literally true, since it contradicts the sympathies of the
reciting witness. Nothing but the pressure of undeniable evidence
could have constrained Xenophon to record a scene so painful to
him as the Lacedæmonian army beaten, in full flight, and rescued
from destruction only by the untimely wound of the Theban general.
That Epaminondas would leave no successor either equal or second
to himself, now that Pelopidas was no more,—that the army which
he commanded should be incapable of executing new movements or of
completing an unfinished campaign,—we can readily conceive. But that
on the actual battle-field, when the moment of dangerous and doubtful
struggle has been already gone through, and when the soldier’s
blood is up, to reap his reward in pursuit of an enemy whom he sees
fleeing before him—that at this crisis of exuberant impatience, when
Epaminondas, had he been unwounded, would have found it difficult to
restrain his soldiers from excessive forwardness, they should have
become at once paralyzed and disarmed on hearing of his fall,—this
is what we could not have believed, had we not found it attested by
a witness at once contemporary and hostile. So striking a proof has
hardly ever been rendered, on the part of soldiers towards their
general, of devoted and absorbing sentiment. All the hopes of this
army, composed of such diverse elements, were centred in Epaminondas;
all their confidence of success, all their security against defeat,
were derived from the idea of acting under his orders; all their
power, even of striking down a defeated enemy, appeared to vanish
when those orders were withdrawn. We are not indeed to speak of such
a proceeding with commendation. Thebes and her allied cities had
great reason to complain of their soldiers, for a grave dereliction
of military duty, and a capital disappointment of well-earned
triumph,—whatever may be our feelings about the motive. Assuredly the
man who would be most chagrined of all, and whose dying moments must
have been embittered if he lived to hear it,—was Epaminondas himself.
But when we look at the fact simply as a mark and measure of the
ascendency established by him over the minds of his soldiers, it will
be found hardly paralleled in history. I have recounted, a few pages
ago, the intense grief displayed by the Thebans and their allies
in Thessaly over the dead body of Pelopidas[757] on the hill of
Kynoskephalæ. But all direct and deliberate testimonies of attachment
to a dead or dying chief (and doubtless these too were abundant on
the field of Mantinea) fall short of the involuntary suspension of
arms in the tempting hour of victory.
[757] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 33, 34.
That the real victory, the honors of the day, belonged to Epaminondas
and the Thebans, we know from the conclusive evidence of Xenophon.
But as the vanquished, being allowed to retire unpursued, were only
separated by a short distance from the walls of Mantinea, and perhaps
rallied even before reaching the town,—as the Athenian cavalry had
cut to pieces some of the straggling light troops,—they too pretended
to have gained a victory. Trophies were erected on both sides.
Nevertheless the Thebans were masters of the field of battle; so
that the Lacedæmonians, after some hesitation, were forced to send a
herald to solicit truce for the burial of the slain, and to grant for
burial such Theban bodies as they had in their possession.[758] This
was the understood confession of defeat.
[758] The statement of Diodorus (xv, 87) on this point appears to
me more probable than that of Xenophon (vii, 5, 26).
The Athenians boasted much of this slight success with their
cavalry, enhancing its value by acknowledging that all their
allies had been defeated around them (Plutarch, De Gloriâ Athen.
p. 350 A.).
The surgeons, on examining the wound of Epaminondas, with the
spear-head yet sticking in it, pronounced that he must die as soon as
that was withdrawn. He first inquired whether his shield was safe;
and his shield-bearer, answering in the affirmative, produced it
before his eyes. He next asked about the issue of the battle, and
was informed that his own army was victorious.[759] He then desired
to see Iolaidas and Daiphantus, whom he intended to succeed him
as commanders; but received the mournful reply, that both of them
had been slain.[760] “Then (said he) you must make peace with the
enemy.” He ordered the spear-head to be withdrawn, when the efflux of
blood speedily terminated his life.
[759] Diodor. xv, 88; Cicero, De Finibus, ii, 30, 97; Epistol. ad
Familiares, v, 12, 5.
[760] Plutarch, Apophthegm. Regum, p. 194 C.; Ælian, V. H. xii, 3.
Both Plutarch and Diodorus talk of Epaminondas being carried back
to the _camp_. But it seems that there could hardly have been any
camp. Epaminondas had marched out only a few hours before from
Tegea. A tent may have been erected on the field to receive him.
Five centuries afterwards, the Mantineans showed to the traveller
Pausanias a spot called Skiopê near the field of battle, to which
(they affirmed) the wounded Epaminondas had been carried off, in
great pain, and with his hand on his wound—from whence he had
looked with anxiety on the continuing battle (Pausan. viii, 11,
4).
Of the three questions here ascribed to the dying chief, the third
is the gravest and most significant. The death of these two other
citizens, the only men in the camp whom Epaminondas could trust,
shows how aggravated and irreparable was the Theban loss, not indeed
as to number, but as to quality. Not merely Epaminondas himself, but
the only two men qualified in some measure to replace him, perished
in the same field; and Pelopidas had fallen in the preceding year.
Such accumulation of individual losses must be borne in mind when
we come to note the total suspension of Theban glory and dignity,
after this dearly-bought victory. It affords emphatic evidence of the
extreme forwardness with which their leaders exposed themselves, as
well as of the gallant resistance which they experienced.
The death of Epaminondas spread rejoicing in the Lacedæmonian camp
proportioned to the sorrow of the Theban. To more than one warrior
was assigned the honor of having struck the blow. The Mantineans
gave it to their citizen Machærion; the Athenians, to Gryllus son
of Xenophon; the Spartans, to their countryman Antikrates.[761] At
Sparta, distinguished honor was shown, even in the days of Plutarch,
to the posterity of Antikrates, who was believed to have rescued the
city from her most formidable enemy. Such tokens afford precious
testimony, from witnesses beyond all suspicion, to the memory of
Epaminondas.
[761] Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 35; Pausanias, i, 3, 3; viii, 9,
2-5; viii, 11, 4; ix, 15, 3.
The reports however which Pausanias gives, and the name of
Machærion which he heard both at Mantinea and at Sparta, are
confused, and are hardly to be reconciled with the story of
Plutarch.
Moreover, it would seem that the subsequent Athenians did not
clearly distinguish between the first battle fought by the
Athenian cavalry, immediately after their arrival at Mantinea,
when they rescued that town from being surprised by the Thebans
and Thessalians—and the general action which followed a few days
afterwards wherein Epaminondas was slain.
How the news of his death was received at Thebes, we have no
positive account. But there can be no doubt that the sorrow, so
paralysing to the victorious soldiers on the field of Mantinea, was
felt with equal acuteness, and with an effect not less depressing,
in the senate-house and market-place of Thebes. The city, the
citizen-soldiers, and the allies, would be alike impressed with the
mournful conviction, that the dying injunction of Epaminondas must
be executed. Accordingly, negotiations were opened, and peace was
concluded,—probably at once, before the army left Peloponnesus.
The Thebans and their Arcadian allies exacted nothing more than
the recognition of the _statu quo;_ to leave everything exactly as
it was, without any change or reactionary measure, yet admitting
Megalopolis, with the Pan-Arcadian constitution attached to it,—and
admitting also Messênê as an independent city. Against this last
article Sparta loudly and peremptorily protested. But not one of her
allies sympathized with her feelings. Some, indeed, were decidedly
against her; to such a degree, that we find the maintenance of
independent Messênê against Sparta ranking shortly afterwards as
an admitted principle in Athenian foreign politics.[762] Neither
Athenians, nor Eleians, nor Arcadians, desired to see Sparta
strengthened. None had any interest in prolonging the war, with
prospects doubtful to every one; while all wished to see the large
armies now in Arcadia dismissed. Accordingly, the peace was sworn to
on these conditions, and the autonomy of Messênê guaranteed, by all,
except the Spartans; who alone stood out, keeping themselves without
friends or auxiliaries, in the hope for better times,—rather than
submit to what they considered as an intolerable degradation.[763]
[762] See the oration of Demosthenes on behalf of the
Megalopolitans (Orat. xvi, s. 10, p. 204; s. 21, p. 206).
[763] Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 35; Diodor. xv, 89; Polybius, iv,
33.
Mr. Fynes Clinton (Fasti Hellen. B.C. 361) assigns the
conclusion of peace to the succeeding year. I do not know however
what ground there is for assuming such an interval between the
battle and the peace. Diodorus appears to place the latter
immediately after the former. This would not count for much,
indeed, against any considerable counter-probability; but the
probability here (in my judgment) is rather in favor of immediate
sequence between the two events.
Under these conditions, the armies on both sides retired. Xenophon
is right in saying, that neither party gained anything, either city,
territory, or dominion; though before the battle, considering the
magnitude of the two contending armies, every one had expected
that the victors, whichever they were, would become masters, and
the vanquished, subjects. But his assertion,—that “there was more
disturbance, and more matter of dispute, in Greece, after the battle
than before it,”—must be interpreted, partly as the inspiration of
a philo-Laconian sentiment, which regards a peace not accepted by
Sparta as no peace at all,—partly as based on the circumstance,
that no definite headship was recognized as possessed by any state.
Sparta had once enjoyed it, and had set the disgraceful example of
suing out a confirmation of it from the Persian king at the peace of
Antalkidas. Both Thebes and Athens had aspired to the same dignity,
and both by the like means, since the battle of Leuktra; neither
of them had succeeded. Greece was thus left without a head, and
to this extent the affirmation of Xenophon is true. But it would
not be correct to suppose that the last expedition of Epaminondas
into Peloponnesus was unproductive of any results,—though it was
disappointed of its great and brilliant fruits by his untimely
death. Before he marched in, the Theban party in Arcadia, (Tegea,
Megalopolis, etc.), was on the point of being crushed by the
Mantineans and their allies. His expedition, though ending in an
indecisive victory, nevertheless broke up the confederacy enlisted
in support of Mantinea; enabling Tegea and Megalopolis to maintain
themselves against their Arcadian opponents, and thus leaving the
frontier against Sparta unimpaired. While therefore we admit the
affirmation of Xenophon,—that Thebes did not gain by the battle
either city, or territory, or dominion,—we must at the same time add,
that she gained the preservation of her Arcadian allies, and of her
anti-Spartan frontier, including Messênê.
This was a gain of considerable importance. But dearly, indeed, was
it purchased, by the blood of her first hero, shed on the field of
Mantinea; not to mention his two seconds, whom we know only from his
verdict,—Daiphantus and Iolaidas.[764] He was buried on the field of
battle, and a monumental column was erected on his tomb.
