Part 19 (1/2)
(M632) The Spartan power was now obviously humbled, and one of the greatest evidences of this was the decline of Sparta to give aid to the cities of Thessaly, in danger of being conquered by Jason, the despot of Pherae, whose formidable strength was now alarming Northern Greece.
(M633) The peace which Sparta had concluded with Athens was of very short duration. The Lacedaemonians resolved to attack Corcyra, which had joined the Athenian confederation. An armament collected from the allies, under Mnasippus, in the spring of B.C. 373, proceeded against Corcyra. The inhabitants, driven within the walls of the city, were in danger of famine, and invoked Athenian aid. Before it arrived, however, the Corcyraeans made a successful sally upon the Spartan troops, over-confident of victory, in which Mnasippus was slain, and the city became supplied with provisions. After the victory, Iphicrates, in command of the Athenian fleet, which had been delayed, arrived and captured the s.h.i.+ps which Dionysius of Syracuse had sent to the aid of the Lacedaemonians. These reverses induced the Spartans to send Antalcidas again to Persia to sue for fresh intervention, but the satraps, having nothing more to gain from Sparta, refused aid. But Athens was not averse to peace, since she no longer was jealous of Sparta, and was jealous of Thebes. In the mean time Thebes seized Plataea, a town of Botia, unfriendly to her ascendency, and expelled the inhabitants who sought shelter in Athens, and increased the feeling of disaffection toward the rising power. This event led to renewed negotiations for peace between Athens and Sparta, which was effected at a congress held in the latter city. The Athenian orator Callistratus, one of the envoys, proposed that Sparta and Athens should divide the heads.h.i.+p of Greece between them, the former having the supremacy on land, the latter on the sea. Peace was concluded on the basis of the autonomy of each city.
(M634) Epaminondas was the Theban deputy to this congress. He insisted on taking the oath in behalf of the Botian confederation, even as Sparta had done for herself and allies. But Agesilaus required he should take the oath for Thebes alone, as Athens had done for herself alone. He refused, and made himself memorable for his eloquent speeches, in which he protested against the pretensions of Sparta. ”Why,” he maintained, ”should not Thebes respond for Botia, as well as Sparta for Laconia, since Thebes had the same ascendency in Botia that Sparta had in Laconia?” Agesilaus, at last, indignantly started from his seat, and said to Epaminondas: ”Speak plainly. Will you, or will you not, leave to each of the Botian cities its separate autonomy?” To which the other replied: ”Will you leave each of the Laconian towns autonomous?” Without saying a word, Agesilaus struck the name of the Thebans out of the roll, and they were excluded from the treaty.
(M635) The war now is to be prosecuted between Sparta and Thebes, since peace was sworn between all the other States. The deputies of Thebes returned home discouraged, knowing that their city must now encounter, single-handed, the whole power of the dominant State of Greece. ”The Athenians-friendly with both, yet allies with neither-suffered the dispute to be fought out without interfering.” The point of it was, whether Thebes was in the same relation to the Botian towns that Sparta was to the Laconian cities. Agesilaus contended that the relations between Thebes and other Botian cities was the same as what subsisted between Sparta and her allies. This was opposed by Epaminondas.
(M636) After the congress of B.C. 371, both Sparta and Athens fulfilled the conditions to which their deputies had sworn. The latter gave orders to Iphicrates to return home with his fleet, which had threatened the Lacedaemonian coast; the former recalled her harmosts and garrisons from all the cities which she occupied, while she made preparations, with all her energies, to subdue Thebes. It was antic.i.p.ated that so powerful a State as Sparta would soon accomplish her object, and few out of Botia doubted her success.
(M637) King Cleombrotus was accordingly ordered to march out of Phocis, where he was with a powerful force, into Botia. Epaminondas, with a body of Thebans, occupied a narrow pa.s.s near Coronea, between a spur of Mount Helicon and the Lake Copais. But instead of forcing this pa.s.s, the Spartan king turned southward by a mountain road, over Helicon, deemed scarcely practicable, and defeated a Theban division which guarded it, and marched to Creusis, on the Gulf of Alcyonis, and captured twelve Theban triremes in the harbor. He then left a garrison to occupy the post, and proceeded over a mountainous road in the territory of Thespiae, on the eastern declivity of Helicon, to Leuctra, where he encamped. He was now near Thebes, having a communication with Sparta through the port of Creusis.
The Thebans were dismayed, and it required all the tact and eloquence of Epaminondas and Pelopidas to rally them. They marched out at length from Thebes, under their seven botrarchs, and posted themselves opposite the Spartan camp. Epaminondas was one of these generals, and urged immediate battle, although the Theban forces were inferior.
