Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14/VI
VI
THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF MACEDONIAN SUPREMACY
The war began with an attack upon Plataea by the Thebans B.C. 431. The three hundred Thebans who surprised the town were overpowered and killed. But the Plataeans knew that this would lead to their being besieged, and obtained a reinforcement for their garrison from Athens. The siege went on till B.C. 427. That was one point of permanent war; but the Peloponnesian forces did not join the Thebans in the siege till the beginning of B.C. 429. Meanwhile Athens was engaged at two points, first in the siege of Potidaea, which did not surrender till the autumn of B.C. 430; and secondly, in sustaining invasions of their own territory. These invasions were regularly repeated in B.C. 431, 430, 428, 427. In B.C. 429 and 426 they were omitted, in the former, owing to the Spartans being engaged at Plataea, in the latter owing to earthquakes. The policy recommended by Pericles in regard to these invasions was for the people to remove into the city with all they could bring with them and leave the invaders to do their worst with the country. Meanwhile the Athenian fleets were to harry the coasts of the Peloponnese, and carry the arms of Athens into Western Greece and the Islands of the Ionian Sea. Thus in B.C. 431 Cephallenia was reduced, and in B.C. 429 Acarnania was successfully defended against a combined attack of Peloponnesians and Ambraciots. In this same year Phormio twice defeated the Peloponnesian fleet, which in the second battle was commanded by Brasidas, one of the most able commanders produced by Sparta in the early years of the war, who failed, however, in an attack on the Piraeus. These years were a time of great distress in Athens owing to an outbreak of plague, which caused the death of many thousands, and demoralised the survivors by the constant peril, and the relaxation of all the usual restraints which it produced. The people turned fiercely upon Pericles, whom they regarded as the origin of their sufferings, both as having caused the war and induced them to crowd the city with countrymen and cattle. He was fined and deposed from his office of Strategus. And though the people shortly repented, and finding that they could not do without him, reinstated him in power, within a twelvemonth he himself fell a victim to the pestilence (B.C. 429).
The next two years (B.C. 428–427) were marked by the revolt of Lesbos, which compelled the Athenians to maintain a blockade of Mitylene through the winter, and involved them in heavy expenses. The Peloponnesians, however, failed to take advantage of this difficulty in time. Before their fleet reached Lesbos in the following spring an uprising of the democratic party in Mitylene had compelled a surrender of the town to the Athenians. The Athenians were particularly exasperated by this outbreak at Lesbos. Up to this time their fleets had been employed, on the whole with success, in the West. This revolt forced them to maintain the conflict in two directions at once. They therefore determined to make a signal example, and a decree was actually passed for the execution of all the inhabitants of Mitylene. Next day, indeed, the people repented, and the decree was reversed, in spite of the strenuous opposition of Cleon, a demagogue who had risen into power since the death of Pericles. Still, about a thousand of the men who had been ringleaders in the revolt were executed, and their lands divided among Athenian cleruchs.
Freed from this danger, the Athenian fleets were again employed in the west to support the democrats of Corcyra, who, after violent civil wars and terrible massacres, had expelled the aristocrats. Here, as at Lesbos, the dilatoriness or cowardice of the Spartan commander gave the Athenians the advantage. But though the aristocrats were compelled to leave the island, some of them shortly afterwards returned, and the civil disorders thus renewed prevented Corcyra from counting for anything henceforth in the war. The Athenians, however, still had their eyes directed westward, and this year saw the first of these interferences in the affairs of Sicily, which were several times repeated with the vain hope of establishing an Athenian supremacy there, and gaining a new vantage-ground for attacks upon the Peloponnese. The Greek cities in Sicily, like those in other parts, were perpetually at feud, Ionian against Dorian, and there would seldom be wanting some pretext for Athenian intervention.
But it was necessary first to secure Western Greece, and in B.C. 426 Demosthenes led an army into Ætolia. But the Ætolians, though living in scattered villages without walled towns, were an active and gallant people, and knowing every part of the country, harassed and defeated Demosthenes, and followed up their success by an attack upon Naupactus, in which the Athenians had settled the vanquished Messenians, valuing their possession of it highly as commanding the entrance to the gulf of Corinth. But a peace formed between Acarnania and Ambracia at the close of this year put an end to these operations in the West, and though the Athenians continued to send ships and men to Sicily on various pretexts, nothing of importance occurred there, and a general pacification effected between the Sicilian cities in B.C. 424 closed that field for Athenian energies also.
The interest of the struggle in B.C. 425 and 424 is rather in Greece itself. In B.C. 425 the accidental occupation of Pylos, in Messenia, by Demosthenes, who was on his way to Sicily with general orders to operate on the coast of the Peloponnese in the course of his voyage in any way that seemed good to him, caused great alarm at Sparta. A party of Spartan soldiers were placed on Sphacteria, a small island opposite Pylos, and stretching across the bay, who in their turn were blockaded by the Athenian fleet, and after holding out for some time were captured by Cleon, who, accusing the generals of backwardness, was sent personally to take the command. A Messenian garrison was then placed in Pylos to carry on a constant warfare of plunder on Lacedaemonian territory. The Spartans were now eager for peace and the recovery of their men who were prisoners at
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| Walker & Boutall sc. |
Reproduced from Mr. Hill's "Illustrations of School Classics."
(By permission of Messrs. Macmillan & Co.)
Athens. But the Athenians were too triumphant to listen, and the unexpected success of Cleon, who had, as he promised, taken the Spartans in Sphacteria within twenty clays, had given him great influence in the assembly, and induced the people to follow his policy, which was to continue the war at all hazards, rather than that of the cautious and respectable Nicias, who was for making peace. They won a victory over the Corinthians in the autumn of B.C. 425; in the next year they occupied the island of Cythera, off the southern shore of Lacedaemonia, as well as other places on the mainland; they seized Nisaea, the harbour-town of Megara; and finally they were inspired with hopes of securing Boeotia, where a democratic party, envious of Thebes, was inviting their presence. A double invasion was planned, but owing to some mistake, the two armies failed to unite, and the Athenians sustained a severe defeat at Delium.
The same year also the war was transferred by Brasidas to the Thraceward towns. Among other places he successfully attacked Amphipolis, which the historian Thucydides, commanding a small fleet at Thasus, failed to relieve. The Athenians were particularly sensitive as to the loss of these towns owing to their corn and timber trade with them, and the countries round the Black Sea, which necessitated making voyages along the northern shores.
Accordingly in B.C. 423 they concluded a year's truce with a view of a more permanent settlement. Nevertheless the year was not free from war. A revolt of two cities in the Chalcidian peninsula, Mende and Scione, gave Brasidas an opportunity of seizing them, on the pretext that the revolt preceded the truce; and the expedition sent by the Athenians to recover them was therefore in fact, if not in theory, a kind of war against Spartan forces. At the expiration of the truce (B.C. 422) an expedition was sent to recover Amphipolis and Torone, and the war went on in those parts with disastrous results to the Athenians, who were defeated in a battle near Amphipolis, in which both Brasidas and Cleon fell.
