When the Lacedæmonians put an end to the Athenian empire, they neither
claimed any dominion on the continent of Asia, nor asserted the freedom
of the Grecian republics there: the allegiance of the Asian Greeks was
transferred from the Athenian people to the Persian king; and, under
him, to the satraps, Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes. We have seen that,
among the Greeks of Asia, Cyrus was popular, and Tissaphernes unpopular;
insomuch that by a kind of rebellion against the satrap, the Ionians
had attached themselves to the prince. The event therefore of the
expedition against the king, and the appointment of Tissaphernes to the
great command which Cyrus had held, could not but be highly alarming to
them. But, on the other hand, the glorious retreat of the Greeks who had
accompanied the prince, and the clear evidence which their return in
safety bore to the superiority of the Grecian arms, afforded ground of
encouragement. If the patronage of Lacedæmon could be obtained, whose
councils commanded the united arms of Greece, little, it was hoped,
need be apprehended from the satrap’s vengeance. Refusing therefore to
acknowledge his authority, the Ionians sent ministers to Lacedæmon to
solicit protection.
The Lacedæmonian government, less expecting friendship from the king and
from Tissaphernes on account of their connection with Cyrus, and valuing
it less as the fame of the actions of the Cyrean army taught to despise
their enmity, resolved that the Ionians should be protected. Possibly
circumstances at home might contribute to this determination. It might
be desirable to employ a part of their people on foreign service; and
for service against an enemy so famed for wealth, and so little for
bravery and military skill, volunteers would be numerous among the poor
commonwealths of Peloponnesus. Four thousand men were required from the
allies. Only one thousand were added from Lacedæmon: and they were all of
those called neodamodes, who, owing their elevation from the condition
of slaves into the rank of citizens to the necessities of war, were, on
the return of peace, looked upon with so invidious an eye, that occasion
for sending them on foreign service would be acceptable, both to the
government and to themselves. Cavalry was very desirable for war in Asia:
but the utmost force that Peloponnesus could raise was very small; and
the principal citizens of the wealthiest republics, who alone composed
it, would not be the most willing partakers in distant adventure.
Application was therefore made to Athens; where recent disorders, extreme
political jealousy, and a total want of protection against any momentary
caprice of the people, made the situation of men of rank and fortune
so precarious that the offer of pay for three hundred horse found ready
acceptance there. Thimbron was appointed commander in chief in Asia, with
the title of harmost.
[Sidenote: [400-399 B.C.]]
From their attachment to the cause of Cyrus, and consequent dread of
the king’s vengeance, apparently arose the revolt of those Grecian
subjects of the Persian empire, which otherwise would mark gross
ingratitude to a beneficent government. For the testimony here given by
Xenophon, remarkably corresponding with all remaining from Herodotus
and Thucydides, strongly confirms what has been heretofore observed,
that there was uncommon liberality in the despotism of the Persian
empire. Public faith was kept; property was not without security; it
was not then, as under the present wonderfully barbarian government of
the same fine country, a crime to be rich. Large estates, given even
to foreigners, passed to their late posterity; and, instead of the
tyranny which now depopulates towns and provinces, and against which the
remaining subjects recur to the patronage of some foreign ambassador,
the Persian government so extended liberal protection to all, that
Grecian cities could prefer the dominion of the Persian king to that of
the Athenian or Lacedæmonian commonwealths, and flourish under it. But
the Persian government, though generally mild and liberal, had been,
since the reign of Xerxes, always weak, and verging to dissolution. The
Lacedæmonian general Thimbron, who, with comparatively a small force, had
been making conquests against it, showed no considerable abilities in the
field, and in camp and in quarters his discipline was very deficient. The
allies suffered from the licentiousness of his army; and complaints were
in consequence so urged at Lacedæmon that, on the expiration of his year,
he was sentenced to banishment.
Dercyllidas, who succeeded him, was more equal to a great and difficult
command. Having already served in Asia, under Lysander, he knew the
characters of the two satraps, who divided between them, in almost
independent sovereignty, the dominion of the western provinces. The
instructions of the ephors directed him to lead the army into Caria, the
hereditary government of Tissaphernes. But the desire of revenging a
disgrace he had formerly incurred, when harmost of Abydos, in consequence
of an accusation from Pharnabazus, assisted at least, according to the
contemporary historian, his friend, in determining him to act otherwise.
He negotiated with Tissaphernes; and that dastardly satrap, ill-disposed
towards Pharnabazus, and always readier for negotiation than battle,
instead of exerting the great power with which he was vested for the
general defence of the empire, bargained for a particular peace for
his own provinces, and consented that the Grecian arms should, without
opposition from him, be carried into the Bithynian satrapy. Dercyllidas,
having thus provided for the safety of the rich fields of Ionia, which
would otherwise have been liable, in his absence, to suffer from the
Persian cavalry, hastened his march northward; and, in the length of
way from Caria to the borders of Æolis, he maintained an exactness of
discipline that gained him the greater credit with the allies as it was
contrasted with the licentiousness from which the country had suffered
while Thimbron commanded.
The circumstances of Æolis might reasonably have invited the attention
of the general, though revenge had not instigated him. According to
that liberal policy, more than once already noticed as ordinary among
the Persians, Pharnabazus had appointed Zenis, a Greek of Dardanus,
to be governor, or, according to Xenophon’s phrase, satrap of that
fine country, so interesting, in earliest history, as the kingdom of
Priam, and the seat of the Trojan War. Zenis died young, leaving a
widow, Mania, also a Dardanian. This extraordinary woman solicited the
succession to her late husband’s command; and supported her solicitations
with presents so agreeable to the satrap’s fancy, and proofs so pregnant
of her own talents and spirit, that she obtained her suit. Being
accordingly vested with the government, she did not disappoint, but, on
the contrary, far exceeded, the satrap’s expectation. She not only held
all in due obedience, but, raising a body of Grecian mercenaries, she
reduced the maritime towns of Larissa, Hamaxitus, and Colonæ, which had
hitherto resisted the Persian dominion. Herself attended the sieges,
viewing the operations from her chariot, and by praises and presents
judiciously bestowed she excited such emulation that her army acquired
repute superior to any other body of mercenaries in Asia. Pharnabazus
requiring troops for suppressing the incursions of the rebellious Mysians
and Pisidians, she attended in person. In consequence of her able conduct
and high reputation, he always treated her with great respect, and
sometimes even desired her assistance in his council.
[Sidenote: [399 B.C.]]
Mania was another Artemisia; and the weighty authority of Xenophon for
the history of the Dardanian satrapess not a little supports the account
given by Herodotus of the Halicarnassian queen. But, though Mania could
govern provinces and conduct armies, yet, amid the encouragement which
the gross defects, both of Grecian and Persian government, offered for
daring villainy, she could not secure herself against domestic treachery.
Scarcely had she passed her fortieth year when she was murdered in her
palace by Midias, who had married her daughter. But a single murder would
not answer the execrable villain’s purpose. Her son, a most promising
youth of seventeen, was cut off. The assassin had then the impudence to
ask of the satrap the succession to the government held by the deceased
Mania, supporting his solicitation by large presents. But he seems to
have founded his hopes on a knowledge rather of the general temper
and practice of the Persian great than of the particular character of
Pharnabazus. He, with a generous indignation, refused the presents, and
declared he would not live unless he could revenge Mania. Midias prepared
to support himself by force or intrigue, as circumstances might direct.
He had secured Gergis and Scepsis, fortified towns in which Mania’s
treasures were deposited; but the other towns of the province, with one
consent, refusing to acknowledge his authority, adhered to Pharnabazus.
Dercyllidas arrived upon the borders in this critical conjuncture. The
satrap was unprepared; the Lacedæmonian name was popular; and the towns
of Larissa, Hamaxitus, and Colonæ, in one day opened their gates. A
declaration was then circulated, that the purpose of Dercyllidas and the
Lacedæmonian government was to give perfect independency to the Æolian
cities; desiring only alliance defensive and offensive, with quarters
for the army within their walls whenever it might become requisite in
that service whose object was the common liberty of all Grecian people.
