thebans against the Kadmeia,—an allegation which, not only is not to be found in Xenophon, but which his narrative plainly, though indirectly, excludes.

Next, they take from Xenophon the allegation, that the Athenians tried and condemned the two generals who were accomplices in the conspiracy of Mellon against the Theban rulers,—τὼ δύω στρατηγὼ, οἳ συνηπιστάσθην τὴν τοῦ Μέλλωνος ἐπὶ τοὺς περὶ Λεοντιάδην ἐπανάστασιν (v, 4, 19). Now the mention of these two generals follows naturally and consistently in Xenophon. He had before told us that there were two out of the Athenian generals, who both assisted underhand in organizing the plot, and afterwards went with the volunteers to Thebes. But it cannot be fitted on to the narrative of Diodorus, who never says a word about this condemnation by the Athenians—nor even mentions any two Athenian generals, at all. He tells us that the Athenian army which went to Thebes was commanded by Demophon; he notices no colleague whatever. He says in general words, that the conspiracy was organized “with the assistance of the Athenians” (συνεπιλαβομένων Ἀθηναίων); not saying a word about any two generals as especially active.

Wachsmuth and Rehdantz take it for granted, most gratuitously, that these two condemned generals (mentioned by Xenophon and not by Diodorus) are identical with Demophon and another colleague, commanders of an army which went out by public vote (mentioned by Diodorus and not by Xenophon).

The narratives of Xenophon and Diodorus (as I have before observed) are distinct and inconsistent with each other. We have to make our option between them. I adhere to that of Xenophon, for reasons previously given. But if any one prefers that of Diodorus, he ought then to reject altogether the story of the condemnation of the two Athenian generals (who nowhere appear in Diodorus), and to suppose that Xenophon was misinformed upon that point, as upon the other facts of the case.

That the two Athenian generals (assuming the Xenophontic narrative as true) should be tried and punished, when the consequences of their unauthorized proceeding were threatening to come with severity upon Athens,—appears to me neither improbable nor unreasonable. Those who are shocked by the very severity of the sentence, will do well to read the remarks which the Lacedæmonian envoys make (Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 23) on the conduct of Sphodrias.

To turn from one severe sentence to another,—whoever believes the narrative of Diodorus in preference to that of Xenophon, ought to regard the execution of those two Lacedæmonian commanders who surrendered the Kadmeia as exceedingly cruel. According to Diodorus, these officers had done everything which brave men could do; they had resisted a long time, repelled many attacks, and were only prevented from farther holding out by a mutiny among their garrison.

Here again, we see the superiority of the narrative of Xenophon over that of Diodorus. According to the former, these Lacedæmonian commanders surrendered the Kadmeia without any resistance at all. Their condemnation, like that of the Athenian two generals, becomes a matter easy to understand and explain.

Even before the Lacedæmonian envoys had quitted Athens, however, an incident, alike sudden and memorable, completely altered the Athenian temper. The Lacedæmonian harmost Sphodrias (whom Kleombrotus had left at Thespiæ to prosecute the war against Thebes), being informed that Peiræus on its land side was without gates or night watch,—since there was no suspicion of attack,—conceived the idea of surprising it by a night-march from Thespiæ, and thus of mastering at one stroke the commerce, the wealth, and the naval resources of Athens. Putting his troops under march one evening after an early supper, he calculated on reaching the Peiræus the next morning before daylight. But his reckoning proved erroneous. Morning overtook him when he had advanced no farther than the Thriasian plain near Eleusis; from whence, as it was useless to proceed farther, he turned back and retreated to Thespiæ; not, however, without committing various acts of plunder against the neighboring Athenian residents.

This plan against Peiræus appears to have been not ill conceived. Had Sphodrias been a man competent to organize and execute movements as rapid as those of Brasidas, there is no reason why it might not have succeeded; in which case the whole face of the war would have been changed, since the Lacedæmonians, if once masters of Peiræus, both could and would have maintained the place. But it was one of those injustices, which no one ever commends until it has been successfully consummated,—“consilium quod non potest laudari nisi peractum.[206]” As it failed, it has been considered, by critics as well as by contemporaries, not merely as a crime but as a fault, and its author Sphodrias as a brave man, but singularly weak and hot-headed.[207] Without admitting the full extent of this censure, we may see that his present aggression grew out of an untoward emulation of the glory which Phœbidas, in spite of the simulated or transient displeasure of his countrymen, had acquired by seizing the Kadmeia. That Sphodrias received private instructions from Kleombrotus (as Diodorus states) is not sufficiently proved; while the suspicion, intimated by Xenophon as being abroad, that he was wrought upon by secret emissaries and bribes from his enemies the Thebans, for the purpose of plunging Athens into war with Sparta, is altogether improbable;[208] and seems merely an hypothesis suggested by the consequences of the act,—which were such, that if his enemies had bribed him, he could not have served them better.

[206] Tacit. Histor. i, 38.

Compare (in Plutarch, Anton. c. 32) the remark of Sextus Pompey to his captain Menas, when the latter asked his permission to cut the cables of the ship, while Octavius and Antony were dining on board, and to seize their persons,—“I cannot permit any such thing; but you ought to have done it without asking my permission.” A reply familiar to the readers of Shakspeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.

[207] Kallisthenes, Frag. 2, ed. Didot, apud Harpokration, v. Σφοδρίας; Diodor. xv, 29; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 14; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 24. The miscalculation of Sphodrias as to the time necessary for his march to Peiræus is not worse than other mistakes which Polybius (in a very instructive discourse, ix, 12, 20, seemingly extracted from his lost commentaries on Tactics) recounts as having been committed by various other able commanders.

[208] Πείθουσι τὸν ἐν ταῖς Θεσπιαῖς ἁρμοστὴν Σφοδρίαν, χρήματα δόντες, ὡς ὑπωπτεύετο—Xenoph. Hellen. v, 4, 20; Diodor. xv, 29; Plutarch, Pelopid. c. 14; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 24, 25.

Diodorus affirms private orders from Kleombrotus to Sphodrias.

In rejecting the suspicion mentioned by Xenophon,—that it was the Theban leaders who instigated and bribed Sphodrias,—we may remark—1. That the plan might very possibly have succeeded; and its success would have been ruinous to the Thebans. Had they been the instigators, they would not have failed to give notice of it at Athens at the same time; which they certainly did not do. 2. That if the Lacedæmonians had punished Sphodrias, no war would have ensued. Now every man would have predicted, that assuming the scheme to fail, they certainly would punish him. 3. The strong interest taken by Agesilaus afterwards in the fate of Sphodrias, and the high encomium which he passed on the general character of the latter,—are quite consistent with a belief on his part that Sphodrias (like Phœbidas) may have done wrong towards a foreign city from over-ambition in the service of his country. But if Agesilaus (who detested the Thebans beyond measure) had believed that Sphodrias was acting under the influence of bribes from them, he would not merely have been disposed to let justice take its course, but would have approved and promoted the condemnation.

On a previous occasion (Hellen. iii, 5, 3) Xenophon had imputed to the Thebans a similar refinement of stratagem; seemingly with just as little cause.

The presence of Sphodrias and his army in the Thriasian plain was communicated shortly after daybreak at Athens, where it excited no less terror than surprise. Every man instantly put himself under arms for defence; but news soon arrived that the invader had retired. When thus reassured, the Athenians passed from fear to indignation. The Lacedæmonian envoys, who were lodging at the house of Kallias the proxenus of Sparta, were immediately put under arrest and interrogated. But all three affirmed that they were not less astonished, and not less exasperated, by the march of Sphodrias, than the Athenians themselves; adding, by way of confirmation, that had they been really privy to any design of seizing the Peiræus, they would have taken care not to let themselves be found in the city, and in their ordinary lodging at the house of the proxenus, where of course their persons would be at once seized. They concluded by assuring the Athenians, that Sphodrias would not only be indignantly disavowed, but punished capitally, at Sparta. And their reply was deemed so satisfactory, that they were allowed to depart; while an Athenian embassy was sent to Sparta, to demand the punishment of the offending general.[209]

[209] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 22; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 24.

The Ephors immediately summoned Sphodrias home to Sparta, to take his trial on a capital charge. So much did he himself despair of his case, that he durst not make his appearance; while the general impression was, both at Sparta and elsewhere, that he would certainly be condemned. Nevertheless, though thus absent and undefended, he was acquitted, purely through private favor and esteem for his general character. He was of the party of Kleombrotus, so that all the friends of that prince espoused his cause, as a matter of course. But as he was of the party opposed to Agesilaus, his friends dreaded that the latter would declare against him, and bring about his condemnation. Nothing saved Sphodrias except the peculiar intimacy between his son Kleonymus and Archidamus son of Agesilaus. The mournful importunity of Archidamus induced Agesilaus, when this important cause was brought before the Senate of Sparta, to put aside his judicial conviction, and give his vote in the following manner: “To be sure, Sphodrias is guilty; upon that there cannot be two opinions. Nevertheless, we cannot put to death a man like him, who, as boy, youth, and man, has stood unblemished in all Spartan honor. Sparta cannot part with soldiers like Sphodrias.[210]” The friends of Agesilaus, following this opinion and coinciding with those of Kleombrotus, ensured a favorable verdict. And it is remarkable, that Etymoklês himself, who as envoy at Athens had announced as a certainty that Sphodrias would be put to death,—as senator and friend of Agesilaus voted for his acquittal.[211]

[210] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 32. Ἐκεῖνός γε (Ἀγησίλαος) πρὸς πάντας ὅσοις διείλεκται, ταῦτὰ λέγει· Μὴ ἀδικεῖν μὲν Σφοδρίαν ἀδύνατον εἶναι· ὅστις μέντοι, παῖς τε ὢν καὶ παιδίσκος καὶ ἡβῶν, πάντα τὰ καλὰ ποιῶν διετέλεσε, χαλεπὸν εἶναι τοιοῦτον ἄνδρα ἀποκτιννύναι· τὴν γὰρ Σπάρτην τοιούτων δεῖσθαι στρατιωτῶν.

Xenophon explains at some length (v, 4, 25-33) and in a very interesting manner, both the relations between Kleonymus and Archidamus, and the appeal of Archidamus to his father. The statement has all the air of being derived from personal knowledge, and nothing but the fear of prolixity hinders me from giving it in full.

Compare Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 25; Diodor. xv, 29.

[211] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 22-32.

This remarkable incident (which comes to us from a witness not merely philo-Laconian, but also personally intimate with Agesilaus) shows how powerfully the course of justice at Sparta was overruled by private sympathy and interests,—especially, those of the two kings. It especially illustrates what has been stated in a former chapter respecting the oppressions exercised by the Spartan harmosts and the dekadarchies, for which no redress was attainable at Sparta. Here was a case where not only the guilt of Sphodrias stood confessed, but in which also his acquittal was sure to be followed by a war with Athens. If, under such circumstances, the Athenian demand for redress was overruled by the favor of the two kings, what chance was there of any justice to the complaint of a dependent city, or an injured individual, against the harmost? The contrast between Spartan and Athenian proceeding is also instructive. Only a few days before, the Athenians condemned, at the instance of Sparta, their two generals who had without authority lent aid to the Theban exiles. In so doing, the Athenian dikastery enforced the law against clear official misconduct,—and that, too, in a case where their sympathies went along with the act, though their fear of a war with Sparta was stronger. But the most important circumstance to note is, that at Athens there is neither private influence, nor kingly influence, capable of overruling the sincere judicial conscience of a numerous and independent dikastery.

The result of the acquittal of Sphodrias must have been well known beforehand to all parties at Sparta. Even by the general voice of Greece, the sentence was denounced as iniquitous.[212] But the Athenians, who had so recently given strenuous effect to the remonstrances of Sparta against their own generals, were stung by it to the quick; and only the more stung, in consequence of the extraordinary compliments to Sphodrias on which the acquittal was made to turn. They immediately contracted hearty alliance with Thebes, and made vigorous preparations for war against Sparta both by land and sea. After completing the fortifications of Peiræus, so as to place it beyond the reach of any future attempt, they applied themselves to the building of new ships of war, and to the extension of their naval ascendency, at the expense of Sparta.[213]

[212] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 24.

[213] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 34-63.

From this moment, a new combination began in Grecian politics. The Athenians thought the moment favorable to attempt the construction of a new confederacy, analogous to the Confederacy of Delos, formed a century before; the basis on which had been reared the formidable Athenian empire, lost at the close of the Peloponnesian war. Towards such construction there was so far a tendency, that Athens had already a small body of maritime allies; while rhetors like Isokrates (in his Panegyrical Discourse, published two years before) had been familiarizing the public mind with larger ideas. But the enterprise was now pressed with the determination and vehemence of men smarting under recent insult. The Athenians had good ground to build upon; since, while the discontent against the ascendency of Sparta was widely spread, the late revolution in Thebes had done much to lessen that sentiment of fear upon which such ascendency chiefly rested. To Thebes, the junction with Athens was preëminently welcome, and her leaders gladly enrolled their city as a constituent member of the new confederacy.[214] They cheerfully acknowledged the presidency of Athens,—reserving, however, tacitly or expressly, their own rights as presidents of the Bœotian federation, as soon as that could be reconstituted; which reconstitution was at this moment desirable even for Athens, seeing that the Bœotian towns were now dependent allies of Sparta under harmosts and oligarchies.

[214] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 34; Xen. de Vectigal. v, 7; Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 20, 23, 37; Diodor. xv, 29.

The Athenians next sent envoys round to the principal islands and maritime cities in the Ægean, inviting all of them to an alliance on equal and honorable terms. The principles were in the main the same as those upon which the confederacy of Delos had been formed against the Persians, almost a century before. It was proposed that a congress of deputies should meet at Athens, one from each city, small as well as great, each with one vote; that Athens should be president, yet each individual city autonomous; that a common fund should be raised, with a common naval force, through assessment imposed by this congress upon each, and applied as the same authority might prescribe; the general purpose being defined to be, maintenance of freedom and security from foreign aggression, to each confederate, by the common force of all. Care was taken to banish as much as possible those associations of tribute and subjection which rendered the recollection of the former Athenian empire unpopular.[215] And as there were many Athenian citizens, who, during those times of supremacy, had been planted out as kleruchs or out-settlers in various dependencies, but had been deprived of their properties at the close of the war,—it was thought necessary to pass a formal decree,[216] renouncing and barring all revival of these suspended rights. It was farther decreed that henceforward no Athenian should on any pretence hold property, either in house or land, in the territory of any one of the confederates; neither by purchase, nor as security for money lent, nor by any other mode of acquisition. Any Athenian infringing this law, was rendered liable to be informed against before the synod; who, on proof of the fact, were to deprive him of the property,—half of it going to the informer, half to the general purposes of the confederacy.

[215] The contribution was now called σύνταξις, not φόρος; see Isokrates, De Pace, s. 37-46; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7; Harpokration, v. Σύνταξις.

Plutarch, De Fortunâ Athen. p. 351. ἰσόψηφον αὐτοῖς τὴν Ἑλλάδα κατέστησαν.

[216] Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 47. Καὶ ~τῶν μὲν κτημάτων τῶν ὑμετέρων αὐτῶν ἀπέστητε~, βουλόμενοι τὴν συμμαχίαν ὡς μεγίστην ποιῆσαι, etc.

Diodor. xv, 28, 29. Ἐψηφίσαντο δὲ καὶ ~τὰς γενομένας κληρουχίας ἀποκαταστῆσαι τοῖς πρότερον κυρίοις γεγονόσι~, καὶ νόμον ἔθεντο μηδένα τῶν Ἀθηναίων γεωργεῖν ἐκτὸς τῆς Ἀττικῆς. Διὰ δὲ ταύτης τῆς φιλανθρωπίας ἀνακτησάμενοι τὴν παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν εὔνοιαν, ἰσχυροτέραν ἐποιήσαντο τὴν ἰδίαν ἡγεμονίαν.

Isokrates and Diodorus speak loosely of this vote, in language which might make us imagine that it was one of distinct restitution, giving back property actually enjoyed. But the Athenians had never actually regained the outlying private property lost at the close of the war, though they had much desired it, and had cherished hopes that a favorable turn of circumstances might enable them to effect the recovery. As the recovery, if effected, would be at the cost of those whom they were now soliciting as allies, the public and formal renunciation of such rights was a measure of much policy, and contributed greatly to appease uneasiness in the islands; though in point of fact nothing was given up except rights to property not really enjoyed.

An Inscription has recently been discovered at Athens, recording the original Athenian decree, of which the main provisions are mentioned in my text. It bears date in the archonship of Nausinikus. It stands, with the restorations of M. Boeckh (fortunately a portion of it has been found in tolerably good preservation), in the Appendix to the new edition of his work,—“Über die Staats-haushaltung der Athener—Verbesserungen und Nachträge zu den drei Banden der Staats-haushaltung der Athener,” p. xx.

Ἀπὸ δὲ Ναυσινίκου ἄρχοντος μὴ ἐξεῖναι μήτε ἰδίᾳ μήτε δημοσίᾳ Ἀθηναίων μηδενὶ ἐγκτήσασθαι ἐν ταῖς τῶν συμμάχων χώραις μήτε οἰκίαν μήτε χώριον, μήτε πριαμένῳ, μήτε ὑποθεμένῳ, μήτε ἄλλῳ τρόπῳ μηδενί. Ἐὰν δέ τις ὠνῆται ἢ κτᾶται ἢ τίθηται τρόπῳ ὁτῳοῦν, ἐξεῖναι τῷ βουλομένῳ τῶν συμμάχων φῆναι πρὸς τοὺς συνέδρους τῶν συμμάχων. Οἱ δὲ σύνεδροι ἀπο- -μενοι ἀποδόντων [τὸ μὲν ἥ]μισυ τῷ φῄναντι, τὸ δὲ ἄ[λλο κοιν]ὸν ἔστω τῶν συνμμάχων. Ἐὰν δέ τις [ἴῃ] ἐπὶ πολέμῳ ἐπὶ τοὺς ποιησαμένους τὴν συμμαχίαν, ἢ κατὰ γῆν ἢ κατὰ θάλασσαν, βοηθεῖν Ἀθηναίους καὶ τοὺς συμμάχους τούτοις καὶ κατὰ γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλασσαν παντὶ σθένει κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν. Ἐὰν δέ τις εἴπῃ ἢ ἐπιψηφίσῃ, ἢ ἄρχων ἢ ἰδιώτης, παρὰ τόδε τὸ ψήφισμα, ὡς λύειν τι δεῖ τῶν ἐν τῷδε τῷ ψηφίσματι εἰρημένων, ὑπαρχέτω μὲν αὐτῷ ἀτίμῳ εἶναι, καὶ τὰ χρήματα αὐτοῦ δημόσια ἔστω καὶ τῆς θεοῦ τὸ ἐπιδέκατον· καὶ κρινέσθω ἐν Ἀθηναίοις καὶ τοῖς συμμάχοις ὡς διαλύων τὴν συμμαχίαν. Ζημιούντων δὲ αὐτὸν θανάτῳ ἢ φυγῇ ὅπου Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ οἱ σύμμαχοι κρατοῦσι. Ἐὰν δὲ θανάτῳ τιμήθῃ, μὴ ταφήτω ἐν τῇ Ἀττικῇ μηδὲ ἐν τῇ τῶν συμμάχων.

Then follows a direction, that the Secretary of the Senate of Five Hundred shall inscribe the decree on a column of stone, and place it by the side of the statue of Zeus Eleutherius; with orders to the Treasurers of the goddess to disburse sixty drachmas for the cost of so doing.

It appears that there is annexed to this Inscription a list of such cities as had already joined the confederacy, together with certain other names added afterwards, of cities which joined subsequently. The Inscription itself directs such list to be recorded,—εἰς δὲ τὴν στήλην ταύτην ἀναγράφειν τῶν τε οὐσῶν πόλεων συμμαχίδων τὰ ὀνόματα, καὶ ἥτις ἂν ἄλλη σύμμαχος γίγνηται.

Unfortunately M. Boeckh has not annexed this list, which, moreover, he states to have been preserved only in a very partial and fragmentary condition. He notices only, as contained in it, the towns of Poiessa and Korêsus in the island of Keos,—and Antissa and Eresus in Lesbos; all four as autonomous communities.

Such were the liberal principles of confederacy now proposed by Athens,—who, as a candidate for power, was straightforward and just, like the Herodotean Deiokês,[217]—and formally ratified, as well by the Athenians as by the general voice of the confederate deputies assembled within their walls. The formal decree and compact of alliance was inscribed on a stone column and placed by the side of the statue of Zeus Eleutherius or the Liberator; a symbol, of enfranchisement from Sparta accomplished, as well as of freedom to be maintained against Persia and other enemies.[218] Periodical meetings of the confederate deputies were provided to be held (how often, we do not know) at Athens, and the synod was recognized as competent judge of all persons, even Athenian citizens, charged with treason against the confederacy. To give fuller security to the confederates generally, it was provided in the original compact, that if any Athenian citizen should either speak, or put any question to the vote, in the Athenian assembly, contrary to the tenor of that document,—he should be tried before the synod for treason; and that, if found guilty, he might be condemned by them to the severest punishment.

[217] Herodot. i, 96. Ὁ δὲ, οἷα δὴ μνεώμενος ἀρχὴν, ἰθύς τε καὶ δίκαιος ἦν.

[218] This is the sentiment connected with Ζεὺς Ἐλευθέριος,—Pausanias the victor of Platæa, offers to Zeus Eleutherius a solemn sacrifice and thanksgiving immediately after the battle, in the agora of the town (Thucyd. ii, 71). So the Syracusans immediately after the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty (Diodor. xi, 72)—and Mæandrius at Samos (Herodot. iii, 142).

Three Athenian leaders stood prominent as commissioners in the first organization of the confederacy, and in the dealings with those numerous cities whose junction was to be won by amicable inducement,—Chabrias, Timotheus son of Konon, and Kallistratus.[219]

[219] Diodor. xv, 29.

