Chapter XLIV: The Rise of Thebes (2)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(After Hope)]

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

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

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

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

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

CORCYRA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE TRIAL OF TIMOTHEUS

[Sidenote: [373 B.C.]]

The happy result of the Corcyræan expedition, imparting universal satisfaction at Athens, was not less beneficial to Timotheus than to Iphicrates. It was in November 373 B.C., that the former, as well as his quæstor or military treasurer, Antimachus, underwent each his trial. Callistratus, having returned home, pleaded against the quæstor, perhaps against Timotheus also, as one of the accusers; though probably in a spirit of greater gentleness and moderation, in consequence of his recent joint success and of the general good temper prevalent in the city. And while the edge of the accusation against Timotheus was thus blunted, the defence was strengthened not merely by numerous citizen friends speaking in his favour with increased confidence, but also by the unusual phenomenon of two powerful foreign supporters. At the request of Timotheus, both Alcetas of Epirus, and Jason of Pheræ, came to Athens a little before the trial, to appear as witnesses in his favour. They were received and lodged by him in his house in the Hippodamian Agora, the principal square of the Piræus. And as he was then in some embarrassment for want of money, he found it necessary to borrow various articles of finery in order to do them honour--clothes, bedding, and two silver drinking-bowls--from Pasion, a wealthy banker near at hand. These two important witnesses would depose to the zealous service and estimable qualities of Timotheus; who had inspired them with warm interest, and had been the means of bringing them into alliance with Athens; an alliance which they had sealed at once by conveying Stesicles and his division across Thessaly and Epirus to Corcyra. The minds of the dicastery would be powerfully affected by seeing before them such a man as Jason of Pheræ, at that moment the most powerful individual in Greece; and we are not surprised to learn that Timotheus was acquitted. Although he was now acquitted, his reputation suffered so much by the whole affair, that in the ensuing spring he was glad to accept an invitation of the Persian satraps, who offered him the command of the Grecian mercenaries in their service for the Egyptian war; the same command from which Iphicrates had retired a little time before.

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

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

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

Apart, however, from this prospect of Persian intervention, which doubtless was not without effect, Athens herself was becoming more and more disposed towards peace. That common fear and hatred of the Lacedæmonians, which had brought her into alliance with Thebes in 378 B.C., was now no longer predominant. She was actually at the head of a considerable maritime confederacy; and this she could hardly hope to increase by continuing the war, since the Lacedæmonian naval power had already been humbled. Moreover, the Athenians had become more and more alienated from Thebes. The ancient antipathy between these two neighbours had for a time been overlaid by common fear of Sparta. But as soon as Thebes had re-established her authority in Bœotia, the jealousies of Athens again began to arise.

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

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

This intrigue, coming to the knowledge of the Thebans, determined them to strike a decisive blow. The bœotarch Neocles conducted a Theban armed force immediately from the assembly, by a circuitous route through Hysiæ to Platæa; which town he found deserted by most of its male adults and unable to make resistance. The Platæans--dispersed in the fields, finding their walls, their wives, and their families, all in possession of the victor--were under the necessity of accepting the terms proposed to them. They were allowed to depart in safety and to carry away all their movable property; but their town was destroyed and its territory again annexed to Thebes. The unhappy fugitives were constrained for the second time to seek refuge at Athens, where they were again kindly received, and restored to the same qualified right of citizenship as they had enjoyed prior to the Peace of Antalcidas.

It was not merely with Platæa, but also with Thespiæ, that Thebes was now meddling. Mistrusting the dispositions of the Thespians, she constrained them to demolish the fortifications of their town; as she had caused to be done fifty-two years before, after the victory of Delium, on suspicion of leanings favourable to Athens. Such proceedings on the part of the Thebans in Bœotia excited strong emotion at Athens, where the Platæans not only appeared as suppliants, with the tokens of misery conspicuously displayed, but also laid their case pathetically before the assembly, and invoked aid to regain their town, of which they had been just bereft. On a question at once so touching and so full of political consequences, many speeches were doubtless composed and delivered, one of which has fortunately reached us; composed by Isocrates, and perhaps actually delivered by a Platæan speaker before the public assembly. The hard fate of this interesting little community is here impressively set forth, including the bitterest reproaches, stated with not a little of rhetorical exaggeration, against the multiplied wrongs done by Thebes, as well towards Athens as towards Platæa.

