FROM THE REBUILDING OF THE LONG WALLS OF ATHENS TO THE PEACE OF
ANTALKIDAS.
The presence of Pharnabazus and Konon with their commanding force in
the Saronic Gulf, and the liberality with which the former furnished
pecuniary aid to the latter for rebuilding the full fortifications
of Athens, as well as to the Corinthians for the prosecution of the
war,—seem to have given preponderance to the confederates over
Sparta for that year. The plans of Konon[622] were extensive. He was
the first to organize for the defence of Corinth, a mercenary force
which was afterwards improved and conducted with greater efficiency
by Iphikrates; and after he had finished the fortifications of
Peiræus with the Long Walls, he employed himself in showing his
force among the islands, for the purpose of laying the foundations
of renewed maritime power for Athens. We even hear that he caused
an Athenian envoy to be despatched to Dionysius at Syracuse, with
the view of detaching that despot from Sparta, and bringing him
into connection with Athens. Evagoras, despot of Salamis in Cyprus,
the steady friend of Konon, was a party to this proposition, which
he sought to strengthen by offering to Dionysius his sister in
marriage.[623] There was a basis of sympathy between them arising
from the fact that Evagoras was at variance with the Phœnicians both
in Phœnicia and Cyprus, while Dionysius was in active hostilities
with the Carthaginians (their kinsmen and Colonists) in Sicily.
Nevertheless, the proposition met with little or no success. We find
Dionysius afterwards still continuing to act as an ally of Sparta.
[622] Harpokration, v. ξενικὸν ἐν Κορίνθῳ. Philochorus, Fragm.
150, ed. Didot.
[623] Lysias, Orat. xix, (De Bonis Aristophanis) s. 21.
Profiting by the aid received from Pharnabazus, the Corinthians
strengthened their fleet at Lechæum (their harbor in the Corinthian
Gulf) so considerably, as to become masters of the Gulf, and to
occupy Rhium, one of the two opposite capes which bound its narrow
entrance. To oppose them, the Lacedæmonians on their side were
driven to greater maritime effort. More than one naval action seems
to have taken place, in those waters where the prowess and skill
of the Athenian admiral Phormion had been so signally displayed at
the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. At length the Lacedæmonian
admiral Herippidas, who succeeded to the command of the fleet after
his predecessor Polemarchus had been slain in battle, compelled the
Corinthians to abandon Rhium, and gradually recovered his ascendency
in the Corinthian Gulf; which his successor Teleutias, brother of
Agesilaus, still farther completed.[624]
[624] Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 11.
While these transactions were going on (seemingly during the last
half of 393 B.C. and the full year of 392 B.C.), so as to put an
end to the temporary naval preponderance of the Corinthians,—the
latter were at the same time bearing the brunt of a desultory, but
continued, land-warfare against the garrison of Lacedæmonians and
Peloponnesians established at Sikyon. Both Corinth and Lechæum were
partly defended by the presence of confederate troops, Bœotians,
Argeians, Athenians, or mercenaries paid by Athens. But this did not
protect the Corinthians against suffering great damage, in their
lands and outlying properties, from the incursions of the enemy.
The plain between Corinth and Sikyon,—fertile and extensive
(speaking by comparison with Peloponnesus generally), and
constituting a large part of the landed property of both cities,
was rendered uncultivable during 393 and 392 B.C.; so that the
Corinthian proprietors were obliged to withdraw their servants and
cattle to Peiræum[625] (a portion of the Corinthian territory without
the Isthmus properly so called, north-east of the Akrokorinthus, in a
line between that eminence and the Megarian harbor of Pegæ). Here the
Sikyonian assailants could not reach them, because of the Long Walls
of Corinth, which connected that city by a continuous fortification
of twelve stadia (somewhat less than a mile and a half) with its
harbor of Lechæum. Nevertheless, the loss to the proprietors of
the deserted plain was still so great, that two successive seasons
of it were quite enough to inspire them with a strong aversion
to the war;[626] the more so, as the damage fell exclusively upon
them—their allies in Bœotia, Athens, and Argos, having as yet
suffered nothing. Constant military service for defence, with the
conversion of the city into a sort of besieged post, aggravated
their discomfort. There was another circumstance also, doubtless
not without influence. The consequences of the battle of Knidus had
been, first, to put down the maritime empire of Sparta, and thus to
diminish the fear which she inspired to the Corinthians; next, to
rebuild the fortifications, and renovate the shipping, commercial as
well as warlike, of Athens;—a revival well calculated to bring back
a portion of that anti-Athenian jealousy and apprehension which the
Corinthians had felt so strongly a few years before. Perhaps some
of the trade at Corinth may have been actually driven away by the
disturbance of the war, to the renewed fortifications and greater
security of Peiræus.
[625] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 1; iv, 5, 1.
[626] I dissent from Mr. Fynes Clinton as well as from M.
Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, etc., c. 4, who in the main agrees
with Dodwell’s Annales Xenophontei) in their chronological
arrangement of these events.
They place the battle fought by Praxitas within the Long Walls
of Corinth in 393 B.C., and the destruction of the Lacedæmonian
_mora_ or division by Iphikrates (the monthly date of which is
marked by its having immediately succeeded the Isthmian games),
in 392 B.C. I place the former event in 392 B.C.; the latter in
390 B.C., immediately after the Isthmian games of 390 B.C.
If we study the narrative of Xenophon, we shall find, that after
describing (iv, 3) the battle of Korôneia (August 394 B.C.) with
its immediate consequences, and the return of Agesilaus home,—he
goes on in the next chapter to narrate the land-war about or near
Corinth, which he carries down without interruption (through
Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, of Book iv.) to 389 B.C.
But in Chapter 8 of Book iv, he leaves the land-war, and takes up
the naval operations, from and after the battle of Knidus (Aug.
394 B.C.). He recounts how Pharnabazus and Konon came across the
Ægean with a powerful fleet in the spring of 393 B.C., and how
after various proceedings, they brought the fleet to the Saronic
Gulf and the Isthmus of Corinth, where they must have arrived at
or near midsummer 393 B.C.
Now it appears to me certain, that these proceedings of
Pharnabazus with the fleet, recounted in the eighth chapter,
come, in point of date, _before_ the seditious movements and
the _coup d’état_ at Corinth, which are recounted in the fourth
chapter. At the time when Pharnabazus was at Corinth in midsummer
393 B.C., the narrative of Xenophon (iv, 8, 8-10) leads us to
believe that the Corinthians were prosecuting the war zealously,
and without discontent: the money and encouragement which
Pharnabazus gave them was calculated to strengthen such ardor. It
was by aid of this money that the Corinthians fitted out their
fleet under Agathinus, and acquired for a time the maritime
command of the Gulf.
The discontents against the war (recounted in chap. 4 _seq._)
could not have commenced until a considerable time after the
departure of Pharnabazus. They arose out of causes which only
took effect after a long continuance,—the hardships of the
land-war, the losses of property and slaves, the jealousy towards
Attica and Bœotia as being undisturbed, etc. The Lacedæmonian
and Peloponnesian aggressive force at Sikyon cannot possibly
have been established before the autumn of 394 B.C., and was
most probably placed there early in the spring of 393 B.C.
Its effects were brought about, not by one great blow, but
by repetition of ravages and destructive annoyance; and all
the effects which it produced previous to midsummer 393 B.C.
would be more than compensated by the presence, the gifts,
and the encouragement of Pharnabazus with his powerful fleet.
Moreover, after his departure, too, the Corinthians were at first
successful at sea, and acquired the command of the Gulf, which,
however, they did not retain for more than a year, if so much.
Hence, it is not likely that any strong discontent against the
war began before the early part of 392 B.C.
Considering all these circumstances, I think it reasonable to
believe that the _coup d’état_ and massacre at Corinth took place
(not in 393 B.C., as Mr. Clinton and M. Rehdantz place it, but)
in 392 B.C.; and the battle within the Long Walls rather later
in the same year.
Next, the opinion of the same two authors, as well as of
Dodwell,—that the destruction of the Lacedæmonian _mora_ by
Iphicrates took place in the spring of 392 B.C.,—is also, in my
view, erroneous. If this were true, it would be necessary to pack
all the events mentioned in Xenophon, iv, 4, into the year 393
B.C.; which I hold to be impossible. If the destruction of the
mora did not occur in the spring of 393 B.C., we know that it
could not have occurred until the spring of 390 B.C.; that is,
the next ensuing Isthmian games, two years afterwards. And this
last will be found to be its true date; thus leaving full time,
but not too much time, for the antecedent occurrences.
Fostered by this pressure of circumstances, the discontented
philo-Laconian or peace-party which had always existed at Corinth,
presently acquired sufficient strength, and manifested itself with
sufficient publicity to give much alarm to the government. The
Corinthian government had always been, and still was, oligarchical.
In what manner the administrators or the council were renovated, or
how long individuals continued in office, indeed, we do not know. But
of democracy, with its legal, popular assemblies, open discussions
and authoritative resolves, there was nothing.[627] Now the
oligarchical persons actually in power were vehemently anti-Laconian,
consisting of men who had partaken of the Persian funds and
contracted alliance with Persia, besides compromising themselves
irrevocably (like Timolaus) by the most bitter manifestations
of hostile sentiment towards Sparta. These men found themselves
menaced by a powerful opposition party, which had no constitutional
means for making its sentiments predominant, and for accomplishing
peaceably either a change of administrators or a change of public
policy. It was only by an appeal to arms and violence that such
a consummation could be brought about; a fact notorious to both
parties,—so that the oligarchical administrators, informed of the
meetings and conversations going on, knew well that they had to
expect nothing less than the breaking out of a conspiracy. That such
anticipations were well-founded, we gather even from the partial
recital of Xenophon; who states that Pasimêlus, the philo-Laconian
leader, was on his guard and in preparation,[628]—and counts it to
him as a virtue that shortly afterwards he opened the gates to the
Lacedæmonians.
