Shortly after the remarkable events of the Olympic festival described in my last chapter, the Argeians and their allies sent a fresh embassy to invite the Corinthians to join them. They thought it a promising opportunity, after the affront just put upon Sparta, to prevail upon the Corinthians to desert her: but Spartan envoys were present also, and though the discussions were much protracted, no new resolution was adopted. An earthquake—possibly an earthquake not real, but simulated for convenience—abruptly terminated the congress. The Corinthians—though seemingly distrusting Argos, now that she was united with Athens, and leaning rather towards Sparta—were unwilling to pronounce themselves in favor of one so as to make an enemy of the other.[93]
In spite of this first failure, the new alliance of Athens and Argos manifested its fruits vigorously in the ensuing spring. Under the inspirations of Alkibiadês, Athens was about to attempt the new experiment of seeking to obtain intra-Peloponnesian followers and influence. At the beginning of the war, she had been maritime, defensive, and simply conservative, under the guidance of Periklês. After the events of Sphakteria, she made use of that great advantage to aim at the recovery of Megara and Bœotia, which she had before been compelled to abandon by the thirty years’ truce, at the recommendation of Kleon. In this attempt she employed the eighth year of the war, but with signal ill-success; while Brasidas during that period broke open the gates of her maritime empire, and robbed her of many important dependencies. The grand object of Athens then became, to recover these lost dependencies, especially Amphipolis: Nikias and his partisans sought to effect such recovery by making peace, while Kleon and his supporters insisted that it could never be achieved except by military efforts. The expedition under Kleon against Amphipolis had failed, the peace concluded by Nikias had failed also: Athens had surrendered her capital advantage, without regaining Amphipolis; and if she wished to regain it, there was no alternative except to repeat the attempt which had failed under Kleon. And this perhaps she might have done, as we shall find her projecting to do in the course of about four years forward, if it had not been, first, that the Athenian mind was now probably sick and disheartened about Amphipolis, in consequence of the prodigious disgrace so recently undergone there; next, that Alkibiadês, the new chief adviser or prime minister of Athens—if we may be allowed to use an inaccurate expression, which yet suggests the reality of the case—was prompted by his personal impulses to turn the stream of Athenian ardor into a different channel. Full of antipathy to Sparta, he regarded the interior of Peloponnesus as her most vulnerable point, especially in the present disjointed relations of its component cities. Moreover, his personal thirst for glory was better gratified amidst the centre of Grecian life than by undertaking an expedition into a distant and barbarous region: lastly, he probably recollected with discomfort the hardships and extreme cold, insupportable to all except the iron frame of Sokrates, which he had himself endured at the blockade of Potidæa twelve years before,[94] and which any armament destined to conquer Amphipolis would have to go through again. It was under these impressions that he now began to press his intra-Peloponnesian operations against Lacedæmon, with the view of organizing a counter-alliance under Argos sufficient to keep her in check, and at any rate to nullify her power of carrying invasion beyond the Isthmus. All this was to be done without ostensibly breaking the peace and alliance between Athens and Lacedæmon, which stood in conspicuous letters on pillars erected in both cities.
Coming to Argos at the head of a few Athenian hoplites and bowmen, and reinforced by Peloponnesian allies, Alkibiadês exhibited the spectacle of an Athenian general traversing the interior of the peninsula, and imposing his own arrangements in various quarters, a spectacle at that moment new and striking.[95] He first turned his attention to the Achæan towns in the northwest, where he persuaded the inhabitants of Patræ to ally themselves with Athens, and even to undertake the labor of connecting their town with the sea by means of long walls, so as to place themselves within the protection of Athens from seaward. He farther projected the erection of a fort and the formation of a naval station at the extreme point of Cape Rhium, just at the narrow entrance of the Corinthian gulf; whereby the Athenians, who already possessed the opposite shore by means of Naupaktus, would have become masters of the commerce of the gulf. But the Corinthians and Sikyonians, to whom this would have been a serious mischief, despatched forces enough to prevent the consummation of the scheme, and probably also to hinder the erection of the walls at Patræ.[96] Yet the march of Alkibiadês doubtless strengthened the anti-Laconian interest throughout the Achæan coast.
He then returned to take part with the Argeians in a war against Epidaurus. To acquire possession of this city would much facilitate the communication between Athens and Argos, since it was not only immediately opposite to the island of Ægina now occupied by the Athenians, but also opened to the latter an access by land, dispensing with the labor of circumnavigating Cape Skyllæum, the southeastern point of the Argeian and Epidaurian peninsula, whenever they sent forces to Argos. Moreover, the territory of Epidaurus bordered to the north on that of Corinth, so that the possession of it would be an additional guarantee for the neutrality of the Corinthians. Accordingly it was resolved to attack Epidaurus, for which a pretext was easily found. As presiding and administering state of the temple of Apollo Pythäeus (situated within the walls of Argos), the Argeians enjoyed a sort of religious supremacy over Epidaurus and other neighboring cities, seemingly the remnant of that extensive supremacy, political as well as religious, which in early times had been theirs.[97] The Epidaurians owed to this temple certain sacrifices and other ceremonial obligations, one of which, arising out of some circumstance which we cannot understand, was now due and unperformed: at least so the Argeians alleged. Such default imposed upon them the duty of getting together a military force to attack the Epidaurians and enforce the obligation.
