equipped fresh forces. The docks and naval arsenals were
empty, and the treasury likewise. In the hopes of enormous
booty and an abundance of new revenues, no expense had been
spared; and the resources of the city were entirely exhausted.
… But, far heavier than the material losses in money, ships,
and men, was the moral blow which had been received by Athens,
and which was more dangerous in her case than in that of any
other state, because her whole power was based on the fear
inspired in the subject states, so long as they saw the fleets
of Athens absolutely supreme at sea. The ban of this fear had
now been removed; disturbances arose in those island-states
which were most necessary to Athens, and whose existence
seemed to be most indissolubly blended with that of Attica,
—in Eubœa, Chios, and Lesbos; everywhere the oligarchical
parties raised their head, in order to overthrow the odious
dominion of Athens. … Sparta, on the other hand, had in the
course of a few months, without sending out an army or
incurring any danger or losses, secured to herself the
greatest advantages, such as she could not have obtained from
the most successful campaign. Gylippus had again proved the
value of a single Spartan man: inasmuch as in the hour of the
greatest danger his personal conduct had altered the course of
the most important and momentous transaction of the entire
war. He was, in a word, the more fortunate successor of
Brasidas. The authority of Sparta in the Peloponnesus, which
the peace of Nicias had weakened, was now restored; with the
exception of Argos and Elis, all her allies were on amicable
terms with her; the brethren of her race beyond the sea, who
had hitherto held aloof, had, by the attack made by the
Athenian invasion, been drawn into the war, and had now become
the most zealous and ardent allies of the Peloponnesians. …
Moreover, the Athenians had driven the most capable of all
living statesmen and commanders into the enemy's camp. No man
was better adapted than Alcibiades for rousing the
slowly-moving Lacedæmonians to energetic action; and it was he
who supplied them with the best advice, and with the most
accurate information as to Athenian politics and localities.
Lastly, the Spartans were at the present time under a warlike
king, the enterprising and ambitious Agis, the son of
Archidamus. … Nothing was now required, except pecuniary
means. And even these now unexpectedly offered themselves to
the Spartans, in consequence of the events which had in the
meantime occurred in the Persian empire. … Everywhere [in
that empire] sedition raised its head, particularly in Asia
Minor. Pissuthnes, the son of Hystaspes, who had on several
previous occasions interfered in Greek affairs, rose in
revolt. He was supported by Greek soldiers, under the command
of an Athenian of the name of Lycon. The treachery of the
latter enabled Darius to overthrow Pissuthnes, whose son,
Amorges, maintained himself by Athenian aid in Caria. After
the fall of Pissuthnes, Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus appear in
Asia Minor as the first dignitaries of the Great King.
Tissaphernes succeeded Pissuthnes as satrap in the maritime
provinces. He was furious at the assistance offered by Athens
to the party of his adversary; moreover, the Great King
(possibly in consequence of the Sicilian war and the
destruction of the Attic fleet) demanded that the tributes
long withheld by the coast-towns, which were still regarded as
subject to the Persian empire, should now be levied.
Tissaphernes was obliged to pay the sums according to the rate
at which they were entered in the imperial budget of Persia;
and thus, in order to reimburse himself, found himself forced
to pursue a war policy. … Everything now depended for the
satrap upon obtaining assistance from a Greek quarter. He
found opportunities for this purpose in Ionia itself, in all
the more important cities of which a Persian party existed.
… The most important and only independent power in Ionia was
Chios. Here the aristocratic families had with great sagacity
contrived to retain the government. … It was their
government which now became the focus of the conspiracy
against Athens, in the first instance establishing a
connection on the opposite shore with Erythræ. Hereupon
Tissaphernes opened negotiations with both cities, and in
conjunction with them despatched an embassy to Peloponnesus
charged with persuading the Spartans to place themselves at
the head of the Ionian movement, the satrap at the same time
promising to supply pay and provisions to the Peloponnesian
forces. The situation of Pharnabazus was the same as that of
Tissaphernes. Pharnabazus was the satrap of the northern
province. … Pharnabazus endeavored to outbid Tissaphernes in
his promises; and two powerful satraps became rival suitors
for the favor of Sparta, to whom they offered money and their
alliance. … While thus the most dangerous combinations were
on all sides forming against Athens, the war had already
broken out in Greece. This time Athens had been the first to
commence direct hostilities. … A Peloponnesian army under
Agis invaded Attica, with the advent of the spring of B. C.
413 (Olympiad xci. 3); at which date it was already to be
anticipated how the Sicilian war would end. For twelve years
Attica had been spared hostile invasions, and the vestiges of
former wars had been effaced.
{1589}
The present devastations were therefore doubly ruinous; while
at the same time it was now impossible to take vengeance upon
the Peloponnesians by means of naval expeditions. And the
worst point in the case was that they were now fully resolved,
instead of recurring to their former method of carrying on the
war and undertaking annual campaigns, to occupy permanently a
fortified position on Attic soil." The invaders seized a
strong position at Decelea, only fourteen miles northward from
Athens, on a rocky peak of Mount Parnes, and fortified
themselves so strongly that the Athenians ventured on no
attempt to dislodge them. From this secure station they
ravaged the surrounding country at pleasure. "This success was
of such importance that even in ancient times it gave the name
of the Decelean War to the entire last division of the
Peloponnesian War. The occupation of Decelea forms the
connecting link between the Sicilian War and the
Attico-Peloponnesian, which now broke out afresh. … Its
immediate object … it failed to effect; inasmuch as the
Athenians did not allow it to prevent their despatching a
fresh armament to Sicily. But when, half a year later, all was
lost, the Athenians felt more heavily than ever the burden
imposed upon them by the occupation of Decelea. The city was
cut off from its most important source of supplies, since the
enemy had in his power the roads communicating with Eubœa. …
One-third of Attica no longer belonged to the Athenians, and
even in the immediate vicinity of the city communication was
unsafe; large numbers of the country-people, deprived of labor
and means of subsistence, thronged the city; the citizens were
forced night and day to perform the onerous duty of keeping
watch."