The garrisons were composed mostly of Greeks, attached to Mania, but
indifferent to the interest of Pharnabazus. The towns of Neandria, Ilium,
and Cocylium acceded to the Spartan general’s invitation. Hope of large
reward for his fidelity induced the governor of Cebrene to adhere to the
satrap; but, upon the approach of the army, the people soon compelled him
to surrender.
Dercyllidas then marched towards Scepsis. The assassin Midias, fearful,
at the same time, of the Spartan general, the Persian satrap, and the
Scepsian citizens, conceived his best hope to lie in accommodation with
the former. He proposed a conference, to which Dercyllidas consented.
Acquitting himself then of that miscreant by restoring all his private
property, with liberal allowance for all his claims, he seized the
wealth of Mania, as now belonging to the satrap, the common enemy; and
it was his boast, a grateful boast to the army, that he had enriched the
military chest with a twelvemonth’s pay for eight thousand men.
[Sidenote: [399-398 B.C.]]
Having thus, according to Xenophon’s expression, in eight days, taken
nine cities, he sent proposals of truce to Pharnabazus. That generous
satrap, unassisted from the capital of the empire, and deserted and
betrayed by the great neighbouring officer whose more peculiar duty it
was to afford him assistance, readily accepted them. Xenophon indeed
says, that he was little disturbed with the loss of Æolis; esteeming
that province, under Lacedæmonian protection, while he had himself peace
with Lacedæmon, rather a useful barrier against other enemies. The
meaning of this apparently is to be collected only from what follows. The
Bithynians, though as tributary subjects of the empire he had assisted
them against the Cyrean army, were always licentious, sometimes perhaps
rebellious, and they frequently carried hostile depredation among the
more peaceful and settled inhabitants of his satrapy. Among these people
Dercyllidas resolved to take his winter quarters, as in a hostile
territory, and Pharnabazus expressed no dissatisfaction.
Since he had been in Asia, Dercyllidas had fought no great battle, nor
taken any town by assault; but, in an army which, under his predecessor,
had been so lawless as to be a terror more to friends than enemies, he
had restored exact discipline, and yet was the favourite of that army.
With that army then he had awed the two great satraps, each commanding a
province equal to a powerful kingdom, and both together acting under the
mightiest empire in the world; so that, after having given independency
and security to the long line of Ionian and Æolian colonies, he could
direct his views another way for the benefit of the Grecian name.
The Thracian Chersonese, once the principality of the renowned Miltiades,
lately, in large proportion, the property of another great and singular
character, Alcibiades, and by its fertility, its many harbours, and its
advantageous situation for trade, always a great object for industrious
adventurers from Greece, was however always subject to dreadful
incursions from the wild hordes of Thracians, who made it their glory
to live by rapine. The Chersonesites, in a petition to Lacedæmon for
protection, declared that, unless it were granted, they must abandon
the country. Dercyllidas, informed of this, before orders could come to
himself from Lacedæmon, or another could be sent with the commission,
resolved to execute the service. He sent to Pharnabazus a proposal
for prolonging the existing truce, which was immediately accepted;
and, having so far provided tranquillity for Asia, he transported his
army to the European shore. Immediately he visited the Thracian prince
Seuthes, by whom he was very hospitably entertained; and having arranged,
apparently to his satisfaction, those matters in which his commonwealth
and that prince had a common concern, he marched to the Chersonese. There
he employed his army, not in plunder and destruction, but in raising
a rampart across the isthmus, to secure the peace of the rich country
and industrious people within. Begun in spring, it was completed before
autumn, and the army was reconveyed into Asia. Dercyllidas then made a
progress through the Asiatic cities, to inspect the state of things, and
had the satisfaction to find everywhere peace, prosperity, and general
content.
Now the ephors sent orders for war to be carried into Caria; for the army
under Dercyllidas to march thither; and for the fleet, then commanded by
Pharax, to co-operate with it. The first effect of these ill-concerted
measures appears to have been to produce, or at least to hasten, a
union between the two satraps, Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus; whose long
variance had in no small degree contributed to those great successes
which the Greeks, with a force otherwise inadequate to contention with
the Persian empire, had been enabled to obtain. Pharnabazus, unsupported
by the court of Susa, and basely deserted, or worse than deserted, by
Tissaphernes, his immediate superior in command, had acquiesced under the
loss of Æolis. But, as soon as the threatened attack of Caria afforded a
probability that Tissaphernes would be disposed to change his conduct,
Pharnabazus went to him, and declared his readiness to co-operate
zealously in measures for driving the Greeks out of Asia. This proposal,
to which the jealousy and pusillanimity of Tissaphernes otherwise would
scarcely have listened, was made acceptable by the indiscreet violence of
the Spartan government. The two satraps went together into Caria, and,
having arranged matters for the defence of that country, returned to take
the command of an army which threatened Ionia with destruction.
[Sidenote: [398-397 B.C.]]
Dercyllidas was already marching for Caria, when information reached him
that all his hitherto successful labours for the welfare of the colonies
were upon the point of being rendered utterly vain. In these alarming
circumstances the interested pusillanimity of Tissaphernes relieved
him. Pharnabazus was desirous of engaging; but Tissaphernes already
more than half satisfied, since his property in Caria was no longer in
immediate danger, would first try the effect of a conference. A herald
was therefore sent to the Grecian general. The conference being held
accordingly, Dercyllidas insisted on the simple proposition, “that all
Grecian cities should be independent.” To this the satraps consented,
with the conditions, “that the Grecian army should quit the king’s
territory” (by which seems to have been meant Asia, including the Grecian
colonies), “and that the Lacedæmonian governors should quit the Grecian
towns.” Upon these terms a truce was concluded, to hold till the pleasure
of the king and of the Lacedæmonian government could be known.
This was the first treaty, reported on any authentic or even probable
testimony, by which, since the early times of the Lydian monarchy, it
was provided that the Asian Greeks should be completely emancipated from
foreign dominion. All the Ionian and Æolian cities, it appears, thus
gained immediate enjoyment of independency in peace: the Carian seem to
have waited the confirmation of the treaty by the king of Persia and
the Lacedæmonian government. But it was a quiet revolution: no great
battle gave it splendour; none of those striking events attended which
invite the attention of the writer in proportion as they are fitted to
impress the fancy of the reader. It forms, nevertheless, a memorable
and interesting era in Grecian history; and the fame of Dercyllidas,
less brilliant, but far purer, than that of most of the great men of
Greece, though, being recorded by the pen of Xenophon, it is indeed
secured against perishing, yet deserves to have been more generally and
more pointedly noticed, than we find it, by writers whose theme has been
Grecian history, or panegyric of the Grecian character.
WAR OF LACEDÆMON AND ELIS
[Sidenote: [420-399 B.C.]]
In that system, if it may be so called, by which the various members of
the Greek nation were in some degree held together, we find a strange
mixture of undefined, and sometimes repugnant claims, more or less
generally admitted. While the Lacedæmonians presided, with authority
far too little defined, over the political and military affairs of
Greece, the Eleans asserted a prescriptive right to a kind of religious
supremacy; also too little defined; universally allowed nevertheless,
in a certain degree, but, like the Lacedæmonian supremacy, not always
to the extent to which the claimants pretended. In the schism of
Peloponnesus, which occurred during the Peloponnesian War, we have seen
the imperial state of Lacedæmon summoned to the Elean tribunal, as a
British corporation might be summoned to the courts at Westminster; a
fine imposed, its citizens interdicted the common games and sacrifices of
the nation, an opprobrious punishment publicly inflicted upon an aged and
respectable Spartan, who, but by implication, offended against the Elean
decrees; and, finally, these measures supported by avowed hostilities,
and alliance with the enemies of Sparta. The necessity of the times
induced the Lacedæmonians to make peace with these affronts unrevenged;
but their smothered resentment had been revived and increased by what
they esteemed a new indignity. Before the conclusion of the Peloponnesian
War, Agis, king of Lacedæmon, had been sent, in pursuance of a supposed
prophetical direction, to perform a sacrifice to Jupiter at Olympia. The
Eleans forbade the ceremony, alleging that, according to ancient law, no
oracle should be consulted for success in wars between Greeks and Greeks,
and they would allow no prayer for victory in such a war. There is a
beneficence, a liberal and extended patriotism in this idea, so consonant
to the spirit with which Iphitus is said to have founded the Olympian
festival, and so opposite to the tenets afterwards generally prevailing
in Greece, that they seem to mark the law for ancient and genuine. The
Lacedæmonians however were not the less offended with the Eleans for
bringing forward, upon such an occasion, what, if those maxims only were
considered which had prevailed through succeeding ages, would carry much
the appearance of a complete novelty.
