THE SPARTAN AND THEBAN SUPREMACIES.
I. THE EXPEDITION OF CYRUS, AND THE RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND.
The aid given by Cyrus the Persian to Sparta in her contest with
Athens, as related in a preceding chapter, was bestowed with
the understanding that Sparta should give him her assistance
against his elder brother, Artaxerxes Mne'mon, should he ever
require it. Accordingly, when the latter succeeded to the Persian
throne, on the death of his father, Cyrus, still governor of
the maritime region of Asia Minor, prepared to usurp his brother's
regal power. For this purpose he raised an army of one hundred
thousand Persians, which he strengthened with an auxiliary force
of thirteen thousand Greeks, drawn principally from the cities
of Asia under the dominion of Sparta. On the Grecian force,
commanded by Cle-ar'chus, a Spartan, Cyrus placed his main reliance
for success.
With these forces Cyrus marched from Sardis, in the spring of
401, to within seventy miles of Babylon without the least
opposition. Here, however, he was met by Artaxerxes, it the head
of nine hundred thousand men. This immense force was at first
driven back; but in the conflict that ensued Cyrus rashly charged
the guards that surrounded his brother, and was slain. His Persian
troops immediately fled, leaving the Greeks almost alone, in
the presence of an immense hostile force, and more than a thousand
miles from any friendly territory. The victorious enemy proposed
to the Grecians terms of accommodation, but, having invited
Clearchus and other leaders to a conference, they treacherously
put them to death. No alternative now remained to the Greeks
but to submit to the Persians or fight their way back to their
own land. They bravely chose the latter course--and, selecting
Xenophon, a young Athenian, for their leader, after a four months'
march, attended with great suffering and almost constant battling
with brave and warlike tribes, ten thousand of their number
succeeded in reaching the Grecian settlements on the Black Sea.
Proclaiming their joy by loud shouts of "The sea! the sea!" The
Greek heroes gave vent to their exultation in tears and mutual
embraces.
Hence, through the continent, ten thousand Greeks
Urged a retreat, whose glory not the prime
Of victories can reach. Deserts in vain
Opposed their course; and hostile lands, unknown;
And deep, rapacious floods, dire banked with death;
And mountains, in whose jaws destruction grinned;
Hunger and toil; Armenian snows and storms;
And circling myriads still of barbarous foes.
Greece in their view, and glory yet untouched,
Their steady column pierced the scattering herds
Which a whole empire poured; and held its way
Triumphant, by the sage, exalted chief
Fired and sustained.
O light, and force of mind,
Almost mighty in severe extremes!
The sea at last from Colchian mountains seen,
Kind-hearted transport round their captains threw
The soldiers' fond embrace; o'erflowed their eyes
With tender floods, and loosed the general voice
To cries resounding loud--"The sea! the sea!"
--THOMSON.
Xenophon, who afterward became an historian of his country, has
left an admirable narrative of this expedition, and "The Retreat
of the Ten Thousand," in his Anab'asis, written with great
clearness and singular modesty. Referring to the expedition, and
to the historian's account of it, DR. CURTIUS makes the following
interesting observations:
"Although this military expedition possesses no immediate
significance for political history, yet it is of high importance,
not only for our knowledge of the East, but also for that of
the Greek character; and the accurate description which we owe
to Xenophon is, therefore, one of the most valuable documents
of antiquity. We see a band of Greeks of the most various origin,
torn out of all their ordinary spheres of life, in a strange
quarter of the globe, in a long complication of incessant
movements, and of situations ever-varying and full of peril, in
which the real nature of these men could not but display itself
with the most perfect truthfulness. This army is a typical chart,
in many colors, of the Greek population--a picture, on a small
scale, of the whole people, with all its virtues and faults,
its qualities of strength and of weakness--a wandering political
community, which, according to home usage, holds its assemblies
and passes its resolutions, and at the same time a wild and not
easily manageable band of free-lances. They are men in full measure
agitated by the unquiet spirit of the times, which had destroyed
in them their affection for their native land; and yet how closely
they cling to its most ancient traditions! Visions in dream and
omens, sent by the gods, decide the most important resolutions,
just as in the Homeric camp before Troy: most assiduously the
sacrifices are lit, the pæans sung, altars erected, and games
celebrated, in honor of the savior gods, when at last the aspect
of the longed-for sea animates afresh their vigor and their courage.
