Volume 10 — CHAPTER LXXVIII. BATTLE OF LEUKTRA AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

Immediately after the congress at Sparta in June 371 B.C., the Athenians and Lacedæmonians both took steps to perform the covenants sworn respectively to each other as well as to the allies generally. The Athenians despatched orders to Iphikrates, who was still at Korkyra or in the Ionian Sea, engaged in incursions against the Lacedæmonian or Peloponnesian coasts,—that he should forthwith conduct his fleet home, and that if he had made any captures subsequent to the exchange of oaths at Sparta, they should all be restored;[365] so as to prevent the misunderstanding which had occurred fifty-two years before with Brasidas,[366] in the peninsula of Pallênê. The Lacedæmonians on their side sent to withdraw their harmosts and their garrisons from every city still under occupation. Since they had already made such promise once before, at the peace of Antalkidas, but had never performed it,—commissioners,[367] not Spartans, were now named from the general congress, to enforce the execution of the agreement.

No great haste, however, was probably shown in executing this part of the conditions; for the whole soul and sentiment of the Spartans were absorbed by their quarrel with Thebes. The miso-Theban impulse now drove them on with a fury which overcame all other thoughts; and which, though doubtless Agesilaus and others considered it at the time as legitimate patriotic resentment for the recent insult, appeared to the philo-Laconian Xenophon, when he looked back upon it from the subsequent season of Spartan humiliation, to be a misguiding inspiration sent by the gods,[368]—like that of the Homeric Atê. Now that Thebes stood isolated from Athens and all other allies out of Bœotia, Agesilaus had full confidence of being able to subdue her thoroughly. The same impression of the superiority of Spartan force was also entertained both by the Athenians and by other Greeks; to a great degree even by the Thebans themselves. It was anticipated that the Spartans would break up the city of Thebes into villages (as they had done at Mantinea) or perhaps retaliate upon her the fate which she had inflicted upon Platæa—or even decimate her citizens and her property to the profit of the Delphian god, pursuant to the vow that had been taken more than a century before, in consequence of the assistance lent by the Thebans to Xerxes.[369] Few persons out of Bœotia doubted of the success of Sparta.

To attack Thebes, however, an army was wanted; and as Sparta, by the peace just sworn, had renounced everything like imperial ascendency over her allies, leaving each of them free to send or withhold assistance as they chose,—to raise an army was no easy task; for the allies, generally speaking, being not at all inflamed with the Spartan antipathy against Thebes, desired only to be left to enjoy their newly-acquired liberty. But it so happened, that at the moment when peace was sworn, the Spartan king Kleombrotus was actually at the head of an army, of Lacedæmonians and allies, in Phokis, on the north-western frontier of Bœotia. Immediately on hearing of the peace, Kleombrotus sent home to ask for instructions as to his future proceedings. By the unanimous voice of the Spartan authorities and assembly, with Agesilaus as the most vehement of all,[370] he was directed to march against the Thebans, unless they should flinch at the last moment (as they had done at the peace of Antalkidas), and relinquish their presidency over the other Bœotian cities. One citizen alone, named Prothöus, interrupted this unanimity. He protested against the order, first, as a violation of their oaths, which required them to disband the army and reconstitute it on the voluntary principle,—next, as imprudent in regard to the allies, who now looked upon such liberty as their right, and would never serve with cordiality unless it were granted to them. But Prothöus was treated with disdain as a silly alarmist,[371] and the peremptory order was despatched to Kleombrotus; accompanied, probably, by a reinforcement of Spartans and Lacedæmonians, the number of whom, in the ensuing battle, seems to have been greater than can reasonably be imagined to have been before serving in Phokis.

Meanwhile no symptoms of concession were manifested at Thebes.[372] Epaminondas, on his return, had found cordial sympathy with the resolute tone which he had adopted both in defence of the Bœotian federation and against Sparta. Though every one felt the magnitude of the danger, it was still hoped that the enemy might be prevented from penetrating out of Phokis into Bœotia. Epaminondas accordingly occupied with a strong force the narrow pass near Koroneia, lying between a spur of Mount Helikon on one side and the Lake Kopaïs on the other; the same position as had been taken by the Bœotians, and forced by the army returning from Asia under Agesilaus, twenty-three years before. Orchomenus lay northward (that is, on the Phokian side) of this position; and its citizens, as well as its Lacedæmonian garrison, now doubtless formed part of the invading army of Kleombrotus. That prince, with a degree of military skill rare in the Spartan commanders, baffled all the Theban calculations. Instead of marching by the regular road from Phokis into Bœotia, he turned southward by a mountain-road scarcely deemed practicable, defeated the Theban division under Chæreas which guarded it, and crossed the ridge of Helikon to the Bœotian port of Kreusis on the Crissæan Gulf. Coming upon this place by surprise, he stormed it, capturing twelve Theban triremes which lay in the harbor. He then left a garrison to occupy the port, and marched without delay over the mountainous ground into the territory of Thespiæ on the eastern declivity of Helikon; where he encamped on the high ground, at a place of ever-memorable name, called Leuktra.[373]

Here was an important success, skilfully gained; not only placing Kleombrotus within an easy march of Thebes, but also opening a sure communication by sea with Sparta, through the port of Kreusis, and thus eluding the difficulties of Mount Kithæron. Both the king and the Lacedæmonians around him were full of joy and confidence; while the Thebans on their side were struck with dismay as well as surprise. It required all the ability of Epaminondas, and all the daring of Pelopidas, to uphold the resolution of their countrymen, and to explain away or neutralize the terrific signs and portents, which a dispirited Greek was sure to see in every accident of the road. At length, however, they succeeded in this, and the Thebans with their allied Bœotians were marched out from Thebes to Leuktra, where they were posted on a declivity opposite to the Spartan camp. They were commanded by the seven Bœotarchs, of whom Epaminondas was one. But such was the prevalent apprehension of joining battle with the Spartans on equal terms, that even when actually on the ground, three of these Bœotarchs refused to concur in the order for fighting, and proposed to shut themselves up in Thebes for a siege, sending their wives and families away to Athens. Epaminondas was vainly combatting their determination, when the seventh Bœotarch, Branchylides, arrived from the passes of Kithæron, where he had been on guard, and was prevailed upon to vote in favor of the bolder course. Though a majority was thus secured for fighting, yet the feeling throughout the Theban camp was more that of brave despair than of cheering hope; a conviction that it was better to perish in the field, than to live in exile with the Lacedæmonians masters of the Kadmeia. Some encouraging omens, however, were transmitted to the camp, from the temples in Thebes as well as from that of Trophonius at Lebadeia:[374] and a Spartan exile named Leandrias, serving in the Theban ranks, ventured to assure them that they were now on the very spot foredoomed for the overthrow of the Lacedæmonian empire. Here stood the tomb of two females (daughters of a Leuktrian named Skedasus) who had been violated by two Lacedæmonians and had afterwards slain themselves. Skedasus, after having in vain attempted to obtain justice from the Spartans for this outrage, came back, imprecating curses on them, and slew himself also. The vengeance of these departed sufferers would now be sure to pour itself out on Sparta, when her army was in their own district and near their own tomb. And the Theban leaders, to whom the tale was full of opportune encouragement, crowned the tomb with wreaths, invoking the aid of its inmates against the common enemy now present.[375]

While others were thus comforted by the hope of superhuman aid, Epaminondas, to whom the order of the coming battle had been confided, took care that no human precautions should be wanting. His task was arduous; for not only were his troops dispirited, while those of the enemy were confident,—but their numbers were inferior, and some of the Bœotians present were hardly even trustworthy. What the exact numbers were on either side, we are not permitted to know. Diodorus assigns about six thousand men to the Thebans; Plutarch states the numbers of Kleombrotus at eleven thousand.[376] Without placing faith in these figures, we see good reason for believing that the Theban total was decidedly inferior. For such inferiority Epaminondas strove to make up by skilful tactics, and by a combination at that time novel as well as ingenious. In all former Grecian battles, the opposite armies had been drawn up in line, and had fought along the whole line; or at least such had been the intention of the generals,—and if it was not realized, the cause was to be sought in accidents of the ground, or backwardness or disorder on the part of some division of the soldiers. Departing from this habit, Epaminondas now arrayed his troops so as to bring his own left to bear with irresistible force upon the Spartan right, and to keep back the rest of his army comparatively out of action. Knowing that Kleombrotus, with the Spartans and all the official persons, would be on the right of their own line, he calculated that, if successful on this point against the best troops, he should find little resistance from the remainder. Accordingly he placed on his own left wing chosen Theban hoplites, to the prodigious depth of fifty shields, with Pelopidas and the Sacred Band in front. His order of advance was disposed obliquely or in echelon, so that the deep column on the left should join battle first, while the centre and right kept comparatively back and held themselves more in a defensive attitude.

In 371 B.C., such a combination was absolutely new, and betokened high military genius. It is therefore no disgrace to Kleombrotus that he was not prepared for it, and that he adhered to the ordinary Grecian tactics of joining battle at once along the whole line. But so unbounded was the confidence reigning among the Spartans, that there never was any occasion on which peculiar precautions were less thought of. When, from their entrenched camp on the Leuktrian eminence, they saw the Thebans encamped on an opposite eminence, separated from them by a small breadth of low ground and moderate declivities,—their only impatience was to hurry on the decisive moment, so as to prevent the enemy from escaping. Both the partisans and the opponents of Kleombrotus united in provoking the order for battle, each in their own language. The former urged him, since he had never yet done anything against the Thebans, to strike a blow, and clear himself from the disparaging comparisons which rumor instituted between him and Agesilaus; the latter gave it to be understood, that if Kleombrotus were now backward, their suspicions would be confirmed that he leaned in his heart towards the Thebans.[377] Probably the king was himself sufficiently eager to fight, and so would any other Spartan general have been, under the same circumstances, before the battle of Leuktra. But even had he been otherwise, the impatience, prevalent among the Lacedæmonian portion of his army, left him no option. Accordingly, the decided resolution to fight was taken. The last council was held, and the final orders issued by Kleombrotus, after his morning meal, where copious libations of wine both attested and increased the confident temper of every man. The army was marched out of the camp, and arrayed on the lower portion of the declivity; Kleombrotus with the Spartans and most of the Lacedæmonians being on the right, in an order of twelve deep. Some Lacedæmonians were also on the left, but respecting the order of the other parts of the line, we have no information. The cavalry was chiefly posted along the front.

