JOINT WORK OF EPAMINONDAS AND PELOPIDAS
The Thebans had every inducement to husband their strength and guard
their commonwealth against civil divisions, for the number of their
adversaries increased with their good fortune. If they could look back
with pride on what had been accomplished, still their future was by no
means secure. They had indeed baffled the unjustifiable designs of their
enemies. The Spartans, who eighteen months before had cherished the
hope of decimating the divided Thebans for the benefit of the god, were
now reduced to complete impotence, while they were threatened by the
Thebans with almost the same fate by which the latter had themselves been
confronted; the foundation of a city which offered a safe refuge to all
oppressed and outlawed inhabitants of Laconia, had inflicted a mortal
wound on the ruling Dorian state; the annihilation of the Peloponnesian
league had permanently broken the Spartan supremacy.
But the very rapidity with which the fetters had been shaken off had
created many difficulties which the Thebans had to face when they came
to reunite the dismembered limbs into a new whole. The hegemony of
Sparta, like that of Athens, rested on the foundation of ancient popular
tradition; each had its justification in the eminent qualities of the
respective states, in the exclusive military training and bravery of
the Spartans, in the cultivation and democratic judicial life of the
Athenians; all the Greek commonwealth had been pledged to one or the
other of these states for a shorter or longer period; consequently
subordination to one of them was no disgrace to any town, since the
ancestors of its inhabitants had already stood in a similar relation.
The position was quite different in the case of Thebes, which neither
by her historical past, nor by the greatness and importance of her
intellectual and moral progress and civil institutions, seemed justified
and qualified for the assumption of so eminent a position. Much as the
Peloponnesians admired the bravery, the discipline, and the excellent
disposition of the Theban troops, their military reputation was too
recent to allow of its measuring itself in the eyes of the Hellenes with
the glory of Sparta’s arms and her military practice; and yet warlike
courage and bodily dexterity were the only merits which the Thebans could
bring forward to support their claim to supremacy in Hellas. They had
neglected navigation, though the favourable situation of the country,
with its extensive coast on both shores and the excellent roadsteads,
especially at Aulis, offered many advantages; they had at all times
shown a disinclination and contempt for commerce and industry, and were
consequently often in distress for money; in intellectual and artistic
progress, they had not only remained behind Athens and the Hellenes of
Asia Minor, but the Dorian states of Sparta, Corinth, Sicyon, and Ægina
had also developed a richer culture; the composition of lyrics and the
art of playing on the flute were the only accomplishments in which the
Bœotians had attained to any skill.
The sense of justice and humanity were little cultivated; savage and
cruel in their disposition, they pursued their enemies and their rivals
with bloodthirsty passion, so that on his second expedition into the
Peloponnesus Epaminondas only saved a number of aristocratic fugitives
from Bœotia from an agonising death by denying their origin. Beside this,
the inclination of the Thebans to sensual pleasures and their delight in
luxurious feasts and banquets, formed a striking contrast to Athenian
simplicity and moderation, and to the stern and joyless lives of the
Spartans.
It has been already remarked that Epaminondas was free from all these
defects and vices and did all in his power to remove them; but he stood
so far above his fellow-citizens that his influence was diminished by
that very fact. Judging his countrymen by himself, and assuming in them
the same virtue and morality, the same enthusiasm for the glory and
greatness of their native land as he felt in his own great soul, he drew
them into undertakings to which neither their strength nor their capacity
was equal; he entered on courses which they, with their defective
political training, could not pursue with safety. Consequently it has
been justly said that with the corpse of Epaminondas the glory of Thebes
was also carried to the grave.
When the period of his command in the field expired, Epaminondas returned
home, where he was once more to experience the ingratitude of his
fellow-citizens. Not only did the people, now again roused against him,
pass him over in the election of the Bœotarchs; it is related that the
deluded mob appointed him overseer of roads and canals (telearchus),
but that by his conscientious administration he gave importance to this
insignificant office. Alike in the highest and in the lowest position,
this magnanimous man endeavoured to work for the good of his country; his
soul was free from the petty human weaknesses which so often cling, like
a dark shadow, to talent and worth. This was exhibited in another scene
in the year which followed.
From his expedition in Thessaly he, to save Pelopidas, returned joyfully
home too late to preserve the Theban state from a disgraceful act
of bloodshed. In the interval, armed mobs, stirred up by passionate
demagogues, had marched against Orchomenos, where an aristocratic
conspiracy was said to have been discovered, had destroyed the detested
city, murdered the nobles and chief citizens, and sold the rest into
servitude, together with their wives and children. Thus the ancient
and famous city of Orchomenos, once the wealthy seat of the Minyæ,
disappeared from the number of Greek towns. “Had I been at home,”
Epaminondas lamented, “this atrocity would never have been committed.”
At Susa, in spite of his refusal to bend the knee, Pelopidas had won
such high favour with the king, by reason of the fame of his deeds and
the recollection of the ancient brotherhood in arms so long subsisting
between Thebes and Persia, that the conditions of peace which Artaxerxes
declared to the envoys proved to be entirely in accordance with the ideas
and interests of Thebes and her skilful representative.
But this award whose fulfilment, and with it the supremacy over Hellas,
was entrusted to the Thebans, provoked indignation and resistance in the
other states. At Athens, the envoy, Timagoras, was condemned to death
for his intimacy with Pelopidas; at Sparta, exception was taken to the
recognition of the rebellious Messenians; in Arcadia, the people resented
the recognition of the Elean claims to suzerainty over the district of
Triphylia, which had joined the Arcadian confederacy, and the deputy,
Antiochus, famous as a pugilist and wrestler, vented his anger at home
in ridicule of the Persians: “The king,” he said, “had bakers, cooks,
cup-bearers, and door-keepers in large numbers, but in spite of a zealous
search he had not been able to find men who should be able to stand
against the Hellenes in a fight; abundance of money and wealth was a
vain show; the celebrated golden plane tree could hardly give shade to a
locust.”
[Sidenote: [368-365 B.C.]]