The winter was employed in negotiations for peace. One difficulty was, that though both Athens and Sparta, from mutual disappointment at the result of the war, were anxious to make terms, the chief allies of Sparta—Boeotia, Corinth, Elis Megara—were unwilling to join. Another difficulty was, that though one of the terms of the peace was a mutual restitution of conquered states, this restitution was not always possible. Amphipolis refused to be handed back, and the Thebans declined to restore Plataea; consequently, though the Athenians made a separate peace for forty years with Sparta, and handed back the Sphacterian prisoners, they retained Nisaea (the port of Megara) and Pylos.
The interval of professed peace, therefore, did not promise well for a lasting settlement. In fact, intrigues were at once set on foot to establish a new confederacy independent of both Athens and Sparta, of which Argos was to be the head. It was joined by Corinth, Mantinea (in Arcadia), Elis, and the towns of the Chalcidic peninsula. The Boeotians did not join, and shortly afterwards made a separate treaty with Sparta. But in B.C. 420 Alcibiades, a young and reckless but very able statesman, who now first appears in public business, induced the Athenians to join the Argive confederacy, which, thus strengthened, began warlike operations against other towns in the Peloponnese to compel their adherence; while the Athenians placed escaped helots and Messenians in Pylos with a view of fomenting fresh plundering expeditions upon Spartan territory (B.C. 419). The Spartans could not view these measures with indifference. They declared war on Argos (B.C. 418) and defeated the allied army at Mantinea. Not only was Mantinea compelled to submit, but a revolution took place at Argos itself, which put the oligarchical party in power, which at once made a treaty with Sparta. It is true that next year (B.C. 417) a counter revolution restored the democrats, who rejoined Athens, but the battle of Mantinea practically put an end to efficient opposition to Sparta in the Peloponnese and broke up the conspiracy.
Athens was still nominally at peace with Sparta. But a series of offensive acts on her part led to the open renunciation of that peace. Pylos was a standing ground of quarrel. Athenian troops had fought at Mantinea on the side of Argos; in B.C. 416 an Athenian fleet blockaded the island of Melos (a colony of Sparta) to compel its Dorian inhabitants to be contributors to the Athenian confederacy. At the beginning of the war they had contributed to the Spartan war fund though professing to take neither side. This had brought upon them an attack from Athens in B.C. 426, and though Thucydides says that they stoutly refused to yield, their name appears on the list of the Athenian confederacy of the next year (B.C. 425) for fifteen talents. This is a large sum (more like a fine than an ordinary contribution), and it was perhaps their omitting to pay it that brought the Athenian fleet upon them again in B.C. 416. At any rate, the Spartans failed to assist them, and after several months blockade of their chief city they were forced to surrender. The Athenians put all men of military age to death, and sold the women and children into slavery, dividing their lands among seven hundred of their own settlers.
Encouraged by the indifference shown by the Spartans to this cruel deed and their failure to stir up Perdiccas of Macedonia and the Chalicidians, the Athenians began schemes of greater importance. As before, their eyes turned to the West; and ad- vantage of a quarrel between two Sicilian cities, Egesta and Selinus, was taken to aim at the conquest of all Sicily. Ambassadors were sent to Egesta to find out whether that city was wealthy and likely to contribute what it had promised when applying for aid. In the spring of B.C. 415 they returned with a favourable report, having been themselves deceived by a show of wealth.[1] Nicias was, as usual, cautious, and tried to dissuade the people from such an enterprise; but Alcibiades
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| Photo] | [Alinari. |
ALCIBIADES, C. B.C. 450-404.
(Uffizi Gallery, Florence.)
carried the day against him without difficulty, because he was for the moment appealing to what had long been a cherished hope of the people. Nicias was appointed general with two others—Alcibiades and Lamachus. The former, brilliant, versatile, and unscrupulous, had always been his political opponent and must have been a most un- welcome colleague. The latter was a good soldier and honest man, but from lack of position and wealth could exercise little influence. Nicias tried in vain to damp the popular ardour by the magnitude of his demands as to ships, men, and money. But everything was voted without a murmur, so great was the wealth expected from the spoil or trade of the island.
The aristocratic party, who supported Nicias, then tried to discredit Alcibiades in other ways. Rumours were set afloat of daring acts of profanity committed by him and some other of his friends and boon companions. They were alleged to have repeatedly performed the ceremonies of the initiation into the Eleusinian mysteries in private houses. During many years of the war the plain lying between the city and Eleusis had been so open to attacks of the enemy that the usual procession to Eleusis had been impossible. It had been, therefore, altogether omitted, and the worshippers, if they went at all, went by sea. This may have suggested the performance of these rites by Alcibiades and his friends. Still the publication of them to the uninitiated was regarded as a profanation which would place the perpetrators under the curse of the Eumolpidae, or priests of Demeter, only to be expiated by their death. It would certainly unfit them for any public employment.
But just before the sailing of the expedition another outrage in the city roused still more both the religious and political fears of the people. The Hermae—stone pillars surmounted by busts of Hermes—stood in great numbers in the streets and colonnades. These were nearly all found to have been mutilated in one night. In addition to the shock given to the religious ideas of the people by this piece of vandalism, there was the uneasy feeling with which any concerted and secret action was always regarded, as indicating revolutionary plots, almost certain to be for the establishment of a tyranny. The peace party pointed to Alcibiades as the ringleader in the mischief, though not long afterwards Andocides confessed his guilt and named his accomplices. It seems unlikely that as he was starting on an expedition which he ardently desired, and from which he expected such great advantages, he should have so wantonly done what he must have known would thwart his own plans. It is more probable that it was a mere freak of dissipation, or deliberately contrived by his enemies to discredit him. He urged that he should be put on his trial at once, and not sent out in command while labouring under such a suspicion. The people, however, were too eager for the expedition, and too much convinced of his military abilities to grant the request. His enemies supported this vote, for they thought that they could attack him with a better
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| Photo] | [Brogi. |
SATYR AND CHILD, AS A HERM.
(Lateran Museum.)
hope of success when the people were not under the spell of his eloquence and charm. The fleet, therefore, left the Piraeus after solemn prayer and libation, and amidst the cheers and encouragement of the people who crowded down to the harbour. The armament was on an unusual scale of magnificence. There were a hundred Athenian triremes, with fifty from Lesbos and Chos, four thousand Athenian hoplites with three hundred cavalry, besides many more from the allied states. The crews were picked men, and the troops selected with special care, while great sums of money had been lavished on the equipment and ornamentation of the ships as well as of the men. The fleet was accompanied by a large number of transports and private trading vessels whose owners hoped to find opportunities for profitable traffic in Sicily. The whole armament made for Corcyra, where large forces of the allies of Athens were ordered to meet them.
