[87] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 1-8. Αἰσθόμενοι τοὺς Λακεδαιμονίους

ἐπισκοποῦντας τοὺς ξυμμάχους, ὁποῖοί τινες ἕκαστοι ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ

αὐτοῖς ἐγεγένηντο, etc.

[88] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 2. He had before stated, that the

Mantineans had really shown themselves pleased, when the

Lacedæmonian Mora was destroyed near Corinth by Iphikrates (iv,

5, 18).

[89] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 3.

Having first attempted to intimidate the Mantineans by ravaging

their lands, Agesipolis commenced the work of blockade by digging

a ditch around the town; half of his soldiers being kept on guard,

while the rest worked with the spade. The ditch being completed, he

prepared to erect a wall of circumvallation. But being apprised that

the preceding harvest had been so good, as to leave a large stock

of provision in the town, and to render the process of starving it

out tedious both for Sparta and for her allies,—he tried a more

rapid method of accomplishing his object. As the river Ophis, of

considerable breadth for a Grecian stream, passed through the middle

of the town, he dammed up its efflux on the lower side;[90] thus

causing it to inundate the interior of the city and threaten the

stability of the walls; which seem to have been of no great height,

and built of sun-burnt bricks. Disappointed in their application to

Athens for aid,[91] and unable to provide extraneous support for

their tottering towers, the Mantineans were compelled to solicit a

capitulation. But Agesipolis now refused to grant the request, except

on condition that not only the fortifications of their city, but

the city itself, should be in great part demolished; and that the

inhabitants should be re-distributed into those five villages, which

had been brought together, many years before, to form the aggregate

city of Mantinea. To this also the Mantineans were obliged to submit,

and the capitulation was ratified.

[90] In 1627, during the Thirty years’ War, the German town of

Wolfenbüttel was constrained to surrender in the same manner, by

damming up the river Ocker which flowed through it; a contrivance

of General Count Pappenheim, the Austrian besieging commander.

See Colonel Mitchell’s Life of Wallenstein, p. 107.

The description given by Xenophon of Mantinea as it stood in

385 B.C., with the river Ophis, a considerable stream, passing

through the middle of it, is perfectly clear. When the city,

after having been now broken up, was rebuilt in 370 B.C., the

site was so far changed that the river no longer ran through it.

But the present course of the river Ophis, as given by excellent

modern topographical examiners, Colonel Leake and Kiepert, is

at a very considerable distance from the Mantinea rebuilt in

370 B.C.; the situation of which is accurately known, since

the circuit of its walls still remains distinctly marked. The

Mantinea of 370 B.C., therefore, as compared with the Mantinea in

385 B.C., must have been removed to a considerable distance—or

else the river Ophis must have altered its course. Colonel

Leake supposes that the Ophis had been artificially diverted

from its course, in order that it might be brought through the

town of Mantinea; a supposition, which he founds on the words

of Xenophon,—σοφωτέρων γενομένων ταύτῃ γε τῶν ἀνθρώπων, τὸ μὴ

διὰ τειχῶν ποταμὸν ποιεῖσθαι (Hellen. v, 2, 7). But it is very

difficult to agree with him on this point, when we look at his

own map (annexed to the Peloponnesiaca) of the Mantinice and

Tegeatis, and observe the great distance between the river Ophis

and Mantinea; nor do the words of Xenophon seem necessarily to

imply any artificial diversion of the river. It appears easier to

believe that the river has changed its course. See Leake, Travels

in Morea, vol. iii, ch. xxiv, p. 71; and Peloponnesiaca, p. 380;

and Ernst Curtius, Peloponnesos, p. 239—who still, however,

leaves the point obscure.

[91] Diodor. xv, 5.

Though nothing was said in the terms of it about the chiefs of the

Mantinean democratical government, yet these latter, conscious that

they were detested both by their own oligarchical opposition and

by the Lacedæmonians, accounted themselves certain of being put

to death. And such would assuredly have been their fate, had not

Pausanias (the late king of Sparta, now in exile at Tegea), whose

good opinion they had always enjoyed, obtained as a personal favor

from his son Agesipolis the lives of the most obnoxious, sixty in

number, on condition that they should depart into exile. Agesipolis

had much difficulty in accomplishing the wishes of his father. His

Lacedæmonian soldiers were ranged in arms on both sides of the

gate by which the obnoxious men went out; and Xenophon notices it

as a signal mark of Lacedæmonian discipline, that they could keep

their spears unemployed when disarmed enemies were thus within

their reach; especially as the oligarchical Mantineans manifested

the most murderous propensities, and were exceedingly difficult to

control.[92] As at Peiræus before, so here at Mantinea again,—the

liberal, but unfortunate, king Pausanias is found interfering in the

character of mediator to soften the ferocity of political antipathies.

[92] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 6. Οἰομένων δὲ ἀποθανεῖσθαι τῶν

ἀργολιζόντων, καὶ τῶν τοῦ δήμου προστατῶν, διεπράξατο ὁ πατὴρ

(see before, v, 2, 3) παρὰ τοῦ Ἀγησιπόλιδος, ἀσφάλειαν αὐτοῖς

ἔσεσθαι, ἀπαλλαττομένοις ἐκ τῆς πόλεως, ἑξήκοντα οὖσι. Καὶ

ἀμφοτέρωθεν μὲν τῆς ὁδοῦ, ἀρξάμενοι ἀπὸ τῶν πυλῶν ἔχοντες τὰ

δόρατα οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἔστησαν, θεώμενοι τοὺς ἐξιόντας· ~καὶ

μισοῦντες αὐτοὺς ὅμως ἀπείχοντο αὐτῶν ῥᾷον ἢ οἱ βέλτιστοι τῶν

Μαντινέων~· καὶ τοῦτο μὲν εἰρήσθω μέγα τεκμήριον πειθαρχίας.

I have remarked more than once, and the reader will here observe

a new example, how completely the word βέλτιστοι—which is applied

to the wealthy or aristocratical party in politics, as its

equivalent is in other languages, by writers who sympathize with

them—is divested of all genuine ethical import as to character.

The city of Mantinea was now broken up, and the inhabitants were

distributed again into the five constituent villages. Out of

four-fifths of the population, each man pulled down his house in

the city, and rebuilt it in the village near to which his property

lay. The remaining fifth continued to occupy Mantinea as a village.

Each village was placed under oligarchical government, and left

unfortified. Though at first (says Xenophon) the change proved

troublesome and odious, yet presently, when men found themselves

resident upon their landed properties,—and still more, when they felt

themselves delivered from the vexatious demagogues,—the new situation

became more popular than the old. The Lacedæmonians were still better

satisfied. Instead of one city of Mantinea, five distinct Arcadian

villages now stood enrolled in their catalogue of allies. They

assigned to each a separate xenâgus (Spartan officer destined to the

command of each allied contingent), and the military service of all

was henceforward performed with the utmost regularity.[93]

[93] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 7.

He says of this breaking up of the city of Mantinea, διῳκίσθη ἡ

Μαντίνεια τετραχῆ, καθάπερ τὸ ἀρχαῖον ᾤκουν. Ephorus (Fr. 138,

ed. Didot) states that it was distributed into the five original

villages; and Strabo affirms that there were _five_ original

constituent villages (viii, p. 337). Hence it is probable that

Mantinea the city was still left, after this διοίκισις, to

subsist as one of the five unfortified villages; so that Ephorus,

Strabo, and Xenophon may be thus made to agree, in substance.

Such was the dissection or cutting into parts of the ancient city

Mantinea; one of the most odious acts of high-handed Spartan

despotism. Its true character is veiled by the partiality of the

historian, who recounts it with a confident assurance, that after

the trouble of moving was over, the population felt themselves

decidedly bettered by the change. Such an assurance is only to be

credited, on the ground that, being captives under the Grecian laws

of war, they may have been thankful to escape the more terrible

liabilities of death or personal slavery, at the price of forfeiting

their civic community. That their feelings towards the change were

those of genuine aversion, is shown by their subsequent conduct after

the battle of Leuktra. As soon as the fear of Sparta was removed,

they flocked together, with unanimous impulse, to reconstitute and

refortify their dismantled city.[94] It would have been strange

indeed had the fact been otherwise; for attachment to a civic

community was the strongest political instinct of the Greek mind.

The citizen of a town was averse—often most unhappily averse—to

compromise the separate and autonomous working of his community

by joining in any larger political combination, however equitably

framed, and however it might promise on the whole an increase of

Hellenic dignity. But still more vehemently did he shrink from the

idea of breaking up his town into separate villages, and exchanging

the character of a citizen for that of a villager, which was nothing

less than great social degradation, in the eyes of Greeks generally,

Spartans not excepted.[95]

[94] This is mentioned by Xenophon himself (Hellen. vi, 5,

3). The Lacedæmonians, though they remonstrated against it,

were at that time too much humiliated to interfere by force

and prevent it. The reason why they did not interfere by force

(according to Xenophon) was that a general peace had just then

been sworn, guaranteeing autonomy to every distinct town, so

that the Mantineans under this peace had a right to do what

they did—στρατεύειν γε μέντοι ἐπ’ αὐτοὺς οὐ δυνατὸν ἐδόκει

εἶναι, ἐπ’ αὐτονομίᾳ τῆς εἰρήνης γεγενημένης (vi, 5, 5). Of

this second peace, Athens was the originator and the voucher;

but the autonomy which it guaranteed was only the same as had

been professedly guaranteed by the peace of Antalkidas, of which

Sparta had been the voucher.

General autonomy, as interpreted by Athens, was a different thing

from general autonomy as it had been when interpreted by Sparta.

The Spartans, when they had in their own hands both the power

of interpretation and the power of enforcement, did not scruple

to falsify autonomy so completely as to lay siege to Mantinea

and break up the city by force; while, when interpretation and

enforcement had passed to Athens, they at once recognized that

the treaty precluded them from a much less violent measure of

interference.

We may see by this, how thoroughly partial and Laconian is

the account given by Xenophon of the διοίκισις of Mantinea;

how completely he keeps out of view the odious side of that

proceeding.

[95] See the remarkable sentence of the Spartans, in which they

reject the claim of the Pisatans to preside over and administer

the Olympic festival (which had been their ancient privilege)

because they were χωρίται and not fit for the task (Xen. Hellen.

iii, 2, 31): compare χωριτικῶς (Xen. Cyrop. iv. 5, 54).