[627] Plutarch, Dion. c. 53.
[628] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 2. Γνόντες δὲ οἱ Ἀργεῖοι καὶ Βοιωτοὶ
καὶ Ἀθηναῖοι καὶ Κορινθίων οἵ τε τῶν παρὰ βασιλέως χρημάτων
μετεσχηκότες, καὶ οἱ τοῦ πολέμου αἰτιώτατοι γεγενημένοι, ὡς,
εἰ μὴ ἐκποδὼν ποιήσαιντο τοὺς ἐπὶ τὴν εἰρήνην τετραμμένους,
κινδυνεύσει πάλιν ἡ πόλις λακωνίσαι—οὕτω δὴ καὶ σφαγὰς
ἐπεχείρουν ποιεῖσθαι.
iv, 4, 4. Οἱ δὲ νεώτεροι, ὑποπτεύσαντος Πασιμήλου τὸ μέλλον
ἔσεσθαι, ἡσυχίαν ἔσχον ἐν τῷ Κρανίῳ· ὡς δὲ τῆς κραυγῆς ἤσθοντο,
καὶ φεύγοντές τινες ἐκ τοῦ πράγματος ἀφίκοντο πρὸς αὐτούς, ἐκ
τούτου ἀναδραμόντες κατὰ τὸν Ἀκροκόρινθον, προσβαλόντας μὲν
Ἀργείους καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπεκρούσαντο, etc.
Anticipating such conspiracy, the government resolved to prevent
it by a _coup d’état_. They threw themselves upon the assistance
of their allies, invited in a body of Argeians, and made their
blow the more sure by striking it on the last day of the festival
called Eukleia, when it was least expected. Their proceeding, though
dictated by precaution, was executed with the extreme of brutal
ferocity aggravated by sacrilege; in a manner very different from the
deep-laid artifices recently practised by the Spartan ephors when
they were in like manner afraid of the conspiracy of Kinadon,—and
more like the oligarchical conspirators at Korkyra (in the third year
of the Peloponnesian war) when they broke into the assembled Senate,
and massacred Peithias, with sixty others in the senate-house.[629]
While the choice performers at Corinth were contending for the prize
in the theatre, with judges formally named to decide,—and while
the market-place around was crowded with festive spectators,—a
number of armed men were introduced, probably Argeians, with leaders
designating the victims whom they were to strike. Some of these
select victims were massacred in the market-place, others in the
theatre, and one even while sitting as a judge in the theatre.
Others again fled in terror to embrace the altars or statues in the
market-place,—which sanctuary, nevertheless, did not save their
lives. Nor was such sacrilege arrested,—repugnant as it was to
the feelings of the assembled spectators and to Grecian feelings
generally,—until one hundred and twenty persons had perished.[630]
But the persons slain were chiefly elderly men; for the younger
portion of the philo-Laconian party, suspecting some mischief, had
declined attending the festival, and kept themselves separately
assembled under their leader Pasimêlus in the gymnasium and
cyprus-grove called Kranium, just without the city-gates. We find,
too, that they were not only assembled, but actually in arms. For the
moment that they heard the clamor in the market-place, and learned
from some fugitives what was going on, they rushed up at once to
the Akrokorinthus (or eminence and acropolis overhanging the city)
and got possession of the citadel,—which they maintained with such
force and courage that the Argeians and the Corinthians, who took
part with the government, were repulsed in the attempt to dislodge
them. This circumstance, indirectly revealed in the one-sided
narrative of Xenophon, lets us into the real state of the city, and
affords good ground for believing that Pasimêlus and his friends were
prepared beforehand for an armed outbreak, but waited to execute it,
until the festival was over,—a scruple which the government, in
their eagerness to forestall the plot, disregarded,—employing the
hands and weapons of Argeians who were comparatively unimpressed by
solemnities peculiar to Corinth.[631]
[629] Thucyd. iii, 70.
[630] Diodorus (xiv, 86) gives this number, which seems very
credible. Xenophon (iv, 4, 4) only says πολλοί.
[631] In recounting this alternation of violence projected,
violence perpetrated, recourse on the one side to a foreign
ally, treason on the other by admitting an avowed enemy,—which
formed the _modus operandi_ of opposing parties in the
oligarchical Corinth,—I invite the reader to contrast it with
the democratical Athens.
At Athens, in the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, there were
precisely the same causes at work, and precisely the same marked
antithesis of parties, as those which here disturbed Corinth.
There was first, a considerable Athenian minority who opposed
the war with Sparta from the first; next, when the war began,
the proprietors of Attica saw their lands ruined, and were
compelled either to carry away, or to lose, their servants and
cattle, so that they obtained no returns. The intense discontent,
the angry complaints, the bitter conflict of parties, which
these circumstances raised among the Athenian citizens,—not to
mention the aggravation of all these symptoms by the terrible
epidemic,—are marked out in Thucydides, and have been recorded
in the fifth volume of this history. Not only the positive loss
and suffering, but all other causes of exasperation, stood at a
higher pitch at Athens in the early part of the Peloponnesian
war, than at Corinth in 392 B.C.
Yet what were the effects which they produced? Did the minority
resort to a conspiracy,—or the majority to a _coup d’état_—or
either of them to invitation of foreign aid against the other?
Nothing of the kind. The minority had always open to them the
road of pacific opposition, and the chance of obtaining a
majority in the Senate or in the public assembly, which was
practically identical with the totality of the citizens. Their
opposition, though pacific as to acts, was sufficiently animated
and violent in words and propositions, to serve as a real
discharge for imprisoned angry passion. If they could not carry
the adoption of their general policy, they had the opportunity
of gaining partial victories which took off the edge of a fierce
discontent; witness the fine imposed upon Perikles (Thucyd.
ii, 65) in the year before his death, which both gratified and
mollified the antipathy against him, and brought about shortly
afterwards a strong reaction in his favor. The majority, on the
other hand, knew that the predominance of its policy depended
upon its maintaining its hold on a fluctuating public assembly,
against the utmost freedom of debate and attack, within certain
forms and rules prescribed by the constitution; attachment to
the latter being the cardinal principle of political morality in
both parties. It was this system which excluded on both sides the
thought of armed violence. It produced among the democratical
citizens of Athens that characteristic insisted upon by Kleon
in Thucydides,—“constant and fearless security and absence of
treacherous hostility among one another” (διὰ γὰρ τὸ καθ᾽ ἡμέραν
ἀδεὲς καὶ ἀνεπιβούλευτον πρὸς ἀλλήλους, καὶ ἐς τοὺς ξυμμάχους τὸ
αὐτὸ ἔχετε—Thuc. iii, 37), the entire absence of which stands
so prominently forward in these deplorable proceedings of the
oligarchical Corinth. Pasimêlus and his Corinthian minority had
no assemblies, dikasteries, annual Senate, or constant habit of
free debate and accusation, to appeal to; their only available
weapon was armed violence, or treacherous correspondence with a
foreign enemy. On the part of the Corinthian government, superior
or more skilfully used force, or superior alliance abroad, was
the only weapon of defence, in like manner.
I shall return to this subject in a future chapter, where I enter
more at large into the character of the Athenians.
Though Pasimêlus and his friends were masters of the citadel, and had
repulsed the assault of their enemies, yet the _coup d’état_ had
been completely successful in overawing their party in the city, and
depriving them of all means of communicating with the Lacedæmonians
at Sikyon. Feeling unable to maintain themselves, they were besides
frightened by menacing omens, when they came to offer sacrifice,
in order that they might learn whether the gods encouraged them to
fight or not. The victims were found so alarming, as to drive them
to evacuate the post and prepare for voluntary exile. Many of them
(according to Diodorus five hundred)[632] actually went into exile;
while others, and among them Pasimêlus himself, were restrained by
the entreaties of their friends and relatives, combined with solemn
assurances of peace and security from the government; who now,
probably, felt themselves victorious, and were anxious to mitigate
the antipathies which their recent violence had inspired. These
pacific assurances were faithfully kept, and no farther mischief was
done to any citizen.
[632] Diodor. xiv, 86; Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 5.
But the political condition of Corinth was materially altered, by an
extreme intimacy of alliance and communion now formed with Argos;
perhaps combined with reciprocal rights of intermarriage, and of
purchase and sale. The boundary pillars or hedges which separated the
two territories, were pulled up, and the city was entitled _Argos_
instead of _Corinth_ (says Xenophon); such was probably the invidious
phrase in which the opposition party described the very close
political union now formed between the two cities; upheld by a strong
Argeian force in the city and acropolis, together with some Athenian
mercenaries under Iphikrates, and some Bœotians as a garrison in
the port of Lechæum. Most probably the government remained still
Corinthian, and still oligarchical, as before. But it now rested upon
Argeian aid, and was therefore dependent chiefly upon Argos, though
partly also upon the other two allies.