Meanwhile, Epaminondas also marched down his declivity, in his own chosen order of battle: his left wing being both forward, and strengthened into very deep order, for desperate attack. His cavalry too were posted in front of his line. But before he commenced his march, he sent away his baggage and attendants home to Thebes; while at the same time he made proclamation that any of his Bœotian hoplites, who were not hearty in the cause, might also retire, if they chose. Of such permission the Thespians immediately availed themselves;[378] so many were there, in the Theban camp, who estimated the chances to be all in favor of Lacedæmonian victory. But when these men, a large portion of them unarmed, were seen retiring, a considerable detachment from the army of Kleombrotus, either with or without orders, ran after to prevent their escape, and forced them to return for safety to the main Theban army. The most zealous among the allies of Sparta present,—the Phokians, the Phliasians, and the Herakleots, together with a body of mercenaries,—executed this movement; which seems to have weakened the Lacedæmonians in the main battle, without doing any mischief to the Thebans.

The cavalry first engaged, in front of both lines; and here the superiority of the Thebans soon became manifest. The Lacedæmonian cavalry,—at no time very good, but at this moment unusually bad, composed of raw and feeble novices, mounted on horses provided by the rich,—was soon broken and driven back upon the infantry, whose ranks were disturbed by the fugitives. To reëstablish the battle, Kleombrotus gave the word for the infantry to advance, himself personally leading the right. The victorious Theban cavalry probably hung upon the Lacedæmonian infantry of the centre and left, and prevented them from making much forward movement; while Epaminondas and Pelopidas with their left, advanced according to their intention to bear down Kleombrotus and his right wing. The shock here was terrible; on both sides victory was resolutely and desperately disputed, in a close hand-combat, with pushing of opposite shields and opposite masses. But such was the overwhelming force of the Theban charge,—with the sacred band or chosen warriors in front, composed of men highly trained in the palæstra,[379] and the deep column of fifty shields propelling behind,—that even the Spartans, with all their courage, obstinacy, and discipline, were unable to stand up against it. Kleombrotus, himself either in or near the front, was mortally wounded, apparently early in the battle; and it was only by heroic and unexampled efforts, on the part of his comrades around, that he was carried off yet alive, so as to preserve him from falling into the hands of the enemy. Around him also fell the most eminent members of the Spartan official staff; Deinon the polemarch, Sphodrias, with his son Kleonymus, and several others. After an obstinate resistance and a fearful slaughter, the right wing of the Spartans was completely beaten, and driven back to their camp on the higher ground.

It was upon this Spartan right wing, where the Theban left was irresistibly strong, that all the stress of the battle fell,—as Epaminondas had intended that it should. In no other part of the line does there appear to have been any serious fighting; partly through his deliberate scheme of not pushing forward either his centre or his right,—partly through the preliminary victory of the Theban cavalry, which probably checked a part of the forward march of the enemy’s line,—and partly also through the lukewarm adherence, or even suppressed hostility, of the allies marshalled under the command of Kleombrotus.[380] The Phokians and Herakleots,—zealous in the cause from hatred of Thebes,—had quitted the line to strike a blow at the retiring baggage and attendants; while the remaining allies, after mere nominal fighting and little or no loss, retired to the camp as soon as they saw the Spartan right defeated and driven back to it. Moreover, even some Lacedæmonians on the left wing, probably astounded by the lukewarmness of those around them, and by the unexpected calamity on their own right, fell back in the same manner. The whole Lacedæmonian force, with the dying king, was thus again assembled and formed behind the entrenchment on the higher ground, where the victorious Thebans did not attempt to molest them.[381]

But very different were their feelings as they now stood arrayed in the camp, from that exulting boastfulness with which they had quitted it an hour or two before; and fearful was the loss when it came to be verified. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched forth from the camp, only three hundred returned to it.[382] One thousand Lacedæmonians, besides, had been left on the field, even by the admission of Xenophon; probably the real number was even larger. Apart from this, the death of Kleombrotus was of itself an event impressive to every one, the like of which had never occurred since the fatal day of Thermopylæ. But this was not all. The allies who stood alongside of them in arms were now altered men. All were sick of their cause, and averse to farther exertion; some scarcely concealed a positive satisfaction at the defeat. And when the surviving polemarchs, now commanders, took counsel with the principal officers as to the steps proper in the emergency, there were a few, but very few, Spartans who pressed for renewal of the battle, and for recovering by force their slain brethren in the field, or perishing in the attempt. All the rest felt like beaten men; so that the polemarchs, giving effect to the general sentiment, sent a herald to solicit the regular truce for burial of their dead. This the Thebans granted, after erecting their own trophy.[383] But Epaminondas, aware that the Spartans would practise every stratagem to conceal the magnitude of their losses, coupled the grant with a condition that the allies should bury their dead first. It was found that the allies had scarce any dead to pick up, and that nearly every slain warrior on the field was a Lacedæmonian.[384] And thus the Theban general, while he placed the loss beyond possibility of concealment, proclaimed at the same time such public evidence of Spartan courage, as to rescue the misfortune of Leuktra from all aggravation on the score of dishonor. What the Theban loss was, Xenophon does not tell us. Pausanias states it at forty-seven men,[385] Diodorus at three hundred. The former number is preposterously small, and even the latter is doubtless under the truth; for a victory in close fight, over soldiers like the Spartans, must have been dearly purchased. Though the bodies of the Spartans were given up to burial, their arms were retained; and the shields of the principal officers were seen by the traveller Pausanias at Thebes five hundred years afterwards.[386]

Twenty days only had elapsed, from the time when Epaminondas quitted Sparta after Thebes had been excluded from the general peace, to the day when he stood victorious on the field of Leuktra.[387] The event came like a thunderclap upon every one in Greece, upon victors as well as vanquished,—upon allies and neutrals, near and distant, alike. The general expectation had been that Thebes would be speedily overthrown and dismantled; instead of which, not only she had escaped, but had inflicted a crushing blow on the military majesty of Sparta. It is in vain that Xenophon,—whose account of the battle is obscure, partial, and imprinted with that chagrin which the event occasioned to him,[388]—ascribes the defeat to untoward accidents,[389] or to the rashness and convivial carelessness of Kleombrotus; upon whose generalship Agesilaus and his party at Sparta did not scruple to cast ungenerous reproach,[390] while others faintly exculpated him by saying that he had fought contrary to his better judgment, under fear of unpopularity. Such criticisms, coming from men wise after the fact, and consoling themselves for the public calamity by censuring the unfortunate commander, will not stand examination. Kleombrotus represented on this occasion the feeling universal among his countrymen. He was ordered to march against Thebes with the full belief, entertained by Agesilaus and all the Spartan leaders, that her unassisted force could not resist him. To fight the Thebans on open ground was exactly what he and every other Spartan desired. While his manner of forcing the entrance of Bœotia, and his capture of Kreusis, was a creditable manœuvre, he seems to have arranged his order of battle in the manner usual with Grecian generals at the time. There appears no reason to censure his generalship, except in so far as he was unable to divine,—what no one else divined,—the superior combinations of his adversary, then for the first time applied to practice. To the discredit of Xenophon, Epaminondas is never named in his narrative of the battle, though he recognizes in substance that the battle was decided by the irresistible Theban force brought to bear upon one point of the enemy’s phalanx; a fact which both Plutarch and Diodorus[391] expressly refer to the genius of the general. All the calculations of Epaminondas turned out successful. The bravery of the Thebans, cavalry as well as infantry, seconded by the training which they had received during the last few years, was found sufficient to carry his plans into full execution. To this circumstance, principally, was owing the great revolution of opinion throughout Greece which followed the battle. Every one felt that a new military power had arisen, and that the Theban training, under the generalship of Epaminondas, had proved itself more than a match on a fair field, with shield and spear, and with numbers on the whole inferior,—for the ancient Lykurgean discipline; which last had hitherto stood without a parallel as turning out artists and craftsmen in war, against mere citizens in the opposite ranks, armed but without the like training.[392] Essentially stationary and old-fashioned, the Lykurgean discipline was now overborne by the progressive military improvement of other states, handled by a preëminent tactician; a misfortune predicted by the Corinthians[393] at Sparta sixty years before, and now realised, to the conviction of all Greece, on the field of Leuktra.