In truth the sentence executed by the Spartans against Mantinea was

in point of dishonor, as well as of privation, one of the severest

which could be inflicted on free Greeks. All the distinctive glory

and superiority of Hellenism,—all the intellectual and artistic

manifestations,—all that there was of literature and philosophy, or

of refined and rational sociality,—depended upon the city-life of the

people. And the influence of Sparta, during the period of her empire,

was peculiarly mischievous and retrograde, as tending not only to

decompose the federations such as Bœotia into isolated towns, but

even to decompose suspected towns such as Mantinea into villages;

all for the purpose of rendering each of them exclusively dependent

upon herself. Athens, during her period of empire, had exercised no

such disuniting influence; still less Thebes, whom we shall hereafter

find coming forward actively to found the new and great cities of

Megalopolis and Messênê. The imperial tendencies of Sparta are worse

than those of either Athens or Thebes; including less of improving

or Pan-hellenic sympathies, and leaning the most systematically upon

subservient factions in each subordinate city. In the very treatment

of Mantinea just recounted, it is clear that the attack of Sparta was

welcomed at least, if not originally invited, by the oligarchical

party of the place, who sought to grasp the power into their own

hands and to massacre their political opponents. In the first object

they completely succeeded, and their government probably was more

assured in the five villages than it would have been in the entire

town. In the second, nothing prevented them from succeeding except

the accidental intervention of the exile Pausanias; an accident,

which alone rescued the Spartan name from the additional disgrace

of a political massacre, over and above the lasting odium incurred

by the act itself; by breaking up an ancient autonomous city, which

had shown no act of overt enmity, and which was so moderate in its

democratical manifestations as to receive the favorable criticism

of judges rather disinclined towards democracy generally.[96] Thirty

years before, when Mantinea had conquered certain neighboring

Arcadian districts, and had been at actual war with Sparta to

preserve them, the victorious Spartans exacted nothing more than

the reduction of the city to its original district;[97] now they

are satisfied with nothing less than the partition of the city into

unfortified villages, though there had been no actual war preceding.

So much had Spartan power, as well as Spartan despotic propensity,

progressed during this interval.

[96] Aristot. Polit. vi, 2, 2.

[97] Thucyd. v, 81.

The general language of Isokrates, Xenophon, and Diodorus,[98]

indicates that this severity towards Mantinea was only the most

stringent among a series of severities, extended by the Lacedæmonians

through their whole confederacy, and operating upon all such of

its members as gave them ground for dissatisfaction or mistrust.

During the ten years after the surrender of Athens, they had been

lords of the Grecian world both by land and sea, with a power never

before possessed by any Grecian state; until the battle of Knidus,

and the combination of Athens, Thebes, Argos, and Corinth, seconded

by Persia, had broken up their empire at sea, and much endangered

it on land. At length the peace of Antalkidas, enlisting Persia on

their side (at the price of the liberty of the Asiatic Greeks), had

enabled them to dissolve the hostile combination against them. The

general autonomy, of which they were the authorized interpreters,

meant nothing more than a separation of the Bœotian cities from

Thebes,[99] and of Corinth from Argos,—being noway intended to apply

to the relation between Sparta and her allies. Having thus their

hands free, the Lacedæmonians applied themselves to raise their

ascendency on land to the point where it had stood before the battle

of Knidus, and even to regain as much as possible of their empire at

sea. To bring back a dominion such as that of the Lysandrian harmosts

and dekarchies, and to reconstitute a local oligarchy of their most

devoted partisans, in each of those cities where the government had

been somewhat liberalized during the recent period of war,—was their

systematic policy.

[98] Isokrates, Or. iv, (Panegyr.) s. 133, 134, 146, 206; Or.

viii, (De Pace) s. 123; Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 1-8; Diodor. xv, 5,

9-19.

[99] Xen. Hellen. v, 1, 35.

Those exiles who had incurred the condemnation of their

fellow-citizens for subservience to Sparta, now found the season

convenient for soliciting Spartan intervention to procure their

return. It was in this manner that a body of exiled political

leaders from Phlius,—whose great merit it was that the city when

under their government had been zealous in service to Sparta, but

had now become lukewarm or even disaffected in the hands of their

opponents,—obtained from the ephors a message, polite in form but

authoritative in substance, addressed to the Phliasians, requiring

that the exiles should be restored, as friends of Sparta banished

without just cause.[100]

[100] Xen. Hellen. v. 2, 8-10.

The consequences of this forced return are difficult to foresee;

they will appear in a subsequent page.

While the Spartan power, for the few years succeeding the peace of

Antalkidas, was thus decidedly in ascending movement on land, efforts

were also made to reëstablish it at sea. Several of the Cyclades

and other smaller islands were again rendered tributary. In this

latter sphere, however, Athens became her competitor. Since the

peace, and the restoration of Lemnos, Imbros and Skyros, combined

with the refortified Peiræus and its Long Walls,—Athenian commerce

and naval power had been reviving, though by slow and humble steps.

Like the naval force of England compared with France, the warlike

marine of Athens rested upon a considerable commercial marine, which

latter hardly existed at all in Laconia. Sparta had no seamen except

constrained Helots or paid foreigners;[101] while the commerce of

Peiræus had both required and maintained a numerous population of

this character. The harbor of Peiræus was convenient in respect of

accommodation, and well-stocked with artisans,—while Laconia had few

artisans, and was notoriously destitute of harbors.[102] Accordingly,

in this maritime competition, Athens, though but the shadow of her

former self, started at an advantage as compared with Sparta, and

in spite of the superiority of the latter on land, was enabled to

compete with her in acquiring tributary dependencies among the

smaller islands of the Ægean. To these latter, who had no marine of

their own, and who (like Athens herself) required habitual supplies

of imported corn, it was important to obtain both access to Peiræus

and protection from the Athenian triremes against that swarm of

pirates, who showed themselves after the peace of Antalkidas, when

there was no predominant maritime state; besides which, the market of

Peiræus was often supplied with foreign corn from the Crimea, through

the preference shown by the princes of Bosphorus to Athens, at a time

when vessels from other places could obtain no cargo.[103] A moderate

tribute paid to Athens would secure to the tributary island greater

advantages than if paid to Sparta,—with at least equal protection.

Probably, the influence of Athens over these islanders was farther

aided by the fact, that she administered the festivals, and lent

out the funds, of the holy temple at Delos. We know by inscriptions

remaining, that large sums were borrowed at interest from the

temple-treasure, not merely by individual islanders, but also by the

island-cities collectively,—Naxos, Andros, Tenos, Siphnos, Seriphos.

The Amphiktyonic council who dispensed these loans (or at least the

presiding members) were Athenians named annually at Athens.[104]

Moreover, these islanders rendered religious homage and attendance

at the Delian festivals, and were thus brought within the range of a

central Athenian influence, capable, under favorable circumstances,

of being strengthened and rendered even politically important.

[101] Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 3-12.

[102] Xen. Hell. iv, 8, 7.

[103] Isokrates, Orat. xvii, (Trapezit.) s. 71.

[104] See the valuable inscription called the Marmor Sandvicense,

which contains the accounts rendered by the annual Amphiktyons at

Delos, from 377-373 B.C.

Boeckh, Staats-haushaltung der Athener, vol. ii, p. 214, ed. 1;

vol. ii, p. 78 _seq._, ed. 2nd.

The list of cities and individuals who borrowed money from the

temple is given in these accounts, together with the amount of

interest either paid by them, or remaining in arrear.

By such helps, Athens was slowly acquiring to herself a second

maritime confederacy, which we shall presently find to be of

considerable moment, though never approaching the grandeur of

her former empire; so that in the year 380 B.C., when Isokrates

published his Panegyrical Discourse (seven years after the peace of

Antalkidas), though her general power was still slender compared with

the overruling might of Sparta,[105] yet her navy had already made

such progress, that he claims for her the right of taking the command

by sea, in that crusade which he strenuously enforces, of Athens and

Sparta in harmonious unity at the head of all Greece, against the

Asiatic barbarians.[106]

[105] This is the description which Isokrates himself gives

(Orat. xv, (Permutat.) s. 61) of the state of the Grecian world

when he published his Panegyrical Discourse—ὅτε Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν

ἦρχον τῶν Ἑλλήνων, ἡμεῖς δὲ ταπεινῶς ἐπράττομεν, etc.

[106] The Panegyrical Discourse of Isokrates, the date of it

being pretty exactly known, is of great value for enabling us

to understand the period immediately succeeding the peace of

Antalkidas.

He particularly notices the multiplication of pirates, and the

competition between Athens and Sparta about tribute from the

islands in the Ægean (s. 133). Τίς γὰρ ἂν τοιαύτης καταστάσεως

ἐπιθυμήσειεν, ἐν ᾗ καταποντισταὶ μὲν τὴν θάλασσαν κατέχουσι,

πελτασταὶ δὲ τὰς πόλεις καταλαμβάνουσι, etc.

... Καίτοι χρὴ τοὺς φύσει καὶ μὴ διὰ τύχην μέγα φρονοῦντας

τοιούτοις ἔργοις ἐπιχειρεῖν, πολὺ μᾶλλον ἢ ~τοὺς νησιώτας

δασμολογεῖν~, οὓς ἄξιόν ἐστιν ἐλέειν, ὁρῶντας τούτους μὲν διὰ

σπανιότητα τῆς γῆς ὄρη γεωργεῖν ἀναγκαζομένους, τοὺς δ’ ἠπειρώτας

δι’ ἀφθονίαν τῆς χώρας τὴν μὲν πλείστην αὐτῆς ἀργὸν περιορῶντας,

etc. (s. 151).

... Ὧν ἡμεῖς (Athenians and Spartans) οὐδεμίαν ποιούμεθα

πρόνοιαν, ἀλλὰ ~περὶ μὲν τῶν Κυκλάδων νήσων ἀμφισβητοῦμεν~,

τοσαύτας δὲ τὸ πλῆθος καὶ τηλικαύτας τὸ μέγεθος δυνάμεις οὕτως

εἰκῇ τῷ βαρβάρῳ παραδεδώκαμεν.

Compare Xenoph. Hellen. vi, 1, 12—μὴ εἰς νησύδρια ἀποβλέποντας,

etc.

It would seem that a few years after the peace of Antalkidas, Sparta

became somewhat ashamed of having surrendered the Asiatic Greeks

to Persia; and that king Agesipolis and other leading Spartans

encouraged the scheme of a fresh Grecian expedition against Asia,

in compliance with propositions from some disaffected subjects of

Artaxerxes.[107] Upon some such project, currently discussed though

never realized, Isokrates probably built his Panegyrical Oration,

composed in a lofty strain of patriotic eloquence (380 B.C.) to

stimulate both Sparta and Athens in the cause, and calling on both,

as joint chiefs of Greece, to suspend dissensions at home for a great

Pan-hellenic manifestation against the common enemy abroad. But

whatever ideas of this kind the Spartan leaders may have entertained,

their attention was taken off, about 382 B.C. by movements in a

more remote region of the Grecian world, which led to important

consequences.