To Pasimêlus and his friends such a state of things was intolerable.
Though personally they had no ill-usage to complain of, yet the
complete predominance of their political enemies was quite sufficient
to excite their most vehement antipathies. They entered into
secret correspondence with Praxitas, the Lacedæmonian commander at
Sikyon, engaging to betray to him one of the gates in the western
Long Wall between Corinth and Lechæum. The scheme being concerted,
Pasimêlus and his partisans got themselves placed,[633] partly by
contrivance and partly by accident, on the night-watch at this gate;
an imprudence, which shows that the government not only did not
maltreat them, but even admitted them to trust. At the moment fixed,
Praxitas,—presenting himself with a Lacedæmonian _mora_ or regiment,
a Sikyonian force, and the Corinthian exiles,—found the treacherous
sentinels prepared to open the gates. Having first sent in a trusty
soldier to satisfy him that there was no deceit,[634] he then
conducted all his force within the gates, into the mid-space between
the two Long Walls. So broad was this space, and so inadequate did
his numbers appear to maintain it, that he took the precaution of
digging a cross-ditch with a palisade to defend himself on the side
towards the city; which he was enabled to do undisturbed, since the
enemy (we are not told why) did not attack him all the next day.
On the ensuing day, however, Argeians, Corinthians, and Athenian
mercenaries under Iphikrates, all came down from the city in full
force; the latter stood on the right of the line, along the eastern
wall, opposed to the Corinthian exiles on the Lacedæmonian left;
while the Lacedæmonians themselves were on their own right, opposed
to the Corinthians from the city; and the Argeians, opposed to the
Sikyonians, in the centre.
[633] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 8. καὶ κατὰ τύχην καὶ κατ᾽ ἐπιμέλειαν,
etc.
[634] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 8. Nothing can show more forcibly the
Laconian bias of Xenophon, than the credit which he gives to
Pasimêlus for his good faith towards the Lacedæmonians whom he
was letting in; overlooking or approving his treacherous betrayal
towards his own countrymen, in thus opening a gate which he
had been trusted to watch. τὼ δ᾽ εἰσηγαγέτην, καὶ ~οὕτως ἁπλῶς
ἀπεδειξάτην~, ὥστε ὁ εἰσελθὼν ἐξήγγειλε, πάντα εἶναι ἀδόλως,
οἷάπερ ἐλεγέτην.
It was here that the battle began; the Argeians, bold from superior
numbers, attacked and broke the Sikyonians, tearing up the palisade,
and pursuing them down to the sea with much slaughter;[635] upon
which Pasimachus the Lacedæmonian commander of cavalry, coming to
their aid, caused his small body of horsemen to dismount and tie
their horses to trees, and then armed them with shields taken from
the Sikyonians, inscribed on the outside with the letter Sigma
(Σ). With these he approached on foot to attack the Argeians, who,
mistaking them for Sikyonians, rushed to the charge with alacrity;
upon which Pasimachus exclaimed,—“By the two gods, Argeians, these
Sigmas which you see here will deceive you;” he then closed with
them resolutely, but his number was so inferior that he was soon
overpowered and slain. Meanwhile, the Corinthian exiles on the left
had driven back Iphikrates with his mercenaries (doubtless chiefly
light troops) and pursued them even to the city gates; while the
Lacedæmonians, easily repelling the Corinthians opposed to them,
came out of their palisade, and planted themselves with their faces
towards the eastern wall, but at a little distance from it, to
intercept the Argeians on their return. The latter were forced to
run back as they could, huddling close along the eastern wall, with
their right or unshielded side exposed, as they passed, to the spears
of the Lacedæmonians. Before they could get to the walls of Corinth,
they were met and roughly handled by the victorious Corinthian
exiles. And even when they came to the walls, those within, unwilling
to throw open the gates for fear of admitting the enemy, contented
themselves with handing down ladders, over which the defeated
Argeians clambered with distress and difficulty. Altogether, their
loss in this disastrous retreat was frightful. Their dead (says
Xenophon) lay piled up like heaps of stones or wood.[636]
[635] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4. 10. Καὶ τοὺς μὲν Σικυωνίους ἐκράτησαν
καὶ διασπάσαντες τὸ σταύρωμα ἐδίωκον ἐπὶ θάλασσαν, καὶ ἐκεῖ
πολλοὺς αὐτῶν ἀπέκτειναν.
It would appear from hence that there must have been an open
portion of Lechæum, or a space apart from (but adjoining to) the
wall which encircled Lechæum, yet still within the Long Walls.
Otherwise the fugitive Sikyonians could hardly have got down to
the sea.
[636] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 12. Οὕτως ἐν ὀλίγῳ πολλοὶ ἔπεσον, ὥστε
εἰθισμένοι ὁρᾷν οἱ ἄνθρωποι σωροὺς σίτου, ξύλων, λίθου, τότε
ἐθεάσαντο σωροὺς νεκρῶν.
A singular form of speech.
This victory of Praxitas and the Lacedæmonians, though it did
not yet make them masters of Lechæum,[637] was, nevertheless,
of considerable importance. Shortly afterwards they received
reinforcements which enabled them to turn it to still better account.
The first measure of Praxitas was to pull down a considerable breadth
of the two walls, leaving a breach which opened a free passage for
any Lacedæmonian army from Sikyon to reach and pass the isthmus. He
then marched his troops through the breach, forward on the road to
Megara, capturing the two Corinthian dependencies of Krommyon and
Sidus on the Saronic gulf, in which he placed garrisons. Returning
back by the road south of Corinth, he occupied Epieikia on the
frontier of Epidaurus, as a protection to the territory of the latter
against incursions from Corinth,—and then disbanded his army.
[637] Diodorus (xiv, 87) represents that the Lacedæmonians on
this occasion surprised and held Lechæum, defeating the general
body of the confederates who came out from Corinth to retake it.
But his narrative of all these circumstances differs materially
from that of Xenophon; whom I here follow in preference, making
allowance for great partiality, and for much confusion and
obscurity.
Xenophon gives us plainly to understand, that Lechæum was <i>not</i>
captured by the Lacedæmonians until the following year, by
Agesilaus and Teleutias.
It is to be recollected that Xenophon had particular means of
knowing what was done by Agesilaus, and therefore deserves credit
on that head,—always allowing for partiality. Diodorus does not
mention Agesilaus in connection with the proceedings at Lechæum.
A desultory warfare was carried on during the ensuing winter and
spring between the opposite garrisons in Corinth and Sikyon. It
was now that the Athenian Iphikrates, in the former place, began
to distinguish himself at the head of his mercenary peltasts whom,
after their first organization by Konon, he had trained to effective
tactics under the strictest discipline, and whose movements he
conducted with consummate skill. His genius introduced improvements
both in their armor and in their clothing. He lengthened by one
half both the light javelin and the short sword, which the Thracian
peltasts habitually carried; he devised a species of leggings,
known afterwards by the name of Iphikratides; and he thus combined,
better than had ever been done before, rapid motion,—power of
acting in difficult ground and open order,—effective attack, either
by missiles or hand to hand, and dexterous retreat in case of
need.[638] As yet, he was but a young officer, in the beginning
of his military career.[639] We must therefore presume that these
improvements were chiefly of later date, the suggestions of his
personal experience; but even now, the successes of his light troops
were remarkable. Attacking Phlius, he entrapped the Phliasians into
an ambuscade, and inflicted on them a defeat so destructive that
they were obliged to invoke the aid of a Lacedæmonian garrison for
the protection of their city. He gained a victory near Sikyon,
and carried his incursions over all Arcadia, to the very gates of
the cities; damaging the Arcadian hoplites so severely, that they
became afraid to meet him in the field. His own peltasts, however,
though full of confidence against these Peloponnesian hoplites,
still retained their awe and their reluctance to fight against
Lacedæmonians;[640] who, on their side, despised them, but despised
their own allies still more. “Our friends fear these peltasts, as
children fear hobgoblins,”—said the Lacedæmonians, sarcastically,
endeavoring to set the example of courage by ostentatious
demonstrations of their own around the walls of Corinth.[641]
[638] Diodor. xv, 44; Cornelius Nepos, Vit. Iphicrat. c.
2; Polyæn. iii, 9, 10. Compare Rehdantz, Vitæ Iphicratis,
Chabriæ, et Timothei, c. 2, 7 (Berlin, 1845)—a very useful and
instructive publication.
In describing the improvements made by Iphikrates in the armature
of his peltasts, I have not exactly copied either Nepos or
Diodorus, who both appear to me confused in their statements.
You would imagine, in reading their account (and so it has been
stated by Weber, Prolegg. ad Demosth. cont. Aristokr. p. xxxv.),
that there were no peltasts in Greece prior to Iphikrates;
that he was the first to transform heavy-armed hoplites into
light-armed peltasts, and to introduce from Thrace the light
shield or _pelta_, not only smaller in size than the round ἀσπὶς
carried by the hoplite, but also without the ἴτυς (or surrounding
metallic rim of the ἀσπὶς) seemingly connected by outside bars
or spokes of metal with the exterior central knob or projection
(_umbo_) which the hoplite pushed before him in close combat. The
_pelta_, smaller and lighter than the ἀσπὶς, was seemingly square
or oblong and not round; though it had no ἴτυς, it often had thin
plates of brass, as we may see by Xenophon, Anab. v, 2, 29, so
that the explanation of it given in the Scholia ad Platon. Legg.
vii, p. 813 must be taken with reserve.