But if the Spartan system was thus invaded and overpassed in its privilege of training soldiers, there was another species of teaching wherein it neither was nor could be overpassed,—the hard lesson of enduring pain and suppressing emotion. Memorable indeed was the manner in which the news of this fatal catastrophe was received at Sparta. To prepare the reader by an appropriate contrast, we may turn to the manifestation at Athens twenty-seven years before, when the trireme called Paralus arrived from Ægospotami, bearing tidings of the capture of the entire Athenian fleet. “The moan of distress (says the historian)[394] reached all up the Long Walls from Peiræus to Athens, as each man communicated the news to his neighbor: on that night, not a man slept, from bewailing for his lost fellow-citizens and for his own impending ruin.” Not such was the scene at Sparta, when the messenger arrived from the field of Leuktra, although there was everything calculated to render the shock violent. For not only was the defeat calamitous and humiliating beyond all former parallel, but it came at a moment when every man reckoned on victory. As soon as Kleombrotus, having forced his way into Bœotia, saw the unassisted Thebans on plain ground before him, no Spartan entertained any doubt of the result. Under this state of feeling, a messenger arrived with the astounding revelation, that the army was totally defeated, with the loss of the king, of four hundred Spartans, and more than a thousand Lacedæmonians; and that defeat stood confessed by having solicited the truce for interment of the slain. At the moment when he arrived, the festival called the Gymnopædia was actually being celebrated, on its last day; and the chorus of grown men was going through its usual solemnity in the theatre. In spite of all the poignancy of the intelligence, the ephors would not permit the solemnity to be either interrupted or abridged. “Of necessity, I suppose, they were grieved,—but they went through the whole as if nothing had happened, only communicating the names of the slain to their relations, and issuing a general order to the women, to make no noise or wailing, but to bear the misfortune in silence.” That such an order should be issued, is sufficiently remarkable; that it should be issued and obeyed, is what could not be expected; that it should not only be issued and obeyed, but overpassed, is what no man could believe, if it were not expressly attested by the contemporary historian. “On the morrow (says he) you might see those whose relations had been slain, walking about in public with bright and cheerful countenances; but of those whose relatives survived, scarce one showed himself; and the few who were abroad, looked mournful and humbled.”[395]

In comparing this extraordinary self-constraint and obedience to orders, at Sparta, under the most trying circumstances,—with the sensitive and demonstrative temper, and spontaneous outburst of feeling at Athens, so much more nearly approaching to the Homeric type of Greeks,—we must at the same time remark, that in reference to active and heroic efforts for the purpose of repairing past calamities and making head against preponderant odds, the Athenians were decidedly the better of the two. I have already recounted the prodigious and unexpected energy displayed by Athens, after the ruinous loss of her two armaments before Syracuse, when no one expected that she could have held out for six months: I am now about to recount the proceedings of Sparta, after the calamity at Leuktra,—a calamity great and serious indeed, yet in positive amount inferior to what had befallen the Athenians at Syracuse. The reader will find that, looking to the intensity of active effort in both cases, the comparison is all to the advantage of Athens; excusing at least, if not justifying, the boast of Perikles[396] in his memorable funeral harangue,—that his countrymen, without the rigorous drill of Spartans, were yet found noway inferior to Spartans in daring exertion, when the hour of actual trial arrived.

It was the first obligation of the ephors to provide for the safety of their defeated army in Bœotia; for which purpose they put in march nearly the whole remaining force of Sparta. Of the Lacedæmonian moræ, or military divisions (seemingly six in the aggregate), two or three had been sent with Kleombrotus; all the remainder were now despatched, even including elderly citizens up to near sixty years of age, and all who had been left behind in consequence of other public offices. Archidamus took the command (Agesilaus still continuing to be disabled), and employed himself in getting together the aid promised from Tegea,—from the villages representing the disintegrated Mantinea,—from Corinth, Sikyon, Phlius, and Achaia; all these places being still under the same oligarchies which had held them under Lacedæmonian patronage, and still adhering to Sparta. Triremes were equipped at Corinth, as a means of transporting the new army across to Kreusis, and thus joining the defeated troops at Leuktra; the port of Kreusis, the recent acquisition of Kleombrotus, being now found inestimable, as the only means of access into Bœotia.[397]

Meanwhile the defeated army still continued in its entrenched camp at Leuktra, where the Thebans were at first in no hurry to disturb it. Besides that this was a very arduous enterprise, even after the recent victory,—we must recollect the actual feeling of the Thebans themselves, upon whom their own victory had come by surprise, at a moment when they were animated more by despair than by hope. They were doubtless absorbed in the intoxicating triumph and exultation of the moment, with the embraces and felicitations of their families in Thebes, rescued from impending destruction by their valor. Like the Syracusans after their last great victory[398] over the Athenian fleet in the Great Harbor, they probably required an interval to give loose to their feelings of ecstasy, before they would resume action. Epaminondas and the other leaders, aware how much the value of Theban alliance was now enhanced, endeavored to obtain reinforcement from without, before they proceeded to follow up the blow. To Athens they sent a herald, crowned with wreaths of triumph, proclaiming their recent victory. They invited the Athenians to employ the present opportunity for taking full revenge on Sparta, by joining their hands with those of Thebes. But the sympathies of the Athenians were now rather hostile than friendly to Thebes, besides that they had sworn peace with Sparta, not a month before. The Senate, who were assembled in the acropolis when the herald arrived, heard his news with evident chagrin, and dismissed him without even a word of courtesy; while the unfortunate Platæans, who were doubtless waiting in the city in expectation of the victory of Kleombrotus, and of their own speedy reëstablishment, found themselves again struck down and doomed to indefinite exile.

To Jason of Pheræ in Thessaly, another Theban herald was sent for the same purpose, and very differently received. The despot sent back word that he would come forthwith by sea, and ordered triremes to be equipped for the purpose. But this was a mere deception; for at the same time, he collected the mercenaries and cavalry immediately near to him, and began his march by land. So rapid were his movements, that he forestalled all opposition,—though he had to traverse the territory of the Herakleots and Phokians, who were his bitter enemies,—and joined the Thebans safely in Bœotia.[399] But when the Theban leaders proposed that he should attack the Lacedæmonian camp in flank, from the high ground, while they would march straight up the hill and attack it in front,—Jason strongly dissuaded the enterprise as too perilous; recommending that they should permit the enemy’s departure under capitulation. “Be content (said he) with the great victory which you have already gained. Do not compromise it by attempting something yet more hazardous, against Lacedæmonians driven to despair in their camp. Recollect that a few days ago, you yourselves were in despair, and that your recent victory is the fruit of that very feeling. Remember that the gods take pleasure in bringing about these sudden changes of fortune.”[400] Having by such representations convinced the Thebans, he addressed a friendly message to the Lacedæmonians, reminding them of their dangerous position, as well as of the little trust to be reposed in their allies,—and offering himself as mediator to negotiate for their safe retreat. Their acquiescence was readily given; and at his instance, a truce was agreed to by both parties, assuring to the Lacedæmonians the liberty of quitting Bœotia. In spite of the agreement, however, the Lacedæmonian commander placed little faith either in the Thebans or in Jason, apprehending a fraud for the purpose of inducing him to quit the camp and of attacking him on the march. Accordingly, he issued public orders in the camp for every man to be ready for departure after the evening meal, and to march in the night to Kithæron, with a view of passing that mountain on the next morning. Having put the enemy on this false scent, he directed his real night-march by a different and not very easy way, first to Kreusis, next to Ægosthena in the Megarian territory.[401] The Thebans offered no opposition; nor is it at all probable that they intended any fraud, considering that Jason was here the guarantee, and that he had at least no motive to break his word.

It was at Ægosthena that the retreating Lacedæmonians met Archidamus, who had advanced to that point with the Laconian forces, and was awaiting the junction of his Peloponnesian allies. The purpose of his march being now completed, he advanced no farther. The armament was disbanded, and Lacedæmonians as well as allies returned home.[402]

In all communities, the return of so many defeated soldiers, liberated under a capitulation by the enemy, would have been a scene of mourning. But in Sparta it was pregnant with grave and dangerous consequences. So terrible was the scorn and ignominy heaped upon the Spartan citizen who survived a defeat, that life became utterly intolerable to him. The mere fact sufficed for his condemnation, without any inquiry into justifying or extenuating circumstances. No citizen at home would speak to him, or be seen consorting with him in tent, game, or chorus; no other family would intermarry with his; if he was seen walking about with an air of cheerfulness, he was struck and ill-used by the passers-by, until he assumed that visible humility which was supposed to become his degraded position. Such rigorous treatment (which we learn from the panegyrist Xenophon)[403] helps to explain the satisfaction of the Spartan father and mother, when they learned that their son was among the slain and not among the survivors. Defeat of Spartan troops had hitherto been rare. But in the case of the prisoners at Sphakteria, when released from captivity and brought back to a degraded existence at Sparta, some uneasiness had been felt, and some precautions deemed necessary to prevent them from becoming dangerous malcontents.[404] Here was another case yet more formidable. The vanquished returning from Leuktra were numerous, while the severe loss sustained in the battle amply attested their bravery. Aware of the danger of enforcing against them the established custom, the ephors referred the case to Agesilaus; who proposed that for that time and case the customary penalties should be allowed to sleep; but should be revived afterwards and come into force as before. Such was the step accordingly taken;[405] so that the survivors from this fatal battle-field were enabled to mingle with the remaining citizens without dishonor or degradation. The step was indeed doubly necessary, considering the small aggregate number of fully qualified citizens; which number always tended to decline,—from the nature of the Spartan political franchise combined with the exigencies of Spartan training,[406]—and could not bear even so great a diminution as that of the four hundred slain at Leuktra. “Sparta (says Aristotle) could not stand up against a single defeat, but was ruined through the small number of her citizens.”[407]

The cause here adverted to by Aristotle, as explaining the utter loss of ascendency abroad, and the capital diminution both of power and of inviolability at home, which will now be found to come thick upon Sparta, was undoubtedly real and important. But a fact still more important was, the alteration of opinion produced everywhere in Greece with regard to Sparta, by the sudden shock of the battle of Leuktra. All the prestige and old associations connected with her long-established power vanished; while the hostility and fears, inspired both by herself and by her partisans, but hitherto reluctantly held back in silence,—now burst forth into open manifestation.

