XLIV. THE RISE OF THEBES…

XLIV. THE RISE OF THEBES

The brilliant expansion of the power of Sparta after the King’s Peace is intimately connected with the name of Agesilaus. Therefore in order rightly to understand the significance and the results of the Peace of Antalcidas, we must first form some idea of the tendencies and political position of this eminent man. Nothing but a just appreciation of his personality will suffice to keep us from tossing rudderless between the Scylla and Charybdis of diametrically opposite views of the object of the peace, and of Sparta’s policy at that period.

Agesilaus was from the outset the typical representative of the Sparta of his time. All his thoughts and energies had their root in his own state alone, and to exalt this state to the position of the first power in the world, to gain for it the hegemony of Hellenic affairs, was his object, as it was the object of the whole contemporary policy of Sparta. To this end he laboured with admirable consistency through all his long life, from his first campaign in Asia to his expedition into Egypt, and all his acts, whether as a victorious monarch or an adventurous leader of mercenaries, were directed to one end--to vindicate the authority of Sparta. And when this end could not be attained by force of arms he was equal to compassing it by diplomatic moves. Hence it is certain that the Peace of Antalcidas was not concluded without his knowledge and consent, even if circumstances rendered it desirable for him to keep in the background during the negotiations in Asia.

Lacedæmon found herself incapable of maintaining by mere force of arms the position which had devolved upon her through the events of the Peloponnesian War, and if Sparta were not to abdicate the hegemony of Greece she must perforce try to conclude an advantageous peace and an alliance with Persia. This project was favoured by the ill-timed attempts of Athens to regain her maritime supremacy, and the Spartans, rightly gauging the situation, associated with these attempts their conciliatory negotiations with Persia. That this step, which closed to him henceforth his career of glory in Asia, was an easy one for Agesilaus to take, is unlikely; it was a political necessity, the inevitable consequence of the lines along which Greek policy had developed for the last thirty years.

Persia and Sparta were alike interested in preventing the revival of the sea power of Athens, and both needed peace to regain sway in their own dominions. This was the natural basis of the negotiations. The Great King was appointed supreme arbitrator in the affairs of Greece, and the possession of the Greek cities in Asia Minor was guaranteed to him. The Spartans had never indulged in Panhellenistic sentiments. Their whole political organisation and development made it almost impossible for the fate of their kindred in Asia to rouse any interest in their minds. When once their interests in Ionia were lost by the fortune of war, the documentary recognition of the fact could have roused no scruple in the breast of any true Spartan. And although it was these paragraphs of the peace which stirred the profoundest indignation in such men as Plato and Demosthenes, in the rest of Greece the time of national enthusiasm had gone by. Even in Athens the masses had unlearned their ancient hatred of Persia since they had been indebted to the succour of the Great King for the only bright spot in troublous times of war, and statesmen could not blind themselves to the fact that the political sins of Greece since the year 411, and the constant appeal to Persia for support and mediation which had become habitual since then, had been inexorably conducting her to this end.

The second main paragraph dealt with the internal affairs of Greece. Every state, great or small, was to become autonomous. If the first article contained an important concession to the Great King, this, which decreed the autonomy, was made primarily with a view to the advantage of Sparta. It could have no aim but one, to assert the hegemony of Sparta in Greece. This article, which had so enticing a sound in Greek ears, was the death-warrant of the growing power of the Athenian maritime confederacy, of the supremacy of Thebes in Bœotia, of the union of Argos and Corinth; it destroyed in the germ every power that might have imperilled the position of Sparta. Her own dominion in the Peloponnesus was not compromised by the proclamation of liberty, as her allies were already autonomous in name, while the authority of the hostile coalition was shattered at a blow. Thus the victor of Cnidus shared the spoils with the vanquished foe who had known so well how to avail himself of the right moment for proving an indispensable ally. As suzerain of Hellas, Artaxerxes, who could not suppress the rebels in his own country, dictates peace there, a peace which proclaimed liberty to the states but was nevertheless meant from the outset to enslave them, and Sparta lets herself be appointed to execute the compact which is to procure anew for her the supremacy of Greece. It was not the end of her projects but the beginning.

[Sidenote: [387-386 B.C.]]

A glance at the history of the succeeding years shows how she pursued these projects. First of all, the Spartans turned their attention to the internal affairs of the Peloponnesus. The first thing they had to do was to vindicate their authority at home. During the long years of war the old ties between Sparta and her allies had grown looser; here and there the democratic element had taken the helm; there had been attempts to evade the obligation of military service; there had been open rejoicing at Sparta’s ill-success. The situation called for energetic measures. We have already seen how a beginning was made with Corinth during the peace negotiations in Sparta. By a threat of armed invasion the Argive garrison was forced to withdraw and the alliance between the two states was dissolved; the Corinthian democrats left the city, the exiles were recalled, and Corinth, more closely linked with Lacedæmon than ever, again became her bulwark against enemies from without.

MANTINEA CRUSHED

The next step was to juggle the government of the other democratic states back into the hands of the oligarchy. Mantinea was the first to suffer. This city had always been an offence in the eyes of Sparta. The synoicismus[11] and the fortification of Mantinea had taken place at the instigation of Argos after the Persian wars, and friendship towards Sparta was hardly likely to have been the leading motive for these proceedings. After the Peace of Nicias the city had joined the league against Sparta founded by Argos, and had taken an active part in the war. The unfavourable issue of the campaign obliged Mantinea to submit to Sparta once more and to conclude peace for thirty years, but nevertheless the democratic government remained in power, and the antagonism against Sparta persisted after, as before. The people made a parade of their animosity, treated the obligation of military service with neglect; and after the defeat of the mora on the isthmus Agesilaus had to pass the city under cover of fog and darkness in order to elude the scorn and malicious satisfaction of the inhabitants.

[Sidenote: [386-385 B.C.]]

Now the day of reckoning had come. Spartan ambassadors came to Mantinea, bringing a multitude of complaints, together with the demand for the demolition of the walls about the city. This demand being met by a refusal, Sparta declared war. Agesilaus begged to be excused from the chief command of the army, as the Mantineans had rendered his father great services during the Messenian War. Agesipolis marched against Mantinea and endeavoured to force the people into compliance by devastating their territory. When this expedient proved fruitless he laid siege to the city. The inhabitants made an obstinate defence, but they were obliged to surrender unconditionally after Agesipolis had dammed the river Ophis, which flowed through the town, and thus caused an inundation which brought about the fall of its walls of unbaked brick. By the intercession of Pausanias, who was living in exile at Tegea, the leaders of the people and the partisans of democracy, sixty in number, were allowed to withdraw in safety, a portion of the population was allowed to inhabit Mantinea as an unfortified place, and the remainder was obliged to settle in four distinct unprotected villages. To each of these villages a Spartan xenagos was appointed. Xenophon adds that the Mantineans were at first indignant at being removed, but that they afterwards expressed their satisfaction at what had been done, as under an aristocratic government they could lead a quiet life near their estates and free from troublesome demagogues. This is a reproduction of the Spartan and oligarchic view of the matter.

In both ancient and modern times the treatment meted out to Mantinea has invariably been branded as an act of most brutal and barbarous violence and arbitrary cruelty, the outcome of the policy of Agesilaus. In this general and (to a certain extent) just censure of the ruler of the Spartan state at the time, one point has been overlooked. In a democratic constitution the Spartans could see nothing but a reign of revolutionary terrorism which oppressed the peaceful and sober part of the community, their own friends and adherents. To help the latter, to put them in power again, they held to be the duty of the sovereign state. Spartan policy was sure of its aims, and in its consistency lies the secret of Sparta’s superiority at this period. And if we are right in assuming that a Spartan must have ceased to be a Spartan before he could conceive otherwise of the state of affairs, there is no justification for heaping personal abuse and scandalous imputations upon a writer who reflects the opinions of his circle.

[Sidenote: [385-383 B.C.]]

The punishment of Mantinea produced a profound effect upon the other Peloponnesian cities. With high hopes of an equally energetic interference on their behalf the aristocratic exiles from Phlius immediately turned to Sparta with the entreaty that the Spartans would intercede for their restoration to their homes. A bare admonition from the ephors to the municipal authorities to receive back the friends they had cast out for no sufficient reason, was enough to evoke a decree by which the sentence of banishment was repealed and the exiles were promised the restoration of their property. The spirit of resistance had been broken by the fate of Mantinea.

The Spartans next turned their attention to Bœotia. Although the Bœotian league, not being based on the principle of autonomy, had been broken up by the second paragraph of the peace, they felt the need of taking precautions against any attempt on the part of Thebes--the city which they regarded as the author of the whole ill-starred war and which had defied them to the last to re-establish its authority. Hence, as a first step, a Spartan garrison was retained in the friendly city of Orchomenos, and both Thespiæ and Tanagra were induced to throw in their lot with Sparta. But the most telling stroke at Thebes was the restoration of Platæa. For one thing, the Thebans were thereby deprived of the usufruct of Platæan territory, and for another, the newly founded city, being of course wholly dependent upon Sparta, afforded an excellent base for attack upon Thebes itself. Here again we see the relentless and energetic policy of Sparta in action.

THE OLYNTHIAN WAR

[Sidenote: [383 B.C.]]

More serious complications in Greek affairs soon gave the Spartans their opportunity for showing themselves masters of Hellas. In the spring of 383 ambassadors from the cities of Apollonia and Acanthus presented themselves in Sparta to beg for support against the increasing power of the Olyntho-Chalcidian league. Their petition was seconded by deputies from Amyntas, king of Macedonia, who felt the security of his dominions imperilled by the encroachments of Olynthus. The Olynthians strove more and more vigorously to assert the authority of the league. They had succeeded in persuading nearly all the cities of the Chalcidice to join their confederacy; they had pushed forward towards Macedonia, and had even brought Pella over to their interests. The league was now in a position to hold the menace of war over any cities which refused adherence, and to meditate far-reaching enterprises. By an agreement with Athens and Thebes it hoped to secure an influence upon middle Greece. By this energetic and well-considered centralisation a federal state was created, admirably calculated to serve as a bulwark of the power of Hellas against Thrace, and as a fresh starting-point for the civilisation of the barbarous North.

As we look back at the lines along which the history of Greece developed, we are inevitably forced upon the conclusion that nothing but strict union, the formation of closely confederated states, could have checked the rapid process of political decay. This conviction lies at the root of the liberal recognition and sympathy which the majority of modern scholars have accorded to the efforts of the Olynthian league. Whether the brilliant visions of the future which Grote, in particular, sketches for the league would ever have been realised, even if it had not fallen upon the days of Sparta’s arbitrary dominion, remains an open question. Centralisation and unification were repugnant to the Greek mind, and every attempt in that direction was bound to go to wreck on the fanatical love of autonomy among the Greek states.

The appeal of Apollonia and Acanthus, which wished to retain their ancient constitution, and the simultaneous action of the oppressed Amyntas, offered Sparta the desired opportunity for attacking the Chalcidic federation. Doubtless the sea power of Olynthus and the steady expansion of the league had long since attracted general attention there, and had been the subject of anxious reflection. The possibility that this league might grow more powerful still and attain an authoritative position in middle Greece also had to be guarded against at all risks. The policy of Sparta rendered it imperative that every considerable development of power in other states should be repressed. The war against the Olynthians was determined upon, and, by the desire of the ambassadors, Eudamidas was immediately despatched with such forces as could be equipped in haste.

THE SURPRISE OF THEBES

[Sidenote: [383-380 B.C.]]

His brother Phœbidas was to follow with the remainder of the troops destined for the campaign in Thrace as soon as the levies were completed, a process which was probably rendered more lengthy by the fact that the new military system was now brought into use for the first time. By the end of summer, 383, Phœbidas was ready to start. He took his way past Thebes. There, as Xenophon tells, party quarrels had reached an extreme point. The office of polemarch was held by Leontiades and Ismenias, who were deadly enemies, each being the leader of a distinct body of partisans. For the moment the anti-Laconian party was in the ascendant. A decree had been promulgated that no man should be allowed to enlist for the campaign against Olynthus. When Phœbidas appeared before the walls of the city, Leontiades, whose family had always maintained close relations with Sparta, endeavoured to gain his favour by every kind of service, and then persuaded the vain and ambitious general to attempt a coup-de-main against the Cadmea. By this means he was to bring the adherents of Sparta into power and secure the active assistance of Thebes in the Olynthian War.

Phœbidas fell in with the proposed plot, and the day of the feast of the Thesmophoria was appointed for its execution. On that day the women of the city celebrated by themselves a festival in the ancient temple of Demeter on the Cadmea. Phœbidas was to make a feint of striking camp and setting out on his march northwards. While the council was assembled in a hall in the market-place and the heat of noon-day kept the rest of the population indoors, Leontiades galloped after the departing general, led him unobserved up to the citadel, and opened the gates to him. He then hied to the council, announced what had taken place, and had Ismenias arrested as a seditious person. The leaders and adherents of the opposition, to the number of three hundred, were obliged to flee for their lives to Athens. The occupation of the Cadmea was a political necessity, the logical consequence of the efforts of Sparta to secure the hegemony. The experiences of the last war had not been suffered in vain.

While Agesilaus was pursuing his victorious career in Asia a coalition against Sparta had been formed in Greece at the instigation of Persia, and Thebes had shown herself most zealous in promoting this anti-Spartan combination which was so grave a menace to the existence of Lacedæmon. This time Sparta was once more undertaking a war on the confines of Greece; if fortune were adverse, if a battle were lost, she had no guarantee against the possibility--the probability even--that hostile Thebes, still barely subdued, might revolt again, bar the way of retreat against the Spartan army, and throw the most serious obstacles in the way of reinforcements. “The Cadmea was the decisive point for the security of the line of march,” says Curtius. If a prolonged war were to be waged in the distant north it was essential that this position should be in friendly hands. And the only way of attaining this object was to juggle the reins of government into the hands of the oligarchical party in Thebes and to garrison the citadel with Spartan hoplites for their protection. The success of the expedient proves how well worth while it had been for Phœbidas to take the circuitous route.

This act of violence, the surprise of the Theban citadel in time of peace, called forth a storm of indignation throughout the whole of Greece. Even in Sparta itself a clamour of popular displeasure arose against Phœbidas, because (as Xenophon adds) he had acted without due warrant or command. Apparently the Spartan government found it expedient to cast the odium of the proceeding upon Phœbidas, and therefore, in spite of Xenophon’s silence on the subject, there is probably some truth in the story that he was deposed from his command and condemned to pay an exorbitant fine. The wrath of Greece may well have been the reason for this mock sentence. The payment of the fine was never exacted, and in the following year he held the office of a Spartan harmost in Bœotia. For the rest, the remonstrances of Leontiades and Agesilaus, the latter of whom openly maintained that the only point to be considered in judging the case was whether the transgression of Phœbidas were profitable to the state or not, quickly persuaded the Spartans of the propriety and necessity of the coup-de-main. The citadel was not evacuated, and legal proceedings were taken against Ismenias in respect of the league. A solemn tribunal was called together in Thebes, consisting of three Spartan commissioners and a deputy from every town of the league, to pass judgment upon the crimes of Ismenias. He was condemned to death. The most repulsive feature of this judicial murder, which was merely an act of vengeance upon the whilom leader of the anti-Spartan coalition, is the farce of a tribunal which was supposed to represent national ideas and interests.

The road to Thrace was now safe, and the war against Olynthus was prosecuted with the utmost vigour.

It was probably in the spring of 382 that Teleutias, brother of Agesilaus, marched against the city with a large army. He had made up the number of his forces in Thebes, and had received auxiliary contingents from Amyntas and from Derdas, prince of Elimea. This was the beginning of a fierce and prolonged struggle. After some successes which allowed him to press forward to Olynthus itself, devastating the country as he went, he fell in a hotly contested battle, and his death was the signal for a general flight. His whole army was swept away and annihilated. With amazing perseverance the Spartans continued the war; in the spring of 380 another huge army was equipped and the leadership entrusted to the young king, Agesipolis. He was fortunate in battle, but succumbed to a violent fever the same summer. It was left for Polybiades, his successor in the command, to force the starving city, cut off from access to the sea and robbed of its harvests by the prolonged and desolating war, into surrender. In the year 379 the league was dissolved and the proud city compelled to render military service to the Spartans; the mighty chief city of the Chalcidice became a humble member of the Lacedæmonian alliance.

[Sidenote: [380-379 B.C.]]

Meanwhile the Peloponnesus itself had become the scene of a fresh struggle. It has already been mentioned that the exiled aristocrats from Phlius had been allowed to return at the request of Sparta and had been promised the restoration of their property. But here, as everywhere, the attempts at expropriation met with almost insurmountable obstacles. There may have been a lack of good will to push on the proceedings, since it is probable that in many cases the judges themselves were in possession of the estates of the exiles. But in the beginning, at least, there seems to have been no excessive difficulty or delay in giving compensation, and we hear that, in the campaign of Agesipolis, the Phliasians distinguished themselves as zealous allies of Sparta by the liberality and promptitude of their contributions. After the departure of Agesipolis, as Xenophon relates, the Phliasians hoping to be quit of Spartan intervention, neglected the settlement of the chaotic claims. The returning aristocrats, finding their demands disregarded by an unbiassed court of arbitration, turned with their grievances to Sparta. The authorities of their own city having punished them for this arbitrary proceeding, the ephors, persuaded by exiles and by Agesilaus, the fast friend of the latter, determined upon a campaign against Phlius. The Phliasians sued for peace, but naturally could not accede to the demand of Agesilaus for an unconditional surrender of their citadel.

A tedious siege then began, during which Agesilaus found himself obliged to have recourse to every kind of artifice to allay the wrath of the Lacedæmonians and their allies at making enemies of the large population of the Asopus valley for the sake of a few oligarchs. It was the first note of that discord among the Peloponnesian allies which was destined to exercise such a paralysing effect upon the future military undertakings of the Lacedæmonians. Thanks to the valiant defence of Delphion, to whom Xenophon does not refuse his due meed of praise, the city held out twice as long as had been expected. At last, in the year 379, the lack of provisions constrained the inhabitants to treat for peace, and, unwisely ignoring Agesilaus, they applied direct to Sparta. Sparta committed the sole decision to the king, and the punishment in store for Phlius was naturally not the less severe for the attempt to set Agesilaus aside. A commission was appointed, consisting of fifty oligarchs and fifty of the citizens, and they were empowered to decide the question which of the inhabitants should remain alive and which should not. The further duty of elaborating a constitution was also assigned to them. To safeguard the new order of things a Lacedæmonian garrison was left provisionally in the acropolis. Thus in Phlius, as in Olynthus, Sparta had won the victory.