But Grecian peltasts existed before the time of Iphikrates (Xen.
Hellen. i, 2, 1 and elsewhere); he did not first introduce them;
he found them already there, and improved their armature. Both
Diodorus and Nepos affirm that he lengthened the _spears_ of
the peltasts to a measure half as long again as those of the
hoplites (or twice as long, if we believe Nepos), and the swords
in proportion—“ηὔξησε μὲν τὰ δόρατα ἡμιολίῳ μεγέθει—hastæ
modum duplicavit.” Now this I apprehend to be not exact; nor is
it true (as Nepos asserts) that the Grecian hoplites carried
“short spears”—“brevibus hastis.” The spear of the Grecian
hoplite was long (though not so long as that of the heavy and
compact Macedonian phalanx afterwards became), and it appears
to me incredible that Iphikrates should have given to his light
and active peltast a spear twice as long, or half as long again,
as that of the hoplite. Both Diodorus and Nepos have mistaken
by making their comparison with the arms _of the hoplite_, to
which the changes of Iphikrates had no reference. The peltast
both before and after Iphikrates did not carry a _spear_, but
a _javelin_, which he employed as a missile, to hurl, not to
thrust; he was essentially an ἀκοντιστὴς or javelin-shooter (See
Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 5, 14; vi, 1, 9). Of course the javelin
might, in case of need, serve to thrust, but this was not its
appropriate employment; _e converso_, the spear might be hurled
(under advantageous circumstances, from the higher ground against
an enemy below—Xen. Hellen. ii. 4, 15; v, 4, 52), but its proper
employment was, to be held and thrust forward.
What Iphikrates really did, was, to lengthen both the two
offensive weapons which the peltast carried, before his
time,—the javelin, and the sword. He made the javelin a longer
and heavier weapon, requiring a more practised hand to throw—but
also competent to inflict more serious wounds, and capable
of being used with more deadly effect if the peltasts saw an
opportunity of coming to close fight on advantageous terms.
Possibly Iphikrates not only lengthened the weapon, but also
improved its point and efficacy in other ways; making it more
analogous to the formidable Roman _pilum_. Whether he made any
alteration in the _pelta_ itself, we do not know.
The name _Iphikratides_, given to these new-fashioned leggings or
boots, proves to us that Wellington and Blucher are not the first
eminent generals who have lent an honorable denomination to boots
and shoes.
[639] Justin, vi, 5.
[640] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 16; Diodor. xiv, 91.
Τοὺς μέντοι Λακεδαιμονίους οὕτως αὖ οἱ πελτασταὶ ἐδέδισαν, ὡς
ἐντὸς ἀκοντίσματος οὐ προσῄεσαν τοῖς ὁπλίταις, etc.
Compare the sentiment of the light troops in the attack of
Sphakteria, when they were awe-struck and afraid at first to
approach the Lacedæmonian hoplites—τῇ γνώμῃ δεδουλωμένοι ὡς ἐπὶ
Λακεδαιμονίους, etc. (Thucyd. iv, 34).
[641] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 17. ὥστε οἱ μὲν Λακεδαιμόνιοι καὶ
ἐπισκώπτειν ἐτόλμων, ὡς οἱ σύμμαχοι φοβοῖντο τοὺς πελταστὰς,
ὥσπερ μορμῶνας παιδάρια, etc.
This is a camp-jest of the time, which we have to thank Xenophon
for preserving.
The breach made in the Long Walls of Corinth by Praxitas had laid
open the road for a Peloponnesian army to march either into Attica
or Bœotia.[642] Fortunately for the Athenians, they had already
completed the rebuilding of their own Long Walls; but they were
so much alarmed by the new danger, that they marched with their
full force, and with masons and carpenters accompanying,[643] to
Corinth. Here, with that celerity of work for which they were
distinguished,[644] they in a few days reëstablished completely the
western wall; the more important of the two, since it formed the
barrier against the incursions of the Lacedæmonians from Sikyon. They
had then a secure position, and could finish the eastern wall at
their leisure; which they accordingly did, and then retired, leaving
it to the confederate troops in Corinth to defend.
[642] Xenoph. Agesil. ii, 17. ἀναπετάσας τῆς Πελοποννήσου τὰς
πύλας, etc.
Respecting the Long Walls of Corinth, as part of a line
of defence which barred ingress to, or egress from,
Peloponnesus,—Colonel Leake remarks,—“The narrative of Xenophon
shows the great importance of the Corinthian Long Walls in time
of war. They completed a line of fortification from the summit
of the Acro-Corinthus to the sea, and thus intercepted the most
direct and easy communication from the Isthmus into Peloponnesus.
For the rugged mountain, which borders the southern side of the
Isthmian plain, has only two passes,—one, by the opening on the
eastern side of Acro-Corinthus, which obliged an enemy to pass
under the eastern side of Corinth, and was, moreover, defended
by a particular kind of fortification, as some remains of walls
still testify,—the other, along the shore at Cenchreiæ, which
was also a fortified place in the hands of the Corinthians.
Hence the importance of the pass of Cenchreiæ, in all operations
between the Peloponnesians, and an enemy without the Isthmus.”
(Leake, Travels in Morea, vol. iii, ch. xxviii, p. 254).
Compare Plutarch, Aratus, c. 16; and the operations of
Epaminondas as described by Diodorus, xv, 68.
[643] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 18. ἐλθόντες ~πανδημεὶ~ μετὰ λιθολόγων
καὶ τεκτόνων, etc. The word πανδημεὶ shows how much they were
alarmed.
[644] Thucyd. vi, 98.
This advantage, however,—a very material one,—was again overthrown
by the expedition of the Lacedæmonian king, Agesilaus, during the
same summer. At the head of a full Lacedæmonian and Peloponnesian
force, he first marched into the territory of Argos, and there spent
some time in ravaging all the cultivated plain. From hence he passed
over the mountain-road, by Tenea,[645] into the plain of Corinth,
to the foot of the newly-repaired Long Walls. Here his brother
Teleutias, who had recently superseded Herippidas as admiral in the
Corinthian Gulf, came to coöperate with him in a joint attack, by
sea and land, on the new walls and on Lechæum.[646] The presence of
this naval force rendered the Long Walls difficult to maintain, since
troops could be disembarked in the interval between them, where the
Sikyonians in the previous battle had been beaten and pursued down
to the sea. Agesilaus and Teleutias were strong enough to defeat the
joint force of the four confederated armies, and to master not only
the Long Walls, but also the port of Lechæum,[647] with its docks,
and the ships within them; thus breaking up the naval power of
Corinth in the Krissæan Gulf. Lechæum now became a permanent post of
hostility against Corinth, occupied by a Lacedæmonian garrison, and
occasionally by the Corinthian exiles, while any second rebuilding of
the Corinthian Long Walls by the Athenians became impossible. After
this important success, Agesilaus returned to Sparta. Neither he
nor his Lacedæmonian hoplites, especially the Amyklæans, were ever
willingly absent from the festival of the Hyakinthia; nor did he now
disdain to take his station in the chorus,[648] under the orders of
the choric conductor, for the pæan in honor of Apollo.
[645] The words stand in the text of Xenophon,—εὐθὺς ἐκεῖθεν
ὑπερβαλὼν κατὰ ~Τεγέαν~ εἰς Κόρινθον. A straight march from the
Argeian territory to Corinth could not possibly carry Agesilaus
by _Tegea_; Kœppen proposes ~Τενέαν~, which I accept, as
geographically suitable. I am not certain, however, that it is
right; the _Agesilaus_ of Xenophon has the words κατὰ τὰ στενά.
About the probable situation of Tenea, see Colonel Leake, Travels
in Morea, vol. iii, p. 321; also his Peloponnesiaca, p. 400.
[646] Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 19—iv, 8, 10, 11.
It was rather late in the autumn of 393 B.C. that the
Lacedæmonian maritime operations in the Corinthian Gulf began,
against the fleet recently equipped by the Corinthians out of the
funds lent by Pharnabazus. First, the Lacedæmonian Polemarchus
was named admiral; he was slain,—and his secretary Pollis, who
succeeded to his command, retired afterwards wounded. Next came
Herippidas to the command, who was succeeded by Teleutias. Now if
we allow to Herippidas a year of command (the ordinary duration
of a Lacedæmonian admiral’s appointment), and to the other two
something less than a year, since their time was brought to
an end by accidents,—we shall find that the appointment of
Teleutias will fall in the spring or early summer of 391 B.C.,
the year of this expedition of Agesilaus.
[647] Andokides de Pace, s. 18; Xen. Hellen. iv, 4, 19.
Παρεγένετο δὲ αὐτῷ (Ἀγησιλάῳ) καὶ ὁ ἁδελφὸς Τελευτίας κατὰ
θάλασσαν, ἔχων τριήρεις περὶ δώδεκα· ὥστε μακαρίζεσθαι αὐτῶν τὴν
μητέρα, ὅτι τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ ὧν ~ἔτεκεν ὁ μὲν κατὰ γῆν τὰ τείχη τῶν
πολεμίων, ὁ δὲ κατὰ θάλασσαν τὰς ναῦς καὶ τὰ νεώρια ᾕρηκε~.
