THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES

BY

CHARLES SANKEY

 

 

PREFACE.

The period of history covered by this little book is full both of interest and of importance. Athens yet numbered among her sons Sokrates, Xenophon, and Thrasyboulos : Sparta at no time in her history had produced more notable citizens than Lysandros and Agesilaos; and Thebes was lifted for a moment above her Boiotian provincialism by the military genius and broad statesmanship of Epameinondas. But, in ad­dition to the interest which must be felt in the careers of men like these, this epoch has an importance of its own. It was the transition period from the glories of the Athenian empire to the degradation of the Mace­donian conquest; Athens had attempted in vain to weld into something like national unity the exclusive and intolerant city communities of the Hellenic world; and the epoch which followed her downfall exhibits the disastrous results involved in the success of the

selfish policy of Sparta and the partial failure of the patriotic policy of Thebes.

Accordingly, in treating this period, I have tried to bring out clearly the characters of the leading men and the causes of the chief events; and I have omitted most of the infinitely small details with which Xenophon has filled the pages of his ‘ Hellenika.’ I have, of course, derived the greatest assistance from the works of Thirlwall, Grote, Prof. E. Curtius, and lastly from my co-editor Mr. Cox ; but the narrative is based mainly on Xenophon and Plutarch, and I have attempted to lighten to some extent the charge of dullness so often brought against the ‘ Hellenika ’ by borrowing many of the graphic touches of humour and description which frequently redeem its general dreariness.

C. S.

Maixh 1877.

 

CHAPTER I. THE SPARTAN SUPREMACY.

CHAPTER II. ATHENS UNDER THE THIRTY.

CHAPTER III. THE RESTORATION OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY.

CHAPTER IV. SOKRATES.

CHAPTER V. THE TEN THOUSAND.

CHAPTER VI. SPARTA : HER ALLIES AND SUBJECTS.

CHAPTER VII. OPERATIONS IN ASIA MINOR.

CHAPTER VIII. THE CORINTHIAN WAR.

CHAPTER IX. THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS.

CHAPTER X. THE SUPPRESSION OF OLYNTHOS, AND THE LIBERATION OF THEBES.

CHAPTER XI. THE RISE OF THEBES.

CHAPTER XII. THE THEBAN SUPREMACY.

THE

SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES.

CHAPTER I.

THE SPARTAN SUPREMACY.

The long struggle was over, and the triumph of Sparta was complete. After a resistance protracted through twenty-seven years of almost superhuman effort Capture of imperial Athens lay at the mercy of her foes. ^Athens- The Spartans had rejected the vindictive demand of their allies that no treaty should be made with the enslavers of Hellas, but that their very name should be blotted out, or, as a Theban envoy had phrased it, that the city should be razed, the inhabitants sold into slavery, and the country turned into a sheep-walk ; for they knew well enough that the glorious memory of Athens, if destroyed, might some day be cast in their teeth as a ^bitter reproach, while Athens, if kept by the oligarchic faction subservient to Spartan policy, might be the most valuable instrument in their hands. Accordingly with a parade of magnanimous sentiments, which they had for­gotten readily enough in the case of Plataia, c_ondhions they declared that they could not consent to imposed enslave a city which had served Greece so ^{upon er}" nobly in her darkest hour of danger ; and the fiat went forth that the Long Walls and the fortifications of the A. II.  U

Peiraieus were to be destroyed ; that the Athenians should surrender all their fleet except twelve ships ; that they should receive back into the city their exiles—men who had no sympathy with their cherished traditions of past glory, and were openly hostile to that constitution which had made that glory possible ; that they should recognise as allies or enemies those whom the Spartans regarded as such ; and that they should serve with the Spartans wherever they should lead them by sea or land. Hard as these terms must have seemed to those who still clung fondly to some slight hope that Athens would be allowed to retain either her navy or her fortifications, they were readily accepted by the majority of the citizens. Not only had the fleet of Athens been ruined and the Distress to flower of her seamen been slain, for from blows had^been* almost as crushing as these she had previously reduced. recovered; nor was it thntthe lingeringagonies of a protracted siege had slowly destroyed alike the power and the will to resist; but the more fatal evils of treachery and disunion had been doing their work. As there had been an Adeimantos at Aigospotamoi, so there was a Theramenes at Athens ; and the city divided against itself could not stand. The few who still protested against surrender, and preferred death to dishonour, could not make their voices heard. Lysandros sailed in triumph through the narrow entrance of the harbour of Peiraieus ; Kritias, Charikles, and a crowd of exiles, returned to make their own gain out of their country’s loss ; and the work ^ . of destruction, sad enough to the Athenian

Destruction       '         , .      .

of the Long hands which had to complete it, at once began. ^Wal1'       Enlivened by the glad strains of female flute-

players and the joyous measures of garlanded dancing- women, the Spartans began to demolish the Long Walls, the most solid and magnificent of the external evidences of Athenian supremacy ; while the allies lent willing

cn. i Falsification of Spartan Promises. 3

assistance, thinking in their short-sighted enthusiasm that this was the first day of liberty for Hellas.

But never have highly-wrought hopes been doomed to be more cruelly falsified. If the promises of Sparta, which had been reiterated repeatedly during ^ ^ ^ ^ the whole course of the war, could have been ₀f SpartaT trusted, the allies had indeed good reason cation³^ to be confident. The Corinthians had her pro- originally urged her to stand forward as the ' liberator of Greece from the thraldom of the despot- city. The ultimatum forwarded from Sparta to Athens before the declaration of war had insisted on the inde­pendence of the Greek cities. Archidamos had called upon the Plataians to fight in the same cause. Still more explicitly had Brasidas assured the Akanthians that the liberty of Greece was hu> sole object; that the Lake- daimonians had sworn most solemnly to allow full inde­pendence to those who joined their alliance ; that he did not come to support any local faction, neither to strengthen the hands of the few against the many nor of the many against the few; that the end of Sparta was only the destruction of the empire of others, and not the establish­ment of empire for herself. But the twenty years which had passed since these promises were uttered _{Sh h d} had brought great changes with them. Not promised only had the disasters in Sicily inflicted a ^1,berty^; heavy blow on the power and prestige of Athens ; not 6nly had the temporary ascendency of the Four Hundred shewn the strength of faction in her midst ; but Persian influence and Persian gold had rendered Sparta more independent of the good opinion of her Greek allies. These promises indeed were never formally withdrawn, and were even renewed from time to time on suitable occasions ; but the protestations grew ever less vehement and emphatic. At last when a catastrophe, more complete

B 2

in its results and more stunning in its suddenness than even Lysandros could have looked for, laid the whole Grecian world prostrate before the conquering city, all previous pledges and promises were forgotten. The sentimental complaints against Athenian supremacy were changed for the positive injuries of Spartan tyranny ; and but set up         ^tardy>^an(* sometimes partial, justice of the

a crushing dikasteries for the heartless indifference of the tyranny. ephors. If the rule of the cultured, civilised, and philosophic State was like the chastisement of whips, the oppression of the rough, military power was like the stinging of scorpions ; and the little finger of the Spartan harmost was thicker than the loins of the Athenian tax- collector. Perhaps it was that the Spartan, always drilled and never educated, and consequently narrow and intolerant, could never grasp the Greek notion of political liberty. The citizen, in the general idea of Greeks, as in the formal definition of Aristotle, was one who had a right to share in the work of government, to speak and vote in his assembly, and to act as juryman in his law- courts. But in the mouth of a Spartan liberty was a fair-sounding pretence under which the oligarchs could lord it over the people ; and, if they had been upbraided with their perfidious violations of all their promises, they would perhaps have replied that in supporting a govern­ing class and saving the people from their sad errors of democracy, they were really securing the highest liberty to their subject states. For it was the rivalry of democrat and oligarch, no less than the principle of autonomy, which embittered the struggle of the Pelopon­nesian war, and made every single state and city of Hellas feel the keenest interest in its result.

It was indeed a great calamity for Greece that hei destinies at this time were in the hands of a man like Lysandros. Had the war been concluded by the mag-

in. !. Power and Character of Lysandros.

nanimous and high-principled Kallikratidas, he might possibly have seen that with all its faults the Athenian confederacy was not only a step in the right influence of direction, but the highest point to which the Lysandros. political development of the Greeks had attained ; and, correcting its faults, he might have made an effort to work on the same principle. Had Brasidas, with his broader views and wider sympathies, been at this crisis supreme in the councils of Sparta, he might perhaps have prevented her great name from being degraded by the support of oligarchic faction and tyranny. It would have been better had even a mere soldier like Gylippos been at the head of the Spartan forces, for he might have contented himself with military results, and have refrained from intermeddling with the political life of the cities. But Lysandros was utterly incapable of even conceiving the idea of patriotism towards Hellas, and was alsc con­summately able and absolutely unscrupulous in carrying out his own designs.

Of noble, even of Herakleid, descent on his father’s side, he was a man of boundless ambition and aspired to the highest offices in the State ; bom of a character of mother of plebeian, if not of servile origin, he ^Ly^sand»°s. stooped to unworthy means to gain his ends. From the more vulgar vices he was free. Though reared in the strictest school of Spartan discipline, his character was not stained by those outbursts of sensual passion to ' which too many of the Spartan governors at this time gave way. Though brought up in poverty, he was superior to avarice, a vice which sullied the reputation of many of the greatest of his fellow-citizens. Indeed Plutarch tells us that though he filled his country with riches and with the love of riches, by the vast amount of gold and silver which he sent home at the close of the war, he kept not one drachma for himsell It was this

very quality which made Cyrus his firm friend ; for at a banquet given to Lysandros before his departure from Sardeis, Cyrus, pledging his guest in the wine cup, desired him to ask some favour from him, promising to refuse nothing which would gratify him ; and he heard with astonishment and admiration the request that an obol should be added to the daily pay of the seamen. Lysandros possessed pre-eminently another quality which was very rare among his countrymen, and which was especially use­ful in dealing with Asiatic Greeks and Persian grandees —a suppleness, tact, and pliancy, which enabled him to accommodate his manners and conversation to any com­pany, and contrasted favourably with the arrogance and harshness which was too common a result of Spartan training. Nor was he ashamed of the craft or cunning by which he gained success, openly declaring as a Hera- kleid, that where the lion’s skin of Ilerakles would not reach, it must be patched with that of the fox ; and, far from respecting the sanctity of a promise, he advised that men should be cheated with oaths, as boys with dice.

Such was the character of the man who at this junc­ture was absolutely indispensable to Sparta. Lysandros Lysandros had made himself useful to his country, and ab1e^Sto^{nS now was necessar}y ^to her. While other Spar- Sparta tan leaders had been content merely with winning their battles or conducting their campaigns to a successful close, Lysandros, with far-sighted prudence, had prepared beforehand all his plans for establishing the power of Sparta and of himself; he had gathered into his own hand all the threads of political influence, and in managing had secured to himself a position in which the allies. neither rival nor colleague was possible. To effect this, he had made good use of the office of admiral, which he had held ten years before. Fixing his head­quarters at Ephesos, he had gained all possible informa­

tion about the state of political parties in all the principal towns in insular and Asiatic Greece. He had even invited to Ephesos the chief party-leaders and the bolder and more ambitious citizens, promoting some to high office and honour, and exhorting others to combine more closely in political clubs; and he had held out to all the prospect of absolute authority in their own cities after the downfall of Athens and the close of the war. Hence Lysandros was regarded by the oligarchic factions in every State as their patron; their advancement was de­pendent on his influence ; he was not merely the only Spartan who knew the right men in every city, but he was the only Spartan whom these men could fully trust. It was of course certain that the defeat of Athens was the defeat of democracy, and the triumph of Sparta the triumph of oligarchy ; such a result was clear from the traditional policy of both States. But it was left for Lysandros to strike out a new type of oligarchy in the double government of the Spartan governor and the native Council of Ten, by which he could at once gratify all his partisans, secure his own personal ascendency, and yet not diverge too widely from the ancient traditions of his country.

The title of Harmost (‘ orderer ’ or ‘ governor ’) was not new. It had been the official name of the governors sent to manage the rural districts of the Peri- The Har- oikoi, or subject tribes who inhabited Lakonia ^most* and Messenia; nor was there anything offensive in the term, except so far as it implied that the allied cities were placed in the same position of inferiority as the conquered tribes of the Peloponnese. The authority of the harmost was supported by a body of Spartan soldiers ; and his duties and his term of office were alike undefined. Directly dependent upon and responsible to the ephors, the harmosts had authority in civil as well as military

affairs, and were, in short, the confidential servants of the Spartan government in the towns in which they were placed. Though they were originally men of advanced age and proved competence, the large number required at this time made it impossible that all should possess high rank or tried prudence ; and the allies were soon heard complaining that even helots were thought good enough to be placed over them as harmosts. History tells us little about them ; but that little is to their discredit. Kallibios,at Athens, supported the Thirty Tyrants in their worst enormities ; Aristodemos, at Oreos, a town distin­guished beyond the rest of the Euboian cities for devo­tion to Athens, was guilty of the most brutal violence towards the son of a free citizen; Aristarchos at Byzan- tion, where his predecessor Klearchos had made himself execrated for his cruelty, sold into slavery 400 of the Cyreian Greeks, most of whom had been left disabled by wounds or sickness; Herippidas at Heraldeia massacred by hundreds the citizens who opposed him. In short, they were, as Diodoros says, governors in name, but tyrants in deed ; and it was vain to appeal to Sparta against their crimes.

Nor was the character of the Dekarchies, or Com­missions of Ten, such as to temper with moderation The Dekar-   brutal and unscrupulous rdgime of the

^chies-  harmost. A blind devotion to the interests of

Sparta and Lysandros, or, in other words, to oligarchy, had been rewarded by a position in which the lives and property of all their fellow-citizens, and especially of their old political rivals, were at their mercy. Of the internal history of the towns under their rule little is known ; but from the ruthless rancour of Greek political life generally, and from the analogy of the Thirty at Athens, it may be judged that their members used their absolute liberty of action to satiate with blood their lust

CH. I.

The Dekarchics.

9

for vengeance, and to glut with plunder their rapacious cupidity. Isokrates, the orator, concludes a burst of strong denunciation against the Dekarchies with these indignant words: ‘ Exile and faction, the subversion of laws, and the overthrow of constitutions ; nay, more, outrages on boys, the shame of women, and the plunder of property, who can recount all these ? I can only aver that while one edict would easily have set right all that went wrong under us, the massacres and illegalities committed under them are beyond the power of anyone to cure.’

It was not to be expected that such governments could be quietly established in all the cities of Greece with­out considerable resistance and bloodshed. The process Everywhere, according to Plutarch, many of setting

i j j    j • .    .. up these

were murdered, and many driven into exile. _g0vem- Friend and foe fared alike. All, whether old ^ments- allies of Sparta or recent conquests from Athens, were equally obliged to submit to a dekarchy and to receive a harmost. Lysandros himself superintended the change of government in many cities, and by personally appear­ing on many scenes of bloodshed, says Plutarch, did not give the Greeks a favourable impression of Spartan rule. So on his voyage to Athens, after the catastrophe of Aigospotamoi, he arranged the internal politics of Chal- kedon and Byzantion, of Mitylene and other Lesbian towns, and treacherously massacred a large number of citizens at Thasos. In short, he showed conclusively that the promise of freedom under Sparta was a delusion and a snare.

Never before had any single state wielded such power in Hellas as Sparta at this time ; never had any one man possessed the influence of Lysandros. Strong in the friendship of the Great King, stronger in the prestige which for generations had been gathering round her name, strongest in the gratitude of a newly-liberated

Greece, Sparta had a great opportunity of conferring lasting benefits on Hellas; but narrow in all her views and stunted in her development, devoid alike of broad cul- Greatop- turc or far-sighted statesmanship, she abused f™^y ^^lcr P^{ower t0} worst purposes. It is true 3parta. that she performed isolated acts of justice, dictated by political expediency, such as the restora­tion of the surviving Aiginetans and Melians, and the expulsion of Athenian and Messenian colonists from various places; but the prevailing characteristics of her rule were violence and injustice, and in bitter jest the Spartans were compared to cheating tavern-women, who trick their customers by the promise of a delicious draught, and then fill the cup with the most bitter and repulsive mixtures.

CHAPTER II.

ATHENS UNDER THE THIRTY.

Though to the vast majority of Athenian citizens who saw the triumphant entrance of their dreaded foe, the _{R t f} sixteenth day of the month Mounychion had the Athe- been a day of heaviness and despair, when man exiles. ^ _{sun 0}f Athenian glory set amid clouds and gloom, there was yet a party, calling itself Athenian, which saw in the same circumstances a cause for the highest exultation. Many of them had been serving against their country with Agis, the Spartan king, at Dekeleia, and had waited, the most eager and anxious of all the blockading force, for the moment of surrender. Others had remained within the beleaguered city, frus­trating the efforts of the patriots to infuse harmony and confidence into the famished multitude, accusing before the compliant Senate those who were most energetic in

ch. ii. Characters of Kritias and Theramenes. 11

animating the citizens to resistance, and securing their arrest and, if necessary, their execution. Now the hour had come which crowned their efforts with success and realised their hopes to the full, assuring to them revenge for the past and ascendency in the future.

Foremost among the exiles was Kritias. In him, if in any, might have been found the ideal of oligarchic perfection. Born of ancient and honourable Kritias: his lineage, and possessed of hereditary wealth, he character, had held a conspicuous position in the leading circles of Athens. The uncle of Plato and the pupil of Sokrates, he had listened to the noblest teachings in ethics and politics. He had cultivated poetry with success ; and his eloquence, celebrated even in a city which was the nurse of orators, had, we may well believe, a peculiar charm as contrasted with the rhetorical vulgarities of debating leather-sellers and candlestick-makers. It could not, in­deed, be forgotten that he had been in his younger days an associate of the arch-traitor Alkibiades, and had been suspected, like so many other young bloods, of complicity in that mysterious act of sacrilege, the mutilation of the Hermai ; but men might hope that years of exile had taught him a wholesome lesson of self-restraint, and would remember that recently he had shown himself capable of sympathy with the oppressed by supporting against their masters the Penestai, or serfs of Thessaly. But such hopes, if they were entertained, were doomed to disappointment.

The past life of Theramenes, the leader of the oligarch­ical party within the walls, had been very different. He had risen into public notice seven years before

^A     Thera-

during the government of the Four Hundred, menes: his

and had gained the reputation of a friend to ^character-

liberty by deserting his party and caballing against the

oligarchy. This reputation he confirmed by hunting to

death the generals after the battle of Arginousai; and during the late siege he had been the envoy chosen to conduct the negotiations with Sparta. While absent on this mission lie had spent three months with Lysandros— months of the most intense misery to the starving popu­lation of Athens, but months which had been used to the best advantage by the aristocratic party in strengthening their own position, and weakening all idea of resistance among the citizens.

The most powerful engine for establishing and ex­tending oligarchic principles was found in the system of Political Hetairiai, or political clubs. These were no Athens^{1 new} *^nvcnt*^0nsj neither were they peculiar to Athens. It has been seen that Lysandros recommended the chief oligarchs in Asia Minor to combine in this manner; and such clubs had played an important part in the previous history of Athens. The members of then) either devoted themselves to the service of some individual leader, or more commonly wished to secure certain definite objects, which were either positively illegal or, at any rate, unrecognised by law. Thus some would combine to gain influence in the elections, others for purposes of common defence before the dikasteries. Indeed there is reason to believe that the system of bribing these bodies of jurors was first introduced by the political clubs. But whatever was the immediate object which the association was intended to promote, its members were bound together by a tie stronger than that of citizenship or even of blood, and by a law of honour which required that, if it was demanded by the general interests of the society, no crime was too heinous to be committed, no sacrifice too grievous to be endured. They formed, in fact, throughout Hellas an or­ganized conspiracy against constitutional law and freedom, Hence as soon as the city surrendered, the oligar.

chical party had their plans matured and their means ready to hand. A board of five was nominated by the members of the clubs, with the title of ephors : Kritias was one of them, and Theramenes probably another. Their duties were of course not those of gov- Measures of eminent, for the democracy still existed, but ^ical^1Sar* rather to look after the interests of their party party, generally, and especially to direct the action Board of of the clubs. They had everything their own ^{five ephors} way. Their faction was exultant and well-organized ; their opponents were despised and demoralised. The Senate was a mere tool in their hands ; and Agis was still garrisoning the town. Yet, conscious that their measures would cause not only dissatisfaction but the deepest abhorrence among the majority of their fellow- citizens, they dared not act at once. They Arrest of thought it necessary previously to arrest most of the prominent democratic leaders, and to summon Lysandros himself from the siege of Samos, the only city which had not yet surrendered to Sparta. On his arrival an assembly was called together for the special purpose of remodelling the constitution, and Lysandros was invited to attend the discussion. A board of Thirty was ap­pointed, not indeed to undertake the government of the city, but for the ostensible purpose of codifying the ancient laws by which the future constitution of the city should be regulated. But though the powers of the Thirty were so strictly limited, the proposal was received with sounds of disapprobation if not with open opposition. All the names were those of men who were Appoint - either hated or suspected by the main body mentofthe of citizens ; and it was understood that, as a ^r ’ matter of course, the work of codification included the alteration of the old laws and the addition of new ones to an unlimited extent. There was also something suspicious

and repugnant in the very number selected; for that, like the number and title of the five ephors recently ap­pointed, had been adopted in humble imitation of Spartan institutions, thirty being the number of members in the Spartan Gerousia, or Senate. Lysandros, however, brought cogent arguments to bear upon the swelling murmurs of repugnance, which Theramenes, conscious of Spartan support, heard with a careless scorn. The victorious gene­ral reminded the assembly that the city was at his mercy; by order of for they had failed to demolish their fortifica- Lysandros. tions within the stated time, and consequently they could not claim the protection of the treaty; let them look to themselves, and preserve their lives, not their insti­tutions. Hearing these threats, the majority of the citizens left the assembly; and a few—whose charactcr, as Lysias says, was as inconsiderable as their number—remained to give a formal assent to the proposal, and so to afford Xenophon some shadow of justification in passing over this memorable scene, equally discreditable to his aristo­cratic friends and his Spartan patrons, with the few words : ‘the people resolved to choose thirty men.’

In what manner the Thirty were selected is very doubtful. It is said that ten were nominated by Thera- Measures of menes. It is said also that ten were left the Thirty, ostensibly to the choice of the assembly. But it is most likely that the whole list was prepared before­hand, probably by Lysandros himself. However when once appointed, they showed little readiness to perform New    their stated task of legislation or codification,

Senate. k_ut proceeded at once to remodel the whole machinery of government. A new Senate was appointed, consisting of men whom they knew to be compliant and Board of trustworthy ; and to this body was transferred Eleven. from the less manageable dikaslcries the im­portant duty of deciding all state trials. The board of

Eleven, which managed the police of the city, was re­organized, and Satyros, one of the most violent and unscrupulous adherents of the Thirty, was placed at its head as chief executioner of their victims. But it was above all necessary that the Peiraieus should Dekarchy in be kept well under control; for that suburb, Peiraieus. being inhabited by the mercantile and sea-faring classes, was the very focus of democratic sentiment; and for this purpose a special Dekarchy was established.

As in every community, and in every age, so there existed at Athens, at this time, a considerable body of

well-to-do citizens who had never taken any „ _r .

, . . . . t i *  Professions

enthusiastic interest in politics, but who were ofthe

greatly impressed with the evils of democracy, ^ade^o

since that was the form of government most ?^ai"_d^l_e^_t ,

familiar to them ; who wished to enjoy peace ^{m es}'

and tranquillity, and thought that in what their modem

representatives would term a ‘ strong government ’ they

would find a panacea for all their troubles and vexations.

The Thirty lost no time in making a bid for the support of

this class ; and professed that it was their object to purify

the city from evil-doers, and direct the rest of the citizens

into the paths of virtue and justice.

Accordingly, to make good the first part of their professed design, Xenophon tells us that they arrested and tried for their lives those who had gained Condemna- their living under the democracy by the tionofthe practice of sycophancy, and those who were ^Syc°P^hants- troublesome to the upper classes. These, he says, the Senate was only too glad to condemn, and they died unpitied by any except those of evil character like them­selves. As to the first class, the historian is probably tell­ing the truth. The practice of sycophancy was closely con­nected with the worst abuses of the democracy. Long ago, it is said, a law had been passed prohibiting the exportation

of figs from Attica ; and it had become practically obso­lete, though formally unrepealed. Hence to accuse a citizen under this statute was regarded as malicious and vexatious; and the name Sycophant, or a man who accused another of exporting figs, was applied to anyone who brought a frivolous charge against another. Such accusations had, however, become very common under the democracy, since the citizens were paid for every day which they spent as dikasts in the law-courts : and they had been a chief cause of the dissatisfaction which many of the wealthier citizens had felt against the constitution under which they lived. That the second class equally deserved Execution their fate is by no means probable. It is nentdemo- certain indeed that it included a distinguished crats. general, against whom no crime could be

alleged except the unpardonable sin of democratic sym­pathies ; and even if the verdict in every case had been just, the means by which it was secured would have been sufficient to cause the gravest discontent. The Thirty could not fully trust even their own creatures in the Senate, and accordingly abolished the custom of secret voting. They presided in person over the trials ; and on one of two tables in front of them each senator was required to place openly his voting pebble. One table was for acquittal, the other for condemnation ; and—with but one infamous exception, when a perfidious informer was at the bar the verdict always went against the prisoner.

No sooner was the slightest whisper of popular dis­affection audible than Kritias had his remedy ready. A Spartan Lysandros, he thought, had left his work at garrison in- Athens half completed; the oligarchic board to°theAkro- had been established ; but the crowning inflic- polis.  _tj_{on Q}f _a Spartan harmost and garrison had

been spared. Now, however, two of the Thirty were despatched to Sparta to ask him to persuade the ephors

to send a body of troops to their assistance, who might remain until the disaffected had been put out of the way, and their government placed on a secure footing: and during this time they engaged to find them pay and maintenance. The required auxiliaries were sent without delay, with Kallibios, a rough and brutal Spartan, in command. Every Athenian, with a spark of patriotism, must have been disgusted with the selfish and unworthy policy which had introduced a foreign lord into the Akropolis, the very sanctuary of Athenian glory, and still more when he observed with what persistent obsequious­ness he was courted by those who prided themselves on being the best and finest gentlemen of Athens. One instance of this subservient spirit must be story of mentioned. Autolykos, an Athenian of good family, distinguished from his boyhood for athletic prowess, had, in some way, given offence to Kallibios. The latter, hasty and arrogant, after the Spartan fashion, raised his truncheon to strike him. The athlete, stooping to avoid the blow, seized Kallibios by the legs and threw him to the ground. But though the harmost got little sympathy from Lysandros, who curtly told him that he did not know how to govern freemen, the Thirty, wishing to gain his favour, soon after put Autolykos to death.

Having secured, by conduct like this, the active sup­port and assistance of the Spartan garrison, the Thirty proceeded to clear all obstacles from their _Further path, by putting to death, often without even excesses of the form of trial, all those whom, as Xeno- ^theThirty phon says, they thought least likely to endure to be quietly elbowed aside, or capable of attracting the most adherents in case of an insurrection. Among these were many who were conspicuous solely for wealth, courage, or virtue. A now race of sycophants had sprung up, more audacious and unscrupulous than those of the democracy, because a. h.  c

they could calculate more confidently on the condemnation of their victims. Accordingly many citizens, not knowing on whom the blow might next fall, made their escape from the city, lea\ing their estates to be confiscated by the Thirty ; and among these may be mentioned Ar.ytos and Thrasyboulos. Others again became implicated against their will in the atrocities of the government, an.d so were forced to make common cause with them. For instance, Sokrates and four other citizens were ordered to cross over to Salamis, and bring before the Thirty, for certain condemnation, a man whose innocence was beyond all question. Sokrates went home : the others executed the orders which they had received, and thus made them­selves accomplices, however unwillingly, in the crime.

But it was impossible that a body of men so numerous, and with functions so loosely defined, could long remain Protests of united; and signs of disagreement had very Thera- soon shewn themselves. Theramenes had, at first, gone in heart and soul for the work of vengeance and spoliation ; but he was too astute and sagacious not to appreciate the force of public opinion, and see the necessary conclusion to which this policy of terrorism was hurrying his colleagues ; and he thought that he might again be able to head the reaction, and to keep his ppsition, when his rival Kritias fell. He had protested in vain, first against the introduction of the Spartan garrison, and then against the execution of inno­cent victims ; and now he broke out into open opposition, warning Kritias that if men were to be executed for having gained, or having tried to gain, popularity, they themselves might not escape. To this Kritias replied that he must be a fool if he could not understand that the rule of the Thirty was as thorough a despotism as if it were the rule of one man, and required the same uncon- promising policy. A little later, perceiving that, as executions and confiscations became more frequent, the

discontent and indignation in the city grew more serious, Theramenes urged his colleagues to place their govern­ment on a broader basis ; and Kritias and the rest, their fears being now thoroughly roused, produced a list of three thousand persons to whom the j_nsti_tut;_on privileges of citizenship should be granted, of the Three

T-» rn        1        J        U .    Thousand.

But Theramenes, whose ends could not be advanced by the addition of a limited number of oligar­chical partisans, found fault with the scheme altogether ; the number was too small, for they were still in a minority; and it was absurd to draw a hard and fast line at three thousand, as if that number necessarily included all the good and excluded all the bad. Yet, in spite of his opposition, the Three Thousand were called out and armed ; while the arms of the rest of the citizens were taken away by a stratagem, and safely deposited under Spartan care in the Akropolis.

There was no longer any possibility of a revolt. All those who could have headed such a movement had been murdered or exiled, and the mass of the citizens _{plunder of} were now defenceless. Fresh victims were the Metoi- eagerly demanded. Kallibios and his gang of ^koK hired bravoes could be maintained and kept in good humour only at a great cost, and the Thirty themselves became daily more rapacious. A scheme for the plunder of the temples gave only partial satisfaction, while they had left a whole class of possible victims hitherto un­touched. It was known that among the Metoikoi, or aliens resident in Athens, there were many men of great wealth, and some who had little sympathy with an oli­garchical regime. It was therefore proposed that each of the Thirty should single out from this class some indi­vidual, that he should have him put to death, and should then take possession of his property. The proposal was adopted with only one dissentient voice. Theramenes c 2

declared boldly that the sycophants themselves had never committed crimes so flagrant as these which men, who called themselves the worthiest gentlemen, designed. But the bloody work went merrily on, and it was resolved that the one voice of censure should be silenced.

Kritias prepared his measures for his rival’s overthrow with the utmost care, for failure meant destruction. Fully . aware that many of the senators, who were of^CThera-ⁿ partakers in the crimes and not in the profits menes. _nf _tjj_e Thirty, sympathised strongly with the

views of Theramenes, he tried to gain over some by pri­vately representing to them that his opponent was no true friend to the oligarchy, and resolved to overawe the rest by introducing into the council-chamber an armed band of his most unscrupulous satellites. On the appointed day, the Senate assembled; the band of bravoes was in wait­ing, with daggers concealed under their garments ; and Speech of when Theramenes appeared, Kritias rose to Kritias. accuse him. ‘No revolution,’ said he, ‘can be accomplished without some sacrifice of life, and least of all a revolution in a city as populous and as devoted to liberty as Athens. Yet it was necessary, if only to please our preservers the Spartans, that an oligarchy should be established. But here among us stands Theramenes, a foe to oligarchy ; yea, and worse than a foe, a traitor. Nor is treachery a new game for him to play ; but he is a traitor by nature, and is rightly nicknamed a Buskin, which can be worn on either foot. He was treacherous towards the Four Hundred, treacherous again towards the gene­rals after Arginousai: but we know his double-dealing, and must not spare him now. We all, of course, acknow­ledge the constitution of Sparta to be the best in the world: would such conduct be tolerated there in one of the ephors ? Destroy the traitor; and with him the hopes ot your enemies both within the city and beyond its walls.

r.H. ii. Condemnation of Theramenes.        ?.\

Kritias resumed his seat, and Theramenes, possibly not wholly unprepared for the attack, sprang up at once to reply. After a few prefatory remarks, in which he de­fended his conduct after Arginousai, he turned fiercely on his accuser. ‘ I do not wonder at the un­scrupulous misrepresentations of Kritias ; for Thera* ° he was not at that time present in Athens, but ^menes- was doing a demagogue’s work in Thessaly. Rightly indeed he condemns the enemies of your government; but am I your enemy, or is he ? Hear, and decide foi yourselves. Until your authority was firmly established, and as long as sycophants were being punished, we were all of one mind: but when Kritias chose as his victims honourable gentlemen and distinguished patriots, I at once remonstrated, even as I have opposed the spoliation of the resident aliens, the disarming of the citizens, and the introduction of a garrison of hired mercenaries. Such outrages weaken you, but strengthen your enemies ; and in opposing them I showed myself your friend, while Kritias by his policy is fostering the interest of Thrasy- boulos and the exiled democrats. Nor am I a turn-coat. I supported the Four Hundred till they proved traitors to their country. And, even if I deserved my nickname, surely it is better to try to suit both parties than to suit neither: Kritias spares the upper classes as little as the lower. But I myself have always been consistent, an opponent alike of the licence of the many and the tyranny of the few. Prove me wrong, and I shall die justly.’

At the close of this able and spirited defence a shout of applause burst forth. But Kritias, who knew that with himself, at any rate, it was a matter of life and _Kritias death, was not to be baulked of his prey. The condemns senators evidently could not be relied on ; left menes'to to themselves they would let the accused es- ^deatl1* cape. Accordingly, after a hurried consultation with his

colleagues, he left the council-chamber, and ordered his gang of assassins to come up close to the railings within which the senators sat. On his return he came forward again, and told them, that a president worthy of his position would take care to shield his friends from im­posture ; and, further, that the gentlemen standing by the railings would not allow them to acquit so notorious an offender. Therefore, with the consent of all his colleagues, he would strike out the name of Theramenes from the list of enfranchised citizens, that he might be legally con­victed by the vote of the Thirty alone. * And this man,’ he added, ¹ we condemn to death.’ At these words, Theramenes leaped for protection upon the altar, which stood in the council-chamber, and entreated the senators as a suppliant to see that formal justice, at any rate, should be meted out to him. ‘ By the gods! ’ cried he, ‘ 1 know full well that this altar will not suffice to protect me, but you shall see that these men shrink from sacrilege as little as from injustice ; and I marvel, worthy gentle­men, that ye will not strike a blow in your own defence, for the name of any one of you can be struck out as easily as mine.’ He spoke no more, for the herald of the Thirty had summoned the Eleven executioners. They entered, headed by Satyros, the most reckless and brazen-faced Thera- among them, and accompanied by their at- se?zed by tendants. Kritias pointed out Theramenes as the Eleven, a criminal legally condemned, and bade them carry him off and do their duty by him. Intimidated by the armed gang within the room, and by the troops which had assembled outside, the senators looked on inactive, while Satyros and his myrmidons dragged the wretchcd man from the altar and into the market-place beyond. Then, as with a loud voice he kept on calling gods and men to behold his shameful treatment and testify to its injustice, the brutal Satyros threatened him that he should vue it if

he did not hold his peace;¹ Shall I not rue it all the same if I do ?’ replied Theramenes. At the last, when the in­evitable hour arrived, and the hemlock draught had to be drunk, he threw the heeltap to the ground, like and dies by one who jests at a wine-party, with the parting i^^em* toast, ‘ Here’s to the charming Kritias.’ The draught, fearlessness of Theramenes in his last moments has called forth the warmest praise. Xenophon mentions it with admiration, Cicero with enthusiasm : but history cannot reverse her verdict on a life of unscrupulous self-seeking, nor can we forget that the man now unjustly slaughtered had hounded on his countrymen to the murder of men who had charged him to carry out an order which he had failed to execute. Justice, though her vengeance tarried, at last secured her due.

The last spark of open opposition had thus been trampled out; and the Thirty, to use the words of Xenophon, ‘ thinking that they might now play R_ei_gn of the tyrant without fear/ surpassed themselves und^the in excess of licence. It is said that during Thirty, the short time for which their reign was yet to last they executed 1,500 victims without trial. Though this nnmber may not be strictly accurate, there can be no doubt that Satyros, who had probably taken the place vacated by Theramenes among the Thirty, had his hands full of work. But, just as if the plunder of individuals, however numerous, was insufficient to satiate the greed of the tyrants, a wholesale scheme of confiscation was re­solved upon. A proclamation was issued that all those whose names were not in the list of the Three Thousand should leave the city and be forbidden to enter it again ; that thus the oligarchs might see about them the faces of none whom they could suspect of even wishing to subvert their rule. Nor was this all. Not content with having seized all the houses inside the city, they drove the fugitives out

of the rural districts also, and divided the farms among themselves and their more favoured adherents. This act may have been prompted by mere rapacity ; or perhaps Kritias may have wished to establish a new class of landed proprietors, and so to put the oligarchy on a more solid basis.

Terrorism and tyranny could go no farther ; and it is perhaps worth while to try and find the reasons why they Reasons for had gone so far. For it must not be supposed chicai ex- ^t^^iat Thirty themselves were exceptionally cesses. bad representatives of the Athenian oligarchs, or prominent among them for cruelty and rapacity. It may fairly be believed that many others as unscrupu­lous, if not as able, might have been found in the ranks of the Knights or wealthiest class of citizcns, for they sup­ported the Thirty enthusiastically throughout all their discreditable career, and fought for them vigorously to 1. Griev- the last. The grievances of the rich under the richat°^fthe democracy had, in their own estimation, been Athens. very serious. In peace they were taxed for the amusement of the people. Athens was noted among the cities of Greece for the number of religious festivals which were observed by its inhabitants, just as in later times they are complimented by St. Paul for their scru­pulous reverence for the gods. But every festival had its theatrical or gymnastic exhibitions ; and the opulent citizens, each according to a stated proportion, were obliged to defray the expense and undertake the super­intendence of their production. Of course the wealthier classes, when they undertook such duties, were fully aware that the pecuniary loss was more than compensated by the gain in public esteem and political influence ; but they preferred to make light of such collateral advantages, and exaggerated the hardship of having to entertain a lazy mob. Again in time of war the

cost of equipping both army and navy pressed very heavily upon them ; and if the war was protracted longer than the ordinary resources of the state lasted, they were again called upon to contribute to special taxes ; while, to make their condition worse, they lost almost all the income which they drew from their landed estates in Attica, which suffered alternately from the ravages of their enemies and the requisitions of their allies. But at this they would not have grumbled so much, if they had felt that it lay only with them to decide the question of peace or war. The sober arguments of the wealthiest among them, they would say, might have but little weight in the assembly compared with the passionate clap-trap of some demagogue who had no stake in the country, and who gained popularity or notoriety by a parade of patriotism. Lastly, the rich man was perpetually exposed to the accusations of sycophants ; and whether he stood his trial and defended himself on some frivolous charge before a jury of his inferiors, or whether he bought off the insolent informer before the case was tried, the nuisance was equally galling. But not only was there so much to provoke the discontent and ill-feel- ₂. Rancour ing of the rich, but all party strife among the Greeks was characterised by the extremest Greece, rancour and violence. Changes which with us would require little more than the expulsion of one ministry from office and the appointment of another, could not be accomplished there without the banishment, if not the massacre, of a large fraction of the citizens. The fury of political passion was intensified by the smallness of the area within which its action was confined. _Charac Some weight must also be ascribed to the ter of personal charactcr of Kritias,—a compound of ^Krltias- brilliant ability, boundless ambition, and unprincipled selfishness. Doubtless he urged on his colleagues tc

the commission of excesses of which they might not otherwise have been guilty. But every Greek state was exposed at some period or other to similar paroxysms of civil dissension, and there are few among the atrocities of the Thirty which could not be paralleled from the history of Argos, Korkyra, and many other cities.

The Athenian oligarchs had, however, other objects besides mere vengeance and spoliation : they fondly hoped to undo for ever the work of Kleisthenes and Perikles, and to change the current of their country’s his- Intemal ^tory* J^{ust as} ^e Athens which had defied policy of the Sparta and developed'democracy had been a state strong in her navy, rich in colonies, and of great commcrcial enterprise, the city which should remain subservient to Sparta and contented under an oligarchy was to be a mere provincial town, without fleet, trade, or dependencies, cut off from the sea, and supported mainly by agriculture. To carry out this policy, the Thirty—by an apparently voluntary act—dismantled the great arsenal, which had been built at the cost of 1,000 talents, and sold the materials for three, to a contractor. The plunder of the resident aliens was also prompted partly by the same wish to drive away commerce from Athens : for the seafaring mob who inhabited Peiraieus had always been the terror of the oligarchs, and the very backbone of the democracy. Besides this, the Thirty made great changcs in the meeting-place of the popular assembly. It is said by Plutarch that they changed the position of the Benia, or pedestal from which the orators spoke, that the speakers might not be inspired by the sight of the sea and of Salamis. The seats of the ancient Pnyx were probably no longer used ; for the assembly now was not convened for purposes of consultation : it was sufficient that the mass of the citizens should come and hear the decisions of their betters, and then depart in silence.

ch. ii. . Change in Greek Feeling.

2 7

Lastly, to strike at the root of all the evil, they issued an edict forbidding anyone ‘ to teach the art of words.’ By this they cut off at one blow all the higher education of Athens: logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, all were alike pro­hibited. The culture, which had led every man to think himself capable not only of holding his own opinion on political questions but of giving it too, was to be stamped out for ever, and the tree of knowledge was henceforth to bring forth fruit for the governing class alone.

CHAPTER III.

THE RESTORATION OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY.

