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Peace was made as Epaminondas desired, and Boeotia never produced another
great man, as, indeed, the inhabitants had always been slow and dull, so
that a Boeotian was a by-word for stupidity. The only other great
Boeotian was the poet Pindar, who was living at this time.
The fifteen years of Theban power had weakened Sparta; but Agesilaus
persuaded the Ephors to send him to assist Tachos, who had revolted from
the Persians and made himself king of Egypt, and who promised to pay the
Spartans well for their aid. When he sent his officers to receive the
Spartan king who had achieved the greatest fame of any man then living,
they absolutely burst out laughing at the sight of the little, lame man,
now more than eighty years old, and as simply clad as ever; and he was
much vexed and angered that he was not made commander of the army, but
only of the foreign allies; and when Tachos went against his advice, and
chose to march into Phoenicia, he went over to the cause of another
Egyptian prince, a cousin to Tachos, named Nectanebes, whom he helped to
gain the crown of Egypt, thus breaking his promises in a way which we are
sorry should have been the last action of his long life. The next winter
he embarked to return home, but he was driven by contrary winds to a
place in Egypt called the port of Menelaus, because that king of Sparta
had been so long weather-bound there. The storm had been too much for
the tough old frame of Agesilaus, who died there. His body was embalmed
in wax, and carried home to be buried at Sparta, whose greatest man he
certainly was.
The great Persian Empire was growing weak, and her subject cities were
revolting from her. Caria, in Asia Minor, became free under its king,
Mausolus, who reigned twenty-four years, but who is chiefly famous for
the magnificent monument which his widow Artemisia raised to his memory,
and which consisted of several stages of pillars, supported by tablets so
exquisitely sculptured that the Mausoleum, as it was called, was taken
into the number of the seven wonders of the world. After all, its
splendour did not comfort the heart of Artemisia, and she had the ashes
of her husband taken from his urn and carried them about her in a casket,
until finally she put them in water and drank them, so as to be for ever
one with them. She was herself buried in the Mausoleum, the remains of
which have lately been discovered, and are now placed in the British
Museum.
One more great man had grown up in Athens--namely, Demosthenes. He was
the son of an Athenian sword merchant, who died when he was but seven
years [Picture: Demosthenes] old. His guardians neglected his property,
and he was a sickly boy, with some defect in his speech, so that his
mother kept him at home as much as she could, and he was never trained in
mind or body like the other Athenian youth; but, as he grew older, he
seems to have learned much from the philosopher Plato, and he set himself
to lead the Athenians as a public speaker. For this he prepared himself
diligently, putting pebbles in his mouth to overcome his stammering, and
going out to make speeches to the roaring waves of the sea, that he might
learn not to be daunted by the shouts of the raging people; and thus he
taught himself to be the most famous orator in the world, just as Phidias
was the greatest sculptor and AEschylus the chief tragedian.
His most eloquent discourses are called Philippics, because they were
against Philip, king of Macedon, a power that was growing very dangerous
to the rest of Greece. It lay to the northward of the other states, and
had never quite been reckoned as part of Greece, for a rough dialect that
was spoken there, and the king had been forced to join the Persian army
when Xerxes crossed his country; but he had loved the Greek cause, and
had warned Aristides at the battle of Plataea. The royal family counted
Hercules as their forefather, and were always longing to be accepted as
thorough Greeks. One of the young princes, named Philip, was taken to
Thebes by Pelopidas, to secure him from his enemies at home. He was
lodged in the house of Epaminondas' father, and was much struck with the
grand example he there beheld, though he cared more for the lessons of
good policy he then learned than for those of virtue.
Two years after the battle of Mantinea, Philip heard that his elder
brother, the king, was dead, leaving only a young infant upon the throne.
He went home at once and took the guardianship of the kingdom, gained
some great victories over the wild neighbours of Macedon, to the north,
and then made himself king, but without hurting his nephew, who grew up
quietly at his court, and by-and-by married one of his daughters. He had
begun to train his troops to excellent discipline, perfecting what was
called the Macedonian phalanx, a manner of arraying his forces which he
had learned in part from Epaminondas. The phalanx was a body of
heavily-armed foot soldiers, each carrying a shield, and a spear
twenty-four feet long. When they advanced, they were taught to lock
their shields together, so as to form a wall, and they stood in ranks,
one behind the other, so that the front row had four spear points
projecting before them.
He also made the Macedonian nobles send their sons to be trained to arms
at his court, so as to form a guard of honour, who were comrades,
friends, and officers to the king. In the meantime, wars were going
on--one called the Social War and one the Sacred War--which wasted the
strength of the Thebans, Spartans, and Athenians all alike, until Philip
began to come forward, intending to have power over them all. At first,
he marched into Thrace, the wild country to the north, and laid siege to
Methone. In this city there was an archer, named Aster, who had once
offered his service to the Macedonian army, when Philip, who cared the
most for his phalanx, rejected him contemptuously, saying, "I will take
you into my pay when I make war on starlings." This man shot an arrow,
with the inscription on it, "To Philip's right eye;" and it actually hit
the mark, and put out the eye. Philip caused it to be shot back again
with the inscription, "If Philip takes the city, he will hang Aster."
And so he did. Indeed he took the loss of his eye so much to heart, that
he was angry if anyone mentioned a Cyclops in his presence.
After taking Methone, he was going to pass into Thessaly, but the
Athenians held Thermopylae, and he waited till he could ally himself with
the Thebans against the Phocians. He took Phocis, and thus gained the
famous pass, being able to attack it on both sides. Next he listened to
envoys from Messenia and Argos, who complained of the dominion of the
Spartans, and begged him to help them. The Athenians were on this urged
by Demosthenes, in one of his Philippics, to forget all their old hatred
to Sparta, and join her in keeping back the enemy of both alike; and
their intention of joining Sparta made Philip wait, and begin by trying
to take the great island of Euboea, which he called the "Shackles of
Greece." To its aid was sent a body of Athenians, under the command of
Phocion, a friend of Plato, and one of the sternest of Stoics, of whom it
was said that no one had ever seen him laugh, weep, or go to the public
baths. He went about barefoot, and never wrapped himself up if he could
help it, so that it was a saying, "Phocion has got his cloak on; it is a
hard winter." He was a great soldier, and, for the time, drove back the
Macedonians from Euboea. But very few Athenians had the spirit of
Phocion or Demosthenes. They had grown idle, and Philip was bribing all
who would take his money among the other Greeks to let his power and
influence spread, until at last he set forth to invade Greece. The
Thebans and Athenians joined together to stop him, and met him at
Chaeronea, in Boeotia; but neither city could produce a real general, and
though at first the Athenians gained some advantage, they did not make a
proper use of it, so that Philip cried out, "The Athenians do not know
how to conquer," and, making another attack, routed them entirely. Poor
Demosthenes, who had never been in a battle before, and could only fight
with his tongue, fled in such a fright that when a bramble caught his
tunic, he screamed out, "Oh, spare my life!" The battle of Chaeronea was
a most terrible overthrow, and neither Athens nor Thebes ever recovered
it. Macedon entirely gained the chief power over Greece, and Philip was
the chief man in it, though Demosthenes never ceased to try to stir up
opposition to him. Philip was a very able man, and had a good deal of
nobleness in his nature. Once, after a feast, he had to hear a trial,
and gave sentence in haste. "I appeal," said the woman who had lost.
"Appeal? and to whom?" said the king. "I appeal from Philip drunk to
Philip sober." He was greatly struck, heard the case over again the next
day, and found that he had been wrong and the woman right.
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