But from the first moment that this great armament left Corcyra for Iapygia, in the south of Italy, one ominous difficulty after another seemed to predict failure. The cities on the Italian coast till they reached Rhegium refused to furnish supplies; and at Rhegium, though allowed to purchase what they needed, they could get no intelligence that any Sicilian cities were prepared to welcome them, nor could the three commanders agree on the plan of operations. Nicias was for attempting nothing beyond the professed object of the expedition—the settlement of the quarrel between Egesta and Selinus. Lamachus and Alcibiades were for carrying out its real object—the conquest of Sicily. But even they differed as to the means. Lamachus was for sailing direct to Syracuse, Alcibiades for first making an attempt to win over other Sicilian towns and native Sicels to their side. But when the plan of Alcibiades was finally accepted and the armament moved to Catana—which had been induced almost by accident to admit them—it was met by a trireme sent by the Athenians to recall Alcibiades to stand his trial for impiety. His enemies had succeeded in his absence in stirring up the popular feeling against him, and thus the ablest of the generals was lost to the expedition, and a most dangerous enemy was secured for Athens. For Alcibiades sailing, with others recalled with him, on his own private trireme (which his family had for some time past maintained) eluded his escort at Thurii. Waiting till it had departed for home in despair of finding him, he crossed to the Peloponnese. There he instigated the Spartans to take up the cause of the Syracusans, and especially to effect a diversion by permanently occupying a post in Attica. Meanwhile at Catana nothing was done for some months. When at last the Syracusan forces were tempted towards Catana, and the Athenian commanders taking advantage of this movement made a descent upon Syracuse by sea, though they defeated a Syracusan army, they found it too late in the year to begin a regular siege.
Next spring (B.C. 414), however, active operations were begun. The Athenians landed at Thapsus, surprised the high ground above Syracuse, called Epipolae, and began constructing lines intended to extend from shore to shore, while their ships blockaded the harbour. For a brief space all seemed going well; the Syracusans were frequently repulsed in sallies against these lines (though Lamachus was killed in one of them); and in their despair they deposed their generals, Hermocrates and his colleagues, and began treating with Nicias for a surrender. The rapid reversal of these fair prospects is one of the most dramatic incidents in military history, and may be directly traced to Alcibiades. It was by his advice that the Spartans resolved upon taking an active part in a war, which in itself did not concern them or justify a breach of the fifty years' peace. That justification was, however, easily found in a plundering expedition on the part of the Athenians on the coast of Laconia. Gylippus was despatched from Sparta with a small force and arrived at Tarentum when the fortunes of the Athenians seemed at their highest point. He might even now have been intercepted, but Nicias regarded the smallness of his force with contempt, and made no effort to prevent his sailing through the straits. He therefore coasted along the northern shore of Sicily and landed at Himera. Here he collected large numbers both of Greeks and native Sicels and marched to Syracuse, penetrating the Athenian lines at a point where they were incomplete and weakly guarded. His arrival turned the scale completely. A cross-wall was built which for ever prevented the completion of the circumvallation by the besiegers, and Nicias for the rest of the season had to remain on the defensive. In the winter he sent home a despatch detailing the difficulties of his position, the deterioration of his ships, and the diminution of his forces by losses on the field, sickness, and desertion. He begged to be recalled, as being broken in health, and he demanded at any rate to be reinforced by a second armament on the same scale as that originally sent. The people refused to relieve him of his command, but voted a large reinforcement, which sailed in the spring of B.C. 413, under Demosthenes and Eurymedon. But it was too late. Nicias had lost Epipolae: he was encamped on the low ground south of the town open to attacks from the Syracusan cavalry at the Olympieium, though protected on the seaboard by his ships. The Athenians still dominated the Great Harbour; but Gylippus used his successes on land to encourage the Syracusans to send their ships out of their own inner harbour to try conclusions with the Athenian fleet. At first they met with reverses, but these were made up for by the capture of Athenian stores and magazines on Plemmyrium, the headland forming the southern shore of the Great Harbour. They were also strongly reinforced by troops from most of the Sicilian towns. Lastly, just before the arrival of the relieving squadron from Athens the Syracusans, who had now learnt to remedy defects in their ships, gained an important victory at sea. Nicias was therefore in a very dangerous position.
For a brief period the spirits of the Athenians were revived by the arrival of their new armament. But everything went wrong. An attempt to recover Epipolae was repulsed with great loss, and when Demosthenes and Eurymedon therefore wished to take the whole force home, Nicias refused on the ground that the people would resent it. Yet they would probably have prevailed had it not been for an eclipse of the moon, after which the seers forbade any movement for a month, and Nicias was firm in refusing to disobey the warning. The result was that the Syracusans again attacked them by land and sea. The land attack was repulsed, but the defeat of the fleet was so complete that all idea of any further offensive movement had to be abandoned. The best they could hope would be to escape in safety. But the Syracusans blocked the mouth of the Great Harbour, and therefore escape could only be effected by a naval success in the harbour itself. Eurymedon had fallen in the previous engagement, but Demosthenes now took command at sea, while Nicias, who was displaying great energy, remained with the land forces, to protect those crews which were forced ashore. The fight was long and desperate, but in the end the Athenian ships were disastrously defeated; such of them as were not captured or sunk were run ashore near the Athenian camp into which the crews fled for safety.
Nothing now remained but to retreat by land into the centre of the island where friendly Sicels might aid or protect them. But even now their evil destiny pursued them. Instead of retreating at once, as was the first impulse of Nicias and Demosthenes, they were induced by a cunning message of Hermocrates, purporting to come from friends within the city, to delay the start to the second night. This gave the enemy time to block the roads, and make preparation for harassing their march. Accordingly, on the next day both Demosthenes and Nicias, who were each commanding a column, were overtaken and compelled to surrender. In spite of the protest of Gylippus, both were put to the sword; while the captured Athenians were sold as slaves or confined in the quarries near Syracuse, where large numbers perished. In grateful contrast to this cruelty stories were told of some who gained the favour of their masters and ultimately their freedom by being able to recite passages from the plays of Euripides. Seldom had the destruction of so large and splendid a force been so complete. The disaster affected a very large part of Greece. Thucydides gives us the names of about thirty-eight states from which a certain number of citizens were serving in the Athenian force. They include towns or peoples of all parts of Hellas, Sicily, Italy, Ionia, the Aegean islands and Asiatic Greece.
The defeat of this great armament, therefore, must have caused mourning all over Greece, and a keen sense of the weakened prestige of Athens; which was farther hampered by the permanent occupation of Decelea, only about fifteen miles from the city, by a Peloponnesian force commanded by a Spartan king. Accordingly there was a widely-spread inclination to revolt among the subject allies. The Persian satraps in Asia Minor, Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes, saw their opportunity of reasserting their master's authority over the Greek cities in Asia, and his influence in Greece generally. Very early in the Peloponnesian war there had been communications between the Spartans and the Persian court, and now (B.C. 412–411) a regular agreement was come to with Tissaphernes. At first he demanded that the king should recover all that his predecessors had held, but as this might have been interpreted to include the islands, and perhaps all Greece as far south as Boeotia, the Spartans recoiled from such a betrayal, but finally agreed that he should be acknowledged as lord over all the cities in Asia. A large number of these cities had already been instigated to break off from the Athenian confederacy as well as the islands of Euboea, Lesbos, Chios, and Rhodes; while the border town of Oropus was seized by the Boeotians. It was, in fact, a breaking up of the confederacy which the Spartans were prepared to purchase at the price of the enslavement of the Greek towns in Asia and something more. In return for this Tissaphernes was to supply money for the pay of Peloponnesian soldiers and sailors.