The first of the three is already known to the reader. He and Iphikrates were the most distinguished warriors whom Athens numbered among her citizens. But not having been engaged in any war, since the peace of Antalkidas in 387 B.C., she had had no need of their services; hence both of them had been absent from the city during much of the last nine years, and Iphikrates seems still to have been absent. At the time when that peace was concluded, Iphikrates was serving in the Hellespont and Thrace, Chabrias with Evagoras in Cyprus; each having been sent thither by Athens at the head of a body of mercenary peltasts. Instead of dismissing their troops, and returning to Athens as peaceful citizens, it was not less agreeable to the military tastes of these generals, than conducive to their importance and their profit, to keep together their bands, and to take foreign service. Accordingly, Chabrias had continued in service first in Cyprus, next with the native Egyptian king Akoris. The Persians, against whom he served, found his hostility so inconvenient, that Pharnabazus demanded of the Athenians to recall him, on pain of the Great King’s displeasure; and requested at the same time that Iphikrates might be sent to aid the Persian satraps in organizing a great expedition against Egypt. The Athenians, to whom the goodwill of Persia was now of peculiar importance, complied on both points; recalled Chabrias, who thus became disposable for the Athenian service,[220] and despatched Iphikrates to take command along with the Persians.

[220] Diodor. xv, 29.

Iphikrates, since the peace of Antalkidas, had employed his peltasts in the service of the kings of Thrace: first of Seuthes, near the shores of the Propontis, whom he aided in the recovery of certain lost dominions,—next of Kotys, whose favor he acquired, and whose daughter he presently married.[221] Not only did he enjoy great scope for warlike operations and plunder, among the “butter-eating Thracians,”[222]—but he also acquired, as dowry, a large stock of such produce as Thracian princes had at their disposal, together with a boon even more important,—a seaport village not far from the mouth of the Hebrus, called Drys, where he established a fortified post, and got together a Grecian colony dependent on himself.[223] Miltiades, Alkibiades, and other eminent Athenians had done the same thing before him; though Xenophon had refused a similar proposition when made to him by the earlier Seuthes.[224] Iphikrates thus became a great man in Thrace, yet by no means abandoning his connection with Athens, but making his position in each subservient to his importance in the other. While he was in a situation to favor the projects of Athenian citizens for mercantile and territorial acquisitions in the Chersonese and other parts of Thrace,—he could also lend the aid of Athenian naval and military art, not merely to princes in Thrace, but to others even beyond those limits,—since we learn that Amyntas king of Macedonia became so attached or indebted to him as to adopt him for his son.[225] When sent by the Athenians to Persia, at the request of Pharnabazus (about 378 B.C. apparently), Iphikrates had fair ground for anticipating that a career yet more lucrative was opening before him.[226]

[221] Cornel. Nepos, Iphicrates, c. 2; Chabrias, c. 2, 3.

[222] See an interesting Fragment (preserved by Athenæus, iv, p. 131) of the comedy called Protesilaus—by the Athenian poet Anaxandrides (Meineke, Comic. Græc. Frag. iii, p. 182). It contains a curious description of the wedding of Iphikrates with the daughter of Kotys in Thrace; enlivened by an abundant banquet and copious draughts of wine given to crowds of Thracians in the market-place:—

δειπνεῖν δ’ ~ἄνδρας βουτυροφάγας~ αὐχμηροκόμας μυριοπληθεῖς, etc.,

brazen vessels as large as wine vats, full of broth,—Kotys himself girt round, and serving the broth in a golden basin, then going about to taste all the bowls of wine and water ready mixed, until he was himself the first man intoxicated. Iphikrates brought from Athens several of the best players on the harp and flute.

The distinction between the butter eaten, or rubbed on the skin, by the Thracians, and the olive-oil habitually consumed in Greece, deserves notice. The word αὐχμηροκόμας seems to indicate the absence of those scented unguents which, at the banquet of Greeks, would have been applied to the hair of the guests, giving to it a shining gloss and moisture. It appears that the Lacedæmonian women, however, sometimes anointed themselves with butter, and not with oil; see Plutarch, adv. Koloten, p. 1109 B.

The number of warlike stratagems in Thrace, ascribed to Iphikrates by Polyænus and other Tactic writers, indicates that his exploits there were renowned as well as long-continued.

[223] Theopomp. Fragm. 175, ed. Didot; Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 664.

[224] Xenoph. Anab. vii, 2, 38; vii, 5, 8; vii, 6, 43. Xen. Hellen. i, 5, 17; Plutarch, Alkibiad. c. 36.

See also a striking passage (in Lysias Orat. xxviii, cont. Ergokl. s. 5) about the advice given to Thrasybulus by a discontented fellow-citizen, to seize Byzantium, marry the daughter of Seuthes, and defy Athens.

[225] Æschines, Fals. Leg. c. 13. p. 249.

At what time this adoption took place, we cannot distinctly make out; Amyntas died in 370 B.C., while from 378-371 B.C., Iphikrates seems to have been partly on service with the Persian satraps, partly in command of the Athenian fleet in the Ionian Sea (see Rehdantz, Vitæ Iphicratis, etc. ch. 4). Therefore, the adoption took place at some time between 387-378 B.C.; perhaps after the restoration of Amyntas to his maritime dominions by the Lacedæmonian expedition against Olynthus—382-380 B.C. Amyntas was so weak and insecure, from the Thessalians, and other land-neighbors (see Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 657. s. 112), that it was much to his advantage to cultivate the favor of a warlike Athenian established on the Thracian coast, like Iphikrates.

[226] From these absences of men like Iphikrates and Chabrias, a conclusion has been drawn severely condemning the Athenian people. They were so envious and ill-tempered (it has been said), that none of their generals could live with comfort at Athens; all lived abroad as they could. Cornelius Nepos (Chabrias, c. 3) makes the remark, borrowed originally from Theopompus (Fr. 117, ed. Didot), and transcribed by many modern commentators as if it were exact and literal truth—“Hoc Chabrias nuntio (i. e. on being recalled from Egypt, in consequence of the remonstrance of Pharnabazus) Athenas rediit neque ibi diutius est moratus quam fuit necesse. Non enim libenter erat ante oculos civium suorum, quod et vivebat laute, et indulgebat sibi liberalius, quam ut invidiam vulgi posset effugere. Est enim hoc commune vitium in magnis liberisque civitatibus, ut invidia gloriæ comes sit, et libenter de his detrahant, quos eminere videant altius; neque animo æquo pauperes alienam opulentium intuentur fortunam. Itaque Chabrias, quoad ei licebat, plurimum aberat. Neque vero solus ille aberat Athenis libenter, sed omnes fere principes fecerunt idem, quod tantum se ab invidiâ putabant abfuturos, quantum a conspectu suorum recessissent. Itaque Conon plurimum Cypri vixit, Iphicrates in Thraciâ, Timotheus Lesbi, Chares in Sigeo.”

That the people of Athens, among other human frailties, had their fair share of envy and jealousy, is not to be denied; but that these attributes belonged to them in a marked or peculiar manner, cannot (in my judgment) be shown by any evidence extant,—and most assuredly is not shown by the evidence here alluded to.

“Chabrias was fond of a life of enjoyment and luxurious indulgence.” If instead of being an Athenian, he had been a Spartan, he would undoubtedly have been compelled to expatriate in order to gratify this taste; for it was the express drift and purpose of the Spartan discipline, not to equalize property, but to equalize the habits, enjoyments, and personal toils, of the rich and poor. This is a point which the admirers of Lykurgus,—Xenophon and Plutarch,—attest not less clearly than Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, and others. If then it were considered a proof of envy and ill-temper, to debar rich men from spending their money in procuring enjoyments, we might fairly consider the reproach as made out against Lykurgus and Sparta. Not so against Athens. There was no city in Greece where the means of luxurious and comfortable living were more abundantly exhibited for sale, nor where a rich man was more perfectly at liberty to purchase them. Of this the proofs are everywhere to be found. Even the son of this very Chabrias, Ktesippus, who inherited the appetite for enjoyment, without the greater qualities of his father,—found the means of gratifying his appetite so unfortunately easy at Athens, that he wasted his whole substance in such expenses (Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7; Athenæus, iv, p. 165). And Chares was even better liked at Athens in consequence of his love of enjoyment and license,—if we are to believe another Fragment (238) of the same Theopompus.

The allegation of Theopompus and Nepos, therefore, is neither true as matter of fact, nor sufficient, if it had been true, to sustain the hypothesis of a malignant Athenian public, with which they connect it. Iphikrates and Chabrias did not stay away from Athens because they loved enjoyments or feared the envy of their countrymen; but because both of them were large gainers by doing so, in importance, in profit, and in tastes. Both of them were men πολεμικοὶ καὶ φιλοπόλεμοι ἐσχάτως (to use an expression of Xenophon respecting the Lacedæmonian Klearchus—Anab. ii, 6, 1); both of them loved war and had great abilities for war,—qualities quite compatible with strong appetite for enjoyment; while neither of them had either taste or talent for the civil routine and debate of Athens when at peace. Besides, each of them was commander of a body of peltasts, through whose means he could obtain lucrative service as well as foreign distinction; so that we can assign a sufficient reason why both of them preferred to be absent from Athens during most part of the nine years that the peace of Antalkidas continued. Afterwards, Iphikrates was abroad three or four years, in service with the Persian satraps, by order of the Athenians; Chabrias also went a long time afterwards, again on foreign service, to Egypt, at the same time when the Spartan king Agesilaus was there (yet without staying long away, since we find him going out on command from Athens to the Chersonese in 359-358 B.C.—Demosth. cont. Aristokr. p. 677, s. 204); but neither he nor Agesilaus, went there to escape the mischief of envious countrymen. Demosthenes does not talk of Iphikrates as being uncomfortable in Athens, or anxious to get out of it; see Orat. cont. Meidiam, p. 535, s. 83.

Again, as to the case of Konon and his residence in Cyprus; it is truly surprising to see this fact cited as an illustration of Athenian jealousy or ill-temper. Konon went to Cyprus immediately after the disaster of Ægospotami, and remained there, or remained away from Athens, for eleven years (405-393 B.C.) until the year after his victory at Knidus. It will be recollected that he was one of the six Athenian generals who commanded the fleet at Ægospotami. That disaster, while it brought irretrievable ruin upon Athens, was at the same time such as to brand with well-merited infamy the generals commanding. Konon was so far less guilty than his colleagues, as he was in a condition to escape with eight ships when the rest were captured. But he could not expect, and plainly did not expect, to be able to show his face again in Athens, unless he could redeem the disgrace by some signal fresh service. He nobly paid this debt to his country, by the victory of Knidus in 394 B.C.; and then came back the year afterwards, to a grateful and honorable welcome at Athens. About a year or more after this, he went out again as envoy to Persia in the service of his country. He was there seized and imprisoned by the satrap Tiribazus, but contrived to make his escape, and died at Cyprus, as it would appear, about 390 B.C. Nothing therefore can be more unfounded than the allegation of Theopompus, “that Konon lived abroad at Cyprus, because he was afraid of undeserved ill-temper from the public at Athens.” For what time Timotheus may have lived at Lesbos, we have no means of saying. But from the year 370 B.C. down to his death, we hear of him so frequently elsewhere, in the service of his country, that his residence cannot have been long.

Iphikrates being thus abroad, the Athenians joined with Chabrias, in the mission and measures for organizing their new confederacy, two other colleagues, of whom we now hear for the first time—Timotheus son of Konon, and Kallistratus the most celebrated orator of his time.[227] The abilities of Kallistratus were not military at all; while Timotheus and Chabrias were men of distinguished military merit. But in acquiring new allies and attracting deputies to her proposed congress, Athens stood in need of persuasive appeal, conciliatory dealing, and substantial fairness in all her propositions, not less than of generalship. We are told that Timotheus, doubtless as son of the liberator Konon, from the recollections of the battle of Knidus—was especially successful in procuring new adhesions; and probably Kallistratus,[228] going round with him to the different islands, contributed by his eloquence not a little to the same result. On their invitation, many cities entered as confederates.[229] At this time (as in the earlier confederacy of Delos) all who joined must have been unconstrained members. And we may understand the motives of their junction, when we read the picture drawn by Isokrates (in 380 B.C.) of the tyranny of the Persians on the Asiatic mainland, threatening, to absorb the neighboring islands. Not only was there now a new basis of imposing force, presented by Athens and Thebes in union—but there was also a wide-spread hatred of imperial Sparta, aggravated since her perversion of the pretended boon of autonomy, promised by the peace of Antalkidas; and the conjunction of these sentiments caused the Athenian mission of invitation to be extremely successful. All the cities in Eubœa (except Histiæa, at the north of the island)—as well as Chios, Mitylênê, Byzantium, and Rhodes—the three former of whom had continued favorably inclined to Athens ever since the peace of Antalkidas,[230]—all entered into the confederacy. An Athenian fleet under Chabrias, sailing among the Cyclades and the other islands of the Ægean, aided in the expulsion of the Lacedæmonian harmosts,[231] together with their devoted local oligarchies, wherever they still subsisted; and all the cities thus liberated became equal members of the newly-constituted congress at Athens. After a certain interval, there came to be not less than seventy cities, many of them separately powerful, which sent deputies to it;[232] an aggregate sufficient to intimidate Sparta, and even to flatter Athens with the hope of restoration to something like her former lustre.

[227] Æschines, Fals. Leg. c. 40, p. 283.

[228] The employment of the new word συντάξεις, instead of the unpopular term φόρους, is expressly ascribed to Kallistratus,—Harpokration in Voce.

[229] Isokrates gives the number twenty-four cities (Or. xv, Permut. s. 120). So also Deinarchus cont. Demosthen. s. 15; cont. Philokl. s. 17. The statement of Æschines, that Timotheus brought seventy-five cities into the confederacy, appears large, and must probably include all that that general either acquired or captured (Æsch. Fals. Leg. c. 24, p. 263). Though I think the number twenty-four probable enough, yet it is difficult to identify what towns they were. For Isokrates, so far as he particularizes, includes Samos, Sestos, and Krithôtê, which were not acquired until many years afterwards,—in 366-365 B.C.

Neither of these orators distinguish between those cities which Timotheus brought or persuaded to come into the confederacy, when it was first formed (among which we may reckon Eubœa, or most part of it—Plutarch, De Glor. Athen. p. 351 A.)—from those others which he afterwards took by siege, like Samos.

[230] Isokrates, Or. xiv, Plataic. s. 30.

[231] Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plat.) s. 20. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ ὑφ’ ὑμῶν κατὰ κράτος ἁλόντες εὐθὺς μὲν ἁρμοστοῦ καὶ δουλείας ἀπηλλάγησαν, νῦν δὲ τοῦ συνεδρίου καὶ τῆς ἐλευθερίας μετέχουσιν, etc.

The adverb of time here used indicates about 372 B.C., about a year before the battle of Leuktra.

[232] Diodor. xv, 30.

The first votes both of Athens herself, and of the newly-assembled congress, threatened war upon the largest scale. A resolution was passed to equip twenty thousand hoplites, five hundred horsemen, and two hundred triremes.[233] Probably the insular and Ionic deputies promised each a certain contribution of money, but nothing beyond. We do not, however, know how much,—nor how far the engagements, large or small, were realized,—nor whether Athens was authorized to enforce execution against defaulters,—or was in circumstances to act upon such authority, if granted to her by the congress. It was in this way (as the reader will recollect from my fifth volume) that Athens had first rendered herself unpopular in the confederacy of Delos,—by enforcing the resolutions of the confederate synod against evasive or seceding members. It was in this way that what was at first a voluntary association had ultimately slid into an empire by constraint. Under the new circumstances of 378 B.C., we may presume that the confederates, though ardent and full of promises on first assembling at Athens, were even at the outset not exact, and became afterwards still less exact, in performance; yet that Athens was forced to be reserved in claiming, or in exercising, the right of enforcement. To obtain a vote of contribution by the majority of deputies present, was only the first step in the process; to obtain punctual payment, when the Athenian fleet was sent round for the purpose of collecting,—yet without incurring dangerous unpopularity,—was the second step, but by far the most doubtful and difficult.

[233] Diodor. xv, 29.

Polybius (ii, 62) states that the Athenians sent out (not merely, voted to send out) ten thousand hoplites, and manned one hundred triremes.

Both these authors treat the resolution as if it were taken by the Athenians alone; but we must regard it in conjunction with the newly-assembled synod of allies.

It must, however, be borne in mind that at this moment, when the confederacy was first formed, both Athens and the other cities came together from a spontaneous impulse of hearty mutuality and coöperation. A few years afterwards, we shall find this changed; Athens selfish, and the confederates reluctant.[234] Inflamed, as well by their position of renovated headship, as by fresh animosity against Sparta, the Athenians made important efforts of their own, both financial and military. Equipping a fleet, which for the time was superior in the Ægean, they ravaged the hostile territory of Histiæa in Eubœa, and annexed to their confederacy the islands of Peparêthus and Skiathus. They imposed upon themselves also a direct property-tax; to what amount, however, we do not know.

[234] Xen. De Vectigal. v, 6. οὔκουν καὶ τότ’, ἐπεὶ τοῦ ἀδικεῖν ἀπεσχόμεθα, πάλιν ~ὑπὸ τῶν νησιωτῶν ἑκόντων προστάται~ τοῦ ναυτικοῦ ἐγενόμεθα;

In the early years of this confederacy, votive offerings of wreaths or crowns, in token of gratitude to Athens, were decreed by the Eubœans, as well as by the general body of allies. These crowns were still to be seen thirty years afterwards at Athens, with commemorative inscriptions (Demosthen. cont. Androtion. c. 21, p. 616; cont. Timokrat. c. 41, p. 756).

It was on the occasion of this tax that they introduced a great change in the financial arrangements and constitution of the city; a change conferring note upon the archonship of Nausinikus, (B.C. 378-377). The great body of substantial Athenian citizens as well as metics were now classified anew for purposes of taxation. It will be remembered that even from the time of Solon[235] the citizens of Athens had been distributed into four classes,—Pentakosiomedimni, Hippeis, Zeugitæ, Thêtes,—distinguished from each other by the amount of their respective properties. Of these Solonian classes, the fourth, or poorest, paid no direct taxes; while the three former were taxed according to assessments representing a certain proportion of their actual property. The taxable property of the richest (or Pentakosiomedimni, including all at or above the minimum income of five hundred medimni of corn per annum) was entered in the tax-book at a sum equal to twelve times their income; that of the Hippeis (comprising all who possessed between three hundred and five hundred medimni of annual income) at ten times their income; that of the Zeugitæ (or possessors of an annual income between two hundred and three hundred medimni) at five times their income. A medimnus of corn was counted as equivalent to a drachma; which permitted the application of this same class-system to movable property as well as to land. So that, when an actual property-tax (or eisphora) was imposed, it operated as an equal or proportional tax, so far as regarded all the members of the same class; but as a graduated or progressive tax, upon all the members of the richer class as compared with those of the poorer.

[235] For the description of the Solonian census, see Vol. III, Ch. xi, p. 117, of this History.

The three Solonian property-classes above named appear to have lasted, though probably not without modifications, down to the close of the Peloponnesian war; and to have been in great part preserved, after the renovation of the democracy in B.C. 403, during the archonship of Eukleides.[236] Though eligibility to the great offices of state had before that time ceased to be dependent on pecuniary qualification, it was still necessary to possess some means of distinguishing the wealthier citizens, not merely in case of direct taxation being imposed, but also because the liability to serve in liturgies or burdensome offices was consequent on a man’s enrolment as possessor of more than a given minimum of property. It seems, therefore, that the Solonian census, in its main principles of classification and graduation, was retained. Each man’s property being valued, he was ranged in one of three or more classes according to its amount. For each of the classes, a fixed proportion of taxable capital to each man’s property was assumed, and each was entered in the schedule, not for his whole property, but for the sum of taxable capital corresponding to his property, according to the proportion assumed. In the first or richest class, the taxable capital bore a greater ratio to the actual property than in the less rich; in the second, a greater ratio than in the third. The sum of all these items of taxable capital, in all the different classes, set opposite to each man’s name in the schedule, constituted the aggregate census of Attica; upon which all direct property-tax was imposed, in equal proportion upon every man.

[236] This is M. Boeckh’s opinion, seemingly correct, as far as can be made out on a subject very imperfectly known (Public Economy of Athens, B, iv, ch. 5).

Respecting the previous modifications in the register of taxable property, or the particulars of its distribution into classes, which had been introduced in 403 B.C. at the archonship of Eukleides, we have no information. Nor can we make out how large or how numerous were the assessments of direct property-tax, imposed at Athens between that archonship and the archonship of Nausinikus in 378 B.C. But at this latter epoch the register was again considerably modified, at the moment when Athens was bracing herself up for increased exertions. A new valuation was made of the property of every man possessing property to the amount of twenty-five minæ (or twenty-five hundred drachmæ) and upwards. Proceeding upon this valuation, every one was entered in the schedule for a sum of taxable capital equal to a given fraction of what he possessed. But this fraction was different in each of the different classes. How many classes there were, we do not certainly know; nor can we tell, except in reference to the lowest class taxed, what sum was taken as the minimum for any one of them. There could hardly have been less, however, than three classes, and there may probably have been four. But respecting the first or richest class, we know that each man was entered in the schedule for a taxable capital equal to one-fifth of his estimated property; and that possessors of fifteen talents were included in it. The father of Demosthenes died in this year, and the boy Demosthenes was returned by his guardians to the first class, as possessor of fifteen talents; upon which his name was entered on the schedule with a taxable capital of three talents set against him; being one-fifth of his actual property. The taxable capital of the second class was entered at a fraction less than one-fifth of their actual property (probably enough, one-sixth, the same as all the registered metics); that of the third, at a fraction still smaller; of the fourth (if there was a fourth), even smaller than the third. This last class descended down to the minimum of twenty-five minæ, or twenty-five hundred drachmæ; below which no account was taken.[237]

[237] Demosthen. cont. Aphob. i, p. 815, 816; cont. Aphob. ii, p. 836; cont. Aphob. de Perjur. p. 862. Compare Boeckh, Publ. Econ. Ath. iv, 7.

In the exposition which M. Boeckh gives of the new property-schedule introduced under the archonship of Nausinikus, he inclines to the hypothesis of four distinct Classes, thus distributed (p. 671 of the new edition of his Staats-haushaltung der Athener):—

1. The first class included all persons who possessed property to the value of twelve talents and upwards. They were entered on the schedule, each for one-fifth, or twenty per cent. of his property.

2. The second class comprised all who possessed property to the amount of six talents, but below twelve talents. Each was enrolled in the schedule, for the amount of sixteen per cent. upon his property.