[Illustration: GREEK VASE]
The judgment passed against the Lacedæmonians and the fine imposed, the
interdiction of the games, the punishment of Lichas, the confederacy
with Athens and Argos, the hostilities ensuing, and finally the refusal
of permission for sacrifice at Olympia, are stated by the contemporary
historian as the motives which disposed the Lacedæmonians to war. We
gather from him however that others existed; the democratical party at
this time governed Elis, and Elis held many towns of Elea in subjection.
The Lacedæmonians did not absolutely require oligarchy in every state
of Greece; for they had lately permitted the restoration of democracy
in Athens; and even their own government had a mixture of democracy:
but they always beheld, with peculiar jealousy, dominion exercised by a
democratical commonwealth.
[Sidenote: [399 B.C.]]
In pursuance of this resolution, ministers were sent to Elis with a
declaration that “the Lacedæmonians deemed it just and proper that the
towns held in subjection by the Eleans be restored to independency.”
The Eleans, alleging the right of conquest, refused to resign their
sovereignty; and upon this the ephors ordered the king, Agis, to march
into their country. The usual ravage of Grecian armies presently
followed, but an earthquake, imagined a divine admonition, alarming the
aged prince and his superstitious people, they retired out of Elea,[7]
and the troops were dismissed to their several homes. Whether as marking
the favour of the gods or the weakness of their enemies, this conduct
greatly encouraged the Eleans. In either view it improved the hope of
gaining to their cause many Grecian states, known to be disaffected
towards Lacedæmon. But if the Lacedæmonian sovereignty was tyrannical,
theirs apparently was not less so; and while they were cherishing the
hope of foreign assistance, they did not take wiser precautions than
other Grecian states for securing the attachment of their subjects. In
the next spring Agis again entered Elea with an army to which all the
allies had contributed, excepting Corinth and Bœotia. Immediately Lepreum
revolted to him; Macistus and Epitalium quickly followed the example;
and these were imitated, as he advanced into the country, by Leprine,
Amphidolia, and Marganeæ. In this defection of their towns, the Eleans
were utterly unable to face the Lacedæmonian army in the field. Agis
proceeded unopposed to Olympia and sacrificed, now unforbidden, on the
altar of Jupiter. The territories of the revolting towns of course had
been spared; but rapine and devastation marked the way from Olympia to
Elis, whither the king next directed his march. Nor did the country
suffer only from the conquering army. The opportunity of freebooting
invited the neighbouring Arcadians and Achæans; and slaves and cattle
and corn were carried off to such an amount that all the markets of
Peloponnesus were glutted with Elean plunder. It was supposed that Agis
would not, rather than that he could not, take Elis itself, which was
unfortified. After destroying many fair buildings of the outskirts he
proceeded to Cyllene, the principal seaport of the Eleans, and ravage was
extended from the mountains to the sea.
Occasion has already frequently occurred to remark, that scarcely any
misfortune could befall a Grecian state which would not bring advantage,
or at least the hope of advantage, to some considerable portion of its
subjects. The aristocratical party in Elis, oppressed by the demagogue
Thrasydæus, looked to the present sufferings of their country as the
means of relief; but with no better consideration of any political or
moral principle than might have guided the wildest savages, or the most
profligate among the lowest populace in civilised nations. They proposed
to assassinate Thrasydæus, with a few of his confidential friends;
and then, in the name of the commonwealth, to open a negotiation with
Lacedæmon. The people, they trusted, deprived of their leader, and
dreading the arms of the Lacedæmonians, would acquiesce; and thus the
principal power in the state would of course come into their hands.
The plot failed through a mistake, by which another was murdered for
Thrasydæus. The people, however, supposing their favourite killed,
rested in silent dejection: but, while the conspirators were arming,
and stationing their party, the demagogue awoke, where drunkenness and
supervening sleep had overnight checked his way. The people immediately
flocked about him; a battle followed, and the conspirators, overpowered,
fled to the Lacedæmonian camp.
[Sidenote: [398 B.C.]]
The conduct of the war was such as we have so often seen in Greece. When
plunder no longer remained to employ the Lacedæmonian army profitably,
Agis marched home, leaving only a garrison in Epitalium on the Alpheus,
where he established the Elean fugitives. Hence rapine was occasionally
prosecuted through the autumn and winter. Elis could not, like Athens,
support itself under the continual ravage of its territory. In spring
therefore Thrasydæus opened a negotiation with Lacedæmon, and at once
offered the independency of all the towns over which the Eleans claimed
sovereignty by right of conquest; proposing only to keep Epium, whose
territory they had purchased from the inhabitants for thirty talents
fairly paid. The Lacedæmonians however, considering, or affecting to
consider, the purchase as forced, required that Epium should be free
like the rest. The disposition thus apparent in the Lacedæmonians to
depress Elis encouraged the villagers of the Pisan territory to assert
their claim to the superintendency of the Olympian temple, violently
taken from their ancestors, as they contended, by the Eleans, when their
city was destroyed. But, whatever might have been the ancient right, the
Lacedæmonian administration, thinking those uneducated pretenders unfit
for an office of much solemnity and dignity in the eyes of all Greece,
would not interfere. Upon the condition therefore that every town of Elea
should be, as a free republic, a separate member of the Lacedæmonian
confederacy, which was, in effect, to be subjects of Lacedæmon, peace
was made; and Elis, according to the Lacedæmonian decree preceding the
war, humbled and chastened, was itself also restored to its place in that
confederacy.
[Illustration: THE SHORES OF ELIS]
The imputation of impiety, under which the Lacedæmonians began the war,
perhaps urged them to a more ostentatious display of respect for the gods
at the end of it. Agis himself was deputed to offer, at Delphi, the tenth
of the spoil. On his return, he was taken ill at Heræa, and he died soon
after his arrival at Lacedæmon. In the magnificence of his funeral the
Lacedæmonians probably meant also to exhibit their own piety, as well
as to testify their opinion of the deceased prince’s merit. They failed
however in their estimate of the prevailing prejudices of the Grecian
people. Honour to the gods indeed was supposed to be best shown, and
religion principally to consist, in pompous processions and expensive
spectacles; but general opinion condemned the splendour of the funeral of
Agis, as greater than could become the most illustrious mortal.[b]
When the days for the funeral solemnities were past and it was necessary
for another king to be appointed, Leotychides, who said that he was the
son of Agis, and Agesilaus his brother, stood forward as competitors for
the throne. Leotychides saying, “The law, Agesilaus, directs, not that
the brother, but that the son of the king is to reign; though if there
happen to be no son, the brother may in that case become king.” Agesilaus
rejoined, “Then I must be king.” “How,” said Leotychides, “when I am
alive?” “Because,” returned Agesilaus, “he whom you call your father,
said that you were not his son.”[8] “But my mother, who knows much better
than he, still declares that I am.” “Neptune, however,” said Agesilaus,
“showed that what you assert is false, as he drove your father abroad by
an earthquake from her chamber; and time, which is said to be the truest
of witnesses, gives testimony with him to the same effect; for you were
born in the tenth month after he fled from her, and was never after seen
in her chamber.” In this manner they disputed. But Diopithes, a man who
paid great attention to oracles, supported Leotychides, and said that
there was an oracle of Apollo enjoining them “to beware of a halting
reign.” Lysander however said in reply to him, on behalf of Agesilaus,
that “he did not think the god desired them to beware lest their king
should stumble and halt, but rather lest one who was not of the royal
family should reign; for that the royal power would assuredly be lame
whenever men not descended from Hercules should rule the state.” The
people, after hearing such arguments from both sides, chose Agesilaus for
their king.