"This multitude has been brought together by love of lucre and
quest of adventure; and yet in the critical moment there manifest
themselves a lively sense of honor and duty, a lofty heroic spirit,
and a sure tact in perceiving what counsels are the best. Here,
too, is visible the mutual jealousy existing among the several
tribes of the nation; but the feeling of their belonging together,
the consciousness of national unity, prevail over all; and the
great mass is capable of sufficient good-sense and self-denial
to subordinate itself to those who, by experience, intelligence,
and moral courage, attest themselves as fitted for command. And
how very remarkable it is that in this mixed multitude of Greeks
it is an Athenian who by his qualities towers above all the rest,
and becomes the real preserver of the entire army! Xenophon had
only accompanied the army as a volunteer; yet it was he who,
obeying an inner call, re-awakened a higher, a Hellenic
consciousness, courage, and prudence among his comrades, and
who brought about the first salutary resolutions. Possessing
the Athenian superiority of culture which enabled him to serve
these warriors as spokesman, negotiator, and general, to him
it was essentially due that, in spite of unspeakable trials,
they finally reached the coast." [Footnote: "History of Greece,"
vol. iv., pp. 191, 192.]
* * * * *
II. THE SUPREMACY OF SPARTA.
On the fall of Athens, Sparta became the mistress of Greece.
Her power and his own wealth induced Lysander to appear again
in public life. He first attempted to overthrow the two regal
families of Sparta, and, by making the crown an elective office,
secure his own accession to it. But he failed in this, although,
on the death of A'gis, King of Sparta, he succeeded in setting
aside Leo-tych'i-des, the son and rightful successor of Agis,
and giving the office to Agesila'us, the late king's brother.
The government of Sparta now became far more oppressive than
that of Athens had been, and it was not long before some of the
Grecian states under her sway united in a league against her.
The part which the Greek cities of Asia took in the expedition
of Cyrus involved them in a war with Persia, in which they were
aided by the Spartans. Agesila'us entered Asia with a considerable
force (396 B.C.), and in the following year he defeated the Persians
in a great battle on the plains of Sardis, in Lydia. But in 394
the Spartan king was called home to avert the dangers which
threatened his country in a war that had been fomented by the
Persian king in order to save his dominions from the ravages
of the Spartans. The King of Persia had supplied Athens with
a fleet which defeated the Spartan navy at Cni'dus, and Persian
gold rebuilt the walls of Athens. A battle soon followed between
the Spartans on one side and the Thebans and Athenians on the
other, in which the former were defeated and Lysander was slain.
On the other hand, Athens and her allies were defeated, in the
same year, in the vicinity of Corinth, and on the plains of
Corone'a. Finally, after the war had continued eight years, and
Sparta had virtually lost her maritime power, the peace of
Antal'cidas, as it is called, was concluded with Persia, at the
instance of Sparta, and was ratified by all the states engaged
in the contest (387 B.C.).
By the treaty with Persia, Athens regained three of the islands
she had been obliged to relinquish to Sparta under Lysander;
but the Greek cities in Asia were given up to Persia, and both
Athens and Sparta lost their former allies. It was the unworthy
jealousy of the Grecians, which the Persian king knew how to
stimulate, that prompted them to give up to a barbarian the free
cities of Asia; and this is the darkest shade in the picture.
Though Sparta was the most strongly in favor of the terms of
the treaty, yet Athens was the greatest gainer, for she once
more became an independent and powerful state.
It was not long before ambition, and the resentment of past
injuries, involved Sparta in new wars. When her thirty years'
truce with Mantine'a had expired, she compelled that city, which
had formerly been an unwilling ally, to throw down her walls,
and dismember her territory into the four or five villages out
of which it had been formed. Each of these divisions was now
left unfortified, and placed under a separate oligarchical
government. Sparta did this under the pretext that the
Mantine'ans had supplied one of her enemies with provisions
during the preceding war, and had evaded their share of service
in the Spartan army. The jealousy of Sparta was next aroused
against the rising power of Olynthus, a powerful confederacy
in the south-eastern part of Macedonia, which had become engaged
in hostilities with some rival cities; and the Spartans readily
accepted an invitation of one of the latter to send an army to
its aid.
The expedition against Olynthus led to an affair of much importance.