The ascendency, exercised down to this time by Sparta north of the Corinthian Gulf, in Phokis and elsewhere, passed away from her, and became divided between the victorious Thebans and Jason of Pheræ. The Thebans, and the Bœotian confederates who were now in cordial sympathy with them, excited to enthusiasm by their recent success, were eager for fresh glories, and readily submitted to the full exigencies of military training; while under a leader like Epaminondas, their ardor was turned to such good account, that they became better soldiers every month.[408] The Phokians, unable to defend themselves single-handed, were glad to come under the protection of the Thebans, as less bitterly hostile to them than the Thessalian Jason,—and concluded with them obligations of mutual defence and alliance.[409] The cities of Eubœa, together with the Lokrians (both Epiknemidian and Opuntian,) the Malians and the town of Heraklea, followed the example. The latter town was now defenceless; for Jason, in returning from Bœotia to Thessaly, had assaulted it and destroyed its fortifications; since by its important site near the pass of Thermopylæ, it might easily be held as a position to bar his entrance into Southern Greece.[410] The Bœotian town of Orchomenus, which had held with the Lacedæmonians even until the late battle, was now quite defenceless; and the Thebans, highly exasperated against its inhabitants, were disposed to destroy the city, reducing the inhabitants to slavery. Severe as this proposition was, it would not have exceeded the customary rigors of war, nor even what might have befallen Thebes herself, had Kleombrotus been victorious at Leuktra. But the strenuous remonstrance of Epaminondas prevented it from being carried into execution. Alike distinguished for mild temper and for long-sighted views, he reminded his countrymen that in their present aspiring hopes towards ascendency in Greece, it was essential to establish a character for moderation of dealing[411] not inferior to their military courage, as attested by the recent victory. Accordingly, the Orchomenians were pardoned upon submission, and re-admitted as members of the Bœotian confederacy. To the Thespians, however, the same lenity was not extended. They were expelled from Bœotia, and their territory annexed to Thebes. It will be recollected, that immediately before the battle of Leuktra, when Epaminondas caused proclamation to be made that such of the Bœotians as were disaffected to the Theban cause might march away, the Thespians had availed themselves of the permission and departed.[412] The fugitive Thespians found shelter, like the Platæans, at Athens.[413]

While Thebes was commemorating her recent victory by the erection of a treasury chamber,[414] and the dedication of pious offerings at Delphi,—while the military organization of Bœotia was receiving such marked improvement, and the cluster of dependent states attached to Thebes was thus becoming larger, under the able management of Epaminondas,—Jason in Thessaly was also growing more powerful every day. He was tagus of all Thessaly; with its tributary neighbors under complete obedience,—with Macedonia partly dependent on him,—and with a mercenary force, well paid and trained, greater than had ever been assembled in Greece. By dismantling Heraklea, in his return home from Bœotia, he had laid open the strait of Thermopylæ, so as to be sure of access into southern Greece whenever he chose. His personal ability and ambition, combined with his great power, inspired universal alarm; for no man knew whither he would direct his arms; whether to Asia, against the Persian king, as he was fond of boasting,[415]—or northward against the cities in Chalkidikê—or southward against Greece.

The last-mentioned plan seemed the most probable, at the beginning of 370 B.C., half a year after the battle of Leuktra: for Jason proclaimed distinctly his intention of being present at the Pythian festival (the season for which was about August 1, 370 B.C., near Delphi), not only with splendid presents and sacrifices to Apollo, but also at the head of a numerous army. Orders had been given that his troops should hold themselves ready for military service,[416]—about the time when the festival was to be celebrated; and requisitions had been sent round, demanding from all his tributaries victims for the Pythian sacrifice, to a total of not less than one thousand bulls, and ten thousand sheep, goats, and swine; besides a prize-bull to take the lead in the procession, for which a wreath of gold was to be given. Never before had such honor been done to the god; for those who came to offer sacrifice were usually content with one or more beasts bred on the neighboring plain of Kirrha.[417] We must recollect, however, that this Pythian festival of 370 B.C. occurred under peculiar circumstances; for the two previous festivals in 374 B.C. and 378 B.C. must have been comparatively unfrequented; in consequence of the war between Sparta and her allies on one side, and Athens and Thebes on the other,—and also of the occupation of Phokis by Kleombrotus. Hence the festival of 370 B.C., following immediately after the peace, appeared to justify an extraordinary burst of pious magnificence, to make up for the niggardly tributes to the god during the two former; while the hostile dispositions of the Phokians would be alleged as an excuse for the military force intended to accompany Jason.

But there were other intentions, generally believed though not formally announced, which no Greek could imagine without uneasiness. It was affirmed that Jason was about to arrogate to himself the presidency and celebration of the festival, which belonged of right to the Amphiktyonic assembly. It was feared, moreover, that he would lay hands on the rich treasures of the Delphian temple; a scheme said to have been conceived by the Syracusan despot Dionysius fifteen years before, in conjunction with the epirot Alketas, who was now dependent upon Jason.[418] As there were no visible means of warding off this blow, the Delphians consulted the god to know what they were to do if Jason approached the treasury; upon which the god replied, that he would himself take care of it,—and he kept his word. This enterprising despot, in the flower of his age and at the summit of his power, perished most unexpectedly before the day of the festival arrived.[419] He had been reviewing his cavalry near Pheræ, and was sitting to receive and answer petitioners, when seven young men approached, apparently in hot dispute with each other, and appealing to him for a settlement. As soon as they got near, they set upon him and slew him.[420] One was killed on the spot by the guards, and another also as he was mounting on horseback; but the remaining five contrived to reach horses ready prepared for them and to gallop away out of the reach of pursuit. In most of the Grecian cities which these fugitives visited, they were received with distinguished honor, as having relieved the Grecian world from one who inspired universal alarm,[421] now that Sparta was unable to resist him, while no other power had as yet taken her place.

Jason was succeeded in his dignity, but neither in his power, nor ability, by two brothers,—Polyphron and Polydorus. Had he lived longer, he would have influenced most seriously the subsequent destinies of Greece. What else he would have done, we cannot say; but he would have interfered materially with the development of Theban power. Thebes was a great gainer by his death, though perfectly innocent of it, and though in alliance with him to the last; insomuch that his widow went to reside there for security.[422] Epaminondas was relieved from a most formidable rival, while the body of Theban allies north of Bœotia became much more dependent than they would have remained, if there had been a competing power like that of Jason in Thessaly. The treasures of the god were preserved a few years longer, to be rifled by another hand.

While these proceedings were going on in Northern Greece, during the months immediately succeeding the battle of Leuktra, events not less serious and stirring had occurred in Peloponnesus. The treaty sworn at Sparta twenty days before that battle, bound the Lacedæmonians to disband their forces, remove all their harmosts and garrisons, and leave every subordinate city to its own liberty of action. As they did not scruple to violate the treaty by the orders sent to Kleombrotus, so they probably were not zealous in executing the remaining conditions; though officers were named, for the express purpose of going round to see that the evacuation of the cities was really carried into effect.[423] But it probably was not accomplished in twenty days; nor would it perhaps have been ever more than nominally accomplished, if Kleombrotus had been successful in Bœotia. But after these twenty days came the portentous intelligence of the fate of that prince and his army. The invincible arm of Sparta was broken; she had not a man to spare for the maintenance of foreign ascendency. Her harmosts disappeared at once, (as they had disappeared from the Asiatic and insular cities twenty-three years before, immediately after the battle of Knidus,[424]) and returned home. Nor was this all. The Lacedæmonian ascendency had been maintained everywhere by local oligarchies or dekarchies, which had been for the most part violent and oppressive. Against these governments, now deprived of their foreign support, the long-accumulated flood of internal discontent burst with irresistible force, stimulated probably by returning exiles. Their past misgovernment was avenged by severe sentences and proscription, to the length of great reactionary injustice; and the parties banished by this anti-Spartan revolution became so numerous, as to harass and alarm seriously the newly-established governments. Such were the commotions which, during the latter half of 371 B.C., disturbed many of the Peloponnesian towns,—Phigaleia, Phlius, Corinth, Sikyon, Megara, etc., though with great local difference, both of detail and of result.[425]

But the city where intestine commotion took place in its most violent form was Argos. We do not know how this fact was connected with the general state of Grecian politics at the time, for Argos had not been in any way subject to Sparta, nor a member of the Spartan confederacy, nor (so far as we know) concerned in the recent war, since the peace of Antalkidas in 387 B.C. The Argeian government was a democracy, and the popular leaders were vehement in their denunciations against the oligarchical opposition party—who were men of wealth and great family position. These last, thus denounced, formed a conspiracy for the forcible overthrow of the government. But the conspiracy was discovered prior to execution, and some of the suspected conspirators were interrogated under the torture, to make them reveal their accomplices; under which interrogation one of them deposed against thirty conspicuous citizens. The people, after a hasty trial, put these thirty men to death, and confiscated their property, while others slew themselves to escape the same fate. So furious did the fear and wrath of the people become, exasperated by the popular leaders, that they continued their executions until they had put to death twelve hundred (or, as some say, fifteen hundred) of the principal citizens. At length the popular leaders became themselves tired and afraid of what they had done; upon which the people were animated to fury against them, and put them to death also.[426]

This gloomy series of events was termed the Skytalism, or Cudgelling, from the instrument (as we are told) by which these multiplied executions were consummated; though the name seems more to indicate an impetuous popular insurrection than deliberate executions. We know the facts too imperfectly to be able to infer anything more than the brutal working of angry political passion amidst a population like that of Argos or Korkyra, where there was not (as at Athens) either a taste for speech, or the habit of being guided by speech, and of hearing both sides of every question fully discussed. Cicero remarks that he had never heard of an Argeian orator. The acrimony of Demosthenes and Æschines was discharged by mutual eloquence of vituperation, while the assembly or the dikastery afterwards decided between them. We are told that the assembled Athenian people, when they heard the news of the Skytalism at Argos, were so shocked at it, that they caused the solemnity of purification to be performed round the assembly.[427]

Though Sparta thus saw her confidential partisans deposed, expelled, or maltreated, throughout so many of the Peloponnesian cities,—and though as yet there was no Theban interference within the isthmus, either actual or prospective,—yet she was profoundly discouraged, and incapable of any effort either to afford protection or to uphold ascendency. One single defeat had driven her to the necessity of contending for home and family;[428] probably too the dispositions of her own Periœki and Helots in Laconia, were such as to require all her force as well as all her watchfulness. At any rate, her empire and her influence over the sentiments of Greeks out of Laconia, became suddenly extinct, to a degree which astonishes us, when we recollect that it had become a sort of tradition in the Greek mind, and that, only nine years before, it had reached as far as Olynthus. How completely her ascendency had passed away, is shown in a remarkable step taken by Athens, seemingly towards the close of 371 B.C., about four months after the battle of Leuktra. Many of the Peloponnesian cities, though they had lost both their fear and their reverence for Sparta, were still anxious to continue members of a voluntary alliance under the presidency of some considerable city. Of this feeling the Athenians took advantage, to send envoys and invite them to enter into a common league at Athens, on the basis of the peace of Antalkidas, and of the peace recently sworn at Sparta.[429] Many of them, obeying the summons, entered into an engagement to the following effect: “I will adhere to the peace sent down by the Persian king, and to the resolutions of the Athenians and the allies generally. If any of the cities who have sworn this oath shall be attacked, I will assist her with all my might.” What cities, or how many, swore to this engagement, we are not told; we make out indirectly that Corinth was one;[430] but the Eleians refused it, on the ground that their right of sovereignty over the Marganeis, the Triphylians, and the Skilluntians, was not recognized. The formation of the league itself, however, with Athens as president, is a striking fact, as evidence of the sudden dethronement of Sparta, and as a warning that she would henceforward have to move in her own separate orbit, like Athens after the Peloponnesian war. Athens stepped into the place of Sparta, as president of the Peloponnesian confederacy, and guarantee of the sworn peace; though the cities which entered into this new compact were not for that reason understood to break with their ancient president.[431]