[107] Diodor. xv, 9, 19.

Since the year 414 B.C. (when the Athenians were engaged in the

siege of Syracuse), we have heard nothing either of the kings of

Macedonia, or of the Chalkidic Grecian cities in the peninsula of

Thrace adjoining Macedonia. Down to that year, Athens still retained

a portion of her maritime empire in those regions. The Platæans

were still in possession of Skiônê (on the isthmus of Pallênê)

which she had assigned to them; while the Athenian admiral Euetion,

seconded by many hired Thracians, and even by Perdikkas king of

Macedonia, undertook a fruitless siege to reconquer Amphipolis on

the Strymon.[108] But the fatal disaster at Syracuse having disabled

Athens from maintaining such distant interests, they were lost to

her along with her remaining empire,—perhaps earlier; though we

do not know how. At the same time, during the last years of the

Peloponnesian war, the kingdom of Macedonia greatly increased in

power; partly, we may conceive, from the helpless condition of

Athens,—but still more from the abilities and energy of Archelaus,

son and successor of Perdikkas.

[108] Thucyd. vii, 9.

The course of succession among the Macedonian princes seems not to

have been settled, so that disputes and bloodshed took place at

the death of several of them. Moreover, there were distinct tribes

of Macedonians, who, though forming part, really or nominally, of

the dominion of the Temenid princes, nevertheless were immediately

subject to separate but subordinate princes of their own. The reign

of Perdikkas had been troubled in this manner. In the first instance,

he had stripped his own brother Alketas of the crown,[109] who

appears (so far as we can make out) to have had the better right to

it; next he had also expelled his younger brother Philippus from his

subordinate principality. To restore Amyntas the son of Philippus,

was one of the purposes of the Thrakian prince Sitalkês, in the

expedition undertaken conjointly with Athens, during the second year

of the Peloponnesian war.[110] On the death of Perdikkas (about

413 B.C.), his eldest or only legitimate son was a child of seven

years old; but his natural son[111] Archelaus was of mature age and

unscrupulous ambition. The dethroned Alketas was yet alive, and had

now considerable chance of reëstablishing himself on the throne;

Archelaus, inviting him and his son under pretence that he would

himself bring about their reëstablishment, slew them both amidst

the intoxication of a banquet. He next despatched the boy, his

legitimate brother, by suffocating him in a well; and through these

crimes made himself king. His government, however, was so energetic

and able, that Macedonia reached a degree of military power such as

none of his predecessors had ever possessed. His troops, military

equipments, and fortified places, were much increased in numbers;

while he also cut straight roads of communication between the various

portions of his territory,—a novelty seemingly everywhere, at that

time.[112] Besides such improved organization (which unfortunately we

are not permitted to know in detail), Archelaus founded a splendid

periodical Olympic festival, in honor of the Olympian Zeus and

the Muses,[113] and maintained correspondence with the poets and

philosophers of Athens. He prevailed upon the tragic poets Euripides

and Agathon, as well as the epic poet Chœrilus, to visit him in

Macedonia, where Euripides especially was treated with distinguished

favor and munificence,[114] remaining there until his death in

406 or 405 B.C. Archelaus also invited Sokrates, who declined the

invitation,—and appears to have shown some favor to Plato.[115] He

perished in the same year as Sokrates (399 B.C.), by a violent

death; two Thessalian youths, Krateuas and Hellanokrates, together

with a Macedonian named Dekamnichus, being his assassins during a

hunting-party. The first two were youths to whom he was strongly

attached, but whose dignity he had wounded by insulting treatment and

non-performance of promises; the third was a Macedonian, who, for

having made an offensive remark upon the bad breath of Euripides, had

been given up by the order of Archelaus to the poet, in order that

he might be flogged for it. Euripides actually caused the sentence

to be inflicted; but it was not till six years after his death that

Dekamnichus, who had neither forgotten nor forgiven the affront,

found the opportunity of taking revenge by instigating and aiding the

assassins of Archelaus.[116]

[109] This is attested by Plato, Gorgias, c. 26. p. 471 A.

... Ὅς γε (Archelaus son of Perdikkas) πρῶτον μὲν τοῦτον αὐτὸν

τὸν δεσπότην καὶ θεῖον (Alketas) μεταπεμψάμενος, ~ὡς ἀποδώσων τὴν

ἀρχὴν ἣν Περδίκκας αὐτὸν ἀφείλετο~, etc.

This statement of Plato, that Perdikkas expelled his brother

Alketas from the throne, appears not to be adverted to by the

commentators. Perhaps it may help to explain the chronological

embarrassments connected with the reign of Perdikkas, the years

of which are assigned by different authors, as 23, 28, 35, 40,

41. See Mr. Clinton, Fasti Hellen. ch. iv, p. 222—where he

discusses the chronology of the Macedonian kings: also Krebs,

Lection. Diodoreæ, p. 159.

There are no means of determining when the reign of Perdikkas

began—nor exactly, when it ended. We know from Thucydides that he

was king in 432, and in 414 B.C. But the fact of his acquiring

the crown by the expulsion of an elder brother, renders it less

wonderful that the beginning of his reign should be differently

stated by different authors; though these authors seem mostly

to conceive Perdikkas as the immediate successor of Alexander,

without any notice of Alketas.

[110] Thucyd. i, 57; ii, 97-100.

[111] The mother of Archelaus was a female slave belonging

to Alketas; it is for this reason that Plato calls Alketas

~δεσπότην~ καὶ θεῖον of Archelaus (Plato, Gorgias, c. 26. p. 471

A.)

[112] Thucyd. ii, 100. ὁδοὺς εὐθείας ἔτεμε, etc. See the note in

Ch. lxix, p. 17 of Vol. ix.

[113] Arrian, i, 11; Diodor. xvii, 16.

[114] Plutarch, De Vitioso Pudore, c. 7, p. 531 E.

[115] Aristotel. Rhetoric, ii, 24; Seneca, de Beneficiis, v, 6;

Ælian, V. H. xiv, 17.

[116] See the statements, unfortunately very brief, of Aristotle

(Politic. v, 8, 10-13). Plato (Alkibiad. ii, c. 5, p. 141 D),

while mentioning the assassination of Archelaus by his παιδικὰ

represents the motive of the latter differently from Aristotle,

as having been an ambitious desire to possess himself of the

throne. Diodorus (xiv, 37) represents Krateuas as having killed

Archelaus unintentionally in a hunting-party.

Καὶ τῆς Ἀρχελάου δ’ ἐπιθέσεως Δεκάμνιχος ἡγεμὼν ἐγένετο,

παροξύνων τοὺς ἐπιθεμένους πρῶτος· αἴτιον δὲ τῆς ὀργῆς, ὅτι αὐτὸν

ἐξέδωκε μαστιγῶσαι Εὐριπίδῃ τῷ ποιητῇ· ὁ δὲ Εὐριπίδης ἐχαλέπαινεν

εἰπόντος τι αὐτοῦ εἰς δυσώδειαν τοῦ στόματος (Arist. Pol. _l.

c._).

Dekamnichus is cited by Aristotle as one among the examples of

persons actually scourged; which proves that Euripides availed

himself of the privilege accorded by Archelaus.

These incidents, recounted on the authority of Aristotle, and

relating as well to the Macedonian king Archelaus as to the Athenian

citizen and poet Euripides, illustrate the political contrast

between Macedonia and Athens. The government of the former is one

wholly personal,—dependent on the passions, tastes, appetites, and

capacities, of the king. The ambition of Archelaus leads both to his

crimes for acquiring the throne, and to his improved organization of

the military force of the state afterwards; his admiration for the

poets and philosophers of Athens makes him sympathize warmly with

Euripides, and ensure to the latter personal satisfaction for an

offensive remark; his appetites, mingling license with insult, end by

drawing upon him personal enemies of a formidable character. _L’Etat,

c’est moi_—stands marked in the whole series of proceedings; the

personality of the monarch is the determining element. Now at Athens,

no such element exists. There is, on the one hand, no easy way of

bringing to bear the ascendency of an energetic chief to improve the

military organization,—as Athens found to her cost, when she was

afterwards assailed by Philip, the successor after some interval, and

in many respects the parallel, of Archelaus. But on the other hand,

neither the personal tastes nor the appetites, of any individual

Athenian, count as active causes in the march of public affairs,

which is determined by the established law and by the pronounced

sentiments of the body of citizens. However gross an insult might

have been offered to Euripides at Athens, the dikasts would never

have sentenced that the offender should be handed over to him to be

flogged. They would have inflicted such measure of punishment as the

nature of the wrong, and the preëxisting law appeared to them to

require. Political measures, or judicial sentences, at Athens, might

be well or ill-judged; but at any rate, they were always dictated

by regard to a known law and to the public conceptions entertained

of state-interests, state-dignity, and state-obligations, without

the avowed intrusion of any man’s personality. To Euripides,—who

had throughout his whole life been the butt of Aristophanes and

other comic writers, and who had been compelled to hear, in the

crowded theatre, taunts far more galling than what is ascribed to

Dekamnichus,—the contrast must have been indeed striking, to have

the offender made over to him, and the whip placed at his disposal,

by order of his new patron. And it is little to his honor, that

he should have availed himself of the privilege, by causing the

punishment to be really administered; a punishment which he could

never have seen inflicted, during the fifty years of his past life,

upon any free Athenian citizen.

Krateuas did not survive the deed more than three or four days, after

which Orestes, son of Archelaus, a child, was placed on the throne,

under the guardianship of Æropus. The latter, however, after about

four years, made away with his ward, and reigned in his stead for

two years. He then died of sickness, and was succeeded by his son

Pausanias; who, after a reign of only one year, was assassinated and

succeeded by Amyntas.[117] This Amyntas (chiefly celebrated as the

father of Philip and the grandfather of Alexander the Great), though

akin to the royal family, had been nothing more than an attendant

of Æropus,[118] until he made himself king by putting to death

Pausanias.[119] He reigned, though with interruptions, twenty-four

years (393-369 B.C.); years, for the most part, of trouble and

humiliation for Macedonia, and of occasional exile for himself. The

vigorous military organization introduced by Archelaus appears to

have declined; while the frequent dethronements and assassinations

of kings, beginning even with Perdikkas the father of Archelaus,

and continued down to Amyntas, unhinged the central authority

and disunited the various portions of the Macedonian name; which

naturally tended to separation, and could only be held together by a

firm hand.