Such being the state of opinion, it is not surprising that the acceptance
of the peace should have encountered insuperable difficulties. The
ambassadors summoned to Thebes in the ensuing spring had refused to
swear to it, and the Arcadian deputy, Lycomedes, even took exception
to the place of assembly, by means of which the Thebans would have
invested their town with their pre-eminence, and went away in anger. The
endeavours to win the concurrence of the separate states were not more
successful, so the general war resumed its course and with it sanguinary
party strifes in every city, and flight and pursuit for the defeated.
In vain Epaminondas, on his third Peloponnesian expedition, endeavoured
to bring the principles of mildness and civil tolerance into effect in
Achaia: the Theban commonwealth, stirred up by the Arcadian democrats,
abolished his institutions and sent magistrates into the country,
who countenanced the expulsion of the oligarchs and the erection of
unrestricted popular governments, until the refugees assembled together,
forcibly compelled their recall, and once more carried Achaia over to the
Spartan alliance, whereupon the persecution assumed a different form.
In Sicyon, Euphron, a rich and influential citizen, supported by Arcadian
and Argive auxiliaries, placed the new commonwealth under the protection
of Thebes, and with the confiscated property of his expelled enemies he
obtained mercenaries, with whose aid he made himself ruler of his native
city in the capacity of demagogue and tyrant. By wiles and treachery,
robberies and crimes, he maintained himself in the government for a long
time until, having at last been overpowered and put to flight by an
aristocratic army, he was slain in Thebes, whither some of his enemies
had followed him, under the eyes of the council. The perpetrator of the
deed managed to defend himself so skilfully that he got away unpunished;
but the townspeople of Sicyon honoured Euphron, who had freed them from
the yoke of the aristocrats, as the second founder of their city.
Thus throughout the Peloponnesus the most terrible party rage was the
order of the day; communities and individuals, prompted by passion and
revenge, perpetrated wild misdeeds and crimes. Isocrates, in his oration
called _Archidamus_, thus paints the situation in the Peloponnesus:
“Every town has its adversaries about it and therefore we have
devastation of the country, destruction of the towns, subversion of
governments, disregard of laws. Men fear their enemies less than their
own fellow-citizens. The rich would rather throw their property into the
sea than give to the poor; on the other hand the poor desire nothing
better than to rob the rich. The sacrifices are suspended; men slay
each other at the altars. There are more exiles from a single city than
formerly in the whole of Peloponnesus.”
The laws had no longer any general application, since Sparta’s ancient
supremacy had collapsed and the pre-eminence of Thebes was not yet
established; all common interests vanished, and in alliances and
secessions nothing but the momentary advantage was kept in view. Even
religious awe was extinguished in men’s minds; votive offerings and
temple treasures were seized to pay hired troops. The greatest feats
of arms were performed for no purpose; valour and military spirit were
squandered in adventurous combats and enterprises. Yet in spite of this
distracted state of affairs, Sparta could not recover her power and
consideration: the want of a free citizenhood and the restoration of
Messenia ceased to be spoken of. With the help of Syracusan mercenaries,
whom the younger Dionysius had sent them, the generals did, indeed,
succeed in bringing the town of Sellasia with the passes into Arcadia
again under their power; but on the other hand they had to permit not
only the Corinthians, but the Phliasians also, the most faithful of
the allies of Sparta, who had executed many brave deeds and conducted
so many expeditions against the Sicyonians and Argives, to conclude a
separate peace with Thebes. They themselves refused to accede to it,
notwithstanding the persuasions of their friends, because they could
not make up their minds to the recognition of the independence of the
Messenians, which was demanded.
[Illustration: LOOKING TOWARDS CORINTH FROM ARCADIA]
[Sidenote: [368-367 B.C.]]
As Corinth, Phlius, Epidaurus, and other cities now allied themselves
with Thebes, Arcadia drew up an offensive and defensive treaty with
Athens, which Epaminondas, in his capacity of ambassador, vainly
endeavoured to counteract by a speech against Callistratus before the
national council of the Ten Thousand. But Lycomedes, the creator of this
union, was not to reap the fruit of his labours. On his way home he met
with a violent death at the hands of some Arcadian refugees. The dream
of an Arcadian hegemony was buried with him. No other statesman had it
in his power to lead that uncultivated, divided nation of soldiers and
shepherds, strangers as they were to any sort of common action, to higher
and patriotic aims. Petty border feuds again claimed the whole attention
of the Arcadians, and the increasing estrangement between Mantinea and
Tegea, and the jealousy of both in regard to Megalopolis, stood in
the way of the strengthening and development of a united state. Soon
disputes with Elis led to other complications fraught with consequences
which necessitated a new military expedition on the part of the Thebans.
After the battle of Leuctra, the Eleans had again taken possession of
the territory of Triphylia, which had once been wrested from them by the
Spartans; but the inhabitants, dissatisfied with the rule of the Eleans,
had turned to the Arcadians, and, appealing to the ancient connection
between the races, had requested and obtained admission into the Arcadian
confederacy. The suzerainty of Elis over Triphylia had indeed, as it
seems, been recognised in the peace prescribed by Persia, but the
latter’s dispositions received as little acceptance here as elsewhere;
both sides were therefore prepared to vindicate their claims by force of
arms.
[Sidenote: [365-364 B.C.]]
To strengthen their position the Eleans concluded an alliance with
Sparta, and vacated the border town of Lasion on the western slope of
Erymanthus in favour of a flock of oligarchical refugees from Arcadia. In
this settlement the government of Megalopolis saw a hostile intention,
for from thence the oligarchs had no difficulty in forming traitorous
connections with those who thought with them, and they seized the
occasion to visit the peaceful little country with a devastating war.