Another incident too, apparently occurring about the present time, though we cannot mark its exact date,—serves to mark the altered position of Sparta. The Thebans preferred in the assembly of Amphiktyons an accusation against her, for the unlawful capture of their citadel the Kadmeia by Phœbidas, while under a sworn peace; and for the sanction conferred by the Spartan authorities on this act, in detaining and occupying the place. The Amphiktyonic assembly found the Spartans guilty, and condemned them to a fine of five hundred talents. As the fine was not paid, the assembly, after a certain interval, doubled it; but the second sentence remained unexecuted as well as the first, since there were no means of enforcement.[432] Probably neither those who preferred the charge, nor those who passed the vote, expected that the Lacedæmonians would really submit to pay the fine. The utmost which could be done, by way of punishment for such contumacy, would be to exclude them from the Pythian games, which were celebrated under the presidency of the Amphiktyons; and we may perhaps presume that they really were thus excluded.

The incident however deserves peculiar notice, in more than one point of view. First, as indicating the lessened dignity of Sparta. Since the victory of Leuktra and the death of Jason, Thebes had become preponderant, especially in Northern Greece, where the majority of the nations or races voting in the Amphiktyonic assembly were situated. It is plainly through the ascendency of Thebes, that this condemnatory vote was passed. Next, as indicating the incipient tendency, which we shall hereafter observe still farther developed, to extend the functions of the Amphiktyonic assembly beyond its special sphere of religious solemnities, and to make it the instrument of political coërcion or revenge in the hands of the predominant state. In the previous course of this history, an entire century has passed without giving occasion to mention the Amphiktyonic assembly as taking part in political affairs. Neither Thucydides nor Xenophon, though their united histories cover seventy years, chiefly of Hellenic conflict, ever speak of that assembly. The latter, indeed, does not even notice this fine imposed upon the Lacedæmonians, although it falls within the period of his history. We know the fact only from Diodorus and Justin; and unfortunately merely as a naked fact, without any collateral or preliminary details. During the sixty or seventy years preceding the battle of Leuktra, Sparta had always had her regular political confederacy and synod of allies convened by herself: her political ascendency was exercised over them, eo nomine, by a method more direct and easy than that of perverting the religious authority of the Amphiktyonic assembly, even if such a proceeding were open to her.[433] But when Thebes, after the battle of Leuktra, became the more powerful state individually, she had no such established confederacy and synod of allies, to sanction her propositions, and to share or abet her antipathies. The Amphiktyonic assembly, meeting alternately at Delphi and at Thermopylæ, and composed of twelve ancient races, principally belonging to Northern Greece, as well as most of them inconsiderable in power,—presented itself as a convenient instrument for her purposes. There was a certain show of reason for considering the seizure of the Kadmeia by Phœbidas as a religious offence; since it was not only executed during the Pythian festival, but was in itself a glaring violation of the public law and interpolitical obligations recognized between Grecian cities; which, like other obligations, were believed to be under the sanction of the gods; though probably, if the Athenians and Platæans had preferred a similar complaint to the Amphiktyons against Thebes for her equally unjust attempt to surprise Platæa under full peace in the spring of 431 B.C.,—both Spartans and Thebans would have resisted it. In the present case, however, the Thebans had a case against Sparta sufficiently plausible, when combined with their overruling ascendency, to carry a majority in the Amphiktyonic assembly, and to procure the imposition of this enormous fine. In itself the sentence produced no direct effect,—which will explain the silence of Xenophon. But it is the first of a series of proceedings, connected with the Amphiktyons, which will be found hereafter pregnant with serious results for Grecian stability and independence.

Among all the inhabitants of Peloponnesus, none were more powerfully affected, by the recent Spartan overthrow at Leuktra, than the Arcadians. Tegea, their most important city, situated on the border of Laconia, was governed by an oligarchy wholly in the interest of Sparta: Orchomenus was of like sentiment; and Mantinea had been broken up into separate villages (about fifteen years before) by the Lacedæmonians themselves—an act of high-handed injustice committed at the zenith of their power after the peace of Antalkidas. The remaining Arcadian population were in great proportion villagers; rude men, but excellent soldiers, and always ready to follow the Lacedæmonian banners, as well from old habit and military deference, as from the love of plunder.[434]

The defeat of Leuktra effaced this ancient sentiment. The Arcadians not only ceased to count upon victory and plunder in the service of Sparta, but began to fancy that their own military prowess was not inferior to that of the Spartans; while the disappearance of the harmosts left them free to follow their own inclinations. It was by the Mantineans that the movement was first commenced. Divested of Grecian city-life, and condemned to live in separate villages, each under its own philo-Spartan oligarchy, they had nourished a profound animosity, which manifested itself on the first opportunity of deposing these oligarchies and coming again together. The resolution was unanimously adopted, to re-establish Mantinea with its walls, and resume their political consolidation; while the leaders banished by the Spartans at their former intervention, now doubtless returned to become foremost in the work.[435] As the breaking up of Mantinea had been one of the most obnoxious acts of Spartan omnipotence, so there was now a strong sympathy in favor of its re-establishment. Many Arcadians from other quarters came to lend auxiliary labor, while the Eleians sent three talents as a contribution towards the cost. Deeply mortified by this proceeding, yet too weak to prevent it by force, the Spartans sent Agesilaus with a friendly remonstrance. Having been connected with the city by paternal ties of hospitality, he had declined the command of the army of coërcion previously employed against it; nevertheless, on this occasion, the Mantinean leaders refused to convene their public assembly to hear his communication, desiring that he would make known his purpose to them. Accordingly, he intimated that he had come with no view of hindering the re-establishment of the city, but simply to request that they would defer it until the consent of Sparta could be formally given; which (he promised) should soon be forthcoming, together with a handsome subscription to lighten the cost. But the Mantinean leaders answered, that compliance was impossible, since a public resolution had already been taken to prosecute the work forthwith. Enraged at such a rebuff, yet without power to resent it, Agesilaus was compelled to return home.[436] The Mantineans persevered and completed the rebuilding of their city, on a level site, and in an elliptical form, surrounded with elaborate walls and towers.

The affront here offered, probably studiously offered, by Mantinean leaders who had either been exiles themselves, or sympathized with the exiles,—was only the prelude to a series of others (presently to be recounted) yet more galling and intolerable. But it was doubtless felt to the quick both by the ephors and by Agesilaus, as a public symptom of that prostration into which they had so suddenly fallen. To appreciate fully such painful sentiment, we must recollect that an exaggerated pride and sense of dignity, individual as well as collective, founded upon military excellence and earned by incredible rigor of training,—was the chief mental result imbibed by every pupil of Lykurgus, and hitherto ratified as legitimate by the general testimony of Greece. This was his principal recompense for the severe fatigue, the intense self-suppression, the narrow, monotonous, and unlettered routine, wherein he was born and died. As an individual, the Spartan citizen was pointed out by the finger of admiration at the Olympic and other festivals;[437] while he saw his city supplicated from the most distant regions of Greece, and obeyed almost everywhere near her own border, as Pan-hellenic president. On a sudden, with scarce any preparatory series of events, he now felt this proud prerogative sentiment not only robbed of its former tribute, but stung in the most mortifying manner. Agesilaus, especially, was the more open to such humiliation, since he was not only a Spartan to the core, but loaded with the consciousness of having exercised more influence than any other king before him,—of having succeeded to the throne at a moment when Sparta was at the maximum of her power,—and of having now in his old age accompanied her, in part brought her by his misjudgments, into her present degradation.

Agesilaus had, moreover, incurred unpopularity among the Spartans themselves, whose chagrin took the form of religious scruple and uneasiness. It has been already stated that he was, and had been from childhood, lame; which deformity had been vehemently insisted on by his opponents (during the dispute between him and Leotychides in 398 B.C. for the vacant throne) as disqualifying him for the regal dignity, and as being the precise calamity against which an ancient oracle—“Beware of a lame reign”—had given warning. Ingenious interpretation by Lysander, combined with superior personal merit in Agesilaus, and suspicions about the legitimacy of Leotychides, had caused the objection to be then overruled. But there had always been a party, even during the palmy days of Agesilaus, who thought that he had obtained the crown under no good auspices. And when the humiliation of Sparta arrived, every man’s religion suggested to him readily the cause of it,[438]—“See what comes of having set at nought the gracious warning of the gods, and put upon ourselves a lame reign!” In spite of such untoward impression, however, the real energy and bravery of Agesilaus, which had not deserted even an infirm body and an age of seventy years, was more than ever indispensable to his country. He was still the chief leader of her affairs, condemned to the sad necessity of submitting to this Mantinean affront, and much worse that followed it, without the least power of hindrance.

