Of the men who sought after God in the darkness, “if haply they might feel after Him,” none had come so near the truth as Socrates, a sculptor by trade, and yet a great philosopher, and, so far as we can see, the wisest and best man who ever grew up without any guide but nature and conscience. Even the oracle at Delphi declared that he was the wisest of men, because he did not fancy he knew what he did not know, and did not profess to have any wisdom of his own. It was quite true—all his thinking had only made him quite sure that he knew nothing; but he was also sure that he had an inward voice within him, telling him which was the way in which he should walk. He did not think much about the wild tales of the Greek gods and goddesses; he seems to have considered them as fancies that had grown up on some forgotten truth, and he said a healthy mind would not dwell upon them; but he was quite sure that above all these there was one really true Most High God, who governed the world, rewarded the good, punished the bad, and sent him the inward voice, which he tried to obey to the utmost of his power, and by so doing, no doubt, his inward sight grew clearer and clearer. Even in his home his gentleness and patience were noted, so that when his scolding wife Xantippe, after railing at him sharply, threw some water at his head, he only smiled, and said, “After thunder follows rain.” He did not open a school under a portico, but, as he did his work, all the choicest spirits of Greece resorted to him to argue out these questions in search of truth; and many accounts of these conversations have been preserved to us by his two best pupils, Plato and Xenophon.
Socrates But in the latter days of the Peloponnesian war, when the Athenians were full of bitterness, and had no great deeds to undertake outside their city, a foolish set of arguing pretenders to philosophy arose, who were called the Sophists, and who spent their time in mere empty talk, often against the gods; and the great Socrates was mixed up in people’s fancy with them. A comic writer arose, named Aristophanes, who, seeing the Athenians fallen from the greatness of their fathers, tried to laugh them into shame at themselves. He particularly disliked Euripides, because his tragedies seemed, like the Sophists, not to respect the gods; and he also more justly hated Alkibiades for his overbearing ways, and his want of all real respect for gods or men. It was very hard on Socrates that the faults of his pupils should be charged against him; but Aristophanes had set all Athens laughing by a comedy called “The Clouds,” in which a good-for-nothing young man, evidently meant for Alkibiades, gets his father into debt by buying horses, and, under the teaching of Socrates, learns both to cheat his creditors and to treat respect for his father as a worn-out notion. The beauty and the lisp of Alkibiades were imitated so as to make it quite plain who was meant by the youth; and Socrates himself was evidently represented by an actor in a hideous comic mask, caricaturing the philosopher’s snub nose and ugly features. The play ended by the young man’s father threatening to burn down the house of Socrates, with him in it. This had been written twenty years before, but it had been acted and admired again and again, together with the other comedies of Aristophanes—one about a colony of birds who try to build a city in the air, and of whom the chorus was composed; and another, called “The Frogs,” still more droll, and all full of attacks on the Sophists.
Thus the Athenians had a general notion that Socrates was a corrupter of youth and a despiser of the gods, for in truth some forms of worship, like the orgies of Bacchus, and other still worse rites which had been brought in from the East, were such that no good man could approve them. One of the thirty tyrants had at one time been a pupil of his, and this added to the ill-feeling against him; and while Xenophon was still away in Asia, in the year 399, the philosopher was brought to trial on three points, namely, that he did not believe in the gods of Athens, that he brought in new gods, and that he misled young men; and for this his accusers demanded that he should be put to death.
Socrates pleaded his own cause before the council of the Areopagus. He flatly denied unbelief in the gods of his fathers, but he defended his belief in his genius or in-dwelling voice, and said that in this he was only like those who drew auguries from the notes of birds, thunder, and the like; and as for his guidance of young men, he called on his accusers to show whether he had ever led any man from virtue to vice. One of them answered that he knew those who obeyed and followed Socrates more than their own parents; to which he replied that such things sometimes happened in other matters—men consulted physicians about their health rather than their fathers, and obeyed their generals in war, not their fathers; and so in learning, they might follow him rather than their fathers. “Because I am thought to have some power of teaching youth, O my judges!” he ended, “is that a reason why I should suffer death? My accusers may procure that judgment, but hurt me they cannot. To fear death is to seem wise without being so, for it is pretending to understand what we know not. No man knows what death is, or whether it be not our greatest happiness; yet all fear and shun it.”
His pupil Plato stood up on the platform to defend him, and began, “O ye Athenians, I am the youngest man who ever went up in this place—”
“No, no,” they cried, with one voice; “the youngest who ever went down!” They would not hear a word from him; and 280 voices sentenced the great philosopher Plato to die, after the Athenian fashion, by being poisoned with hemlock. He disdained to plead for a lessening of the penalty; but it could not be carried out at once, because a ship had just been sent to Delos with offerings, and for the thirty days while this was gone no one could be put to death. Socrates therefore was kept in prison, with chains upon his ankles; but all his friends were able to come and visit him, and one of them, named Krito, hoped to have contrived his escape by bribing the jailer, but he refused to make anyone guilty of a breach of the laws for the sake of a life which must be near its close, for he was not far from seventy years old; and when one of his friends began to weep at the thought of his dying innocent, “What!” he said, “would you think it better for me to die guilty?”
When the ship had come back, and the time was come, he called all his friends together for a cheerful feast, during which he discoursed to them as usual. All the words that fell from him were carefully stored up, and recorded by Plato in a dialogue, which is one of the most valuable things that have come down to us from Greek times. It was not Socrates, said the philosopher, whom they would lay in the grave. Socrates’ better part, and true self, would be elsewhere; and all of them felt sure that in that unknown world, as they told him, it must fare well with one like him. He begged them, for their own sakes, never to forget the lessons he had taught them; and when the time had come, he drank the hemlock as if it had been a cup of wine: he then walked up and down the room for a little while, bade his pupils remember that this was the real deliverance from all disease and impurity, and then, as the fatal sleep benumbed him, he lay down, bidding Krito not forget a vow he had made to one of the gods; and so he slept into death. “Thus,” said Plato, “died the man who, of all with whom we were acquainted, was in death the noblest, in life the wisest and the best.”