3. The third class included all whose possessions amounted to the value of two talents, but did not reach six talents. Each was entered in the schedule at the figure of twelve per cent. upon his property.

4. The fourth class comprised all, from the minimum of twenty-five minæ, but below the maximum of two talents. Each was entered in the schedule for the amount of eight per cent. upon his property.

This detail rests upon no positive proof; but it serves to illustrate the principle of distribution, and of graduation, then adopted.

Besides the taxable capitals of the citizens, thus graduated, the schedule also included those of the metics or resident aliens; who were each enrolled (without any difference of greater or smaller property, above twenty-five minæ) at a taxable capital equal to one-sixth of his actual property;[238] being a proportion less than the richest class of citizens, and probably equal to the second class in order of wealth. All these items summed up amounted to five thousand seven hundred and fifty or six thousand talents,[239] forming the aggregate schedule of taxable property; that is, something near about six thousand talents. A property-tax was no part of the regular ways and means of the state. It was imposed only on special occasions; and whenever it was imposed, it was assessed upon this schedule,—every man, rich or poor, being rated equally according to his taxable capital as there entered. A property-tax of one per cent. would thus produce sixty talents; two per cent., one hundred and twenty talents, etc. It is highly probable that the exertions of Athens during the archonship of Nausinikus, when this new schedule was first prepared, may have caused a property-tax to be then imposed, but we do not know to what amount.[240]

[238] Demosthen. cont. Androtion. p. 612, c. 17. τὸ ἑκτὸν μέρος εἰσφέρειν μετὰ τῶν μετοίκων.

[239] Polybius states the former sum (ii, 62), Demosthenes the latter (De Symmoriis, p. 183, c. 6). Boeckh however has shown, that Polybius did not correctly conceive what the sum which he stated really meant.

[240] I am obliged again, upon this point, to dissent from M. Boeckh, who sets it down as positive matter of fact that a property-tax of five per cent., amounting to three hundred talents, was imposed and levied in the archonship of Nausinikus (Publ. Econ. Ath. iv, 7, 8; p. 517-521, Eng. Transl.). The evidence upon which this is asserted, is, a passage of Demosthenes cont. Androtion. (p. 606. c. 14). Ὑμῖν ~παρὰ τὰς εἰσφορὰς τὰς ἀπὸ Ναυσινίκου~, παρ’ ἴσως τάλαντα τριακόσια ἢ μικρῷ πλείω, ἔλλειμμα τέτταρα καὶ δέκα ἐστὶ τάλαντα· ὧν ἑπτὰ οὗτος (Androtion) εἰσέπραξεν. Now these words imply,—not that a property-tax of about three hundred talents had been levied or called for during the archonship of Nausinikus, but—that a total sum of three hundred talents, or thereabouts, had been levied (or called for) by all the various property-taxes imposed from the archonship of Nausinikus down to the date of the speech. The oration was spoken about 355 B.C.; the archonship of Nausinikus was in 378 B.C. What the speaker affirms, therefore, is, that a sum of three hundred talents had been levied or called for by all the various property-taxes imposed between these two dates; and that the aggregate sum of arrears due upon all of them, at the time when Androtion entered upon his office, was fourteen talents.

Taylor, indeed, in his note, thinking that the sum of three hundred talents is very small, as the aggregate of all property-taxes imposed for twenty-three years, suggests that it might be proper to read ~ἐπὶ~ Ναυσινίκου instead of ~ἀπὸ~ Ναυσινίκου; and I presume that M. Boeckh adopts that reading. But it would be unsafe to found an historical assertion upon such a change of text, even if the existing text were more indefensible than it actually is. And surely the plural number τὰς εἰσφορὰς proves that the orator has in view, not the single property-tax imposed in the archonship of Nausinikus, but two or more property-taxes, imposed at different times. Besides, Androtion devoted himself to the collection of outstanding arrears generally, in whatever year they might have accrued. He would have no motive to single out those which had accrued in the year 378 B.C.; moreover, those arrears would probably have become confounded with others, long before 355 B.C. Demosthenes selects the year of Nausinikus as his initial period, because it was then that the new schedule and a new reckoning, began.

Along with this new schedule of taxable capital, a new distribution of the citizens now took place into certain bodies called Symmories. As far as we can make out, on a very obscure subject, it seems that these Symmories were twenty in number, two to each tribe; that each contained sixty citizens, thus making one thousand two hundred in all; that these one thousand two hundred were the wealthiest citizens of the schedule,—containing, perhaps, the two first out of the four classes enrolled. Among these one thousand two hundred, however, the three hundred wealthiest stood out as a separate body; thirty from each tribe. These three hundred were the wealthiest men in the city, and were called “the leaders or chiefs of the Symmories.” The three hundred and the twelve hundred corresponded, speaking roughly, to the old Solonian classes of Pentakosiomedimni and Hippeis; of which latter class there had also been twelve hundred, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war.[241] The liturgies, or burdensome and costly offices, were discharged principally by the Three Hundred, but partly also by the Twelve Hundred. It would seem that the former was a body essentially fluctuating, and that after a man had been in it for some time, discharging the burdens belonging to it, the Stratêgi or Generals suffered him to be mingled with the Twelve Hundred, and promoted one of the latter body to take his place in the Three Hundred. As between man and man, too, the Attic law always admitted the process called Antidosis, or Exchange of Property. Any citizen who believed himself to have been overcharged with costly liturgies, and that another citizen, as rich or richer than himself, had not borne his fair share,—might, if saddled with a new liturgy, require the other to undertake it in his place; and in case of refusal, might tender to him an exchange of properties, under an engagement that he would undertake the new charge, if the property of the other were made over to him.

[241] Respecting the Symmories, compare Boeckh, Staats-haushaltung der Athener, iv, 9, 10; Schömann, Antiq. Jur. Publ. Græcor. s. 78; Parreidt, De Symmoriis, p. 18 seq.

It is to be observed, that besides the twelve hundred wealthiest citizens who composed the Symmories, there were a more considerable number of less wealthy citizens not included in them, yet still liable to the property-tax; persons who possessed property from the minimum of twenty-five minæ, up to some maximum that we do not know, at which point the Symmories began,—and who corresponded, speaking loosely, to the third class or Zeugitæ of the Solonian census. The two Symmories of each tribe (comprising its one hundred and twenty richest members) superintended the property-register of each tribe, and collected the contributions due from its less wealthy registered members. Occasionally, when the state required immediate payment, the thirty richest men in each tribe (making up altogether the three hundred) advanced the whole sum of tax chargeable upon the tribe, having their legal remedy of enforcement against the other members for the recovery of the sum chargeable upon each. The richest citizens were thus both armed with rights and charged with duties, such as had not belonged to them before the archonship of Nausinikus. By their intervention (it was supposed) the schedule would be kept nearer to the truth as respects the assessment on each individual, while the sums actually imposed would be more immediately forthcoming, than if the state directly interfered by officers of its own. Soon after, the system of the Symmories was extended to the trierarchy; a change which had not at first been contemplated. Each Symmory had its chiefs, its curators, its assessors, acting under the general presidency of the Stratêgi. Twenty-five years afterwards, we also find Demosthenes (then about thirty years of age) recommending a still more comprehensive application of the same principle, so that men, money, ships, and all the means and forces of the state, might thus be parcelled into distinct fractions, and consigned to distinct Symmories, each with known duties of limited extent for the component persons to perform, and each exposed not merely to legal process, but also to loss of esteem, in the event of non-performance. It will rather appear, however, that, in practice, the system of Symmories came to be greatly abused, and to produce pernicious effects never anticipated.

At present, however, I only notice this new financial and political classification introduced in 378 B.C., as one evidence of the ardor with which Athens embarked in her projected war against Sparta. The feeling among her allies, the Thebans, was no less determined. The government of Leontiades and the Spartan garrison had left behind it so strong an antipathy, that the large majority of citizens, embarking heartily in the revolution against them, lent themselves to all the orders of Pelopidas and his colleagues; who, on their part, had no other thought but to repel the common enemy. The Theban government now became probably democratical in form; and still more democratical in spirit, from the unanimous ardor pervading the whole mass. Its military force was put under the best training; the most fertile portion of the plain north of Thebes, from which the chief subsistence of the city came, was surrounded by a ditch and a palisade,[242] to repel the expected Spartan invasion; and the memorable Sacred Band was now for the first time organized. This was a brigade of three hundred hoplites, called the Lochus, or regiment of the city, as being consecrated to the defence of the Kadmeia, or acropolis.[243] It was put under constant arms and training, at the public expense, like the Thousand at Argos, of whom mention was made in my seventh volume.[244] It consisted of youthful citizens from the best families, distinguished for their strength and courage amidst the severe trials of the palæstra in Thebes, and was marshalled in such manner, that each pair of neighboring soldiers were at the same time intimate friends; so that the whole band were thus kept together by ties which no dangers could sever. At first its destination, under Gorgidas its commander (as we see by the select Three Hundred who fought in 424 B.C. at the battle of Delium),[245] was to serve as front rank men, for the general body of hoplites to follow. But from a circumstance to be mentioned presently, it came to be employed by Pelopidas and Epaminondas as a regiment by itself, and in a charge was then found irresistible.[246]

[242] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 38.

[243] Plutarch. Pelopid. c. 18, 19.

[244] Hist. of Greece. Vol. VII, ch. lv, p. 11.

[245] Diodor. xii, 70.

These pairs of neighbors who fought side by side at Delium, were called Heniochi and Parabatæ,—Charioteers and Side Companions; a name borrowed from the analogy of chariot-fighting, as described in the Iliad and probably in many of the lost epic poems; the charioteer being himself an excellent warrior, though occupied for the moment with other duties,—Diomedes and Sthenelus, Pandarus and Æneas, Patroklus and Automedon, etc.

[246] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 18, 19.

Ὁ συνταχθεὶς ὑπὸ Ἐπαμινώνδου ἱερὸς λόχος (Hieronymus apud Athenæum, xiii, p. 602 A.). There was a Carthaginian military division which bore the same title, composed of chosen and wealthy citizens, two thousand five hundred in number (Diodor. xvi, 80).

We must remark that the Thebans had always been good soldiers, both as hoplites and as cavalry. The existing enthusiasm, therefore, with the more sustained training, only raised good soldiers into much better. But Thebes was now blessed with another good fortune, such as had never yet befallen her. She found among her citizens a leader of the rarest excellence. It is now for the first time that Epaminondas, the son of Polymnis, begins to stand out in the public life of Greece. His family, poor rather than rich, was among the most ancient in Thebes, belonging to those Gentes called Sparti, whose heroic progenitors were said to have sprung from the dragon’s teeth sown by Kadmus.[247] He seems to have been now of middle age; Pelopidas was younger, and of a very rich family; yet the relations between the two were those of equal and intimate friendship, tested in a day of battle, wherein the two were ranged side by side as hoplites, and where Epaminondas had saved the life of his wounded friend, at the cost of several wounds, and the greatest possible danger, to himself.[248]

[247] Pausan. viii, 11, 5.

Dikæarchus, only one generation afterwards, complained that he could not find out the name of the mother of Epaminondas (Plutarch, Agesil. c. 19).

[248] Plutarch, Pelop. c. 4; Pausan. ix, 13, 1. According to Plutarch, Epaminondas had attained the age of forty years, before he became publicly known (De Occult. Vivendo, p. 1129 C.).

Plutarch affirms that the battle (in which Pelopidas was desperately wounded, and saved by Epaminondas) took place at Mantinea, when they were fighting on the side of the Lacedæmonians, under king Agesipolis, against the Arcadians; the Thebans being at that time friends of Sparta, and having sent a contingent to her aid.

I do not understand what battle Plutarch can here mean. The Thebans were never so united with Sparta as to send any contingent to her aid, after the capture of Athens (in 404 B.C.). Most critics think that the war referred to by Plutarch, is, the expedition conducted by Agesipolis against Mantinea, whereby the city was broken up into villages—in 385 B.C.; see Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici ad 385 B.C. But, in the first place, there cannot have been any Theban contingent then assisting Agesipolis; for Thebes was on terms unfriendly with Sparta,—and certainly was not her ally. In the next place, there does not seem to have been any battle, according to Xenophon’s account.

I therefore am disposed to question Plutarch’s account, as to this alleged battle of Mantinea; though I think it probable that Epaminondas may have saved the life of Pelopidas at some earlier conflict, before the peace of Antalkidas.

Epaminondas had discharged, with punctuality, those military and gymnastic duties which were incumbent on every Theban citizen. But we are told that in the gymnasia he studied to acquire the maximum of activity rather than of strength; the nimble movements of a runner and wrestler,—not the heavy muscularity, purchased in part by excessive nutriment, of the Bœotian pugilist.[249] He also learned music, vocal and instrumental, and dancing; by which, in those days, was meant, not simply the power of striking the lyre or blowing the flute, but all that belonged to the graceful, expressive, and emphatic management, either of the voice or of the body; rhythmical pronunciation, exercised by repetition of the poets,—and disciplined movements, for taking part in a choric festival with becoming consonance amidst a crowd of citizen performers. Of such gymnastic and musical training, the combination of which constituted an accomplished Grecian citizen, the former predominated at Thebes, the latter at Athens. Moreover, at Thebes the musical training was based more upon the flute (for the construction of which, excellent reeds grew near the Lake Kopaïs); at Athens more upon the lyre, which admitted of vocal accompaniment by the player. The Athenian Alkibiades[250] was heard to remark, when he threw away his flute in disgust, that flute-playing was a fit occupation for the Thebans, since they did not know how to speak; and in regard to the countrymen of Pindar[251] generally, the remark was hardly less true than contemptuous. On this capital point, Epaminondas formed a splendid exception. Not only had he learnt the lyre[252] as well as the flute from the best masters, but also, dissenting from his brother Kapheisias and his friend Pelopidas, he manifested from his earliest years an ardent intellectual impulse, which would have been remarkable even in an Athenian. He sought with eagerness the conversation of the philosophers within his reach, among whom were the Theban Simmias and the Tarentine Spintharus, both of them once companions of Sokrates; so that the stirring influence of the Sokratic method would thus find its way, partially and at second-hand, to the bosom of Epaminondas. As the relations between Thebes and Athens, ever since the close of the Peloponnesian war, had become more and more friendly, growing at length into alliance and joint war against the Spartans,—we may reasonably presume that he profited by teachers at the latter city as well as at the former. But the person to whom he particularly devoted himself, and whom he not only heard as a pupil, but tended almost as a son, during the close of an aged life,—was a Tarentine exile, named Lysis; a member of the Pythagorean brotherhood, who, from causes which we cannot make out, had sought shelter at Thebes, and dwelt there until his death.[253] With him, as well as with other philosophers, Epaminondas discussed all the subjects of study and inquiry then afloat. By perseverance in this course for some years, he not only acquired considerable positive instruction, but also became practised in new and enlarged intellectual combinations; and was, like Perikles,[254] emancipated from that timorous interpretation of nature, which rendered so many Grecian commanders the slaves of signs and omens. His patience as a listener, and his indifference to showy talk on his own account, were so remarkable, that Spintharus (the father of Aristoxenus), after numerous conversations with him, affirmed that he had never met with any one who understood more, or talked less.[255]

[249] Cornel. Nepos, Epamin. c. 2; Plutarch, Apophth. Reg. p. 192 D.; Aristophan. Acharn. 872.

Compare the citations in Athenæus, x, p. 417. The perfection of form required in the runner was also different from that required in the wrestler (Xenoph. Memor. iii, 8, 4; iii, 10, 6).

[250] Plutarch, Alkib. c. 2.

[251] Pindar, Olymp. vi, 90.

ἀρχαῖον ὄνειδος—Βοιώτιον ὗν, etc.

[252] Aristoxenus mentions the flute, Cicero and Cornelius Nepos the lyre (Aristoxen. Fr. 60, ed. Didot, ap. Athenæ. iv, p. 184; Cicero, Tusc. Disp. i, 2, 4; Cornel. Nepos, Epamin. c. 2).

[253] Aristoxenus, Frag. 11, ed. Didot; Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. p. 583, Cicero, De Offic. i, 44, 155; Pausan. ix, 13, 1; Ælian, V. H. iii, 17.

The statement (said to have been given by Aristoxenus, and copied by Plutarch as well as by Jamblichus) that Lysis, who taught Epaminondas, had been one of the persons actually present in the synod of Pythagoreans at Kroton when Kylon burnt down the house, and that he with another had been the only persons who escaped—cannot be reconciled with chronology.

[254] Compare Diodor. xv, 52 with Plutarch, Perikles, c. 6, and Plutarch, Demosthenes, c. 20.

[255] Plutarch, De Gen. Sokrat. p. 576 D. μετείληφε παιδείας διαφόρου καὶ περιττῆς—(p. 585 D.) τὴν ἀρίστην τροφὴν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ—(p. 592 F.) Σπίνθαρος ὁ Ταραντῖνος οὐκ ὀλίγον αὐτῷ (Epaminondas) συνδιατρίψας ἐνταῦθα χρόνον, ἀεὶ δήπου λέγει, μηδενί που τῶν καθ’ ἑαυτὸν ἀνθρώπων ἐντετευχέναι, μήτε πλείονα γιγνώσκοντι μήτε ἐλάττονα φθεγγομένῳ. Compare Cornel. Nepos, Epamin. c. 3—and Plutarch, De Audiend. c. 3, p. 39 F.

We may fairly presume that this judgment of Spintharus was communicated by him to his son Aristoxenus, from whom Plutarch copied it; and we know that Aristoxenus in his writings mentioned other particulars respecting Epaminondas (Athenæus, iv, p. 184). We see thus that Plutarch had access to good sources of information respecting the latter. And as he had composed a life of Epaminondas (Plutarch, Agesil. c. 28), though unfortunately it has not reached us, we may be confident that he had taken some pains to collect materials for the purpose, which materials would naturally be employed in his dramatic dialogue, “De Genio Socratis.” This strengthens our confidence in the interesting statements which that dialogue furnishes respecting the character of Epaminondas; as well as in the incidental allusions interspersed among Plutarch’s other writings.

Nor did such reserve proceed from any want of ready powers of expression. On the contrary, the eloquence of Epaminondas, when he entered upon his public career, was shown to be not merely preëminent among Thebans, but effective even against the best Athenian opponents.[256] But his disposition was essentially modest and unambitious, combined with a strong intellectual curiosity and a great capacity; a rare combination amidst a race usually erring on the side of forwardness and self-esteem. Little moved by personal ambition, and never cultivating popularity by unworthy means, Epaminondas was still more indifferent on the score of money. He remained in contented poverty to the end of his life, not leaving enough to pay his funeral expenses, yet repudiating not merely the corrupting propositions of foreigners, but also the solicitous tenders of personal friends;[257] though we are told that, when once serving the costly office of choregus, he permitted his friend Pelopidas to bear a portion of the expense.[258] As he thus stood exempt from two of the besetting infirmities which most frequently misguided eminent Greek statesmen, so there was a third characteristic not less estimable in his moral character; the gentleness of his political antipathies,—his repugnance to harsh treatment of conquered enemies,—and his refusal to mingle in intestine bloodshed. If ever there were men whose conduct seemed to justify unmeasured retaliation, it was Leontiades and his fellow-traitors. They had opened the doors of the Kadmeia to the Spartan Phœbidas, and had put to death the Theban leader Ismenias. Yet Epaminondas disapproved of the scheme of Pelopidas and the other exiles to assassinate them, and declined to take part in it; partly on prudential grounds, but partly, also, on conscientious scruples.[259] None of his virtues was found so difficult to imitate by his subsequent admirers, as this mastery over the resentful and vindictive passions.[260]

[256] Cornel. Nepos, Epaminond. c. 5; Plutarch, Præcept. Reip. Gerend. p. 819 C. Cicero notices him as the only man with any pretensions to oratorical talents, whom Thebes, Corinth, or Argos had ever produced (Brutus, c. 13, 50).

[257] Plutarch (De Gen. Socr. p. 583, 584; Pelopid. c. 3; Fab. Max. c. 27. Compar. Alcibiad. and Coriol. c. 4): Cornel. Nepos. Epamin. c. 4.

[258] Plutarch, Aristeides, c. 1; Justin, vi, 8.

[259] Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. p. 576 F. Ἐπαμεινώνδας δὲ, μὴ πείθων ὡς οἴεται βέλτιον εἶναι ταῦτα μὴ πράσσειν· εἰκότως ἀντιτείνει πρὸς ἃ μὴ πέφυκε, μηδὲ δοκιμάζει, παρακαλούμενος.

... Ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐ πείθει τοὺς πολλοὺς, ἀλλὰ ταύτην ὡρμήκαμεν τὴν ὁδὸν, ἐᾷν αὐτὸν κελεύει φόνου καθαρὸν ὄντα καὶ ἀναίτιον ἐφεστᾶναι τοῖς καιροῖς, μετὰ τοῦ δικαίου τῷ συμφέροντι προσοισόμενον.

Compare the same dialogue, p. 594 B.; and Cornelius Nepos, Pelopidas, c. 4.

Isokrates makes a remark upon Evagoras of Salamis, which may be well applied to Epaminondas; that the objectionable means, without which the former could not have got possession of the sceptre, were performed by others and not by him; while all the meritorious and admirable functions of command were reserved for Evagoras (Isokrates, Or. ix, (Evag.) s. 28).

[260] See the striking statements of Plutarch and Pausanias about Philopœmen,—καίπερ Ἐπαμεινώνδου βουλόμενος εἶναι μάλιστα ζηλωτὴς, τὸ δραστήριον καὶ συνετὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ὑπὸ χρημάτων ἀπαθὲς ἰσχυρῶς ἐμιμεῖτο, τῷ δὲ πράῳ καὶ βαθεῖ καὶ φιλανθρώπῳ παρὰ τὰς πολιτικὰς διαφορὰς ἐμμένειν οὐ δυνάμενος, δι’ ὀργὴν καὶ φιλονεικίαν, μᾶλλον ἐδόκει στρατιωτικῆς ἢ πολιτικῆς ἀρετῆς οἰκεῖος εἶναι. To the like purpose, Pausanias, viii, 49, 2; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 25: Cornel. Nepos, Epamin. c. 3—“patiens admirandum in modum.”