The reëstablishment of Mantinea was probably completed during the autumn and winter of B.C. 371-370. Such coalescence of villages into a town, coupled with the predominance of feelings hostile to Sparta, appears to have suggested the idea of a larger political union among all who bore the Arcadian name. As yet, no such union had ever existed; the fractions of the Arcadian name had nothing in common, apart from other Greeks, except many legendary and religious sympathies, with a belief in the same heroic lineage and indigenous antiquity.[439] But now the idea and aspiration, espoused with peculiar ardor by a leading Mantinean named Lykomedes, spread itself rapidly over the country, to form a “commune Arcadum,” or central Arcadian authority, composed in certain proportions out of all the sections now autonomous,—and invested with peremptory power of determining by the vote of its majority. Such central power, however, was not intended to absorb or set aside the separate governments, but only to be exercised for certain definite purposes; in maintaining unanimity at home, together with concurrent, independent action, as to foreign states.[440] This plan of Pan-Arcadian federation was warmly promoted by the Mantineans, who looked to it as a protection to themselves in case the Spartan power should revive; as well as by the Thebans and Argeians, from whom aid was expected in case of need. It found great favor in most parts of Arcadia, especially in the small districts bordering on Laconia, which stood most in need of union to protect themselves against the Spartans,—the Mænalians, Parrhasians, Eutresians, Ægytes,[441] etc. But the jealousies among the more considerable cities made some of them adverse to any scheme emanating from Mantinea. Among these unfriendly opponents were Heræa, on the west of Arcadia bordering on Elis,—Orchomenus,[442] conterminous with Mantinea to the north—and Tegea, conterminous to the south. The hold of the Spartans on Arcadia had been always maintained chiefly through Orchomenus and Tegea. The former was the place where they deposited their hostages taken from other suspected towns; the latter was ruled by Stasippus and an oligarchy devoted to their interests.[443]

Among the population of Tegea, however, a large proportion were ardent partisans of the new Pan-Arcadian movement, and desirous of breaking off their connection with Sparta. At the head of this party were Proxenus and Kallibius; while Stasippus and his friends, supported by a senate composed chiefly of their partisans, vehemently opposed any alteration of the existing system. Proxenus and his partisans resolved to appeal to the assembled people, whom accordingly they convoked in arms; pacific popular assemblies, with free discussion, forming seemingly no part of the constitution of the city. Stasippus and his friends appeared in armed numbers also; and a conflict ensued, in which each party charged the other with bad faith and with striking the first blow.[444] At first Stasippus had the advantage. Proxenus with a few of the opposite party were slain, while Kallibius with the remainder maintained himself near the town-wall, and in possession of the gate on the side towards Mantinea. To that city he had before despatched an express, entreating aid, while he opened a parley with the opponents. Presently the Mantinean force arrived, and was admitted within the gates; upon which Stasippus, seeing that he could no longer maintain himself, escaped by another gate towards Pallantium. He took sanctuary with a few friends in a neighboring temple of Artemis, whither he was pursued by his adversaries, who removed the roof, and began to cast the tiles down upon them. The unfortunate men were obliged to surrender. Fettered and placed on a cart, they were carried back to Tegea, and put on their trial before the united Tegeans and Mantineans, who condemned them and put them to death. Eight hundred Tegeans, of the defeated party, fled as exiles to Sparta.[445]

Such was the important revolution which now took place at Tegea; a struggle of force on both sides, and not of discussion,—as was in the nature of the Greek oligarchical governments, where scarce any serious change of policy in the state could be brought about without violence. It decided the success of the Pan-Arcadian movement, which now proceeded with redoubled enthusiasm. Both Mantinea and Tegea were cordially united in its favor; though Orchomenus, still strenuous in opposing it, hired for that purpose, as well as for her own defence, a body of mercenaries from Corinth under Polytropus. A full assembly of the Arcadian name was convoked at a small town called Asea, in the mountainous district west of Tegea. It appears to have been numerously attended; for we hear of one place, Eutæa (in the district of Mount Mænalus,[446] and near the borders of Laconia), from whence every single male adult went to the assembly. It was here that the consummation of the Pan-Arcadian confederacy was finally determined; though Orchomenus and Heræa still stood aloof.[447]

There could hardly be a more fatal blow to Sparta than this loss to herself, and transfer to her enemies, of Tegea, the most powerful of her remaining allies.[448] To assist the exiles and avenge Stasippus, as well as to arrest the Arcadian movement, she resolved on a march into the country, in spite of her present dispirited condition; while Heræa and Lepreum, but no other places, sent contingents to her aid. From Elis and Argos, on the other hand, reinforcements came to Mantinea and Tegea. Proclaiming that the Mantineans had violated the recent peace by their entry into Tegea, Agesilaus marched across the border against them. The first Arcadian town which he reached was Eutæa,[449] where he found that all the male adults had gone to the great Arcadian assembly. Though the feebler population, remaining behind, were completely in his power, he took scrupulous care to respect both person and property, and even lent aid to rebuild a decayed portion of the wall. At Eutæa he halted a day or two, thinking it prudent to wait for the junction of the mercenary force and the Bœotian exiles under Polytropus, now at Orchomenus. Against the latter place, however, the Mantineans had marched under Lykomêdes, while Polytropus, coming forth from the walls to meet them, had been defeated with loss, and slain.[450] Hence Agesilaus was compelled to advance onward with his own unassisted forces, through the territory of Tegea up to the neighborhood of Mantinea. His onward march left the way from Asea to Tegea free, upon which the Arcadians assembled at Asea broke up, and marched by night to Tegea; from whence, on the next day, they proceeded to Mantinea, along the mountain range eastward of the Tegeatic plain; so that the whole Arcadian force thus became united. Agesilaus on his side, having ravaged the fields and encamped within little more than two miles from the walls of Mantinea, was agreeably surprised by the junction of his allies from Orchomenus, who had eluded by a night-march the vigilance of the enemy. Both on one side and on the other, the forces were thus concentrated. Agesilaus found himself on the first night, without intending it, embosomed in a recess of the mountains near Mantinea, where the Mantineans gathered on the high ground around, in order to attack him from above, the next morning. By a well-managed retreat, he extricated himself from this inconvenient position, and regained the plain; where he remained three days, prepared to give battle if the enemy came forth, in order that he might “not seem (says Xenophon) to hasten his departure through fear.”[451] As the enemy kept within their walls, he marched homeward, on the fourth day, to his former camp in the Tegean territory. The enemy did not pursue, and he then pushed on his march, though it was late in the evening, to Eutæa; “wishing (says Xenophon) to get his troops off before even the enemies’ fires could be seen, in order that no one might say that his return was a flight. He thought that he had raised the spirit of Sparta out of the previous discouragement, by invading Arcadia and ravaging the country without any enemy coming forth to fight him.”[452] The army was then brought back to Sparta and disbanded.

It had now become a matter of boast for Agesilaus (according to his own friendly historian) to keep the field for three or four days, without showing fear of Arcadians and Eleians! So fatally had Spartan pride broken down, since the day (less than eighteen months before) when the peremptory order had been sent to Kleombrotus, to march out of Phokis straight against Thebes!

Nevertheless it was not from fear of Agesilaus, but from a wise discretion, that the Arcadians and Eleians had kept within the walls of Mantinea. Epaminondas with the Theban army was approaching to their aid, and daily expected; a sum of ten talents having been lent by the Eleians to defray the cost.[453] He had been invited by them and by others of the smaller Peloponnesian states, who felt the necessity of some external protector against Sparta,—and who even before they applied to Thebes for aid, had solicited the like interference from Athens (probably under the general presidency accepted by Athens, and the oaths interchanged by her with various inferior cities, since the battle of Leuktra), but had experienced a refusal.[454]

Epaminondas had been preparing for this contingency ever since the battle of Leuktra. The first use made of his victory had been to establish or confirm the ascendency of Thebes both over the recusant Bœotian cities and over the neighboring Phokians and Lokrians, etc. After this had been accomplished, he must have been occupied (during the early part of 370 B.C.) in anxiously watching the movements of Jason of Pheræ,—who had already announced his design of marching with an imposing force to Delphi for the celebration of the Pythian games (about August 1.) Though this despot was the ally of Thebes, yet as both his power, and his aspirations towards the headship of Greece,[455] were well known, no Theban general, even of prudence inferior to Epaminondas, could venture in the face of such liabilities to conduct away the Theban force into Peloponnesus, leaving Bœotia uncovered. The assassination of Jason relieved Thebes from such apprehensions, and a few weeks sufficed to show that his successors were far less formidable in power as well as in ability. Accordingly, in the autumn of 370 B.C. Epaminondas had his attention free to turn to Peloponnesus, for the purpose both of maintaining the anti-Spartan revolution which had taken place in Tegea, and of seconding the pronounced impulse among the Arcadians towards federative coalition.

But the purposes of this distinguished man went farther still; embracing long-sighted and permanent arrangements, such as should forever disable Sparta from recovering her prominent station in the Grecian world. While with one hand he organized Arcadia, with the other he took measures for replacing the exiled Messenians on their ancient territory. To achieve this, it was necessary to dispossess the Spartans of the region once known as independent Messenia, under its own line of kings, but now, for near three centuries, the best portion of Laconia, tilled by Helots for the profit of proprietors at Sparta. While converting these Helots into free Messenians, as their forefathers had once been, Epaminondas proposed to invite back all the wanderers of the same race who were dispersed in various portions of Greece; so as at once to impoverish Sparta by loss of territory, and to plant upon her flank a neighbor bitterly hostile. It has been already mentioned, that during the Peloponnesian war, the exiled Messenians had been among the most active allies of Athens and Sparta,—at Naupaktus, at Sphakteria, at Pylus, in Kephallenia, and elsewhere. Expelled at the close of that war by the triumphant Spartans,[456] not only from Peloponnesus, but also from Naupaktus and Kephallenia, these exiles had since been dispersed among various Hellenic colonies; at Rhegium in Italy, at Messênê in Sicily, at Hesperides in Libya. From 404 B.C. (the close of the war) to 373 B.C., they had remained thus without a home. At length, about the latter year (when the Athenian confederate navy again became equal or superior to the Lacedæmonian on the west coast of Peloponnesus), they began to indulge the hope of being restored to Naupaktus.[457] Probably their request may have been preferred and discussed in the synod of Athenian allies, where the Thebans sat as members. Nothing however had been done towards it by the Athenians,—who soon became fatigued with the war, and at length made peace with Sparta,—when the momentous battle of Leuktra altered, both completely and suddenly, the balance of power in Greece. A chance of protection was now opened to the Messenians from Thebes, far more promising than they had ever had from Athens. Epaminondas, well aware of the loss as well as humiliation that he should inflict upon Sparta by restoring them to their ancient territory, entered into communication with them, and caused them to be invited to Peloponnesus from all their distant places of emigration.[458] By the time of his march into Arcadia, in the late autumn of 370 B.C., many of them had already joined him, burning with all their ancient hatred of Sparta, and contributing to aggravate the same sentiment among Thebans and allies.