The Athenians, however, were not prepared to submit, in spite of their recent loss and the perpetual irritation and distress caused by the occupation of Decelea. By immense exertions they got a fleet of more than a hundred triremes afloat; and as the democrats in Samos just then revolted and expelled the oligarchs that island became more closely allied than ever to Athens, and was the headquarters of its fleet throughout this period. Detachments of this fleet reduced several of the revolting states on the coast of Asia, and besieged the island of Chios. The situation was further complicated by the action of Alcibiades, who, finding his position in Sparta wearisome or dangerous, joined Tissaphernes, and persuaded him for a time to be somewhat less liberal in his support of the Spartans, arguing that it was not for the king's interest that any one Greek state should be too powerful. Taking advantage of the influence which he had or professed to have over Tissaphernes, he now negotiated with the commanders of the Athenian fleet at Samos for his own restoration. The majority of the naval commanders sent Peisander to Athens to effect a revolution in the democratical constitution and to secure the recall of Alcibiades. By the help of Antiphon, Phrynichus, Theramenes, the revolution, already prepared by numerous assassinations under the auspices of the political clubs, was brought about. The chief power was put in the hands of a council of 400 (instead of the council of 500), and the right of voting in the Ecclesia was to be confined to 5,000 selected persons. This constitution lasted a very short time, partly because the Spartans were not ready to make terms with the new government (for they expected to subdue Athens shortly by their own superior power), and partly because the revolutionaries were divided among themselves. Theramenes, especially, from vaccillation or moderation (according as we interpret his character with favour or dislike[2]) wished to make the assembly of 5,000 “best men” a reality, while others only wished to keep power in their own hands. Moreover, the fleet at Samos, now under the command of Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus—strong democrats—declined to recognise the new government. Lastly, it lacked the merit of success. The Spartans secured the revolt of Euboea and defeated an Athenian force sent to recover it; and the mortification and terror of the Athenian people were increased by seeing a new fort being erected at the entrance of the harbour of the Piraeus, which they believed to be intended to overawe them and protect Peloponnesian invaders. A counter revolution, therefore, quickly took place, and the restored ecclesia voted the recall of Alcibiades (as the commanders at Samos wished) and even elected him Strategus.
For more than two years (B.C. 410–408) the genius of Alcibiades seemed to promise a return of the old supremacy of Athens. The Spartan fleet leaving Miletus and southern Asia Minor, from mistrust of Tissaphernes, removed towards the end of B.C. 411 to the Hellespont, where their admiral Dercylidas hoped to be more loyally supported by the Satrap of Phrygia, Pharnabazus. There it was twice defeated off Cynossema (B.C. 411) by Thrasyllus and Thrasybulus, and practically annihilated next year (B.C. 410) off Cyzicus by Alcibiades. As a result the Athenians once more occupied Byzantium and Chalcedon, and were again masters of the Northern Aegean Sea (B.C. 408).
After a pause of a year in any warlike movements of importance, during which Alcibiades visited Athens and had a great reception, operations began again in the South. A new element in the struggle now appeared. Cyrus, the younger son of Darius II.—of whose abilities and character Xenophon has left us a very attractive picture—came down to the coast with powers over the whole of Lower Asia, superior to the two satraps. The Lacedaemonian admiral was now Lysander, a man of low origin but possessed of remarkable talents as a statesman, diplomatist, and soldier. An intimate friendship sprang up between him and Cyrus, partly owing to his personal qualities, partly because the prince had made up his mind to support Sparta as being most inclined to acknowledge the Persian rule of the Asiatic Greek states. From that time there was renewed activity in the Spartan fleet, materially promoted by the regular payment of the men which the liberality of Cyrus made possible. In the next campaign, which was thus rendered inevitable, the good fortune of the last three years once more failed the Athenians. Their defeat off Notium was brought about by the second in command (Antiochus) provoking the fleet of Lysander, then at Ephesus, to give him battle. Alcibiades, who had gone to consult Thrasybulus, then besieging Phocaea, had expressly forbidden him to fight; but he had to bear the wrath of the people caused by the dis- obedience and incompetence of his subordinate. He was deposed from his command and retired to a castle which he owned on the Chersonese. The command was transferred to a board often generals, one of whom was Conon.
Nothing went right with the Athenian fleet after this. Though the Spartan fleet was also under a commander much inferior to Lysander, it defeated Conon, shut him up in Mitylene, and seized Mythymna. The other Athenian generals did indeed win a naval victory at Arginusae (B.C. 406), but it was at a considerable sacrifice of life, made more signal by their failure to rescue a number of men who were clinging to wrecked vessels after the battle. It seems that a storm made it impossible, but the generals were denounced at home, recalled, and six of them were tried and put to death. It was on this occasion that Socrates, who happened to be one of the prytanes, or presidents of the ecclesia, showed his courage and respect for law by refusing to put the resolution, condemning the generals, to the vote, because it was illegal to condemn men together by a single decree. Next year (B.C. 405), Lysander again took the command of the Peloponnesian fleet.[3] He once more removed the scene of the war to the point at which Athens was most sensitive—the Hellespont. He seized Lampsacus, and, waiting his opportunity, sailed across to attack the Athenian fleet on the opposite coast at Aegospotami, when the men were mostly on shore at breakfast, destroyed their ships, and captured and put to death about 3,000 men. The sacred ship, the paralus, escaped and took the news to Athens, while Conon, with eight ships made his way to Cyprus and remained under the protection of King Evagoras.[4]
The Athenians were now helpless. They had no more ships of war, and on land they were still effectually kept in check by the Spartan garrison at Decelea. Lysander was so sure of his prey that he made no haste to sail to the Piraeus. He busied himself for some months in taking over towns once in alliance with or subject to Athens, expelling the Athenian garrisons, but granting them safe-conducts to Athens, that the number of mouths in the doomed city might be increased. He was not opposed any- where, the whole Athenian empire crumbled away as if by magic, and none of the allies maintained their allegiance but Samos. The Spartan army at Decelea was reinforced under the second King Pausanias, and the Academy, just outside the walls, was occupied. The city was to be starved out. Theramenes—as likely to be a persona grata at Sparta—was commissioned to go to Lysander and make terms, but remained nearly three months away; and when he returned the people were ready to submit to anything. Some of the allies, such as the Corinthians and Thebans, wished to destroy Athens altogether. But the Spartans, to their honour, rejected the proposal; and at length peace was granted on condition of Athens renouncing all authority over other states, possessing only twelve ships of war, recalling oligarchical exiles, pulling down the long walls, and dismantling the Piraeus (Spring of B.C. 404). Lysander sailed into the Piraeus and superintended the destruction of the long walls and the fortifications of the harbour. He then withdrew, leaving the oligarchical party—now in the ascendent—to arrange a revolution in the constitution.
After a short time he returned, and under his influence and in obedience to a threatening speech, the Assembly voted the appointment of Thirty Commissioners, who were to draw up a new constitution and meanwhile to conduct the government. The city was then relieved, not only of the presence of Lysander, but of the army of occupation at Decelea and in the Academy. Athens was left free from actual foreign control, but a shadow of its former self. The Thirty governed tyrannically, filled their coffers with the confiscated property of their opponents, whom they either drove into exile or put to death, and in a few months had rendered themselves hateful to all classes. Theramenes, who was one of them, incurred the enmity of his colleagues by counselling moderation and opposing the proposition that the New Assembly should consist of a definite number (3,000). He argued that it should be composed of all citizens of good character, and that the arbitrary execution of respectable men should cease. Critias, however, who took the lead among the Thirty, had no difficulty in getting rid of him. In a meeting of the Council he struck his name off the list of the privileged citizens, and delivered him to the Eleven for execution. After his death the tyranny went on for some months unchecked. However, the numerous citizens living in exile found safe refuge in Thebes and other towns, which from jealousy of Sparta, refused to deliver them up. It was from them that relief at length came.