[764] Pausanias, viii, 11, 4, 5.
Scarcely any character in Grecian history has been judged with
so much unanimity as Epaminondas. He has obtained a meed of
admiration,—from all, sincere and hearty,—from some, enthusiastic.
Cicero pronounces him to be the first man of Greece.[765] The
judgment of Polybius, though not summed up so emphatically in a
single epithet, is delivered in a manner hardly less significant
and laudatory. Nor was it merely historians or critics who formed
this judgment. The best men of action, combining the soldier and
the patriot, such as Timoleon and Philopœmen,[766] set before them
Epaminondas as their model to copy. The remark has been often made,
and suggests itself whenever we speak of Epaminondas, though its
full force will be felt only when we come to follow the subsequent
history,—that with him the dignity and commanding influence of Thebes
both began and ended. His period of active political life comprehends
sixteen years, from the resurrection of Thebes into a free community,
by the expulsion of the Lacedæmonian harmost and garrison, and the
subversion of the ruling oligarchy,—to the fatal day of Mantinea
(379-362 B.C.). His prominent and unparalleled ascendency belongs
to the last eight years, from the victory of Leuktra (371 B.C.).
Throughout this whole period, both all that we know and all that we
can reasonably divine, fully bears out the judgment of Polybius and
Cicero, who had the means of knowing much more. And this too,—let it
be observed,—though Epaminondas is tried by a severe canon: for the
chief contemporary witness remaining is one decidedly hostile. Even
the philo-Laconian Xenophon finds neither misdeeds nor omissions to
reveal in the capital enemy of Sparta,—mentions him only to record
what is honorable,—and manifests the perverting bias mainly by
suppressing or slurring over his triumphs. The man whose eloquence
bearded Agesilaus at the congress immediately preceding the battle
of Leuktra,[767]—who in that battle stripped Sparta of her glory,
and transferred the wreath to Thebes,—who a few months afterwards,
not only ravaged all the virgin territory of Laconia, but cut off
the best half of it for the restitution of independent Messênê,
and erected the hostile Arcadian community of Megalopolis on its
frontier,—the author of these fatal disasters inspires to Xenophon
such intolerable chagrin and antipathy, that in the two first he
keeps back the name, and in the third, suppresses the thing done.
But in the last campaign, preceding the battle of Mantinea (whereby
Sparta incurred no positive loss, and where the death of Epaminondas
softened every predisposition against him), there was no such
violent pressure upon the fidelity of the historian. Accordingly,
the concluding chapter of Xenophon’s ‘Hellenica’ contains a
panegyric,[768] ample and unqualified, upon the military merits of
the Theban general; upon his daring enterprise, his comprehensive
foresight, his care to avoid unnecessary exposure of soldiers, his
excellent discipline, his well-combined tactics, his fertility of
aggressive resource in striking at the weak points of the enemy,
who content themselves with following and parrying his blows (to
use a simile of Demosthenes[769]) like an unskilful pugilist, and
only succeed in doing so by signal aid from accident. The effort of
strategic genius, then for the first time devised and applied, of
bringing an irresistible force of attack to bear on one point of
the hostile line, while the rest of his army was kept comparatively
back until the action had been thus decided,—is clearly noted by
Xenophon, together with its triumphant effect, at the battle of
Mantinea; though the very same combination on the field of Leuktra is
slurred over in his description, as if it were so commonplace as not
to require any mention of the chief with whom it originated. Compare
Epaminondas with Agesilaus,—how great is the superiority of the
first,—even in the narrative of Xenophon, the earnest panegyrist of
the other! How manifestly are we made to see that nothing except the
fatal spear-wound at Mantinea, prevented him from reaping the fruit
of a series of admirable arrangements, and from becoming arbiter of
Peloponnesus, including Sparta herself!
[765] Cicero, Tusculan. i, 2, 4; De Orator. iii, 34, 139.
“Epaminondas, princeps, meo judicio, Græciæ,” etc.
[766] Plutarch, Philopœmen, c. 3; Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 36.
[767] See the inscription of four lines copied by Pausanias from
the statue of Epaminondas at Thebes (Paus. ix, 16, 3):—
Ἡμετέραις βουλαῖς Σπάρτη μὲν ἐκείρατο δόξαν, etc.
[768] Xenoph. Hellen. vii, 5, 8, 9.
[769] Demosthenes, Philipp. I, p. 51, s. 46.
The military merits alone of Epaminondas, had they merely belonged to
a general of mercenaries, combined with nothing praiseworthy in other
ways,—would have stamped him as a man of high and original genius,
above every other Greek, antecedent or contemporary. But it is the
peculiar excellence of this great man that we are not compelled
to borrow from one side of his character in order to compensate
deficiencies in another.[770] His splendid military capacity was
never prostituted to personal ends: neither to avarice, nor ambition,
nor overweening vanity. Poor at the beginning of his life, he left at
the end of it not enough to pay his funeral expenses; having despised
the many opportunities for enrichment which his position afforded,
as well as the richest offers from foreigners.[771] Of ambition he
had so little, by natural temperament, that his friends accused him
of torpor. But as soon as the perilous exposure of Thebes required
it, he displayed as much energy in her defence as the most ambitious
of her citizens, without any of that captious exigence, frequent
in ambitious men, as to the amount of glorification or deference
due to him from his countrymen. And his personal vanity was so
faintly kindled, even after the prodigious success at Leuktra, that
we find him serving in Thessaly as a private hoplite in the ranks,
and in the city as an ædile or inferior street-magistrate, under
the title of Telearchus. An illustrious specimen of that capacity
and goodwill, both to command and to be commanded, which Aristotle
pronounces to form in their combination the characteristic feature
of the worthy citizen.[772] He once incurred the displeasure of his
fellow-citizens, for his wise and moderate policy in Achaia, which
they were ill-judged enough to reverse. We cannot doubt also that
he was frequently attacked by political censors and enemies,—the
condition of eminence in every free state; but neither of these
causes ruffled the dignified calmness of his political course. As he
never courted popularity by unworthy arts, so he bore unpopularity
without murmurs, and without angry renunciation of patriotic
duty.[773]
[770] The remark of Diodorus (xv, 88) upon Epaminondas is more
emphatic than we usually find in him,—Παρὰ μὲν γὰρ ἑκάστῳ τῶν
ἄλλων ἓν ἂν εὕροι προτέρημα τῆς δόξης, παρὰ δὲ τούτῳ πάσας τὰς
ἀρετὰς ἠθροισμένας.
[771] Polybius, xxxii, 8, 6. Cornelius Nepos (Epaminondas, c.
4) gives one anecdote, among several which he affirms to have
found on record, of large pecuniary presents tendered to, and
repudiated by, Epaminondas; an anecdote recounted with so much
precision of detail, that it appears to deserve credit, though we
cannot assign the exact time when the alleged briber Diomedon of
Kyzicus, came to Thebes.
Plutarch (De Genio Socratis, p. 583 F.) relates an incident about
Jason of Pheræ tendering money in vain to Epaminondas, which
cannot well have happened before the liberation of the Kadmeia
(the period to which Plutarch’s dialogue assigns it), but may
have happened afterwards.
Compare Plutarch, Apophthegm. Reg. p. 193 C.; and Plutarch’s Life
of Fabius Maximus, c. 27.
[772] Aristotel. Politic. iii, 2, 10.
[773] Plutarch, Compar. Alkibiad. and Coriolanus, c. 4. Ἐπεὶ τό
γε μὴ λιπαρῆ μηδὲ θεραπευτικὸν ὄχλων εἶναι, καὶ Μέτελλος εἶχε
καὶ Ἀριστείδης καὶ Ἐπαμεινώνδας· ἀλλὰ τῷ καταφρονεῖν ὡς ἀληθῶς
ὧν δῆμός ἐστι καὶ δοῦναι καὶ ἀφελέσθαι κύριος, ἐξοστρακιζόμενοι
καὶ ἀποχειροτονούμενοι καὶ καταδικαζόμενοι πολλάκις οὐκ ὠργίζοντο
τοῖς πολίταις ἀγνωμονοῦσιν, ἀλλ’ ἠγάπων αὖθις μεταμελομένους καὶ
διηλλάττοντο παρακαλούντων.
The mildness of his antipathies against political opponents at home
was undeviating; and, what is even more remarkable, amidst the
precedence and practice of the Grecian world, his hostility against
foreign enemies, Bœotian dissentients, and Theban exiles, was
uniformly free from reactionary vengeance. Sufficient proofs have
been adduced in the preceding pages of this rare union of attributes
in the same individual; of lofty disinterestedness, not merely
as to corrupt gains, but as to the more seductive irritabilities
of ambition, combined with a just measure of attachment towards
partisans, and unparalleled gentleness towards enemies. His
friendship with Pelopidas was never disturbed during the fifteen
years of their joint political career; an absence of jealousy signal
and creditable to both, though most creditable to Pelopidas, the
richer, as well as the inferior, man of the two. To both, and to
the harmonious coöperation of both, Thebes owed her short-lived
splendor and ascendency. Yet when we compare the one with the other,
we not only miss in Pelopidas the transcendent strategic genius and
conspicuous eloquence, but even the constant vigilance and prudence,
which never deserted his friend. If Pelopidas had had Epaminondas as
his companion in Thessaly, he would hardly have trusted himself to
the good faith, nor tasted the dungeon, of the Pheræan Alexander; nor
would he have rushed forward to certain destruction, in a transport
of phrensy, at the view of that hated tyrant in the subsequent battle.
In eloquence, Epaminondas would doubtless have found superiors at
Athens; but at Thebes, he had neither equal, nor predecessor, nor
successor. Under the new phase into which Thebes passed by the
expulsion of the Lacedæmonians out of the Kadmeia, such a gift was
second in importance only to the great strategic qualities; while
the combination of both elevated their possessor into the envoy,
the counsellor, the debater, of his country,[774] as well as her
minister at war and commander-in-chief. The shame of acknowledging
Thebes as leading state in Greece, embodied in the current phrases
about Bœotian stupidity, would be sensibly mitigated, when her
representative in an assembled congress spoke with the flowing
abundance of the Homeric Odysseus, instead of the loud, brief, and
hurried bluster of Menelaus.[775] The possession of such eloquence,
amidst the uninspiring atmosphere of Thebes, implied far greater
mental force than a similar accomplishment would have betokened at
Athens. In Epaminondas, it was steadily associated with thought and
action,—that triple combination of thinking, speaking, and acting,
which Isokrates and other Athenian sophists[776] set before their
hearers as the stock and qualification for meritorious civic life. To
the bodily training and soldier-like practice, common to all Thebans,
Epaminondas added an ardent intellectual impulse and a range of
discussion with the philosophical men around, peculiar to himself.