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapters 4-5 (volume 3).
ALSO IN:
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
chapter 61 (volume 7).
GREECE: B. C. 413-412.
The Peloponnesian War:
Revolt of Chios, Miletus, Lesbos, and Rhodes from Athens.
Revolution at Samos.
Intrigues of Alcibiades for a revolution at Athens and for his
own recall.
"Alkibiades … persuaded the Spartans to build a fleet, and
send it over to Asia to assist the Ionians in revolting. He
himself crossed at once to Chios with a few ships, in order to
begin the revolt. The government of Chios was in the hands of
the nobles; but they had hitherto served Athens so well that
the Athenians had not altered the government to a democracy.
Now, however, they revolted (B. C. 413). This was a heavy blow
to Athens, for Chios was the most powerful of the Ionian
States, and others would be sure to follow its example.
Miletus and Lesbos revolted in B. C. 412. The nobles of Samos
prepared to revolt, but the people were in favour of Athens,
and rose against the nobles, killing 200 of them, and
banishing 400 more. Athens now made Samos its free and equal
ally, instead of its subject, and Samos became the
head-quarters of the Athenian fleet and army. … The
Athenians … had now manned a fresh navy. They defeated the
Peloponnesian and Persian fleets together at Miletus, and were
only kept from besieging Miletus by the arrival of a fleet
from Syracuse. [This reinforcement of the enemy held them
powerless to prevent a revolt in Rhodes, carried out by the
oligarchs though opposed by the people.] Alkibiades had made
enemies among the Spartans, and when he had been some time in
Asia Minor an order came over from Sparta to put him to death.
He escaped to Tissaphernes, and now made up his mind to win
back the favour of Athens by breaking up the alliance between
Tissaphernes and the Spartans. He contrived to make a quarrel
between them about the rate of pay, and persuaded Tissaphernes
that it would be the best thing for Persia to let the Spartans
and Athenians wear one another out, without giving help to
either. Tissaphernes therefore kept the Spartans idle for
months, always pretending that he was on the point of bringing
up his fleet to help them. Alkibiades now sent a lying message
to the generals of the Athenian army at Samos that he could
get Athens the help of Tissaphernes, if the Athenians would
allow him to return from his exile: but he said that he could
never return while there was a democracy; so that if they
wished for the help of Persia they must change the government
to an oligarchy (B. C. 412). In the army at Samos there were
many rich men willing to see an oligarchy established at
Athens, and peace made with Sparta. … Therefore, though the
great mass of the army at Samos was democratical, a certain
number of powerful men agreed to the plan of Alkibiades for
changing the government. One of the conspirators, named
Pisander, was sent to Athens to instruct the clubs of nobles
and rich men to work secretly for this object. In these clubs
the overthrow of the democracy was planned. Citizens known to
be zealous for the constitution were secretly murdered. Terror
fell over the city, for no one except the conspirators knew
who did, and who did not, belong to the plot; and at last,
partly by force, the assembly was brought to abolish the
popular government."
C. A. Fyffe,
History of Greece
(History Primer),
chapter 5, sections 36-39.
ALSO IN:
G. W. Cox,
The Athenian Empire,
chapter 6.
Thucydides,
History,
book 8, chapters 4-51.
GREECE: B. C. 411-407.
The Peloponnesian War:
Athenian victories at Cynossema and Abydos.
Exploits of Alcibiades.
His return to Athens and to supreme command.
His second deposition and exile.
While Athens was in the throes of its revolution, "the war was
prosecuted with vigour on the coast of Asia Minor. Mindarus,
who now commanded the Peloponnesian fleet, disgusted at length
by the often-broken promises of Tissaphernes, and the scanty
and irregular pay which he furnished, set sail from Miletus
and proceeded to the Hellespont, with the intention of
assisting the satrap Pharnabazus, and of effecting, if
possible, the revolt of the Athenian dependencies in that
quarter. Hither he was pursued by the Athenian fleet under
Thrasyllus. In a few days an engagement ensued (in August, 411
B. C.), in the famous straits between Sestos and Abydos, in
which the Athenians, though with a smaller force, gained the
victory, and erected a trophy on the promontory of Cynossema
[see CYNOSSEMA] near the tomb and chapel of the Trojan queen
Hecuba. The Athenians followed up their victory by the
reduction of Cyzicus, which had revolted from them. A month or
two afterward, another obstinate engagement took place between
the Peloponnesian and Athenian fleets near Abydos, which
lasted a whole day, and was at length decided in favour of the
Athenians by the arrival of Alcibiades with his squadron of 18
ships from Samos."
W. Smith,
Smaller History of Greece,
chapter 13.