In September (B.C. 404) Thrasybulus, living in exile at Thebes, suddenly left that city with about seventy followers and seized Phyle, a fortress commanding a pass over Mount Parnes. Thither flocked refugees from all quarters. An attack made upon them by the forces of the Thirty failed; and though the Thirty were able to seize Eleusis, Thrasybulus retaliated by occupying the peninsula of the Piraeus, finally fixing his headquarters at Munychia. In the battle which followed with the army of the Thirty he was completely victorious. Critias himself fell, as well as another of the Thirty, and a conference being held between the leading men of either side, it was agreed to depose the Thirty and appoint a Commission of Ten to treat with Thrasybulus. The Ten, however, proved unwilling to agree to a complete restoration of the constitution and appealed for help to Sparta. The Spartan king Pausanias was sent with an army, and Lysander was appointed harmost (Spartan governor) of Athens. But, as often happened in these Spartan expeditions, internal jealousy pre- vented effective action. Pausanias did not wish to see Lysander too powerful, and after making a show of assaulting the Piraeus he gave a hint that he was willing to receive ambassadors. The matter was referred to the Spartan government at home and an amnesty and general restitution of property was agreed upon. The old constitution seems to have at once revived, and, as it was now about June (B.C. 403), the Boulè of 500 and the Archons were appointed in the usual way—the Archon Eponymous being Euclides. All legal decisions made before the year of "anarchy" (B.C. 404–3) were to be held good, but a commission was appointed to redraft the laws founded on those of Solon, and this code was to be henceforth authoritative. The amnesty could be pleaded in bar of all proceedings against any citizen for what had been done in the year of anarchy.
The end of the Peloponnesian war and the year of anarchy that followed it saw other changes in Athens. The national character seems little to have changed. There still remained more than half a century during which the Athenians showed wonderful energy and a vigorous national life. But in some respects it coincided with the end of other things, especially in art and literature. Her three great tragedians were dead and had no worthy successors. Aristophanes was still alive and was still exhibiting comedies, but they lacked the old boldness in criticising public men and measures. As an historian Xenophon was a poor successor of Thucydides, though probably in general culture he was his superior. The Sophists, or Lecturers, who had visited Athens from time to time, had principally promoted the study of oratory or literature. They seldom professed to teach physical science, and in their instructions Ethics were generally treated as a branch of Politics—the art of social life. The leading names among them were Protagoras of Abdera, Gorgias of Leontini, Polus of Agrigentum, Hippias of Elis, Prodicus of Ceos. The apologue called "The Choice of Heracles," by the last named, has been preserved by Xenophon, and has been copied and translated everywhere. It is a plea for the strenuous life of virtue against the charms of pleasure and self-indulgence. The Sophists all differed in their views and methods and ought to be judged separately. They have, however, frequently been spoken of as a class, as if the tendency of their teaching was identical. Perhaps this view is not confined to moderns. The ordinary Athenian was apt to have the same idea of them, just as in our day men of business dismiss certain views and opinions with the contemptuous epithet of "academic." That this was in part at any rate the case is evident from the fact that when Aristophanes wished to attack them he selected as their representative the well-known figure of Socrates. In the "Clouds" there are attributed to Socrates many opinions and studies from which he was specially averse. The Satire is not even a parody of his teaching; it is quite beside the mark. But it showed what a certain sort of Athenians in the professional class thought of what we should call the "higher education." And the fate that shortly afterwards befel Socrates is connected with the popular view as to the evil tendency of sophistic teaching.
Socrates was born about B.C. 469, was brought up as a sculptor, and duly served his turn in the army—at Potidaea, Delium, and Amphipolis. But he very
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SOCRATES, B.C. 469–399.
(Vatican Museum.)
early abandoned his profession and avoided as far as he could any more active participation in public business. He devoted himself to philosophy and applied himself to listen to everybody of eminence who might assist his studies. He soon gave up physics—as leading to nothing and being beyond human powers—and devoted his whole mind to ethics and mental philosophy. He spent his time in the gymnasia—especially the Lyceum—and was ever ready to discuss questions on these subjects with any and everybody, especially with the young men, who, having learnt what was to be learnt at school, were seeking more advanced training. He charged no fee, and his conversation and company were open to all. It would be impossible in a short space to discuss the positive side of his teaching, so far as there was any. But a few words may show why he was likely to make enemies. He did not lecture but conversed, and his method was to apply his elenchos or refutation in such a way as to show his hearers that they did not know what they thought they knew. Thus men would glibly use the words "justice," "right and wrong," "holiness," "virtue," "wisdom," and the like. He would show them that they had no clear idea of what these words indicated, and therefore on what principles they were conducting their life or choosing one line of action and rejecting another. The same process would show men that their views and conceptions of the gods were hopelessly vague and uncertain. Such demonstrations could easily be represented as sapping the foundations of religion and morality. The prejudice which was roused by them was confirmed by the fact that some of the youths who frequented his society had turned out bad and mischievous citizens—such as Alcibiades the traitor, and Critias the most abhorred of the Thirty. After the restoration of B.C. 403 there was perhaps a more than usually strong feeling that such teaching had been bad for the youths, and might in part be accountable for the disasters of recent years. Yet Socrates had always been tolerated. When he refused to put the vote for the condemnation of the six generals after Arginusae, though howled at and threatened, he had departed unharmed. When during the tyranny of the Thirty he had refused to take part in one of their illegal arrests he had received no further harm than threatening words. His face and figure, his endless talk, his constant humiliation of wordy and pretentious people, had provoked nothing more alarming than a laugh or a petulant retort. But, suddenly in B.C. 399, three men were found—representing the classes which had felt most annoyance at his arguments and methods—Meletus, a poet, Lycon, an orator, and Anytus, a man of business, determined to prosecute. It was difficult to name the charge. It had to be classed under the general word ἀδικεῖ—“he wrongs”—i.e., the people, by disbelieving the gods of the country and introducing new gods, and by corrupting the youths. Socrates was condemned by a small majority, and his prosecutors assessed the punishment at death. Socrates had the right to make a counter assessment, and would probably have been able to name a fine sufficiently large to be accepted. But he all along took the line that instead of wronging the people he had been their greatest benefactor, and if he deserved anything it was to be maintained free of cost in the Prytaneum—the highest honour bestowed by the state—as a missionary of virtue, and as having been sent by Providence expressly to rouse and stimulate the Athenians. The jurors regarded this as defiance and a contempt of their court. They accordingly voted for the prosecutor's proposal of death. Execution usually followed the next day, but the festival of Delos was then in progress, and it was the custom that no execution should take place till the return of the sacred galley sent by Athens to the island on such occasions. Socrates therefore had another month of life, during which his escape might easily have been secured by wealthy friends. But he refused to break the law by quitting the prison, and remained to die. This is one of those crimes of which popular governments seem little less capable than tyrannies. It can be explained but not defended. Among other things it was useless. Socrates had done his work, and had given the impetus which made the philosophy of which Athens was the home for the next century. He recognised this himself, and knew that the time had come to depart, before age and decrepitude had weakened his influence. He had no fear for the future—it was to be either a dreamless sleep or the companionship of the just. The five hundred Athenian patriots who formed the jury have to share with Pontius Pilate the eternity of ill-fame gained by their spirited “vindication of the law.”