At this point both Xenophon and Diodorus, with a view to providing a more striking background for subsequent events, give a summary of the expansion of the power and dominion of Sparta up to this time. And truly, from the Peace of Antalcidas to the subjugation of Olynthus the history of Greece is nothing but a history of the extension of Spartan authority. Allied with the king of Persia, the tyrant of Syracuse, and the king of Macedonia, the will of Sparta was “irresistible from the cliffs of Taygetus to Athos.” The autonomy-paragraph had broken up all anti-Spartan coalitions. In Corinth, the key of the Peloponnesus, oligarchy was restored, Bœotia had become a vassal of Sparta, the menacing Olynthian league had been annihilated, and the ruins of Mantinea and the sanguinary tribunals at Phlius showed what punishment Sparta was prepared to mete out to any attempt at mutiny or disobedience. The Spartan harmosts with their garrisons commanded the citadels everywhere, and under their protection oligarchic rulers held the populace in fetters. In the time of Lysander, indeed, the Spartan dominions had been more extensive, but Sparta had never borne sway in Hellas with more authority or less restraint. Athens might strive with unflagging perseverance to establish an ascendency at sea; she might conclude an alliance with Chios directly after the Peace of the King, an alliance which was the precursor of the maritime confederacy presently to be revived; but how insignificant were such things as opposed to the dominant position of Sparta, now at the zenith of her glory! And for the fact that her will and her word were law in Greece, Sparta was mainly indebted to the steady and consistent policy of Agesilaus.

The gray-haired monarch might well look with pride upon the object he had attained. He had reared a mighty structure: though it had been built by harshness and arbitrary power and welded together with blood and cruelty, it is none the less a moving spectacle to see how, before the eyes of its founder, stone after stone was cast down, till nothing but a vast expanse of ruins remained to bear witness to its former greatness.[b]

FATE OF EVAGORAS AND THE ASIATIC GREEKS

[Sidenote: [394-380 B.C.]]

During the first years of his reign, Evagoras doubtless paid his tribute regularly, and took no steps calculated to offend the Persian king. But as his power increased, his ambition increased also. We find him towards the year 390 B.C., engaged in a struggle not merely with the Persian king, but with Amathus and Citium in his own island, and with the great Phœnician cities on the mainland. By what steps, or at what precise period, this war began, we cannot determine. At the time of the battle of Cnidus (394 B.C.) Evagoras not only paid his tribute, but was mainly instrumental in getting the Persian fleet placed under Conon to act against the Lacedæmonians, himself serving aboard. It was in fact (if we may believe Isocrates) to the extraordinary energy, ability, and power displayed by him on that occasion in the service of Artaxerxes himself, that the jealousy and alarm of the latter against him are to be ascribed. Without any provocation, and at the very moment when he was profiting by the zealous services of Evagoras, the Great King treacherously began to manœuvre against him and forced him into the war in self-defence. Evagoras accepted the challenge, in spite of the disparity of strength, with such courage and efficiency, that he at first gained marked successes. Seconded by his son Pnytagoras, he not only worsted and humbled Amathus, Citium, and Soli, which cities, under the prince Agyris, adhered to Artaxerxes, but he also equipped a large fleet, attacked the Phœnicians on the mainland with so much vigour as even to take the great city of Tyre; prevailing, moreover, upon some of the Cilician towns to declare against the Persians. He received powerful aid from Acoris, the native and independent king in Egypt, as well as from Chabrias and the force sent out by the Athenians. Beginning apparently about 390 B.C., the war against Evagoras lasted something more than ten years, costing the Persians great efforts and an immense expenditure of money. Twice did Athens send a squadron to his assistance, from gratitude for his long protection to Conon and his energetic efforts before in the battle of Cnidus--though she thereby ran every risk of making the Persians her enemies.

[Sidenote: [380-374 B.C.]]

The satrap Tiribazus saw that so long as he had on his hands a war in Greece, it was impossible for him to concentrate his force against the prince of Salamis and the Egyptians. Hence, in part, the extraordinary effort made by the Persians to dictate, in conjunction with Sparta, the Peace of Antalcidas, and to get together such a fleet in Ionia as should overawe Athens and Thebes into submission. It was one of the conditions of that peace that Evagoras should be abandoned; the whole island of Cyprus being acknowledged as belonging to the Persian king. Though thus cut off from Athens, and reduced to no other Grecian aid than such mercenaries as he could pay, Evagoras was still assisted by Acoris of Egypt, and even by Hecatomnus, prince of Caria, with a secret present of money. But the Peace of Antalcidas being now executed in Asia, the Persian satraps were completely masters of the Grecian cities on the Asiatic seaboard, and were enabled to convey round to Cilicia and Cyprus not only their own fleet from Ionia, but also additional contingents from these very Grecian cities.

Evagoras defended himself with unshaken resolution, still sustained by aid from Acoris in Egypt; while Tyre and several towns in Cilicia also continued in revolt against Artaxerxes; so that the efforts of the Persians were distracted, and the war was not concluded until ten years after its commencement. It cost them on the whole (if we may believe Isocrates) 15,000 talents in money [£3,000,000 or $15,000,000], and such severe losses in men, that Tiribazus acceded to the propositions of Evagoras for peace, consenting to leave him in full possession of Salamis, under payment of a stipulated tribute.

It was seemingly not very long after the peace, that a Salaminian named Nicoreon formed a conspiracy against his life and dominion, but was detected, by a singular accident, before the moment of execution, and forced to seek safety in flight. He left behind him a youthful daughter in his harem, under the care of a eunuch (a Greek, born in Elis) named Thrasydæus; who, full of vindictive sympathy in his master’s cause, made known the beauty of the young lady both to Evagoras himself and to Pnytagoras, the most distinguished of his sons, partner in the gallant defence of Salamis against the Persians. Both of them were tempted, each unknown to the other, to make a secret assignation for being conducted to her chamber by the eunuch: both of them were there assassinated by his hand.

Thus perished a Greek of pre-eminent vigour and intelligence, remarkably free from the vices usual in Grecian despots, and forming a strong contrast in this respect with his contemporary Dionysius, whose military energy is so deeply stained by crime and violence. Nicocles, the son of Evagoras, reigned at Salamis after him, and showed much regard, accompanied by munificent presents, to the Athenian Isocrates; who compliments him as a pacific and well-disposed prince, attached to Greek pursuits and arts, conversant by personal study with Greek philosophy, and above all, copying his father in that just dealing and absence of wrong towards person or property which had so much promoted the comfort as well as the prosperity of the city.

[Sidenote: [387 B.C.]]

We now revert from the episode respecting Evagoras--interesting not less from the eminent qualities of that prince than from the glimpse of Hellenism struggling with the Phœnician element in Cyprus--to the general consequences of the Peace of Antalcidas in Central Greece. For the first time since the battle of Mycale in 479 B.C., the Persians were now really masters of all the Greeks on the Asiatic coast. The satraps lost no time in confirming their dominion. In all the cities which they suspected, they built citadels and planted permanent garrisons. In some cases, their mistrust or displeasure was carried so far as to raze the town altogether. And thus these cities, having already once changed their position greatly for the worse, by passing from easy subjection under Athens to the harsh ride of Lacedæmonian harmosts and native decemvirs, were now transferred to masters yet more oppressive and more completely without the pale of Hellenic sympathy. Both in public extortion, and in wrong-doing towards individuals, the commandant and his mercenaries whom the satrap maintained, were probably more rapacious, and certainly more unrestrained, than even the harmosts of Sparta. Moreover, the Persian grandees required beautiful boys as eunuchs for their service, and beautiful women as inmates of their harems. What was taken for their convenience admitted neither of recovery nor redress. While the Asiatic Greeks were thus made over by Sparta and the Perso-Spartan convention of Antalcidas, to a condition in every respect worse, they were at the same time thrown in, as reluctant auxiliaries to strengthen the hands of the Great King against other Greeks--against Evagoras in Cyprus, and above all, against the islands adjoining the coast of Asia--Chios, Samos, Rhodes, etc. These islands were now exposed to the same hazard, from their overwhelming Persian neighbours, as that from which they had been rescued nearly a century before by the confederacy of Delos, and by the Athenian empire into which that confederacy was transformed. All the tutelary combination that the genius, the energy, and the Panhellenic ardour of Athens had first organised, and so long kept up, was now broken up; while Sparta, to whom its extinction was owing, in surrendering the Asiatic Greeks, had destroyed the security even of the islanders.[e]

THE REVOLT OF THEBES

The ambition of making conquests in the East, which it now appeared impossible to retain, had deprived the Lacedæmonians of an authority, or rather dominion in Greece, acquired by the success of the Peloponnesian War, and which they might have reasonably expected to preserve and to confirm. Not only their power, but their safety, was threatened by the arms of a hostile confederacy, which had been formed and fomented by the wealth of Persia. Athens, their rival, their superior, their subject, but always their unrelenting enemy, had recovered her walls and fleet, and aspired to command the sea. Thebes and Argos had become sensible of their natural strength, and disdained to acknowledge the pre-eminence, or to follow the standard, of any foreign republic. The inferior states of Peloponnesus were weary of obeying every idle summons to war, from which they derived not any advantage but that of gratifying the ambition of their Spartan masters. The valuable colonies in Macedon and Thrace, and particularly the rich and populous cities of the Chalcidic region, the bloodless conquests of the virtuous Brasidas, had forsaken the interest of Sparta, when Sparta forsook the interest of justice. Scarcely any vestige appeared of the memorable trophies erected in a war of twenty-seven years. The eastern provinces (incomparably the most important of all) were irrecoverably lost; and this rapid decline of power had happened in the course of ten years, and had been chiefly occasioned by the fatal splendour of Agesilaus’ victories in Asia.

During five years the Spartans maintained, in the Cadmea at Thebes, a garrison of fifteen hundred men. Protected by such a body of foreign troops, which might be reinforced on the shortest warning, the partisans of aristocracy acquired an absolute ascendency in the affairs of the republic, which they conducted in such a manner as best suited their own interest, and the convenience of Sparta. Without pretending to describe the banishments, confiscations, and murders of which they were guilty, it is sufficient for the purpose of general history to observe, that the miserable victims of their vengeance suffered similar calamities to those which afflicted Athens under the Thirty Tyrants. The severity of the government at length drove the Thebans to despair; and both the persecuted exiles abroad, and the oppressed subjects at home, prepared to embrace any measures, however daring and hazardous, which promised them a faint hope of relief.

[Sidenote: [382-379 B.C.]]

Among the Theban fugitives, who had taken refuge in Athens, and whose persons were now loudly demanded by Sparta, was Pelopidas, the son of Hippoclus, a youth whose distinguished advantages might have justly rendered him an object of envy, before he was involved in the misfortunes of his country. He yielded to none in birth; he surpassed all in fortune; he excelled in the manly exercises so much esteemed by the Greeks, and was unrivalled in qualities still more estimable--generosity and courage. He had an hereditary attachment to the democratic form of policy; and, previous to the late melancholy revolution, he was marked out by his numerous friends and adherents as the person most worthy of administering the government. Pelopidas had often conferred with his fellow-sufferers at Athens about the means of returning to their country, and restoring the democracy; encouraging them by the example of the patriotic Thrasybulus, who, with a handful of men, had issued from Thebes, and effected a similar, but still more difficult, enterprise. While they secretly deliberated on this important object, Mellon, one of the exiles, introduced to their nocturnal assembly his friend Phyllidas, who had lately arrived from Thebes; a man whose enterprising activity, singular address, and crafty boldness, justly entitle him to the regard of history.

Phyllidas was strongly attached to the cause of the exiles; yet, by his insinuating complaisance, and officious servility, he had acquired the entire confidence of Leontiades, Archias, and the other magistrates, or rather tyrants, of the republic. In business and in pleasure, he rendered himself alike necessary to his masters; his diligence and abilities had procured him the important office of secretary to the council; and he had lately promised to Archias and Philip, the two most licentious of the tyrants, that he would give them an entertainment, during which they might enjoy the conversation and the persons of the finest women in Thebes. The day was appointed for this infamous rendezvous, which these magisterial debauchés awaited with the greatest impatience; and, in the interval, Phyllidas set out for Athens, on pretence of private business.

[Sidenote: [379 B.C.]]

In Athens, the time and the means were adjusted for executing the conspiracy. A body of Theban exiles assembled in the Thriasian plain, on the frontier of Attica, where seven, or twelve, of the youngest and most enterprising, voluntarily offered themselves to enter the capital, and to co-operate with Phyllidas in the destruction of the magistrates. The distance between Thebes and Athens was about thirty-five miles. The conspirators had thirteen miles to march through a hostile territory. They disguised themselves in the garb of peasants, arrived at the city towards evening with nets and hunting poles, and passed the gates without suspicion. During that night, and the succeeding day, the house of Charon, a wealthy and respectable citizen, the friend of Phyllidas and a determined enemy of the aristocracy, afforded them a secure refuge till the favourable moment summoned them to action.

The important evening approached, when the artful secretary had prepared his long-expected entertainment in the treasury. Nothing had been omitted that could flatter the senses, and lull the activity of the mind in a dream of pleasure. But a secret and obscure rumour, which had spread in the city, hung, like a drawn dagger, over the voluptuous joys of the festivity. It had been darkly reported that some unknown strangers, supposed to be a party of the exiles, had been received into the house of Charon. All the address of Phyllidas could not divert the terror of his guests. They despatched one of their lictors or attendants to demand the immediate presence of Charon. The conspirators were already buckling on their armour, in hopes of being immediately summoned to execute their purpose. But what was their astonishment and terror, when their host and protector was sternly ordered to appear before the magistrates! The most sanguine were persuaded that their design had become public, and that they must all miserably perish, without effecting anything worthy of their courage. After a moment of dreadful reflection, they exhorted Charon to obey the mandate without delay. But that firm and patriotic Theban first went to the apartment of his wife, took his infant son, an only child, and presented him to Pelopidas and Mellon, requesting them to retain in their hands this dearest pledge of his fidelity. They unanimously declared their entire confidence in his honour, and entreated him to remove from danger a helpless infant, who might become, in some future time, the avenger of his country’s wrongs. But Charon was inflexible, declaring, “that his son could never aspire to a happier fortune, than that of dying honourably with his father and friends.”

So saying, he addressed a short prayer to the gods, embraced his associates, and departed. Before he arrived at the treasury, he was met by Archias and Phyllidas. The former asked him, in the presence of the other magistrates, whose anxiety had brought them from table, “Who are those strangers said to have arrived the other day, and to be now entertained in your family?” Charon had composed his countenance so artfully, and retorted the question with such well-dissembled surprise, as considerably quieted the solicitude of the tyrants, which was totally removed by a whisper of Phyllidas, “that the absurd rumour had doubtless been spread for no other purpose but that of disturbing their pleasures.”

They had scarcely returned to the banquet, when Fortune, as if she had taken pleasure to confound the dexterity of Phyllidas, raised up a new and most alarming danger. A courier arrived from Athens with every mark of haste and trepidation, desiring to see Archias, to whom he delivered a letter from an Athenian magistrate of the same name, his ancient friend and guest. This letter revealed the conspiracy; a secret not entrusted to the messenger, who had orders, however, to request Archias to read the despatch immediately, as containing matters of the utmost importance. But that careless voluptuary, whose thoughts were totally absorbed in the expected scene of pleasure, replied with a smile, “Business to-morrow;” deposited the letter under the pillow of the couch, on which, according to ancient custom, he lay at the entertainment; and resumed his conversation with Phyllidas.

Matters were now come to a crisis; Phyllidas retired for a moment; the conspirators were put in motion; their weapons concealed under the flowing swell of female attire, and their countenances overshadowed and hid by a load of crowns and garlands. In this disguise they were presented to the magistrates intoxicated with wine and folly. At a given signal they drew their daggers, and effected their purpose. Charon and Mellon were the principal actors in this bloody scene, which was entirely directed by Phyllidas. But a more difficult task remained. Leontiades, with other abettors of the tyranny, still lived, to avenge the murder of their associates. The conspirators, encouraged by their first success, and conducted by Phyllidas, gained admission into their houses successively, by means of the unsuspected secretary. On the appearance of disorder and tumult, Leontiades seized his sword, and boldly prepared for his defence. Pelopidas had the merit of destroying the principal author of the Theban servitude and disgrace. His associates perished without resistance; men whose names may be consigned to just oblivion, since they were distinguished by nothing memorable but their cruel and oppressive tyranny.

The measures of the conspirators were equally vigorous and prudent. Before alarming the city, they proceeded to the different prisons, which were crowded with the unfortunate victims of arbitrary power. Every door was open to Phyllidas. The captives, transported with joy and gratitude, increased the strength of their deliverers. They broke open the arsenals, and provided themselves with arms. The streets of Thebes now resounded with alarm and terror; every house and family were filled with confusion and uproar; the inhabitants were universally in motion; some providing lights, others running in wild disorder to the public places, and all anxiously wishing the return of day, that they might discover the unknown cause of this nocturnal tumult.

During a moment of dreadful silence, which interrupted the noise of sedition, a herald proclaimed, with a clear and loud voice, the death of the tyrants, and summoned to arms the friends of liberty and the republic. Among others who obeyed the welcome invitation was Epaminondas, the son of Polymnis, a youth of the most illustrious merit; who united the wisdom of the sage and the magnanimity of the hero, with the practice of every mild and gentle virtue; unrivalled in knowledge and in eloquence; in birth, valour, and patriotism, not inferior to Pelopidas, with whom he had contracted an early friendship. The principles of the Pythagorean philosophy, which he had diligently studied under Lysis of Tarentum, rendered Epaminondas averse to engage in the conspiracy, lest he might imbrue his hands in civil blood. But when the sword was once drawn, he appeared with ardour in defence of his friends and country; and his example was followed by many brave and generous youths who had reluctantly endured the double yoke of domestic and foreign tyranny.

The approach of morning had brought the Theban exiles, in arms, from the Thriasian plain. The partisans of the conspirators were continually increased by a confluence of new auxiliaries from every quarter of the city. Encompassed by such an invincible band of adherents, Pelopidas and his associates proceeded to the market-place; summoned a general assembly of the people; explained the necessity, the object, and the extent of the conspiracy; and, with the universal approbation of their fellow-citizens, restored the democratic form of government.