With the scheme of restoring the Messenians, was combined in the mind of Epaminondas another, for the political consolidation of the Arcadians; both being intended as parts of one strong and self-supporting organization against Sparta on her own border. Of course he could have accomplished nothing of the kind, if there had not been a powerful spontaneous movement towards consolidation among the Arcadians themselves. But without his guidance and protection, the movement would have proved abortive, through the force of local jealousies within the country, fomented and seconded by Spartan aid from without. Though the general vote for federative coalition had been passed with enthusiasm, yet to carry out such a vote to the satisfaction of all, without quarrelling on points of detail, would have required far more of public-minded sentiment, as well as of intelligence, than what could be reckoned upon among the Arcadians. It was necessary to establish a new city; since the standing jealousy between Mantinea and Tegea, now for the first time embarked in one common cause, would never have permitted that either should be preferred as the centre of the new consolidation.[459] Besides fixing upon the new site required, it was indispensable also to choose between conflicting exigencies, and to break up ancient habits, in a way such as could hardly have been enforced by any majority purely Arcadian. The authority here deficient was precisely supplied by Epaminondas; who brought with him a victorious army and a splendid personal name, combined with impartiality as to the local politics of Arcadia, and single-minded hostility to Sparta.

It was with a view to these two great foundations, as well as to expel Agesilaus, that Epaminondas now marched the Theban army into Arcadia; the command being voluntarily intrusted to him by Pelopidas and the other Bœotarchs present. He arrived shortly after the retirement of Agesilaus, while the Arcadians and Eleians were ravaging the lands of the recusant town of Heræa. As they speedily came back to greet his arrival, the aggregate confederate body,—Argeians, Arcadians, and Eleians, united with the Thebans and their accompanying allies,—is said to have amounted to forty thousand, or according to some, even to seventy thousand men.[460] Not merely had Epaminondas brought with him a choice body of auxiliaries,—Phokians, Lokrians, Eubœans, Akarnanians, Herakleots, Malians, and Thessalian cavalry and peltasts,—but the Bœotian bands themselves were so brilliant and imposing, as to excite universal admiration. The victory of Leuktra had awakened among them an enthusiastic military ardor, turned to account by the genius of Epaminondas, and made to produce a finished discipline which even the unwilling Xenophon cannot refuse to acknowledge.[461] Conscious of the might of their assembled force, within a day’s march of Laconia, the Arcadians, Argeians, and Eleians pressed Epaminondas to invade that country, now that no allies could approach the frontier to its aid. At first he was unwilling to comply. He had not come prepared for the enterprise; being well aware, from his own journey to Sparta (when the peace-congress was held there prior to the battle of Leuktra), of the impracticable nature of the intervening country, so easy to be defended, especially during the winter-season, by troops like the Lacedæmonians, whom he believed to be in occupation of all the passes. Nor was his reluctance overcome until the instances of his allies were backed by assurances from the Arcadians on the frontier, that the passes were not all guarded; as well as by invitations from some of the discontented Periœki, in Laconia. These Periœki engaged to revolt openly, if he would only show himself in the country. They told him that there was a general slackness throughout Laconia in obeying the military requisitions from Sparta; and tendered their lives as atonement if they should be found to speak falsely. By such encouragements, as well as by the general impatience of all around him to revenge upon Sparta her long career of pride and abused ascendency, Epaminondas was at length induced to give the order of invasion.[462]

That he should have hesitated in taking this responsibility, will not surprise us, if we recollect, that over and above the real difficulties of the country, invasion of Laconia by land was an unparalleled phenomenon,—that the force of Sparta was most imperfectly known,—that no such thought had been entertained when he left Thebes,—that the legal duration of command, for himself and his colleagues, would not permit it,—and that though his Peloponnesian allies were forward in the scheme, the rest of his troops and his countrymen might well censure him, if the unknown force of resistance turned out as formidable as their associations from old time led them to apprehend.

The invading army was distributed into four portions, all penetrating by different passes. The Eleians had the westernmost and easiest road, the Argeians the easternmost;[463] while the Thebans themselves and the Arcadians formed the two central divisions. The latter alone experienced any serious resistance. More daring even than the Thebans, they encountered Ischolaus the Spartan at Ium or Oeum in the district called Skiritis, attacked him in the village, and overpowered him by vehemence of assault, by superior numbers, and seemingly also by some favor or collusion[464] on the part of the inhabitants. After a desperate resistance, this brave Spartan with nearly all his division perished. At Karyæ, the Thebans also found and surmounted some resistance; but the victory of the Arcadians over Ischolaus operated as an encouragement to all, so that the four divisions reached Sellasia[465] and were again united in safety. Undefended and deserted (seemingly) by the Spartans, Sellasia was now burnt and destroyed by the invaders, who, continuing their march along the plain or valley towards the Eurotas, encamped in the sacred grove of Apollo. On the next day they reached the Eurotas, at the foot of the bridge which crossed that river and led to the city of Sparta.

Epaminondas found the bridge too well-guarded to attempt forcing it; a strong body of Spartan hoplites being also discernible on the other side, in the sacred ground of Athênê Alea. He therefore marched down the left bank of the river, burning and plundering the houses in his way, as far as Amyklæ, between two and three miles below Sparta. Here he found a ford, though the river was full, from the winter season; and accomplished the passage, defeating, after a severe contest, a body of Spartans who tried to oppose it. He was now on the same side of the river as Sparta, to which city he slowly and cautiously made his approach; taking care to keep his Theban troops always in the best battle order, and protecting them, when encamped, by felled trees; while the Arcadians and other Peloponnesian allies dispersed around to plunder the neighboring houses and property.[466]

Great was the consternation which reigned in the city; destitute of fortifications, yet hitherto inviolate in fact and unassailable even in idea. Besides their own native force, the Spartans had no auxiliaries except those mercenaries from Orchomenus who had come back with Agesilaus; nor was it certain beforehand that even these troops would remain with them, if the invasion became formidable.[467] On the first assemblage of the irresistible army on their frontier, they had despatched one of their commanders of foreign contingents (called Xenâgi) to press the instant coming of such Peloponnesian allies as remained faithful to them; and also envoys to Athens, entreating assistance from that city. Auxiliaries were obtained, and rapidly put under march, from Pellênê, Sikyon, Phlius, Corinth, Epidaurus, Trœzen, Hermionê, and Halieis.[468] But the ordinary line of march into Laconia was now impracticable to them; the whole frontier being barred by Argeians and Arcadians. Accordingly they were obliged to proceed first to the Argolic peninsula, and from thence to cross by sea (embarking probably at Halieis on the south-western coast of the peninsula) to Prasiæ on the eastern coast of Laconia; from whence they made their way over the Laconian mountains to Sparta. Being poorly provided with vessels, they were forced to cross in separate detachments, and to draw lots for priority.[469] By this chance the Phliasian contingent did not come over until the last; while the xenagus, eager to reach Sparta, left them behind, and conducted the rest thither, arriving only just before the confederate enemies debouched from Sellasia. The Phliasians, on crossing to Prasiæ, found neither their comrades nor the xenagus, but were obliged to hire a guide to Sparta. Fortunately they arrived there both safely and in time, eluding the vigilance of the enemy, who were then near Amyklæ.

These reinforcements were no less seasonable to Sparta, than creditable to the fidelity of the allies. For the bad feeling which habitually reigned in Laconia, between the Spartan citizens on one side, and the Periœki and Helots on the other, produced in this hour of danger its natural fruits of desertion, alarm, and weakness. Not only were the Periœki and Helots in standing discontent, but even among the Spartan citizens themselves, a privileged fraction called Peers had come to monopolize political honors; while the remainder,—poorer men, yet ambitious and active, and known under the ordinary name of the Inferiors,—were subject to a degrading exclusion, and rendered bitterly hostile. The account given in a previous chapter of the conspiracy of Kinadon, will have disclosed the fearful insecurity of the Spartan citizen, surrounded by so many disaffected companions; Periœki and Helots in Laconia, inferior citizens at Sparta. On the appearance of the invading enemy, indeed, a certain feeling of common interest arose, since even the disaffected might reasonably imagine that a plundering soldiery, if not repelled at the point of the sword, would make their condition worse instead of better. And accordingly, when the ephors made public proclamation, that any Helot who would take heavy armor and serve in the ranks as an hoplite, should be manumitted,—not less than six thousand Helots gave in their names to serve. But a body thus numerous, when seen in arms, became itself the object of mistrust to the Spartans; so that the arrival of their new allies from Prasiæ was welcomed as a security, not less against the armed Helots within the city, than against the Thebans without.[470] Open enmity, however, was not wanting. A considerable number both of Periœki and Helots actually took arms on behalf of the Thebans; others remained inactive, disregarding the urgent summons from the ephors, which could not now be enforced.[471]

Under such wide-spread feelings of disaffection the defence even of Sparta itself against the assailing enemy was a task requiring all the energy of Agesilaus. After having vainly tried to hinder the Thebans from crossing the Eurotas, he was forced to abandon Amyklæ and to throw himself back upon the city of Sparta, towards which they immediately advanced. More than one conspiracy was on the point of breaking out, had not his vigilance forestalled the projects. Two hundred young soldiers of doubtful fidelity were marching, without orders, to occupy a strong post (sacred to Artemis) called the Issorium. Those around him were about to attack them, but Agesilaus, repressing their zeal, went up alone to the band, addressed them in language betokening no suspicion, yet warning them that they had mistaken his orders: their services were needed, not at the Issorium, but in another part of the city. They obeyed his orders, and moved to the spot indicated; upon which he immediately occupied the Issorium with troops whom he could trust. In the ensuing night, he seized and put to death fifteen of the leaders of the two hundred. Another conspiracy, said to have been on the point of breaking out, was repressed by seizing the conspirators in the house where they were assembled, and putting them to death untried; the first occasion (observes Plutarch) on which any Spartan was ever put to death untried,[472]—a statement which I hesitate to believe without knowing from whom he borrowed it, but which, if true, proves that the Spartan kings and ephors did not apply to Spartan citizens the same measure as to Periœki and Helots.