CINADON’S PLOT
[Sidenote: [398-397 B.C.]]
Agesilaus had not yet been a year on the throne, when, as he was offering
one of the sacrifices appointed for the city, the augur told him that the
gods indicated some conspiracy of the most dangerous kind. Within five
days after the conclusion of this sacrifice, somebody gave information
to the ephors of a conspiracy, and said that “Cinadon was leader in the
affair.” Cinadon was a man of vigorous frame, and of powerful mind, but
not one of the Equals. When the ephors asked the informer what account
he could give of the way in which the plot would be carried into effect,
he said that “Cinadon, having conducted him to the outside of the forum,
desired him to count how many Spartans there were in the forum; and I,”
continued he, “having counted the king, the ephors, the senators, and
about forty others, asked him, ‘And why, Cinadon, have you told me to
count them?’ ‘Consider these,’ he replied, ‘as enemies, and all the rest
now in the forum, who are more than four thousand, as allies.’” He said
also that Cinadon pointed out to him in the streets sometimes one, and
sometimes two, that were enemies, and said that all the other people
were auxiliaries, and that whatever Spartans were on their estates in
the country, one, namely the master, was an enemy, while on every estate
there were numbers of allies. The ephors then inquiring how many Cinadon
said were privy to the plot, he replied that he told him, as to that
point, that “there were not very many in concert with the principal
agents, but that they were trustworthy, and declared that they were in
communication with all the helots, the newly-enfranchised, the inferior
citizens, and the people in the parts about the city; for whenever any
mention of the Spartans was made among them, no one could forbear from
showing that he would willingly eat them up alive.” When the ephors
further asked “whence they said they would get arms,” he answered,
that Cinadon had stated to him, “Those of us who are already united,
say we have arms enough;” and for the multitude, he said that Cinadon,
conducting him into the iron-market, had pointed out numbers of daggers,
swords, spits, axes, hatchets, and scythes, and added that “all the
instruments with which men cultivate the ground, or hew wood or stone,
would serve as weapons, while the greater part of the artificers had
sufficient tools to fight with, especially against unarmed enemies.” The
informer being finally interrogated “at what time the scheme was to be
carried into execution,” replied that “directions had been given him to
be in readiness at home.”
The ephors, after listening to his statement, were of opinion that he had
given information of a well-concerted plot, and were greatly alarmed;
nor did they summon even what was called the lesser assembly, but some
of the senators, conferring together here and there, resolved to send
Cinadon to Aulon, accompanied by some others of the younger men, with
directions to bring back with him certain inhabitants of that place, and
some helots, whose names were written on his scytale. They desired him
also to bring with him a certain woman, who was said to be the handsomest
in the place, and was thought to corrupt all the Lacedæmonians, old
as well as young, that went thither. Cinadon had executed similar
commissions for the ephors before; and they now delivered to him the
scytale on which were written the names of the persons that were to be
apprehended. As he asked “which of the young men he should take with
him,” they said to him, “Go, and desire the eldest of the _hippagretæ_
to send with you six or seven of such of his men as may be at hand.”
They had previously taken care that the _hippagretæ_ should know whom he
was to send, and that those who were sent should be apprized that they
were to secure Cinadon. They moreover acquainted Cinadon that they would
send three carriages, that they might not bring away their prisoners on
foot, concealing from him as carefully as possible that they sent them
with a view to his security alone. They did not apprehend him in the
city, because they were uncertain how far the plot might have spread, and
wished first to hear from Cinadon himself who were his accomplices in it,
before they themselves should be aware that information was given against
them, lest they should make their escape. The party who took him were to
keep him prisoner, and when they had learned from him the names of his
accomplices, were to send them in writing to the ephors as speedily as
possible. So intent indeed were the ephors on effecting their object,
that they even despatched a troop of horse to support the party that was
gone to Aulon.
As soon as Cinadon was secured, and a horseman arrived with the names of
those whom he had put on his list, they instantly apprehended Tisamenus
the soothsayer, and the other principal conspirators; and when Cinadon
was brought back and examined, and had made a full confession and
specified his accomplices, they at last asked him “with what object he
had engaged in such a scheme.” He replied, “in order that he might be
inferior to no man in Lacedæmon.” Soon after he was fastened, arms and
neck, in a wooden collar, and scourged and pricked with lances; and in
this condition he and his accomplices were led round the city. Thus they
suffered the penalty of the law.[c]
AGESILAUS IN ASIA
[Sidenote: [396 B.C.]]
Not long after this event news was brought to Sparta by a Syracusan named
Herodes, who had just returned from Phœnicia, of preparations which he
had witnessed in the Phœnician ports for a great armament, which he had
learned was to consist of three hundred galleys. He had not been able to
ascertain its object, but it had induced him to quicken his departure,
that he might bear the tidings to Greece. The Spartan government was
alarmed, and called a congress of the allies to deliberate on preventive
measures. But to Lysander the intelligence afforded a highly welcome
opportunity of resuming his ambitious plans, and recovering his influence
among the Asiatic Greeks. He seems however to have been aware that he
was himself viewed with jealousy at home, and that a proposal coming
directly from himself, and immediately tending to his own aggrandisement,
would probably be ill received. He resolved therefore to make use of his
friend Agesilaus, to accomplish his purpose, and easily prevailed on him
to undertake, with a small force, to give such employment to the Persian
arms in Asia, as would secure Greece from the threatened invasion.
Agesilaus, who was in the prime of life, was no less eager to display his
military talents in such a brilliant field, than Lysander to renew his
intrigues, and to replace his creatures in the posts from which they had
been dislodged. He therefore offered to take the command of an expedition
to Asia, for which he required no more than two thousand neodamode
troops, and six thousand of the allies, and desired to be accompanied by
a council of thirty Spartans--which he probably knew would, according
to usage, be forced upon him--and by Lysander among them. His offer was
accepted, and all his requests granted, with the addition of six months’
pay for the army. Corinth, Thebes, and Athens, were called upon to
contribute their forces, but they all refused.
It was the first time since the expedition of Menelaus that a king of
Sparta had undertaken to invade Asia; and Agesilaus, partly perhaps for
the sake of the omen, and partly for the sake of his own renown, was
willing to associate his enterprise with the recollection of that heroic
adventure. He therefore stopped at Aulis, to sacrifice there after the
example of Agamemnon. But before he had completed the rite, the Bœotarchs
sent a party of horse to enjoin him to desist, and the men did not merely
deliver the message, but scattered the parts of the victim which they
found on the altar. He however stifled his resentment, and embarked again
for Geræstus, where he found the bulk of his armament assembled, and
sailed with it to Ephesus.
Soon after his arrival he received a message from Tissaphernes, calling
on him to explain the design of his coming. Agesilaus replied, that his
object was to restore the Asiatic Greeks to the independence which their
brethren enjoyed on the other side of the Ægean. The satrap on this
proposed a truce until the king’s pleasure could be taken on this demand;
he engaged himself to support it with all the credit he possessed, and
professed to believe that the court would comply with it. Agesilaus
consented to the proposal, only requiring security for the observance
of the engagement, and even this security was no more than the oath of
Tissaphernes, which he pledged with due solemnity to Dercyllidas, and
two other Spartan commissioners, who were sent to ratify the convention.
Nothing however was farther from the mind of either party than the
thought of peace. Tissaphernes, as soon as he had taken the oath, sent
to the king for a reinforcement to enable him to take the field; and
Agesilaus, who was well aware of his intentions, and probably would not
otherwise have granted the truce, though he observed it with strict
fidelity, undoubtedly did not suffer the time to be lost with regard to
the progress of his own preparations.
During this interval a breach, which the characters and views of the
two men rendered almost inevitable, rose between him and Lysander.