{1590}
Alcibiades, although recalled, had "resolved to delay his
return until he had performed such exploits as might throw
fresh lustre over his name, and endear him to all classes of
his fellow-citizens. With this ambition he sailed with a small
squadron from Samos, and having gained information that
Mindarus, with the Peloponnesian fleet, had gone in pursuit of
the Athenian navy, he hastened to afford his countrymen
succour. Happily he arrived at the scene of action, near
Abydos, at a most critical moment; when, after a severe
engagement, the Spartans had on one side obtained an
advantage, and were pursuing the broken lines of the
Athenians. … He speedily decided the fortune of the day,
completely routed the Spartans, … broke many of their ships
in pieces, and took 30 from them. … His vanity after this
signal success had, however, nearly destroyed him; for, being
desirous of appearing to Tissaphernes as a conqueror instead
of a fugitive, he hastened with a splendid retinue to visit
him, when the crafty barbarian, thinking he should thus
appease the suspicions of the Spartans, caused him to be
arrested and confined in prison at Sardis. Hence, however, he
found means to escape. … He sailed immediately for the
Athenian camp to diffuse fresh animation among the soldiers,
and induce them hastily to embark on an expedition against
Mindarus and Pharnabazus, who were then with the residue of
the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicum" (Cyzicus). Mindarus was
defeated and killed and Pharnabazus driven to flight (B. C.
410). "Alcibiades pursued his victory, took Cyzicum without
difficulty, and, staining his conquest with a cruelty with
which he was not generally chargeable, put to death all the
Peloponnesians whom he found within the city. A very short
space of time elapsed after this brilliant success before
Alcibiades found another occasion to deserve the gratitude of
Athens," by defeating Pharnabazus, who had attacked the troops
of Thrasyllus while they were wasting the territory of Abydos.
He next reduced Chalcedon, bringing it back into the Athenian
alliance, and once more defeating Pharnabazus, when the
Persian satrap attempted to relieve the town. He also
recovered Selymbria, and took Byzantium (which had revolted)
after a severe fight (B. C. 408). "Alcibiades having raised
the fortunes of his country from the lowest state of
depression, not only by his brilliant victories, but his
conciliating policy, prepared to return and enjoy the praise
of his successes. He entered the Piræus [B. C. 407] in a
galley adorned with the spoils of numerous victories, followed
by a long line of ships which he had taken from the foe. …
The whole city came down to the harbour to see and welcome
him, and took no notice of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, his
fellow-commanders. … An assembly of the people being
convened, he addressed them in a gentle and modest speech,
imputing his calamities not to their envy, but to some evil
genius which pursued him. He exhorted them to take courage,
bade them oppose their enemies with all the fresh inspiration
of their zeal, and taught them to hope for happier days.
Delighted with these assurances, they presented him with a
crown of brass and gold, which never was before given to any
but the Olympic victors, invested him with absolute control
over their naval and military affairs, restored to him his
confiscated wealth, and ordered the ministers of religion to
absolve him from the curses which they had denounced against
him. Theodorus, however, the high-priest, evaded the last part
of the decree, by alleging that he had never cast any
imprecation on him, if he had committed no offence against the
republic. The tablets on which the curses against him had been
inscribed were taken to the shore, and thrown with eagerness
into the sea. His next measure heightened, if possible, the
brief lustre of his triumph. In consequence of the
fortification of Decelea by the Lacedæmonians, and their
having possession of the passes of the country, the procession
to Eleusis, in honour of Athene, had been long unable to take
its usual course, and being conducted by sea, had lost many of
its solemn and august ceremonials. He now, therefore, offered
to conduct the solemnity by land. … His proposal being
gladly accepted, he placed sentinels on the hills; and,
surrounding the consecrated band with his soldiers, conducted
the whole to Eleusis and back to Athens, without the slightest
opposition, or breach of that order and profound stillness
which he had exhorted the troops to maintain. After this
graceful act of homage to the religion he was once accused of
destroying, he was regarded by the common people as something
more than human; they looked on him as destined never to know
defeat, and believed their triumph was certain so long as he
was their commander. But, in the very height of his
popularity, causes of a second exile were maturing. The great
envied him in proportion to the people's confidence, and that
confidence itself became the means of his ruin: for, as the
people really thought the spell of invincibility was upon him,
they were prepared to attribute the least pause in his career
of glory to a treacherous design. He departed with a hundred
vessels, manned under his inspection, with colleagues of his
own choice, to reduce the isle of Chios to obedience. At
Andros he once more gained a victory over both the natives and
the Spartans, who attempted to assist them. But, on his
arrival at the chief scene of action, he found that he would
be unable to keep the soldiers from deserting, unless he could
raise money to pay them sums more nearly equal to those which
the Lacedæmonians offered, than the pay he was able to bestow.
He was compelled, therefore, to leave the fleet [at Notium]
and go into Caria in order to obtain supplies. While absent on
this occasion, he left Antiochus in the command. … To this
officer Alcibiades gave express directions that he should
refrain from coming to an engagement, whatever provocations he
might receive. Anxious, however, to display his bravery,
Antiochus took the first occasion to sail out in front of the
Lacedæmonian fleet, which lay near Ephesus, under the command
of Lysander, and attempt, by insults, to incite them to attack
him. Lysander accordingly pursued him; the fleets came to the
support of their respective admirals, and a general engagement
ensued, in which Antiochus was slain, and the Athenians
completely defeated. On receiving intelligence of this unhappy
reverse, Alcibiades hastened to the fleet, and eager to repair
the misfortune, offered battle to the Spartans; Lysander,
however, did not choose to risk the loss of his advantage by
accepting the challenge, and the Athenians were compelled to
retire. This event, for which no blame really attached to
Alcibiades, completed the ruin of his influence at Athens.
