of Thebes an old act of injustice was undone, and the principle of autonomy was strikingly affirmed. But, besides the glory which Thebes won by so popular an act, besides the direct injury inflicted on Sparta and the establishment of a hostile fort, the policy of Epaminondas was calculated to produce a result of greater importance. The loss of Messenia would accelerate that process of decline in the Spartan state, which had already advanced so far. The fewer the lots, the fewer the citizens, according to the indissoluble connexion between land and burgher-rights on the Lycurgean system. It was high time for Sparta to reform her constitution. witness to The Arcadians celebrated this memorable invasion of Laconia The stone by dedicating with part of the spoil a group of statues to the Delphian which bears god. The verses of dedication signify that the indigenous people the infrom sacred Arcadia, having laid Lacedaemon waste, set up the vasion of monument as a witness to future generations. The statues are Laconia. gone, but the verses on their stone have come to light in our own day. In the meantime Sparta had begged aid from Athens, and Athens had decided to depart from her position of neutrality. A vote was passed, strongly supported by the orator Callistratus, to send the entire force of the city under Iphicrates to assist Sparta. This was evidently the most politic course for Athens to adopt. Sparta was a necessary makeweight against Thebes. Nor is it doubtful that, notwithstanding all their rivalries, no such antipathy parted Athens from Sparta as that which existed between the two states and Thebes. Iphicrates marched to the Isthmus and occupied Corinth and Cen- Athens chreae, thus commanding the line of Mount Oneion. His object, it sends an must be clearly understood, was not to prevent the enemy from leaving rescue the Peloponnesus, but to protect the rear of his own army marching Sparta. into a hostile country. He advanced into Arcadia, but found that the Thebans and their allies had left Laconia, and Sparta was no longer in danger. He therefore drew back to Corinth, and harassed Theban the Boeotian army on its return march, without attempting to bar army army to returns its passage. For the object of the Athenian expedition was simply home, to rescue Sparta, not, except so far as Sparta's peril might demand, spring, to fight with the Thebans. and 369 B.C. But the hasty vote to march to the rescue was soon followed Alliance of by a deliberate treaty of alliance; and Athens definitely ranged her- Athens self with Sparta against Boeotia and Arcadia. She was already Sparta, meditating schemes of extending her empire; she was nourishing spring, the hope of recovering the most precious of all her former imperial 369 B. C. possessions, the Thracian Amphipolis. With such designs it was impossible to remain neutral; and, as we shall see, there was some danger of a collision with Thebes in Macedonia. Second into the Pelopon nesus. Fighting went on in the Peloponnese between the Arcadians and expedition the allies of Sparta; and a few months later Epaminondas (who had of Epamibeen re-elected Boeotarch in his absence at the beginning of the year) nondas appeared again at the head of the Boeotian army. The Spartans and Athenians had occupied the line of Mount Oneion; this time the object was to keep out the Thebans. But Epaminondas broke through their lines, joined his allies, won over Sicyon and Pellene, and failed to win Phlius. A new succour for Sparta arrived at this moment from over-seas. Twenty ships bearing 2000 Celtic and Iberian mercenaries came from her old ally, the tyrant of Syracuse, to whom she had once sent aid in an hour of peril, and who had more than once sent succour to her. Their coming seems to have decided Epaminondas to return home, though he had accomplished but little, and his political opponent Meneclidas took advantage of the general disappointment to indict him for treason. The result was that Epaminondas was not re-elected Boeotarch for the following year. Spring, 368 B.C. To establish her supremacy, Thebes was adopting the same policy as Sparta. She placed a harmost in Sicyon; as the Boeotian cities had formerly been garrisoned by Sparta, the Peloponnesian cities were now to be garrisoned by Thebes. Messenia and Arcadia were to be autonomous, but the Thebans desired to be regarded as both the authors and preservers of that autonomy. As a mistress, distant Thebes might be more tolerable than neighbouring Lacedaemon; but the free federation of Arcadia determined to be free in very deed. Sparta was now sunk so low that the Arcadians with friendly Messene on one side, and friendly Argos on the other-could