Plato himself carried on much of the teaching of his master, and became the founder of a sect of philosophy which taught that, come what may, virtue is that which should, above all, be sought for as making man noblest, and that no pain, loss, or grief should be shunned for virtue’s sake. His followers were called Stoics, from their fashion of teaching in the porticos or porches, which in Greek were named stoai. Their great opponents were the Epicureans, or followers of a philosopher by name Epicurus, who held that as man’s life is short, and as he knew not whence he came, nor whither he went, he had better make himself as happy as possible, and care for nothing else. Epicurus, indeed, declared that only virtue did make men happy; but there was nothing in his teaching to make them do anything but what pleased themselves, so his philosophy did harm, while that of the Stoics did good. A few Pythagoreans, who believed in the harmony of the universe, still remained; but as long as the world remained in darkness, thinking men were generally either Stoics or Epicureans.
The ablest man just at this time in Greece was Agesilaus, one of the kings of Sparta. He was small, weakly, and lame, but full of courage, and an excellent general; and though he was as plain and hardy as suited with Spartan discipline, he had a warm, kind, tender heart, and was not ashamed to show it, as some of the Spartans were. So that, when some ambassadors came to see him, they found him riding on a stick to please his children; and again, when a trial of a distinguished man was going on in his absence, he wrote, “If he be not guilty, spare him for his own sake; if he be guilty, spare him for mine.”
He was young, and full of fire and spirit, when the Spartans resolved to try to free the Greek colonies in Asia Minor from the Persians, by an army under his command. Xenophon had been so much grieved by his master Socrates’ death that he would not remain at Athens, but joined his old friends once more, and was a great friend of Agesilaus. The Athenians, Corinthians, and Thebans were all asked to send troops, but they refused, and Agesilaus set sail with 8000 men, meaning to meet and take with him the remains of the 10,000, who were well used to warfare with the Persians. He was the first Greek king who had sailed to Asia since the Trojan war, and, in imitation of Agamemnon, he stopped at Aulis, in Bœotia, to offer sacrifice to Diana. He dreamt that a message came that it ought to be the same sacrifice as Agamemnon had made, but he declared that he would not act so cruelly towards his own child, and caused a white hind to be crowned, and offered as the goddess’ chosen offering; but as this was not the usual sacrifice, the Thebans were affronted, and threw away the sacrifice as it lay on the altar. This was reckoned as a bad omen, and Agesilaus went on his way, doubting whether he should meet with success.
He was a man who went very much by omens, for after he had landed, had gained several successes, and was just advancing into Caria, at the sacrifice he found the liver of one of the victims imperfect, and this decided him on going back to Ephesus for the winter, to collect more horse. When he marched on in the spring he was much stronger; he advanced into the Persian territories, and defeated the Persians and their allies wherever he met them, and at last the satrap Pharnabazus begged to have a conference with him, being much struck with his valour.
Agesilaus came first to the place of meeting, and having to wait there, sat down on the grass under a tree, and began to eat his homely meal of bread and an onion. Presently up came the satrap in all his splendour, with attendants carrying an umbrella over his head, and others bearing rich carpets and costly furs for him to sit on, silver and gold plate, and rich food and wines. But when he found that the little, shabby, plain man under the tree was really the mighty king of Sparta, the descendant of Hercules, Pharnabazus was ashamed of all his pomp, and went down upon the ground by Agesilaus’ side, to the great damage, as the Greeks delighted to observe, of his fine, delicately-tinted robes. He told Agesilaus that he thought this attack a bad reward for all the help that the Spartans had had from Persia in the Peloponnesian war; but Agesilaus said that they had been friends then, but that as cause of war had arisen it was needful to fight, though he was so far from feeling enmity that Pharnabazus should find the Greeks willing to welcome him, and give him high command, if he would come and be a free man among them. Pharnabazus answered that as long as he held command in the name of the Great King he must be at war with the foes of Persia, but if Artaxerxes should take away his satrapy he would come over to the Spartans. Therewith Agesilaus shook hands with him, and said, “How much rather I would have so gallant a man for my friend than my enemy?” The young son of the satrap was even more taken with the Spartan, and, waiting behind his father, ran up to the king, and, according to the Persian offer of friendship, said, “I make you my guest,” at the same time giving him a javelin. Agesilaus looked about for anything fine enough to offer the young Persian in return, and seeing that a youth in his train had a horse with handsome trappings, asked for them, and made a gift of them to his new friend. The friendship stood the youth in good stead, for when he was afterwards driven from home by his brethren, Agesilaus welcomed him in Laconia, and was very kind to him. The war, however, still continued, and Agesilaus gained such successes that the Persians saw their best hope lay in getting him recalled to Greece; so they sent money in secret to the Athenians and their old allies to incite them to revolt, and so strong an army was brought together that the Spartans sent in haste to recall Agesilaus. The summons came just as he was mustering all the Greek warriors in Asia Minor for an advance into the heart of the empire, and he was much disappointed; but he laughed, and, as Persian coins were stamped with the figure of a horseman drawing the bow, he said he had been defeated by 10,000 Persian archers.
He marched home by the way of the Hellespont, but before he was past Thrace a great battle had been fought close to Corinth, in which the Spartans had been victorious and made a great slaughter of the allies. But he only thought of them as Greeks, not as enemies, and exclaimed, “O Greece, how many brave men hast thou lost, who might have conquered all Persia!” The Thebans had joined the allies against Sparta, and the Ephors sent orders to Agesilaus to punish them on his way southwards. This he did in the battle of Coronea, in which he was very badly wounded, but, after the victory was over, he would not be taken to his tent till he had been carried round the field to see that every slain Spartan was carried away in his armour and not left to the plunderers.
He then returned to Sparta, where the citizens were delighted to see that he had not been spoiled by Persian luxury, but lived as plainly as ever, and would not let his family dress differently from others. He knew what greatness was so well, that when he heard Artaxerxes called the Great King, he said, “How is he greater than I, unless he be the juster?”
It should be remembered that Konon, that Athenian captain who had escaped from Ægos Potami with six ships, had gone to the island of Cyprus. He persuaded the people of the island of Rhodes to revolt from the Spartans, and make friends with the Persians. It is even said that he went to the court of Artaxerxes, and obtained leave from him to raise ships, with which to attack the Spartans, from the colonies which were friendly to Athens, yet belonged to the Greek Empire. Pharnabazus joined him, and, with eighty-five ships, they cruised about in the Ægean Sea, and near Cnidus they entirely defeated the Spartan fleet. It was commanded by Pisander, Agesilaus’ brother-in-law, who held by his ship to the last, and died like a true Spartan, sword in hand.