For about eight months the Thirty had tyrannised over the miserable city. In April Lysandros had entered Peiraieus in triumph, and the eventful year      .

was now drawing to a close. But these few Greelf^{6 m} months had seen a marked change in Greek ^feehns- feeling. The hatred, which had outrun even the Spartan desire for vengeance, and had demanded that the place of Athens should henceforth be a blank on the map of Hellas, had gradually died away, or rather had been transformed into a deep pity for the unfortunate city, whose glorious past stood out in so marked a contrast to its wretched present; while the unpopularity which always attaches to supremacy, the jealousy which is inseparable from success, had been transferred from Athens to her conqueror, Avho could now be stigmatized with far greater justice as the despot city.

Chief among the causes which weakened the influence of Sparta was the conduct of Lysandros himself. Aftei a siege of some months’ duration, he forced the Conduct of Samians to surrender, on condition that all Lysandros the free inhabitants should depart from the town, and

leave behind them all their property except a single Samos garment for each man. He next reinstated subdued. oligarchical party, and placed the govern­

ment in the hands of a dekarchy selected by himself, undet the supervision of one of his own creatures named Thorax, whom he left as harmost; and in humble recog­nition of these favours the restored citizens decreed that the national festival of Here should henceforth be called the Lysandria. Having thus stamped out the last spark of Lysandros opposition, the victorious general¹ sent away triumph*to ^t^^e ships of the allies to their respective cities, Sparta. and with the Lakedaimonian fleet sailed back to Sparta, bringing with him the prow-ornaments of the ships which he had captured, and all the triremes from the Peiraieus except twelve, and the crowns which he had received from city after city as presents to himself personally, and 470 talents which yet remained of the contribution which Cyrus had given him to defray the expenses of the war, and all the other spoils which he had accumulated during the war.' By this simple enumera­tion of the actual trophies, which gave an importance hitherto unequalled in Spartan history to the return of Lysandros, Xenophon gratified the pride of Sparta with­out too deeply wounding Athenian sentiment ; but, great as it was, the pomp of the ovation was scarcely equal to the real power of Lysandros. For he no longer held the

position of a mere servant of the state however

His power. ¹       .        .

successful, but rather ‘imperial Sparta was, as it were, personified in’him. And yet Plutarch tells us that Lysandros, though more powerful at that time than any Greek before, was yet thought to display a pride, and affect a superiority, greater even than his power war­ranted. It was said of him, as it had been said previously of Alkibiades, that all Hellas was not big enough to hold two Lysanders. To gratify his vanity, cities raised altars

in his honour, and sacrificed to him as though to a god. Poets vied with one another in singing his praise in strains of fulsome flattery ; and he even kept _His arro- one of the most eminent always in his train, s^ance- that none of his achievements might sink into the night of oblivion for lack of an inspired bard.

Accordingly when the Thebans, after the return of Lysandros, put in a claim, in which they were probably backed up by the Corinthians, that the allies _0ther should be allowed some share in the spoils causes of

the growing

and profits of the war, Lysandros persuaded unpopu- his countrymen to reject a demand which was spSa?^f obviously founded in equity ; so far were the . .

.        . , ,    , . . Rejection

Spartans from seeing the value or the justice of claims of

of the principle to which, above all others, ^Thebes- Rome owed her own greatness and the fidelity Tribute, of her allies. Nor was there any abatement of the tribute which had been levied previously 011 the subject cities by the Athenians ; but the latter had at any rate performed the duty for which the money was raised, while the Spartans pocketed the thousand talents, and at the same time delivered up the sea and the whole coast-line of the Archipelago to the dominion of Persia. Thus the minds of the Greeks were well prepared to hear with sympathis­ing pity the stories which were soon current about the enormities of the dekarchies in chiSf general, and especially about the atrocities of ^enormities- the Thirty; for the sufferings of Athens naturally at­tracted a peculiar interest. They saw clearly Broken that the specious promises of Sparta had been promises, mere lies, that though she had spoken them fair to serve her purposes, her deeds were immeasurably harsher than those of Athens ; and the deepening indignation against Sparta was naturally accompanied by a growing compassion for her humbled rival.

:>C Restoration of Athenian Democracy, u.c. 404

The change in the position of Thebes will now be understood. In April the Thebans were the most ran­corous and implacable foes to Athens and her constitu­tion ; in December their city is the very centre of the plots for its restoration. The Spartans had issued a decree that Thebes ^^{ie re}^^ug^ees from Athens might be arrested gives shelter wherever they were found, and at the same

and supfx* t .     '         .

to Athenian time they threatened heavy penalties against exiles.   any who should attempt to protect them, liut

in spite of the power of Sparta, none but the most insig­nificant states obeyed. At Chalkis, Megara, and Elis, the exiles were hospitably received. The Argives in­dignantly bade the heralds quit their city before sunset ; while, as Plutarch informs us with the proud enthusiasm of a Boiotian patriot, the Thebans, acting in the spirit and temper of their ancient heroes, issued counter-decrees, declaring that every house and town in Boiotia should be open to any Athenian who required it, that those who refused to come to the rescue of an Athenian should be fined, and that if anyone should bear arms through Boiotia to Attica against the tyrants, they should close their eyes and ears to what was going on. Thebes therefore became the natural resort of the most active and prominent among the exiles: of Thrasyboulos, Anytos, Archinos, and many others. Thrasyboulos had Thrasy- previously distinguished himself by the energy boulos. _witli which he had kept up the spirits of the Athenian seamen at Samos during the reign of the Four Hundred at Athens; and he had then been greatly in­strumental in bringing about the restoration of the democracy. An effective orator, an able general, and a sincere patriot, he wins even from Xenophon a grudging testimony to his virtue. Anytos, whose name '       had been slurred by an imputation of whole­

sale bribery, and has since become notorious by his

on in. Thrasyboulos occupies Phyle.   32

share in the prosecution of Sokrates, was a rough, plain- spoken democrat ; like Kleon, the proprietor of a tan- yard ; and, although wealthy, priding himself on his want of culture and refinement. Archinos, to whom, next to the gods at any rate, Demosthenes ascribes the greatest share in restoring the democratical regime,

I was a man of fine intellect, unselfish disposi- ^Archinos- tion, and some military experience. These three men stood out as the natural leaders of the exiles, who swarmed not only in Thebes but in all the towns on the frontiers of Attica ; while in Thebes itself the native democrats formed a powerful party, though still a minority, and were prepared to furnish to the Athenians more solid assistance than mere sympathy.

Near the frontiers of Attica and Boiotia stood, or rather stands, the fortress of Phyle, commanding a narrow defile formed by Mount Aigaleos on Position of the south, and Mount Parnes on the north. ^Phyfc- Through this pass ran the mountain-path that formed the direct road between Thebes and Athens ; and from the summit of the lofty crag on which the castle was built, was visible the whole Athenian plain, the heights of the Akropolis, 10 miles distant, and the blue waters of the Saronic gulf beyond. Revelling in a fool’s paradise of apparent tranquillity, the Thirty had left this fortress un­garrisoned ; or, more probably, since they had ordered

*       all the frontier fortresses to be destroyed, it had been partially dismantled. Thrasyboulos saw the advantages of its situation, and, crossing the border in the phyle is depth of winter, seized it with a small band xhrasy^b-^y of exiles, numbering, according to Xenophon, bouios. seventy men. Probably this number soon increased ; and the willing hands of exiles, inspired by the distant view of their beloved city, would soon put the ruined castle in a state of defence. Regarding the expedition as too unim*

portant to require the presence of the Spartan garrison, the Thirty marched out at the head of the Three Thou­sand and the Knights to dislodge the intruders. A body of the younger troops attempted at once to carry the fort

\

by storm ; but, as it was accessible only by a narrow path on the east side, the strength of the situation and the courage of the defenders were sufficient to repel them with no slight loss. Still, as the exiles must have been but

scantily provisioned, the Thirty resolved to reduce them by a blockade; but, though the weather had been re­markably fine when they set out, this project _Ag«._g„i_{t D}f was frustrated by a heavy fall of snow, which the u-°°^ps occurred during the night, and which Thrasy- Thirty re- boulos regarded as a distinct intervention of P^u,sed- the gods in his behalf. The subsequent retreat was impeded by the snow ; and, descending from their rocky fortress, the exiles inflicted further losses on their oppo­nents, and captured probably a large portion of the baggage. After this the garrison became more numerous every day; and the depredations committed by Thrasy­boulos on the farms in the neighbourhood were so ex­tensive as to call for immediate repression. Accordingly the Thirty despatched almost all the Spartan garrison and a large body of cavalry, with orders to Ni_gh_tat- encamp about two miles from Phyle, and J?ckby watch the operations of the enemy. But the boulc* band of Thrasyboulos had by this time ^successful- increased to 700; and he felt himself strong enough to assume the offensive. With his full force he came down by night, and took up a position at a distance of less than half a mile from the enemy. Here, covered by the broken nature of the ground, his men remained, and watched for the dawn. Just as day was breaking, and the camp was in confusion, the night-watch going off ^duty, and the grooms noisily currying their horses, the exiles swept down on them at a run. There was no resistance ; and during the pursuit, which lasted for nearly a mile, 120 of the heavy-armed troops were slain, and a few of the cavalry. The exiles then returned ; and, having set up a trophy and collected their spoil, made their way back to their fortress, before the cavalry, who had set out from Athens to the rescue, could arrive upon the scene of action.

A. H. D

Matters now began to look serious. The Thirty were fairly roused from their false security. The prowess even of their Spartan mercenaries had been shown to be by no means invincible ; and they resolved to secure, while it was yet possible, some refuge, of which they might avail themselves, if things came to the worst. The Thirty Several circumstances combined to make Eieusis _and Eleusis a suitable spot for the purpose. It Salamis. was at a convenient distance, 12 miles, from Athens; it was near the sea, and so afforded an opportunity of escape ; it would be an advantageous position for the reception of Spartan reinforcements, which could reach it either by land or sea ; and, lastly, it was not far from Salamis, which they determined to seize as a last retreat. The crowning act of spoliation and massacre was then committed. Kritias and his colleagues, having gone to Eleusis with the Knights or wealthiest Athenians, as­sembled the citizens of the town under pretence of re­viewing them. Each man had to enter his name for military service, and was then obliged to pass out by a postern gate which opened on the beach. Here the cavalry were posted; and every man was at once pinioned by attendants who stood ready. Three hundred citizens were thus seized, dragged off to Athens, and handed over to the custody of the Eleven. On the morrow Kritias summoned the Three Thousand and the Knights, and told them that the oligarchy was kept up as much for their advantage as for that of the Thirty ; that there must be a community of peril as well as of privilege ; that they must condemn the captive Eleu- sinians, and so identify themselves with the Thirty in all their hopes and all their fears. The Spartan garrison was drawn up under arms close at hand ; and the voting was open. As a matter of course, the Eleusinians were condemned to death, and Xenophon adds that some of

the citizens were so unscrupulous in their rapacity as to be gratified by crimes like these. In what manne'r the Thirty obtained possession of Salamis is not distinctly stated; but it is hinted that the same means were employed in both cases.

Four days after his recent victory Thrasyboulos, who had now 1,000 men under his command, marched down from Phyle by night along the road to _xhrasy_ Athens. As he passed Acharnai, the largest bouios and most liberty-loving of all the townships °he^lpe?-^S of Attica, some of its sturdy yeomen may ^raieus- hare joined his force; and morning found him in pos­session of the Peiraieus. Though the walls of the great sea-port had been partially destroyed, it had not suffered from depopulation, but had become the refuge of 5,000 citizens who had been expelled from Athens. Among these Thrasyboulos found numerous supporters ; but, as all their weapons were still safe in the Akropolis, their fighting power was not as considerable as their numerical strength. Thrasyboulos, therefore, saw himself com­pelled to abandon Peiraieus, as a position too extensive for his handful of troops to defend, and, having Battle of retired to the adjacent suburb of Mounychia, Mounychia. he drew up his forces in close order on the slope of the hill, so that they entirely blocked up the road. He placed his heavy-armed troops in front, the files being ten deep: \ on the higher ground behind was a mass of light-armed, or rather half-armed, troops, who were to hurl javelins or sling stones over the heads of the hoplites, or heavy­armed troops, below. The Thirty advanced to the attack with all the force at their command, but the position chosen by Thrasyboulos did not allow them to reap the full advantage of their great superiority in numbers. Their files were fifty deep, but their rear ranks were of little use, except as targets for the missiles of their d 2

opponents; nor could their cavalry render them any assistance. As the enemy advanced up the hill to the attack, Thrasyboulos, in soul-stirring words, reminded his troops of the injustice and outrage which they had suffered at the hands of the oligarchs, assured them of Address of ^^ie ^^{avour t}^^ie S°ds, pointed out the advan- Thrasy- tages of their position, and exhorted them to fight boldly in a contest where the survivors would be happy in the greatness of the benefits achieved by victory, while the dead, if any were doomed to fall, would be no less blessed in the glory of their monument. After this harangue, the exiles stood patiently in their ranks, awaiting the attack of their enemies. For the soothsayer—without whose advice and consent a battle was rarely, if ever, begun—had warned them not to commence the attack before one of their comrades had been slain, and he further assured them that the day would bring victory to them as certainly as death to him; and now to fulfil his own prediction, like a man carried ₍ away by a supernatural impulse, he sprang is victory.        f_rom the ranks against the advancing

foe. As he fell, the battle began ; the conflict was short and sharp. So closely packed was the phalanx of the oligarchical troops, that every shot told. Of the stones and javelins which fell in showers not one missed its mark; while the steepness of the hill added weigfht to the thrust of the heavy-armed troops. The supporters of the Thirty broke and fled down the hill, and the pursuit was continued till they reached the level ground. Only seventy were killed. This small loss of life was probably due to the humanity of the conquerors, who were loth to shed Athenian blood without good cause: but among the slain was Kritias himself, with two other leading oligarchs.

After the battle the dead were stripped of their arms,

but no further indignity was offered to them, for the exiles felt that the corpses were those of Athenians like themselves. During the truce which was Speech of granted for the burial of the dead the oppos- Kieokritos. ing forces, mingling for a common object, were drawn into conversation. Suddenly the clear and powerful tones of Kleokritos, the sacred herald of the initiated

i worshippers at the Eleusinian mysteries, rang through the crowd. ‘ Why/ cried he, ‘ do you drive us into exile ? Why do you wish to slay us ? We are bound to you by every bond of religion and of honour, by old associations, by companionship on flood and field. Throw off your allegiance to these iniquitous Thirty, who, merely to fill their own purses, have slain more Athenians in eight months than all the Peloponnesians slew in ten years. They are forcing us into this detestable and unnatural j contest; and assuredly our sorrow for those who have fallen to-day by our own hands is as heartfelt as yours.’ j So powerful was this appeal to the good feeling and common sense of the more moderate section of the oligarchical army, and so respectable the position of the speaker, that the surviving generals gave orders for an instant retreat to Athens.

The immediate results of this day’s success, as Xenophon describes them, were sufficiently striking.

‘ On the following day the Thirty were, as _{Effects of} > may be imagined, very dejected and solitary thesuc- when they took their seats in the Senate- Thrasy-^f house ; while, wherever the various detach- ^boulos- ments of the Three Thousand were on guard, they were engaged in earnest discussion among themselves. For all those who had been guilty of extreme violence, and who were consequently alarmed for their own safety, were vehement in their assertion that they ought not to submit to the captors of the Peiraieus ; on the other hand,

those who were conscious that they had not been guilty of injustice not only began to reflect, but tried to per­suade the rest, that this miserable state of things need not continue ; and that they ought no longer to do the bidding of the Thirty, nor allow them to bring the State to utter ruin. So they determined at last to depose their present rulers, and appoint others.’ A Board of Ten was accordingly elected, one from each Tenap? tribe ; two of the Thirty were reappointed; wvihe ^anc* ^rest> ^no l°ⁿS^er inspirited by the Thirty, brilliant eloquence of Kritias or nerved by his whom retire unscrupulous audacity, retired crest-fallen to to Eleusts. Eleusis, probably accompanied by many of their more extreme adherents, and guarded by the Spartan garrison. The new board had been established as a compromise by a temporary coalition of two conflicting parties—those who having seen the evils of oligarchy wished to restore the democracy, and those who wished to retain the oligarchy purified of its violence and excess. The latter of these two policies was followed by the new government; a peace with the exiles in Peiraieus seemed as far away as ever, though it is probable that clandestine negotiations were opened with Thrasyboulos and the other leaders, by which a seat among the governing body was offered them if they would consent to betray their friends. These overtures were of course rejected. Distrust and confusion were rife in the city ; an attack from the Peiraieus was hourly expected ; and the Ten, conscious that a large section, if not a positive majority, of the Three Thousand were opposed to their policy, placed all their hopes in the fidelity of the Knights, who accordingly had to perform double service, patrolling as cavalry by day, and keeping guard on the walls as hoplites by night.

Meanwhile the forces of Thrasyboulos were becoming

ch. iii. Increasing Strength of Thrasyboulos. 39

more formidable. Their numbers were swelled partly by genuine Athenian citizens, especially from the rural democrats, partly by a motley crowd attracted The army by love of adventure, by hope of gain, or by bouiSgain, the promise of a specially privileged position strength, as settlers in the renovated Athens, if the enterprise should be successful. But arms were wanted more than men; shields of wood or even of wicker-work had to serve the purpose of more solid armour. Liberal contri­butions, however, flowed in from various quarters. Elis and Boiotia sent money j and Lysias, the professional rhetorician, in whose speeches much incidental information of great value has been handed down, and who had been himself the victim of one of the moot outrageous crimes committed by the Thirty, supplied 200 shields, 2,000 drachmai, and also, it is said, 300 mercenaries. In the course of ten days the exiles had become strong enough to take the field, with a large force both of heavy- and light-armed troops, who were supported by a small squadron of seventy horse. The operations which ensued are of little importance. The foraging parties from Peiraieus were harassed by the cavalry from the city ; and although the oligarchic infantry, being either too few or not sufficiently trustworthy, were kept carefully within the walls, the siege-works of the exiles were soon checked by the ingenuity of an Athenian engineer.

The position of the oligarchs was becoming daily more critical; their only chance lay in foreign aid. Envoys were sent simultaneously from the _artanajd Ten at Athens, and from the Thirty (as they urgently were still called) at Eleusis, to bid the Spar- ^requested- tans haste to the rescue, as the democracy had broken loose from Spartan rule. Lysandros earnestly supported their request. If he suffered his own government to be overthrown at Athens, similar revolutions might take

place elsewhere, his personal credit would be shaken, and his ascendency would be gone ; while nothing would Lysandros ^confi^rm his power more than the suppression starts with a of a revolt in the very hot-bed of democracy, to°hⁿe^Sr/scuc ^anc* ^on the very eve of success. His in- oHgarchs A^{uence wa}s strong enough to obtain a loan ‘ ’ of a hundred talents for the envoys and his own appointment to the command of the land forces, while a fleet of forty ships was entrusted to his brother. In a few days the position of affairs in Attica was entirely changed. Lysandros, with a large Peloponnesian army, blockaded Peiraieus by land, while his brother prevented the introduction of supplies by sea. The oligarchs in the city were once again exultant. Thrasyboulos and the exiles were in the direst straits and the deepest despair ; their surrender was imminent; and the cause of liberty seemed hopeless.

But help came to the beleaguered band from a most unexpected quarter. The supremacy of Lysandros, Jealousy though his forethought and craft had made it Lysandros absolutely necessary for a time, was none the at Sparta. less viewed with extreme dislike and jealousy by those who thought that the guidance of Spartan policy ought naturally to be in their own hands. The kings and the ephors, the nominal and the real rulers of the state, thrown into the background by the power of Lysandros and galled by his arrogance, were ready to seize the first opportunity of humbling him ; and the more generous among the Spartan citizens, those in whom the spirit of Kallikratidas still breathed, had no sympathy with the Lysandrian element in the national policy, and perceived with deepening indignation that the name of Sparta was becoming throughout all Hellas a byword for broken faith and high-handed tyranny. Men whispered also that Lysandros, if again successful, would no longer

ch. in. Pausanias supersedes Lysandros. 41

be content with a subordinate position, but that he was scheming to bring about a revolution which might end in placing him as sole king on the throne of Sparta, while, if this attempt should fail, he would still be able to fall back upon Athens, which might be made the capital of an independent state and become a dangerous ■ rival. Pausanias, the colleague of Agis in the kingship, naturally placed himself at the head of theanti-Lysandrian movement. Not only was he personally tolerant of de­mocracies, but the traditional policy of his _p ^ . house was, perhaps, in its wider sympathy and one of the pan-Hellenic sentiment, considerably in ad- out^Swith^eta vance of the narrow and selfish aims beyond second which the average Spartan could see nothing ^army ’ and understand nothing. Having gained the consent of three out of the five ephors, he issued a proclamation summoning the full force of the Spartan confederacy. A large army was soon collected ; but the Corinthians and Thebans, so lately the bitterest foes of Athens, refused to I take any part in the expedition, alleging that Athens had not violated the treaty, and suspecting that the Spartans were intending to appropriate her territory.

On his arrival in Attica Pausanias at once effected a junction with the forces of Lysandros, and assumed the chief command. This done, he took up a ^5^ position in the neighbourhood of Athens, chief ^

^ which would enable him effectually to control           '

the movements of all the belligerent parties ; the right wing, which was stationed nearest the Peiraieus, he kept under his own orders, and Lysandros was in command of the left. The royal tent seems to have very soon become the centre of complaints against the oppression hears of the Thirty ; nor could the presence even of aglrinsuhe Lysandros check the freedom with which their oligarchs, evil deeds were exposed. Pausanias at once shewed that

he was not come as the partisan of either section of the oligarchy by refusing the presents of welcome and friend­ship which were sent both from Athens and Eleusis; on the other hand, the Athenians in Peiraieus were undoubtedly rebels to the government which Sparta had sanctioned, and he sent at once to summon them to dis­perse. The summons was disobeyed, and, in the fighting which followed, Thrasyboulos succeeded in driving out, with considerable loss, the Spartan troops who had made His operas their ^waY *^nt0 Peiraieus as far as the theatre, tions     The Spartans rallied on a hill about half a

ifnasy- mile outside the town; and having received bmilos. strong reinforcements, renewed the combat. The troops of Thrasyboulos, who were only eight deep, could not stand the charge of the heavy phalanx of their opponents, and were beaten back within their walls, leaving 150 dead upon the field. Having raised atrophy —the indispensable token of a Greek victory—and having duly impressed the democrats with a sense of his military power, the king could afford to be generous ; and he lost no time in shewing that he came not as an enemy or as a conqueror, but as a peacemaker. Instead of following up his victory, he secretly encouraged the He accepts democrats to send an embassy to represent foran^rCS their case before himself and the two ephors armistice. who accompanied him, and who were ad­vocates of his policy rather than that of Lysandros. He is said even to have dictated to them the terms in which their proposals would be most advantageously expressed. At the same time he encouraged the opponents of the Ten within the city to come out to him in a body, bring­ing assurances of their pacific wishes towards the occupants of Peiraieus and their continued friendliness towards Sparta. An armistice was concluded; but Pausanias did not think it wise to act any longer on his

own authority, and preferred that the home government should take on itself the responsibility of the final settle­ment. Envoys were sent at once to Sparta _Embass;_es not only from the party of Thrasyboulos, but are sent to from the opponents of the Ten in Athens, ^Sparta> while, making a despairing bid for Spartan sympathy, a counter-embassy from the Ten themselves was instructed to surrender the fortifications of Athens and all its in­habitants to the Spartans, to be dealt with just as they might please, and to insinuate that the democrats, if equally sincere in their professions of friendship, ought to make a similar surrender of Peiraieus and Mounychia. But this skilful artifice failed in its object. The influence of Pausanias seems to have guided the decision of the assembly. The complications of Athenian politics were thought too great to be settled anywhere but at Athens ; and fifteen commissioners were dispatched to co-operate with Pausanias in arranging the final conditions of peace. During the protracted negotiations which followed, the chances of a renewal of actual hostilities became every day more remote ; and the sentiments of the majority of the citizens had time to shape and declare them- Terms of selves with greater clearness. At length it j^fiy was settled that all parties should keep the arranged, peace towards one another ; that all, including the exiles, should be restored to the possession of their own property ; and that those who felt themselves insecure in Athens

*       should retire to Eleusis. By way of inflicting a decisive blow on the influence of Lysandros, the chief exceptions to the general amnesty were the officials whose appoint­ment he had himself sanctioned, the Thirty, and the Ten governors of Peiraieus. With them were mentioned the Eleven who had, with such zeal and fidelity, executed their most unscrupulous commands ; but even these might resume their rights of citizenship if they thought that

they could justify their official conduct before the assembly, according to the universal custom of retiring magistrates. On the conclusion of peace Pausanias at once evacuated Attica and disbanded his army.

Without delay Thrasyboulos marched in at the head of his troops. Along the streets and through the market­place the armed procession swept ; and the feet of free Athenians trod once more the long slope that led up to the Akropolis. Through the spacious portico and the Entry of great bronze gates of the Propylaia, beneath bouioshito       ^c°l°^ssal shadow of the champion god-

Athcns. dess, the exultant exiles passed on to the matchless Parthenon itself; and there, amid the master­pieces of Pheidias and Polygnotos, on which the dull eyes of the Spartan garrison had so lately gazed with blank indifference or boorish contempt, they offered the sacrifice of thanksgiving for their safe return. After this, they descended to the Pnyx, where Thrasyboulos ad- spcech of dressed the assembled citizens. Turning first boulosT ^{t0 a(}^^ierents  oligarchy, he reminded

them that they were neither more just nor more courageous than the democrats ; though blessed with hereditary wealth, they had shewn themselves monsters of selfishness and rapacity ; and, in spite of superior advantages of position, resources, and Spartan aid, they had been unable to hold their own in battle. He told them plainly that they could no longer plume themselves on their connexion with Sparta, for the Spartans had chained them up like snappish curs, and had left them to the mercy of their injured fellow-citizens. At the same time he exhorted his own followers to crown their glorious exploits, by shewing that even in the hour of triumph they could curb their passions and respect their oaths. The restoration of the democracy was now an accomplished fact; and probably the Senate of the Five

Hundred, the assembly, and the dikasteries at once resumed the exercise of their ancient functions, though it seems likely that the citizens were no longer _Restoration paid for their attendance. After the year of £^®_cracy Anarchy, as the time during which the Thirty were in power was always called, the First Archon again gave his name to his term of office ; and the year of Eukleides became memorable for ever in Athenian history.

But if Athens was united, Attica was not. Though the popular party was ready to forget and forgive, the Thirty at Eleusis could not cease their plots _{The rem}_ against the restored democracy. The Athe- Jp£j^^fthe nians soon heard that the Thirty were hiring driven out a force of mercenaries against them. Their ^{of Eleusis}- indignation knew no bounds, and, if the account of Xenophon may be accepted, hurried them into the only act which sullies the story of their triumph. They marched out in full force along the Sacred Way ; and when the generals of the oligarchic army advanced to demand a conference, they seized them and put them to death. Upon this most of their adherents were per­suaded by their kinsfolk and acquaintance to come to terms; and the Thirty themselves, with their most un­

*       popular supporters, made good their escape from Attica. Thus Eleusis, the chosen home of the great goddess— the Earth-mother—and the awful shrine of her mysterious worship, was reunited to Athens ; and the great schism came entirely to an end.

So heinous had been the crimes of the oligarchy, and so deep the provocation which the popular party Moderation had received, that history might have found °^_s^e_bg^em0' a ready excuse for the restored democrats _yond all if they had for a short time indulged their P¹*¹³*⁵- revenge, and used stringent means to recover the vast

amount of spoil anti plunder which their opponents had accumulated at their expense. But the noble moderation and self-command which had been conspicuous after the fall of the Four Hundred was even more remarkable at the present crisis. The landed property which had been seized by the Thirty themselves was either restored to its rightful owners or confiscated for the service of the State ; but their adherents among the Three Thousand, and the Knights whose avarice had been gratified by lavish gifts of money and movable goods, were allowed to remain in the possession of their ill-gotten wealth. Many of the exiles had lost their all; yet no distinction was made between those citizens who had jeoparded their lives in the daring enterprise of Thrasyboulos and those who had purchased security at Athens by complicity in the atrocities of the oligarchy. A thousand drachmas was the paltry sum allotted from the public funds to the saviours of their country. This special grant was made to defray the expense of sacrifices and votive offerings, and especially of a work of art which was presented to Thebes as a token of gratitude and good-will; and a debt too large for any money to repay was discharged by the bestowal of wreaths of olive.

The contrast between such unselfish integrity and the self-seeking greed of the oligarchs must have taught a valuable political lesson to all Greece. Those who had arrogated to themselves the title of the ‘ best,’ and the right to govern their fellow-citizens on the score of superiority in virtue, wealth, and education, had not only been proved more vicious than the worst demagogues, but had been succeeded by democrats who were con­spicuous for all good qualities. So scrupulous was their good faith, that the hundred talents which had been borrowed from Sparta by the expiring oligarchy was made a public debt, though it might fairly have been exacted

from the private wealth of the Knights. Nor can there oe a greater injustice than to describe the strict observ­ance of the amnesty as due solely to fear of Spartan intervention. For the fear of offending Sparta was not found sufficient to induce the Athenians to adopt a pro­posal for limiting the franchise to those who possessed landed property in Attica. The seamen, the traders, and all the poorer citizens, 5,000 in all, would thus have been excluded. The scheme was put forward as a compro­mise between oligarchy and democracy, which would be especially pleasing to the Spartans ; but it was thought that Athens at this time had need of the services of all her sons, and the motion was rejected. A little later, however, an important limitation was intro- . . . duced. The spread of Athenian commerce ofdtizen" and the establishment of Klerouchies, or

’        Athenians

settlements of Athenian citizens in foreign of pure

countries, had caused the custom of inter- ^blood' marriage with the women of other states to become very prevalent; and as long as Athens remained an imperial city, and adhered to her policy of pan-Hellenic union, the citizenship of the father had been sufficient to legiti­mise the children. Now, however, the sentiment of autonomy was supreme ; and it was resolved to purify

*       the city from its foreign element. Accordingly the law of Perikles was re-enacted, by which the rights of citizenship were restricted to those who were of Athenian birth on both sides ; but, to avoid ill-feeling and discontent, it was not made retrospective in its action.

The work of conciliation was not found to be com­plete unless measures were taken to stop the Legi_si_at;_on endless litigation which the recent changes after the would naturally occasion. On the motion menVof the* of Archinos, the people—the majority of ^democracy- Mfhom would be losers by the proposal—passed a self-

denying ordinance that no prosecutions for damages should be allowed if the injury had been committed prior to the archonship of Eukleides ; and a heavy penalty, amounting to one-sixth of the sum claimed, was fixed against any prosecutor who thus violated the terms of the amnesty. But though many of the illegalities of the Thirty remained unredressed, all the legislation of the oligarchy was declared null and void. It was also found very hard to reconcile the amnesty with the terms of the existing laws of Solon and Drakon : and the opportunity seemed suitable for a general revision of their text. In these laws there was much that was obsolete in language, much that was altered in usage, much that was con­tradicted by later statutes. Four hundred legislators (Nomothetai) were accordingly appointed to bring the old codes into harmony with the existing state of things. Another change, more interesting than important, took place in the laws at this time. Archinos proposed that they should be no longer written in the old alphabet of eighteen (or sixteen) letters, but in the new Ionic alphabet of twenty-four letters, which had been for many years in general use in Athens ; and hence the archonship of Eukleides marks an era as interesting to the philolo­gist as to the historian, since the Athenian inscriptions fall naturally into two great classes, pre-Eukleidic and post-Eukleidic.

CHAPTER IV.

SOK RATES.

The brilliant and unscrupulous Kritias or the bold and patriotic Thrasyboulos might well have fancied that his would be the name among Athenian citizens to which posterity would attach most importance. Even

more surely the arrogant Lysandros would have scouted with indignant contempt the notion that there was any man in Greece whose life would be studied with a keener interest than his own. Yet there was daily to be seen at Athens, in the market-place, in the gymnasium, in the public walks, in short, wherever men most congregated, the well-known figure of one whose life and death have kindled a far profounder sympathy, whose thoughts and words have exercised an incomparably deeper influence. Ungainly in movement, mean in attire, petulant in manner, unattractive in appearance, he was usually sur­rounded by a small group of eager listeners. In outward form the talker was likened even by those who Appearance most admired him to the sensual old god ^a_aⁿ_c^_e^c_r^haf Seilenos, or the satyr Marsyas. His broad, Sokrates. flat nose, with wide open nostrils, his thick lips, his prominent eyes, his squat figure, were a standing protest against the theory which underlies so much of Greek thought, Greek custom, and Greek art, that physical and mental perfection must necessarily coexist. But the heaven-taught music made by the lips of the satyr Marsyas was not a whit more bewitching than the eloquence which fell from the speaker’s tongue. His His conversation, when it first began, would ^el°q^uence,

» seem to a casual passer-by ridiculous in the extreme ; but ere long he would touch the hearts of his hearers, so that the tears streamed from their eyes, and their pulses leapt quicker than in the fanatical enthusiasm of the Korybantic orgies. He would fire their imagination by setting forth images supremely beautiful, divine, and wonderful: he would enchain their reason by arguments so irresistible and so persuasive, that they must stop their ears as if against the strains of the Seirens if they did not wish to grow old in listening to his talk. He surpassed all men in physical endurance; he could bear the ah.        E

longest fasts ; and the soldier’s plain fare was a feast to him. He rarely drank much wine; but at temperance, _tk_ose j_ovj_ai seasons when religious duty or a spirit of good fellowship called for conviviality, he more than held his own with the strongest heads. Cold and heat were alike to him ; against the extremes of both the same clothing was sufficient defence, and with bare feet he trod the ice of Thrace more firmly than his sandalled _and       comrades. In battle he quitted himself as a

courage. _true Athenian should, and even amid the wreck of a routed army he bore himself so nobly that the pursuers did not venture to attack him.

Such are the chief traits in the description of Sokrates which is put by Plato into the mouth of Alkibiades, one His early of the most gifted and least worthy of his ^,ife-       pupils. Sokrates was born somewhat before

469 B.C., the son of a sculptor. For some time he followed the practice of his father’s art; and a draped group of the Graces was long preserved in the Akropolis as a proof of the proficiency to which he attained. But Kriton, a rich Athenian and one of his most devoted friends, is said to have discerned the intellectual promise of the young artist, and to have taken him from the chisel and the workshop to educate him in philosophy. At first, he He studies ^turne<^ his attention to physical science, and physical learnt all that the greatest teachers of the science,   _coui,j _teu hj_{m a}bout the nature of the

universe, the motions of the heavenly bodies, the One and the Many, the Real and the Phenomenal, and all the vast and shadowy problems to which philosophy had directed its earliest attention.

But a mind so powerful and independent could not long remain satisfied with the baseless speculations and half-proved conjectures which then passed for physical science. Many others like him had seen the insufficiency

of these reasonings ; but capable only of the work of criticism and not of construction, they had rashly con­cluded that Truth was unknowable, and had but being taken refuge in doubt or unbelief. Sokrates, ^_l^a_s^tl_t^s₀^fied on the other hand, whose whole life was one Ethics, long effort to attain to the perfect knowledge of Truth, when baffled in one direction, struck out for himself an entirely new line. Though Truth might not be found by searching out the works of external nature, the world of Human Action was as yet unexplored; and there in great moral ideas he felt that he could find a certainty of truth in which his soul could rest.

It was probably at this period of his life that the conviction of a religious mission obtained in his mind an overmastering power. From his childhood ^ upwards, he had been guided in all his actions, giousmis- and often in his very words, by a supernatural °p^_r^and something (8aifi6viov Tt), which exercised a natural restraining influence over him. He did not ^warmngs- conceive this to be something personal, a familiar spirit or a guardian angel, but rather a divine voice or sign, preventing his feet from erring from the path which had been marked out for him. It had always thwarted any inclination which he might ever have cherished for a political career ; and now he could no longer doubt that to discover truth and to unmask error was the one object to which his life was henceforth to be devoted.

As he pondered more deeply over the nature of man, the moral laws which he must obey, his social and political relations with his fellow-men, and other kindred topics, he became convinced (i) that there was a great deal of professed knowledge which was nothing better than plausible ignorance ; (2) that this sham knowledge and real ignorance was due largely to loose notions about the meaning of abstract terms—duty, justice, piety, e 2

and the like ; and (3) that from such ignorance sprang the greater part of moral errors. The first of these con- _His   victions gave him his method, which was a

method: a rigorous system of cross-examination. At first, crossprobably with an unaffected modesty, but animation. afterwards with an increasing confidence, he would accost some man of high repute for his know­ledge and wisdom. Confessing in the frankest manner his own absolute ignorance and his absorbing thirst for knowledge, Sokrates would with deep humility request instruction. He would begin by asking some very simple question, which led up to an almost self-apparent answer. This being granted, another followed, and then another, till, lost in a maze of logical subtlety and bewildered by the dexterity of his interrogator, the reputed sage was found to have admitted premisses which led irrefragably to the most monstrous and contradictory conclusions, and was proved, to the complete satisfaction of amused bystanders, if not of himself, to have a mere semblance of knowledge without the reality.

The second of his convictions prompted his most per­manent contributions to formal logic, inductive argu- . . ments, and the definitions of general terms. butlonsTo That Sokrates, partly by his personal charac- durthr’eDis- ^tcr> ^and P^artly by these two notions, created courses, and a revolution in ancient philosophy is quite Definitions. _certaj_n . b_ut it is difficult for us nowadays to understand how instruments, seemingly so simple as the latter, could produce a change so great. Sokrates in­sisted on his hearers having clear ideas about terms which they had been in the habit of using vaguely ; and, to gain these clear ideas, he was perpetually applying the test of analogy. Such words as law, democracy, ex­pediency, were ever in the mouths of statesmen in the assembly, of orators in the law-courts, of actors on the

stage ; but no one could give a definition of them which was not defective or redundant, too narrow or too broad. A jumble of ideas, more or less precise, had synthetically grown round some single word ; but this process was purely unconscious ; Sokrates by a conscious effort took the word and enquired analytically what its essential meaning might be. To aid in this task he took direct or analogous instances, often trivial, sometimes fanciful and quibbling, by which to test his definition and form his general conception. Thus he was the first to use, as a logical instrument, a rough sort of induction, not resting indeed, as in the modern sense of the word, on an elaborate series of exhaustive observations and crucial experiments, but starting from the commonest opinions and examples, and gradually correcting and completing ideas which were based on imperfect experience and care­less generalisations.

Thirdly, vice, he said, was ignorance ; and virtue, knowledge. Is a man a coward ? He knows not the real nature of death ; he thinks it is an evil, _H._g and so flees from it. Is he intemperate ? He doctrine: cannot estimate the consequences and is knowledge, blinded by the present pleasure. If a man and vice could see the real nature and all the results ^,gnorance- of vice, he would never choose it. Further, how can a man be virtuous who knows not the way? Is it easier to live virtuously than to make shoes ?

From this theory naturally sprang the positive side of his philosophy. Plato has left us many dialogues, in which the destructive power of the negative _PositIve dialectic of Sokrates is admirably exemplified; side of his but they advance no further than criticism, ^ea° ^mg’ and lead to no positive conclusion. Xenophon, on the other hand, who wrote to defend his great masters memory from the accusations which brought him to tne

hemlock-cup, and from which he had scorned to defend himself, insists repeatedly on his conception of the great end of morals—not only to secure happiness for one’s self and rightly to order one’s own household, but that each should do his utmost to further the happiness of all others, whether as men or as citizens. Hence Xeno­phon proves to his readers that, though those who knew Sokrates least might well regard him as merely an ironical quibbling questioner, this was but half his character, and those who knew him best could testify to the frequency and the earnestness with which, in plain and direct lan­guage, he enforced temperance and courage, diligence and charity, obedience to parents and fidelity to friends.

Such, in brief outline, were the doctrines which Sokrates gave up his life to teach. In contented poverty His conver- he stood, day after day, year after year, in the pubH^smd^{6 streets} °f Athens or on the road to Peiraieus, unpaid. conversing with anyone who chose to address him, young or old, rich or poor, politician, sophist, or artisan. Anyone might draw near to listen to his talk. His teaching was public and indiscriminate, for he took no fees, like other teachers of philosophy, who, as pro­fessed Sophists, gained their living by the work of educa­tion. It was exclusively oral, for he held that books could not teach, being unable to answer their questioners. Of all those who heard him talking as they passed, some kindred spirits would return again and again to his His band of society; and these formed a band of disciples, companions. _{or) as} h_e p_ref_erred _{to ca}n them, companions. Among them were found the widest contrasts of character and of rank; youths, high-born, high-spirited, of keen and active intellect, such as Alkibiades ; aspiring politicians, like Kritias, anxious to learn something of the art by which they too might discomfit their most confident oppo­nents ; brave men of action, like Xenophon, mellowing

with literature and philosophy the rougher life of camps ; discontented eccentrics, such as Apollodoros, who found at last in Sokrates the satisfaction of all his longings.

Chairephon, one of the most enthusiastic and im­petuous of these followers, went to Delphoi to ask the Pythian priestess whether there was any man wiser than Sokrates ; and the oracle returned answer that of all men he was the wisest. Sokrates himself was beyond measure astonished at this reply ; for he felt that on no subject could he boast of wisdom, being conscious rather of utter ignorance. But he knew that oracles spoke in riddles, and he set to work to find the solu- _m ^ ,.