After the disasters of B.C. 305–303 Athens stands aside for a time. We have now to contemplate a Spartan Greece—a Greece, that is, in which any combined action that might be undertaken must be approved and led by the Spartans, and in which Sparta will claim the right of placing a resident or harmost and a garrison in any of the states formerly belonging to the Athenian alliance in which it seemed necessary. These residents speedily became more odious than the Athenian officers had ever been, and before many years had passed revolts were frequent and often successful.
But the prime duty of a state occupying the position now held by Sparta was to champion Greek freedom against the unceasing intrigues of the Persian satraps. Her ultimate failure to do this was consummated by the Peace of Antalcidas (B.C. 387), which surrendered to the king all that it had been the object of the hundred years' opposition to prevent.
At first Sparta seemed inclined to undertake the duty with some vigour, and with the freer hand because of the disappearance of her great supporter and patron, Cyrus, in B.C. 401. That prince in the previous year had collected a large army, including a contingent of 10,000 Greeks, under the pretext of crushing the predatory Pisidians, but really to depose his brother Artaxerxes, who had just succeeded his father, Darius II. All went well on the march, and he found his brother in force near Cunaxa, on the Euphrates, some fifty miles north of Babylon. But though in the battle which followed the Greek contingent won a victory, Cyrus himself was killed, and the whole enterprise came to nothing. The romantic story of the retreat of the Greeks to the shores of the Euxine has been immortalised by Xenophon. They reached the sea at Trapezus, and thence made their way, some by land and some by sea, to Byzantium, and on to the Thracian Chersonese.
But they found that the effects of the expedition of Cyrus were not over with their escape. The king had been warned of the intentions of Cyrus by Tissaphernes, and rewarded him with the satrapies once held by that prince. Tissaphernes came down with the determination to reduce the Greek cities to obedience. They in their terror had begged help from Sparta, and Thimbron had been despatched with five thousand men to their aid. He was joined by the greater part of the Greeks, who had survived the expedition of Cyrus, and having made some progress in his opposition to Tissaphernes, then marched south to Ephesus. There he was superseded by Dercylidas (B.C. 399), who in that and the following year gained further successes in Aeolis, Bithynia, and the Thracian Chersonese. In B.C. 397 he returned to Caria, but there arranged an armistice with the Persian satraps. These operations were continued on a larger scale in B.C. 396 to B.C. 394 by the Spartan king, Agesilaus, who succeeded to the throne in B.C. 398. He overran Lydia and Phrygia, and in B.C. 395, inflicted so severe a defeat upon the Persian cavalry in Lydia that Tissaphernes was recalled and Tithraustes sent to take over his satrapy. But this was the end of the effective service of Agesilaus. Tithraustes outwitted him in diplomacy, and having induced him to sign an armistice for six months, took advantage of the interval to send an agent into Greece to bribe Thebes, Corinth, and Argos to stir up war against Sparta.
Then followed a period of distraction in Greece full of petty wars, of combinations formed and dissolved, and of internal dissensions in many of the chief towns. The only gainer was Persia, whose alliance was sought by various parties alternately. Thus in B.C. 395 a dispute as to frontiers broke out between the Phocians and Locrians, and Sparta and Thebes took opposite sides. This cost Lysander his life, who was defeated and killed near Haliartus, in Boeotia. Next year a combined army of Thebans, Athenians, Corinthians, and Argives was defeated by the Spartans near Corinth. Then the Persian Pharnabazus resolved to crush Sparta, and, collecting a fleet, put Conon—still living in Cyprus—at the head of the Greek part of it. The Spartan fleet having been defeated and almost annihilated off Cnidus (B.C. 394), Conon, after expelling the Spartan harmosts from the islands, next year (B.C. 393), sailed to Athens, and restored the long walls and the fortifications of the Piraeus. The victory led to a renewal of the com- bination against Sparta, and the hasty recall of Agesilaus from Asia. He defeated the allies at Coroneia, but the war went on with Corinth as the base. The Corinthians themselves, however, were fiercely divided, and the party in favour of Sparta admitted Agesilaus into the space between the long walls connecting Corinth and Lechaeum, where he again defeated the allied forces (B.C. 392), and in the course of the next year established Spartan's supremacy in Corinth and Northern Peloponnesus generally. Then came a check to the success of Sparta by the military genius of the Athenian Iphicrates, who, with a force specially trained and more lightly armed than the regular hoplites, cut to pieces a company or mora of Spartans (B.C. 390).
This made a great impression in Greece generally, and seems to have influenced the Spartans once more to obtain the support of Persia. There had been meanwhile various operations at sea, in which successes had been gained on both sides, without any very decisive result, as far north as Byzantium and as far south as Rhodes. But when in B.C. 387 the Spartan ambassador, Antalcidas, returned from the Persian court with a royal decree announcing that he would war against any state that attempted to violate two conditions—(1) the possession by the king of the Greek states in Asia, (2) the autonomy of all other states (except Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which were to belong to Athens)—the Greeks in general were obliged to submit, because with the assistance of the Persians, Antalcidas had collected a fleet of eighty vessels, and no state was strong enough to resist him.
The Spartan supremacy had thus a new lease of life. But in the sixteen years which followed (B.C. 387–371) a series of violent and oppressive proceedings on the part of the Spartan government and officers gave rise to renewed war, which made the king's rescript a dead letter, except that the loss of freedom on the part of the Asiatic cities remained. But there was only the briefest interval of peace among the Greeks themselves. In B.C. 385, on the flimsiest pretext of disaffection, the Spartans besieged Mantinea, and forced its inhabitants to dismantle their town and live in open villages. Three years later (B.C. 382) they attacked Olynthus, whose neighbours were jealous of its growing power and appealed for help to Sparta. Olynthus was not reduced till B.C. 379, after the Spartans had suffered more than one disaster. In the same year Phlius, in the north of Argolis, was also reduced and forced to submit to its oligarchical rulers. But a less justifiable proceeding than any of these took place in B.C. 381, when Phcebidas, while on the march to reinforce the army attacking Olynthus, was admitted by treachery into the Kadmeia or citadel of Thebes and held it by force. Though the Spartan government disavowed responsibility for his action, the garrison remained in occupation till B.C. 378.
But though this year witnessed the success of the Spartans at Olynthus and Phlius, it really proved the turning-point in the struggle and the beginning of the fall of the Spartan supremacy. For in the winter of B.C. 379–8 a number of young Thebans (among whom was Pelopidas) suddenly assaulted and killed the ring-leaders of the Spartan party in Thebes, got possession of the city, and next day stormed the Kadmeia and forced the Spartan garrison to surrender on condition of being allowed to depart uninjured.