Exploits of valour and intrepidity may be discovered in the history of every nation. But the revolution of Thebes displayed not less wisdom of design, than enterprising gallantry in execution. Amidst the tumult of action, and ardour of victory, the conspirators possessed sufficient coolness and foresight to reflect that the Cadmea, or citadel, which was held by a Lacedæmonian garrison of fifteen hundred men, would be reinforced, on the first intelligence of danger, by the resentful activity of Sparta. To anticipate this alarming event, which must have rendered the consequences of the conspiracy incomplete and precarious, they commanded the messenger, whom, immediately after the destruction of the tyrants, they had despatched to their friends in the Thriasian plain, to proceed to Athens, in order to communicate the news of a revolution which could not fail to be highly agreeable to that state, and to solicit the immediate assistance of the Athenians, whose superior skill in attacking fortified places was acknowledged by Greeks and barbarians. This message was attended with the most salutary effects. The acute discernment of the Athenians eagerly seized the precious opportunity of weakening Sparta, which, if once neglected, might never return. Several thousand men were ordered to march; and no time was lost, either in the preparation, or in the journey, since they reached Thebes the day after Pelopidas had re-established the democracy.

The seasonable arrival of those auxiliaries, whose celerity exceeded the most sanguine hopes of the Thebans, increased the ardour of the latter to attack the citadel. The events of the siege are variously related. According to the most probable account, the garrison made a very feeble resistance, being intimidated by the impetuous alacrity and enthusiasm, as well as the increasing number of the assailants, who already amounted to fourteen thousand men, and received continual accessions of strength from the neighbouring cities of Bœotia. Only a few days had elapsed, when the Lacedæmonians desired to capitulate, on condition of being allowed to depart in safety with their arms. Their proposal was readily accepted; but they seem not to have demanded, or at least not to have obtained, any terms of advantage or security for those unfortunate Thebans whose attachment to the Spartan interest strongly solicited their protection. At the first alarm of sedition, these unhappy men, with their wives and families, had taken refuge in the citadel. The greater part of them cruelly perished by the resentment of their countrymen; a remnant only was saved by the humane interposition of the Athenians. So justly had Epaminondas suspected, that the revolution could not be accomplished without the effusion of civil blood.[f]

THE SECOND ATHENIAN LEAGUE

[Sidenote: [379-378 B.C.]]

Politics makes strange bedfellows. The petty jealousies of the little Grecian townships, called countries, were as important and as bitter to them as the feuds of empires. Yet, of course, when any two of them fell by the ears they were always ready to accept aid from the bystanding communities, on whatsoever terms they may have recently been. We are now to see a stranger sight than the union of Athens and Sparta, and that is the re-alliance of the polished and haughty Athenians with the citizens of Thebes, although to the Attic mind the very word “Bœotian” had been from time immemorial a synonym for “swine,” a by-word of treachery, of Asiatic sympathy, and of backwoods uncouthness.

The immediate effect of the theatrical revolution at Thebes was the death of three of the leading generals concerned. Sparta in disgust executed two of the defeated harmosts with short shrift of trial. The Athenians put to death one of the generals who had gone to the relief of the Thebans, and outlawed the other. They were not yet ready to take a step in renewal of the ancient wars with Sparta. The Thebans felt themselves now quite left at the mercy of the Lacedæmonians, and, indeed, it was only a Spartan who could seemingly have been of aid to them. Sphodrias, a harmost of Thespiæ, was hot-headed enough to dream of taking Athens unawares and seizing the Piræus. He was so slow on the march, however, that daylight found him only at Eleusis. Thereupon, his surprise failing, he retreated, ravaging the country through which he passed. Athens had shown her purpose to keep the peace with Sparta by her punishment of the rash officers who had gone to the relief of Thebes, and yet here was a Spartan general marching against Athens and playing havoc in the vicinity. A prompt disavowal on the part of Sparta was demanded, with the execution of Sphodrias. Sphodrias did not dare return to Sparta for trial, feeling that his doom was certain. And so it would have been had it not been for the influence of Agesilaus who was notably a tender-hearted man and could not resist the pleadings of his son who was on terms of Grecian intimacy with the son of Sphodrias. Acquittal followed, and Athens could not but feel herself insulted and forced into an open declaration for Thebes. War broke out and was busy for six years. It took the form, as usual, of a war between two leagues.

Sparta felt called upon to deal gently with her remaining confederates after she saw Chios, Byzantium, Rhodes, and Mytilene revolt at once to Athens. Sparta divided her league into ten classes: herself the first, the Arcadian states second and third, Elis the fourth, the Achæans the fifth, Corinth and Megara the sixth, Sicyon, Phlius, and the towns of the Argolic Acte the seventh, the Acarnanians the eighth, the Phocians and Locrians the ninth, Olynthus and the other cities on the coast of Thrace the tenth.

To Athens it seemed as if destiny had forced her once more to the forefront of a league against Sparta, a league which should bring her back to her old-time mastery of the seas. This league, which is called by Busolt[k] and others the second Athenian league, is called the third by Beloch,[g] who writes of it as follows:

“Meanwhile Athens had striven with zeal to erect again the twice-lost lordship of the seas. Immediately after the King’s Peace the alliance with Chios, Mytilene, Methymna, and Byzantium was renewed: Rhodes also entered into treaty with Athens, as her Asia Minor league had gone to pieces at the death of Glos, about 379. The effort to resume the old relations with the Chalcidians in Thrace had been quickly foiled by the Spartan intervention; but instead, as we have seen, Thebes had entered into alliance with Athens in the spring of 378. And now, after the breach with Sparta was definite, Athens lifted up to all Hellenes and barbarians, where they were not under Persian rule, the summons to band together in a league against the encroachment of Sparta. The provisions of the King’s Peace should fashion the ground plan. The autonomy of all the states party to it was guaranteed; the Persian king was to be recognised as lord of the continent of Asia: Athens renounced all claims on her old colonial possessions and for the future the acquisition of houses and lands anywhere in the confederacy should be forbidden to the Athenians. For the administration of affairs a congress (synedrion) was established which sat in Athens, and in which delegates from all the allied states had place and vote; but Athens herself none. For the passing of measures, the consent of both the chief city [Athens] and of the synedrion was necessary. The funds for the fleet of the league were defrayed through contributions (syntaxeis) whose amount the synedrion would fix according to current needs. The management of this fund and the leadership in war belonged to Athens.

“Athens made heavy sacrifices to lay the foundation for the erection of this new league. It was a complete breach with her political practices down to the King’s Peace, a final renunciation of the re-establishment of the empire in its old form, as she had planned since Thrasybulus. And more than that: thousands of Athenian citizens lost their last hope of regaining the property outside Attica, which their fathers had lost through the catastrophe of the year 404. But these sacrifices were not made in vain. The states of Eubœa came at once into the new league, except Oreus, which was held by a Spartan garrison; also the northern Sporades, Peparethus, Sciathus and Icus; Tenedos at the mouth of the Hellespont, Perinthus and Maronea in Thrace; Paros and other neighbouring isles. Moreover, the previous confederates of Athens, Chios, Mytilene, Mythimna, Byzantium, Rhodes, and Thebes came back.

“Thus at one blow Athens was again the ruling power in the Ægean Sea; she could now take again in hand the trusteeship of the temple of Delos, which she had lost for some years.

“At the same time the reorganisation of the Attic marine was begun. That was strongly needful: since in the Corinthian War the material had been rendered largely useless, and efforts at its repair had been very insufficiently made. There existed well over one hundred triremes, but most of them old and hardly seaworthy. The building of a great number of new battleships was begun and pushed so skilfully that after the lapse of twenty years (357-6) an array of 289 triremes remained in spite of the great demands made on the Attic fleet. To cover these expenses and for the payment of the costs of the war an extraordinary tax was levied on the property in Attica.”

[Sidenote: [378-376 B.C.]]

Thus we find Athens again with an array of allies behind her. She no longer has the prestige of old. The moneys that they entrust to her are contributions (syntaxeis), and no longer tribute (phoros). So jealous are they, indeed, of Athenian ambition that no citizen of Athens may even acquire property among the allies. The very tablet on which this treaty was carved is still in existence, though broken in a score of fragments. The chief purpose of the league is, it states, to be one of defence, a combination “to compel the Spartans to leave the Greeks in peace and freedom with unviolated lands.” The chief agents in the organisation of this confederacy and in the proselyting of allies were the brilliant orator Callistratus, who has been called the Aristides of the second confederacy, and the shrewd generals, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus, the worthy son of the great admiral, Conon. The chief fault with the confederacy was that it bound Athens into an unnatural alliance with Thebes, its inveterate enemy, who could serve little further purpose than that of a ladder to be discarded as soon as it had been climbed over. The war, therefore, becomes mainly a war between Sparta and Athens, in which, as Holm[h] notes, “Athens played always the rôle of the spectator who sits quiet, saving his strength in order to act as peace-maker over both the antagonists.”

Thebes took up the war with a blazing enthusiasm. She had for a controlling spirit the coming man Epaminondas, a military genius of the very first rank, a gifted musician, a philosopher, and an orator. He had the rare qualities of modesty, of pure patriotism, of indifference to money and to partisanship. Allied with him was Pelopidas, who was in command of a new organisation which stood some chance of meeting the famous Spartan hoplite in equal combat. This Hieros Lochos, or Sacred Band of sworn friends, was a curious body of three hundred young men fighting in couples and bound together by Grecian ideas of friendship. They were trained to a high degree of gymnastic strength, and while chosen at first merely to serve as front-rank men, later came to be employed as a separate regiment of irresistible momentum in a charge.

Before they had learned the power of this troop the Thebans dug a ditch and built a rampart around the most fertile part of their territory against the invasions of the Spartans. Soon after the revolt of the city, in 378 B.C., the Spartan king Cleombrotus had raided the land, but without result. Later came King Agesilaus for two expeditions, equally fruitless, except for pillage. The Spartan Phœbidas made an inroad in 377 and was killed in a disastrous defeat. To relieve a famine due to the destruction of two harvests, the Thebans sent for two galleys of corn which the Spartan Alcetas captured, putting the crews in prison in the citadel in Oreus in Eubœa. The prisoners captured the fortress and took possession of the town, which now joined the league with Athens. In 376, Agesilaus, who was ill from the bursting of a blood-vessel, on his previous campaign, was compelled to keep his room, and the Spartans sent an army under Cleombrotus, who was repulsed at the passes of Cithæron. The Spartans now sent a fleet to cut off the corn supplies of Athens and put her port under blockade.

Athens, once more able to take the sea, fitted a fleet of eighty galleys which she entrusted to Chabrias. In order to decoy the Spartan fleet under Pollis away from the Piræus, he laid siege to Naxos which was wavering towards the Athenian confederacy. Pollis accepted the challenge, and, though he had only sixty galleys, gave battle between Paros and Naxos. It was a hard fight and the Spartans seem to have lost all their ships except eleven, and these would have been destroyed, says Diodorus, had it not been for the fate of the commanders in the battle of Arginusæ, who, as will be remembered, were in such haste to pursue the defeated enemy that they did not stop to pick up their own wounded and dead on the sinking wrecks of their own fleet. They had been put to death in their hour of triumph, and the lesson was not forgotten by Chabrias in his victory thirty years later.

[Sidenote: [376-374 B.C.]]

The glory of Naxos, however, was a sufficient. And while it was not so momentous a success as Conon’s at the battle of Cnidus, it was more savoury to the Athenians, because it had been won by a fleet not of Asiatics merely commanded by an Athenian, but altogether by Athenian ships and men. In this battle the command of the left wing was given to Phocion, who looms large in later Athenian history. This success at Naxos in the year 376 relieved Athens of famine, re-established her prestige on the sea, and brought seventeen new cities around the Ægean Sea into the confederacy, together with a large contribution. In the same year the Athenians also punished an insurrection at Delos where the renewal of her authority was not entirely welcome. Preparations were now made for a circumnavigation of the Peloponnesus with a fleet under Pinotenus. In 375 he sailed and brought over to the Athenian alliance the islands of Corcyra and Cephallenia, a part of Acarnania, and the king of the Molossians. At Alyzia, Timotheus with his sixty galleys was attacked by the Spartan Nicolochus, with fifty-five galleys. The Athenian won this encounter, but declined a later challenge, and increased his fleet to seventy sail.

The expedition had succeeded in the purpose that had led the Thebans to suggest it, that is, it had prevented Sparta from making her usual incursion into Bœotia. Athens, however, found the fleet a very heavy and irksome expense, and each captain of a trireme was compelled to advance £28 or $140 towards the payment of his crew. The Athenians now suggested that the Thebans make some payment towards the cost of an expedition which had been of such economy to them; but they declined the opportunity, and Athens, in a not unnatural pique, turned towards Sparta. In 374 a peace was agreed to, but was broken at once owing to the fact that Timotheus interfered at Zacynthus and brought down the wrath of Sparta. So the war went on.

Meanwhile, the year before, the Thebans had been active and growingly successful. They turned against three near-by cities in Bœotia which were old victims of Thebes and had been granted independence under the Peace of Antalcidas. These towns were Platæa, Thespiæ, and Orchomenos. They hated Thebes from bitter memories of former oppressions and held out against her increasing presumption, although other Bœotian towns were brought into the league, and although they were themselves heavily assailed. It was 372 before Platæa was taken by surprise and all the inhabitants driven out of it. They took refuge in Athens, whose friendship for Platæa was of old times. Thebes also compelled Thespiæ to tear down her fortifications. These things only revived in Athens the ancient abhorrence of Thebes, but they fed the insolence of the Bœotians. It was probably in 375 B.C., that Pelopidas, at the head of his Sacred Band, unexpectedly fell in with two Spartan moras, each of them equal alone to his three hundred, and each under command of a polemarch. One of his men came flying to Pelopidas, exclaiming:

“We have fallen into the midst of the enemy.”

“Why not they into the midst of us?” answered Pelopidas. And at once he charged home.

The first onset killed the two Spartan leaders. This threw the two moras into confusion, and Pelopidas, after cutting his way through, instead of retiring, turned and successfully routed each of the moras. So far as the number engaged is concerned, it was hardly more than a serious riot, but, as we have seen before, any blow at the prestige of the Spartan soldier made all Greeks shudder, and here was a new organisation or club from the unheroic city of Thebes destroying a Spartan force of twice its strength. This was a further blow to Spartan pride and new fuel for the increase of Theban self-confidence. In 374 an expedition against Phocis was checked by Spartan troops under Cleombrotus, but about this time the Athenians seem to have regained Oropus, which the Spartans had captured in 411. This year also Lacedæmonian pride was more deeply humbled before Corcyra.[a] Of this let Xenophon tell.

CORCYRA

[Sidenote: [375-372 B.C.]]

The Lacedæmonians preparing again to send out a fleet, collected vessels to the number of sixty from Lacedæmon itself, from Corinth, Leucas, Ambracia, Elis, Zacynthus, Achaia, Epidaurus, Trœzen, Hermion, and the Halians. Appointing Mnasippus admiral, they instructed him to attend to affairs in that sea in general, and to make an attempt upon Corcyra. They sent also to Dionysius, representing that it was for his interest that Corcyra should not be in the power of the Athenians.

Mnasippus, when his fleet was collected, set sail for Corcyra. He had with him, in addition to the troops from Lacedæmon, a body of mercenaries to the amount of not less than fifteen hundred. When he landed on the island, he at once became master of it, and laid waste the country, which was excellently cultivated and planted, and exhibited, throughout the fields, fine houses and well-constructed wine-vaults; so that the soldiers, they said, arrived at such a height of luxury, that they would drink no wine but such as was of a fragrant odour. Slaves and cattle in great numbers were carried off from the fields. At length he encamped with his land-forces on a hill, distant about five stadia from the city, and overlooking the country, so that if any of the Corcyræans should come out into the fields, he might cut off their retreat; his ships he stationed on the opposite side of the city, at a point where he thought that they would observe and stop whatever vessels might approach the coast. In addition to these arrangements, he anchored galleys, when foul weather did not prevent, in front of the harbour. Thus he kept the city in a state of blockade.

As the Corcyræans, in consequence, could get no supplies from their grounds, since they were overpowered by land, while nothing could be brought them by sea, because they were inferior in naval force, they suffered greatly from want of provisions, and, sending to the Athenians, entreated aid of them, and represented that “they would lose a very valuable possession if they should be deprived of Corcyra, and would greatly increase at the same time, the strength of their enemies; since from no state in Greece, except Athens, could more ships or money be raised;” they added, also, that “the island of Corcyra was favourably situated with regard to the Gulf of Corinth, and the cities lying upon it, and favourably, too, for ravaging the territory of Laconia, but most favourably of all with reference to the opposite continent, and the passage from Sicily to the Peloponnesus.” The Athenians, on hearing these representations, were of opinion that they must pay careful attention to the matter, and sent out Stesicles, as general, with six hundred peltasts, requesting Alcetas to assist in conveying them over the water. These troops were accordingly landed on the coast by night, and made their way into the city of Corcyra.

The Athenians also resolved to fit out sixty additional ships, and elected Timotheus as commander of them. Timotheus, not being able to man these vessels at home, sailed about to the different islands, and endeavoured to complete his crews from thence; thinking it would be no light matter to sail round without due preparation against ships so well disciplined as those of the enemy. But the Athenians, imagining that he was wasting the whole of the season suitable for the expedition, had no patience with him, and, depriving him of his command, appointed Iphicrates in his room. Iphicrates, as soon as he was made commander, manned his vessels with the utmost expedition, and obliged the trierarchs to exert themselves. He took from the Athenians, also, whatever ships were on the coast of Attica, as well as the Paralus and Salaminian ships, observing that “if affairs at Corcyra were successful, he would send them back plenty of ships.” His fleet amounted in all to about seventy.

During this time the people of Corcyra were so grievously oppressed with famine, that, in consequence of the number of deserters, Mnasippus made proclamation that “all deserters for the future should be sold as slaves.” But when they continued to desert nevertheless, he at last scourged them, and sent them back. The people in the city, however, refused to receive any slaves into the town, and many, in consequence, perished without the walls. Mnasippus, observing this, imagined that he was all but in possession of the city, and began to make new arrangements as to his mercenaries, some of whom he dismissed from his service, while to those who remained he continued in debt two months’ pay, though not, as it was said, for want of money, for the greater number of the towns, in consequence of the expedition being over the sea, had sent him money instead of men. But as the people in the city observed from their towers that the lines of the enemy were guarded with less strictness than before, and that the men were straggling over the country, they made a sally upon them, and took some of them prisoners and killed some.