(M638) It was through him that a change took place in the ordinary Grecian tactics. It was customary to fight simultaneously along the whole line, in which the opposing armies were drawn up. Departing from this custom, he disposed his troops obliquely, or in echelon, placing on his left chosen Theban hoplites to the depth of fifty, so as to bear with impetuous force on the Spartan right, while his centre and right were kept back for awhile from action. Such a combination, so unexpected, was completely successful.
The Spartans could not resist the concentrated and impetuous a.s.sault made on their right, led by the Sacred Band, with fifty s.h.i.+elds propelling behind. Cleombrotus, the Spartan king, was killed, with the most distinguished of his staff, and the Spartans were driven back to their camp. The allies, who fought without spirit or heart, could not be rallied. The victory was decisive, and made an immense impression throughout Greece; for it was only twenty days since Epaminondas had departed from Sparta, excluded from the general peace. The Spartans bore the defeat with their characteristic fort.i.tude, but their prestige was destroyed. A new general had arisen in Botia, who carried every thing before him. The Athenians heard of the victory with ill-concealed jealousy of the rising power.
(M639) Jason, the tyrant of Pherae, now joined the Theban camp and the Spartan army was obliged to evacuate Botia. The great victory of Leuctra gave immense extension to the Theban power, and broke the Spartan rule north of the Peloponnesus. All the cities of Botia acknowledged the Theban supremacy, while the harmosts which Sparta had placed in the Grecian cities were forced to return home. Sparta was now discouraged and helpless, and even many Peloponnesian cities put themselves under the presidency of Athens. None were more affected by the Spartan overthrow than the Arcadians, whose princ.i.p.al cities had been governed by an oligarchy in the interest of Sparta, such as Tegea and Orchomenus, while Mantinea was broken up into villages. The Arcadians, free from Spartan governors, and ceasing to look henceforth for victory and plunder in the service of Sparta, became hostile, and sought their political independence. A Pan-Arcadian union was formed.
(M640) Sparta undertook to recover her supremacy over Arcadia, and Agesilaus was sent to Mantinea with a considerable force, for the city had rebuilt its walls, and resumed its former consolidation, which was a great offense in the eyes of Sparta. The Arcadians, invaded by Spartans, first invoked the aid of Athens, which being refused, they turned to Thebes, and Epaminondas came to their relief with a great army of auxiliaries-Argeians, Elians, Phocians, Locrians, as well as Thebans, for his fame now drew adventurers from every quarter to his standard. These forces urged him to invade Laconia itself, and his great army, in four divisions, penetrated the country through different pa.s.ses. He crossed the Eurotas and advanced to Sparta, which was in the greatest consternation, not merely from the near presence of Epaminondas with a powerful army of seventy thousand men, but from the discontent of the Helots. But Agesilaus put the city in the best possible defense, while every means were used to secure auxiliaries from other cities. Epaminondas dared not to attempt to take the city by storm, and after ravaging Laconia, returned into Arcadia.
This insult to Sparta was of great moral force, and was an intense humiliation, greater even than that felt after the battle of Leuctra.
(M641) This expedition, though powerless against Sparta herself, prepared Epaminondas to execute the real object which led to the a.s.sistance of the Arcadians. This was the re-establishment of Messenia, which had been conquered by Sparta two hundred years before. The new city of Messenia was built on the site of Mount Ithome, where the Messenians had defended themselves in their long war against the Laconians, and the best masons and architects were invited from all Greece to lay out the streets, and erect the public edifices, while Epaminondas superintended the fortifications. All the territory westward and south of Ithome-the southwestern corner of the Peloponnesus, richest on the peninsula, was now subtracted from Sparta, while the country to the east was protected by the new city in Arcadia, Megalopolis, which the Arcadians built. This wide area, the best half of the Spartan territory, was thus severed from Sparta, and was settled by Helots, who became free men, with inextinguishable hatred of their old masters. But these Helots were probably the descendants of the old Messenians whom Sparta had conquered.
This renovation of Messenia, and the building of the two cities, Messenia and Megalopolis, was the work of Epaminondas, and were the most important events of the day. The latter city was designed as the centre of a new confederacy, comprising all Arcadia.
(M642) Sparta being thus crippled, dismembered, and humbled, Epaminondas evacuated the Peloponnesus, filled, however, with undiminished hostility.
Sparta condescends to solicit aid from Athens, so completely was its power broken by the Theban State, and Athens consents to a.s.sist her, in the growing fear and jealousy of Thebes, thereby showing that the animosities of the Grecian States grew out of political jealousy rather than from revenge or injury. To rescue Sparta was a wise policy, if it were necessary to maintain a counterpoise against the ascendency of Thebes. An army was raised, and Iphicrates was appointed general. He first marched to Corinth, and from thence into Arcadia, but made war with no important results.