After this Konon drove out many Spartan governors from the islands of the Ægean, and, sailing to Corinth, encouraged the citizens to hold out against Sparta, after which Pharnabazus went home, but Konon returned with the fleet to the Piræus, and brought money and aid to build up the Long Walls again, after they had been ten years in ruins. The crews of the ships and the citizens of Athens all worked hard, the rejoicing was immense, and Konon was looked on as the great hero and benefactor of Athens; but, as usual, before long the Athenians grew jealous of him and drove him out, so that he ended his life an exile, most likely in Cyprus.
It was no wonder that Xenophon’s heart turned against the city that thus treated her great men, though he ought not to have actually fought against her, as he did under Agesilaus, whom he greatly loved. The chief scene of the war was round Corinth; but at last both parties were wearied, and a peace was made between Athens and Sparta and the Persian Empire. Artaxerxes kept all the Greek cities in Asia and the islands of Cyprus and Clazomene, and all the other isles and colonies were declared free from the power of any city, except the isles of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which were still to belong to Athens. Sparta required of Thebes to give up her power over the lesser cities of Bœotia, but Sparta herself did not give up Messenia and the other districts in the Peloponnesus, so that she still remained the strongest. This was called the peace of Antaleidas.
Xenophon did not go back to Athens, but settled on a farm near Elis, where he built a little temple to Diana, in imitation of the one at Ephesus, and spent his time in husbandry, in hunting, and in writing his histories, and also treatises on dogs and horses. Once a-year he held a great festival in honour of Diana, offering her the tithe of all his produce, and feasting all the villagers around on barley meal, wheaten bread, meat, and venison, the last of which was obtained at a great hunting match conducted by Xenophon himself and his sons.
View on the Eurotas in Laconia
By the peace of Antaleidas things had been so settled that the Spartans had the chief power over Greece, and they used it in their proud, harsh way. In the year 387 they called the Thebans to assist in besieging the city of Mantinea, in a valley between Argos and Arcadia. The Mantineans sallied out, and there was a battle, in which they were defeated; but in the course of it a Theban youth of a rich and noble family, named Pelopidas, was surrounded by enemies. He fought desperately, and only fell at last under seven wounds just as another Theban, a little older, named Epaminondas, broke into his rescue, and fought over him until the Spartans made in and bore them off, but not till Epaminondas had likewise been badly wounded. He was the son of a poor but noble father, said to be descended from one of the men who had sprung from the dragon’s teeth; and he had been well taught, and was an earnest philosopher of the Pythagorean school, striving to the utmost of his power to live a good and virtuous life. A close friendship grew up between him and Pelopidas, though the one loved books, and the other, dogs and horses; but Pelopidas tried to be as upright and noble as his friend, and, though a very rich man, lived as hardily and sparingly as did Epaminondas, using his wealth to help the poor. When some foolish friends asked him why he did not use his riches for his own ease and pomp, he laughed at them, and, pointing to a helpless cripple, said that riches were only useful to a man like that.
Every high-spirited Theban hated the power that Sparta had taken over their free state, and wanted to shake it off; but some of those who were bribed by Sparta sent word of their intentions to a Spartan general in the neighbourhood, whereupon he came down on Thebes in the middle of a festival, seized the citadel called the Cadmea, put in a Spartan garrison, and drove 300 of the best Thebans into exile. Pelopidas was among them, while Epaminondas was thought of only as a poor student, and was unnoticed; but he went quietly on advising the Theban young men to share the warlike exercises of the Spartans in the Cadmea, so as to get themselves trained to arms in case there should be a chance of fighting for their freedom. In the fourth year of the exile, Pelopidas wrote to beg his friend to join in a plot by which some of the banished were to creep into the city, go to a banquet that was to be given to the chief friends of the Spartans disguised as women, kill them, proclaim liberty, raise the citizens, and expel the Spartans. But Epaminondas would have nothing to do with a scheme that involved falsehood and treachery, however much he longed to see his country free. But on a dark, winter evening, Pelopidas and eleven more young exiles came one by one into Thebes, in the disguise of hunters, and met at the house of the friend who was going to give the feast. They were there dressed in robes and veils, and in the height of the mirth the host brought them in, and they fell upon the half-tipsy guests and slew them, while Pelopidas had gone to the house of the most brave and sober among them, challenged him, and killed him in fair fight. Then they shouted, “Freedom! Down with the foe!” The citizens rose, Epaminondas among the first; the rest of the exiles marched in at daybreak, and the Cadmea was besieged until the Spartans were obliged to march out, and Thebes was left to its own government by Bœotarchs, or rulers of Bœotia, for a year at a time, of whom Pelopidas was at once chosen to be one.
Of course there was a war, in which the Thebans were helped by Athens, but more from hatred to Sparta than love to Thebes. After six years there was a conference to arrange for a peace, and Epaminondas, who was then Bœotarch, spoke so well as to amaze all hearers. Agesilaus demanded that the Thebans should only make terms for themselves, and give up the rest of Bœotia, and Epaminondas would not consent unless in like manner Sparta gave up the rule over the other places in Laconia. The Athenians would not stand by the Thebans, and all the allies made peace, so that Thebes was left alone to resist Sparta, and Epaminondas had to hurry home to warn her to defend herself.
The only thing in favour of Thebes was that Agesilaus’ lame leg had become so diseased that he could not for five years go out to war; but the other king, Cleombrotus, was at the head of 11,000 men marching into Bœotia, and Epaminondas could only get together 6000, with whom he met them at Leuctra. No one doubted how the battle would end, for the Spartans had never yet been beaten, even by the Athenians, when they had the larger numbers, and, besides, the quiet scholar Epaminondas had never been thought of as a captain. The omens went against the Thebans, but he said he knew no token that ought to forbid a man from fighting for his country. Pelopidas commanded the horsemen, and Epaminondas drew up his troop in a column fifty men deep, with which he dashed at the middle of the Spartan army, which was only three lines deep, and Pelopidas’ cavalry hovered about to cut them down when they were broken. The plan succeeded perfectly. Cleombrotus was carried dying from the field, and Epaminondas had won the most difficult victory ever yet gained by a Greek. So far from being uplifted by it, all he said was how glad he was that his old father and mother would be pleased. The victory had made Thebes the most powerful city in Greece, and he was the leading man in Thebes for some time; but he had enemies, who thought him too gentle with their foes, whether men or cities, and one year, in the absence of Pelopidas, they chose him to be inspector of the cleanliness of the streets, thinking to put a slur on him; but he fulfilled the duties of it so perfectly that he made the office itself an honourable one.