Mnasippus, perceiving what had happened, armed himself, and hastened, with all the heavy-armed troops that he had, to the succour of his men, ordering also the captains and centurions to lead out the mercenaries. Some of the captains observing that “it was not easy for those to have their men obedient who gave them no subsistence,” he struck one of them with his staff, and another with the handle of his spear. Thus they all came out without spirit, and with feelings of hatred towards their general; a state of mind by no means favourable for fighting. However, when he had drawn up his force, he put to flight those of the enemy that were near the gates of the city, and pressed forward in pursuit of them; but the pursued, when they were close to the wall, faced about, and hurled stones and darts at him from the tombs; while others, sallying forth from the other gates, fell, in a dense body, upon the extremity of his line. Mnasippus’ men there, being formed but eight deep, and thinking their wing too weak, endeavoured to wheel round, but when they began to withdraw from their position, the enemy rushed upon them as if they were going to flee, when they themselves no longer attempted to turn, and those that were nearest to them took to flight. Mnasippus, at the same time, was unable to support the party that were in difficulties, as the enemy were pressing upon him in front, and he was continually left with fewer and fewer men. At last the enemy, collecting in a body, made a general attack upon those remaining with Mnasippus, now reduced to a very small number indeed; while the people from the city, observing how things stood, sallied forth, and, after killing Mnasippus, joined in a general pursuit. The pursuers would probably have taken the camp and entrenchment, had they not observed the crowd in the market, and that of the servants and slaves, and, imagining it an efficient body of defenders, retraced their steps. The Corcyræans however erected a trophy, and restored the dead under a truce.

After this affair, the people in the city grew bolder, while those without were in extreme dejection; for it was said that Iphicrates was almost at hand; and the Corcyræans actually proceeded to fit out their vessels. But Hypermenes, who had been second in command to Mnasippus, manned all the Lacedæmonian ships that were there, and, sailing round to the encampment, loaded them every one with slaves and other effects, and sent them off. He himself, with the marines, and such of the other soldiers as survived, stayed to guard the entrenchment; but at last these also got on board in the utmost disorder and sailed away, leaving behind them a great quantity of corn and wine, and a number of slaves and sick persons; for they were extremely afraid that they would be surprised in the island by the Athenians. However, they arrived in safety at Leucas.

Iphicrates, as soon as he commenced his voyage, continued, while he pursued his way, to prepare everything necessary for an engagement. He left his large sails at home at starting, as standing out for a battle, and of his other sails, even if the wind was favourable, he made little use; but, making his passage with the oar, caused his men, by that means, to keep themselves in better condition, and his ships to pursue their course better. Frequently, too, wherever the crews were going to dine or sup, he would draw off one extremity of the fleet to a distance from the land over against the place, and, when he had turned about, and ranged his vessels in a line with their prows towards it, would start them, at a signal, to race against each other to the shore; when it was a great advantage for such as could first take their water, and whatever else they needed, and first finish their meal; while, to such as came last, it was a great punishment to have the disadvantage in all these respects, since they were all obliged to put out to sea again when he gave the signal; for it was the fortune of those that landed first to do everything at their leisure, but of those that were last, to do all with hurry.

If he landed to take a meal in the enemy’s country, he not only posted sentinels, as was proper, on the shore, but also, raising the masts in his ships, kept a lookout from thence. The men stationed on the masts, indeed, saw much farther than those on the level ground, as they looked down from a higher position. Wherever he supped or slept, he kindled no fire in the camp at night, but kept a light burning in front of the encampment, that no one might approach undiscovered. Often, moreover, if the weather was calm, he would resume his voyage as soon as supper was over; and, if a breeze propelled the vessels, the men reposed as they ran on, but, if it was necessary to use the oar, he made them take rest by turns. In his course by day, he would sometimes, at given signals, lead his ships in a line behind one another, and sometimes in a body side by side; so that, while they pursued their voyage, they practised and acquired whatever was necessary for naval warfare, and thus arrived at the sea which they believed to be occupied by the enemy. They dined and supped, for the most part, on the enemy’s territory; but, as they did nothing more there than what was necessary, Iphicrates escaped all attacks by the suddenness with which he resumed his voyage, which he soon accomplished. About the time of Mnasippus’ death he was at the Sphagiæ in Laconia. Advancing thence to the coast of Elis, and sailing past the mouth of the Alpheus, he came to anchor at the promontory called Icthys. Next day he proceeded from thence to Cephallenia, with his fleet so arranged, and keeping his course in such a manner, that he could, if it should be requisite, get everything needful ready for battle, and engage at once; for as to the fate of Mnasippus, he had heard no account from any eye-witness, and suspected that it might be a report intended to deceive him, and accordingly kept upon his guard. But when he arrived at Cephallenia, he received a full statement of facts, and stopped there to refresh his men.

Having reduced the towns in Cephallenia, he sailed off to Corcyra. Here the first intelligence he received was, that ten galleys were coming from Dionysius to reinforce the Lacedæmonians; and going in person therefore along the coast, and considering from what points it was possible to descry those vessels approaching, and for people making signals to render them visible at the city, he posted sentinels in those places, arranging with them what signals they should give when the enemy sailed up and cast anchor. He then selected twenty of his own captains, who were to be ready to follow him whenever he should send a messenger to them, and gave them notice, that, if any one of them should not follow him, he must not complain of any penalty imposed upon him. As soon as these ships, then, were signalled as approaching, and messengers were sent to the captains, their haste was deserving of admiration; for there was no one, of those that were going to sail, that did not embark with the utmost speed. Standing away to the point where the ships of the enemy were, he found that the men from the rest of them were gone ashore, but that Melanippus, a Rhodian captain, was exhorting the other commanders not to stay there, and, embarking his own crew, was sailing off. Melanippus, in consequence, though he met with the ships of Iphicrates, nevertheless escaped, but all the ships from Syracuse were captured, with their crews. Iphicrates, cutting off the beaks of the vessels, brought them in tow into the harbour of Corcyra, and settled a fixed sum for each of the prisoners to pay for his ransom, except Crinippus, the chief captain, whom he kept under guard, as if he would exact a vast sum from him, or sell him as a slave. He however died, through grief, by his own hands. The other prisoners Iphicrates discharged, taking security from the Corcyræans for the payment of their ransom.

He maintained his sailors, chiefly, by employing them in agriculture in the service of the Corcyræans. With the peltasts, and the heavy-armed men from the fleet, he passed over to Acarnania, where he afforded aid to the friendly towns, if any required it, and made war upon the Thyreans, a people of great bravery, and occupying a strongly fortified place. Afterwards, fetching the fleet from Corcyra, consisting now of about ninety ships, he proceeded first to Cephallenia and raised contributions there, as well from people that were willing to give them, as from those that were unwilling. He then prepared to commit depredations on the territories of the Lacedæmonians; and, of the cities in those parts attached to the enemy, to receive into alliance such as were willing to join him, and to make war on such as rejected his advances.[c]

THE TRIAL OF TIMOTHEUS

[Sidenote: [373 B.C.]]

The happy result of the Corcyræan expedition, imparting universal satisfaction at Athens, was not less beneficial to Timotheus than to Iphicrates. It was in November 373 B.C., that the former, as well as his quæstor or military treasurer, Antimachus, underwent each his trial. Callistratus, having returned home, pleaded against the quæstor, perhaps against Timotheus also, as one of the accusers; 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 favour with increased confidence, but also by the unusual phenomenon of two powerful foreign supporters. At the request of Timotheus, both Alcetas of Epirus, and Jason of Pheræ, came to Athens a little before the trial, to appear as witnesses in his favour. They were received and lodged by him in his house in the Hippodamian Agora, the principal square of the Piræus. 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 honour--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 Stesicles and his division across Thessaly and Epirus to Corcyra. The minds of the dicastery 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. 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 Iphicrates had retired a little time before.

[Sidenote: [378-373 B.C.]]

That admiral, whose naval force had been reinforced by a large number of Corcyræan triremes, was committing without opposition incursions against Acarnania, 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 Naupactus, which they had occupied under her protection during the Peloponnesian War. And while the Athenians were thus masters at sea both east and west of Peloponnesus, Sparta and her confederates, discouraged by the ruinous failure of their expedition against Corcyra 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 Helice 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.

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 Antalcidas again as envoy to Persia, to entreat both pecuniary aid 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 Antalcidas. 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.

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, the Athenians had become more and more alienated from Thebes. The ancient antipathy between these two neighbours had for a time been overlaid by common fear of Sparta. But as soon as Thebes had re-established her authority in Bœotia, the jealousies of Athens again began to arise.

During the last three or four years, Platæa, like the other towns of Bœotia, had been again brought into the confederacy under Thebes. Re-established by Sparta after the Peace of Antalcidas 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 favourable 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; 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.

[Sidenote: [373-371 B.C.]]

This intrigue, coming to the knowledge of the Thebans, determined them to strike a decisive blow. The bœotarch Neocles 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 Antalcidas.

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; as she had caused to be done fifty-two years before, after the victory of Delium, on suspicion of leanings favourable to Athens. 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 Isocrates, 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.

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 moreover invited to send envoys to the Lacedæmonian capital, 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--Callias (the hereditary daduch or torchbearer of the Eleusinian ceremonies) and Autocles--were men of great family at Athens; and they were accompanied by Callistratus, the orator. From the Thebans, the only man of note was Epaminondas, then one of the Bœotarchs.

THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA

[Sidenote: [371 B.C.]]

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 Callias, who announces himself as hereditary proxenus of Sparta at Athens, is boastful and empty, but eminently philo-Laconian in spirit; that of Autocles is in the opposite tone, full of severe censure on the past conduct of Sparta; that of Callistratus, 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 Autocles--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.

This orator, representing the Athenian diplomacy of the time, recognises distinctly the Peace of Antalcidas 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 Antalcidas was on his way back from Persia with money to aid the Lacedæmonians in the war. 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 Autocles, 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. 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. 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 pleaded by the Theban orator 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, and the Spartan commissioners had recognised 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 co-operation with the invading Persians, the Spartans themselves had assisted her with all their power to re-establish it, as a countervailing force against Athens. 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 recognised and strenuously vindicated by the Spartans themselves. He could show further 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) by nothing but Spartan valour and the sharpness of the Spartan sword.

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 Callistratus and the Athenians, but to the Spartans themselves intolerably poignant and insulting. They had already a long account of antipathy to clear off with Thebes; their own wrong-doing in seizing the Cadmea; 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 Callistratus, 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 retractation 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.

Such was the close of this memorable congress at Sparta in June 371 B.C. Between the Spartans and the Athenians, and their respective allies, peace was sworn. But the Thebans were excluded, and their deputies returned home, (if we may believe Xenophon) 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.

ATHENS ABANDONS THEBES

The leaning of the Athenian deputies had been adverse rather than favourable 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 to 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, Callistratus 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 ascendant 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 recognising the other in their respective halves of the Hellenic hegemony. Moreover, Athens had the prudence to draw her stake, and quit the game, when at the maximum of acquisitions, without taking the risk of future contingencies.[e]

FOOTNOTES

[11] [That is, the organisation of a group of settlements into one city or capital.]

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XLV. THE DAY OF EPAMINONDAS

It was not a new enemy which Sparta had found, but rather an old one which had come to new power, in the city of Thebes. In that city an extraordinary man had come to light, and by his sole influence he raised his people to the head of Grecian affairs. This man was Epaminondas, certainly one of the greatest men--some would have it even the very greatest--that Greece ever produced.

There have been philosophical historians who have doubted the influence of the individual man in moulding the course of human events. According to one point of view it is the events always that make the man, the great man coming forward when he is needed, and because he is needed. But such cases as that of Epaminondas ill accord with this theory. Nothing seems clearer than that Thebes rose into great influence and wrested the sceptre of power from Sparta solely because the great leader Epaminondas chanced to be a Theban. For it is quite beyond dispute, that in all the previous years in which she had constantly participated in the Grecian struggles, Thebes had occupied a subordinate place, and it is equally clear that she sank back at once into relative insignificance the moment that Epaminondas was gone.

It was Epaminondas who led the Thebans in person against the Spartans, in the first engagement in which a Spartan army was ever put to flight in open combat, and the success of Epaminondas was probably due to the fact that his genius had developed a new form of tactics. The method of massing the heavy-armed soldiers in what came afterwards to be famous as the Macedonian phalanx--the weapon with which Alexander won his victories--was, it is said, really due to Epaminondas. Philip of Macedon, who was afterwards to become the master of Greece, was a captive in Thebes during his boyhood, and it is supposed that he there gained the germ of the idea, which afterwards, when put into practice, enabled his Macedonian warriors to scatter the true Greeks as easily as in an earlier day the Greeks had scattered the Persians. What else Philip may have learned through the example of Epaminondas it would be difficult to say, but in this view it is clear that the genius of the great Theban leader may have entered much more potently into the story of the final overthrow of Greece than might at first sight appear.

Such intangible associations aside, however, it is clear that the fame of Epaminondas has suffered through the relative insignificance of the epoch in which he lived. Historians, by common consent, give him a foremost place among the great Greeks; yet to the generality of readers, to whom such names as Themistocles, Pericles, and Alexander are household words, the name of Epaminondas is almost unknown. This neglect was inevitable, for the events in which this latter hero figured were the events of the declining years of a great nation; events which, far from telling for the up-building of Grecian power, were merely the last preparatory stages for the final overthrow. It seems strange to reflect that the period that intervened between the close of the Peloponnesian War and the final conquest of Greece by Philip of Macedon is a longer period than the entire stretch of the age of Pericles. It was an epoch separated from that golden period of Grecian culture only by the lapse of a single generation; yet how strangely different is the import that it bears to after generations. The proud Athens is now the home of a broken and dispirited people. Sparta, after a brief moment of glory, has been laid in the dust. The ascent of Thebes is no more rocket-like than its descent.

When looking on this period one feels that already Greece has ceased to exist, and yet one may well doubt whether any contemporary citizen, say of Athens, could at all have realised the enormous change that had come over the spirit and status of the Greek race. There were still great men in Athens. Perhaps it may have seemed to the Athenian of that day that great men were as numerous as they had ever been. Euripides and Sophocles had left no worthy successors, to be sure; but Aristophanes lived well on into the later period, and in the field of art Praxiteles may easily have seemed to contemporary judgment the peer of Phidias, while in the field of philosophy and science there were such names as Plato, and Aristotle, and Xenophon, and in oratory there was no name in the previous epoch to rival that of Demosthenes.

Such names as these show that Greek genius did not die out in a single hour. A nation once grown to greatness cannot be overthrown in a single generation, unless its entire population be destroyed or scattered as was that of Nineveh. Yet it is none the less certain that Athenian culture was now in its time of decay, however little patency that fact may have had to the contemporary witness. And in looking back, with all that one has learned of the seemingly fixed limits of national existence through study of other peoples, one is forced to the conclusion that perhaps it did not greatly matter that the sturdy Macedonian from the north should have swept down and stamped out the last spark of Athenian power.[a]

The condition of Greece at this time shows that, during the long convulsions, all the old sentiments and associations had been lost, and that Greece had now come to a point at which most of the states could not exist without a protector. It required that fearful training which the Greeks had to submit to for nearly a whole century, before they became capable of living under a really free federal constitution like that of the Achæan League: a firm union into one whole, when the isolated existence of the separate states had become a matter of impossibility. The state of Greece was indescribably sad, and the most atrocious scenes occurred everywhere.

The Spartans might now have enjoyed peace; but they were still incorrigible. When pressed by great difficulties, they always signed the treaties; but when they were out of danger, and the treaties had to be carried into effect, they felt uneasy; they could never prevail upon themselves to exercise self-control, or to give up anything. The Thebans seemed to be ready to accede to the peace; but the Spartans still insisted upon the necessity of Thebes separating from Bœotia, although they had not undertaken the guarantee of the peace; in the Peace of Antalcidas they had done so, but this was not the case now. King Cleombrotus was stationed with an army in Phocis; that army ought now to have been disbanded, and this was the opinion of a few sensible men; but the majority thought that it should be employed in compelling the Thebans to set the Bœotians free. The ruling party at Sparta now hoped to be able to compel Thebes, which was forsaken by all the other Greeks, without any difficulty, especially as some of the Bœotian towns, such as Orchomenos, sided with Sparta. Orchomenos was still dreaming of her ancient splendour and glory, and of the mythical times when Thebes was separated from Bœotia, when Orchomenos was the most powerful city, and Thebes paid tribute to her. These recollections were cherished by the Orchomenians with great and fond partiality; just as if Amalfi wished at present to re-establish the claims of its ancient greatness.

SPARTA INVADES BŒOTIA

Cleombrotus, therefore, full of hope, entered Bœotia, after the peace had been signed, demanding that Bœotia should carry the terms of the peace into effect, and renounce Thebes, and that every town should assert its independence. The other Bœotian towns, with the exception of Orchomenos and Thespiæ, were reasonable enough to see that their dependence on Thebes, with extensive rights, was far better than independence; and Thebes was supported by far the greater number of the Bœotians. The Thebans, joined by their Bœotian allies, now took the field.[b] Cleombrotus, with a degree of military skill rare in the Spartan commanders, baffled all the Theban calculations. Instead of marching by the highway he turned south, defeated a Theban force and captured the port of Creusis with twelve Theban triremes. He then marched north through the mountains into Thespiæ and encamped on the high ground at a place of ever-memorable name--Leuctra.[c]

Fortunately for Bœotia, Epaminondas was bœotarch at this time. Pelopidas, likewise bœotarch, commanded the Hieros Lochos [Sacred Band], the élite of the citizens. If Epaminondas had been an ordinary man, he would have turned back again almost immediately after he had marched out; for the omens, to which the ancients attached so much importance, strangely accumulated to such a degree, that they might have shaken a firm mind which was not altogether proof against superstition. When the army passed out of the gate, for example, they met a herald bringing back a deserter, and uttering ominous words, “You ought not to be led out of the city.” Then a high wind rose, carrying off ribbons with which they had adorned themselves for the sacrifice, and these ribbons clung round a pillar on a tomb. Hence an indescribable consternation arose, but Epaminondas recited the magnificent line from the Iliad:

εἴς οἰωνὸς ἄριστος ἀμύνεσθαι περὶ πάτρης![12]

and boldly marched out. It is a pity that we have not a life of Epaminondas by Plutarch; with his Bœotian patriotism, he would certainly have produced a pleasing biography; but how, with his superstitious notions, he would have managed it, we do not know. Every one of the Thebans knew that they should have to fight a battle against the Spartans, and with heavy hearts they set out against an enemy who had never yet been conquered in the field. But the confidence of Epaminondas was unshaken. Although himself armed against all superstition, he willingly allowed his soldiers to fortify themselves with their belief in supernatural signs, and did not oppose the spreading of the rumour among his troops, that the armour of Hercules had disappeared from his temple at Thebes, the birthplace of the god, and that consequently the god himself had taken up his arms to fight for his fellow-citizens. He made his preparations in full confidence, and did what was best under the circumstances. He foresaw that the Spartans would have the belief in their favour that their tactics were superior; for it was the general opinion that their tactics of deep masses were unconquerable, just as it was believed of the drilling regulations of Frederick II after the Seven Years’ War, when all the states ordered their troops to be trained according to it, imagining that thereby they could gain battles as he had done. Epaminondas, moreover, had to overcome the pride of the Spartans. Now, in order to meet their tactics and break their pride, he made an excellent disposition, employing the system of defeating masses by still greater masses.