The rumour of the expedition, and of the part which Lysander was to
take in it, seems to have rekindled the flames of discord in the
Asiatic cities, which after the expulsion of his creatures had for a
time been kept tranquil by the wise forbearance of the ephors and the
prudent administration of Dercyllidas. When he came to Ephesus, his
door was immediately besieged by a crowd of petitioners, who desired
a license to oppress their countrymen under his patronage. After the
victory of Ægospotami, Lysander, as the man who for the time wielded
the irresistible power of Sparta, had been courted with extravagant
servility by the Asiatic Greeks. They did not content themselves with
the ordinary honours of golden crowns and statues, but raised altars and
offered sacrifices, and sang pæans, and consecrated festivals to him
as a god: the first example of that grossest kind of adulation, which
afterwards became common among the Greeks, and was reduced to a system by
the Romans. When he now appeared again in Asia, though in the train of a
Spartan king, it was still supposed that the substance of power resided
with him, and that he would direct the exercise of the royal authority,
as he thought fit. He did not discountenance this persuasion, for he
shared it himself. He had calculated on the subserviency of Agesilaus,
whom he considered as mainly indebted to his friendship, first for the
throne, and then--an obligation little inferior--for the command in Asia.
But his colleagues, the rest of the Thirty, felt that the homage paid to
him by the allies was derogatory, not only to the royal dignity, but to
their own; and they complained to Agesilaus of his presumption.
[Illustration: PROWS OF GREEK GALLEYS]
The king himself had been hurt by it, and resolved to check it, not by
a friendly remonstrance, but in a way the most grating to Lysander’s
feelings. He rejected all applications which were made to him in reliance
on Lysander’s interest; and his purpose at length became so evident,
that Lysander was obliged to inform his clients, that his intercession,
instead of furthering, would only obstruct their suits. He had however
sufficient self-command to stifle or disguise his resentment; and,
after a very mild expostulation with Agesilaus on the harshness of his
conduct, requested to be removed from the scene of his humiliation to
some other place, where he might still be employed in the public service.
The king very willingly complied, and sent him to the Hellespont, where
not long after he achieved an acquisition of some moment to the Spartan
arms. He prevailed on a Persian of high rank, named Spithridates, who
had been offended by Pharnabazus, to revolt, and come with his family,
his treasures, and two hundred horse, to Cyzicus, and thence sailed
with him and his son to Ephesus, and presented them to Agesilaus, who
received them with great pleasure, and took this opportunity of gaining
information about the state of Pharnabazus. This incident produced an
apparent reconciliation between him and Lysander; but we shall see reason
to suspect that on one side, at least, it was not sincere.
Tissaphernes had no sooner received such an addition to his forces, as
appeared to him sufficient to overpower Agesilaus, than he threw aside
the mask, and sent a message to the Spartan king, bidding him immediately
quit Asia, or prepare for war. The council and the allies were somewhat
daunted by his arrogant tone, and apparent strength; but Agesilaus,
who had expected this result, and desired no other, told the envoys to
carry back his thanks to their master, for the advantage he had given
the Greeks by his perjury. He then ordered his troops to put themselves
in readiness for a long march; sent word to the towns which lay on the
road to Caria to lay in provisions for the use of his army; and called on
the cities of Ionia, Æolis, and the Hellespont, for their contingents.
Agesilaus had reckoned upon this effect of the satrap’s selfish fears,
and, instead of seeking him in Caria, marched in the opposite direction
toward the residence of Pharnabazus. As this invasion was quite
unexpected, he found the towns on his road unprepared for resistance, and
collected an immense booty. He penetrated nearly to Dascylium without
encountering an enemy. But in that neighbourhood he fell in with a body
of Persian horse, and, by the issue of a skirmish which ensued, was made
to feel its superiority in equipments and training over his own. The
next day when he sacrificed, observes Xenophon--as if he was relating a
providential warning, not a human contrivance--the victims were found
imperfect; and Agesilaus advanced no farther, but retreated towards
Ephesus.
[Sidenote: [396-395 B.C.]]
There he spent the winter in preparations for the next campaign, and more
particularly applied himself to the raising of a body of cavalry, which
he perceived would be indispensable to the success and the safety of his
future operations. For this purpose he made a list of the most opulent
men in the Greek cities, and compelled each of them, as the condition of
his exemption from personal service, to furnish a trooper. In the spring
he collected his forces at Ephesus, and put them into an active course
of training, rousing their emulation by the prizes which he proposed for
the most gallant show, and the highest degree of expertness, in every
department of the service. Xenophon, as an old soldier, is delighted
with the recollection of the military bustle which prevailed during
this season at Ephesus; where the wrestling schools and the hippodrome
were constantly enlivened by the exercises of the men, the market was
abundantly supplied with horses, and arms of every kind, and all the
trades subservient to war were kept in full employment. Among other
devices for raising the spirits of his troops, Agesilaus borrowed a hint,
it would seem, from one of Cimon’s stratagems, and ordered his Persian
prisoners to be exposed to sale naked, that the Greeks might contrast the
delicacy of their persons with the robustness of frames hardened by the
exercises of the palæstra.
Before he took the field again, a year having now elapsed from the
commencement of his expedition, Lysander and his colleagues were
superseded by a new body of councillors, and returned home. Agesilaus
then gave public notice, that he meant to take the shortest road into
the richest part of the enemy’s country. The notice was designed not
more for the preparation of his own troops, than for Tissaphernes, who
concluded that if this had been the intention of Agesilaus, he would not
have disclosed it, and that now Caria was certainly his real mark. He
therefore repeated the dispositions of the preceding summer. But while
he waited for the enemy with his cavalry in the vale of the Mæander,
Agesilaus directed his march towards the plains of Sardis, the richest
of Western Asia. During three days he traversed them without seeing an
enemy; but on the fourth the Persian cavalry, which Tissaphernes seems
to have sent forward as soon as he heard of the movements of Agesilaus,
suddenly came up, and cut off many of the followers of the camp, as they
were ranging over the country in quest of plunder.
Tissaphernes had already arrived at Sardis; and his countrymen, many of
whom had probably suffered considerable loss from the invasion, bitterly
censured him for leaving them unprotected, and even it seems charged
him with treachery. The complaints were carried up to the court, where
he had one implacable and powerful enemy in the fiendish Parysatis, who
thirsted to revenge herself on him for his enmity to her favourite son.
She had already found that Artaxerxes was weak enough to sacrifice his
most faithful servants to her resentment, even when he knew that it
was inflamed by the very services which they had rendered to himself;
and according to the most probable account, it was in compliance with
her request that he now ordered Tissaphernes to be put to death.
The execution of the sentence was committed to Tithraustes, who was
appointed to succeed Tissaphernes in his satrapy, and was instructed
to open a negotiation with Agesilaus. Accordingly, after executing
the first part of his commission, which he did in the Turkish style
by the hands of an underling, who surprised Tissaphernes in his bath,
Tithraustes sent envoys to treat with the Spartan king. He affected to
consider Tissaphernes as the author of the quarrel between his master
and the Greeks, and, as if the end of their expedition was now answered
by their enemy’s death, proposed that Agesilaus should return home.
As to the Asiatic Greeks, Artaxerxes was willing to acknowledge their
independence, on condition that they would pay their ancient tribute.
Agesilaus replied, that he had no authority to conclude peace without the
sanction of the government at home: but he would transmit the Persian
overtures to Sparta. In the meanwhile Tithraustes was very anxious that
hostilities should be suspended in his province, and, pleading his own
merits in the execution of Tissaphernes, begged Agesilaus, while he
waited for an answer to the terms proposed, to turn his arms against the
satrapy of Pharnabazus. To this Agesilaus consented on condition that
Tithraustes would defray the expense of the march; and he received thirty
talents [£6000 or $30,000] on that score. This was a step beyond former
precedents: for even Tissaphernes, though he had not scrupled to conclude
a separate truce, had not paid the enemy a subsidy for invading another
part of his master’s dominions.
[Sidenote: [395 B.C.]]
On his march towards the territories of Pharnabazus, Agesilaus received
a flattering testimony of the approbation with which his proceedings
were viewed at Sparta, and of the disposition which prevailed there to
support him in the prosecution of the war. By a despatch which reached
him as he lay near Cyme, he learned that he had been invested with the
administration of naval affairs, that he was empowered to appoint whom
he would to the office of admiral, and still to regulate the operations
of the fleet at his discretion. Thus to unite the supreme command of the
army and of the navy in one person, was an unexampled mark of confidence,
and a striking indication of the new energy which ambition had infused
into the Spartan counsels. Agesilaus immediately took measures for
raising a fleet; and by a judicious distribution of the burden among the
maritime allies, and his influence with wealthy individuals, collected
120 new galleys. But he was less prudent and fortunate in the choice of
an admiral, and instead of seeking the highest qualifications, consulted
his private affection in the appointment of his wife’s brother Pisander.