{1591}
It was believed that this, the first instance of his failure,
must have arisen from corruption, or, at least, from a want of
inclination to serve his country. He was also accused of
leaving the navy under the direction of those who had no other
recommendation to the charge but having been sharers in his
luxurious banquets, and of having wandered about to indulge in
profligate excesses. … On these grounds, the people in his
absence took from him his command, and confided it to other
generals. As soon as he heard of this new act of ingratitude,
he resolved not to return home, but withdrew into Thrace, and
fortified three castles … near to Perinthus. Here, having
collected a formidable band, as an independent captain, he
made incursions on the territories of those of the Thracians
who acknowledged no settled form of government, and acquired
considerable spoils."
Sir T. N. Talfourd,
Early History of Greece (Encyclopedia Metropolitana),
chapter 11.
ALSO IN:
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 29 (volume 4).
Plutarch,
Alcibiades.
Xenophon,
Hellenica,
book 1, chapters 1-4.
GREECE: B. C. 406.
The Peloponnesian War:
Battle of Arginusæ.
Trial and execution of the generals at Athens.
Alcibiades was succeeded by Conon and nine colleagues in
command of the Athenian fleet on the coast of Asia Minor. The
Athenians, soon afterwards, were driven into the harbor of
Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, by a superior Peloponnesian
fleet, commanded by Callicratidas, and were blockaded there
with small chance of escape. Conon contrived to send news of
their desperate situation to Athens, and vigorous measures
were promptly taken to rescue the fleet and to save Mitylene.
Within thirty days, a fleet of 110 triremes was fitted out at
the Piræus, and manned with a crew which took nearly the last
able-bodied Athenian to make it complete. At Samos these were
joined by 40 more triremes, making 150 in all, against which
Callicratidas was able to bring out only 120 ships from
Mitylene, when the relieving armament approached. The two
fleets encountered one another near the islands of Arginusæ,
off Cape Malea, the southern promontory of Lesbos. In the
battle that ensued, which was the greatest naval conflict of
the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were completely
victorious; Callicratidas was drowned and no less than 77 of
the Peloponnesian ships were destroyed, while the Athenians
themselves lost 25. As the result of this battle Sparta again
made overtures of peace, as she had done after the battle of
Cyzicus, and Athens, led by her demagogues, again rejected
them. But the Athenian demagogues and populace did worse. They
summoned home the eight generals who had won the battle of
Arginusæ, to answer to a charge of having neglected, after the
victory, to pick up the floating bodies of the Athenian dead
and to rescue the drowning from the wrecked ships of their
fleet. Six of the accused generals came home to meet the
charge; but two thought it prudent to go into voluntary exile.
The six were brought to trial; the forms of legality were
violated to their prejudice and all means were unscrupulously
employed to work up the popular passion against them. One man,
only, among the prytanes—senators, that is, of the tribe then
presiding, and who were the presidents of the popular
assembly—stood out, without flinching, against the lawless
rage of his fellow citizens, and refused, in calm scorn of all
fierce threats against himself, to join in taking the
unconstitutional vote. That one was the philosopher Socrates.
The generals were condemned to death and received the fatal
draught of hemlock from the same populace which pressed it a
little later to the lips of the philosopher. "Thus died the
son of Pericles and Aspasia [one of the generals, who bore his
father's name], to whom his father had made a fatal gift in
obtaining for him the Attic citizenship, and with him
Erasinides, Thrasylus, Lysias, Aristocrates, and Diomedon. The
last-named, the most innocent of all, who had wished that the
whole fleet should immediately be employed in search of the
wrecked, addressed the people once more; he expressed a wish
that the decree dooming him to death might be beneficial to
the state, and called upon his fellow-citizens to perform the
thanksgiving offerings to the saving gods which they, the
generals, had vowed on account of their victory. These words
may have sunk deep into the hearts of many of his hearers; but
their only effect has been to cast a yet brighter halo in the
eyes of subsequent generations around the memory of these
martyrs. Their innocence is best proved by the series of
glaring infractions of law and morality which were needed to
ensure their destruction, as well as by the shame and
repugnance which seized upon the citizens, when they had
recognized how fearfully, they had been led astray by a
traitorous faction.
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 4, chapter 5 (volume 3).
Mr. Grote attempts to uphold a view more unfavorable to the
generals and less severe upon the Athenian people.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 64.
ALSO IN:
Xenophon,
Hellenica,
book 1, chapters 5-7.
See, also,
ATHENS: B. C. 424-406.
GREECE: B. C. 405.
The Peloponnesian War
Decisive battle of Aigospotamoi.
Defeat of the Athenians.
After the execution of the generals, "no long time passed
before the Athenians repented of their madness and their
crimes: but, yielding still to their old besetting sin, they
insisted, as they had done in the days of Miltiades and after
the catastrophe at Syracuse, on throwing the blame not on
themselves but on their advisers. This great crime began at
once to produce its natural fruits. The people were losing
confidence in their officers, who, in their turn, felt that no
services to the state could secure them against illegal
prosecutions and arbitrary penalties. Corruption was eating
its way into the heart of the state, and treason was losing
its ugliness in the eyes of many who thought themselves none
the worse for dallying with it. … The Athenian fleet had
fallen back upon Samos; and with this island as a base, the
generals were occupying themselves with movements, not for
crushing the enemy, but for obtaining money. … The Spartans,
whether at home or on the Asiatic coast, were now well aware
that one more battle would decide the issue of the war; for
with another defeat the subsidies of the Persians would be
withdrawn from them as from men doomed to failure, and perhaps
be transferred to the Athenians. In the army and fleet the cry
was raised that Lysandros was the only man equal to the
emergency. Spartan custom could not appoint the same man twice
to the office of admiral; but when Arakos was sent out with
Lysandros [Lysander] as his secretary, it was understood that
the latter was really the man in power."