. _TT _ .        The Delphic

tion. He went first to a statesman, eminent oracle pro-

for wisdom ; but after a few questions he saw s°krates that his wisdom was but a sham. Then he the wises tried to convince the politician of his ignor-         '

ance; but in this he failed altogether, and only gave great offence to the man himself, and to many of his friends who were standing by. The result he thus sums up : ‘ I am wiser than this man ; for neither of us has any knowledge of what is good or beautiful; but he, though he proves ignorant, thinks that he has knowledge ; I [j^_e⁰t>^^cl^x-- neither know nor think that I know ; and so posing the in one point I have an advantage over him.⁵ lie so^cafled He continued his experiments among the ^WIse- statesmen and orators, but always with the same result, and with increasing unpopularity. Next he betook him­self to the poets ; but they could not tell him the meaning of their poems or analyse the method of their composition; so he concluded that their fine passages were written not by wisdom, but in a sort of inspired enthusiasm. Passing on last of all to the artisans, he found that they at any rate knew many curious things of which he was ignorant, and were so far wiser than he. But they, not satisfied with being wise in their own handicrafts, thought that

they were therefore wise in other and higher matters, an error which more than outweighed their modicum of real wisdom. Thus, in the fulfilment of the mission imposed upon him, he had proved that the god had spoken the truth, and that the wisdom of the wisest of men was only a thorough conviction of ignorance.

The causes of the unpopularity of Sokrates are not far to seek. To the vulgar crowd he appeared merely as an eccentric mass of contradictions. They saw him, though poor, ill-fed, and ill-clothed, yet the centre of an admiring group of respectable citizens ; they knew him as one who Sokrates perpetually talked of philosophy, and yet op- waa un- posed all those whom they imagined to be its with the professors ; they heard that he blamed many orders • points in those democratic institutions of which, since their experience of oligarchic anarchy, they were more than ever proud; and it had been rumoured among them that, in spite of all his fre­quent offerings and sacrifices to the gods, he was not quite sound in the faith of their ancestors, as they understood it. Hence the lower classes of the city had no sympathy with him, and would join readily in the jeers and derision of his enemies in the street, or laugh loudly when the ugly face and odd figure appeared caricatured upon the comic stage. Amongst the higher classes his mode of questioning made of necessity many enemies. No man likes to be convicted of ignorance and folly, and to be the higher proved incapable even in his own line. The classes; process becomes still more galling when it takes place in public, and when a man’s own admissions are made the instruments of his refutation. The mortifi­cation must further have been infinitely heightened by the humility and ingenuous manner of the questioner, who ‘ spoke as a fool,’ putting forward no claim to knowledge on his own account; nor would it be diminished when he

left his discomfited opponent with an air not of triumph but of deep disappointment, as of one who had hoped at last to find some truth, and yet again was baffled in the search. Many powerful sections of society were also opposed to him. Sacerdotal intolerance had . ^ during the recent reaction gathered great * ^{e pnests}' strength among the ‘ god-fearing ’ population of Athens ; and the priests looked with suspicion on all free thought, and especially on the great exponent of a reforming philo­sophy, who was himself said to be a setter-forth of strange gods. The Sophists could not but use the great influence which they naturally possessed, as the educa- _the tors of the more thoughtful among the Athe- ^Sophlsts: nian youth, to decry a rival who was a standing reproach to all their class, making a parade of his poverty, and re­fusing all pay as degrading to truth, and as hampering his own freedom. The Athenians of the old school would sternly discountenance the demoralising spirit of enquiry which shook to their 1 ery foundations the old ideas of morals and of politics, and they lamented the _{the oId}_

degeneracy of Athenian youth, who stood idly fashioned .. .    ,        . _r , , , , . , Ahemans.

listening to the prosing of a babbler in the

market-place instead of strengthening their limbs in the

palaestra for the service of the State.

When we consider the force of all these elements of opposition, we cannot join in the indignant astonishment of Xenophon that arguments could ever have       .

. _r ^r .  .        . . .    .        His life is a

been found to sustain a capital charge against proof of

his master and friend; we rather wonder £ie»S>n

that he was allowed to pursue his mission so

,        . , .    .        _       ... liberality.

long without interruption. For a period of at least twenty-five or thirty years he had never spent an idle day. Very soon after he had begun his public con­versations, Aristophanes had found that he could raise a cheap laugh by misrepresenting him as a star-gaziny

und unpractical theoriser. Nothing indeed could have protected for so long a time so intrepid a critic of his age and society but that liberality of sentiment of which among Greeks none but the Athenians could boast, and which was indirectly the result of their education in the law-courts and in the theatre, where they saw habitually that there were two sides to every case. A Sokrates in Sparta is absolutely inconceivable ; were he to appear even in the England of our own day, society would not perhaps put him to death, but would hint to him in a thousand ways that it were better for him to hold his peace or be gone.

In 399 B.C., this opposition was brought to a head, partly by the intensity of the hatred which was felt for 399 d.c. He Kritias, and which extended to all who had is accused been known as his associates, partly by a

by Meletos, .      ,

Ajiytos, private grudge which the influential but un- and Lykon. _cultured Anytos had conceived against him. Anytos wished his son to follow his own business; Sokrates had, it seems, told the youth that it was a shame for a young fellow of such promise to be doomed to a tanner’s life. Angry at such interference, the plain citizen associated himself with a poet, Meletos, and a rhetorician, Lykon, and the trio, of whom the poet took the lead, issued a joint indictment in the following terms : Sokrates breaks the law, firstly, by not accepting the gods whom the state accepts, but introducing other new divinities ; and, secondly, by corrupting the youth. Sokrates had throughout his life been rigidly scrupulous in performing his duties as a citizen ; he had served with distinguished valour in the ranks of the hoplites at Delion, Potidaia, and Amphipolis ; he had shewn that in the cause of law he dared to defy equally the tyranny of the democracy and the tyranny of the oligarchy. And now, when he had passed the threescore years and ten of man’s life, he

heard himself arraigned on a charge of law-breaking, and must plead against the penalty of death. What defence must he make consistent at once with the gravity of the charge and with the dignity of his apostleship ?

Each of the three counts in the indictment was plau­sible enough. The first and second were craftily joined ; and in support of them the accusers asserted _{The argu}_ that in the Daimonion, or supernatural guide, mentsofhis

=» accusers

of whose warnings Sokrates had never made any secret or mystery, he had invented a new deity. The third was backed by several arguments ; that he had undermined the love and respect due from children to their parents ; that Kritias had imbibed from him his pernicious principles ; that he had perpetually satirised Athenian institutions, and especially the appointment of officials by lot. Against these charges the and his accused made virtually no defence. Calm, ^defence- grave, and dignified, he told his judges that he would not stoop to work upon their feelings by the piteous appeals, the tears and lamentations, to which they were accustomed, or to buy their favour by promises to change his way of living; the best refutation of his accusers was the long and unsullied life which he had led among them ; further defence the divine voice had forbidden him to make. If, indeed, they should acquit him, he could only live as he had always lived, searching for truth and questioning all whom he met—a sort of moral gadfly or stimulator to the state ; for a necessity was laid upon him, and he must obey God rather than them. As to the sentence, what­ever it might be, he did not fear it. About the unseen world he knew nothing ; but to disobey God he knew full well to be wicked and shameful; and he would not choose a certain evil to escape a fancied evil, which might turn out a blessing.

By such a defence Sokrates voluntarily gave up all

chance of acquittal; yet we may well marvel that out of more than 500 judges a majority of only five or six was found to condemn him. It is even more certain, that His con- when once found guilty, he wished for no other demnation, verdict than that of death. By Athenian law the accuser named his own penalty ; and the condemned person might propose, as an alternative, any other whiph he thought more suitable : the judges then selected one of the two. Meletos asked for death. Sokrates t</ld them that the recompense which he thought he deserved at their hands was that he should be sup­ported as a public benefactor at the public cost. Exile or imprisonment would be insupportable: he would therefore submit a fine as an alternative. His worldly goods were barely worth a mina, and he would have pro­posed that sum, had not Plato and his friends near him promised to raise thirty. The counter-proposal there­fore was a fine of thirty minai ; and had this proposal been made without comment, we cannot doubt that it would have been accepted. As it was, the claim tc maintenance in the Prytaneion made the fatal decision inevitable. Sentence of death was pronounced, and and speech Sokrates once again addressed his judges. He fence was ^{did not} regret the tone of his defence or the pronounced, result of the trial. ‘ It is not hard/ he said, ‘ for a man to escape death, if he has no scruple about what he says or does; but it is hard to escape un­righteousness, for unrighteousness is swifter than death. Now I, being old and slow of foot, have been overtaken by death, the slower of the two ; but my active accusers, by wickedness, which is the swifter.’ After warning them that they would not get rid of his doctrines by getting rid of him, and dilating on the pleasures which he anticipated from the society of the heroes of old time 111 the world to come, he thus commended his three sons

to their charge : ‘ When my sons grow up, if they shall seem to care about riches or any other object in pre­ference to virtue, torment them as I have tormented you. And if they think themselves to be something when they are really nothing, reproach them as I have reproached you, for not attending to their duty, and you will then have done what is just both to me and to my sons. It is now time that we go hence, I to die, you to live ; which of us has the better fate no man can say : God only knows ! *

The condemnation of Sokrates took place on the first day after the Sacred Ship had started on its yearly

pilgrimage to Delos; and until its return no , . .

. ,      , , ,    ,        „ It is lm-

capital sentence could be executed. Generally prisonment

the hemlock juice was drunk on the day after ^{and death<} the verdict was pronounced; but Sokrates now had thirty days to spend in prison, and even in chains. During this time his firm soul never wavered, nor did he ever mourn the doom which awaited him. His friends, who were allowed to have free access to him, cheered and com­forted him by their presence ; and when Kriton devised a plan for his escape by bribing the gaoler, Sokrates refused to avail himself of it, asking indignantly if Kriton wished him now to turn law-breaker. During all this month he conversed with his companions just as usual, with no less serenity and cheerfulness than was his wont. The last day was spent in a discussion of the immortality of the soul, which is given, though probably with a colouring and additions which are purely Platonic, in the dialogue named after Phaidon. As the day drew to its close, while the sun still shone upon the hill-tops, with a calm soul elevated and strengthened by thoughts so heavenly, he cheerfully drained the poisoned cup. All his friends wept sadly, not indeed, as Plato assures us, for Sokrates, but for themselves ; and Apollodoros gave way to so bitter a storm of grief that Sokrates, who alone

refrained from tears, rebuked them in kindly tones and bade them cease their womanly laments. As the rising numbness neared his heart, he spake his last words : ‘ Kriton, we owe a cock to Asklepios ; discharge the debt, and by no means neglect it/ The bird which heralds the dawn must be offered to the great god of healing in thanksgiving for that perfect cure of all life’s woes which death had wrought for him.

So lived and so died the man whose disciples called him the most just and excellent of all the men of their own time; whose virtues have forced posterity to repeat with a fuller emphasis the praises of his bereaved companions ; whom we, with an even higher ideal of moral perfection before our eyes, may pronounce the greatest of all Christians before Christ.

Let us not be too severe on those who condemned him. If they could have seen his character as we see it now, they would not have bade him die ; but in his own age and in his own country the prophet has no honour.

Did the Athenians repent their conduct ? We cannot be sure; but the story goes that during a performance of the Palamedes of Euripides they were cut to the heart, and shed bitter tears of remorse, when the sad plaint fell upon their ears, ‘ Ye have slain the truly wise and inno­cent nightingale of the Muses, the best of the Hellenes.’

CHAPTER V.

THE TEN THOUSAND.

The episode which forms the subject of Xenophon’s Anabasis has little importance as a period of Greek political history, to which indeed it can scarcely be said to belong at all. Perhaps its chief results were seen

in the influence which it had on the minds of the more ambitious of Greek potentates. Any intelligent observei could not fail to perceive that though the interest and Persian Empire was strong in extent of terri- ^$£^tance tory and number of inhabitants, yet the dis- Anabasis tances were so great and its forces so scattered that a sudden invasion would find but a feeble opposition. This remark, thus stated by Xenophon, was probably the general impression of all the Greeks in the Cyreian army ; and when repeated experience had established the fact that the countless hosts of Oriental slaves were powerless against the disciplined battalions of Greek freemen, it was no longer a chimerical scheme, beyond all hope of realisation, that an army of Greeks should carry devasta­tion and terror to the heart of Persia, that the burning of Athens should be avenged in the flames of Persepolis, and the rotten fabric of luxurious despotism be utterly overthrown. Such was the ambition that prompted the expedition of Agesilaos, that fired the imagination of Jason of Pherai, and that found its ultimate accomplish­ment by the ardent genius of the youthful Alexander. But whatever may be the historical importance of the expedition of the Ten Thousand, it possesses many features of deep interest. Firstly, it is the subject of that work of Xenophon which is the most read and the most readable. It is also invaluable as an authentic pic- tuie of the state of Asia under the Persian rule, and as a contribution to the ancient geography of that country. For our present purpose it is above all interesting as an illustration of the Greek character, of its heroic courage and firm self-dependence, fertile in resource and ready in obedience.

Darius Nothos, King of Persia, had died B.C. 404, and, since there was no fixed rule of succession, Cyrus, his younger son, had hoped that through the influence of

his mother the queen Parysatis he might have supplanted his elder brother Artaxerxes, surnamed by the Greeks C f *ls Mnemon, and have obtained the throne on the to^Vobtab ^S plea that he was the eldest son bom during the throne, ^j_s father’s reign, a pretext for which the ac­cession of Xerxes furnished a recent precedent. Angry at the failure of his hopes, he grew still more wroth when Tissaphernes charged him with a plot for his brother’s assassination, which nearly cost him his life. The inter­cession of Parysatis not only saved him from an ignomi­nious death, but also obtained for him his former satrapy ; yet his brother’s clemency entirely failed to conciliate him. On his return to Sardeis he declared war against Tissa­phernes, and detached from him the Greek cities of Ionia, all of which came over to his side, except Miletos, where, after an unsuccessful revolt, Tissaphernes re­established his authority. Having thus avenged himself on his deceitful neighbour, the young prince devoted himself to the more arduous task of dethroning his brother. Under the pretence of prosecuting the war against Tissaphernes, reducing Miletos, and punishing the outrages of some border tribes, he enlisted large numbers of Greeks, whose pre-eminent superiority over and collects his own countrymen he had early recognised, troopsat There were many just at this time who had Sardcis. grown up to manhood in an epoch of per­petual warfare, whose tastes and habits led them to a life of military adventure, and who were thrown out of employment by the cessation of hostilities, or driven from their nomes by the establishment of oligarchical rule. Cyrus was munificent and courteous, scrupulously faithful in fulfilling his engagements, and most compli­mentary in his treatment of all Greeks. These qualities attracted to his standard not only an inferior class of military adventurers, but many youths of good position

from almost every state of Greece. Klearums, who at Byzantion had made himself notorious for atrocities beyond even the wonted cruelties of Spartan harmosts, and had been dismissed from his post by order of the ephors, was the most noted leader of these mercenary bands. In command of other troops were Menon, the treacheious Thessalian, and Proxenos, a young and ambitious Boiotian ; while several other companies kept themselves under the immediate orders of their own captains, and acknowledged Cyrus himself only as their superior officer.

In the spring of 401 B.C. the prince regarded his preparations as complete. Around him at Sardeis were gathered no less than 100,000 Asiatic troops, backed by a Greek force—which, as he well knew, was worth far more than all these—of 7,700 hoplites and 500 peltasts. With this great army he began his march, „ , „

. .      , .      ...      ..       , March of

giving out that the expedition was directed Cyrus from

against the mountain tribes of Pisidia who ^Sardeis* defied the king’s authority. On his route the numbers of his Greek allies were increased by successive reinforce­ments, while the supply of money with which he had started as rapidly diminished. His tent was repeatedly besieged by gangs of clamorous creditors, who had as often to be put off with fair words and promises, till at last he owed them arrears for a full three months. Just when things were beginning to look serious, the wife of the prince of Kilikia came to meet him with a large present of money—enough to furnish the Greeks with four months’ pay—and they in return equipped them­selves in all their best, with purple tunics and R_evi_ew of burnished shields, and held a grand review. Greek To wind up the performance, Cyrus requested ^troop!’' the Greeks to charge. The trumpets sounded : the

A. H. st

Greeks presented their pikes, raised a shout, and advanced at the double. Straightway the barbarians fled in panic terror, and among them the Kilikian prin­cess, who sprang in dismay from her palanquin, while the Greeks retired with peals of laughter to their tents, and Cyrus rejoiced to see the abject dread which they inspired in Asiatic breasts. Soon after this the army passed without opposition through the impregnable pass of the Kilikian Gates, which becomes in one place so narrow as barely to leave room for the passage of a single chariot The defence of this pass had been entrusted by the king to the prince of Kilikia ; but he, wishing to keep in with both sides, fell back as soon as Menon and a body of Greeks had crossed the mountains by another pass and were threatening his rear. On their arrival at Tarsos, the Greeks perceived that Pisidia was not their Advance of ^rea* destination, and began to suspect that the army Cyrus was leading them against his brother. to^Baby-⁵⁰* Unwilling to be absent so long from their l°ni_a.        homes and families, and shrinking from the

unknown difficulties of the march, they refused to advance. The stern threats and sterner discipline of Klearchos failed to move his own division ; but when the Greeks reflected that to return against the will of Cyrus was a task even more difficult than to go forward, and also received the promise of a large increase of pay, they were at last induced to accompany the prince for an onward march of twelve days farther to the Euphrates. When they reached Thapsakos the whole truth was at last told them ; and, although they must have been fully prepared to hear it, murmurs and discontent again broke forth. But again a promise of further reward was suc­cessful in tempting them forward. The Euphrates was successfully forded ; and, after thirteen days of desolate and difficult marching through the desert, the army reached

cii. v.    Preparations for Battle.  67

the fertile plains of Babylonia, about six months after its departure from Sardeis.

Tissaphernes, however, had guessed at once the real object of Cyrus in mustering so large a force ; and he had hastened in person to wain Artaxerxes p_repara. of the danger which threatened him. The ^°£^sof king began his preparations without delay ; ^{r axerxes-} yet so incompetent and infatuated were the Persian generals that every position where the onward march of the pretender might have been indefinitely delayed, if not altogether arrested, had been given up without a struggle. First the Kilikian Gates, next the passes through Mount Amanos, and lastly the line of the Euphrates had been surrendered; and now Cyrus found the last of all his obstacles abandoned in like manner. After a review, in which Cyrus exhorted his 13,000 Greeks not to fear the numbers and the noise of their worthless foes, but to act worthily of that freedom which he esteemed more precious than his own possessions a thousand times multiplied, he marched warily onward, expect- _March ing to meet the vast army which his brother through had collected. But when ten days of cautious ^{a y} °^ma‘ progress had passed, he came upon a newly-dug trench, 40 miles long, 30 feet broad, and 18 feet deep, with a passage of only 20 feet in breath between it and the Euphrates. Not a man was left to defend so impregnable a position, and Cyrus began now to think that he would win the throne without a battle. Discipline was con­sequently somewhat relaxed, and the careful array which had been previously preserved was suffered to fall more or less into disorder.

Suddenly on the second day news came that the royal army was marching straight upon them. Ample time was given for Cyrus to form his order of battle. The Greeks were on the right wing, Ariaios with some

Y 2

of the Asiatics on the left, and Cyrus lumself in the centre. As the afternoon wore on, a white cloud of dust Arrange- ^{was scen} ’ⁿ ^^ie ^^ar distance. It soon grew th^enb?tti^r ^^ar^^{cr ar}*d more defined; and then the fiash- ^{c a c}' ing of the sun on the brazen armour left no more room for doubt. Cyrus, in his last orders to Klcarchos, wished the Greeks to charge direct on the Persian centre, where Artaxerxes would himself be found, knowing well that to break the centre would be to win the day ; but Klearchos, clinging with Spartan obstinacy to his old- fashioned notions, feared to expose his right flank, and held for safety to the river. He, however, assured Cyrus that all should go well ; and the Greek leaders in their turn besought the prince not to expose his own life to unneces- Uattie of sary risk. Had each taken the other’s advice, Kunaxa. _th_{e resu}i_{t Q}f _t]_ie fjght would have been wholly different. The Greeks were entirely successful in anni­hilating the Persian troops opposed to them ; but every Victory of step which they made in pursuit rendered it less the Greeks, possible for them to assist Cyrus in his attack on the centre. Cyrus himself, by a furious cavalry charge, broke the ranks of the royal troops, killing._as is said, their commander with his own hand. But in the pursuit Death of which followed, when very few were left to Cyrus. guard his person, he saw his royal brother, and, giving way to a transport of rage, cried, ‘ I see the man !’ and rushed on to slay him. His spear penetrated the corslet of the king, and slightly wounded him, but Cyrus himself was pierced beneath the eye by the javelin of a Karian soldier, and, falling from his horse, was quickly despatched with his few companions. ‘ Thus died Cyrus/ says Xenophon, ‘ a man acknowledged by all who had any acquaintance with him to have been of all Persians the most kingly and most worthy of empire since the days of Cyrus the elder.’

When their leader fell, the Asiatic soldiers on the centre and the left broke and fled, and the royal troops plundered their camp ; so that when the The Greeks victorious Greeks returned to it, they were obliged to go supperless to sleep, though they Artaxerxes, had been forced to go dinnerless to battle. On the morrow they heard of the death of Cyrus, and at once, as conquerors, offered the crown to Ariaios ; but, before his answer could arrive, Artaxerxes sent to summon them to lay down their arms. After some consultation Klearchos replied that, if the Greeks were to be friends with the king, they would be of more use to him with their arms than without them; if they were to be enemies, they should equally require their weapons for their own use. Ariaios was however so fearful of the opposition of the Persian nobles that he dared not accept the dangerous offer of the Greeks, and he announced his intention of retreat. Artaxerxes next sent a message, in which he proposed to treat on equal terms ; but Klearchos replied again that they had nothing to eat, and no man should presume to talk to Greeks about a peace without first furnishing them with a dinner. Upon this they were conducted to some villages, where they obtained abun­dance of supplies ; and Tissaphernes soon after made his appearance as a friendly negotiator. Artaxerxes was probably genuinely anxious to get the Greeks out of Babylonia, where their presence was a standing invi­tation to his subjects to revolt, and where it may have been in his opinion by no means unlikely that they might wish to establish a permanent settlement. After three weeks’ delay Tissaphernes returned with the _and follow announcement that the king had reluctantly x^^rmyof given him permission to save the Greek army, pl.emes. and that he would conduct them home in person. Although the Greeks were far from implicitly trusting the

good faith of the satrap, yet they, and Klearchos especially, were so profoundly convinced that their only chance of escape was to keep on good terms with the Persians, that they put themselves under his guidance, and began the march. An interval of three miles separated them from the troops of Tissaphemes, with whom the army of Ariaios was now united ; and in this order they passed the Wall of Media and the Tigris, and advanced as far on their northward journey as the Zabatos, or Greater Zab.

Here the mutual mistrust of the two armies, which

had been gradually on the increase, became so serious

Tr_cachcry ^at Klearchos held an interview with Tissa-

ofTissa- phernes for the purpose of devising measures phcrnesiand      ,        ,        _r , .

death of the to remedy so unpleasant a state of things, generals.       _satrap, drawing an over-coloured picture

of the difficulties which encompassed the Greeks, and of his own power to destroy them utterly if he thought fit, assured Klearchos that he would much rather bind them by ties of gratitude, and invited him to bring all the generals to a conference on the morrow. Accordingly Klearchos, accompanied by Menon, Proxenos, and two other generals, and escorted by only 200 men, repaired to the satrap’s tent to keep his appointment. The generals were immediately admitted: the escort remained outside. At a given signal, and at the same moment, those within the tent were seized and bound, and those outside were slain. One man alone, wounded and in a ghastly plight, escaped to tell the news. In the moment­ary confusion and dismay of the Greeks, a sudden attack by the whole Persian army would probably have been entirely successful. But nothing in the campaign is more striking than the folly with which the royal generals threw away their opportunities. Ariaios with a squadron of horse came to summon the Greeks to sur­render, but was driven away with indignant rcproaches.

Klearchos and the other generals were beheaded after a short imprisonment, except Menon, who, after a year of insult and torture, ended a life of perpetual perjury, deceit, and treachery, by a malefactor’s death.

Bad as the prospects of the Greeks had been im­mediately after the battle, they were now infinitely worse. To borrow the words of one who himself felt Dangers what he describes, they were conscious that ^{and des}'

‘ they were still at the very gates of the Great Xing. They were hemmed in on all sides by many tribes and cities, all hostile to them. No one would any longer supply them with provisions. They were not less than 10,000 stadia distant from their own country ; they had no guide to show them the way, and impassable rivers intercepted their homeward course. Nay, even the Asiatics, who had served with them under Cyrus, had betrayed them ; and they were left all alone, without any cavalry to assist them, so that it was quite obvious that if they won a victory they could not follow it up, while if they lost a battle not a man of them would escape. As they pondered over these thoughts in deep dejection, few of them tasted a bit of food at supper-time, and few lighted fires. Many never even came to their quarters, but lay down, just where they happened to be, unable to sleep through sorrow, and for longing after homes and parents, and wives and children, whom they never thought to see again. Such were then the feelings of all, as they lay down to rest. But there was in the army a man named Xenophon, who joined the expedition not as general, captain, or common soldier ; but Proxenos, an old friend of his, had sent for him from home, promising him that, if he would come, he would place him high in the favour of Cyrus, whom, as he said, he considered to be more to him than his own country.’

In these words Xenophon introduces himself to his

pondency of the Greeks.

readers, fully conscious of the importance of the crisis, yet feeling also that it needed some more than human stimulus to induce him, a mere volunteer, to take the lead among his 10,000 despairing countrymen. This heaven- _{E f} sent impulse came to him in a vision of the Xenophon, night; for he dreamed that a thunderbolt fell dioUn one upon his father’s house and set it all ablaze, of the new Waking at once from his brief, uneasy slumber, generals.    _th_0Ugh_tj t why lie I here, while the night

wears away, and the dawn may see our foes upon us ? ’ He roused without delay those captains who had served under Proxenos, and whom of course he knew intimately; and, taking as bright a view of their position as circumstances would permit, urged them to collect the other officers. At a council of war, called in accordance with this advice, Xenophon again becomes the chief speaker, and, amongst other new appointments, he is nominated general in the place of his hapless young friend Proxenos. Finally, in an assembly of the whole army, the new generals were approved; and Xenophon, by a stirring harangue, raised the soldiers from their dull dejection, rekindled hope and energy in their despairing breasts, so that no thought of submission was any longer entertained, and all attempt at parley with the enemy was forbidden.

In this rapid rise of Xenophon, at sunset an unknown volunteer, and at dawn of day the most influential general Character of 10,000 men, is seen firstly the power of phoneme ^oratory> ^and secondly the value of an Athenian Athenian. education. Others probably among them were his equals in daring courage, in readiness of action, in military skill ; but no one possessed that gift of per­suasive eloquence which here, and on many subsequent occasions, gave to Xenophon the first place among his colleagues. Though most of the soldiers were Pelopon­nesians, and though Athens had not yet lost her un~

popularity, no one but an Athenian was found with enough readiness, spirit, and superior culture to give order and coherence to this ill-cemented host. Nor do the genuinely Athenian qualities of Xenophon show themselves more strikingly in his personal gifts than in the means which he employed to inspire unity into the motley mass, and to establish a rough public opinion and a citizen’s respect for self-imposed law, as a valuable supple­ment to the soldier’s mechanical discipline. The general assembly and the binding vote of the majority hencefor­ward become important elements in the management of the army.

With renewed spirits the Greeks recommenced their marvellous retreat. Up the long valley of the Tigris, through the strong mountain passes of the Retreat Kardouchoi, over the snow-spread uplands of zabatoTto Armenia, defying Persian perfidy and bar- Trapezous. barian valour, fording river after river, and facing the freezing blasts of the December north-wind, for five months the indomitable band pressed on. At last, led by a friendly guide, the vanguard gained the summit of the holy mountain Theches. With a great shout of joy they welcomed the sight of the dark waters of the Euxine, till the cries swelled with the numbers who had reached the top, and Xenophon, in his usual position, commanding the rearguard, thought that it was the din of battle that he heard. As he hurried on, the shouts grew more distinct, and then the words ‘ The Sea ! The Sea ! ’ fell sight of the plainly on his ears. With sobs and tears ^sea- the soldiers fell into each other’s arms, generals and officers weeping like the rest; for they felt that they saw before them a pledge that their long toil would be crowned with success. A huge cairn rose to mark the auspicious spot ; and their guide was sent home with rich rewards. A few days’ march brought them to a Greek

colony, Trapezous (Trebizond); and being received with hospitality, they rested for a month in some villages out­side the town. Solemn sacrifices and games testified in true Hellenic fashion their gratitude and joy. Eight thousand hoplites with light-armed troops of various kinds raised the total of survivors to more than 10,000; and we read, with astonishment, that many women accompanied the army through all its hardships.

When they had once again arrived at the sea-coast, and reached the limits of Hellenic civilisation, the march- worn soldiers might well have thought that a prosperous close to all their sufferings could not be far distant. But Their rcccp- ^l^e ^sP^ace which still separated them from tion and its their homes was as great as from Sardcis to Kunaxa ; and they had yet to learn that the intrigues of Spartan harmosts could be as dangerous and as pertinacious as had been the onslaughts of barbarian foes. The welcome which they received from the Greek colonists on the Euxine was not unmixed with suspicion and alarm; for, since the Cyrcians owned no law but their own consciences, and knew no government but that of their own elected generals, the inhabitants could not feel secure against the possible actions of a force so numerous and so well-disciplined that not even Sinope herself, the queen of the whole district, could stand against it. The Spartans also, who had compromised themselves by sup­porting with their fleet the attempt of Cyrus, wished after the news of his death only to regain the favour of the Great King, and consequently refused all assistance to the Cyreians.

After a month’s rest at Trapezous, a council was held to consider the means of accomplishing the rest of their journey. First of all a Thourian soldier rose to speak.

*       Comrades/ said he, ‘ I have had enough by this time of quick march and double quick, of shouldering arms and

marching in rank, of sentry duty and of hard fighting. Since we have the sea before us, I want to have done with these fatigues, to sail the rest of the way, _{Futile en}_ and, lying on my back, to be carried asleep deavour to to Hellas, like Odysseus.’ The enthusiastic from ^lpS applause which greeted this pithy speech ^By^zantlon* shewed that the feeling of the army was unanimous; and the general of the Lakedaimonian contingent, de­claring that Anaxibios, the Spartan admiral at Byzan­tion, was his personal friend, was commissioned to go thither to get ships for their transport. During his absence they detained for their service all merchant vessels which passed along the coast; and when at last, in spite of marauding excursions, want of provisions com­pelled them to leave Trapezous, the women, children, invalids, and older soldiers, were put with the baggage on board the fleet which they had collected, while March to the rest of the army were compelled to resume ^Koty°^ra- the labour of marching, of which they were so weary. Three days’ march brought them to Kerasous; and, as there was no road—a want not yet supplied—ten days more were consumed in the journey to Kotyora. Here the position of Xenophon became very difficult and dis­agreeable. The expected transports from Byzantion still tarried ; outrages committed by the disorganized soldiery were gaining them an evil name ; meddlesome and ill- natured calumniators undermined the influence of Xeno­phon, by declaring that he wished to entrap Diffi_CUi_ti_es the troops into remaining on the Euxine, and of Xeno- founding there a great colony—a thoroughly sagacious scheme which Xenophon had really entertained, but which he neither would nor could have carried out against the will of the army. The envoys from Sinope came with a message, not of welcome but of ill-will; and the poverty of the soldiers caused a continual increase of

discontent and a corresponding decrease of discipline. But from all these difficulties Xenophon, by his ready wit and winning tongue, and by his frank appeal to public opinion freely expressed in the general assembly, emerged not only unhurt, but triumphant in the dis­comfiture of his malicious enemies, the conciliation of the Sinopean envoys, and the increase of his own in­fluence.

After this the army, whose heavy marching was now really at an end, proceeded by sea to Sinope, and was met there by the Spartan general, who had returned with nothing more substantial than empty promises from the Advance to ^se^^sh Anaxibios. Grievously disappointed, Chiyso- they were transported to Herakleia, and polls. thence to Kalpe. Here they remained for some

time in comfortable quarters; and after the conciliatory eloquence of Xenophon had again been called ^;nto play, to prevent a grave breach between the troops and the Spartan authorities, they marched on to Chrysopolis (Scutari), on the Bosporos. But Pharnabazos, the Per­sian satrap, was anxious that so formidable a force should not linger in his province ; and Anaxibios, induced by the offer of a splendid reward, persuaded the army by specious promises to cross over to Byzantion. No sooner had they been admitted within the town, than Anaxibios, Dangerous who had neither the wish nor the power to

tumult at keep his word, ordered them to muster out- 15yzantion,

produced side the walls. But before all the army had treachery of passed the gates it became known that they Anaxibios, were to be despatched on a long march and to difficult service in the Chersonese. Thus they saw themselves deluded by promises of pay into leaving the rich plundering-grounds of Asia, and then deceived in all their expectations, and expelled at once from the first European city in which they had set foot. Was this, they

asked, the welcome which their heroism deserved, and to which they had looked forward through all theii‘ trials ? Stung to fury by such treatment, in tumultuous mutiny they rushed against the gates, which had been hurriedly closed against them ; and those of their comrades who were still inside hewed down the bars. In guilty terror Anaxibios fled to the citadel; and the town and all its panic-strickcn inhabitants were left at the mercy of the Cyreians. The soldiers flocked round Xenophon, and cried, ‘ Now, Xenophon, you can make yourself a man. You have a city, you have a fleet, you have money, you have men like us. Now, if you will, you can help us, and we can make you great.’ The danger admirably was critical, but his presence of mind never repressed by failed him. ⁽If these are your wishes,’ he ^Xenophon- replied, ‘fall into rank as quickly as you can.’ With instinctive discipline the army formed itself on the nearest open space, with the hoplites eight deep, and the light-armed troops on either flank. But Xenophon, in a speech of consummate skill, bade them reflect for a moment on the consequences that would ensue if they were to punish the Lakedaimonians, and to plunder Byzantion. All Greece would be against them. The Athenians themselves, great as they were, could not stand against Sparta : how then could the Cyreians withstand the combined forces of Greece, Tissaphernes, and the Great King? He would himself rather be buried ten thousand fathoms beneath the earth than see them sack the first Greek city into which they were admitted. Such was the force of his eloquence that the violence of their anger subsided, and they were content to come to terms with the detestable trickster Anaxibios.

But the admirable discipline and self-restraint which the troops had shewn, and the extraordinary readiness and tact with which Xenophon had averted a frightful

catastrophe, failed to win the slightest gratitude from the Spartan authorities, who saw with pleasure the Cyreian . army sink into the utmost distress and poverty, treatment ' and become gradually weaker from repeated Cyrcians dispersions. Anaxibios, on giving up the by the command of the fleet, specially enjoined Aris- Spaitans. tarchos, the new harmost of Byzantion, to sell into slavery all the Cyrcians who remained invalided in the city, and who had been sheltered by his more humane predecessor. With callous brutality the new governor executed these injunctions. Nor did even this outrage satiate his Spartan spite. Anaxibios had been cruel and perfidious; Aristarchos was at least his match in both. He next laid a trap to get Xenophon into his power, by inviting him to a conference ; but the vile treachery of the Persian satrap had taught the Cyreian general to avoid the clumsy imitations of a Spartan harmost, and he escaped the snare.

Soon after this the army entered the service of a Thrakian prince, who promised them liberal pay for a winter campaign against some tribes which had revolted They take from his rule. The expedition was successful, under' ^{but l}^^e Payment of their wages was delayed. Seuthes, Once again the suspicions of the soldiers were roused by insidious slanders against the honesty of Xenophon ; and once again by an address to the as­sembled troops he reinstated himself completely in their confidence.

But when the policy of Sparta towards Persia changed, it was seen that no more powerful allies could be found and then than the Cyreian army, now reduced in num- agamst*¹³ ber ^to 6,ooo men. Accordingly, under the Persia. command of Xenophon, they crossed to Lampsakos, and marched thence to Pergamos. At Lampsakos Xenophon fell in with an old acquaintance,

who heard with amazement that he was as poor as when he started ; and his friend being a prophet advised him to sacrifice to Zeus the Kindly, whose service Xenophon had neglected for that of Zeus the King. At once his fortunes changed. A freebooting expedition     ,

which he undertook against the castle of a succcssi^⁵ wealthy Persian was crowned with success. ^Asia- The grateful soldiers pressed their general to choose the best of the spoil; and he returned to Athens, if he went thither at all, a famous and a wealthy man. But he had never really appreciated the debt which he owed to his native city and to its institutions; he had never been con­scious how entirely he was himself Athenian _He ^ in character and education, if not Athenian in _g0es^Pto ^apS sentiment: and now, when the name of Sparta ^Athens» was more than ever hated by his countrymen (could even Xenophon have loved it then ?), and the restored demo­cracy more than ever popular—when again they had within a few weeks judicially murdered the man whom for his piety, justice, temperance, and wisdom he regarded as the most virtuous and happy of all mankind _an(j _retums —he may have felt that Athens could be no fit ^{to As}^ home for him, and he returned to Asia to take service in the cause of Sparta against the Great King.

CHAPTER VI.

SPARTA : HER ALLIES AND SUBJECTS.

A very few months had sufficed to convince the Hellenic world that the era of freedom was yet far off. They had hoped that its commencement would date from the day on which the demolition of the Long Walls began; but a

bitter experience proved that that day of rejoicing was only the beginning of a far more oppressive tyranny. Contrast Imperial Athens had doubtless made her between authority respected and her will obeyed : but

grievances         .        . _t      ^J ’

under Athe- her subordinate officials, her inspectors, and s'paruif her tax gatherers, had always been forced ^ru,e-     to keep their personal caprices within legal

bounds ; and the dependent states were sure that their complaints would obtain from the Athenian dikasteries a redress which was in the main just, even though some­times tardy. But now the steady rule of one supreme state had been changed for the capricious tyranny of innumerable oppressors. In almost every town there was a Spartan harmost ready to support the dekarchs in all their worst deeds of revenge and rapacity, while the dekarchs were anxious, in their turn, to gratify the whims and glut the cupidity of the harmost, to remove out of his way his personal enemies, and to make it worth his while to connive at their enormities. Nor was the oppression confined to those who held official power. Xenophon tells us, and repeats the assertion elsewhere, that in all Greek cities—even in a town so remote as Ivalpe in Bithynia—the will of a single Spartan was law.

Though the designs of Lysandros at Athens had been thwarted by the joint action of the kings and the ephors, Power of iⁿ^^{ucnce was} still powerful enough to

Lysandros obtain for him a fresh command in Asia and weakened  Hellespont. Here for a time he could

forget the serious check which his personal authority had received in continental Greece, and could enjoy to the full the pleasures of absolute power. He strengthened the oligarchical governments in the cities, in defiance of reiterated complaints against their tyranny. All sup­pliants thronged to h:m as the sole fountain of honour

and the distributor of favours. All remonstrances against his wanton arrogance and unscrupulous support of his own creatures were systematically disregarded by the repu- by the home government. But the end was his conduct at hand. To attach the sailors of tlie fleet at Sestos, more devotedly to his service, and to secure to his own uses a naval station of prime importance, Lysandros had expelled from Sestos not only the Athenians, but the Sestians themselves, and had parcelled out the city and its territory among the subordinate officers of his fleet. But this measure was so clearly designed to further the private ends of the admiral rather than the national interests of Sparta that the ephors annulled the deed of Lysandros, and restored the citizens to their possessions. Nor was the great man any longer allowed to be omni­potent in screening his creatures from the consequences of their misconduct; rather it may be fairly supposed that the harmost of Samos, Thorax, was singled out for punishment, not so much for any special enormities or ex­cessive rapacity, but on account of his personal _{by the con}_ friendship with Lysandros. Some silver, says demnation

_n, . ,   r j • t*         •        t ofThorax,

Plutarch, was found in his possession. In other words, he had used the opportunities which his position gave him, to acquire for himself money and property, in contravention of the old law of Lykourgos, which prohibited a Spartan from holding private property or accumulating money in any other shape than the un­wieldy iron bars which formed the only legal coinage of Sparta. Thorax was summoned home by the ephors, and put to death.

The remonstrances of the Greek cities were now se­conded by the more influential complaints of Pharna- bazos, the Persian satrap to whose charge the district of the Hellespont had been committed by the Great King. The enemies of Lysandros at home were ready

A.H. G

enough to urge upon the government that injuries in­flicted on so faithful an ally and so potent a prince as Pharnabazos could not safely or honourably be disre- and by his garded ; and an order was sent for his recall, recall in Though he could not disobey this summons, quenceof he yet hoped to mitigate its consequences.

the com- Accordingly, having asked and obtained an

1-

bazos.

plaints of  ''        « - -

Pharna- interview with Pharnabazos, he begged the satrap to write another despatch to the ephors, modifying, or altogether withdrawing, the complaints which he had previously made. The Persian consented ; and wrote a second letter, which gave Lysandros full satisfaction. But, according to the Greek proverb, he played Kretan against Kretan, and substituted another letter which he had written secretly, and in which he reiterated, more strongly than before, the grounds of his Lysandros dissatisfaction. This was scaled and given Phama-^{dby to} Lysandros, who, on his arrival at Sparta, bazos, procured his own condemnation by handing to the ephors, with an air of the fullest confidence, a despatch, which, as he heard it read aloud, proved to be a bitter denunciation of the bearer. Outwitted, confused, humiliated, Lysandros left the presence of the ephors. But the rigid discipline and narrow routine of the life of a private citizen at Sparta proved unutterably wearisome after the uncontrolled licence to which he had recently grown accustomed ; and, availing himself of the pretext of an ancient vow, and probably intending to win sup- and leaves P^ort f°^r ambitious designs, which were as yet Sparta. undeveloped, he obtained leave to make a pilgrimage to the oracle of the Libyan Amoun.

With the recall of Lysandros, in most cases the rule of the dekarchies came to an end. The complaints Kail of the against these governments had been so serious dekarchies. _th_{at) as soon as} their chief supporter was removed from power, the ephors gave permission to the

subject cities to re-establish their ancient constitutions. But the harmost and the Spartan garrison still retained their hold on their Akropoleis, or citadels, as a guarantee that Spartan interests should suffer no serious injury.