Pelopidas was soon after sent on a message to Alexander, the savage tyrant of Thessaly, who seized him and put him in chains in a dismal dungeon. The Theban army marched to deliver him, Epaminondas among them as a common soldier; but the two Bœotarchs in command managed so ill that they were beset by the Thessalian horsemen and forced to turn back. In the retreat they were half-starved, and fell into such danger and distress, that all cried out for Epaminondas to lead them, and he brought them out safely. The next year he was chosen Bœotarch, again attacked Thessaly, and, by the mere dread of his name, made the tyrant yield up Pelopidas, and beg for a truce. Pelopidas brought home such horrible accounts of the cruelties of Alexander, that as soon as the truce was over, 7000 men, with him at their head, invaded Thessaly, and won the battle of Cynocephalæ, or the Dogs’ Heads. Here Pelopidas was killed, to the intense grief of the army, who cut their hair and their horses’ manes and tails, lighted no fire, and tasted no food on that sad night after their victory, and great was the mourning at Thebes for the brave and upright man who had been thirteen times Bœotarch. Epaminondas was at sea with the fleet he had persuaded the Thebans to raise; but the next year he was sent into the Peloponnesus to defend the allies there against the Spartans. He had almost taken the city itself, when the army hastened back to defend it, under the command of Agesilaus, who had recovered and taken the field again.
Close to Mantinea, where Epaminondas had fought his first battle, he had to fight again with the only general who had as yet a fame higher than his—namely, Agesilaus—and Xenophon was living near enough to watch the battle. It was a long, fiercely-fought combat, but at last the Spartans began to give way and broke their ranks, still, however, flinging javelins, one of which struck Epaminondas full in the breast, and broke as he fell, leaving a long piece of the shaft fixed in the wound. His friends carried him away up the hill-side, where he found breath to ask whether his shield were safe, and when it was held up to him, he looked down on the Spartans in full flight, and knew he had won the day. He was in great pain, and he was told that to draw out the spear would probably kill him at once. He said, therefore, that he must wait till he could speak to the two next in command; and when he was told that they were both slain, he said, “Then you must make peace,” for he knew no one was left able to contend against Agesilaus. As his friends wept, he said, “This day is not the end of my life, but the beginning of my happiness and completion of my glory;” and when they bewailed that he had no child, he said, “Leuctra and Mantinea are daughters enough to keep my name alive.” Then, as those who stood round faltered, unable to resolve to draw out the dart, he pulled it out himself with a firm hand, and the rush of blood that followed ended one of the most beautiful lives ever spent by one who was a law unto himself. He was buried where he died, and a pillar was raised over the spot bearing the figure of a dragon, in memory of his supposed dragon lineage.
Peace was made as Epaminondas desired, and Bœotia never produced another great man, as, indeed, the inhabitants had always been slow and dull, so that a Bœotian was a by-word for stupidity. The only other great Bœotian was the poet Pindar, who was living at this time.
The fifteen years of Theban power had weakened Sparta; but Agesilaus persuaded the Ephors to send him to assist Tachos, who had revolted from the Persians and made himself king of Egypt, and who promised to pay the Spartans well for their aid. When he sent his officers to receive the Spartan king who had achieved the greatest fame of any man then living, they absolutely burst out laughing at the sight of the little, lame man, now more than eighty years old, and as simply clad as ever; and he was much vexed and angered that he was not made commander of the army, but only of the foreign allies; and when Tachos went against his advice, and chose to march into Phœnicia, he went over to the cause of another Egyptian prince, a cousin to Tachos, named Nectanebes, whom he helped to gain the crown of Egypt, thus breaking his promises in a way which we are sorry should have been the last action of his long life. The next winter he embarked to return home, but he was driven by contrary winds to a place in Egypt called the port of Menelaus, because that king of Sparta had been so long weather-bound there. The storm had been too much for the tough old frame of Agesilaus, who died there. His body was embalmed in wax, and carried home to be buried at Sparta, whose greatest man he certainly was.
The great Persian Empire was growing weak, and her subject cities were revolting from her. Caria, in Asia Minor, became free under its king, Mausolus, who reigned twenty-four years, but who is chiefly famous for the magnificent monument which his widow Artemisia raised to his memory, and which consisted of several stages of pillars, supported by tablets so exquisitely sculptured that the Mausoleum, as it was called, was taken into the number of the seven wonders of the world. After all, its splendour did not comfort the heart of Artemisia, and she had the ashes of her husband taken from his urn and carried them about her in a casket, until finally she put them in water and drank them, so as to be for ever one with them. She was herself buried in the Mausoleum, the remains of which have lately been discovered, and are now placed in the British Museum.
One more great man had grown up in Athens—namely, Demosthenes. He was the son of an Athenian sword merchant, who died when he was but seven years Demosthenes old. His guardians neglected his property, and he was a sickly boy, with some defect in his speech, so that his mother kept him at home as much as she could, and he was never trained in mind or body like the other Athenian youth; but, as he grew older, he seems to have learned much from the philosopher Plato, and he set himself to lead the Athenians as a public speaker. For this he prepared himself diligently, putting pebbles in his mouth to overcome his stammering, and going out to make speeches to the roaring waves of the sea, that he might learn not to be daunted by the shouts of the raging people; and thus he taught himself to be the most famous orator in the world, just as Phidias was the greatest sculptor and Æschylus the chief tragedian.
His most eloquent discourses are called Philippics, because they were against Philip, king of Macedon, a power that was growing very dangerous to the rest of Greece. It lay to the northward of the other states, and had never quite been reckoned as part of Greece, for a rough dialect that was spoken there, and the king had been forced to join the Persian army when Xerxes crossed his country; but he had loved the Greek cause, and had warned Aristides at the battle of Platæa. The royal family counted Hercules as their forefather, and were always longing to be accepted as thorough Greeks. One of the young princes, named Philip, was taken to Thebes by Pelopidas, to secure him from his enemies at home. He was lodged in the house of Epaminondas’ father, and was much struck with the grand example he there beheld, though he cared more for the lessons of good policy he then learned than for those of virtue.