They carried robbery and destruction up to the very capital, excited
a sanguinary civil war between the popular party and the oligarchical
families, and reduced the inhabitants to a state of despair. In vain
the Eleans brought about an invasion of the friendly Spartans into the
territory of Megalopolis; after an heroic struggle the Arcadians forced
the Lacedæmonian king, Archidamus, to surrender the strong hill town of
Cromnus, which he had occupied by a rapid movement, and forced him to a
disastrous retreat during which a hundred Lacedæmonian citizens fell into
the hands of the victors. And as it chanced that the time of the Olympic
games was approaching, they took possession of the holy site and bestowed
the office of judge of the contests on the Pisatans.
The Eleans, furious at this infringement of their rights, marched up
with their collected forces, and on the sacred ground, before the eyes
of those assembled for the festival, they delivered a sanguinary battle
which was finally decided against them. The Eleans had to give place to
the Arcadians and content themselves with omitting the festival from the
series of Olympic years, on the grounds of its having been celebrated
contrary to law and order. The confederate government of Arcadia laid
hands on the temple treasure, and in spite of the protests of the
Mantineans, they used it to defray the cost of the war and the pay of
the national levies and _epariti_. This was the means of widening the
schism and the difference of opinion which had for some time divided the
Arcadian confederacy into two camps and which now developed into a breach
destined to lead to serious consequences. The Mantineans, outnumbered
in the federal government and national council, again turned to the
Spartans, while the democrats of Tegea, who then had the upper hand in
the guidance of united Arcadia, adhered to the alliance with Thebes.
THE END OF PELOPIDAS
[Sidenote: [364-357 B.C.]]
The Thebans had taken no part in these events in the Peloponnesus, beyond
keeping provincial governors (harmosts) and garrisons in Tegea, Sicyon,
and other towns, for the purpose of guarding their own interests and
upholding the cause of democracy. The complications in Thessaly and the
attempts to wrest the command of the sea from the Athenians claimed the
whole energies of their statesmen. Soon after the retreat of Epaminondas
and Pelopidas after the latter’s rescue, Alexander, the cruel tyrant of
Pheræ, had renewed his plans of conquest in the mountain country, had
subdued the cities of the Achæans, Phthiotæ, and Magnetes, and extended
his military despotism over the whole country. Then the oppressed and
threatened people turned once more for help to the Thebans, who now
fitted out an army of seven thousand hoplites to take stern vengeance
on the disturber of the peace. But on the day fixed for its departure,
an eclipse of the sun occurred and spread so much terror among the
superstitious people that the march had to be put off.
Pelopidas, the Bœotarch who had been selected to conduct the enterprise,
was not deterred by the agitation, and determined to carry out the
project by himself at the head of two hundred horsemen, in the conviction
that on his appearance the Thessalian soldiers and volunteers would
join him in crowds. And his expectation was not disappointed. Even at
Pharsalus he found himself in command of such forces that he ventured on
storming the line of hills called the “Dogs’ heads” (_Cynoscephalæ_),
which Alexander held with a far superior army. The ranks of the enemy
were already giving way, when Pelopidas, in the passion of victory and
revenge, rushed impetuously on the flying tyrant, and, becoming separated
from his own men, met his death at the spears of the bodyguard. Maddened
by the fall of their brave leader, the Thebans and their companions in
arms put renewed energy into the attack and won a complete victory. And
as if the honour of this success belonged solely to the dead general,
they piled the spoils and weapons of the slaughtered foes beside his
corpse, as a monument of the victory, and abandoned themselves to the
deepest grief. Many cut off their hair or their horses’ manes, many spent
the day in their tents without eating or lighting a fire. And as the body
was being conducted to Thebes, all the towns along the route manifested
their sympathy by mourning celebrations, and in his own native city the
great funeral solemnities bore witness to the deep love and honour of the
Thebans for the fellow-citizen who had served them so well, who from the
glorious days of the Liberation had been always included in the number
of the Bœotarchs, whose name was associated with the most famous deeds
and the proudest memories, and who had been no less eminent for his
chivalrous and magnanimous character than for his heroic spirit and pure
patriotism.
The whole army now took the field to avenge his death, and, in
conjunction with the Thessalian allies, they soon reduced the tyrant
to such straits that he sued for peace, which the victors with more
magnanimity than foresight granted him. He had to abandon the towns
he had occupied, to confine his dominion to Pheræ and the surrounding
district, and to render military service to the Thebans; a compact
which neither provided satisfactory security against the repetition of
similar encroachments, nor secured a powerful alliance for the Thebans.
As in the Peloponnesus, so now there prevailed in Thessaly a condition
of distraction and dissolution which was eventually to prepare for the
northern conqueror a way into the heart of Hellas.
For seven years longer Alexander continued his nefarious practices,
henceforth turning his attention to piracy and the plunder of the islands
and coast towns. In the general confusion his audacity went so far that
he is said to have once surprised the Piræus in an unguarded hour and
carried off a rich booty. Finally, at the instigation of his wife, Thebe,
who on a former occasion had excited the imprisoned Pelopidas against
her cruel husband, he was murdered by her brothers.
[Sidenote: [366-362 B.C.]]
The piratical expeditions with which Alexander afflicted the northern
waters, were probably carried out with the knowledge and connivance of
Thebes, for the purpose of annoying the Athenians. The latter, especially
since their alliance with Sparta, had made the most eager efforts to
re-establish their influence over the maritime states, though their
means and forces were small and the mercenaries and peltasts who manned
their ships little fitted to supply the place of the old citizen army.
Iphicrates cruised in the northern waters for the space of three years,
attempted to bring back the Greek cities in Thrace and Macedon to their
old relation with Athens and made repeated attacks on Amphipolis, but
without being able to win back this ancient colony; Timotheus brought
Samos into subjection, and, with the help of the revolted Persian
governor Ariobarzanes, acquired Sestos and Crithote on the Thracian
Chersonesus, whereby the relations with Byzantium were restored, and
also won a firm footing in Chalcidice and the Gulf of Thermæ by taking
Potidæa and Torone, as well as Methone and Pella. These successes of
Athens, though small in comparison with her former dominion over the
sea and coasts, and insecure as they were in face of the impossibility
of permanently providing the hired troops with pay and maintenance,
nevertheless awakened the jealousy of Thebes.