[117] Diodor. xiv. 84-89.

[118] Ælian, V. H. xii, 43; Dexippus ap. Syncell. p. 263; Justin,

vii, 4.

[119] Diodor. xiv, 89. Ἐτελεύτησε δὲ καὶ Παυσανίας ὁ τῶν

Μακεδόνων βασιλεὺς, ἀναιρεθεὶς ὑπὸ Ἀμύντου δόλῳ, ἄρξας ἐνιαυτόν·

τὴν δὲ βασιλείαν κατέσχεν Ἀμύντας, etc.

The interior regions of Macedonia were bordered, to the north,

north-east, and north-west, by warlike barbarian tribes, Thracian and

Illyrian, whose invasions were not unfrequent and often formidable.

Tempted, probably, by the unsettled position of the government,

the Illyrians poured in upon Amyntas during the first year of his

reign; perhaps they may have been invited by other princes of the

interior,[120] and at all events their coming would operate as

a signal for malcontents to declare themselves. Amyntas,—having

only acquired the sceptre a few months before by assassinating his

predecessor, and having little hold on the people,—was not only

unable to repel them, but found himself obliged to evacuate Pella,

and even to retire from Macedonia altogether. Despairing of his

position, he made over to the Olynthians a large portion of the

neighboring territory,—Lower Macedonia or the coast and cities round

the Thermaic Gulf.[121] As this cession is represented to have been

made at the moment of his distress and expatriation, we may fairly

suspect that it was made for some reciprocal benefit or valuable

equivalent; of which Amyntas might well stand in need, at a moment of

so much exigency.

[120] See in Thucyd. iv, 112—the relations of Arrhibæus, prince

of the Macedonians called Lynkestæ in the interior country, with

the Illyrian invaders—B.C. 423.

Archelaus had been engaged at a more recent period in war with a

prince of the interior named Arrhibæus,—perhaps the same person

(Aristot. Polit. v, 8, 11).

[121] Diodor. xiv, 92; xv, 19. Ἀπογνοὺς δὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν, Ὀλυνθίοις

μὲν τὴν συνεγγὺς χώραν ἐδωρήσατο, etc. Τῷ δήμῳ τῶν Ὀλυνθίων

δωρησαμένου πολλὴν τῆς ὁμόρου χώρας, διὰ τὴν ἀπόγνωσιν τῆς ἑαυτοῦ

δυναστείας, etc.

The flight of Amyntas, after a year’s reign, is confirmed by

Dexippus ap. Syncell. p. 263.

It is upon this occasion that we begin to hear again of the

Chalkidians of Olynthus, and the confederacy which they gradually

aggregated around their city as a centre. The confederacy seems to

have taken its start from this cession of Amyntas,—or rather, to

speak more properly, from his abdication; for the cession of what

he could not keep was of comparatively little moment, and we shall

see that he tried to resume it as soon as he acquired strength.

The effect of his flight was, to break up the government of Lower

or maritime Macedonia, and to leave the cities therein situated

defenceless against the Illyrians or other invaders from the

interior. To these cities, the only chance of security, was to throw

themselves upon the Greek cities on the coast, and to organize in

conjunction with the latter a confederacy for mutual support. Among

all the Greeks on that coast, the most strenuous and persevering

(so they had proved themselves in their former contentions against

Athens when at the summit of her power) as well as the nearest, were

the Chalkidians of Olynthus. These Olynthians now put themselves

forward,—took into their alliance and under their protection the

smaller towns of maritime Macedonia immediately near them,—and soon

extended their confederacy so as to comprehend all the larger towns

in this region,—including even Pella, the most considerable city

of the country.[122] As they began this enterprise at a time when

the Illyrians were masters of the country so as to drive Amyntas

to despair and flight, we may be sure that it must have cost them

serious efforts, not without great danger if they failed. We may

also be sure that the cities themselves must have been willing, not

to say eager, coadjutors; just as the islanders and Asiatic Greeks

clung to Athens at the first formation of the confederacy of Delos.

The Olynthians could have had no means of conquering even the less

considerable Macedonian cities, much less Pella, by force and against

the will of the inhabitants.

[122] Xenoph. Hellen. v, 2, 12. Ὅτι μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἐπὶ Θρᾴκης

μεγίστη πόλις Ὄλυνθος σχεδὸν πάντες ἐπίστασθε. Οὗτοι τῶν πόλεων

προσηγάγοντο ἔστιν ἃς, ἐφ’ ᾧτε τοῖς αὐτοῖς χρῆσθαι νόμοις καὶ

συμπολιτεύειν· ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τῶν μειζόνων προσέλαβόν τινας. Ἐκ

δὲ τούτου ἐπεχείρησαν καὶ τὰς τῆς Μακεδονίας πόλεις ἐλευθεροῦν

ἀπὸ Ἀμύντου, τοῦ βασιλέως Μακεδόνων. Ἐπεὶ δὲ εἰσήκουσαν αἱ

ἐγγύτατα αὐτῶν, ταχὺ καὶ ἐπὶ τὰς πόῤῥω καὶ μείζους ἐπορεύοντο·

καὶ κατελίπομεν ἡμεῖς ἔχοντας ἤδη ἄλλας τε πολλὰς, καὶ Πέλλαν,

ἥπερ μεγίστη τῶν ἐν Μακεδονίᾳ πόλεων. Καὶ Ἀμύνταν δὲ αἰσθανόμεθα

ἀποχωροῦντά τε ἐκ τῶν πόλεων, καὶ ὅσον οὐκ ἐκπεπτωκότα ἤδη ἐκ

πάσης Μακεδονίας.

We know from Diodorus that Amyntas fled the country in despair,

and ceded a large proportion at least of Lower Macedonia to the

Olynthians. Accordingly, the struggle between the latter and

Amyntas (here alluded to), must have taken place when he came

back and tried to resume his dominion.

How the Illyrians were compelled to retire, and by what steps the

confederacy was got together, we are not permitted to know. Our

information (unhappily very brief) comes from the Akanthian envoy

Kleigenês, speaking at Sparta about ten years afterwards (B.C. 383),

and describing in a few words the confederacy as it then stood.

But there is one circumstance which this witness,—himself hostile

to Olynthus and coming to solicit Spartan aid against her,—attests

emphatically; the equal, generous, and brotherly principles, upon

which the Olynthians framed their scheme from the beginning. They

did not present themselves as an imperial city enrolling a body of

dependent allies, but invited each separate city to adopt common

laws and reciprocal citizenship with Olynthus, with full liberty

of intermarriage, commercial dealing, and landed proprietorship.

That the Macedonian cities near the sea should welcome so liberal a

proposition as this, coming from the most powerful of their Grecian

neighbors, cannot at all surprise us; especially at a time when they

were exposed to the Illyrian invaders, and when Amyntas had fled the

country. They had hitherto always been subjects;[123] their cities

had not (like the Greek cities) enjoyed each its own separate

autonomy within its own walls; the offer, now made to them by the

Olynthians, was one of freedom in exchange for their past subjection

under the Macedonian kings, combined with a force adequate to protect

them against Illyrian and other invaders. Perhaps also these various

cities,—Anthemus, Therma, Chalastra, Pella, Alôrus, Pydna, etc.,—may

have contained, among the indigenous population, a certain proportion

of domiciliated Grecian inhabitants, to whom the proposition of the

Olynthians would be especially acceptable.

[123] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 12—τὰς τῆς Μακεδονίας πόλεις ἐλευθεροῦν

ἀπὸ Ἀμύντου, etc.; compare v, 2, 38.

We may thus understand why the offer of Olynthus was gladly

welcomed by the Macedonian maritime cities. They were the first who

fraternized as voluntary partners in the confederacy; which the

Olynthians, having established this basis, proceeded to enlarge

farther, by making the like liberal propositions to the Greek cities

in their neighborhood. Several of these latter joined voluntarily;

others were afraid to refuse; insomuch that the confederacy came

to include a considerable number of Greeks,—especially, Potidæa,

situated on the Isthmus of Pallênê, and commanding the road of

communication between the cities within Pallênê and the continent.

The Olynthians carried out with scrupulous sincerity their professed

principles of equal and intimate partnership, avoiding all

encroachment or offensive preëminence in favor of their own city. But

in spite of this liberal procedure, they found among their Grecian

neighbors obstructions which they had not experienced from the

Macedonian. Each of the Grecian cities had been accustomed to its own

town-autonomy and separate citizenship, with its peculiar laws and

customs. All of them were attached to this kind of distinct political

life, by one of the most tenacious and universal instincts of the

Greek mind; all of them would renounce it with reluctance, even on

consenting to enter the Olynthian confederacy, with its generous

promise, its enlarged security, and its manifest advantages; and

there were even some who, disdaining every prospective consideration,

refused to change their condition at all except at the point of the

sword.

Among these last were Akanthus and Apollonia, the largest cities

(next to Olynthus) in the Chalkidic peninsula, and, therefore,

the least unable to stand alone. To these the Olynthians did not

make application, until they had already attracted within their

confederacy a considerable number of other Grecian as well as

Macedonian cities. They then invited Akanthus and Apollonia to come

in, upon the same terms of equal union and fellow-citizenship. The

proposition being declined, they sent a second message intimating

that, unless it were accepted within a certain time, they would

enforce it by compulsory measures. So powerful already was the

military force of the Olynthian confederacy, that Akanthus and

Apollonia, incompetent to resist without foreign aid, despatched

envoys to Sparta to set forth the position of affairs in the

Chalkidic peninsula, and to solicit intervention against Olynthus.