It has been already shown that the continental allies of Sparta had not much more reason to be gratified with the results of their triumph than the cities Growing of the Egean Islands and the coasts of the discontent Hellespont. Sparta had allowed them to ^ofthealIies- participate in all the dangers of the war and in the barren honours of the victory ; but she had carefully monopolised the profits, and had resented, as an insult, any claim to share the spoil (p. 29). The disaffection thus produced had become so serious at Thebes and Corinth, that these states had already openly refused to send their con­tingents to the Spartan army; and it was probably thought desirable that Sparta should at once display her real power, and shew, by a salutary example, the natural fate of recalcitrant allies. ^

Elis was the chosen victim, a state insignificant in ex­tent of territory or political importance, but influential through the whole of Hellas, and the Pelopon- War with nese especially, because the great shrine of the ^Elis- Olympian Zeus was situated in Eleian territory, and gave to the Eleians the right to preside over the Olympic fes­tival. Many grievances were now remembered against her. There was a long-standing quarrel about a border town, Lepreon: and the Eleians had joined the ranks of the enemies of Sparta at Mantineia. They ^{Its causes}* had dared to inflict a fine on their powerful neighbours, to exclude them from participation in the great national fes­tival, and even to scourge a Spartan who by entering under false pretences had secured a prize in the chariot-race. They had refused to allow a Spartan king to offer prayer and sacrifice in the temple. And even now, when, in com g 2

pliance with the demands or in deference to the known wishes of Sparta, oligarchical governments had been set up in every Greek state, the Eleians on her very borders persisted in retaining their democracy, and had been prominent in sending assistance to, and showing sympathy with, the Athenian exiles in Peiraieus. For all these things the little state was to be brought to judgment. A herald was sent, requiring that she should grant liberty to her dependent townships, who stood in the same relation to her as the Perioikoi to Sparta; and, on her Agis       refusal, King Agis invaded her northern

EHs^and borders. Scarcely had he begun the work of retires. ravaging her fields, which were celebrated for their fertility, when a shock of earthquake warned the Spartans to evacuate the territory of the sacred state. The Eleians, conscious that they were enjoying only a temporary reprieve, employed the winter in sending round to ask help from all the cities whom they knew to be ill- disposed to the Spartans. Their embassies were all in vain; and the next year saw Agis again on the march, Agis     ^w**h the full force of the Lakedaimonian con-

invades^ federacy. Thebes and Corinth stood aloof . is again, f_rom Sparta ; but even Athens, in spite of her gratitude for recent assistance, was reluctantly compelled to furnish her contingent to the invading army. Agis this year selected the southern frontier as the point of attack. Town after town revolted to him. He made his way un­opposed, according to the account of Xenophon, to the temple at Olympia, and did sacrifice there; and, laying and merci- waste the land with fire and sword,pushed on to ravages the ^^{ie ca}pital. The fruitful fields had been care- country. fully tilled and had long enjoyed a freedom from the ravages of war ; hence the booty, consisting to a great extent in cattle and slaves, was so abundant that crowds of Arkadians and Achaians flocked to join the

invading army, and to share the spoil. In short, says Xenophon, the expedition was turned into a sort of foraging party for all the Peloponnese. The beautiful suburbs of the capital were then given over to plunder ; but, although the town was unfortified, Agis, knowing that he would meet with resolute resistance, and confidently expecting that internal treachery would do the work for him, left Elis itself unassailed, and passed on with his army into the neighbourhood of Kyllene, the chief sea­port of the district. The presence of a Spartan army had emboldened the oligarchic party to at- Unsuccess- tempt a coup d’dtat. But though they sue- oligarchs in* ceeded in massacring many of the leading the capital, democrats, their opponents rallied, and, defeating the oligarchs in a fight, forced them to leave the city and join the ranks of the Lakedaimonian army. Disappointed in his hope of gaining possession of the city without a struggle, Agis drew off his main body, and left a force, including the Eleian exiles, to occupy the valley of the Alpheios and harass the inhabitants by perpetual depre­dations. The precedent of Dekeleia had taught the Spartans how effective was the annoyance of such a hostile occupation. Wearied out, the Eleians in the following summer sent to offer surrender, were _The Eleians forced to accept the most humiliating terms, submit to and were deprived of every right which they ^Sparta> valued, except the presidency of the games. Even this they were allowed to retain only because the other towns in the neighbourhood, such as Pisa, were too rustic to support the office with becoming dignity.

After having thus chastised the presumptuous audacity of Elis, and shewn the rest of the allies what they might expect if they dared to slight or oppose the Death of sovereign state, Agis travelled to Delphoi and ^Ag,s* there dedicated to the god a tenth of the spoil. On his

return journey, he had reached Hernia, a town on the Alpheios near the frontier of Arkadia, when lie fell ill. He was carried home to Sparta, but soon died, far advanced in age. He had enjoyed the kingly dignity for twenty-seven years, and now was buried with the burial of a hero, not of a man.

But scarcely had the days of mourning for the late king been accomplished, when a bitter contest arose about the succession. Lysandros had visited the oracle in Libya, and had been seen both at Delphoi and at Dodona. Probably at all these places he had hoped and tried to win over the officials of the sanctuary, and to ob­tain responses which might help him to gain the royal power for himself. Indeed, if the story, repeated by Plutarch, on the authority of Ephoros, deserves credit, his design was to persuade his countrymen to throw open the royal dignity to all the descendants of Herakles, as there Schemes of was little doubt in his mind that, if this could Esrtr ^bedone> no Spartan would be held fitter than Plutarch. himself to wear the crown. With this object he engaged an eminent rhetorician to compose an oration, to be delivered before the people, in which the advantages of such a change were detailed. But in dealing with a nation so superstitious as the Spartans, he was well aware that a line of oracle was worth a page of rhetoric ; and he wished to prepare their minds for his arguments by removing their religious prejudices against innovation through the intervention of a ‘deus ex machind.’ In one of the cities of Pontus there lived a youth, whose mother declared that he was born of no mortal father, but of the god Apollo himself. Oracles were prepared at Delphoi declaring that it would be better for the Spartans to choose their kings out of the best citizens; and these were hidden away by the priests, who gave out that they had discovered writings of untold antiquity, which none might

read till one came born of Apollo. When the air of Sparta was full of mysterious rumours, industriously cir­culated by the friends of Lysandros, the youth of Pontus was to present himself at Delphoi, be acknowledged by the priests as a genuine son of the god, and publicly pro­mulgate the oracles composed in favour of the change. But when the vacancy in the succession oc- Their curred, Lysandros was unable to take advan- ^failure- tage of it. Either his plans were not yet ripe, or the heart of some accomplice failed at the critical moment. The scheme fell to the ground, and remained undis­covered till after his death.

But, though the position of king was thus found to be beyond his grasp, Lysandros might fairly soothe him­self with the thought, that the trade of king- _Lysandros maker was one of equal, or even superior, supports^ dignity. He had returned to his native city, Age^laosto and had remained in comparative obscurity. ^{the throne}- No office had been offered to him. His countrymen were no longer anxious to evade, as once before, even their own express enactments to give him a command ; his partisans had been disestablished and discredited ; and his special patron, Cyrus, had fallen at Kunaxa. Still his restless and unbounded ambition urged him to action : and his splendid abilities forbade him to despair. If he could place on the twin throne of Sparta his ancient comrade and intimate friend Agesilaos, he might yet be king in all but name, and wield, directly or indirectly, an authority more than regal. With this view he at once prompted Agesilaos, the younger brother of the late king, to put forward his claims to the throne in opposition to those of Leotychides, the son. Agesilaos was now of mature age, probably about forty years old ; and it seems strange that the man who was to prove himself the ablest of Spartan kings should, up to this time, in spite of the

advantage of royal lineage, have done no notable deed nor held any distinguished office in the stirring times Characterof through which he had lived. His character Agesiiaos. j_s p_aj_nted by his companion and panegyrist Xenophon in colours which are perhaps too bright for strict fidelity ; but, even when we have made allowance for the partiality of friendship, Agesiiaos remains one of the most striking of Greek celebrities. His youth and man­hood were spent in the utmost rigours of Spartan train­ing, and for all the virtues which the Spartan loved he was distinguished. Skilled in martial exercises, he had learnt to obey and to endure. His bravery was beyond suspicion ; his energy was so unwearied as to carry him, when fourscore years of age, across the sea to Egypt at the head of a Spartan army. His simplicity was destined to shame by contrast the womanish luxuries of Persian grandees ; his frugality made him, like Lysandros, indif­ferent to money-getting. He was covetous only of honour, and always keen to keep the first place among his rivals. Yet to them, as to all, he was generous ; and his successes were borne with modesty and humility. Hence he gained a popularity which he was not unwilling to increase. His manners charmed all with whom he came in contact. His address was respectful to his elders and his official superiors, and affable to all, while after his elevation he won the hearts of his soldiers, not merely by his own endurance of hardship, but by his considerate care for their personal comforts. His firmness in friendship led him sometimes into grave faults ; for, to protect or gratify a friend, he would do actions which he would have scorned to do on his own behalf. Yet he must also have possessed great skill in disguising his real character and sentiments, and have schooled himself to the most watch­ful self-restraint; for Lysandros, under whose eye he had grown up, who had trained him for political life, and who

had always lived with him in the closest companionship, was utterly mistaken in him. He had expected to find Agesilaos amenable and submissive, and to make him the mouth-piece of his own wishes; he found him high- spirited and ambitious, endowed with a will of his own, and intolerant of a rival in power. Never was there a truer example of the old Greek saying, ‘ Rule will show the man.’ Yet his ambition was unlike that of Lysandros in which self took the first place. He was a sincere patriot, and the public interests were never subordinated to private ends.

The title of Leotychides to the vacant throne was disputed on the ground that his mother had been un­faithful to king Agis before his birth. It was asserted that the god Poseidon had driven Agis from his wife’s society, and that she had allowed the charms of Alki- biades to prevail over her conjugal duties, conflicting The testimony of Agis himself as to the claims of legitimacy of Leotychides had not been con- ^ifdLeoty- sistent. He had at first disowned the parentage ^chldcs» of the child ; but a short time before his death, won over, it is said, by the urgent entreaties of Leotychides, he had acknowledged him to be his son. Under ordinary cir­cumstances the word of the dying king would have been sufficient to decide the point; but the popularity and tried virtue of Agesilaos caused some hesitation. He was a man forty years old, his rival was a lad of fifteen ; and he had the support of Lysandros, skilled in intrigue, weighty in debate, and strong in the prestige of past exploits and in the gratitude which Sparta owed for past services. But when the arguments seemed evenly balanced, and the vote of the assembly wavered, Dio* peithes, a man renowned for his oracular lore, and the head of the priestly party, brought forward an apt oracle —and such oracles were never wanting—which bade

Sparta beware of a lame reign, which would bring 011 her long and unexpected troubles, and the waves of deadly warfare. This seemed decisive, for Agesilaos was lame of one foot; but with ready wit Lysandros rose with a cunning retort. It was no mere physical infirmity against which the god warned them, for that might be caused by accident; but the kingdom would be halt and maimed when a king who was not a true descendant of Hcrakles should ascend the throne. This ingenious reply secured . the election of Agesilaos ; and many who were

decided m ,        .. ,     , , , _r ,

favour of then present lived to see the clouds of ad- Agesilaos. _Versity thicken round their country, doubtless, as they thought, in fulfilment of the oracle which was so blindly and perversely set aside.

The first object of Agesilaos after his election was to add the reality of power to the empty dignity of his Position of position. Whatever may have been the case kings at in very early ages, the power of the Spartan kings had by this time become exceedingly limited. As they were traditionally the representatives of the whole people, and appointed to see that equality in property and in rights was maintained, they had no sympathy with the ruling caste, whose encroachments had narrowed the royal prerogatives, till their nominal greatness meant actual dependence. Besides the right of voting in the Senate, the chief privilege of the kings was that of commanding the forces of the state in war. But, on the one hand, the establishment of the nauarchy (or the office of Lord High Admiral) which Aristotle called a second kingship, had wholly taken away from their control an increasingly important branch of warfare ; and also since it became the custom for the ephors to despatch a board of counsellors to advise the king when absent from Sparta on active service, their military importance had bf'en vastly diminished. The Spartan kings were

now dignified and influential state functionaries, but in their real powers the ephors had entirely supplanted them ; and the election of these .officers was controlled by the Homoioi, or peers of Sparta, in whose interest the government was carried on. Accordingly most ol the Spartan kings had been on unfriendly terms with the ephors, and had asserted their traditional supe­riority by an arrogant and contemptuous bearing. But Agesilaos, who had been taught by Lysan- _AgesIlaos dros that the wise man must often stoop to conciliates conquer, adopted a different policy. He was ^{the e}P^nors- studiously respectful to the ephors, rose from his seat at their approach, conciliated them with presents, and was scrupulously observant of their orders as well as of the laws of the state. As simple in his dress and diet after his elevation as he was before, he sacrificed all the ex­ternals of rank, and was rewarded by acquiring more real power than any of his predecessors.

But the kings were by no means the only class in Sparta who had long felt increasingly discontented with their position. The Hypomeiones, or inferiors, thePeri- oikoi, or rural tribes, the Helots—all were Discontent dissatisfied with a system by which they f₀^f ^/strata might at any time be called upon to give their ₀f Spartan services or even their lives for the State, and ^s0Clety- yet could under no possible circumstances rise to an equality with the governing class. This class of Homoioi, or peers, had become of late years much smaller than it had originally been; many families had died out altogether, or had been killed off in the ceaseless wars of the last generation. Many more had sunk into the class of inferiors from inability to contribute their share to the Syssitia, or public messes, to which it was necessary for every Spartan citizen to belong. This last cause had been particularly active during the last few years. The

vast amount of money which had been brought into Sparta since the close of the war had occasioned a general rise in prices, while private fortunes had become more unequal from the money-making spirit which had infected many Spartans on foreign service. Hence citi­zens, whose only crime was poverty or perhaps the old Spartan virtue of contempt for wealth, had found them­selves disfranchised, and condemned to be permanently ranked as inferiors, unless a turn of fortune or the favour of some wealthy patron should enable them to regain their lost position. Again, the class of inferiors had been recruited by numerous additions from below as well as from above. The bolder spirits among the Perioikoi and Helots, who had proved their value to Sparta either by serving under the standards of a Brasidas in distant campaigns, or even by acting as harmosts in subject cities, were rewarded by what was to them enfranchise­ment, a position among the ‘inferior’ citizens. Thus this class grew at once stronger and more disaffected, while the permanent discontent of the lower strata was aggravated by the fact that the diminution in the number of Spartan citizens made their services more valuable and even indispensable.

This state of things would have been far more toler­able but for the feeling that the rigid conservatism of the highest class was only a monstrous sham. Much that was good and noble still survived as a matter of Change in habit and tradition. A Spartan still knew the charac- how to command and how to obey. He could governing despise physical pain, and meet death with class.       composure ; in his eyes the grey head was a

crown of glory, and the fear of the gods the beginning of wisdom. But there was much hypocrisy in the observance of the letter of the ancient institutions. The opulent citizens who partook of* the black broth and coarse bread

sA the public mess supplemented this meagre fare by luxurious feasts in their own houses. Men like Lysandros, who were careful to wear the long hair and the simple dress prescribed by Lykourgos, had no scruple in re­nouncing as far as possible the Spartan type of character. External circumstances had forced upon Sparta changes which their laws were not only incapable of recognising, but were intended directly to repel. They were no longer, as of old, a Dorian army of occupation in the midst of hostile tribes in the valley of the Eurotas, but had become a nation influenced by complicated relations with the whole of Hellas and even with Asia; and Spartans were in constant communication not only with all the cities of Greece, but even with that distant capital which a century before had seemed to Kleomenes almost unapproachable. Persian gold and silver had found their way to Sparta in spite of the vehement protests of old- fashioned purists. Formerly the public money had been sent away to Arkadia or to Delphoi, lest the sight of the forbidden thing should make the Spartan palm itch to feel it. Now the passion for wealth, which had always been a weakness even among eminent Spartans, burst out more strongly from its long repression, and corrupted not only Spartan men, but—always a most influential section of Spartan society—Spartan women also.

Such being the internal condition of Sparta, it is not surprising that, before the first year, of the reign of Agesi- laos had come to an end, an alarming con- Conspiracy spiracy should have been betrayed and re- ofKmadon. pressed. Agesilaos was offering a public sacrifice, when the soothsayer, on inspecting the victim, told him that the gods declared the existence of a terrible conspiracy. A second offering produced still more alarming omens ; and at the third the prophet exclaimed, ^c Agesilaos, the signs tell me that we are in the very midst of 0111

enemies.’ After performing propitiatory sacrifices, the king departed ; but for five days no further disclosure took place. At length the ephors were informed that a conspiracy existed, and that Kinadon was the arch-con­spirator. This young man, distinguished for his powers both of body and of mind, was one of the class of ¹ in­feriors,’ and had been employed by the ephors on secret missions. Thus he had perhaps obtained an insight into the rapid and mysterious action of the governing body, which enabled him to defy all their usual precautions, and elude the vigilance even of their ‘ sbirri,’ or secret police. In spite both of the jealousy and disunion of the lowei classes, and also of the want of any common organ of communication, or any opportunities of common action, he had succeeded in organizing a conspiracy, widely spread among both the urban and the rural population. i_ts  The evidence of the informer, as given by

discovery Xenophon, is highly improbable, since it represents Kinadon as confident even to infatuation ; but it adds one or two graphic touches to the picture of Spartan society which has just been drawn. We are taken to the crowded market-place, and are shewn forty Spartan citizens surrounded by 4,000 of the discontented classes ; we visit the estates in the country, and find on each one enemy, the master, while Kinadon has innumerable allies ; we see the sullen faces which glow with fury at the mere mention of a Spartan citizen, and hear the fierce curse that they would gladly eat the flesh of a Spartan raw. and re- Convinced of their peril and of the necessity pression. f_or p_r0mpt action, the ephors resolved to despatch Kinadon on a secret mission of great importance to Aulon, a town on the frontiers of Messene and Elis ; for his arrest would be effected more easily in this remote district than at Sparta itself. The guards who were sent ,vith him, ostensibly to assist him in the execution of his

mission, received orders to arrest him and extort from him the names of his accomplices. This was done : and the list of conspirators being sent to Sparta, the ring­leaders were seized at once before the news of Kinadon’s arrest could reach the town. When he was brought back, the ephors ended the examination of their prisoner by asking his object in forming the conspiracy. ¹ That I might be inferior to no man in Lakedaimon/ was the reply. After this Kinadon and his accomplices were fettered; their hands and necks were loaded with irons ; they were scourged and goaded while they were dragged round the streets of the city ; and finally they were executed.

Thus the danger was averted, and the mass of the people relapsed into their chronic state of sulky discontent. The ephors, though there was nothing new to them, in the idea of a rising of the Helots and Perioikoi, must have been startled by the discovery of the fierce hatred felt by the Hypomeiones to the class above them. The extent of the ill-feeling was too great to be adequately met by ordinary precautions ; and the best safety-valve for dis­affection at home was to be found in active employment on distant enterprises.

CHAPTER VII.

OPERATIONS IN ASIA MINOR.

As far as completeness went, the triumph of Sparta lei! nothing to be desired ; but from its glory there was, at any rate, one important drawback. It might possibly _{llie g]ory} be denied that the catastrophe of Aigospotamoi of Sparta

, , ,    ,        , ,      i        r tarnished

was brought about through the treachery of b_y Persian

the Athenian commanders : it could not be ^aid-

disputed that it was only barbarian aid, lavishly granted

both in ships and money, which had made it possible foi

I.ysanaros to keep the sea at the Hellespont. And if the extent to which she profited by Persian assistance added lit tit to her glory, the price at which she purchased it re­flected even less credit upon her. The first treaty had been so warded as to surrender to the Great King a large portion of Europe; for it declared him to be entitled to all the territories and cities which he or his ancestors had ever possessed; and though in a later treaty his European claims were renounced, his rights were confirmed over the Greek colonies in Asia, whose independence had been protected for half a century by the Delian con­federacy under the supremacy of Athens.

Twelve years had however elapsed since the last treaty between Sparta and Persia, and the relative position of the two powers had been entirely changed. „ , All Greece lay prostrate at the conqueror’s

Causes of _r          ^       .....    , .

war with feet ; and to a Spartan politician it would Peisu. seem most improbable that the supremacy of his country should ever be so seriously endangered as to require further support from the barbarian. Accordingly Sparta had declared in favour of Cyrus, and thus thrown 1. Spartan down the gauntlet to the reigning king. Had support of Cyrus been successful, she would have had the strongest claims upon his gratitude ; while, if he failed, she felt that she had little to fear. The hostility of Persia was formidable only when the balance of parties in Greece was evenly poised. But the return of Tissaphernes with augmented powers and ex­tended territories brought matters to a crisis. The Asiatic Greeks had welcomed Cyrus as their ruler in the 2 Appeal place of the crafty and cruel Tissaphernes ; Greets¹'⁰       heen treated by him with marked

against T is- leniency, and had supported his cause with saphemes. enthusiasm. Now Tissaphernes had returned, intending to reconquer the rebels, and gratify his resent­

ment by due chastisement. Kyme was already feeling the force of his hand ; and in terror the maritime cities sent ambassadors to the Spartans to beseech them, as they were the champions of Hellas, to intervene on behalf of the Hellenes in Asia.

It is possible that a few years before the ephors might have turned a deaf ear to this request, and declared that the Asiatic Greeks had been handed over to Persia by a definite treaty, that they had brought their punishment upon themselves, and must bear the consequences of their Cyreian sympathies. But, to use the phrase of a modern historian, the colossus of the Persian _{3 Weak}. empire had suddenly lost the nimbus of great- ^ss of ness by which it had hitherto been surrounded, recently It had been proved incapable of conquering ^exP°^sed- a band of Greeks, who were without resources, without generals, and without knowledge of the country; and the flower of the Persian army, in spite of vast superiority in numbers, had been unable effectively to cope with them. Spartan troops were surely superior to a motley crew of adventurers, and could ensure victory where the Cyreians had been satisfied with avoiding defeat. Hence the arrival of the Asiatic envoys seemed to the Spartans a grand opportunity for entering, with little risk ₄. value to to themselves, on a patriotic policy, which Heiienic^fan might raise their reputation among their policy, wavering and half-hearted allies, and to a certain extent efface the reproach of having truckled to the barbarian in their hour of need.

The prayer of the envoys was granted. Thimbron was despatched to Asia with 1,000 Neodam6des, or newly- enfranchised Helots, and 4,000 other Pelopon- _ .

• * , . *        „ , .    , Expedition

nesians. At his request 300 Athenian cavalry of rhim- joined him. Those who were selected for the ^bron’ expedition were old adherents of the Thirty ; and the peo-

A. H. ti

pie, says Xenophon, felt that they would be well rid of them if they died on foreign service. On his arrival in Asia, Thimbron collected about 3,000 soldiers from the Greek cities, and afterwards strengthened his army by the addition of the Cyreians. Pergamos and some other cities threw open their gates to him ; a few minor towns were taken by assault. Foiled in the siege of Larissa, he received orders from the ephors to march to Karia ; but . .       proving himself everywhere a timid com-

padty and mander and a lax disciplinarian, he was super­punishment. _se(jed by Derkyllidas, and when he returned to Greece was fined and banished on the ground that he had allowed his troops to plunder the allies of Sparta.

The new commander was a man of the Lysandrian type, so fertile in resources that he had received the Derkyl- nickname of Sisyphos. Having acted as on^apham? harmost at Abydos, he was no stranger to bazos.    the men with whom he had to deal; and he

determined at once to take advantage of the jealousy which existed between the two satraps. Pharnabazos was a generous friend and a faithful ally, while Tissaphernes was perfidious, cruel, and cowardly, and was moreover the direct cause of the war. But to wipe out a personal affront, Derkyllidas, making a truce with Tissapher­nes, turned his arms against the former. Advancing from Ephesos with 8,000 men, he attacked a group of Aiolian towns lying to the north of Mount Ida, which formed a subdivision of the satrapy of Pharnabazos, and which were weakened by internal dissension. In eight days he captured nine towns, of which Gergis, Kebren, and Skepsis were the most important, and was able to compensate his troops for the strict discipline which he had maintained upon his march by the cheering an­nouncement that he had secured money enough to pay his 8,000 men for a whole year. On the approach of

winter, Derkyllidas, who was unwilling either to burden his allies with the maintenance of his army all through the winter, or to leave them exposed to the _{Con uest} raids of the Persian cavalry, sent to Pharna- A?oiian^S ° bazos to propose an armistice, to which the ^Clties- satrap agreed, as he felt that even his own private resi­dence at Daskyleion was insecure as long as a hostile force was occupying his Aiolian cities. The Spartan commander at once led his troops into western _winter Bithynia, a proceeding which excited no op- quarters in position on the part of Pharnabazos ; for the ^{1 yma}‘ inhabitants, though nominally subject, were in reality hostile to him. The plunder of this country was suffi­cient to afford abundant supplies for his army ; and the winter passed without any incident more important than the loss of nearly 200 men by an attack of the inhabitants on an isolated camp, in which the Greeks were shot down by javelins, pent up, as Xenophon says, like sheep in a fold.

In the spring Derkyllidas broke up his winter quarters and marched to Lampsakos. Here he found Arakos and two other commissioners, sent by the ephors to pro­long his term of office for another year, and to report upon the condition of the Greek cities in Asia. Nor was the extension of his command the only com- confidence pliment which they were instructed to confer ^ofj^^e_sin upon him. They had been specially ordered Derkyl-¹* to congratulate the assembled army on its ^lldas’ improved discipline, and to express a hope that there would be no recurrence in the future of the outrages which they had felt obliged to censure in the past. After this message had been delivered, the commander of the Cyreians stood forward, and assured the commissioners that the characters of the soldiers had not changed ; the only change had been in the generals who were appointed h 2

to lead them. But the cause of the change must not be looked for, as the speaker implied, solely in the character of Derkyllidas. The Spartan general had been extremely fortunate in procuring at once abundance of pay for his army, and in bringing with him Xenophon—for the speaker was probably none other—to resume his position at the head of the Cyreian troops. In fulfilment of the other part of their commission, Arakos and his com­panions set out to inspect the state of the Greek cities ; and Derkyllidas started them on their road, with the pleasant assurance that they would find them in the en­joyment of the peace and prosperity which he had secured to them by the armistices made both with Phar- nabazos and Tissaphernes.

To provide employment for his army, Derkyllidas crossed the Hellespont, and undertook the work of Rebuilding building a wall across the Thrakian Cher- Thrakian sonese to protect the Greek cities from the waiL        incursions of the barbarian tribes. The

breadth of the peninsula in its narrowest part is a little more than four miles ; and the soldiers were doubtless able to avail themselves of the remains of the walls which had been previously constructed by Miltiades and by Perikles. The work was begun in the spring and finished before the autumn ; and eleven cities, with a vast amount of arable land and splendid pasturage, were thus protected from Thrakian inroads. On his return to Asia he found that the general tranquillity of the Greek cities Reduction ^was marred by a band of Chian exiles who of Atameus. jj_a(j _0CCUpi_ed Atarneus. After eight months’ siege he captured the town, garrisoned it as a ddp6t for liis own use, and returned to Ephesos.

In spite of these successes, the Ionian Greeks, fancy­ing perhaps that their interests had been sacrificed for he advantage of their northern compatriots, were not

satisfied with the conduct of the war. Envoys were therefore sent to represent to the ephors that an attack upon Karia would probably force Tissaphernes to consent to the independence of the Greek cities. Derkyllidas consequently received orders to march across the Maian- dros (Meander), and to co-operate with the admiral Pharax in an invasion of Karia. Here he unexpectedly His march found himself checked by the united forces of ^{into Karia}- Pharnabazos and Tissaphernes, who had composed their private feud for the sake of expelling the public enemy. At once all the contingents from the Greek cities in Asia hid their arms in the standing corn, and took to their heels ; but in spite of the urgent entreaties of Pharna­bazos, Tissaphernes, remembering the prowess of the Cyreian Greeks, refused to attack, and sent instead to demand a conference. Thus the timidity of the satrap rescued Derkyllidas from a position of imminent peril. He consented to the conference, without betraying the slightest sign of alarm or uneasiness. When the generals met, the Spartan demanded the independence of the Greek cities ; Tissaphernes insisted on the _T withdrawal not only of the Peloponnesian Tissa- army, but of all Spartan harmosts. An P^hernes- armistice was agreed upon, to allow time to refer the conditions to the decision of the supreme authorities at Sparta and at Sousa.

During the truce the war assumed a very different and much more important character. The atti- causes of tude of the lower classes at Sparta towards the expedition

. , i * of Agesi-

governrnent was so alarming, that the ephors laos: were anxious at once to divert the attention of _x Danger- the people from their grievances, and to rid con-

11 r     -1       1 •      A dition cf

themselves of many dangerous subjects. At lower the same time they heard almost by accident ^dasses- fhat the sea-ports of Phoenicia were busied 'with the pre­

parations for a great armament, to consist of not less than 300 ships of war. Nor were these reports without „ , good foundation. Phamabazos during the

a. News of , ,      . , _

the forma- truce had repaired to Sousa to remonstrate

Persian⁸ against the incapacity of Tissaphernes, and to K^Cton^{nder recommen}d especially that a war, which had for its object the control of the maritime cities, should be fought out upon the sea. He even suggested the admiral’s name: it was best that Greek should meet Greek, and Konon again command a fleet against the Spartans. From the fatal beach of Aigos- potamoi, the Athenian admiral, discomfited but not dis­graced, had with eight ships fled for refuge to Euagoras, lord of Salamis in Kypros (Cyprus), one of the noblest men and most enterprising princes of his time. The advice of Pharnabazos was supported both by Euagoras and Parysatis, and Artaxerxes was induced to grant the satrap 500 talents for the equipment of a fleet, and to appoint Konon to the command. Amid the universal 3. Ambition excitement caused at Sparta by the rumour of dros^and" these preparations, Agesilaos, instigated by Agesilaos. Lysandros, came forward and proposed that he should personally assume the command of an expedi­tion against Persia. He named at the same time the troops which he should want. Thirty Spartans, a number as large as could be spared in the present condition of Spartan politics, and some of whom would have been forced on him in any case, were required to act, partly as a staff, partly as a board of control. Two thousand Neoda- .. m6des were to form the backbone of his army ; of^XJ£gesi-°ⁿ and the ephors would take care that they were laos. b₀id_est and most formidable whom they

could possibly select. These troops were to be further supported by 6,000 allies. There was probably little difficulty in raising a force of this magnitude, for many

would be attracted by the hope of plunder in a country which was the El Dorado of Hellenic imaginations ; but to a long-sighted politician, if any such was to be found at Sparta, the refusal of the principal allies must have seemed ominous indeed. The Athenians professed them­selves too weak; the Corinthians were deterred by the inundation of a temple; Thebes refused outright.

The two great Spartans, at the head of the expedition, set out with widely different intentions. Lysandros, who expected to control everything, hoped to re-establish the detested dekarchies, and with them his personal ascend­ency. Agesilaos had grander notions of the conquest of Persia, and the capture of Sousa itself. Since the era ot the Trojan war, no Spartan king had led an army in person into Asia ; he must therefore recall the deeds of Menelaos and Agamemnon, and do sacrifice at His sacrifice Aulis on his way. In doing this he outraged ^{at Auhs}* either Boiotian sentiment or local precedent. In the midst of the ceremony a troop of horse, despatched by the Boiotarchs, rode up to forbid the sacrifice, and even seized the victims and flung them from the altar. In high dudgeon the would-be King of Men and arrival retired to his ship, and, after touching at ^mAsia- Geraistos to collect contingents, sailed across to Ephesos.

The first act of Agesilaos, after his arrival in Asia,

was to conclude a truce with Tissaphernes. Neither

leader felt himself strong enough for really Truce with

vigorous action ; and both were fully aware Tissa- !r - -        ,        _ phemes.

of the utter hollowness of the compact. Ly-

sandros was at once surrounded by crowds of devoted

partisans, and many more, hearing the good news of his

coming, flocked to Ephesos, eagerly solicitous that he

should use his influence in their behalf, and replace them

in the governments from which they had been expelled

Once before Lysandros had been sent out to them in a position nominally subordinate, but really supreme ; and Devotion of ^ ^seemed natural to them to treat their old Asiatics to patron with royal honour, and the unknown

Lysandros, *      ,

Agesilaos as an ordinary personage. Nor did Lysandros, trusting fully to the submissiveness of the king, care to conceal or tone down their adulation. But to the ambitious Agesilaos and the jealous peers all this was quite unbearable ; and the king systematically refused every request which had the support of Lysandros. Still the gratitude of the Ionians for past favours was so great that they shewed him the greatest attention even when and his they knew that his good word was worse than humiliation. _useless; and Agesilaos, more angry than before, resolved to humiliate Lysandros thoroughly by appointing him his meat carver, with the sarcasm, ‘ Let the Ionians come now and pay court to my carver.’ Such, at least, is the account of Plutarch, who is here unsupported by Xenophon ; both authors, however, agree in their version of the ensuing conversation. Stung by the insult, Lysandros exclaimed, ‘At any rate, Agesi­laos, you know well how to degrade your friends.^{7 1} Of course I do,’ replied the king ; ‘ those at least who try to appear my betters ; but I should be ashamed if I did not know how to reward my faithful servants.’ Lysandros, feeling that he had met his match, requested that for the sake of appearances some command might be given him, in which there might be no collision between them, and where he could do good work for his country. He was despatched to the Hellespont, where he won over an important ally, Spithridates, a Persian of rank and wealth, and useful from his intimate knowledge of Pharnabazos and his territory. In this incident the conduct of Ly­sandros commands our sympathy more than that of his rival. He had the strongest claims on the gratitude of

the king, and, in spite of studied and wholly unnecessary insult, he showed no unworthy or petty resentment in the performance of the duty assigned to him.

Agesilaos, now, at any rate, commander-in chief in deed as well as in name, thought that he had little to fear from the disunited satraps; and when Tissa- Truce phernes broke the truce by demanding that he ^issa” ^by should quit Asia at once, he gladly sent back phemes, the defiant answer that he thanked the satrap for his per­jury, for the gods would consequently favour the Hellenic cause. He was well aware that Tissaphernes, whose army had been strongly reinforced, was expecting an attack on Karia ; and he made elaborate preparations for a march in that direction. Having thus confirmed the previous expectations of the satrap, he set out at once for Phrygia, where Pharnabazos was quite and plunder unprepared to oppose him. The booty which £y*of ph£r*" he obtained, almost without resistance, from nabazos. the cities and districts on his line of march was of immense value ; and he had penetrated nearly as far as Daskyleion before his advance was checked. Here a cavalry skirmish took place, in which the superiority of the Persians was incontestable ; and Agesilaos thought it prudent to retreat to Ephesos, having gained by his first campaign little glory, but plentiful plunder. Though, however, he lost no opportunities for obtaining money for the expenses of the war, and for the gratification of his friends, his clemency towards the conquered and his humanity to his captives were qualities so novel and so striking as to win for him the admiration of his contem­poraries.

The winter at Ephesos was spent in the most energetic preparations for the ensuing campaign ; and Agesilaos himself was the very life and soul of the work. He added to the confidence of his men by stripping the bodies of

the Asiatic captives at the time of their sale, that the

Greeks might contrast their white and delicate skin with

Military their own hardy frames, and regard the con-

prepara- _{test as one} j_{n w}hi_ch women were their foes, tions at

Ephesos. The market-place was full, not as usual of merchants and their peaceful wares, but of horses and arms ; everywhere and always drills, athletic exercises, riding-lessons, occupied the troops ; and smiths, curriers, painters, carpenters, drove a merry trade. Above all Agesilaos was anxious to raise an efficient body of cavalry from the wealthier class of the Asiatic Greeks ; and the substitutes whom their money procured were better soldiers than they would have been themselves. ‘ He made,’ says Xenophon enthusiastically, ‘ the whole town a sight worth looking at. Where men are worshipping the gods, practising the art of war, and gaining the habit of obedience, there no man can help cherishing the highest hopes.’

At the outset of his second campaign Agesilaos gave out publicly that he would lead his army straight into _{BC 3QS} the richest part of the enemy’s country, the Devastation neighbourhood of Sardeis. Tissaphernes de- of Lydia. termined not to be tricked a second time, and was convinced that the attack would be directed against Karia. This time, however, Agesilaos kept his word. He marched for three days unopposed over the fertile, and Defeat of hitherto unpillaged, plains of Lydia. On the cavalry near f°^urth day, when he was near the junction of Sardeis. the rivers Paktolos and Hermos, the Persian cavalry appeared, and drove in the Greek plunderers with some loss. The Greek cavalry advanced to their support, and a skirmish ensued, which Agesilaos, who had all his forces present on the field, converted into a pitched battle before the infantry of the enemy had come up. Cavalry against cavalry, the Persians had held their own ;

but when the onset of the Greek horse was supported by a simultaneous charge of hoplites and light-armed troops, they broke and fled; and their camp, with plunder worth seventy talents, fell into the hands of the conquerors.

Tissaphernes meanwhile remained inactive at Sardeis ; and though the mass of his troops had not been in action at all, he made no attempt to avenge this dis- Disgrace graceful defeat. This was at any rate coward- of Tissa^th ice; the Persians called it treachery. The phemes. measure of the iniquities of the crafty, craven satrap was now full; the implacable Parysatis at last obtained vengeance for the fall of her favourite son ; and the weak king was persuaded to sacrifice the servant to whom he owed his throne. Tithraustes received orders to procure the death of Tissaphernes and to rule his satrapy in his stead. The wretched victim was seized in his bath at Kolossai, and at once beheaded.

The new satrap immediately opened negotiations with Agesilaos, and offered to grant autonomy to the Greek cities on condition of the payment of a fixed _{T b} tribute to the Great King. As the Spartan tJeenhil" replied that to settle terms of peace lay not with him, but with the authorities at home, andAgesi- an armistice for six months was agreed upon, ^aos' and Agesilaos consented, in consideration of a subsidy of thirty talents, to turn his arms against the satrapy of Pharnabazos—an arrangement which strikingly illustrates the want of cohesion among the component parts of the unwieldy and ill-cemented Persian empire.

When the Spartan king had arrived at Kyme on his northward march, he received a despatch from the ephors, authorising him to undertake the management of naval affairs, and to appoint whom he would to the office of admiral. Inspirited by this unprecedented mark of

confidence, he at once raised a fleet of 120 ships from the cities of the islands and the sea-coast, partly from the public revenues, partly from the liberality rafses a fleet of private citizens. The admiral selected poinuPpei- ^^or ^e command was Peisandros, the king’s sandros brother-in-law, a young man of good abilities, but deficient in naval experience. This being done, Agesiiaos pushed on to Phrygia, but had scarcely begun the devastation of the country, when he was per­suaded by Spithridates to digress into the distant pro­vince of Paphlagonia, where he found a valuable ally March of ^^or himself in the Paphlagonian prince and Agesiiaos an advantageous match for Spithridates in goniaand* his daughter. On his return into Phrygia, Phrygta. Agesiiaos made his winter quarters in the neighbourhood of Daskyleion, and, selecting the satrap’s palace for his own residence, amused himself with hunt­ing in the well-stocked park and preserves, while their owner was wandering, a homeless fugitive, from place to place. The soldiers, well provisioned and unmolested, grew daily more careless, till Pharnabazos, watching his opportunity, dashed among them with two scythed chariots and a body of cavalry, and left a hundred Camp of dead upon the field. To avenge this exploit, Phama- Herippidas, formerly harmost at Herakleia, a azos en.  fondof a brilliant achievement, and one of

the most influential of the thirty staff-officers, acting on the information of Spithridates, surprised the camp of Pharnabazos, killed many of the enemy, and captured a large amount of plate and other plunder. But a quarrel about the booty cost the Greeks the valuable alliance of Spithridates and the Paphlagonians, much to the chagrin of the Spartan king.

Soon afterwards, a citizen of Kyzikos, an old friend of Pharnabazos, and a recent guest of Agesiiaos, brought

about an interview between the two leaders. The satrap coming in splendid raiment to the place of meeting found the king in simple attire, seated on the ground. i_nterv;_ew Shamed by the contrast, he discarded the between luxurious carpets spread for his comfort; and amTphar- sitting down by Agesilaos, in virtue of his ^nabazos- age began the conference. The conversation which followed, as reported by Xenophon, does not bear the impress of probability, and is possibly somewhat garbled to allow Agesilaos to hold his own in the argument. Pharnabazos, after recapitulating his faithful services to the Spartan cause, upbraided Agesilaos with having made him a houseless and even a dinnerless vagabond, saying that he could not reconcile Spartan ideas of gratitude with his own notions of what was right before gods and men. Though, however, he contrasted his own fidelity with the duplicity of Tissaphernes, he omitted to point the contrast further by asking why the Spartans had systematically spared the territory of the latter and directed their animosity especially against himself. While the thirty counsellors sat dumb with shame, Agesilaos replied that, however great his respect for Pharnabazos personally might be, yet inasmuch as he was by his official capacity a servant of the Great King, he was his enemy, and he had treated him as such; now let him revolt from his master, make an alliance with Sparta, and secure at once wealth, independence, and happiness. This Pharnabazos promised to do, if his master should attempt to subordi­nate him to any other satrap; and, on hearing this, Agesilaos promised in his turn to evacuate his territory, and, as far as possible, avoid molesting it for the future. With this the conference broke up, Agesilaos cementing his alliance with the father by an interchange of presents and promises of friendship with the son.