Before Epaminondas could have full credit for these virtues, however, it was necessary that he should give proof of the extraordinary capacities for action with which they were combined, and that he should achieve something to earn that exclamation of praise which we shall find his enemy Agesilaus afterwards pronouncing, on seeing him at the head of the invading Theban army near Sparta,—“Oh! thou man of great deeds!”[261] In the year B.C. 379, when the Kadmeia was emancipated, he was as yet undistinguished in public life, and known only to Pelopidas with his other friends; among whom, too, his unambitious and inquisitive disposition was a subject of complaint as keeping him unduly in the background.[262] But the unparalleled phenomena of that year supplied a spur which overruled all backwardness, and smothered all rival inclinations. The Thebans, having just recovered their city by an incredible turn of fortune, found themselves exposed single-handed to the full attack of Sparta and her extensive confederacy. Not even Athens had yet declared in their favor, nor had they a single other ally. Under such circumstances, Thebes could only be saved by the energy of all her citizens,—the unambitious and philosophical as well as the rest. As the necessities of the case required such simultaneous devotion, so the electric shock of the recent revolution was sufficient to awaken enthusiasm in minds much less patriotic than that of Epaminondas. He was among the first to join the victorious exiles in arms, after the contest had been transferred from the houses of Archias and Leontiades to the open market-place; and he would probably have been among the first to mount the walls of the Kadmeia, had the Spartan harmost awaited an assault. Pelopidas being named Bœotarch, his friend Epaminondas was naturally placed among the earliest and most forward organizers of the necessary military resistance against the common enemy; in which employment his capacities speedily became manifest. Though at this moment almost an unknown man, he had acquired, in B.C. 371, seven years afterwards, so much reputation both as speaker and as general, that he was chosen as the expositor of Theban policy at Sparta, and trusted with the conduct of the battle of Leuktra, upon which the fate of Thebes hinged. Hence we may fairly conclude, that the well-planned and successful system of defence, together with the steady advance of Thebes against Sparta, during the intermediate years, was felt to have been in the main his work.[263]

[261] Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 32. Ὦ τοῦ μεγαλοπράγμονος ἀνθρώπου!

[262] Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. p. 576 E. Ἐπαμεινώνδας δὲ, Βοιωτῶν ἁπάντων τῷ πεπαιδεῦσθαι πρὸς ἀρετὴν ἀξιῶν διαφέρειν, ἀμβλὺς ἐστι καὶ ἀπρόθυμος.

[263] Bauch, in his instructive biography of Epaminondas (Epaminondas, und Thebens Kampf um die Hegemonie: Breslau, 1834, p. 26), seems to conceive that Epaminondas was never employed in any public official post by his countrymen, until the period immediately preceding the battle of Leuktra. I cannot concur in this opinion. It appears to me that he must have been previously employed in such posts as enabled him to show his military worth. For all the proceedings of 371 B.C. prove that in that year he actually possessed a great and established reputation, which must have been acquired by previous acts in a conspicuous position; and as he had no great family position to start from, his reputation was probably acquired only by slow degrees.

The silence of Xenophon proves nothing in contradiction of this supposition; for he does not mention Epaminondas even at Leuktra.

The turn of politics at Athens which followed the acquittal of Sphodrias was an unspeakable benefit to the Thebans, in seconding as well as encouraging their defence; and the Spartans, not unmoved at the new enemies raised up by their treatment of Sphodrias, thought it necessary to make some efforts on their side. They organized on a more systematic scale the military force of their confederacy, and even took some conciliatory steps with the view of effacing the odium of their past misrule.[264] The full force of their confederacy,—including, as a striking mark of present Spartan power, even the distant Olynthians,[265]—was placed in motion against Thebes in the course of the summer under Agesilaus; who contrived, by putting in sudden requisition a body of mercenaries acting in the service of the Arcadian town Kleitor against its neighbor the Arcadian Orchomenus, to make himself master of the passes of Kithæron, before the Thebans and Athenians could have notice of his passing the Lacedæmonian border.[266] Then crossing Kithæron into Bœotia, he established his head-quarters at Thespiæ, a post already under Spartan occupation. From thence he commenced his attacks upon the Theban territory, which he found defended partly by a considerable length of ditch and palisade—partly by the main force of Thebes, assisted by a division of mixed Athenians and mercenaries, sent from Athens under Chabrias. Keeping on their own side of the palisade, the Thebans suddenly sent out their cavalry, and attacked Agesilaus by surprise, occasioning some loss. Such sallies were frequently repeated, until, by a rapid march at break of day, he forced his way through an opening in the breastwork into their inner country, which he laid waste nearly to the city walls.[267] The Thebans and Athenians, though not offering him battle on equal terms, nevertheless kept the field against him, taking care to hold positions advantageous for defence. Agesilaus on his side did not feel confident enough to attack them against such odds. Yet on one occasion he had made up his mind to do so; and was marching up to the charge, when he was daunted by the firm attitude and excellent array of the troops of Chabrias. They had received orders to await his approach, on a high and advantageous ground, without moving until signal should be given; with their shields resting on the knee, and their spears protended. So imposing was their appearance, that Agesilaus called off his troops without daring to complete the charge.[268] After a month or more of devastations on the lands of Thebes, and a string of desultory skirmishes in which he seems to have lost rather than gained, Agesilaus withdrew to Thespiæ; the fortifications of which he strengthened, leaving Phœbidas with a considerable force in occupation, and then leading back his army to Peloponnesus.

[264] Diodor. xv, 31.

[265] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 54; Diodor. xv, 31.

[266] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 36-38.

[267] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 41.

[268] Diodor. xv, 32; Polyæn. ii, 1, 2; Cornel. Nepos, Chabrias, c. 1,—“obnixo genu scuto,”—Demosthen. cont. Leptinem, p. 479.

The Athenian public having afterwards voted a statue to the honor of Chabrias, he made choice of this attitude for the design (Diodor. xv, 33).

Phœbidas,—the former captor of the Kadmeia,—thus stationed at Thespiæ, carried on vigorous warfare against Thebes; partly with his own Spartan division, partly with the Thespian hoplites, who promised him unshrinking support. His incursions soon brought on reprisals from the Thebans; who invaded Thespiæ, but were repulsed by Phœbidas with the loss of all their plunder. In the pursuit, however, hurrying incautiously forward, he was slain by a sudden turn of the Theban cavalry;[269] upon which all his troops fled, chased by the Thebans to the very gates of Thespiæ. Though the Spartans, in consequence of this misfortune, despatched by sea another general and division to replace Phœbidas, the cause of the Thebans was greatly strengthened by their recent victory. They pushed their success not only against Thespiæ, but against the other Bœotian cities, still held by local oligarchies in dependence on Sparta. At the same time, these oligarchies were threatened by the growing strength of their own popular or philo-Theban citizens, who crowded in considerable numbers as exiles to Thebes.[270]

[269] Xen. Hellen. v, 4. 42-45; Diodor. xv, 33.

[270] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 46. Ἐκ δὲ τούτου πάλιν αὖ τὰ τῶν Θηβαίων ἀνεζωπυρεῖτο, καὶ ἐστρατεύοντο εἰς Θεσπιὰς, καὶ εἰς τὰς ἄλλας τὰς περιοικίδας πόλεις. Ὁ μέντοι δῆμος ἐξ αὐτῶν εἰς τὰς Θήβας ἀπεχώρει· ἐν πάσαις γὰρ ταῖς πόλεσι δυναστεῖαι καθειστήκεσαν, ὥσπερ ἐν Θήβαις· ὥστε καὶ οἱ ἐν ταύταις ταῖς πόλεσι φίλοι τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων βοηθείας ἐδέοντο.

A second expedition against Thebes, undertaken by Agesilaus in the ensuing summer with the main army of the confederacy, was neither more decisive nor more profitable than the preceding. Though he contrived, by a well-planned stratagem, to surprize the Theban palisade, and lay waste the plain, he gained no serious victory; and even showed, more clearly than before, his reluctance to engage except upon perfectly equal terms.[271] It became evident that the Thebans were not only strengthening their position in Bœotia, but also acquiring practice in warfare and confidence against the Spartans; insomuch that Antalkidas and some other companions remonstrated with Agesilaus, against carrying on the war so as only to give improving lessons to his enemies in military practice,—and called upon him to strike some decisive blow. He quitted Bœotia, however, after the summer’s campaign, without any such step.[272] In his way he appeased an intestine conflict which was about to break out in Thespiæ. Afterwards, on passing to Megara, he experienced a strain or hurt, which grievously injured his sound leg, (it has been mentioned already that he was lame of one leg,) and induced his surgeon to open a vein in the limb for reducing the inflammation. When this was done, however, the blood could not be stopped until he swooned. Having been conveyed home to Sparta in great suffering, he was confined to his couch for several months; and he remained during a much longer time unfit for active command.[273]

[271] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 47, 51.

The anecdotes in Polyænus (ii, 1, 18-20), mentioning faint-heartedness and alarm among the allies of Agesilaus, are likely to apply (certainly in part) to this campaign.

[272] Diodor. xv, 33, 34; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 26.

[273] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 58.

The functions of general now devolved upon the other king Kleombrotus, who in the next spring conducted the army of the confederacy to invade Bœotia anew. But on this occasion, the Athenians and Thebans had occupied the passes of Kithæron, so that he was unable even to enter the country, and was obliged to dismiss his troops without achieving anything.[274]

[274] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 59.

His inglorious retreat excited such murmurs among the allies when they met at Sparta, that they resolved to fit out a large naval force, sufficient both to intercept the supplies of imported corn to Athens, and to forward an invading army by sea against Thebes, to the Bœotian port of Kreusis in the Krissæan Gulf. The former object was attempted first. Towards midsummer, a fleet of sixty triremes, fitted out under the Spartan admiral Pollis, was cruising in the Ægean; especially round the coast of Attica, near Ægina, Keos, and Andros. The Athenians, who, since their recently renewed confederacy, had been undisturbed by any enemies at sea, found themselves thus threatened, not merely with loss of power, but also with loss of trade and even famine; since their corn-ships from the Euxine, though safely reaching Geræstus (the southern extremity of Eubœa), were prevented from doubling Cape Sunium. Feeling severely this interruption, they fitted out at Peiræus a fleet of eighty triremes,[275] with crews mainly composed of citizens; who, under the admiral Chabrias, in a sharply contested action near Naxos, completely defeated the fleet of Pollis, and regained for Athens the mastery of the sea. Forty-nine Lacedæmonian triremes were disabled or captured, eight with their entire crews.[276] Moreover, Chabrias might have destroyed all or most of the rest, had he not suspended his attack, having eighteen of his own ships disabled, to pick up both the living men and the dead bodies on board, as well as all Athenians who were swimming for their lives. He did this (we are told[277]), from distinct recollection of the fierce displeasure of the people against the victorious generals after the battle of Arginusæ. And we may thus see, that though the proceedings on that memorable occasion were stained both by illegality and by violence, they produced a salutary effect upon the public conduct of subsequent commanders. Many a brave Athenian (the crews consisting principally of citizens) owed his life, after the battle of Naxos, to the terrible lesson administered by the people to their generals in 406 B.C., thirty years before.

[275] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 61. ἐνέβησαν αὐτοὶ εἰς τὰς ναῦς, etc. Boeckh (followed by Dr. Thirlwall, Hist. Gr. ch. 38, vol. v, p. 58) connects with this maritime expedition an Inscription (Corp. Insc. No. 84, p. 124) recording a vote of gratitude, passed by the Athenian assembly in favor of Phanokritus, a native of Parium in the Propontis. But I think that the vote can hardly belong to the present expedition. The Athenians could not need to be informed by a native of Parium about the movements of a hostile fleet near Ægina and Keos. The information given by Phanokritus must have related more probably, I think, to some occasion of the transit of hostile ships along the Hellespont, which a native of Parium would be the likely person first to discover and communicate.

[276] Diodor. xv, 35; Demosthen. cont. Leptin. c. 17, p. 480.

I give the number of prize-ships taken in this action, as stated by Demosthenes; in preference to Diodorus, who mentions a smaller number. The orator, in enumerating the exploits of Chabrias in this oration, not only speaks from a written memorandum in his hand, which he afterwards causes to be read by the clerk,—but also seems exact and special as to numbers, so as to inspire greater confidence than usual.

[277] Diodor. xv, 35. Chabrias ἀπέσχετο παντελῶς τοῦ διωγμοῦ, ἀναμνησθεὶς τῆς ἐν Ἀργινούσαις ναυμαχίας, ἐν ᾗ τοὺς νικήσαντας στρατηγοὺς ὁ δῆμος ἀντὶ μεγάλης εὐεργεσίας θανάτῳ περιέβαλεν, ~αἰτιασάμενος ὅτι τοὺς τετελευτηκότας κατὰ τὴν ναυμαχίαν οὐκ ἔθαψαν~· εὐλαβήθη οὖν (see Wesseling and Stephens’s note) μή ποτε τῆς περιστάσεως ὁμοίας γενομένης κινδυνεύσῃ παθεῖν παραπλήσια. Διόπερ ~ἀποστὰς τοῦ διώκειν, ἀνελέγετο τῶν πολιτῶν τοὺς διανηχομένους, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἔτι ζῶντας διέσωσε, τοὺς δὲ τετελευτηκότας ἔθαψεν~. Εἰ δὲ μὴ περὶ ταύτην ἐγένετο τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν, ῥᾳδίως ἂν ἅπαντα τὸν πολεμίων στόλον διέφθειρε.

This passage illustrates what I remarked in my preceding volume (Vol. VIII, Ch. lxiv, p. 175), respecting the battle of Arginusæ and the proceedings at Athens afterwards. I noticed that Diodorus incorrectly represented the excitement at Athens against the generals as arising from their having neglected to pick up the bodies of the slain warriors for burial,—and that he omitted the more important fact, that they left many living and wounded warriors to perish.

It is curious, that in the first of the two sentences above cited, Diodorus repeats his erroneous affirmation about the battle of Arginusæ; while in the second sentence he corrects the error, telling us that Chabrias, profiting by the warning, took care to pick up the living men on the wrecks and in the water, as well as the dead bodies.

This was the first great victory (in September, 376 B.C.[278]) which the Athenians had gained at sea since the Peloponnesian war; and while it thus filled them with joy and confidence, it led to a material enlargement of their maritime confederacy. The fleet of Chabrias,—of which a squadron was detached under the orders of Phokion, a young Athenian now distinguishing himself for the first time and often hereafter to be mentioned,—sailed victorious round the Ægean, made prize of twenty other triremes in single ships, brought in three thousand prisoners with one hundred and ten talents in money, and annexed seventeen new cities to the confederacy, as sending deputies to the synod and furnishing contributions. The discreet and conciliatory behavior of Phokion, especially obtained much favor among the islanders, and determined several new adhesions to Athens.[279] To the inhabitants of Abdêra in Thrace, Chabrias rendered an inestimable service, by aiding them to repulse a barbarous horde of Triballi, who quitting their abode from famine, had poured upon the sea-coast, defeating the Abderites and plundering their territory. The citizens, grateful for a force left to defend their town, willingly allied themselves with Athens, whose confederacy thus extended itself to the coast of Thrace.[280]

[278] Plutarch, Phokion, c. 6; Plutarch, Camillus, c. 19.

[279] Demosthen. cont. Leptin. p. 480; Plutarch, Phokion, c. 7.

[280] Diodor. xv, 36. He states by mistake, that Chabrias was afterwards assassinated at Abdera.

Having prosperously enlarged their confederacy to the east of Peloponnesus, the Athenians began to aim at the acquisition of new allies in the west. The fleet of sixty triremes, which had recently served under Chabrias, was sent, under the command of Timotheus, the son of Konon, to circumnavigate Peloponnesus and alarm the coast of Laconia; partly at the instance of the Thebans, who were eager to keep the naval force of Sparta occupied, so as to prevent her from conveying troops across the Krissæan Gulf from Corinth to the Bœotian port of Kreusis.[281] This Periplus of Peloponnesus,—the first which the fleet of Athens had attempted since her humiliation at Ægospotami,—coupled with the ensuing successes, was long remembered by the countrymen of Timotheus. His large force, just dealing, and conciliatory professions, won new and valuable allies. Not only Kephallenia, but the still more important island of Korkyra, voluntarily accepted his propositions; and as he took care to avoid all violence or interference with the political constitution, his popularity all around augmented every day. Alketas, prince of the Molossi,—the Chaonians with other Epirotic tribes,—and the Akarnanians on the coast,—all embraced his alliance.[282] While near Alyzia and Leukas on this coast, he was assailed by the Peloponnesian ships under Nikolochus, rather inferior in number to his fleet. He defeated them, and being shortly afterwards reinforced by other triremes from Korkyra, he became so superior in those waters, that the hostile fleet did not dare to show itself. Having received only thirteen talents on quitting Athens, we are told that he had great difficulty in paying his fleet; that he procured an advance of money, from each of the sixty trierarchs in his fleet, of seven minæ towards the pay of their respective ships; and that he also sent home requests for large remittances from the public treasury;[283] measures which go to bear out that honorable repugnance to the plunder of friends or neutrals, and care to avoid even the suspicion of plunder, which his panegyrist Isokrates ascribes to him.[284] This was a feature unhappily rare among the Grecian generals on both sides, and tending to become still rarer, from the increased employment of mercenary bands.

[281] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 62.

[282] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 64; Diodor. xv, 36.

[283] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 66; Isokrates, De Permutat. s. 116; Cornelius Nepos, Timotheus, c. 2.

The advance of seven minæ respectively, obtained by Timotheus from the sixty trierarchs under his command, is mentioned by Demosthenes cont. Timotheum (c. 3, p. 1187). I agree with M. Boeckh (Public Economy of Athens, ii, 24, p. 294) in referring this advance to his expedition to Korkyra and other places in the Ionian Sea in 375-374 B.C.; not to his subsequent expedition of 373 B.C., to which Rehdantz, Lachmann, Schlosser, and others would refer it (Vitæ Iphicratis, etc. p. 89). In the second expedition, it does not appear that he ever had really sixty triremes, or sixty trierarchs, under him. Xenophon (Hellen. v, 4, 63) tells us that the fleet sent with Timotheus to Korkyra consisted of sixty ships; which is the exact number of trierarchs named by Demosthenes.

[284] Isokrates, Orat. De Permutat. s. 128, 131, 135.

The demands of Timotheus on the treasury of Athens were not favorably received. Though her naval position was now more brilliant and commanding than it had been since the battle of Ægospotami,—though no Lacedæmonian fleet showed itself to disturb her in the Ægean,[285]—yet the cost of the war began to be seriously felt. Privateers from the neighboring island of Ægina annoyed her commerce, requiring a perpetual coast-guard; while the contributions from the deputies to the confederate synod were not sufficient to dispense with the necessity of a heavy direct property tax at home.[286]

[285] Isokrates, De Permutat. s. 117; Cornel. Nepos, Timoth. c. 2.

[286] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 1.

In this synod the Thebans, as members of the confederacy, were represented.[287] Application was made to them to contribute towards the cost of the naval war; the rather, as it was partly at their instance that the fleet had been sent round to the Ionian Sea. But the Thebans declined compliance,[288] nor were they probably in any condition to furnish pecuniary aid. Their refusal occasioned much displeasure at Athens, embittered by jealousy at the strides which they had been making during the two last years, partly through the indirect effect of the naval successes of Athens. At the end of the year 377 B.C., after the two successive invasions of Agesilaus, the ruin of two home crops had so straitened the Thebans, that they were forced to import corn from Pagasæ in Thessaly; in which enterprise their ships and seamen were at first captured by the Lacedæmonian harmost at Oreus in Eubœa, Alketas. His negligence, however, soon led not only to an outbreak of their seamen who had been taken prisoners, but also to the revolt of the town from Sparta, so that the communication of Thebes with Pagasæ became quite unimpeded. For the two succeeding years, there had been no Spartan invasion of Bœotia; since, in 376 B.C., Kleombrotus could not surmount the heights of Kithæron,—while in 375 B.C., the attention of Sparta had been occupied by the naval operations of Timotheus in the Ionian Sea. During these two years, the Thebans had exerted themselves vigorously against the neighboring cities of Bœotia, in most of which a strong party, if not the majority of the population, was favorable to them, though the government was in the hands of the philo-Spartan oligarchy, seconded by Spartan harmosts and garrison.[289] We hear of one victory gained by the Theban cavalry near Platæa, under Charon; and of another near Tanagra, in which Panthöides, the Lacedæmonian harmost in that town, was slain.[290]

[287] See Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 21, 23, 37.

[288] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 1. Οἱ δ’ Ἀθηναῖοι, αὐξανομένους μὲν ὁρῶντες διὰ σφᾶς τοὺς Θηβαίους, χρήματά δ’ οὐ συμβαλλομένους εἰς τὸ ναυτικὸν, αὐτοὶ δ’ ἀποκναιόμενοι καὶ χρημάτων εἰσφοραῖς καὶ λῃστείαις ἐξ Αἰγίνης, καὶ φυλακαῖς τῆς χώρας, ἐπεθύμησαν παύσασθαι τοῦ πολέμου.

[289] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 46-55.

[290] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 15-25.

But the most important of all their successes was that of Pelopidas near Tegyra. That commander, hearing that the Spartan harmost, with his two (moræ or) divisions in garrison at Orchomenus, had gone away on an excursion into the Lokrian territory, made a dash from Thebes with the Sacred Band and a few cavalry, to surprise the place. It was the season in which the waters of the Lake Kopaïs were at the fullest, so that he was obliged to take a wide circuit to the north-west, and to pass by Tegyra, on the road between Orchomenus and the Opuntian Lokris. On arriving near Orchomenus, he ascertained that there were still some Lacedæmonians in the town, and that no surprise could be effected; upon which he retraced his steps. But on reaching Tegyra, he fell in with the Lacedæmonian commanders, Gorgoleon and Theopompus, returning with their troops from the Lokrian excursion. As his numbers were inferior to theirs by half, they rejoiced in the encounter; while the troops of Pelopidas were at first dismayed, and required all his encouragement to work them up. But in the fight that ensued, closely and obstinately contested in a narrow pass, the strength, valor, and compact charge of the Sacred Band proved irresistible. The two Lacedæmonian commanders were both slain; their troops opened, to allow the Thebans an undisturbed retreat; but Pelopidas, disdaining this opportunity, persisted in the combat until all his enemies dispersed and fled. The neighborhood of Orchomenus forbade any long pursuit, so that Pelopidas could only erect his trophy, and strip the dead, before returning to Thebes.[291]

[291] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 17; Diodor. xv, 37.