The keen eye of Epaminondas did not fail to perceive that his native city
could only attain to the hegemony of Greece if the dominion of the sea
were snatched from the Athenians, and being as bold and enterprising as
he was sagacious, he endeavoured to persuade his countrymen to build a
fleet. Thebes must become a sea power, in order, as he declared before
the people, “to place the Propylæa of the Athenian Acropolis under the
superintendence of the Cadmea”; not that he wished to accustom the
powerful national forces to the seductive life on the sea and thus weaken
the heavy-armed militia; the old manner of warfare, which rested on
custom, education, and tradition, was to continue to prevail; but for the
foundation of a secure ascendency in Hellas a fleet was indispensable.
And so influential was the voice of this great general, that in spite
of the remonstrance of the popular orator Meneclidas, the Theban people
immediately resolved on the building and equipment of a hundred triremes
and the establishment of shipyards of their own.
He undertook the command of the fleet himself, and on his advent the
islands of Chios and Rhodes and the important city of Byzantium were
induced to fall away from Athens. It was the fatal destiny of Thebes
and her patriotic leader, that her appearance had everywhere the effect
of simply loosening such federal bonds as still existed and dissolving
every force, but without enabling her to herself attain to the height of
a great power. No foreign enemy could have found a means so well adapted
to break up and enfeeble the Hellenic nation as was the disorganising and
disintegrating policy of the Theban general.
THE BATTLE OF MANTINEA AND THE DEATH OF EPAMINONDAS
The Athenians, bitterly incensed against the Thebans by this attack on
their maritime supremacy and by the occupation of the town of Oropus on
the northeastern frontier, soon found an opportunity to give expression
to their resentment by force of arms. In Arcadia the enmity of the
supporters of a democratic state unity, with the Tegeans at their
head, against the defenders of the ancient federative organisation
on oligarchical principles under the standard of the Mantineans, had
reached a high pitch of excitement. This was further aggravated when the
Theban governor arrested a number of citizens from Mantinea who were of
Laconian sympathies, and were, at Tegea, celebrating the peace recently
concluded with Elis, and intended so it was said to take advantage of
the opportunity for executing a stratagem which would place the city
in the hands of the Spartans: frightened by the threatening attitude
of their sympathisers, the governor again set them at liberty; but
on complaint being made to Thebes, the aggrieved Arcadians were not
granted the desired satisfaction for this breach of the peace, but on
the contrary the release of the prisoners was disapproved. On this the
Mantineans allied themselves with the Lacedæmonians, Athenians, Achæans,
and Eleans and prepared for a struggle against the popular party in Tegea
and Megalopolis, and against the Thebans who were approaching for the
protection of the latter and the preservation of the frontier against
Lacedæmon.
[Sidenote: [362 B.C.]]
In the spring of 362 Epaminondas and a considerable army, composed of
allied Bœotians, Eubœans, Thessalians, etc., marched through Nemea
without opposition to Tegea, where he collected around him the troops
of the Arcadian, Argive, and Messenian allies, whilst the opposing side
assembled its forces in Mantinea. When the Theban general learned that
Agesilaus and the Lacedæmonian host were on the way to the meeting-place
of their party, and had already reached the town of Pellana on the
Arcadian and Laconian frontier, he hastily resolved to advance on Sparta
by a night march, and seize the enemy’s capital, thus denuded of its
defenders “like an empty nest.”
The plan would doubtless have succeeded, since only a small number of
the citizens had remained behind, had not Agesilaus, hearing of the
project from a deserter, despatched a messenger to his son Archidamus,
with the command immediately to put the town in a state of defence,
while he himself at once set out to return with the cavalry. Thus when
Epaminondas approached the banks of the Eurotas, almost at the same time
as Agesilaus, he found the town so well watched and guarded that, after a
hotly contested battle, he was obliged to retreat with loss. It is true
that he managed to penetrate to the market-place, but when he attempted
to storm the upper parts of the town, he encountered an obstinate
resistance. The inhabitants had torn down their houses and thrown up
barricades to bar the approaches. Protected by these dispositions and
filled with patriotic enthusiasm, the Spartan citizenhood under the
guidance of the old king and his son performed prodigies of valour, and
gave evidence, as Xenophon says, that no one can easily maintain his
ground against despairing men. Even women and children did their part by
hurling down stones, utensils, and missiles from the roofs. Isadas, the
handsome son of Phœbidas, specially distinguished himself by his heroism
and his bold courage. Disappointed in his expectation of surprising
Sparta undefended, Epaminondas desisted from the attack, the more readily
when he learned that the whole united army of the enemy had started from
Mantinea and was hastening to the assistance of the beleaguered town.
He now formed a plan to make up for the failure of the undertaking
against Sparta by seizing the town of Mantinea, now denuded of its
troops, or at least to make spoil of the stores of grain and herds of
cattle collected there. Deceiving the enemy by means of watchfires and
a simulated attack, he led the army back to Tegea by a difficult night
march. Here he accorded a brief rest to the wearied infantry, whilst the
mounted troops proceeded towards Mantinea. But Epaminondas now learned
that fate was against him. The Thebans had already advanced to within
seven stadia [nearly a mile] of the town, when they saw the Athenian
auxiliaries entering the gates from the opposite side. Hegesilaus, the
leader of the Athenian cavalry, was assailed by the prayers of the
Mantineans, in alarm for their property; and he at once marched against
the enemy, to whom he gave battle under the walls of the town, in a sharp
cavalry action, from which the Athenians eventually retired victorious.
In this preliminary skirmish at Mantinea fell the brave Athenian leaders,
Cephisodorus, and Gryllus, the son of Xenophon. Their memory continued to
be held in honour by their fellow-citizens. Gryllus was represented by
the painter Euphron in the act of slaying a Theban with his spear, and
this circumstance, by a confusion of the previous encounter with the main
battle, may have given rise to the story that Epaminondas was slain by
Gryllus.