Their embassy reached Sparta about B.C. 383, when the Spartans,

having broken up the city of Mantinea into villages, and coërced

Phlius, were in the full swing of power over Peloponnesus,—and when

they had also dissolved the Bœotian federation, placing harmosts

in Platæa and Thespiæ as checks upon any movement of Thebes. The

Akanthian Kleigenês, addressing himself to the Assembly of Spartans

and their allies, drew an alarming picture of the recent growth

and prospective tendencies of Olynthus, invoking the interference

of Sparta against that city. The Olynthian confederacy (he said)

already comprised many cities, small and great, Greek as well as

Macedonian,—Amyntas having lost his kingdom. Its military power,

even at present great, was growing every day.[124] The territory,

comprising a large breadth of fertile corn-land, could sustain a

numerous population. Wood for ship-building was close at hand, while

the numerous harbors of the confederate cities ensured a thriving

trade as well as a steady revenue from custom-duties. The neighboring

Thracian tribes would be easily kept in willing dependence, and would

thus augment the military force of Olynthus; even the gold mines of

Mount Pangæus would speedily come within her assured reach. “All

that I now tell you (such was the substance of his speech) is matter

of public talk among the Olynthian people, who are full of hope and

confidence. How can you Spartans, who are taking anxious pains to

prevent the union of the Bœotian cities,[125] permit the aggregation

of so much more formidable a power, both by land and by sea, as this

of Olynthus? Envoys have already been sent thither from Athens and

Thebes,—and the Olynthians have decreed to send an embassy in return

for contracting alliance with those cities; hence, your enemies will

derive a large additional force. We of Akanthus and Apollonia, having

declined the proposition to join the confederacy voluntarily, have

received notice that, if we persist, they will constrain us. Now we

are anxious to retain our paternal laws and customs, continuing as

a city by ourselves.[126] But if we cannot obtain aid from you, we

shall be under the necessity of joining them,—as several other cities

have already done, from not daring to refuse; cities, who would have

sent envoys along with us, had they not been afraid of offending

the Olynthians. These cities, if you interfere forthwith, and with

a powerful force, will now revolt from the new confederacy. But if

you postpone your interference, and allow time for the confederacy

to work, their sentiments will soon alter. They will come to be knit

together in attached unity, by the co-burgership, the intermarriage,

and the reciprocity of landed possessions, which have already been

enacted prospectively. All of them will become convinced that they

have a common interest both in belonging to, and in strengthening the

confederacy,—just as the Arcadians, when they follow you, Spartans,

as allies, are not only enabled to preserve their own property, but

also to plunder others. If, by your delay, the attractive tendencies

of the confederacy should come into real operation, you will

presently find it not so much within your power to dissolve.[127]”

[124] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 14.

The number of Olynthian troops is given in Xenophon as eight

hundred hoplites—a far greater number of peltasts—and one

thousand horsemen, assuming that Akanthus and Apollonia joined

the confederacy. It has been remarked by Mr. Mitford and others,

that these numbers, as they here stand, must be decidedly smaller

than the reality. But we have no means of correction open to us.

Mr. Mitford’s suggestion of eight thousand hoplites in place of

eight hundred, rests upon no authority.

Demosthenes states that Olynthus by herself, and before she had

brought all the Chalkidians into confederacy (οὔπω Χαλκιδέων

πάντων εἰς ἓν συνῳκισμένων—De Fals. Leg. c. 75, p. 425) possessed

four hundred horsemen, and a citizen population of 5000; no more

than this (he says) at the time when the Lacedæmonians attacked

them. The historical statements of the great orator, for a time

which nearly coincides with his own birth, are to be received

with caution.

[125] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 16. Ἐννοήσατε δὲ καὶ τόδε, πῶς εἰκὸς,

ὑμᾶς τῆς μὲν Βοιωτίας ἐπιμεληθῆναι, ὅπως μὴ καθ’ ἓν εἴη, πολὺ δὲ

μείζονος ἀθροιζομένης δυνάμεως ἀμελῆσαι, etc.

I translate here the substance of the speech, not the exact words.

[126] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 14. Ἡμεῖς δὲ, ὦ ἄνδρες Λακεδαιμόνιοι,

βουλόμεθα μὲν τοῖς πατρίοις νόμοις χρῆσθαι, καὶ αὐτοπολῖται

εἶναι· εἰ μέντοι μὴ βοηθήσει τις, ἀνάγκη καὶ ἡμῖν μετ’ ἐκείνων

γίγνεσθαι.

[127] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 18. Δεῖ γε μὴν ὑμᾶς καὶ τόδε εἰδέναι,

ὡς, ἣν εἰρήκαμεν δύναμιν μεγάλην οὖσαν, οὔπω δυσπάλαιστός τις

ἐστίν· αἱ γὰρ ἄκουσαι τῶν πόλεων ~τῆς πολιτείας κοινωνοῦσαι~,

αὗται, ἄν τι ἴδωσιν ἀντίπαλον, ταχὺ ἀποστήσονται· ~εἰ μέντοι

συγκλεισθήσονται ταῖς τε ἐπιγαμίαις καὶ ἐγκτήσεσι παρ’ ἀλλήλαις,

ἃς ἐψηφισμένοι εἰσὶ—καὶ γνώσονται, ὅτι μετὰ τῶν κρατούντων

ἕπεσθαι κερδαλέον ἐστὶν~, ὥσπερ Ἄρκαδες, ὅταν μεθ’ ὑμῶν ἴωσι, τά

τε αὐτῶν σώζουσι καὶ τὰ ἀλλότρια ἁρπάζουσιν—~ἴσως οὔκεθ’ ὁμοίως

εὔλυτα ἔσται~.

This speech of the Akanthian envoy is remarkable in more than one

respect. Coming from the lips of an enemy, it is the best of all

testimonies to the liberal and comprehensive spirit in which the

Olynthians were acting. They are accused,—not of injustice, nor of

selfish ambition, nor of degrading those around them,—but literally,

of organizing a new partnership on principles too generous and too

seductive; of gently superseding, instead of violently breaking

down, the barriers between the various cities, by reciprocal ties

of property and family among the citizens of each; of uniting them

all into a new political aggregate, in which not only all would

enjoy equal rights, but all without exception would be gainers. The

advantage, both in security and in power, accruing prospectively to

all, is not only admitted by the orator, but stands in the front of

his argument. “Make haste and break up the confederacy (he impresses

upon Sparta) before its fruit is ripe, so that the confederates may

never taste it nor find out how good it is; for if they do, you

will not prevail on them to forego it.” By implication, he also

admits,—and he says nothing tending even to raise a doubt,—that the

cities which he represents, Akanthus and Apollonia, would share

along with the rest in this same benefit. But the Grecian political

instinct was nevertheless predominant,—“We wish to preserve our

paternal laws, and to be a city by ourselves.” Thus nakedly is

the objection stated; when the question was, not whether Akanthus

should lose its freedom and become subject to an imperial city like

Athens,—but whether it should become a free and equal member of a

larger political aggregate, cemented by every tie which could make

union secure, profitable, and dignified. It is curious to observe

how perfectly the orator is conscious that this repugnance, though

at the moment preponderant, was nevertheless essentially transitory,

and would give place to attachment when the union came to be felt as

a reality; and how eagerly he appeals to Sparta to lose no time in

clenching the repugnance, while it lasted. He appeals to her, not for

any beneficial or Pan-hellenic objects, but in the interests of her

own dominion, which required that the Grecian world should be as it

were pulverized into minute, self-acting, atoms without cohesion,—so

that each city, or each village, while protected against subjection

to any other, should farther be prevented from equal political union

or fusion with any other; being thus more completely helpless and

dependent in reference to Sparta.

It was not merely from Akanthus and Apollonia, but also from the

dispossessed Macedonian king Amyntas, that envoys reached Sparta to

ask for aid against Olynthus. It seems that Amyntas, after having

abandoned the kingdom and made his cession to the Olynthians, had

obtained some aid from Thessaly and tried to reinstate himself

by force. In this scheme he had failed, being defeated by the

Olynthians. Indeed we find another person named Argæus, mentioned

as competitor for the Macedonian sceptre, and possessing it for two

years.[128]

[128] Diodor. xiv, 92; xv, 19.

Demosthenes speaks of Amyntas as having been expelled from his

kingdom by the Thessalians (cont. Aristokrat. c. 29, p. 657).

If this be historically correct, it must be referred to some

subsequent war in which he was engaged with the Thessalians,

perhaps to the time when Jason of Pheræ acquired dominion over

Macedonia (Xenoph. Hellen. vi, 1, 11).

After hearing these petitioners, the Lacedæmonians first declared

their own readiness to comply with the prayer, and to put down

Olynthus; next, they submitted the same point to the vote of the

assembled allies.[129] Among these latter, there was no genuine

antipathy against the Olynthians, such as that which had prevailed

against Athens before the Peloponnesian war, in the synod then

held at Sparta. But the power of Sparta over her allies was now

far greater than it had been then. Most of their cities were under

oligarchies, dependent upon her support for authority over their

fellow-citizens; moreover, the recent events in Bœotia and at

Mantinea had operated as a serious intimidation. Anxiety to keep

the favor of Sparta was accordingly paramount, so that most of the

speakers as well as most of the votes, declared for war,[130] and a

combined army of ten thousand men was voted to be raised. To make

up such total, a proportional contingent was assessed upon each

confederate; combined with the proviso now added for the first

time, that each might furnish money instead of men, at the rate of

three Æginæan oboli (half an Æginæan drachma) for each hoplite. A

cavalry-soldier, to those cities which furnished such, was reckoned

as equivalent to four hoplites; a hoplite, as equivalent to two

peltasts; or pecuniary contribution on the same scale. All cities in

default were made liable to a forfeit of one stater (four drachmæ)

per day, for every soldier not sent; the forfeit to be enforced by

Sparta.[131] Such licensed substitution of pecuniary payment for

personal service, is the same as I have already described to have

taken place nearly a century before in the confederacy of Delos

under the presidency of Athens.[132] It was a system not likely to

be extensively acted upon among the Spartan allies, who were at once

poorer and more warlike than those of Athens. But in both cases it

was favorable to the ambition of the leading state; and the tendency

becomes here manifest, to sanction, by the formality of a public

resolution, that increased Lacedæmonian ascendency which had already

grown up in practice.

[129] See above in this History, Vol. VI. Ch. xlviii. p. 79.

[130] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 20. Ἐκ τούτου μέντοι, πολλοὶ μὲν

ξυνηγόρευον στρατιὰν ποιεῖν, μάλιστα δὲ οἱ βουλόμενοι

Λακεδαιμονίοις χαρίζεσθαι, etc.

[131] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 21, 22.

Diodorus (xv, 31) mentions the fact that an hoplite was reckoned

equivalent to two peltasts, in reference to a Lacedæmonian

muster-roll of a few years afterwards; but it must have been

equally necessary to fix the proportion on the present occasion.

[132] See Vol. V. Ch. xlv, p. 302 of this History.

