III

After this Agis came to Delphi and offered as a sacrifice a tenth of the spoil. On his return journey he fell ill at Heraea—being by this time an old man—and was carried back to Lacedaemon. He survived the journey, but being there arrived, death speedily overtook him. He was buried with a sepulchre transcending in solemnity the lot of ordinary mortality.³

When the holy days of mourning were accomplished, and it was necessary to choose another king, there were rival claimants to the throne. Leotychides claimed it as the son, Agesilaus as the brother, of Agis. Then Leotychides protested: “Yet consider, Agesilaus, the law bids not ‘the king’s brother,’ but ‘the king’s son’ to be king; only if there chance to be no son, in that case shall the brother of the king be king.” Agesilaus: “Then must I needs be king.” Leotychides: “How so, seeing that I am not dead?” Agesilaus: “Because he whom you call your father denied you, saying, ‘Leotychides is no son of mine.’ ” Leotychides: “Nay, but my mother, who would know far better than he, said, and still today says, I am.” Agesilaus: “Nay, but the god himself, Poteidan, laid his finger on thy falsity when by his earthquake he drove forth thy father from the bridal chamber into the light of day; and time, ‘that tells no lies,’ as the proverb has it, bare witness to the witness of the god; for just ten months from the moment at which he fled and was no more seen within that chamber, you were born.”¹ So they reasoned together.

Diopethes,² a great authority upon oracles, supported Leotychides. There was an oracle of Apollo, he urged, which said “Beware of the lame reign.” But Diopethes was met by Lysander, who in behalf of Agesilaus demurred to this interpretation put upon the language of the god. If they were to beware of a lame reign, it meant not, beware lest a man stumble and halt, but rather, beware of him in whose veins flows not the blood of Heracles; most assuredly the kingdom would halt, and that would be a lame reign in very deed, whensoever the descendants of Heracles should cease to lead the state. Such were the arguments on either side, after hearing which the city chose Agesilaus to be king.

Now Agesilaus had not been seated on the throne one year when, as he sacrificed one of the appointed sacrifices in behalf of the city,³ the soothsayer warned him, saying: “The gods reveal a conspiracy of the most fearful character”; and when the king sacrificed a second time, he said: “The aspect of the victims is now even yet more terrible”; but when he had sacrificed for the third time, the soothsayer exclaimed: “O Agesilaus, the sign is given to me, even as though we were in the very midst of the enemy.” Thereupon they sacrificed to the deities who avert evil and work salvation, and so barely obtained good omens and ceased sacrificing. Nor had five days elapsed after the sacrifices were ended, ere one came bringing information to the ephors of a conspiracy, and named Cinadon as the ringleader; a young man robust of body as of soul, but not one of the peers.⁴ Accordingly the ephors questioned their informant: “How say you the occurrence is to take place?” and he who gave the information answered: “Cinadon took me to the limit of the marketplace, and bade me count how many Spartans there were in the marketplace; and I counted—‘king, ephors, and elders, and others—maybe forty. But tell me, Cinadon,’ I said to him, ‘why have you bidden me count them?’ and he answered me: ‘Those men, I would have you know, are your sworn foes; and all those others, more than four thousand, congregated there are your natural allies.’ Then he took and showed me in the streets, here one and there two of ‘our enemies,’ as we chanced to come across them, and all the rest ‘our natural allies’; and so again running through the list of Spartans to be found in the country districts, he still kept harping on that string: ‘Look you, on each estate one foeman—the master—and all the rest allies.’ ” The ephors asked: “How many do you reckon are in the secret of this matter?” The informant answered: “On that point also he gave me to understand that there were by no means many in their secret who were prime movers of the affair, but those few to be depended on; ‘and to make up,’ said he, ‘we ourselves are in their secret, all the rest of them—helots, enfranchised, inferiors, provincials, one and all.¹ Note their demeanor when Spartans chance to be the topic of their talk. Not one of them can conceal the delight it would give him if he might eat up every Spartan raw.’ ”² Then, as the inquiry went on, the question came: “And where did they propose to find arms?” The answer followed: “He explained that those of us, of course, who are enrolled in regiments have arms of our own already, and as for the mass—he led the way to the war foundry, and showed me scores and scores of knives, of swords, of spits, hatchets, and axes, and reaping-hooks. ‘Anything or everything,’ he told me, ‘which men use to delve in earth, cut timber, or quarry stone, would serve our purpose; nay, the instruments used for other arts would in nine cases out of ten furnish weapons enough and to spare, especially when dealing with unarmed antagonists.’ ” Once more being asked what time the affair was to come off, he replied his orders were “not to leave the city.”

As the result of their inquiry the ephors were persuaded that the man’s statements were based upon things he had really seen,³ and they were so alarmed that they did not even venture to summon the Little Assembly,⁴ as it was named; but holding informal meetings among themselves—a few senators here and a few there—they determined to send Cinadon and others of the young men to Aulon, with instructions to apprehend certain of the inhabitants and helots, whose names were written on the scytale (or scroll).⁵ He had further instructions to capture another resident in Aulon; this was a woman, the fashionable beauty of the place—supposed to be the arch-corruptress of all Lacedaemonians, young and old, who visited Aulon. It was not the first mission of the sort on which Cinadon had been employed by the ephors. It was natural, therefore, that the ephors should entrust him with the scytale on which the names of the suspects were inscribed; and in answer to his inquiry which of the young men he was to take with him, they said: “Go and order the eldest of the Hippagretae¹ (or commanders of horse) to let you have six or seven who chance to be there.” But they had taken care to let the commander know whom he was to send, and that those sent should also know that their business was to capture Cinadon. Further, the authorities instructed Cinadon that they would send three waggons to save bringing back his captives on foot—concealing as deeply as possible the fact that he, and he alone, was the object of the mission. Their reason for not securing him in the city was that they did not really know the extent of the mischief; and they wished, in the first instance, to learn from Cinadon who his accomplices were before these latter could discover they were informed against and effect their escape. His captors were to secure him first, and having learned from him the names of his confederates, to write them down and send them as quickly as possible to the ephors. The ephors, indeed, were so much concerned about the whole occurrence that they further sent a company of horse to assist their agents at Aulon.² As soon as the capture was effected, and one of the horsemen was back with the list of names taken down on the information of Cinadon, they lost no time in apprehending the soothsayer Tisamenus and the rest who were the principals in the conspiracy. When Cinadon³ himself was brought back and cross-examined, and had made a full confession of the whole plot, his plans, and his accomplices, they put to him one final question: “What was your object in undertaking this business?” He answered: “I wished to be inferior to no man in Lacedaemon.” Let that be as it might, his fate was to be taken out forthwith in irons, just as he was, and to be placed with his two hands and his neck in the collar, and so under scourge and goad to be driven, himself and his accomplices, round the city. Thus upon the heads of those was visited the penalty of their offenses.

IV

397 BC.⁴ It was after the incidents just recorded that a Syracusan named Herodas brought news to Lacedaemon. He had chanced to be in Phoenicia with a certain shipowner, and was struck by the number of Phoenician triremes which he observed, some coming into harbor from other ports, others already there with their ships’ companies complete, while others again were still completing their equipments. Nor was it only what he saw, but he had heard say further that there were to be three hundred of these vessels all told; whereupon he had taken passage on the first sailing ship bound for Hellas. He was in haste to lay this information before the Lacedaemonians, feeling sure that the king and Tissaphernes were concerned in these preparations—though where the fleet was to act, or against whom, he would not venture to predict.

These reports threw the Lacedaemonians into a flutter of expectation and anxiety. They summoned a meeting of the allies, and began to deliberate as to what ought to be done. Lysander, convinced of the enormous superiority of the Hellenic navy, and with regard to land forces drawing an obvious inference from the exploits and final deliverance of the troops with Cyrus, persuaded Agesilaus, to undertake a campaign into Asia, provided the authorities would furnish him with thirty Spartans, two thousand of the enfranchised,¹ and contingents of the allies amounting to six thousand men. Apart from these calculations, Lysander had a personal object: he wished to accompany the king himself, and by his aid to re-establish the decarchies originally set up by himself in the different cities, but at a later date expelled through the action of the ephors, who had issued a fiat re-establishing the old order of constitution.

396 BC. To this offer on the part of Agesilaus to undertake such an expedition the Lacedaemonians responded by presenting him with all he asked for, and six months” provisions besides. When the hour of departure came he offered all such sacrifices as are necessary, and lastly those “before crossing the border,”² and so set out. This done, he despatched to the several states³ messengers with directions as to the numbers to be sent from each, and the points of rendezvous; but for himself he was minded to go and do sacrifice at Aulis, even as Agamemnon had offered sacrifice in that place ere he set sail for Troy. But when he had reached the place and had begun to sacrifice, the Boeotarchs¹ being apprised of his design, sent a body of cavalry and bade him desist from further sacrificing;² and lighting upon victims already offered, they hurled them from off the altars, scattering the fragments. Then Agesilaus, calling the gods to witness, got on board his trireme in bitter indignation, and sailed away. Arrived at Geraestus, he there collected as large a portion of his troops as possible, and with the armada made sail for Ephesus.

When he had reached that city the first move was made by Tissaphernes, who sent asking, “With what purpose he was come thither?” And the Spartan king made answer: “With the intention that the cities in Asia shall be independent even as are the cities in our quarter of Hellas.” In answer to this Tissaphernes said: “If you on your part choose to make a truce whilst I send ambassadors to the king, I think you may well arrange the matter, and sail back home again, if so you will.” “Willing enough should I be,” replied Agesilaus, “were I not persuaded that you are cheating me.” “Nay, but it is open to you,” replied the satrap, “to exact a surety for the execution of the terms… ‘Provided always that you, Tissaphernes, carry out what you say without deceit, we on our side will abstain from injuring your dominion in any respect whatever during the truce.’ ”³ Accordingly in the presence of three commissioners—Herippidas, Dercylidas, and Megillus—Tissaphernes took an oath in the words prescribed: “Verily and indeed, I will effect peace honestly and without guile.” To which the commissioners, on behalf of Agesilaus, swore a counter-oath: “Verily and indeed, provided Tissaphernes so acts, we on our side will observe the truce.”

Tissaphernes at once gave the lie to what he had sworn. Instead of adhering to peace he sent up to demand a large army from the king, in addition to what he already had. But Agesilaus, though he was fully alive to these proceedings, adhered as rigidly as ever to the truce.

To keep quiet and enjoy leisure was his duty, in the exercise of which he wore away the time at Ephesus. But in reference to the organization of the several states it was a season of vehement constitutional disturbance in the several cities; that is to say, there were neither democracies as in the old days of the Athenians, nor yet were there decarchies as in the days of Lysander. But here was Lysander back again. Every one recognized him, and flocked to him with petitions for one favor or another, which he was to obtain for them from Agesilaus. A crowd of suitors danced attendance on his heels, and formed so conspicuous a retinue that Agesilaus, anyone would have supposed, was the private person and Lysander the king. All this was maddening to Agesilaus, as was presently plain. As to the rest of the Thirty, jealousy did not suffer them to keep silence, and they put it plainly to Agesilaus that the super-regal splendour in which Lysander lived was a violation of the constitution. So when Lysander took upon himself to introduce some of his petitioners to Agesilaus, the latter turned them a deaf ear. Their being aided and abetted by Lysander was sufficient; he sent them away discomfited. At length, as time after time things turned out contrary to his wishes, Lysander himself perceived the position of affairs. He now no longer suffered that crowd to follow him, and gave those who asked him help in anything plainly to understand that they would gain nothing, but rather be losers, by his intervention. But being bitterly annoyed at the degradation put upon him, he came to the king and said to him: “Ah, Agesilaus, how well you know the art of humbling your friends!” “Ay, indeed,” the king replied; “those of them whose one idea it is to appear greater than myself; if I did not know how also to requite with honor those who work for my good, I should be ashamed.” And Lysander said: “maybe there is more reason in your doings than ever guided my conduct”; adding, “Grant me for the rest one favor, so shall I cease to blush at the loss of my influence with you, and you will cease to be embarrassed by my presence. Send me off on a mission somewhere; wherever I am I will strive to be of service to you.” Such was the proposal of Lysander. Agesilaus resolved to act upon it, and despatched Lysander to the Hellespont. And this is what befell.¹ Lysander, being made aware of a slight which had been put upon Spithridates the Persian by Pharnabazus, got into conversation with the injured man, and so worked upon him that he was persuaded to bring his children and his personal belongings, and with a couple of hundred troops to revolt. The next step was to deposit all the goods safely in Cyzicus, and the last to get on shipboard with Spithridates and his son, and so to present himself with his Persian friends to Agesilaus. Agesilaus, on his side, was delighted at the transaction, and set himself at once to get information about Pharnabazus, his territory and his government.

Meanwhile Tissaphernes had waxed bolder. A large body of troops had been sent down by the king. On the strength of that he declared war against Agesilaus, if he did not instantly withdraw his troops from Asia. The Lacedaemonians there¹ present, no less than the allies, received the news with profound vexation, persuaded as they were that Agesilaus had no force capable of competing with the king’s grand armament. But a smile lit up the face of Agesilaus as he bade the ambassadors return to Tissaphernes and tell him that he was much in his debt for the perjury by which he had won the enmity of Heaven and made the very gods themselves allies of Hellas. He at once issued a general order to the troops to equip themselves for a forward movement. He warned the cities through which he must pass in an advance upon Caria, to have markets in readiness, and lastly, he despatched a message to the Ionian, Aeolian, and Hellespontine communities to send their contingents to join him at Ephesus.

Tissaphernes, putting together the facts that Agesilaus had no cavalry and that Caria was a region unadapted to that arm, and persuaded in his own mind also that the Spartan could not but cherish wrath against himself personally for his chicanery, felt convinced that he was really intending to invade Caria, and that the satrap’s palace was his final goal. Accordingly he transferred the whole of his infantry to that province, and proceeded to lead his cavalry round into the plain of the Maeander. Here he conceived himself capable of trampling the Hellenes under foot with his horsemen before they could reach the craggy districts where no cavalry could operate.

But, instead of marching straight into Caria, Agesilaus turned sharp off in the opposite direction toward Phrygia. Picking up various detachments of troops which met him on his march, he steadily advanced, laying cities prostrate before him, and by the unexpectedness of his attack reaping a golden harvest of spoil. As a rule the march was prosecuted safely; but not far from Dascylium his advanced guard of cavalry were pushing on toward a knoll to take a survey of the state of things in front, when, as chance would have it, a detachment of cavalry sent forward by Pharnabazus—the corps, in fact, of Rhathines and his natural brother Bagaeus—just about equal to the Hellenes in number, also came galloping up to the very knoll in question. The two bodies found themselves face to face not one hundred and fifty yards² apart, and for the first moment or two stood stock still. The Hellenic horse were drawn up like an ordinary phalanx four deep, the barbarians presenting a narrow front of twelve or thereabouts, and a very disproportionate depth. There was a moment’s pause, and then the barbarians, taking the initiative, charged. There was a hand-to-hand tussle, in which any Hellene who succeeded in striking his man shivered his lance with the blow, while the Persian troopers, armed with cornel-wood javelins, speedily despatched a dozen men and a couple of horses.¹ At this point the Hellenic cavalry turned and fled. But as Agesilaus came up to the rescue with his heavy infantry, the Asiatics were forced in their turn to withdraw, with the loss of one man slain. This cavalry engagement gave them pause. Agesilaus on the day following it offered sacrifice. “Was he to continue his advance?” But the victims proved hopeless.² There was nothing for it after this manifestation but to turn and march toward the sea. It was clear enough to his mind that without a proper cavalry force it would be impossible to conduct a campaign in the flat country. Cavalry, therefore, he must get, or be driven to mere guerilla warfare. With this view he drew up a list of all the wealthiest inhabitants belonging to the several cities of those parts. Their duty would be to support a body of cavalry, with the proviso, however, that anyone contributing a horse, arms, and rider, up to the standard, would be exempted from personal service. The effect was instantaneous. The zeal with which the recipients of these orders responded could hardly have been greater if they had been seeking substitutes to die for them.

395 BC. After this, at the first indication of spring, he collected the whole of his army at Ephesus. But the army needed training. With that object he proposed a series of prizes—prizes to the heavy infantry regiments, to be won by those who presented their men in the best condition; prizes for the cavalry regiments which could ride best; prizes for those divisions of peltasts and archers which proved most efficient in their respective duties. And now the gymnasiums were a sight to see, thronged as they were, one and all, with warriors stripping for exercise; or again, the hippodrome crowded with horses and riders performing their evolutions; or the javelin men and archers going through their peculiar drill. In fact, the whole city where he lay presented under his hands a spectacle not to be forgotten. The marketplace literally teemed with horses, arms, and accoutrements of all sorts for sale. The bronze-worker, the carpenter, the smith, the leather-cutter, the painter and embosser, were all busily engaged in fabricating the implements of war; so that the city of Ephesus itself was fairly converted into a military workshop.¹ It would have done a man’s heart good to see those long lines of soldiers with Agesilaus at their head, as they stepped gaily be-garlanded from the gymnasiums to dedicate their wreaths to the goddess Artemis. Nor can I well conceive of elements more fraught with hope than were here combined. Here were reverence and piety toward Heaven; here practice in war and military training; here discipline with habitual obedience to authority. But contempt for one’s enemy will infuse a kind of strength in battle. So the Spartan leader argued; and with a view to its production he ordered the quartermasters to put up the prisoners who had been captured by his foraging bands for auction, stripped naked; so that his Hellenic soldiery, as they looked at the white skins which had never been bared to sun and wind, the soft limbs unused to toil through constant riding in carriages, came to the conclusion that war with such adversaries would differ little from a fight with women.

By this date a full year had elapsed since the embarkation of Agesilaus, and the time had come for the Thirty with Lysander to sail back home, and for their successors, with Herippidas, to arrive. Among these Agesilaus appointed Xenocles and another to the command of the cavalry, Scythes to that of the heavy infantry of the enfranchised,² Herippidas to that of the Cyreians, and Migdon to that of the contingents from the states. Agesilaus gave them to understand that he intended to lead them forthwith by the most expeditious route against the stronghold of the country,³ so that without further ceremony they might prepare their minds and bodies for the tug of battle. Tissaphernes, however, was firmly persuaded that this was only talk intended to deceive him; Agesilaus would this time certainly invade Caria. Accordingly he repeated his former tactics, transporting his infantry bodily into Caria and posting his cavalry in the valley of the Maeander. But Agesilaus was as good as his word, and at once invaded the district of Sardis. A three days’ march through a region denuded of the enemy threw large supplies into his hands. On the fourth day the cavalry of the enemy approached. Their general ordered the officer in charge of his baggage-train to cross the Pactolus and encamp, while his troopers, catching sight of stragglers from the Hellenic force scattered in pursuit of booty, put several of them to the sword. Perceiving which, Agesilaus ordered his cavalry to the rescue; and the Persians on their side, seeing their advance, collected together in battle order to receive them, with dense squadrons of horse, troop upon troop. The Spartan, reflecting that the enemy had as yet no infantry to support him, whilst he had all branches of the service to depend upon, concluded that the critical moment had arrived at which to risk an engagement. In this mood he sacrificed, and began advancing his main line of battle against the serried lines of cavalry in front of him, at the same time ordering the flower of his heavy infantry—the ten-years-service men¹—to close with them at a run, and the peltasts to bring up their supports at the double. The order passed to his cavalry was to charge in confidence that he and the whole body of his troops were close behind them. The cavalry charge was received by the Persians without flinching, but presently finding themselves environed by the full tide of war they swerved. Some found a speedy grave within the river, but the mass of them gradually made good their escape. The Hellenes followed close on the heels of the flying foe and captured his camp. here the peltasts not unnaturally fell to pillaging; whereupon Agesilaus planted his troops so as to form a cordon enclosing the property of friends and foes alike. The spoil taken was considerable; it fetched more than seventy talents,² not to mention the famous camels, subsequently brought over by Agesilaus into Hellas, which were captured here. At the moment of the battle Tissaphernes lay in Sardis. Hence the Persians argued that they had been betrayed by the satrap. And the king of Persia, coming to a like conclusion himself that Tissaphernes was to blame for the evil turn of his affairs, sent down Tithraustes and beheaded him.³

This done, Tithraustes sent an embassy to Agesilaus with a message as follows: “The author of all our trouble, yours and ours, Agesilaus, has paid the penalty of his misdoings; the king therefore asks of you first that you should sail back home in peace; secondly, that the cities in Asia secured in their autonomy should continue to render him the ancient tribute.” To this proposition Agesilaus made answer that “without the authorities at home he could do nothing in the matter.” “Then do you, at least,” replied Tithraustes, “while awaiting advice from Lacedaemon, withdraw into the territory of Pharnabazus. Have I not avenged you of your enemy?” “While, then, I am on my way thither,” rejoined Agesilaus, “will you support my army with provisions?” On this wise Tithraustes handed him thirty talents,⁴ which the other took, and forthwith began his march into Phrygia (the Phrygia of Pharnabazus). He lay in the plain district above Cyme,¹ when a message reached him from the home authorities, giving him absolute disposal of the naval forces,² with the right to appoint the admiral of his choice. This course the Lacedaemonians were led to adopt by the following considerations: If, they argued, the same man were in command of both services, the land force would be greatly strengthened through the concentration of the double force at any point necessary; and the navy likewise would be far more useful through the immediate presence and cooperation of the land force where needed. Apprised of these measures, Agesilaus in the first instance sent an order to the cities on the islands and the seaboard to fit out as many ships of war as they severally might deem desirable. The result was a new navy, consisting of the vessels thus voluntarily furnished by the states, with others presented by private persons out of courtesy to their commander, and amounting in all to a fleet of one hundred and twenty sail. The admiral whom he selected was Peisander, his wife’s brother, a man of genuine ambition and of a vigorous spirit, but not sufficiently expert in the details of equipment to achieve a great naval success. Thus while Peisander set off to attend to naval matters, Agesilaus continued his march whither he was bound to Phrygia.

V

But now Tithraustes seemed to have discovered in Agesilaus a disposition to despise the fortunes of the Persian monarch—he evidently had no intention to withdraw from Asia; on the contrary, he was cherishing hopes vast enough to include the capture of the king himself. Being at his wits’ end how to manage matters, he resolved to send Timocrates the Rhodian to Hellas with a gift of gold worthy fifty silver talents,³ and enjoined upon him to endeavor to exchange solemn pledges with the leading men in the several states, binding them to undertake a war against Lacedaemon. Timocrates arrived and began to dole out his presents. In Thebes he gave gifts to Androcleidas, Ismenias, and Galaxidorus; in Corinth to Timolaus and Polyanthes; in Argos to Cylon and his party. The Athenians,⁴ though they took no share of the gold, were none the less eager for the war, being of opinion that empire was theirs by right.⁵ The recipients of the moneys forthwith began covertly to attack the Lacedaemonians in their respective states, and, when they had brought these to a sufficient pitch of hatred, bound together the most important of them in a confederacy.