He was not floated into public life by the accident of birth or
wealth,—nor hoisted and propped up by oligarchical clubs,—nor even
determined to it originally by any spontaneous ambition of his own.
But the great revolution of 379 B.C., which expelled from Thebes
both the Lacedæmonian garrison and the local oligarchy who ruled
by its aid, forced him forward by the strongest obligations both
of duty and interest; since nothing but an energetic defence could
rescue both him and every other free Theban from slavery. It was
by the like necessity that the American revolution, and the first
French revolution, thrust into the front rank the most instructed and
capable men of the country, whether ambitious by temperament or not.
As the pressure of the time impelled Epaminondas forward, so it also
disposed his countrymen to look out for a competent leader wherever
he was to be found; and in no other living man could they obtain the
same union of the soldier, the general, the orator, and the patriot.
Looking through all Grecian history, it is only in Perikles that we
find the like many-sided excellence; for though much inferior to
Epaminondas as a general, Perikles must be held superior to him as a
statesman. But it is alike true of both,—and the remark tends much
to illustrate the sources of Grecian excellence,—that neither sprang
exclusively from the school of practice and experience. They both
brought to that school minds exercised in the conversation of the
most instructed philosophers and sophists accessible to them,—trained
to varied intellectual combinations and to a larger range of subjects
than those that came before the public assembly,—familiarized with
reasonings which the scrupulous piety of Nikias forswore, and which
the devoted military patriotism of Pelopidas disdained.
[774] See an anecdote about Epaminondas as the diplomatist and
negotiator on behalf of Thebes against Athens—δικαιολογούμενος,
etc. Athenæus, xiv, p. 650 E.
[775] Homer, Iliad, iii, 210-220 (Menelaus and Odysseus)—
Ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ Τρώεσσιν ἀγειρομένοισιν ἔμιχθεν,
Ἤτοι μὲν Μενέλαος ἐπιτροχάδην ἀγόρευε,
Παῦρα μὲν, ἀλλὰ μάλα λιγέως· ἐπεὶ οὐ πολύμυθος, etc.
... Ἀλλ’ ὅτε δή ῥ’ ὄπα τε μεγάλην ἐκ στήθεος ἵει (Odysseus),
Καὶ ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίῃσιν,
Οὐκέτ’ ἔπειτ’ Ὀδυσῆΐ γ’ ἐρίσσειε βροτὸς ἄλλος, etc.
[776] See Vol. VIII. of this History, Ch. lxvii, p.
357-397—φρονεῖν, λέγειν, καὶ πράττειν, etc.
On one point, as I have already noticed, the policy recommended by
Epaminondas to his countrymen appears of questionable wisdom,—his
advice to compete with Athens for transmarine and naval power.
One cannot recognize in this advice the same accurate estimate of
permanent causes,—the same long-sighted view, of the conditions of
strength to Thebes and of weakness to her enemies, which dictated the
foundation of Messênê and Megalopolis. These two towns, when once
founded, took such firm root, that Sparta could not persuade even
her own allies to aid in effacing them; a clear proof of the sound
reasoning on which their founder had proceeded. What Epaminondas
would have done,—whether he would have followed out maxims equally
prudent and penetrating,—if he had survived the victory of
Mantinea,—is a point which we cannot pretend to divine. He would
have found himself then on a pinnacle of glory, and invested with a
plenitude of power, such as no Greek ever held without abusing. But
all that we know of Epaminondas justifies the conjecture that he
would have been found equal, more than any other Greek, even to this
great trial; and that his untimely death shut him out from a future
not less honorable to himself, than beneficial to Thebes and to
Greece generally.
Of the private life and habits of Epaminondas we know scarcely
anything. We are told that he never married; and we find brief
allusions, without any details, to attachments in which he is said
to have indulged.[777] Among the countrymen of Pindar,[778] devoted
attachment between mature men and beautiful youths was more frequent
than in other parts of Greece. It was confirmed by interchange of
mutual oaths at the tomb of Iolaus, and was reckoned upon as the
firmest tie of military fidelity in the hour of battle. Asopichus
and Kaphisodorus are named as youths to whom Epaminondas was much
devoted. The first fought with desperate bravery at the battle of
Leuktra, and after the victory caused an image of the Leuktrian
trophy to be carved on his shield, which he dedicated at Delphi;[779]
the second perished along with his illustrious friend and chief on
the field of Mantinea, and was buried in a grave closely adjacent to
him.[780]
[777] Plutarch, Apophtheg. Reg. p. 192 E. Athenæ. xiii, p. 590 C.
[778] Hieronymus ap. Athenæ. xiii, p. 602 A.; Plutarch,
Pelopidas, c. 18; Xen. Rep. Lacedæmon. ii, 12.
See the striking and impassioned fragment of Pindar, addressed by
him when old to the youth Theoxenus of Tenedos, Fragm. 2 of the
Skolia, in Dissen’s edition, and Boeckh’s edition of Pindar, vol.
iii, p. 611, ap. Athenæum, xiii, p. 605 C.
[779] See Theopompus, Frag. 182, ed. Didot, ap. Athenæ. xiii, p.
605 A.
[780] Plutarch, Pelopid. _ut sup._; Plutarch, Amatorius, p. 761
D.; compare Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 8, 39.
It rather appears that the Spartans, deeply incensed against their
allies for having abandoned them in reference to Messênê, began to
turn their attention away from the affairs of Greece to those of Asia
and Egypt. But the dissensions in Arcadia were not wholly appeased
even by the recent peace. The city of Megalopolis had been founded
only eight years before by the coalescence of many smaller townships,
all previously enjoying a separate autonomy more or less perfect. The
vehement anti-Spartan impulse, which marked the two years immediately
succeeding the battle of Leuktra, had overruled to so great a degree
the prior instincts of these townships, that they had lent themselves
to the plans of Lykomedes and Epaminondas for an enlarged community
in the new city. But since that period, reaction had taken place. The
Mantineans had come to be at the head of an anti-Megalopolitan party
in Arcadia; and several of the communities which had been merged
in Megalopolis, counting upon aid from them and from the Eleians,
insisted on seceding, and returning to their original autonomy. But
for foreign aid, Megalopolis would now have been in great difficulty.
A pressing request was sent to the Thebans, who despatched into
Arcadia three thousand hoplites under Pammenes. This force enabled
the Megalopolitans, though not without measures of considerable
rigor, to uphold the integrity of their city, and keep the refractory
members in communion.[781] And it appears that the interference thus
obtained was permanently efficacious, so that the integrity of this
recent Pan-Arcadian community was no farther disturbed.
[781] Diodor. xv, 94.
I venture here to depart from Diodorus, who states that these
three thousand men were _Athenians_, not _Thebans_; that the
Megalopolitans sent to ask aid from _Athens_, and that the
_Athenians_ sent these three thousand men under Pammenes.
That Diodorus (or the copyist) has here mistaken Thebans for
Athenians, appears to me, on the following grounds:—
1. Whoever reads attentively the oration delivered by Demosthenes
in the Athenian assembly (about ten years after this period)
respecting the propriety of sending an armed force to defend
Megalopolis against the threats of Sparta—will see, I think,
that Athens can never before have sent any military assistance
to Megalopolis. Both the arguments which Demosthenes urges, and
those which he combats as having been urged by opponents, exclude
the reality of any such previous proceeding.
2. Even at the time when the above-mentioned oration was
delivered, the Megalopolitans were still (compare Diodorus,
xvi, 39) under special alliance with, and guardianship of,
Thebes—though the latter had then been so much weakened by the
Sacred War and other causes, that it seemed doubtful whether
she could give them complete protection against Sparta. But
in the year next after the battle of Mantinea, the alliance
between Megalopolis and Thebes, as well as the hostility between
Megalopolis and Athens, was still fresher and more intimate. The
Thebans (then in unimpaired power), who had fought for them in
the preceding year,—not the Athenians, who had fought against
them,—would be the persons invoked for aid to Megalopolis; nor
had any positive reverses as yet occurred to disable the Thebans
from furnishing aid.
3. Lastly, Pammenes is a _Theban_ general, friend of Epaminondas.
He is mentioned as such not only by Diodorus himself in another
place (xvi, 34), but also by Pausanias (viii, 27, 2), as
the general who had been sent to watch over the building of
Megalopolis, by Plutarch (Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 26; Plutarch,
Reipub. Gerend. Præcept. p. 805 F.), and by Polyænus (v, 16, 3).
We find a private Athenian citizen named Pammenes, a goldsmith,
mentioned in the oration of Demosthenes against Meidias (s. 31.
p. 521); but no Athenian officer or public man of that time so
named.
Upon these grounds, I cannot but feel convinced that Pammenes and
his troops were Thebans, and not Athenians.
I am happy to find myself in concurrence with Dr. Thirlwall on
this point (Hist. Gr. vol. v, ch. xliii, p. 368 note).
The old king Agesilaus was compelled, at the age of eighty, to see
the dominion of Sparta thus irrevocably narrowed, her influence in
Arcadia overthrown, and the loss of Messênê formally sanctioned even
by her own allies. All his protests, and those of his son Archidamus,
so strenuously set forth by Isokrates, had only ended by isolating
Sparta more than ever from Grecian support and sympathy. Archidamus
probably never seriously attempted to execute the desperate scheme
which he had held out as a threat some two or three years before the
battle of Mantinea; that the Lacedæmonians would send away their
wives and families, and convert their military population into
a perpetual camp, never to lay down arms until they should have
reconquered Messênê or perished in the attempt.[782] Yet he and his
father, though deserted by all Grecian allies, had not yet abandoned
the hope that they might obtain aid, in the shape of money for
levying mercenary troops, from the native princes in Egypt and the
revolted Persian satraps in Asia, with whom they seem to have been
for some time in a sort of correspondence.[783]
[782] See Isokrates, Orat. vi, (Archidamus) s. 85-93.
[783] Isokrates, Or. vi, (Archid.) s. 73.