The Akanthian envoys, while expressing their satisfaction with

the vote just passed, intimated that the muster of these numerous

contingents would occupy some time, and again insisted on the

necessity of instant intervention, even with a small force; before

the Olynthians could find time to get their plans actually in work or

appreciated by the surrounding cities. A moderate Lacedæmonian force

(they said), if despatched forthwith, would not only keep those

who had refused to join Olynthus, steady to their refusal, but also

induce others, who had joined reluctantly, to revolt. Accordingly the

ephors appointed Eudamidas at once, assigning to him two thousand

hoplites,—Neodamodes (or enfranchised Helots), Periœki, and Skiritæ

or Arcadian borderers. Such was the anxiety of the Akanthians for

haste, that they would not let him delay even to get together the

whole of this moderate force. He was put in march immediately, with

such as were ready; while his brother Phœbidas was left behind

to collect the remainder and follow him. And it seems that the

Akanthians judged correctly. For Eudamidas, arriving in Thrace after

a rapid march, though he was unable to contend against the Olynthians

in the field, yet induced Potidæa to revolt from them, and was

able to defend those cities, such as Akanthus and Apollonia, which

resolutely stood aloof.[133] Amyntas brought a force to coöperate

with him.

[133] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 24; Diodor. xv, 21.

The delay in the march of Phœbidas was productive of consequences no

less momentous than unexpected. The direct line from Peloponnesus

to Olynthus lay through the Theban territory; a passage which the

Thebans, whatever might have been their wishes, were not powerful

enough to refuse, though they had contracted an alliance with

Olynthus,[134] and though proclamation was made that no Theban

citizens should join the Lacedæmonian force. Eudamidas, having

departed at a moment’s notice, passed through Bœotia without a halt,

in his way to Thrace. But it was known that his brother Phœbidas was

presently to follow; and upon this fact the philo-Laconian party in

Thebes organized a conspiracy.

[134] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 27-34.

They obtained from the ephors, and from the miso-Theban feelings

of Agesilaus, secret orders to Phœbidas, that he should coöperate

with them in any party movement which they might find opportunity

of executing;[135] and when he halted with his detachment near the

gymnasium a little way without the walls, they concerted matters as

well with him as among themselves. Leontiades, Hypatês, and Archias,

were the chiefs of the party in Thebes favorable to Sparta; a party

decidedly in minority, yet still powerful, and at this moment so

strengthened by the unbounded ascendency of the Spartan name, that

Leontiades himself was one of the polemarchs of the city. Of the

anti-Spartan, or predominant sentiment in Thebes,—which included most

of the wealthy and active citizens, those who came successively into

office as hipparchs or generals of the cavalry,[136]—the leaders were

Ismenias and Androkleides. The former, especially, the foremost as

well as ablest conductor of the late war against Sparta, was now in

office as Polemarch, conjointly with his rival Leontiades.

[135] This is the statement of Diodorus (xv, 20), and

substantially that of Plutarch (Agesil. c. 24), who intimates

that it was the general belief of the time. And it appears to me

much more probable than the representation of Xenophon—that the

first idea arose when Phœbidas was under the walls of Thebes,

and that the Spartan leader was persuaded by Leontiades to act

on his own responsibility. The behavior of Agesilaus and of the

ephors after the fact is like that of persons who had previously

contemplated the possibility of it. But the original suggestion

must have come from the Theban faction themselves.

[136] Plutarch (De Genio Socratis, c. 5, p. 578 B.) states that

most of these generals of cavalry (τῶν ἱππαρχηκότων νομίμως) were

afterwards in exile with Pelopidas at Athens.

We have little or no information respecting the government of

Thebes. It would seem to have been at this moment a liberalized

oligarchy. There was a Senate, and two Polemarchs (perhaps the

Polemarchs may have been more than two in all, though the words

of Xenophon rather lead us to suppose _only_ two)—and there seems

also to have been a civil magistrate, chosen by lot (ὁ κυαμιστὸς

ἄρχων) and renewed annually, whose office was marked by his

constantly having in his possession the sacred spear of state (τὸ

ἱερὸν δόρυ) and the city-seal (Plutarch, De Gen. Socr. c. 31. p.

597—B.—C.).

At this moment, it must be recollected, there were no such

officers as Bœotarchs; since the Lacedæmonians, enforcing the

peace of Antalkidas, had put an end to the Bœotian federation.

While Ismenias, detesting the Spartans, kept aloof from Phœbidas,

Leontiades assiduously courted him and gained his confidence. On the

day of the Thesmophoria,[137] a religious festival celebrated by

the women apart from the men, during which the acropolis or Kadmeia

was consecrated to their exclusive use,—Phœbidas, affecting to have

concluded his halt, put himself in march to proceed as if towards

Thrace; seemingly rounding the walls of Thebes, but not going into

it. The Senate was actually assembled in the portico of the agora,

and the heat of a summer’s noon had driven every one out of the

streets, when Leontiades, stealing away from the Senate, hastened

on horseback to overtake Phœbidas, caused him to face about, and

conducted the Lacedæmonians straight up to the Kadmeia; the gates

of which, as well as those of the town, were opened by his order as

polemarch. There were not only no citizens in the streets, but none

even in the Kadmeia; no male person being permitted to be present

at the feminine Thesmophoria; so that Phœbidas and his army became

possessed of the Kadmeia without the smallest opposition. At the

same time they became possessed of an acquisition of hardly less

importance,—the persons of all the assembled Theban women; who served

as hostages for the quiet submission, however reluctant, of the

citizens in the town below. Leontiades handed to Phœbidas the key of

the gates, and then descended into the town, giving orders that no

man should go up without his order.[138]

[137] The rhetor Aristeides (Or. xix, Eleusin. p. 452 Cant.;

p. 419 Dind.) states that the Kadmeia was seized during the

Pythian festival. This festival would take place, July or August

382 B.C.; near the beginning of the third year of the (99th)

Olympiad. See above in this History, Vol. VI. Ch. liv, p. 455,

note. Respecting the year and month in which the Pythian festival

was held, there is a difference of opinion among commentators.

I agree with those who assign it to the first quarter of the

third Olympic year. And the date of the march of Phœbidas would

perfectly harmonize with this supposition.

Xenophon mentions nothing about the Pythian festival as being in

course of celebration when Phœbidas was encamped near Thebes: for

it had no particular reference to Thebes.

[138] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 28, 29.

The assembled Senate heard with consternation the occupation of the

acropolis by Phœbidas. Before any deliberation could be taken among

the senators, Leontiades came down to resume his seat. The lochages

and armed citizens of his party, to whom he had previously given

orders, stood close at hand. “Senators (said he), be not intimidated

by the news that the Spartans are in the Kadmeia; for they assure

us that they have no hostile purpose against any one who does not

court war against them. But I, as polemarch, am empowered by law to

seize any one whose behavior is manifestly and capitally criminal.

Accordingly, I seize this man Ismenias, as the great inflamer of

war. Come forward, captains and soldiers, lay hold of him, and carry

him off where your orders direct.” Ismenias was accordingly seized

and hurried off as a prisoner to the Kadmeia; while the senators,

thunderstruck and overawed, offered no resistance. Such of them as

were partisans of the arrested polemarch, and many even of the more

neutral members, left the Senate and went home, thankful to escape

with their lives. Three hundred of them, including Androkleidas,

Pelopidas, Mellon, and others, sought safety by voluntary exile to

Athens; after which, the remainder of the Senate, now composed of

few or none except philo-Spartan partisans, passed a vote formally

dismissing Ismenias, and appointing a new polemarch in his place.[139]

[139] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 30, 31.

This blow of high-handed violence against Ismenias forms a

worthy counterpart to the seizure of Theramenes by Kritias,[140]

twenty-two years before, in the Senate of Athens under the Thirty.

Terror-striking in itself, it was probably accompanied by similar

deeds of force against others of the same party. The sudden explosion

and complete success of the conspiracy, plotted by the Executive

Chief himself, the most irresistible of all conspirators,—the

presence of Phœbidas in the Kadmeia, and of a compliant Senate in

the town,—the seizure or flight of Ismenias and all his leading

partisans,—were more than sufficient to crush all spirit of

resistance on the part of the citizens; whose first anxiety probably

was, to extricate their wives and daughters from the custody of

the Lacedæmonians in the Kadmeia. Having such a price to offer,

Leontiades would extort submission the more easily, and would

probably procure a vote of the people ratifying the new _régime_,

the Spartan alliance, and the continued occupation of the acropolis.

Having accomplished the first settlement of his authority, he

proceeded without delay to Sparta, to make known the fact that “order

reigned” at Thebes.

[140] Xen. Hellen. ii, 3. See above in this History, Vol. VIII.

Ch. lxv. p. 252.

The news of the seizure of the Kadmeia and of the revolution at

Thebes had been received at Sparta with the greatest surprise, as

well as with a mixed feeling of shame and satisfaction. Everywhere

throughout Greece, probably, it excited a greater sensation than any

event since the battle of Ægospotami. Tried by the recognized public

law of Greece, it was a flagitious iniquity, for which Sparta had not

the shadow of a pretence. It was even worse than the surprise of

Platæa by the Thebans before the Peloponnesian war, which admitted

of the partial excuse that war was at any rate impending; whereas

in this case, the Thebans had neither done nor threatened anything

to violate the peace of Antalkidas. It stood condemned by the

indignant sentiment of all Greece, unwillingly testified even by the

philo-Laconian Xenophon[141] himself. But it was at the same time

an immense accession to Spartan power. It had been achieved with

preëminent skill and success; and Phœbidas might well claim to have

struck for Sparta the most important blow since Ægospotami, relieving

her from one of her two really formidable enemies.[142]

[141] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 1.

[142] It is curious that Xenophon, treating Phœbidas as a man

more warm-hearted than wise, speaks of him as if he had rendered

no real service to Sparta by the capture of the Kadmeia (v, 2,

28). The explanation of this is, that Xenophon wrote his history

at a later period, after the defeat at Leuktra and the downfall

of Sparta; which downfall was brought about by the reaction

against her overweening and oppressive dominion, especially after

the capture of the Kadmeia,—or (in the pious creed of Xenophon)

by the displeasure of the gods, which such iniquity drew down

upon her (v, 4, 1). In this way, therefore, it is made out that

Phœbidas had not acted with true wisdom, and that he had done

his country more harm than good; a criticism, which we may be

sure that no man advanced, at the time of the capture itself, or

during the three years after it.

Nevertheless, far from receiving thanks at Sparta, he became the

object of wrath and condemnation, both with the ephors and the

citizens generally. Every one was glad to throw upon him the odium

of the proceeding, and to denounce him as having acted without

orders. Even the ephors, who had secretly authorized him beforehand

to coöperate generally with the faction at Thebes, having doubtless

never given any specific instructions, now indignantly disavowed

him. Agesilaus alone stood forward in his defence, contending

that the only question was, whether his proceeding at Thebes had

been injurious or beneficial to Sparta. If the former, he merited

punishment; if the latter, it was always lawful to render service,

even _impromptu_ and without previous orders.