Two years after the battle of Mantinea, Philip heard that his elder brother, the king, was dead, leaving only a young infant upon the throne. He went home at once and took the guardianship of the kingdom, gained some great victories over the wild neighbours of Macedon, to the north, and then made himself king, but without hurting his nephew, who grew up quietly at his court, and by-and-by married one of his daughters. He had begun to train his troops to excellent discipline, perfecting what was called the Macedonian phalanx, a manner of arraying his forces which he had learned in part from Epaminondas. The phalanx was a body of heavily-armed foot soldiers, each carrying a shield, and a spear twenty-four feet long. When they advanced, they were taught to lock their shields together, so as to form a wall, and they stood in ranks, one behind the other, so that the front row had four spear points projecting before them.
He also made the Macedonian nobles send their sons to be trained to arms at his court, so as to form a guard of honour, who were comrades, friends, and officers to the king. In the meantime, wars were going on—one called the Social War and one the Sacred War—which wasted the strength of the Thebans, Spartans, and Athenians all alike, until Philip began to come forward, intending to have power over them all. At first, he marched into Thrace, the wild country to the north, and laid siege to Methone. In this city there was an archer, named Aster, who had once offered his service to the Macedonian army, when Philip, who cared the most for his phalanx, rejected him contemptuously, saying, “I will take you into my pay when I make war on starlings.” This man shot an arrow, with the inscription on it, “To Philip’s right eye;” and it actually hit the mark, and put out the eye. Philip caused it to be shot back again with the inscription, “If Philip takes the city, he will hang Aster.” And so he did. Indeed he took the loss of his eye so much to heart, that he was angry if anyone mentioned a Cyclops in his presence.
After taking Methone, he was going to pass into Thessaly, but the Athenians held Thermopylæ, and he waited till he could ally himself with the Thebans against the Phocians. He took Phocis, and thus gained the famous pass, being able to attack it on both sides. Next he listened to envoys from Messenia and Argos, who complained of the dominion of the Spartans, and begged him to help them. The Athenians were on this urged by Demosthenes, in one of his Philippics, to forget all their old hatred to Sparta, and join her in keeping back the enemy of both alike; and their intention of joining Sparta made Philip wait, and begin by trying to take the great island of Eubœa, which he called the “Shackles of Greece.” To its aid was sent a body of Athenians, under the command of Phocion, a friend of Plato, and one of the sternest of Stoics, of whom it was said that no one had ever seen him laugh, weep, or go to the public baths. He went about barefoot, and never wrapped himself up if he could help it, so that it was a saying, “Phocion has got his cloak on; it is a hard winter.” He was a great soldier, and, for the time, drove back the Macedonians from Eubœa. But very few Athenians had the spirit of Phocion or Demosthenes. They had grown idle, and Philip was bribing all who would take his money among the other Greeks to let his power and influence spread, until at last he set forth to invade Greece. The Thebans and Athenians joined together to stop him, and met him at Chæronea, in Bœotia; but neither city could produce a real general, and though at first the Athenians gained some advantage, they did not make a proper use of it, so that Philip cried out, “The Athenians do not know how to conquer,” and, making another attack, routed them entirely. Poor Demosthenes, who had never been in a battle before, and could only fight with his tongue, fled in such a fright that when a bramble caught his tunic, he screamed out, “Oh, spare my life!” The battle of Chæronea was a most terrible overthrow, and neither Athens nor Thebes ever recovered it. Macedon entirely gained the chief power over Greece, and Philip was the chief man in it, though Demosthenes never ceased to try to stir up opposition to him. Philip was a very able man, and had a good deal of nobleness in his nature. Once, after a feast, he had to hear a trial, and gave sentence in haste. “I appeal,” said the woman who had lost. “Appeal? and to whom?” said the king. “I appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober.” He was greatly struck, heard the case over again the next day, and found that he had been wrong and the woman right.
Philip of Macedon married Olympias, the daughter of the king of Epirus, who traced his descent up to Achilles. She was beautiful, but fierce and high-spirited; and the first time Philip saw her she was keeping the feast of Bacchus, and was dancing fearlessly among great serpents, which twisted about among the maidens’ vine-wreathed staves, their baskets of figs, and even the ivy crowns on their heads. Her wild beauty charmed him, and he asked her in marriage as soon as he had gained the throne. The son of this marriage, Alexander, was born at Pella in 356. On the same day a great battle was won by Parmenio, Philip’s chief general, and the king’s horses won the prize at the Olympic games. Philip was so prosperous that he declared he must sacrifice to the gods, or they would be jealous, and cast him down in the midst of his happiness. That same night the wonder of the world, the temple of Diana at Ephesus, was burnt down by a madman named Erostratus, who thought the deed would make him for ever famous. It was built up again more splendidly than ever, and the image was saved.
Diana of Ephesus The chief physician at Philip’s court was Aristotle, a Macedonian of Stagyra, who had studied under Plato, and was one of the greatest and best of philosophers; and Philip wrote to him at once that he rejoiced not only in having a son, but in his having been born when he could have Aristotle for a tutor. For seven years, however, the boy was under the care of a noble lady named Lanika, whom he loved all his life, and then was placed with a master, who taught him to repeat the Iliad and Odyssey from end to end. He delighted in them so much that he always carried a copy about with him, and constantly dreamt of equalling his great forefather Achilles.
When he was about thirteen, a magnificent black horse called Bucephalus, or Bull-head, because it had a white mark like a bull’s face on its forehead, was brought to Philip; but it was so strong and restive that nobody could manage it, and Philip was sending it away, when Alexander begged leave to try to tame it. First he turned its head to the sun, having perceived that its antics were caused by fear of its own shadow; then stroking and caressing it as he held the reins, he gently dropped his fluttering mantle and leaped on its back, sitting firm through all its leaps and bounds, but using neither whip nor spur nor angry voice, till at last the creature was brought to perfect obedience. This gentle courage and firmness so delighted Philip that he embraced the boy with tears of joy, and gave him the horse, which, as long as it lived, loved and served him like no one else. Philip also said that such a boy might be treated as a man, and therefore put him under Aristotle three years earlier than it was usual to begin philosophy; and again he was an apt and loving scholar, learning great wisdom in dealing with men and things, and, in truth, learning everything but how to control his temper.