(M643) Such were the great political changes which occurred within two years under the influence of such a hero as Epaminondas. Laconia had been invaded and devastated, the Spartans were confined within their walls, Messenia had been liberated from Spartan rule, two important cities had been built, to serve as great fortresses to depress Sparta, Helots were converted into freemen, and Greece generally had been emanc.i.p.ated from the Spartan yoke. Such were the consequences of the battle of Leuctra.
And this battle, which thus destroyed the prestige of Sparta, also led to renewed hopes on the part of the Athenians to regain the power they had lost. Athens already had regained the ascendency on the sea, and looked for increased maritime aggrandizement. On the land she could only remain a second cla.s.s power, and serve as a bulwark against Theban ascendency.
(M644) Athens sought also to recover Amphipolis-a maritime city, colonized by Athenians, at the head of the Strymonican Gulf, in Macedonia, which was taken from her in the Peloponnesian war, by Brasidas. Amyntas, the king of Macedonia, seeking aid against Jason of Pherae, whose Thessalian dominion and personal talents and ambition combined to make him a powerful potentate, consented to the right of Athens to this city. But Amyntas died not long after the a.s.sa.s.sination of Jason, and both Thessaly and Macedonia were ruled by new kings, and new complications took place. Many Thessalian cities, hostile to Alexander, the son of Jason, invoked the aid of Thebes, and Pelopidas was sent into Thessaly with an army, who took Larissa and various other cities under his protection. A large part of Thessaly thus came under the protection of Thebes. On the other hand, Alexander, who succeeded Amyntas in Macedonia, found it difficult to maintain his own dominion without holding Thessalian towns in garrison. He was also hara.s.sed by interior commotions, headed by Pausanias, and was slain.
Ptolemy, of Alorus, now became regent, and administered the kingdom in the name of the minor children of Amyntas-Perdiccas and Philip. The mother of these children, Eurydice, presented herself, with her children, to Iphicrates, and invoked protection. He declared in her favor, and expelled Pausanias, and secured the sceptre of Amyntas, who had been friendly to the Athenians, to his children, under Ptolemy as regent. The younger of these children lived to overthrow the liberties of Greece.
(M645) But Iphicrates did not recover Amphipolis, which was a free city, and had become attached to the Spartans after Brasidas had taken it.
Iphicrates was afterward sent to a.s.sist Sparta in the desperate contest with Thebes. The Spartan allied army occupied Corinth, and guarded the pa.s.ses which prevented the Thebans from penetrating into the Peloponnesus.
Epaminondas broke through the defenses of the Spartans, and opened a communication with his Peloponnesian allies, and with these increased forces was more than a match for the Spartans and Athenians. He ravaged the country, induced Sicyon to abandon Sparta, and visited Arcadia to superintend the building of Megalopolis. Meanwhile Pelopidas, B.C. 368, conducted an expedition into Thessaly, to protect Larissa against Alexander of Pherae, and to counterwork the projects of that despot, who was in league with Athens. He was successful, and then proceeded to Macedonia, and made peace with Ptolemy, who was not strong enough to resist him, taking, among other hostages to Thebes, Philip, the son of Amyntas. The Thebans and Macedonians now united to protect the freedom of Amphipolis against Athens. Pelopidas returned to Thebes, having extended her ascendency over both Thessaly and Macedonia.
(M646) Thebes, now ambitious for the heads.h.i.+p of Greece, sent Pelopidas on a mission to the Persian king at Susa, who obtained a favorable rescript.
The States which were summoned to Thebes to hear the rescript read refused to accept it; and even the Arcadian deputies protested against the heads.h.i.+p of Thebes. So powerful were the sentiments of all the Grecian States, from first to last, against the complete ascendency of any one power, either Athens, or Sparta, or Thebes. The rescript was also rejected at Corinth. Pelopidas was now sent to Thessaly to secure the recognition of the heads.h.i.+p of Thebes; but in the execution of his mission he was seized and detained by Alexander of Pherae.
The Thebans then sent an army into Thessaly to rescue Pelopidas.
Unfortunately, Epaminondas did not command it. Having given offense to his countrymen, he was not elected that year as botrarch, and served in the ranks as a private hoplite. Alexander, a.s.sisted by the Athenians, triumphed in his act of treachery, and treated his ill.u.s.trious captive with harshness and cruelty, and the Theban army, unsuccessful, returned home.
(M647) The Thebans then sent another army, under Epaminondas, into Thessaly for the rescue of Pelopidas, and such was the terror of his name, that Alexander surrendered his prisoner, and sought to make peace. But the rescue of Pelopidas disabled Thebes from prosecuting the war in the Peloponnesus. As soon, however, as this was effected, Epaminondas was sent as an envoy into Arcadia to dissuade her from a proposed alliance with Athens, and there had to contend with the Athenian orator Callistratus.