{1592}
In the summer of 405 B. C. Lysandros made a sudden movement
from the southern Ægean to the Hellespont, and laid siege to
the rich town of Lampsacus, on the Asiatic side. The Athenians
followed him, but not promptly enough to save Lampsacus, which
they found in his possession when they arrived. They took
their station, thereupon, at the mouth of the little stream
called the Aigospotamoi (the Goat's Stream), directly opposite
to Lampsacus, and endeavored for four successive days to
provoke Lysandros to fight. He refused, watching his
opportunity for the surprise which he effected on the fifth
day, when he dashed across the narrow channel and caught the
Athenian ships unprepared, their crews mostly scattered on
shore. One only, of the six Athenian generals, Conon, had
foreseen danger and was alert. Conon, with twelve triremes,
escaped. The remaining ships, about one hundred and seventy in
number, were captured almost without the loss of a man on the
Peloponnesian side. Of the crews, some three or four thousand
Athenians were pursued on shore and taken prisoners, to be
afterwards slaughtered in cold blood. Two of the incapable
generals shared their fate. Of the other generals who escaped,
some at least were believed to have been bribed by Lysandros
to betray the fleet into his hands. The blow to Athens was
deadly. She had no power of resistance left, and when her
enemies closed around her, a little later, she starved within
her walls until resistance seemed no longer heroic, and then
gave herself up to their mercy.
G. W. Cox,
The Athenian Empire,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 30 (volume 4).
Plutarch,
Lysander.
Xenophon,
Hellenica,
book 2, chapter 1.
GREECE: B. C. 404.
End of the Peloponnesian War.
Fall of Athens.
See ATHENS: B. C. 404.
GREECE: B. C. 404-403.
The Year of Anarchy at Athens.
Reign of the Thirty.
See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.
GREECE: B. C. 401-400.
The expedition of Cyrus, and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand
Greeks.
See PERSIA: B. C.,401-400.
GREECE: B. C. 399-387.
Spartan war with Persia.
Greek confederacy against Sparta.
The Corinthian War.
Peace of Antalcidas.
The successful retreat of the Ten Thousand from Cunaxa,
through the length of the Persian dominions (B. C. 401-400),
and the account which they brought of the essential hollowness
of the power of the Great King, produced an important change
among the Greeks in their estimate of the Persian monarchy as
an enemy to be feared. Sparta became ashamed of having
abandoned the Greek cities of Asia Minor to their old
oppressors, as she did after breaking the strength of their
protector, Athens, in the Peloponnesian War. When, therefore,
the Persians began to lay siege to the coast cities which
resisted them, Sparta found spirit enough to interfere (B. C.
399) and sent over a small army, into which the surviving
Cyreans were also enlisted. The only immediate result was a
truce with the Persian satrap. But, meantime, the Athenian
general Conon—he who escaped with a few triremes from
Ægospotami and fled to Cyprus—had there established relations
with the Persian court at Susa and had acquired a great
influence, which he used to bring about the creation of a
powerful Persian armament against Sparta, himself in command.
The news of this armament, reaching Sparta, provoked the
latter to a more vigorous prosecution of the war in Asia
Minor. King Agesilaus took the field in Ionia with a strong
army and conducted two brilliant campaigns (B. C. 396-395),
pointing the way, as it were, to the expedition of Alexander a
couple of generations later. The most important victory won
was on the Pactolus, not far from Sardis. But, in the midst of
his successes, Agesilaus was called home by troubles which
arose in Greece. Sparta, by her arrogance and oppressive
policy, had already alienated all the Greek states which
helped her to break down Athens in the Peloponnesian War.
Persian agents, with money, had assisted her enemies to
organize a league against her. Thebes and Athens, first, then
Argos and Corinth, with several of the lesser states, became
confederated in an agreement to overthrow her domination. In
an attempt to crush Thebes, the Spartans were badly beaten at
Haliartus (B. C. 395), where their famous Lysander, conqueror
of Athens, was killed. Their power in central and northern
Greece was virtually annihilated, and then followed a struggle
with their leagued enemies for the control or the Corinthian
isthmus, whence came the name of the Corinthian War. It was
this situation of things at home which called back King
Agesilaus from his campaigns in Asia Minor. He had scarcely
crossed the Hellespont on his return, in July B. C. 394,
before all his work in Asia was undone by an overwhelming
naval victory achieved at Cnydus by the Athenian Conon,
commanding the Persian-Phœnician fleet. With his veteran army,
including the old Cyreans, now returning home after seven
years of incredible adventures and hardships, he made his way
through all enemies into Bœotia and fought a battle with the
league at Coronea, in which he so far gained a victory that he
held the field, although the fruits of it were doubtful. The
Spartans on the isthmus had also just gained a considerable
success near Corinth, on the banks of the Nemea. On the whole,
the results of the war were in their favor, until Conon and
the Persian satrap, Pharnabazus, came over with the victorious
fleet from Cnydus and lent its aid to the league. The most
important proceeding of Conon was to rebuild (B. C. 393), with
the help of his Persian friends, the Long Walls of Athens,
which the Peloponnesians had required to be thrown down eleven
years before. By this means he restored to Athens her
independence and secured for her a new career of commercial
prosperity. During six years more the war was tediously
prolonged, without important or decisive events, while Sparta
intrigued to detach the Persian king from his Athenian allies
and the latter intrigued to retain his friendship. In the end,
all parties were exhausted—Sparta, perhaps, least so—and
accepted a shameful peace which was practically dictated by
the Persian and had the form of an edict or mandate from Susa,
in the following terms: "The king, Artaxerxes, deems it just
that the cities in Asia, with the islands of Clazomenae and
Cyprus, should belong to himself; the rest of the Hellenic
cities he thinks it just to leave independent, both small and
great, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which
three are to belong to Athens as of yore. Should any of the
parties concerned not accept this peace, I, Artaxerxes, will
war against him or them with those who share my views.