About the time of the battle of Mantinea,—and as it would seem,
for some years before,—a large portion of the western dominions of
the Great King were in a state partly of revolt, partly of dubious
obedience. Egypt had been for some years in actual revolt, and
under native princes, whom the Persians had vainly endeavored to
subdue (employing for that purpose the aid of the Athenian generals
Iphikrates and Timotheus) both in 374 and 371 B.C. Ariobarzanes,
satrap of the region near the Propontis and the Hellespont, appears
to have revolted about the year 367-366 B.C. In other parts of Asia
Minor, too,—Paphlagonia, Pisidia, etc.,—the subordinate princes or
governors became disaffected to Artaxerxes. But their disaffection
was for a certain time kept down by the extraordinary ability and
vigor of a Karian named Datames, commander for the king in a part
of Kappadokia, who gained several important victories over them
by rapidity of movement and well-combined stratagem. At length
the services of Datames became so distinguished as to excite the
jealousy of many of the Persian grandees; who poisoned the royal
mind against him, and thus drove him to raise the standard of revolt
in his own district of Kappadokia, under alliance and concert with
Ariobarzanes. It was in vain that Autophradates, satrap of Lydia,
was sent by Artaxerxes with a powerful force to subdue Datames. The
latter resisted all the open force of Persia, and was at length
overcome only by the treacherous conspiracy of Mithridates (son of
Ariobarzanes), who, corrupted by the Persian court and becoming a
traitor both to his father Ariobarzanes and to Datames, simulated
zealous coöperation, tempted the latter to a confidential interview,
and there assassinated him.[784]
[784] Cornelius Nepos has given a biography of Datames at some
length, recounting his military exploits and stratagems. He
places Datames, in point of military talent, above all _barbari_,
except Hamilcar Barca and Hannibal (c. 1). Polyænus also (vii,
29) recounts several memorable proceedings of the same chief.
Compare too Diodorus, xv, 91; and Xen. Cyropæd. viii, 8, 4.
We cannot make out with any certainty either the history, or the
chronology, of Datames. His exploits seem to belong to the last
ten years of Artaxerxes Mnemon, and his death seems to have taken
place a little before the death of that prince; which last event
is to be assigned to 359-358 B.C. See Mr. Fynes Clinton, Fast.
Hell. ch. 18. p. 316, Appendix.
Still, however, there remained powerful princes and satraps in Asia
Minor, disaffected to the court; Mausôlus, prince of Karia; Orontes,
satrap of Mysia, and Autophradates, satrap of Lydia,—the last having
now apparently joined the revolters, though he had before been
active in upholding the authority of the king. It seems too that the
revolt extended to Syria and Phœnicia, so that all the western coast
with its large revenues, as well as Egypt, was at once subtracted
from the empire. Tachos, native king of Egypt, was prepared to lend
assistance to this formidable combination of disaffected commanders,
who selected Orontes as their chief; confiding to him their united
forces, and sending Rheomithres to Egypt to procure pecuniary
aid. But the Persian court broke the force of this combination
by corrupting both Orontes and Rheomithres, who betrayed their
confederates, and caused the enterprise to fail. Of the particulars
we know little or nothing.[785]
[785] Diodor. xv, 91, 92; Xenophon, Cyropæd. viii, 8, 4.
Our information about these disturbances in the interior of
the Persian empire is so scanty and confused, that few of the
facts can be said to be certainly known. Diodorus has evidently
introduced into the year 362-361 B.C. a series of events, many
of them belonging to years before and after. Rehdantz (Vit.
Iphicrat. Chabr. et. Timoth. p. 154-161) brings together all the
statements; but unfortunately with little result.
Both the Spartan king Agesilaus, with a thousand Lacedæmonian or
Peloponnesian hoplites,—and the Athenian general Chabrias, were
invited to Egypt to command the forces of Tachos; the former on
land, the latter at sea. Chabrias came simply as a volunteer,
without any public sanction or order from Athens. But the service of
Agesilaus was undertaken for the purposes and with the consent of the
authorities at home, attested by the presence of thirty Spartans who
came out as his counsellors. The Spartans were displeased with the
Persian king for having sanctioned the independence of Messênê; and
as the prospect of overthrowing or enfeebling his empire appeared
at this moment considerable, they calculated on reaping a large
reward for their services to the Egyptian prince, who would in return
lend them assistance towards their views in Greece. But dissension
and bad judgment marred all the combinations against the Persian
king. Agesilaus, on reaching Egypt,[786] was received with little
respect. The Egyptians saw with astonishment, that one, whom they
had invited as a formidable warrior, was a little deformed old man,
of mean attire, and sitting on the grass with his troops, careless
of show or luxury. They not only vented their disappointment in
sarcastic remarks, but also declined to invest him with the supreme
command, as he had anticipated. He was only recognized as general
of the mercenary land force, while Tachos himself commanded in
chief, and Chabrias was at the head of the fleet. Great efforts
were made to assemble a force competent to act against the Great
King; and Chabrias is said to have suggested various stratagems
for obtaining money from the Egyptians.[787] The army having been
thus strengthened, Agesilaus, though discontented and indignant,
nevertheless accompanied Tachos on an expedition against the Persian
forces in Phœnicia; from whence they were forced to return by the
revolt of Nektanebis, cousin of Tachos, who caused himself to be
proclaimed king of Egypt. Tachos was now full of supplications to
Agesilaus to sustain him against his competitor for the Egyptian
throne; while Nektanebis, also on his side, began to bid high for
the favor of the Spartans. With the sanction of the authorities at
home, but in spite of the opposition of Chabrias, Agesilaus decided
in favor of Nektanebis, withdrawing the mercenaries from the camp of
Tachos,[788] who was accordingly obliged to take flight. Chabrias
returned home to Athens; either not choosing to abandon Tachos, whom
he had come to serve,—or recalled by special order of his countrymen,
in consequence of the remonstrance of the Persian king. A competitor
for the throne presently arose in the Mendesian division of Egypt.
Agesilaus, vigorously maintaining the cause of Nektanebis, defeated
all the efforts of his opponent. Yet his great schemes against
the Persian empire were abandoned, and nothing was effected as
the result of his Egyptian expedition except the establishment of
Nektanebis; who, having in vain tried to prevail upon him to stay
longer, dismissed him in the winter season with large presents, and
with a public donation to Sparta of two hundred and thirty talents.
Agesilaus marched from the Nile towards Kyrênê, in order to obtain
from that town and its ports ships for the passage home. But he died
on the march, without reaching Kyrênê. His body was conveyed home by
his troops, for burial, in a preparation of wax, since honey was not
to be obtained.[789]
[786] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 36; Athenæus, xiv, p. 616 D.;
Cornelius Nepos, Agesil. c. 8.
[787] See Pseudo-Aristotel. Œconomic. ii, 25.
[788] Diodorus (xv, 93) differs from Plutarch and others (whom
I follow) in respect to the relations of Tachos and Nektanebis
with Agesilaus; affirming that Agesilaus supported Tachos, and
supported him with success, against Nektanebis.
Compare Cornelius Nepos, Chabrias, c. 2, 3.
We find Chabrias serving Athens in the Chersonese—in 359-358 B.C.
(Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 677, s. 204).
[789] Diodor. xv, 93; Plutarch, Agesil. c. 38-40; Cornelius
Nepos, Agesil. 8.
Thus expired, at an age somewhat above eighty, the ablest and most
energetic of the Spartan kings. He has enjoyed the advantage,
denied to every other eminent Grecian leader, that his character
and exploits have been set out in the most favorable point of view
by a friend and companion,—Xenophon. Making every allowance for
partiality in this picture, there will still remain a really great
and distinguished character. We find the virtues of a soldier, and
the abilities of a commander, combined with strenuous personal will
and decision, in such measure as to ensure for Agesilaus constant
ascendency over the minds of others far beyond what was naturally
incident to his station; and that, too, in spite of conspicuous
bodily deformity, amidst a nation eminently sensitive on that point.
Of the merits which Xenophon ascribes to him, some are the fair
results of a Spartan education;—his courage, simplicity of life, and
indifference to indulgences,—his cheerful endurance of hardship under
every form. But his fidelity to engagements, his uniform superiority
to pecuniary corruption, and those winning and hearty manners which
attached to him all around—were virtues not Spartan but personal
to himself. We find in him, however, more analogy to Lysander—a
man equally above reproach on the score of pecuniary gain—than to
Brasidas or Kallikratidas. Agesilaus succeeded to the throne, with
a disputed title, under the auspices and through the intrigues of
Lysander; whose influence, at that time predominant both at Sparta
and in Greece, had planted everywhere dekarchies and harmosts as
instruments of ascendency for imperial Sparta—and under the name of
Sparta, for himself. Agesilaus, too high-spirited to comport himself
as second to any one, speedily broke through so much of the system as
had been constructed to promote the personal dominion of Lysander;
yet without following out the same selfish aspirations, or seeking
to build up the like individual dictatorship, on his own account.
His ambition was indeed unbounded, but it was for Sparta in the
first place, and for himself only in the second. The misfortune was,
that in his measures for upholding and administering the imperial
authority of Sparta, he still continued that mixture of domestic and
foreign coërcion (represented by the dekarchy and the harmost) which
had been introduced by Lysander; a sad contrast with the dignified
equality, and emphatic repudiation of partisan interference,
proclaimed by Brasidas, as the watchword of Sparta, at Akanthus and
Torônê—and with the still nobler Pan-hellenic aims of Kallikratidas.
The most glorious portion of the life of Agesilaus was that spent
in his three Asiatic campaigns, when acting under the miso-Persian
impulse for which his panegyrist gives him so much credit.[790]
[790] Xenoph. Encom. Ages. vii, 7. Εἰ δ’ αὖ καλὸν καὶ μισοπέρσην
εἶναι, etc.
He was here employed in a Pan-hellenic purpose, to protect the
Asiatic Greeks against that subjection to Persia which Sparta herself
had imposed upon them a few years before, as the price of Persian aid
against Athens.
