Chapter LXXVII (5)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[332] Diodor. xv, 50.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[338] Pausanias, ix, 1, 3.

[339] Diodor. xv, 47.

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

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

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

[341] Thucyd. iv, 133.

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

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

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

Compare sect. 36.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[356] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 27.

[357] Plutarch. Agesil. c. 28.

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

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

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

[359] Diodor. xi, 81.

[360] Thucyd. iv, 126.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[364] Diodor. xv, 38-82.

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

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

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