This last passage indicates decidedly that Lechæum was not
taken until this joint attack by Agesilaus and Teleutias. And
the authority of Xenophon on the point is superior, in my
judgment, to that of Diodorus (xiv, 86), who represents Lechæum
to have been taken in the year before, on the occasion when the
Lacedæmonians were first admitted by treachery within the Long
Walls.
The passage from Aristeides the rhetor, referred to by Wesseling,
Mr. Clinton, and others, only mentions the _battle_ at
Lechæum—_not the capture_ of the port. Xenophon also mentions a
_battle_ as having taken place close to Lechæum, between the two
long walls, on the occasion when Diodorus talks of the _capture_
of Lechæum; so that Aristeides is more in harmony with Xenophon
than with Diodorus.
A few months prior to this joint attack of Agesilaus and
Teleutias, the Athenians had come with an army, and with masons
and carpenters, for the express purpose of rebuilding the Long
Walls which Praxitas had in part broken down. This step would
have been both impracticable and useless, if the Lacedæmonians
had stood then in possession of Lechæum.
There is one passage of Xenophon, indeed, which looks as if the
Lacedæmonians had been in possession of Lechæum _before_ this
expedition of the Athenians to reëstablish the Long Walls,—Αὐτοὶ
(the Lacedæmonians) ~δ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ Λεχαίου ὁρμώμενοι~ σὺν μόρᾳ
καὶ τοῖς Κορινθίων φυγάσι, κύκλῳ περὶ τὸ ἄστυ τῶν Κορινθίων
ἐστρατεύοντο (iv, 4, 17). But whoever reads attentively the
sections from 15 to 19 inclusive, will see (I think) that this
affirmation may well refer to a period after, and not before,
the capture of Lechæum by Agesilaus; for it has reference to the
general contempt shown by the Lacedæmonians for the peltasts
of Iphikrates, as contrasted with the terror displayed by the
Mantineians and others, of these same peltasts. Even if this
were otherwise, however, I should still say that the passages
which I have produced above from Xenophon show plainly that
_he_ represents Lechæum to have been captured by Agesilaus and
Teleutias; and that the other words, ἐκ τοῦ Λεχαίου ὁρμώμενοι,
if they really implied anything inconsistent with this, must be
regarded as an inaccuracy.
I will add that the chapter of Diodorus, xiv, 86, puts into one
year events which cannot all be supposed to have taken place in
that same year.
Had Lechæum been in possession and occupation by the
Lacedæmonians in the year preceding the joint attack by Agesilaus
and Teleutias, Xenophon would surely have mentioned it in iv,
4, 14; for it was a more important post than Sikyon, for acting
against Corinth.
[648] Xen. Agesilaus, ii, 17.
It was thus that the Long Walls, though rebuilt by the Athenians in
the preceding year, were again permanently overthrown, and the road
for Lacedæmonian armies to march beyond the isthmus once more laid
open. So much were the Athenians and the Bœotians alarmed at this
new success, that both appear to have become desirous of peace, and
to have sent envoys to Sparta. The Thebans are said to have offered
to recognize Orchomenus (which was now occupied by a Lacedæmonian
garrison) as autonomous and disconnected from the Bœotian federation;
while the Athenian envoys seem to have been favorably received at
Sparta, and to have found the Lacedæmonians disposed to make peace
on better terms than those which had been proposed during the late
discussions with Tiribazus (hereafter to be noticed;) recognizing
the newly built Athenian walls, restoring Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros
to Athens, and guaranteeing autonomy to each separate city in the
Grecian world. The Athenian envoys at Sparta having provisionally
accepted these terms, forty days were allowed for reference to the
people of Athens; to which place Lacedæmonian envoys were sent as
formal bearers of the propositions. The Argeians and Corinthians,
however, strenuously opposed the thoughts of peace, urging the
Athenians to continue the war; besides which, it appears that many
Athenian citizens thought that large restitution ought to have been
made of Athenian property forfeited at the end of the late war,
and that the Thracian Chersonese ought to have been given back as
well as the three islands. On these and other grounds, the Athenian
people refused to sanction the recommendation of their envoys;
though Andokides, one of those envoys, in a discourse still extant,
earnestly advised that they should accept the peace.[649]
[649] Our knowledge of the abortive negotiations adverted to in
the text, is derived, partly from the third Oration of Andokides
called de Pace,—partly from a statement contained in the
Argument of that Oration, and purporting to be borrowed from
Philochorus—Φιλόχορος μὲν οὖν λέγει καὶ ελθεῖν τοὺς πρέσβεις ἐκ
Λακεδαίμονος, καὶ ἀπράκτους ἀνελθεῖν, μὴ πείσαντος τοῦ Ἀνδοκίδου.
Whether Philochorus had any additional grounds to rest upon,
other than this very oration itself, may appear doubtful. But at
any rate, this important fragment (which I do not see noticed
among the fragments of Philochorus in M. Didot’s collection)
counts for some farther evidence as to the reality of the peace
proposed and discussed, but not concluded.
Neither Xenophon nor Diodorus make any mention of such mission to
Sparta, or discussion at Athens, as that which forms the subject
of the Andokidean oration. But on the other hand, neither of them
says anything which goes to contradict the reality of the event;
nor can we in this case found any strong negative inference
on the mere silence of Xenophon, in the case of a pacific
proposition which ultimately came to nothing.
If indeed we could be certain that the oration of Andokides was
genuine it would of itself be sufficient to establish the reality
of the mission to which it relates. It would be sufficient
evidence, not only without corroboration from Xenophon, but even
against any contradictory statement proceeding from Xenophon.
But unfortunately, the rhetor Dionysius pronounced this oration
to be spurious; which introduces a doubt and throws us upon
the investigation of collateral probabilities. I have myself a
decided opinion (already stated more than once), that another
out of the four orations ascribed to Andokides (I mean the
fourth oration, entitled against Alkibiades) is spurious; and I
was inclined to the same suspicion with respect to this present
oration De Pace; a suspicion which I expressed in a former
volume (Vol. V, Ch. xlv, p. 334). But on studying over again
with attention this oration De Pace, I find reason to retract my
suspicion, and to believe that the oration may be genuine. It has
plenty of erroneous allegations as to matter of fact, especially
in reference to times prior to the battle of Ægospotami; but not
one, so far as I can detect, which conflicts with _the situation_
to which the orator addresses himself,—nor which requires us to
pronounce it spurious.
Indeed, in considering _this situation_ (which is the most
important point to be studied when we are examining the
genuineness of an oration), we find a partial coincidence in
Xenophon, which goes to strengthen our affirmative confidence.
One point much insisted upon in the oration is, that the Bœotians
were anxious to make peace with Sparta, and were willing to
relinquish Orchomenus (s. 13-20). Now Xenophon also mentions,
three or four months afterwards, the Bœotians as being anxious
for peace, and as sending envoys to Agesilaus to ask on what
terms it would be granted to them (Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 6). This
coincidence is of some value in reference to the authenticity of
the oration.
Assuming the oration to be genuine, its date is pretty clearly
marked, and is rightly placed by Mr. Fynes Clinton in 391 B.C.
It was in the autumn or winter of that year, four years after
the commencement of the war in Bœotia which began in 395 B.C.
(s. 20). It was _after_ the capture of Lechæum, which took
place in the summer of 391 B.C.—and _before_ the destruction
of the Lacedæmonian _mora_ by Iphikrates, which took place in
the spring of 390 _B.C._ For Andokides emphatically intimates,
that at the moment when he spoke, _not one military success_
had yet been obtained against the Lacedæmonians—καίτοι ποίας
τινος ἂν ἐκεῖνοι παρ᾽ ἡμῶν εἰρήνης ἔτυχον, ~εἰ μίαν μόνον μάχην
ἡττήθησαν~; (s. 19). This could never have been said _after_ the
destruction of the Lacedæmonian _mora_, which made so profound
a sensation throughout Greece, and so greatly altered the
temper of the contending parties. And it seems to me one proof
(among others) that Mr. Fynes Clinton has not placed correctly
the events subsequent to the battle of Corinth, when I observe
that he assigns the destruction of the _mora_ to the year 392
B.C., a year _before_ the date which he rightly allots to the
Andokidean oration. I have placed (though upon other grounds)
the destruction of the _mora_ in the spring of 390 _B.C._, which
receives additional confirmation from this passage of Andokides.
Both Valckenaer and Sluiter (Lect. Andocid. c. x,) consider the
oration of Andokides de Pace as genuine; Taylor and other critics
hold the contrary opinion.
The war being thus continued, Corinth, though defended by a
considerable confederate force, including Athenian hoplites under
Kallias, and peltasts under Iphikrates, became much pressed by the
hostile posts at Lechæum as well as at Krommyon and Sidus,—and by
its own exiles as the most active of all enemies. Still, however,
there remained the peninsula and the fortification of Peiræum as
an undisturbed shelter for the Corinthian servants and cattle,
and a source of subsistence for the city. Peiræum was an inland
post north-east of Corinth, in the centre of that peninsula which
separates the two innermost recesses of the Krissæan Gulf,—the
bay of Lechæum on its south-west, the bay called Alkyonis, between
Kreusis and Olmiæ (now Psatho Bay), on its north-east. Across
this latter bay Corinth communicated easily, through Peiræum and
the fortified port of Œnoê, with Kreusis the port of Thespiæ in
Bœotia.[650] The Corinthian exiles now prevailed upon Agesilaus
to repeat his invasion of the territory, partly in order that
they might deprive the city of the benefits which it derived from
Peiræum,—partly in order that they might also appropriate to
themselves the honor of celebrating the Isthmian games, which were
just approaching. The Spartan king accordingly marched forth, at the
head of a force composed of Lacedæmonians and of the Peloponnesian
allies, first to Lechæum, and thence to the Isthmus, specially so
called; that is, the sacred precinct of Poseidon near Schœnus on the
Saronic Gulf, at the narrowest breadth of the Isthmus, where the
biennial Isthmian festival was celebrated.