But it was clear to the leaders in Thebes that, unless someone struck the first blow, the Lacedaemonians would never be brought to break the truce with their allies. They therefore persuaded the Opuntian Locrians¹ to levy moneys on a debatable district,² jointly claimed by the Phocians and themselves, when the Phocians would be sure to retaliate by an attack on Locris. These expectations were fulfillled. The Phocians immediately invaded Locris and seized moneys on their side with ample interest. Then Androcleidas and his friends lost no time in persuading the Thebans to assist the Locrians, on the ground that it was no debatable district which had been entered by the Phocians, but the admittedly friendly and allied territory of Locris itself. The counter-invasion of Phocis and pillage of their country by the Thebans promptly induced the Phocians to send an embassy to Lacedaemon. In claiming assistance they explained that the war was not of their own seeking, but that they had attacked the Locrians in self-defense. On their side the Lacedaemonians were glad enough to seize a pretext for marching upon the Thebans, against whom they cherished a long-standing bitterness. They had not forgotten the claim which the Thebans had set up to a tithe for Apollo in Deceleia,³ nor yet their refusal to support Lacedaemon in the attack on Piraeus;⁴ and they accused them further of having persuaded the Corinthians not to join that expedition. Nor did they fail to call to mind some later proceedings of the Thebans—their refusal to allow Agesilaus to sacrifice in Aulis;⁵ their snatching the victims already offered and hurling them from the altars; their refusal to join the same general in a campaign directed even against Asia.⁶ The Lacedaemonians further reasoned that now, if ever, was the favorable moment to conduct an expedition against the Thebans, and once for all to put a stop to their insolent behavior toward them. Affairs in Asia were prospering under the strong arm of Agesilaus, and in Hellas they had no other war on hand to trammel their movements. Such, therefore, being the general view of the situation adopted at Lacedaemon, the ephors proceeded to call out the ban. Meanwhile they despatched Lysander to Phocis with orders to put himself at the head of the Phocians along with the Oetaeans, Heracleotes, Melians, and Aenianians, and to march upon Haliartus; before the walls of which place Pausanias, the destined leader of the expedition, undertook to present himself at the head of the Lacedaemonians and other Peloponnesian forces by a specified date. Lysander not only carried out his instructions to the letter, but going a little beyond them, succeeded in detaching Orchomenus from Thebes.¹ Pausanias, on the other hand, after finding the sacrifice for crossing the frontier favorable, sat down at Tegea and set about despatching to and fro the commandants of allied troops whilst contentedly awaiting the soldiers from the provincial² districts of Laconia.

And now that it was fully plain to the Thebans that the Lacedaemonians would invade their territory, they sent ambassadors to Athens, who spoke as follows:—

“Men of Athens, it is a mistake on your part to blame us for certain harsh resolutions concerning Athens at the conclusion of the war.³ That vote was not authorized by the state of Thebes. It was the utterance merely of one man,⁴ who was at that time seated in the congress of the allies. A more important fact is that when the Lacedaemonians summoned us to attack Piraeus⁵ the collective state of Thebes passed a resolution refusing to join in the campaign. As then you are to a large extent the cause of the resentment which the Lacedaemonians feel toward us, we consider it only fair that you in your turn should render us assistance. Still more do we demand of you, sirs, who were of the city party at that date, to enter heart and soul into war with the Lacedaemonians. For what were their services to you? They first deliberately converted you into an oligarchy and placed you in hostility to the democracy, and then they came with a great force under guise of being your allies, and delivered you over to the majority, so that, for any service they rendered you, you were all dead men; and you owe your lives to our friends here, the people of Athens.⁶

“But to pass on—we all know, men of Athens, that you would like to recover the empire which you formerly possessed; and how can you compass your object better than by coming to the aid yourselves of the victims of Lacedaemonian injustice? Is it their wide empire of which you are afraid? Let not that make cowards of you—much rather let it embolden you as you lay to heart and ponder your own case. When your empire was widest then the crop of your enemies was thickest. Only so long as they found no opportunity to revolt did they keep their hatred of you dark; but no sooner had they found a champion in Lacedaemon than they at once showed what they really felt toward you. So too today. Let us show plainly that we mean to stand shoulder to shoulder¹ embattled against the Lacedaemonians; and haters enough of them—whole armies—never fear, will be forthcoming. To prove the truth of this assertion you need only to count upon your fingers. How many friends have they left to them today? The Argives have been, are, and ever will be, hostile to them. Of course. But the Eleians? Why, the Eleians have quite lately² been robbed of so much territory and so many cities that their friendship is converted into hatred. And what shall we say of the Corinthians? the Arcadians? the Achaeans? In the war which Sparta waged against you, there was no toil, no danger, no expense, which those peoples did not share, in obedience to the dulcet coaxings³ and persuasions of that power. The Lacedaemonians gained what they wanted, and then not one fractional portion of empire, honor, or wealth did these faithful followers come in for. That is not all. They have no scruple in appointing their helots⁴ as governors, and on the free necks of their alies, in the day of their good fortune, they have planted the tyrant’s heel.

“Then again take the case of those whom they have detached from yourselves. In the most patent way they have cajoled and cheated them; in place of freedom they have presented them with a twofold slavery. The allies are tyrannised over by the governor and tyrannised over by the ten commissioners set up by Lysander over every city.⁵ And to come lastly to the great king. In spite of all the enormous contributions with which he aided them to gain a mastery over you, is the lord of Asia one whit better off today than if he had taken exactly the opposite course and joined you in reducing them?

“Is it not clear that you have only to step forward once again as the champions of this crowd of sufferers from injustice, and you will attain to a pinnacle of power quite unprecedented? In the days of your old empire you were leaders of the maritime powers merely—that is clear; but your new empire today will be universal. You will have at your backs not only your former subjects, but ourselves, and the Peloponnesians, and the king himself, with all that mighty power which is his. We do not deny that we were serviceable allies enough to Lacedaemon, as you will bear us witness; but this we say:—If we helped the Lacedaemonians vigorously in the past, everything tends to show that we shall help you still more vigorously today; for our swords will be unsheathed, not in behalf of islanders, or Syracusans, or men of alien stock, as happened in the late war, but of ourselves, suffering under a sense of wrong. And there is another important fact which you ought to realise: this selfish system of organized greed which is Sparta’s will fall more readily to pieces than your own late empire. Yours was the proud assertion of naval empire over subjects powerless by sea. Theirs is the selfish sway of a minority asserting dominion over states equally well armed with themselves, and many times more numerous. Here our remarks end. Do not forget, however, men of Athens, that as far as we can understand the matter, the field to which we invite you is destined to prove far richer in blessings to your own state of Athens than to ours, Thebes.”

With these words the speaker ended. Among the Athenians, speaker after speaker spoke in favor of the proposition,¹ and finally a unanimous resolution was passed voting assistance to the Thebans. Thrasybulus, in an answer communicating the resolution, pointed out with pride that in spite of the unfortified condition of Piraeus, Athens would not shrink from repaying her former debt of gratitude to Thebes with interest. “You,” he added, “refused to join in a campaign against us; we are prepared to fight your battles with you against the enemy, if he attacks you.” Thus the Thebans returned home and made preparations to defend themselves, whilst the Athenians made ready to assist them.

And now the Lacedaemonians no longer hesitated. Pausanias the king advanced into Boeotia with the home army and the whole of the Peloponnesian contingents, saving only the Corinthians, who declined to serve. Lysander, at the head of the army supplied by Phocis and Orchomenus and the other strong places in those parts, had already reached Haliartus, in front of Pausanias. Being arrived, he refused to sit down quietly and await the arrival of the army from Lacedaemon, but at once marched with what troops he had against the walls of Haliartus; and in the first instance he tried to persuade the citizens to detach themselves from Thebes and to assume autonomy, but the intention was cut short by certain Thebans within the fortress. Whereupon Lysander attacked the place. The Thebans were made aware,¹ and hurried to the rescue with heavy infantry and cavalry. Then, whether it was that the army of relief fell upon Lysander unawares, or that with clear knowledge of his approach he preferred to await the enemy, with intent to crush him, is uncertain. This only is clear: a battle was fought beside the walls, and a trophy still exists to mark the victory of the townsfolk before the gates of Haliartus. Lysander was slain, and the rest fled to the mountains, the Thebans hotly pursuing. But when the pursuit had led them to some considerable height, and they were fairly environed and hemmed in by difficult ground and narrow space, then the heavy infantry turned to bay, and greeted them with a shower of darts and missiles. First two or three men dropped who had been foremost of the pursuers, and then upon the rest they poured volleys of stones down the precipitous incline, and pressed on their late pursuers with much zeal, until the Thebans turned tail and quitted the deadly slope, leaving behind them more than a couple of hundred corpses.

On this day, thereafter, the hearts of the Thebans failed them as they counted their losses and found them equal to their gains; but the next day they discovered that during the night the Phocians and the rest of them had made off to their several homes, whereupon they fell to pluming themselves highly on their achievement. But presently Pausanias appeared at the head of the Lacedaemonian army, and once more their dangers seemed to thicken round them. Deep, we are told, was the silence and abasement which reigned in their host. It was not until the third day, when the Athenians arrived² and were duely drawn up beside them, whilst Pausanias neither attacked nor offered battle, that at length the confidence of the Thebans took a larger range. Pausanias, on his side, having summoned his generals and commanders of fifties,³ deliberated whether to give battle or to content himself with picking up the bodies of Lysander and those who fell with him, under cover of a truce.

The considerations which weighed upon the minds of Pausanias and the other high officers of the Lacedaemonians seem to have been that Lysander was dead and his defeated army in retreat; while, as far as they themselves were concerned, the Corinthian contingent was absolutely wanting, and the zeal of the troops there present at the lowest ebb. They further reasoned that the enemy’s cavalry was numerous and theirs the reverse; whilst, weightiest of all, there lay the dead right under the walls, so that if they had been ever so much stronger it would have been no easy task to pick up the bodies within range of the towers of Haliartus. On all these grounds they determined to ask for a flag of truce, in order to pick up the bodies of the slain. These, however, the Thebans were not disposed to give back unless they agreed to retire from their territory. The terms were gladly accepted by the Lacedaemonians, who at once picked up the corpses of the slain, and prepared to quit the territory of Boeotia. The preliminaries were transacted, and the retreat commenced. Despondent indeed was the demeanor of the Lacedaemonians, in contrast with the insolent bearing of the Thebans, who visited the slightest attempt to trespass on their private estates with blows and chased the offenders back on to the high roads unflinchingly. Such was the conclusion of the campaign of the Lacedaemonians.

As for Pausanias, on his arrival at home he was tried on the capital charge. The heads of indictment set forth that he had failed to reach Haliartus as soon as Lysander, in spite of his undertaking to be there on the same day: that, instead of using any endeavor to pick up the bodies of the slain by force of arms, he had asked for a flag of truce: that at an earlier date, when he had got the popular government of Athens fairly in his grip at Piraeus, he had suffered it to slip through his fingers and escape. Besides this,¹ he failed to present himself at the trial, and a sentence of death was passed upon him. He escaped to Tegea and there died of an illness whilst still in exile. Thus closes the chapter of events enacted on the soil of Hellas. To return to Asia and Agesilaus.

BOOK IV

I

395 BC. With the fall of the year Agesilaus reached Phrygia—the Phrygia of Pharnabazus—and proceeded to burn and harry the district. City after city was taken, some by force and some by voluntary surrender. To a proposal of Spithridates to lead him into Paphlagonia,¹ where he would introduce the king of the country to him in conference and obtain his alliance, he readily acceded. It was a long-cherished ambition of Agesilaus to alienate some one of the subject nations from the Persian monarch, and he pushed forward eagerly.

On his arrival in Paphlagonia, King Otys² came, and an alliance was made. (The fact was, he had been summoned by the king to Susa and had not gone up.) More than that, through the persuasion of Spithridates he left behind as a parting gift to Agesilaus one thousand cavalry and a couple of thousand peltasts. Agesilaus was anxious in some way to show his gratitude to Spithridates for such help, and spoke as follows:—“Tell me,” he said to Spithridates, “would you not like to give your daughter to King Otys?” “Much more would I like to give her,” he answered, “than he to take her—I an outcast wanderer, and he lord of a vast territory and forces.” Nothing more was said at the time about the marriage; but when Otys was on the point of departure and came to bid farewell, Agesilaus, having taken care that Spithridates should be out of the way, in the presence of the Thirty broached the subject:³ “Can you tell me, Otys, to what sort of family Spithridates belongs?” “To one of the noblest in Persia,” replied the king. Agesilaus: “Have you observed how beautiful his son is?” Otys: “To be sure; last evening I was supping with him.” Agesilaus: “And they tell me his daughter is yet more beautiful.” Otys: “That may well be; beautiful she is.” Agesilaus: “For my part, as you have proved so good a friend to us, I should like to advise you to take this girl to wife. Not only is she very beautiful—and what more should a husband ask for?—but her father is of noble family, and has a force at his back large enough to retaliate on Pharnabazus for an injury. He has made the satrap, as you see, a fugitive and a vagabond in his own vast territory. I need not tell you,” he added, “that a man who can so chastise an enemy is well able to benefit a friend; and of this be assured: by such an alliance you will gain not the connection of Spithridates alone, but of myself and the Lacedaemonians, and, as we are the leaders of Hellas, of the rest of Hellas also. And what a wedding yours will be! Were ever nuptials celebrated on so grand a scale before? Was ever bride led home by such an escort of cavalry and light-armed troops and heavy infantry, as shall escort your wife home to your palace?” Otys asked: “Is Spithridates of one mind with you in this proposal?” and Agesilaus answered: “In good sooth he did not bid me make it for him. And for my own part in the matter, though it is, I admit, a rare pleasure to requite an enemy, yet I had far rather at any time discover some good fortune for my friends.” Otys: “Why not ask if your project pleases Spithridates too?” Then Agesilaus, turning to Herippidas and the rest of the Thirty, bade them go to Spithridates; “and give him such good instruction,” he added, “that he shall wish what we wish.” The Thirty rose and retired to administer their lesson. But they seemed to tarry a long time, and Agesilaus asked: “What say you, King Otys—shall we summon him hither ourselves? You, I feel certain, are better able to persuade him than the whole Thirty put together.” Thereupon Agesilaus summoned Spithridates and the others. As they came forward, Herippidas promptly delivered himself thus: “I spare you the details, Agesilaus. To make a long story short, Spithridates says, ‘He will be glad to do whatever pleases you.’ ” Then Agesilaus, turning first to one and then to the other: “What pleases me,” said he, “is that you should wed a daughter—and you a wife—so happily.¹ But,” he added, “I do not see how we can well bring home the bride by land till spring.” “No, not by land,” the suitor answered, “but you might, if you chose, conduct her home at once by sea.” Thereupon they exchanged pledges to ratify the compact; and so sent Otys rejoicing on his way.

Agesilaus, who had not failed to note the king’s impatience, at once fitted out a ship of war and gave orders to Callias, a Lacedaemonian, to escort the maiden to her new home; after which he himself began his march on Dascylium. Here was the palace of Pharnabazus. It lay in the midst of abundant supplies. Here, too, were most fair hunting grounds, offering the hunter choice between enclosed parks² and a wide expanse of field and fell; and all around there flowed a river full of fish of every sort; and for the sportsman versed in fowling, winged game in abundance.

In these quarters the Spartan king passed the winter, collecting supplies for the army either on the spot or by a system of forage. On one of these occasions the troops, who had grown reckless and scornful of the enemy through long immunity from attack, whilst engaged in collecting supplies were scattered over the flat country, when Pharnabazus fell upon them with two scythe-chariots and about four hundred horse. Seeing him thus advancing, the Hellenes ran together, mustering possibly seven hundred men. The Persian did not hesitate, but placing his chariots in front, supported by himself and the cavalry, he gave the command to charge. The scythe-chariots charged and scattered the compact mass, and speedily the cavalry had laid low in the dust about a hundred men, while the rest retreated hastily, under cover of Agesilaus and his hoplites, who were fortunately near.

It was the third or fourth day after this that Spithridates made a discovery: Pharnabazus lay encamped in Caue, a large village not more than eighteen miles¹ away. This news he lost no time in reporting to Herippidas. The latter, who was longing for some brilliant exploit, begged Agesilaus to furnish him with two thousand hoplites, an equal number of peltasts, and some cavalry—the latter to consist of the horsemen of Spithridates, the Paphlagonians, and as many Hellene troopers as he might perchance persuade to follow him. Having got the promise of them from Agesilaus, he proceeded to take the auspices. Toward late afternoon he obtained favorable omens and broke off the sacrifice. Thereupon he ordered the troops to get their evening meal, after which they were to present themselves in front of the camp. But by the time darkness had closed in, not one half of them had come out. To abandon the project was to call down the ridicule of the rest of the Thirty. So he set out with the force to hand, and about daylight, falling on the camp of Pharnabazus, put many of his advanced guard of Mysians to the sword. The men themselves made good their escape in different directions, but the camp was taken, and with it diverse goblets and other gear such as a man like Pharnabazus would have, not to speak of much baggage and many baggage animals. It was the dread of being surrounded and besieged, if he should establish himself for long at any one spot, which induced Pharnabazus to flee in gipsy fashion from point to point over the country, carefully obliterating his encampments. Now as the Paphlagonians and Spithridates brought back the captured property, they were met by Herippidas with his brigadiers and captains, who stopped them and² relieved them of all they had; the object being to have as large a list as possible of captures to deliver over to the officers who superintended the sale of booty.³ This treatment the Asiatics found intolerable. They deemed themselves at once injured and insulted, got their kit together in the night, and made off in the direction of Sardis to join Ariaeus without mistrust, seeing that he too had revolted and gone to war with the king. On Agesilaus himself no heavier blow fell during the whole campaign than the desertion of Spithridates and Megabates and the Paphlagonians.

Now there was a certain man of Cyzicus, Apollophanes by name; he was an old friend of Pharnabazus, and at this time had become a friend also of Agesilaus.¹ This man informed Agesilaus that he thought he could bring about a meeting between him and Pharnabazus, which might tend to friendship; and having so got ear of him, he obtained pledges of good faith between his two friends, and presented himself with Pharnabazus at the trysting-place, where Agesilaus with the Thirty around him awaited their coming, reclined upon a grassy sward. Pharnabazus presently arrived clad in costliest apparel; but just as his attendants were about to spread at his feet the carpets on which the Persians delicately seat themselves, he was touched with a sense of shame at his own luxury in sight of the simplicity of Agesilaus, and he also without further ceremony seated himself on the bare ground. And first the two bade one another hail, and then Pharnabazus stretched out his right hand and Agesilaus his to meet him, and the conversation began. Pharnabazus, as the elder of the two, spoke first. “Agesilaus,” he said, “and all you Lacedaemonians here present, while you were at war with the Athenians I was your friend and ally; it was I who furnished the wealth that made your navy strong on sea; on land I fought on horseback by your side, and pursued your enemies into the sea.² As to duplicity like that of Tissaphernes, I challenge you to accuse me of having played you false by word or deed. Such have I ever been; and in return how am I treated by yourselves today?—in such sort that I cannot even sup in my own country unless, like the wild animals, I pick up the scraps you chance to leave. The beautiful palaces which my father left me as an heirloom, the parks³ full of trees and beasts of the chase in which my heart rejoiced, lie before my eyes hacked to pieces, burnt to ashes. Maybe I do not comprehend the first principles of justice and holiness; do you then explain to me how all this resembles the conduct of men who know how to repay a simple debt of gratitude.” He ceased, and the Thirty were ashamed before him and kept silence.⁴

At length, after some pause, Agesilaus spoke. “I think you are aware,” he said, “Pharnabazus, that within the states of Hellas the folk of one community contract relations of friendship and hospitality with one another; ¹but if these states should go to war, then each man will side with his fatherland, and friend will find himself pitted against friend in the field of battle, and, if it so betide, the one may even deal the other his deathblow. So too we today, being at war with your sovereign lord the king, must needs regard as our enemy all that he calls his; not but that with yourself personally we should esteem it our high fortune to be friends. If indeed it were merely an exchange of service—were you asked to give up your lord the king and to take us as your masters in his stead, I could not so advise you; but the fact is, by joining with us it is in your power today to bow your head to no man, to call no man master, to reap the produce of your own domain in freedom—freedom, which to my mind is more precious than all riches. Not that we bid you to become a beggar for the sake of freedom, but rather to use our friendship to increase not the king’s authority, but your own, by subduing those who are your fellow slaves today, and who tomorrow shall be your willing subjects. Well, then, freedom given and wealth added—what more would you desire to fill the cup of happiness to overflowing?” Pharnabazus replied: “Shall I tell you plainly what I will do?” “That were but kind and courteous on your part,” he answered. “Thus it stands with me, then,” said Pharnabazus. “If the king should send another general, and if he should wish to rank me under this new man’s orders, I, for my part, am willing to accept your friendship and alliance; but if he offers me the supreme command—why, then, I plainly tell you, there is a certain something in the very name ambition which whispers me that I shall war against you to the best of my ability.”² When he heard that, Agesilaus seized the satrap’s hand, exclaiming: “Ah, best of mortals, may the day arrive which sends us such a friend! Of one thing rest assured. This instant I leave your territory with what haste I may, and for the future—even in case of war—as long as we can find foes elsewhere our hands shall hold aloof from you and yours.”

And with these words he broke up the meeting. Pharnabazus mounted his horse and rode away, but his son by Parapita, who was still in the bloom of youth, lingered behind; then, running up to Agesilaus, he exclaimed: “See, I choose you as my friend.” “And I accept you,” replied the king. “Remember, then,” the lad answered, and with the word presented the beautiful javelin in his hand to Agesilaus, who received it, and unclasping a splendid trapping¹ which his secretary, Idaeus, had round the neck of his charger, he gave it in return to the youth; whereupon the boy leapt on his horse’s back and galloped after his father.² At a later date, during the absence of Pharnabazus abroad, this same youth, the son of Parapita, was deprived of the government by his brother and driven into exile. Then Agesilaus took great interest in him, and as he had a strong attachment to the son of Eualces, an Athenian, Agesilaus did all he could to have this friend of his, who was the tallest of the boys, admitted to the two hundred yards race at Olympia.

394 BC. But to return to the actual moment. Agesilaus was as good as his word, and at once marched out of the territory of Pharnabazus. The season verged on spring. Reaching the plain of Thebe,³ he encamped in the neighborhood of the temple of Artemis of Astyra,⁴ and there employed himself in collecting troops from every side, in addition to those which he already had, so as to form a complete armament. These preparations were pressed forward with a view to penetrating as far as possible into the interior. He was persuaded that every tribe or nation placed in his rear might be considered as alienated from the king.

II

Such were the concerns and projects of Agesilaus. Meanwhile the Lacedaemonians at home were quite alive to the fact that moneys had been sent into Hellas, and that the bigger states were leagued together to declare war against them. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that Sparta herself was in actual danger, and that a campaign was inevitable. While busy, therefore, with preparations themselves, they lost no time in despatching Epicydidas to fetch Agesilaus. That officer, on his arrival, explained the position of affairs, and concluded by delivering a peremptory summons of the state recalling him to the assistance of the fatherland without delay. The announcement could not but come as a grievous blow to Agesilaus, as he reflected on the vanished hopes, and the honors plucked from his grasp. Still, he summoned the allies and announced to them the contents of the despatch from home. “To aid our fatherland,” he added, “is an imperative duty. If, however, matters turn out well on the other side, rely upon it, friends and allies, I will not forget you, but I shall be back anon to carry out your wishes.” When they heard the announcement many wept, and they passed a resolution, one and all, to assist Agesilaus in assisting Lacedaemon; if matters turned out well there, they undertook to take him as their leader and come back again to Asia; and so they fell to making preparations to follow him.

Agesilaus, on his side, determined to leave behind him in Asia Euxenus as governor, and with him a garrison numbering no less than four thousand troops, which would enable him to protect the states in Asia. But for himself, as on the one hand he could see that the majority of the soldiers would far rather stay behind than undertake service against fellow Hellenes, and on the other hand he wished to take as fine and large an army with him as he could, he offered prizes first to that state or city which should continue the best corps of troops, and secondly to that captain of mercenaries who should join the expedition with the best equipped battalion of heavy infantry, archers, and light infantry. On the same principle he informed the chief cavalry officers that the general who succeeded in presenting the best accoutred and best mounted regiment would receive from himself some victorious distinction. “The final adjudication,” he said, “would not be made until they had crossed from Asia into Europe and had reached the Chersonese; and this with a view to impress upon them that the prizes were not for show but for real campaigners.”¹ These consisted for the most part of infantry or cavalry arms and accoutrements tastefully furnished, besides which there were chaplets of gold. The whole, useful and ornamental alike, must have cost nearly a thousand pounds,² but as the result of this outlay, no doubt, arms of great value were procured for the expedition.³ When the Hellespont was crossed the judges were appointed. The Lacedaemonians were represented by Menascus, Herippidas, and Orsippus, and the allies by one member from each state. As soon as the adjudication was complete, the army commenced its march with Agesilaus at its head, following the very route taken by the great king when he invaded Hellas.