THE BATTLE OF LEUCTRA

The Spartans were drawn up together with their allies. Epaminondas advanced in an oblique line, sending forward the left wing and keeping back the right; but he then ordered the left wing gradually to withdraw to the left, and thus formed on that wing an immense mass. With this he now made a most vigorous attack upon the right wing of the enemy, where the Spartans themselves were stationed. An ordinary general would have done the contrary, directing his force against the part from which no such powerful resistance was to be expected. Pelopidas conducted the attack, and ordered the mass to advance with immense rapidity. We do not know whether the statement is true, that the Thebans advanced fifty men deep. We have only the testimony of Xenophon, but see no reason for denying it. The troops must have been excellently trained, for notwithstanding the dense mass, they advanced with an alacrity as if they had been light troops, just as at present troops advance in an attack with the bayonet, and not according to the fashion of phalangites, who otherwise advanced with deliberate solemnity. The Spartans made a skilful move: in order not to be outflanked, they turned to the right, intending to throw their cavalry upon the right wing of the Bœotians. But the Bœotians made the attack with such precision and quickness, that being beforehand, they routed the Lacedæmonians and Spartans. There Cleombrotus fell, and the Spartans were as decidedly beaten as they well could be. The army did not indeed disperse, but it was absolutely impossible to find any pretext for saying that they had been victorious at any one point, a matter in which the Greeks were otherwise extremely inventive. It requires the partiality of a Xenophon, to leave it undecided as to whether the Spartans were defeated.[13]

After the battle, they appear to have remained together for a time, but there was no one among them able to undertake the command. Meantime, as a report had reached Sparta, that the Bœotians offered resistance, another Spartan army, under Archidamus, a son of Agesilaus, had marched across the Isthmus, and was now approaching, but found the Spartans already defeated. All he could do was to collect the remains of the defeated army and to return with them. They seem to have effected their retreat under the protection of a truce. The only auxiliaries of the Thebans in the battle of Leuctra, had been the Thessalian troops of prince Jason of Pheræ: one of the phenomena of an age, when the old order of things has disappeared, and new institutions have been formed.

If we believe Diodorus, the battle of Leuctra was the direct punishment for perjury: for Cleombrotus, it is said, had concluded a truce with the Thebans, but on the arrival of reinforcements from Peloponnesus, he broke it. One of the narratives must be untrue, either his or that of Xenophon; if the reinforcements under Archidamus arrived before the battle, Xenophon’s account must necessarily be given up. Cleombrotus may have had the peculiar misfortune, which happens to many a one who has been unsuccessful; all that is bad and disgraceful is attributed to him. What makes us still more inclined to disbelieve the account of Diodorus is, that if Archidamus had been present at the battle, it could not have been said that after the battle the Spartan army was without a commander. Diodorus probably too eagerly caught up an account which throws the blame upon the Spartans; it was invented either by Ephorus or by Callisthenes.

The loss of the Spartans in the battle is very differently stated. According to one account, it amounted to 4000 men, which would include, besides the Lacedæmonians and Spartans, all the other allies; others mention only 1000 slain, which number would comprise the Lacedæmonians only; others again estimate their number at 1700; but this last number is erroneous, as has been correctly observed by Schneider in a note on Xenophon, and arose from a hasty glance at the numbers written in the characters of the Greek alphabet. We may take it for granted that not less than 1000 Lacedæmonians fell in the battle; but whether this number also comprised the Spartans or not, is a question which cannot be answered at all. But it is a fact, that the number of the Spartans was so extremely small, that the strength of the Spartan citizens as a body was completely paralysed by the loss of this battle. At one time there had been 9000 citizens, subsequently they are said to have amounted to 8000, but at this time there cannot have been 1000 real citizens, and at a still later time there were only 700. At Leuctra several hundreds of them fell. The ancient Spartan citizens were certainly not more numerous than the nobili of Venice. They now had to feel the consequences of their wretched selfish policy, which had been so jealous in granting the franchise to the periœci, as to exclude a great many excellent men as unfit and unworthy, and had cut them off from every prospect of obtaining it.

All Greece was startled at the news of this victory; it seemed impossible that Sparta should have been beaten in the field. The Spartans themselves were quite dejected. Their allies turned their backs upon them, and in a moment all the states of Peloponnesus, which had hitherto followed their standards, threw up their connection with them, and declared themselves independent; the Phocians, Locrians, and other allies beyond the Isthmus, immediately concluded a peace and alliance with the Bœotians. Not eighteen months passed away, perhaps it was even in the very winter after the battle of Leuctra, when the Bœotians invaded Peloponnesus. The Spartans were panic-stricken and retreated. The Bœotians announced themselves as the protectors of liberty, and there can be no doubt that the personal character and the eminent qualities of Epaminondas everywhere excited great confidence, while the national character of the Thebans would certainly have called forth the opposite feeling.[b]

SIGNIFICANCE OF LEUCTRA

The battle of Leuctra was certainly one of those battles which are decisive of the fate of countries and which give history a new turn. It not only brought to the fore a leader of singular magnificence at the head of a new and zealous nation, but it saw the complete collapse of Sparta. It made possible the first invasion of that country which, being without walls, had felt itself girt about with imperishable granite in the brawn of its soldiery. The other nations of Greece for all their hatred of Sparta had never succeeded in invading her. It was considered glory enough to sail around the Peloponnesus or to establish a stronghold upon some portion of the coast. It remained for a Theban newcomer, whom Xenophon does not even mention in his account of the battle of Leuctra, to march into Sparta and prove that her granite wall of soldiery was only a superstition that crumbled before the onslaught of that new Theban formation which modern foot-ball players have revived and called “the flying-wedge.”

The battle of Leuctra is significant in showing that the course of Grecian empire was taking a northward way. In its passage, Thebes was only a stepping-stone to Macedonia. Once out of the little peninsula it had thus far dwelt in, Grecian ambition was to find itself upon an unlimited field of conquest whence it would turn, not logically to the West, where Rome was young and inglorious, but to the East, with its ancient and rotting civilisation and its hoarded opulence.

For the present, however, it is enough to realise that Sparta has fallen never to lift her head again. Remembering all the better side of the Spartan life and the Spartan philosophy, one is disposed to feel a deep sense of regret. It seems to be a moment for elegy. But to certain historians who can see in Sparta at best only a stupid mountain of conservatism, and at worst a monster of hypocrisy, of cruelty and of inertia, it seems to be a time for rejoicing that a blot has been removed from the Grecian escutcheon. No one is more severe and no one more eloquent than Cox who says in his self-defence, “I have been charged with being over-severe to Sparta. I would gladly be convinced that I have been; but until I am so convinced, I cannot modify my words.” Then he launches forth into a glowing philippic from which we may quote a portion:

“So ended the fight which left Epaminondas the first general of his age, and so fell a power which had fully earned its title to stability, if grinding tyranny and law-defying oppressiveness could confer such a right. The Lycurgean discipline, which crushed all that imparted grace and beauty of life at Athens, would indeed have been worth little if it had failed to produce the semblance of an unconcern which treated the more generous and tender instincts of humanity as the worst of vices.

“Another act in the great drama had been thus played out; and the whole Hellenic world had at length learned that the promises of freedom made by Sparta had been from beginning to end a lie--a lie scantily veiled at first by the rhetoric of Brasidas, but put forth afterward in the nakedness of unblushing effrontery. Not a single pledge had she redeemed; not a single burden had been removed, not a single abuse redressed. She had hailed the downfall of Athens as the beginning of a golden age for Hellas, and in order to realise it she had aided and abetted her victorious generals in setting up everywhere societies of murderers. Her enemies were prostrate; and she trampled on them without a touch of commiseration. Her allies were too much overpowered by the consciousness of their inferiority really to dispute her will; and she refused to share her spoils with the partners of her robberies. She had put down the Athenian empire with the courts, which, at the least, offered to the free or the subject allies the means of redress for wrongs inflicted or received; and by way of improving matters she had, with gigantic cruelty, let loose upon them a crowd of rapacious and lustful tyrants against whom she would hear no complaint.

“In short the supremacy of Sparta had been from first to last the supremacy of high-handed violence and wanton tyranny. Nor could it have been anything else but what it was. Much has been said of the golden opportunities which the course of events offered to Sparta, and which she deliberately threw away, opportunities presented first in the unlimited freedom of action which followed the seizure of the Athenian fleet at Ægospotami, and again when the return of the Cyrean Greeks placed her at the head of a splendid army in her involuntary conflict with the Persian king. But in truth it is absurd to speak of opportunities of feasting on the loveliest of landscapes, to the man who has extinguished in himself all sense of beauty, of opportunities for generous action to the man whose whole life exhibits nothing but the working of unvarying and consistent selfishness. Whether after Ægospotami, or after the return of the Ten Thousand, it was impossible for Sparta to do anything towards establishing a real Panhellenic union, in other words, a real Greek nation, without reverting in greater or less degree to the works of Athens. To go back to any such system would be for the Spartans what the changing of his skin would be to the Ethiopian, or of his spots to the leopard.”

Before returning to the crescent glory of Epaminondas, it is necessary to pause to note the sudden phenomenon of a singular genius, Jason of Pheræ, who flares up and overawes Greece only to expire at once. He is a striking personage, and important as a forewarning flash of the irresistible storm rising in the North.[a]

JASON OF THESSALY

Intelligence of the fatal blow at Leuctra, carried to Lacedæmon, was borne with much real magnanimity, and with all that affectation of unconcern which the institutions of Lycurgus commanded. It happened to be the last day of the festival called the Naked Games; and the chorus of men was on the stage, before the assembled people, when the officer charged with the despatches arrived. The ephors were present, as their official duty required, and to them the despatches were delivered. Without interrupting the entertainment they communicated the names of the slain to their relations, with an added admonition, that the women should avoid that clamorous lamentation which was usual, and bear the calamity in silence. On the morrow all the relations of the slain appeared as usual in public, with a deportment of festivity and triumph, while the few kinsmen of the survivors, who showed themselves abroad, carefully marked in their appearance humiliation and dejection.

It was a large proportion of the best strength of the commonwealth that, after so great a loss in the battle, remained in a danger not in the moment to be calculated. Every exertion therefore was to be made to save it. Of six moras, into which for military purposes the Lacedæmonian people were divided, the men of four, within thirty years after boyhood (such was the term, meaning perhaps the age of about fourteen), had marched under Cleombrotus; those however being excepted who bore at the time any public office. The ephors now ordered the remaining two moras to march, together with those of the absent moras, to the fortieth year from boyhood, and no longer allowing exception for those in office. The command, Agesilaus being not yet sufficiently recovered to take it, was committed to his son Archidamus. Requisitions were at the same time hastened off for the assistance of the allies: and the Lacedæmonian interest, or the interest adverse to the pretensions and apprehended purposes of Thebes, prevailed so in Tegea, Mantinea, Phlius, Corinth, Sicyon, and throughout the Achæan towns, that from all those places the contingent of troops was forwarded with alacrity.

Meanwhile the leading Thebans, meaning to pay a compliment that might promote their interest in Athens, had hastened thither information of their splendid success. But the impression made by this communication was not favourable to their views: on the contrary, it showed that the jealousy, formerly entertained so generally among the Athenians towards Lacedæmon, was already transferred to Thebes. Thus the incessant quarrels among the Grecian republics, source indeed of lasting glory to some, brought however, with their decision, neither lasting power nor lasting quiet to any; but, proving ever fertile in new discord, had a constant tendency to weaken the body of the nation. Relief to Lacedæmon in its pressing danger came, not from its own exertion, not from the interest which all the Grecian republics had in preventing Thebes from acquiring that overbearing dominion with which in a Lacedæmon had oppressed them, but from a power newly risen, or revived, in a corner of the country whence, for centuries, Greece had not been accustomed to apprehend anything formidable.

Jason of Pheræ in Thessaly was one of those extraordinary men in whom superior powers of mind and body sometimes meet. He was formed to be a hero had he lived with Achilles: and as a politician he could have contended with Themistocles or Pericles. He had the advantage of being born to eminence in his own city, one of the principal of Thessaly; and he appears to have acquired there a powerful popularity. Little informed of the early part of his life, we find him mentioned as general of the Pheræans about six years before the battle of Leuctra, and commanding a force sent to assist Neogenes, chief of Histiæa in Eubœa. In the contests of faction in Thessaly it was become common to employ mercenary troops. Jason excelled in diligence in training such troops, in courage and skill in commanding them, and in the arts by which he attached them to his interest.

Of the state of Thessaly at this time altogether we may form some judgment from what the contemporary historian [Xenophon] has related of Pharsalus, one of its most considerable cities. The leaders of the factions by which Pharsalus was torn, weary at length of ruinous contest, came to an extraordinary agreement. Fortunately they had a fellow-citizen, Polydamas, eminent throughout Thessaly for high birth, large possessions, and that splendid hospitality for which the Thessalians were distinguished, but yet more singularly eminent for integrity. To this man the Pharsalians committed the command of their citadel and the exclusive management of their public revenue, giving him altogether a princely authority. In so extraordinary an office Polydamas had the good fortune to succeed in everything, except in opposing the ambition of the too politic and powerful Jason.

Tyrant or patriot, as you will, in his own city of Pheræ, Jason had proceeded to bring most of the Thessalian cities, some by policy, some by arms, under that kind of subjection which so commonly in Greece was entitled confederacy. The strength of Pharsalus, directed by the abilities of Polydamas, was exerted to protect them. But Pharsalus itself was threatened, when Jason sent a proposal for a conference with the chief, which was accepted. In this conference the Pheræan avowed his “intention to reduce Pharsalus, and the towns dependent upon Pharsalus, to dependency upon himself;” but declared that “it was his wish to effect this rather by negotiation than by violence, and with benefit to Polydamas, rather than to his injury. It was in the power of Polydamas,” he said, “to persuade the Pharsalians; but that it was not in his power to defend them, the result of all his recent efforts sufficiently showed. For himself, he was resolved to hold the first situation in Greece; the second he offered to Polydamas. What their advantages would be, if a political union took place, Polydamas as well as himself could estimate.

“The cavalry of Thessaly was six thousand strong: the heavy-armed infantry exceeded ten thousand; the numerous inhabitants of the surrounding mountains, subjects of the Thessalian cities, were excellent targeteers. In addition to this force then he had six thousand mercenaries in his pay; a body such as, for choice of men, and perfection of discipline, no commonwealth of Greece possessed. But connection with Athens did not suit his views; for the Athenians affected to be the first maritime power of Greece, and he meant to make Thessaly the first. The three necessaries to naval power were timber, hands, and revenue. With the former, Athens was supplied from Macedonia, which lay much more conveniently for the supply of Thessaly. With the second their Penestian subjects were a resource to which Athens had nothing equal.” (The Penestæ were a conquered people, reduced to a kind of vassalage under the Thessalians, for whom they performed menial and laborious offices, but were not held in a slavery so severe and degrading as the helots of Laconia, for we find them admitted to that military service, the cavalry, which was generally reckoned among the Greeks to assort only with rank above the lowest citizens.)

It had been a practice of the Thessalian republics, always acknowledging some common bonds of union, to appoint, for extraordinary occasions a common military commander, a captain-general of the Thessalian nation, with the title of Tagus. To this high rank and great command Jason aspired, and the approbation of the Pharsalian government, it appears, was necessary. But he was far from so confining his views. Even the command of all Greece did not suffice for his ambition. “That all Greece might be reduced under their dominion,” he observed to Polydamas, “appeared probable from what he had already stated: but he conceived the conquest of the Persian empire to be a still easier achievement; the practical proof afforded by the return of the Cyrean Greeks, and by the great progress made with a very small force by Agesilaus, leaving this no longer a matter of mere speculation.”

Polydamas, in reply, admitted the justness of Jason’s reasoning; but alleged his own connection with Lacedæmon, which he would at no rate betray, as an objection that appeared to him insuperable. Jason, commending his fidelity to his engagements, freely consented that he should go to Lacedæmon and state his circumstances; and if he could not obtain succour which might give him reasonable hope of successful resistance, then he would stand clearly excused, both to his allies and to his fellow-citizens, in accepting the proposal offered him. Polydamas, returning then into Thessaly, requested and obtained from Jason, that he should hold under his own peculiar command the citadel of Pharsalus, which had been, in a manner so honourable to him, entrusted to his charge. For security of his fidelity to his new engagements, he surrendered his children as hostages. The Pharsalians, persuaded to acquiesce, were admitted to terms of peace and friendship by Jason, who was then elected without opposition tagus of Thessaly.

The first object of Jason, in his high office, was to inquire concerning the force which the whole country, now acknowledging him its constitutional military commander, could furnish; and it was found to amount to more than eight thousand horse, full twenty thousand heavy-armed foot, and targeteers enough, in the contemporary historian’s phrase, for war with all the world. His next care was the revenue, which might enable him to give energy to this force. Jason was ambitious, but not avaricious, and he desired to have willing subjects. He required therefore from the dependent states around Thessaly only that tribute which had been formerly assessed under the tagus Scopas. At the time of the battle of Leuctra, Jason was already this formidable potentate, and he was then in alliance with Thebes. When therefore the Thebans sent to the Athenian people an account of that splendid action, they did not fail to communicate the intelligence also to the tagus of Thessaly; and they added a request for his co-operation towards the complete overthrow of the tyranny, so long exercised by the Lacedæmonians over the Greek nation. The circumstances were altogether such as Jason was not likely to look upon with indifference. Having ordered a fleet to be equipped, he put himself at the head of his mercenaries, his standing army, and taking the cavalry in the moment about him, he began his march. He reached Bœotia without loss; showing, as the contemporary historian observes, how despatch may often do more than force.