[650] Xen. Agesil. ii, 18.
It was the month of April, or beginning of May, and the festival had
actually begun, under the presidency of the Corinthians from the city
who were in alliance with Argos; a body of Argeians being present
as guards.[651] But on the approach of Agesilaus, they immediately
retired to the city by the road to Kenchreæ, leaving their sacrifices
half-finished. Not thinking fit to disturb their retreat, Agesilaus
proceeded first to offer sacrifice himself, and then took a position
close at hand, in the sacred ground of Poseidon, while the Corinthian
exiles went through the solemnities in due form, and distributed the
parsley wreaths to the victors. After remaining three days, Agesilaus
marched away to attack Peiræum. He had no sooner departed, than the
Corinthians from the city came forth, celebrated the festival and
distributed the wreaths a second time.
[651] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 1; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 21.
Xenophon, who writes his history in the style and language of
a partisan, says that “_the Argeians_ celebrated the festival,
Corinth having now become Argos.” But it seems plain that the
truth was as I have stated in the text,—and that the Argeians
stood by (with others of the confederates probably also) to
protect the Corinthians of the city in the exercise of their
usual privilege; just as Agesilaus, immediately afterwards, stood
by to protect the Corinthian exiles while they were doing the
same thing.
The Isthmian games were _trietêric_, that is, celebrated in every
alternate year; in one of the spring months, about April or
perhaps the beginning of May (the Greek months being lunar, no
one of them would coincide regularly with any one of our calendar
months, year after year); and in the _second_ and _fourth_
Olympic years. From Thucydides, viii, 9, 10, we know that this
festival was celebrated in April 412 B.C.; that is, towards
the end of the _fourth_ year of Olympiad 91, about two or three
months before the festival of Olympiad 92.
Dodwell (De Cyclis Diss. vi, 2, just cited), Corsini, (Diss.
Agonistic. iv, 3), and Schneider in his note to this passage of
Xenophon,—all state the Isthmian games to have been celebrated
in the _first_ and _third_ Olympic years; which is, in my
judgment, a mistake. Dodwell erroneously states the Isthmian
games mentioned in Thucydides, viii, 9, to have been celebrated
at the beginning of Olympiad 92, instead of the fourth quarter
of the fourth year of Olympiad 91; a mistake pointed out by
Krüger (_ad loc._) as well as by Poppo and Dr. Arnold; although
the argumentation of the latter, founded upon the time of the
Lacedæmonian festival of the Hyakinthia, is extremely uncertain.
It is a still more strange idea of Dodwell, that the Isthmian
games were celebrated at the same time as the Olympic games
(Annal. Xenoph. ad ann. 392).
Peiræum was occupied by so numerous a guard, comprising Iphikrates
and his peltasts, that Agesilaus, instead of directly attacking
it, resorted to the stratagem of making a sudden retrograde march
directly towards Corinth. Probably, many of the citizens were at that
moment absent for the second celebration of the festival; so that
those remaining within, on hearing of the approach of Agesilaus,
apprehended a plot to betray the city to him, and sent in haste
to Peiræum to summon back Iphikrates with his peltasts. Having
learned that these troops had passed by in the night, Agesilaus
forthwith again turned his course and marched back to Peiræum, which
he himself approached by the ordinary road, coasting round along
the bay of Lechæum, near the Therma, or warm springs, which are
still discernible;[652] while he sent a mora or division of troops
to get round the place by a mountain-road more in the interior,
ascending some woody heights commanding the town, and crowned by
a temple of Poseidon.[653] The movement was quite effectual. The
garrison and inhabitants of Peiræum, seeing that the place had
become indefensible, abandoned it the next day with all their cattle
and property, to take refuge in the Heræum, or sacred ground of
Hêrê Akræa near the western cape of the peninsula. While Agesilaus
marched thither towards the coast in pursuit of them, the troops
descending from the heights attacked and captured Œnoê,[654]—the
Corinthian town of that name situated near the Alkyonian bay over
against Kreusis in Bœotia. A large booty here fell into their hands,
which was still farther augmented by the speedy surrender of all
in the Heræum to Agesilaus, without conditions. Called upon to
determine the fate of the prisoners, among whom were included men,
women, and children,—freemen and slaves,—with cattle and other
property,—Agesilaus ordered that all those who had taken part in
the massacre at Corinth, in the market-place, should be handed over
to the vengeance of the exiles; and that all the rest should be sold
as slaves.[655] Though he did not here inflict any harder measure
than was usual in Grecian warfare, the reader who reflects that this
sentence, pronounced by one on the whole more generous than most
contemporary commanders, condemned numbers of free Corinthian men and
women to a life of degradation, if not of misery,—will understand by
contrast the encomiums with which in my last volume I set forth the
magnanimity of Kallikratidas after the capture of Methymna; when he
refused, in spite of the importunity of his allies, to sell either
the Methymnæan or the Athenian captives,—and when he proclaimed the
exalted principle, that no free Greek should be sold into slavery by
any permission of his.[656]
[652] See Ulrichs, Reisen und Forschungen in Griechenland, chap.
i, p. 3. The modern village and port of Lutráki derives its name
from these warm springs, which are quite close to it and close to
the sea, at the foot of the mountain of Perachora or Peiræum; on
the side of the bay opposite to Lechæum, but near the point where
the level ground constituting the Isthmus (properly so-called),
ends,—and where the rocky or mountainous region, forming the
westernmost portion of Geraneia (or the peninsula of Peiræum),
begins. The language of Xenophon, therefore, when he comes to
describe the back-march of Agesilaus is perfectly accurate,—ἤδη
δ᾽ ἐκπεπερακότος αὐτοῦ τὰ θερμὰ ἐς τὸ πλατὺ τοῦ Λεχαίου, etc.
(iv, 5, 8).
[653] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 4.
Xenophon here recounts how Agesilaus sent up ten men with fire
in pans, to enable those on the heights to make fires and warm
themselves; the night being very cold and rainy, the situation
very high, and the troops not having come out with blankets or
warm covering to protect them. They kindled large fires, and the
neighboring temple of Poseidon was accidentally burnt.
[654] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 5.
This Œnoê must not be confounded with the Athenian town of that
name, which lay on the frontiers of Attica towards Bœotia.
So also the town of Peiræum here noticed must not be confounded
with another Peiræum, which was also in the Corinthian territory,
but on the Saronic Gulf, and on the frontiers of Epidaurus
(Thucyd. viii, 10).
[655] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 5-8.
[656] Xen. Hellen. i, 5, 14. See Vol. VIII, Ch. lxiv, p. 165 of
this History.
The sale of prisoners here directed by Agesilaus belies the
encomiums of his biographers (Xen. Agesil. vii, 6; Cornel. Nep.
Agesil. c. 5).
As the Lacedæmonians had been before masters of Lechæum, Krommyon,
and Sidus, this last success shut up Corinth on its other side,
and cut off its communication with Bœotia. The city not being in
condition to hold out much longer, the exiles already began to lay
their plans for surprising it by aid of friends within.[657] So
triumphant was the position of Agesilaus, that his enemies were all
in alarm, and the Thebans, as well as others, sent fresh envoys
to him to solicit peace. His antipathy towards the Thebans was so
vehement, that it was a great personal satisfaction to him to see
them thus humiliated. He even treated their envoys with marked
contempt, affecting not to notice them when they stood close by,
though Pharax, the proxenus of Thebes at Sparta, was preparing to
introduce them.
[657] Xen. Agesil. vii, 6; Cornelius Nepos, Ages. c. 5.
The story of Polyænus (iii, 9, 45) may perhaps refer to this
point of time. But it is rare that we can verify his anecdotes or
those of the other Tactic writers. M. Rehdantz strives in vain to
find proper places for the sixty-three different stratagems which
Polyænus ascribes to Iphikrates.
Absorbed in this overweening pride and exultation over conquered
enemies, Agesilaus was sitting in a round pavilion, on the banks
of the lake adjoining the Heræum,[658]—with his eyes fixed on
the long train of captives brought out under the guard of armed
Lacedæmonian hoplites, themselves the object of admiration to a crowd
of spectators,[659]—when news arrived, as if under the special
intervention of retributive Nemesis, which changed unexpectedly the
prospect of affairs.[660] A horseman was seen galloping up, his horse
foaming with sweat. To the many inquiries addressed, he returned no
answer, nor did he stop until he sprang from his horse at the feet
of Agesilaus; to whom, with sorrowful tone and features, he made his
communication. Immediately Agesilaus started up, seized his spear,
and desired the herald to summon his principal officers. On their
coming near, he directed them, together with the guards around, to
accompany him without a moment’s delay; leaving orders with the
general body of the troops to follow as soon as they should have
snatched some rapid refreshment. He then immediately put himself in
march; but he had not gone far when three fresh horsemen met and
informed him, that the task which he was hastening to perform had
already been accomplished. Upon this he ordered a halt and returned
to the Heræum; where on the ensuing day, to countervail the bad news,
he sold all his captives by auction.[661]
[658] This Lake is now called Lake Vuliasmeni. Considerable
ruins were noticed by M. Dutroyat, in the recent French survey,
near its western extremity; on which side it adjoins the temple
of Hêrê Akræa, or the Heræum. See M. Boblaye, Recherches
Géographiques sur les Ruines de la Morée, p. 36; and Colonel
Leake’s Peloponnesiaca, p. 399.