When this business was despatched, he continued his march to the satrapy
of Pharnabazus.
PERSIAN GOLD
These preparations, combined perhaps with other tokens, convinced
Tithraustes that Agesilaus had no intention of withdrawing from Asia,
but was inclined rather to extend than contract his views, and cherished
strong hopes of effecting the conquest of the empire. He perceived that
he had only purchased a temporary relief, and bethought himself how he
might employ the gold, which was his last remaining stay, to greater
advantage. The history of the contest between Greece and Persia afforded
several instructive lessons, which were now peculiarly applicable. At
the time when the first Artaxerxes was embarrassed by the success of the
Athenians in Egypt, he sent an agent, as we have seen, with bribes to
Sparta, to procure a diversion in his favour. Tithraustes now resorted to
a similar expedient. He sent a Rhodian named Timocrates to Greece, with
a sum of fifty talents, which he was charged to distribute, with proper
precautions, among the leading persons in the states which might be most
easily induced to interrupt the progress of Agesilaus by kindling a war
against Sparta at home. Not only was this mission itself a notorious
and unquestionable fact; but Xenophon professes an equal degree of
certainty as to the names of the persons who received the money. We may
at least venture to believe that, though it may have roused them to
greater activity, it produced no change in their political sentiments:
and we even doubt whether it gave rise to any events which would not have
occurred nearly as soon without it. It was indeed natural enough for
Agesilaus and his friends to attribute the disappointment of his hopes to
the venality of their adversaries. But Xenophon himself observes that the
Athenians, though they did not receive any share of the gold, were eager
for war in the hope of recovering their independence. And it is clear
from his own narrative that similar feelings of jealousy or resentment
towards Sparta already prevailed at Thebes, Corinth, and Argos, and
were only waiting for an opportunity of displaying themselves in open
hostility, but needed no corrupt influence to excite them.
The anti-Laconian party at Thebes--the same no doubt which had sheltered
the Athenian exiles, and had contrived the affront offered to Agesilaus
at Aulis, and which had therefore reason to dread his resentment if he
should ever return to Europe as the conqueror of Asia--set the first
springs of hostility in motion. The disposition to war they found already
existing; a pretext only was wanting, and this they easily devised. Means
were found to induce the Locrians of Opus to make an inroad upon a tract
of land which had been long the subject of contention between them and
their neighbours the Phocians. The Phocians retaliated by the invasion
of the Opuntian Locris, and the Thebans were soon persuaded to take part
with the Locrians, and invade Phocis. The Phocians, as was foreseen,
applied for succour to Sparta, where, as Xenophon admits, there was the
utmost readiness to lay hold on any pretence for a war with Thebes; and
the present season of prosperity seemed to the Spartan government the
most favourable for humbling a power which had given so many proofs of
ill-will towards it.
WAR RISES IN GREECE
War therefore was decreed, and Lysander was sent into Phocis with
instructions to collect all the forces he could raise there, and among
the tribes seated about Mount Œta, and to march with them to Haliartus
in Bœotia, where Pausanias, with the Peloponnesian troops, was to join
him on an appointed day. Lysander discharged his commission with his
usual activity, and besides succeeded in inducing Orchomenos, which
was subject to Thebes, to assert its independence. Pausanias, having
crossed the Laconian border, waited at Tegea for the contingents which
he had demanded from the allies. They seem to have come in slowly, and
Corinth refused to take any part in the expedition. The Thebans, seeing
themselves threatened with invasion, sent an embassy to prevail on the
Athenians to make common cause with them against Sparta. There were
many feelings to be overcome at Athens, before this resolution could be
adopted: recollections of a long hereditary grudge, of the animosity
displayed by Thebes during the last war, and especially at its close; the
sense of weakness, and the dread of provoking a power, by which Athens
had so lately been brought to the brink of destruction. The Athenians
desired to recover their pre-eminence in Greece, and their readiest way
to that end was to declare themselves the protectors of all who suffered
under Spartan tyranny. If they were inclined to dread the enemy’s power,
they had only to reflect by what means their own had been overthrown.
Sparta likewise now ruled over unwilling subjects, and offended allies,
who only wanted a leader to encourage them to revolt from her. Indeed she
had not one sincere friend left. Argos had always been hostile; Elis had
just been deeply wronged. Corinth, Arcadia, and Achaia saw the services
which they had rendered in the war requited with insolent ingratitude,
and were subject to the control of harmosts, who were not even citizens
of Sparta, but helots; bondmen at home, masters abroad. The cities once
subject to Athens, which had been tempted to revolt by the prospect of
liberty, found themselves cheated of their hopes, and groaned under
the double yoke of a foreign governor, and a domestic oligarchy. The
Persian king, to whom Sparta mainly owed her victory, she had immediately
afterwards treated as an enemy. Athens might now place herself at the
head of a confederacy much more powerful than the empire which she had
lost; and the Spartan dominion would be more easily overthrown than the
Athenian had been, in proportion as the allies of Sparta were stronger
than the subjects of Athens.
[Illustration: GREEK TERRA-COTTA LAMP]
These arguments found a willing audience; they were seconded by many
voices, and the assembly was unanimous in favour of the alliance with
Thebes. Thrasybulus, who moved the decree, reminded the Thebans that
Athens was about to repay the obligation which they had laid on her when
they refused to concur in riveting her chains, by active exertions, and
at a great risk. For she would have to face the enmity of Sparta while
Piræus remained still unfortified. Both states prepared for war.
Lysander, having collected all the forces he could raise in the north,
marched to Haliartus; but he found that Pausanias had not yet arrived
there. It was not in his character to remain anywhere inactive, and
he was desirous of making himself master of the town. He first tried
negotiation to engage it to revolt. But there were some Theban and
Athenian troops in the place, whose presence overawed the disaffected;
and he then resolved to venture on an assault. A battle took place
close to the walls, in which Lysander was slain. It seems clear from a
comparison of all accounts, that he was intercepted between the main body
of the Thebans and the garrison, which made a sally; and he was known to
have fallen by the hand of a citizen of Haliartus. His troops were put
to flight, and betook themselves to the hills--a branch of the range of
Helicon--which rose at no great distance behind the town. The conquerors
pursued with great vigour, and incautiously pressed forward up the rising
ground, until the difficulties of the ground brought them to a stand, and
the fugitives, perceiving their perplexity, turned upon them, assailed
them with a shower of missiles, rolled down masses of rock on their
heads, and finally drove them in disorder, with the loss of more than two
hundred men, into the plain. The dejection caused by this disaster was
relieved the next day by the discovery that the remains of Lysander’s
army had dispersed during the night.
But the exultation of the Thebans at this fruit of their victory was
damped in the course of a few hours by the appearance of Pausanias, who
had received the news of the battle on the road from Platæa to Thespiæ,
and had hastened his march to Haliartus. Yet, according to Diodorus, he
brought with him no more than six thousand men; but so small a force
could scarcely have produced the alarm described by Xenophon, who,
with a slight touch of humour, exhibits the Theban camp as fluctuating
between the extremes of presumption and despondency. For the next day
their spirits were again raised by the arrival of Thrasybulus and an
Athenian army; and their confidence was heightened when they perceived
that Pausanias showed no disposition to seek an engagement. His situation
was extremely embarrassing. According to Greek usage it was absolutely
necessary for him to recover the bodies of the slain, who are said
to have amounted to a thousand, either by force or by consent of the
victors. The greater part lay so near to the town walls that the attempt
to carry them away by force would be one of great difficulty and danger,
even if he should gain a victory; and the enemy was so strong in cavalry,
that the event of a battle would be very uncertain, especially as his
own troops had engaged in the expedition with reluctance. He therefore
held a council of war; and after mature deliberation the majority came
to the decision--if indeed it was not unanimous--to apply for permission
to carry away the dead. The Thebans however were not satisfied with this
confession of their superiority, and refused to grant a truce, except on
condition that the invaders should withdraw from Bœotia. These terms were
gladly accepted by Pausanias and his council, though they were felt by
the troops as a degradation, such as a Lacedæmonian army had never before
experienced. The general dejection and ill-humour which prevailed in the
retreat, were heightened by the insulting demeanour of the Thebans, who
accompanied them on their march through Bœotia, and drove back all who
deviated in the least from the line, with blows, into the road.