Jason, the ally of Thebes, was connected, not indeed by political alliance, but by public and hereditary hospitality, with Lacedæmon. Pleased with the humiliation of his hosts, he was not desirous that his allies should become too powerful. On reaching the Theban camp therefore, demurring to the proposal of the Theban generals for an immediate attack upon the Lacedæmonians, he became the counsellor of peace; and, acting as mediator, he quickly succeeded so far as to procure a truce. The Lacedæmonians hastened to use the opportunity for reaching a place of safety. Jason, after having thus acted as arbiter of Greece, hastened his return to Thessaly. In his way through the hostile province of Phocis, with leisure to exercise his vengeance, for which he had not before wanted strength, he confined it to the little town of Hyampolis, whose suburbs and territory he wasted, killing many of the people. The Lacedæmonian colony of Heraclea was then to be passed. He had served Lacedæmon at Leuctra because he thought it for his interest; and he would, without scruple, or fear, injure Lacedæmon, in its colony of Heraclea, because the prosperity of that colony would obstruct his views. Heraclea was most critically situated for commanding the only easily practicable communication between the countries northward and southward. He therefore demolished the fortifications.

Decidedly now the greatest potentate of Greece, powerful, not by his own strength alone, but by his numerous alliances, while on all sides his alliance was courted, Jason proposed to display his magnificence at the approaching Pythian games. He had commanded all the republics which owned the authority of the tagus of Thessaly to feed oxen, sheep, goats, and swine for the sacrifices; and he proposed the reward of a golden crown for the state which should produce the finest ox to lead the herd for the god. By a very easy impost on them severally, he collected more than a thousand oxen, and ten thousand smaller cattle. He appointed a day, a little before the festival, for assembling the military force of Thessaly; and the expectation in Greece was that he would assume to himself the presidency. Apprehension arose that he might seize the treasure of Delphi; insomuch that the Delphians consulted their oracle for directions from the god on the occasion. The answer, according to report, was similar to what had been given to their forefathers when Xerxes invaded Greece, “that the care of the treasure would be the god’s own concern.”

Before the period for the splendid display arrived, this extraordinary man, after a review of the Pheræan cavalry, sitting to give audience to any who might have occasion to speak to him, was assassinated by seven youths, who approached with the pretence of stating a matter in dispute among them. The attending guards, or friends of the tagus, killed one of them on the spot, and another as he was mounting his horse; but the rest so profited from the confusion of the moment, and the opportunities which circumstances throughout Greece commonly afforded, that they effected their escape. What was the provocation to this murder, or the advantage proposed from it, we are not informed. No symptom appears of any political view: no attempt at a revolution is noticed by the historian; but what he mentions to have followed marks the popularity of Jason among the Thessalians, and also the deficient ideas, equally of morality and true policy, generally prevailing through Greece. The brothers of the deceased, Polydorus and Polyphron, were appointed jointly to succeed to the dignity of tagus: the assassins could find no refuge in Thessaly; but in various cities of other parts of Greece they were received with honour: proof, says the contemporary historian, how vehemently it was apprehended that Jason would succeed in his purpose of making himself sovereign of the country. Such was the unfortunate state of Greece: in the weakness of its little republics men were compelled to approve means the most nefarious, where other prospect failed, by which their fears were relieved, and present safety procured. Thus assassination became so generally creditable, or at least so little uncreditable, that hope of safety, through speed in flight, was always afforded to the perpetrators.[e]

VON STERN ON THE THEBAN POLICY

In Lachmann, Curtius, and others, we are confronted by the notion that Epaminondas began the War of Liberation against Sparta as a Greek, and not in the interest of Bœotia alone, and that the weal or woe of the Greek nation as a whole was the leading motive of all that he did or left undone. Since the Bœotian hegemony (regarded in this aspect as the outcome of the noblest Panhellenic aspirations) is to our historians the pole and focus of their view of the subsequent period, we can easily see the paramount importance of an acceptance or denial of such aspirations for the common good of Greece, in forming an opinion upon this portion of history. It therefore becomes a duty to examine the question more minutely.

It has never been contested that up to the time of the battle of Leuctra the Thebans had never had opportunity or occasion to turn their attention and their energies to a wider field for patriotism. What iron persistency they were compelled to exercise, what struggles they had to endure, in order to maintain their own existence and to realise the local unity for which they strove! It is not probable, not possible, that during these years of wrestling for deliverance from Spartan supremacy, during a struggle of which the issue perpetually hung in suspense, they should have cherished designs for the benefit of Greece as a whole. The deliberate purpose with which they strove straight towards the end in view, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left, proves how keen was the foresight, how determinate the programme, of the Theban leaders, and shows at the same time how little place they gave to idle dreams and illusions, which invariably involve some neglect of the needs of the moment.

The battle of Leuctra, therefore, marks the momentous turning-point in the eyes of the scholars above referred to. “The victory,” says Curtius, “was to be regarded as a national act from which all Greeks were to derive benefit,”--hence the embassies sent from the battle-field to Athens and Thessaly. But can the wish to be regarded as the benefactor of all Hellas really have been the true motive of this despatch of heralds? Thebes had won the victory indeed, but the hostile army was far from being annihilated and still occupied the country in formidable numbers. Isolated and without confederates, Thebes could scarcely hope to secure the fruits of her victory unless she could now win powerful allies. The attitude of Athens was naturally of the first importance. It was essential for Thebes to frustrate a conjunction between Sparta and Athens, and, if possible, to assure herself of the support of her powerful neighbour.

The temper of Athens was not propitious to such endeavours. If the knowledge that peace was of the first necessity to themselves rendered the Athenians averse to incurring fresh hardships for the sake of Sparta, they felt even less obligation to take up the cause of Thebes. The embassy was fruitless. The mission to Thessaly was more successful, for Jason of Pheræ promptly prepared to come and render assistance. The Thebans did not dare to attack the enemy’s camp before his arrival; and when he appeared in Bœotia with an army they entreated him to undertake the assault in concert with them. Even then the mere mention on his part of the difficulties in the way was enough to divert the Thebans from their project and induce them to accede to his proposals for mediation. We see that they were far from feeling themselves masters of the situation; nothing short of the withdrawal of the Spartan army seemed to them to insure the security of their own position, which was the first-fruits of their victory.

[Sidenote: [371-370 B.C.]]

Moreover, Thebes had next to overcome the last resistance to Bœotian unity within her own borders. Thespiæ and Orchomenos had to be coerced before a further advance could be thought of. The next steps were naturally taken with a view to a union amongst the states of middle Greece; and by compacts with Phocis, Locris, Ætolia, and Acarnania, which acknowledged the right of the conqueror of Leuctra to be the head and chief of the new amphictyony, Thebes strove to attain the position to which her success had given her the best title. But it seems in the highest degree improbable that in all these proceedings Thebes had the interests of the whole of Greece in view, that she cherished the idea of a national uprising against Spartan oppression, that by the extension of dominion for which she strove she desired to make good the wrong done to other Greeks in earlier days by Sparta, and that, as Curtius supposes, the project for the restoration of Messenia had already been definitely conceived. The Theban leaders could not be blind to the fact that the struggle with Sparta had by no means come to an end with the battle of Leuctra, but the political conditions of the time gave them as yet no chance of forming definite resolutions and plans as to how the end was to be brought about. Curtius undoubtedly goes too far when he assumes that at that time Epaminondas was sole master of the situation and controlled the destinies of the Greeks. The Thebans did not even venture to transfer the struggle to Peloponnesian soil and denude Bœotia of her troops, on account of the menacing attitude assumed by Jason of Pheræ in the north.

The tyrant was ostensibly the ally of the Thebans, but his ambitions and independent schemes were coming into ever greater prominence. As he retired from Bœotia after the battle of Leuctra he had surprised Heraclea and destroyed the walls of the city; he would have no one able to bar his free entry into Hellas. Now, in the summer of 370, he was equipping a magnificent army to attend the Pythian games at Delphi. His object in so doing was not merely to make a display of his kingly power. Delphi, the seat and centre of the amphictyones, had always been the connecting link between Thessaly and the other Greek states. By the splendid homage he offered to the god in his sacrificial procession, Jason intended to renew the old obsolete relations; and relying upon the fact that the Thessalian races had a majority in the ancient amphictyonic council, to usurp the guardianship of the oracle and the management of the games, and to secure for himself an influence in Greek politics proportionate to his power. The great body of troops which was to accompany him in this procession sufficiently emphasised these claims and demands. The northern Greeks were not unaware of the danger that threatened them--neither in all likelihood were the Thebans. Xenophon’s narrative amply proves with what apprehension they watched his steps, and how great was the disquietude amongst the dwellers in northern Greece. Jason’s sudden death was to the Hellenes the deliverance from a nightmare, and the fact that his murderers were honoured as saviours from tyranny and oppression, is an unmistakable token of the temper aroused in Greece by his last enterprise. But it was absolutely impossible for Thebes and the league of middle Greece to wage war upon Sparta in the Peloponnesus while Jason was planning his march to Delphi. They could not withdraw troops from Bœotia without incurring the risk that he would make use of the circumstance to give the fullest scope to his ambitious designs.[g]

A CONGRESS AT ATHENS

The ill-humour with which the news of the battle of Leuctra was received at Athens seems to have arisen merely out of the old jealousy and animosity with which the Athenians had been used to regard their northern neighbours, and which revived as soon as the affairs of Thebes became prosperous. For in the event itself, considered with respect to their own interests, they could have seen nothing to deplore. And they proceeded without delay to take advantage of the shock which it had given to the influence of Sparta. It seems to have been the prevailing opinion throughout Greece, and not least at Sparta itself, that the Spartan power had suffered a fatal blow; and Xenophon intimates that the Athenians were surprised to find that any of the Peloponnesian states still adhered to the ancient chief of their confederacy. They believed that the time had now come when Athens might step into the place of Sparta, as guardian of the Peace of Antalcidas, and might transfer all the advantages which her rival had reaped from that title to herself. They therefore assembled a congress in their own city, to which they invited deputies not only from their old allies, but from all the states of Greece which were willing to adopt the Peace of Antalcidas as the basis of their mutual relations. It seems to have been attended by many, if not by most members of the Peloponnesian confederacy; and the resolution to which it came in the oath by which each state was to ratify the compact was thus expressed: “I will abide by the treaty sent down by the king, and by the decrees of the Athenians and their allies, and if an attack be made on any of the states which take this oath, I will succour it with all my might.” So that Athens found herself able to obtain better security for the execution of the treaty, than had been given in the last congress held for the like purpose at Sparta, where none of the parties had been bound to enforce its observance by arms: and yet the engagement for mutual defence now involved those who entered into it in danger of a contest both with Sparta and Thebes. Elis would gladly have united herself to an association which would separate, and might protect her, from Sparta; but she would not resign her claims to the sovereignty of the Triphylian towns. The congress on the other hand determined that every town, small or great, should be alike independent, and commissioners were sent round to exact an oath to this effect from the magistrates of each state. It was taken, Xenophon says, by all but the Eleans.

MANTINEA RESTORED

We should have been glad to know which of the Peloponnesian states acceded to this confederacy. But all the information that Xenophon gives as to this point only enables us to conclude that the Mantineans at least were of the number. One of the first effects of the battle of Leuctra seems to have been a revolution which overthrew the Mantinean aristocracy; and the declaration of the congress at Athens--though it expressed the very same principle on which the Spartans had professed to act when they scattered the Mantineans over their four villages--was now interpreted by the democratical party as a license to restore their political unity, and to rebuild their city; and the work was immediately begun. The Spartan government felt that the restoration of Mantinea would prove to all Greece that it was no longer formidable even to its nearest neighbours; but, in its anxiety to escape this humiliation, it resorted to a step which still more clearly betrayed its weakness, and showed how much it was dispirited by its recent reverse. Agesilaus, who had now recovered from his illness, was sent to use all his hereditary influence at Mantinea to stop the work; and he was instructed to undertake that, if it was only deferred for the present, he would procure the consent of the Spartan government, and even some help towards defraying the expense of the building. He was not allowed to lay this proposal before the popular assembly, but was informed that the decree of the people rendered it necessary to proceed without delay. Though he felt this repulse as a personal affront, and though it set the power of the state at defiance, it was not thought expedient at Sparta to have recourse to arms, and the treaty last concluded with Athens served as a plea for acquiescence. For it was now admitted that the independence of Mantinea had been violated, when it was dismembered for the sake of the aristocratical party. Some of the other Arcadian towns sent workmen to assist the Mantineans, and Elis contributed three talents [£600 or $3000] to the cost of the fortification. The new city was so constructed as to be secure from such attacks as had proved fatal to that which it replaced.

Peloponnesus had for some years been violently agitated by political convulsions, and had been the scene of incessant struggles between the two leading parties, the friends of aristocratical and of democratical institutions. It seems that the principles on which the Peace of Antalcidas was professedly founded had encouraged the partisans of democracy to hope that they might establish their ascendency, wherever they were the strongest, without any obstruction from Sparta. Her conduct towards Phlius and Mantinea must have checked these hopes; yet they seem to have revived when the new confederacy between Thebes and Athens, after the recovery of the Cadmea and the revolt of several maritime states compelled Sparta to observe more moderation towards her remaining allies. In many places the aristocratical party was overpowered, and suffered severe retaliation for the oppression it had exercised during the period of its domination. But these triumphs were only the beginning of a series of fierce and bloody contests. The exiles were continually on the watch for an opportunity of regaining what they had lost, and the attempt, whether it succeeded or failed, commonly ended in a massacre. The oligarchical exiles of Phigalea, having seized a fortress near the town, surprised it during a festival, while the multitude was assembled in the theatre, and made a great slaughter among the defenceless crowd, though they were at last forced to retreat, and take refuge in Sparta. The Corinthian exiles, who had found shelter at Argos, were baffled in a similar enterprise, and killed one another to avoid falling into the hands of the opposite party, which immediately instituted a rigorous inquiry at Corinth, and condemned numbers to death or exile on the charge of abetting the conspiracy. Like scenes took place at Megara, Sicyon, and Phlius. The confluence of democratical exiles from other cities tended to keep up a state of constant unnatural excitement at Argos; and there were demagogues who took advantage of it to instigate the multitude against the wealthier citizens into a conspiracy for self-defence.

Arrests were multiplied, until the number of the prisoners amounted to twelve hundred; and the populace, impatient of legal delays, arming itself with clubs, rose upon them, and massacred them all: this bloody execution became memorable under the name of the scytalism.[14] The demagogues who had excited the frenzy now endeavoured to restrain it from further excesses; but the attempt only turned it against themselves, and most of them shared the fate of their victims. Their blood seemed to propitiate the infernal powers: the flame, no longer supplied with fuel, expired; and tranquillity was restored. It must be considered as an indication of a remarkable superiority in the Athenian character and institutions over those of Argos, that under similar circumstances, in the affair of the Hermes busts, when religious and political fanaticism combined their influence to madden the people, no such spectacle was witnessed at Athens.

THE ARCADIAN REVOLUTION

With a territory more extensive than any other region of Peloponnesus, peopled by a hardy race, proud of its ancient origin and immemorial possession of the land, and of its peculiar religious traditions, Arcadia--the Greek Switzerland--had never possessed any weight in the affairs of the nation; the land only served as a thoroughfare for hostile armies, and sent forth its sons to recruit the forces of foreign powers--Greek or barbarian--and to shed their blood in quarrels in which they had no concern. The battle of Leuctra opened a prospect of carrying it into effect. A Mantinean named Lycomedes, a man of large fortune and of the highest birth in his native city, seems to have been either the author or the most active mover of the project which was now formed, and which was at least partly executed in the course of the same year (371). The object was to unite the Arcadian people in one body, yet so as not to destroy the independence of the particular states; and with this view it was proposed to found a metropolis, to institute a national council which should be invested with supreme authority in foreign affairs, particularly with regard to peace and war, and to establish a military force for the protection of the public safety. And though there is no reason to doubt that Lycomedes and those who shared his views were chiefly desirous of rescuing their country from a degrading subjection to her imperious neighbour, and of elevating her to an honourable station among the Greek commonwealths, they undoubtedly did not overlook the accession of strength which would result from this event to their party, in its contest with its domestic adversaries. Their plan could not fail to be agreeable to the Thebans, just in proportion as it was alarming to Sparta; and it was very early communicated to Epaminondas. Within a few months after the battle of Leuctra, a meeting of Arcadians from all the principal towns was held, to deliberate on the measure; and under its decree a body of colonists, collected from various quarters, proceeded to found a new city, which was to be the seat of the general government, and was called Megalepolis, or Megalopolis (the Great City).

The city was designed on a very large scale, and the magnitude of the public buildings corresponded to its extent; the theatre was the most spacious in Greece. The population was to be drawn from a great number of the most ancient Arcadian towns. Pausanias gives a list of forty which were required to contribute to it. The greater part of them appear to have been entirely deserted by their inhabitants; others retained a remnant of their population, but in the condition of villages subject to Megalopolis. Trapezus made an obstinate resistance; and its citizens who survived the struggle preferred quitting their native land to changing their abode in it, and having found means for embarking for the Euxine, were hospitably received as kinsmen in the city of the same name. Lycosura--which boasted of being the most ancient city under the sun--was spared out of respect for the sanctity of one of its temples. The districts which were thus drained of their population never recovered it, and were left in a great measure uncultivated.

The most interesting subject connected with this event, the constitution under which Arcadia was to be united, is unfortunately involved in the greatest obscurity. Megalopolis was the place appointed for the deliberation of the supreme council of the Arcadian body. But of this council we only know that it was commonly described by the name of the Ten Thousand--an appellation which raises a number of perplexing questions. For that it was a representative assembly, and was not intended to consist only of Megalopolitans, is clear both from the terms in which it is spoken of, and from the nature of the case: this would have been a privilege which the other cities would never have conceded to a colony formed out of the most insignificant townships. On the other hand, that so numerous a body should have been collected, either at stated times or as often as occasion required, from the other parts of Arcadia, is scarcely less hard to understand.

Ten commissioners were appointed to superintend the first settlement of the colony, and were honoured with the title of founders. Two of them, Lycomedes and Opeleas, were Mantineans; two, Timon and Proxenus, were leaders of the democratical party at Tegea. Of the rest, two came from Clitor, two from Mænalus, and as many from the Parrhasian cantons. As there was reason to apprehend that Sparta might attempt to interrupt the work in its beginning, Epaminondas sent Pammenes, one of his ablest officers, with one thousand choice troops, to guard and assist the colonists; and hence he also might be looked upon as one of the founders; but it does not appear that he had the foremost, much less, as was sometimes contended, an exclusive claim to that title. It was not however at Megalopolis that any opposition was offered to the undertaking; but in other places violent contests arose between the advocates and the adversaries of the new measure.