[659] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 6.
Τῶν δὲ Λακεδαιμονίων ἀπὸ τῶν ὅπλων σὺν τοῖς δόρασι παρηκολούθουν
φύλακες τῶν αἰχμαλώτων, μάλα ὑπὸ τῶν παρόντων θεωρούμενοι· οἱ γὰρ
εὐτυχοῦντες καὶ κρατοῦντες ἀεί πως ἀξιοθέατοι δοκοῦσιν εἶναι.
Ἔτι δὲ καθημένου τοῦ Ἀγησιλάου, καὶ ἐοικότος ἀγαλλομένῳ τοῖς
πεπραγμένοις, ἱππεύς τις προσήλαυνε, καὶ μάλα ἰσχυρῶς ἱδρῶντι τῷ
ἵππῳ· ὑπὸ πολλῶν δὲ ἐρωτώμενος ὅ,τι ἀγγέλλοι, οὐδενὶ ἀπεκρίνατο,
etc.
It is interesting to mark in Xenophon the mixture of
Philo-Laconian complacency,—of philosophical reflection,—and
of that care in bringing out the contrast of good fortune, with
sudden reverse instantly following upon it, which forms so
constant a point of effect with Grecian poets and historians.
[660] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 22. ἔπαθε δὲ πρᾶγμα νεμεσητὸν, etc.
[661] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 7-9.
This bad news,—the arrival of which has been so graphically
described by Xenophon, himself probably among the bystanders and
companions of Agesilaus,—was nothing less than the defeat and
destruction of a Lacedæmonian _mora_ or military division by the
light troops under Iphikrates. As it was an understood privilege of
the Amyklæan hoplites in the Lacedæmonian army always to go home,
even when on actual service, to the festival of the Hyakinthia,
Agesilaus had left all of them at Lechæum. The festival day being
now at hand, they set off to return. But the road from Lechæum to
Sikyon lay immediately under the walls of Corinth, so that their
march was not safe without an escort. Accordingly the polemarch
commanding at Lechæum, leaving that place for the time under watch by
the Peloponnesian allies, put himself at the head of the Lacedæmonian
_mora_ which formed the habitual garrison, consisting of six hundred
hoplites, and of a _mora_ of cavalry (number unknown)—to protect the
Amyklæans until they were out of danger from the enemy at Corinth.
Having passed by Corinth, and reached a point within about three
miles of the friendly town of Sikyon, he thought the danger over, and
turned back with his _mora_ of hoplites to Lechæum; still, however,
leaving the officer of cavalry with orders to accompany the Amyklæans
as much farther as they might choose, and afterwards to follow him on
the return march.[662]
[662] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 11, 12.
Though the Amyklæans (probably not very numerous) were presumed to
be in danger of attack from Corinth in their march, and though the
force in that town was known to be considerable, it never occurred
to the Lacedæmonian polemarch that there was any similar danger for
his own _mora_ of six hundred hoplites; so contemptuous was his
estimate of the peltasts, and so strong was the apprehension which
these peltasts were known to entertain of the Lacedæmonians. But
Iphikrates, who had let the whole body march by undisturbed, when he
now saw from the walls of Corinth the six hundred hoplites returning
separately, without either cavalry or light troops, conceived the
idea,—perhaps, in the existing state of men’s minds, no one else
would have conceived it,—of attacking them with his peltasts as they
repassed near the town. Kallias, the general of the Athenian hoplites
in Corinth, warmly seconding the project, marched out his troops,
and arrayed them in battle order not far from the gates; while
Iphikrates with his peltasts began his attack upon the Lacedæmonian
_mora_ in flanks and rear. Approaching within missile distance,
he poured upon them a shower of darts and arrows, which killed or
wounded several, especially on the unshielded side. Upon this the
polemarch ordered a halt, directed the youngest soldiers to drive off
the assailants, and confided the wounded to the care of attendants to
be carried forward to Lechæum.[663] But even the youngest soldiers,
encumbered by their heavy shields, could not reach their nimbler
enemies, who were trained to recede before them. And when, after an
unavailing pursuit, they sought to resume their places in the ranks,
the attack was renewed, so that nine or ten of them were slain before
they could get back. Again did the polemarch give orders to march
forward; again the peltasts renewed their attack, forcing him to
halt; again he ordered the younger soldiers (this time, all those
between eighteen and thirty-three years of age, whereas on the former
occasion, it had been those between eighteen and twenty-eight) to
rush out and drive them off.[664] But the result was just the same:
the pursuers accomplished nothing, and only suffered increased loss
of their bravest and most forward soldiers, when they tried to
rejoin the main body. Whenever the Lacedæmonians attempted to make
progress, these circumstances were again repeated, to their great
loss and discouragement; while the peltasts became every moment more
confident and vigorous.
[663] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 14. Τούτους μὲν ἐκέλευον τοὺς
ὑπασπιστὰς ἀραμένους ἀποφέρειν ἐς Λέχαιον· ~οὗτοι καὶ μόνοι τῆς
μόρας τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἐσώθησαν~.
We have here a remarkable expression of Xenophon,—“These were
the only men in the mora who were _really and truly saved_.” He
means, I presume, that they were the only men who were saved
without the smallest loss of honor; being carried off wounded
from the field of battle, and not having fled or deserted their
posts. The others who survived, preserved themselves by flight;
and we know that the treatment of those Lacedæmonians who ran
away from the field (οἱ τρέσαντες), on their return to Sparta,
was insupportably humiliating. See Xenoph. Rep. Laced. ix, 4;
Plutarch, Agesil. c. 30. We may gather from these words of
Xenophon, that a distinction was really made at Sparta between
the treatment of these wounded men here carried off, and that of
the other survivors of the beaten mora.
The ὑπασπισταὶ, or shield-bearers, were, probably, a certain
number of attendants, who habitually carried the shields of the
officers (compare Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 39; Anab. iv, 2, 20),
persons of importance, and rich hoplites. It seems hardly to
be presumed that every hoplite had an ὑπασπιστὴς, in spite of
what we read about the attendant Helots at the battle of Platæa
(Herod. ix, 10-29) and in other places.
[664] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5,15, 16. τὰ δέκα ἀφ᾽ ἥβης—τὰ
πεντεκαίδεκα ἀφ᾽ ἥβης.
Some relief was now afforded to the distressed _mora_ by the coming
up of their cavalry, which had finished the escort of the Amyklæans.
Had this cavalry been with them at the beginning, the result might
have been different; but it was now insufficient to repress the
animated assaults of the peltasts. Moreover, the Lacedæmonian
horsemen were at no time very good, nor did they on this occasion
venture to push their pursuit to a greater range than the younger
hoplites could keep up with them. At length, after much loss in
killed and wounded, and great distress to all, the polemarch
contrived to get his detachment as far as an eminence about a quarter
of a mile from the sea and about two miles from Lechæum. Here,
while Iphikrates still continued to harass them with his peltasts,
Kallias also was marching up with his hoplites to charge them hand
to hand,—when the Lacedæmonians, enfeebled in numbers, exhausted in
strength, and too much dispirited for close fight with a new enemy,
broke and fled in all directions. Some took the road to Lechæum,
which place a few of them reached, along with the cavalry; the rest
ran towards the sea at the nearest point, and observing that some of
their friends were rowing in boats from Lechæum along the shore to
rescue them, threw themselves into the sea, to wade or swim towards
this new succor. But the active peltasts, irresistible in the pursuit
of broken hoplites, put the last hand to the destruction of the
unfortunate _mora_. Out of its full muster of six hundred, a very
small proportion survived to reënter Lechæum.[665]
[665] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 17.
Xenophon affirms the number of slain to have been about two
hundred and fifty—ἐν πάσαις δὲ ταῖς μάχαις καὶ τῇ φυγῇ ἀπέθανον
περὶ πεντήκοντα καὶ διακοσίους. But he had before distinctly
stated that the whole _mora_ marching back to Lechæum under the
polemarch, was six hundred in number—ὁ μὲν πολέμαρχος σὺν τοῖς
ὁπλίταις, οὖσιν ὡς ἑξακοσίοις, ἀπῄει πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ Λέχαιον (iv, 5,
12). And it is plain, from several different expressions, that
all of them were slain, excepting a very few survivors.
I think it certain, therefore, that one or other of these two
numbers is erroneous; either the original aggregate of six
hundred is _above_ the truth,—or the total of slain, two hundred
and fifty, is _below_ the truth. Now the latter supposition
appears to me by far the more probable of the two. The
Lacedæmonians, habitually secret and misleading in their returns
of their own numbers (see Thucyd. v, 74), probably did not choose
to admit publicly a greater total of slain than two hundred and
fifty. Xenophon has inserted this in his history, forgetting that
his own details of the battle refuted the numerical statement.
The total of six hundred is more probable, than any smaller
number, for the entire mora; and it is impossible to assign any
reasons why Xenophon should overstate it.