The Persians presently succeeded in applying the lessons of Sparta
against herself, and in finding Grecian allies to make war upon her
near home. Here was an end of the Pan-hellenic sentiment, and of the
truly honorable ambition, in the bosom of Agesilaus. He was recalled
to make war nearer home. His obedience to the order of recall is
greatly praised by Plutarch and Xenophon—in my judgment, with little
reason, since he had no choice but to come back. But he came back an
altered man. His miso-Persian feeling had disappeared, and had been
exchanged for a miso-Theban sentiment which gradually acquired the
force of a passion. As principal conductor of the war between 394-387
B.C., he displayed that vigor and ability which never forsook him
in military operations. But when he found that the empire of Sparta
near home could not be enforced except by making her the ally of
Persia and the executor of a Persian rescript, he was content to
purchase such aid, in itself dishonorable, by the still greater
dishonor of sacrificing the Asiatic Greeks. For the time, his policy
seemed to succeed. From 387-379 B.C. (that is, down to the time of
the revolution at Thebes, effected by Pelopidas and his small band),
the ascendency of Sparta on land, in Central Greece, was continually
rising. But her injustice and oppression stand confessed even by her
panegyrist Xenophon; and this is just the period when the influence
of Agesilaus was at its maximum. Afterwards we find him personally
forward in sheltering Sphodrias from punishment, and thus bringing
upon his countrymen a war with Athens as well as with Thebes. In the
conduct of that war his military operations were, as usual, strenuous
and able, with a certain measure of success. But on the whole, the
war turns out unfavorably for Sparta. In 371 B.C., she is obliged to
accept peace on terms very humiliating, as compared with her position
in 387 B.C.; and the only compensation which she receives, is, the
opportunity of striking the Thebans out of the treaty, thus leaving
them to contend single-handed against what seemed overwhelming odds.
Of this intense miso-Theban impulse, which so speedily brought about
the unexpected and crushing disaster at Leuktra, Agesilaus stands
out as the prominent spokesman. In the days of Spartan misfortune
which followed, we find his conduct creditable and energetic, so
far as the defensive position, in which Sparta then found herself,
allowed; and though Plutarch seems displeased with him[791] for
obstinacy in refusing to acknowledge the autonomy of Messênê (at the
peace concluded after the battle of Mantinea), when acknowledged
by all the other Greeks,—yet it cannot be shown that this refusal
brought any actual mischief to Sparta; and circumstances might well
have so turned out, that it would have been a gain.
[791] Plutarch, Agesil. c. 35.
On the whole, in spite of the many military and personal merits of
Agesilaus, as an adviser and politician he deserves little esteem.
We are compelled to remark the melancholy contrast between the state
in which he found Sparta at his accession, and that wherein he left
her at his death—“Marmoream invenit, lateritiam reliquit.” Nothing
but the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea saved her from something
yet worse; though it would be unfair to Agesilaus, while we are
considering the misfortunes of Sparta during his reign, not to
recollect that Epaminondas was an enemy more formidable than she had
ever before encountered.
The efficient service rendered by Agesilaus during his last
expedition to Egypt, had the effect of establishing firmly the
dominion of Nektanebis the native king, and of protecting that
country for the time from being reconquered by the Persians; an event
that did not happen until a few years afterwards, during the reign of
the next Persian king. Of the extensive revolt, however, which at one
time threatened to wrest from the Persian crown Asia Minor as well as
Egypt, no permanent consequence remained. The treachery of Orontes
and Rheomithres so completely broke up the schemes of the revolters,
that Artaxerxes Mnemon still maintained the Persian empire (with the
exception of Egypt), unimpaired.
He died not long after the suppression of the revolt (apparently
about a year after it, in 359-358 B.C.), having reigned forty-five
or forty-six years.[792] His death was preceded by one of those
bloody tragedies which so frequently stained the transmission of
a Persian sceptre. Darius, the eldest son of Artaxerxes, had been
declared by his father successor to the throne. According to Persian
custom, the successor thus declared was entitled to prefer any
petition which he pleased; the monarch being held bound to grant
it. Darius availed himself of the privilege to ask for one of the
favorite inmates of his father’s harem, for whom he had contracted a
passion. The request so displeased Artaxerxes, that he seemed likely
to make a new appointment as to the succession; discarding Darius
and preferring his younger son Ochus, whose interests were warmly
espoused by Atossa, wife as well as daughter of the monarch. Alarmed
at this prospect, Darius was persuaded by a discontented courtier,
named Teribazus, to lay a plot for assassinating Artaxerxes; but the
plot was betrayed, and the king caused both Darius and Teribazus
to be put to death. By this catastrophe the chance of Ochus was
improved, and his ambition yet farther stimulated. But there still
remained two princes, older than he—Arsames and Ariaspes. Both these
brothers he contrived to put out of the way; the one by a treacherous
deceit, entrapping him to take poison,—the other by assassination.
Ochus thus stood next as successor to the crown, which was not long
denied to him,—for Artaxerxes, now very old and already struck down
by the fatal consummation respecting his eldest son, Darius, did not
survive the additional sorrow of seeing his two other sons die so
speedily afterwards.[793] He expired, and his son Ochus, taking the
name of Artaxerxes, succeeded to him without opposition; manifesting
as king the same sanguinary dispositions as those by which he had
placed himself on the throne.
[792] Diodor. xv, 93.
There is a difference between Diodorus and the Astronomical
Canon, in the statements about the length of reign, and date of
death, of Artaxerxes Mnemon, of about two years—361 or 359 B.C.
See Mr. Clinton’s Fasti Hellenici, Appendix, ch. 18. p. 316—where
the statements are brought together and discussed. Plutarch
states the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon to have lasted sixty-two
years (Plutarch, Artax. c. 33); which cannot be correct, though
in what manner the error is to be amended, we cannot determine.
An Inscription of Mylasa in Karia recognizes the forty-fifth year
of the reign of Artaxerxes, and thus supports the statement in
the Astronomical Canon, which assigns to him forty-six years of
reign. See Boeckh, Corp. Inscr. No. 2691, with his comments, p.
470.
This same inscription affords ground of inference respecting the
duration of the revolt; for it shows that the Karian Mausolus
recognized himself as satrap, and Artaxerxes as his sovereign, in
the year beginning November 359 B.C., which corresponds with the
forty-fifth year of Artaxerxes Mnemon. The revolt therefore must
have been suppressed before that period: see Sievers, Geschichte
von Griechenland bis zur Schlacht von Mantineia, p. 373, note.
[793] Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 29, 30; Justin, x, 1-3.
Plutarch states that the lady whom the prince Darius asked for,
was, Aspasia of Phokæa—the Greek mistress of Cyrus the younger,
who had fallen into the hands of Artaxerxes after the battle of
Kunaxa, and had acquired a high place in the monarch’s affections.
But if we look at the chronology of the case, it will appear
hardly possible that the lady who inspired so strong a passion
to Darius, in or about 361 B.C., as to induce him to risk the
displeasure of his father—and so decided a reluctance on the
part of Artaxerxes to give her up—can have been the person who
accompanied Cyrus to Kunaxa _forty years_ before; for the battle
of Kunaxa was fought in 401 B.C. The chronological improbability
would be still greater, if we adopted Plutarch’s statement that
Artaxerxes reigned sixty-two years; for it is certain that the
battle of Kunaxa occurred very near the beginning of his reign,
and the death of his son Darius near the end of it.
Justin states the circumstances which preceded the death of
Artaxerxes Mnemon in a manner yet more tragical. He affirms that
the plot against the life of Artaxerxes was concerted by Darius
in conjunction with several of his brothers; and that, on the
plot being discovered, all these brothers, together with their
wives and children, were put to death. Ochus, on coming to the
throne, put to death a great number of his kinsmen and of the
principal persons about the court, together with their wives and
children—fearing a like conspiracy against himself.
During the two years following the battle of Mantinea, Athens, though
relieved by the general peace from land-war, appears to have been
entangled in serious maritime contests and difficulties. She had been
considerably embarrassed by two events; by the Theban naval armament
under Epaminondas, and by the submission of Alexander of Pheræ to
Thebes,—both events belonging to 364-363 B.C. It was in 363-362 B.C.
that the Athenian Timotheus,—having carried on war with eminent
success against Olynthus and the neighboring cities in the Thermaic
Gulf, but with very bad success against Amphipolis,—transferred his
forces to the war against Kotys king of Thrace near the Thracian
Chersonese. The arrival of the Theban fleet in the Hellespont
greatly distracted the Athenian general, and served as a powerful
assistance to Kotys; who was moreover aided by the Athenian general
Iphikrates, on this occasion serving his father-in-law against his
country.[794] Timotheus is said to have carried on war against Kotys
with advantage, and to have acquired for Athens a large plunder.[795]
It would appear that his operations were of an aggressive character,
and that during his command in those regions the Athenian possessions
in the Chersonese were safe from Kotys; for Iphikrates would only
lend his aid to Kotys towards defensive warfare; retiring from his
service when he began to attack the Athenian possessions in the
Chersonese.[796]
[794] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 664, s. 153.
[795] The affirmation of Cornelius Nepos (Timotheus, c. 1), that
Timotheus made war on Kotys with such success as to bring into
the Athenian treasury twelve hundred talents, appears extravagant
as to amount; even if we accept it as generally true.
[796] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 664, s. 155.
We do not know what circumstances brought about the dismissal or
retirement of Timotheus from the command. But in the next year,
we find Ergophilus as Athenian commander in the Chersonese,
and Kallisthenes (seemingly) as Athenian commander against
Amphipolis.[797] The transmarine affairs of Athens, however, were
far from improving. Besides that under the new general she seems
to have been losing strength near the Chersonese, she had now upon
her hands a new maritime enemy—Alexander of Pheræ. A short time
previously, he had been her ally against Thebes, but the victories
of the Thebans during the preceding year had so completely humbled
him, that he now identified his cause with theirs; sending troops
to join the expedition of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus,[798] and
equipping a fleet to attack the maritime allies of Athens. His fleet
captured the island of Tenos, ravaged several of the other Cyclades,
and laid siege to Peparethos. Great alarm prevailed in Athens, and
about the end of August (362 B.C.),[799] two months after the battle
of Mantinea, a fleet was equipped with the utmost activity, for the
purpose of defending the insular allies, as well as of acting in the
Hellespont. Vigorous efforts were required from all the trierarchs,
and really exerted by some, to accelerate the departure of this
fleet. But that portion of it, which, while the rest went to the
Hellespont, was sent under Leosthenes to defend Peparethos,—met with
a defeat from the ships of Alexander, with the loss of five triremes
and six hundred prisoners.[800] We are even told that soon after this
naval advantage, the victors were bold enough to make a dash into the
Peiræus itself (as Teleutias had done twenty-seven years before),
where they seized both property on shipboard and men on the quay,
before there was any force ready to repel them.[801] The Thessalian
marauders were ultimately driven back to their harbor of Pegasæ; yet
not without much annoyance to the insular confederates, and some
disgrace to Athens. The defeated admiral Leosthenes was condemned to
death; while several trierarchs,—who, instead of serving in person,
had performed the duties incumbent on them by deputy and by contract,
were censured or put upon trial.[802]
[797] See Rehdantz, Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, et Timothei, p.