hope to maintain their liberty with their own swords, without foreign aid. Their leading spirit Lycomedes animated them to this resolve of independence and self-reliance. "You are the only indigenous natives of the Peloponnesus, and you are the most numerous and hardiest nation in Greece. Your valour is proved by the fact that you have been always in the greatest request as allies. following the lead of others. You made Sparta, by following her lead; and now if you follow the lead of Thebes, without yourselves leading in turn, she will prove perhaps a second Sparta." In this mood the Arcadians displayed a surprising activity and achieved a series of successes. The two important cities, Heraea in the west, and Orchomenus in the north, which had hitherto stood aloof, were forced to join the league, which now became in the fullest sense PanArcadian. Some of the northern villages of Laconia were annexed, and the Triphylian towns sought in the league a support against the hated domination of Elis. The federal forces were active in the opposite quarters of Argolis and Messenia. Against all this activity Give up Sparta felt herself helpless. But a second armament of auxiliaries Sparta arrived from her friend, the tyrant of Syracuse, and thus reinforced receives she ventured to take the field, and marched into the plain of help from Dionysius. Megalopolis. But the expedition was suddenly interrupted; time The tearhad been wasted, and the Syracusan force, in accordance with its less battle, orders, was obliged to return to Sicily. Its way lay through Laconia, 368 (late in order to take ship at Gytheion; and the enemy tried to cut it off summer?). in the mountain defiles. The Spartan commander Archidamus, who was in the rear, hastened to the rescue, and dispersed the Arcadians with great loss. Not a single Lacedaemonian was killed, and the victory was called the "tearless battle." The joy displayed in Sparta over this slight success showed how low Sparta had fallen. 368 B. C. (summer). It may be thought that Dionysius might have kept his troops at Congress home, if they were charged to return before they had well time to begin of Delphi, to fight. But the truth is, that these troops were for some months inactive in Greece, while an attempt was being made to bring about a general peace. The initiative came from Ariobarzanes, the Persian satrap of Phrygia, who sent to Greece an agent well furnished with money; and this move on the part of Persia was probably suggested by Athens. The Syracusan sovereign also intervened in the interests of peace, and the stone remains on which the Athenians thanked Dionysius and his sons for being "good men in regard to the people of the Athenians and their allies, and helping the King's Peace." Thus the King's Peace was the basis of the negotiations of the congress which met at Delphi. Both Athens, which was doubtless the prime mover, and Sparta were most anxious for peace; but each had an ultimate condition from which she would not retreat. Sparta's very life seemed to demand the recovery of Messenia, and Athens had set her heart on Amphipolis. But neither condition would be admitted by Thebes, and consequently the negotiations fell through. They led, however, to independent negotiations of various states with Persia, each seeking to win from the king a recognition of its own claims. Pelopidas went up to Susa on behalf of Thebes to obtain a royal confirmation of the independence of Messenia. The Athenians FIG. 155. - Coin of at Susa, Greek envoys Argos (obverse). 367 B.C. sent envoys to convince the king of their rights to Amphipolis. Arcadia, Elis, and Argos were also represented. Pelopidas was entirely successful. The king issued an order to Greece, embodying Persian the wishes of Thebes: Messenia and Amphipolis to be independent, rescript. the Athenians to recall their warships. The question of Triphyliawhether it was to be dependent on Elis or a part of Arcadia-was Third of Epaminondas into the Pelopon decided in favour of Elis; this decision in a matter of absolute indifference to Persia was clearly due to Pelopidas, and indicates strained relations between Thebes and Arcadia. Pelopidas returned with the royal letter, but it found no acceptance in Greece, either at the congress of allies which was convoked at Thebes, or when the document was afterwards sent round to the cities. Arcadia would not abandon Triphylia, and Lycomedes formally protested against the headship of Thebes. The answer of Thebes to this defiance of her will was an invasion of expedition the Peloponnesus. The line of Mount Oneion was still defended, but negligently; and Epaminondas passed it with Argive help. His object