The whole forces of both sides now concentrated in the plain of Mantinea
and Tegea, determined to settle the future destiny of Greece by a
decisive battle. Epaminondas had pressing reasons for desiring this
settlement. The two unsuccessful enterprises, with the strenuous and
fruitless marches, were not calculated to enhance his reputation as
a general; while a long delay would necessarily weaken the spirit of
his soldiers, who adhered to him with such great devotion, and would
undermine the prestige of Thebes. Moreover his followers were superior
in number to those of the adversary. The size of his army is set down
at thirty thousand heavy-armed troops and three thousand cavalry; the
enemy’s force was smaller by ten thousand hoplites and one thousand
mounted men. Faith in Epaminondas had inspired his soldiers with the
greatest enthusiasm for the conflict; they eagerly polished their helmets
and shields and sharpened their swords and lances, while the Arcadian
club-men assumed the Theban ensign.
In the disposition and order of his line of battle, Epaminondas followed
much the same plan which had been found to answer so well at Leuctra,
only that in order to deceive and make sure of the foe, he caused the
troops ranged for the conflict to make a feint of retreating towards the
western heights; then, when the enemy, fancying that the encounter would
be delayed, began to break up their order of battle, he suddenly made
a rapid and vehement attack, so that at the first onset his left wing,
where the Thebans and the bravest of the allies had their place, broke
the enemy’s left, composed of the Spartans and Mantineans. Already the
whole wing had begun to waver and plunge into a confused flight; when, at
the very moment that he was about to win a complete victory, Epaminondas,
pressing boldly forward, was struck in the breast by a spear thrown from
the hostile ranks, and with such force that the shaft broke off and the
iron remained fixed in the wound.
He was still living when he was carried out of the mêlée; but the fall of
their leader shook the spirit and confidence of the troops, and produced
such dismay that the advancing column stood still as if paralysed and
did not take advantage of its victory. The right wing, composed of the
cavalry and peltasts, was overthrown by the opposing Athenians, and
thus the battle remained without any decisive issue, though the Thebans
retained possession of the field and the Spartans were the first to seek
the usual truce for the burial of the dead, a request always looked upon
as a token of defeat. Both sides, however, set up memorials of victory.
Epaminondas was sorely wounded and the physicians had declared to him
that the withdrawal of the spear would result in his death. From a
wooded height he watched the battle, covering the wound with his hand,
till his shield, which had been lost in the press, was brought to him
and he was informed of the victory of the Thebans. Then he said, “Now
it is time to die.” He asked for his two brave colleagues, Daïphantus
and Iolaïdas, and when he learned that they, too, had lost their lives
in the battle he advised his fellow-citizens to make peace; and then
with a quiet and serene countenance he drew the iron from his breast and
delivered up his heroic spirit. His beloved Cephisodorus had fallen at
his side and was buried by him on the field of battle. When the friends
who stood round him lamented that he left no children, he is reported
to have said jestingly, “Am I not leaving you two noble daughters--the
battles of Leuctra and Mantinea?”[b]
[Illustration: SANDALS WORN BY GREEK SOLDIERS]
In the last chapter of his _Hellenics_, Xenophon does tardy justice to
the genius of Epaminondas, whom he did not even name in his account of
Leuctra. In this splendid and Panhellenic struggle at Mantinea, Xenophon
lost a son who died bravely and was honoured with a monument by the
Mantineans. The father, himself a soldier, has left a less perishable
monument in his history, the conclusion of which we quote as follows:[a]
XENOPHON’S ACCOUNT OF HOW EPAMINONDAS FOUGHT
Epaminondas now reflecting that he must quit Tegea in a few days--as
the time allotted for the expedition would soon expire--and that, if he
should leave those undefended to whom he came as an ally, they would be
besieged and reduced by their enemies and he himself would suffer greatly
in reputation--having been repulsed at Sparta with a numerous body of
heavy-armed troops, by a handful of men; having been defeated in a
cavalry engagement at Mantinea, and having been the cause, by his hostile
expedition into the Peloponnesus, of the Lacedæmonians, Arcadians,
Achæans, Eleans, and Athenians, forming a union--judged it, on these
accounts, impossible for him to withdraw without fighting; for he thought
that, if he should conquer, he should cause all his previous failures to
be forgotten, and conceived that, if he should die, his death would be
glorious in the endeavour to leave the sovereignty of the Peloponnesus to
his country. That he should have reasoned thus, appears to me by no means
surprising, for such are the reasonings of men ambitious of honour; but
that he had so disciplined his army that they sank under no toil, either
by night or day, shrank from no danger, and, though they had but scanty
provisions, were yet eager to obey, seems to me far more wonderful. For
when at last he gave them orders to prepare for battle, the cavalry,
at his word, began eagerly to polish their helmets; the heavy-armed
troops of the Arcadians marked the clubs on their shields as if they
were Thebans, and all the men sharpened their spears and swords, and
brightened their bucklers.
After he had led them out thus prepared, it is well to consider how he
acted. First of all, as was to be expected, he drew up his forces, and
in doing so appeared to give manifest indications that he was preparing
for a battle. When his army however was drawn up as he wished, he did
not lead it the shortest way towards the enemy, but conducted it towards
the mountains on the west and over against Tegea--so as to produce a
notion in the enemy that he would not fight that day; for when he came
near the hills, after his main body was drawn out to its full extent, he
ordered his men to file their arms at the foot of the heights, so that
he appeared to be encamping. By acting in this manner, he slackened the
determination for engaging which was in the hearts of most of the enemy,
and caused them to quit their posts on the field. But when he had brought
up to the front the companies which on the march had been in the wings,
and had made the part in which he was posted strong and in the shape of
a wedge, he immediately gave orders for his troops to resume their arms,
and began to advance, while they followed him. As for the enemy, when
they saw the Thebans advancing, contrary to what they had expected, not
one of them could remain quiet, but some ran to their posts, some formed
themselves in line, others bridled their horses, others put on their
breastplates; yet all were more like men going to suffer some harm than
to inflict any on others.