Meanwhile the ephors had called out the ban, and as Agesipolis was still a boy, the state called upon Aristodemus, who was of the royal family and guardian of the young king, to lead the expedition; and now that the Lacedaemonians were ready to take the field and the forces of their opponents were duly mustered, the latter met¹ to consider the most advantageous method of doing battle.

Timolaus of Corinth spoke: “Soldiers of the allied forces,” he said, “the growth of Lacedaemon seems to me just like that of some mighty river—at its sources small and easily crossed, but as it farther and farther advances, other rivers discharge themselves into its channel, and its stream grows ever more formidable. So is it with the Lacedaemonians. Take them at the starting-point and they are but a single community, but as they advance and attach city after city they grow more numerous and more resistless. I observe that when people wish to take wasps’ nests—if they try to capture the creatures on the wing, they are liable to be attacked by half the hive; whereas, if they apply fire to them ere they leave their homes, they will master them without scathe themselves. On this principle I think it best to bring about the battle within the hive itself, or, short of that, as close to Lacedaemon as possible.”²

The arguments of the speaker were deemed sound, and a resolution was passed in that sense; but before it could be carried out there were various arrangements to be made. There was the question of headship. Then, again, what was the proper depth of line to be given to the different army corps? for if any particular state or states gave too great a depth to their battle line they would enable the enemy to turn their flank. Whilst they were debating these points, the Lacedaemonians had incorporated the men of Tegea and the men of Mantinea, and were ready to debouch into the bimarine region.³ And as the two armies advanced almost at the same time, the Corinthians and the rest reached the Nemea,⁴ and the Lacedaemonians and their allies occupied Sicyon. The Lacedaemonians entered by Epieiceia, and at first were severely handled by the light-armed troops of the enemy, who discharged stones and arrows from the vantage-ground on their right; but as they dropped down upon the Gulf of Corinth they advanced steadily onward through the flat country, felling timber and burning the fair land. Their rivals, on their side, after a certain forward movement,¹ paused and encamped, placing the ravine in front of them; but still the Lacedaemonians advanced, and it was only when they were within ten furlongs² of the hostile position that they followed suit and encamped, and then they remained quiet.

And here I may state the numbers on either side. The Lacedaemonian heavy-armed infantry levies amounted to six thousand men. Of Eleians, Triphylians, Acroreians, and Lasionians, there must have been nearly three thousand, with fifteen hundred Sicyonians, while Epidaurus, Troezen, Hermione, and Halieis³ contributed at least another three thousand. To these heavy infantry troops must be added six hundred Lacedaemonian cavalry, a body of Cretan archers about three hundred strong, besides another force of slingers, at least four hundred in all, consisting of Marganians, Letrinians, and Amphidolians. The men of Phlius were not represented. Their plea was they were keeping “holy truce.” That was the total of the forces on the Lacedaemonian side. There was collected on the enemy’s side six thousand Athenian heavy infantry, with about, as was stated, seven thousand Argives, and in the absence of the men of Orchomenus something like five thousand Boeotians. There were besides three thousand Corinthians, and again from the whole of Euboea at least three thousand. These formed the heavy infantry. Of cavalry the Boeotians, again in the absence of the Orchomenians, furnished eight hundred, the Athenians⁴ six hundred, the Chalcidians of Euboea one hundred, the Opuntian Locrians⁵ fifty. Their light troops, including those of the Corinthians, were more numerous, as the Ozolian Locrians, the Melians, and Arcarnanians⁶ helped to swell their numbers.

Such was the strength of the two armies. The Boeotians, as long as they occupied the left wing, showed no anxiety to join battle, but after a rearrangement which gave them the right, placing the Athenians opposite the Lacedaemonians, and themselves opposite the Achaeans, at once, we are told,⁷ the victims proved favorable, and the order was passed along the lines to prepare for immediate action. The Boeotians, in the first place, abandoning the rule of sixteen deep, chose to give their division the fullest possible depth, and, moreover, kept veering more and more to their right, with the intention of overlapping their opponent’s flank. The consequence was that the Athenians, to avoid being absolutely severed, were forced to follow suit, and edged toward the right, though they recognized the risk they ran of having their flank turned. For a while the Lacedaemonians had no idea of the advance of the enemy, owing to the rough nature of the ground,¹ but the notes of the paean at length announced to them the fact, and without an instant’s delay the answering order “prepare for battle” ran along the different sections of their army. As soon as their troops were drawn up, according to the tactical disposition of the various generals of foreign brigades, the order was passed to “follow the lead,” and then the Lacedaemonians on their side also began edging to their right, and eventually stretched out their wing so far that only six out of the ten regimental divisions of the Athenians confronted the Lacedaemonians, the other four finding themselves face to face with the men of Tegea. And now when they were less than a furlong² apart, the Lacedaemonians sacrificed in customary fashion a kid to the huntress goddess,³ and advanced upon their opponents, wheeling round their overlapping columns to outflank his left. As the two armies closed, the allies of Lacedaemon were as a rule fairly borne down by their opponents. The men of Pellene alone, steadily confronting the Thespiaeans, held their ground, and the dead of either side strewed the position.⁴ As to the Lacedaemonians themselves: crushing that portion of the Athenian troops which lay immediately in front of them, and at the same time encircling them with their overlapping right, they slew man after man of them; and, absolutely unscathed themselves, their unbroken columns continued their march, and so passed behind the four remaining divisions⁵ of the Athenians before these latter had returned from their own victorious pursuit. Whereby the four divisions in question also emerged from battle intact, except for the casualties inflicted by the Tegeans in the first clash of the engagement. The troops next encountered by the Lacedaemonians were the Argives retiring. These they fell foul of, and the senior polemarch was just on the point of closing with them “breast to breast” when someone, it is said, shouted, “Let their front ranks pass.” This was done, and as the Argives raced past, their enemies thrust at their unprotected¹ sides and killed many of them. The Corinthians were caught in the same way as they retired, and when their turn had passed, once more the Lacedaemonians lit upon a portion of the Theban division retiring from the pursuit, and strewed the field with their dead. The end of it all was that the defeated troops in the first instance made for safety to the walls of their city, but the Corinthians within closed the gates, whereupon the troops took up quarters once again in their old encampment. The Lacedaemonians on their side withdrew to the point at which they first closed with the enemy, and there set up a trophy of victory. So the battle ended.

III

Meanwhile Agesilaus was rapidly hastening with his reinforcements from Asia. He had reached Amphipolis when Dercylidas brought the news of this fresh victory of the Lacedaemonians; their own loss had been eight men, that of the enemy considerable. It was his business at the same time to explain that not a few of the allies had fallen also. Agesilaus asked, “Would it not be opportune, Dercylidas, if the cities that have furnished us with contingents could hear of this victory as soon as possible?” And Dercylidas replied: “The news at any rate is likely to put them in better heart.” Then said the king: “As you were an eye-witness there could hardly be a better bearer of the news than yourself.” To this proposal Dercylidas lent a willing ear—to travel abroad² was his special delight—and he replied, “Yes, under your orders.” “Then you have my orders,” the king said. “And you may further inform the states from myself that we have not forgotten our promise; if all goes well over here we shall be with them again ere long.” So Dercylidas set off on his travels, in the first instance to the Hellespont;³ while Agesilaus crossed Macedonia, and arrived in Thessaly. And now the men of Larissa, Crannon, Scotussa, and Pharsalus, who were allies of the Boeotians—and in fact all the Thessalians except the exiles for the time being—hung on his heels⁴ and did him damage.

For some while he marched his troops in a hollow square,⁵ posting half his cavalry in front and half on his rear; but finding that the Thessalians checked his passage by repeated charges from behind, he strengthened his rearguard by sending round the cavalry from his van, with the exception of his own personal escort.¹ The two armies stood confronted in battle order; but the Thessalians, not liking the notion of a cavalry engagement with heavy infantry, turned, and step by step retreated, while the others followed them with considerable caution. Agesilaus, perceiving the error under which both alike labored, now sent his own personal guard of stalwart troopers with orders that both they and the rest of the horsemen should charge at full gallop,² and not give the enemy the chance to recoil. The Thessalians were taken aback by this unexpected onslaught, and half of them never thought of wheeling about, whilst those who did essay to do so presented the flanks of their horses to the charge,³ and were made prisoners. Still Polymarchus of Pharsalus, the general in command of their cavalry, rallied his men for an instant, and fell, sword in hand, with his immediate followers. This was the signal for a flight so precipitate on the part of the Thessalians, that their dead and dying lined the road, and prisoners were taken; nor was any halt made until they reached Mount Narthacius. Here, then, midway between Pras and Narthacius, Agesilaus set up a trophy, halting for the moment, in unfeigned satisfaction at the exploit. It was from antagonists who prided themselves on their cavalry beyond everything that he had wrested victory, with a body of cavalry of his own mustering. Next day he crossed the mountains of Achaea Phthiotis, and for the future continued his march through friendly territory until he reached the confines of Boeotia.

Here, at the entrance of that territory, the sun (in partial eclipse)⁴ seemed to appear in a crescent shape, and the news reached him of the defeat of the Lacedaemonians in a naval engagement, and the death of the admiral Peisander. Details of the disaster were not wanting. The engagement of the hostile fleets took place off Cnidus. Pharnabazus, the Persian admiral, was present with the Phoenician fleet, and in front of him were ranged the ships of the Hellenic squadron under Conon. Peisander had ventured to draw out his squadron to meet the combined fleets, though the numerical inferiority of his fleet to that of the Hellenic navy under Conon was conspicuous, and he had the mortification of seeing the allies who formed his left wing take to flight immediately. He himself came to close quarters with the enemy, and was driven on shore, on board his trireme, under pressure of the hostile rams. The rest, as many as were driven to shore, deserted their ships and sought safety as best they could in the territory of Cnidus. The admiral alone stuck to his ship, and fell sword in hand.

It was impossible for Agesilaus not to feel depressed by those tidings at first; on further reflection, however, it seemed to him that the moral quality of more than half his troops well entitled them to share in the sunshine of success, but in the day of trouble, when things looked black, he was not bound to take them into his confidence. Accordingly he turned round and gave out that he had received news that Peisander was dead, but that he had fallen in the arms of victory in a sea-fight; and suiting his action to the word, he proceeded to offer sacrifice in return for good tidings,¹ distributing portions of the victims to a large number of recipients. So it befell that in the first skirmish with the enemy the troops of Agesilaus gained the upper hand, in consequence of the report that the Lacedaemonians had won a victory by sea.

To confront Agesilaus stood an army composed of the Boeotians, Athenians, Argives, Corinthians, Aenianians, Euboeans, and both divisions of the Locrians. Agesilaus on his side had with him a division² of Lacedaemonians, which had crossed from Corinth, also half the division from Orchomenus; besides which there were the neodamodes³ from Lacedaemon, on service with him already; and in addition to these the foreign contingent under Herippidas;⁴ and again the quota furnished by the Hellenic cities in Asia, with others from the cities in Europe which he had brought over during his progress; and lastly, there were additional levies from the spot—Orchomenian and Phocian heavy infantry. In light-armed troops, it must be admitted, the numbers told heavily in favor of Agesilaus, but the cavalry⁵ on both sides were fairly balanced.

Such were the forces of either party. I will describe the battle itself, if only on account of certain features which distinguish it from the battles of our time. The two armies met on the plain of Coronea—the troops of Agesilaus advancing from the Cephisus, the Thebans and their allies from the slopes of Helicon. Agesilaus commanded his own right in person, with the men of Orchomenus on his extreme left. The Thebans formed their own right, while the Argives held their left. As they drew together, for a while deep silence reigned on either side; but when they were not more than a furlong¹ apart, with the loud hurrah² the Thebans, quickening to a run, rushed furiously³ to close quarters; and now there was barely a hundred yards⁴ breadth between the two armies, when Herippidas with his foreign brigade, and with them the Ionians, Aeolians, and Hellespontines, darted out from the Spartans” battle-lines to greet their onset. One and all of the above played their part in the first rush forward; in another instant they were⁵ within spear-thrust of the enemy, and had routed the section immediately before them. As to the Argives, they actually declined to receive the attack of Agesilaus, and betook themselves in flight to Helicon. At this moment some of the foreign division were already in the act of crowning Agesilaus with the wreath of victory, when someone brought him word that the Thebans had cut through the Orchomenians and were in among the baggage train. At this the Spartan general immediately turned his army right about and advanced against them. The Thebans, on their side, catching sight of their allies withdrawn in flight to the base of the Helicon, and anxious to get across to their own friends, formed in close order and tramped forward stoutly.

At this point no one will dispute the valour of Agesilaus, but he certainly did not choose the safest course. It was open to him to make way for the enemy to pass, which done, he might have hung upon his heels and mastered his rear. This, however, he refused to do, preferring to crash full front against the Thebans. Thereupon, with close interlock of shield wedged in with shield, they shoved, they fought, they dealt death,⁶ they breathed out life, till at last a portion of the Thebans broke their way through toward Helicon, but paid for that departure by the loss of many lives. And now the victory of Agesilaus was fairly won, and he himself, wounded, had been carried back to the main line, when a party of horse came galloping up to tell him that something like eighty of the enemy, under arms, were sheltering under the temple, and they asked what they ought to do. Agesilaus, though he was covered with wounds, did not, for all that, forget his duty to God. He gave orders to let them retire unscathed, and would not suffer any injury to be done to them. And now, seeing it was already late, they took their suppers and retired to rest.

But with the morning Gylis the polemarch received orders to draw up the troops in battle order, and to set up a trophy, every man crowned with a wreath in honor of the god, and all the pipers piping. Thus they busied themselves in the Spartan camp. On their side the Thebans sent heralds asking to bury their dead, under a truce; and in this wise a truce was made. Agesilaus withdrew to Delphi, where on arrival he offered to the god a tithe of the produce of his spoils—no less than a hundred talents.¹ Gylis the polemarch meanwhile withdrew into Phocis at the head of his troops, and from that district made a hostile advance into Locris. Here nearly a whole day was spent by the men in freely helping themselves to goods and chattels out of the villages and pillaging the corn;² but as it drew toward evening the troops began to retire, with the Lacedaemonians in the rear. The Locrians hung upon their heels with a heavy pelt of stones and javelins. Thereupon the Lacedaemonians turned short round and gave chase, laying some of their assailants low. Then the Locrians ceased clinging to their rear, but continued their volleys from the vantage-ground above. The Lacedaemonians again made efforts to pursue their persistent foes even up the slope. At last darkness descended on them, and as they retired man after man dropped, succumbing to the sheer difficulty of the ground; some in their inability to see what lay in front, or else shot down by the enemy’s missiles. It was then that Gylis the polemarch met his end, as also Pelles, who was on his personal staff, and the whole of the Spartans present without exception—eighteen or thereabouts—perished, either crushed by stones or succumbing to other wounds. Indeed, except for timely aid brought from the camp where the men were supping, the chances are that not a man would have escaped to tell the tale.

IV

This incident ended the campaign. The army as a whole was disbanded, the contingents retiring to their several cities, and Agesilaus home across the Gulf by sea.

393 BC. Subsequently¹ the war between the two parties recommenced. The Athenians, Boeotians, Argives, and the other allies made Corinth the base of their operations; the Lacedaemonians and their allies held Sicyon as theirs. As to the Corinthians, they had to face the fact that, owing to their proximity to the seat of war, it was their territory which was ravaged and their people who perished, while the rest of the allies abode in peace and reaped the fruits of their lands in due season. Hence the majority of them, including the better class, desired peace, and gathering into knots they indoctrinated one another with these views.

392 BC.² On the other hand, it could hardly escape the notice of the allied powers, the Argives, Athenians, and Boeotians, as also those of the Corinthians themselves who had received a share of the king’s moneys, or for whatever reason were most directly interested in the war, that if they did not promptly put the peace party out of the way, ten chances to one the old laconising policy would again hold the field. It seemed there was nothing for it but the remedy of the knife. There was a refinement of wickedness in the plan adopted. With most people the life even of a legally condemned criminal is held sacred during a solemn season, but these men deliberately selected the last day of the Eucleia,³ when they might reckon on capturing more victims in the crowded marketplace, for their murderous purposes. Their agents were supplied with the names of those to be gotten rid of, the signal was given, and then, drawing their daggers, they fell to work. Here a man was struck down standing in the center of a group of talkers, and there another seated; a third while peacably enjoying himself at the play; a fourth actually whilst officiating as a judge at some dramatic contest.⁴ When what was taking place became known, there was a general flight on the part of the better classes. Some fled to the images of the gods in the marketplace, others to the altars; and here these unhallowed miscreants, ringleaders and followers alike, utterly regardless of duty and law, fell to butchering their victims even within the sacred precincts of the gods; so that even some of those against whom no hand was lifted—honest, law-abiding folk—were filled with sore amazement at sight of such impiety. In this way many of the elder citizens, as mustering more thickly in the marketplace, were done to death. The younger men, acting on a suspicion conceived by one of their number, Pasimelus, as to what was going to take place, kept quiet in the Kraneion;¹ but hearing screams and shouting and being joined anon by some who had escaped from the affair, they took the hint, and, running up along the slope of the Acrocorinthus, succeeded in repelling an attack of the Argives and the rest. While they were still deliberating what they ought to do, down fell a capital from its column—without assignable cause, whether of earthquake or wind. Also, when they sacrificed, the aspect of the victims was such that the soothsayers said it was better to descend from that position.

So they retired, in the first instance prepared to go into exile beyond the territory of Corinth. It was only upon the persuasion of their friends and the earnest entreaties of their mothers and sisters who came out to them, supported by the solemn assurance of the men in power themselves, who swore to guarantee them against evil consequences, that some of them finally consented to return home. Presented to their eyes was the spectacle of a tyranny in full exercise, and to their minds the consciousness of the obliteration of their city, seeing that boundaries were plucked up and the land of their fathers had come to be re-entitled by the name of Argos instead of Corinth; and furthermore, compulsion was put upon them to share in the constitution in vogue at Argos, for which they had little appetite, while in their own city they wielded less power than the resident aliens. So that a party sprang up among them whose creed was, that life was not worth living on such terms: their endeavor must be to make their fatherland once more the Corinth of old days—to restore freedom to their city, purified from the murderer and his pollution and fairly rooted in good order and legality.² It was a design worth the venture: if they succeeded they would become the saviours of their country; if not—why, in the effort to grasp the fairest flower of happiness, they would but overreach, and find instead a glorious termination to existence.

It was in furtherance of this design that two men—Pasimelus and Alcimenes—undertook to creep through a watercourse and effect a meeting with Praxitas the polemarch of the Lacedaemonians, who was on garrison duty with his own division in Sicyon. They told him they could give him ingress at a point in the long walls leading to Lechaeum. Praxitas, knowing from previous experience that the two men might be relied upon, believed their statement; and having arranged for the further detention in Sicyon of the division which was on the point of departure, he busied himself with plans for the enterprise. When the two men, partly by chance and partly by contrivance, came to be on guard at the gate where the tophy now stands, without further ado Praxitas presented himself with his division, taking with him also the men of Sicyon and the whole of the Corinthian exiles. Having reached the gate, he had a qualm of misgiving, and hesitated to step inside until he had first sent in a man on whom he could rely to take a look at things within. The two Corinthians introduced him, and made so simple and straightforward a representation¹ that the visitor was convinced, and reported everything as free of pitfalls as the two had asserted. Then the polemarch entered, but owing to the wide space between the double walls, as soon as they came to form in line within, the intruders were impressed by the paucity of their numbers. They therefore erected a stockade, and dug as good a trench as they could in front of them, pending the arrival of reinforcements from the allies. In their rear, moreover, lay the guard of the Boeotians in the harbor. Thus they passed the whole day which followed the night of ingress without striking a blow.

On the next day, however, the Argive troops arrived in all haste, hurrying to the rescue, and found the enemy duly drawn up. The Lacedaemonians were on their own right, the men of Sicyon next, and leaning against the eastern wall the Corinthian exiles, one hundred and fifty strong.² Their opponents marshalled their lines face to face in correspondence: Iphicrates with his mercenaries abutting on the eastern wall; next to them the Argives, whilst the Corinthians of the city held their left. In the pride inspired by numbers they began advancing at once. They overpowered the Sicyonians, and tearing asunder the stockade, pursued them to the sea and here slew numbers of them. At that instant Pasimachus, the cavalry general, at the head of a handful of troopers, seeing the Sicyonians sore presed, made fast the horses of his troops to the trees, and relieving the Sicyonians of their heavy infantry shields, advanced with his volunteers against the Argives. The latter, seeing the Sigmas on the shields and taking them to be “Sicyonians,” had not the slightest fear. Whereupon, as the story goes, Pasimachus, exclaiming in his broad Doric, “By the twin gods! these Sigmas will cheat you, you Argives,” came to close quarters, and in that battle of a handful against a host, was slain himself with all his followers. In another quarter of the field, however, the Corinthian exiles had got the better of their opponents and worked their way up, so that they were now touching the city circumvallation walls.

The Lacedaemonians, on their side, perceiving the discomfiture of the Sicyonians, sprang out with timely aid, keeping the palisade-work on their left. But the Argives, discovering that the Lacedaemonians were behind them, wheeled round and came racing back, pouring out of the palisade at full speed. Their extreme right, with unprotected flanks exposed, fell victims to the Lacedaemonians; the rest, hugging the wall, made good their retreat in dense masses toward the city. Here they encountered the Corinthian exiles, and discovering that they had fallen upon foes, swerved aside in the reverse direction. In this predicament some mounted by the ladders of the city wall, and, leaping down from its summit, were destroyed;¹ others yielded up their lives, thrust through, as they jostled at the foot of the steps; others again were literally trampled under one another’s feet and suffocated.

The Lacedaemonians had no difficulty in the choice of victims; for at that instant a work was assigned to them to do,² such as they could hardly have hoped or prayed for. To find delivered into their hands a mob of helpless enemies, in an ecstasy of terror, presenting their unarmed sides in such sort that none turned to defend himself, but each victim rather seemed to contribute what he could toward his own destruction—if that was not divine interposition, I know now what to call it. Miracle or not, in that little space so many fell, and the corpses lay piled so thick, that eyes familiar with the stacking of corn or wood or piles of stones were called upon to gaze at layers of human bodies. Nor did the guard of the Boeotians in the port itself³ escape death; some were slain upon the ramparts, others on the roofs of the dock-houses, which they had scaled for refuge. Nothing remained but for the Corinthians and Argives to carry away their dead under cover of a truce; whilst the allies of Lacedaemon poured in their reinforcements. When these were collected, Praxitas decided in the first place to raze enough of the walls to allow a free broadway for an army on march. This done, he put himself at the head of his troops and advanced on the road to Megara, taking by assault, first Sidus and next Crommyon. Leaving garrisons in these two fortresses, he retraced his steps, and finally fortifying Epieiceia as a garrison outpost to protect the territory of the allies, he at once disbanded his troops and himself withdrew to Lacedaemon.

392–391 BC.⁴ After this the great armaments of both belligerents had ceased to exist. The states merely furnished garrisons—the one set at Corinth, the other set at Sicyon—and were content to guard the walls. Though even so, a vigorous war was carried on by dint of the mercenary troops with which both sides were furnished.

A signal incident in the period was the invasion of Phlius by Iphicrates. He laid an ambuscade, and with a small body of troops adopting a system of guerilla war, took occasion of an unguarded sally of the citizens of Phlius to inflict such losses on them, that though they had never previously received the Lacedaemonians within their walls, they received them now. They had hitherto feared to do so lest it might lead to the restoration of the banished members of their community, who gave out that they owed their exile to their Lacedaemonian sympathies;¹ but they were now in such abject fear of the Corinthian party that they sent to fetch the Lacedaemonians, and delivered the city and citadel to their safe keeping. These latter, however, well disposed to the exiles of Phlius, did not, at the time they held the city, so much as breathe the thought of bringing back the exiles; on the contrary, as soon as the city seemed to have recovered its confidence, they took their departure, leaving city and laws precisely as they had found them on their entry.