At the battle of Chæronea, Alexander was old enough to command the division which fought against the Thebans, and entirely overthrew them; so that when peace was made, Sparta was the only city that refused to own the superior might of Macedon, and the Council of the States chose Philip as commander of the Greeks in the grand expedition he was going to undertake against Persia.
But Philip had eastern vices. He was tired of Olympias’ pride and wilfulness, and took another wife, whom he raised to the position of queen; and at the banquet a half-tipsy kinsman of this woman insulted Alexander, who threw a cup at the man. Philip started up to chastise his son, but, between rage and wine, fell down, while Alexander said, “See, a man preparing to cross from Europe to Asia cannot step safely from one couch to another!”
Then he took his mother to her native home, and stayed away till his father sent for him, but kept him in a kind of disgrace, until at the wedding feast of Alexander’s sister Cleopatra with the king of Epirus, just as Philip came forward in a white garment, a man darted forward and thrust a sword through his body, then fled so fast that he would have escaped if his foot had not been caught in some vine stocks, so that the guards cut him to pieces.
Alexander was proclaimed king, at only twenty years old; and Demosthenes was so delighted at the death of the enemy of Athens, that he wreathed his head with a garland in token of joy, little guessing that Philip’s murder had only placed a far greater man on the throne. The first thing Alexander did was to go to Corinth, and get himself chosen in his father’s stead captain-general of the Greeks. Only the Spartans refused, saying it was their custom to lead, and not to follow; while the Athenians pretended to submit, meaning to take the first opportunity of breaking off the yoke. Before Alexander could march, however, to Persia, he had to leave all safe behind him; so he turned northwards to subdue the wild tribes in Thrace. He was gone four months, and the Greeks heard nothing of him, so that the Thebans thought he must be lost, and proclaimed that they were free from the power of Macedon.
Their punishment was terrible. Alexander came back in haste, fought them in their own town, hunted them from street to street, killed or made slaves of all who had not been friends of his father, pulled down all the houses, and divided the lands between the other Bœotian cities. This was for the sake of making an example of terror; but he afterwards regretted this act, and, as Bacchus was the special god of Thebes, he thought himself punished by the fits of rage that seized him after any excess in wine. The other Greeks, all but the Spartans, again sent envoys to meet Alexander at Corinth, and granted him all the men, stores, and money he asked for. The only person who did not bow down to him was Diogenes, a philosopher who so exaggerated Stoicism that he was called the “Mad Socrates.” His sect were called Cynics, from Cyon, a dog, because they lived like dogs, seldom washing, and sleeping in any hole. Diogenes’ lair was a huge earthenware tub, that belonged to the temple of the mother of the gods, Cybele; and here Alexander went to see him, and found him basking in the sun before it, but not choosing to take any notice of the princely youth who addressed him—“I am Alexander the King.”
“And I am Diogenes the Cynic,” was the answer, in a tone as if he thought himself quite as good as the king. Alexander, however, talked much with him, and ended by asking if he could do anything for him.
“Only stand out of my sunshine,” was the answer; and as the young king went away he said, “If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes;” meaning, perhaps, that if he were not to master all earthly things, he would rather despise them. Twelve years later, Diogenes, then past ninety, was found dead in his tub, having supped the night before upon the raw leg of an ox; and, strangely enough, it was the very night that Alexander died.
Alexander Alexander was going on with his preparations for conquering the East. He had 12,000 foot soldiers from Macedon, trained to fight in the terrible phalanx, and 5000 horsemen; also his own bodyguard of young nobles, bred up with him at Pella; 7000 men from the Greek states, and 5000 who had been used, like the 10,000 of Xenophon, to hire themselves out to the Persians, and thus knew the languages, manners, roads, and ways of fighting in the East; but altogether he had only 34,500 men with which to attack the empire which stretched from the Ægean to Scythia, from the Euxine to the African deserts. Such was his liberality in gifts before he went away, that when he was asked what he had left for himself, he answered, “My hopes;” and his hope was not merely to conquer that great world, but to tame it, bring it into order, and teach the men there the wisdom and free spirit of the Greek world; for he had learnt from Aristotle that to make men true, brave, virtuous, and free was the way to be godlike. It was in his favour that the direct line of Persian kings had failed, and that there had been wars and factions all through the last reign. The present king was Codomanus, a grand-nephew of that Artaxerxes against whom Cyrus had led the ten thousand. He had come to the throne in 336, the same year as Alexander, and was known as Darius, the royal name he had taken. Alexander made his father’s counsellor, Antipater, governor of Macedon in his absence, and took leave of his mother and his home in the spring of 334.
Alexander passed the Hellespont in the April of 334, steering his own vessel, and was the first to leap on shore. The first thing he did was to go over the plain of Troy and all the scenes described in the Iliad, and then to offer sacrifices at the mound said to be the tomb of Achilles, while his chief friend Hephæstion paid the same honours to Patroclus.
The best general in the Persian army was a Rhodian named Memnon, who wanted to starve out Alexander by burning and destroying all before him; but the satrap Arsaces would not consent to this, and chose to collect his forces, and give battle to the Greeks on the banks of the river Granicus, a stream rising in Mount Ida and falling into the Euxine. Alexander led the right wing, with a white plume in his helmet, so that all might know him; Parmenio led the left; and it was a grand victory, though not without much hard fighting, hand to hand. Alexander was once in great danger, but was saved by Clitus, the son of his nurse Lanika. The Persians broke and dispersed so entirely that no army was left in Asia Minor, and the satrap Arsaces killed himself in despair.
Alexander forbade his troops to plunder the country, telling them that it was his own, and that the people were as much his subjects as they were; and all the difference he made was changing the Persian governors for Greek ones. Sardis and Ephesus fell into his hands without a blow; and to assist in rebuilding the great temple of Diana, he granted all the tribute hitherto paid to the Great King. When he came to Caria, Ada, who was reigning there as queen, adopted him as her son, and wanted him to take all her best cooks with him to provide his meals for the future. He thanked her, but said his tutor had given him some far better relishers—namely, a march before daybreak as sauce for his dinner, and a light dinner as sauce for his supper.