This was followed by many years of war between Sparta and Thebes, in which the Spartans three times invaded Theban territory with small success. But the chief importance of the war was that it began with an alliance between Athens and Thebes against Sparta, in consequence of which Athens once more gained a leading position on the sea and was able again to form a confederacy (B.C. 378). The professed object of this new league (the terms of which are preserved on an existing stele) was to compel “the Lacedaemonians to allow the allies to be autonomous and to enjoy their own territory in safety.” It was to be open to all states and islands not subject to the Persian king—a provision which avoided opening the question of the Asiatic cities, whose status had been fixed by the peace of Antalcidas. Each state was to maintain whatever constitution it pleased, without admitting an Athenian garrison, or resident, or paying a phoros or tax. The Athenians undertook in case of all states joining the confederacy to surrender all cleruchies held by Athenian citizens or by the state, and to settle no more clcruchs in them. There was to be a board of commissioners (σύνεδροι) to decide all cases of dispute under this clause. The Athenians further covenanted to give aid by land or sea to any of the allies who were attacked. The confederate states were to pay a contribution to a common fund, as appears from other inscriptions, though it is not mentioned in this stele. It was to be called a syntaxis instead of the now invidious phoros. The alliance seems first to have consisted of Chios, Tenedos, Mitylene and Mythymna in Lesbos, Byzantium and Rhodes, but it was quickly joined by others until it reached the number of about seventy. The adhesion of Thebes marked its antagonism to Sparta, and that of Acarnania, Cephallenia, and Zakynthus three years later secured Athenian supremacy in the Ionian sea. The renewed activity of Athens brought out a new generation of generals and admirals as able and successful as those who served her in the last century. Thus Chabrias won a victory over a fleet of sixty Lacedaemonian ships off Naxos, and relieved the coasts and seas of Attica (B.C. 376); Timotheos, son of Conon, defeated another Lacedaemonian fleet at Corcyra, thus enabling the Corcyraeans to join the alliance (B.C. 375); and two years later (B.C. 375) Iphicrates again relieved Corcyra from the attack of another powerful Spartan fleet. The only success won by Sparta in this period was the thwarting of an invasion of Phocis by the Thebans in B.C. 374. Weariness of such continuous and futile warfare now began to be generally felt. A peace, which only lasted a few months, had been patched up between Athens and Sparta in B.C. 374, but three years later a general pacification was arranged, Sparta covenanting to withdraw her harmosts from the cities, and to disband her land and sea forces, and, in fact, to abandon her position of militant supremacy (B.C. 371).
This, therefore, was the end of the Spartan hegemony, but it did not bring actual and complete peace to Greece. It was the beginning of a new period, in which Thebes took her place with evil results to the unity and prosperity of Greece. In the pacification of B.C. 371 the Thebans took no share, for they claimed to sign on behalf of all the Boeotian cities, which was against the spirit of the agreement. Accordingly the Spartan king, Cleombrotus, invaded Boeotia. but was defeated at Leuctra by the Theban Epaminondas, who had taken the lead during the congress in supporting the claims of Thebes. He was a man of unusually high character, and had many of the most important qualifications of a great general. He had introduced the system of the phalanx, and had brought the army of Thebes to a high state of perfection. Still, he had to direct or carry out the policy of his country, which was narrow and mischievous, though some of the worst acts of the Thebans during their supremacy were done against his will. His policy was to carry the war into the enemy's country, to set up in the Peloponnese a power great enough to counterbalance that of Sparta. Fifty-five years earlier this had been the policy of Alcibiades, who looked to Argos as best supplying what was needed. Now Epaminondas, or his agents selected Arcadia. Mantineia was restored, the Arcadian cities were induced to form a league, and a new town, to be called Megaclopolis, was founded, to be the capital and seat of government. This measure alarmed both Sparta and Athens. We therefore have a new combination—these two ancient enemies joining to resist the ambition of Thebes. The war went on. Epaminondas four times invaded the Peloponnese—once almost surprising Sparta itself. The quarrel was complicated by another between the Arcadians and Elis, and by the Corinthians and Phliasians making terms with Thebes, and trying to put force upon Sparta to acknowledge the independence of Messenia (B.C. 366). Both sides also endeavoured to enlist the support of the king of Persia. But the Thebans attempted too much. At one time they thought of wresting the naval supremacy from Athens, and Epaminondas, who went on a kind of tentative expedition to Byzantium, was said to have threatened to remove the ornaments of the Acropolis to Thebes. They also undertook to champion the Thessalians against the tyranny of Alexander of Pherae. Pelopidas, the bosom friend of Epaminondas, who had taken the lead in expelling the Spartan garrison from the Kadmeia, was three times sent into Thessaly, and on the third occasion was defeated and killed (B.C. 363). They had, moreover, inspired the Arcadians with so much confidence in themselves that some of their cities began to be restive under the Theban supremacy. The schism was increased by a quarrel over the management of Olympia and the use to be made of its treasures. In this dispute some appealed to Athens and Sparta and others to Thebes. Mantineia was the leading state on the Spartan side, and the primary object of Epaminondas in his fourth invasion of the Peloponnese was to reduce that town. After only just failing to surprise Sparta he gave the allied troops battle at Mantineia, where he won a great victory but lost his own life (B.C. 362). Peace was then made between all the warring states, from which, however, Sparta stood aloof. There was no more fighting for four years, but the general result of the ten years of Theban supremacy was weakness and disunion everywhere, the isolation of Sparta, and a renewed bitterness of feeling between Thebes and Athens, which were still the two strongest states.
But while Greece was thus squandering her strength in unprofitable quarrels, a power was growing up close by destined to absorb her and permanently destroy independent political life in her divided states. This was Macedonia. The dynasty ruling in Macedonia claimed to be of Hellenic origin, descended from the Temenidae of Argos, and its sovereigns from time to time emphasised this claim by dreaming the right to enter as competitors at Olympia. The country originally included under the name was an inland district between the range of Mount Pindus and the river Axius, with a capital at Pella. The aim of its kings had ever been to extend their dominions to the sea, and enlarge and strengthen their frontiers by conquering the surrounding tribes of barbarians. At the time of the Persian invasion the Macedonian king was obliged to submit to the superior powers of the invaders, but Alexander, “the Philhellene,” who was reigning in B.C. 480, was eager for the success of the Greeks, and, according to Herodotus, risked his life to warn them of the coming attack at Plataea. Later kings, however, had become unfriendly to Athens, because they found her inclined to resist the extension of their empire along the shores of the Thermaic gulf. The Athenian influence in the Chalcidic peninsula was a continual bar to their southward extension, and Athenian jealousy was easily roused at any idea of their advance eastwards towards the Strymon.