To return to Iphicrates and his men: they frequently extended their incursions even into Arcadia in many directions,² following their usual guerilla tactics, but also making assaults on fortified posts. The heavy infantry of the Arcadians positively refused to face them in the field, so profound was the terror in which they held these light troops. In compensation, the light troops themselves entertained a wholesome dread of the Lacedaemonians, and did not venture to approach even within javelin-range of their heavy infantry. They had been taught a lesson when, within that distance, some of the younger hoplites had made a dash at them, catching and putting some of them to the sword. But however profound the contempt of the Lacedaemonians for these light troops, their contempt for their own allies was deeper. (On one occasion³ a reinforcement of Mantineans had sallied from the walls between Corinth and Lechaeum to engage the peltasts, and had no sooner come under attack than they swerved, losing some of their men as they made good their retreat. The Lacedaemonians were unkind enough to poke fun at these unfortunates. “Our allies,” they said, “stand in as much awe of these peltasts as children of the bogies and hobgoblins of their nurses.” For themselves, starting from Lechaeum, they found no difficulty in marching right round the city of Corinth with a single Lacedaemonian division and the Corinthian exiles.)¹

The Athenians, on their side, who felt the power of the Lacedaemonians to be dangerously close, now that the walls of Corinth had been laid open, and even apprehended a direct attack upon themselves, determined to rebuild the portion of the wall severed by Praxitas. Accordingly they set out with their whole force, including a suite of stonelayers, masons, and carpenters, and within a few days erected a quite splendid wall on the side facing Sicyon toward the west,² and then proceeded with more leisure to the completion of the eastern portion.

To turn once more to the other side: the Lacedaemonians, indignant at the notion that the Argives should be gathering the produce of their lands in peace at home, as if war were a pastime, marched against them. Agesilaus commanded the expedition, and after ravaging their territory from one end to the other, crossed their frontier at Tenea³ and swooped down upon Corinth, taking the walls which had been lately rebuilt by the Athenians. He was supported on the sea side by his brother Teleutias⁴ with a naval force of about twelve triremes, and the mother of both was able to congratulate herself on the joint success of both her sons; one having captured the enemy’s walls by land and the other his ships and naval arsenal by sea, on the same day. These achievements sufficed Agesilaus for the present; he disbanded the army of the allies and led the state troops home.

V

390 BC.⁵ Subsequently the Lacedaemonians made a second expedition against Corinth. They heard from the exiles that the citizens contrived to preserve all their cattle in Peiraeum; indeed, large numbers derived their subsistence from the place. Agesilaus was again in command of the expedition. In the first instance he advanced upon the Isthmus. It was the month of the Isthmian games,⁶ and here he found the Argives engaged in conducting the sacrifice to Poseidon, as if Corinth were Argos. So when they perceived the approach of Agesilaus, the Argives and their friends left the offerings as they lay, including the preparations for the breakfast, and retired with undisguised alarm into the city by the Cenchrean road.¹ Agesilaus, though he observed the movement, refrained from giving chase, but taking up his quarters in the temple, there proceeded to offer victims to the god himself, and waited until the Corinthian exiles had celebrated the sacrifice to Poseidon, along with the games. But no sooner had Agesilaus turned his back and retired, than the Argives returned and celebrated the Isthmian games afresh; so that in this particular year there were cases in which the same competitors were twice defeated in this or that contest, or conversely, the same man was proclaimed victor twice over.

On the fourth day Agesilaus led his troops against Peiraeum, but finding it strongly defended, he made a sudden retrograde march after the morning meal in the direction of the capital, as though he calculated on the betrayal of the city. The Corinthians, in apprehension of some such possible catastrophe, sent to summon Iphicrates with the larger portion of his light infantry. These passed by duly in the night, not unobserved, however, by Agesilaus, who at once turned round at break of day and advanced on Piraeum. He himself kept to the low ground by the hot springs,² sending a division to scale the top of the pass. That night he encamped at the hot springs, while the division bivouacked in the open, in possession of the pass. Here Agesilaus distinguished himself by an invention as seasonable as it was simple. Among those who carried provisions for the division not one had thought of bringing fire. The altitude was considerable; there had been a fall of rain and hail toward evening and the temperature was low; besides which, the scaling party were clad in thin garments suited to the summer season. There they sat shivering in the dark, with scarcely heart to attack their suppers, when Agesilaus sent up to them as many as ten porters carrying fire in earthen pots. One found his way up one way, one another, and presently there were many bonfires blazing—magnificently enough, since there was plenty of wood to hand; so that all fell to oiling themselves and many supped over again. The same night the sky was lit up by the blaze of the temple of Poseidon—set on fire no one knows how.

When the men in Piraeum perceived that the pass was occupied, they at once abandoned all thought of self-defense and fled for refuge to the Heraion¹—men and women, slaves and free-born, with the greater part of their flocks and herds. Agesilaus, with the main body, meanwhile pursued his march by the sea-shore, and the division, simultaneously descending from the heights, captured the fortified position of Oenoe, appropriating its contents. Indeed, all the troops on that day reaped a rich harvest in the supplies they brought in from various farmsteads. Presently those who had escaped into the Heraion came out, offering to leave it to Agesilaus to decide what he would do with them. He decided to deliver up to the exiles all those concerned with the late butchery, and that all else should be sold. And so from the Heraion streamed out a long line of prisoners, whilst from other sides embassies arrived in numbers; and among these a deputation from the Boeotians, anxious to learn what they should do to obtain peace. These latter Agesilaus, with a certain loftiness of manner, affected not even to see, although Pharax,² their proxenus, stood by their side to introduce them. Seated in a circular edifice on the margin of the lake,³ he surveyed the host of captives and valuables as they were brought out. Beside the prisoners, to guard them, stepped the Lacedaemonian warriors from the camp, carrying their spears—and themselves plucked all gaze their way, so readily will success and the transient fortune of the moment rivet attention. But even while Agesilaus was still thus seated, wearing a look betokening satisfaction at some great achievement, a horseman came galloping up; the flanks of his charger streamed with sweat. To the many inquiries what news he brought, the rider responded never a word; but being now close beside Agesilaus, he leaped from his horse, and running up to him with lowering visage narrated the disaster of the Spartan division⁴ at Lechaeum. At these tidings the king sprang instantly from his seat, clutching his spear, and bade his herald summon to a meeting the generals, captains of fifties, and commanders of foreign brigades.⁵ When these had rapidly assembled he bade them, seeing that the morning meal had not yet been tasted, to swallow hastily what they could, and with all possible speed to overtake him. But for himself, he, with the officers of the royal staff,⁶ set off at once without breakfast. His bodyguard, with their heavy arms, accompanied him with all speed—himself in advance, the officers following behind. In this fashion he had already passed beyond the warm springs, and was well within the plateau of Lechaeum, when three horsemen rode up with further news: the dead bodies had been picked up. On receipt of these tidings he commanded the troops to order arms, and having rested them a little space, led them back again to the Heraion. The next day he spent in disposing of the captured property.¹

The ambassadors of the Boeotians were then summoned, and, being asked to explain the object of their coming, made no further mention of the word “peace,” but replied that, if there was nothing to hinder it, they wished to have a pass to their own soldiers within the capital. The king answered with a smile: “I know your desire is not so much to see your soldiers as to feast your eyes on the good fortune of your friends, and to measure its magnitude. Wait then, I will conduct you myself; with me you will be better able to discover the true value of what has taken place.” And he was as good as his word. Next day he sacrificed, and led his army up to the gates of Corinth. The trophy he respected, but not one tree did he leave standing—chopping and burning, as proof positive that no one dared to face him in the field. And having so done, he encamped about Lechaeum; and as to the Theban ambassadors, in lieu of letting them pass into the city, he sent them off by sea across to Creusis.

But in proportion to the unwontedness of such a calamity befalling Lacedaemonians, a widespread mourning fell upon the whole Laconian army, those alone excepted whose sons or fathers or brothers had died at their post. The bearing of these resembled that of conquerors,² as with bright faces they moved freely to and fro, glorying in their domestic sorrow. Now the tragic fate which befell the division was on this wise: It was the unvaried custom of the men of Amyclae to return home at the Hyacinthia,³ to join in the sacred paean, a custom not to be interrupted by active service or absence from home or for any other reason. So, too, on this occasion, Agesilaus had left behind all the Amyclaeans serving in any part of his army at Lechaeum. At the right moment the general in command of the garrison at that place had posted the garrison troops of the allies to guard the walls during his absence, and put himself at the head of his division of heavy infantry with that of the cavalry,⁴ and led the Amyclaeans past the walls of Corinth. Arrived at a point within three miles or so⁵ of Sicyon, the polemarch turned back himself in the direction of Lechaeum with his heavy infantry regiment, six hundred strong, giving orders to the cavalry commandant to escort the Amyclaeans with his division as far as they required, and then to turn and overtake him. It cannot be said that the Lacedaemonians were ignorant of the large number of light troops and heavy infantry inside Corinth, but owing to their former successes they arrogantly presumed that no one would attack them. Within the capital of the Corinthians, however, their scant numbers—a thin line of heavy infantry unsupported by light infantry or cavalry—had been noted; and Callias, the son of Hipponicus,¹ who was in command of the Athenian hoplites, and Iphicrates at the head of his peltasts, saw no risk in attacking with the light brigade. Since if the enemy continued his march by the high road, he would be cut up by showers of javelins on his exposed right flank; or if he were tempted to take the offensive, they with their peltasts, the nimblest of all light troops, would easily slip out of the grasp of his hoplites.

With this clearly-conceived idea they led out their troops; and while Callias drew up his heavy infantry in line at no great distance from the city, Iphicrates and his peltasts made a dash at the returning division.

The Lacedaemonians were presently within range of the javelins.² Here a man was wounded, and there another dropped, not to rise again. Each time orders were given to the attendant shield-bearers³ to pick up the men and bear them into Lechaeum; and these indeed were the only members of the mora who were, strictly speaking, saved. Then the polemarch ordered the ten-years-service men⁴ to charge and drive off their assailants. Charge, however, as they might, they took nothing by their pains—not a man could they come at within javelin range. Being heavy infantry opposed to light troops, before they could get to close quarters the enemy’s word of command sounded “Retire!” whilst as soon as their own ranks fell back, scattered as they were in consequence of a charge where each man’s individual speed had told, Iphicrates and his men turned right about and renewed the javelin attack, while others, running alongside, harassed their exposed flank. At the very first charge the assailants had shot down nine or ten, and, encouraged by this success, pressed on with increasing audacity. These attacks told so severely that the polemarch a second time gave the order (and this time for the fifteen-years-service men) to charge. The order was promptly obeyed, but on retiring they lost more men than on the first occasion, and it was not until the pick and flower of the division had succumbed that they were joined by their returning cavalry, in whose company they once again attempted a charge. The light infantry gave way, but the attack of the cavalry was feebly enforced. Instead of pressing home the charge until at least they had sabred some of the enemy, they kept their horses abreast of their infantry skirmishers,¹ charging and wheeling side by side.

Again and again the monotonous tale of doing and suffering repeated itself, except that as their own ranks grew thinner and their courage ebbed, the courage of their assailants grew bolder and their numbers increased. In desperation they massed compactly upon the narrow slope of a hillock, distant a couple of furlongs² or so from the sea, and a couple of miles³ perhaps from Lechaeum. Their friends in Lechaeum, perceiving them, embarked in boats and sailed round until they were immediately under the hillock. And now, in the very slough of despair, being so sorely troubled as man after man dropped dead, and unable to strike a blow, to crown their distress they saw the enemy’s heavy infantry advancing. Then they took to flight; some of them threw themselves into the sea; others—a mere handful—escaped with the cavalry into Lechaeum. The death-roll, including those who fell in the second fight and the final flight, must have numbered two hundred and fifty slain, or thereabouts.⁴ Such is the tale of the destruction of the Lacedaemonian mora.

Subsequently, with the mutilated fragment of the division, Agesilaus turned his back upon Lechaeum, leaving another division behind to garrison that port. On his passage homeward, as he wound his way through the various cities, he made a point of arriving at each as late in the day as possible, renewing his march as early as possible next morning. Leaving Orchomenus at the first streak of dawn, he passed Mantinea still under cover of darkness. The spectacle of the Mantineans rejoicing at their misfortune would have been too severe an ordeal for his soldiers.

But Iphicrates had not yet reached the summit of his good fortune. Success followed upon success. Lacedaemonian garrisons had been placed in Sidus and Crommyon by Praxitas when he took these fortresses, and again in Oenoe, when Peiraeum was taken quite lately by Agesilaus. One and all of these now fell into the hands of Iphicrates. Lechaeum still held out, garrisoned as it was by the Lacedaemonians and their allies; while the Corinthian exiles, unable since¹ the disaster of the mora any longer to pass freely by land from Sicyon, had the sea passage still open to them, and using Lechaeum as their base,² kept up a game of mutual annoyance with the party in the capital.

VI

390–389 BC.³ At a later date the Achaeans, being in possession of Calydon, a town from old times belonging to Aetolia, and having further incorporated the Calydonians as citizens,⁴ were under the necessity of garrisoning their new possession. The reason was, that the Arcarnanians were threatening the place with an army, and were aided by contingents from Athens and Boeotia, who were anxious to help their allies.⁵ Under the strain of this combined attack the Achaeans despatched ambassadors to Lacedaemon, who on arrival complained of the unfair conduct of Lacedaemon toward themselves. “We, sirs,” they said, “are ever ready to serve in your armies, in obedience to whatever orders you choose to issue; we follow you whithersoever you think fit to lead; but when it comes to our being beleaguered by the Acarnanians, with their allies the Athenians and Boeotians, you show not the slightest concern. Understand, then, that if things go on thus we cannot hold out; but either we must give up all part in the war in Peloponnesus and cross over in full force to engage the Arcarnanians, or we must make peace with them on whatever terms we can.” This language was a tacit threat that if they failed to obtain the assistance they felt entitled to from Lacedaemon they would quit the alliance.

The ephors and the assembly concluded that there was no alternative but to assist the Achaeans in their campaign against the Acarnanians. Accordingly they sent out Agesilaus with two divisions and the proper complement of allies. The Achaeans none the less marched out in full force themselves. No sooner had Agesilaus crossed the gulf than there was a general flight of the population from the country districts into the towns, whilst the flocks and herds were driven into remote districts that they might not be captured by the troops. Being now arrived on the frontier of the enemy’s territory, Agesilaus sent to the general assembly of the Acarnanians at Stratus, ¹warning them that unless they chose to give up their alliance with the Boeotians and Athenians, and to take instead themselves and their allies, he would ravage their territory through its length and breadth, and not spare a single thing. When they turned a deaf ear to this summons, the other proceeded to do what he threatened, systematically laying the district waste, felling the timber and cutting down the fruit-trees, while slowly moving on at the rate of ten or twelve furlongs a day. The Acarnanians, owing to the snail-like progress of the enemy, were lulled into a sense of security. They even began bringing down their cattle from their alps, and devoted themselves to the tillage of far the greater portion of their fields. But Agesilaus only waited till their rash confidence reached its climax; then on the fifteenth or sixteenth day after he head first entered the country he sacrificed at early dawn, and before evening had traversed eighteen miles² or so of country to the lake³ round which were collected nearly all the flocks and herds of the Acarnanians, and so captured a vast quantity of cattle, horses, and grazing stock of all kinds, besides numerous slaves.

Having secured this prize, he stayed on the spot the whole of the following day, and devoted himself to disposing of the captured property by public sale. While he was thus engaged, a large body of Arcarnanian light infantry appeared, and availing themselves of the position in which Agesilaus was encamped against the mountain side, assailed him with volleys of sling-stones and rocks from the razor-edge of the mountain, without suffering any scathe themselves. By this means they succeeded in dislodging and forcing his troops down into the level plain, and that too at an hour when the whole camp was engaged in preparations for the evening meal. As night drew on, the Acarnanians retired; sentinels were posted, and the troops slept in peace.

Next day Agesilaus led off his army. The exit from the plain and meadow-land round the lake was a narrow aperture through a close encircling range of hills. In occupation of this mountain barrier the Acarnanians, from the vantage-ground above, poured down a continuous pelt of stones and other missiles, or, creeping down to the fringes, dogged and annoyed them so much that the army was no longer able to proceed. If the heavy infantry or cavalry made sallies from the main line they did no harm to their assailants, for the Acarnanians had only to retire and they had quickly gained their strongholds. It was too severe a task, Agesilaus thought, to force his way through the narrow pass so sorely beset. He made up his mind, therefore, to charge that portion of the enemy who dogged his left, though these were pretty numerous. The range of hills on this side was more accessible to heavy infantry and horse alike. During the interval needed for the inspection of victims, the Acarnanians kept plying them with javelins and bullets, and, coming into close proximity, wounded man after man. But presently came the word of command, “Advance!” and the fifteen-years-service men of the heavy infantry¹ ran forward, accompanied by the cavalry, at a round pace, the general himself steadily following with the rest of the column. Those of the Acarnanians who had crept down the mountain side at that instant in the midst of their sharpshooting turned and fled, and as they climbed the steep, man after man was slain. When, however, the top of the pass was reached, there stood the hoplites of the Acarnanians drawn up in battle line, and supported by the mass of their light infantry. There they steadily waited, keeping up a continuous discharge of missiles the while, or launching their long spears; whereby they dealt wounds to the cavalry troopers and death in some cases to the horses. But when they were all but within the clutches of the advancing heavy infantry² of the Lacedaemonians their firmness forsook them; they swerved and fled, and there died of them on that day about three hundred. So ended the affair.

Agesilaus set up a trophy of victory, and afterward making a tour of the country, he visited it with fire and sword.³ Occasionally, in obedience to pressure put upon him by the Achaeans, he would assault some city, but did not capture a single one. And now, as the season of autumn rapidly approached, he prepared to leave the country; whereupon the Achaeans, who looked upon his exploits as abortive, seeing that not a single city, willingly or unwillingly, had as yet been detached from their opponents, begged him, as the smallest service he could render them, at any rate to stay long enough in the country to prevent the Acarnanians from sowing their corn. He answered that the course they suggested ran counter to expediency. “You forget,” he said, “that I mean to invade your enemies again next summer; and therefore the larger their sowing now, the stronger will be their appetite for peace hereafter.” With this retort he withdrew overland through Aetolia, and by roads, moreover, which no army, small or great, could possibly have traversed without the consent of the inhabitants. The Aetolians, however, were only too glad to yield the Spartan king a free passage, cherishing hopes as they did that he would aid them to recover Naupactus. On reaching Rhium¹ he crossed the gulf at that point and returned homeward, the more direct passage from Calydon to Peloponnesus being effectually barred by an Athenian squadron stationed at Oeniadae.

VII

389–388 BC.² On the expiration of winter, and in fulfillment of his promise to the Achaeans, Agesilaus called out the ban once more with early spring to invade the Acarnanians. The latter were apprised of his intention, and, being persuaded that owing to the midland situation of their cities they would just as truly be blockaded by an enemy who chose to destroy their corn as they would be if besieged with entrenchments in regular form, they sent ambassadors to Lacedaemon, and made peace with the Achaeans and alliance with the Lacedaemonians. Thus closes this page of history concerning the affairs of Arcarnania.

To turn to the next. There was a feeling on the part of the Lacedaemonians³ that no expedition against Athens or Boeotia would be safe so long as a state so important and so close to their own frontier as Argos remained in open hostility behind them. Accordingly they called out the ban against Argos. Now when Agesipolis learned that the duty of leadership devolved on him, and, moreover, that the sacrifices before crossing the frontier were favorable, he went to Olympia and consulted the will of the god. “Would it be lawful to him,” he inquired, “not to accept the holy truce, on the ground that the Argives made the season for it⁴ depend not on a fixed date, but on the prospect of a Lacedaemonian invasion?” The god indicated to the inquirer that he might lawfully repudiate any holy truce which was fraudulently antedated.⁵ Not content with this, the young king, on leaving Olympia, went at once to Delphi, and at that shrine put the same question to Apollo: “Were his views in accordance with his Father’s as touching the holy truce?”—to which the son of Zeus made answer: “Yea, altogether in accordance.”¹

Then without further hesitation, picking up his army at Phlius (where, during his absence to visit the temples, the troops had been collecting), he advanced by Nemea into the enemy’s territory. The Argives, on their side, perceiving that they would be unable to hinder his advance, in accordance with their custom sent a couple of heralds, garlanded, and presented their usual plea of a holy truce. Agesipolis answered them curtly that the gods were not satisfied with the justice of their plea, and, refusing to accept the truce, pushed forward, causing thereby great perplexity and consternation throughout the rural districts and the capital itself.

But while he was getting his evening meal that first evening in the Argive territory—just at the moment when the after-dinner libation had been poured out—the god sent an earthquake; and with one consent the Lacedaemonians, beginning with the officers of the royal quarters, sang the sacred hymn of Poseidon. The soldiers, in general, expected to retreat, arguing that, on the occurrence of an earthquake once before, Agis had retired from Elis. But Agesipolis held another view: if the god had sent his earthquake at the moment when he was meditating invasion, he should have understood that the god forbade his entrance; but now, when the invasion was a thing effected, he must needs take it as a signal of his approval.² Accordingly next morning he sacrificed to Poseidon, and advanced a short distance further into the country.

The late expedition of Agesilaus into Argos³ was still fresh in men’s minds, and Agesipolis was eager to ascertain from the soldiers how close his predecessor had advanced to the fortification walls; or again, how far he had gone in ravaging the open country—not unlike a competitor in the pentathlon,⁴ eager to cap the performance of his rival in each event. On one occasion it was only the discharge of missiles from the towers which forced him to recross the trenches round the walls; on another, profiting by the absence of the majority of the Argives in Laconian territory, he came so close to the gates that their officers actually shut out their own Boeotian cavalry on the point of entering, in terror lest the Lacedaemonians might pour into the town in company, and these Boeotian troopers were forced to cling, like bats to a wall, under each coign of vantage beneath the battlements. Had it not been for the accidental absence of the Cretans,¹ who had gone off on a raid to Nauplia, without a doubt numbers of men and horses would have been shot down. At a later date, while encamping in the neighborhood of the Enclosures,² a thunder-bolt fell into his camp. One or two men were struck, while others died from the effect of the concussion on their brains. At a still later period he was anxious to fortify some sort of garrison outpost in the pass of Celusa,³ but upon offering sacrifice the victims proved lobeless,⁴ and he was constrained to lead back and disband his army—not without serious injury inflicted on the Argives, as the result of an invasion which had taken them wholly by surprise.

VIII

394 BC. Such were the land operations in the war. Meanwhile another series of events was being enacted on the sea and within the seaboard cities; and these I will now narrate in detail. But I shall confine my pen to the more memorable incidents, and others of less account I shall pass over.

In the first place, then, Pharnabazus and Conon, after defeating the Lacedaemonians in the naval engagement of Cnidus, commenced a tour of inspection round the islands and the maritime states, expelling from them, as they visited them, one after another the Spartan governors.⁵ Everywhere they gave consolatory assurances to the citizens that they had no intention of establishing fortress citadels within their walls, or in any way interfering with their self-government.⁶ Such words fell soothingly upon the ears of those to whom they were addressed; the proposals were courteously accepted; all were eager to present Pharnabazus with gifts of friendship and hospitality. The satrap, indeed, was only applying the instructions of his master Conon on these matters—who had taught him that if he acted thus all the states would be friendly to him, whereas, if he showed any intention to enslave them, the smallest of them would, as Conon insisted, be capable of causing a world of trouble, and the chances were, if apprehensions were once excited, he would find himself face to face with a coalition of united Hellas. To these admonitions Pharnabazus lent a willing ear.