Xenophon does not mention the combat at Tegyra. Diodorus mentions, what is evidently this battle, near Orchomenus; but he does not name Tegyra.

Kallisthenes seems to have described the battle of Tegyra, and to have given various particulars respecting the religious legends connected with that spot (Kallisthenes, Fragm. 3, ed. Didot, ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Τεγύρα).

This combat, in which the Lacedæmonians were for the first time beaten in fair field by numbers inferior to their own, produced a strong sensation in the minds of both the contending parties. The confidence of the Thebans, as well as their exertion, was redoubled; so that by the year 374 B.C., they had cleared Bœotia of the Lacedæmonians, as well as of the local oligarchies which sustained them; persuading or constraining the cities again to come into union with Thebes, and reviving the Bœotian confederacy. Haliartus, Korôneia, Lebadeia, Tanagra, Thespiæ, Platæa, and the rest, thus became again Bœotian;[292] leaving out Orchomenus alone, (with its dependency Chæroneia,) which was on the borders of Phokis, and still continued under Lacedæmonian occupation. In most of these cities, the party friendly to Thebes was numerous, and the change, on the whole, popular; though in some the prevailing sentiment was such, that adherence was only obtained by intimidation. The change here made by Thebes, was not to absorb these cities into herself, but to bring them back to the old federative system of Bœotia; a policy which she had publicly proclaimed on surprising Platæa in 431 B.C.[293] While resuming her own ancient rights and privileges as head of the Bœotian federation, she at the same time guaranteed to the other cities,—by convention, probably express, but certainly implied,—their ancient rights, their security, and their qualified autonomy, as members; the system which had existed down to the peace of Antalkidas.

[292] That the Thebans thus became again presidents of all Bœotia, and revived the Bœotian confederacy,—is clearly stated by Xenophon, Hellen. v, 4, 63; vi, 1, 1.

[293] Thucyd. ii, 2. Ἀνεῖπεν ὁ κήρυξ (the Theban herald after the Theban troops had penetrated by night into the middle of Platæa) εἴ τις βούλεται ~κατὰ τὰ πάτρια τῶν πάντων Βοιωτῶν~ ξυμμαχεῖν, τίθεσθαι παρ’ αὐτοὺς τὰ ὅπλα, νομίζοντες σφίσι ῥᾳδίως τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ προσχωρήσειν τὴν πόλιν.

Compare the language of the Thebans about τὰ πάτρια τῶν Βοιωτῶν (iii, 61, 65, 66). The description which the Thebans give of their own professions and views, when they attacked Platæa in 431 B.C., may be taken as fair analogy to judge of their professions and views towards the recovered Bœotian towns in 376-375 B.C.

The position of the Thebans was materially improved by this reconquest or reconfederation of Bœotia. Becoming masters of Kreusis, the port of Thespiæ,[294] they fortified it, and built some triremes to repel any invasion from Peloponnesus by sea across the Krissæan Gulf. Feeling thus secure against invasion, they began to retaliate upon their neighbors and enemies the Phokians, allies of Sparta, and auxiliaries in the recent attacks on Thebes,—yet also, from ancient times, on friendly terms with Athens.[295] So hard pressed were the Phokians,—especially as Jason of Pheræ in Thessaly was at the same time their bitter enemy,[296]—that unless assisted, they would have been compelled to submit to the Thebans, and along with them Orchomenus, including the Lacedæmonian garrison then occupying it; while the treasures of the Delphian Temple would also have been laid open, in case the Thebans should think fit to seize them. Intimation being sent by the Phokians to Sparta, King Kleombrotus was sent to their aid, by sea across the Gulf, with four Lacedæmonian divisions of troops, and an auxiliary body of allies.[297] This reinforcement, compelling the Thebans to retire, placed both Phokis and Orchomenus in safety. While Sparta thus sustained them, even Athens looked upon the Phokian cause with sympathy. When she saw that the Thebans had passed from the defensive to the offensive,—partly by her help, yet nevertheless refusing to contribute to the cost of her navy,—her ancient jealousy of them became again so powerful, that she sent envoys to Sparta, to propose terms of peace. What these terms were, we are not told; nor does it appear that the Thebans even received notice of the proceeding. But the peace was accepted at Sparta, and two of the Athenian envoys were despatched at once from thence, without even going home, to Korkyra, for the purpose of notifying the peace to Timotheus, and ordering him forthwith to conduct his fleet back to Athens.[298]

[294] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 3; Compare Diodor. xv, 53.

[295] Diodor. xv, 31; Xen. Hellen, vi, 3, 1; iii, 6, 21.

[296] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 21-27.

[297] Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 1; vi, 21.

This expedition of Kleombrotus to Phokis is placed by Mr. Fynes Clinton in 375 B.C. (Fast. Hel. ad 375 B.C.). To me it seems to belong rather to 374 B.C. It was not undertaken until the Thebans had reconquered all the Bœotian cities (Xen. Hell. vi, 1, 1); and this operation seems to have occupied them all the two years,—376 and 375 B.C. See v, 4, 63, where the words οὔτ’ ἐν ᾧ Τιμόθεος περιέπλευσε must be understood to include, not simply the time which Timotheus took in actually circumnavigating Peloponnesus, but the year which he spent afterwards in the Ionian Sea, and the time which he occupied in performing his exploits near Korkyra, Leukas, and the neighborhood generally. The “Periplus” for which Timotheus was afterwards honored at Athens (see Æschines cont. Ktesiphont. c. 90, p. 458) meant the exploits performed by him during the year and with the fleet of the “Periplus.”

It is worth notice that the Pythian games were celebrated in this year 374 B.C.,—ἐπὶ Σωκρατίδου ἄρχοντος; that is, in the first quarter of that archon, or the third Olympic year; about the beginning of August, Chabrias won a prize at these games with a chariot and four; in celebration of which, he afterwards gave a splendid banquet at the point of sea-shore called Kôlias, near Athens (Demosthen. cont. Neæram. c. 11, p. 1356).

[298] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 1, 2.

Kallias seems to have been one of the Athenian envoys (Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 4).

This proposition of the Athenians, made seemingly in a moment of impetuous dissatisfaction, was made to the advantage of Sparta, and served somewhat to countervail a mortifying revelation which had reached the Spartans a little before from a different quarter.

Polydamas, an eminent citizen of Pharsalus in Thessaly, came to Sparta to ask for aid. He had long been on terms of hospitality with the Lacedæmonians; while Pharsalus had not merely been in alliance with them, but was for some time occupied by one of their garrisons.[299] In the usual state of Thessaly, the great cities Larissa, Pheræ, Pharsalus, and others, each holding some smaller cities in a state of dependent alliance, were in disagreement with each other,—often even in actual war. It was rare that they could be brought to concur in a common vote for the election of a supreme chief or Tagus. At his own city of Pharsalus, Polydamas was now in the ascendant, enjoying the confidence of all the great family factions who usually contended for predominance; to such a degree, indeed, that he was entrusted with the custody of the citadel and the entire management of the revenues, receipts as well as disbursements. Being a wealthy man, “hospitable and ostentatious in the Thessalian fashion,” he advanced money from his own purse to the treasury whenever it was low, and repaid himself when public funds came in.[300]

[299] Diodor. xiv, 82.

[300] Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 3. Καὶ ὁπότε μὲν ἐνδεὴς εἴη, παρ’ ἑαυτοῦ προσετίθει· ὁπότε δὲ περιγένοιτο τῆς προσόδου, ἀπελάμβανεν· ἦν δὲ καὶ ἄλλως φιλόξενός τε καὶ μεγαλοπρεπὴς τὸν Θετταλικὸν τρόπον.

Such loose dealing of the Thessalians with their public revenues helps us to understand how Philip of Macedon afterwards got into his hands the management of their harbors and customs-duties (Demosthen. Olynth. i, p. 15; ii. p. 20). It forms a striking contrast with the exactness of the Athenian people about their public receipts and disbursements, as testified in the inscriptions yet remaining.

But a greater man than Polydamas had now arisen in Thessaly,—Jason, despot of Pheræ; whose formidable power, threatening the independence of Pharsalus, he now came to Sparta to denounce. Though the force of Jason can hardly have been very considerable when the Spartans passed through Thessaly, six years before, in their repeated expeditions against Olynthus, he was now not only despot of Pheræ, but master of nearly all the Thessalian cities (as Lykophron of Pheræ had partially succeeded in becoming thirty years before),[301] as well as of a large area of tributary circumjacent territory. The great instrument of his dominion was, a standing and well-appointed force of six thousand mercenary troops, from all parts of Greece. He possessed all the personal qualities requisite for conducting soldiers with the greatest effect. His bodily strength was great; his activity indefatigable; his self-command, both as to hardship and as to temptation, alike conspicuous. Always personally sharing both in the drill and in the gymnastics of the soldiers, and encouraging military merits with the utmost munificence, he had not only disciplined them, but inspired them with extreme warlike ardor and devotion to his person. Several of the neighboring tribes, together with Alketas, prince of the Molossi in Epirus, had been reduced to the footing of his dependent allies. Moreover, he had already defeated the Pharsalians, and stripped them of many of the towns which had once been connected with them, so that it only remained for him now to carry his arms against their city. But Jason was prudent, as well as daring. Though certain of success, he wished to avoid the odium of employing force, and the danger of having malcontents for subjects. He therefore proposed to Polydamas, in a private interview, that he (Polydamas) should bring Pharsalus under Jason’s dominion, accepting for himself the second place in Thessaly, under Jason installed as Tagus or president. The whole force of Thessaly thus united, with its array of tributary nations around, would be decidedly the first power in Greece, superior on land either to Sparta or Thebes, and at sea to Athens. And as to the Persian king, with his multitudes of unwarlike slaves, Jason regarded him as an enemy yet easier to overthrow; considering what had been achieved first by the Cyreians, and afterwards by Agesilaus.

[301] Xen. Hellen. ii, 3, 4.

The story (told in Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. p. 583 F.) of Jason sending a large sum of money to Thebes, at some period anterior to the recapture of the Kadmeia, for the purpose of corrupting Epaminondas,—appears not entitled to credit. Before that time, Epaminondas was too little known to be worth corrupting; moreover, Jason did not become tagus of Thessaly until long after the recapture of the Kadmeia (Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 18, 19).

Such were the propositions, and such the ambitious hopes, which the energetic despot of Pheræ had laid before Polydamas; who replied, that he himself had long been allied with Sparta, and that he could take no resolution hostile to her interests. “Go to Sparta, then (rejoined Jason), and give notice there, that I intend to attack Pharsalus, and that it is for them to afford you protection. If they cannot comply with the demand, you will be unfaithful to the interests of your city if you do not embrace my offers.” It was on this mission that Polydamas was now come to Sparta, to announce that unless aid could be sent to him, he should be compelled unwillingly to sever himself from her. “Recollect (he concluded) that the enemy against whom you will have to contend is formidable in every way, both from personal qualities and from power; so that nothing short of a first-rate force and commander will suffice. Consider, and tell me what you can do.”

The Spartans, having deliberated on the point, returned a reply in the negative. Already a large force had been sent under Kleombrotus as essential to the defence of Phokis; moreover, the Athenians were now the stronger power at sea. Lastly, Jason had hitherto lent no active assistance to Thebes and Athens—which he would assuredly be provoked to do, if a Spartan army interfered against him in Thessaly. Accordingly the ephors told Polydamas plainly, that they were unable to satisfy his demands, recommending him to make the best terms that he could, both for Pharsalus and for himself. Returning to Thessaly, he resumed his negotiation with Jason, and promised substantial compliance with what was required. But he entreated to be spared the dishonor of admitting a foreign garrison into the citadel which had been confidentially entrusted to his care; engaging at the same time to bring his fellow-citizens into voluntary union with Jason, and tendering his two sons as hostages for faithful performance. All this was actually brought to pass. The politics of the Pharsalians were gently brought round, so that Jason, by their votes as well as the rest, was unanimously elected Tagus of Thessaly.[302]

[302] See the interesting account of this mission, and the speech of Polydamas, which I have been compelled greatly to abridge (in Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 4-18).

The dismissal of Polydamas implied a mortifying confession of weakness on the part of Sparta. It marks, too, an important stage in the real decline of her power. Eight years before, at the instance of the Akanthian envoys, backed by the Macedonian Amyntas, she had sent three powerful armies in succession to crush the liberal and promising confederacy of Olynthus, and to re-transfer the Grecian cities on the sea-coast to the Macedonian crown. The region to which her armies had been sent, was the extreme verge of Hellas. The parties in whose favor she acted, had scarcely the shadow of a claim, as friends or allies; while those against whom she acted, had neither done nor threatened any wrong to her: moreover, the main ground on which her interference was invoked, was to hinder the free and equal confederation of Grecian cities. Now, a claim, and a strong claim, is made upon her by Polydamas of Pharsalus, an old friend and ally. It comes from a region much less distant; lastly, her political interest would naturally bid her arrest the menacing increase of an aggressive power already so formidable as that of Jason. Yet so seriously has the position of Sparta altered in the last eight years (382-374 B.C.), that she is now compelled to decline a demand which justice, sympathy, and political policy alike prompted her to grant. So unfortunate was it for the Olynthian confederacy, that their honorable and well-combined aspirations fell exactly during those few years in which Sparta was at her maximum of power! So unfortunate was such coincidence of time, not only for Olynthus, but for Greece generally:—since nothing but Spartan interference restored the Macedonian kings to the sea-coast, while the Olynthian confederacy, had it been allowed to expand, might probably have confined them to the interior, and averted the death-blow which came upon Grecian freedom in the next generation from their hands.

The Lacedæmonians found some compensation for their reluctant abandonment of Polydamas, in the pacific propositions from Athens which liberated them from one of their chief enemies. But the peace thus concluded was scarcely even brought to execution. Timotheus, being ordered home from Korkyra, obeyed and set sail with his fleet. He had serving along with him some exiles from Zakynthus; and as he passed by that island in his homeward voyage, he disembarked these exiles upon it, aiding them in establishing a fortified post. Against this proceeding the Zakynthian government laid complaints at Sparta, where it was so deeply resented, that redress having been in vain demanded at Athens, the peace was at once broken off, and war again declared. A Lacedæmonian squadron of twenty-five sail was despatched to assist the Zakynthians,[303] while plans were formed for the acquisition of the more important island of Korkyra. The fleet of Timotheus having now been removed home, a malcontent Korkyræan party formed a conspiracy to introduce the Lacedæmonians as friends, and betray the island to them. A Lacedæmonian fleet of twenty-two triremes accordingly sailed thither, under color of a voyage to Sicily. But the Korkyræan government, having detected the plot, refused to receive them, took precautions for defence, and sent envoys to Athens to entreat assistance.

[303] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 3; Diodor. xv, 45.

The statements of Diodorus are not clear in themselves; besides that on some points, though not in the main, they contradict Xenophon. Diodorus states that those exiles whom Timotheus brought back to Zakynthus, were the philo-Spartan leaders, who had been recently expelled for their misrule under the empire of Sparta. This statement must doubtless be incorrect. The exiles whom Timotheus restored must have belonged to the anti-Spartan party in the island.

But Diodorus appears to me to have got into confusion by representing that universal and turbulent reaction against the philo-Spartan oligarchies, which really did not take place until after the battle of Leuktra—as if it had taken place some three years earlier. The events recounted in Diodor. xv, 40, seem to me to belong to a period after the battle of Leuktra.

Diodorus also seems to have made a mistake in saying that the Athenians sent Ktesikles as auxiliary commander to Zakynthus (xv, 46); whereas this very commander is announced by himself in the next chapter (as well as by Xenophon, who calls him Stesikles) as sent to Korkyra (Hellen. v, 2, 10).

I conceive Diodorus to have inadvertently mentioned this Athenian expedition under Stesiklês or Ktesiklês, twice over; once as sent to Zakynthus—then again, as sent to Korkyra. The latter is the truth. No Athenian expedition at all appears on this occasion to have gone to Zakynthus; for Xenophon enumerates the Zakynthians among those who helped to fit out the fleet of Mnasippus (v, 2, 3).

On the other hand, I see no reason for calling in question the reality of the two Lacedæmonian expeditions, in the last half of 374 B.C.—one under Aristokrates to Zakynthus, the other under Alkidas to Korkyra—which Diodorus mentions (Diod. xv, 45, 46). It is true that Xenophon does not notice either of them; but they are noway inconsistent with the facts which he does state.

The Lacedæmonians now resolved to attack Korkyra openly, with the full naval force of their confederacy. By the joint efforts of Sparta, Corinth, Leukas, Ambrakia, Elis, Zakynthus, Achaia, Epidaurus, Trœzen, Hermionê, and Halieis,—strengthened by pecuniary payments from other confederates, who preferred commuting their obligation to serve beyond sea,—a fleet of sixty triremes and a body of one thousand five hundred mercenary hoplites were assembled; besides some Lacedæmonians, probably Helots or Neodamodes.[304] At the same time, application was sent to Dionysius the Syracusan despot, for his coöperation against Korkyra, on the ground that the connection of that island with Athens had proved once, and might prove again, dangerous to his city.

[304] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 3, 5, 16: compare v, 2, 21—about the commutation of personal service for money.

Diodorus (xv, 47) agrees with Xenophon in the main about the expedition of Mnasippus, though differing on several other contemporary points.

It was in the spring of 373 B.C. that this force proceeded against Korkyra, under the command of the Lacedæmonian Mnasippus; who, having driven in the Korkyræan fleet with the loss of four triremes, landed on the island, gained a victory, and confined the inhabitants within the walls of the city. He next carried his ravages round the adjacent lands, which were found in the highest state of cultivation, and full of the richest produce; fields admirably tilled,—vineyards in surpassing condition,—with splendid farm-buildings, well-appointed wine-cellars, and abundance of cattle as well as laboring-slaves. The invading soldiers, while enriching themselves by depredations on cattle and slaves, became so pampered with the plentiful stock around, that they refused to drink any wine that was not of the first quality.[305] Such is the picture given by Xenophon, an unfriendly witness, of the democratical Korkyra, in respect of its lauded economy, at the time when it was invaded by Mnasippus; a picture not less memorable than that presented by Thucydides (in the speech of Archidamus), of the flourishing agriculture surrounding democratical Athens, at the moment when the hand of the Peloponnesian devastator was first felt there in 431 B.C.[306]

[305] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 6. Ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἀπέβη (when Mnasippus landed), ἐκράτει τε τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐδῄου ἐξειργασμένην μὲν παγκαλῶς καὶ πεφυτευμένην τὴν χώραν, μεγαλοπρεπεῖς δὲ οἰκήσεις καὶ οἰνῶνας κατεσκευασμένους ἔχουσαν ἐπὶ τῶν ἀγρῶν· ὥστ’ ἔφασαν τοὺς στρατιώτας εἰς τοῦτο τρυφῆς ἐλθεῖν, ὥστ’ οὐκ ἐθέλειν πίνειν, εἰ μὴ ἀνθοσμίας εἴη. Καὶ ἀνδράποδα δὲ καὶ βοσκήματα πάμπολλα ἡλίσκετο ἐκ τῶν ἀγρῶν.

Οἶνον, implied in the antecedent word οἰνῶνας, is understood after πίνειν.

[306] Thucyd. i, 82. (Speech of Archidamus) μὴ γὰρ ἄλλο τι νομίσητε τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν (of the Athenians) ἢ ὅμηρον ἔχειν, καὶ οὐχ ἧσσον ὅσῳ ἄμεινον ἐξείργασται.

Compare the earlier portion of the same speech (c. 80), and the second speech of the same Archidamus (ii, 11).

To the same purpose Thucydides speaks, respecting the properties of the wealthy men established throughout the area of Attica,—οἱ δὲ δυνατοὶ καλὰ κτήματα κατὰ τὴν χώραν οἰκοδομίαις τε καὶ πολυτελέσι κατασκευαῖς ἀπολωλεκότες (i. e. by the invasion)—Thucyd. ii, 65.

With such plentiful quarters for his soldiers, Mnasippus encamped on a hill near the city walls, cutting off those within from supplies out of the country, while he at the same time blocked up the harbor with his fleet. The Korkyræans soon began to be in want. Yet they seemed to have no chance of safety except through aid from the Athenians; to whom they had sent envoys with pressing entreaties,[307] and who had now reason to regret their hasty consent (in the preceding year) to summon home the fleet of Timotheus from the island. However, Timotheus was again appointed admiral of a new fleet to be sent thither; while a division of six hundred peltasts, under Stesiklês, was directed to be despatched by the quickest route, to meet the immediate necessities of the Korkyræans, during the delays unavoidable in the preparation of the main fleet and its circumnavigation of Peloponnesus. These peltasts were conveyed by land across Thessaly and Epirus, to the coast opposite Korkyra; upon which island they were enabled to land through the intervention of Alketas solicited by the Athenians. They were fortunate enough to get into the town; where they not only brought the news that a large Athenian fleet might be speedily expected, but also contributed much to the defence. Without such encouragement and aid, the Korkyræans would hardly have held out; for the famine within the walls increased daily; and at length became so severe, that many of the citizens deserted, and numbers of slaves were thrust out. Mnasippus refused to receive them, making public proclamation that every one who deserted should be sold into slavery; and since deserters nevertheless continued to come, he caused them to be scourged back to the city-gates. As for the unfortunate slaves, being neither received by him, nor re-admitted within, many perished outside of the gates from sheer hunger.[308]

[307] The envoys from Korkyra to Athens (mentioned by Xenophon, v, 2, 9) would probably cross Epirus and Thessaly, through the aid of Alketas. This would be a much quicker way for them than the circumnavigation of Peloponnesus: and it would suggest the same way for the detachment of Stesiklês presently to be mentioned.

[308] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 15.