It was at Tegea, the chief seat of Spartan and aristocratical influence in Arcadia, that the hardest struggle took place. Though Proxenus and Timon had been deputed as founders of Megalopolis, Stasippus and his partisans did not cease to exert their utmost efforts to counteract the plan of the union, and to keep Tegea in its ancient state of subserviency to Sparta,--or, as Xenophon expresses it, probably in their language, in the enjoyment of its hereditary institutions. Proxenus and another democratical leader named Callibius,--conscious, though they were outvoted in the oligarchical councils, that the majority of the citizens was on their side,--appealed to arms. Stasippus and some of his party were overtaken. Their enemies having induced them to surrender, conveyed them bound on a wagon to Tegea, where, after a mock trial, in which the Mantineans assisted as judges, they put them all to death. Their surviving partisans, to the number of eight hundred fled to Sparta.

The safety of Sparta seemed to require that she should not passively submit to the blow thus struck at the last remains of her influence in Arcadia, and among the Tegean refugees were several private friends of Agesilaus, and probably of other leading Spartans, who solicited redress and revenge against the Mantineans and their political adversaries. The interference of Mantinea in the civil feuds of Tegea was construed as a violation of the principle which had been recognised in all the treaties concluded since the Peace of Antalcidas, and therefore afforded a fair colour for taking up arms: and war was accordingly declared against Mantinea on this ground. But the strongest motive by which the Spartan government was urged to this step, appears to have been the necessity which it felt for some effort which should restore confidence and cheerfulness at home. For notwithstanding the heroic countenance with which the news of the battle of Leuctra had been received, it had made an impression of deep despondency from which the city had not yet recovered. After the return of the defeated army, a grave question had arisen as to the manner in which the soldiers should be treated.

SPARTAN INTOLERANCE OF COWARDICE

According to the precedents of earlier times, the Spartan who saved his life by flight was subject to the loss of all civil privileges, and to marks of ignominy; and we have seen that it was thought necessary to inflict a temporary degradation on the prisoners who had surrendered--with the permission of their superiors--at Sphacteria. There were some who held that the dishonour which the Spartan arms had incurred at Leuctra could only be effaced by a rigorous enforcement of the ancient martial law. But Agesilaus, and probably most other members of the government, saw that such severity would be now very ill-timed; and according to Plutarch he was empowered to frame some new regulations on this head; but instead of any formal innovation, simply proposed that the law should be suffered to sleep for this once, without prejudice to its application on future occasions. It was, however, on this account the more desirable to divert the thoughts of the people from the recent disaster by a fresh expedition; and Agesilaus was now sufficiently recovered from his illness to take the command.

Xenophon says that he marched with one mora, probably meaning only the Spartan division of his forces. Neither side however was willing to fight: Agesilaus, because his first care was to husband the strength of Sparta; the Arcadians, because they expected soon to be joined by a Theban army, for they were informed by the Eleans that Thebes had borrowed ten talents from Elis for the purpose of the meditated expedition. Perhaps the same intelligence increased the anxiety of Agesilaus to return home. But that his retreat might not appear to be the effect of fear, he remained three days before Mantinea, and ravaged the plain; and then marched back with the utmost speed. Still the honour of Sparta had been vindicated, and the fallen spirits of his countrymen were cheered by the outcome of the events in the vicinity of Mantinea.

THE THEBANS IN THE PELOPONNESUS

The Thebans were in fact advancing with a powerful army, and not long after joined the Arcadians--who employed the interval after the retreat of Agesilaus in an inroad into the Heræan territory--at Mantinea. The victory of Leuctra had so completely changed their position, that they had now the forces of almost all northern Greece, except Attica, at their command. Even Phocis, though as hostile as ever, was compelled to aid them against her late allies. All the Eubœan towns, the Locrians both of the east and west, the Acarnanians, the Trachinian Heraclea and the Malians, contributed to the army; and Thessaly furnished cavalry and targeteers.

The whole force assembled at Mantinea amounted according to Diodorus to fifty thousand, according to Plutarch to seventy thousand men, of whom forty thousand were heavy-armed. The professed object of the expedition was to protect Mantinea, and as it now was no longer in danger, and the season--it was mid-winter--was unfavourable to military operations, several of the Theban commanders proposed to return. They expected to find all the passes, which were naturally difficult, strongly guarded, and could not at once reconcile themselves to the thought of seeking an enemy, who till lately had been deemed almost invincible, in his own country, where he would be animated by the strongest motives to extraordinary exertions. Their apprehensions were only overcome when they received invitations and assurances of support from Laconia itself, and were encouraged by some of the provincials, who came for that purpose to the camp, to expect that the appearance of their army would produce a general revolt of the subject population, which it was said had already refused to obey the orders of the government when it was summoned to the defence of Sparta. They were also informed that one of the principal passes, which led through Caryæ and Sellasia into the vale of the Eurotas, was quite unguarded; and some of the inhabitants of Caryæ offered themselves as guides, and were ready to pledge their lives for the truth of their assertions. The invasion was then unanimously resolved upon.

To distract the enemy’s attention, and to accelerate their own movements, the invaders divided their forces so as to penetrate into Laconia simultaneously by different routes. Sellasia was the place of rendezvous appointed for all the four divisions. The Thebans and the Eleans appear to have met with no resistance. The Argives found the passes guarded by a body of troops consisting partly of Bœotian refugees, commanded by a Spartan named Alexander who, however, was overpowered, and fell with two hundred of his men. The pass of the Sciritis might also have been occupied, and from its natural strength it was believed that the Arcadians would never have been able to force it; but Ischolaus, a Spartan who was posted near it at the village of Ium with a garrison of neodamode troops, and about four hundred of the exiled Tegeans, instead of securing the pass, determined to make his stand in the village, where he was surrounded by the enemy, and slain with almost every one of his men. The four divisions then effected their junction without further opposition, and after having plundered and burnt Sellasia, descended to the banks of the Eurotas, and encamped in a sanctuary of Apollo at the entrance of the plain of Sparta. The next day they pursued their march along the left bank of the river, which was swollen by the winter rains, until they reached the bridge which crossed it directly over against the city. A body of armed troops which appeared on the other side deterred them from attempting the passage; and they proceeded, still keeping the left bank, to plunder and destroy the dwellings which were thickly scattered in the neighbourhood of the capital, and which from Xenophon’s description, who says they were full of good things, seem to have been chiefly villas of the more opulent Spartans, and were probably better stored and furnished than their houses in the town.

It was the first time that fires kindled by a hostile army had ever been seen from Sparta, since it had been in the possession of the Dorian race; and the grief and consternation excited by the spectacle in the women, and the elder part of the men, were proportioned not merely to its strangeness, but to the pride and confidence with which the traditions of so many centuries had taught them to regard their soil as inviolate, and their city, though unwalled, as impregnable.

In this emergency all eyes were turned upon Agesilaus. As he was fully aware of the danger, so he clearly perceived the course which could alone afford a prospect of deliverance. To remain strictly on the defensive, and in case of an attack to take advantage of the inequalities of the ground, and of the position of the streets and buildings in the outskirts of the town, and in the meanwhile to maintain tranquillity and obedience within, was all that was left to be done; and this, with the means at his disposal, demanded all his abilities. The Spartans, when distributed over the wide range which they had to defend, made so poor a show that the government thought it necessary to resort to an expedient which had been adopted before on less urgent occasions: to arm as many of the helots as could be induced to enlist by a promise of emancipation. And notwithstanding the atrocious purpose which had been cloaked by a similar proposal in former times, more than six thousand volunteers now presented themselves. Their services were accepted with trembling, and employed with continued distrust, until the arrival of some foreign auxiliaries gave a little more security to the government. Not many days after, a small force, probably less than six thousand strong, collected from Corinth, Sicyon, Pellene, Epidaurus, Trœzen, Hermione, and Halia, having been transported in succession over the Argolic Gulf to Brasiæ on the coast of Laconia, crossed the mountains, and, though the enemy was encamped only two or three miles off, made its way into the city.

In the meanwhile the invading army, having ravaged the eastern side of the plain till it came over against Amyclæ, then crossed the river, and turned its front toward Sparta. As the greatest breadth of the plain lies between the river and the foot of Taygetus, still more spoil was found here than on the other side, and this with the greater part of the allies was the single object of attention. The Theban generals alone appear to have been able to prevent their troops from ranging at large in quest of plunder, and to have taken precautions against a surprise from the city. What Epaminondas most desired was to draw the enemy into an engagement, and he is said to have tried the effect of a taunting challenge on Agesilaus, whose temper was not always proof against provocation. But on this occasion he controlled his own feelings, and calmed the general excitement by his authority and example. The Spartans had a small body of cavalry, very inferior, not only in numbers but in condition, to that of the allies; it was however drawn up on the level south of the city. Its appearance served rather to heighten than to check the confidence of the assailants. But an adjacent building, which was consecrated by tradition as the house of the tutelary twins, concealed about three hundred of the young Spartan infantry, who, when the enemy drew near, started from their ambush to support the charge which was made at the same time by their own cavalry. This unexpected attack threw the advancing squadrons into confusion, and though they were pursued but to a short distance, they did not stop till they reached the Theban phalanx, and even a part of the infantry were so much alarmed by their flight, as to retreat.

[Sidenote: [370-369 B.C.]]

It was perhaps on this occasion, while the allies were advancing, that a band of about two hundred men, who had for the most part been long suspected by the government, occupied the Issorium, one of the heights on the skirt of the town towards the river. As they had received no orders, it was evident that they were acting with treasonable designs; and some proposed that they should be forthwith dislodged by force. Agesilaus, however, thought it more prudent, as the extent of the conspiracy was not known, to try a milder course; and going up to the place with a single attendant, affected to believe that they had mistaken his orders, and directed them to station themselves in different quarters. They obeyed, thinking that they had escaped detection; but fifteen of them were arrested by the orders of Agesilaus, and put to death without form of trial, in the night. The suppression of this attempt may have led to the discovery of another more dangerous conspiracy, in which a number of Spartans were implicated. They were arrested in a house where they held clandestine meetings. The clearer their guilt, the more dangerous it probably appeared to bring them to trial; yet there was no power in the state which could legally put a Spartan to death without one. Even the authority of the ephors had never yet been carried so far. They determined however, after a consultation with Agesilaus, to dispense with legal forms, and the prisoners were delivered to a secret execution. The desertions which took place among the helots and the Laconian troops were carefully concealed from public knowledge; but this may not indicate their frequency, so much as the vigilance of Agesilaus.

The reports brought to the camp of the allies, as to the state of things in Sparta, did not encourage Epaminondas to repeat the attempt in which the cavalry had been repulsed, or to prolong his stay in the neighbourhood of the capital. He directed his march southward, and ravaged the whole vale of the Eurotas as far as the coast. Some unwalled towns were committed to the flames, and an assault was made for three successive days on Gythium, the naval arsenal of Sparta, but without success. If it was the design of Epaminondas to take advantage of the discontent which was supposed to prevail in the subject population towards the government, to effect a permanent revolution, the devastation committed by his allies, which he was probably unable to restrain, must have tended to counteract it. He was joined, Xenophon says, by some of the provincials; but the majority must have looked upon the invaders as enemies. Their stay was protracted for some weeks. At length the Peloponnesian troops began to withdraw with their booty, leaving the country almost exhausted. The growing scarcity of provisions and diminution of numbers, combined with the hardships of the season, would have admonished Epaminondas to retire, even if, as Xenophon would lead his readers to suppose, his only business, after recrossing the border, had been to march homeward. But the historian has carefully suppressed the main object which Epaminondas had in view, and which he accomplished during his stay in the peninsula.

He meditated a blow much more destructive to the power and prosperity of Sparta than the invasion of her territory. His design was to deprive her of Messenia, to collect the Messenians in the land of their forefathers, and to found a new city, where they might maintain their independence. He had already sent to the various regions in which the remains of the heroic people were scattered, to invite them to return to their ancient home.

FOUNDING OF MESSENE

Ithome was recommended, at once by the most animating recollections, and by the advantages of its strong and central position; and the western slope of the ridge on which the ancient stronghold stood, was selected for the new city, Messene. The foundations were laid with the utmost solemnity; and if we may trust Pausanias, Epaminondas on this occasion did not disdain to practise a pious fraud, for the purpose of showing that the undertaking was sanctioned by the will of the gods. The name of Aristomenes was invoked with peculiar veneration, not only by the Messenians, but by the Greeks of every race who took part in the founding of the city: and the victory of Leuctra was, now perhaps for the first time, ascribed to his supernatural interposition. But though Epaminondas did not neglect the aid to be derived from pious and patriotic enthusiasm, he at least paid equal attention to all the material means of securing the duration of his work. The most judicious use was made of the natural advantages of the site; the most approved architects of the day were employed upon the plan, and the most skilful workmen in the execution; and the fortifications of Messene, which some centuries later excited the admiration of Pausanias, are still found to justify his praise by the solid and beautiful masonry of the remains which are even yet in existence.

When the fortifications of Messene had been carried so far that the presence of the army was no longer needed, Epaminondas, leaving a garrison there, began his march homeward. The building of Messene is so coupled with that of Megalopolis in the accounts of Diodorus and Pausanias, that we may perhaps infer that he did not pass through Arcadia without contributing some important assistance to the latter work, on which the people of Megalopolis were still engaged.

An enemy however still awaited him at the isthmus. In their distress the Spartans had applied for succour to Athens: and their ambassadors were accompanied by envoys from the Peloponnesian states which still adhered to them, among whom those of Corinth and Phlius appear to have supported their request with the greatest earnestness. They appealed to the generosity, to the jealousy, to the fears, and the hopes of the Athenians.

There was already a general disposition among the people, if not in favour of Sparta, yet strongly adverse to Thebes. The assembly, after having heard the ambassadors, would not listen to any arguments on the other side, but decreed that the whole force of the commonwealth should march to the relief of Sparta, and appointed Iphicrates to the command. An army was immediately raised; and the troops are described by Xenophon as so zealous in the cause, that they murmured because Iphicrates halted for a few days at Corinth. But when they resumed their march, expecting, the historian says, to be led to some glorious action, no such result ensued. It seems that Iphicrates had no wish to seek the enemy, and, perhaps having heard that Sparta was freed from immediate danger, he contented himself with attacking some places in Arcadia, either for the sake of plunder or in the hope that this diversion might hasten the enemy’s retreat from Laconia. But it does not appear that his operations produced any effect on those of the Theban army. When Epaminondas began to move towards the isthmus, he posted himself there to guard the passes at the southern extremity: but through some oversight which Xenophon notices with evident surprise, as an extraordinary failure of his military skill, he left the most convenient of them--that on the side of Cenchreæ--open; and the Thebans penetrated without any opposition to the isthmus. A body of cavalry, which was sent to observe their movements, and which, Xenophon says, was larger than that purpose required, though insufficient for any other, approached so near as to be drawn into a skirmish, and lost some men in its retreat. With this little advantage over one of the greatest captains of the age, who commanded the forces of the only power which could now be considered as a rival to Thebes, Epaminondas concluded this memorable campaign.

The services which he had rendered to his country were in general duly appreciated by his fellow-citizens; but they excited, and did not disarm, the envy of some inferior minds, and the expedition itself, successful as it had been, afforded them a pretext for assailing him. The yearly term for which he held his office of Bœotarch had expired, it seems, soon after he entered Peloponnesus, and he and his colleagues had retained their command, without any express sanction, three or four months longer. On this ground he and Pelopidas were separately charged with a capital offence. It was merely an experiment to try the strength of their popularity; for their conduct, though perhaps it infringed the letter of the law, was manifestly in accordance with the will of the people. It is indeed somewhat surprising that their adversaries should have ventured on such an attempt, and still more that the issue, as we learn from Plutarch, was considered doubtful, because Pelopidas was first brought to trial. Epaminondas, it is said, declared himself willing to die, provided the names of Leuctra, Sparta, and Messene, and the deeds by which his own was connected with them, might be inscribed upon his tomb. Both, however, were acquitted in the most honourable manner; and Pelopidas, less magnanimous or more irritable than his philosophic friend, who would have forgiven the harmless display of malice, afterwards employed the forms of law to crush their principal accusers.[h]

Niebuhr remarks that the re-establishment of Messene “is an imperishable monument to Epaminondas,” but draws therefrom a somewhat disconcerting moral:

“In the restoration of Messene, Epaminondas obeyed the dictates of prudence and of his own noble heart; and he could not have acted otherwise even if he had foreseen the consequences. It must be observed that this is again one of those cases in which the accomplishment of justice was not followed by happy results. The restoration of Messene produced at a later period of Greek history, terrible consequences. The Messenians being, by their peculiar situation, the implacable enemies of Sparta, were obliged to seek support against her; and they preferred doing so at the greatest distance, which made them the humble servants of Macedonia, and the perpetual enemies and traitors of Greece. There was no people so devoted body and soul to King Philip, as the Messenians. The death of Philopœmen is an example of the mischief which Messenia created in Greece, an ineffaceable brand on the name of Messenia. Things which every honest man must desire, are in the end often followed by the saddest consequences.”[b]

ATHENS IN LEAGUE WITH SPARTA

In the existing pressure upon Lacedæmon, and upon the states whose interest yet bound them to the Lacedæmonian cause, it was of great importance to hold, and, if possible, improve, their connection with Athens. Ministers accordingly were therefore sent thither, fully empowered to agree upon the system of command and the plan of operations for the next campaign. The former alone made any difficulty. The Athenian council, at this time swayed apparently by wise and moderate men, had agreed with the Peloponnesians, that, all circumstances considered, it would be most for the interest of the confederacy, and most equitable, that the Athenians should direct operations by sea, and the Lacedæmonians by land. But a party in Athens, with Cephisodotus for their orator, thought to earn popular favour by opposing this arrangement. When the proposal of the council was laid before the general assembly (for by that tumultuary meeting, in the degenerate state of Solon’s constitution, all the measures of executive government were to have their ratification), Cephisodotus persuaded the ill-judging multitude that they were imposed upon. In the Lacedæmonian squadron, he said, the trierarchs would be Lacedæmonians, and perhaps a few heavy-armed; but the body of the crews would be helots or mercenaries. Thus the Athenians would command scarcely any but slaves and the outcast of nations in the Lacedæmonian navy, whereas, in the Athenian army, the Lacedæmonians would command the best men of Athens. If they would have a partition of military authority really equal, according to the fair interpretation of the terms of the confederacy, the command equally of the sea and of the land forces must be divided. Popular vanity was caught by this futile argument; and the assembly voted that the command, both by sea and by land, should be alternately five days with the Athenians, and five with the Lacedæmonians. In this decision of the petulant crowd, singularly adapted to cripple exertion both by sea and land, the Lacedæmonians, pressed by circumstances, thought it prudent to acquiesce.