Accordingly, when disembarking at Ephesus, he presented Conon with a fleet of forty sail,¹ and having further instructed him to meet him at Sestos,² set off himself by land along the coast to visit his own provinces. For here it should be mentioned that his old enemy Dercylidas happened to be in Abydos at the time of the sea-fight;³ nor had he at a later date suffered eclipse with the other governors,⁴ but on the contrary, had kept tight hold of Abydos and still preserved it in attachment to Lacedaemon. The course he had adopted was to summon a meeting of the Abydenians, when he made them a speech as follows: “Sirs, today it is possible for you, who have before been friends to my city, to appear as benefactors of the Lacedaemonians. For a man to prove faithful to his friends in the heyday of their good fortune is no great marvel; but to prove steadfast when his friends are in misfortune—that is a service monumental for all time. But do not mistake me. It does not follow that, because we have been defeated in a great sea-fight, we are therefore annihilated.⁵ Certainly not. Even in old days, you will admit, when Athens was mistress of the sea, our state was not powerless to benefit friends or chastise enemies. Moreover, in proportion as the rest of the cities have joined hands with fortune to turn their backs upon us, so much the more certainly will the grandeur of your fidelity shine forth. Or, is anyone haunted by the fear that we may find ourselves blockaded by land and sea?—let him consider that at present there is no Hellenic navy whatever on the seas, and if the barbarian attempts to clutch the empire of the sea, Hellas will not sit by and suffer it; so that, if only in self-defense, she must inevitably take your side.”

To this the Abydenians lent no deaf ears, but rather responded with willingness approaching enthusiasm—extending the hand of fellowship to the ex-governors, some of whom were already flocking to Abydos as a harbor of refuge, whilst others they sent to summon from a distance.

So when a number of efficient and serviceable men had been collected, Dercylidas ventured to cross over to Sestos—lying, as it does, not more than a mile¹ distant, directly facing Abydos. There he not only set about collecting those who held lands in the Chersonese through Lacedaemonian influence, but extended his welcome also to the governors² who had been driven out of European states.³ He insisted that, if they came to think of it, not even was their case desperate, reminding them that even in Asia, which originally belonged to the Persian monarch, places were to be found—such as the little state of Temnos, or Aegae, and others, capable of administering their affairs, unsubjected to the king of Persia. “But,” he added, “if you want a strong impregnable position, I cannot conceive what better you can find than Sestos. Why, it would need a combined naval and military force to invest that port.” By these and such like arguments he rescued them from the lethargy of despair.

Now when Pharnabazus found Abydos and Sestos so conditioned, he gave them to understand that unless they chose to eject the Lacedaemonians, he would bring war to bear upon them; and when they refused to obey, having first assigned to Conon as his business to keep the sea closed against them, he proceeded in person to ravage the territory of the men of Abydos. Presently, finding himself no nearer the fulfillment of his object—which was their reduction—he set off home himself and left it to Conon the while so to conciliate the Hellespontine states that as large a naval power as possible might be mustered against the coming spring. In his wrath against the Lacedaemonians, in return for the treatment he had received from them, his paramount object was to invade their territory and exact what vengeance he could.

393 BC. The winter was thus fully taken up with preparations; but with the approach of spring, Pharnabazus and Conon, with a large fleet fully manned, and a foreign mercenary brigade to boot, threaded their way through the islands to Melos.⁴ This island was to serve as a base of operations against Lacedaemon. And in the first instance he sailed down to Pherae⁵ and ravaged that district, after which he made successive descents at various other points on the seaboard, and did what injury he could. But in apprehension of the harborless character of the coast, coupled with the enemy’s facility of reinforcement and his own scarcity of supplies, he very soon turned back and sailed away, until finally he came to moorings in the harbor of Phoenicus in Cythera. The occupants of the city of the Cytherians, in terror of being taken by storm, evacuated the walls. To dismiss these under a flag of truce across to Laconia was his first step; his second was to repair the fortress in question and to leave a garrison in the island under an Athenian governor—Nicophemus. After this he set sail to the Isthmus of Corinth, where he delivered an exhortation to the allies begging them to prosecute the war vigorously, and to show themselves faithful to the Great King; and so, having left them all the moneys he had with him, set off on his voyage home.

But Conon had a proposal to make:—If Pharnabazus would allow him to keep the fleet, he would undertake, in the first place, to support it free of expense from the islands; besides which, he would sail to his own country and help his fellow citizens the Athenians to rebuild their long walls and the fortifications round Piraeus. No heavier blow, he insisted, could well be inflicted on Lacedaemon. “In this way, I can assure you,” he added, “you will win the eternal gratitude of the Athenians and wreak consummate vengeance on the Lacedaemonians, since at one stroke you will render null and void that on which they have bestowed their utmost labor.” These arguments so far weighed with Pharnabazus that he despatched Conon to Athens with alacrity, and further supplied him with funds for the restoration of the walls. Thus it was that Conon, on his arrival at Athens, was able to rebuild a large portion of the walls—partly by lending his own crews, and partly by giving pay to carpenters and stone-masons, and meeting all the necessary expenses. There were other portions of the walls which the Athenians and Boeotians and other states raised as a joint voluntary undertaking.

Nor must it be forgotten that the Corinthians, with the funds left them by Pharnabazus, manned a fleet—the command of which they entrusted to their admiral Agathinus—and so were undisputed masters of the sea within the gulf round Achaia and Lechaeum.

393–391 BC. The Lacedaemonians, in opposition, fitted out a fleet under the command of Podanemus. That officer, in an attack of no great moment, lost his life, and Pollis,¹ his second in command, was presently in his turn obliged to retire, being wounded, whereupon Herippidas took command of the vessels. On the other hand, Proaenus the Corinthian, who had relieved Agathinus, evacuated Rhium, and the Lacedaemonians recovered that post. Subsequently Teleutias succeeded to Herippidas’s fleet, and it was then the turn of that admiral to dominate the gulf.¹

392 BC. The Lacedaemonians were well informed of the proceedings of Conon. They knew that he was not only restoring the fortifications of Athens by help of the king’s gold, but maintaining a fleet at his expense besides, and conciliating the islands and seaboard cities toward Athens. If, therefore, they could indoctrinate Tiribazus—who was a general of the king—with their sentiments, they believed they could not fail either to draw him aside to their own interests, or, at any rate, to put a stop to his feeding Conon’s navy. With this intention they sent Antalcidas to Tiribazus:² his orders were to carry out this policy and, if possible, to arrange a peace between Lacedaemon and the king. The Athenians, getting wind of this, sent a counter-embassy, consisting of Hermogenes, Dion, Callisthenes, and Callimedon, with Conon himself. They at the same time invited the attendance of ambassadors from the allies, and there were also present representatives of the Boeotians, of Corinth, and of Argos. When they had arrived at their destination, Antalcidas explained to Tiribazus the object of his visit: he wished, if possible, to cement a peace between the state he represented and the king—a peace, moreover, exactly suited to the aspirations of the king himself; in other words, the Lacedaemonians gave up all claim to the Hellenic cities in Asia as against the king, while for their own part they were content that all the islands and other cities should be independent. “Such being our unbiased wishes,” he continued, “for what earthly reason should (the Hellenes or) the king go to war with us? or why should he expend his money? The king is guaranteed against attack on the part of Hellas, since the Athenians are powerless apart from our hegemony, and we are powerless so long as the separate states are independent.” The proposals of Antalcidas sounded very pleasantly in the ears of Tiribazus, but to the opponents of Sparta they were the merest talk. The Athenians were apprehensive of an agreement which provided for the independence of the cities in the islands, whereby they might be deprived of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros. The Thebans, again, were afraid of being compelled to let the Boeotian states go free. The Argives did not see how such treaty contracts and covenants were compatible with the realisation of their own great object—the absorption of Corinth by Argos. And so it came to pass that this peace¹ proved abortive, and the representatives departed each to his own home.

Tiribazus, on his side, thought it hardly consistent with his own safety to adopt the cause of the Lacedaemonians without the concurrence of the king—a scruple which did not prevent him from privately presenting Antalcidas with a sum of money, in hopes that when the Athenians and their allies discovered that the Lacedaemonians had the wherewithal to furnish a fleet, they might perhaps be more disposed to desire peace. Further, accepting the statements of the Lacedaemonians as true, he took on himself to secure the person of Conon, as guilty of wrongdoing toward the king, and shut him up.² That done, he set off up country to the king to recount the proposals of Lacedaemon, with his own subsequent capture of Conon as a mischievous man, and to ask for further guidance on all these matters.

On the arrival of Tiribazus at the palace, the king sent down Struthas to take charge of the seaboard district. The latter, however, was a strong partisan of Athens and her allies, since he found it impossible to forget the long list of evils which the king’s country had suffered at the hands of Agesilaus; so that the Lacedaemonians, contrasting the hostile disposition of the new satrap toward themselves with his friendliness to the Athenians, sent Thibron to deal with him by force of arms.

391 BC.³ That general crossed over and established his base of operations in Ephesus and the towns in the plain of the Maeander—Priene, Leucophrys, and Achilleum—and proceeded to harry the king’s territory, sparing neither live nor dead chattels. But as time went on, Struthas, who could not but note the disorderly, and indeed recklessly scornful manner in which the Lacedaemonian brought up his supports on each occasion, despatched a body of cavalry into the plain. Their orders were to gallop down and scour the plain, making a clean sweep⁴ of all they could lay their hands on. Thibron, as it befell, had just finished breakfast, and was returning to the mess with Thersander the flute player. The latter was not only a good flute player, but, as affecting Lacedaemonian manners, laid claim to personal prowess. Struthas, then, seeing the disorderly advance of the supports and the paucity of the vanguard, appeared suddenly at the head of a large body of cavalry, all in orderly array. Thibron and Thersander were the first to be cut down, and when these had fallen the rest of the troops were easily turned. A mere chase ensued, in which man after man was felled to Earth, though a remnant contrived to escape into the friendly cities; still larger numbers owed their safety to their late discovery of the business on hand. Nor, indeed, was this the first time the Spartan commander had rushed to the field, without even issuing a general order. So ends the history of these events.

390 BC.¹ We pass on to the arrival at Lacedaemon of a party of Rhodian exiles expelled by the popular party. They insisted that it was not equitable to allow the Athenians to subjugate Rhodes and thus build up so vast a power. The Lacedaemonians were alive to the fact that the fate of Rhodes depended on which party in the state prevailed: if the democracy were to dominate, the whole island must fall into the hands of Athens; if the wealthier classes,² into their own. Accordingly they fitted out for them a fleet of eight vessels, and put Ecdicus in command of it as admiral.

At the same time they despatched another officer on board these vessels named Diphridas, on a separate mission. His orders were to cross over into Asia and to secure the states which had received Thibron. He was also to pick up the survivors of Thibron’s army, and with these troops, aided by a second army which he would collect from any other quarter open to him, he was to prosecute the war against Struthas. Diphridas followed out his instructions, and among other achievements was fortunate enough to capture Tigranes,³ the son-in-law of Struthas, with his wife, on their road to Sardis. The sum paid for their ransom was so large that he at once had the wherewithal to pay his mercenaries. Diphridas was no less attractive than his predecessor Thibron; but he was of a more orderly temperament, steadier, and incomparably more enterprising as a general; the secret of this superiority being that he was a man over whom the pleasures of the body exercised no sway. He became readily absorbed in the business before him—whatever he had to do he did it with a will.

Ecdicus having reached Cnidus, there learned that the democracy in Rhones were entirely masters of the situation. They were dominant by land and sea; indeed they possessed a fleet twice the size of his own. He was therefore content to keep quiet in Cnidus until the Lacedaemonians, perceiving that his force was too small to allow him to benefit their friends, determined to relieve him. With this view they ordered Teleutias to take the twelve ships which formed his squadron (at present in the gulf adjoining Achaia and Lechaeum),¹ and to feel his way round to Ecdicus: that officer he was to send home. For himself, he was to undertake personally to protect the interests of all who cared to be their friends, whilst injuring the enemy by every possible means.

So then Teleutias, having reached Samos, where he added some vessels to his fleet, set sail to Cnidus. At this point Ecdicus returned home, and Teleutias, continuing his voyage, reached Rhodes, at the head now of seven-and-twenty vessels. It was during this portion of the voyage that he fell in with Philocrates, the son of Ephialtes, who was sailing from Athens to Cyprus with ten triremes, in aid of their ally Evagoras.² The whole flotilla fell into the Spartan’s hands—a curious instance, it may be added, of cross purposes on the part of both belligerents. Here were the Athenians, supposed to be on friendly terms with the king, engaged in sending an allied force to support Evagoras, who was at open war with him; and here again was Teleutias, the representative of a people at war with Persia, engaged in crippling a fleet which had been despatched on a mission hostile to their adversary. Teleutias put back into Cnidus to dispose of his captives, and so eventually reached Rhodes, where his arrival brought timely aid to the party in favor of Lacedaemon.

389 BC.³ And now the Athenians, fully impressed with the belief that their rivals were laying the basis of a new naval supremacy, despatched Thrasybulus the Steirian to check them, with a fleet of forty sail. That officer set sail, but abstained from bringing aid to Rhodes, and for good reasons. In Rhodes the Lacedaemonian party had hold of the fortress, and would be out of reach of his attack, especially as Teleutias was close at hand to aid them with his fleet. On the other hand, his own friends ran no danger of succumbing to the enemy, as they held the cities and were numerically much stronger, and they had established their superiority in the field. Consequently he made for the Hellespont, where, in the absence of any rival power, he hoped to achieve some stroke of good fortune for his city. Thus, in the first place, having detected the rivalries existing between Medocus,¹ the king of the Odrysians, and Seuthes,² the rival ruler of the seaboard, he reconciled them to each other, and made them friends and allies of Athens; in the belief that if he secured their friendship the Hellenic cities on the Thracian coast would show greater proclivity to Athens. Such being the happy state of affairs not only in Europe but as regards the states in Asia also, thanks to the friendly attitude of the king to his fellow citizens, he sailed into Byzantium and sold the tithe-duty levied on vessels arriving from the Euxine. By another stroke he converted the oligarchy of Byzantium into a democracy. The result of this was that the Byzantine demos³ were no longer sorry to see as vast a concourse of Athenians in their city as possible. Having so done, and having further won the friendship of the men of Calchedon, he set sail south of the Hellespont. Arrived at Lesbos, he found all the cities devoted to Lacedaemon with the exception of Mytilene. He was therefore loth to attack any of the former until he had organized a force within the latter. This force consisted of four hundred hoplites, furnished from his own vessels, and a corps of exiles from the different cities who had sought shelter in Mytilene; to which he added a stout contingent, the pick of the Mytileneian citizens themselves. He stirred the ardour of the several contingents by suitable appeals: representing to the men of Mytilene that by their capture of the cities they would at once become the chiefs and patrons of Lesbos; to the exiles he made it appear that if they would but unite to attack each several city in turn, they might all reckon on their particular restoration; while he needed only to remind his own warriors that the acquisition of Lesbos meant not only the attachment of a friendly city, but the discovery of a mine of wealth. The exhortations ended and the contingents organized, he advanced against Methymna.

Therimachus, who chanced to be the Lacedaemonian governor at the time, on hearing of the meditated attack of Thrasybulus, had taken a body of marines from his vessels, and, aided by the citizens of Methymna themselves, along with all the Mytileneian exiles to be found in that place, advanced to meet the enemy on their borders. A battle was fought and Therimachus was slain, a fate shared by several of the exiles of his party.

As a result¹ of his victory the Athenian general succeeded in winning the adhesion of some of the states; or, where adhesion was refused, he could at least raise supplies for his soldiers by freebooting expeditions, and so hastened to reach his goal, which was the island of Rhodes. His chief concern was to support as powerful an army as possible in those parts, and with this object he proceeded to levy money aids, visiting various cities, until he finally reached Aspendus, and came to moorings in the river Eurymedon. The money was safely collected from the Aspendians, and the work completed, when, taking occasion of some depredations² of the soldiers on the farmsteads, the people of the place in a fit of irritation burst into the general’s quarters at night and butchered him in his tent.

So perished Thrasybulus,³ a good and great man by all admission. In room of him the Athenians chose Agyrrhius,⁴ who was despatched to take command of the fleet. And now the Lacedaemonians—alive to the fact that the sale of the Euxine tithe-dues had been negotiated in Byzantium by Athens; aware also that as long as the Athenians kept hold on Calchedon the loyalty of the other Hellespontine cities was secured to them (at any rate while Pharnabazus remained their friend)—felt that the state of affairs demanded their serious attention. They attached no blame indeed to Dercylidas. Anaxibius, however, through the friendship of the ephors, contrived to get himself appointed as governor, on a mission to Abydos. With the requisite funds and ships, he promised to exert such hostile pressure upon Athens that at least her prospects in the Hellespont would cease to be so sunny. His friends the ephors granted him in return for these promises three ships of war and funds to support a thousand mercenaries, and so they despatched him on his mission. Reaching Abydos, he set about improving his naval and military position. First he collected a foreign brigade, by help of which he drew off some of the Aeolid cities from Pharnabazus. Next he set on foot a series of retaliatory expeditions against the states which attacked Abydos, marching upon them and ravaging their territories; and lastly, manning three vessels besides those which he already held in the harbor of Abydos, he intercepted and brought into port all the merchant ships of Athens or of her allies which he could lay hands on.

Getting wind of these proceedings, the Athenians, fearing lest the fair foundation laid for them by Thrasybulus in the Hellespont should be ruined, sent out Iphicrates with eight vessels and twelve hundred peltasts. The majority of them¹ consisted of troops which he had commanded at Corinth. In explanation it may be stated that the Argives, when once they had appropriated Corinth and incorporated it with Argos, gave out they had no further need of Iphicrates and his troops; the real fact being that he had put to death some of the partisans of Argos.² And so it was he turned his back on Corinth and found himself at home in Athens at the present crisis.

389–388 BC. When Iphicrates first reached the Chersonese he and Anaxibius carried on war against each other by the despatch of guerilla or piratic bands across the straits. But as time wore on, information reached him of the departure of Anaxibius to Antandrus, accompanied by his mercenaries and his own bodyguard of Laconians and two hundred Abydenian hoplites. Hearing further that Anaxibius had won the friendly adhesion of Antandrus, Iphicrates conjectured that after establishing a garrison in that place he would make the best of his way back, if only to bring the Abydenians home again. He therefore crossed in the night, selecting a desert point on the Abydene coast, from which he scaled the hills above the town and planted himself in ambuscade within their folds. The triremes which brought him across had orders at break of day to coast up northwards along the Chersonese, which would suggest the notion that he was only out on one of his customary voyages to collect money. The sequel more than fulfillled his expectations. Anaxibius began his return march, and if report speaks truly, he did so notwithstanding that the victims were against his marching that day; contemptuously disregarding the warning, and satisfied that his march lay all along through a friendly country and was directed to a friendly city. Besides which, those whom he met assured him that Iphicrates was off on a voyage to Proconnesus: hence the unusual absence of precaution on the march. On his side Iphicrates saw the chance, but, so long as the troops of Anaxibius lingered on the level bottoms, refused to spring from his lair, waiting for the moment when the Abydenian division in the van was safely landed in the plain of Cremaste, at the point where the gold mines stand; the main column following on the downward slope, and Anaxibius with his Laconians just beginning the descent. At that instant Iphicrates set his ambuscade in motion, and dashed against the Spartan at full speed. The latter quickly discerned that there was no hope of escape as he scanned the long straggling line of his attenuated column. The troops in advance, he was persuaded, would never be able to come back to his aid up the face of that acclivity; besides which, he observed the utter bewilderment of the whole body at sight of the ambuscade. He therefore turned to those next him, and spoke as follows: “Sirs, it is good for me to die on this spot, where honor bids me; but for you, sirs, yonder your path lies, haste and save yourselves¹ before the enemy can close with us.” As the words died on his lips he took from the hands of his attendant shield-bearer his heavy shield, and there, at his post, unflinchingly fought and fell; not quite alone, for by his side faithfully lingered a favorite youth, and of the Lacedaemonian governors who had rallied to Abydos from their several cities yet other twelve fought and fell beside the pair. The rest fled, dropping down one by one as the army pursued them to the walls of the city. The death-roll amounted to something like fifty hoplites of the Abydenians, and of the rest two hundred. After this exploit Iphicrates returned to the Chersonese.²

BOOK V

I

388 BC. Such was the state of affairs in the Hellespont, so far at least as Athens and Sparta are concerned. Eteonicus was once more in Aegina; and notwithstanding that the Aeginetans and Athenians had up to this time held commercial intercourse, yet now that the war was plainly to be fought out on the sea, that officer, with the concurrence of the ephorate, gave permission to anyone who liked to plunder Attica.³ The Athenians retaliated by despatching a body of hoplites under their general Pamphilus, who constructed a fort against the Aeginetans,⁴ and proceeded to blockade them by land and sea with ten warships. Teleutias, however, while threading his way among the islands in question of contributions, had chanced to reach a point where he received information of the turn in affairs with regard to the construction of the fortress, whereupon he came to the rescue of the beleaguered Aeginetans, and so far succeeded that he drove off the enemy’s blockading squadron. But Pamphilus kept a firm hold on the offensive fortress, and was not to be dislodged.

After this the new admiral Hierax arrived from Lacedaemon. The naval force was transferred into his successor’s hands, and under the happiest auspices Teleutias set sail for home. As he descended to the seashore to start on his homeward voyage there was not one among his soldiers who had not a warm shake of the hand for their old admiral. Here one presented him with a crown, and there another with a victor’s wreath; and those who arrived too late, still, as the ship weighed anchor, threw garlands into the sea and wafted him many a blessing with prayerful lips. I am well aware that in the above incident I have no memorable story of munificence, peril, or invention to narrate, but in all sincerity I protest that a man may find food for reflection in the inquiry what Teleutias had done to create such a disposition in his subordinates. Here we are brought face to face with a true man’s work more worthy of account than multitudes of riches or adventure.¹

The new admiral Hierax, taking with him the larger portion of the fleet, set sail once more for Rhodes. He left behind him twelve vessels in Aegina under his vice-admiral Gorgopas, who was now installed as governor of that island. In consequence of this chance the Athenian troops inside the fortres were more blockaded than the Aeginetans themselves, so much so that a vote was passed by the Athenian assembly, in obedience to which a large fleet was manned, and the garrison, after four months” sojourn in Aegina, were brought back. But this was no sooner done than they began to be harassed by Gorgopas and the privateers again. To operate aganst these they fitted out thirteen vessels, choosing Eunomus as admiral in command. Hierax was still in Rhodes when the Lacedaemonians sent out a new admiral, Antalcidas; they believed that they could not find a better mode of gratifying Tiribazus. Accordingly Antalcidas, after visiting Aegina in order to pick up the vessels under Gorgopas, set sail for Ephesus. At this point he sent back Gorgopas with his twelve ships to Aegina, and appointed his vice-admiral Nicolochus to command the remainder of the fleet.

Nicolochus was to relieve Abydos, and thither set sail; but in the course of the voyage turned aside to Tenedos, where he ravaged the territory, and, with the money so secured, sailed on to Abydos. The Athenian generals¹ on their side, collecting from Samothrace, Thasos, and the fortresses in that quarter, hastened to the relief of Tenedos; but, finding that Nicolochus had continued his voyage to Abydos, they selected the Chersonese as their base, and proceeded to blockade him and his fleet of five-and-twenty vessels with the two-and-thirty vessels under their joint command.

Meanwhile Gorgopas, returning from Ephesus, fell in with the Athenian admiral Eunomus, and, shunning an encounter at the moment, sought shelter in Aegina, which he reached a little before sunset; and at once disembarking his men, set them down to their evening meal; whilst Eunomus on his side, after hanging back for a little while, sailed away. Night fell, and the Athenian, showing the customary signal light to prevent his squadron straggling, led the way in the darkness. Gorgopas instantly got his men on board again, and, taking the lantern for his guide, followed the Athenians, craftily lagging behind a little space, so as not to show himself or raise any suspicion of his presence. In place of the usual cry the boatswains timed the rowers by a clink of stones, and silently the oars slid, feathering through the waves²; and just when the squadron of Eunomus was touching the coast, off Cape Zoster³ in Attica, the Spartan sounded the bugle-note for the charge. Some of Eunomus’s vessels were in the act of discharging their crews, others were still getting to their moorings, whilst others were as yet only bearing down to land. The engagement was fought by the light of the moon, and Gorgopas captured four triremes, which he tied astern, and so set sail with his prizes in tow toward Aegina. The rest of the Athenian squadron made their escape into the harbor of Piraeus.