{1593}
This will I do by land and by sea, with ships and with money."
By this, called the Peace of Antalcidas (B. C. 387) from the
Lacedæmonian who was instrumental in bringing it about, the
Ionian Greeks were once more abandoned to the Persian king and
his satraps, while Sparta, which assumed to be the
administrator and executor of the treaty, was confirmed in her
supremacy over the other Grecian states.
Xenophon,
Hellenica (translated by Dakyns),
books 3-5 (volume 2).
ALSO IN:
C. Sankey,
The Spartan and Theban Supremacies,
chapters 7-9.
W. Mitford,
History of Greece,
chapters 24-25 (volume 4).
G. Rawlinson,
The Five Great Monarchies,
volume 3; Persia, chapter 7.
GREECE: B. C. 385.
Destruction of Mantinea by the Spartans.
The Mantineians, having displayed unfriendliness to Sparta
during the Corinthian War, were required by the latter, after
the Peace of Antalcidas, to demolish their walls. On their
refusal, king Agesipolis was sent to subdue them. By damming
up the waters of the river Ophis he flooded the city and
brought it to terms. "The city of Mantineia was now broken up,
and the inhabitants were distributed again into the five
constituent villages. Out of four-fifths of the population
each man pulled down his house in the city, and rebuilt it in
the village near to which his property lay. The remaining
fifth continued to occupy Mantineia as a village. Each village
was placed under oligarchical government and left
unfortified."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 76 (volume 9).
ALSO IN:
Xenophon,
Hellenica,
book 5, chapter 2.
GREECE: B. C. 383.
The betrayal of Thebes to the Spartans.
When the Spartans sent their expedition against Olynthus, in
383 B. C., it marched in two divisions, the last of which,
under Phoebidas, halted at Thebes, on the way, probably having
secret orders to do so. "On reaching Thebes the troops
encamped outside the city, round the gymnasium. Faction was
rife within the city. The two polemarchs in office, Ismenias
and Leontiades, were diametrically opposed, being the
respective heads of antagonistic political clubs. Hence it was
that, while Ismenias, ever inspired by hatred to the
Lacedaemonians, would not come anywhere near the Spartan
general, Leontiades, on the other hand, was assiduous in
courting him; and when a sufficient intimacy was established
between them, he made a proposal as follows: 'You have it in
your power,' he said, addressing Phoebidas, 'this very day to
confer supreme benefit on your country. Follow me with your
hoplites, and I will introduce you into the citadel.'"
Xenophon,
Hellenica
(translated by Dakyns),
book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2).
"On the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival
celebrated by the women apart from the men, during which the
acropolis, or Kadmeia, was consecrated to their exclusive use,
Phœbidas, affecting to have concluded his halt, put himself in
march to proceed as if towards Thrace; seemingly rounding the
walls of Thebes, but not going into it. The Senate was
actually assembled in the portico of the agora, and the heat
of a summer's noon had driven everyone out of the streets,
when Leontiades, stealing away from the Senate, hastened on
horseback to overtake Phœbidas, caused him to face about, and
conducted the Lacedæmonians straight up to the Kadmeia; the
gates of which, as well as those of the town, were opened to
his order as Polemarch. There were not only no citizens in the
streets, but none even in the Kadmeia; no male person being
permitted to be present at the feminine Thesmophoria; so that
Phœbidas and his army became possessed of the Kadmeia without
the smallest opposition. … The news of the seizure of the
Kadmeia and of the revolution at Thebes [was] … received at
Sparta with the greatest surprise, as well as with a mixed
feeling of shame and satisfaction. Everywhere throughout
Greece, probably, it excited a greater sensation than any
event since the battle of Ægospotami. Tried by the recognised
public law of Greece, it was a flagitions iniquity, for which
Sparta had not the shadow of a pretence. … It stood
condemned by the indignant sentiment of all Greece,
unwillingly testified even by the philo-Laconian Xenophon
himself. But it was at the same time an immense accession to
Spartan power. … Phœbidas might well claim to have struck
for Sparta the most important blow since Ægospotami, relieving
her from one of her two really formidable enemies."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 76.
ALSO IN:
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 37 (volume 5).
GREECE: B. C. 383-379.
Overthrow of the Olynthian confederacy by Sparta.
Among the Greek cities which were founded at an early day in
that peninsula of Macedonia called Chalcidice, from Chalcis,
in Eubœa, which colonized the greater number of them, Olynthus
became the most important. It long maintained its independence
against the Macedonian kings, on one hand, and against Athens,
when Athens ruled the Ægean and its coasts, on the other. As
it grew in power, it took under its protection the lesser
towns of the peninsula and adjacent Macedonia, and formed a
confederacy among them, which gradually extended to the larger
cities and acquired a formidable character. But two of the
Chalcidian cities watched this growth of Olynthus with
jealousy and refused to be confederated with her. More than
that, they joined the Macedonians in sending an embassy (B. C.