Such spectacles of misery portended so visibly the approaching hour of surrender, that the besieging army became careless, and the general insolent. Though his military chest was well-filled, through the numerous pecuniary payments which he had received from allies in commutation of personal service,—yet he had dismissed several of his mercenaries without pay, and had kept all of them unpaid for the last two months. His present temper made him not only more harsh towards his own soldiers,[309] but also less vigilant in the conduct of the siege. Accordingly the besieged, detecting from their watch-towers the negligence of the guards, chose a favorable opportunity and made a vigorous sally. Mnasippus, on seeing his outposts driven in, armed himself and hastened forward with the Lacedæmonians around him to sustain them; giving orders to the officers of the mercenaries to bring their men forward also. But these officers replied, that they could not answer for the obedience of soldiers without pay; upon which Mnasippus was so incensed, that he struck them with his stick and with the shaft of his spear. Such an insult inflamed still farther the existing discontent. Both officers and soldiers came to the combat discouraged and heartless, while the Athenian peltasts and the Korkyræan hoplites, rushing out of several gates at once, pressed their attack with desperate energy. Mnasippus, after displaying great personal valor, was at length slain, and all his troops, being completely routed, fled back to the fortified camp in which their stores were preserved. Even this too might have been taken, and the whole armament destroyed, had the besieged attacked it at once. But they were astonished at their own success. Mistaking the numerous camp-followers for soldiers in reserve, they retired back to the city.

[309] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 16.

Ὁ δ’ αὖ Μνάσιππος ὁρῶν ταῦτα, ἐνόμιζέ τε ὅσον οὐκ ἤδη ἔχειν τὴν πόλιν, καὶ περὶ τοὺς μισθοφόρους, ἐκαινούργει, καὶ τοὺς μέν τινας αὐτῶν ἀπομίσθους ἐπεποιήκει, τοῖς δ’ οὖσι καὶ δυοῖν ἤδη μηνοῖν ὤφειλε τὸν μισθὸν, οὐκ ἀπορῶν, ὡς ἐλέγετο, χρημάτων, etc.

Their victory was however so complete, as to reopen easy communication with the country, to procure sufficient temporary supplies, and to afford a certainty of holding out until reinforcement from Athens should arrive. Such reinforcement, indeed, was already on its way, and had been announced as approaching to Hypermenês (second under the deceased Mnasippus), who had now succeeded to the command. Terrified at the news, he hastened to sail round from his station,—which he had occupied with the fleet to block up the harbor,—to the fortified camp. Here he first put the slaves, as well as the property, aboard of his transports, and sent them away; remaining himself to defend the camp with the soldiers and marines,—but remaining only a short time, and then taking these latter also aboard the triremes. He thus completely evacuated the island, making off for Leukas. But such had been the hurry,—and so great the terror lest the Athenian fleet should arrive,—that much corn and wine, many slaves, and even many sick and wounded soldiers, were left behind. To the victorious Korkyræans, these acquisitions were not needed to enhance the value of a triumph which rescued them from capture, slavery, or starvation.[310]

[310] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 18-26; Diodor. xv, 47.

The Athenian fleet had not only been tardy in arriving, so as to incur much risk of finding the island already taken,—but when it did come, it was commanded by Iphikrates, Chabrias, and the orator Kallistratus,[311]—not by Timotheus, whom the original vote of the people had nominated. It appears that Timotheus,—who (in April 373 B.C.), when the Athenians first learned that the formidable Lacedæmonian fleet had begun to attack Korkyra, had been directed to proceed thither forthwith with a fleet of sixty triremes,—found a difficulty in manning his ships at Athens, and therefore undertook a preliminary cruise to procure both seamen and contributory funds, from the maritime allies. His first act was to transport the six hundred peltasts under Stesiklês to Thessaly, where he entered into relations with Jason of Pheræ. He persuaded the latter to become the ally of Athens, and to further the march of Stesiklês with his division by land across Thessaly over the passes of Pindus, to Epirus; where Alketas, who was at once the ally of Athens, and the dependent of Jason, conveyed them by night across the strait from Epirus to Korkyra. Having thus opened important connection with the powerful Thessalian despot, and obtained from him a very seasonable service, together (perhaps) with some seamen from Pagasæ to man his fleet,—Timotheus proceeded onward to the ports of Macedonia, where he also entered into relations with Amyntas, receiving from him signal marks of private favor,—and then to Thrace as well as the neighboring islands. His voyage procured for him valuable subsidies in money and supplies of seamen, besides some new adhesions and deputies to the Athenian confederacy.

[311] Xen. Hellen. vi. 2, 39.

This preliminary cruise of Timotheus, undertaken with the general purpose of collecting means for the expedition to Korkyra, began in the month of April or commencement of May 373 B.C.[312] On departing, it appears, he had given orders to such of the allies as were intended to form part of the expedition, to assemble at Kalauria (an island off Trœzen, consecrated to Poseidon) where he would himself come and take them up to proceed onward. Pursuant to such order, several contingents mustered at this island,—among them the Bœotians, who sent several triremes, though in the preceding year it had been alleged against them that they contributed nothing to sustain the naval exertions of Athens. But Timotheus stayed out a long time. Reliance was placed upon him, and upon the money which he was to bring home, for the pay of the fleet; and the unpaid triremes accordingly fell into distress and disorganization at Kalauria, awaiting his return.[313] In the mean time fresh news reached Athens that Korkyra was much pressed; so that great indignation was felt against the absent admiral, for employing in his present cruise a precious interval essential to enable him to reach the island in time. Iphikrates (who had recently come back from serving with Pharnabazus, in an unavailing attempt to reconquer Egypt for the Persian king) and the orator Kallistratus, were especially loud in their accusations against him. And as the very salvation of Korkyra required pressing haste, the Athenians cancelled the appointment of Timotheus even during his absence,—naming Iphikrates, Kallistratus, and Chabrias, to equip a fleet and go round to Korkyra without delay.[314]

[312] The manner in which I have described the preliminary cruise of Timotheus, will be found (I think) the only way of uniting into one consistent narrative the scattered fragments of information which we possess respecting his proceedings in this year.

The date of his setting out from Athens is exactly determined by Demosthenes, adv. Timoth. p. 1186—the month Munychion, in the archonship of Sokratidês—April 373 B.C. Diodorus says that he proceeded to Thrace, and that he acquired several new members for the confederacy (xv, 47); Xenophon states that he sailed towards the islands (Hellen. vi, 2, 12); two statements not directly the same, yet not incompatible with each other. In his way to Thrace, he would naturally pass up the Eubœan strait and along the coast of Thessaly.

We know that Stesikles and his peltasts must have got to Korkyra, not by sea circumnavigating Peloponnesus, but by land across Thessaly and Epirus; a much quicker way. Xenophon tells us that the Athenians “asked Alketas to help them to cross over from the mainland of Epirus to the opposite island of Korkyra: and that they were in consequence carried across by night,”—Ἀλκέτου δὲ ἐδεήθησαν ~συνδιαβιβάσαι~ τούτους· καὶ οὗτοι μὲν ~νυκτὸς διακομισθέντες~ που τῆς χώρας, εἰσῆλθον εἰς τὴν πόλιν.

Now these troops could not have got to Epirus without crossing Thessaly; nor could they have crossed Thessaly without the permission and escort of Jason. Moreover, Alketas himself was the dependent of Jason, whose goodwill was therefore doubly necessary (Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 7).

We farther know that in the year preceding (374 B.C.), Jason was not yet in alliance with Athens, nor even inclined to become so, though the Athenians were very anxious for it (Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 10). But in November 373 B.C., Jason (as well as Alketas) appears as the established ally of Athens; not as then becoming her ally for the first time, but as so completely an established ally, that he comes to Athens for the express purpose of being present at the trial of Timotheus and of deposing in his favor—Ἀφικομένου γὰρ Ἀλκέτου καὶ Ἰάσονος ὡς τοῦτον (Timotheus) ἐν τῷ Μαιμακτηριῶνι μηνὶ τῷ ἐπ’ Ἀστείου ἄρχοντος, ~ἐπὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα τὸν τούτου, βοηθησόντων αὐτῷ~ καὶ καταγομένων εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τὴν ἐν Πειραιεῖ, etc. (Demosthen. adv. Timoth. c. 5, p. 1190). Again,—Αὐτὸν δὲ τοῦτον (Timotheus) ~ἐξαιτουμένων μὲν~ τῶν ἐπιτηδείων καὶ οἰκείων αὐτῷ ἁπάντων, ἔτι δὲ καὶ ~Ἀλκέτου καὶ Ἰάσονος, συμμάχων ὄντων ὑμῖν~, μόλις μὲν ἐπείσθητε ἀφεῖναι (Demosthen. ib. c, 3, p. 1187.) We see from hence, therefore, that the first alliance between Jason and Athens had been contracted in the early part of 373 B.C.; we see farther that it had been contracted by Timotheus in his preliminary cruise, which is the only reasonable way of explaining the strong interest felt by Jason as well as by Alketas in the fate of Timotheus, inducing them to take the remarkable step of coming to Athens to promote his acquittal. It was Timotheus who had first made the alliance of Athens with Alketas (Diodor. xv, 36; Cornel. Nepos, Timoth. c. 2), a year or two before.

Combining all the circumstances here stated, I infer with confidence, that Timotheus, in his preliminary cruise, visited Jason, contracted alliance between him and Athens, and prevailed upon him to forward the division of Stesikles across Thessaly to Epirus and Korkyra.

In this oration of Demosthenes, there are three or four exact dates mentioned, which are a great aid to the understanding of the historical events of the time. That oration is spoken by Apollodorus, claiming from Timotheus the repayment of money lent to him by Pasion the banker, father of Apollodorus; and the dates specified are copied from entries made by Pasion at the time in his commercial books (c. 1. p. 1186; c. 9. p. 1197).

[313] Demosthen. adv. Timoth. c. 3, p. 1188. ἄμισθον μὲν τὸ στράτευμα καταλελύσθαι ἐν Καλαυρίᾳ, etc.—ibid. c. 10, p. 1199. προσῆκε γὰρ τῷ μὲν Βοιωτίῳ ἄρχοντι παρὰ τούτου (Timotheus) τὴν τροφὴν τοῖς ἐν ταῖς ναυσὶ παραλαμβάνειν· ~ἐκ γὰρ τῶν κοινῶν συντάξεων ἡ μισθοφορία ἦν τῷ στρατεύματι· τὰ δὲ χρήματα σὺ~ (Timotheus) ~ἅπαντα ἐξέλεξας ἐκ τῶν συμμάχων~· καὶ σὲ ἔδει αὐτῶν λόγον ἀποδοῦναι.

[314] Xenoph. Hellen. vi, 2, 12, 13, 39; Demosthen. adv. Timoth. c. 3. p. 1188.

Before they could get ready, Timotheus returned; bringing several new adhesions to the confederacy, with a flourishing account of general success.[315] He went down to Kalauria to supply the deficiencies of funds, and make up for the embarrassments which his absence had occasioned. But he could not pay the Bœotian trierarchs without borrowing money for the purpose on his own credit; for though the sum brought home from his voyage was considerable, it would appear that the demands upon him had been greater still. At first an accusation, called for in consequence of the pronounced displeasure of the public, was entered against him by Iphikrates and Kallistratus. But as these two had been named joint admirals for the expedition to Korkyra, which admitted of no delay,—his trial was postponed until the autumn; a postponement advantageous to the accused, and doubtless seconded by his friends.[316]

[315] Diodor. xv, 47.

[316] I collect what is here stated from Demosthen. adv. Timoth. c. 3. p. 1188; c. 10. p. 1199. It is there said that Timotheus was about to sail home from Kalauria to take his trial; yet it is certain that his trial did not take place until the month Mæmakterion or November. Accordingly, the trial must have been postponed, in consequence of the necessity for Iphikrates and Kallistratus going away at once to preserve Korkyra.

Meanwhile Iphikrates adopted the most strenuous measures for accelerating the equipment of his fleet. In the present temper of the public, and in the known danger of Korkyra, he was allowed (though perhaps Timotheus, a few weeks earlier, would not have been allowed) not only to impress seamen in the port, but even to coërce the trierarchs with severity,[317] and to employ all the triremes reserved for the coast-guard of Attica, as well as the two sacred triremes called Paralus and Salaminia. He thus completed a fleet of seventy sail, promising to send back a large portion of it directly, if matters took a favorable turn at Korkyra. Expecting to find on the watch for him a Lacedæmonian fleet fully equal to his own, he arranged his voyage so as to combine the maximum of speed with training to his seamen, and with preparation for naval combat. The larger sails of an ancient trireme were habitually taken out of the ship previous to a battle, as being inconvenient aboard: Iphikrates left such sails at Athens,—employed even the smaller sails sparingly,—and kept his seamen constantly at the oar; which greatly accelerated his progress, at the same time that it kept the men in excellent training. Every day he had to stop, for meals and rest, on an enemy’s shore; and these halts were conducted with such extreme dexterity as well as precision, that the least possible time was consumed, not enough for any local hostile force to get together. On reaching Sphakteria, Iphikrates learnt for the first time the defeat and death of Mnasippus. Yet not fully trusting the correctness of his information, he still persevered both in his celerity and his precautions, until he reached Kephallenia, where he first fully satisfied himself that the danger of Korkyra was past. The excellent management of Iphikrates throughout this expedition is spoken of in terms of admiration by Xenophon.[318]

[317] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 14. Ὁ δὲ (Iphikrates) ἐπεὶ κατέστη στρατηγὸς, μάλα ὀξέως τὰς ναῦς ἐπληροῦτο, καὶ τοὺς τριηράρχους ἠνάγκαζε.

[318] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 27, 32.

Having no longer any fear of the Lacedæmonian fleet, the Athenian commander probably now sent back the home-squadron of Attica which he had been allowed to take, but which could ill be spared from the defence of the coast.[319] After making himself master of some of the Kephallenian cities, he then proceeded onward to Korkyra; where the squadron of ten triremes from Syracuse was now on the point of arriving; sent by Dionysius to aid the Lacedæmonians, but as yet uninformed of their flight. Iphikrates, posting scouts on the hills to give notice of their approach, set apart twenty triremes to be ready for moving at the first signal. So excellent was his discipline, (says Xenophon,) that “the moment the signal was made, the ardor of all the crews was a fine thing to see; there was not a man who did not hasten at a run to take his place aboard.”[320] The ten Syracusan triremes, after their voyage across from the Iapygian cape, had halted to rest their men on one of the northern points of Korkyra; where they were found by Iphikrates and captured, with all their crews and the admiral Anippus; one alone escaping, through the strenuous efforts of her captain, the Rhodian Melanôpus. Iphikrates returned in triumph, towing his nine prizes into the harbor of Korkyra. The crews, being sold or ransomed, yielded to him a sum of sixty talents; the admiral Anippus was retained in expectation of a higher ransom, but slew himself shortly afterwards from mortification.[321]

[319] Compare vi, 2, 14—with vi, 2, 39.

[320] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 34.

[321] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 35, 38; Diodor. xv, 47.

We find a story recounted by Diodorus (xvi, 57), that the Athenians under Iphikrates captured, off Korkyra, some triremes of Dionysius, carrying sacred ornaments to Delphi and Olympia. They detained and appropriated the valuable cargo, of which Dionysius afterwards loudly complained.

This story (if there be any truth in it) can hardly allude to any other triremes than those under Anippus. Yet Xenophon would probably have mentioned the story, if he had heard it; since it presents the enemies of Sparta as committing sacrilege. And whether the triremes were carrying sacred ornaments or not, it is certain that they were coming to take part in the war, and were therefore legitimate prizes.

Though the sum thus realized enabled Iphikrates for the time to pay his men, yet the suicide of Anippus was a pecuniary disappointment to him, and he soon began to need money. This consideration induced him to consent to the return of his colleague Kallistratus; who,—an orator by profession, and not on friendly terms with Iphikrates,—had come out against his own consent. Iphikrates had himself singled out both Kallistratus and Chabrias as his colleagues. He was not indifferent to the value of their advice, nor did he fear the criticisms, even of rivals, on what they really saw in his proceedings. But he had accepted the command under hazardous circumstances; not only from the insulting displacement of Timotheus, and the provocation consequently given to a powerful party attached to the son of Konon,—but also in great doubts whether he could succeed in relieving Korkyra, in spite of the rigorous coërcion which he applied to man his fleet. Had the island been taken and had Iphikrates failed, he would have found himself exposed to severe crimination, and multiplied enemies, at Athens. Perhaps Kallistratus and Chabrias, if left at home, might in that case have been among his assailants,—so that it was important to him to identify both of them with his good or ill success, and to profit by the military ability of the latter, as well as by the oratorical talent of the former.[322] As the result of the expedition, however, was altogether favorable, all such anxieties were removed. Iphikrates could well afford to part with both his colleagues; and Kallistratus engaged, that if permitted to go home, he would employ all his efforts to keep the fleet well paid from the public treasury; or if this were impracticable, that he would labor to procure peace.[323] So terrible are the difficulties which the Grecian generals now experience in procuring money from Athens, (or from other cities in whose service they are acting,) for payment of their troops! Iphikrates suffered the same embarrassment which Timotheus had experienced the year before,—and which will be found yet more painfully felt as we advance forward in the history. For the present, he subsisted his seamen by finding work for them on the farms of the Korkyræans, where there must doubtless have been ample necessity for repairs after the devastations of Mnasippus, while he crossed over to Akarnania with his peltasts and hoplites, and there obtained service with the townships friendly to Athens against such others as were friendly to Sparta; especially against the warlike inhabitants of the strong town called Thyrieis.[324]

[322] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 39. The meaning of Xenophon here is not very clear, nor is even the text perfect.

Ἐγὼ μὲν δὴ ταύτην τὴν στρατηγίαν τῶν Ἰφικράτους οὐχ ἥκιστα ἐπαινῶ· ἔπειτα καὶ τὸ ~προσελέσθαι κελεῦσαι ἑαυτῷ~ (this shows that Iphikrates himself singled them out) Καλλίστρατόν τε τὸν δημήγορον, οὐ μάλα ἐπιτήδειον ὄντα, καὶ Χαβρίαν, μάλα στρατηγικὸν νομιζόμενον. Εἴτε γὰρ φρονίμους αὐτοὺς ἡγούμενος εἶναι, συμβούλους λαβεῖν ἐβούλετο, σῶφρόν μοι δοκεῖ διαπράξασθαι· ~εἴτε ἀντιπάλους νομίζων~, οὕτω θρασέως (some words in the text seem to be wanting) ... μήτε καταῤῥᾳθυμῶν μήτε καταμελῶν φαίνεσθαι μηδὲν, μεγαλοφρονοῦντος ἐφ’ ἑαυτῷ τοῦτό μοι δοκεῖ ἀνδρὸς εἶναι.

I follow Dr. Thirlwall’s translation of οὐ μάλα ἐπιτήδειον, which appears to me decidedly preferable. The word ἠφίει (vi, 3, 3) shows that Kallistratus was an unwilling colleague.

[323] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 3. ὑποσχόμενος γὰρ Ἰφικράτει (Kallistratus) ~εἰ αὐτὸν ἠφίει~, ἢ χρήματα πέμψειν τῷ ναυτικῷ, ἢ εἰρήνην ποιήσειν, etc.

[324] Xen. Hellen. iv, 2, 37, 38.

The happy result of the Korkyræan expedition, imparting universal satisfaction at Athens, was not less beneficial to Timotheus than to Iphikrates. It was in November, 373 B.C., that the former, as well as his quæstor or military treasurer Antimachus, underwent each his trial. Kallistratus, having returned home, pleaded against the quæstor, perhaps against Timotheus also, as one of the accusers;[325] though probably in a spirit of greater gentleness and moderation, in consequence of his recent joint success and of the general good temper prevalent in the city. And while the edge of the accusation against Timotheus was thus blunted, the defence was strengthened not merely by numerous citizen friends speaking in his favor with increased confidence, but also by the unusual phenomenon of two powerful foreign supporters. At the request of Timotheus, both Alketas of Epirus, and Jason of Pheræ, came to Athens a little before the trial, to appear as witnesses in his favor. They were received and lodged by him in his house in the Hippodamian Agora, the principal square of the Peiræus. And as he was then in some embarrassment for want of money, he found it necessary to borrow various articles of finery in order to do them honor,—clothes, bedding, and two silver drinking bowls,—from Pasion, a wealthy banker near at hand. These two important witnesses would depose to the zealous service and estimable qualities of Timotheus; who had inspired them with warm interest, and had been the means of bringing them into alliance with Athens; an alliance, which they had sealed at once by conveying Stesikles and his division across Thessaly and Epirus to Korkyra. The minds of the dikastery would be powerfully affected by seeing before them such a man as Jason of Pheræ, at that moment the most powerful individual in Greece; and we are not surprised to learn that Timotheus was acquitted. His treasurer Antimachus, not tried by the same dikastery, and doubtless not so powerfully befriended, was less fortunate. He was condemned to death, and his property confiscated; the dikastery doubtless believing (on what evidence we do not know) that he had been guilty of fraud in dealing with the public money, which had caused serious injury at a most important crisis. Under the circumstances of the case, he was held responsible as treasurer, for the pecuniary department of the money-levying command confided to Timotheus by the people.

[325] Demosthen. cont. Timoth. c. 9, p. 1197, 1198.

As to the military conduct, for which Timotheus himself would be personally accountable, we can only remark that having been invested with the command for the special purpose of relieving the besieged Korkyra, he appears to have devoted an unreasonable length of time to his own self-originated cruise elsewhere; though such cruise was in itself beneficial to Athens; insomuch that if Korkyra had really been taken, the people would have had good reason for imputing the misfortune to his delay.[326] And although he was now acquitted, his reputation suffered so much by the whole affair, that in the ensuing spring he was glad to accept an invitation of the Persian satraps, who offered him the command of the Grecian mercenaries in their service for the Egyptian war; the same command from which Iphikrates had retired a little time before.[327]

[326] The narrative here given of the events of 373 B.C., so far as they concern Timotheus and Iphikrates, appears to me the only way of satisfying the exigencies of the case, and following the statements of Xenophon and Demosthenes.

Schneider in his note, indeed, implies, and Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, etc. p. 86) contends, that Iphikrates did not take command of the fleet, nor depart from Athens, until after the trial of Timotheus. There are some expressions in the oration of Demosthenes, which might seem to countenance this supposition; but it will be found hardly admissible, if we attentively study the series of facts.

1. Mnasippus arrived with his armament at Korkyra, and began the siege, either before April, or at the first opening of April, 373 B.C. For his arrival there, and the good condition of his fleet, was known at Athens before Timotheus received his appointment as admiral of the fleet for the relief of the island (Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 10, 11, 12).