Epaminondas led on his army like a ship of war with its beak directed
against the enemy, expecting that wherever he assailed and cut through
their ranks he would spread disaster among their whole force; for he was
prepared to settle the contest with the strongest part of his troops;
the weaker he had removed to a distance, knowing that if they were
defeated they would cause dismay among his own men and confidence in the
enemy. The enemy, on their part, had drawn up their cavalry like a body
of heavy-armed infantry, of a close depth, without any foot to support
them; but Epaminondas, on the contrary, had formed of his cavalry a
strong wedge-like body, and had posted companies of foot to support them,
judging that when he had broken through the cavalry of the enemy, he
would have defeated their whole force, since it is hard to find men that
will stand when they see some of their own party in flight; and that the
Athenians might not send succour from their left wing to the part of the
enemy nearest them, he posted over against them, upon some high grounds,
parties of horse and heavy-armed foot, wishing to inspire them with the
apprehension that if they stirred to aid others his own troops would
attack them in the rear.
Such was the mode in which he commenced the engagement; nor was he
deceived in his expectations; for, being successful in the part on which
he made his attack, he forced the whole body of the enemy to take to
flight. But when he himself fell, those who survived him could make no
efficient use of their victory; for though the main body of the enemy
fled before them, his heavy-armed troops killed none of them, nor even
advanced beyond the spot where the charge took place; and though the
cavalry also retreated, his own cavalry did not pursue, or make any
slaughter either of horse or foot, but, like men who had been conquered,
slipped away in trepidation amidst their fleeing adversaries. The other
parties of foot, indeed, and the peltasts, who had shared in the success
of the cavalry, advanced up to the enemy’s left wing, as if masters of
the field, but there the greater part of them were put to the sword by
the Athenians.
When the conflict was ended, the result of it was quite contrary to what
all men had expected that it would be; for as almost the whole of Greece
was assembled on the occasion, and arrayed in the field, there was no
one who did not suppose that, if a battle took place, one side would
conquer and be masters, and the other be conquered and become subjects;
but the divine power so ordered the event, that both parties erected
trophies as being victorious, neither side hindering the other in the
erection; both parties, as conquerors, restored the dead under a truce,
and both parties, as defeated, received them under truce; and neither
party, though each asserted the victory to be its own, was seen to gain
any more, either in land, or towns, or authority, than it possessed
before the battle took place. Indeed there was still greater confusion
and disturbance in Greece after the conflict than there had been before
it.[c]
GROTE’S ESTIMATE OF EPAMINONDAS
Scarcely any character in Grecian history has been judged with so much
unanimity as Epaminondas. He has obtained a meed of admiration--from all,
sincere and hearty; from some, enthusiastic. Cicero pronounces him to be
the first man of Greece. The judgment of Polybius, though not summed up
so emphatically in a single epithet, is delivered in a manner hardly less
significant and laudatory. Nor was it merely historians or critics who
formed this judgment. The best men of action, combining the soldier and
the patriot, such as Timoleon and Philopœmen, set before them Epaminondas
as their model to copy. The remark has been often made, and suggests
itself whenever we speak of Epaminondas, though its full force will be
felt only when we come to follow the subsequent history--that with him
the dignity and commanding influence of Thebes both began and ended.
His period of active political life comprehends sixteen years, from the
resurrection of Thebes into a free community, by the expulsion of the
Lacedæmonian harmost and garrison, and the subversion of the ruling
oligarchy--to the fatal day of Mantinea, 379-362 B.C. His prominent and
unparalleled ascendency belongs to the last eight years, from the victory
of Leuctra, 371 B.C. Throughout this whole period, both all that we know
and all that we can reasonably divine, fully bear out the judgment of
Polybius and Cicero, who had the means of knowing much more. And this
too, let it be observed, though Epaminondas is tried by a severe canon;
for the chief contemporary witness remaining is one decidedly hostile.
Even the philo-Laconian Xenophon finds neither misdeeds nor omissions to
reveal in the capital enemy of Sparta--mentions him only to record what
is honourable, and manifests the perverting bias mainly by suppressing
or slurring over his triumphs. The man whose eloquence bearded Agesilaus
at the congress immediately preceding the battle of Leuctra--who in
that battle stripped Sparta of her glory, and transferred the wreath to
Thebes, who a few months afterwards, not only ravaged all the virgin
territory of Laconia, but cut off the best half of it for the restitution
of independent Messene, and erected the hostile Arcadian community of
Megalopolis on its frontier--the author of these fatal disasters inspires
in Xenophon such intolerable chagrin and antipathy, that in the first two
he keeps back the name, and in the third, suppresses the thing done. But
in the last campaign, preceding the battle of Mantinea, whereby Sparta
incurred no positive loss, and where the death of Epaminondas softened
every predisposition against him, there was no such violent pressure upon
the fidelity of the historian. Accordingly, the concluding chapter of
Xenophon’s _Hellenica_ contains a panegyric, ample and unqualified, upon
the military merits of the Theban general; upon his daring enterprise,
his comprehensive foresight, his care to avoid unnecessary exposure
of soldiers, his excellent discipline, his well-combined tactics, his
fertility of aggressive resource in striking at the weak points of the
enemy, who content themselves with following and parrying his blows (to
use a simile of Demosthenes) like an unskilful pugilist, and only succeed
in doing so by signal aid from accident.
[Sidenote: [379-362 B.C.]]
The effort of strategic genius--then for the first time devised and
applied, of bringing an irresistible force of attack to bear on one point
of the hostile line, while the rest of his army was kept comparatively
back until the action had been thus decided--is clearly noted by
Xenophon, together with its triumphant effect, at the battle of Mantinea;
though the very same combination on the field of Leuctra is slurred
over in his description, as if it were so commonplace as not to require
any mention of the chief with whom it originated. Compare Epaminondas
with Agesilaus--how great is the superiority of the first--even in
the narrative of Xenophon, the earnest panegyrist of the other! How
manifestly are we made to see that nothing except the fatal spear-wound
at Mantinea prevented him from reaping the fruit of a series of admirable
arrangements, and from becoming arbiter of Peloponnesus, including Sparta
herself!