The Spartan army withdrew at once into Mysia, where

it received numerous reinforcements ; for the Spartan Agesilaos king was now contemplating immediate opera- Mysia *^nt° ^t*^{ons u}P^on the grandest scale. These designs, however, were doomed to remain unaccom­plished. A message was brought from the ephors, ordering Agesilaos instantly to return to Greece, as his country was in jeopardy. Intense was the disappoint­ment of the king at receiving this command ; and deep the sorrow of the Asiatic Greeks when he communicated it to them, adding the promise that he would not forget and is re- them, but would return as soon as circum- caiied by^ stances should permit. But his soldiers were e ep ore.      leave the rich plains of Asia, and had

little inclination to face the resolute onset of a Greek phalanx after experiencing the weak resistance of Persian foes* Four thousand men were left to garrison the Asiatic cities ; and as their reluctance was lessened and their ardour stimulated by the promise of a large number of valuable prizes, a strong body of his most efficient troops, including many Cyreians under the command of Xenophon, were induced to set out for Europe. These prizes were distributed at Sestos when the troops were safe on the European side of the Hellespont; after which Agesilaos continued his homeward march.

Though the alarming rumours which had so deeply agitated the Spartan government had been indeed well- Fieet    founded, the progress of Konon was, at first,

blockaded extremely slow. At length forty triremes were at Kaunos. got ready, and with these the Athenian ad­miral at once put to sea. Advancing cautiously along the southern coast of Asia Minor, he fell in with Pharax, the Lakedaimonian admiral, with a fleet of 120 ships, and was compelled to seek refuge in the harbour of Kaunos. Here he remained shut in for many months, and, after patient waiting, received a reinforcement of forty ships ;

whereupon Pharax broke up the blockade and retired to Rhodes. But the Rhodian democrats, emboldened by the near neighbourhood of Konon, eagerly seized Revolt of the first opportunity for revolt, overthrew their ^Rhodes- detested oligarchy, and drove Pharax from their harbour. In point of positive loss, their successful revolution was a heavy blow to the Spartan cause ; for Konon immediately made the island his chief station, and was enabled to capture an Egyptian fleet, which sailed unsuspectingly into the harbour, laden with a valuable cargo of corn and marine stores for Spartan use. But, as a sign of the times, it was still more serious. The actual presence of a Spartan force had always been found necessary to ensure the success of an oligarchical revolution ; but it was now proved that the mere vicinity of an Athenian fleet was sufficient to cause the overthrow of an oligar­chical government, and the actual presence of a Spartan fleet wholly unable to prevent it. So violent was the rage excited by this news at Sparta, that, blindly venting their fury on any hapless Rhodian who came Execution in their way, the ephors seized and put to ofDoneus. death Dorieus, distinguished no less for his enthusiastic support of Spartan interests than for the splendour of his victories in the public games. When he had fallen twelve years before into the hands of the Athenians, his captors had seen in him the brilliant champion rather than the inveterate foe, and had generously spared his life.

But, in spite of these successes, Konon had hard work

to keep his fleet together at all. His captains were

jealous of one another, as well as of their _Konon’s

Greek commander : the satraps were slow in journey to ....   , , „ ^r  .        the court.

furnishing, and the officers forward m em­bezzling, the seamen’s pay ; and for the want of it his men were almost in mutiny. Konon determined to apply in person to the fountain head. His journey to the court

of the Great King was entirely successful. Though konon's refusal to prostrate himself before him prevented a personal interview, Artaxerxes granted him everything he asked, and especially his request that Pharnabazos might share with him the command of the fleet. New life and vigour was at once infused into the naval opera­tions. A powerful fleet was collected ; the Phoenician ships were under the orders of Pharnabazos, while Konon Phamaba- commanded the Greek contingent, which con- zosjoint- sisted partly of ships brought by Euagoras in person, partly of those furnished by Athe­nian volunteers and exiles, who had flocked in great numbers to the hospitable refuge of the Kyprian Salamis.

Peisandros had fixed his station at Knidos, at the head of the southern peninsula of the Keramic Gulf, Defeat and ^w'th the fleet which had been raised by Age- death of silaos. As the enemy sailed up, their supe-

Peisandros ...     .        ,        , , .

at Knidos. riority in numbers appeared so overwhelming (394 b c.) _th_{at t}j_ie Asiatic allies on the Spartan left immediately took to flight. What this superiority was is uncertain. Diodoros states that the Spartans had eighty-five ships, and their opponents ninety. Xeno­phon says that the whole fleet of Peisandros seemed far less numerous than the Greek contingent under Konon. The battle which ensued was short and decisive. The Spartan fleet was forced by the onset of the enemy to make for the shore. Most of the vessels as they grounded were abandoned by their crews, who thus made good their escape ; Peisandros himself, scorn­ing to desert his ship, was slain, like a true Spartan, sword in hand. Fifty ships fell into the hands of the victors, Aigospotamoi was avenged, the naval power of Sparta was annihilated at a single blow, and the maritime ascendency, which she had enjoyed for ten years, was wrested from her grasp.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CORINTHIAN WAR.

Even before the departure of Agesilaos for Asia, there had not been wanting outward signs of the deep discon­tent which was working in the hearts of the    . allies of Sparta; and during the two years discontent of his absence these feelings had gathered ^un-’ strength, and at last had burst forth into popularity an opposition so formidable that the home ° ^parta‘ government had been reluctantly compelled to recall their victorious king in the very midst of his career of conquest. Very soon after her hour of triumph the clouds of envy and hatred had begun to gather round Sparta more darkly even and far more rapidly than they had gathered round imperial Athens. From the first, Corinth and Thebes had refused to obey her summons, a summons now thrice repeated only to be thrice defied ; and the chastisement of Elis, far from fixing the yoke of the sovereign city more securely, had only served to exhibit Sparta in the unpopular and somewhat despicable character of a big bully who thrashes smaller offenders unmercifully, but is afraid to provoke a struggle with more capable antagonists. Nor had her recent parade of patriotism gained her either popu­larity or prestige. The shame of the disgraceful treaties could not so easily be blotted out; and, since the exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greeks were not disposed to accept the outwitting of a satrap or the ravaging of a province as a great military achievement.

From Asia came the spark which was to fire the train. Tithraustes, after spending thirty talents to rid a.h.         1

his own satrapy of Agesilaos temporarily, thought that fifty talents would be well employed if by their means he could rid the whole country of him permanently. This sum Tithraustes ^was accordingly entrusted to Timokrates, a sends       Rhodian, who was anxious to secure to his

th^Greek own island the liberty which it had so recently states. regained, and was vehemently hostile to the state which had supported the hated oligarchs. The account given by Xenophon of this transaction is dis­torted even beyond his wont by philo-Lakonian bias. He insinuates that the money was accepted by the leading democrats in Argos, Corinth, and Thebes as a mere bribe, in return for which they industriously circulated calumnies against Sparta, and so created a feeling of hatred towards her. But the previous attitude of the cities renders this extremely improbable ; and also the negotiations were perfectly open. There was no attempt at concealment as in a case of personal corruption ; the names of the citizens who received the money were well known and are recorded by Xenophon ; and it was ac­cepted by the opponents of Sparta not in the way of personal profit, but as a subsidy to be spent on a definite object, and in furtherance of the policy to which they were themselves devoted. It is especially stated that none of the Persian money found its way to Athens. Either it was thought that her injuries were so great that her support was certain, or perhaps the Athenians felt themselves defenceless, and wished to avoid any pre­mature acts of hostility.

Nor is it difficult to understand why the Thebans, though ten years previously the most bitter of the foes of Special Athens, had now become eager to take the Thebes⁷-°its lead in a war with Sparta. Their petition for causes. a share in the spoils of the war had been resented as an insult; they had actively assisted the

Athenian exiles; their last refusal to join the Spartan army had not been tempered by even the flimsiest excuse; and their last act had been a public outrage on a Spartan king. War was consequently inevitable ; it would be well not to defer it till that king returned in triumph. Again, the spread of Spartan power in the north of Greece towards the end of the Peloponnesian war had been very striking; and after its close the unscrupulous rigour of Herippidas had made Herakleia and its vicinity a valu­able base of Spartan operations, and had enabled them to push their dominion as far as Pharsalos in Thessaly. By these aggressive movements, Thebes felt that her position as the leading state in northern Hellas was seriously com­promised.

A pretext for war was soon found. The Thebans either provoked, or availed themselves of, a quarrel between the Phokians and the Opountian Lokrians, about a piece of borderland. The Thebans took the side of the latter, and invaded Phokis. Without delay the Phokians applied for aid to Sparta, representing that the invasion of their territory was a wanton piece of aggression. The Spartans willingly promised assistance, being, asXenophon says, glad to lay hold of an excuse for making outbreak of war on the Thebans, and so putting a stop to Boiotian their insolence. Not only were they smarting ^war‘ under insult and eager for revenge, but the influence of Lysandros was once again supreme in their counsels. Ever foremost in the enslavement of his fellow- Spartan Hellenes, he managed to obtain for himself plan of the supreme command ; and the plan of the ^operatlons- campaign was arranged at once. Making Herakleia the base of operations, Lysandros was to collect the Malians and other tribes in that neighbourhood and to advance into Boiotia; while to Pausanias, the colleague of Agesilaos in the royal office, was assigned the duty of mustering the 1 2

Peloponnesian contingents, and then meeting the north­ern army on a given day. Haliartos was the appointed rendezvous.

The Thebans, perceiving how formidable was the war which they had provoked, and fearing to be crushed

envoy in the congress which decided the fate of Athens, as merely the proposal of a private individual (p. 1); he appealed to the gratitude of the democrats, whom Thebes had treated generously,and refused to attack; he reminded the oligarchical party that they, at any rate, had little cause to feel grateful to the state which had deserted them. Athens might again, he said, put herself at the head of all the discontented subjects of Sparta, and so regain her pre-eminence in Hellas ; all the allies were alienated by the twofold oppression of Lysandrian dekarchies and Helot harmosts. ‘ Nor/ he concluded, ‘ will the dominion of Sparta be as difficult to overthrow as yours. We will fight for you more vigorously. You, and no one else, then possessed a fleet ; and the Spartans are few, while we, her oppressed allies, are many. It will be as much to your advantage as to ours to send us help.’ The Theban petition found many seconders ; oligarchs and democrats, discarding their animosities,

less state of his city, and contrasted the active assistance now afforded by Athens with the merely passive absten­tion of the Thebans ; thus hinting that the readiness of his countrymen to send the required forces was not due to their incapacity to see through the sophistries of Theban oratory.

Theban em­bassy to Athens.

between the two advancing armies, sent an embassy to Athens to appeal for help. The orator began by disclaiming the vote of their

united to vote in its favour, Thrasyboulos^ when informing the envoys of the decision of the assembly, reminded them of the defence-

Meanwhile Lysandros had performed his part of the plan of operations with characteristic energy. He not only raised his army without loss of time ; but knowing that Orchomenos, on account of her present Death of importance and legendary pre-eminence, ^ore^dr°^S chafed at the yoke of Thebes, he induced this, Haliartos, the -second city in the Boiotian confederacy, persion of to revolt and send a contingent to his army. ^army* On his arrival at Haliartos, in spite of the absence ol Pausanias, he at once summoned the town to surrender, probably trusting to the co-operation of his own partisans within the walls. The town, however, had a small Theban garrison, and the summons was rejected. Lysan­dros ordered an instant assault; but a strong force of Thebans hurried up to the rescue. Lysandros was pro­bably caught, as it were, between two fires; and the joint efforts of the garrison and the relieving force routed the attacking army, which fled to the heights or spurs of Mount Helikon near the town. The Thebans, in their turn, pursuing too hotly up the rocky slopes, were driven off with the loss of 200 men. But the Spartan loss was heavier still. Early in the fight Lysandros himself had fallen by the hand of a Haliartian hoplite, and his army, in which the personal influence of the general had been the sole bond of union, melted away during the night. Such was the death of the man who for twelve years had been the foremost of the Greeks. The power which his talents won for Sparta was lost through the unpopularity which he brought upon her; his victories had gained no permanent blessing for his country, and had conferred no lasting glory on himself. If he had enjoyed the smiles of fortune, he had also experienced the bitterness of insult and of failure; and, lastly, his death in a futile attempt upon a second-rate Boiotian town

brought no fame to himself, and heavy disaster upon his countrymen.

On the following day Pausanias marched up to the appointed rendezvous, to find his colleague slain, the Pausanias army dispersed, and the dead bodies in the bun^?a5°^ra possession of the enemy. These it was his truce;      first duty to obtain, either by a truce or by

cuates³ fighting ; and Pausanias in a position of such Boiotia difficulty thought it expedient to shield him­self behind the decision of a council of war. A few voices were raised to urge a battle. The chance of defeat, it was said, was preferable to the certainty of disgrace ; for to ask a truce was a confession of defeat. But the dis­cretion of the majority and of the king himself prevailed over their valour. The plan of the campaign had been entirely disarranged ; the bodies lay close to the walls in a most dangerous position ; the allies were half-hearted and reluctant; the Thebans had just received from Athens a strong reinforcement under Thrasyboulos, and now were superior, at any rate, in cavalry ; and a defeat would be disastrous to the whole dominion of Sparta. These considerations carried the day ; and the Thebans granted the truce, appending, contrary to Greek usage, a condition that Pausanias should evacuate Boiotia without delay This stipulation the allies heard with undisguised plea­sure ; and, after the burial of the dead, Pausanias led away his army, while the Thebans hung on their line of march, and did not shrink from using blows to force the stragglers to keep to the beaten tracks.

On his return to Sparta, Pausanias was assailed by Heisac- vehement accusations. The minority in the council of war declared that he had sullied the ends^ehislife honour of Sparta : the friends of Lysandros at icgea. asserted that he had sacrificed her greatest citizen. It is uncertain whether he was behind the ap-

pointed time, or whether Lysandros had anticipated it, and whether, in the former case, the reluctance of the allies might not have been sufficient excuse for a slight delay. But the angry people were in no mood to be told that the rash impatience of Lysandros had caused the disaster, or that the decision of Pausanias was ratified by his proper advisers. His conduct in Attica eight years before was raked up against him ; and, conscious that he could not expect any fair trial, he allowed a sentence of death to be passed against him in his absence, and fled to Tegea, where he remained in sanctuary till his death : a signal proof, if proof were needed, that it is not a de­mocracy alone which treats ill-success as a crime, and permits justice to be perverted by passion.

The effects of this Spartan reverse were at once felt. The two great states, Argos and Corinth, formed a close alliance with the two belligerents, Athens and Formation Thebes; and the anti-Spartan confederacy rfcyagalnst was soon joined by the Euboians, the Akar- Sparta, nanians, Malians, and Lokrians, by Ambrakia, Leukas, and almost all Thessaly, especially the important towns of Larissa, Krannon, Skotoussa, and Pharsalos. Corinth became the head-quarters of the confederates, and the contest which began as a Boiotian war is henceforward known as the Corinthian war.

Active operations began with a successful campaign

in Thessaly and Phokis. The Theban Ismenias, a man

of wealth and ability, who had openly sympa- ,

,        111 Theban suc-

thised with Athens m her troubles, and had cesses in the

felt no scruple in accepting the subsidy of ^north*

Tithraustes, was in command of the Boiotian forces.

Aided by some disaffected citizens who had been left in

Herakleia in spite of the massacre made by Herippidas,

he drove out the Spartans from that town, the great

stronghold of their power in the north, and followed up

this success by defeating the Phokians and their Spartan harmost. After this, he marched with his troops to join the general muster of the allies at Corinth. In the council Counc'i of ^which was summoned to settle the plan of the war at* operations, there was the usual disagreement Connth.  _statcs unaccustomed to united action. The

interests of Thebes and Athens demanded only that the three passes of the isthmus should be strongly guarded and the Spartans blockaded within the Peloponnese. But this would not satisfy Argos and Corinth, who would be thus exposed to the ravages of the Spartan army ; and the voice of Argos could not be disregarded, as she contributed the largest contingent to the allied force. Timolaos, the Corinthian, expressed the policy of his own city in the most telling terms : ‘ The Lakedaimonian power/ said he, ¹ is like a river, insignificant at its source, but gathering strength as it flows along. Let us attack them, as men take a nest of wasps : if they wait till the wasps fly out, the task is both difficult and dangerous ; but it is easy enough if they smother the wasps in their nest.’ The boldness of this language prevailed, and the council resolved to march upon Sparta itself.

The determination of the allies was wise, but it was, unfortunately, too late. The wasps were already out of March of their nest; the river was in full flow. While under Ar^^S they were losing time in debating about the todemos. depth of their phalanx and the order of com­mand, the Spartans had raised a powerful army under Aristodemos, the guardian of Agesipolis, the young son of the condemned Pausanias, and had pushed on to Sikyon before the allies had proceeded farther than Nemea. As they advanced upon Corinth, their oppo­nents fell back, inflicting some damage upon them by means of their light troops, in which branch the Spartans were inferior. The two armies encamped about a mile

apart; the allies were numerically superior, but their dis­united generalship compensated for the lukewarmness of the Lakedaimonian allies. The Thebans began the battle by a furious attack on the Achaians. Battle of But they gave way to the usual tendency of C⁰™*¹¹- Greek hoplites, and bore off more and more towards the right, from a natural wish to keep under the cover of the shield of their right-hand neighbour, and to avoid ex­posing their right or unprotected side. To prevent the line of battle from being entirely severed, the Athenians were obliged to follow their movement, and thus gave the Spartans an opportunity of turning their right flank. The Lakedaimonian allies were beaten along the whole line, and the victors broke their ranks and pursued the fugitives : but the Spartans out-flanked and Defeat of overpowered the Athenians, and defeated them ^{the alhes}- with great slaughter. Then, waiting for each of the allies as they returned disordered from the pursuit, they fell on their right flank, and so defeated them in detail. Some of the fugitives found a refuge within the walls of Corinth, though the gates, at least for a time, were closed against them by the Lakonian party in the town; the majority returned to the strong camp which they had occupied in the morning. The loss of the anti-Spartan confederates was severe, yet the results of the battle were not very decisive. The supremacy of Sparta in the Peloponnese was secure, but the temper of her allies was proved to be untrustworthy. The confederates still occu­pied the passes of the isthmus, and Aristodemos resolved to commence no fresh operations until Agesilaos should return.

Derkyllidas was at once despatched to carry the news of the victory to the Spartan king, and he met the advancing army at Amphipolis. But the heart of Agesilaos was still in the work which he had so reluctantlv abandoned.

and hearing from Derkyllidas that the slaughter of the Agesilaos at allies on both sides had been very great, he Amphipoiis, b_urst into loud lamentations over the death of so many Greeks, who, if spared to so noble a service, would have sufficed to conquer all Asia. Sending on Derkyllidas to tell the news to the friends from whom he had recently parted, he forced his way through m Thessaly, Thessaly \_{n S}pj_{te 0}f j_ts hostility, inflicting as lie passed a defeat on the Thessalian squadrons which hung upon his rear—a success which was specially grati­fying, since it showed that the troops which he had him­self trained could cope with the most celebrated cavalry of Greece. On the Boiotian border his army was aug­mented by contingents from Phokis and Orchomenos, and especially by two Lakedaimonian regiments (or morai) and fifty Spartan volunteers as a body-guard. At at Chairo- Chaironeia an eclipse of the sun filled the army neia.        _wj_th gloomy forebodings. The interpretation

of the omen was not long delayed. A messenger came to tell the king that at Knidos his brother-in-law was slain and his fleet annihilated. Agesilaos had not suffi­cient confidence in the allies to tell them the truth, and announcing that Peisandros had lost his life, but had won a naval victory, he hastened to fight a de­cisive battle before the real state of the case could be known.

The Boiotians and their allies—Argives, Athenians, Corinthians, and others—were advancing from Mount Battle of Helikon, and Agesilaos from the valley of Koroneia. _the Kephissos. The two armies met near Koroneia, and approached each other in deep silence. When they were about 200 yards apart, the Thebans and their allies raised a shout and rushed to the charge. The brunt of the onset was broken by an advance of Herippidas and the mercenaries, including the Cyreians

and Xenophon himself, and the battle became general. The troops of Agesilaos were completely successful, ex­cept on their extreme left, where the Thebans had routed their old enemies, the Orchomenians. The Argives had turned their backs without striking a blow, and the vic­torious Thebans, seeing all their allies in full flight to Mount Helikon, resolved to cut their way through to join them. Agesilaos, however, determined that they should expiate their insolence at Aulis by a bloody sacrifice, and drew up all his forces in close order to bar their progress. The crash of the opposing masses was terrific; ^

1     n-        , • ,    1        • ,      Tremen-

the conflict which ensued was without a dousstrug- parallel in all the experience of the veteran Theban^¹¹ Xenophon. So fearful was the combat, that and Spartan the wonted battle-cries were hushed: no sound °^{p 1 es}‘ was heard but the push of arms and the shattering of shields. Agesilaos himself fell, weakened by repeated wounds, and was rescued only by the devotion of his body­guard. At length the mass of the Spartan hoplites grew looser, and the Thebans triumphantly forced a passage through the wavering ranks. Agesilaos had won a real victory; for he was master of the battle-field, and of the bodies of the slain; but the honours of the day remained with the Thebans. The ghastly spectacle of grappling corpses and broken weapons showed how resolute the struggle had been, and Agesilaos had no wish to provoke a second encounter. His position in Boiotia was obviously untenable. The wounded king withdrew to Delphoi, where he dedicated to the god 100 talents, the tenth of his Asiatic spoil, so vast was the booty which he Agesilaos had accumulated. The polemarch whom he left behind was slain by the Lokrians ; but and returns Agesilaos proceeded to Sparta by sea, and dis- ^{to s}P^arta- banded his army. He was welcomed home with an en­thusiasm which was heightened by his unaltered sim*

plicity of life and his willing conformity to the institutions of his country. After two years of unbroken success in Asia, he had not been driven out without the help of 10,000 Persian bowmen, for such was the witticism suggested by the figure of the archer-king on the Persian coins. H© had rivalled even Lysandros in the magnificence of his plunder, which had been won, not from Greeks, but from barbarians ; and in Thessaly and Boiotia he had proved that he was able not merely to face the weak re­sistance of a lazy Oriental, but to hold his own against the best cavalry and hoplites of Greece.

The prompt obedience of Agesiiaos to the summons which ruined his cherished hopes of Asiatic conquest is extolled by Xenophon and other ancient writers as an example of singular virtue. But even if his career had gone on unchecked by the unwelcome message, the defeat of Peisandros at Knidos would have soon forced him to abandon his more ambitious schemes. The effects of Konon’s success were quickly felt. The victorious admirals sailed from city to city on the coast and islands of the Konon and Egean, expelled the Spartan harmosts, and zos^rcceivc P^romi^sed to leave the inhabitants perfectly in- the submis- dependent, and not to fortify any citadel for Greek^fcities themselves in the towns. Everywhere these in Asia. assurances were received with joyful acclama­tions, and a warm welcome was given not only to the Athe­nian admiral, but to Pharnabazos, his Persian colleague. The latter had indeed been carefully schooled by Konon in the policy which he was to adopt. He had been warned that the Greek cities, if treated generously, would be one and all his friends, while, if he showed any wish to make himself their master, each one of them was strong enough to give him considerable trouble, and he would very pro­bably rouse a coalition of all Hellas against himself. Even Ephesos, so recently the head-quarters of the Spar­

tan king and previously the centre of Lysandrian in­trigues, changed with the rest. To a city of merchants that system seemed most advantageous which best guaranteed the privileges of commercial intercourse with the Persian empire.

Thus, without the trouble of a single siege or skirmish, the Spartan power in Asia was annihilated and the work of Agesilaos undone. The only opposition _Abydosand was found in the satrapy of Pharnabazos him- Sestos hold self. Abydos had been for years the staunchest Derkyili-* of Spartan allies, and her sins were too great ^das- to be easily forgiven. Dreading the vengeance of Phar­nabazos, the inhabitants determined to resist. They welcomed hospitably the fugitive harmosts, and invited to the shelter of their walls those who had not come un­asked. Above all, Derkyllidas was in the town, declaring that the defection of all the other cities would only make their fidelity the more conspicuous and the gratitude of Sparta more hearty, and assuring them that Sparta was still quite powerful enough to reward her friends and chastise her foes. Sestos was also secured by the same skilful and energetic diplomatist, and, like Abydos, it be­came a refuge for the harmosts who were expelled from Europe. Vainly did Pharnabazos attempt to shake their allegiance by threats. Equally ineffectual were the joint efforts of both admirals to reduce the towns by force, and, with angry vows of vengeance, the foiled satrap withdrew, urging Konon to reinforce his fleet during the winter from the towns on the Hellespont.

The revenge which Pharnabazos promised himself was the delight of pure retaliation. He longed to harry and plunder in Lakonian territory, like Derkyllidas and Age­silaos in his own satrapy. With this object Pharnabazos early in the spring determined to make straight for the Peloponnese. But the views of Konon, who accompanied

him, were wider and higher. For fourteen years he had been absent from his country, and he resolved to mark his Pharna- return by raising Athens again to a position Konon^ ^{not w}h°% unworthy of her old glory. From ravage island to island, as it held on its south-west- of Lakonia ^erty ^C0ursej the allied fleet passed, and every- andjarrison where the work of liberation went on. The K^yt era. _eoast_{s 0}f Messenia and Lakonia were ruthlessly ravaged, and the vengeance of Pharnabazos gratified. The island of Kythera was captured, and garrisoned by Athenian troops. Sailing up to the isthmus, Pharnabazos visited Corinth as the head-quarters of the anti-Spartan league, and, exhorting the allies to be vigorous in war and faithful to the Great King, he left with them as large a subsidy as he could spare. He had now accomplished Phama- his object, and, having carried a Persian fleet umisto *^{nt0 waters} where such a sight was strange Asia.        indeed, he returned to Asia.

But the purposes of Konon were as yet unfulfilled. He had confided to Pharnabazos his great project of re- Konon re- building the Long Walls and the fortifications Long^SWalls    Peiraieus, and had convinced him that

of Athens. by furthering its execution he would at the same time inflict the heaviest punishment on the Spartans, and win the most lasting gratitude from the Athenians. Pharnabazos gave a ready consent; and Konon, with a fleet of eighty ships, dropped anchor in the harbour of Peiraieus. The work was begun without delay. The crews of the fleet were busily employed, and funds fur­nished by Pharnabazos hired a whole army of carpenters and masons. The Athenians themselves lent willing as­sistance, and volunteers from Boiotia and elsewhere came zealously to help. The Phaleric Wall was not restored, having been found unnecessary ; but the rest of the work was finished by the autumn, and banquets and sacrificcs

celebrated the completion of Konon’s design, while statues and inscriptions recorded his patriotism.

It was strange that the wrath of Pharnabazos at the resistance of Abydos should have prompted him to satiate his revenge by retaliation on Lakonia itself; Militaiy and stranger still that the presence of the Per- °P^^tlons sian fleet should have coincided with the few Corinth, months during which the allies were able to guard the lines of the isthmus. This is indeed the most important fact connected with the military operations of the year B.C. 393. A Spartan force lay at Sikyon ravaging the western borders of Corinth, and keeping up a desultory war against the allies in that town. But the Corinthians had carried off most of their cattle to a safe refuge at Peiraion, in the extreme north of their territory, and the Spartans were not strong enough to force their way through the lines to interrupt the great work of restoration which was going on at Athens.

But Corinth was fated to suffer more from discord within than from war without. The government was still, as it long had been, oligarchic in form, though Dissensions by no means philo-Lakonian in sentiment. ^{in Connth}- But the faction which favoured Sparta, and which had closed the gates against the fugitives two years before, had grown lately more numerous and more discontented. The democrats were naturally the party of war, being bitterly opposed to Sparta; the ranks of the peace-party were recruited from the landed proprietors, whose estates were ravaged in a war with which they had no sympathy, and from the extreme oligarchs, who had no hope of gaining power except by Spartan intervention. Again, many who had no wish to further the ascendency of Sparta were yet jealous of the revival of Athens, and were vexed that Corinth should be the seat of war, while the territories of her allies were spared. To anticipate the

machinations of their opponents, the government planned and executed a massacre, which can only be characterised as ferocious, perfidious, and sacrilegious. More than a hundred of the citizens were slain ; the rest submitted to the force of circumstances. But the position of Corinth as the seat of war rendered an intimate alliance with some powerful state an absolute necessity. In accordance with this need Corinth was practically, and possibly even for­mally, incorporated with Argos. But to the oligarchs, whose position and privileges were gone, life under such Admission conditions seemed an insupportable degrada- of the Spar- tion ; and their leaders opened to Praxitas, her^SLong*ⁿ the Spartan commander who lay at Sikyon, Wails. _{one Q}f _th_e g_at_es j_n the western Long Wall uniting Corinth and Lechaion. In vain Argives, Athenians, and Corinthians assaulted the Spartan position—the Lakedaimonian hoplites were everywhere irresistible. They made a terrific slaughter among their panic-stricken opponents, so that, to use the simile employed by Xeno­phon, the corpses lay in heaps like so many logs or stones. Praxitas followed up his victory by making a breach in the Long Walls wide enough to allow the passage of an army, by capturing Sidous and Krommyon, and by for­tifying the position of Epieikia on the frontiers of Epi- dauros.

‘ After this/ says Xenophon, ‘ great armies were dis­continued on both sides ; but the different cities sent iphikrates garrisons—on the one side to Sikyon, on the becomes other to Corinth—and were guarding the for- Feader of* tresses. Mercenaries, however, were employed peitasts, by both parties, and the war was prosecuted vigorously by means of them.’ Foremost among the leaders of these mercenaries—unless, perhaps, Xenophon himself may be excepted—was the young Athenian Iphikrates. Having distinguished himself in the recent naval opera­

tions, he now turned his attention to the light-armed troops, or ‘ peltasts,’ improving their equipment, and enlarging their sphere of action. As far as can be gathered from the confused accounts of these changes, he seems to have made the defensive armour lighter and the weapons of offence more formidable. Thus the shield was made smaller, a linen corselet was substituted for the coat of mail, and instead of the heavy bronze greaves a new sort of gaiters was introduced, called after the name of Iphikrates himself. On the other hand, the spear and the sword were considerably lengthened. Whether he introduced these changes at the outset of his career, or whether they were the gradual result of accumulated experience, is uncertain ; at any rate, from the first he drilled and disciplined his troops with the utmost care, and soon made them a terror to the neighbour- _{and spreads} ing states of the Peloponnese. So roughly terror ^ were the Phliasians handled that they were pdoponne- forced to overcome their political objection to ^{sian alhes<} Spartan occupation, and to send for a garrison to protect their city. So cowed were the Arkadians, a people of no mean military repute, that they allowed their country to be ravaged before their eyes, rather than take the field against them. Yet the peltasts themselves had a whole­some dread of the prowess of Spartan hoplites, never approaching even within a javelin cast, so that the Spartans made contemptuous jokes at the expense of their allies, who ‘ were as frightened at the peltasts as children at hobgoblins/

But the Spartan force which was left near Corinth was not powerful enough to prevent the Athe- operations

nians from undoing the most important of the of Agesilaos , . . ®      ^r, and Teleu-.

achievements of Praxitas. As long as the tias near

breach in the Long Walls of Corinth lay open, ^Corinth*

Athens could not feel herself secure. To remedy this, the

A.H  K

people set out in full force, with masons and carpen­ters, and repaired with amazing celerity the western wall towards Sikyon, filling up the breach in the eastern wall more at their leisure. But the Spartans, having once secured an advantage so important, were not going to lose it without a struggle. The service was important enough to call for the personal attendance of the king ; and Agesi­laos marched out with a full muster of Spartan troops and Peloponnesian allies, while his brother Teleutias, a commander of great ability and daring, and of even greater popularity, supported him with a fleet in the Corinthian Gulf. The king as he passed took care to give the Argives some experience of the evils of the war which they were themselves foremost in promoting, and then, advancing to the isthmus, demolished the newly-erected works of the Athenians. Teleutias also on the very same day captured Lechaion, with the fleet and arsenal of the Corinthians, which had been furnished by the money left by Pharnabazos. The importance of these operations was soon proved by the arrival at Sparta of embassies Overtures both from Athens and from Thebes, to nego- for peace. _tj_ate terms of peace. These overtures pro­duced no definite result. Though protracted for some months, they were at last broken off on account of a brilliant exploit which altered the whole position of the belligerents.

The bitterest foes of a state are always its exiled citizens. The fugitives from Corinth, whose sole aim Agesilaos, was the overthrow of the war-party in the

after being town, were discontented as long as one single present at        ,        ,        , .

theisthmian acre of Corinthian territory remained un­captures ravaged, and restlessly urged the Spartans to Peiraion. direct an expedition against the small pe­ninsula in the centre of which was the fort of Peiraion, the sole remaining magazine from which the inhabitants

of the town could draw supplies. Further, since they held that a city which submitted to Argive domination was no true Corinth, and since they themselves consti­tuted in their own estimation the genuine Corinthian people, they wished to have the honour of presiding over the Isthmian games which were held that year. Timing his march so as to arrive at the isthmus precisely at the commencement of the festival, Agesiiaos by his mere appearance drove the competitors and spectators in terror to the town, and guarded the exiles while they went through the programme of sacrifices and contests with all due formalities ; and on his departure for Peiraion, the Corinthians came out under Argive protection and celebrated the games afresh. Finding the fort of Peiraion strongly garrisoned, he did not attack it at once, but waited till he had decoyed away most of its defenders, including Iphikrates and his peltasts, by a feint upon Corinth itself. On the next day, the occupants of Peiraion, male and female, slaves and freemen, fled for refuge to the temple of H£r£ on the neighbouring promontory. Peiraion and Oinoe, with abundance of booty, were captured at once, and the fugitives in the Heraion surrendered uncondition­ally. Those who had been concerned in the massacre in Corinth were given up by the decision of Agesiiaos to the pitiless vengeance of the exiles; the rest were sold into slavery.

The position of the Spartan king was indeed trium­phant. His camp was thronged with deputations. Even Thebes, alarmed by the proximity of the vie- Destruction torious army to her own borders, had sent        y^rtan

fresh envoys to ask for terms of peace, iphikrates Agesiiaos himself was sitting in all the pride of conquest, watching the lines of captives and piles of booty brought out for his inspection by the Spartan guards, and scorn­fully refusing even to look at the Boiotian ambassadors.

K 2

Such is the picture drawn by Xenophon, to heighten the effect of the sudden contrast. A horseman galloped up, with his horse covered with foam, and, refusing to answer other inquirers, told his news with all signs of the deep­est dejection to the king himself. A Spartan mora, 600 in number, had been cut to pieces by Iphikrates near Corinth. Having escorted their Amyklaian allies on their homeward march, as far as the friendly neigh­bourhood of Sikyon, the regiment was returning to Lechaion. As they passed the walls of Corinth, Iphi­krates with his peltasts fell upon their flanks and rear, supported by Kallias, the commander of the Athenian hoplites in the town. A few of the Spartans fell in this first onslaught ; and as the peltasts retired, the younger hoplites were ordered by the Lakedaimonian polemarch to pursue them. They failed to overtake them, and had broken their ranks in the pursuit. Suddenly the peltasts faced about and were on them before they could form into order; and their loss was considerable. This manoeuvre was repeated several times; nor did the arrival of the Spartan cavalry make their position better. The same tactics were equally fatal to them; and when the hoplites of Kallias came up to support Iphikrates, the Spartans broke and fled to the beach, where some of them were rescued by boats from Lechaion. Agesilaos hearing the tidings brought by the messenger immediately started up, and set out with such troops as were ready, to attempt to recover the bodies of the slain. But the burial truce had been already asked and granted ; and the king returned disappointed to the Heraion.

The actual loss to Sparta was severe, for the Prodigious dwindling number of her citizens could ill bear Erects of thinning. But its moral effect was prodigious, this exploit, and scarcely less than when Kleon and De­mosthenes captured half a mora of Spartan hoplites in

Sphakteria. The Theban envoys said no more about conditions of peace ; the negotiations with Athens came to an abrupt termination; and Iphikrates recovered Sidous, Krommyon, and Oinoe. So profound was the grief of the army of Agesilaos that signs of mourning were universal among all the soldiers, except the near kinsmen of the dead. These, says Xenophon, walked about with the cheerful faces of victorious athletes, and exulting in their private sorrows. Agesilaos, however, had been successful in the object for which his expedition had been sent out, and he determined to return home; but he took the greatest care to expose his troops as little as possible to the taunts of the disaffected allies, who could cast back in the teeth of the Spartans the jests about the peltasts which had been so contemptuously showered upon them­selves. Late in the evening he took up his quarters in the towns which lay in his road; and at the earliest dawn he resumed his march. Mantineia was passed in the dead of night; for a serious collision might have occurred between the sullen Spartans and the exultant Arka- dians.

This daring deed was long remembered not only as the most brilliant of the exploits of Iphikrates, but as one of the most notable achievements in the Recall of annals of Greek warfare. The successful general was however soon recalled. He Corinth, offended the Corinthians by his high-handed interference with their internal politics, and Chabrias was sent from Athens to take his place.

CHAPTER IX.

THE PEACE OF ANTALKIDAS.

Though tne Corinthian war did not come actually to an end after the exploit of Iphikrates, it ceased to have any immediate connexion with Corinth, and the military operations became of little general importance, and less Agesilaos in historical interest. Agesilaos, at the urgent Akamania. request of his Achaian allies, conducted an expedition into the wild district of Akamania with great skill and energy. Having ravaged the country and taken abundant plunder, he returned to Sparta, and the Akamanians, dreading a repetition of the same pro­ceedings, made their submission in the following spring, and enrolled themselves in the Lakedaimonian con- Agesipolis federacy. Agesipolis also began his military m Argohs. career by an invasion of Argolis. It was an old trick, thoroughly worthy of the usual policy of Argos, to send heralds on the approach of Spartan invaders, with an announcement that it was a sacred season and that they were bound to observe the truce. But now, having previously consulted the oracles on the question, Agesipolis disregarded these assertions, and marched on to the very walls of Argos, spreading terror and havoc round him, and in every direction going just farther than Agesilaos had penetrated—in the words of Xenophon, like a rival athlete contending for a prize.

Nor is it surprising that the Spartans began to pro­secute the war with less vigour, for they had good hopes that they would obtain by other means all that they could desire. As Persian gold had originally stimulated the allies to combine against them, and a Persian subsidy had famished the Corinthians, with ihcir tfcct and the Athe­

nians with their fortifications, they resolved to make an earnest effort to win over Persia to their own cause. Antalkidas was the envoy chosen for this Antalkidas mission, a crafty, persuasive politician, cast ^_s^s-^ent_a^°_d in the mould of Lysandros and Derkyllidas. gains over He made his way to Sardeis, where Tiribazos, Tmbazos. who had succeeded Tithraustes as satrap of Ionia, was holding his court. The enmity of Pharnabazos or of any Persian who had been deeply injured by Spartan hos­tilities would have been too inveterate to be removed by the winning eloquence even of an Antalkidas ; but Tiri­bazos, being a new comer, lent a willing ear to his proposals, that the Greek cities in Asia should be surrendered to the Great King, on condition that all the islands and the other cities of Greece should be absolutely autonomous. The Spartan urged that the old policy of Persia in maintaining a balance between two great powers was erroneous, for it entailed upon her perpetual warfare and expense; whereas the complete disintegration of the Hellenic race and the isolation of all its component units would render both Sparta and Athens alike incapable of causing the Great King any annoyance.

The news of the mission of Antalkidas created profound uneasiness among the other states of Greece, and envoys hastened from Argos, Athens,

Thebes, and Corinth to counteract his schemes. _embass[es They heard his proposals with the utmost Ad^ns^⁰⁵⁵’ alarm, and probably with not a little indigna- Corinth, tion. For a Spartan so soon to cast to the ^{e es}' winds the patriotic professions of Agesilaos, and hand over the Asiatic Greeks to the absolute sovereignty of the barbarian, was an act of perfidy only exceeded by the cunning wording of the conditions of the surrender. The position of Sparta in the Peloponnese would remain the same: her allies already enjoyed a nominal independence,

and she would take good care that it never became any­thing more. But she would compel Argos to dissolve her intimate alliance with Corinth, and thus her chief oppo­nent near home would be crippled ; Thebes would be re­duced to the position of an insignificant Boiotian town ; and Athens would have to abandon her newly-formed hopes of re-establishing her maritime confederacy, and even of regaining the islands which had so long belonged to her—Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros. For the present, the negotiations could advance no further ; Tiribazos had heard both sides, and gave his unqualified support to the Spartan proposals, but he could do nothing more on his own responsibility. When, however, the other envoys were departing for their homeward journey, Tiribazos arrested Arrest of Konon, who had come to plead the cause of Konon. Athens, on the ground that he had injured the interests of the king. To this act of treachery he had been urged by Antalkidas, and he probably affected to regard Konon rather as an officer holding the Great King’s commission than as the envoy of an independent state. Whether Konon died in prison, or, as seems more pro­bable, was permitted to retire to the court of his old friend Euagoras, is uncertain ; but to Athens his loss was irreparable, for his name disappears from history at the moment when she needed most sorely a politician thoroughly conversant with the Persian character.

The policy of Antalkidas was not so successful at Sousa as at Sardeis. The Persians had learnt that Sparta Strouthas could play fast and loose with the most solemn Tiribazo^s obligations, and they were still smarting from and defeats the inroads of Derkyllidas and Agesilaos. Thimbron. Tiribazos was detained at court during the royal pleasure, and was superseded in the government of Ionia by Strouthas, a vigorous and straightforward soldier, who made no secret of his hostility towards the

devastators of his country. To counteract his influence, and in spite of his previous ill-success, the Spartan govern­ment again sent Thimbron to take the command in Asia. Why this appointment was made, while a man like Der­kyllidas was still in the neighbourhood, is not mentioned : at any rate, his failure was as complete as before, and more disastrous. Strouthas, at the head of the Persian cavalry, fell upon the disorderly and careless army which Thimbron had raised, slew the general himself, and en­tirely dispersed his forces. The subsequent operations in Ionia are of little moment.