2. Timotheus sailed from Peiræus on this appointed voyage, in April 373 B.C.

3. Timotheus was tried at Athens in November 373 B.C.; Alketas and Jason being then present, as allies of Athens and witnesses in his favor.

Now, if the truth were, that Iphikrates did not depart from Athens with his fleet until after the trial of Timotheus in November, we must suppose that the siege of Korkyra by Mnasippus lasted seven months, and the cruise of Timotheus nearly five months. Both the one and the other are altogether improbable. The Athenians would never have permitted Korkyra to incur so terrible a chance of capture, simply in order to wait for the trial of Timotheus. Xenophon does not expressly say how long the siege of Korkyra lasted; but from his expressions about the mercenaries of Mnasippus (that already pay was owing to them for as much as two months,—καὶ δυοῖν ~ἤδη~ μηνοῖν—vi, 2, 16), we should infer that it could hardly have lasted more than three months in all. Let us say, that it lasted four months; the siege would then be over in August, and we know that the fleet of Iphikrates arrived just after the siege was concluded.

Besides, is it credible, that Timotheus—named as admiral for the express purpose of relieving Korkyra, and knowing that Mnasippus was already besieging the place with a formidable fleet—would have spent so long a time as five months in his preliminary cruise?

I presume Timotheus to have stayed out in this cruise about two months; and even this length of time would be quite sufficient to raise strong displeasure against him at Athens, when the danger and privations of Korkyra were made known as hourly increasing. At the time when Timotheus came back to Athens, he found all this displeasure actually afloat against him, excited in part by the strong censures of Iphikrates and Kallistratus (Dem. cont. Timoth. p. 1187. c. 3). The adverse orations in the public assembly, besides inflaming the wrath of the Athenians against him, caused a vote to be passed deposing him from his command to Korkyra, and nominating in his place Iphikrates, with Chabrias and Kallistratus. Probably those who proposed this vote would at the same time give notice that they intended to prefer a judicial accusation against Timotheus for breach or neglect of duty. But it would be the interest of all parties to postpone actual trial until the fate of Korkyra should be determined, for which purpose the saving of time would be precious. Already too much time had been lost, and Iphikrates was well aware that his whole chance of success depended on celerity; while Timotheus and his friends would look upon postponement as an additional chance of softening the public displeasure, besides enabling them to obtain the attendance of Jason and Alketas. Still, though trial was postponed, Timotheus was from this moment under impeachment. The oration composed by Demosthenes therefore (delivered by Apollodorus as plaintiff, several years afterwards),—though speaking loosely, and not distinguishing the angry speeches against Timotheus in the public assembly (in June 373 B.C., or thereabouts, whereby his deposition was obtained), from the accusing speeches against him at his actual trial in November 373 B.C., before the dikastery—is nevertheless not incorrect in saying,—ἐπειδὴ δ’ ἀπεχειροτονήθη μὲν ὑφ’ ὑμῶν στρατηγὸς διὰ τὸ μὴ περιπλεῦσαι Πελοπόννησον, ἐπὶ ~κρίσει δὲ παρεδέδοτο εἰς τὸν δῆμον~, αἰτίας τῆς μεγίστης τυχὼν (c. 3, p. 1187)—and again respecting his coming from Kalauria to Athens—μέλλων τοίνυν καταπλεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν κρίσιν, ἐν Καλαυρίᾳ δανείζεται, etc. (p. 1188, 1189.) That Timotheus had been handed over to the people for trial—that he was sailing back from Kalauria for his trial—might well be asserted respecting his position in the month of June, though his trial did not actually take place until November. I think it cannot be doubted that the triremes at Kalauria would form a part of that fleet which actually went to Korkyra under Iphikrates; not waiting to go thither until after the trial of Timotheus in November, but departing as soon as Iphikrates could get ready, probably about July 373 B.C.

Rehdantz argues that if Iphikrates departed with the fleet in July, he must have returned to Athens in November to the trial of Timotheus, which is contrary to Xenophon’s affirmation that he remained in the Ionian sea until 371 B.C. But if we look attentively at the oration of Demosthenes, we shall see that there is no certain ground for affirming Iphikrates to have been present in Athens in November, during the actual trial of Timotheus. The phrases in p. 1187—ἐφειστήκει δ’ αὐτῷ Καλλίστρατος καὶ Ἰφικράτης ... οὕτω δὲ διέθεσαν ὑμᾶς κατηγοροῦντες τούτου αὐτοί τε καὶ οἱ συναγορεύοντες αὐτοῖς, etc., may be well explained, so far as Iphikrates is concerned, by supposing them to allude to those pronounced censures in the public assembly whereby the vote of deposition against Timotheus was obtained, and whereby the general indignation against him was first excited. I therefore see no reason for affirming that Iphikrates was actually present at the trial of Timotheus in November. But Kallistratus was really present at the trial (see c. 9. p. 1197, 1198); which consists well enough with the statement of Xenophon, that this orator obtained permission from Iphikrates to leave him at Korkyra and come back to Athens (vi, 3, 3). Kallistratus directed his accusation mainly against Antimachus, the treasurer of Timotheus. And it appears to me that under the circumstances of the case, Iphikrates, having carried his point of superseding Timotheus in the command and gaining an important success at Korkyra—might be well-pleased to be dispensed from the obligation of formally accusing him before the dikastery, in opposition to Jason and Alketas, as well as to a powerful body of Athenian friends.

Diodorus (xv, 47) makes a statement quite different from Xenophon. He says that Timotheus was at first deposed from his command, but afterwards forgiven and re-appointed by the people (jointly with Iphikrates) in consequence of the great accession of force which he had procured in his preliminary cruise. Accordingly the fleet, one hundred and thirty triremes in number, was despatched to Korkyra under the joint command of Iphikrates and Timotheus. Diodorus makes no mention of the trial of Timotheus. This account is evidently quite distinct from that of Xenophon, which latter is on all grounds to be preferred, especially as its main points are in conformity with the Demosthenic oration.

[327] Demosth. cont. Timoth. c. 6. p. 1191; c. 8. p. 1194.

We see from another passage of the same oration, that the creditors of Timotheus reckoned upon his making a large sum of money in the Persian service (c. 1, p. 1185). This farther illustrates what I have said in a previous note, about the motives of the distinguished Athenian officers to take service in foreign parts away from Athens.

That admiral, whose naval force had been reinforced by a large number of Korkyræan triremes, was committing without opposition incursions against Akarnania, and the western coast of Peloponnesus; insomuch that the expelled Messenians, in their distant exile at Hesperides in Libya, began to conceive hopes of being restored by Athens to Naupaktus, which they had occupied under her protection during the Peloponnesian war.[328] And while the Athenians were thus masters at sea both east and west of Peloponnesus,[329] Sparta and her confederates, discouraged by the ruinous failure of their expedition against Korkyra in the preceding year, appear to have remained inactive. With such mental predispositions, they were powerfully affected by religious alarm arising from certain frightful earthquakes and inundations with which Peloponnesus was visited during this year, and which were regarded as marks of the wrath of the god Poseidon. More of these formidable visitations occurred this year in Peloponnesus than had ever before been known; especially one, the worst of all, whereby the two towns of Helikê and Bura in Achaia were destroyed, together with a large portion of their population. Ten Lacedæmonian triremes, which happened to be moored on this shore on the night when the calamity occurred, were destroyed by the rush of the waters.[330]

[328] Xen. Hellen. vi, 2, 38; Pausanias, iv, 26, 3.

[329] See a curious testimony to this fact in Demosthen. cont. Neæram, c. 12, p. 1357.

[330] Diodor. xi, 48, 49; Pausan. vii, 25; Ælian. Hist. Animal. xi, 19.

Kallisthenes seems to have described at large, with appropriate religious comments, numerous physical portents which occurred about this time (see Kallisthen. Fragm. 8, ed. Didot).

Under these depressing circumstances, the Lacedæmonians had recourse to the same manœuvre which had so well served their purpose fifteen years before, in 388-387 B.C. They sent Antalkidas again as envoy to Persia, to entreat both pecuniary aid,[331] and a fresh Persian intervention enforcing anew the peace which bore his name; which peace had now been infringed (according to Lacedæmonian construction) by the reconstitution of the Bœotian confederacy under Thebes as president. And it appears that in the course of the autumn or winter, Persian envoys actually did come to Greece, requiring that the belligerents should all desist from war, and wind up their dissensions on the principles of the peace of Antalkidas.[332] The Persian satraps, at this time renewing their efforts against Egypt, were anxious for the cessation of hostilities in Greece, as a means of enlarging their numbers of Grecian mercenaries; of which troops Timotheus had left Athens a few months before to take the command.

[331] This second mission of Antalkidas is sufficiently verified by an indirect allusion of Xenophon (vi, 3, 12). His known philo-Laconian sentiments sufficiently explain why he avoids directly mentioning it.

[332] Diodor. xv, 50.

Diodorus had stated (a few chapters before, xv, 38) that Persian envoys had also come into Greece a little before the peace of 374 B.C., and had been the originators of that previous peace. But this appears to me one of the cases (not a few altogether in his history) in which he repeats himself, or gives the same event twice over under analogous circumstances. The intervention of the Persian envoys bears much more suitably on the period immediately preceding the peace of 371 B.C., than upon that which preceded the peace of 374 B.C., when, in point of fact, no peace was ever fully executed.

Dionysius of Halikarnassus also (Judic. de Lysiâ, p. 479) represents the king of Persia as a party to the peace sworn by Athens and Sparta in 371 B.C.

Apart, however, from this prospect of Persian intervention, which doubtless was not without effect,—Athens herself was becoming more and more disposed towards peace. That common fear and hatred of the Lacedæmonians, which had brought her into alliance with Thebes in 378 B.C., was now no longer predominant. She was actually at the head of a considerable maritime confederacy; and this she could hardly hope to increase by continuing the war, since the Lacedæmonian naval power had already been humbled. Moreover, she found the expense of warlike operations very burdensome, nowise defrayed either by the contributions of her allies or by the results of victory. The orator Kallistratus,—who had promised either to procure remittances from Athens to Iphikrates, or to recommend the conclusion of peace,—was obliged to confine himself to the latter alternative, and contributed much to promote the pacific dispositions of his countrymen.[333]

[333] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 3.

Moreover, the Athenians had become more and more alienated from Thebes. The ancient antipathy between these two neighbors had for a time been overlaid by common fear of Sparta. But as soon as Thebes had reëstablished her authority in Bœotia, the jealousies of Athens again began to arise. In 374 B.C., she had concluded a peace with the Spartans, without the concurrence of Thebes; which peace was broken almost as soon as made, by the Spartans themselves, in consequence of the proceedings of Timotheus at Zakynthus. The Phokians,—against whom, as having been active allies of Sparta in her invasions of Bœotia, Thebes was now making war,—had also been ancient friends of Athens, who sympathized with their sufferings.[334] Moreover, the Thebans on their side probably resented the unpaid and destitute condition in which their seamen had been left by Timotheus at Kalauria, during the expedition for the relief of Korkyra in the preceding year;[335] an expedition of which Athens alone reaped both the glory and the advantage. Though they remained members of the confederacy, sending deputies to the congress at Athens, the unfriendly spirit on both sides continued on the increase, and was farther exasperated by their violent proceeding against Platæa in the first half of 372 B.C.

[334] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 1.

[335] Demosthen. cont. Timoth. p. 1188, s. 17.

During the last three or four years, Platæa, like the other towns of Bœotia, had been again brought into the confederacy under Thebes. Reëstablished by Sparta after the peace of Antalkidas as a so-called autonomous town, it had been garrisoned by her as a post against Thebes, and was no longer able to maintain a real autonomy after the Spartans had been excluded from Bœotia in 376 B.C. While other Bœotian cities were glad to find themselves emancipated from their philo-Laconian oligarchies and rejoined to the federation under Thebes, Platæa,—as well as Thespiæ,—submitted to the union only by constraint; awaiting any favorable opportunity for breaking off, either by means of Sparta or of Athens. Aware probably of the growing coldness between the Athenians and Thebans, the Platæans were secretly trying to persuade Athens to accept and occupy their town, annexing Platæa to Attica;[336] a project hazardous both to Thebes and Athens, since it would place them at open war with each other, while neither was yet at peace with Sparta.

[336] Diodor. xv, 46. I do not know from whom Diodorus copied this statement; but it seems extremely reasonable.

This intrigue, coming to the knowledge of the Thebans, determined them to strike a decisive blow. Their presidency, over more than one of the minor Bœotian cities, had always been ungentle, suitable to the roughness of their dispositions. Towards Platæa, especially, they not only bore an ancient antipathy, but regarded the reëstablished town as little better than a Lacedæmonian encroachment, abstracting from themselves a portion of territory which had become Theban, by prescriptive enjoyment lasting for forty years from the surrender of Platæa in 427 B.C. As it would have been to them a loss as well as embarrassment, if Athens should resolve to close with the tender of Platæa,—they forestalled the contingency by seizing the town for themselves. Since the reconquest of Bœotia by Thebes, the Platæans had come again, though reluctantly, under the ancient constitution of Bœotia; they were living at peace with Thebes, acknowledging her rights as president of the federation, and having their own rights as members guaranteed in return by her, probably under positive engagement,—that is, their security, their territory, and their qualified autonomy, subject to the federal restrictions and obligations. But though thus at peace with Thebes,[337] the Platæans knew well what was her real sentiment towards them, and their own towards her. If we are to believe, what seems very probable, that they were secretly negotiating with Athens to help them in breaking off from the federation,—the consciousness of such an intrigue tended still farther to keep them in anxiety and suspicion. Accordingly, being apprehensive of some aggression from Thebes, they kept themselves habitually on their guard. But their vigilance was somewhat relaxed and most of them went out of the city to their farms in the country, on the days, well known beforehand, when the public assemblies in Thebes were held. Of this relaxation the Bœotarch Neokles took advantage.[338] He conducted a Theban armed force, immediately from the assembly, by a circuitous route through Hysiæ to Platæa; which town he found deserted by most of its male adults, and unable to make resistance. The Platæans,—dispersed in the fields, finding their walls, their wives, and their families, all in possession of the victor,—were under the necessity of accepting the terms proposed to them. They were allowed to depart in safety, and to carry away all their movable property; but their town was destroyed, and its territory again annexed to Thebes. The unhappy fugitives were constrained for the second time to seek refuge at Athens, where they were again kindly received, and restored to the same qualified right of citizenship as they had enjoyed prior to the peace of Antalkidas.[339]

[337] This seems to me what is meant by the Platæan speaker in Isokrates, when he complains more than once that Platæa had been taken by the Thebans in time of peace,—εἰρήνης οὔσης. The speaker, in protesting against the injustice of the Thebans, appeals to two guarantees which they have violated; for the purpose of his argument, however, the two are not clearly distinguished, but run together into one. The first guarantee was, the peace of Antalkidas, under which Platæa had been restored, and to which Thebes, Sparta, and Athens, were all parties. The second guarantee, was that given by Thebes when she conquered the Bœotian cities in 377-370 B.C., and reconstituted the federation; whereby she ensured to the Platæans existence as a city, with so much of autonomy as was consistent with the obligations of a member of the Bœotian federation. When the Platæan speaker accuses the Thebans of having violated “the oaths and the agreement” (ὅρκους καὶ ξυνθήκας), he means the terms of the peace of Antalkidas, subject to the limits afterwards imposed by the submission of Platæa to the federal system of Bœotia. He calls for the tutelary interference of Athens, as a party to the peace of Antalkidas.

Dr. Thirlwall thinks (Hist. Gr. vol. v, ch. 38. p. 70-72) that the Thebans were parties to the peace of 374 B.C. between Sparta and Athens; that they accepted it, intending deliberately to break it; and that under that peace, the Lacedæmonian harmosts and garrisons were withdrawn from Thespiæ and other places in Bœotia. I am unable to acquiesce in this view; which appears to me negatived by Xenophon, and neither affirmed nor implied in the Plataic discourse of Isokrates. In my opinion, there were no Lacedæmonian harmosts in Bœotia (except at Orchomenus in the north) in 374 B.C. Xenophon tells (Hellen. v, 4, 63; vi, 1, 1) that the Thebans “were recovering the Bœotian cities—had subdued the Bœotian cities”—in or before 375 B.C., so that they were able to march out of Bœotia and invade Phokis; which implies the expulsion or retirement of all the Lacedæmonian forces from the southern part of Bœotia.

The reasoning in the Plataic discourse of Isokrates is not very clear or discriminating; nor have we any right to expect that it should be, in the pleading of a suffering and passionate man. But the expression εἰρήνης οὔσης and εἰρήνη may always (in my judgment) be explained, without referring it, as Dr. Thirlwall does, to the peace of 374 B.C., or supposing Thebes to have been a party to that peace.

[338] Pausanias, ix, 1, 3.

[339] Diodor. xv, 47.

Pausanias (ix, 1, 3) places this capture of Platæa in the third year (counting the years from midsummer to midsummer) before the battle of Leuktra; or in the year of the archon Asteius at Athens; which seems to me the true date, though Mr. Clinton supposes it (without ground, I think) to be contradicted by Xenophon. The year of the archon Asteius reaches from midsummer 373 to 372 B.C. It is in the latter half of the year that I suppose Platæa to have been taken.

It was not merely with Platæa, but also with Thespiæ, that Thebes was now meddling. Mistrusting the dispositions of the Thespians, she constrained them to demolish the fortifications of their town;[340] as she had caused to be done fifty-two years before, after the victory of Delium,[341] on suspicion of leanings favorable to Athens.

[340] I infer this from Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 21-38; compare also sect. 10. The Platæan speaker accuses the Thebans of having destroyed the walls of some Bœotian cities (over and above what they had done to Platæa,) and I venture to apply this to Thespiæ. Xenophon indeed states that the Thespians were at this very period treated exactly like the Platæans; that is, driven out of Bœotia, and their town destroyed; except that they had not the same claim on Athens (Hellen. vi, 3, 1—ἀπόλιδας γενομένους: compare also vi, 3, 5). Diodorus also (xv, 46) speaks of the Thebans as having destroyed Thespiæ. But against this, I gather, from the Plataic Oration of Isokrates, that the Thespians were not in the same plight with the Platæans when that oration was delivered; that is, they were not expelled collectively out of Bœotia. Moreover, Pausanias also expressly says that the Thespians were present in Bœotia at the time of the battle of Leuktra, and that they were expelled shortly afterwards. Pausanias at the same time gives a distinct story, about the conduct of the Thespians, which it would not be reasonable to reject (ix, 13, 3; ix, 14, 1). I believe therefore that Xenophon has spoken inaccurately in saying that the Thespians were ἀπόλιδες before the battle of Leuktra. It is quite possible that they might have sent supplications to Athens (ἱκετεύοντας—Xen. Hell. vi, 3, 1) in consequence of the severe mandate to demolish their walls.

[341] Thucyd. iv, 133.

Such proceedings on the part of the Thebans in Bœotia excited strong emotion at Athens; where the Platæans not only appeared as suppliants, with the tokens of misery conspicuously displayed, but also laid their case pathetically before the assembly, and invoked aid to regain their town, of which they had been just bereft. On a question at once so touching and so full of political consequences, many speeches were doubtless composed and delivered, one of which has fortunately reached us; composed by Isokrates, and perhaps actually delivered by a Platæan speaker before the public assembly. The hard fate of this interesting little community is here impressively set forth; including the bitterest reproaches, stated with not a little of rhetorical exaggeration, against the multiplied wrongs done by Thebes, as well towards Athens as towards Platæa. Much of his invective is more vehement than conclusive. Thus when the orator repeatedly claims for Platæa her title to autonomous existence, under the guarantee of universal autonomy sworn at the peace of Antalkidas,[342]—the Thebans would doubtless reply, that at the time of that peace, Platæa was no longer in existence; but had been extinct for forty years, and was only renovated afterwards by the Lacedæmonians for their own political purposes. And the orator intimates plainly, that the Thebans were noway ashamed of their proceeding, but came to Athens to justify it, openly and avowedly; moreover, several of the most distinguished Athenian speakers espoused the same side.[343] That the Platæans had coöperated with Sparta in her recent operations in Bœotia against both Athens and Thebes, was an undeniable fact; which the orator himself can only extenuate by saying that they acted under constraint from a present Spartan force,—but which was cited on the opposite side as a proof of their philo-Spartan dispositions, and of their readiness again to join the common enemy as soon as he presented himself.[344] The Thebans would accuse Platæa of subsequent treason to the confederacy; and they even seem to have contended, that they had rendered a positive service to the general Athenian confederacy of which they were members,[345] by expelling the inhabitants of Platæa and dismantling Thespiæ; both towns being not merely devoted to Sparta, but also adjoining Kithæron, the frontier line whereby a Spartan army would invade Bœotia. Both in the public assembly of Athens, and in the general congress of the confederates at that city, animated discussions were raised upon the whole subject;[346] discussions, wherein, as it appears, Epaminondas, as the orator and representative of Thebes, was found a competent advocate against Kallistratus, the most distinguished speaker in Athens; sustaining the Theban cause with an ability which greatly enhanced his growing reputation.[347]

[342] Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plataic.) s. 11, 13, 18, 42, 46, 47, 68.

[343] Isokrates, Or. xiv, (Plat.) s. 3. Εἰ μὲν οὖν μὴ Θηβαίους ἑωρῶμεν ἐκ παντὸς τρόπου παρεσκευασμένους πείθειν ὑμᾶς ὡς οὐδὲν εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐξημαρτήκασι, διὰ βραχέων ἂν ἐποιησάμεθα τοὺς λόγους· ἐπειδὴ δ’ εἰς τοῦτ’ ἀτυχίας ἤλθομεν, ὥστε μὴ μόνον ἡμῖν εἶναι τὸν ἀγῶνα πρὸς τούτους ἀλλὰ καὶ τῶν ῥητόρων τοὺς δυνατωτάτους, οὓς ἀπὸ τῶν ἡμετέρων αὑτοῖς οὗτοι παρεσκευάσαντο συνηγόρους, etc.

Compare sect. 36.

[344] Isokr. Or. xiv, (Plat.) s. 12, 13, 14, 16, 28, 33, 48.