The military merits alone of Epaminondas, had they merely belonged to
a general of mercenaries, combined with nothing praiseworthy in other
ways, would have stamped him as a man of high and original genius, above
every other Greek, antecedent or contemporary. But it is the peculiar
excellence of this great man that we are not compelled to borrow from one
side of his character in order to compensate deficiencies in another.
His splendid military capacity was never prostituted to personal
ends--neither to avarice, nor ambition, nor overweening vanity. Poor at
the beginning of his life, he left at the end of it not enough to pay his
funeral expenses; having despised the many opportunities for enrichment
which his position afforded, as well as the richest offers from
foreigners. Of ambition he had so little, by natural temperament, that
his friends accused him of torpor. But as soon as the perilous exposure
of Thebes required it, he displayed as much energy in her defence
as the most ambitious of her citizens, without any of that captious
exigence, frequent in ambitious men, as to the amount of glorification
or deference due to him from his countrymen. And his personal vanity was
so faintly kindled, even after the prodigious success at Leuctra, that
we find him serving in Thessaly as a private hoplite in the ranks, and
in the city as an ædile or inferior street magistrate, under the title
of Telearchus. An illustrious specimen of that capacity and good-will,
both to command and to be commanded, which Aristotle pronounces to form
in their combination the characteristic feature of the worthy citizen.
He once incurred the displeasure of his fellow-citizens for his wise and
moderate policy in Achaia, which they were ill-judged enough to reverse.
We cannot doubt also that he was frequently attacked by political censors
and enemies--the condition of eminence in every free state; but neither
of these causes ruffled the dignified calmness of his political course.
As he never courted popularity by unworthy arts, so he bore unpopularity
without murmurs, and without any angry renunciation of patriotic duty.
The mildness of his antipathies against political opponents at home was
undeviating; and, what is even more remarkable, amidst the precedents
and practice of the Grecian world, his hostility against foreign
enemies, Bœotian dissentients, and Theban exiles, was uniformly free
from reactionary vengeance. Sufficient proofs have been adduced in
the preceding pages of this rare union of attributes in the same
individual--of lofty disinterestedness, not merely as to corrupt gains,
but as to the more seductive irritabilities of ambition, combined with a
just measure of attachment towards partisans, and unparalleled gentleness
towards enemies. His friendship with Pelopidas was never disturbed during
the fifteen years of their joint political career--an absence of jealousy
signal and creditable to both, though most creditable to Pelopidas, the
richer, as well as the inferior man of the two. To both, and to the
harmonious co-operation of both, Thebes owed her short-lived splendour
and ascendency. Yet when we compare the one with the other, we not only
miss in Pelopidas the transcendent strategic genius and conspicuous
eloquence, but even the constant vigilance and prudence, which never
deserted his friend. If Pelopidas had had Epaminondas as his companion
in Thessaly, he would hardly have trusted himself to the good faith, nor
tasted the dungeon, of the Pheræan Alexander; nor would he have rushed
forward to certain destruction, in a transport of frenzy, at the view of
that hated tyrant in the subsequent battle.
In eloquence, Epaminondas would doubtless have found superiors at Athens;
but at Thebes, he had neither equal, nor predecessor, nor successor.
Under the new phase into which Thebes passed by the expulsion of the
Lacedæmonians out of the Cadmea, such a gift was second in importance
only to the great strategic qualities; while the combination of both
elevated their possessor into the envoy, the counsellor, the debater, of
his country, as well as her minister at war and commander-in-chief. The
shame of acknowledging Thebes as leading state in Greece, embodied in the
current phrases about Bœotian stupidity, would be sensibly mitigated,
when her representative in an assembled congress spoke with the flowing
abundance of the Homeric Ulysses, instead of the loud, brief, and hurried
bluster of Menelaus. The possession of such eloquence, amidst the
uninspiring atmosphere of Thebes, implied far greater mental force than a
similar accomplishment would have betokened at Athens. In Epaminondas, it
was steadily associated with thought and action--that triple combination
of thinking, speaking, and acting which Isocrates and other Athenian
sophists set before their hearers as the stock and qualification for
meritorious civic life. To the bodily training and soldier-like practice,
common to all Thebans, Epaminondas added an ardent intellectual impulse
and a range of discussion with the philosophical men around, peculiar to
himself.
He was not floated into public life by the accident of birth or wealth,
nor hoisted and propped up by oligarchical clubs, nor even determined
to it originally by any spontaneous ambition of his own. But the great
revolution of 379 B.C., which expelled from Thebes both the Lacedæmonian
garrison and the local oligarchy who ruled by its aid, forced him forward
by the strongest obligations both of duty and interest; since nothing
but an energetic defence could rescue both him and every other free
Theban from slavery. It was by the like necessity that the American
Revolution, and the first French Revolution, thrust into the front rank
the most instructed and capable men of the country, whether ambitious
by temperament or not. As the pressure of the time impelled Epaminondas
forward, so it also disposed his countrymen to look out for a competent
leader wherever he was to be found; and in no other living man could
they obtain the same union of the soldier, the general, the orator, and
the patriot. Looking through all Grecian history, it is only in Pericles
that we find the like many-sided excellence; for though much inferior
to Epaminondas as a general, Pericles must be held superior to him as
a statesman. But it is alike true of both, and their mark tends much
to illustrate the sources of Grecian excellence--that neither sprang
exclusively from the school of practice and experience. They both brought
to that school minds exercised in the conversation of the most instructed
philosophers and sophists accessible to them--trained to varied
intellectual combinations and to a larger range of subjects than those
that came before the public assembly, familiarised with reasonings which
the scrupulous piety of Nicias forswore, and which the devoted military
patriotism of Pelopidas disdained.
On one point, the policy recommended by Epaminondas to his countrymen
appears of questionable wisdom--his advice to compete with Athens for
transmarine and naval power. One cannot recognise in this advice the same
accurate estimate of permanent causes--the same long-sighted view of the
conditions of strength to Thebes and of weakness to her enemies, which
dictated the foundation of Messene and Megalopolis. These two towns,
when once founded, took such firm root, that Sparta could not persuade
even her own allies to aid in effacing them; a clear proof of the sound
reasoning on which their founder had proceeded.