Tried by this standard, the verdict was not doubtful. For every man

at Sparta felt how advantageous the act was in itself; and felt it

still more, when Leontiades reached the city, humble in solicitation

as well as profuse in promise. In his speech addressed to the

assembled ephors and Senate, he first reminded them how hostile

Thebes had hitherto been to them, under Ismenias and the party just

put down,—and how constantly they had been in jealous alarm, lest

Thebes should reconstitute by force the Bœotian federation. “Now

(added he) your fears may be at an end; only take as good care to

uphold our government, as we shall take to obey your orders. For the

future, you will have nothing to do but to send us a short despatch,

to get every service which you require.[143]” It was resolved by the

Lacedæmonians, at the instance of Agesilaus, to retain their garrison

now in the Kadmeia, to uphold Leontiades with his colleagues in the

government of Thebes, and to put Ismenias upon his trial. Yet they

at the same time, as a sort of atonement to the opinion of Greece,

passed a vote of censure on Phœbidas, dismissed him from his command,

and even condemned him to a fine. The fine, however, most probably

was never exacted; for we shall see by the conduct of Sphodrias

afterwards that the displeasure against Phœbidas, if at first

genuine, was certainly of no long continuance.

[143] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 34.

Καὶ ὑμεῖς γε (says Leontiades to the Lacedæmonian ephors) τότε

μὲν ἀεὶ προσείχετε τὸν νοῦν, πότε ἀκούσεσθε βιαζομένους αὐτοὺς

τὴν Βοιωτίαν ὑφ’ αὑτοῖς εἶναι· νῦν δ’, ἐπεὶ τάδε πέπρακται, οὐδὲν

ὑμᾶς δεῖ Θηβαίους φοβεῖσθαι· ἀλλ’ ἀρκέσει ὑμῖν μικρὰ σκυτάλη,

ὥστε ἐκεῖθεν πάντα πράττεσθαι, ὅσων ἂν δέησθε—ἐὰν, ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς

ὑμῶν, οὕτω καὶ ὑμεῖς ἡμῶν, ἐπιμελῆσθε.

Xenophon mentions the displeasure of the ephors and the Spartans

generally against Phœbidas (χαλεπῶς ἔχοντας τῷ Φοιβίδᾳ) but not

the fine, which is certified by Diodorus (xv, 20), by Plutarch

(Pelopidas, c. 6, and De Genio Socratis, p. 576 A), and Cornelius

Nepos (Pelopid. c. 1).

That the Lacedæmonians should at the same time condemn Phœbidas

and retain the Kadmeia—has been noted as a gross contradiction.

Nevertheless, we ought not to forget, that had they evacuated the

Kadmeia, the party of Leontiades at Thebes, which had compromised

itself for Sparta as well as for its own aggrandizement, would have

been irretrievably sacrificed. The like excuse, if excuse it be,

cannot be urged in respect to their treatment of Ismenias; whom they

put upon his trial at Thebes, before a court consisting of three

Lacedæmonian commissioners, and one from each allied city. He was

accused, probably by Leontiades and his other enemies, of having

entered into friendship and conspiracy with the Persian king to the

detriment of Greece,[144]—of having partaken in the Persian funds

brought into Greece by Timokrates the Rhodian,—and of being the real

author of that war which had disturbed Greece from 395 B.C. down

to the peace of Antalkidas. After an unavailing defence, he was

condemned and executed. Had this doom been inflicted upon him by his

political antagonists as a consequence of their intestine victory,

it would have been too much in the analogy of Grecian party-warfare

to call for any special remark. But there is something peculiarly

revolting in the prostitution of judicial solemnity and Pan-hellenic

pretence, which the Lacedæmonians here committed. They could have no

possible right to try Ismenias as a criminal at all; still less to

try him as a criminal on the charge of confederacy with the Persian

king,—when they had themselves, only five years before, acted not

merely as allies, but even as instruments, of that monarch, in

enforcing the peace of Antalkidas. If Ismenias had received money

from one Persian satrap, the Spartan Antalkidas had profited in

like manner by another,—and for the like purpose too of carrying on

Grecian war. The real motive of the Spartans was doubtless to revenge

themselves upon this distinguished Theban for having raised against

them the war which began in 395 B.C. But the mockery of justice

by which that revenge was masked, and the impudence of punishing

in him as treason that same foreign alliance with which they had

ostentatiously identified themselves, lends a deeper enormity to the

whole proceeding.

[144] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 35; Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 576

A. Plutarch in another place (Pelopid. c. 5) represents Ismenias

as having been conveyed to Sparta and tried there.

Leontiades and his partisans were now established as rulers in

Thebes, with a Lacedæmonian garrison in the Kadmeia to sustain them

and execute their orders. The once-haughty Thebes was enrolled as

a member of Lacedæmonian confederacy. Sparta was now enabled to

prosecute her Olynthian expedition with redoubled vigor. Eudamidas

and Amyntas, though they repressed the growth of the Olynthian

confederacy, had not been strong enough to put it down; so that a

larger force was necessary, and the aggregate of ten thousand men,

which had been previously decreed, was put into instant requisition,

to be commanded by Teleutias, brother of Agesilaus. The new general,

a man of very popular manners, was soon on his march at the head of

this large army, which comprised many Theban hoplites as well as

horsemen, furnished by the new rulers in their unqualified devotion

to Sparta. He sent forward envoys to Amyntas in Macedonia, urging

upon him the most strenuous efforts for the purpose of recovering

the Macedonian cities which had joined the Olynthians,—and also to

Derdas, prince of the district of Upper Macedonia called Elimeia,

inviting his coöperation against that insolent city, which would

speedily extend her dominion (he contended) from the maritime region

to the interior, unless she were put down.[145]

[145] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 38.

Though the Lacedæmonians were masters everywhere and had their

hands free,—though Teleutias was a competent officer with powerful

forces,—and though Derdas joined with four hundred excellent

Macedonian horse,—yet the conquest of Olynthus was found no easy

enterprise.[146] The Olynthian cavalry, in particular, was numerous

and efficient. Unable as they were to make head against Teleutias

in the field or repress his advance, nevertheless in a desultory

engagement which took place near the city gates, they defeated

the Lacedæmonian and Theban cavalry, threw even the infantry into

confusion, and were on the point of gaining a complete victory, had

not Derdas with his cavalry on the other wing, made a diversion which

forced them to come back for the protection of the city. Teleutias,

remaining master of the field, continued to ravage the Olynthian

territory during the summer, for which, however, the Olynthians

retaliated by frequent marauding expeditions against the cities in

alliance with him.[147]

[146] Demosthenes (De Fals. Leg. c. 75, p. 425) speaks with

proper commendation of the brave resistance made by the

Olynthians against the great force of Sparta. But his expressions

are altogether misleading as to the tenor and result of the

war. If we had no other information than his, we should be led

to imagine that the Olynthians had been victorious, and the

Lacedæmonians baffled.

[147] Xenoph. Hellen. v, 2, 40-43.

In the ensuing spring, the Olynthians sustained various partial

defeats, especially one near Apollonia, from Derdas. They were more

and more confined to their walls; insomuch that Teleutias became

confident and began to despise them. Under these dispositions on

his part, a body of Olynthian cavalry showed themselves one morning,

passed the river near their city, and advanced in calm array towards

the Lacedæmonian camp. Indignant at such an appearance of daring,

Teleutias directed Tlemonidas with the peltasts to disperse them;

upon which the Olynthians slowly retreated, while the peltasts rushed

impatiently to pursue them, even when they recrossed the river. No

sooner did the Olynthians see that half the peltasts had crossed

it, than they suddenly turned, charged them vigorously, and put

them to flight with the loss of their commander Tlemonidas and a

hundred others. All this passed in sight of Teleutias, who completely

lost his temper. Seizing his arms, he hurried forward to cover the

fugitives with the hoplites around him, sending orders to all his

troops, hoplites, peltasts, and horsemen, to advance also. But the

Olynthians, again retreating, drew him on towards the city, with

such inconsiderate forwardness, that many of his soldiers ascending

the eminence on which the city was situated, rushed close up to the

walls.[148] Here, however, they were received by a shower of missiles

which forced them to recede in disorder; upon which the Olynthians

again sallied forth, probably, from more than one gate at once, and

charged them first with cavalry and peltasts, next with hoplites.

The Lacedæmonians and their allies, disturbed and distressed by the

first, were unable to stand against the compact charge of the last;

Teleutias himself, fighting in the foremost ranks, was slain, and his

death was a signal for the flight of all around. The whole besieging

force dispersed and fled in different directions,—to Akanthus, to

Spartôlus, to Potidæa, to Apollonia. So vigorous and effective was

the pursuit of the Olynthians, that the loss of the fugitives was

immense. The whole army was in fact ruined;[149] for probably many of

the allies who escaped became discouraged and went home.

[148] Thucyd. i, 63—with the Scholiast.

[149] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 4-6. παμπλήθεις ἀπέκτειναν ἀνθρώπους καὶ

ὅτι περ ὄφελος ἦν τούτου τοῦ στρατεύματος.

Diodorus (xv, 21) states the loss at twelve hundred men.

At another time, probably, a victory so decisive might have deterred

the Lacedæmonians from farther proceedings, and saved Olynthus. But

now, they were so completely masters everywhere else, that they

thought only of repairing the dishonor by a still more imposing

demonstration. Their king Agesipolis was placed at the head of an

expedition on the largest scale; and his name called forth eager

coöperation, both in men and money, from the allies. He marched

with thirty Spartan counsellors, as Agesilaus had gone to Asia;

besides a select body of energetic youth as volunteers, from the

Periœki, from the illegitimate sons of Spartans, and from strangers

or citizens who had lost their franchise through poverty, introduced

as friends of richer Spartan citizens to go through the arduous

Lykurgean training.[150] Amyntas and Derdas also were instigated to

greater exertions than before, so that Agesipolis was enabled, after

receiving their reinforcements in his march through Macedonia, to

present himself before Olynthus with an overwhelming force, and to

confine the citizens within their walls. He then completed the ravage

of their territory, which had been begun by Teleutias; and even took

Torônê by storm. But the extreme heat of the summer weather presently

brought upon him a fever, which proved fatal in a week’s time;

although he had caused himself to be carried for repose to the shady

grove, and clear waters, near the temple of Dionysus at Aphytis. His

body was immersed in honey and transported to Sparta, where it was

buried with the customary solemnities.[151]

[150] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 9. Πολλοὶ δὲ αὐτῷ καὶ τῶν περιοίκων

ἐθελονταὶ καλοὶ κἀγαθοὶ ἠκολούθουν, καὶ ξένοι τῶν τροφίμων

καλουμένων, καὶ νόθοι τῶν Σπαρτιατῶν, μάλα εὐειδεῖς τε καὶ τῶν ἐν

τῇ πόλει καλῶν οὐκ ἄπειροι.