It was after these events that Chabrias⁴ commenced his voyage to Cyprus, bringing relief to Evagoras. His force consisted at first of eight hundred light troops and ten triremes, but was further increased by other vessels from Athens and a body of heavy infantry. Thus reinforced, the admiral chose a night and landed in Aegina; and secreted himself in ambuscade with his light troops in hollow ground some way beyond the temple of Heracles. At break of day, as prearranged, the Athenian hoplites made their appearance under command of Demaenetus, and began mounting up between two and three miles¹ beyond the Kerakleion at Tripurgia, as it is called. The news soon reached Gorgopas, who sallied out to the rescue with the Aeginetans and the marines of his vessels, being further accompanied by eight Spartans who happened to be with him. Not content with these he issued orders inviting any of the ships’ crews, who were free men, to join the relief party. A large number of these sailors responded. They armed themselves as best they could, and the advance commenced. When the vanguard were well past the ambuscade, Chabrias and his men sprang up from their hiding-place, and poured a volley of javelins and stones upon the enemy. At the same moment the hoplites, who had disembarked,² were advancing, so that the Spartan vanguard, in the absence of anything like collective action, were speedily cut down, and among them fell Gorgopas with the Lacedaemonians. At their fall the rest of course turned and fled. One hundred and fifty Aeginetans were numbered among the slain, while the loss incurred by the foreigners, metics, and sailors who had joined the relief party, reached a total of two hundred. After this the Athenians sailed the sea as freely as in the times of actual peace. Nor would anything induce the sailors to row a single stroke for Eteonicus—even under pressure—since he had no pay to give.

Subsequently the Lacedaemonians despatched Teleutias once again to take command of the squadron, and when the sailors saw it was he who had come, they were overjoyed. He summoned a meeting and addressed them thus: “Soldiers, I am back again, but I bring with me no money. Yet if God be willing, and your zeal flag not, I will endeavor to supply you with provisions without stint. Be well assured, as often as I find myself in command of you, I have but one prayer—that your lives may be spared no less than mine; and as for the necessaries of existence, perhaps it would astonish you if I said I would rather you should have them than I. Yet by the gods I swear I would welcome two days’ starvation in order to spare you one. Was not my door open in old days to every comer? Open again it shall stand now; and so it shall be; where your own board overflows, you shall look in and mark the luxury of your general; but if at other times you see him bearing up against cold and heat and sleepless nights, you must apply the lesson to yourselves and study to endure those evils. I do not bid you do aught of this for self-mortification’s sake, but that you may derive some after-blessing from it. Soldiers, let Lacedaemon, our own mother-city, be to you an example. Her good fortune is reputed to stand high. That you know; and you know too, that she purchased her glory and her greatness not by faint-heartedness, but by choosing to suffer pain and incur dangers in the day of need. ‘Like city,’ I say, ‘like citizens.’ You, too, as I can bear you witness, have been in times past brave; but today must we strive to be better than ourselves. So shall we share our pains without repining, and when fortune smiles, mingle our joys; for indeed the sweetest thing of all surely is to flatter no man, Hellene or Barbarian, for the sake of hire; we will suffice to ourselves, and from a source to which honor pre-eminently invites us; since, I need not remind you, abundance won from the enemy in war furnishes forth not bodily nutrition only, but a feast of glory the wide world over.”

So he spoke, and with one voice they all shouted to him to issue what orders he thought fit; they would not fail him in willing service. The general’s sacrifice was just concluded, and he answered: “Good, then, my men; go now, as doubtless you were minded, and take your evening meal, and next provide yourselves, please, with one day’s food. After that repair to your ships without delay, for we have a voyage on hand, whither God wills, and must arrive in time.” So then, when the men returned, he embarked them on their ships, and sailed under cover of night for the great harbor of Piraeus: at one time he gave the rowers rest, passing the order to take a snatch of sleep; at another he pushed forward toward his goal with rise and fall of oars. If anyone supposes that there was a touch of madness in such an expedition—with but twelve triremes to attack an enemy possessed of a large fleet—he should consider the calculations of Teleutias. He was under the firm persuasion that the Athenians were more careless than ever about their navy in the harbor since the death of Gorgopas; and in case of finding warships riding at anchor—even so, there was less danger, he conjectured, in attacking twenty ships in the port of Athens than ten elsewhere; for, whereas, anywhere outside the harbor the sailors would certainly be quartered on board, at Athens it was easy to divine that the captains and officers would be sleeping at their homes, and the crews located here and there in different quarters.

This minded he set sail, and when he was five or six furlongs¹ distant from the harbor he lay on his oars and rested. But with the first streak of dawn he led the way, the rest following. The admiral’s orders to the crews were explicit. They were on no account to sink any merchant vessel; they were equally to avoid damaging² their own vessels, but if at any point they espied a warship at her moorings they must try and cripple her. The trading vessels, provided they had got their cargoes on board, they must seize and tow out of the harbor; those of larger tonnage they were to board wherever they could and capture the crews. Some of his men actually jumped on to the Deigma quay,¹ where they seized hold of various traders and pilots and deposited them bodily on board ship. So the Spartan admiral carried out his program.

As to the Athenians, meanwhile, some of them who got wind of what was happening rushed from indoors outside to see what the commotion meant, others from the streets home to get their arms, and others again were off to the city with the news. The whole of Athens rallied to the rescue at that instant, heavy infantry and cavalry alike, the apprehension being that Piraeus was taken. But the Spartan sent off the captured vessels to Aegina, telling off three or four of his triremes to convoy them thither; with the rest he followed along the coast of Attica, and emerging in seemingly innocent fashion from the harbor, captured a number of fishing smacks, and passage boats laden with passengers crossing to Piraeus from the islands; and finally, on reaching Sunium he captured some merchantmen laden with corn or other merchandise. After these performances he sailed back to Aegina, where he sold his prizes, and with the proceeds was able to provide his troops with a month’s pay, and for the future was free to cruise about and make what reprisals chance cast in his way. By such a procedure he was able to support a full quota of mariners on board his squadron, and procured to himself the prompt and enthusiastic service of his troops.

388–387 BC. Antalcidas had now returned from the Persian court with Tiribazus. The negotiations had been successful. He had secured the alliance of the Persian king and his military cooperation in case the Athenians and their allies refused to abide by the peace which the king dictated. But learning that his second in command, Nicolochus, was being blockaded with his fleet by Iphicrates and Diotimus² in Abydos, he set off at once by land for that city. Being come thither he took the fleet one night and put out to sea, having first spread a story that he had invitations from a party in Calchedon; but as a matter of fact he came to anchorage in Percote and there kept quiet. Meanwhile the Athenian forces under Demaenetus and Dionysius and Leontichus and Phanias had got wind of his movement, and were in hot pursuit toward Proconnesus. As soon as they were well past, the Spartan veered round and returned to Abydos, trusting to information brought him of the approach of Polyxenus with the Syracusan¹ and Italian squadron of twenty ships, which he wished to pick up and incorporate with his own.

A little later the Athenian Thrasybulus² (of Collytus) was making his way up with eight ships from Thrace, his object being to effect a junction with the main Athenian squadron. The scouts signalled the approach of eight triremes, whereupon Antalcidas, embarking his marines on board twelve of the fastest sailers of his fleet, ordered them to make up their full complements, where defective, from the remaining vessels; and so lay to, skulking in his lair with all possible secrecy. As soon as the enemy’s vessels came sailing past he gave chase; and they catching sight of him took to flight. With his swiftest sailors he speedily overhauled their laggards, and ordering his vanguard to let these alone, he followed hard on those ahead. But when the foremost had fallen into his clutches, the enemy’s hinder vessels, seeing their leaders taken one by one, out of sheer despondency fell an easy prey to the slower sailors of the foe, so that not one of the eight vessels escaped.

Presently the Syracusan squadron of twenty vessels joined him, and again another squadron from Ionia, or rather so much of that district as lay under the control of Tiribazus. The full quota of the contingent was further made up from the territory of Ariobarzanes (which whom Antalcidas kept up a friendship of long standing), in the absence of Pharnabazus, who by this date had already been summoned up country on the occasion of his marriage with the king’s daughter. With this fleet, which, from whatever sources derived, amounted to more than eighty sail, Antalcidas ruled the seas, and was in a position not only to cut off the passage of vessels bound to Athens from the Euxine, but to convoy them into the harbors of Sparta’s allies.

The Athenians could not but watch with alarm the growth of the enemy’s fleet, and began to fear a repetition of their former discomfiture. To be trampled under foot by the hostile power seemed indeed no remote possibility, now that the Lacedaemonians had procured an ally in the person of the Persian monarch, and they were in little less than a state of siege themselves, pestered as they were by privateers from Aegina. On all these grounds the Athenians became passionately desirous of peace.¹ The Lacedaemonians were equally out of humor with the war for various reasons—what with their garrison duties, one mora at Lechaeum and another at Orchomenus, and the necessity of keeping watch and ward on the states, if loyal not to lose them, if disaffected to prevent their revolt; not to mention that reciprocity of annoyance² of which Corinth was the center. So again the Argives had a strong appetite for peace; they knew that the ban had been called out against them, and, it was plain, that no fictitious alteration of the calendar would any longer stand them in good stead. Hence, when Tiribazus issued a summons calling on all who were willing to listen to the terms of peace sent down by the king³ to present themselves, the invitation was promptly accepted. At the opening of the conclave⁴ Tiribazus pointed to the king’s seal attached to the document, and proceeded to read the contents, which ran as follows:

“The king, Artaxerxes, deems it just that the cities in Asia, with the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, should belong to himself; the rest of the Hellenic cities he thinks it just to leave independent, both small and great, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which three are to belong to Athens as of yore. Should any of the parties concerned not accept this peace, I, Artaxerxes, will war against him or them with those who share my views. This will I do by land and by sea, with ships and with money.”

After listening to the above declaration the ambassadors from the several states proceeded to report the same to their respective governments. One and all of these took the oaths⁵ to ratify and confirm the terms unreservedly, with the exception of the Thebans, who claimed to take the oaths in behalf of all Boeotians. This claim Agesilaus repudiated: unless they chose to take the oaths in precise conformity with the words of the king’s edict, which insisted on “the future autonomy of each state, small or great,” he would not admit them. To this the Theban ambassadors made no other reply, except that the instructions they had received were different. “Pray go, then,” Agesilaus retorted, “and ask the question; and you may inform your countrymen that if they will not comply, they will be excluded from the treaty.” The Theban ambassadors departed, but Agesilaus, out of hatred to the Thebans, took active measures at once. Having got the consent of the ephors he forthwith offered sacrifice. The offerings for crossing the frontier were propitious, and he pushed on to Tegea. From Tegea he despatched some of the knights right and left to visit the perioeci and hasten their mobilisation, and at the same time sent commanders of foreign brigades to the allied cities on a similar errand. But before he had started from Tegea the answer from Thebes arrived; the point was yielded, they would suffer the states to be independent. Under these circumstances the Lacedaemonians returned home, and the Thebans were forced to accept the truce unconditionally, and to recognize the autonomy of the Boeotian cities.¹ But now the Corinthians were by no means disposed to part with the garrison of the Argives. Accordingly Agesilaus had a word of warning for both. To the former he said, “if they did not forthwith dismiss the Argives,” and to the latter, “if they did not instantly quit Corinth,” he would march an army into their territories. The terror of both was so great that the Argives marched out of Corinth, and Corinth was once again left to herself;² whereupon the “butchers”³ and their accomplices in the deed of blood determined to retire from Corinth, and the rest of the citizens welcomed back their late exiles voluntarily.

Now that the transactions were complete, and the states were bound by their oaths to abide by the peace sent down to them by the king, the immediate result was a general disarmament, military and naval forces being alike disbanded; and so it was that the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, with their allies, found themselves in the enjoyment of peace for the first time since the period of hostilities subsequent to the demolition of the walls of Athens. From a condition which, during the war, can only be described as a sort of even balance with their antagonists, the Lacedaemonians now emerged; and reached a pinnacle of glory consequent upon the Peace of Antalcidas,⁴ so called. As guarantors of the peace presented by Hellas to the king, and as administrators personally of the autonomy of the states, they had added Corinth to their alliance; they had obtained the independence of the states of Boeotia at the expense of Thebes,¹ which meant the gratification of an old ambition; and lastly, by calling out the ban in case the Argives refused to evacuate Corinth, they had put a stop to the appropriation of that city by the Argives.

II

386 BC. Indeed the late events had so entirely shaped themselves in conformity with the wishes of the Lacedaemonians, that they determined to go a step farther and chastise those of their allies who either had borne hard on them during the war, or otherwise had shown themselves less favorable to Lacedaemon than to her enemies.² Chastisement was not all; they must lay down such secure foundations for the future as should render the like disloyalty impossible again.³ As the first step toward this policy they sent a dictatorial message to the Mantinaeans, and bade them raze their fortifications, on the sole ground that they could not otherwise trust them not to side with their enemies. Many things in their conduct, they alleged, from time to time, had not escaped their notice: their frequent despatches of corn to the Argives while at war with Lacedaemon; at other times their refusal to furnish contingents during a campaign, on the pretext of some holy truce or other;⁴ or if they did reluctantly take the field—the miserable inefficiency of their service. “But, more than that,” they added, “we note the jealousy with which you eye any good fortune which may betide our state; the extravagant pleasure⁵ you exhibit at the sudden descent of some disaster.”

This very year, moreover, it was commonly said,⁶ saw the expiration, as far as the Mantineans were concerned, of the thirty years’ truce, consequent upon the battle of Mantinea. On their refusal, therefore, to raze their fortification walls the ban was called out against them. Agesilaus begged the state to absolve him from the conduct of this war on the plea that the city of Mantinea had done frequent service to his father¹ in his Messenian wars. Accordingly Agesipolis led the expedition—in spite of the cordial relations of his father Pausanias² with the leaders of the popular party in Mantinea.

385 BC. The first move of the invader was to subject the enemy’s territory to devastation; but failing by such means to induce them to raze their walls, he proceeded to draw lines of circumvallation round the city, keeping half his troops under arms to screen the entrenching parties whilst the other half pushed on the work with the spade. As soon as the trench was completed, he experienced no further difficulty in building a wall round the city. Aware, however, of the existence of a huge supply of corn inside the town, the result of the bountiful harvest of the preceding year, and averse to the notion of wearing out the city of Lacedaemon and her allies by tedious campaigning, he hit upon the expedient of damming up the river which flowed through the town.

It was a stream of no inconsiderable size.³ By erecting a barrier at its exit from the town he caused the water to rise above the basements of the private dwellings and the foundations of the fortification walls. Then, as the lower layers of bricks became saturated and refused their support to the rows above, the wall began to crack and soon to totter to its fall. The citizens for some time tried to prop it with pieces of timber, and used other devices to avert the imminent ruin of their tower; but finding themselves overmatched by the water, and in dread lest the fall at some point or other of the circular wall⁴ might deliver them captive to the spear of the enemy, they signified their consent to raze their walls. But the Lacedaemonians now steadily refused any form of truce, except on the further condition that the Mantineans would suffer themselves to be broken up and distributed into villages. They, looking the necessity in the face, consented to do even that. The sympathisers with Argos among them, and the leaders of their democracy, thought their fate was sealed. Then the father treated with the son, Pausanias with Agesipolis, on their behalf, and obtained immunity for them—sixty in number—on condition that they should quit the city. The Lacedaemonian troops stood lining the road on both sides, beginning from the gates, and watched the outgoers; and with their spears in their hands, in spite of bitter hatred, kept aloof from them with less difficulty than the Mantineans of the better classes themselves—a weighty testimony to the power of Spartan discipline, be it said. In conclusion, the wall was razed, and Mantinea split up into four parts,¹ assuming once again its primitive condition as regards inhabitants. The first feeling was one of annoyance at the necessity of pulling down their present houses and erecting others, yet when the owners² found themselves located so much nearer their estates round about the villages, in the full enjoyment of aristocracy, and rid forever of “those troublesome demagogues,” they were delighted with the turn which affairs had taken. It became the custom for Sparta to send them, not one commander of contingents,³ but four, one for each village; and the zeal displayed, now that the quotas for military service were furnished from the several village centers, was far greater than it had been under the democratic system. So the transactions in connection with Mantinea were brought to a conclusion, and thereby one lesson of wisdom was taught mankind—not to conduct a river through a fortress town.

384–383 BC. To pass on. The party in exile from Phlius, seeing the severe scrutiny to which the behavior of the allies of Lacedaemon during the late war was being subjected, felt that their opportunity had come. They repaired to Lacedaemon, and laid great emphasis on the fact that, so long as they had been in power themselves at home, “their city used to welcome Lacedaemonians within her walls, and her citizens flocked to the campaign under their leadership; but no sooner had they been driven into exile than a change had come. The men of Phlius now flatly refused to follow Lacedaemon anywhere; the Lacedaemonians, alone of all men living, must not be admitted within their gates.” After listening to their story, the ephors agreed that the matter demanded attention. Then they sent to the state of Phlius a message to this effect; the Phliasian exiles were friends of Lacedaemon; nor did it appear that they owed their exile to any misdoing. Under the circumstances, Lacedaemon claimed their recall from banishment, not by force, but as a concession voluntarily granted. When the matter was thus stated, the Phliasians were not without alarm that an army might much upon Phlius, and a party inside the town might admit the enemy within the walls; for within the walls of Phlius were to be found many who, either as blood relations or for other reasons, were partisans of the exiles, and as so often happens, at any rate in the majority of states, there was a revolutionary party who, in their ardour to reform, would welcome gladly their restoration. Owing to fears of this character, a formal decree was passed: to welcome home the exiles, and to restore to them all undisputed property, the purchasers of the same being indemnified from the treasury of the state; and in the event of any ambiguity or question arising between the parties, the same to be determined before a court of justice. Such was the position of affairs in connection with the Phliasian exiles at the date in question.

383 BC.¹ And now from yet another quarter ambassadors arrived at Lacedaemon: that is to say, from Acanthus and Apollonia, the two largest and most important states of the Olynthian confederacy. The ephorate, after learning from them the object of their visit, presented them to the assembly and the allies, in presence of whom Cleigenes of Acanthus made a speech to this effect:

“Men of Lacedaemon and of the allied states,” he said, “are you aware of a silent but portentous growth within the bosom of Hellas?² Few here need to be told that for size and importance Olynthus now stands at the head of the Thracian cities. But are you aware that the citizens of Olynthus had already brought over several states by the bribe of joint citizenship and common laws; that they have forcibly annexed some of the larger states; and that, so encouraged, they have taken in hand further to free the cities of Macedonia from Amyntas the king of the Macedonians; that, as soon as their immediate neighbors had shown compliance, they at once proceeded to attack larger and more distant communities; so much so, that when we started to come hither, we left them masters not only of many other places, but of Pella itself, the capital of Macedonia. Amyntas,³ we saw plainly, must ere long withdraw from his cities, and was in fact already all but in name an outcast from Macedonia.

“The Olynthians have actually sent to ourselves and to the men of Apollonia a joint embassy, warning us of their intention to attack us if we refuse to present ourselves at Olynthus with a military contingent. Now, for our parts, men of Lacedaemon, we desire nothing better than to abide by our ancestral laws and institutions, to be free and independent citizens; but if aid from without is going to fail us, we too must follow the rest and coalesce with the Olynthians. Why, even now they muster no less than eight hundred¹ heavy infantry and a considerably larger body of light infantry, while their cavalry, when we have joined them, will exceed one thousand men. At the date of our departure we left embassies from Athens and Boeotia in Olynthus, and we were told that the Olynthians themselves had passed a formal resolution to return the compliment. They were to send an embassy on their side to the aforesaid states to treat of an alliance. And yet, if the power of the Athenians and the Thebans is to be further increased by such an accession of strength, look to it,” the speaker added, “whether hereafter you will find things so easy to manage in that quarter.

“They hold Potidaea, the key to the isthmus of Pallene, and therefore, you can well believe, they can command the states within that peninsula. If you want any further proof of the abject terror of those states, you have it in the fact that notwithstanding the bitter hatred which they bear to Olynthus, not one of them has dared to send ambassadors along with us to apprise you of these matters.

“Reflect, how you can reconcile your anxiety to prevent the unification of Boeotia with your neglect to hinder the solidifying of a far larger power—a power destined, moreover, to become formidable not on land only, but by sea? For what is to stop it, when the soil itself supplies timber for shipbuilding,² and there are rich revenues derived from numerous harbors and commercial centers?—it cannot but be that abundance of food and abundance of population will go hand in hand. Nor have we yet reached the limits of Olynthian expansion; there are their neighbors to be thought of—the kingless or independent Thracians. These are already today the devoted servants of Olynthus, and when it comes to their being actually under her, that means at once another vast accession of strength to her. With the Thracians in her train, the gold mines of Pangaeus would stretch out to her the hand of welcome.

“In making these assertions, we are but uttering remarks ten thousand times repeated in the democracy of Olynthus. And as to their confident spirit, who shall attempt to describe it? It is God, for aught I know, who, with the growth of a new capacity, gives increase also to the proud thoughts and vast designs of humanity. For ourselves, men of Lacedaemon and of the allied states, our task is completed. We have played our parts in announcing to you how things stand there. To you it is left to determine whether what we have described is worthy of your concern. One only thing further you ought to recognize: the power we have spoken of as great is not as yet invincible, for those states which are involuntary participants in the citizenship of Olynthus will, in prospect of any rival power appearing in the field, speedily fall away. On the contrary, let them be once closely knit and welded together by the privileges of intermarriage and reciprocal rights of holding property in land—which have already become enactments; let them discover that it is a gain to them to follow in the wake of conquerors (just as the Arcadians,¹ for instance, find it profitable to march in your ranks, whereby they save their own property and pillage their neighbors’); let these things come to pass, and perhaps you may find the knot no longer so easy to unloose.”

At the conclusion of this address, the Lacedaemonians requested the allies to speak, bidding them give their joint advice as to the best course to be pursued in the interests of Peloponnese and the allies. Thereupon many members, and especially those who wished to gratify the Lacedaemonians, agreed in counseling active measures; and it was resolved that the states should severally send contingents to form a total of ten thousand men. Proposals were also made to allow any state, so wishing, to give money instead of men, at the rate of three Aeginetan obols² a day per man; or where the contingent consisted of cavalry, the pay given for one horseman was to be the equivalent to that of four hoplites; while, in the event of any defaulting in service, the Lacedaemonians should be allowed to mulct the said state of a stater per man per diem. These resolutions were passed, and the deputies from Acanthus rose again. They argued that, though excellent, these resolutions were not of a nature to be rapidly carried into effect. Would it not be better, they asked, pending the mobilisation of the troops, to despatch an officer at once in command of a force from Lacedaemon and the other states, not too large to start immediately. The effect would be instantaneous, for the states which had not yet given in their adhesion to Olynthus would be brought to a standstill, and those already forcibly enrolled would be shaken in their alliance. These further resolutions being also passed, the Lacedaemonians despatched Eudamidas, accompanied by a body of neodamodes, with perioeci and Sciritae,¹ to the number of two thousand odd. Eudamidas lost no time in setting out, having obtained leave from the ephors for his brother Phoebidas to follow later with the remainder of the troops assigned to him. Pushing on himself to the Thracian territory, he set about despatching garrisons to various cities at their request. He also secured the voluntary adhesion of Potidaea, although already a member of the Olynthian alliance; and this town now served as his base of operations for carrying on war on a scale adapted to his somewhat limited armament.