The chief efforts of Sparta by sea were now directed to supporting the oligarchical party in Rhodes in their en­deavour to overthrow the democracy. Teleutias Expedition himself, the most active and popular of her ad- ^successes^ * mirals, had been despatched thither from the ofThrasy- Corinthian Gulf, and had captured a small squad- ^boulos- ron of Athenian ships. Thrasyboulos was consequently sent from Athens with a fleet of forty triremes to bring help to the Rhodian democrats. But the affairs of the island did not seem to him so important as those of the Hellespont. Sailing thither, he entered into alliance with the Thrakian chiefs, won over Byzantion and Chalkedon, recovered the right of levying a toll upon vessels sailing from the Euxine, a lucrative source of revenue, slew the Spartan commander in Lesbos, and, exacting money from the maritime cities as he passed, sailed on as far as Aspendos, a town of Pamphylia. Here some outrages committed by his men so enraged the inhabitants, that they surprised him by night and killed him in his tent. Athens could ill afford so soon to lose the services of another of her foremost citizens, resolute in counsel, daring in action, undismayed in adversity, and generous in the hour of triumph.

The achievements of Thrasyboulos in the Hellespon⁴

were thought by the Spartan government serious enough to demand the recall of Derkyllidas and the appointment of another harmost Anaxibios, having considerable influence with the ephors, obtained the post. On his arrival at Abydos, he bestirred himself so energetically both by land and by sea, that the satrapy of Pharnabazos suffered severely. The tolls of the Straits were again lost to Athens, and Iphikrates was sent with 1,200 peltasts to check his activity. After some desultory operations, Iphikrates watched his opportunity, and, as Anaxibios Anaxibios was unsuspiciously returning from Antandros ancfsialn by ^w*^t^^{1 a} ^^ar6^e force of Spartans, Abydenes, and iphikrates. mercenaries, he rushed out from ambush on his disordered enemies. The death-scene of Anaxibios was too good a close for his life of cruelty and treachery. ‘And perceiving,’ says Xenophon, ‘that there was no hope of safety, he said to the soldiers near him, “ My men, my honour calls me to die where I now stand : but I bid you hasten to save yourselves before the enemy is on us.” With these words he seized his shield from his shield-bearer, and fell fighting where he stood. And his boy-favourite forsook him not ; and of the Spartan harmosts from the city, twelve died fighting by his side, and the rest were killed as they fled.’

But the war was destined not to close before Athens had herself suffered from its evils : and the saying of Perikles Piracy in ^was again proved true, that Aigina was the eye- Aigma. _{sore 0}£ the Peiraieus. Bitter experience had taught the Athenians how important it was that the in­habitants of that island should be friendly to them ; and they had driven out the old population and filled their places with settlers from Attica. These in their turn had been expelled by Lysandros, who had reinstated the remnants of the original Aiginetans. But in spite of their wrongs, the dangers of hostility with Athens and

the advantages of commerce nad kept up friendly rela­tions between the two neighbours, and the Spartan harmost had to exert all his influence to induce the Aiginetans to avail themselves of the letters of marque which he issued against Athens. After some months of indecisive fighting, during which the partial de­struction of a squadron of Athenian ships had been skilfully avenged by Chabrias, who surprised and slew the Spartan commander, Teleutias came to take the com­mand of the ill-paid, ill-disciplined, and discontented Spartan fleet. Just as the departure of this brilliant officer had previously been marked by extravagant signs of affection and regret, so on his return he was welcomed with enthusiastic delight. He immediately called his men together, and, addressing them with sympathetic eloquence, told them that though he had brought no money for them, yet he was as willing to share their hardships and labours as he would be to share the suc­cess and pleasure to which he would lead them. The acclamations of the sailors assured him that they would follow wherever he led the way; and he bade them be ready to start at nightfall, taking with them one day’s provisions. Whither they were sailing in the darkness, no one except the admiral knew ; but daybreak found them lying about half a mile from the entrance of the harbour of Peiraieus. As he sailed in at the head of his twelve ships, he found that the expectations which had suggested his daring enterprise were perfectly correct. The triremes which lay in the harbour were Teleutias disabled without difficulty, for crews and ^^pp_e^sf.^s captains were asleep on shore. The merchant raieus. vessels fell an easy prey. From the larger ships the cargoes and the sailors were carried off, and the smaller were towed away altogether; some were even bold enough to leap on to the quay and kidnap all the

merchants and skippers on whom they could lay hands. With the utmost haste the full force of Athens, infantry and cavalry, flocked down to Peiraieus to the rescue : but Teleutias was already at sea with his prizes and plunder. On his return voyage he captured corn-ships, merchant vessels, fishing smacks, and boats full of passengers, and was able by this adventure to gratify his delighted sailors by the payment of a month’s wages in advance.

The object of the Spartans in these and similar opera­tions was not so much the conquest of their opponents as Second ^{t0 ma}^^{e war w}hile it still lasted self-sup- mi^ion of porting, and to induce Athens to assent to is success- terms of peace. The mission of Antalkidas ^fuL        had been renewed, and his second attempt had

been more successful. The events of the last two years had justified the advice of Tiribazos, and he had conse­quently regained the favour of the Great King, who now was involved in war with his rebel subjects in Kypros and Egypt, and wished to feel that the affairs of Greece were off his hands. Again, the gratitude of Athens had obliged her to send help to one of these rebels, Euagoras, who had been her most faithful and unswerving ally, and for whom Chabrias was now gaining important victories over Persian troops. Hence the Great King had now no reason to consult her interests or wishes further than they coincided with his own. Seconded by the revived influence of Tiribazos, Antalkidas obtained from the king marks of the most distinguished favour, and easily persuaded him to agree to the proposals which he had previously made. All that now remained to be done was to obtain the consent of the Athenians, and bribery and intimidation were both brought to bear upon them. The terms of the peace were to be so modified as to recog­nise the right of the Athenians to the three islands, on condition of their abandoning the cause of Euagoras,

Antalkidas also, on his return from Sousa, resumed the command of the Spartan fleet in the Hellespont, and by successive reinforcements and a series of skilful opera­tions, raised the total of his ships to the large number of eighty, and thus became completely master of the sea.

His course was now clear. The Spartans were heartily tired of the protracted war, and could have no possible objection to a peace framed solely in their in- _{Causes of} terests. The Athenians, whose exchequer was the general

,     , , , .      .        , acceptance

exhausted, whose corn-ships were intercepted of terms of by Antalkidas, and whose coasts were harassed ^peace“ by privateers, began seriously to anticipate a repetition of the woes and agonies which they had suffered seventeen years before. The Argives also, aware that they could no longer protect their territory from the inroads of the Spartans by the convenient invention of a sacred truce, were as desirous of peace as the rest. Tiribazos conse­quently gave notice that all who wished to hear the terms of the peace which the king sent down for their accept­ance should come to him at Sardeis ; and the summons was quickly obeyed. Before the assembled p_roclama envoys Tiribazos exhibited the royal seal, and tion of the read the document aloud. ¹ King Artaxerxes ^condltlons- thinks it just that the cities in Asia should belong to him, and of the islands Klazomenai and Kypros : but that all the other Hellenic cities, small and great, should be left independent, except Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros; and that these, as of old, should belong to the Athenians. And upon those states which do not accept this peace I myself will make war, in conjunction with those who assent to these terms, both by land and by sea, with ships and with money.’

Such were the conditions which the envoys were authorised to carry back to their respective cities. They were accepted without opposition, exceDt by the Thebans,

.vho wished to take the oath in the name of the Boiotian

Theban and ^conf^ed^eracy> ^anc^ ^not merely of the town Of Argive Thebes. Agesilaos angrily bade the deputies, overruled ^w^° ^were returning home for further instruc­tor Agesi- tions, tell their countrymen that if they did not comply they would be shut out from the treaty. Eager for an opportunity of exacting a merciless retribution for the insult of Aulis and the wounds of Koroneia, he had led out the forces of Sparta as far as Tegea, and was busily mustering the allies, when the envoys returned to announce the submission of the Thebans. Agesilaos had to content himself with the humiliation of the haughty city instead of her destruction, and turned round on Argos. Corinth had joined Argos of her own accord, and an Argive garrison was her only means of protection against the return of the hated exiles. But when the interests of Sparta pulled in the opposite direction, it was vain to urge that a voluntary alliance could not be a violation of the principle of inde­pendence. The Corinthians were forced to dismiss the garrison and admit their exiles; and these, backed by the influence of Sparta, expelled their opponents, and framed their policy as governors of Corinth and keepers of the keys of the Peloponnese in strict conformity with Spartan interests.

Plutarch has preserved for us the happy retort made by Agesilaos to some one who exclaimed in his presence, The peace ‘ Alas for Hellas, when our Lakonians are disgnw:e-^daS Medising ! ’ ‘ Rather/ replied the king, ‘ it is ful in its the Medes (or Persians) who are Lakonising.’ i^' artides', Both Agesilaos and his friend were right: each spirit^nts state, with ^e firmest intention of furthering execution. its own advantage, had done great service to the other. By the mere form of the treaty, all Greece was dragged down to a depth of degradation to which she

had never sunk before. It had been pitiful enough for the states who were rivals for the leadership of Hellas to be rivals also in cringing for barbarian support ; more piti­ful still that the hatred of kinsmen should be more power­ful than the ties of kinsmanship, and that the enslavement of Greek to barbarian in Asia should be the price paid for the enslavement of Greek to Greek in Europe : but this open acknowledgment of the over-lordship or suze­rainty of the Great King was infinitely worse. The Great King ordered the Greeks, his subjects, to come to hear his will : they came as they were commanded. He sent down his proclamation, and his envoy, having shewn the royal seal, read it aloud : cowed by threats of royal dis­pleasure, the Greeks departed and obeyed. What more had Mardonios asked a century before ? The first article of the convention was as disgraceful as the form of the whole. It annihilated the struggles of ninety years, and abandoned to Persian tyranny, in spite of repeated promises, a district which was as thoroughly Greek as Lakonia itself, and had been the cradle of her poetry, her philosophy, in a word, of all her culture. The second article at any rate had an enticing sound. An announce­ment of universal independence flattered that instinct of self-isolation which all through their history had prevented the Hellenic cities from coalescing into an Hellenic nation. The day of hope for Hellas had dawned when Athens had tried to consolidate her empire in opposition to this tendency ; just as it was a fatal hour when Sparta succeeded in establishing her supremacy by means of it. It was so ruinously easy for enemies from within or from without to divide and conquer. Nor was the third stipu­lation more satisfactory. It meant that Athens had been bribed to desert Euagoras, her ally, who had recently re­ceived from her, as he well deserved, the highest honours ; and the bribe took the form of a cession to which Sparta

might appeal in justification of her retention of the La- konian and Messenian towns, if the public opinion of Greece should become dangerously outspoken. But, in their proud position as executors of the Great King’s com­mands, the Spartans meant to appeal to no argument but the sword. Their lust of dominion was unabated, and it was soon evident that universal independence meant, not, indeed, the right of each city to set up what government it chose, but the right of Sparta to dissolve all alliances and confederations which she thought dangerous to her interests.

The panegyrists of Sparta may perhaps justify hei treatment of Thebes and Argos by the terms of the treaty; not even Xenophon can pretend that the attack on Man- Mantineia tineia was prompted by any motive except finished a wish to punish the Mantineians for their spiituplnto slackness in the Spartan service, and to warn hamlets. other allies against similar lukewarmness. The ostensible pretext was that they had sent corn to the Argives when at war with Sparta ; the real cause was the undisguised satisfaction felt by the Mantineians at Spartan reverses, and Spartan soldiers could not forget how they had skulked past the walls of Mantineia by night to avoid their bitter gibes. Envoys were sent to demand that the walls of the city should be demolished ; and when the citizens refused, Agesipolis blockaded the town, and built a wall of circumvallation Growing weary of the siege, he dammed up the flooded waters of the river below the town. As the stream rose higher, the walls, which were built of unbaked clay, began to totter, and the citizens were forced to surrender. The democrats were expelled and an oligarchical government established. The city was split up into the five rustic hamlets of which it was originally composed. Xenophon gravely assures us that, wl.en once the expense of building new houses was past

the Mantineians gratefully appreciated their rural tran­quillity, and the unspeakable advantage of living so near to their farms.

Such was the spirit in which the Spartans carried out the treaty; and if to promulgate shams and get them accepted as realities be a masterpiece of diplomacy, the convention of Antalkidas well deserves that distinction. Hollow as were the promises of Sparta, the assumption of omnipotent sovereignty on the part of Persia had even less foundation in fact. The internal weakness of the vast empire was at this time more ness of than ever notorious. Of the unwieldy aggre- ^Persia- gate of nations which owed allegiance to the Great King, two of the most powerful were in open revolt; and before the attack of united Hellas, the whole edifice would have collapsed like a house of cards. The cession of the Asiatic Greeks gave to Artaxerxes an Effect of increase of resources which he sorely needed,

The condition of these towns became pitiable. Asiatic In many of them garrisons were placed and ^ Eua-^and citadels built; some, probably after an at- e^oras- tempted revolt, were destroyed altogether. The exactions of the tax-gatherers were almost intolerable ; the most beautiful boys and girls were transferred to the harems of Persian nobles ; their men were forced to serve against their own countrymen in Kypros. Indeed, the effects of the Peace of Antalkidas on the prospects of Euagoras, who had been for some years in full revolt against Persia, were altogether disastrous. Forced to rebel in order to defend himself against the jealous intrigues of Artaxerxes, he had extended his power over almost the whole of the island, and spread everywhere the blessings of good government and Hellenic civilisation. As he gained strength he assumed the offensive, and, crossing over to Asia, he took by storm even the great city of Tyre, and • a. h.         1.

fomented an insurrection in Kilikia. The chief allies of the heroic prince had been the native king of revolted Egypt and the Athenians ; Chabrias in particular had done him right good service. But, in accordance with the peace, he was ungenerously abandoned by Athens, and the whole seafaring population of the Asiatic coast could be used against him. By extraordinary exertions he raised a fleet of 200 triremes, but was out-numbered and defeated by the Persians. Still for some time he sustained the unequal contest, and after a struggle of ten years obtained an honourable peace, refusing, it is said, to give tribute * like a slave to his master/ but demand­ing that it should be recognised as paid by one king to another.

CHAPTER X.

THE SUPPRESSION OF OLYNTHOS, AND THF, LIBERATION OF THEBES.

The war which was formally closed by the Peace of Antalkidas had been in every sense miserable and de- .  grading. Its beginning was due to Persian

results of⁶ subsidies ; its end to Persian dictation. For the war. _eight years it had dragged its weary length, bringing not a single blessing,but fraught with many curses

1.       Merce- which permanently injured the life of Greece, naries. From it may be dated that systematic use of mercenaries which encouraged a selfish inertness among the masses at home and dangerous licentiousness in the

2.      Pitiless free companies abroad, and diverted the ener- piunder. gj_{es 0}f the ablest citizens from patriotic objects to the baser pursuit of plunder and military fame. Besides this, the ravages of Spartan marauders in Corinth and Akarnania were marked by a ruthless ferocity and a

permanence of ruin which was a new feature in Greek warfare, and was probably learnt in their 3. Em- Asiatic campaigns against the barbarians ; partyfeel- and, further, the revengeful hatred of party mgs- feuds and political dissensions had become more intense, while the national honour had grown so callous that it seemed quite natural for Greeks to submit to ₄. Blunted the behests of the Great King, and the glory patnotism. of Sparta gained fresh lustre in their eyes by her distin­guished position as his confidential servant. She was in fact more powerful than ever, though her policy towards Athens had been weak and vacillating, marked sometimes by unscrupulous tyranny, and at others by a lenity ex­ercised so ungraciously as to inspire no friend- „

°        \        I . .    Sparta a»

liness. Though her schemes of Asiatic con- executor of quest had been thwarted by the inevitable ^theP^eace- results of her arrogance in Greece, yet again she stood forth without a rival. The destinies of the Hellenic race were again in her hands; but she had learnt nothing, and she had forgotten nothing. Her policy was still the narrowest Lakonism ; to wipe out in blood all slights and insults was her chief object. Her duties as interpreter and executor of the Great King’s peace were discharged solely with reference to her own interests. Some of the Peloponnesian cities thought fondly that the word ‘ auto­nomy’ would allow them to expel their oligarchs and set up a constitution more in conformity with their own wishes ; but they soon learnt their mistake, when Sparta intervened to re-establish the deposed government.

Of her opponents, Athens had perhaps gained a little. By the terms of the peace she was acknowledged to be no longer a mere subject of Sparta, Results to but an independent state, whose views and ^Athens» wishes were worth some consideration; but her honour was deeply stained by the abandonment not only of the l 2

Asiatic Greeks, but of the heroic and enlightened Eua­goras. The jealousy of Thebes had been aroused by the deference shown to the interests of Athens, and the real object of the whole war—to check the power of Sparta to interfere in the affairs of all Greece—had been entirely forgotten in the conditions of the peace. 10 Thebes. Thebes had probably gained more, not indeed in material aggrandisement, but in moral weight. She was degraded from her position as head of the Boiotian confederacy, or rather the confederacy was entirely broken up ; she was surrounded by Phokis, Thespiai, Orchomenos, and other implacable foes. The subordina­tion of Corinth to Spartan dictation had robbed her of her best protection against attack. On the other hand the spirit which she had displayed in her indignant rejection of the Spartan decree forbidding the states of Greece to harbour the exiles from Athens, had developed into a resolute bravery, against which not even Spartans could measm-es in stand their ground; and the terrific struggle Boiotia. ₀f Koroneia dimly foreshadowed the resistless onset of Leuktra. Consequently it was against Thebes that Sparta in her day of power directed her most vigorous measures. In the Boiotian towns, all of which, except Orchomenos and Thespiai, had been willing ad­herents of the confederacy, oligarchical governments were established, and Spartan harmosts stationed. Nor did the efforts of Sparta to secure Boiotia end here. As she could unmake cities, so she could make them. The fiat Restoration went forth that the name of Plataia, which by of Plataia. Spartan injustice had been cruelly erased from the map of Greece forty years before, should live again, that the walls and town should be rebuilt, and that the descendants of the old inhabitants should return. They had been ousted from their homes by Archidamos, and driven to Athens ; they had been hunted by Lysandros

from Skione, which the Athenians had assigned them as a refuge, and driven to Athens again; and now at last they were restored to their ancient home high on the rugged slopes of Mount Kithairon, not indeed because Sparta blushed for her cruelty in destroying a city so brave and glorious, but that the new Plataia might be held as a stronghold against her traditional enemy, and embitter still further the growing jealousy between Thebes and Athens.

Soon there came to the Spartans from an entirely fresh quarter an appeal, that they, as the champions of the principle of autonomous isolation, and the _{Appeal of} sworn foes of all confederacies, should interfere to repress the dangerous growth of a new againsl power. ‘ Consider/ cries the envoy, ‘ whether ^olynthos- it is reasonable for you to take such care to prevent the union of Boiotia, and yet to overlook entirely the combination of a far greater power—a power which is gaining strength, not only by land but also by sea, rich in timber for ship-building, in tribute from many ports and seats of commerce, in a teeming population, and a fertile soil.’ Such is the language in which the envoy sent by the cities of Akanthos and Apollonia de- Growth of scribes the youngs confederacy of Olynthos. thfancon- Of its rise little is known. The King of Mace- federacy don had been driven from his kingdom by the attacks of the Illyrian and other neighbouring tribes. The cities on the sea-coast flew to Olynthos for protection ; liberal terms were granted to the suppliants—common laws, and equal rights of citizenship, intermarriage, proprietorship, and commerce. The condition of the Makedonian cities under their bloody and unscrupulous monarchs could not have been enviable; and it was natural enough that the confederacy thus formed should spread rapidly, even as far as the great town of Pella. But its development was

checked by two large and important cities, and the Olyn- thians threatened to force upon them the blessings of their alliance in spite of their old-fashioned wish to keep entirely to themselves and manage their own affairs. Objections These recalcitrant neighbours did not deny an^Apol-^OS ^^{at t}^^le^^r admission to the confederacy would lonia.       probably gain for them increased prosperity

and security; and they even confessed that if they once tried the experiment, the citizens would be won over to the advantages of federation. But their envoy states frankly their one objection: ‘ We wish to use our hereditary laws and to be a city by ourselvesand he works skilfully upon the fears of Sparta, with hints about an Athenian and Boiotian alliance, and the divine law by which in­creasing power produces always a corresponding increase of ambition. The prayer of the envoy was seconded by an embassy from the Makedonian monarch ; and the Spartans resolved to suppress Olynthos—a resolution consistent with the narrow and short-sighted terms of the Peace of Antalkidas, but fatal to the generous and states­manlike scheme which would have proved in years to come the most effective obstacle to Makedonian aggression.

By the special request of the Akanthians, who urged that there was no time to be lost, Eudamidas was sent off Spartan ex- at once with 2,000 men. He won over Potidaia, against^{nS an<}^ g^arrisoned some towns, but his force was Olynthos. too small for any great results. His brother, Phoibidas, was to follow with the rest of the army as soon as was convenient, and his march would take him close to Thebes. Though Xenophon, to screen the Spartans from the black guilt of the perfidy which fol­lowed, describes Phoibidas as a man who loved a brilliant exploit better than life itself, and not blessed with great reasoning powers, or even with common prudence, there can be little doubt that the encampment of Phoibidas

near the gymnasium outside Thebes was not a pure acci­dent, and that the story is well founded, according to which he received before he started secret orders from Agesilaos and the ephors to take any opportunity for the seizure of Thebes which might present itself. In Thebes itself the strife of factions ran high, and each .

, , j    . ,•     1        ,        Political

party had its representative as polemarch, or state of

war-officer, in the highest official position. ^Thebes- Ismenias was the leader of the democrats ; he regarded the Spartan encampment outside the walls as _# no business of his, and kept away from it. ^Ismenias- Not so his colleague, Leontiades, who was the most in­fluential member of the oligarchical faction. He became a frequent visitor to the Lakedaimonian camp, and ex­plained to Phoibidas the scheme of the philo-Lakonian party inside the town. The plot was simple _{plot ar}_ enough. On the great festival of Demeter, ranged by the Kadmeia, or citadel, was given up to the ^{on ia es}‘ sole use of the Theban women, the gates were closed, and the key would be given into the custody of himself as polemarch ; and he accordingly offered to introduce Phoi­bidas and his hoplites into the citadel without bloodshed or difficulty. He assured the Spartan general that when this was done the whole town would at once submit to the oligarchical party; and that he would thus gain not only a valuable reinforcement for his army, but become master of a city far more important than Olynthos itself. Phoibidas could not and did not hesitate. If Spartan troops were to act with safety against Olynthos, it was fatal to leave directly on the line of march an important position in the hands of a hostile population. It must be secured at all risks, and might possibly, if the present opportunity were lost, cost Sparta a bloody and protracted war.

In Thebes it was a day of high festival. The

hearts of the democrats were relieved, for it was known . that the Spartans had received orders to seizedby break up their camp and march northwards. Phoibidas. xhe sultry glare of a summer’s noon had emptied the streets, and the senators, having resigned the Kadmeia to the devotions or the orgies of the women, were transacting their business in a portico near the market-place. Such was the moment skilfully chosen by Leontiades for the execution of his impious and perfidious design. The traitor mounted his horse and rode after Phoibidas, who ordered his troops to face about, and fol­lowed his guide through the deserted streets and up the slope of the seven-gated citadel. Leontiades then gave the keys to the Spartan general, and hastened to the Senate. Here, according to the plan previously concerted with his supporters, he announced that the Spartans were in possession of the Kadmeia, and bade the senators not to be alarmed. * But 1/ he continued, * who am, as pole- march, allowed by the law to arrest anyone who seems to be guilty of crimes worthy of death, arrest this man, Ismenias, as a stirrer up of war. And do you, guards, rise and seize him, and take him off to the place appointed/ Surprised by the suddenness of the attack, intimidated Arrest of by the presence of the Spartans in the citadel, Ismemas. _ancj conscious that their wives and daughters were at the mercy of the enemy, the democrats made no attempt to rescue Ismenias. Archias, an oligarch, was chosen polemarch in his place, and 300 of the leading democrats made their escape to Athens.

Having so easily accomplished his design, Leontiades

, set off at once to take the news to Sparta. Effect of __       . , , , . _       , ^r

this news at Here, as m the whole of Greece, the event

Sparta. created the utmost excitement. Sparta had

for some years been split into two opposing parties, each

headed by one of the kings. Agesipolis and his friends

were the advocates of legality and moderation : they had tried to secure some respect for the rights of the subject states, to prevent the abuse of Spartan supremacy, and to avoid the perils to which a policy of terrorism and coercion must inevitably lead. Agesilaos, on the other hand, was the leader of the war party: with them the sword was the short and sharp remedy for all opposition; and as they had made the peace, so they would use it, for the interests of Sparta alone. This division of feeling may account for the verdict which, according to Plutarch, made all Greece marvel at the inconsistency which punished the doer but approved the deed. Agesilaos, when Phoibi­das was brought to trial, came forward in his defence, and stated plainly that the sole point worthy of consider­ation was whether the act of Phoibidas was advantageous to Sparta or not; if it was hurtful he deserved to be punished, but if it was for the benefit of Sparta, it was an established principle that a man might act on his own responsibility. This trenchant argument was seconded by Leontiades, with the most abject professions of sub­servience to Spartan advantage. Phoibidas was, nomi­nally at any rate, fined and removed from his Sentence on command; but three harmosts and a strong Phoibidas. garrison were sent to hold the Kadmeia for Sparta.

The pious Xenophon regards the mingled profanity and injustice of this act as so flagrant that the gods could not overlook it but made Thebes the scourge Morality of for the chastisement of Spartan wickedness, ph₀fbidas because it had been the scene of their most discussed, heinous crime. Yet,by the recognised principles of Spartan policy, the act was a necessity, capable of considerable palliation. She had never regarded the democratic party in the cities of Greece as worthy of any consideration. The only real citizens were the loyal oligarchs, and the pestilent demagogues were treated as in a chronic state

of rebellion. The Kadmeia had been seized in the inte­rests and by the contrivance of the only class who had a right to have any voice in the matter. Nay, more, the deed had been done not only with the sanction, but under the actual leadership of the highest civic authority. There had been no theft or violence in the seizure of the keys of the citadel; they had been voluntarily handed over to Phoibidas by the official who rightfully had them in his custody. Again, it might be urged that Thebes, having refused her contingent to the forces raised against Olyn- thos, and being actually in treaty with the enemy, was virtually at war with Sparta, and that the act, even if a little treacherous against belligerents of equal rank, was justifiable enough against contumacious rebels. Viewed in the light of these plausible arguments, the verdict against Phoibidas was sufficiently severe ; but there is no reason to believe that it was ever enforced.

The subsequent execution of Ismenias is capable of far less defence. He was dragged to Sparta, and tried Trial and before a novel tribunal, consisting of three execution of commissioners from Sparta and one from every smem .    ^jance _w^jj Th_e definite charges

brought against him were, that he had allied himself with and received money from the Great King to do harm to Greece, and that he had been a prime mover in all the late disturbances. ‘ Against these charges/ says Xeno­phon, ‘ he defended himself; ’ and indeed it was no diffi­cult matter to fling them back in the teeth of his accusers. ‘ He could not, however, make it believed that he was not a man of great and dangerous designs, so he was con­demned and executed; but the faction of Leontiades kept possession of the city, and continued to serve the Spartans even more zealously than their orders required.’ Hut the Spartans had no right to try Ismenias at all as a criminal. It was a mere mockery to summon a bigoted

oligarch from each city to try a man whose only crime was that he was a democrat. The charges against the defendant completely broke down, and he was executed without even a show of justice. To the Spartans, how­ever, the end justified the means. The city of Thebes was no longer a bitter foe, but a slave submissively antici- _t pating the master’s orders ; and the war against the Olynthian confederacy could be prosecuted without fear of intercepted communications.

But, in spite of this important advantage, the Spartans found that they had undertaken no easy task. An army of 10,000 men was despatched to reinforce Spartan Eudamidas, and was increased by very con- °gaLnst°^nS siderable accessions on its march. Teleutias, Olynthos. the brother of Agesilaos, who had proved himself a naval commander of great ability and courage, was appointed to lead the expedition ; for it was thought that his re­markable popularity would conciliate half-hearted or reluctant allies. But the Olynthians kept up a vigorous resistance, especially by the efficiency of their cavalry ; and though at first they suffered considerable reverses and could scarcely shew themselves outside the walls, later in the season they succeeded in attacking the Spar­tans at a disadvantage, killing Teleutias, and Death of utterly dispersing his army. But the Spartans ^Teleutias- had now no other enemy on their hands ; and, far from being disheartened orgivingup their purpose, they resolved the more earnestly to recover their lost honour. Agesi- polis was sent at the head of a third army, but, after some small successes, he fell a victim to fever, Death of brought on by the extreme heat. Polybiades, Agesipohs. who took his place, drew the blockade closer round the doomed city, and reduced the inhabitants to such straits that they were forced to sue for peace. They were obliged to dissolve their own confederacy, and tojom theHSpartan

alliance, swearing to have the same friends and foes as the Lakedaimonians, and to follow them whithersoever Submission they should lead. In suppressing this gener- ofOlynthos. _{ous an(}j attractive league, the Spartans could not foresee that they were only playing the game of the Makedonian monarchy, and paving the way for the subjection of Hellas to the northern aggressor.

At this moment the power of Sparta by land had reached its height. The last remnant of opposition in The mo-      Peloponnese had just died away with

ment of the surrender of Phlious. The impregnable greatest height of the Akrokorinthos and the strong ^power- fortress of the Kadmeia were held in strict obedience to her will. From Athens she had nothing to fear. The Athenians were still exhausted by the war, isolated from all allies, and devoting their slowly reviving energies to the formation of a new maritime confederacy. The skilful and conciliatory behaviour of Agesiiaos had healed the old feud between kings and ephors, and under his guidance Spartan policy was effective, vigorous, and consistent. The allied army had been reorganized. In every city Sparta could count on the aid of devoted adherents ; and she was supported by alliances with powerful tyrants as far apart as Sousa, Aigai, and Syra­cuse. But the vengeance of heaven was hanging over her ; the thunderbolt of the wrath of the gods was soon to fall.

For four long years the Theban exiles at Athens had waited till the day of reckoning should come. The Theban Spartans had sent letters to the Athenians exiles at forbidding them to receive the fugitives, and ordering the expulsion of those who had already sought refuge among them. But, remembering the conduct of the Thebans toward themselves in pre­cisely similar circumstances, the Athenians treated them

both publicly and privately with generous kindness and hospitality. From time to time news was brought to the exiles of the gross tyranny under which their fellow- citizens were groaning. Leontiades, chief of the oligarchs, was an able politician, active, devoted to his principles, vigilant in detecting and repressing opposition and disaf­fection. Archias, his most important colleague, was of a different stamp, unscrupulous and ambitious, but greedy of power chiefly as a means of gratifying his passions. Of the actual condition of the city under the oligarchs we have no positive details ; but that the government rested on terrorism may be inferred from the willingness of the people to revolt, and the large number of prisoners found in the gaol. But not even the vigilance of Leon­tiades could prevent the Theban youth from training themselves for the coming struggle. Devoted to athletic exercises, and inordinately proud of their muscular strength, they were taught by Epameinondas to try con­clusions with the Spartans in tire wrestling ring, that they might learn to face them with a bold front in more serious contests. But the time for warfare and open invasion seemed still far distant, and the patience of the exiles was exhausted. One of the most distinguished among them had been assassinated at Athens by the hired agents of the Theban oligarchs ; one of their most devoted friends in Thebes had been arrested, and lay in danger of his life. Pelopidas told them openly that it was _{plot against} impious and shameful to forget their country’s the Theban sufferings, and live lazily at Athens, dependent °^{lgarc s}* on the favour of the populace; and he exhorted them to take the bold Thrasyboulos for their pattern. As his enemies had set the example of assassination, he probably had the less hesitation in using an expedient from which modern consciences recoil, but which was in this case, U ever in any, justifiable.

The enterprise seemed desperate indeed. On an in­clement December day, Pelopidas, Mellon, and five (or, Pelopidas according to Plutarch, ten) other confederates and his left Athens in the dress of hunters, and made compan^ions _t^eir _way _t0 M_ount Kithairon. There they Thebes. remained while they sent a messenger to Thebes to inform their accomplices of their approach, and to wait for instructions. Among their friends inside the town, the two from whom they looked for most assist­ance were Phyllidas and Charon : the former, the con­fidential secretary of the polemarchs themselves, who had lx,en won over to their cause on an official visit to Athens ; the latter, a citizen of wealth, whose house was to be their hiding-place till the moment of action should arrive. All the arrangements were perfect. Phyllidas had invited Archias and some other leading oligarchs to a banquet, and had promised to introduce after the feast some of the finest ladies in Thebes as company for them ; and Charon had ordered a few of the most resolute and trustworthy democrats to meet at his house. On hearing this, the exiles came on from Kithairon by different roads, and under cover of the darkness and a timely snow-storm entered the city unobserved.

Forty-eight conspirators were assembled in the house of Charon, and were in the act of girding on their armour, Assassina- when a messenger came to summon him into Arc Was and ^the P^resence of Archias. Thinking that all others. was discovered, Charon obeyed the summons, and brought forth his little son from the women’s apart­ment to the conspirators as a pledge of his own fidelity. But the oligarchs were already heated with wine; only the vaguest rumours of danger had reached them, and Charon, seconded by Phyllidas, was easily able to quiet their sus­picions. Very soon afterwards a despatch was brought into the banqueting chamber from an Athenian oligarch

giving full particulars of the whole plot. The messenger told Archias, as he delivered it, that it was about most urgent business; but the half-drunken polemarch thrust it under his pillow unopened, saying ‘ Urgent business may wait till to-morrow/ Had the letter been addressed to Leontiades, whose character was far too respectable to allow him to be asked to such an orgie, the whole plot must have been frustrated. Phyllidas had zealously plied his guests with wine, and they were clamouring for their promised companions. Mellon and his party were mean­while waiting in an ante-room, disguised, some as ladies, some as ladies' maids, with thick wreaths and veils to shade their faces: and Phyllidas returned with the answer that the women would not come in while the servants were in the room. The attendants were dis­missed with a bountiful supply of wine to keep them em­ployed ; and at once, amid the clapping of hands, the conspirators entered and took their seats, each next to an oligarch. The agreement was that as soon as they were seated, they should raise their veils, and kill each his man. ^So died the Theban tyrants.

One of them, however, as we have mentioned above, had not been invited to the scene of debauchery, and Pelopidas and his companions had a more _AssassIna_ dangerous, if not a more difficult, task than the ^°"_n°^_ades party of Mellon. Leontiades was reclining in      ¹ ’

his house after the evening meal, and his wife sat spinning by his side ; when a servant, roused by the knocking at the door, went out and enquired the business of the nocturnal visitor. On hearing the reply, that he was the bearer of a message from the polemarchs, Leontiades ordered the door to be opened to admit him ; and the three assassins entered. Seizing a weapon in self-defence, he slew one of his assailants ; but he was at length slain byJPelopidas. Meanwhile Phyllidas had led the way to the public

prison ; and, obtaining admission by a pretended order from the government, he slew the gaoler and set free the astonished prisoners. These, 150 in number, were armed at once, and drawn up in military order, as a nucleus round which the growing forces of the democrats might gather. Messengers were sent to hasten the march of the main body of exiles who were on their road from Athens ; and proclamation was made through the streets that the citizens, horse and foot, should come forth in full force, as the tyrants were dead. Epameinondas and Gorgidas were soon on the spot with a strong force of soldiers, young and old ; but as the confusion in the city made it impossible to obtain trustworthy information, most of the citizens remained in their houses, and waited for the day. The same reason prevented the Spartan harmosts in the Kadmeia from resorting to any measure more vigorous than the despatch of messengers to summon help from Thespiai and Plataia, and the reception of the more prominent oligarchs who hastened to the citadel for refuge.

With the first dawn of day the exiles marched into the town from Attica ; the Theban troops who had been Muster of organised secretly by Epameinondas shewed the demo- themselves in full array, and a general as­sembly of the people was held. Epameinondas, though he could not persuade himself to take any per- Gencral sonal share in the work of assassination, intro- assembly. duced Pelopidas and his party to their fellow- citizens, while the priests surrounded them with garlands, and adjured the people to fight for their country and their gods. The whole assembly rose to do them honour ; and, with shouts of applause and ringing cheers, hailed them as the preservers and benefactors of Thebes. With the death of their tyrants died also their narrow policy. Thebes was not only to be free heiself, but the head of a

liberated Boiotia; and Pelopidas, Mellon, and Charon, who were called by the enthusiastic acclamations of the as­sembly to form the government, received the re- p_ei₀pidas vived title of Boiotarchs instead of polemarchs. and his Energy and daring guided the counsels of the made new rulers. The reinforcements coming from ^Boiotarchs Plataia to the garrison were beaten back ; the assault on the citadel was commenced with the utmost ardour, and the courage of the assailants was stimulated by the offer of prizes of valour to the mopt daring. How far the Athenians co-operated with their allies is not accurately known ; but it is certain that one of their generals suffered death and another fled into exile, on account of their forwardness in the support of Thebes while Athens was still at peace with Sparta. The SpartanJiarmosts, intimi­dated by the bold assaults of their foes, and probably ill- provided with supplies for their increased numbers, offered to capitulate, if they were allowed to The Spar- march out with their arms. The terms were ate^Sthe^aCU" gladly accepted, and the Spartans withdrew, Kadmeia. meeting at Megara the army destined to relieve them. In the confusion and excitement of the surrender, some of the oligarchs, and even of their children, were slain by the more furious of the democrats ; but order was soon restored, possibly by Athenian help.

Thebes was now free ; and the work of divine ven­geance thus begun was not to cease without fuller and more serious accomplishment. Throughout all Greece the tidings awakened sympathetic rejoicing, and Plutarch tells us that the exploit was called by the Greeks twin- sister to the deed of Thrasyboulos ; equal in its daring, and even greater in its results, as it broke the chains of the Spartan domination, which before seemed forged of adamant. Though much was done, more yet remained ; and it was fortunate indeed for the renovated city that a. H.  M

she numbered among her sons Pelopidas, Pammenes. Gorgidas, and the greatest Greek o7 that or perhaps o⁴ any age, Epameinondas.

CHAPTER XI

THE RISE OF THEBES.

Of all the great citizens whom Thebes produced at this crisis, the two most eminent, Pelopidas and Epameinondas, were united in a friendship, so constant and

Character ,        ,        ,        , ...    ,

ofPelo- so elevated as to become the admiration of pidas. antiquity. ‘ Amongst a thousand points for praise in both/ says Plutarch, ‘the judicious esteem nothing equal to that firm friendship which they preserved from first to last.’ It began in their youth, was riveted by the devotion with which Epameinondas defended the life of his wounded friend when fighting for Sparta in the Peloponnese, and was never weakened by jealousy or rivalry during their public life. Pelopidas was noble by birth, rich by inheritance, and richer still by marriage; but he was the lord and not the slave of his money. In all the externals of life he aimed at simplicity. His fare was plain ; his dress no costlier than that of the meanest Theban ; his pleasures were inexpensive—tlie exercises of the gymnasium and the excitement of the chase. And yet he was no niggard, but employed his wealth to relieve the necessities of the most deserving among his poorer countrymen. Honour and glory were the objects that aroused his cupidity ; yet his was a generous ambition, not centred in self alone, but tempered with patriotism. He would rise, as his country rose, or would not rise at all. Without much tincture of in­tellectual training, he had been too long associated with

Epameinondas, and had drunk too deeply of the new spirit which was then agitating the minds of the nobler Thebans, to be Boiotian in the worse sense of the word; and no mere boor could have won such distinguished re­spect at the court of the Great King. As a general, he was marked by_>( ajdaring which was often little better than imprudence. But the same reckless audacity which cost lum his life, had before restored to Thebes her liberty. How highly these qualities were esteemed by his country­men, is sufficiently proved by his fifteen years of uninter­rupted command, and the heartfelt grief which his soldiers manifested at his death.

Like Pelopidas, Epameinondas was sprung of a noble ^ race, and even of the ancient stock of the Spartoi, the sons of the dragon’s teeth ; but unlike him, he _Characfer was born and reared, as he lived and died, ofEpa- in pov.erty ; not shrinking even from wounding ^memondas- his friend’s feelings by being the only poor man in Thebes who would not be his pensioner. Distinguished for an utter contempt for wealth and_pleasure, he gave him­self up heart and soul to the pursuit of philosophy, and listened eagerly to the teaching both of the Sokratig and the Pythagorean schools. The latter hacl the more powerful and permanent influence on him. Ionia was its birthplace, Magna Graecia the home of its maturity, and from it Epameinondas learnt that he owed a patriotic allegiance to something wider than Thebes or Boiotia; and he resolved to be true in all his life and in all his aims first to Thebes, but above all to Hellas. In Pelopidas there was something of provincia­lism ; Epameinondas may be taken as the type of perfect Hellenism. He was a musician_; but not merely in the Boiotian sense. He was a skilful player on the flute, which was formed from the reeds of the Kopaic lake ; but he could play the lyre as well, and as a philosopher,

had grasped the Hellenic idea of music as the grand rhythm and harmony of a well-regulated life. So in the gymnasium, he aimed not merely at the swollen muscles which were a Boiotian’s pride, but at activity and supple­ness, that his bodily frame might be perfectly trained for the service of his country and the use of his mind. Oratory, again, was a Hellenic not a Boiotian accomplish­ment ; and in this he was pre-eminent, for though it was said of him that no man ever understood more and talked less, yet he deemed it only right that a man should be able to say the right thing at the right time, to expose the false and to uphold the true. In his public life, when he resided in Thebes unmolested by the oligarchs as a man too poor and too speculative to be dangerous, he was elevating his fellow-citizens by his personal influence and teaching, that he might make them worthy of their future freedom and the new position of their country. As a general, he broke loose from the narrow systems of antiquated tacticians, and inspiring his own immediate division with the courage that glowed in his own breast, he made the physical weight of its onset so tremendous as to be well-nigh irresistible. Lastly when the victorious general was merged in the statesman, his policy was marked by the complete absence of harshness or cruelty to his conquered enemies, for he remembered that they were Greeks like himself. His sympathies were so wide and deep that his antipathies were weak. He came to quicken and stimulate political life, not to repress all signs of independence ; he loved not to destroy but to construct, not to isolate but to combine, not to sunder but to solder.         ,

The work which lay before these great citizens was one which would task to the utmost their powers of over' coming difficulties, overriding opposition, and concili­ating the jealousies of rivals and the prejudices of factions.