was not to depress Sparta further, for Sparta was now too feeble to be formidable, but to check the pretensions of Arcadia. And this could only be done through strengthening Theban influence in the Peloponnesus by winning new allies. Accordingly, Epaminondas advanced to Achaea, and easily gained the adhesion of the Achaean cities. nesus, 366 B. C. Achaea won and lost, 366 B.C. Sicyon: Euphron becomes tyrant, 368 B.C. But the gain of Achaea was soon followed by its loss. Counter to the moderate policy of Epaminondas, the Thebans had insisted on overthrowing the oligarchical constitutions and banishing the oligarchical leaders; these exiles from the various cities banded together, and recovered each city successively, overthrowing the democracies and expelling the harmosts. Henceforward Achaea was an ardent partisan of Sparta. The unsettled state of the Peloponnesus was conspicuously shown by the events which happened at Sicyon. When the Theban harmost was installed in the acropolis, the oligarchy had been spared; but soon afterwards one of the chief citizens, named Euphron, brought about the establishment of a democracy, and then, procuring his own election as general, organising a mercenary force, and surrounding himself with a bodyguard, the usual and notorious steps of a despot's progress,-made himself master of the city and harbour. The Arcadians had helped Euphron in his first designs, but the intrigues of his opponents were so skilful, that Arcadia again intervened and restored to Sicyon the exiles whom the tyrant had driven out. Expelled, Euphron fled from the city to the harbour, which he surrendered to the Lacedaemonians; but the Lacedaemonians failed to hold it. Sicyon, however, was not yet delivered from her tyrant. He was restored by the help of Athenian mercenaries. Afterwards, seeing that he could not maintain himself without the support of restored. 366-5 B.C. FIG. 156.-Coin of Boeotia, he visited Thebes, and was slain on the Cadmea in front of the Hall of Council, by two Sicyonian exiles who had dogged him. His assassins were tried and acquitted at Thebes, but at Sicyon his memory was cherished and he was worshipped as a second founder of the city. The fact shows that under the rule of Euphron the masses of the people were happier than under the political opponents whom he had so mercilessly treated. His son succeeded to his power. 366 B.C. The expedition of Epaminondas was attended with results which Thebans were in the end injurious to Thebes. The relations with Arcadia seize Oropus, became more and more strained. But in the same year Oropus was wrested from Athens and occupied by a Theban force. The Athenians were unable to cope alone with Thebes; they called on their allies, but none moved to their aid. The moment was Alliance of seized by Arcadia. Lycomedes visited Athens and induced the Arcadia Athenians, smarting with resentment against their allies, to conclude with an alliance with the league. Thus Athens was now in the position of being an ally of both Arcadia and Sparta, which were at war with each other; and Arcadia was the ally of Athens and Thebes, which were also at war with each other. The visit of Lycomedes incidentally led to a disaster for Arcadia which outweighed the benefit of the alliance. The ambassador, on his way back, was slain by some Murder of exiles into whose hands he fell; and the league lost its ablest Lycomedes. statesman. Athens, 366 B. C. This change in the mutual relations among the Greek states, brought about by the seizure of Oropus, was followed by another change, brought about by an Athenian plot to seize Corinth. The object was to secure permanent control over the passage into the Peloponnesus. But the plot was discovered and foiled by the Corinthians, who then politely dismissed the Athenian soldiers stationed at various posts in the Corinthian territory. But by herself Corinth would have been unable to resist the combined pressure Partial of Thebes on one side and Argos on the other; and, as Sparta peace of could not help her, she was driven to make peace with Thebes. 366-5 B.C. She was joined by her neighbour Phlius and by the cities of the Argolic coast; all these states formally recognised the independence of Messene, but did not enter into any alliance with Thebes, or give any pledge to obey her headship. They became, in fact, neutral. It was a blow to Sparta, who still refused to accept a peace on any terms save the restoration of Messenia. The Messenian question gave political speculators at Athens a subject for meditation. Was the demand of Sparta just? The publicist Isocrates argued the case for Sparta in a speech which he put in the mouth of king Archi |