What Epaminondas would have done--whether he would have followed out
maxims equally prudent and penetrating, if he had survived the victory
of Mantinea--is a point which we cannot pretend to divine. He would have
found himself then on a pinnacle of glory, and invested with a plenitude
of power, such as no Greek ever held without abusing. But all that we
know of Epaminondas justifies the conjecture that he would have been
found equal, more than any other Greek, even to this great trial; and
that his untimely death shut him out from a future not less honourable to
himself, than beneficial to Thebes and to Greece generally.[d]
CONFUSION FOLLOWING EPAMINONDAS’ FALL
[Sidenote: [362-361 B.C.]]
So died Epaminondas--the ablest commander, the noblest citizen, the most
stainless character, even if not the greatest statesman, of the Hellenic
world. The combination of military ability with civic virtue, of physical
prowess with intellectual culture and eloquence, of manly daring with
humane feeling, of practical capacity with ideal aspirations, of merit
with modesty, of glory with humility, of power with simplicity, has won
for him the admiration of succeeding generations as of the whole ancient
world. He fell a victim to a deplorable fratricidal war; and cities and
citizens, instead of weeping and beating their breasts in penitence over
the corpse of the high-hearted man, disputed jealously among themselves
the honour of having transfixed his breast with the fatal thrust. But so
great was his influence even in death that soon afterwards all the Greek
states followed the counsel he had given, and concluded a peace based
upon the recognition of the _status quo_. They all needed time for coming
to fresh resolutions and collecting fresh forces. Sparta alone held
aloof, refusing with obstinate consistency to acknowledge the political
independence of Messenia.
Agesilaus did not long survive his opponent. A year after the battle of
Mantinea he marched to Egypt with an army of mercenaries, accompanied by
thirty Spartan citizens, to fight in the service of the rebellious kings
Tachus and Nectanebo against the Persians, out of revenge for Messenia’s
having been declared independent by Artaxerxes. But he obtained little
glory. Instead of being appointed commander-in-chief of the fighting
forces, as he had hoped, he had to be contented with the position of
a captain of mercenaries. The Egyptians were very much disappointed
in their expectations to behold, instead of a knightly king, crowned
with glory, an old man of eighty years, infirm, of small stature and
poorly dressed, who, devoid of oriental royal dignity and the pomp and
ceremonious state of oriental sovereigns, sat down on the grassy ground
with his followers, to partake of a meagre repast. After some time he
took his departure from the country of the Nile to return by way of
Cyrene to his own country, having been royally rewarded by Nectanebo,
but without having met the Persians in combat. He died however en route.
His mourning companions took the corpse of Agesilaus to bury it in
Sparta, the city of his fathers, whose highest power and decline he had
witnessed. As regards generalship and magnanimity of disposition, the
Spartan king stood far below the Theban citizen, but he equalled him
in simplicity of habits and manner of living, in voluntary poverty, in
disdain of earthly possessions, and in incorruptible rectitude and ardent
patriotism. These were the last bright stars in free Hellas; but while
Epaminondas shone forth to the following generations as the model of a
high-hearted patriotic general, Agesilaus pointed out to his countrymen
the adventurous path of foreign travel and accustomed them to the
dishonourable vocation of a mercenary, to which henceforth Sparta’s rude
citizens abandoned themselves more and more.
[Sidenote: [361-360 B.C.]]
The Athenians made better use of their opportunities. As long as
Epaminondas lived, their enterprises on the sea were without success; so
that several of their generals were condemned to death (as Leosthenes
and Callisthenes), or a mulct was imposed upon them (as on Cephisodotus)
because they had caused losses to the state on account of their
negligence and their unsuccessful undertakings. But after the battle of
Mantinea they not only succeeded in driving the Thebans completely away
from the sea, but they were again successful in uniting the greatest
part of the islands of the Ægean Sea (Eubœa, Chios, Samos, Rhodes,
etc.) under their sea-hegemony; in strengthening their sovereignty in
Chalcidice and Macedonia and on the Gulf of Thermæ; and, after the murder
of the Thracian sovereign Cotys by two youths who had been brought up
in Athens, in again bringing the Thracian Chersonesus under their power
and opening the sea-route to the fertile coast of the Pontus by way of
the Hellespont. As the murderers of a tyrant, the young men of Ænus,
who executed this “divine” deed on the person of Cotys, were honoured
by the Athenians with the rights of citizens and golden wreaths. But
with the good fortune of the Athenians there also returned the old
abuses. The dissolute mercenaries, poorly paid, committed acts of
extortion and oppression; the sovereign assembly often violated the
treaties based on equality of rights, imposed taxes and aids upon the
allied cities, divided territories among Attic colonists (cleruchs) and
forgot the principles of clemency and moderation which had won so many
willing members to their second maritime confederation. Besides, there
was a scarcity of able leaders to replace the aging generals, such as
Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheus, and there was also a waning of
patriotic feeling. Having their own advantage more in mind than the
greatness of their city, the generals tried to acquire independent
possessions and dominions, an effort which was assisted by the increasing
number of the mercenaries, who were taking the place of all the citizen
levies. These conditions, combined with the secret intrigues of the
Thebans, caused new dissatisfaction and brought about the deplorable
social war, which led to the dissolution of the second Athenian maritime
confederation at a time when the latter already comprised about seventy
cities, as the disasters of the last years of the Peloponnesian War were
the cause of the dissolution of the first.[b]
Great changes have taken place in the history of Greece since we left the
Athenian soldiers and sailors rotting in the mines of Sicily. A greater
change is about to take place. Of this it is only necessary to say the
word “Macedonia.” Before we trace the rise of these northerners it will
be well to glance briefly at the busy circumstances of Sicily.[a]
[Illustration: GREEK TERRA-COTTA
(In the British Museum)]
[Illustration]