Thebes was indeed free ; but she could not stand alone. The key-note of the new policy was struck on the very day of her liberation, when her magistrates were saluted no longer as polemarchs, but in the way Boiotarchs, as of yore. All Boiotia was to ^{0 e es}‘ share the blessings of freedom, for it was necessary that all Boiotia should share the dangers of defence. The reunion of Boiotia, which it had long been the main object of Sparta to prevent, now became the essential condition of Theban independence. Though in every town there was probably an influential faction which sympa­thised with this object and exulted in the expulsion of the Spartans, yet local rivalry and oligarchic selfishness would die hard; and the necessity for a body of The Sacred trustworthy supporters caused Epameinondas. and Gorgidas to revive the old Boiotian institution of the Sacred Band, which had nearly half a century before won renown in the fight at Delion. Raised especially for the defence of the Kadmeia, this regiment, 300 strong, was armed and trained at the public expense. None were admitted to its ranks but youths of muscular prowess, tried valour, and single-hearted patriotism; and each man fought by the side of the friend whom he loved best. The enthusiasm of such a corps was contagious, the value of its example unspeakable ; courage had always been a Theban characteristic, and willingness to submit to discipline and drill was all that was required to make the Boiotian troops second to none in Hellas.

The news of the insurrection at Thebes naturally aroused at Sparta the deepest anger and vex- _Spartan ation. Of the three harmosts who had so expedition pusillanimously surrendered the Kadmeia, two l^totia were slain before they could reach Sparta, and under Kk- the third was heavily fined and sent into exile. '

In spite of the wintry season, the Ephors despatched

without delay an expedition against the rebel city. Age­silaos declined the command on the plea of his advanced age, and it devolved upon Kleombrotos, who had suc­ceeded to the throne on the death of Agesipolis, and who now commanded for the first time. The campaign began with a slight success. The Lakedaimonian light troops cut to pieces the 150 liberated prisoners, who were guarding the passes near Plataia ; but the conduct of Kleombrotos, who had seemingly little sympathy with the high-handed policy of his countrymen, was so half-hearted that his men, so Xenophon tells us, were sorely puzzled to know whether they were really at war or at peace with the Thebans. After a sixteen days’ occupation of Boiotian territory, where he did but little damage, he led home his army, leaving Sphodrias at Thespiai in command of a third part of his forces.

This officer, whom Plutarch calls a man of more courage than wisdom, fired by the fame gained by Phoi- Sphodrias bidas from his successful seizure of the Kad- attemptsto meia, and remembering how nearly Teleutias the^PeU had succeeded in surprising the Peiraieus by raieus; _sea^ _resoi_vecj _{to tr}y _to effect the same exploit by land : but the assertions of Plutarch and Xenophon, that he was stimulated to his attempt by Theban guile or gold, seem improbable.* After an early supper, he marched from Thespiai, intending to reach Peiraieus before sun­rise ; but when the rays of light flashing from the temples of Eleusis proclaimed the dawn, the soldiers were still in the Thriasian plain, and their hearts failed them. Ravag­ing the country as he went, Sphodrias returned to Thespiai, ashamed of his failure in a deed of perfidy which nothing but success could have justified even to Spartan con­sciences. Unbounded was the indignation of the Athe­nians when they heard of the peril which they had just escaped. But the Spartan ambassadors, who happened *0

be in the city, disclaimed any complicity with the attempt, and assured them that they would soon hear that Sphodrias had atoned for his treachery by suffering death at the hands of his indignant countrymen. In this the ambas­sadors spoke what they believed to be the truth; even Sphodrias felt that his fate was sealed. To fail in such an enterprise was death ; and the strong claims of policy which urged that the just anger of the Athenians must be appeased, strengthened the weaker considerations of justice. But private friendship saved the cul- _{is trIed} prit. Archidamos, the son of Agesilaos, was and ac-

• •      _f , j .   J , quitted:

intimate with the son of Sphodrias, and by - -------------

his intercession the king was induced to spare Sphodrias, asserting that it would be hard indeed to put to death a man of so honourable a character, for Sparta was sorely in need of gallant men like him,

When this gross miscarriage of justice became known at Athens, the Athenians at once prepared for war. Not only was the Peiraieus fortified against attack _Formati_on by land or sea, while new ships of war were built with all speed, and a new system of confede- taxation was imposed upon the citizens, but ^racy: envoys were sent round to the islands and maritime cities of the Egean, inviting them to form a new con­federacy. The old duties and claims which had bred dis­affection in tKe confederation of Delos were kept as far as possible “in the background; the most unpopular privileges of the presiding State were formally renounced. The envoys chosen for this mission of conciliation were TimotheoSj Jthe son of Konon and heir to his popularity, CTm£nasf the famous general, and Kallistratos, the most noted orator of his time ; and so successful were they in their expedition that more than seventy cities, discon­tented with the rule of Spartan harmosts or Persian satraps, were soon enrolled under the leadership of

Athens. In the first congress of the new confederacy, an armament was voted which should consist of 20,000 hoplites, 500 cavalry, and 200 triremes. But this enthu- its early en- siasm could not and did not last long. To and^rea? enforce the equipment of contingents and the weakness. payment of contributions was a difficult task; and the league, which promised so well and seemed so hearty, failed in actual performance, though its moral support was doubtless of great value to Athens.

Of all the allies which the Athenians gained at this time, none was so important as Thebes. Her army was becoming Thebes every day more formidable ; her generals were pressed’by the equals even of a Chabrias and an Iphi-

difficulties, ,       , , , .  ,

joins the krates; and her devotion to the cause was un- new league, questioned. Nor is it matter for surprise that Thebes, destined so soon to be supreme in Greece, submit­ted even now to the hegemony of Athens. Epameinondas, whose spirit inspired her counsels, was not a man to weigh petty and provincial jealousies against the liberty of Hellas; and the Theban position was most precarious. Plataia, Thespiai, and Orchomenos were held as outposts against her, to cripple her defensive operations ; and though at the hands of the peace-loving Kleombrotos she had suf­fered but little, it was not to be expected that, if in the coming campaign the rancorous and relentless Agesilaos took the field against her, she would escape so easily again.

The Spartans had been, doubtless, discontented with the forbearing spirit which Kleombrotos had shown in the previous winter, and felt also that since Athens and Thebes had joined hands, and the acquittal of Sphodrias had made Spartan justice a byword throughout Greece, the occasion demanded their utmost efforts. Hence, for the campaign of 378 B.C. Agesilaos was induced to take command of the army, which consisted of the full force of the Lakedaimonian confederacy. The results, however, of

the expedition were but small. Having traversed the passes of Kithairon without difficulty, Agesilaos reached Thespiai, but found that the Thebans had _{BC 3?8} secured with trench and palisade the most . valuable portions of their territory. After a tales the good deal of desultory fighting, he penetrated xhfbes^but this obstacle, ravaged the country up to effects * the very gates of Thebes, and finally re- ^{1 e}’ tired, leaving Phoibidas in command at Thespiai. Such is the account of the campaign given by Xenophon, who characteristically omits its most noteworthy feature. To check the Spartan advance, the Athenians under Chabrias, and the Thebans under Gorgidas were posted on a range of hills. Agesilaos began the attack with his  .

light troops, and after their repulse charged To eiigaglf up with his hoplites. But the men of Chabrias Thebaj^and stood firm, with their shields resting on one Athenian knee, and their spears outstretched to meet the ^armies‘ enemy; and the troops of Gorgidas followed their ex­ample. Upon this, Agesilaos, fearing the effect of this novel attitude and the unshaken courage of his opponents, ordered a retreat without waiting even to cross spears. Such an incident must have had powerful moral results,not only on the troops engaged, but also throughout all Boiotia; and the effect was increased soon after by the success of the Thebans in avenging the frequent inroads of the active Phoibidas, by slaying the captor of their citadel, and driving back his troops in headlong flight to Thespiai.

Nor did the campaigns of the next two years bring to the Spartans any more decided advantage. In 377 B.C. Agesilaos, by a skilful stratagem, succeeded Thecam- in penetrating the palisade and ravaging the ^^*376 country, but no decisive action was fought ; » while this persistent, though desultory, warfare increased the efficiency of the Theban army so decidedly that the

shrewd Antalkidas seeing Agesiiaos wounded in a skirmish, exclaimed, ‘ Verily, the Thebans make thee a good requital for thy kindness in giving them lessons in war against their wills.’ On his journey home his sound leg—foi one was always lame—received an injury which caused Illness of him a long and serious illness, and incapaci- Agesiiaos. tated him for active service during many years. Kleombrotos, accordingly, was called to the com­mand of the expedition of 376 B.C. The allies were weary of the war, the general had little sympathy with it; and when his light-armed troops suffered a reverse from the Athenians and Thebans who had occupied Kidiairon, he abandoned the expedition and led his army home.

So urgent were the remonstrances of the allies, who, in a congress at Sparta, complained that the spiritless con- The Spar- ^^uct ^e ^{war was wast}ing their strength and tans raise a energies, that the ephors determined to raise defeate^Ud^arc a fleet and strike a decisive blow by sea. near Naxos. Sixty ships were quickly manned, and placed under the command of Pollis as admiral. The Athenians were at once reduced to great straits by the stoppage of their corn-ships. They, however, soon raised a fleet of eighty triremes, and gave Chabrias the command of it. A sharp battle ensued near Naxos, in which the Athenians were completely victorious. More than half the Pelo­ponnesian ships were taken or destroyed ; and Chabrias, according to Diodoros, might have inflicted a far greater loss had he not been warned by the consequences of the tight of Arginousai to make the safety of the crews of the eighteen Athenian wrecks his first consideration.

By this victory, the first which an Athenian fleet had Athens in- gained since the end of the Peloponnesian wTvaF^{sher war}» Athens was relieved from the peril of power. famine ; and with enlarged ambition, she fol­lowed up her success by sending Chabrias and the young

Phokion to cruise in triumph round the Egean, while Timotheos, after the fashion of old time, sailed round the Peloponnese, strengthening the influence of Athens in the western islands, and diverting the Spartans from attacking Boiotia by land. This interval of rest was utilised by the Thebans in tightening their _Thebes grasp over the Boiotian towns. Of those strengthens which still stood firm to Spartan alliance, the thorny in proud and ancient city of Orchomenos was ^Boiotia: the most important. The garrison of this stronghold consisted mainly of two Spartan morai, or divisions of from five to nine hundred men, and the daring Pelopidas had been long watching his opportunity for a surprise. When, however, the long-expected moment of attack arrived, Pelopidas, who had with him only the Sacred Band and a few cavalry, failed in his attempt upon the town, and, while retreating, fell in with the Spartan garri­son near Tegyra. The handful of Thebans, ^ when they saw the numbers of their redoubt- by^Pthe de- able foes, were at first dismayed, and one of Spartans⁶ them exclaimed, ‘ We have fallen into the near hands of our enemies.’ ‘Why not say that ^sy ‘ they have fallen into ours ? ’ was the undaunted answer of Pelopidas. Then, forming his men into a close body, he charged with a vigour so irresistible that the Spartans wavered, and their two generals fell in the first onset. Supposing that after all the Thebans would be content to be allowed to escape unharmed, the Spartan troops, dividing into two bodies, made a lane to let them pass through ; but Pelopidas, attacking each of the divisions in turn, put the whole army to rout with great slaughter. Though the numbers engaged on either side in this en­counter were insignificant, yet it was none the less im­portant. Plutarch calls it the prelude to Leuktra, and., with the pride natural to a Boiotian, remarks that this

battle first taught the rest of Hellas that men of courage and resolution were not bred only on the banks of the Eurotas. The Thebans were justly elated with their suc­cess. With a vastly inferior force they had routed a Spartan army, and the terror of their name brought beneath their sway all Boiotia, except Orchomenos and its dependency, Chaironeia. So also they became more aggressive and less conciliatory ; they refused to con* tribute their quota to the joint expenses of the Athenian confederacy, perhaps resenting uns send some signs of the jealousy which Athens un an army doubtedly felt at her neighbour’s rapid rise:

under Kle-         ,        ™ > •

ombrotos to and to punish their old enemies, the Phokians, Phokians   ^t^^ie*^r faithful adhesion to Sparta, they

r1Tb^Ss- invaded their country, and pressed them so ^{e e} ’ hard that Kleombrotos was sent to their aid with four Lakedaimonian tuorai, and a contingent of allies.

Meanwhile, far to the north, almost beyond the border of Hellas, a power was rising which seemed at one time likely to eclipse both Thebes and Sparta, and to steal the prize of Hellenic supremacy from the grasp of these contending rivals. Jason of Pherai, daring, energetic, crafty, and aspiring, had made himself already master of all Thessaly except the town of Pharsalos. But Thessaly was by no means the extreme limit of his ambitious hopes. To rise from tyrant of Pherai to Tagos of Thes­saly, to train an army and build a fleet with which not even united Greece could cope successfully, to extend his conquests beyond the Egean and hurl the Great King from his throne—these were the wide designs which were said to fire the genius of this would-be Alexander. At this juncture, the most powerful and respected citizen of Pharsalos came as an envoy to Sparta to solicit some protection for his native city against its aggressive neigh­

bour. But Sparta, tottering already in her proud dicta­torship, felt that nearer home she had work ^ ^ _f enough upon her hands ; and her govern- help to ment was obliged to confess that, though it aga[nst°^S sympathised with their suit, it could give no Jason of effectual aid to its Pharsalian petitioners. ^erai' Pharsalos accordingly submitted, and Jason was soon after acknowledged Tagos of Thessaly.

Yet just at this time Sparta was relieved from the hostility of one of her foes. Jealous of the revival of Theban ascendency in Boiotia, disquieted at Athens the building of a Theban fleet at Kreusis, angry at the refusal of Thebes to pay her Sparta, share towards the war expenses of the confederacy, ha­rassed by the incursions of Aiginetan privateers, and weary of a conflict which was exhausting her resources for the advantage of Thebes rather than of herself, Athens concluded a separate peace with Sparta.

But this new peace was not destined to endure for long. Timotheos was still in the Ionic Sea, where the purity, moderation, and magnanimity of his _{wh;ch is} personal character had compensated for small broken by

-        tit    Timotheos

resources and scanty supplies, and had en- atZakyn- ablcd him to maintain the supremacy of ^thos> Athens in those regions. He now received orders to return; and on his homeward voyage he touched at Zakyn- thos to land a small body of exiles, and helped them to establish themselves in a fortified position. The Zakyn- thian government reported the outrage to Sparta, and the ephors, indignant at this breach of the peace, demanded redress from Athens. Their demands being refused, one Spartan fleet was sent to help Zakynthos, and another to take Korkyra, which was then under Athenian protec­tion. On his arrival Mnasippos, the Spartan commander, defeated the, Korkyraian fleet, blockaded the town rav­

aged the rich and carefully-tilled fields, and soon reduced the citizens to the direst straits. A small Athenian re­. inforcement, which declared itself the pre- UylTsiege to cursor of a much larger armament, buoyed up buT^de-^{5 t}^^ie'^r courage ; while Mnasippos, from

feated and the signs of extreme distress which met his eyes, felt his success assured, grew over-confident, and treated his mercenaries with harshness and injustice. Seizing their opportunity, the Athenian peltasts and Kor- kyraian hoplites made a sudden sally, slew Mnasippos, and completely routed his mutinous and half-hearted troops. After this, the general who succeeded Mnasippos in command, fearing the near approach of the long- expected reinforcement from Athens, evacuated the island in such haste that a great amount of booty, and even some of his sick and wounded, had to be left behind.

At length, though tardily, the Athenian fleet arrived. Timotheos had been at first appointed to command it; O rations k^ut ^e f°^un<i great difficulty in completing of^phikra- the equipment of his fleet, and spent, though mand of™ ^e ^{not waste}> considerable time in a pre- theAthe- liminary cruise round the Egean. Discontent man ee .       disorganization became prevalent among

the allies, who were waiting for him near Kalaureia, and the Athenians, who were anxious to save Korkyra, grew dissatisfied. During his absence, his command was taken from him and given to Iphikrates, who obtained the apppointment of Kallistratos and Chabrias as his col­leagues. The new admiral showed the greatest energy in the work of equipment, and the most consummate skill in the management of the voyage. At Kephallenia, where he halted to reduce some towns and to refresh his men, he heard that the Spartans had raised the siege of Korkvra ; but, pressing onwards, he surprised and cap-

tured ten triremes which Dionysios, the tyrant of Syracuse, had sent to the help of Mnasippos. But he was soon in need of money, and, while he supported his men by farm- work in Korkyra and military service in Akamania, he sent home Kallistratos to demand either an adequate supply of pay or a real and definite peace.

Meanwhile the dissatisfaction which the Athenians had felt against Timotheos had cooled down. His expe­dition in the Egean was seen to have borne _T_ ^ good fruit, and their friends in Korkyra were tried and safe. The accusation which Kallistratos and ^ac<i^uitted: Iphikrates had lodged against him, had of course been postponed during their absence ; and though it was re­newed on the return of Kallistratos, the Athenian dikasts, who were willing to deem all well that ended well, returned a verdict of acquittal. Jason of Pherai and his ally, the king of Epeiros, appeared as witnesses in his favour. Timotheos gave them lodgings in his house, but so poor was this distinguished son of a father even more noble, that he was obliged to borrow from a neighbouring banker all the ordinary luxuries for their entertainment—bedding, and raiment, and two silver drinking-bowls. As to the cause of his trial, his delay after being appointed for a special and pressing object can scarcely be justified ; but his chief fault, if fault it was, seems to have been that his spirit was too mild and his conscience too scrupulous to make him an efficient leader of a press-gang or a plundering foray. Feeling, perhaps, that in spite of his acquittal some slui still attached to his character, or thinking that he could serve his country best by looking after her in- enters terests at the court of Persia, he left Athens ofrtle™¹⁰⁶ and entered the Great King’s service.       Great King.

Nor, during this time, had the government of Thebes relaxed their efforts towards their own aggrandisement and Boiotian consolidation. Thespiai and Plataia had

Thespiai, surprised by one of the Boiotarchs at an hour Phtakf^{tr0y w}^^{en most} the male population were ab-

acknowledged her supremacy ; but it was felt that their fidelity was more than dubious, even if they were not, as Diodoros says, actually intriguing against her. Accord- The The-  ^{to ma}k^e matters sure, the fortifications

bans dis- of Thespiai were dismantled, and Plataia was

mantle Thespiai, clestr

sent on their farms. The inhabitants were allowed to depart in safety to Athens, and to take their movable property with them; but the hapless little city was again razed to the ground, and its territory an­nexed to Thebes. Through all its history, Plataia had been a sore thorn in the side of its more powerful neigh­bour. Perched high on its mountain slopes, it com­manded the whole Theban plain, and even the city and the Kadmeia itself. Its destruction was, therefore, an act not only prompted by inveterate hostility, but dictated by strategical necessity.

But this outrage upon her old ally aroused at Athens the most lively resentment. Smouldering jealousy gave Athens and way to outspoken indignation ; and though clffiYo'¹ Epameinondas with the utmost ability de­peace. fended his countrymen against the eloquent accusations of Kallistratos and the rhetorical invective of Isokrates, the public opinion of Athens was gradually breaking away from the Theban cause, and tending to a better understanding with Sparta. The Spartans also were alarmed no less by the renewal of Athenian maritime victories, than by the striking energy and ability shown in the policy of Thebes, while their su­perstitious fears were aroused by eaithquakes and by meteors, by signs in the heaven above and in the earth beneath. For the last few years the tide of success had run steadily against them, and they, too, began to be anxious for peace. Pursuing the same course as

fifteen years before, they sent Antalkidas to Persia to implore the aid and intervention of the Great King,; and Artaxerxes, who, as the Greek states were at Antalkidas war, found a difficulty in obtaining merce- obtains a naries to act against Egypt, granted their thereat⁰¹” petition, and despatched envoys to Greece, ^Kmg* requiring that the belligerent states should come to terms on the principles of the Peace of Antalkidas.

In May or June, 371, a congress was held at Sparta, at which the members of the Athenian and the Spartan confederacies were present. The principal _{BC 3?j} envoy on the part of Thebes was Epamei- _p ^ nondas, while Kallistratos was the most able _gress at of the Athenian representatives, although the ^sP^arta- peace has taken its name in history from the feebler Kallias. Kallistratos in a thoroughly statesmanlike speech proposed that the hegemony of Greece should be divided—that Athens should rule by sea, and Sparta by land. ‘ If/ said he, ¹ a firm peace were established between these states, peace would be secured in all the rest of Greece; for that was divided, city by city, into two parties, one of which supported Sparta, and the other Athens. It was foolish for them to act like athletes, who, after a career of victory, will not retire from the arena till they have been defeated ; or like gamblers who, after one stroke of luck, go on staking double or quits till they are ruined.’ At the same time it was The Peace stipulated that the universal autonomy guaran- ^{of Kalhas}- teed by the peace should be real, and no mere sham in the interests of Sparta. The Spartan harmosts were to be everywhere withdrawn, and the armaments on both sides to be disbanded.

To these terms the Spartans swore in the name of Sparta and of her confederate allies ; and Athens and the cities of her confederacy took the oaths separately.

A.H. N

When, however, the turn of the Thebans came, Epamei­nondas declared that he must swear in the name not of Sparta and Thebes alone, but of the whole Boiotian con- s^Ttotie ^federacy- *^s Ag^es^^{aos an}d ^e rest of the terms of Spartans refused, asking why the Boiotian the peace; cities had not as much right to take the oaths independently as Thebes herself. The natural answer to this question would have been to retort that but with th Thebes might swear in the name of her allies Thebans a just as Sparta had been allowed to do ; but hitch arose: Epameinondas with startling audacity took a much bolder position. He told the Spartans that the position of Thebes with reference to the Boiotian citics was exactly parallel to the supremacy of Sparta over the Lakonian townships ; that by all legal and historical arguments the rights of Thebes were certainly as old and as valid as those of Sparta, whose authority was founded solely on the sword. Filled with rage at such un­precedented presumption, Agesilaos sprang from his seat, and cut the discussion short by one brief question, ‘ Will you or will you not grant independence to each Boiotian city ? ’ ‘ Will you/ rejoined Epameinondas, ¹ leave each of the Lakonian townships independent ? ’ The only and they answer of the Spartan king was to strike out dudedfrom the name of Thebes from the treaty, and to the treaty. proclaim her exclusion from it: whereupon, says Xenophon, the Thebans departed in the deepest de­jection. Epameinondas, however, before he took so decided a line, must have calculated the consequences, and counted the cost. It was not dejection which filled the hearts of the Thebans as they left the congress, but the solemn anxiety of men who have risked all to defend a principle, and who, not in confident expectation but in anxious hope, are awaiting the result. What this result would be, no one but a Theban could doubt; the

only subject for speculation was the exact form of punish­ment which it would please the Spartans to inflict.

Kleombrotos, it will be remembered, was still in Phokis with a large army of Spartans and allies. Just as the Athenians had at once ordered Iphikrates to return and to disband his forces, so, if Sparta was ever to be able to claim that she too had fulfilled her share of the treaty, Kleombrotos also ought, of course, to be recalled. But the temptation of smiting down the inso- Kleom- lent Thebans by one sudden well-directed blow ^rotos ^m" was too much for Spartan scruples. Already, Boiotia; as Xenophon thinks, some supernatural power was lead­ing them on to their doom ; and though one man in the assembly upheld the cause of justice and religion, the majority stigmatized him as a sentimental prater, and ordered Kleombrotos to march at once against the Thebans. The Spartan king, by a march which evinced considerable strategical skill, eluded the vigilance of Epameinondas, who was guarding the direct route from Phokis; and, leading his troops by an almost inaccessible path among the mountains, he descended upon Kreusis, and, after seizing twelve triremes in the harbour, passed on to the neighbourhood of Leuktra. Here, with Thebes in front of him at the distance of an easy ^ march, and the fort of Kreusis in his rear camped near securing his communications with Sparta, he ^Leuktra- encamped on a ridge to the west of Plataia, which formed the north-western extremity of Mount Kithairon. The Thebans, when they heard of his march, united the troops of Epameinondas with the main body of the army, and took up their position on high ground near the little town of Leuktra. Between the two armies stretched a plain rather more than a mile in breadth, where the superior numbers of the Spartan army would be able to have full play. What these numbers actually were, cannot be N 2

accurately determined. A reasonable estimate of the Lakedaimonian force makes it to have consisted of 10,000 Numbers of hoplites, 1,000 cavalry, and the usual propor- the armies. _tj_{on 0}f light-armed troops; while the Thebans are said to have mustered only 6,000 men, a total which is perhaps exclusive of their cavalry.

As the two armies lay facing one another before the battle, the Thebans saw that they were outnumbered, and Discourage- felt, probably, that they had been already out- Thcban generalled by the brilliant march with which camp; Kleombrotos had opened the campaign. So deep was their dismay and discouragement, that all the wisdom of Epameinondas and all the fire cf Pelopidas were scarcely enough to gain a bare majority of Boiotarchs in favour of battle. ‘ Rather,’ cried their timorous colleagues, ‘ let us take shelter within our walls, send our wives and little ones to Athens, and abide the results of a siege.’ Epa- aileviated meinondas, however, convinced them that the by the only alternative, besides a battle, was a revolt lFpamci- of Boiotia, a revolution in Thebes, and a nondas, miserable exile, which was far worse than a glorious death. The portents, which had terrified them on the march, were invested with a more encouraging in­terpretation, and others were circulated to inspire them with confidence. From the shrine of Trophonios at Lebadeia, from the temple of Herakles at Thebes, omens of happy presage were reported. Near at hand, favourable as if to stimulate them to vengeance, stood a portents. monument of Spartan outrage. In bygone days foully wronged by the invader’s lust, the two daughters of Skedasos had slain themselves. Their father went to Sparta to seek redress; but the rulers were deaf to the old man’s cries, and he returned and slew himself also. The tomb stood close by; and a Spartan exile quoted an ancient prophecy that Sparta should be defeated near

the tomb of the virgins. The Theban troops gladly ac­cepted the omen, and enwreathed the tomb with garlands, vowing vengeance in their hearts. As the story ran in later times, Skedasos himself appeared to Pelopidas in a vision of the night, and ordered that an auburn virgin should be offered at the tomb; and, as the generals and prophets in the morning stood debating how best to do the ghostly bidding, a chestnut filly cantered up, and was hailed at once as the victim sent by the gods.

A. Thebans.

a.      Theban infantry.

b.      Phalanx of Epameinondas.

c.      Cavalry.

d.      Sacred Band under Pelopidas. B. Lakedaimonians.

e.      Infantry.

f.       Cavalry.

But the tactics of Epameinondas in drawing up his troops were no less skilful than his means for inspiring them with courage. Xenophon, in his grossly _{Tactics of} unfair narrative of the battle, which is little Epamei- better than a tissue of frivolous excuses for ^nondas- the Spartan defeat, does not even mention the name of

the great Theban ; but it is nevertheless certain that the tactics adopted were due to him alone. He first, like Gideon of old, weeded his ranks of‘all who were fearful and afraid/ by a proclamation that all those who wished might depart, and the Thespian contingent at once left the camp. Next he formed his line of battle in a novel order to suit the special emergencies of the case. A philosophical tactician, he had studied all the recent im­provements in the art of war, and had noted the weak points of the old system. He knew also that if he could once overpower the solid mass of the Spartan hoplites, the*resistance of the allied contingent would be incon­siderable. The strength of the Spartan phalanx lay in its disciplined cohesion, its weakness in its incapacity to meet new combinations by opening, closing, and re-form­ing its ranks with readiness. According to acknowledged principles, a Greek battle began by a simultaneous attack along the whole line ; but Epameinondas had exercised the Thebans in the manoeuvre of throwing forward a heavy column of attack, and advancing in echelon or obliquely. Now he formed on the left wing, unobserved by the enemy, a compact column, fifty deep, and near this he stationed the Sacred Band under Pelopidas, in readi­ness for rapid and independent action. The centre and right were kept back for the present, and ordered to support the onset of the left.

In the Spartan camp there reigned an arrogant and overweening confidence, which shewed itself in an im- TheSpar- patient eagerness to begin the conflict and eagerto⁶ secure the victory. Yet Kleoinbrotos seems engage. to have hung back, perhaps secretly wishing to give the Thebans a chance of escaping by surrender the worst consequences of their temerity. But friends and enemies alike urged him to battle, the latter with taunts, and the formor with entreaties not to let slip this

opportunity of clearing himself from the imputation of sympathy with Thebes. Accordingly, after the noonday meal, in which Xenophon would have us believe that the soldiers drank to excess, Kleombrotos drew up his army twelve deep, posting himself and most of the Lakedai- monians, according to custom, on the right.

The battle began on each side with a cavalry charge ; and the Lakedaimonian squadrons, notoriously inefficient, were swept back in confusion upon their main body. Such a result could not have been un- right wing " expected, and Kleombrotos at once ordered ^defeated > his infantry to advance. As they met the mass of the Theban left, the shock was terrible. The Theban column wedged itself into every opening in the enemy’s ranks, which the recoil of the cavalry had perhaps thrown into some disorder. The Spartan king had originally purposed to use his superiority in numbers to surround Epameinondas, or at least to turn his flank ; but the movements of Pelopidas and the Sacred Band had been so rapid that they were upon him before he could deploy his troops. Nothing therefore remained but to bear up, shield to shield, and man to man, against the mass that bore down upon them. In the fierce hand-to- hand combat which ensued, the king was struck with a mortal wound ; and around him, where the Kleom- fight was hottest, fell Sphodrias and his son, ^{brotos slaIn} and one of the polemarchs. As the Spartans were able to carry off the wounded monarch yet living from the field, Xenophon argues that they were at first successful. It was probably long before fortune declared for either side. At length, Epameinondas urged on his men to a crowning effort, animating them by brave words and by the example of gallant deeds. Borne down by the sheer weight of the advancing column, the weaker line of wearied Spartans broke, and in headlong rout made for their

entrenched camp. On no other part of the line had there been, apparently, any real fighting, for the Theban centre and the and right had been purposely kept back, and driven ^the cavalry had probably hindered the Spar- to the camp, tans from succouring their own right wing. But, seeing the discomfiture of their friends, the whole line fell back, and formed in good order behind the en­trenchment of their camp, and the Thebans did not at tempt to press the pursuit.

But the Lakedaimonian forces were still numerically superior to their victorious opponents ; and a few of the The Spar- surviving Spartans, feeling keenly the disgrace knowledged ^^ie*^r P⁰^⁰¹¹* ^an^ deeming death prefer- their defeat able to a confession of defeat, wished to strike uTeliunaL another blow for the honours of the field and truce.       _t0 fight f_or the possession of the slain. But the

polemarchs, seeing how large a proportion of the Spartans had fallen, and observing the lukewarm and spiritless temper of some of their allies and the total unconcern of others, despatched a herald to ask for the burial-truce. The request was of course granted ; but Epameinondas stipulated that the corpses of the allies should be buried be­fore those of the Spartans. This made it impossible for the Spartans to conceal the severity of their own loss. Xenophon admits that 1,000 Lakedaimonians had fallen, and that of 700 Spartan citizens who took the field, 400 were left dead upon it.

How the tale of woe was received at Sparta may be told in the words of Xenophon. ‘ After this, the messenger _ . charged with bearing the news of the disaster

Reception

of the news to Sparta arrives on the last day of the festival at Sparta,        _t^_e Gymnopaidia, when the chorus of men

was within upon the stage. And the ephors, when they heard the disaster, were grieved, as I trow they could not help being ; yet they did not order the chorus to with­

draw, but suffered them to act out the performance. They told also the names of the slain to the kinsfolk of each, cautioning the women not to raise lamentations, but to bear their sorrow in silence. And on the morrow you might see those whose relatives had been slain parading in public with bright and cheerful faces; but of those whose kinsmen were said to survive, you would have seen but few, and those going about with gloomy and down­cast looks.’ Such a description needs no comment. The reception of the news at Athens was equally character­istic. The laurel-crowned messenger arrived ^ at when the Council happened to be sitting in ^Athens- the Akropolis. He told his glorious tale of victory, and bade the Athenians haste to reinforce the Thebans, for now was their time for avenging all the wrongs which they had suffered. ‘ But,’ adds the same historian, ¹ it was obvious to all that the council were profoundly vexed ; for they offered no hospitality to the herald, and said not a word about reinforcements. And so the herald departed from Athens.’ Though the ruin of Sparta meant now the freedom of Hellas, the Athenians grudged that the despised Boiotians should win the glory of its accomplishment.

At Leuktra itself the intense energy of conflict was followed by a prolonged pause. For some time the vic­torious Thebans blockaded the hostile camp, jason of till, at length, a mediator appeared on the ^^Tdan scene. Jason of Pherai, being summoned by armistice: the Thebans to their aid, arrived by forced marches with an army of 1,500 infantry and 500 horse. The Thebans urged him to make a joint attack with them upon the enemy’s camp. But Jason dissuaded them from the enterprise, reminding them how stubbornly they them­selves had fought when driven to despair, and warning them that the deity delights to exalt the lowly, and bring down the high looks of the proud. An armistice was

accordingly agreed upon through his mediation, and the Spartan generals were so eager to quit the scene of their and the calamity, that they broke up their camp by departed by  ^anc*> fearing lest the Thebans should

night         prove treacherous, marched on by a byroad

in disorder and terror, till they reached Aigosthena, and there met Archidamos advancing with an army to their aid.

Thus the curtain falls upon the last act of the tragedy of Spartan misrule. Few events in history are more dramatic than the short campaign of Leuktra. Twenty days since, Sparta was the arrogant interpreter of the rescripts of an alien despot; now her troops were slinking away in darkness and by bypaths from foes whom they then despised.

CHAPTER XII.

THE THEBAN SUPREMACY.

The system of Spartan supremacy had been the creation of Lysandros ; like him, it was cruel, narrow, selfish. The General system of Theban supremacy was the creation ofⁿTheb«ui Epameinondas, and, like its author, was policy. characterised by moderation, breadth of sym­pathy, and devotion to the general welfare of Greece.

‘ Divide et impera’had been the motto of Sparta ; she had aimed at absolute sway over an incoherent mass of enfeebled cities. The nobler object of Thebes was to strengthen and unite, and to work in friendly alliance for the protection of Hellenic independence. This was not only the worthier, but the more difficult task. Cities and tribes which for years had been kept in thraldom, anti whose jealousies had been sedulously fomented in the interests of the tyrant state, were accustomed to follow, but could not be taught to combine. The nine years of Theban ascendency were all too short for the unlearning

of the evil lessons and the undoing of iniquities which a generation of bitter warfare and a subsequent genera­tion of oppressive misgovernment had left behind them. Epameinondas saw clearly enough that, in dealing with a system so unscrupulous and selfish as that of Sparta, no half-measures were possible. No reform, no limitation could be considered ; the truest statesmanship and the truest patriotism alike demanded its complete suppres­sion. To effect this object he worked steadily through all his career. As a general, he stripped the Spartan name of its terrors ; and even Arkadians became bold enough to defy their once dreaded neighbours. By the founda­tion of Megalopolis and the restoration of Messene he hoped to establish two permanent bulwarks against Spartan aggression ; and the plan in itself was wise and statesmanlike. But those for whom he laboured were unworthy and ungrateful. The old flaw showed itself again. Any union seemed too unnatural to last; the fatal tendency to autonomy was too strong, and the scheme, so far as it failed, failed not through any fault of Epamei­nondas, but through the inherent defects of the Greek character.

The effects of the great battle were felt immediately throughout the whole of Greece. In Thebes itself the first impulse was to stamp out the last rem- _T

*       . .      1 Immediate

nants of opposition in the Boiotian confede- effects of racy. Orchomenos, which had remained firm ^Leuktra- to the last in the Spartan alliance, was only saved from a terrible punishment by the intercession of Epameinondas, in this case, as always, an advocate of mercy ; and the Thespians, who had turned themselves back The in the day of battle, were expelled from J_e^h_s^e_t^^s Boiotia, and found, like the Plataians, a refuge Thespiai, at Athens. The position of Thebes was thus made politically secure; her policy next received a religious

sanction. Sparta was arraigned before the Amphiktyonic Council—the time-honoured assembly whose function it and obtain ^{was to watc}h ^over the Delphic temple in par- an Amphik- ticular, and the religion of Hellas in general demnation* —for her impious seizure of the Kadmeia. of Sparta. _{vote 0}f condemnation was secured; a fine of 500 talents was inflicted, which, though doubled, was never paid. The object of Thebes, however, was gained; she was herself justified by the open humiliation of her enemy.

But Athens did not intend to let the downfall of Sparta pass without one more attempt to regain her old position Athens be- as the imperial city. Summoning to a congress headofa^{6 a11 tlie stat}es who were willing to abide by new league, the conditions of the Peace of Antalkidas, she made herself the head of a fresh league, which bound itself by an oath of mutual defence and universal independence. Many of the members of the Peloponnesian confederacy joined it, though Elis stood aloof. The movement was well planned and well timed; but the hands of Athens were no longer strong enough for the work of empire.

At Sparta, the most pressing question was the treat­ment of the ‘runaways/ as those who survived defeat At Sparta ^{were st}y^led by the stern voice of Lykourgean the ^penai- discipline. The scant number of genuine law are re- Spartans had long been a source of weakness case^Cof the^{he t0 t}^^{ie state} » ^anc* ^t^^ie conspiracy of Kina- s^rvivors of don had shown the reality of the danger. The ‘ number and influence of those now affected made it probable that they would not submit without a struggle to the abject indignities prescribed by the law; and in spite of the unpopularity caused by the failure of his anti-Theban policy, and by the revival of the prophecy that foretold the calamities of a ‘lame reign,’ (p. 90) Agesilaos was entrusted with the settlement of the ques­

tion. He decided that the law should lie dormant for this occasion only. Forty years after, when Agis was defeated and slain by Antipatros, a like exemption was decreed.

In many of the Peloponnesian cities, when the power of Sparta seemed visibly on the wane, internal commo­tions had arisen, and much blood had been Disturb- shed on both sides. But now Argos displayed ^opon-^the the most fearful example of popular fury re- nesos. corded in Greek annals, red as they are with tales of civil bloodshed. The democratic populace detected a con­spiracy among the oligarchs, and thirty of the ‘Skytalism’ chief citizens were at once put to death. The ^at -^s⁰⁵- excitement of the people was inflamed by the harangues of demagogues, and the mob, arming itself with cudgels, commenced a general massacre. When 1,200 citizens had fallen, the popular orators interfered to check the atrocities, but met with the same fate; and, sated at length with bloodshed, the multitude stayed the deadly work.

But where the pressure of Spartan interference had been heaviest and most constant, there the reaction was naturally most striking. The popular impulses _Rebuii_ding which were at work in Arkadia found their of Manti- first outlet in the rebuilding of Mantineia.

The convenient proximity of their farms had seemed to the citizens but a poor compensation for political effacement (p. 145); and, aided by contributions from the neighbouring towns, and even from the more distant Elis, they began at once to build and fortify a new city. The Spartans felt it a grievous slight that their permission had not been asked; but, far from attempting to stop the work by force, they humbled themselves to send their venerable king in person to ask the Mantineians to desist till the consent of Sparta should be formally granted. On his arrival though Agesilaos assured the magistrates of Man­tineia that this consent would not be withheld, and pro­

mised, further, that the Spartans would help to defray the expenses, they refused to let him address the people, and told him that the decree of the city ordered the wall to be built without delay. The Spartans could only pocket the insult, and stand idly by while the work of Arkadian revival went merrily forward.

This country has often been called the Switzerland of Greece. Both are mountainous districts, peopled by a racy of hardy and warlike peasants, hunts-

Movement         . , _ . . ~ *. ...

for Arka- men, and shepherds, who, finding little scope <han union. _{for t}i_{ieir ener}gj_es j_{n t}h_e petty republics of various forms which existed in their own cantons, ven­tured forth in quest of higher pay and keener excitement as mercenary soldiers. Among the Arkadians, Lyko- influence of ^me^^es °f Mantineia, a man of high birth, great Lykomedcs wealth, and greater ambition, became the neia. * spokesman of the popular movement. He stimulated the pride of his countrymen by telling them that they were the primitive inhabitants of the Peloponnese, and the most numerous and warlike of all Hellenic races; and he exhorted them not to allow themselves any longer to be the mere tools of other powers, but to make for themselves a free and united Arkadia. But owing to the ,       mutual jealousies of the chief towns—Manti-

Difficulties .       , _ ,   ,        ,

from the neia, 1 egea, and Orchomenos—the task was

oForchome- ^{one of} S^rcat difficulty. The governing families

aos and of Orchomenos were heartily attached to the

Spartan alliance, on which, probably, their

power to a great extent depended ; and they would not

easily sympathise with a movement which seemed to

originate with Mantineia. Hence they consistently

shewed the most uncompromising opposition to the policy

of innovation. In Tegea, however, public opinion was

divided. The city had been treated by Sparta with

special consideration, and had for centuries been her

faithful ally; hence the oligarchical government looked with disfavour upon the project of union. But the demo- cratical party was powerful and unscrupulous ; and, with the help of the Mantineians, they effected a revolution, in which many were killed, and 800 exiles fled to Sparta.