When he came to Gordium, in Phrygia, where one version of the story of Midas had placed that king, he was shown a waggon to which the yoke was fastened by a knotted with of cornel bough, and told that in this waggon Midas had come to Gordium, and that whoever could undo it should be the lord of Asia. Alexander dextrously drew out the pin, and unwound the knot, to the delight of his followers.
In the spring he dashed down through the Taurus mountains, to take possession of the city of Tarsus, in Cilicia, before Memnon could collect the scattered Persian forces to enter it and cut him off from Syria. He rode in heated and wearied, and at once threw himself from his horse to bathe in the waters of the river Cydnus; but they came from the melting snows of the mountains, and were so exceedingly cold that the shock of the chill brought on a most dangerous fever. One physician, named Philip, offered to give him a draught that might relieve him, but at the same time a warning was sent from Parmenio that the man had been bribed to poison him. Alexander took the cup, and, while he drank it off, he held out the letter to Philip with the other hand; but happily there was no treason, and he slowly recovered, while Parmenio was sent on to secure the mountain passes. Darius, however, was advancing with a huge army, in which was a band of Spartans, who hated the Persians less than they did the Macedonians. The Persian march was a splendid sight. There was a crystal disk to represent the sun over the king’s tent, and the army never moved till sunrise, when first were carried silver altars bearing the sacred fire, and followed by a band of youths, one for each day in the year, in front of the chariot of the sun, drawn by white horses; after which came a horse consecrated to the sun, and led by white-robed attendants. The king himself sat in a high, richly-adorned chariot, wearing a purple mantle, encrusted with precious stones, and encompassed with his Immortal band, in robes adorned with gold, and carrying silver-handled lances. In covered chariots were his mother Sisygambis, his chief wife and her children, and 360 inferior wives, their baggage occupying 600 mules and 300 camels, all protected by so enormous an army that everyone thought the Macedonians must be crushed.
Second Temple of Diana at Ephesus
With some skill, Darius’ army passed from the East into Cilicia, and thus got behind Alexander, who had gone two days’ march into Syria; but on the tidings he turned back at once, and found that they had not guarded the passes between him and them. So he attacked them close to Issus, and there again gained a great victory. When Darius saw his Immortals giving way, he was seized with terror, sprang out of his royal chariot, mounted on horseback, and never rested till he was on the other side of the Euphrates.
Still there was a sharp fight, and Alexander was slightly wounded in the thigh; but when all the battle was over he came to the tents of Darius, and said he would try a Persian bath. He was amused to find it a spacious curtained hall, full of vessels of gold and silver, perfumes and ointments, of which the simpler Greeks did not even know the use, and with a profusion of slaves to administer them. A Persian feast was ready also; but just as he was going to sit down to it he heard the voice of weeping and wailing in the next tent, and learned that it came from Darius’ family. He rose at once to go and comfort the old mother, Sisygambis, and went into her tent with Hephæstion. Both were plainly dressed, and Hephæstion was the taller, so that the old queen took him for the king, and threw herself at his feet. When she saw her mistake she was alarmed, but Alexander consoled her gently by saying, “Be not dismayed, mother; this is Alexander’s other self.” And he continued to treat her with more kindness and respect than she had ever met with before, even from her own kindred; nor did he ever grieve her but once, when he showed her a robe, spun, woven, and worked by his mother and sisters for him, and offered to have her grand-children taught to make the like. Persian princesses thought it was dignified to have nothing to do, and Sisygambis fancied he meant to make slaves of them; so that he had to reassure her, and tell her that the distaff, loom, and needle were held to give honour to Greek ladies. Darius had fled beyond the rivers, and Alexander waited to follow till he should have reduced the western part of the empire. He turned into Syria and Phœnicia, and laid siege to Tyre, which was built on an island a little way from the sea-shore. He had no ships, but he began building a causeway across the water. However, the Tyrians sallied out and destroyed it; and he had to go to Sidon, which he took much more easily, and thence obtained ships, with which he beat the Tyrian fleet, and, after great toil and danger, at last entered Tyre, after a siege of five months.
Then he marched along the shore to the Philistine city of Gaza, which was likewise most bravely defended by a black slave named Bœtis. Alexander was much hurt by a stone launched from the walls, which struck him between the breast and shoulder, and when at the end of four months’ siege the city was stormed, the attack was led by one of his cousins. A cruel slaughter was made of the citizens; and then Alexander marched up the steep road to Jerusalem, expecting another tedious siege. Instead of this, he beheld a long procession in white bordered with blue, coming out at the gates to meet him. All the Priests and Levites, in their robes, came forth, headed by Jaddua, the High Priest, in his beautiful raiment, and the golden mitre on his head inscribed with the words, “Holiness unto the Lord.” So he had been commanded by God in a vision; and when Alexander beheld the sight, he threw himself from his horse, and adored the Name on the mitre. He told his officers that before he set out from home, when he was considering of his journey, just such a form as he now beheld had come and bidden him fear not, for he should be led into the East, and all Persia should be delivered to him. Then the High Priest took him to the outer court of the temple, and showed him the very prophecies of Daniel and Zechariah where his own conquests were foretold.
Alexander’s next step was into Egypt, where the people had long desired to drive out the Persians, and welcomed him gladly. He wished to make a Greek settlement in Egypt, and bring Greek and Egyptian learning together; so at the delta of the Nile he built the great city of Alexandria, which still remains as important as ever.
So powerful did he feel himself, that a fancy crossed his mind that, after all, he was no mere man, but the son of Jupiter, and a demi-god, like Bacchus, or Hercules of old. There was a temple to the Egyptian god Ammon, on an oasis, a fertile spot round a spring in the middle of the desert, with an oracle that Alexander resolved to consult, and he made his way thither with a small chosen band. The oasis was green with laurels and palms; and the emblem of the god, a gold disk, adorned with precious stones, and placed in a huge golden ship, was carried to meet him by eighty priests, with maidens dancing round them. He was taken alone to the innermost shrine. What he heard there he never told; but after this he wore rams’ horns on his helmet, because a ram’s head was one sign of the god, whom the Greeks made out to be the same as Jupiter; and from this time forward he became much more proud and puffed up, so that it is likely that he had been told by this oracle just what pleased him.