By such severe proceedings, disaffection was kept under; while the strong posts of the city were effectively occupied, and the wider approaches barricaded by heaps of stones and earth.[473] Though destitute of walls, Sparta was extremely defensible by position. Epaminondas marched slowly up to it from Amyklæ; the Arcadians and others in his army spreading themselves to burn and plunder the neighborhood. On the third or fourth day his cavalry occupied the Hippodrome (probably a space of level ground near the river, under the hilly site of the town), where the Spartan cavalry, though inferior both in number and in goodness, gained an advantage over them, through the help of three hundred chosen hoplites whom Agesilaus had planted in ambush hard by, in a precinct sacred to the Dioskuri. Though this action was probably of little consequence, yet Epaminondas did not dare to attempt the city by storm. Satisfied with having defied the Spartans and manifested his mastery of the field even to their own doors, he marched away southward down to Eurotas. To them, in their present depression, it was matter of consolation and even of boasting,[474] that he had not dared to assail them in their last stronghold. The agony of their feelings,—grief, resentment, and wounded honor,—was intolerable. Many wished to go out and fight, at all hazard; but Agesilaus resisted them with the same firmness as Perikles had shown at Athens, when the Peloponnesians first invaded Attica at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war. Especially the Spartan women, who had never before beheld an enemy, are said to have manifested emotions so furious and distressing, as to increase much the difficulty of defence.[475] We are even told that Antalkidas, at that time one of the ephors, sent his children for safety away from Sparta to the island of Kythêra. Epaminondas knew well how desperate the resistance of the Spartans would be if their city were attacked; while to himself, in the midst of a hostile and impracticable country, repulse would be absolute ruin.[476]

On leaving Sparta, Epaminondas carried his march as far as Helos and Gythium on the sea-coast; burning and plundering the country, and trying for three days to capture Gythium, which contained the Lacedæmonian arsenal and ships. Many of the Laconian Periœki joined and took service in his army; nevertheless his attempt on Gythium did not succeed; upon which he turned back and retraced his steps to the Arcadian frontier. It was the more necessary for him to think of quitting Laconia, since his Peloponnesian allies, the Arcadians and others, were daily stealing home with the rich plunder which they had acquired, while his supplies were also becoming deficient.[477]

Epaminondas had thus accomplished far more than he had projected when quitting Thebes; for the effect of the expedition on Grecian opinion was immense. The reputation of his army, as well as his own, was prodigiously exalted; and even the narrative of Xenophon, unfriendly as well as obscure, bears involuntary testimony both to the excellence of his generalship and to the good discipline of his troops. He made his Thebans keep in rank and hold front against the enemy, even while their Arcadian allies were dispersing around for plunder. Moreover, the insult and humiliation to Sparta were still greater than that inflicted by the battle of Leuktra; which had indeed shown that she was no longer invincible in the field, but had still left her with the admitted supposition of an inviolable territory and an unapproachable city.

The resistance of the Spartans indeed (except in so far as regards their city) had been far less than either friends or enemies expected; the belief in their power was thus proportionally abridged. It now remained for Epaminondas to complete their humiliation by executing those two enterprises which had formed the special purpose of his expedition: the reëstablishment of Messênê, and the consolidation of the Arcadians.

The recent invasion of Laconia, victorious as well as lucrative, had inspired the Arcadians with increased confidence and antipathy against Sparta, and increased disposition to listen to Epaminondas. When that eminent man proclaimed the necessity of establishing a strong frontier against Sparta on the side of Arcadia, and when he announced his intention of farther weakening Sparta by the restoration of the exiled Messenians,—the general feeling of the small Arcadian communities, already tending in the direction of coalescence, became strong enough to overbear all such impediments of detail as the breaking up of ancient abode and habit involves. Respecting early Athenian history, we are told by Thucydides,[478] that the legendary Theseus, “having become powerful, in addition to his great capacity,” had effected the discontinuance of those numerous independent governments which once divided Attica, and had consolidated them all into one common government at Athens. Just such was the revolution now operated by Epaminondas, through the like combination of intelligence and power. A Board of Œkists or Founders was named to carry out the resolution taken by the Arcadian assemblies at Asea and Tegea, for the establishment of a Pan-Arcadian city and centre. Of this Board, two were from Tegea, two from Mantinea, two from Kleitor, two from the district of Menalus, two from that of the Parrhasians. A convenient site being chosen upon the river Helisson (which flowed through and divided the town in two), about twenty miles west of Tegea, well-fitted to block up the marches of Sparta in a north-westerly direction,—the foundation of the new Great City (Megalopolis) was laid by the Œkists jointly with Epaminondas. Forty distinct Arcadian townships,[479] from all sides of this centre, were persuaded to join the new community. Ten were from the Mænalii, eight from the Parrhasii, six from the Eutresii, three great sections of the Arcadian name, each an aggregate of villages. Four little townships, occupying a portion of the area intended for the new territory, yet being averse to the scheme, were constrained to join; but in one of them, Trapezus, the aversion was so strong, that most of the inhabitants preferred to emigrate, and went to join the Trapezuntines in the Euxine Sea (Trebizond), who received them kindly. Some of the leading Trapezuntines were even slain by the violent temper of the Arcadian majority. The walls of the new city enclosed an area of fifty stadia in circumference (more than five miles and a half); while an ample rural territory was also gathered around it, extending northward as much as twenty-four miles from the city, and conterminous on the east with Tegea, Mantinea, Orchomenus, and Kaphyæ,—on the west with Messênê,[480] Phigalia, and Heræa.

The other new city,—Messênê,—was founded under the joint auspices of the Thebans and their allies, Argeians and others; Epitelês being especially chosen by the Argeians for that purpose.[481] The Messenian exiles, though eager and joyful at the thought of regaining their name and nationality, were averse to fix their new city either at Œchalia or Andania, which had been the scenes of their calamities in the early wars with Sparta. Moreover the site of Mount Ithômê is said to have been pointed out by the hero Kaukon, in a dream, to the Ageian general Epitelês. The local circumstances of this mountain (on which the last gallant resistance of the revolted Messenians against Sparta had been carried on, between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars) were such, that the indications of dreams, prophets, and religious signs coincided fully with the deliberate choice of a judge like Epaminondas. In after days, this hill Ithômê (then bearing the town and citadel of Messênê), together with the Akrocorinthus, were marked out by Demetrius of Pharus as the two horns of Peloponnesus: whoever held these two horns, was master of the bull.[482] Ithômê was near two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea, having upon its summit an abundant spring of water, called Klepsydra. Upon this summit the citadel or acropolis of the new town of Messênê was built; while the town itself was situated lower down on the slope, though connected by a continuous wall with its acropolis. First, solemn sacrifices were offered, by Epaminondas, who was recognized as Œkist or Founder,[483] to Dionysius and Apollo Ismenius,—by the Argeians, to the Argeian Hêrê and Zeus Nemeius,—by the Messenians, to Zeus Ithomatês and the Dioskuri. Next, prayer was made to the ancient Heroes and Heroines of the Messenian nation, especially to the invincible warrior Aristomenes, that they would now come back and again take up their residence as inmates in enfranchised Messênê. After this, the ground was marked out and the building was begun, under the sound of Argeian and Bœotian flutes, playing the strains of Pronomus and Sakadas. The best masons and architects were invited from all Greece, to lay out the streets with regularity, as well as to ensure a proper distribution and construction of the sacred edifices.[484] In respect of the fortifications, too, Epaminondas was studiously provident. Such was their excellence and solidity, that they exhibited matter for admiration even in the after-days of the traveller Pausanias.[485]

From their newly-established city on the hill of Ithômê, the Messenians enjoyed a territory extending fifteen miles southward down to the Messenian Gulf, across a plain, then as well as now, the richest and most fertile in Peloponnesus; while to the eastward, their territory was conterminous with that of Arcadia and the contemporary establishment of Megalopolis. All the newly-appropriated space was land cut off from the Spartan dominion. How much was cut off in the direction south-east of Ithômê (along the north-eastern coast of the Messenian Gulf), we cannot exactly say. But it would appear that the Periœki of Thuria, situated in that neighborhood, were converted into an independent community and protected by the vicinity of Messênê.[486] What is of more importance to notice, however, is,—that all the extensive district westward and south-westward of Ithômê,—all the south-western corner of Peloponnesus, from the river Neda southward to Cape Akritas,—was now also subtracted from Sparta. At the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the Spartan Brasidas had been in garrison near Methônê[487] (not far from Cape Akritas); Pylus,—where the Athenian Demosthenes erected his hostile fort, near which the important capture at Sphakteria was effected,—had been a maritime point belonging to Sparta, about forty-six miles from the city;[488] Aulon (rather farther north, near the river Neda) had been at the time of the conspiracy of Kinadon a township of Spartan Periœki, of very doubtful fidelity.[489] Now all this wide area, from the north-eastern corner of the Messenian Gulf westward, the best half of the Spartan territory, was severed from Sparta to become the property of Periœki and Helots, converted into freemen; not only sending no rent or tribute to Sparta, as before, but bitterly hostile to her from the very nature of their tenure. It was in the ensuing year that the Arcadian army cut to pieces the Lacedæmonian garrison at Asinê,[490] killing the Spartan polemarch Geranor; and probably about the same time the other Lacedæmonian garrisons in the south-western peninsula must have been expelled. Thus liberated, the Periœki of the region welcomed the new Messênê as the guarantee of their independence. Epaminondas, besides confirming the independence of Methônê and Asinê, reconstituted some other towns,[491] which under Lacedæmonian dominion had probably been kept unfortified and had dwindled away.