The Spartans, fallen as they were, could not allow the Mantineians to infringe their monopoly of intermeddling with the internal affairs of Arkadian cities, Expedition without attempting to chastise their presump- agamst^lla°^S tion. Agesiiaos took the field; and, after Mantineia. some minor operations, remained three days in the face of the Arkadian army, ravaging the plain in front of Mantineia. ‘ This he did/ says Xenophon, ‘ though it was mid-winter, that he might not seem to hasten his departure through fear; ’ he then withdrew with the utmost haste, but with such precautions, ‘that no one could say that his retreat was a flight/ so sensitive to reproach was Spartan honour now. Yet the historian assures us that the exploits of Agesiiaos in this campaign went far to revive his countrymen from their previous dejection.

This invasion of Arkadia is chiefly important for the pretext which it furnished for Theban intervention. The Mantineians applied for help at first to Athens, and, meeting with a refusal, went on to Thebes. For this request Epameinondas must have been thoroughly pre­pared beforehand ; and he was soon on the _{F;rst expe}_ march with a powerful army. But his designs dtton of in invading the Peloponnese were by no means dastothePe- limited to the expulsion of Agesiiaos from ^loP°^nnese* Mantineian soil. He had watched with deep interest and keen sympathy the progress of the Pan-Arkadian movement; and he was determined not only to _ _ lend every assistance in his power to the con- ^{Hls designs}- solidation of that country, but also to re-establish the ancient Messenian race in possession of their long-lost

territories. In this he designed not only to annoy Sparta for the time being, but to furnish two permanent bulwarks against any possible revival of her pernicious predominance.

On his arrival in the Peloponnese, he found that Agesi­laos had already retired ; and some of the Theban gene- He marches ^rals> considering the season of the year, wished on Sparta, _{at once} to return. But their allies from Ar- kadia, Argos, and Elis, as they looked at this magnificent array of 40,000 (or perhaps even 70,000) soldiers, marvelling at the numerous contingents from Northern Greece, and admiring, above all, the smartness of the Theban troops, thought that such a force was equal to the capture of Sparta itself. Won over by their entreaties, or, if we credit Plutarch, according to his own preconcerted plan, Epameinondas consented to the daring enterprise. The small detachments, which were guarding the passes lead­ing from Arkadia into Lakonia, were easily overpowered; and in four divisions the invading host streamed into the land, which, according to the proudest boast of its in­habitants, had felt no hostile tread for 600 years. At Sellasia, not ten miles distant from Sparta, the army re­united ; and, having plundered and burnt the town, swept down into the valley of the Eurotas, and marched along the left bank till it reached the bridge opposite the city.

Within Sparta itself, though a universal terror pre­vailed, one man rose equal to the emergency. While the but the ^men f^a'^nted *ⁿ spirit as they thought how few energy of they were, and how wide their unwalled city ; saves the* while the women, who had never before seen ^Clty-        the camp-fires of an enemy, filled the streets

with lamentation ; Agesilaos accepted, not without mis­trust, the services of 6,000 helots, collected reinforce­ments, preserved order, suppressed conspiracy, stamped out mutiny, posted guards on every vantage-ground, and refused to be tempted to a battle by the taunts of foes or

the clamours of over-eager friends. Meanwhile, Epamei­nondas had crossed the river lower down, and taken up his position at Amyklai ; but, after one unsuccessful cavalry skirmish, the Theban general, who, in a campaign undertaken on his sole responsibility, dared not risk the chance of defeat, decided to leave the ‘ wasps’ nest ’ (p. 120) untaken. He completed his work of devastation by ravaging the whole of southern Lakonia down to Helos and Gytheion, and then turned back into Arkadia to devote himself to the more permanent objects of his expedition.

It had been plain from the first that no existing city could become the centre of the Arkadian confederacy; local jealousies made it necessary to found a Megalopolis new capital. In a plain of famed fertility, on as capital¹ the banks of the little river Helisson, and at of Arkadia. the intersection of the main roads from Lakonia and Mes- senia, rose ‘the great city’ (Megalopolis) of Arkadia. Forty townships were combined to form its territory and people its habitations. On each side of the stream stretched the circuit of its walls, fifty stadia in circum­ference. Everything—theatre, market-place, parliament- house—was designed on a scale of gorgeous splendour, and a national assembly was organized under the title of the Ten Thousand. Even more magnificent was the city ot Messene, whose walls encircled and whose Messene citadel crowned the famed height of Mount Messe Ithome, 2,500 feet above the sea. When, by nians re- the far-seeing wisdom of Epameinondas, the ^stored’ descendants of the old Messenian stock were gathered to form a new nation from Rhegion and Messene, and from the parts of Lybia round Kyrene, no one could have hesi­tated for an instant about the site of the capital. The peak of Ithome—hallowed by tales of legendary glory, when Messene four centuries before resisted the encroachments

A. //. O

of Sparta, and not so very long ago a mount of refuge, where a handful of rebel Helots for years defied the armies of their oppressors—attracted to itself not only Messenians of pure blood, but crowds of Perioikoi and Helots, who gladly threw off the Spartan yoke. By thus restoring the Messenians to their ancient territory, Epa­meinondas deprived Sparta at one blow of nearly half her possessions; and the best proof of the success of his sagacious policy is seen in the bitterness and the fre­quency with which the Spartans mourned their loss.

At last Epameinondas had done his work; and, leaving Pammenes with a garrison in Tegea, he hastened to lead Futile     h*^s soldiers home. At the isthmus he found

cnarge _a hostile army from Athens, under the com- agamsc mand of Iphikrates ; for envoys had been sent diSTon'his"' by Sparta in the hour of her distress to her return.       hereditary foe ; and the Athenians, being re­

minded how, in their day of doom, the Thebans had urged that their city should be razed and Attica turned into a sheep-walk (p. 1), had, amid general enthusiasm, girded on their arms for the rescue of Sparta. But Iphikrates did not dare and did not care to oppose the homeward march of the conquering Thebans ; and Epameinondas passed on without serious molestation. On his arrival at Thebes, the leaders of a petty faction threatened to bring him and his colleagues to trial for retaining their command for four months beyond the legal term of office. But Epameinondas stood up in the assembly, and told his simple tale of victorious generalship and still more triumphant statesmanship ; and the invidious cavils of snarling intriguers were at once forgotten.

Sparta was indeed humiliated. Her territory was tom from her, her allies were weak and few, her prestige was gone, discontent threatened her at home, and her bitterest foes were firmly established on her frontiers. To

one quarter only, however reluctantly, could she look for support. Athens had generously forgotten past enmities, and responded promptly to her cry for help ; Alliance and it would be well for her if the alliance thus ^thensand hastily begun could be put on a permanent Sparta, footing. With this object, deputies were sent to Athens by the Spartans and those of the Peloponnesian states which still adhered to them. The proposal for a divided hegemony, by which Sparta should take the lead by land and Athens by sea, seemed to recommend itself thoroughly to the common sense of all; but Kephisodotos, an Athe­nian orator of eminence, pointed out that by this arrange­ment the best of the citizens of Athens—the horsemen and the hoplites—would be placed under the command of Sparta, while the Lakedaimonian sailors, who would be put under Athenian orders, would be not only few in number, but, for the most part, mere Helots or hirelings. Such an arrangement he stigmatized as grossly unfair, and he proposed instead of it that the command both by sea and by land should be given alternately to each state for five days. This absurd amendment was then adopted as the basis of the new alliance.

The first aim of the confederates was to occupy the passes of the isthmus with a powerful force, so as to cut off all chance of Theban support from the Argi ves and Arkadians, who were still keeping up the war in the Peloponnese. Chabrias, therefore, collected at _chabrias Corinth 10,000 men from Athens, Megara, and occupies*the Pellene ; and, being joined by an army of ^lsthmus> equal strength raised by the Spartans and their allies, he began at once to fortify the isthmus. Nor was it less important to the Thebans that these measures should be checked, for her friends in the Peloponnese could not yet stand alone. Epameinondas was soon again on the march. Arriving at the isthmus, though his forces were o 2

far inferior in number, he in vain challenged the enemy but Epa- ^{t0 a} pished battle, and then proceeded to force meinondas their lines. The Spartan troops were stationed way^{CS hls} where the defences were weakest. The The- through. bans fell upon them in the early dawn, when they were totally unprepared ; and, without a show of resistance, their commander fell back, leaving open to the Theban advance the difficult passage, which, in the cpinion of many, he might still have defended. The capture of Sikyon was the immediate consequence of this brilliant exploit. The devastation of the territory of Epidauros and an unsuccessful attempt to surprise Corinth followed ; and on the arrival of reinforcements sent by Dionysios to the Spartans, Epameinondas re­turned to Thebes, feeling, doubtless, that in forcing the passage of the isthmus he had accomplished the main object of the campaign. But this was not his country­men’s opinion. Spoilt by prosperity, they demanded from their brilliant general an unbroken series of sensational Epameinon- successes, and in comparative failure saw mTssecffrom ^on^       neglect of their interests. They

office.        therefore dismissed Epameinondas from the

office of general.

It was not long, however, before he reinstated himself in the public confidence. Jason of Pherai had been assassinated in 370 B.C. He had given notice of his purpose to attend the Pythian festival at Delphoi, and rumour went wildly to work on the preparations and in­tentions of the great northern chief. He would come escorted by the flower of his perfectly trained battalions, and followed by a monster hecatomb of 1,000 bulls and 10,000 other cattle. No position lower than that of pre­sident of the games would satisfy him, and it was feared that he might lay violent hands even on the sacred treasures. But the oracle reassured its timorous ques­

tioners by declaring that the god would take care of his own. After a review of his cavalry, the prince took his seat in public to give audience to all who wished to ap­proach him ; and seven young men, who pretended tc ask him to settle a dispute, drew near and Assassina- stabbed him. Two of the assassins were slain, V°g₀n^f_0f but five escaped, to be received with honour Pherai: in many of the cities of Greece, as men who had rid the world of a tyrant. The anarchy that ensued is the best proof of the genius of Jason. The first brother who suc­ceeded him was assassinated by a second, but found an avenger in the person of his kinsman, Alex- ^ _d andros, who thus became Tagos of Thessaly, becomes™⁵ This tyrant, at once brutal and incapable, ^Tagos- drove the Thessalian cities to revolt, and when they appealed to Thebes for assistance, Pelopidas volunteered his services, and was despatched into Thessaly with a powerful army. After liberating Larissa, he obtained a personal interview with Alexandros ; but, as it led to no good results, he himself settled the affairs of the Thes­salian cities in an apparently satisfactory manner, and left the country. Soon after his return to Thebes fresh complaints arose, and he set out again ; he had now so much confidence in himself and in the respect inspired by the Theban name that, accompanied by his friend Ismenias, he went in the guise of an ambassador, and without military escort. The unscrupulous tyrant met them with a strong army, seized them, and Seizure and threw them into prison. In anticipation of the vengeance of Thebes, Alexandros sent to Pelopidas. ask aid from the Athenians, who were not ashamed to send 30 triremes and 1,000 hoplites to his assistance. Thus reinforced, he completely foiled the efforts of the Theban generals who were sent against him. They were forced to beat a retreat, and, harassed by the Pheraian

cavalry, the whole army was in imminent danger of de­struction. But the soldiers indignantly rose against their The first incompetent leaders, and summoned Epamei- expedition nondas, who was serving as a private soldier rescue him in their ranks, to take the lead. He accepted fails; _th_{e        an(}j conducted them safely home.

Thus the disgraced general was restored to popularity, and a second force was despatched under his command the second against the tyrant of Pherai. Epameinondas under        had no wish to inflict upon him a defeat so

d;!sassuc* crushing as to drive him to despair (for that cessful. would probably have sacrificed the life of his friend) ; but, by his consummate generalship, he terrified Alexandros so completely that he was glad to purchase a month’s truce by the surrender of his prisoners.

But while the attention of Thebes had thus been directed to another quarter, her Peloponnesian allies had been striving to shew that, though so lately added to the roll of Greek nations, they had at least outgrown her Messenian leading-strings. The new state of Messene Olympic¹ ^ad received at Olympia her public recogni- games. tion from assembled Hellas, for a Messenian lad had gained a wreath as victor in the boys’ foot-race, and thus after an interval of 300 years a Messenian name was again placed on the list of successful athletes. Th e Arkadians, too, were stimulated by the eloquence of Lykomedes to assert their independence of their patrons, ‘ otherwise,’ said he, ‘ you will find, perhaps, that the Thebans are only Spartans under another name.’ They placed themselves and their affairs absolutely ESSoT* in his hands, and for a time met with marvel- Arkadians. j_{ous success>} From end to end of the Pelo ponnese they pushed their triumphant arms. Near Epi- dauros they rescued the Argive troops from an Athenian *>nd Corinthian army under Chabrias. They penetrated

again to the valley of the Eurotas, and put to the sword the Lakedaimonian garrison at Pellene only a few miles north of Sparta. In the extreme south-west, at Asine, they defeated a Spartan force and slew its commander. In short, as Xenophon tells us, ‘ neither night, nor winter, nor distance, nor inaccessible mountains could stop their march, so that at that time they thought themselves by far the most valiant soldiers in the world.’

The Spartans, stung by the insolent audacity of the Arkadians, again took the field. The young and daring Archidamos led his troops, reinforced by _Anexpedi. Keltic mercenaries from Dionysios, against the tion under town of Karyai; he stormed it, and put every osTnto⁸”¹" man in it to the sword. But as he pressed on ^Arkadia into Arkadia, the Kelts declared that their term of service had expired, and hastened back towards Sparta. Their march was intercepted by a body of Messenians ; Archida­mos rejoined them to free their course, and the retreat of the whole army was cut off by the main body of Argives and Arkadians. To prevent the return of the Keltic contin­gent, and then to force the united army to a desperate contest, seems little short of presumptuous folly, the natural result of the overweening self-conceit which Xenophon hints at. A few stirring words from their general, aided by the presence of favourable omens, aroused in the Spartan soldiers an irresistible ardour : they swept all before them. Of the panic-stricken Arka­dians, few waited to receive the charge; the active Kelts were swift in pursuit, and 10,000 ihe^SpMtan Arkadians fell without, as is said, the loss of a the ^Tear- single Spartan. In old times, the news of a ^{less BattIe}-’ victory excited at Sparta little emotion; but when the story of the ‘ Tearless Battle ’ was told in the city, ‘ they were not/ in the words of Plutarch, ‘able to contain themselves ; but the old king went out, in stately proces­

sion, with tears of joy in his eyes, to meet and embrace his son ; and all the council attended him. The old men and the women marched out in a body as far as the river Eurotas, lifting up their hands and thanking the gods that they had washed off the stain that had lately clung to Sparta, and saying that those men now could boldly appear in the face of the sun who before, for very shame and confusion, could not shew themselves to their own wives.’

This defeat probably caused little grief at Thebes, for it would prove to the arrogant Arkadians that they could Third expe- ^not >'^et dispense with Theban aid ; and it ditionofLpa- decided Epameinondas to make a third expe-

meinondas         1        ,

into the Pe- dition into the Peloponnese. The support of loponnese. Arkadia was so uncertain that it seemed highly desirable for Thebes to secure other allies in southern Greece ; and, with this object, Epameinondas, after tra­versing without difficulty the carelessly guarded passes of the isthmus, turned his attention to the cities of Achaia, most of which had hitherto been neutral in the struggle. The prevalent form of constitution among them was oli­garchical ; but since they willingly enrolled themselves as Theban allies, and gave security for their obedience, he used his influence to prevent any violent changes in their governments : and having thus gained for Thebes the control of the coast-line of the Corinthian Gulf, he returned home. But the democratic factions

His treat- . , ... . .         , .

mentof m the Achaian cities, disappointed of their dtles ref¹³" expected ascendency, pursued him with com­bed by plaints, in which the Arkadians joined ; and the Thebans, incapable of appreciating the large-hearted and moderate policy which would have kept the grateful cities faithful to their new ally, proved themselves, as Lykomedes had said, ‘ Spartans in all but the name/ by despatching harmosts and forming govern­

ments which they fancied more devoted to their interests. Yet the event proved that the measures of Epameinondas were not only more generous, but more advantageous; for the exiles from these cities were so numerous and powerful, that neither Theban harmosts nor democratic rulers could stand against them, and Achaia was thus converted from a lukewarm neutral into an enthusiastic supporter of Sparta.

In this unsettled state of Greek politics the Thebans resolved to have recourse, like the Spartans before them, to the authority of the Great King. Existing Embassies treaties, for which they were not responsible, ac- ^^sP^^ched knowledged his right to interfere in the internal Greek affairs of Greece ; and Thebes, at any rate, as thePersian her enemies were fond of reminding her, was ^Court- doing no violence to her earlier history in seeking his support. Even if the influence of Epameinondas was not at this moment comparatively small, he may have thought that anything was better than a state of per­petual jealousy, suspicion, warfare, and revolution. He could secure to Thebes brilliant successes, but could not secure to Greece a fixed settlement of her difficulties. Again, two years previously, the satrap of Phrygia had sent over a worthless adventurer as his agent, furnished with money, to endeavour to negotiate a general peace. In the fruitless congress convoked at Delphoi in the Great King’s name, little progress was made, not for the reason assigned by the pious Xenophon—that the god was not consulted as to the conditions—but because the independence of Messene proved an insuperable obstacle. The Spartans at once despatched an envoy to the Persian court; and to counteract his machinations and prevent themselves being represented as the obstinate disturbers of Hellenic peace, the Thebans called upon their allies to join them in sending ambassadors to Sousa. At the

Great King’s court the manly Pelopidas and the adroit „ , Ismenias carried everything before them.

Success of .         . , , ,  ,        ,

Pelopidas in Artaxerxes paid them the utmost honour, and decree*i*n ^a granted them a rescript which recognised the Thebes°^f independence of Messene and ordered the Athenians to dismantle their fleet. Of the other envoys present, Antalkidas is said to have been so deeply chagrined at the coldness of his reception, that he committed suicide ; the two Athenians quarrelled, so that one was put to death on his return ; while the sturdy athlete who represented Arkadia, vexed at the slights put upon his country and himself, declared that the Great King had bakers, cooks, and cup-bearers innumerable, but that no soldiers capable of facing the Greeks were anywhere to be seen, and that all his parade of wealth was nothing better than a sham.

On the return of the envoys the Thebans summoned their allies to hear the royal rescript. The deputies who were sent were willing to listen, but nothing

but not a   __TT1 . , ,      .

single state more. When they were asked to swear to its accepts it. conditions, they replied that their instructions would not allow them. Lykomedes and the Arkadian deputies went further. As an indirect protest against the supremacy of Thebes, they declared that the congress ought to be held not always in that city, but at the actual seat of war ; and, after some angry discussion, they left the synod. The whole project was a dead failure, and the attempts of Thebes to force the decree on the cities separately were not a whit more successful.

After this the confusion in Greece grew infinitely worse. An accident transferred the town of Oropos— Alliance always a bone of contention—from the hands Arkadia        Athens ^t0 those of Thebes ; and as the

and Athens. Peloponnesian allies of the Athenians refused to help them to regain it, they broke with them, and ia

spite of the efforts of Epameinondas, formed an alliance with Arkadia. Lykomedes, who negotiated the treaty on behalf of his countrymen, as he returned from Athens, by some ill hap disembarked in the very midst of a band of Arkadian exiles, and was slain. The Athenians made soon after a vain attempt to seize the friendly city of Corinth, and the disgusted Corinthians, together with the citizens of Epidauros and Phlious, who were _{Peace made} weary of the war, disregarding the bitter re- by Corinth proaches and eloquent appeals of Archida- ikh ^lous mos, obtained the grudging consent of Sparta, ^Thebes- and made a separate peace with Thebes.

As soon as tranquillity was restored in one quarter, in another the flame of war would again burst forth. Six years ago the Eleians had been the first to Warbe- lend a helping hand to the oppressed Arka- Arkajui dians ; but no Greek state could ever grow and Elis, prosperous without arrogance being bred among its citi­zens and jealousy among its neighbours. Causes of ill- will multiplied apace. The chief among them was the position of the Triphylian cities : Elis claimed them of old as her subjects, while they had now voluntarily joined the Arkadian confederacy, which refused to give them up. Furthermore, oligarchs ruled in Elis, democrats in Ar­kadia ; and this circumstance was enough of itself to produce dissension. The desultory operations of 365 B.C. resulted in the occupation of Lasion and Pylos (in Elis) by the Arkadians and the Eleian exiles. In the following spring Elis received reinforcements from Sparta and her Achaian allies—for Sparta’s best chance of security lay in her encouragement of Peloponnesian disunion. But the cause of Elis was not advanced either by the general whom Sparta sent to help her, or by a diversion which Archidamos made in her favour by invading Arkadia. Her own troops were defeated ; Archidamos, after some

loss both of officers and men, was driven wounded from the country, and 100 Lakedaimonian prisoners subsequently Defeat of fell into the hands of the enemy. The Arka- by^Cthe^lamoS dians pressed on to Olympia, and proceeded to Arkadians. instal the citizens of Pisa—who cherished an ancient claim to the position—as presidents of the Olympic festival. But in the midst of the games the insulted Eleians, Battle of accompanied by the-Achaian reinforcemen's, Olympia, charged down upoi them. Fighting with a of the ^ry heroism unparallelec in their national histor_; •, Eleians. ^ _n(j ^jc^ Xenophon holds to have been the special inspiration of some favouring deity, they put their enemies to flight; but the position occupied by the Arkadians was strong enough to prevent the Eleians from driving them completely out of the city.

The expenses of the war now pressed heavily on the Arkadian rulers. Being somewhat suspicious of the wealthier classes, who might have served without pay, they preferred to recruit the army from the poorer citi­zens, and, in their need, they obtained the sanction of the Pisatans to appropriate to their own use the treasures of the Olympian temple. Since the death of Lykomedes, no citizen had risen among the Arkadians capable of holding together the ill-fused elements of the confederacy. Raising D‘ e si ns ^ ^Cr^ ^sacr^^ege, the Mantineians, who among the"* were jealous both of Tegea and Megalopolis, l^d to ^{at once} broke loose, and shut their gates in peace the face of the troops who were sent to enforce ^{m ls}’ the fiat of the government against them. The spirit of disunion spread ; and when the Ten Thousand parsed a vote that no more of the sacred treasure should be used, the poorer soldiers were driven from the army by want of pay, and richer men took their places. The national policy was thus somewhat modified; and, im­pelled by the fear of Theban intervention, the govern­

ment hastened to conclude a peace with Elis, and restored the Olympian temple to her care.

It is, however, perhaps incorrect to speak of any national policy at all in Arkadia ; for the confederacy was now hopelessly divided. The mass of the Arkadians still remained faithful to their union and to the Theban alli­ance ; in Tegea the cause of Thebes was supported by a Boiotian garrison, and Megalopolis owed to her her very existence. Mantineia, on the other hand, was fast drifting to the side of Sparta. Nevertheless, all parties seem to have met together at Tegea to celebrate the peace. Late in the evening the festivities Seizure of were suddenly disturbed. The city gates were ^igarchs shut, and the democratic section of the Arka- at Tegea. dian troops, assisted by the Theban garrison, arrested all the aristocratic leaders as they sat carousing at the feast; and so numerous were the prisoners that both gaol and town-hall were soon full. Most of the Mantineians had left the town to return home earlier in the day ; so that, to the disappointment of the perpetrators of the outrage, there were but few of them among the prisoners. On the following morning the Mantineian authorities Mantineian sent heralds with an indignant protest against redress aT* the gross illegality of the arrest, and a peremp- Thebes, tory demand that any imprisoned Mantineians should be at once set at liberty. Upon this the Theban harmost released all his prisoners, excusing his conduct by stating that he had acted on a false report of an intended sur­render of the city to the Spartans—an explanation which was temporarily accepted by the excited assembly, though, as Xenophon says, universally disbelieved. Envoys were at once sent to Thebes to demand the execution of the treacherous officer ; but, far from obtaining satisfaction, were met only with bitter reproaches and terrifying threats. They were told by Epameinondas, formerly their

generous champion, that the Thebans regarded the ex­planation of the accused harmost as entirely satisfactory ; „ , , that if he had done wrong at all. it was

Reply of . .....      .        .

Epameinon- m releasing his prisoners, not m arresting

^das-    them. Against the Arkadians themselves,

he continued, a charge of treachery might be brought

with better reason ; for though the Thebans had, at the

request and in the interests of Arkadia, undertaken the

most arduous wars, they had not scrupled to make peace

with the enemies ofThebes without her consent. But be

assured, he added, that we will soon march into Arkadia,

and unite our friends for the prosecution of the war.

Such a rebuff, expressed in language so severe, and coming from the lips of a statesman at once so moderate Alliance and yet so resolute, could not fail to excite the Sparta and gravest alarm in the Peloponnese ; and the Mantineia. Mantineians hastened to ally themselves with the Spartans, who noted with delight the failure of the principle of federal union, and the disintegration of the confederacy. But in thus renewing their political con­nexion with the Spartans, they would have it clearly understood that they joined them not as inferiors, but as equals ; and, accordingly, the novel condition was laid down, that the state in whose territory the war was being carried on should control the military operations.

Five years had elapsed since Epameinondas had last led a Theban force into the Peloponnese—years not un­eventful in the history of the city, though the order and the details of the events are involved inconsiderable obscurity. Death of First of all, by the death of Pelopidas, Thebes in^liessaiy ^ad lost a brave general and Epameinondas a when vie- ’ devoted friend. Once again suppliants came Alexandros^{r t0} Thebes to ask protection against the mon- ofPherai. strous tyranny of Alexandros, and especially to ask that Pelopidas might be sent to their assist­

ance. A large army, 7,000 strong, was on the point of marching, when an eclipse of the sun spread general dismay through the city. In spite of the evil forebodings of the prophets, Pelopidas set out with 300 volunteers, relying on his own popularity and the hatred felt towards the tyrant. The inhabitants flocked to join him, and, passing on from Pharsalos, he marched upon Pherai. But Alexandros, hearing that Pelopidas had but few Thebans with him, took heart to face his old enemy, and encamped with an army twice as numerous in a strong position on the heights of Kynoskephalai. The battle was stubbornly contested ; numbers and position were pitted against valour and enthusiasm; and, just as the enemy was beginning to waver, Pelopidas caught sight of his detested and perfidious foe. Inflamed by blind wrath, he rushed forth from the ranks, and challenged him to combat. As the tyrant fled back and hid among his body-guard, Pelopidas followed in reckless pursuit, and, selling his life dearly, fell by the hands of the mercenaries. Eager to avenge their beloved leader, his troops pressed on till the wavering battle became a hopeless rout, and the rout a ruthless carnage. Alexartdros himself escaped, to be assassinated some years later, when drunk, by the contrivance of his wife, in revenge for an act of cold­blooded atrocity. The grief of the Thessalians at the death of their liberator Pelopidas knew no bounds: his soldiers paid the most extravagant honours to his corpse; the Thessalians earnestly begged that his remains might rest among them, and buried him with the most splendid obsequies ; while his countrymen avenged him by reduc­ing the tyrant to the position of a subject, bound to follow their lead both by land and sea.

Secondly, Thebes assumed an entirely new position as a naval power. Not only was the clause in the royal rescript which ordered the disarmament of the Athenian

fleet wholly a dead letter, like all the rest of that hapless document, but the conquest of Samos and acquisition of Fleet raised Sestos by Timotheos, who had returned to his by Thebes, country’s service, had materially increased the naval power of Athens. Epameinondas, accordingly, with marvellous energy, raised a fleet, and determined to cope with his rivals on their own element. He had little liking for a sailor’s life ; yet he took the command him­self, and defied the Athenian navy by sailing as far as Byzantion. Though, on this its first voyage, the fleet achieved no marked successes, some of the most important maritime allies of Athens felt that a new naval power had arisen, and came over to the side of Thebes.

Thirdly, the destruction of Orchomenos may, with the greatest probability, be referred to the period when Epa- _ . meinondas was absent on his only cruise. After

Destruction , .   _T .      , .      .        . , ,

of Orcho- the victory at Leuktra, this ancient city had

menos. b_{een S}p_ared _on]y foy the personal influence

and intercession of Epameinondas; now, during his

absence, a report, whether true or false is uncertain, was

brought to the Theban government that the Orchomenian

oligarchs were plotting to overthrow their democratic

rulers. The accused persons were arrested ; and, after

a hurried trial, they were condemned to death, and their

town to destruction, a sentence which was executed

with pitiless rigour. Epameinondas, on his return, did

not disguise his grief or his abhorrence of the deed ; and

surely, as it has been well remarked, no higher homage

was ever paid to the virtue of a citizen, than that his

countrymen found in his absence their only occasion for

gratifying their evil passions.

The armies of Greece were now gathering from all quarters for the great struggle. On the one side stood Sparta, Athens, Elis, Achaia, and a part of Arkadia, led by Mantineia : on the other side were ranged Boiotia,

Argos, Messenia, and the rest of Arkadia, while a few of

the smaller states—as Phokis, Phlious, and Corinth—

remained neutral. Epameinondas, who felt p_osi_t;_{on c}f

that only by a crushing blow could he sup- the Greek ³ . . . , ,. j Jf States with

press the disunion of Arkadia and secure the reference to

independence of Messenia against Sparta, ^thewar-

summoned to his standard the full forces of Thebes and

her allies, including even a contingent from Alexandros

of Pherai. With these he passed the isthmus, „ ,

, , , , ,._T       . f      _r . Fourth ex-

and halted at Nemea in the hope of cutting peditionof off the Athenian troops, who were hastening dXt^the to join his enemies ; but, tricked by a report Pelopon- that they were coming by sea, he hastened on ‘ to Tegea. Here he was joined by his Peloponnesian allies. The head-quarters of the enemy were at Manti- neia, where the Spartans had not yet joined them : so he made his whole army—30,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry— encamp within the city walls, where their movements could not be observed.

Xenophon, in his account of this campaign, seems, as

he feels the end of his task approaching, to rise to a

certain dignity of style which is, unfortunately, _Xenophon»_s

wanting in the rest of the ‘ Hellenika.’ Per- testimony

haps it is that, with a father’s pardonable generalship

pride, he lingers over scenes in which his ofEpamei-

, , . liondas.

sons won honourable distinction, and he tries                    •

also to do tardy justice to the genius of Epameinondas. The hardy veteran was, after all, too true a soldier to refuse some tribute of praise to the strategy and valour of one who was so consummate a master of his own craft; and while singling out some points for special commen­dation, he acknowledges that, though the campaign ended unfortunately for him, he lost no opportunity of shewing the forethought and bravery of a great general.

The difficulty of supporting so large an army, the near A. H. P

approach of harvest, and, possibly, also his limited term Epameinon- °^^cej ^made it necessary for Epameinondas das at- to lose no time in striking a decisive blow. I5p£e^t0 Hearing that Agesilaos—now eighty years old Sparta, —_was marching with all the forces of Sparta to join the Mantineians, he marched out of Tegea at the first twilight of a summer evening, and, pushing on all through the night, arrived at Sparta the next morning, certain of finding the city wholly undefended. But the well-planned scheme failed. He would have taken the city, to use the phrase of Xenophon, with as little resis< ance as boys take a bird’s nest, had not a Kretan—per haps a deserter from the Theban army—hastened across the country and warned Agesilaos of Sparta’s peril. The indomitable old king at once countermarched, and sent a swift courier to warn Archidamos, who was left at home, of the impending danger. Hence Epameinondas, as he _but ;_s     marched over the bridge into the city, found

baffled. _th_e streets barricaded, the housetops lined with enemies, and the whole town in a posture of defence. To protect their wives and children, their altars and their homes, the Spartans fought with more than human courage; and unwilling to waste time and lives, Epamei­nondas called back his men from the assault. The scheme was ably designed and daringly executed, and would, if successful, have ended the war at one blow. It was thwarted by the merest accident.

Foiled in his first plan, Epameinondas did not lose heart; though disappointed, he was not cast down.

Equally swift to design and to perform, he was tocuipm* far away on his return march, while the Spar- Manttneia; tans, who saw his watch-fires still burning, were expecting a renewal of the attack. He knew that when the forces of the enemy which were encamped at Mantineia heard of the danger of Sparta, they would lose

not an instant in marching in a body to her rescue. Here, then, he saw an opening for a second surprise. Mantineia would be left unprotected ; the old men and the slaves would be unsuspectingly at work outside the walls ; the flocks, and herds, and crops could be easily carried off; and even if by some mischance the attempt on the town should be baffled, he could not fail to secure plentiful plunder and provisions, which, to a general hard pressed for supplies, was in itself no slight object. With this end in view, by another forced march, he hastened back to Tegea. On his arrival there, he allowed his in­fantry to enjoy the rest which they so much needed ; but he urged his cavalry to press on yet ten miles further to Mantineia, pointing out the certainty of success, and en­treating them to bear up under the fatigue. Man and horse were alike tired out; but at the bidding of Epa­meinondas they pursued their march. Here, again, the well-laid design was accidentally frustrated. The cavalry of the Athenian auxiliaries had just entered _butis the town, so recently, indeed, that neither thwarted by

,     , . ,       V , 11. theAthe-

they nor their horses had yet had time to get _nian refreshment. The Mantineians, panic-stricken ^cavalry- at the approach of the hostile cavalry, besought them to sally forth to the rescue—a request which they could not refuse since their own safety depended upon it. The repu­tation of the Theban and Thessalian cavalry stood de­servedly high, and they were probably superior in number to the Athenians. Both sides fought bravely, but the exhaustion of the Thebans lost them the day, even when opposed to troops who were themselves tired with march­ing ; and wearied out and disappointed, they returned to Tegea.

Epameinondas, we may suppose, would willingly have avoided all the misery and bloodshed of a pitched battle, which would surely be as fiercely fought as any in the

annals of his country ; but both his skilful plans had been thwarted by the strangest of mischances, and it was the only resource left to him. Nor was there any occa­sion for disquietude about the probable result. His forces were numerically stronger, and nothing could ex­_E . ceed their devotion to, and confidence in, of^hebaas¹ their general. ‘ Marvellous, indeed, it seems diansfor ^{t0 me}> ^writes Xenophon enthusiastically,¹ that Epameinon- he had trained his men to such perfection that they sank under no toil by night or by day, shrank from 110 danger, and, though their rations ran short, were yet eager to obey.’ Nor were the Arkadians less zealous in his service ; they, too, received the order to prepare for battle with a joyous alacrity ; and, to shew their personal loyalty to their leader, painted upon their shields the Boiotian crest, the club of Herakles.

The plain, at the two extremities of which stand Mantineia and Tegea, narrows itself about half way The Spar- between the two cities, until it becomes scarcely thefr adifes ^{a m}^^e *ⁿ breadth. Here ran the boundary- take up a line of the two domains ; and just to the north southof     ^e narrowest part the Spartans and their

Mantineia. allies were drawn up to receive the Theban attack. Who was in command of their army is not known ; possibly either, possibly both, of the Spartan kings ; pos­sibly, according to the condition of the alliance, some obscure Arkadian. They watched the advance of Epa- meinondas from Tegea ; and as they saw that he was marching straight towards them they at once prepared for battle. But, changing his course, he turned to the .       left up the slopes of Mount Mainalos ; and

Epameinon- they began to doubt if the battle would take ^,la*' place on that day. He at last took up a posi­

tion not far from their right flank, and ordered his troops to pile their arms, as if making preparations to encamp.

This proceeding convinced the confederates that the fight was to be postponed. They broke up their ranks ; the cavalry dismounted and unbridled their horses ; and their spirits, which had been strung up by intense excite­ment, resumed their ordinary tone.

A. Thebans.       B. Confederates.

a.      Argives.     d. Athenians.

b.      Boiotians and Achaians.      e. Eleians.

c.      Thebans and Arkadians.       f. Lakedaimonians.

g. Arkadians.

At this instant the Theban army began to bear down upon them. The tactics of Epameinondas were identical with those which had given him the victory at Leuktra. The flower of the Thebans and Arkadians were formed

on his left into a column of immense depth ; the Argives held the right, and his less trustworthy allies occupied the centre. As before, the left was thrown forward, and on this occasion cavalry were posted to protect the right or unshielded side of the soldiers against a flank attack. The space between the two armies was sufficient to allow the disorganized troops of the enemy to form their ranks in fair order ; but all, according to Xenophon, resembled men who were going to suffer rather than inflict defeat. As at Leuktra, a cavalry skirmish began the battle ; and as the Theban horsemen drove back their opponents, the massive column advanced. The Spartans and Man- tineians received the tremendous shock with unwavering Success of firmness, but the issue was not long doubtful. vheThebans, nk_e the prow of a trireme, to quote the simile of Xenophon, it pierced the opposing line ; and the whole body of the enemy gave way.

But suddenly the aspect of the battle changed. Ex­cept among the light troops on the extreme right, the stopped advance was everywhere stayed. The Spar- suddeniy by tan hoplites were in full flight, but the con-

the fall of  ,        .

Epamcinon- querors did not stir a step m the pursuit. ^das-       The cavalry of the enemy fled before the

squadrons whom they had recently defeated, but not a man rode on to have his revenge. The fury of the battle had instantly ceased ; the hot blood even of victorious pursuers was chilled.

Epameinondas had fallen wounded to death, and this was the result. Like electric fire, the tidings flew through His last the whole army ; and every heart was broken, moments, every arm paralysed. Exposing himself, as was the wont of Greek generals, in the thickest of the fray, he had been struck in the breast by a spear, and the head broke off and remained in the wound. The stricken leader was carried out of the battle to a knoll that over-

looked the field. He knew that he must die when the spear-head was drawn out. He asked first if his shield was safe, and his shield-bearer held it up before him ; next, how the day had gone, and he was assured of vic­tory. Then he wished to see the two generals who were to succeed him in command ; he was told that they had fallen. ¹ Then/ he replied, ^{you must make peace/ Lastly, with tranquil voice he ordered the . . ,

, ,      - ,      , ,      . , and death.

weapon to be drawn forth : and the patriot s life was crowned by a hero’s death.

Both sides claimed the victory in the battle, and erected the usual trophies, but the real advantage re­mained with the Thebans. Striking beyond all R_esuits of example is the instance just narrated of the in- ^{the battle}- fluence which one man can gain over the minds of others; but it does not raise the credit of the Theban soldiers and no one would have been more grieved than Epamei­nondas himself, if he could have foreseen such results of his personal ascendency. Yet the victory, though far from decisive, as it might have been, was not wholly lost. Doubtless, as Xenophon says, Thebes gained nothing in territory or in authority by the battle, yet it is not true that the confusion and disorder in Hellas was even greater than before. By the peace that ensued, the independence of Messenia was secured, and Megalopolis and the Pan- Arkadian constitution were preserved from destruction. The work of Epameinondas, though cut short, was thus not thrown away ; and the power of Sparta was confined within the limits which he had assigned. Agesilaos soon after, angry and disgusted at the position of affairs in the Peloponnese which he had lived to see, went _Deathof to Egypt to help its king against Persia. The Agesilaos energy of the old monarch never failed him, ^{m Egypr}' and he died near Kyrene, resolute and vigorous to the last.

Four generations had scarcely passed away since the

Persian hordes had been driven from Greece; and yet this brief space had been long enough for three cities to rise to supremacy in Hellas and to be hurled again from their proud pre-eminence. Athens, with the widest empire and the highest aims, had tried to thwart the disintegrat­ing tendency of Hellenic city-life; and in spite of genius, bravery, and justice, she had failed and fallen. The supremacy of Sparta was gained by fair promises and Persian aid, was founded on broken oaths and narrow tyranny, and was carried on in an oppressive and selfish spirit. Sparta for a time was more absolute than Athens had ever been ; she misused her power for the worst purposes, and such an empire lasted, as it deserved, but a short time. Within ten years its maritime ascendency was overthrown by the victory of Konon at Knidos ; and though Sparta was supreme on land till B.C. 371, yet the sulky discontent of many of her allies and the open dis­affection of others made her grasp of power very uncertain, and forced her to truckle more basely than ever to the Great King, that she might obtain from him a formal rati­fication of her pretensions. Briefer still—and all too brief for the ripening of the liberal policy of Epameinondas— was the period of Theban supremacy. Even in nine years substantial results were obtained ; and, if the great general had not fallen on the field of victory, still more might have been done : but even for him it would have been uphill work. The centrifugal forces of Greek politics were too strong, the patriotic spirit of Greek citizens was too weak, for any lasting union; and when he was gone, there was no one to carry on his work. Thebes had per­haps a good general left in Pammenes, but no statesman; genius, indeed, of any sort was a plant which rarely sprang from Boiotian soil; and she soon had enough to do in the north of Greece without troubling herself with Pclopon ■ nesian politics. It seemed for a time as if Athens might

resume her former position. Her naval empire was re­viving, and she had still an able general in Chabrias, and a noble citizen in Timotheos. But the city was rotten at the core. Slothful and discontented, the Athenians dele­gated all active service to mercenaries, and remained at home to grumble at and prosecute those commanders who failed to fulfil their unreasonable expectations. Her naval power was obtained chiefly at the expense of the Olynthians, who once again strove hard to unite their neighbours in a league of mutual advantage and amity. But, just as Sparta previously had crushed the brave city of Olynthos, so now Athens put forth all her strength against its young confederacy. The last bulwark against foreign aggression was removed ; and Greece lay, a defenceless mass of incoherent atoms, at the mercy of the first invader.