151, and the preceding page.
M. Rehdantz has put together, with great care and sagacity, all
the fragments of evidence respecting this obscure period; and
has elicited, as it seems to me, the most probable conclusions
deducible from such scanty premises.
[798] Xenoph. Hellen. vii, 5, 4.
[799] We are fortunate enough to get this date exactly,—the
twenty third of the month Metageitnion, in the archonship of
Molon,—mentioned by Demosthenes adv. Polyklem, p. 1207, s. 5, 6.
[800] Diodor xvi, 95; Polyænus, vi, 2, 1.
[801] Polyænus, vi, 2, 2.
It must have been about this time (362-361 B.C.) that Alexander
of Pheræ sent envoys into Asia to engage the service of
Charidemus and his mercenary band, then in or near the troad. His
application was not accepted (Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 675,
s. 192).
[802] Demosthenes, de Coronâ Trierarch. p. 1230, s. 9.
Diodorus farther states that the Athenians placed Chares in
command of a fleet for the protection of the Ægean; but that this
admiral took himself off to Korkyra, and did nothing but plunder
the allies (Diodor. xvi, 95).
Not only had the affairs of Athens in the Hellespont become worse
under Ergophilus than under Timotheus, but Kallisthenes also, who had
succeeded Timotheus in the operations against Amphipolis, achieved no
permanent result. It would appear that the Amphipolitans, to defend
themselves against Athens, had invoked the aid of the Macedonian
king Perdikkas; and placed their city in his hands. That prince had
before acted in conjunction with the Athenian force under Timotheus
against Olynthus; and their joint invasion had so much weakened
the Olynthians as to disable them from affording aid to Amphipolis.
At least, this hypothesis explains how Amphipolis came now, for the
first time, to be no longer a free city; but to be disjoined from
Olynthus, and joined with (probably garrisoned by) Perdikkas, as a
possession of Macedonia.[803] Kallisthenes thus found himself at
war under greater disadvantages than Timotheus; having Perdikkas
as his enemy, together with Amphipolis. Nevertheless, it would
appear, he gained at first great advantages, and reduced Perdikkas
to the necessity of purchasing a truce by the promise to abandon
the Amphipolitans. The Macedonian prince, however, having gained
time during the truce to recover his strength, no longer thought of
performing his promise, but held Amphipolis against the Athenians as
obstinately as before. Kallisthenes had let slip an opportunity which
never again returned. After having announced at Athens the victorious
truce and the approaching surrender, he seems to have been compelled,
on his return, to admit that he had been cheated into suspending
operations, at a moment when (as it seemed) Amphipolis might have
been conquered. For this misjudgment or misconduct he was put upon
trial at Athens, on returning to his disappointed countrymen; and at
the same time Ergophilus also, who had been summoned home from the
Chersonesus for his ill-success or bad management of the war against
Kotys.[804] The people were much incensed against both; but most
against Ergophilus. Nevertheless it happened that Kallisthenes was
tried first, and condemned to death. On the next day, Ergophilus was
tried. But the verdict of the preceding day had discharged the wrath
of the dikasts, and rendered them so much more indulgent, that they
acquitted him.[805]
[803] Compare Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 669, s. 174-176;
and Æschines, Fals. Leg. p. 250, c. 14.
[804] The facts as stated in the text are the most probable
result, as it seems to me, derivable from Æschines, Fals. Leg. p.
250, c. 14.
[805] Aristotel. Rhetoric. ii, 3, 3.
Ergophilus seems to have been fined (Demosthen. Fals. Leg. p.
398, s. 200).
Autokles was sent in place of Ergophilus to carry on war for Athens
in the Hellespont and Bosphorus. It was not merely against Kotys
that his operations were necessary. The Prokonnesians, allies of
Athens, required protection against the attacks of Kyzikus; besides
which, there was another necessity yet more urgent. The stock of
corn was becoming short, and the price rising, not merely at Athens,
but at many of the islands in the Ægean, and at Byzantium and other
places. There prevailed therefore unusual anxiety, coupled with keen
competition, for the corn in course of importation from the Euxine.
The Byzantines, Chalkedonians, and Kyzikenes, had already begun to
detain the passing corn-ships, for the supply of their own markets;
and nothing less than a powerful Athenian fleet could ensure the safe
transit of such supplies to Athens herself.[806] The Athenian fleet,
guarding the Bosphorus even from the Hieron inwards (the chapel near
the junction of the Bosphorus with the Euxine), provided safe convoy
for the autumnal exports of this essential article.
[806] Demosthen. adv. Polyklem. p. 1207. s. 6.
In carrying on operations against Kotys, Autokles was favored with
an unexpected advantage by the recent revolt of a powerful Thracian
named Miltokythes against that prince. This revolt so alarmed Kotys,
that he wrote a letter to Athens in a submissive tone, and sent
envoys to purchase peace by various concessions. At the same time
Miltokythes also first sent envoys—next, went in person—to Athens, to
present his own case and solicit aid. He was however coldly received.
The vote of the Athenian assembly, passed on hearing the case (and
probably procured in part through the friends of Iphikrates), was so
unfavorable,[807] as to send him away not merely in discouragement,
but in alarm; while Kotys recovered all his power in Thrace, and
even became master of the Sacred Mountain with its abundance of
wealthy deposits. Nevertheless, in spite of this imprudent vote,
the Athenians really intended to sustain Miltokythes against Kotys.
Their general Autokles was recalled after a few months, and put
upon his trial for having suffered Kotys to put down this enemy
unassisted.[808] How the trial ended or how the justice of the
case stood, we are unable to make out from the passing allusions of
Demosthenes.
[807] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 655, s. 122; cont.
Polyklem. p. 1207.
ὅτε Μιλτοκύθης ἀπέστη Κότυος ... ἐγράφη τι παρ’ ὑμῖν ψήφισμα
τοιοῦτον, δι’ οὗ Μιλτοκύθης μὲν ~ἀπῆλθε~ φοβηθεὶς καὶ νομίσας
ὑμᾶς οὐ προσέχειν αὐτῷ, Κότυς δὲ ἐγκρατὴς τοῦ τε ὄρους τοῦ ἱεροῦ
καὶ τῶν θησαυρῶν ἐγένετο.
The word ἀπῆλθε implies that Miltokythes was at Athens in person.
The humble letter written by Kotys, in his first alarm at the
revolt of Miltokythes, is referred to by the orator, p. 658, s.
136, 137.
[808] Demosthenes adv. Polykl. p. 1210, s. 16; Demosthenes cont.
Aristok. p. 655, s. 123.
Menon was sent as commander to the Hellespont to supersede Autokles;
and was himself again superseded after a few months, by Timomachus.
Convoy for the corn-vessels out of the Euxine became necessary anew,
as in the preceding year; and was furnished a second time during the
autumn of 361 B.C. by the Athenian ships of war;[809] not merely for
provisions under transport to Athens, but also for those going to
Maroneia, Thasos, and other places in or near Thrace. But affairs in
the Chersonese became yet more unfavorable to Athens. In the winter
of 361-360 B.C., Kotys, with the coöperation of a body of Abydene
citizens and Sestian exiles, who crossed the Hellespont from Abydos,
contrived to surprise Sestos;[810] the most important place in the
Chersonese, and the guard-post of the Hellespont on its European
side, for all vessels passing in or out. The whole Chersonese was now
thrown open to his aggressions. He made preparations for attacking
Elæus and Krithôtê, the two other chief possessions of Athens, and
endeavored to prevail on Iphikrates to take part in his projects. But
that general, though he had assisted Kotys in defence against Athens,
refused to commit the more patent treason involved in aggressive
hostility against her. He even quitted Thrace, but not daring at once
to visit Athens, retired to Lesbos.[811] In spite of his refusal,
however, the settlers and possessions of Athens in the Chersonese
were attacked and imperiled by Kotys, who claimed the whole peninsula
as his own, and established toll-gatherers at Sestos to levy the dues
both of strait and harbor.[812]
[809] Demosthen. adv. Polyklem, p. 1212, s. 24-26; p. 1213, s.
27; p. 1225, s. 71.
[810] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 673, s. 187. Ἐκ γὰρ
Ἀβύδου, τῆς τὸν ἅπαντα χρόνον ὑμῖν ἐχθρᾶς, καὶ ὅθεν ἦσαν οἱ
Σηστὸν καταλαβόντες, εἰς Σηστὸν διέβαινεν, ἣν εἶχε Κότυς. (He is
speaking of Charidemus.)
The other oration of Demosthenes (adv. Polykl. p. 1212) contains
distinct intimation that Sestos was not lost by the Athenians
_until after November 361_ B.C. Apollodorus the Athenian
trierarch was in the town at that time, as well as various
friends whom he mentions; so that Sestos must have been still an
Athenian possession in November 361 B.C.
It is lucky for some points of historical investigation, that
the purpose of this oration against Polykles (composed by
Demosthenes, but spoken by Apollodorus) requires great precision
and specification of dates, even to months and days. Apollodorus
complains that he has been constrained to bear the expense of
a trierarchy, for four months beyond the year in which it was
incumbent upon him jointly with a colleague. He sues the person
whose duty it was to have relieved him as successor at the end of
the year, but who had kept aloof and cheated him. The trierarchy
of Apollodorus began in August 362 B.C., and lasted (not merely
to Aug. 361 B.C., its legal term, but) to November 361 B.C.
Rehdantz (Vitæ Iphicratis, Chabriæ, etc. p. 144, note), in the
valuable chapters which he devotes to the obscure chronology of
the period, has overlooked this exact indication of the time
_after which_ the Athenians lost Sestos. He supposes the loss to
have taken place two or three years earlier.
[811] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 664, s. 155.
[812] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 658, s. 136; p. 679, s.
211.
What is said in the latter passage about the youthful
Kersobleptes, is doubtless not less true of his father Kotys.