SECOND INVASION OF PELOPONNESUS

In spring an army was assembled at Corinth to prevent the passage of the Thebans and their northern allies into Peloponnesus. But the superior abilities of the Theban leaders prevailed. They surprised an outpost. Doubting still their means for forcing their way over the rough descent of the Onean Mountains, they communicated with the Lacedæmonian polemarch commanding, and, whether through his treachery or his weakness, they obtained a truce, under favour of which they safely joined the forces of their Peloponnesian allies, the Arcadians, Argives, and Eleans. This junction being effected, they found themselves far superior to the army of the Lacedæmonian confederacy. Without opposition then they punished the attachment of the Epidaurians to the Lacedæmonian interest by ravage of their lands. They attempted then one of the gates of Corinth; but, the Corinthians submitting themselves to the able direction of the Athenian general, Chabrias, who was there with a body of mercenaries, they were repulsed with some slaughter. Against so great a superiority of force however the abilities of Chabrias could not prevent the ravage of the Corinthian territory. All Peloponnesus now seemed open to the Thebans, when the pressure of the Thessalian arms, under the tagus, Alexander of Pheræ, upon their northern allies, and apprehension of its extending to Bœotia itself, called the Thebans suddenly out of the peninsula. All the Peloponnesians of the confederacy then, assuming leave of absence, parted to their several homes.

The dissolution of the army of the Theban confederacy gave a most fortunate relief to Lacedæmon. All the leisure it afforded seems to have been wanted for composing troubles within Laconia itself. Offensive operations were left to the auxiliaries sent by Dionysius, then ruling in Syracuse; a body remarkable enough, both in itself and for its actions, to deserve notice. The infantry were Gauls and Spaniards; the cavalry, apparently Sicilian Greeks, so excellent that, though scarcely exceeding fifty horsemen, they had given more annoyance to the Thebans, while laying waste the Corinthian lands, than all the rest of the army. After the other troops, on both sides, were withdrawn, this transmarine force alone undertook the invasion of Sicyonia, defeated the Sicyonians in battle, and took a fort in their territory by assault. Gratified then with glory and plunder they embarked, and, with twenty triremes, their convoy, returned to Syracuse.

Thus far the able leaders of the Theban councils, profiting from the animosity so extensively prevailing against Lacedæmon, had kept their confederacy unanimous and zealous, under the supremacy of Thebes. But it was little likely that, by any management, so many states could be long retained in patient submission to so new a superiority. The long deference of the Grecian republics to Lacedæmonian command, amounting, in many instances, to a zealous, and sometimes extending to a general, loyalty towards the superior people, is a political phenomenon perhaps singular in the history of mankind. But that deference was paid to a superiority, not suddenly obtained, but growing from the extraordinary institutions under which the Lacedæmonians lived; which made them really a superior people, obviously fittest, in the divided and tumultuary state of the Greek nation, to command in war and to arbitrate in peace: whence even still, when the political power of Lacedæmon was so declining, the estimation of the Lacedæmonian people, we are told, was such that at the Olympian and other national meetings a Lacedæmonian was an object of curiosity and admiration for strangers, more even than the conquerors in the games. The superiority of Athens, also, though in few instances, or for a short time only, supported by a loyalty like that which Lacedæmon enjoyed, accruing suddenly, yet had resulted from long preparation. Legislation more perfected, talents and manners more cultivated, and an extraordinary succession of able men at the head of affairs, gave to the Athenians an effectual superiority which the people of other republics saw and felt. But Thebes, without any advantage of ancient prejudice in favour of her pretensions, without any public institutions to be admired, recently emerged from political subjection, possessing indeed a large and disciplined population which might infuse some terror, was yet become so suddenly eminent only through the blaze of talents of a few, and principally of one extraordinary man, leading her councils, and commanding her armies. If therefore, in any other state of the confederacy, where military force was not very inferior, a similar blaze of character should occur, that state would presently feel itself equal to Thebes, and be prepared to break a connection involving an admission of her superiority.

[Sidenote: [368 B.C.]]

Such a character had been for some time rising among the Arcadians in Lycomedes of Mantinea, a man inferior to none of his country in birth, superior to most in property, one who had already distinguished himself in council as a principal promoter of the Arcadian union, and in arms at the head of the Arcadian forces. Lycomedes apparently already saw, what afterwards became abundantly notorious, that, if any view to the general good of Greece influenced the Theban councils, it was wholly subordinate to the ambition of making Thebes supreme over the Greek nation. This ambition he resolved to oppose. In the general assembly therefore of the Arcadian states, convened in the new city of Megalopolis, he represented that “Peloponnesus, among all its various present inhabitants, was the proper country of the Arcadians alone; the rest were really strangers. Nor were the Arcadians the most ancient only, they were the most powerful of the Grecian tribes; they were the most numerous, and they excelled in strength of body. It was notorious that the troops of no other Grecian people were in equal request. The Lacedæmonians knew their value: they had never invaded Attica without Arcadian auxiliaries; nor would the Thebans now venture to invade Laconia without them. If therefore the Arcadians knew their own interest, they would no longer obey the Thebans, but insist upon equality in command. They had formerly raised Lacedæmon; they were now raising Thebes; and shortly they would find the Thebans but other Lacedæmonians.”

Flattering thus alternately, and stimulating the Arcadian people, Lycomedes obtained the effective command of them; and the natural consequence of the submission of the multitude’s caprice to an able man’s control resulted: the Arcadians were successful, and their successes were brilliant. The Argives invaded Epidauria. The renowned Athenian general Chabrias, at the head of the Athenian and Corinthian forces, intercepted their retreat. The Arcadians were in alarm for their allies; an assembly was held; the interest of Lycomedes decided the choice of commanders, and the Arcadian army, against great disadvantage of ground, brought off the Argives without loss. An expedition was then undertaken into Laconia; the territory of Asine was ravaged, and the Lacedæmonian polemarch Geranor, who commanded there, was defeated and killed. Many predatory incursions, in the common way of Grecian warfare, followed; and when any object invited, neither night, says the contemporary historian, nor weather, nor distance, nor difficulty of way deterred; insomuch that the Arcadians acquired the reputation of being the best soldiers of their time.

Disposed as the Arcadians showed themselves no longer to admit the superiority of Thebes, their strength, their discipline, and their successful activity in arms, though exerted in the cause of the confederacy, could scarcely fail to excite some jealousy and apprehension in the Theban government. No direct breach ensued, but friendship cooled and became precarious. Meanwhile the new energy of the Arcadian government attracted the regard of the humble and oppressed; always an extensive description of men, and sometimes of states, among the Grecian republics. The people of Elis had long claimed, and generally maintained, a sovereignty over the people of several towns of Elis, and of the whole district called Triphylia, on the border against Messenia. In a strong situation in Triphylia, called Lasion, to assist in curbing the inhabitants they had allowed some Arcadian exiles to establish themselves. They at length made common cause with their neighbouring fellow-subjects, particularly the Marganeans and Scilluntines, in opposition to the Elean government. For support then they turned their view to the new union of Arcadia: they claimed to be Arcadians; and by a petition addressed to the new united government they desired to be taken under its protection. At the same time the Eleans were pressing for assistance from their allies of Arcadia, to recover their former dominion over the towns which the Lacedæmonians had restored to independency. The Arcadians slighted this application, and declared by a public resolution that the petition of the Triphylians was well founded, and that their kinsmen should be free. Elis became in consequence still more alienated from Arcadia than Arcadia from Thebes.

The growing schism in the opposing confederacy promised great advantage to Lacedæmon. Meanwhile, though, through vices in their civil constitution and ill-management in their administration, the Lacedæmonians had lost the best half of their territory, their negotiations abroad still carried weight, and were conducted ably and successfully. It was at this critical time that Philiscus, a Greek of Abydos, arrived as minister from the satrap of Bithynia, Ariobarzanes, professedly charged to mediate in the king of Persia’s name a general peace among the Grecian republics. This new interference of Persia in Grecian affairs was produced by Lacedæmonian intrigue. Philiscus proposed a congress at Delphi; and deputies from Thebes and from the states of the Theban confederacy readily met deputies from Lacedæmon there. No fear of Persia, so the historian, not their friend, testifies, influenced the Thebans; for Philiscus requiring, as an indispensable article, that Messenia should return under obedience to Lacedæmon, they positively refused peace but upon condition that Messenia should be free.

This resolution being firmly demonstrated, the negotiation quickly ended, and both sides prepared for war. Philiscus then gave ample proof of his disposition to the Lacedæmonian cause, by employing a large sum of money, entrusted to him by the satrap, in levying mercenaries for the Lacedæmonian service. Meanwhile a body of auxiliaries from Dionysius of Syracuse, chiefly Gauls and Spaniards, as in the former year, had joined the Lacedæmonian army; and, while the Athenians were yet but preparing to march, a battle was fought under the command of Archidamus son of Agesilaus. The united forces of Argos, Arcadia, and Messenia were defeated, with slaughter, if Diodorus may be believed, of more than ten thousand men, and, as all the historians report, without the loss of a single Spartan. After a series of calamities the intelligence of this extraordinary success made such impression at Lacedæmon that tears of joy, says the contemporary historian, beginning with Agesilaus himself, fell from the elders and ephors, and finally from the whole people. Among the friends of the Lacedæmonians nevertheless, as no tear of sorrow resulted, this action became celebrated with the title of the “Tearless Battle” of Midea.

EXPEDITION INTO THESSALY

The war with Thessaly now pressed upon Thebes. Still urging Lacedæmon by her confederates and dependents in Peloponnesus, she not only could afford protection to her northern subjects and allies against the successor of the most formidable potentate of the age, but she could aim at dominion, or influence which would answer the purpose of dominion, among the populous and wealthy, but ill-constituted cities of Thessaly. While the rapacity and ambition of the tagus, Alexander of Pheræ, occasioned a necessity for measures of protection and defence, the disposition to revolt, which his tyranny had excited among those over whom his authority extended, gave probability to views of aggrandisement for those who might support the revolt. Accordingly Pelopidas was sent into Thessaly with an army under a commission to act there at his discretion; for the advantage however, not of the Thessalians, who had solicited protection, but of the Bœotian people, who pretended to be common protectors: a kind of commission which it has been usual in all ages for the barefaced ambition of democracies to avow, while the more decent manners of the most corrupt courts, from which such commissions may have issued, have generally covered them with a veil. Pelopidas penetrated to Larissa, and with the co-operation of its people, expelled the tyrant’s garrison. Extending negotiations then into Macedonia, he concluded a treaty with Alexander, king of that country, who desired alliance with Thebes, the better to resist the oppression which he felt or feared from the naval power and ambitious policy of Athens, which were continually exerted to extend dominion or influence over every town on every shore of the Ægean. His younger brother, Philip, then a boy, afterwards the great Philip, father of the greater Alexander, is said to have accompanied Pelopidas in his return to Thebes; whether for advantage of education and to extend friendly connection, or, as later writers have affirmed, as a hostage to insure the performance of stipulated conditions.

Pelopidas returning to his command in Thessaly, his usual success failed him. According to Diodorus and Plutarch, venturing as voluntary negotiator for his country within the power of the profligate tagus, he was seized and imprisoned. But Polybius imputes his misfortune to positive imprudence, and an expression of Demosthenes would imply that he was made prisoner in battle. Nor were the exertions of the Theban government to avenge him fortunate. The Bœotarchs, who had ventured far into Thessaly with an army said to have been eight thousand foot and six hundred horse, not finding the support expected from the Thessalian people, were reduced to retreat before the greater force of the tagus; and, in traversing the Thessalian plain pursued by a superior cavalry, they suffered severely. It is attributed to the ability of Epaminondas, serving in an inferior station, but called forth by the voices of the soldiers to supply the deficiencies of the generals, that the army was not entirely cut off. Negotiation, supported probably by arms, yet not without some concession, procured at length the release of Pelopidas, early in 367.

AN EMBASSY TO PERSIA AND A CONGRESS AT THEBES

[Sidenote: [368-367 B.C.]]

The cordial support of Athens, the force of mercenaries to be added by Philiscus, the growing aversion among the Arcadians to the Theban cause, and the troubles in the northern provinces, with the pressure of the Thessalian arms upon the Theban confederacy, together seemed likely to restore a decisive superiority to Lacedæmon, at least within her peninsula; and then, judging from experience, it was not likely to be confined there. But the able directors of the Theban councils had observed that the first and perhaps the most powerful efficient of this change in circumstances had been negotiation with Persia; and they resolved to direct also their attention to Persia, and try if they could not foil the Lacedæmonians by negotiation still more effectually than by arms. A minister from Lacedæmon, Euthycles, was actually resident at the Persian court. Upon this ground a congress of the confederacy was summoned, and, in pursuance of a common resolution, Pelopidas was sent to Susa on the part of Thebes, accompanied by ministers, from Argos, Elis, and Arcadia. The Athenians, jealous of the measure, sent their ministers also, Timagoras and Leon.

Pelopidas was treated by the Persian court with distinguishing honour. A Persian of rank was appointed to accompany Pelopidas back to Greece, bearing a rescript from the king in which the terms of his friendship were declared. It required that “the Lacedæmonians should allow the independency of Messenia; that the Athenians should lay up their fleet; that war should be made upon them if they refused; and that, if any Grecian city denied its contingent for such war, the first hostilities should be directed against that city; that those who accepted these terms would be considered as friends of the king, those who refused them as enemies.”

If we compare the style and spirit of this rescript, and the manner in which it was offered to united Greece, with the terms and circumstances of the Peace of Antalcidas, we shall hardly discover what has been the ground of distinction between them; why one has been so much reprobated, while the other, little indeed applauded, has in a manner been thrown out of observation by the imposing abundance of panegyric which the consent of ancient and modern writers has bestowed on the magnanimous patriotism of Pelopidas, and of his great associate in politics as in arms, Epaminondas. But we may perhaps be led to think that political principle has been out of view, both in the panegyric and in the reproach; that the merit of individuals has considerably swayed the general mind; yet that the great distinction has rested on party-spirit. If however, leaving the political principles of Pelopidas in that obscurity which we seem without means very satisfactorily to illuminate, we look to his political abilities, we shall see them exhibited in their fairest light, in real splendour, not by his professed panegyrists, but by the candid contemporary historian, not his friend. They are evident in the success of his Persian negotiation, to which that historian has borne full testimony; and that negotiation must unquestionably have been a business abounding with difficulties, and requiring much discernment to conduct and bring to so advantageous a conclusion.

But the Thebans appear to have been too much elated by their success, in this extraordinary and very important affair, for perfect prudence to hold through their political conduct; whether their able chiefs now erred, or rather popular presumption, in the badness of their constitution, to which Polybius bears testimony, was not to be restrained. They assumed immediately to be arbiters of Greece. Their summonses for a congress of deputies from the several republics to meet in Thebes were generally obeyed. The Persian who had accompanied the return of Pelopidas, attended, with the king’s rescript in his hand. This was read and interpreted to the congress, while the king’s seal appendant was ostentatiously displayed. The Thebans proposed, as the condition of friendship with the king and with Thebes, that the deputies should immediately swear to the acceptance of the terms, in the names of their respective cities. Readily however, as the congress had met in Thebes, the deputies did not come so prepared to take the law from Thebes.

Not simply objecting to the proposed oath, Lycomedes insisted that “Thebes was not the place in which the congress should have been assembled.” The Thebans exclaiming, with marks of resentment, that he was promoting discord in the confederacy, he declared his resolution to hold his seat in the congress no longer; and, the other Arcadian deputies concurring with him, they all retired together. The result seems to have been that the congress broke up without coming to any resolution.

Disappointed and thwarted thus, the Thebans could not yet resolve to abandon their project of arrogating that supremacy over the Greek nation which Lacedæmon had so long held; long indeed by the voluntary concession of a large majority of it. They sent requisitions separately to every city to accede to the terms proposed; expecting that the fear of incurring the united enmity of Thebes and of the king, says the contemporary historian, would bring all severally to compliance. The Corinthians, however, setting the example of a firm refusal, with the added observation, that “they wanted no alliance, no interchange of oaths with the king,” it was followed by most of the cities. And thus, continues Xenophon, this attempt of Pelopidas and the Thebans to acquire the empire of Greece finally failed.

If we refuse to Thebes the credit of a glory genuine and pure for her first successful struggle against the tyranny of Lacedæmon, we have Epaminondas himself with us, who would take no part in the revolution till the business of conspiracy, treachery, and assassination was over, and the affair came into the hands of the people at large, ready for leaders, and wanting them. We may have more difficulty to decide upon the merit or demerit of that obstinacy with which the Thebans afterwards persisted in asserting dominion over the cities of Bœotia, and thus denying peace to Greece, when proposed upon a condition which might seem, on first view, all that true Grecian patriotism could desire--universal independency. For where was to be found the sanction of that peace? Unfortunately the efficacy of any great interest pervading the country was overborne and lost in the multitude of narrow, yet pressing interests, of parties and of individuals, dividing every little community. No sooner would the independency of the Bœotian towns have been established than a revolution would have been made, or attempted in every one of them. The friends of Thebes once overpowered, and the friends of Lacedæmon prevailing among those towns, how long might Thebes itself have been secure against a second subjection to Lacedæmon, more grievous than the former? As far, then, as these considerations may apologize for the refusal of accession to the treaty of Athens, so far it may also justify the Persian embassy; though scarcely the haughtiness which success in that negotiation seems to have inspired. But what should have been the farther conduct of Thebes to secure her own quiet, without interfering in the affairs of surrounding states, or how to insure quiet among those states, without the possession and the use of power to control them, is not so easy to determine. For the business of the honest statesman, amid the seldom failing contention of factions within, and the ambition of interested neighbours without, is not so easy and obvious as presumptuous ignorance is commonly ready to suppose, and informed knavery often, with interested purposes, to affirm. How ill prepared Greece was at this time for internal quiet, what follows will but concur with all that has preceded of its history to show.[e]

FOOTNOTES

[12] [These are Hector’s words in the Iliad, XII, 243. The omens having been unfavourable, Polydamas warns him not to fight, but the “crest-tossing Hector” answers scornfully as above, “The best omen of all is to defend the fatherland,” and so saying he assailed the Greeks with more than common success.]

[13] [Grote says: “To the discredit of Xenophon, Epaminondas is never named in his narrative of the battle, though he recognises in substance that the battle was decided by the irresistible Theban force brought to bear upon one point of the enemy’s phalanx; a fact which both Plutarch and Diodorus expressly referred to the genius of the general.”]

[14] [σκυταλισμός--from the weapon (σκυτάλη) a club which seems to have been principally used.]

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