Phoebidas, when the remaining portion of his brother’s forces was duly mustered, put himself at their head and commenced his march. On reaching Thebes the troops encamped outside the city, round the gymnasium. Faction was rife within the city. The two polemarchs in office, Ismenias and Leontiades, were diametrically opposed,² being the respective heads of antagonistic political clubs. Hence it was that, while Ismenias, ever inspired by hatred to the Lacedaemonians, would not come anywhere near the Spartan general, Leontiades, on the other hand, was assiduous in courting him; and when a sufficient intimacy was established between them, he made a proposal as follows: “You have it in your power,” he said, addressing Phoebidas, “this very day to confer supreme benefit on your country. Follow me with your hoplites, and I will introduce you into the citadel. That done, you may rest assured Thebes will be completely under the thumb of Lacedaemon and of us, your friends. At present, as you see, there is a proclamation forbidding any Theban to take service with you against Olynthus, but we will change all that. You have only to act with us as we suggest, and we shall at once be able to furnish you with large supplies of infantry and cavalry, so that you will join your brother with a magnificent reinforcement, and pending his proposed reduction of Olynthus, you will have accomplished the reduction of a far larger state than that—to wit, this city of Thebes.”

The imagination of Phoebidas was kindled as he listened to the tempting proposal. To do a brilliant deed was far dearer to him than life;¹ on the other hand, he had no reasoning capacity, and would seem to have been deficient altogether in sound sense. The consent of the Spartan secured, Leontiades bade him set his troops in motion, as if everything were ready for his departure. “And anon, when the hour is come,” added the Theban, “I will be with you, and show you the way myself.”

The senate was seated in the arcade or stoa in the marketplace, since the Cadmeia was in possession of the women who were celebrating the Thesmophoria.² It was noon of a hot summer’s day; scarcely a soul was stirring in the streets. This was the moment for Leontiades. He mounted on horseback and galloped off to overtake Phoebidas. He turned him back, and led him without further delay into the acropolis. Having posted Phoebidas and his soldiers inside, he handed him the key of the gates, and warning him not to suffer anyone to enter into the citadel without a pass from himself, he straightway betook himself to the senate. Arrived there, he delivered himself thus: “Sirs, the Lacedaemonians are in possession of the citadel; but that is no cause for despondency, since, as they assure us, they have no hostile intention, except, indeed, toward anyone who has an appetite for war. For myself, and acting in obedience to the law, which empowers the polemarch to apprehend all persons suspected of capital crimes, I hereby seize the person of Ismenias as an arch-fomenter of war. I call upon you, sirs, who are captains of companies, and you who are ranked with them, to do your duty. Arise and secure the prisoner, and lead him away to the place appointed.”

Those who were privy to the affair, it will be understood, presented themselves, and the orders were promptly carried out. Of those not in the secret, but opposed to the party of Leontiades, some sought refuge at once outside the city in terror for their lives; whilst the rest, albeit they retired to their houses at first, yet when they found that Ismenias was imprisoned in the Cadmeia, and further delay seemed dangerous, retreated to Athens. These were the men who shared the views of Androcleidas and Ismenias, and they must have numbered about three hundred.

Now that the transactions were concluded, another polemarch was chosen in place of Ismenias, and Leontiades at once set out to Lacedaemon. There he found the ephors and the mass of the community highly incensed against Phoebidas, “who had failed to execute the orders assigned to him by the state.” Against this general indignation, however, Agesilaus protested.¹ If mischief had been wrought to Lacedaemon by this deed, it was just that the doer of it should be punished; but, if good, it was a time-honored custom to allow full scope for impromptu acts of this character. “The sole point you have to look to,” he urged, “is whether what has been done is good or evil.” After this, however, Leontiades presented himself to the assembly² and addressed the members as follows: “Sirs, Lacedaemonians, the hostile attitude of Thebes toward you, before the occurrence of late events, was a topic constantly on your lips, since time upon time your eyes were called upon to witness her friendly bearing to your foes in contrast with her hatred of your friends. Can it be denied that Thebes refused to take part with you in the campaign against your direst enemy, the democracy in Piraeus; and balanced that lukewarmness by on onslaught on the Phocians, whose sole crime was cordiality to yourselves?³ Nor is that all. In full knowledge that you were likely to be engaged in war with Olynthus, she proceeded at once to make an alliance with that city. So that up to the last moment you were in constant expectation of hearing that the whole of Boeotia was laid at the feet of Thebes. With the late incidents all is changed. You need fear Thebes no longer. One brief despatch⁴ in cipher will suffice to procure a dutiful subservience to your every wish in that quarter, provided only you will take as kindly an interest in us as we in you.”

This appeal told upon the meeting, and the Lacedaemonians⁵ resolved formally, now that the citadel had been taken, to keep it, and to put Ismenias on his trial. In consequence of this resolution a body of commissioners⁶ was despatched, three Lacedaemonians and one for each of the allied states, great and small alike. The court of inquiry thus constituted, the sittings commenced, and an indictment was preferred against Ismenias. He was accused of playing into the hands of the barbarian; of seeking amity with the Persians to the detriment of Hellas; of accepting sums of money as bribes from the king; and, finally, of being, along with Androcleidas, the prime cause of the whole intestine trouble to which Hellas was a prey. Each of these charges was met by the defendant, but to no purpose, since he failed to disabuse the court of their conviction that the grandeur of his designs was only equalled by their wickedness.¹ The verdict was given against him, and he was put to death. The party of Leontiades thus possessed the city; and went beyond the injunctions given them in the eager performance of their services.

382 BC. As a result of these transactions the Lacedaemonians pressed on the combined campaign against Olynthus with still greater enthusiasm. They not only set out Teleutias as governor, but by their united efforts furnished him with an aggregate army of ten thousand men.² They also sent despatches to the allied states, calling upon them to support Teleutias in accordance with the resolution of the allies. All the states were ready to display devotion to Teleutias, and to do him service, since he was a man who never forgot a service rendered him. Nor was Thebes an exception; for was not the governor a brother of Agesilaus? Thebes, therefore, was enthusiastic in sending her contribution of heavy infantry and cavalry. The Spartan conducted his march slowly and surely, taking the utmost pains to avoid injuring his friends, and to collect as large a force as possible. He also sent a message in advance to Amyntas, begging him, if he were truly desirous of recovering his empire, to raise a body of mercenaries, and to distribute sums of money among the neighboring kings with a view to their alliance. Nor was that all. He sent also to Derdas, the ruler of Elimia, pointing out to him that the Olynthians, having laid at their feet the great power of Macedonia, would certainly not suffer his lesser power to escape unless they were stayed up by force in arms in their career of insolence. Proceeding thus, by the time he had reached the territory of the allied powers he was at the head of a very considerable army. At Potidaea he halted to make the necessary disposition of his troops, and thence advanced into the territory of the enemy. As he approached the hostile city, he abstained from felling and firing alike, being persuaded that to do so was only to create difficulties in his own path, whether advancing or retreating; it would be time enough, when he retired from Olynthus, to fell the trees and lay them as a barrier in the path of any assailant in the rear.

Being now within a mile or so³ of the city he came to a halt. The left division was under his personal command, for it suited him to advance in a line opposite the gate from which the enemy sallied; the other division of the allies stretched away to the right. The cavalry were thus distributed: the Laconians, Thebans, and all the Macedonians present were posted on the right. With his own division he kept Derdas and his troopers, four hundred strong. This he did partly out of genuine admiration for this body of horse, and partly as a mark of courtesy to Derdas, which should make him not regret his coming.

Presently the enemy issued forth and formed in line opposite, under cover of their walls. Then their cavalry formed in close order and commenced the attack. Dashing down upon the Laconians and Boeotians they dismounted Polycharmus, the Lacedaemonian cavalry general, inflicting a hundred wounds on him as he lay on the ground, and cut down others, and finally put to flight the cavalry on the right wing. The flight of these troopers infected the infantry in close proximity to them, who in turn swerved; and it looked as if the whole army was about to be worsted, when Derdas at the head of his cavalry dashed straight at the gates of Olynthus, Teleutias supporting him with the troops of his division. The Olynthian cavalry, seeing how matters were going, and in dread of finding the gates closed upon them, wheeled round and retired with alacrity. Thus it was that Derdas had his chance to cut down man after man as their cavalry ran the gauntlet past him. In the same way, too, the infantry of the Olynthians retreated within their city, though, owing to the closeness of the walls in their case, their loss was trifling. Teleutias claimed the victory, and a trophy was duly erected, after which he turned his back on Olynthus and devoted himself to felling the fruit-trees. This was the campaign of the summer. He now dismissed both the Macedonians and the cavalry force of Derdas. Incursions, however, on the part of the Olynthians themselves against the states allied to Lacedaemon were frequent; lands were pillaged, and people put to the sword.

III

381 BC. With the first symptoms of approaching spring the Olynthian cavalry, six hundred strong, had swooped into the territory of Apollonia—about the middle of the day—and dispersing over the district, were employed in pillaging; but as luck would have it, Derdas had arrived that day with his troopers, and was breakfasting in Apollonia. He noted the enemy’s incursion, but kept quiet, biding his time; his horses were ready saddled, and his troopers armed cap-a-pied. As the Olynthians came galloping up contemptuously, not only into the suburbs, but to the very gates of the city, he seized his opportunity, and with his compact and well-ordered squadron dashed out; whereupon the invaders took to flight. Having once turned them, Derdas gave them no respite, pursuing and slaughtering them for ten miles or more,¹ until he had driven them for shelter within the very ramparts of Olynthus. Report said that Derdas slew something like eighty men in this affair. After this the Olynthians were more disposed to keep to their walls, contenting themselves with tilling the merest corner of their territory.

Time advanced, and Teleutias was in conduct of another expedition against the city of Olynthus. His object was to destroy any timber² still left standing, or fields still cultivated in the hostile territory. This brought out the Olynthian cavalry, who, stealthily advancing, crossed the river which washes the walls of the town, and again continued their silent march right up to the adversary’s camp. At sight of an audacity which nettled him, Teleutias at once ordered Tlemonidas, the officer commanding his light infantry division, to charge the assailants at the run. On their side the men of Olynthus, seeing the rapid approach of the light infantry, wheeled and quietly retired until they had recrossed the river, drawing the enemy on, who followed with conspicuous hardihood. Arrogating to themselves the position of pursuers toward fugitives, they did not hesitate to cross the river which stood between them and their prey. Then the Olynthian cavalry, choosing a favorable moment, when those who had crossed seemed easy to deal with, wheeled and attacked them, putting Tlemonidas himself to the sword with more than a hundred others of his company. Teleutias, when he saw what was happening, snatched up his arms in a fit of anger and began leading his hoplites swiftly forward, ordering at the same time his peltasts and cavalry to give chase and not to slacken. Their fate was the fate of many before and since, who, in the ardour of pursuit, have come too close to the enemy’s walls and found it hard to get back again. Under a hail of missiles from the walls they were forced to retire in disorder and with the necessity of guarding themselves against the missiles. At this juncture the Olynthians sent out their cavalry at full gallop, backed by supports of light infantry; and finally their heavy infantry reserves poured out and fell upon the enemy’s lines, now in thorough confusion. Here Teleutias fell fighting, and when that happened, without further pause the troops immediately about him swerved. Not one soul longer cared to make a stand, but the flight became general, some fleeing toward Spartolus, others in the direction of Acanthus, a third set seeking refuge within the walls of Apollonia, and the majority within those of Potidaea. As the tide of fugitives broke into several streams, so also the pursuers divided the work between them; this way and that they poured, dealing death wholesale. So perished the pith and kernel of the armament.

Such calamities are not indeed without a moral. The lesson they are meant to teach mankind, I think, is plain. If in a general sense one ought not to punish anyone, even one’s own slave, in anger—since the master in his wrath may easily incur worse evil himself than he inflicts—so, in the case of antagonists in war, to attack an enemy under the influence of passion rather than of judgment is an absolute error. For wrath is but a blind impulse devoid of foresight, whereas to the penetrating eye of reason a blow parried may be better than a wound inflicted.¹

When the news of what had happened reached Lacedaemon it was agreed, after due deliberation, that a force should be sent, and of no trifling description, if only to quench the victors” pride, and to prevent their own achievements from becoming null and void. In this determination they sent out King Agesipolis, as general, attended, like Agesilaus² on his Asiatic campaign, by thirty Spartans.³ Volunteers flocked to his standard. They were partly the pick and flower of the provincials,⁴ partly foreigners of the class called Trophimoi,⁵ or lastly, bastard sons of Spartans, comely and beautiful of limb, and well versed in the lore of Spartan chivalry. The ranks of this invading force were further swelled by volunteers from the allied states, the Thessalians notably contributing a corps of cavalry. All were animated by the desire of becoming known to Agesipolis, so that even Amyntas and Derdas in zeal of service outdid themselves. With this promise of success Agesipolis marched forward against Olynthus.

Meanwhile the state of Phlius, complimented by Agesipolis on the amount of the funds contributed by them to his expedition and the celerity with which the money had been raised, and in full belief that while one king was in the field they were secure against the hostile attack of the other (since it was hardly to be expected that both kings should be absent from Sparta at one moment), boldly desisted from doing justice by her lately reinstated citizens. On the one hand, these exiles claimed that points in dispute should be determined before an impartial court of justice; the citizens, on the other, insisted on the claimants submitting the cases for trial in the city itself. And when the latter demurred to that solution, asking “What sort of trial that would be where the offenders were also the judges?” they appealed to deaf ears. Consequently the restored party appealed at Sparta, to prefer a complaint against their city. They were accompanied by other members of the community, who stated that many of the Phliasians themselves besides the appellants recognized the injustice of their treatment. The state of Phlius was indignant at this manouvre, and retaliated by imposing a fine on all who had betaken themselves to Lacedaemon without a mandate from the state. Those who incurred the fine hesitated to return home; they preferred to stay where they were and enforce their views: “It is quite plain now who were the perpetrators of all the violence—the very people who originally drove us into exile, and shut their gates upon Lacedaemon; the confiscators of our property one day, the ruthless opponents of its restoration the next. Who else but they have now brought it about that we should be fined for appearing at Lacedaemon? and for what purpose but to deter anyone else for the future from venturing to expose the proceedings at Phlius?” Thus far the appellants. And in good sooth the conduct of the men of Phlius did seem to savour of insolence; so much so that the ephors called out the ban against them.

380 BC. Nor was Agesilaus otherwise than well satisfied with this decision, not only on the ground of old relations of friendly hospitality between his father Archidamus and the party of Podanemus, who were numbered among the restored exiles at this time, but because personally he was bound by similar ties himself toward the adherents of Procles, son of Hipponicus. The border sacrifices proving favorable, the march commenced at once. As he advanced, embassy after embassy met him, and would fain by presents of money avert invasion. But the king answered that the purpose of his march was not to commit wrongdoing, but to protect the victims of injustice. Then the petitioners offered to do anything, only they begged him to forgo invasion. Again he replied—How could he trust to their words when they had lied to him already? He must have the warrant of acts, not promises. And being asked, “What act (would satisfy him)?” he answered once more, saying, “The same which you performed aforetime, and suffered no wrong at our hands”—in other words, the surrender of the acropolis.¹ But to this they could not bring themselves. Whereupon he invaded the territory of Phlius, and promptly drawing lines of circumvallation, commenced the siege. Many of the Lacedaemonians objected, for the sake of a mere handful of wretched people, so to embroil themselves with a state of over five thousand men.¹ For, indeed, to leave no doubt on this score, the men of Phlius met regularly in assembly in full view of those outside. But Agesilaus was not to be beaten by this move. Whenever any of the townsmen came out, drawn by friendship or kinship with the exiles, in every case the king’s instructions were to place the public messes² at the service of the visitors, and, if they were willing to go through the course of gymnastic training, to give them enough to procure necessaries. All members of these classes were, by the general’s strict injunctions, further to be provided with arms, and loans were to be raised for the purpose without delay. Presently the superintendents of this branch of the service were able to turn out a detachment of over a thousand men, in the prime of bodily perfection, well disciplined and splendidly armed, so that in the end the Lacedaemonians affirmed: “Fellow soldiers of this stamp are too good to lose.” Such were the concerns of Agesilaus.

Meanwhile Agesipolis on leaving Macedonia advanced straight upon Olynthus and took up a strategical position in front of the town. Finding that no one came out to oppose him, he occupied himself for the present with pillaging any remnant of the district till intact, and with marching into the territory allied with the enemy, where he destroyed the corn. The town of Torone he attacked and took by storm. But while he was so engaged, in the height of mid-summer he was attacked by a burning fever. In this condition his mind reverted to a scene once visited, the temple of Dionysus at Aphytis, and a longing for its cool and sparkling waters and embowered shades³ seized him. To this spot accordingly he was carried, still living, but only to breathe his last outside the sacred shrine, within a week of the day on which he sickened. His body was laid in honey and conveyed home to Sparta, where he obtained royal sepulchre.

When the news reached Agesilaus he displayed none of the satisfaction which might possibly have been expected at the removal of an antagonist. On the contrary, he wept and pined for the companionship so severed, it being the fashion at Sparta for the kings when at home to mess together and to share the same quarters. Moreover, Agesipolis was admirably suited to Agesilaus, sharing with the merriment of youth in tales of the chase and horsemanship and boyish loves;⁴ while, to crown all, the touch of reverence due from younger to elder was not wanting in their common life. In place of Agesipolis, the Lacedaemonians despatched Polybiades as governor to Olynthus.

379 BC. Agesilaus had already exceeded the time during which the supplies of food in Phlius were expected to last. The difference, in fact, between self-command and mere appetite is so great that the men of Phlius had only to pass a resolution to cut down the food expenditure by one half, and by doing so were able to prolong the siege for twice the calculated period. But if the contrast between self-restraint and appetite is so great, no less startling is that between boldness and faint-heartedness. A Phliasian named Delphion, a real hero, it would seem, took to himself three hundred Phliasians, and not only succeeded in preventing the peace-party from carrying out their wishes, but was equal to the task of incarcerating and keeping safely under lock and key those whom he mistrusted. Nor did his ability end there. He succeeded in forcing the mob of citizens to perform garrison duty, and by vigorous patrolling kept them constant to the work. Over and over again, accompanied by his personal attendants, he would dash out of the walls and drive in the enemy’s outposts, first at one point and then at another of the beleaguering circle. But the time eventually came when, search as they might by every means, these picked defenders¹ could find no further store of food within the walls, and they were forced to send to Agesilaus, requesting a truce for an embassy to visit Sparta, adding that they were resolved to leave it to the discretion of the authorities at Lacedaemon to do with their city what they liked. Agesilaus granted a pass to the embassy, but, at the same time, he was so angry at their setting his personal authority aside, that he sent to his friends at home and arranged that the fate of Phlius should be left to his discretion. Meanwhile he proceeded to tighten the cordon of investment, so as to render it impossible that a single soul inside the city should escape. In spite of this, however, Delphion, with one comrade, a branded dare-devil, who had shown great dexterity in relieving the besieging parties of their arms, escaped by night. Presently the deputation returned with the answer from Lacedaemon that the state simply left it entirely to the discretion of Agesilaus to decide the fate of Phlius as seemed to him best. Then Agesilaus announced his verdict. A board of one hundred—fifty taken from the restored exiles, fifty from those within the city—were in the first place to make inquisition as to who deserved to live and who to die, after which they were to lay down laws as the basis of a new constitution. Pending the carrying out of these transactions, he left a detachment of troops to garrison the place for six months, with pay for that period. After this he dismissed the allied forces, and led the state¹ division home. Thus the transactions concerning Phlius were brought to a conclusion, having occupied altogether one year and eight months.

Meanwhile Polybiades had reduced the citizens of Olynthus to the last stage of misery through famine. Unable to supply themselves with corn from their own land, or to import it by sea, they were forced to send an embassy to Lacedaemon to sue for peace. The plenipotentiaries on their arrival accepted articles of agreement by which they bound themselves to have the same friends and the same foes as Lacedaemon, to follow her lead, and to be enrolled among her allies; and so, having taken an oath to abide by these terms, they returned home.

On every side the affairs of Lacedaemon had signally prospered: Thebes and the rest of the Boeotian states lay absolutely at her feet; Corinth had become her most faithful ally; Argos, unable longer to avail herself of the subterfuge of a movable calendar, was humbled to the dust; Athens was isolated; and, lastly, those of her own allies who displayed a hostile feeling toward her had been punished; so that, to all outward appearance, the foundations of her empire were at length absolutely well and firmly laid.

IV

Abundant examples might be found, alike in Hellenic and in foreign history, to prove that the Divine powers mark what is done amiss, winking neither at impiety nor at the commission of unhallowed acts; but at present I confine myself to the facts before me.² The Lacedaemonians, who had pledged themselves by oath to leave the states independent, had laid violent hands on the acropolis of Thebes, and were eventually punished by the victims of that iniquity single-handed—the Lacedaemonians, be it noted, who had never before been mastered by living man; and not they alone, but those citizens of Thebes who introduced them to their acropolis, and who wished to enslave their city to Lacedaemon, that they might play the tyrant themselves—how fared it with them? A bare score of the fugitives were sufficient to destroy their government. How this happened I will now narrate in detail.

There was a man named Phyllidas—he was secretary to Archias, that is, to the polemarchs.¹ Beyond his official duties, he had rendered his chief other services, and all apparently in an exemplary fashion. A visit to Athens in pursuance of some business brought this man into contact with a former acquaintance of his, Melon, one of the exiles who had fled for safety to Athens. Melon had various questions to ask touching the sort of tyranny practiced by Archias in the exercise of the polemarchy, and by Philip. He soon discovered that affairs at home were still more detestable to Phyllidas than to himself. It only remained to exchange pledges, and to arrange the details of what was to be done. After a certain interval Melon, accompanied by six of the trustiest comrades he could find among his fellow exiles, set off for Thebes. They were armed with nothing but daggers, and first of all crept into the neighborhood under cover of night. The whole of the next day they lay concealed in a desert place, and drew near to the city gates in the guise of laborers returning home with the latest comers from the fields. Having got safely within the city, they spent the whole of that night at the house of a man named Charon, and again the next day in the same fashion. Phyllidas meanwhile was busily taken up with the concerns of the polemarchs, who were to celebrate a feast of Aphrodite on going out of office. Among other things, the secretary was to take this opportunity of fulfillling an old undertaking, which was the introduction of certain women to the polemarchs. They were to be the most majestic and the most beautiful to be found in Thebes. The polemarchs, on their side (and the character of the men is sufficiently marked), were looking forward to the pleasures of the night with joyful anticipation. Supper was over, and thanks to the zeal with which the master of the ceremonies responded to their mood, they were speedily intoxicated. To their oft-repeated orders to introduce their mistresses, he went out and fetched Melon and the rest, three of them dressed up as ladies and the rest as their attendant maidens. Having brought them into the treasury of the polemarchs” residence,² he returned himself and announced to Archias and his friends that the women would not present themselves as long as any of the attendants remained in the room; whereupon they promptly bade all withdraw, and Phyllidas, furnishing the servants with a stoup of wine, sent them off to the house of one of them. And now at last he introduced the mistresses, and led them to their seats beside their respective lords. It was preconcerted that as soon as they were seated they were to throw aside their veils and strike home. That is one version of the death of the polemarchs.¹ According to another, Melon and his friends came in as revellers, and so despatched their victims.

That over, Phyllidas, with three of the band, set off to the house of Leontiades. Arrived there, he knocked on the door, and sent in word that he had a message from the polemarchs. Leontiades, as chance befell, was still reclining in privacy after dinner, and his wife was seated beside him working wools. The fidelity of Phyllidas was well known to him, and he gave orders to admit him at once. They entered, slew Leontiades, and with threats silenced his wife. As they went out they ordered the door to be shut, threatening that if they found it open they would kill everyone in the house. And now that this deed was done, Phyllidas, with two of the band, presented himself at the prison, telling the gaoler he had brought a man from the polemarchs to be locked up. The gaoler opened the door, and was at once despatched, and the prisoners were released. These they speedily supplied with arms taken from the armoury in the stoa, and then led them to the Ampheion,² and bade them take up a position there, after which they at once made a proclamation calling on all Thebans to come out, horse and foot, seeing that the tyrants were dead. The citizens, indeed, as long as it was night, not knowing whom or what to trust, kept quiet, but when day dawned and revealed what had occurred, the summons was responded to with alacrity, heavy infantry and cavalry under arms alike sallying forth. Horsemen were also despatched by the now restored exiles to the two Athenian generals on the frontier; and they, being aware of the object of the message (promptly responded).³

On the other hand, the Lacedaemonian governor in the citadel, as soon as that night’s proclamation reached his ears, was not slow to send to Plataeae⁴ and Thespiae for reinforcements. The approach of the Plataeans was perceived by the Theban cavalry, who met them and killed a score of them and more, and after that achievement returned to the city, to find the Athenians from the frontier already arrived. Then they assaulted the acropolis. The troops within recognized the paucity of their own numbers, whilst the zeal of their opponents (one and all advancing to the attack) was plainly visible, and loud were the proclamations, promising rewards to those who should be first to scale the walls. All this so worked upon their fears that they agreed to evacuate the place if the citizens would allow them a safe-conduct to retire with their arms. To this request the others gladly yielded, and they made a truce. Oaths were taken on the terms aforesaid, and the citizens dismissed their adversaries. For all that, as the garrison retired, those of them who were recognized as personal foes were seized and put to death. Some were rescued through the good offices of the Athenian reinforcements from the frontier, who smuggled them across and saved them. The Thebans were not content with putting the men to death; if any of them had children, these also were sacrificed to their vengeance.