As one of the divisions of the Spartan army was marching through
the Theban territories it turned aside, and the Spartan general
treacherously seized upon the Cadme'a, or Theban citadel, although
a state of peace existed between Thebes and Sparta (382 B.C.).
The political morality of Sparta is clearly exhibited in the
arguments by which the Spartan king justified this palpable and
treacherous breach of the treaty of Antal'cidas. He declared
that the only question for the Spartan people to consider was,
whether they were gainers or losers by the transaction. The
assertion made by the Athenians on a prior occasion was confirmed
--that, "of all states, Sparta had most glaringly shown by her
conduct that in her political transactions she measured honor
by inclination, and justice by expediency."
On the seizure of the Theban citadel the most patriotic of the
citizens fled to Athens, while a faction upheld by a Spartan
garrison ruled the place. Thebes now became a member of the
Spartan alliance, and furnished a force for the war against
Olynthus. After a struggle of four years Olynthus capitulated,
the Olynthian Confederacy was thereby dissolved, and the cities
belonging to it were compelled to join the Spartan alliance.
As a modern historian observes, "Sparta thus inflicted a great
blow upon Hellas; for the Olynthian Confederacy might have served
as a counterpoise to the growing power of Macedon, destined soon
to overwhelm the rest of Greece." The power of Sparta had now
attained its greatest height, but, as she was leagued on all
sides with the enemies of Grecian freedom, her unpopularity was
great, and her supremacy was doomed to a rapid decline.
* * * * *
III. THE RISE AND FALL OF THEBES.
Thebes had been nearly four years in the hands of the Spartans
when a few determined residents of the city rose against their
tyrants, and, aided by the exiles who had taken refuge at Athens,
and by some Athenian volunteers, they compelled the Spartan
garrison to capitulate (379 B.C.). At the head of the revolution
were two Theban citizens, Pelop'idas and Epaminon'das, young
men of noble birth and fortune, already distinguished for their
patriotism and private virtues. They are characterized by the
poet THOMSON, as
Equal to the best; the Theban Pair
Whose virtues, in heroic concord joined,
Their country raised to freedom, empire, fame.
By their abilities they raised Thebes, hitherto of but little
political importance, to the first rank in power among the Grecian
states. They have been thus described by the historian CURTIUS:
"Pelopidas was the heroic champion and pioneer who, like Miltiades
and Cimon, with full energy accomplished the tasks immediately
at hand; while Epaminondas was a statesman whose glance took a
wider range, who organized the state at home, and established
its foreign relations upon a thoroughly thought-out plan. He
created the bases of the power of Thebes, as Themistocles and
Aristides had those of the power of Athens; and he maintained
them, so long as he lived, by the vigor of his mind, like another
Pericles. And, indeed, it would be difficult to find in the entire
course of Greek history any other two great statesmen who, in
spite of differences of character and of outward conditions of
life, resembled each other so greatly, and were, as men, so truly
the peers of each other, as Pericles and Epaminondas."
The successes of Thebes revived the jealousy and distrust of Athens,
which concluded a peace with Sparta, and subsequently formed
an alliance with her. But the Thebans continued to be successful,
and at Teg'yra Pelopidas defeated a greatly superior force and
killed the two Spartan generals; while at Leuc'tra Epaminondas,
with a force of six thousand Thebans, defeated the Lacedæmonian
army of more than double that number (371 B.C.). Leuctra has
been called "the Marathon of the Thebans," as their defensive
war was turned by it into a war of conquest. Aided now by the
Arca'dians, Ar'gives, and E'leans, Epaminondas invaded Laconia,
appearing before the gates of Sparta, where a hostile force had
not been seen in five hundred years; but he made no attempt upon
the city, and, after laying waste with fire and sword the valley
of the Euro'tas, he retraced his steps to the frontiers of Arcadia.
Another expedition was undertaken against the Peloponnesus in
367 B.C., and the cities of Achaia immediately submitted, becoming
the allies of Thebes. In 362 the Peloponnesus was invaded for
the last time, and at Mantinea Epaminondas defeated the Spartans
in the most sanguinary contest ever fought among Grecians; but he
fell in the moment of victory, and the glory of Thebes departed
with him. Before his death, having been told that those whom
he intended to be his successors in command had been slain, he
directed the Thebans to make peace. His advice was followed, and
a general peace was soon after established, on the condition
that each state should retain its respective possessions.