The conduct of Pausanias appears to have been in the whole of this affair
perfectly blameless. He had failed indeed to reach Haliartus by the
preconcerted day, but he arrived the day after; and when it is considered
that he had to collect his army from many quarters, and that the allies
were generally averse to the expedition, he may seem rather to have
deserved praise, for bringing it up so nearly within the appointed time.
The disastrous issue could only be attributed to Lysander’s imprudence;
and the decision of the council of war with regard to the recovery of
the slain, even if it was not clearly required by the circumstances of
the case, could not reasonably be imputed as a crime to Pausanias. Yet
on his return to Sparta he was capitally impeached; and the nature of
the charges brought against him showed that he could not expect a fair
trial, but was foredoomed to be sacrificed to public prejudice or to
private passion; for the accusation embraced not merely his conduct
in his last expedition, but the indulgence which he had granted to the
Athenian refugees in Piræus; though his measures on that occasion seem to
have been viewed with general approbation at the time, and had only been
proved to be impolitic by the event. But under the irritation produced
by the recent shame and disappointment, the Spartan senate was no more
capable of listening to reason and justice, than the Athenian assembly
on some similar occasions; and it is probable that Lysander’s friends
did the utmost to inflame the public feelings against his old adversary.
Pausanias did not appear at the trial; he was condemned to death, and
was obliged to seek shelter in the venerated sanctuary of Athene Alea
at Tegea, where he ended his days. His son Agesipolis succeeded to the
throne.
Lysander left his family in a state of poverty, which proved that his
ambition was quite pure from all sordid ingredients. But, if we may
believe a story which became current after his death, and is related upon
such authority, that we can scarcely suppose it to have been without
foundation, he was not satisfied either with fame, or with the substance
of power. He is said to have conceived the project of levelling the
privileges of the two royal houses, and of making the kingly office
elective, and open to all Spartans, no doubt with the hope of obtaining
it for himself.[d]
LYSANDER’S PLOT
[Sidenote: [404-395 B.C.]]
The melodramatic scheme to secure the throne, which has been credited to
Lysander, was discredited by Thirlwall, and Mitford, but Grote, Bury, and
others accept it, and it is curious enough to deserve chronicle here:
When the Heraclidæ mixed with Dorians, and settled in Peloponnesus,
there was a large and flourishing tribe of them at Sparta. The whole,
however, were not entitled to the regal succession, but only two
families, the Eurytionidæ and the Agidæ; while the rest had no share in
the administration on account of their high birth. For as to the common
rewards of virtue, they were open to all men of distinguished merit.
Lysander, who was of this lineage, no sooner saw himself exalted by his
great actions, and supported with friends and power, but he became uneasy
to think that a city which owed its grandeur to him, should be ruled by
others no better descended than himself. Hence he entertained a design
to alter the settlement which confined the succession to two families
only, and to lay it open to all the Heraclidæ. Some say, his intention
was to extend this high honour not only to all the Heraclidæ, but to
all the citizens of Sparta; that it might not so much belong to the
posterity of Hercules, as to those who resembled Hercules in that virtue
which numbered him with the gods. He hoped, too, that when the crown was
settled in this manner, no Spartan would have better pretensions than
himself.
At first he prepared to draw the citizens into his scheme, and committed
to memory an oration written by Cleon of Halicarnassus for that purpose.
But he soon saw that so great and difficult a reformation required
bolder and more extraordinary methods to bring it to bear. And as in
tragedy machinery is made use of, where more natural means will not
do, so he resolved to strike the people with oracles and prophecies;
well knowing that the eloquence of Cleon would avail but little, unless
he first subdued their minds with divine sanctions and the terrors
of superstition. Ephorus tells us, he first attempted to corrupt the
priestess of Delphi, and afterwards those of Dodona by means of one
Pherecles; and having no success in either application, he went himself
to the oracle of Ammon, and offered the priests large sums of gold. They
too rejected his offers with indignation, and sent deputies to Sparta
to accuse him of that crime. When these Libyans found he was acquitted,
they took their leave of the Spartans in this manner: “We will pass
better judgments, when you come to live among us in Libya.” It seems
there was an ancient prophecy, that the Lacedæmonians would some time or
other settle in Africa. This whole scheme of Lysander was of no ordinary
texture, nor took its rise from accidental circumstances, but was laid
deep and conducted with uncommon art and address: so that it may be
compared to a mathematical demonstration, in which, from some principles
first assumed, the conclusion is deduced through a variety of abstruse
and intricate steps. We shall, therefore, explain it at large, taking
Ephorus, who was both an historian and philosopher, for our guide.
[Illustration: GREEK DOOR KEYS]
[Sidenote: [400-395 B.C.]]
There was a woman in Pontus who gave it out that she was pregnant by
Apollo. Many rejected her assertion, and many believed it. So that when
she was delivered of a son, several persons of the greatest eminence
took particular care of his education, and for some reason or other
gave him the name of Silenus. Lysander took this miraculous birth for a
foundation, and raised all his building upon it. He made choice of such
assistants, as might bring the story into reputation, and put it beyond
suspicion. Then he got another story propagated at Delphi and spread at
Sparta, that certain ancient oracles were kept in the private registers
of the priests, which it was not lawful to touch or to look upon, till in
some future age a person should arise, who could clearly prove himself
the son of Apollo, and he was to interpret and publish these oracles.
The way thus prepared, Silenus was to make his appearance, as the son of
Apollo, and demand the oracles. The priests, who were in combination,
were to inquire into every article, and examine him strictly as to
his birth. At last they were to pretend to be convinced of his divine
parentage, and to show him the books. Silenus then was to read in public
all those prophecies, particularly that for which the whole design was
set on foot; namely, that it would be more for the honour and interest of
Sparta to set aside the present race of kings, and choose others out of
the best and most worthy men in the commonwealth. But when Silenus was
grown up, and came to undertake his part, Lysander had the mortification
to see his piece miscarry by the cowardice of one of the actors, whose
heart failed him just as the thing was going to be put in execution.
However, nothing of this was discovered while Lysander lived.
Lysander’s poverty, which was discovered after his death, added lustre
to his virtue. It was then found, that notwithstanding the money which
had passed through his hands, the authority he had exercised over so
many cities, and indeed the great empire he had been possessed of, he
had not in the least improved his family fortune. Ephorus tells us that,
afterwards, upon some disputes between the confederates and the Spartans,
it was thought necessary to inspect the writings of Lysander, and for
that purpose Agesilaus went to his house. Among the other papers he found
that political one, calculated to show how proper it would be to take
the right of succession from the Eurytionidæ and Agidæ, and to elect
kings from among persons of the greatest merit. He was going to produce
it before the citizens, and to show what the real principles of Lysander
were. But Lacratides, a man of sense, and the principal of the ephors,
kept him from it, by representing how wrong it would be to dig Lysander
out of his grave, when this oration, which was written in so artful and
persuasive a manner, ought rather to be buried with him.
Among the other honours paid to the memory of Lysander, that which we
shall mention is none of the least. Some persons who had contracted
themselves to his daughters in his lifetime, when they found he died
poor, fell off from their engagement. The Spartans fined them for
courting the alliance while they had riches in view, and breaking off
when they discovered that poverty which was the best proof of Lysander’s
probity and justice. It seems, at Sparta there was a law which punished,
not only those who continued in a state of celibacy, or married too late,
but those that married ill; and it was levelled chiefly at persons who
married into rich rather than good families.[e]
AGESILAUS RECALLED
[Sidenote: [395 B.C.]]