The horseman who first communicated the disaster to Agesilaus, had
started off express immediately from Lechæum, even before the bodies
of the slain had been picked up for burial. The hurried movement of
Agesilaus had been dictated by the desire of reaching the field in
time to contend for the possession of the bodies, and to escape the
shame of soliciting the burial-truce. But the three horsemen who
met him afterwards, arrested his course by informing him that the
bodies had already been buried, under truce asked and obtained; which
authorized Iphikrates to erect his well-earned trophy on the spot
where he had first made the attack.[666]
[666] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 8-10.
Such a destruction of an entire division of Lacedæmonian hoplites,
by light troops who stood in awe of them and whom they despised, was
an incident, not indeed of great political importance, but striking
in respect of military effect and impression upon the Grecian mind.
Nothing at all like it had occurred since the memorable capture of
Sphakteria, thirty-five years before; a disaster less considerable
in one respect, that the number of hoplites beaten was inferior by
one-third,—but far more important in another respect, that half the
division had surrendered as prisoners; whereas in the battle near
Corinth, though the whole mora (except a few fugitives) perished, it
does not seem that a single prisoner was taken. Upon the Corinthians,
Bœotians, and other enemies of Sparta, the event operated as a joyous
encouragement, reviving them out of all their previous despondency.
Even by the allies of Sparta, jealous of her superiority and bound
to her by fear more than by attachment, it was welcomed with
ill-suppressed satisfaction. But upon the army of Agesilaus (and
doubtless upon the Lacedæmonians at home) it fell like a sudden
thunderbolt, causing the strongest manifestations of sorrow and
sympathy. To these manifestations there was only one exception,—the
fathers, brothers, or sons of the slain warriors; who not only showed
no sorrow, but strutted about publicly with cheerful and triumphant
countenances, like victorious athletes.[667] We shall find the like
phenomenon at Sparta a few years subsequently, after the far more
terrible defeat at Leuktra; the relatives of the slain were joyous
and elate,—those of the survivors, downcast and mortified;[668] a
fact strikingly characteristic both of the intense mental effect
of the Spartan training, and of the peculiar associations which
it generated. We may understand how terrible was the contempt
which awaited a Spartan who survived defeat, when we find fathers
positively rejoicing that their sons had escaped such treatment by
death.
[667] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 10. Ἅτε δὲ ἀήθους τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις
γεγενημένης τῆς τοιαύτης συμφορᾶς, πολὺ πένθος ἦν κατὰ τὸ
Λακωνικὸν στράτευμα, πλὴν ὅσων ἐτέθνασαν ἐν χώρᾳ ἢ υἱοὶ ἢ πατέρες
ἢ ἀδελφοί· ~οὗτοι δὲ, ὥσπερ νικηφόροι, λαμπροὶ καὶ ἀγαλλόμενοι τῷ
οἰκείῳ πάθει περιῄεσαν~.
If any reader objects to the words which I have used in the text
I request him to compare them with the Greek of Xenophon.
[668] Xen. Hellen. vi, 4, 16.
Sorely was Agesilaus requited for his supercilious insult towards
the Theban envoys. When he at last consented to see them, after the
news of the battle, their tone was completely altered. They said
not a word about peace, but merely asked permission to pass through
and communicate with their countrymen in Corinth. “I understand
your purpose (said Agesilaus, smiling),—you want to witness the
triumph of your friends, and see what it is worth. Come along with
me, and I will teach you.” Accordingly, on the next day, he caused
them to accompany him while he marched his army up to the very gates
of Corinth,—defying those within to come out and fight. The lands
had been so ravaged, that there remained little to destroy. But
wherever there were any fruit-trees yet standing, the Lacedæmonians
now cut them down. Iphikrates was too prudent to compromise his
recent advantage by hazarding a second battle; so that Agesilaus had
only the satisfaction of showing that he was master of the field,
and then retired to encamp at Lechæum; from whence he sent back the
Theban envoys by sea to Kreusis. Having then left a fresh mora or
division at Lechæum, in place of that which had been defeated, he
marched back to Sparta. But the circumstances of the march betrayed
his real feelings, thinly disguised by the recent bravado of marching
up to the gates of Corinth. He feared to expose his Lacedæmonian
troops even to the view of those allies through whose territory he
was to pass; so well was he aware that the latter (especially the
Mantineians) would manifest their satisfaction at the recent defeat.
Accordingly, he commenced his day’s march before dawn, and did not
halt for the night till after dark; at Mantineia, he not only did
not halt at all, but passed by, outside of the walls, before day had
broken.[669] There cannot be a more convincing proof of the real
dispositions of the allies towards Sparta, and of the sentiment of
compulsion which dictated their continued adherence; a fact which we
shall see abundantly illustrated as we advance in the stream of the
history.
[669] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 16.
The retirement of Agesilaus was the signal for renewed enterprise
on the part of Iphikrates; who retook Sidus and Krommyon, which had
been garrisoned by Praxitas,—as well as Peiræum and Œnoê, which had
been left under occupation by Agesilaus. Corinth was thus cleared
of enemies on its eastern and north-eastern sides. And though the
Lacedæmonians still carried on a desultory warfare from Lechæum,
yet such was the terror impressed by the late destruction of their
mora, that the Corinthian exiles at Sikyon did not venture to march
by land from that place to Lechæum, under the walls of Corinth,—but
communicated with Lechæum only by sea.[670] In truth, we hear of no
farther serious military operations undertaken by Sparta against
Corinth, before the peace of Antalkidas. And the place became so
secure, that the Corinthian leaders and their Argeian allies were
glad to dispense with the presence of Iphikrates. That officer had
gained so much glory by his recent successes, which the Athenian
orators[671] even in the next generation never ceased to extol,
that his temper, naturally haughty, became domineering; and he
tried to procure, either for Athens or for himself, the mastery of
Corinth,—putting to death some of the philo-Argeian leaders. We
know these circumstances only by brief and meagre allusion; but they
caused the Athenians to recall Iphikrates with a large portion of
his peltasts, and to send Chabrias to Corinth in his place.[672]
[670] Xen. Hellen. iv, 5, 19.
[671] Demosthenes—περὶ Συντάξεως—c. 8, p. 172.
[672] Diodor. xiv, 92; Xen. Hellen. iv, 8, 34.
Aristeides (Panathen. p. 168) boasts that the Athenians were
masters of the Acro-Corinthus, and might have kept the city as
their own, but that they generously refused to do so.
It was either in the ensuing summer,—or perhaps immediately
afterwards during the same summer,—390 B.C., that Agesilaus
undertook an expedition into Akarnania; at the instance of the
Achæans, who threatened, if this were not done, to forsake the
Lacedæmonian alliance. They had acquired possession of the Ætolian
district of Kalydon, had brought the neighboring villagers into a
city residence, and garrisoned it as a dependence of the Achæan
confederacy. But the Akarnanians,—allies of Athens as well as
Thebes, and aided by an Athenian squadron at Œniadæ,—attacked them
there, probably at the invitation of a portion of the inhabitants,
and pressed them so hard, that they employed the most urgent
instances to obtain aid from Sparta. Agesilaus crossed the Gulf at
Rhium with a considerable force of Spartans and allies, and the full
muster of the Achæans. On his arrival the Akarnanians all took refuge
in their cities, sending their cattle up into the interior highlands,
to the borders of a remote lake. Agesilaus, having sent to Stratus to
require them not merely to forbear hostilities against the Achæans,
but to relinquish their alliance with Athens and Thebes, and to
become allies of Sparta,—found his demands resisted, and began to
lay waste the country. Two or three days of operations designedly
slack, were employed to lull the Akarnanians into security; after
which, by a rapid forced march, Agesilaus suddenly surprised the
remote spot in which their cattle and slaves had been deposited
for safety. He spent a day here to sell this booty; merchants,
probably, accompanying his army. But he had considerable difficulty
in his return march, from the narrow paths and high mountains
through which he had to thread his way. By a series of brave and
well-combined hill-movements,—which, probably, reminded Xenophon
of his own operations against the Karduchians in the retreat of the
Ten-Thousand,—he defeated and dispersed the Akarnanians, though
not without suffering considerably from the excellence of their
light troops. Yet he was not successful in his attack upon any
one of their cities, nor would he consent to prolong the war until
seed-time, notwithstanding earnest solicitation from the Achæans,
whom he pacified by engaging to return the next spring. He was,
indeed, in a difficult and dangerous country, had not his retreat
been facilitated by the compliance of the Ætolians; who calculated
(though vainly) on obtaining from him the recovery of Naupaktus,
then held (as well as Kalydon) by the Achæans.[673] Partial as the
success of this expedition had been, however, it inflicted sufficient
damage on the Akarnanians to accomplish its purpose. On learning that
it was about to be repeated in the ensuing spring, they sent envoys
to Sparta to solicit peace; consenting to abstain from hostilities
against the Achæans, and to enrol themselves as members of the
Lacedæmonian confederacy.[674]
[673] Diodor. xv, 73.
[674] Xen. Hellen. iv, 6, 1-14; iv, 7, 1.
It was in this same year that the Spartan authorities resolved on
an expedition against Argos, of which Agesipolis, the other king,
took the command. Having found the border sacrifices favorable, and
crossed the frontier, he sent forward his army to Phlius, where the
Peloponnesian allies were ordered to assemble; but he himself first
turned aside to Olympia, to consult the oracle of Zeus.