378 BC. When the news of these proceedings reached Sparta the first thing the Lacedaemonians did was to put to death the governor, who had abandoned the Cadmeia instead of awaiting reinforcements, and the next was to call out the ban against Thebes. Agesilaus had little taste to head the expedition; he pointed out that he had seen more than forty years’ service,¹ and that the exemption from foreign duty applicable to others at that age was applicable on the same principle to the king. Such were the ostensible grounds on which he excused himself from the present expedition, but his real objections lay deeper. He felt certain that if he led the expedition his fellow citizens would say: “Agesilaus caused all this trouble to the state in order to aid and abet tyrants.” Therefore he preferred to leave his countrymen to settle the matter themselves as they liked. Accordingly the ephors, instructed by the Theban exiles who had escaped the late massacres, despatched Cleombrotus. He had not commanded before, and it was the depth of winter.

Now while Chabrias, with a body of Athenian peltasts, kept watch and ward over the road through Eleutherae, Cleombrotus made his way up by the direct route to Plataeae. His column of light infantry, pushing forward in advance, fell upon the men who had been released from the Theban prison, guarding the summit, to the number of about one hundred and fifty. These, with the exception of one or two who escaped, were cut down by the peltasts, and Cleombrotus descended in person upon Plataeae, which was still friendly to Sparta. Presently he reached Thespiae, and that was the base for an advance upon Cynoscephalae, where he encamped on Theban territory. Here he halted sixteen days, and then again fell back upon Thespiae. At this latter place he now left Sphodrias as governor, with a third portion of each of the contingents of the allies, handing over to him all the moneys he had brought with him from home, with directions to supplement his force with a contingent of mercenaries.

While Sphodrias was so employed, Cleombrotus himself commenced his homeward march, following the road through Creusis at the head of his own moiety of the troops, who indeed were in considerable perplexity to discover whether they were at war with the Thebans or at peace, seeing that the general had led his army into Theban territory, had inflicted the minimum of mischief, and again retired. No sooner, however, was his back turned than a violent wind storm assailed him in his rear, which some construed as an omen clearly significant of what was about to take place. Many a blow this assailant dealt them, and as the general and his army, crossing from Creusis, scaled that face of the mountain¹ which stretches seaward, the blast hurled headlong from the precipices a string of asses, baggage and all: countless arms were wrested from the bearers” grasp and whirled into the sea; finally, numbers of the men, unable to march with their arms, deposited them at different points of the pass, first filling the hollow of their shields with stones. For the moment, then, they halted at Aegosthena, on Megarian soil, and supped as best they could. Next day they returned and recovered their arms. After this adventure the contingents lost no time in returning to their several homes, as Cleombrotus disbanded them.

Meanwhile at Athens and Thebes alike fear reigned. To the Athenians the strength of the Lacedaemonians was unmistakable: the war was plainly no longer confined to Corinth; on the contrary, the Lacedaemonians had ventured to skirt Athenian territory and to invade Thebes. They were so worked upon by their alarm that the two generals who had been privy to the insurrection of Melon against Leontiades and his party had to suffer: the one was formally tried and put to death; the other, refusing to abide his trial, was banished.

The apprehensions of the Thebans were of a different sort: their fear was rather lest they should find themselves in single-handed war with Lacedaemon. To prevent this they hit upon the following expedient. They worked upon Sphodrias,² the Spartan governor left in Thespiae, by offering him, as at least was suspected, a substantial sum, in return for which he was to make an incursion into Attica; their great object being to involve Athens and Lacedaemon in hostilities. Sphodrias lent a willing ear, and, pretending that he could easily capture Piraeus in its present gateless condition, gave his troops an early evening meal and marched out of Thespiae, saying that he would reach Piraeus before daybreak. As a matter of fact day overtook him at Thria, nor did he take any pains even to draw a veil over his intentions; on the contrary, being forced to turn aside, he amused himself by recklessly lifting cattle and sacking houses. Meanwhile some who chanced upon him in the night had fled to the city and brought news to the men of Athens that a large body of troops was approaching. It needs no saying with what speed the cavalry and heavy infantry armed themselves and stood on guard to protect the city. As chance befell, there were some Lacedaemonian ambassadors in Athens at the moment, at the house of Callias their proxenos; their names were Etymocles, Aristolochus, and Ocyllus. Immediately on receipt of the news the Athenians seized these three and imprisoned them, as not improbably concerned in the plot. Utterly taken aback by the affair themselves, the ambassadors pleaded that, had they been aware of an attempt to seize Piraeus, they would hardly have been so foolish as to put themselves into the power of the Athenians, or have selected the house of their proxenos for protection, where they were so easily to be found. It would, they further urged, soon be plain to the Athenians themselves that the state of Lacedaemon was quite as little cognisant of these proceedings as they. “You will hear before long”—such was their confident prediction—“that Sphodrias has paid for his behavior by his life.” On this wise the ambassadors were acquitted of all concern in the matter and dismissed. Sphodrias himself was recalled and indicted by the ephors on the capital charge, and, in spite of his refusal to face the trial, he was acquitted. This miscarriage of justice, as it seemed to many, who described it as unprecedented in Lacedaemon, has an explanation.

Sphodrias had a son named Cleonymus. He was just at the age when youth emerges from boyhood, very handsome and of high repute among his fellows. To this youth Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, was passionately attached. Now the friends of Cleombrotus, as comrades of Sphodrias, were disposed to acquit him; but they feared Agesilaus and his friends, not to mention the intermediate party, for the enormity of his proceeding was clear. So when Sphodrias addressed his son Cleonymus: “You have it in your power, my son, to save your father, if you will, by begging Archidamus to dispose Agesilaus favorably to me at my trial.” Thus instructed, the youth did not shrink from visiting Archidamus, and implored him for his sake to save his father. Now when Archidamus saw how Cleonymus wept, he too was melted to tears as he stood beside him, but to his petition he made answer thus: “Nay, Cleonymus, it is the bare truth I tell you, I cannot so much as look my father in the face;¹ if I wished anything transacted for me in the city I would beg assistance from the whole world sooner than from my father. Still, since it is you who bid me, rest assured I will do my best to bring this about for you as you desire.” He then left the common hall² and retired home to rest, but with dawn he arose and kept watch that his father might not go out without his knowledge. Presently, when he saw him ready to go forth, first some citizen was present, and then another and another; and in each case he stepped aside, while they held his father in conversation. By and by a stranger would come, and then another; and so it went on until he even found himself making way for a string of petitioning attendants. At last, when his father had turned his back on the Eurotas, and was entering his house again, he was fain to turn his back also and be gone without so much as accosting him. The next day he fared no better: all happened as on the previous day. Now Agesilaus, although he had his suspicions why his son went to and fro in this way, asked no questions, but left him to take his own course. Archidamus, on his side, was longing, as was natural, to see his friend Cleonymus; but how he was to visit him, without having held the desired conversation with his father, he knew not. The friends of Sphodrias, observing that he who was once so frequent a visitor had ceased coming, were in agony; he must surely have been deterred by the reproaches of his father. At last, however, Archidamus dared to go to his father, and said, “Father, Cleonymus bids me ask you to save his father; grant me this boon, if possible, I beg you.” He answered: “For yourself, my son, I can make excuse, but how shall my city make excuse for me if I fail to condemn that man who, for his own base purpose, traffics to the injury of the state?” For the moment the other made no reply, but retired crestfallen before the verdict of justice. Afterward, whether the thought was his own or that he was prompted by some other, he came and said, “Father, if Sphodrias had done no wrong you would have released him, that I know; but now, if he has done something wrong, may he not be excused by you for our sakes?” And the father answered: “If it can be done without loss of honor on our parts, so shall it be.” At that word the young man, in deep despondency, turned and went. Now one of the friends of Sphodrias, conversing with Etymocles, remarked to him: “You are all bent on putting Sphodrias to death, I take it, you friends of Agesilaus?” And Etymocles replied: “If that be so, we all are bent on one thing, and Agesilaus on another, since in all his conversations he still harps upon one string: that Sphodrias has done a wrong there is no denying, yet Sphodrias is a man who, from boyhood to ripe manhood,¹ was ever constant to the call of honor. To put such a man as that to death is hard; nay, Sparta needs such soldiers.” The other accordingly went off and reported what he had just heard to Cleonymus; and he in the joy of his heart went straightway to Archidamus and said: “Now we know that you care for us; rest assured, Archidamus, that we in turn will take great pains that you shall never have cause to blush for our friendship.” Nor did his acts belie his words; but so long as he lived he was ever faithful to the code of Spartan chivalry; and at Leuctra, fighting in front of the king side by side with Deinon the polemarch, thrice fell or ever he yielded up his breath—foremost of the citizens amidst the foe. And so, albeit he caused his friend the bitterest sorrow, yet to that which he had promised he was faithful, seeing he wrought Archidamus no shame, but contrariwise shed luster on him.² In this way Sphodrias obtained his acquittal.

At Athens the friends of Boeotia were not slow to instruct the people that his countrymen, so far from punishing Sphodrias, had even applauded him for his designs on Athens; and in consequence of this the Athenians not only furnished Piraeus with gates, but set to work to build a fleet, and displayed great zeal in sending aid to the Boeotians.³ The Lacedaemonians, on their side, called out the ban against the Thebans; and being persuaded that in Agesilaus they would find a more prudent general than Cleombrotus had proved, they begged the former to undertake the expedition.⁴ He, replying that the wish of the state was for him law, began making preparations to take the field.

Now he had come to the conclusion that without the occupation of Mount Cithaeron any attack on Thebes would be difficult. Learning then that the men of Cleitor were just now at war with the men of Orchomenus,⁵ and were maintaining a foreign brigade, he came to an understanding with the Cleitorians that in the event of his needing it, this force would be at his service; and as soon as the sacrifices for crossing the frontier proved favorable, he sent to the commander of the Cleitorian mercenaries, and handing him a month’s pay, ordered him to occupy Cithaeron with his men. This was before he himself reached Tegea. Meanwhile he sent a message to the men of Orchomenus that so long as the campaign lasted they must cease from war. If any city during his campaign abroad took on itself to march against another city, his first duty, he declared, would be to march against such offending city in accordance with a decree of the allies.

Thus crossing Cithaeron he reached Thespiae,¹ and from that base made the territory of Thebes his objective. Finding the great plain fenced round with ditch and palisade, as also the most valuable portions of the country, he adopted the plan of shifting his encampment from one place to another. Regularly each day, after the morning meal, he marched out his troops and ravaged the territory, confining himself to his own side of the palisadings and trench. The appearance of Agesilaus at any point whatever was a signal to the enemy, who within the circuit of his entrenchment kept moving in parallel line to the invader, and was ever ready to defend the threatened point. On one occasion, the Spartan king having retired and being well on the road back to camp, the Theban cavalry, hitherto invisible, suddenly dashed out, following one of the regularly constructed roads out of the entrenchment. Taking advantage of the enemy’s position—his light troops breaking off to supper or busily preparing the meal, and the cavalry, some of them on their legs just² dismounted, and others in the act of mounting—on they rode, pressing the charge home. Man after man of the light troops was cut down; and three cavalry troopers besides—two Spartans, Cleas and Epicydidas by name, and the third a provincial³ named Eudicus, who had not had time to mount their horses, and whose fate was shared by some Theban⁴ exiles. But presently Agesilaus wheeled about and advanced with his heavy infantry to the succour; his cavalry dashed at the enemy’s cavalry, and the flower of the heavy infantry, the ten-years-service men, charged by their side. The Theban cavalry at that instant looked like men who had been imbibing too freely in the noontide heat—that is to say, they awaited the charge long enough to hurl their spears; but the volley sped without effect, and wheeling about within that distance they left twelve of their number dead upon the field.

Agesilaus had not failed to note with what regularity the enemy presented himself after the morning meal. Turning the observation to account, he offered sacrifice with day’s dawn, and marched with all possible speed, and so crossed within the palisadings, through what might have been a desert, as far as defense or sign of living being went. Once well inside, he proceeded to cut down and set on fire everything up to the city gates. After this exploit he beat a retreat, retiring into Thespiae, where he fortified their citadel for them. Here he left Phoebidas as governor, while he himself crossed the passes back into Megara. Arrived here he disbanded the allies, and led the city troops homeward.

After the departure of Agesilaus, Phoebidas devoted himself to harrying the Thebans by sending out robber bands, and laid waste their land by a system of regular incursions. The Thebans, on their side, desiring to retaliate, marched out with their whole force into the territory of Thespiae. But once well inside the district they found themselves closely beset by Phoebidas and his light troops, who would not give them the slightest chance to scatter from their main body, so that the Thebans, heartily vexed at the turn their foray had taken, beat a retreat quicker than they had come. The muleteers threw away with their own hands the fruits they had captured, in their anxiety to get home as quickly as possible; so dire a dread had fallen upon the invading army. This was the chance for the Spartan to press home his attack boldly, keeping his light division in close attendance on himself, and leaving the heavy infantry under orders to follow him in battle order. He was in hopes even that he might put the enemy to complete rout, so valiantly did he lead the advance, encouraging the light troops to “come to a close grip with the invadors,” or summoning the heavy infantry of the Thespiaeans to “bring up their supports.” Presently the Theban cavalry as they retired found themselves face to face with an impassable glen or ravine, where in the first instance they collected in a mob, and next wheeled right-about-face in sheer resourcelessness where to cross. The handful of light troops who formed the Spartan vanguard took fright at the Thebans and fled, and the Theban horsemen seeing this put in practice the lesson of attack which the fugitives taught them. As for Phoebidas himself, he and two or three with him fell sword in hand, whereupon his mercenary troops all took to their heels.

When the stream of fugitives reached the Thespiaean heavy infantry reserves, they too, in spite of much boasting beforehand that they would never yield to Thebans, took to flight, though there was now absolutely no pursuit whatever, for it was now late. The number slain was not large, but, for all that, the men of Thespiae did not come to a standstill until they found themselves safe inside their walls. As a sequel, the hopes and spirits of the Thebans were again kindled into new life, and they made campaigns against Thespiae and the other provincial cities of Boeotia.¹ It must be admitted that in each case the democratical party retired from these cities to Thebes; since absolute governments had been established in all of them on the pattern previously adopted at Thebes; and the result was that the friends of Lacedaemon in these cities also needed her assistance.² After the death of Phoebidas the Lacedaemonians despatched a polemarch with a division by sea to form the garrison of Thespiae.

377 BC. With the advent of spring³ the ephors again called out the ban against Thebes, and requested Agesilaus to lead the expedition, as on the former campaign. He, holding to his former theory with regard to the invasion, even before sacrificing the customary frontier sacrifice, sent a despatch to the polemarch at Thespiae, with orders to seize the pass which commands the road over Cithaeron, and to guard it against his arrival. Then, having once more crossed the pass and reached Plataeae, he again made a feint of marching first into Thespiae, and so sent a despatch ordering supplies to be in readiness, and all embassies to be waiting his arrival there; so that the Thebans concentrated their attention on the approaches from Thespiae, which they strongly guarded. Next morning, however, Agesilaus sacrificed at daybreak and set out on the road to Erythrae,⁴ and completing in one day what was a good two days’ march for an army, gave the Thebans the slip, and crossed their palisade-work at Scolus before the enemy had arrived from the closely-guarded point at which he had effected his entrance formerly. This done he proceeded to ravage the eastward-facing districts of the city of Thebes as far as the territory of Tanagra, for at that date Tanagra was still in the hands of Hypatodorus and his party, who were friends of the Lacedaemonians. After that he turned to retire, keeping the walls of Thebes on his left. But the Thebans, who had stolen, as it were, upon the scene, drew up at the spot called “The Old Wife’s Breast,”⁵ keeping the trench and palisading in their rear: they were persuaded that here, if anywhere, lay their chance to risk a decisive engagement, the ground at this point being somewhat narrow and difficult to traverse. Agesilaus, however, in view of the situation, refused to accept the challenge. Instead of marching upon them he turned sharp off in the direction of the city; and the Thebans, in alarm for the city in its undefended state, abandoned the favorable ground on which they were drawn up in battle line, and retired at the double toward the city along the road to Potniae, which seemed the safer route. This last move of Agesilaus may be described as a stroke of genius:¹ while it allowed him to retire to a distance, it forced the enemy themselves to retreat at the double. In spite of this, however, one or two of the polemarchs, with their divisions, charged the foe as he raced past. But again the Thebans, from the vantage-ground of their heights, sent volleys of spears upon the assailants, which cost one of the polemarchs, Alypetus, his life. He fell pierced by a spear. But again from this particular crest the Thebans on their side were forced to turn in flight; so much so that the Sciritae, with some of the cavalry, scaled up and speedily cut down the rearmost ranks of the Thebans as they galloped past into the city. When, however, they were close under cover of their walls the Thebans turned, and the Sciritae seeing them retreated at more than a steady walking pace. No one, it is true, was slain; but the Thebans all the same set up a trophy in record of the incident at the point where the scaling party had been forced to retreat.

And now, since the hour was come, Agesilaus fell back and encamped on the very site on which he had seen the enemy drawn up in battle array. Next day he retired by the road to Thespiae. The light troops, who formed a free corps in the pay of the Thebans, hung audaciously at his heels. Their shouts could be heard calling out to Chabrias² for not bringing up his supports; when the cavalry of the Olynthians (who now contributed a contingent in accordance with their oaths)³ wheeled round on them, caught the pursuers in the heat of their pursuit, and drove them uphill, putting large numbers of them to the sword—so quickly are infantry overhauled by cavalry on steep ground which can be ridden over. Being arrived within the walls of Thespiae, Agesilaus found the citizens in a state of party feud, the men of Lacedaemonian proclivities desiring to put their political opponents, one of whom was Menon, to death¹—a proceeding which Agesilaus would not sanction. After having healed their differences and bound them over by solemn oath to keep the peace with one another, he at once retired, taking his old route across Cithaeron to Megara. Here once more he disbanded the allies, and at the head of the city troops himself marched back to Sparta.

The Thebans had not gathered in the fruits of their soil for two years now, and began to be sorely pinched for want of corn; they therefore sent a body of men on board a couple of triremes to Pagasae, with ten talents² in hand for the purchase of corn. But while these commissioners were engaged in effecting their purchases, Alcetas, the Lacedaemonian who was garrisoning Oreus,³ fitted out three triremes, taking precautions that no rumor of his proceedings should leak out. As soon as the corn was shipped and the vessels under weigh, he captured not only the corn but the triremes, escort and all, numbering no less than three hundred men. This done he locked up his prisoners in the citadel, where he himself was also quartered. Now there was a youth, the son of a native of Oreus, fair of mien and of gentle breeding,⁴ who danced attendance on the commandant: and the latter must needs leave the citadel and go down to busy himself with this youth. This was a piece of carelessness which the prisoners did not fail to observe, and turned to good account by seizing the citadel, whereupon the town revolted, and the Thebans experienced no further difficulty in obtaining corn supplies.

376 BC. At the return of spring Agesilaus lay sick—a bedridden invalid. The history of the case is this: During the withdrawal of his army from Thebes the year before, when at Megara, while mounting from the Aphrodision⁵ to the Government house he ruptured a vein or other vessel of the body. This was followed by a rush of blood to his sound leg. The knee was much swelled, and the pain intolerable, until a Syracusan surgeon made an incision in the vein near the ankle. The blood thus let flowed night and day; do what they could to stop the discharge, all failed, till the patient fainted away; then it ceased. In this plight Agesilaus was conveyed home on a litter to Lacedaemon, and remained an invalid the rest of that summer and throughout the winter.

But to resume: at the first burst of spring the Lacedaemonians again called out the ban, and gave orders to Cleombrotus to lead the expedition. The king found himself presently with his troops at the foot of Cithaeron, and his light infantry advanced to occupy the pass which commands the road. But here they found a detachment of Thebans and Athenians already in occupation of the desired height, who for a while suffered them to approach; but when they were close upon them, sprang from their position and charged, putting about forty to the sword. This incident was sufficient to convince Cleombrotus that to invade Thebes by this mountain passage was out of the question, and in this faith he led back and disbanded his troops.

The allies met in Lacedaemon, and arguments were adduced on the part of the allies to show that faintheartedness would very soon lead to their being absolutely worn out by the war. They had got it in their power, it was urged, to fit out a fleet far outnumbering that of Athens, and to reduce that city by starvation; it was open to them, in the self-same ships, to carry an army across into Theban territory, and they had a choice of routes—the road into Phocis, or, if they preferred, by Creusis. After thus carefully considering the matter they manned a fleet of sixty triremes, and Pollis was appointed admiral in command. Nor indeed were their expectations altogether belied. The Athenians were soon so closely blockaded that their corn vessels could get no farther than Geraestus;¹ there was no inducing them to coast down father south, with a Lacedaemonian navy hovering about Aegina and Ceos and Andros. The Athenians, making a virtue of necessity, manned their ships in person, gave battle to Pollis under the leadership of Chabrias, and came out of the sea-fight² victorious.

375 BC. Then the corn supplies flowed freely into Athens. The Lacedaemonians, on their side, were preparing to transport an army across the water into Boeotia, when the Thebans sent a request to the Athenians urging them to despatch an armament round Peloponnesus, under the persuasion that if this were done the Lacedaemonians would find it impossible at once to guard their own or the allied territory in that part of the world, and at the same time to convery an army of any size to operate against Thebes. The proposals fell in with the present temper of the Athenians, irritated with Lacedaemon on account of the exploit of Sphodrias. Accordingly they eagerly manned a fleet of sixty vessels, appointing Timotheus as admiral in command, and despatched it on a cruise round Peloponnesus.

The Thebans, seeing that there had been no hostile invasion of their territory for so long (neither during the campaign of Cleombrotus nor now,¹ whilst Timotheus prosecuted his coasting voyage), felt emboldened to carry out a campaign on their own account against the provincial cities;² and one by one they again recovered them.

Timotheus in his cruise reached Corcyra, and reduced it at a blow. That done, he neither enslaved the inhabitants nor drove them into exile, nor changed their laws. And of this conduct he reaped the benefit of the increased cordiality³ of all the cities of those parts. The Lacedaemonians thereupon fitted out and despatched a counter fleet, with Nicolochus in command, an officer of consummate boldness. This admiral no sooner caught sight of Timotheus’s fleet than without hesitation, and in spite of the absence of six Ambraciot vessels which formed part of his squadron, he gave battle, with fifty-five ships to the enemy’s sixty. The result was a defeat at the moment, and Timotheus set up a trophy at Alyzia. But as soon as the six missing Ambraciot vessels had reinforced him—the ships of Timotheus meanwhile being docked and undergoing repairs—he bore down upon Alyzia in search of the Athenian, and as Timotheus refused to put out to meet him, the Lacedaemonian in turn set up a trophy on the nearest group of islands.

374 BC. Timotheus, after repairing his original squadron and manning more vessels from Corcyra, found himself at the head of more than seventy ships. His naval superiority was undisputed, but he was forced to send to Athens for moneys, seeing his fleet was large and his wants not trifling.