[345] Isokrat. Or. xiv, (Plat.) s. 23-27. λέγουσιν ὡς ὑπὲρ τοῦ κοινοῦ τῶν συμμάχων ταῦτ’ ἔπραξαν—φασὶ τὸ Θηβαίους ἔχειν τὴν ἡμετέραν, τοῦτο σύμφερον εἶναι τοῖς συμμάχοις, etc.

[346] Isokrat. Or. 14, (Plat.) s. 23, 24.

[347] Diodorus, (xv, 38) mentions the parliamentary conflict between Epaminondas and Kallistratus, assigning it to the period immediately antecedent to the abortive peace concluded between Athens and Sparta three years before. I agree with Wesseling (see his note ad loc.) in thinking that these debates more properly belong to the time immediately preceding the peace of 371 B.C. Diodorus has made great confusion between the two; sometimes repeating twice over the same antecedent phenomena, as if they belonged to both,—sometimes assigning to one what properly belongs to the other.

The altercation between Epaminondas and Kallistratus (ἐν τῷ κοινῷ συνεδρίῳ) seems to me more properly appertaining to debates in the assembly of the confederacy at Athens,—rather than to debates at Sparta, in the preliminary discussions for peace, where the altercations between Epaminondas and Agesilaus occurred.

But though the Thebans and their Athenian supporters, having all the prudential arguments on their side, carried the point so that no step was taken to restore the Platæans, nor any hostile declaration made against those to whom they owed their expulsion,—yet the general result of the debates, animated by keen sympathy with the Platæan sufferers, tended decidedly to poison the good feeling, and loosen the ties, between Athens and Thebes. This change showed itself by an increased gravitation towards peace with Sparta; strongly advocated by the orator Kallistratus, and now promoted not merely by the announced Persian intervention, but by the heavy cost of war, and the absence of all prospective gain from its continuance. The resolution was at length taken,—first by Athens, and next, probably, by the majority of the confederates assembled at Athens,—to make propositions of peace to Sparta, where it was well known that similar dispositions prevailed towards peace. Notice of this intention was given to the Thebans, who were invited to send envoys thither also, if they chose to become parties. In the spring of 371 B.C., at the time when the members of the Lacedæmonian confederacy were assembled at Sparta, both the Athenian and Theban envoys, and those from the various members of the Athenian confederacy, arrived there. Among the Athenian envoys, two at least,—Kallias (the hereditary daduch or torchbearer of the Eleusinian ceremonies) and Autoklês,—were men of great family at Athens; and they were accompanied by Kallistratus the orator.[348] From the Thebans, the only man of note was Epaminondas, then one of the Bœotarchs.

[348] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 3.

It seems doubtful, from the language of Xenophon, whether Kallistratus was one of the envoys appointed, or only a companion.

Of the debates which took place at this important congress, we have very imperfect knowledge; and of the more private diplomatic conversations, not less important than the debates, we have no knowledge at all. Xenophon gives us a speech from each of the three Athenians, and from no one else. That of Kallias, who announces himself as hereditary proxenus of Sparta at Athens, is boastful and empty, but eminently philo-Laconian in spirit;[349] that of Autoklês is in the opposite tone, full of severe censure on the past conduct of Sparta; that of Kallistratus, delivered after the other two,—while the enemies of Sparta were elate, her friends humiliated, and both parties silent from the fresh effect of the reproaches of Autoklês,[350]—is framed in a spirit of conciliation; admitting faults on both sides, but deprecating the continuance of war, as injurious to both, and showing how much the joint interests of both pointed towards peace.[351]

[349] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 4-6.

[350] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 7-10. Ταῦτ’ εἰπὼν, σιωπὴν μὲν παρὰ πάντων ἐποίησεν (Autoklês), ἡδομένους δὲ τοὺς ἀχθομένους τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἐποίησε.

[351] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 10-17.

This orator, representing the Athenian diplomacy of the time, recognizes distinctly the peace of Antalkidas as the basis upon which Athens was prepared to treat,—autonomy to each city, small as well as great; and in this way, coinciding with the views of the Persian king, he dismisses with indifference the menace that Antalkidas was on his way back from Persia with money to aid the Lacedæmonians in the war. It was not from fear of the Persian treasures (he urged),—as the enemies of peace asserted,—that Athens sought peace.[352] Her affairs were now so prosperous, both by sea and land, as to prove that she only did so on consideration of the general evils of prolonged war, and on a prudent abnegation of that rash confidence which was always ready to contend for extreme stakes,[353] like a gamester playing double or quits. The time had come for both Sparta and Athens now to desist from hostilities. The former had the strength on land, the latter was predominant at sea; so that each could guard the other; while the reconciliation of the two would produce peace throughout the Hellenic world, since in each separate city, one of the two opposing local parties rested on Athens, the other on Sparta.[354] But it was indispensably necessary that Sparta should renounce that system of aggression (already pointedly denounced by the Athenian, Autoklês) on which she had acted since the peace of Antalkidas; a system, from which she had at last reaped bitter fruits, since her unjust seizure of the Kadmeia had ended by throwing into the arms of the Thebans all those Bœotian cities, whose separate autonomy she had bent her whole policy to ensure.[355]

[352] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 12, 13.

[353] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 16.

[354] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 14. Καὶ γὰρ δὴ κατὰ γῆν μὲν τις ἂν, ὑμῶν φίλων ὄντων, ἱκανὸς γένοιτο ἡμᾶς λυπῆσαι; κατὰ θάλαττάν γε μὴν τις ἂν ὑμᾶς βλάψαι τι, ἡμῶν ὑμῖν ἐπιτηδείων ὄντων;

[355] Xen. Hellen. vi, 3, 11. Καὶ ὑμῖν δὲ ἔγωγε ὁρῶ διὰ τὰ ἀγνωμόνως πραχθέντα ἔστιν ὅτε πολλὰ ἀντίτυπα γιγνόμενα· ὧν ἦν καὶ ἡ καταληφθεῖσα ἐν Θήβαις Καδμεία· νῦν γοῦν, ὡς (?) ἐσπουδάσατε αὐτονόμους τὰς πόλεις γίγνεσθαι, πᾶσαι πάλιν, ἐπεὶ ἠδικήθησαν οἱ Θηβαῖοι, ἐπ’ ἐκείνοις γεγένηνται.

Two points stand out in this remarkable speech, which takes a judicious measure of the actual position of affairs;—first, autonomy to every city; and autonomy in the genuine sense, not construed and enforced by the separate interests of Sparta, as it had been at the peace of Antalkidas; next, the distribution of such preëminence or headship, as was consistent with this universal autonomy, between Sparta and Athens; the former on land, the latter at sea,—as the means of ensuring tranquillity in Greece. That “autonomy perverted to Lacedæmonian purposes,”—which Perikles had denounced before the Peloponnesian war as the condition of Peloponnesus, and which had been made the political canon of Greece by the peace of Antalkidas,—was now at an end. On the other hand, Athens and Sparta were to become mutual partners and guarantees; dividing the headship of Greece by an ascertained line of demarcation, yet neither of them interfering with the principle of universal autonomy. Thebes, and her claim to the presidency of Bœotia, were thus to be set aside by mutual consent.

It was upon this basis that the peace was concluded. The armaments on both sides were to be disbanded; the harmosts and garrisons everywhere withdrawn, in order that each city might enjoy full autonomy. If any city should fail in observance of these conditions, and continue in a career of force against any other, all were at liberty to take arms for the support of the injured party; but no one who did not feel disposed, was bound so to take arms. This last stipulation exonerated the Lacedæmonian allies from one of their most vexatious chains.

To the conditions here mentioned, all parties agreed; and on the ensuing day the oaths were exchanged. Sparta took the oath for herself and her allies; Athens took the oath for herself only; her allies afterwards took it severally, each city for itself. Why such difference was made, we are not told; for it would seem that the principle of severance applied to both confederacies alike.

Next came the turn of the Thebans to swear; and here the fatal hitch was disclosed. Epaminondas, the Theban envoy, insisted on taking the oath, not for Thebes separately, but for Thebes as president of the Bœotian federation, including all the Bœotian cities. The Spartan authorities on the other hand, and Agesilaus as the foremost of all, strenuously opposed him. They required that he should swear for Thebes alone, leaving the Bœotian cities to take the oath each for itself.

Already in the course of the preliminary debates, Epaminondas had spoken out boldly against the ascendency of Sparta. While most of the deputies stood overawed by her dignity, represented by the energetic Agesilaus as spokesman,—he, like the Athenian Autoklês, and with strong sympathy from many of the deputies present, had proclaimed that nothing kept alive the war except her unjust pretensions, and that no peace could be durable unless such pretensions were put aside.[356] Accepting the conditions of peace as finally determined, he presented himself to swear to them in the name of the Bœotian federation. But Agesilaus, requiring that each of the Bœotian cities should take the oath for itself, appealed to those same principles of liberty which Epaminondas himself had just invoked, and asked him whether each of the Bœotian cities had not as good a title to autonomy as Thebes. Epaminondas might have replied by asking, why Sparta had just been permitted to take the oath for her allies as well as for herself. But he took a higher ground. He contended that the presidency of Bœotia was held by Thebes on as good a title as the sovereignty of Laconia by Sparta.[357] He would remind the assembly that when Bœotia was first conquered and settled by its present inhabitants, the other towns had all been planted out from Thebes as their chief and mother-city; that the federal union of all, administered by Bœotarchs chosen by and from all, with Thebes as president, was coeval with the first settlement of the country; that the separate autonomy of each was qualified by an established institution, devolving on the Bœotarchs and councils sitting at Thebes the management of the foreign relations of all jointly. All this had been already pleaded by the Theban orator fifty-six years earlier, before the five Spartan commissioners, assembled to determine the fate of the captives after the surrender of Platæa; when he required the condemnation of the Platæans as guilty of treason to the ancestral institutions of Bœotia;[358] and the Spartan commissioners had recognized the legitimacy of these institutions by a sweeping sentence of death against the transgressors. Moreover, at a time when the ascendency of Thebes over the Bœotian cities had been greatly impaired by her anti-Hellenic coöperation with the invading Persians, the Spartans themselves had assisted her with all their power to reëstablish it, as a countervailing force against Athens.[359] Epaminondas could show, that the presidency of Thebes over the Bœotian cities was the keystone of the federation; a right not only of immemorial antiquity, but pointedly recognized and strenuously vindicated by the Spartans themselves. He could show farther that it was as old, and as good, as their own right to govern the Laconian townships; which latter was acquired and held (as one of the best among their own warriors had boastfully proclaimed)[360] by nothing but Spartan valor and the sharpness of the Spartan sword.

[356] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 27.

[357] Plutarch. Agesil. c. 28.

[358] Thucyd. iii, 61. ἡμῶν (the Thebans) κτισάντων Πλάταιαν ὕστερον τῆς ἄλλης Βοιωτίας καὶ ἄλλα χωρία μετ’ αὐτῆς, ἃ ξυμμίκτους ἀνθρώπους ἐξελάσαντες ἔσχομεν, οὐκ ἠξίουν οὗτοι (the Platæans), ~ὥσπερ ἐτάχθη τὸ πρῶτον~, ἡγεμονεύεσθαι ὑφ’ ἡμῶν, ~ἔξω δὲ τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωτῶν παραβαίνοντες τὰ πάτρια~, ἐπειδὴ προσηναγκάζοντο, προσεχώρησαν πρὸς Ἀθηναίους, etc.

Again (c. 65) he says respecting the oligarchical Platæans who admitted the Theban detachment when it came by night to surprise Platæa,—εἰ δὲ ἄνδρες ὑμῶν οἱ πρῶτοι καὶ χρήμασι καὶ γένει, βουλόμενοι τῆς μὲν ἔξω ξυμμαχίας ὑμᾶς παῦσαι, ~ἐς δὲ τὰ κοινὰ τῶν πάντων Βοιωτῶν πάτρια καταστῆσαι~, ἐπεκαλέσαντο ἕκοντες, etc.

Again (c. 66), κατὰ τὰ πάντων Βοιωτῶν πάτρια, etc. Compare ii, 2.

[359] Diodor. xi, 81.

[360] Thucyd. iv, 126.

Brasidas, addressing his soldiers when serving in Macedonia, on the approach of the Illyrians:—

Ἀγαθοῖς γὰρ εἶναι προσήκει ὑμῖν τὰ πολέμια, οὐ διὰ ξυμμάχων παρουσίαν ἑκάστοτε, ἀλλὰ δι’ οἰκείαν ἀρετὴν, καὶ μηδὲν πλῆθος πεφοβῆσθαι ἑτέρων· οἵ γε μηδὲ ἀπὸ πολιτειῶν τοιούτων ἥκετε, ἐν αἷς οὐ πολλοὶ ὀλίγων ἄρχουσιν, ἀλλὰ πλειόνων μᾶλλον ἐλάσσους· ~οὐκ ἄλλῳ τινὶ κτησάμενοι τὴν δυναστείαν ἢ τῷ μαχόμενοι κρατεῖν~.

An emphatic speech of this tenor, delivered amidst the deputies assembled at Sparta, and arraigning the Spartans not merely in their supremacy over Greece, but even in their dominion at home,—was as it were the shadow cast before, by coming events. It opened a question such as no Greek had ever ventured to raise. It was a novelty startling to all,—extravagant probably in the eyes of Kallistratus and the Athenians,—but to the Spartans themselves, intolerably poignant and insulting.[361] They had already a long account of antipathy to clear off with Thebes; their own wrong-doing in seizing the Kadmeia,—their subsequent humiliation in losing it and being unable to recover it,—their recent short-comings and failures, in the last seven years of war against Athens and Thebes jointly. To aggravate this deep-seated train of hostile associations, their pride was now wounded in an unforeseen point, the tenderest of all. Agesilaus, full to overflowing of the national sentiment, which in the mind of a Spartan passed for the first of virtues, was stung to the quick. Had he been an Athenian orator like Kallistratus, his wrath would have found vent in an animated harangue. But a king of Sparta was anxious only to close these offensive discussions with scornful abruptness, thus leaving to the presumptuous Theban no middle ground between humble retraction and acknowledged hostility. Indignantly starting from his seat, he said to Epaminondas,—“Speak plainly,—will you, or will you not, leave to each of the Bœotian cities its separate autonomy?” To which the other replied—“Will you leave each of the Laconian towns autonomous?” Without saying another word, Agesilaus immediately caused the name of the Thebans to be struck out of the roll, and proclaimed them excluded from the treaty.[362]

[361] One may judge of the revolting effect produced by such a proposition, before the battle of Leuktra,—by reading the language which Isokrates puts into the mouth of the Spartan prince Archidamus, five or six years after that battle, protesting that all Spartan patriots ought to perish rather than consent to the relinquishment of Messenia,—περὶ μὲν ἄλλων τινῶν ἀμφισβητήσεις, ἐγίγνοντο, περὶ δὲ Μεσσήνης, οὔτε βασιλεὺς, οὐθ’ ἡ τῶν Ἀθηναίων πόλις, οὐδὲ πώποθ’ ἡμῖν ἐνεκάλεσεν ὡς ἀδίκως κεκτημένοις αὐτήν (Isok. Arch. s. 32). In the spring of 371 B.C., what had once been Messenia, was only a portion of Laconia, which no one thought of distinguishing from the other portions (see Thucyd. iv, 3, 11).

[362] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 28; Pausanias, ix, 13, 1; compare Diodor. xv, 51. Pausanias erroneously assigns the debate to the congress preceding the peace of Antalkidas in 387 B.C.; at which time Epaminondas was an unknown man.

Plutarch gives this interchange of brief questions, between Agesilaus and Epaminondas, which is in substance the same as that given by Pausanias, and has every appearance of being the truth. But he introduces it in a very bold and abrupt way, such as cannot be conformable to the reality. To raise a question about the right of Sparta to govern Laconia, was a most daring novelty. A courageous and patriotic Theban might venture upon it as a retort against those Spartans who questioned the right of Thebes to her presidency of Bœotia; but he would never do so without assigning his reasons to justify an assertion so startling to a large portion of his hearers. The reasons which I here ascribe to Epaminondas are such as we know to have formed the Theban creed, in reference to the Bœotian cities; such as were actually urged by the Theban orator in 427 B.C., when the fate of the Platæan captives was under discussion. After Epaminondas had once laid out the reasons in support of his assertion, he might then, if the same brief question were angrily put to him a second time, meet it with another equally brief counter-question or retort. It is this final interchange of thrusts which Plutarch has given, omitting the arguments previously stated by Epaminondas, and necessary to warrant the seeming paradox which he advances. We must recollect that Epaminondas does not contend that Thebes was entitled to as much power in Bœotia as Sparta in Laconia. He only contends that Bœotia, under the presidency of Thebes, was as much an integral political aggregate, as Laconia under Sparta,—in reference to the Grecian world.

Xenophon differs from Plutarch in his account of the conduct of the Theban envoys. He does not mention Epaminondas at all, nor any envoy by name; but he says that “the Thebans, having entered their name among the cities which had taken the oaths, came on the next day and requested, that the entry might be altered, and that ‘the Bœotians’ might be substituted in place of the Thebans, as having taken the oath. Agesilaus told them that he could make no change; but he would strike their names out if they chose, and he accordingly did strike them out” (vi, 3, 19). It seems to me that this account is far less probable than that of Plutarch, and bears every mark of being incorrect. Why should such a man as Epaminondas (who doubtless was the envoy) consent at first to waive the presidential pretensions of Thebes, and to swear for her alone? If he did consent, why should he retract the next day? Xenophon is anxious to make out Agesilaus to be as much in the right as may be; since the fatal consequences of his proceedings manifested themselves but too soon.

Such was the close of this memorable congress at Sparta in June, 371 B.C. Between the Spartans and Athenians, and their respective allies, peace was sworn. But the Thebans were excluded, and their deputies returned home (if we may believe Xenophon[363]) discouraged and mournful. Yet such a man as Epaminondas must have been well aware that neither his claims nor his arguments would be admitted by Sparta. If therefore he was disappointed with the result, this must be because he had counted upon, but did not obtain, support from the Athenians or others.

[363] Xenoph. Hellen. vi, 3, 20.

The leaning of the Athenian deputies had been adverse rather than favorable to Thebes throughout the congress. They were disinclined, from their sympathies with the Platæans, to advocate the presidential claims of Thebes, though on the whole it was the political interest of Athens that the Bœotian federation should be maintained, as a bulwark to herself against Sparta. Yet the relations of Athens with Thebes, after the congress as before it, were still those of friendship, nominal rather than sincere. It was only with Sparta, and her allies, that Thebes was at war, without a single ally attached to her. On the whole, Kallistratus and his colleagues had managed the interests of Athens in this congress with great prudence and success. They had disengaged her from the alliance with Thebes, which had been dictated seven years before by common fear and dislike of Sparta, but which had no longer any adequate motive to countervail the cost of continuing the war; at the same time, the disengagement had been accomplished without bad faith. The gains of Athens, during the last seven years of war, had been considerable. She had acquired a great naval power, and a body of maritime confederates; while her enemies the Spartans had lost their naval power in the like proportion. Athens was now the ascendent leader of maritime and insular Greece,—while Sparta still continued to be the leading power on land, but only on land; and a tacit partnership was now established between the two, each recognizing the other in their respective halves of the Hellenic hegemony.[364] Moreover, Athens had the prudence to draw her stake, and quit the game, when at the maximum of her acquisitions, without taking the risk of future contingencies.

[364] Diodor. xv, 38-82.

On both sides, the system of compulsory and indefeasable confederacies was renounced; a renunciation which had already been once sworn to, sixteen years before, at the peace of Antalkidas, but treacherously perverted by Sparta in the execution. Under this new engagement, the allies of Sparta or Athens ceased to constitute an organized permanent body, voting by its majority, passing resolutions permanently binding upon dissentients, arming the chief state with more or less power of enforcement against all, and forbidding voluntary secessions of individual members. They became a mere uncemented aggregate of individuals, each acting for himself; taking counsel together as long as they chose, and coöperating so far as all were in harmony; but no one being bound by any decision of the others, nor recognizing any right in the others to compel him even to performance of what he had specially promised, if it became irksome. By such change, therefore, both Athens and Sparta were losers in power; yet the latter to a much greater extent than the former, inasmuch as her reach of power over her allies had been more comprehensive and stringent.

We here see the exact point upon which the requisition addressed by Sparta to Thebes, and the controversy between Epaminondas and Agesilaus, really turned. Agesilaus contended that the relation between Thebes and the other Bœotian cities was the same as what subsisted between Sparta and her allies; that accordingly, when Sparta renounced the indefeasible and compulsory character of her confederacy, and agreed to deal with each of its members as a self-acting and independent unit, she was entitled to demand that Thebes should do the same in reference to the Bœotian towns. Epaminondas, on the contrary, denied the justice of this parallel. He maintained that the proper subject of comparison to be taken, was the relation of Sparta, not to her extra-Laconian allies, but to the Laconian townships; that the federal union of the Bœotian towns under Thebes was coeval with the Bœotian settlement, and among the most ancient phenomena of Greece; that in reference to other states, Bœotia, like Laconia or Attica, was the compound and organized whole, of which each separate city was only a fraction; that other Greeks had no more right to meddle with the internal constitution of these fractions, and convert each of them into an integer,—than to insist on separate independence for each of the townships of Laconia. Epaminondas did not mean to contend that the power of Thebes over the Bœotian cities was as complete and absolute in degree, as that of Sparta over the Laconian townships; but merely that her presidential power, and the federal system of which it formed a part, were established, indefeasible, and beyond the interference of any Hellenic convention,—quite as much as the internal government of Sparta in Laconia.

Once already this question had been disputed between Sparta and Thebes at the peace of Antalkidas; and already decided once by the superior power of the former, extorting submission from the latter. The last sixteen years had reversed the previous decision, and enabled the Thebans to reconquer those presidential rights of which the former peace had deprived them. Again, therefore, the question stood for decision, with keener antipathy on both sides,—with diminished power in Sparta,—but with increased force, increased confidence, and a new leader whose inestimable worth was even yet but half-known,—in Thebes. The Athenians,—friendly with both, yet allies of neither,—suffered the dispute to be fought out without interfering. How it was settled will appear in the next chapter.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter LXXVII

Cite this passage

MLA

APA

Chicago

Chapter LXXVII