383) to Sparta, then all-powerful in Greece, after the Peace
of Antalcidas, and invoked her intervention, to suppress the
rising Olynthian confederacy. The response of Sparta was
prompt, and although the Olynthians defended themselves with
valor, inflicting one severe defeat upon the Lacedæmonian
allies, they were forced at last (B. C. 379) to submit and the
confederacy was dissolved. "By the peace of Antalkidas, Sparta
had surrendered the Asiatic Greeks to Persia; by crushing the
Olynthian confederacy, she virtually surrendered the Thracian
Greeks to the Macedonian princes. … She gave the victory to
Amyntas [king of Macedonia], and prepared the indispensable
basis upon which his son Philip afterwards rose, to reduce not
only Olynthus, but … the major part of the Grecian world, to
one common level of subjection."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 76 (volume 9).
ALSO IN:
E. A. Freeman,
History of Federal Government,
chapter 4, section 3.
GREECE: B. C. 379-371.
The liberation of Thebes and her rise to supremacy.
The humbling of Sparta.
For three years after the betrayal of the Acropolis, or
Cadmea, of Thebes to the Spartans, the city groaned under the
tyranny of the oligarchical party of Leontiades, whom the
Spartans supported. Several hundreds of the more prominent of
the democratic and patriotic party found a refuge at Athens,
and the deliverance of Thebes was effected at last, about
December, B. C. 379, by a daring enterprise on the part of
some of these exiles.
{1594}
Their plans were concerted with friends at Thebes, especially
with one Phyllidas, who had retained the confidence of the
party in power, being secretary to the polemarchs. The leader
of the undertaking was Melon. "After a certain interval Melon,
accompanied by six of the trustiest comrades he could find
among his fellow-exiles, set off for Thebes. They were armed
with nothing but daggers, and first of all crept into the
neighbourhood under cover of night. The whole of the next day
they lay concealed in a desert place, and drew near to the
city gates in the guise of labourers returning home with the
latest comers from the fields. Having got safely within the
city, they spent the whole of that night at the house of a man
named Charon, and again the next day in the same fashion.
Phyllidas meanwhile was busily taken up with the concerns of
the polemarchs, who were to celebrate a feast of Aphrodite on
going out of office. Amongst other things, the secretary was
to take this opportunity of fulfilling an old undertaking,
which was the introduction of certain women to the polemarchs.
They were to be the most majestic and the most beautiful to be
found in Thebes. … Supper was over, and, thanks to the zeal
with which the master of the ceremonies responded to their
mood, they were speedily intoxicated. To their oft-repeated
orders to introduce their mistresses, he went out and fetched
Melon and the rest, three of them dressed up as ladies and the
rest as their attendant maidens. … It was preconcerted that
as soon as they were seated they were to throw aside their
veils and strike home. That is one version of the death of the
polemarchs. According to another, Melon and his friends came
in as revellers, and so despatched their victims."
Xenophon,
Hellenica,
(translated by Dakyns),
book 5, chapter 4.
Having thus made way with the polemarchs, the conspirators
surprised Leontiades in his own house and slew him. They then
liberated and armed the prisoners whom they found in
confinement and sent heralds through the city to proclaim the
freedom of Thebes. A general rally of the citizens followed
promptly. The party of the oppression was totally crushed and
its prominent members put to death. The Spartan garrison in
the Cadmea capitulated and was suffered to march out without
molestation. The government of Thebes was reorganized on a
more popular basis, and with a view to restoring the Bœotian
League, in a perfected state, with Thebes for its head.
See THEBES: B. C. 378.
In the war with Sparta which followed, Athens was soon
involved, and the Spartans were driven from all their
footholds in the Bœotian towns. Then Athens and Thebes
quarreled afresh, and the Spartans, to take advantage of the
isolation of the latter, invaded her territory once more. But
Thebes, under the training of her great statesman and soldier,
Epaminondas, had become strong enough to face her Lacedæmonian
enemy without help, and in the momentous battle of Leuctra,
fought July 6, B. C. 371, on a plain not far from Platæa, the
domineering power of Sparta was broken forever. "It was the
most important of all the battles ever fought between Greeks.
On this day Thebes became an independent power in Greece, and
a return of Spartan despotism was henceforth impossible for
all times."
E. Curtius,
History of Greece,
book 6, chapter 1 (volume 4).
ALSO IN:
Plutarch,
Pelopidas.
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapters 77-78.
C. Sankey,
The Spartan and Theban Supremacies,
chapters 10-11.
GREECE: B. C. 378-357.
The new Athenian Confederacy.
The Social War.
See ATHENS: B. C. 378-357.
GREECE: B. C. 371.
The Arcadian union.
Restoration of Mantinea.
Building of Megalopolis.
One of the first effects of the battle of Leuctra (B. C. 371),
which ended the domination of Sparta in Greek affairs, was to
emancipate the Arcadians and to work great changes among them.