The phrase—ξένοι τῶν τροφίμων—is illustrated by a passage from

Phylarchus in Athenæus, vi, p. 271 (referred to by Schneider

in his note here). I have already stated that the political

franchise of a Spartan citizen depended upon his being able to

furnish constantly his quota to the public mess-table. Many of

the poor families became unable to do this, and thus lost their

qualification and their training; but rich citizens sometimes

paid their quota for them, and enabled them by such aid to

continue their training as ξύντροφοι, τρόφιμοι, μόθακες, etc.

as companions of their own sons. The two sons of Xenophon were

educated at Sparta (Diog. Laert. ii, 54), and would thus be ξένοι

τῶν τροφίμων καλουμένων. If either of them was now old enough, he

might probably have been one among the volunteers to accompany

Agesipolis.

[151] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 18; Pausan. iii, 5, 9.

Polybiades, who succeeded Agesipolis in the command, prosecuted the

war with undiminished vigor; and the Olynthians, debarred from their

home produce as well as from importation, were speedily reduced to

such straits as to be compelled to solicit peace. They were obliged

to break up their own federation, and to enrol themselves as sworn

members of the Lacedæmonian confederacy, with its obligations of

service to Sparta.[152] The Olynthian union being dissolved, the

component Grecian cities were enrolled severally as allies of Sparta,

while the maritime cities of Macedonia were deprived of their

neighboring Grecian protector, and passed again under the dominion of

Amyntas.

[152] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 26; Diodor. xv, 22, 23.

Both the dissolution of this growing confederacy, and the

reconstitution of maritime Macedonia, were signal misfortunes to

the Grecian world. Never were the arms of Sparta more mischievously

or more unwarrantably employed. That a powerful Grecian confederacy

should be formed in the Chalkidic peninsula, in the border region

where Hellas joined the non-Hellenic tribes,—was an incident of

signal benefit to the Hellenic world generally. It would have

served as a bulwark to Greece against the neighboring Macedonians

and Thracians, at whose expense its conquests, if it made any,

would have been achieved. That Olynthus did not oppress her Grecian

neighbors—that the principles of her confederacy were of the most

equal, generous, and seducing character,—that she employed no greater

compulsion than was requisite to surmount an unreflecting instinct

of town-autonomy,—and that the very towns who obeyed this instinct

would have become sensible themselves, in a very short time, of the

benefits conferred by the confederacy on each and every one,—these

are facts certified by the urgency of the reluctant Akanthians,

when they entreat Sparta to leave no interval for the confederacy

to make its workings felt. Nothing but the intervention of Sparta

could have crushed this liberal and beneficent promise; nothing but

the accident, that during the three years from 382 to 379 B.C., she

was at the maximum of her power and had her hands quite free, with

Thebes and its Kadmeia under her garrison. Such prosperity did not

long continue unabated. Only a few months after the submission of

Olynthus, the Kadmeia was retaken by the Theban exiles, who raised

so vigorous a war against Sparta, that she would have been disabled

from meddling with Olynthus,—as we shall find illustrated by the

fact (hereafter to be recounted), that she declined interfering in

Thessaly to protect the Thessalian cities against Jason of Pheræ.

Had the Olynthian confederacy been left to its natural working,

it might well have united all the Hellenic cities around it in

harmonious action, so as to keep the sea coast in possession of a

confederacy of free and self-determining communities, confining

the Macedonian princes to the interior. But Sparta threw in her

extraneous force, alike irresistible and inauspicious, to defeat

these tendencies; and to frustrate that salutary change,—from

fractional autonomy and isolated action into integral and equal

autonomy with collective action,—which Olynthus was laboring to

bring about. She gave the victory to Amyntas, and prepared the

indispensable basis upon which his son Philip afterwards rose, to

reduce not only Olynthus, but Akanthus, Apollonia, and the major part

of the Grecian world, to one common level of subjection. Many of

those Akanthians, who spurned the boon of equal partnership and free

communion with Greeks and neighbors, lived to discover how impotent

were their own separate walls as a bulwark against Macedonian

neighbors; and to see themselves confounded in that common servitude

which the imprudence of their fathers had entailed upon them. By

the peace of Antalkidas, Sparta had surrendered the Asiatic Greeks

to Persia; by crushing the Olynthian confederacy, she virtually

surrendered the Thracian Greeks to the Macedonian princes. Never

again did the opportunity occur of placing Hellenism on a firm,

consolidated, and self-supporting basis, round the coast of the

Thermaic Gulf.

While the Olynthian expedition was going on, the Lacedæmonians

were carrying on, under Agesilaus, another intervention within

Peloponnesus, against the city of Phlius. It has already been

mentioned that certain exiles of this city had recently been

recalled, at the express command of Sparta. The ruling party in

Phlius had at the same time passed a vote to restore the confiscated

property of these exiles; reimbursing out of the public treasury,

to those who had purchased it, the price which they had paid,—and

reserving all disputed points for judicial decision.[153] The

returned exiles now again came to Sparta, to prefer complaint that

they could obtain no just restitution of their property; that the

tribunals of the city were in the hands of their opponents, many of

them directly interested as purchasers, who refused them the right

of appealing to any extraneous and impartial authority; and that

there were even in the city itself many who thought them wronged.

Such allegations were, probably, more or less founded in truth. At

the same time, the appeal to Sparta, abrogating the independence

of Phlius, so incensed the ruling Phliasians that they passed a

sentence of fine against all the appellants. The latter insisted on

this sentence as a fresh count for strengthening their complaints

at Sparta; and as a farther proof of anti-Spartan feeling, as well

as of high-handed injustice, in the Phliasian rulers.[154] Their

cause was warmly espoused by Agesilaus, who had personal relations

of hospitality with some of the exiles; while it appears that his

colleague, King Agesipolis, was on good terms with the ruling party

at Phlius,—had received from them zealous aid, both in men and money,

for his Olynthian expedition,—and had publicly thanked them for their

devotion to Sparta.[155] The Phliasian government, emboldened by the

proclaimed testimonial of Agesipolis, certifying their fidelity,

had fancied that they stood upon firm ground, and that no Spartan

coërcion would be enforced against them. But the marked favor of

Agesipolis, now absent in Thrace, told rather against them in the

mind of Agesilaus; pursuant to that jealousy which usually prevailed

between the two Spartan kings. In spite of much remonstrance at

Sparta, from many who deprecated hostilities against a city of five

thousand citizens, for the profit of a handful of exiles,—he not only

seconded the proclamation of war against Phlius by the ephors, but

also took the command of the army.[156]

[153] Xen. Hellen. v, 2, 10.

[154] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 10, 11.

[155] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 10. ἡ Φλιασίων πόλις, ἐπαινεθεῖσα μὲν

ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἀγησιπόλιδος, ὅτι πολλὰ καὶ ταχέως αὐτῷ χρήματα ἐς τὴν

στρατιὰν ἔδοσαν, etc.

[156] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 12, 13; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 24; Diodor.

xv, 20.

The army being mustered, and the border sacrifices favorable,

Agesilaus marched with his usual rapidity towards Phlius; dismissing

those Phliasian envoys, who met him on the road and bribed or

entreated him to desist, with the harsh reply that the government

had already deceived Sparta once, and that he would be satisfied

with nothing less than the surrender of the acropolis. This being

refused, he marched to the city, and blocked it up by a wall of

circumvallation. The besieged defended themselves with resolute

bravery and endurance, under a citizen named Delphion; who, with a

select troop of three hundred, maintained constant guard at every

point, and even annoyed the besiegers by frequent sallies. By public

decree, every citizen was put upon half-allowance of bread, so that

the siege was prolonged to double the time which Agesilaus, from the

information of the exiles as to the existing stock of provisions, had

supposed to be possible. Gradually, however, famine made itself felt;

desertions from within increased, among those who were favorable,

or not decidedly averse, to the exiles; desertions, which Agesilaus

took care to encourage by an ample supply of food, and by enrolment

as Phliasian emigrants on the Spartan side. At length, after about a

year’s blockade,[157] the provisions within were exhausted, so that

the besieged were forced to entreat permission from Agesilaus to

despatch envoys to Sparta and beg for terms. Agesilaus granted their

request. But being at the same time indignant that they submitted

to Sparta rather than to him, he sent to ask the ephors that the

terms might be referred to his dictation. Meanwhile he redoubled his

watch over the city; in spite of which, Delphion, with one of his

most active subordinates, contrived to escape at this last hour.

Phlius was now compelled to surrender at discretion to Agesilaus,

who named a Council of One Hundred (half from the exiles, half from

those within the city) vested with absolute powers of life and death

over all the citizens, and authorized to frame a constitution for the

future government of the city. Until this should be done, he left a

garrison in the acropolis, with assured pay for six months.[158]

[157] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 25.

Καὶ τὰ μὲν περὶ Φλιοῦντα οὕτως αὖ ἐπετετέλεστο ἐν ὀκτὼ μησὶ καὶ

ἐνιαυτῷ.

This general expression “the matters relative to Phlius,”

comprises not merely the blockade, but the preliminary treatment

and complaints of the Phliasian exiles. One year, therefore, will

be as much as we can allow for the blockade,—perhaps more than we

ought to allow.

[158] Xen. Hellen. v, 3, 17-26.

Had Agesipolis been alive, perhaps the Phliasians might have obtained

better terms. How the omnipotent Hekatontarchy named by the partisan

feelings of Agesilaus,[159] conducted themselves, we do not know.

But the presumptions are all unfavorable, seeing that their situation

as well as their power was analogous to that of the Thirty at Athens

and the Lysandrian Dekarchies elsewhere.

[159] The panegyrist of Agesilaus finds little to commend

in these Phliasian proceedings, except the φιλεταιρεία or

partisan-attachment of his hero (Xenoph. Agesil. ii, 21).

The surrender of Olynthus to Polybiades, and of Phlius to Agesilaus,

seem to have taken place nearly at the same time.