The resolution was at length taken--first by Athens, and next, probably, by the majority of the confederates assembled at Athens--to make propositions of peace to Sparta, where it was well known that similar dispositions prevailed towards peace. Notice of this intention was given to the Thebans, who were moreover invited to send envoys to the Lacedæmonian capital, if they chose to become parties.

In the spring of 371 B.C., at the time when the members of the Lacedæmonian confederacy were assembled at Sparta, both the Athenian and Theban envoys, and those from the various members of the Athenian confederacy, arrived there. Among the Athenian envoys, two at least--Callias (the hereditary _daduch_ or torchbearer of the Eleusinian ceremonies) and Autocles--were men of great family at Athens; and they were accompanied by Callistratus, the orator. From the Thebans, the only man of note was Epaminondas, then one of the Bœotarchs.

THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA

[Sidenote: [371 B.C.]]

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

This orator, representing the Athenian diplomacy of the time, recognises distinctly the Peace of Antalcidas as the basis upon which Athens was prepared to treat, autonomy to each city, small as well as great: and in this way, coinciding with the views of the Persian king, he dismisses with indifference the menace that Antalcidas was on his way back from Persia with money to aid the Lacedæmonians in the war. Athens and Sparta were to become mutual partners and guarantees; dividing the headship of Greece by an ascertained line of demarcation, yet neither of them interfering with the principle of universal autonomy. Thebes, and her claim to the presidency of Bœotia, were thus to be set aside by mutual consent.

(In the British Museum)]

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

To the conditions here mentioned, all parties agreed; and on the ensuing day, the oaths were exchanged. Sparta took the oath for herself and her allies; Athens took the oath for herself only--her allies afterwards took it severally, each city for itself. Why such difference was made, we are not told; for it would seem that the principle of severance applied to both confederacies alike. Next came the turn of the Thebans to swear; and here the fatal hitch was disclosed. Epaminondas, the Theban envoy, insisted on taking the oath, not for Thebes separately, but for Thebes as president of the Bœotian federation, including all the Bœotian cities. The Spartan authorities, on the other hand, and Agesilaus as the foremost of all, strenuously opposed him. They required that he should swear for Thebes alone, leaving the Bœotian cities to take the oath each for itself. Already in the course of the preliminary debates, Epaminondas had spoken out boldly against the ascendency of Sparta. While most of the deputies stood overawed by her dignity, represented by the energetic Agesilaus as spokesman, he, like the Athenian Autocles, and with strong sympathy from many of the deputies present, had proclaimed that nothing kept alive the war except her unjust pretensions, and that no peace could be durable unless such pretensions were put aside. Accepting the conditions of peace as finally determined, he presented himself to swear to them in the name of the Bœotian federation. But Agesilaus, requiring that each of the Bœotian cities should take the oath for itself, appealed to those same principles of liberty which Epaminondas himself had just invoked, and asked him whether each of the Bœotian cities had not as good a title to autonomy as Thebes. Epaminondas might have replied by asking why Sparta had just been permitted to take the oath for her allies as well as for herself. But he took a higher ground. He contended that the presidency of Bœotia was held by Thebes on as good a title as the sovereignty of Laconia by Sparta. He would remind the assembly that when Bœotia was first conquered and settled by its present inhabitants, the other towns had all been planted out from Thebes as their chief and mother-city; that the federal union of all, administered by bœotarchs chosen by and from all, with Thebes as president, was coeval with the first settlement of the country; that the separate autonomy of each was qualified by an established institution, devolving on the bœotarchs and councils sitting at Thebes the management of the foreign relations of all jointly.

All this had been pleaded by the Theban orator before the five Spartan commissioners assembled to determine the fate of the captives after the surrender of Platæa; when he required the condemnation of the Platæans as guilty of treason to the ancestral institutions of Bœotia, and the Spartan commissioners had recognised the legitimacy of these institutions by a sweeping sentence of death against the transgressors. Moreover, at a time when the ascendency of Thebes over the Bœotian cities had been greatly impaired by her anti-Hellenic co-operation with the invading Persians, the Spartans themselves had assisted her with all their power to re-establish it, as a countervailing force against Athens. Epaminondas could show that the presidency of Thebes over the Bœotian cities was the keystone of the federation--a right not only of immemorial antiquity, but pointedly recognised and strenuously vindicated by the Spartans themselves. He could show further that it was as old, and as good, as their own right to govern the Laconian townships; which latter was acquired and held (as one of the best among their own warriors had boastfully proclaimed) by nothing but Spartan valour and the sharpness of the Spartan sword.

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

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

ATHENS ABANDONS THEBES

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

FOOTNOTES

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