Mantinea, which the Spartans had destroyed, was rebuilt the
same year. Then "the chiefs of the parties opposed to the
Spartan interest in the principal Arcadian towns concerted a
plan for securing the independence of Arcadia, and for raising
it to a higher rank than it had hitherto held in the political
system of Greece. With a territory more extensive than any
other region of Peloponnesus, peopled by a hardy race, proud
of its ancient origin and immemorial possession of the land,
and of its peculiar religious traditions, Arcadia—the Greek
Switzerland—had never possessed any weight in the affairs of
the nation; the land only served as a thoroughfare for hostile
armies, and sent forth its sons to recruit the forces of
foreign powers. … The object was to unite the Arcadian
people in one body, yet so as not to destroy the independence
of the particular states; and with this view it was proposed
to found a metropolis, to institute a national council which
should be invested with supreme authority in foreign affairs,
particularly with regard to peace and war, and to establish a
military force for the protection of the public safety. …
Within a few months after the battle of Leuctra, a meeting of
Arcadians from all the principal towns was held to deliberate
on the measure; and under its decree a body of colonists,
collected from various quarters, proceeded to found a new
city, which was to be the seat of the general government, and
was called Megalepolis, or Megalopolis (the Great City). The
site chosen was on the banks of the Helisson, a small stream
tributary to the Alpheus. … The city was designed on a very
large scale, and the magnitude of the public buildings
corresponded to its extent; the theatre was the most spacious
in Greece. … The population was to be drawn … from a great
number of the most ancient Arcadian towns. Pausanias gives a
list of forty which were required to contribute to it. The
greater part of them appear to have been entirely deserted by
their inhabitants."
C. Thirlwall,
History of Greece,
chapter 39 (volume 5).
"The patriotic enthusiasm, however, out of which Megalopolis
had first arisen, gradually became enfeebled. The city never
attained that preeminence or power which its founders
contemplated, and which had caused the city to be laid out on
a scale too large for the population actually inhabiting it."
G. Grote,
History of Greece,
part 2, chapter 78.
GREECE: B. C. 371-362.
Popular fury in Argos.
Arcadian union and disunion.
Restoration of Mantinea.
Expeditions of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus.
His attempts against Sparta.
His victory and death at Mantinea.
"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 shed on both sides. But now Argos
displayed the most fearful example of popular fury recorded in
Greek annals, red as they are with tales of civil bloodshed.
{1595}
The democratic populace detected a conspiracy among the
oligarchs, and thirty of the chief citizens were at once put
to death. The 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 which were at work in Arkadia
[see above] found their first outlet in the rebuilding of
Mantineia." But there was far from unanimity in the Arkadian
national movement. "In Tegea … 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 democratical 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, under Agesilaos, avenged
them by ravaging the plain in front of Mantineia. "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 march
with a powerful army. … On his arrival in the Peloponnese
[B. C. 370], he found that Agesilaos had already retired; and
some of the Theban generals, considering the season of the
year, wished at once to return." But Epameinondas was
persuaded by the allies of Thebes to make an attempt upon
Sparta itself. "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 men fainted in spirit
as they thought how few they were, and how wide their unwalled
city, … 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. … 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' untaken. He completed his work of
devastation by ravaging the whole of southern Lakonia, … and
then turned back into Arkadia to devote himself to the more
permanent objects of his expedition." Messene was now rebuilt
(see MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD), and "the descendants of the
old Messenian stock were gathered to form a new nation from
Rhegion and Messene [Sicily], and from the parts of Lybia
round Kyrene. … By thus restoring the Messenians to their
ancient territory, Epameinondas deprived Sparta at one blow of
nearly half her possessions. … At last Epameinondas had done
his work; and, leaving Pammenes with a garrison in Tegea, he
hastened to lead his soldiers home. At the Isthmus he found a
hostile army from Athens," which had been persuaded to send
succor to Sparta; but the Athenians did not care to give
battle to the conquering Thebans, and the latter passed
unopposed. On the arrival of Epameinondas 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 and Athens now formed an alliance, with the
senseless agreement that command of the common forces "should
be given alternately to each state for five days. … The
first aim of the confederates was to occupy the passes of the
isthmus," but Epameinondas forced a passage for his army,
captured Sikyon, ravaged the territory of Epidauros, and made
a bold but unsuccessful attempt to surprise Corinth. Then, on
the arrival of reinforcements to the Spartans from Syracuse,
he drew back to Thebes (B. C. 368). For a time the Thebans
were occupied with troubles in Thessaly, and their Arkadian
proteges in Peloponnese were carrying on war against Sparta
independently, with so much momentary success that they became
over-confident and rash. They paid for their foolhardiness by
a frightful defeat, which cost them 10,000 men, whilst no
Spartan is said to have fallen; hence the fight was known in
Sparta as the Tearless Battle. "This defeat probably caused
little grief at Thebes, for it would prove to the arrogant
Arkadians that they could not yet dispense with Theban aid;
and it decided Epameinondas to make a third expedition into
the Peloponnese." The result of his third expedition was the
enrolment of a number of Achaian cities as Theban allies,
which gave to Thebes "the control of the coast-line of the
Corinthian gulf." But the broad and statesmanlike terms on
which Epameinondas arranged these alliances were set aside by
his narrow-minded fellow citizens, and a policy adopted by
which Achaia was "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 treaties, for which they were not responsible,
acknowledged his right to interfere in the internal affairs of
Greece." Pelopidas and other envoys were accordingly sent to
Susa (E. C. 366), where they procured from Artaxerxes a
rescript "which recognised the independence of Messene and
ordered the Athenians to dismantle their fleet." But the
mandate of the Great King proved void of effect. "After this
the confusion in Greece grew infinitely worse. An accident
transferred the town of Oropos … from the hands of Athens to
those of Thebes; and as the Peloponnesian allies of the
Athenians refused to help them to regain it, they broke with
them, and, in spite of the efforts of Epameinondas, formed an
alliance with Arkadia. …
{1596}
The Athenians made soon after a vain attempt to seize the