He then went back to Tyre, and thence set out for the East. A bridge was thrown across the Euphrates, but the Tigris was forded by the foot soldiers, holding their shields above their heads out of the water. On the other side Darius was waiting with all the men of the East to fight for their homes, not for distant possessions, as had been the lands of Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. The Greeks had four days’ march along the banks of the Tigris before coming in sight of the Persian host at Arbela. It was so late that the two armies slept in sight of one another. Parmenio advised the king to make a night attack, but all the answer he got was, “It would be base to steal a victory;” and when he came in the morning to say that all was ready, he found his master fast asleep, and asked him how he could rest so calmly with one of the greatest battles in the world before him. “How could we not be calm,” replied Alexander, “since the enemy is coming to deliver himself into our hands?”
He would not wear such a corslet as had been crushed into his shoulder at Gaza, but put on a breastplate of thick quilted linen, girt with a broad leather belt, guarded with a crust of finely-worked metal, and holding a light, sharp sword. He had a polished steel helmet, a long spear in his right hand, and a shield on his left arm; and thus he went forth to meet Darius, who came in the midst of 200 chariots, armed with scythes, and fifteen trained elephants. He had so many troops that he intended to close the wings of his army in upon the Greeks, fold them up, and cut them off; but Alexander, foreseeing this, had warned his men to be ready to face about on any side, and then drew them up in the shape of a wedge, and thus broke into the very heart of the Immortal band, and was on the point of taking Darius prisoner, when he was called off to help Parmenio, whose division had been broken, so that the camp was threatened. Alexander’s presence soon set all right again, and made the victory complete; but Darius had had time to get away, and was galloping on a swift horse to the Armenian mountains. There was nobody left to defend Assyria, and Alexander marched in through the brazen gates of Babylon, when the streets were strewn with flowers, and presents of lions and leopards borne forth to greet the conqueror.
The great temple of Bel had been partly ruined by the fire-worshipping Persians, and Alexander greatly pleased the Babylonians by decreeing that they might restore it with his aid; but the Jews at Babylon would not work at an idol temple, which they believed to be also the tower of Babel, and on their entreaty Alexander permitted them to have nothing to do with it.
After staying thirty days at Babylon, he went on to Susa, where he found the brazen statues which Xerxes had carried away from the sack of Athens. He sent them home again, to show the Greeks that he had avenged their cause. When he came to Fars—or, as the Greeks called it, Persepolis—a wretched band of Greek captives came out to meet him, with their eyes put out, or their noses, ears, hands, or feet cut off. The Greeks never tortured: it was a dreadful sight to them, and the king burst into tears, and promised to send all safe home, but they begged him, instead, to help them to live where they were, since they were ashamed to show themselves to their kindred. Their misery made Alexander decide on giving the city up to plunder; the men were killed, the women and children made slaves. He meant to revenge on the Persian capital all that the Great Kings had inflicted on the Greek cities, and one Corinthian actually shed tears of joy at seeing him on the throne, exclaiming, “What joy have those Greeks missed who have not seen Alexander on the throne of Darius!”
Poor Darius had pushed on into the mountains beyond Media, and thither Alexander pursued him; but his own subjects had risen against him, and placed him in a chariot bound with golden chains. Alexander dashed on in pursuit with his fleetest horsemen, riding all night, and only resting in the noonday heat, for the last twenty-five miles over a desert without water. At daybreak he saw the Persian host moving along like a confused crowd. He charged them, and there was a general flight, and presently a cry that Darius was taken. Alexander galloped up and found the unhappy king on the ground, speechless and dying, pierced with javelins by his own subjects, who would not let him fall alive into the enemy’s hands, and supported by a Macedonian soldier, who had given him drink, and heard his words of gratitude to Alexander for his kindness to his family, and his hopes that the conqueror would avenge his death, and become sovereign of the world. Alexander threw his own mantle over the body, and caused it to be embalmed, and buried in the sepulchres of the Persian kings.
Now that the victory was gained, the Greeks wanted to go home, and keep all the empire subject to them; but this was not Alexander’s plan. He meant to spread Greek wisdom and training over all the world, and to rule Persians as well as Greeks for their own good. So, though he let the Greek allies go home with pay, rewards, and honours, he kept his Macedonians, and called himself by the Persian title, Shah in Shah, King of Kings, crowned himself with the Persian crown, and wore royal robes on state occasions. The Macedonians could not bear the sight, especially the nobles, who had lived on almost equal terms with him. There were murmurs, and Parmenio was accused of being engaged in a plot, and put to death. It was the first sad stain on Alexander’s life, and he fell into a fierce and angry mood, being fretted, as it seems, by the murmurs of the Macedonians, and harassed by the difficulties of the wild mountainous country on the borders of Persia, where he had to hunt down the last Persians who held out against him. At a town called Cyropolis, a stone thrown from the walls struck him on the back of the neck, and for some days after he could not see clearly, so that some harm had probably been done to his brain. A few days later he was foolish enough to indulge in a wine-drinking banquet, at which some flatterers began to praise him in such an absurd manner that Clitus, the son of his good foster-mother Lanika, broke out in anger at his sitting still to listen to them. “Listen to truth,” he said, “or else ask no freemen to join you, but surround yourself with slaves.”
Alexander, beside himself with rage, leaped up, feeling for his dagger to kill Clitus, but it was not in his belt, and they were both dragged backwards and held by their friends, until Alexander broke loose, snatched a pike from a soldier, and laid Clitus dead at his feet; but the moment he saw what he had done, he was hardly withheld from turning the point against himself, and then he shut himself up in his chamber and wept bitterly, without coming out or tasting food for three days. He caused Clitus to be buried with all honours, and offered great sacrifices to Bacchus, thinking that it was the god’s hatred that made him thus pass into frenzy when he had been drinking wine.
He spent three years in securing his conquest over the Persian empire, where he won the love of the natives by his justice and kindness, and founded many cities, where he planted Greeks, and tried to make schools and patterns for the country round. They were almost all named Alexandria, and still bear the name, altered in some shape or other; but though some of his nearer friends loved him as heartily as ever, and many were proud of him, or followed him for what they could get, a great many Macedonians hated him for requiring them to set the example of respect, and laughed at the Eastern forms of state with which he was waited on, while they were still more angry that he made the Persians their equals, and not their slaves. So that he had more troubles with the Macedonians than with the strangers.