In B.C. 359 the eighteenth king of the dynasty, Philip II., son of Amyntas, took possession of the throne in place of an infant nephew. He was twenty-three years old, and had spent some years at Thebes in the house of the father of Epaminondas, as a hostage or because he had been brought there for safety by Pelopidas. On his accession he promptly showed his energy and ability by suppressing two pretenders to the throne, and conquering the Paeonians on his northern frontier, as well as the Illyrians, those constant enemies in battle with whom his brother had fallen. He at the same time disarmed Athenian opposition by withdrawing the Macedonian garrison from Amphipolis and acknowledging its autonomy. The Athenians were also engaged in recovering Euboea, which had for some years been a member of the Theban confederacy (B.C. 358), and were for the time less interested in affairs of the North. Philip availed himself of the opportunity to seize Pydna, on the coast of Pieria, thus securing a port on the Thermaic gulf, and again occupied Amphipolis on the Strymon, while by making an alliance with Olynthus he secured himself against opposition from Chalcidice. These proceedings would naturally have aroused enmity in Greece. But Sparta, weakened and humiliated, held aloof for some years while she was engaged in trying to recover her hegemony in the Peloponnese; while Thebes and Athens were now effectually weakened by two wars: the former by the “Sacred War,” which was undertaken at the order of the Amphictyonic Council to punish the Phocians for encroaching upon the sacred territory of Delphi, and lasted nearly nine years (B.C. 357–346); the latter by the “Social War” (B.C. 357–355) caused by the defection of Chios and Byzantium, Rhodes and Cos from the league of B.C. 378. The pretexts alleged were that the Athenians had broken the covenant by sending out fresh cleruchs, and that their generals commanding mercenary forces (now constantly employed by Athens) not receiving sufficient pay from home, harassed the allies with requisitions beyond the stipulated contribution or syntaxis. The war ended in the acknowledgment of the independence of the revolting states, and, worse still, in the death or the discredit and ruin of the last great generals serving Athens, Iphicrates, Chabrias, and Timotheos. The state was also impoverished by the loss of contributions, and disabled from offering effectual opposition to Philip.
In these circumstances the king was able to secure one advantage after another. In B.C. 356 he seized Potidaea, expelled Athenian cleruchs, and sold most of the inhabitants into slavery, while his general, Parmenion, defeated the Illyrians in the West. He next enriched himself by occupying the district of Mount Pangaeus with its gold-mines, and founded the city of Philippi to secure it (B.C. 356–353). As the Athenians had been too late to relieve Potidaea, so now they were too late to prevent his seizing Methone in Magnesia; after which he began to interfere at every point of disturbance in Greece. Now it was in Thessaly, to assist the Thessalian cities to resist the tyrants of Pherae (B.C. 356); now it was in Phocis, as champion of the god of Delphi, where, after sustaining two defeats, he eventually destroyed the Phocian army with its leader, Onomarchus. Presently he appeared at Thermopylae as though he would subdue Boeotia and Athens. And though the Athenians were at length roused to send a fleet which prevented his coming through the pass, he secured Pagasae and Magnesia, and instigated the Euboeans once more to throw off the rule of Athens (B.C. 350). In the next two years (B.C. 349–348) he turned upon his allies, the Olynthians, who had come to some secret understanding with Athens, and after a lengthened siege took and destroyed the town. The Athenians once more came too late to relieve it, in spite of the vehement exhortations of Demosthenes, who henceforth threw his whole energies into organising an opposition to Philip. But nothing seriously hindered his victorious career or the fulfilment of his ambition to secure supremacy in Greece. In B.C. 346, on the invitation of Thebes, he again interfered in the sacred war, which he brought to an end by overrunning Phocis, and thereby obtained admission to the Amphictyonic league as an Hellenic power. The same year was concluded the peace with Athens, called from the chief of the embassy the Peace of Philocrates. It was on this embassy that Demosthenes and his rival Aeschines served, who afterwards vehemently accused each other of misconducting it.
For seven years (B.C. 345–338) this peace was nominally maintained. But Philip did not rest. lie was busy in strengthening his hold on Thessaly, in aiding the Messenians, Argives and Achaeans to break down the supremacy of Sparta, in establishing his partisans as tyrants in the cities of Euboea, as well as in
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DEMOSTHENES, B.C. 384–322.
(Vatican Museum.)
securing himself against the surrounding tribes of Epirus and Thrace.
By the exertions of Demosthenes—who was throwing all the weight of his eloquence into the opposition to Philip—a number of states, from Byzantium and Perinthus in the East to Corcyra in the West, had allied themselves with Athens to resist his further aggrandisement, and the Persian satraps had been induced to give their aid.[5] For a brief space there seemed some hope, for Philip failed in his attack both on Perinthus and Byzantium. But in B.C. 337 the Amphictyons proclaimed another "sacred war" against the Locrians of Amphissa on the old charge of cultivating the sacred Cirrhaean plain, and summoned Philip to assist. He snatched at the opportunity, and in the winter of B.C. 339–338 marched southward. But instead of proceeding to Amphissa he seized Elateia, which commanded the plain of Boeotia. This produced such a feeling of alarm throughout Greece that Demosthenes was able to induce Thebes to join the alliance, and a mercenary army of some fifteen thousand men was got together besides forces sent from Athens and other towns. The details of the campaign that followed are not known, except that Demosthenes says that the Greeks won two battles. But the upshot was that about August 1st, B.C. 338, Philip, having already taken Amphissa and annihiliated a large force of mercenaries, won a decisive victory over the Greeks near Chaeroneia, in which the Theban sacred band was cut to pieces, a thousand Athenians were killed, and two thousand made prisoners.
All resistance to Philip was at end. He henceforth took a greater position in Greece than had hitherto been occupied by any supreme ruler or state. Macedonian garrisons were placed in Thebes and other cities, territories were assigned to or taken from certain states at the king's pleasure, and each state was compelled to be satisfied with its own territory without exercising any control over others. Thus all her maritime possessions were taken from Athens, while, on the other hand, her own frontiers were rectified so as to include Oropus, of which the Thebans had deprived her; and as a special mark of the king's favour the 2,000 prisoners were restored without ransom. Philip then marched into the Peloponnese, where every state submitted but Sparta. The Spartans stood sullenly aloof, but their supremacy in the Peloponnese was gone ; they were independent but isolated, with a territory cur- tailed in every direction, and impoverished by the ravages of the Macedonian troops. Philip, indeed, gave a certain air of legalty to the new arrangements by summoning a conference at Corinth at which they were confirmed, and he himself was elected General (ἡγεμών) of all Greece. But the prosaic fact was that all combinations were dissolved, garrisons were placed in all important towns, and his word was law. This was a state of things in which Greece seemed unable to thrive, and a period of general decadence soon set in—industry, population, literature, all alike
FEMALE FIGURES, FOURTH CENTURY B.C.
being on the decline. On the other hand, Macedonian supremacy for a time secured the cessation of internal strife, and the wars of state with state, while it brought into existence a larger conception of Hellenism, and secured a wider field for its development.
AMPHORA.
- ↑ The story is that they were constantly entertained at banquets at which there was always a splendid display of gold and silver plate, but that they did not notice that it was the same plate passed on from house to house.
- ↑ Theramenes, who now first comes into notice, got the nickname of "the buskin" (cothurnus) which would fit either foot. The truer explanation is perhaps that he sincerely entertained a philosophical ideal which suited neither extreme.
- ↑ It was illegal at Sparta for a man to be twice elected naval commander (navarchus); he was therefore appointed "chief secretary" (epistoleus), but practically with chief authority.
- ↑ Philocles, the commander, was put to death on the ground of having executed certain Corinthians and Andrians by hurling them from a cliff, and a proposal to cut off the right hands of all prisoners was alleged as an excuse for putting the others to death. In fact the war had lasted so long that exasperation was blinding both sides to Hellenic principles.
- ↑ The states persuaded by Demosthenes to join were Byzantium, Abydos, Euboea, Megara, Corinth, Achaia, Acarnania, Leucadia, Corcyra.