The fortune of Athens in these regions was still unpropitious. All
her late commanders, Ergophilus, Autokles, Menon, Timomachus, had
been successively deficient in means, in skill, or in fidelity, and
had undergone accusation at home.[813] Timomachus was now superseded
by Kephisodotus, a man of known enmity towards both Iphikrates and
Kotys.[814] But Kephisodotus achieved no more than his predecessors,
and had even to contend against a new enemy, who crossed over from
Abydos to Sestos to reinforce Kotys—Charidemus with the mercenary
division under his command. That officer, since his service three
years before under Timotheus against Amphipolis, had been for some
time in Asia, especially in the Troad. He hired himself to the
satrap Artabazus; of whose embarrassments he took advantage to
seize by fraud the towns of Skepsis, Kebren, and Ilium; intending
to hold them as a little principality.[815] Finding his position,
however, ultimately untenable against the probable force of the
satrap, he sent a letter across to the Chersonese, to the Athenian
commander Kephisodotus, asking for Athenian triremes to transport
his division across to Europe; in return for which, if granted, he
engaged to crush Kotys and reconquer the Chersonese for Athens.
This proposition, whether accepted or not, was never realized; for
Charidemus was enabled, through a truce unexpectedly granted to
him by the satrap, to cross over from Abydos to Sestos without any
Athenian ships. But as soon as he found himself in the Chersonese,
far from aiding Athens to recover that peninsula, he actually took
service with Kotys against her; so that Elæeus and Krithôtê, her
chief remaining posts, were in greater peril than ever.[816]
[813] Demosthen. pro Phormione, p. 960, s. 64; Demosth. Fals.
Leg. p. 398, s. 200.
[814] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 672, s. 184.
[815] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 671, s. 183. Compare
Pseudo-Aristot. Œconomic. ii, 30.
[816] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 672, 673.
The orator reads a letter (not cited however) from the governor
of Krithôtê, announcing the formidable increase of force which
threatened the place since the arrival of Charidemus.
The victorious prospects of Kotys, however, were now unexpectedly
arrested. After a reign of twenty-four years he was assassinated by
two brothers, Python and Herakleides, Greeks from the city of Ænus in
Thrace, and formerly students under Plato at Athens. They committed
the act to avenge their father; upon whom, as it would appear, Kotys
had inflicted some brutal insult, under the influence of that violent
and licentious temper which was in him combined with an energetic
military character.[817] Having made their escape, Python and his
brother retired to Athens, where they were received with every
demonstration of honor, and presented with the citizenship as well
as with golden wreaths; partly as tyrannicides, partly as having
relieved the Athenians from an odious and formidable enemy.[818]
Disclaiming the warm eulogies heaped upon him by various speakers in
the assembly, Python is said to have replied—“It was a god who did
the deed; we only lent our hands:”[819] an anecdote, which, whether
it be truth or fiction, illustrates powerfully the Greek admiration
of tyrannicide.
[817] Aristotle (Politic. v, 8, 12) mentions the act and states
that the two young men did it to avenge their father. He does
not expressly say what Kotys had done to the father; but he
notices the event in illustration of the general category,—Πολλαὶ
δ’ ἐπιθέσεις γεγένηνται καὶ διὰ τὸ εἰς τὸ σῶμα αἰσχύνεσθαι
τῶν μονάρχων τινάς (compare what Tacitus says about _mos
regius_—Annal. vi, 1). Aristotle immediately adds another case of
cruel mutilation inflicted by Kotys,—Ἀδάμας δ’ ἀπέστη Κότυος διὰ
τὸ ἐκτμηθῆναι ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ παῖς ὢν, ὡς ὑβρισμένος.
Compare, about Kotys, Theopompus, Fragm. 33, ed. Didot, ap.
Athenæ. xii, p. 531, 532.
Böhnecke (Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der Geschichte, p. 725,
726) places the death of Kotys in 359 B.C.; and seems to infer
from Athenæus (vi, p. 248; xii, p. 531) that he had actual
communication with Philip of Macedon as king, whose accession
took place between Midsummer 360 and Midsummer 359 B.C. But the
evidence does not appear to me to bear out such a conclusion.
The story cited by Athenæus from Hegesander, about letters
reaching Philip from Kotys, cannot be true about this Kotys;
because it seems impossible that Philip, in the first year of
his reign, can have had any such flatterer as Kleisophus; Philip
being at that time in the greatest political embarrassments, out
of which he was only rescued by his indefatigable energy and
ability. And the journey of Philip to Onokarsis, also mentioned
by Athenæus out of Theopompus, does not imply any personal
communication with Kotys.
My opinion is, that the assassination of Kotys dates more
probably in 360 B.C.
[818] Demosthenes cont. Aristokrat. p. 660, s. 142; p. 662, s.
150; p. 675, s. 193. Plutarch, De Sui Laude, p. 542 E.; Plutarch,
adv. Koloten, p. 1126, B.
[819] Plutarch, De Sui Laude, _ut sup._
The death of Kotys gave some relief to Athenian affairs in the
Chersonese. Of his children, even the eldest, Kersobleptes, was only
a youth:[820] moreover two other Thracian chiefs, Berisades and
Amadokus, now started up as pretenders to shares in the kingdom of
Thrace. Kersobleptes employed as his main support and minister the
mercenary general Charidemus, who either had already married, or
did now marry, his sister; a nuptial connection had been formed in
like manner by Amadokus with two Greeks named Simon and Bianor—and
by Berisades with an Athenian citizen named Athenodorus, who (like
Iphikrates and others) had founded a city, and possessed a certain
independent dominion, in or near the Chersonese.[821] These Grecian
mercenary chiefs thus united themselves by nuptial ties to the
princes whom they served, as Seuthes had proposed to Xenophon, and as
the Italian Condottieri of the fifteenth century ennobled themselves
by similar alliance with princely families—for example, Sforza
with the Visconti of Milan. All these three Thracian competitors
were now represented by Grecian agents. But at first, it seems,
Charidemus on behalf of Kersobleptes was the strongest. He and his
army were near Perinthus on the north coast of the Propontis, where
the Athenian commander, Kephisodotus, visited him, with a small
squadron of ten triremes, in order to ask for the fulfilment of those
fair promises which Charidemus had made in his letter from Asia. But
Charidemus treated the Athenians as enemies, attacked by surprise
the seamen on shore, and inflicted upon them great damage. He then
pressed the Chersonese severely for several months, and marched
even into the midst of it, to protect a nest of pirates whom the
Athenians were besieging at the neighboring islet on its western
coast—Alopekonnesus. At length, after seven months of unprofitable
warfare (dating from the death of Kotys), he forced Kephisodotus
to conclude with him a convention so disastrous and dishonorable,
that as soon as known at Athens, it was indignantly repudiated.[822]
Kephisodotus, being recalled in disgrace, was put upon his trial, and
fined; the orator Demosthenes (we are told), who had served as one of
the trierarchs in the fleet, being among his accusers.[823]
[820] Demosthen. cont. Aristokr. p. 674, s. 193. μειρακύλλιον,
etc.
[821] Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 623, 624, s. 8-12; p. 664, s.
153 (in which passage κηδεστὴς may be fairly taken to mean any
near connection by marriage).
About Athenodorus compare Isokrates, Or. viii, (de Pace) s. 31.
[822] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 674-676, s. 193-199.
In sect. 194, are the words, ~ἧκε δὲ Κηφισόδοτος στρατηγῶν~,
πρὸς ὃν αὐτὸς (Charidemus) ἔπεμψε τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἐκείνην, καὶ
αἱ τριήρεις, αἳ, ὅτ’ ἦν ἄδηλα τὰ τῆς σωτηρίας αὐτῷ, καὶ μὴ
συγχωροῦντος Ἀρταβάζου σώζειν ἔμελλον αὐτόν.
The verb ἧκε, in my judgment—not to the _first coming out_ of
Kephisodotus from Athens to take the command, as Weber (Comment.
ad Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 460) and other commentators
think, but—to the coming of Kephisodotus with ten triremes _to
Perinthus_, near which place Charidemus was, for the purpose of
demanding fulfilment of what the latter had promised; see s.
196. When Kephisodotus came to him at Perinthus (παρόντος τοῦ
στρατηγοῦ—πρὸς ὃν τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἐπεπόμφει—s. 195) to make this
demand, then Charidemus, instead of behaving honestly, acted like
a traitor and an enemy. The allusion to this antecedent letter
from Charidemus to Kephisodotus, shows that the latter must have
been on the spot for some time, and therefore that ἧκε cannot
refer to his first coming out.
The term ἑπτὰ μῆνας (s. 196) counts, I presume, from the death of
Kotys.
[823] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 676, s. 199; Æschines cont.
Ktesiphont. p. 384, c. 20.
Demosthenes himself may probably have been among the trierarchs
called before the dikastery as witnesses to prove what took place
at Perinthus and Alopekonnesus (Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p.
676, s. 200); Euthykles, the speaker of the discourse against
Aristokrates, had been himself also among the officers serving
(p. 675, s. 196; p. 683, s. 223).
Among the articles of this unfavorable convention, one was that
the Greek city of Kardia should be specially reserved to Charidemus
himself. That city—eminently convenient from its situation on
the isthmus connecting the Chersonese with Thrace—claimed by the
Athenians as within the Chersonese, yet at the same time intensely
hostile to Athens—became his principal station.[824] He was fortunate
enough to seize, through treachery, the person of the Thracian
Miltokythes, who had been the pronounced enemy of Kotys, and had
coöperated with Athens. But he did not choose to hand over this
important prisoner to Kersobleptes, because the life of Miltokythes
would thus have been saved: it not being the custom of Thracians,
in their intestine disputes, to put each other to death.[825] We
remark with surprise a practice milder than that of Greece, amidst a
people decidedly more barbarous and blood-thirsty than the Greeks.
Charidemus accordingly surrendered Miltokythes to the Kardians,
who put the prisoner with his son into a boat, took them a little
way out to sea, slew the son before the eyes of the father, and
then drowned the father himself.[826] It is not improbable that
there may have been some special antecedent causes, occasioning
intense antipathy on the part of the Kardians towards Miltokythes,
and inducing Charidemus to hand him over to them as an acceptable
subject for revenge. However this may be, their savage deed kindled
violent indignation among all the Thracians, and did much injury to
the cause of Kersobleptes and Charidemus. Though Kephisodotus had
been recalled, and though a considerable interval elapsed before any
successor came from Athens, yet Berisades and Amadokus joined their
forces in one common accord, and sent to the Athenians propositions
of alliance, with request for pecuniary aid. Athenodorus, the general
of Berisades, putting himself at the head of Thracians and Athenians
together, found himself superior in the field to Kersobleptes and
Charidemus; whom he constrained to accept a fresh convention dictated
by himself. Herein it was provided, that the kingdom of Thrace should
be divided in equal portions between the three competitors; that
all three should concur in surrendering the Chersonese to Athens;
and that the son of a leading man named Iphiades at Sestos, held
by Charidemus as hostage for the adherence of that city, should be
surrendered to Athens also.[827]
[824] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 679, s. 209; p. 681, s.