While these movements were taking place in Greece, Agesilaus was carrying
on the war in Asia, with an activity and success which might well have
alarmed the Persian court, and proved the wisdom of the precautions
adopted by Tithraustes. On his march into the province of Pharnabazus,
he was accompanied by Spithridates, who urged him to advance into
Paphlagonia, and undertook to make Cotys, the king of that country, his
ally. Cotys, who is elsewhere named Corylas, was one of those powerful
hereditary vassals of the Persian king, whose subjection had become
merely nominal, and he had lately renounced even the appearance of
submission. Artaxerxes, imprudently or insidiously, had put his obedience
to the test, by summoning or inviting him to court. But the Paphlagonian
prince was too wary, and knew the character of the Persian government too
well, to trust himself in its power, and he had openly refused to obey
the royal command. It would add nothing to his offence, though something
to his security, to treat with the enemies of Artaxerxes. Nothing could
be more agreeable to Agesilaus than the opportunity of gaining so
powerful an ally; he gladly accepted the mediation of Spithridates, who
not only fulfilled his promise, and engaged Cotys to come to the Greek
camp, and conclude an alliance with Sparta in person, but prevailed on
him, before his departure, to leave a reinforcement of one thousand
cavalry, and two thousand targeteers, with the army of Agesilaus.
To reward Spithridates for this important service, in a manner
which would strengthen the Greek interest in Asia, Agesilaus, with
great address, negotiated a match between Cotys and the daughter of
Spithridates, so as to lead each party to consider himself as under
obligations to the other, and both to look upon him as their benefactor.
As the season was too far advanced for a journey by land across the
Paphlagonian mountains, the young lady was sent by sea, under the charge
of a Spartan officer, to the dominions of her intended consort; and
Agesilaus returned to take up his winter quarters in the territories of
Pharnabazus, and in the satrap’s own residence of Dascylium. Here were
parks, chases, and forests abounding in game of every kind, and round
about were many large villages plentifully stocked with provisions for
the ordinary supply of the princely household. The domain was skirted by
the windings of a river, full of various kinds of fish. Here therefore
the Greek army passed the winter in ease and plenty, making excursions,
as occasion invited, into the surrounding country far and wide, while
Pharnabazus was forced to range over it as a houseless fugitive, carrying
with him his family and his treasures, for which he could find no place
of permanent shelter, and, even in this Scythian mode of life, never free
from apprehensions for his personal safety.
Sometimes, however, he hovered in the neighbourhood of the Greeks, and
once surprised them in one of their marauding excursions; and though he
had with him only two scythe-chariots, and about four hundred cavalry,
he dispersed a body of seven hundred Greek horse with his chariots, and
drove them, with the loss of one hundred men, to seek shelter from their
heavy infantry. A few days after this skirmish Spithridates learned
that the satrap was encamped in the village of Cava, about twenty miles
off, and communicated the discovery to Herippidas. Herippidas, who
loved a brilliant enterprise, was immediately fired with the hope of
making himself master of the satrap’s camp and person, and requested
Agesilaus to grant him, for this purpose, two thousand heavy infantry,
as many targeteers, the Paphlagonian cavalry, and those of Spithridates,
and as many of the Greek horse as might be willing to take part in
the adventure. He obtained all he asked; but at night, at the hour of
departure, he found that not half of his volunteers appeared at the
appointed place. Nevertheless, fearing the raillery of his colleagues, if
he should desist, he persevered in his undertaking, and after marching
all night, arrived at daybreak at the encampment of Pharnabazus. He
overpowered a body of Mysians at the outpost; but their resistance
afforded time for the escape of Pharnabazus and his family, who however
left the camp, with a great treasure of drinking vessels and costly
furniture, in the possession of the assailants. But Herippidas, being
anxious, for the sake of his own honour, to deliver the whole booty
into the hands of the officers who in the Spartan army answered to the
Roman quæstors, took precautions to exclude his allies from all share
in it; and he thus deprived the Spartan arms of an advantage much
more important than the value of the spoil. For Spithridates and the
Paphlagonians, indignant at this treatment, deserted the camp the next
night, and repairing to Sardis entered the service of Ariæus, who had
again revolted, and was at war with the king: Agesilaus was more deeply
affected by this loss than by any mischance that he met with in the
course of his expedition: and he seems to have regretted it still more on
private than on public grounds.
Not long after, a prospect seemed to be opened to him of gaining a much
more valuable ally. A Greek of Cyzicus, who was connected by ties of
hospitality with Pharnabazus, and had recently entered into the same
relation with Agesilaus, proposed to him to bring about an interview
between him and the satrap. The preliminaries were arranged, and a place
of meeting appointed in the open air, to which Agesilaus came accompanied
by the Thirty, and they seated themselves on the grass to wait for
Pharnabazus. He came attended by a train of servants, who, according to
the Persian fashion, proceeded to lay down a carpet and cushions for
their master. But the intelligent Persian, struck by the contrast of the
Spartan simplicity, in a fortune at present so much more prosperous than
his own, ordered these instruments of luxury to be removed, and, in his
splendid attire, took his seat without ceremony on the green-sward by the
side of Agesilaus.
[Sidenote: [395-394 B.C.]]
After the forms of a friendly greeting had been interchanged, Pharnabazus
opened the conference with an expostulation on the hard treatment which
he had suffered. He reminded his hearers of the zeal and constancy
with which he had espoused the cause of Sparta in the war with Athens.
Nevertheless Spartan hostility had now reduced him to such a condition
that even in his own territory he did not know how to find a meal, except
such as he could collect, like a dog, from the orts and leavings of their
rapine; while his fair patrimonial mansions, his pleasant woods and
parks, had been all burned, and felled, and spoiled. If, he concluded, it
was his ignorance that made him unable to reconcile such conduct with the
obligations of justice and gratitude, he desired that the Spartans would
enlighten him.
This address, Xenophon says, struck the Thirty with shame, and it was
some time before Agesilaus broke the silence that ensued. Private
friendship, he said, must give way to reasons of state. The Spartans,
being at war with the king of Persia, were compelled to treat all his
subjects as their enemies; and Pharnabazus among the rest, however glad
they might be to gain him for their friend. And what they had now to
propose was not that he should exchange one master for another, but that
he should at once become their ally, and independent of every superior.
Nor was it a poor or barren independence that they held out to him, but
a rich addition to his hereditary possessions, which their aid would
enable him to make at the expense of his fellow subjects, who would then
be forced to own him as their master. Pharnabazus, in answer to these
overtures, said that he would frankly declare his mind to them. If the
king should attempt to place any other general in authority over him,
he would renounce his allegiance, and ally himself to Sparta; but if
his master entrusted him with the supreme command in that part of his
domains, he would do his best to defend them. Agesilaus grasped his hand,
and assured him of his warmest regard, and, under the excitement of a
generous feeling, forgetting the excuse he had just before made for his
past conduct, promised to withdraw immediately from his territories, and,
though they should continue at war, to abstain from invading them, as
long as there was any other quarter in which he could employ his forces.
So the interview ended.
Agesilaus kept his word, and withdrew his forces from the satrapy of
Pharnabazus, where indeed it is probable he would not otherwise have
stayed much longer, as the spring was coming on, and he was meditating
a new expedition, in which he meant to advance as far as he could into
the interior. By this movement, if he gained no more decisive advantage,
he expected that he should at least separate all the provinces which he
left behind him from the Persian empire. With this design he proceeded
to the plain of Thebe, where he encamped, and began to collect all the
forces he could raise from the allied cities. He was in the midst of
these preparations, when he received a message from the ephors, which
was brought by a Spartan named Epicydidas, who apprised him of the new
turn which affairs had taken in Greece, and summoned him to march with
the utmost speed for the defence of his country. Agesilaus received this
intelligence with fortitude, though it stopped him at the outset of the
most brilliant career that had ever yet been opened by a Greek, and
obeyed the command of the ephors with as much promptness as if he had
been present in their council-room at Sparta.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[7] [Elea is used here to denote the district of which the city of Elis
was the capital.]
[8] [It was commonly believed that Alcibiades was the father of
Leotychides.]
[Illustration: GREEK VASES]