216. Demosthen. de Halonneso, p. 87, s. 42.
[825] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 676, s. 201. οὐκ ὄντος
νομίμου τοῖς Θρᾳξὶν ἀλλήλους ἀποκτιννύναι, etc.
[826] Demosthenes, cont. Aristokrat. p. 677, s. 201.
[827] Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 677, s. 202-204.
Aristotle (Politic. v. 5, 9) mentions the association or faction
of Iphiades as belonging to Abydos, not to Sestos. Perhaps there
may have been an Abydene association now exercising influence at
Sestos; at least we are told, that the revolution which deprived
the Athenians of Sestos, was accomplished in part by exiles who
crossed from Abydos; something like the relation between Argos
and Corinth in the years immediately preceding the peace of
Antalkidas.
This new convention, sworn on both sides, promised to Athens the full
acquisition which she desired. Considering the thing as done, the
Athenians sent Chabrias as commander in one trireme to receive the
surrender, but omitted to send the money requested by Athenodorus;
who was accordingly constrained to disband his army for want of
pay. Upon this Kersobleptes and Charidemus at once threw up their
engagement, refused to execute the convention just sworn, and
constrained Chabrias, who had come without any force, to revert to
the former convention concluded with Kephisodotus. Disappointed and
indignant, the Athenians disavowed the act of Chabrias, in spite
of his high reputation. They sent ten envoys to the Chersonese,
insisting that the convention of Athenodorus should be resworn by all
the three Thracian competitors—Berisades, Amadokus, Kersobleptes;
if the third declined, the envoys were instructed to take measures
for making war upon him, while they received the engagements of
the other two. But such a mission, without arms, obtained nothing
from Charidemus and Kersobleptes, except delay or refusal; while
Berisades and Amadokus sent to Athens bitter complaints respecting
the breach of faith. At length, after some months—just after the
triumphant conclusion of the expedition of Athens against Eubœa (358
B.C.)—the Athenian Chares arrived in the Chersonese, at the head
of a considerable mercenary force. Then at length the two recusants
were compelled to swear anew to the convention of Athenodorus, in the
presence of the latter as well as of Berisades and Amadokus.[828]
And it would appear that before long, its conditions were realized.
Charidemus surrendered the Chersonese, of course including its
principal town Sestos, to Athens;[829] yet he retained for himself
Kardia,[830] which was affirmed (though the Athenians denied it)
not to be included in the boundaries of that peninsula. The kingdom
of Thrace was also divided between Kersobleptes, Berisades, and
Amadokus; which triple division, diminishing the strength of each,
was regarded by Athens as a great additional guarantee for her secure
possession of the Chersonese.[831]
[828] Demosthen. cont. Aristokrat. p. 678, p. 205, 206; p. 680.
s. 211, 212. The arrival of Chares in the Hellespont is marked by
Demosthenes as immediately following the expedition of Athens to
drive the Thebans out of Eubœa, which took place about the middle
of 358 B.C.
[829] We see that Sestos must have been surrendered on this
occasion, although Diodorus describes it as having been conquered
by Chares five years afterwards, in the year 353 B.C. (Diod.
xvi, 34). It is evident from the whole tenor of the oration
of Demosthenes, that Charidemus did actually surrender the
Chersonese at this time. Had he still refused to surrender
Sestos, the orator would not have failed to insist on the fact
emphatically against him. Besides, Demosthenes says, comparing
the conduct of Philip towards the Olynthians, with that of
Kersobleptes towards Athens—ἐκεῖνος ἐκείνοις Ποτίδαιαν οὐχὶ
τηνικαῦτ’ ἀπέδωκεν, ἥνικ’ ἀποστερεῖν οὐκέθ’ οἷός τ’ ἦν, ὥσπερ
ὑμῖν Κερσοβλέπτης Χεῤῥόνησον (p. 656. s. 128). This distinctly
announces that the Chersonese was _given back_ to Athens, though
reluctantly and tardily, by Kersobleptes. Sestos must have been
given up along with it, as the principal and most valuable post
upon all accounts. If it be true (as Diodorus states) that
Chares in 353 B.C. took Sestos by siege, slew the inhabitants
of military age and reduced the rest to slavery—we must suppose
the town again to have revolted between 358 and 353 B.C.; that
is, during the time of the Social War; which is highly probable.
But there is much in the statement of Diodorus which I cannot
distinctly make out; for he says that Kersobleptes in 353 B.C.,
on account of his hatred towards Philip, surrendered to Athens
all the cities in the Chersonese except Kardia. That had already
been done in 358 B.C., and without any reference to Philip; and
if after surrendering the Chersonese in 358 B.C., Kersobleptes
had afterwards reconquered it, so as to have it again in his
possession in the beginning of 353 B.C.—it seems unaccountable
that Demosthenes should say nothing about the reconquest in his
oration against Aristokrates, where he is trying to make all
points possible against Kersobleptes.
[830] Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 681, s. 216.
[831] Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. 623, s. 8; p. 654, s. 121.
The chronology of these events as given by Rehdantz (Vitæ
Iphicratis, Chabriæ, etc. p. 147) appears to me nearly correct,
in spite of the strong objection expressed against it by Weber
(Prolegg. ad Demosth. cont. Aristokrat. p. lxxiii.)—and more
exact than the chronology of Böhnecke, Forschungen, p. 727,
who places the coming out of Kephisodotus as general to the
Chersonese in 358 B.C., which is, I think, a full year too late.
Rehdantz does not allow, as I think he ought to do, for a certain
interval between Kephisodotus and the Ten Envoys, during which
Athenodorus acted for Athens.
It was thus that Athens at length made good her possession of the
Chersonese against the neighboring Thracian potentates. And it
would seem that her transmarine power, with its dependencies and
confederates, now stood at a greater height than it had ever reached
since the terrible reverses of 405 B.C. Among them were numbered not
only a great number of the Ægean islands (even the largest, Eubœa,
Chios, Samos, and Rhodes), but also the continental possessions of
Byzantium—the Chersonese—Maroneia[832] with other places on the
southern coast of Thrace—and Pydna, Methônê, and Potidæa, with most
of the region surrounding the Thermaic Gulf.[833] This last portion
of empire had been acquired at the cost of the Olynthian fraternal
alliance of neighboring cities, against which Athens too, as well as
Sparta, by an impulse most disastrous for the future independence of
Greece, had made war with inauspicious success. The Macedonian king
Perdikkas, with a just instinct towards the future aggrandizement of
his dynasty, had assisted her in thus weakening Olynthus; feeling
that the towns on the Thermaic Gulf, if they formed parts of a
strong Olynthian confederacy of brothers and neighbors, reciprocally
attached and self-sustaining, would resist Macedonia more
effectively, than if they were half-reluctant dependencies of Athens,
even with the chances of Athenian aid by sea. The aggressive hand of
Athens against Olynthus, indeed, between 368-363 B.C., was hardly
less mischievous, to Greece generally, than that of Sparta had been
between 382-380 B.C. Sparta had crushed the Olynthian confederacy in
its first brilliant promise—Athens prevented it from rearing its head
anew. Both conspired to break down the most effective barrier against
Macedonian aggrandizement; neither were found competent to provide
any adequate protection to Greece in its room.
[832] Demosthen. cont. Polyklem, p. 1212, s. 26.
[833] Demosthen. Philippic. I, p. 41, s. 6. εἴχομέν ποτε ἡμεῖς, ὦ
ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, Πύδναν καὶ Ποτίδαιαν καὶ Μεθώνην ~καὶ πάντα τὸν
τόπον τοῦτον οἰκεῖον κύκλῳ~, etc.
The maximum of her second empire, which I have remarked that Athens
attained by the recovery of the Chersonese,[834] lasted but for a
moment. During the very same year, there occurred that revolt among
her principal allies, known by the name of the Social War, which gave
to her power a fatal shock, and left the field comparatively clear
for the early aggressions of her yet more formidable enemy—Philip
of Macedon. That prince had already emerged from his obscurity as a
hostage in Thebes, and had succeeded his brother Perdikkas, slain
in a battle with the Illyrians, as king (360-359 B.C.). At first,
his situation appeared not merely difficult, but almost hopeless.
Not the most prescient eye in Greece could have recognized, in the
inexperienced youth struggling at his first accession against rivals
at home, enemies abroad, and embarrassments of every kind—the future
conqueror of Chæroneia, and destroyer of Grecian independence. How,
by his own genius, energy, and perseverance, assisted by the faults
and dissensions of his Grecian enemies, he attained his inauspicious
eminence—will be recounted in my subsequent volume.
[834] I have not made any mention of the expedition against Eubœa
(whereby Athens drove the Theban invaders out of that island),
though it occurred just about the same time as the recovery of
the Chersonese.
That expedition will more properly come to be spoken of in my
next volume. But the recovery of the Chersonese was the closing
event of a series of proceedings which had been going on for four
years; so that I could hardly leave that series unfinished.
* * * * *
At the opening of my ninth volume, after the surrender of Athens,
Greece was under the Spartan empire. Its numerous independent
city-communities were more completely regimented under one chief than
they had ever been before, Athens and Thebes being both numbered
among the followers of Sparta.
But the conflicts recounted in these two volumes (during an interval
of forty-four years—404-403 B.C. to 360-359 B.C.) have wrought
the melancholy change of leaving Greece more disunited, and more
destitute of presiding Hellenic authority, than she had been at
any time since the Persian invasion. Thebes, Sparta, and Athens,
had all been engaged in weakening each other; in which, unhappily,
each has been far more successful than in strengthening herself.
The maritime power of Athens is now indeed considerable, and may be
called very great, if compared with the state of degradation to which
she had been brought in 403 B.C. But it will presently be seen how
unsubstantial is the foundation of her authority, and how fearfully
she has fallen off from that imperial feeling and energy which
ennobled her ancestors under the advice of Perikles.
It is under these circumstances, so untoward for defence, that the
aggressor from Macedonia arises.