Their invading march, however, was for a time suspended by the news that king Agis with the full force of Lacedæmon and her allies had advanced as far as Leuktra, one of the border towns of Laconia on the northwest, towards Mount Lykæum and the Arcadian Parrhasii. What this movement meant was known only to Agis himself, who did not even explain the purpose to his own soldiers or officers, or allies.[98] But the sacrifice constantly offered before passing the border was found so unfavorable, that he abandoned his march for the present and returned home. The month Karneius, a period of truce as well as religious festival among the Dorian states, being now at hand, he directed the allies to hold themselves prepared for an out-march as soon as that month had expired.
On being informed that Agis had dismissed his troops, the Argeians prepared to execute their invasion of Epidaurus. The day on which they set out was already the twenty-sixth of the month preceding the Karneian month, so that there remained only three days before the commencement of that latter month with its holy truce, binding upon the religious feelings of the Dorian states generally, to which Argos, Sparta, and Epidaurus all belonged. But the Argeians made use of that very peculiarity of the season, which was accounted likely to keep them at home, to facilitate their scheme, by playing a trick with the calendar, and proclaiming one of those arbitrary interferences with the reckoning of time which the Greeks occasionally employed to correct the ever-recurring confusion of their lunar system. Having begun their march on the twenty-sixth of the month before Karneius, the Argeians called each succeeding day still the twenty-sixth, thus disallowing the lapse of time, and pretending that the Karneian month had not yet commenced. This proceeding was farther facilitated by the circumstance, that their allies of Athens, Elis, and Mantineia, not being Dorians, were under no obligation to observe the Karneian truce. Accordingly, the army marched from Argos into the territory of Epidaurus, and spent seemingly a fortnight or three weeks in laying it waste; all this time being really, according to the reckoning of the other Dorian states, part of the Karneian truce, which the Argeians, adopting their own arbitrary computation of time, professed not to be violating. The Epidaurians, unable to meet them single-handed in the field, invoked the aid of their allies: who, however, had already been summoned by Sparta for the succeeding month, and did not choose, any more than the Spartans, to move during the Karneian month itself. Some allies, however, perhaps the Corinthians, came as far as the Epidaurian border, but did not feel themselves strong enough to lend aid by entering the territory alone.[99]
Meanwhile the Athenians had convoked another congress of deputies at Mantineia, for the purpose of discussing propositions of peace: perhaps this may have been a point carried by Nikias at Athens, in spite of Alkibiadês. What other deputies attended we are not told; but Euphamidas, coming as envoy from Corinth, animadverted even at the opening of the debates upon the inconsistency of assembling a peace congress while war was actually raging in the Epidaurian territory. So much were the Athenian deputies struck with this observation, that they departed, persuaded the Argeians to retire from Epidaurus, and then came back to resume negotiations. Still, however, the pretensions of both parties were found irreconcilable, and the congress broke up; upon which the Argeians again returned to renew their devastation in Epidaurus, while the Lacedæmonians, immediately on the expiration of the Karneian month, marched out again, as far as their border town of Karyæ, but were again arrested and forced to return by unfavorable border-sacrifices. Intimation of their out-march, however, was transmitted to Athens; upon which Alkibiadês, at the head of one thousand Athenian hoplites, was sent to join the Argeians. But before he arrived, the Lacedæmonian army had been already disbanded; so that his services were no longer required, and the Argeians carried their ravages over one-third of the territory of Epidaurus before they at length evacuated it.[100]
The Epidaurians were reinforced about the end of September by a detachment of three hundred Lacedæmonian hoplites under Agesippidas, sent by sea without the knowledge of the Athenians. Of this, the Argeians preferred loud complaints at Athens; and they had good reason to condemn the negligence of the Athenians as allies, for not having kept better naval watch at their neighboring station of Ægina, and for having allowed this enemy to enter the harbor of Epidaurus. But they took another ground of complaint, somewhat remarkable. In the alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia, it had been stipulated that neither of the four should suffer the passage of troops through its territory, without the joint consent of all. Now the sea was accounted a part of the territory of Athens: so that the Athenians had violated this article of the treaty by permitting the Lacedæmonians to send troops by sea to Epidaurus. And the Argeians now required Athens, in compensation for this wrong, to carry back the Messenians and Helots from Kephallenia to Pylos, and allow them to ravage Laconia. The Athenians, under the persuasion of Alkibiadês, complied with their requisition; inscribing, at the foot of the pillar on which their alliance with Sparta stood recorded, that the Lacedæmonians had not observed their oaths. Nevertheless, they still abstained from formally throwing up their treaty with Lacedæmon, or breaking it in any other way.[101] The relations between Athens and Sparta thus remained in name, peace and alliance, so far as concerns direct operations against each other’s territory; in reality, hostile action as well as hostile manœuvring, against each other, as allies respectively of third parties.
The Argeians, after having prolonged their incursions on the Epidaurian territory throughout all the autumn, made in the winter an unavailing attempt to take the town itself by storm. Though there was no considerable action, but merely a succession of desultory attacks, in some of which the Epidaurians even had the advantage, yet they still suffered serious hardship, and pressed their case forcibly on the sympathy of Sparta. Thus importuned, and mortified as well as alarmed by the increasing defection or coldness which they now experienced throughout Peloponnesus, the Lacedæmonians determined during the course of the ensuing summer to put forth their strength vigorously, and win back their lost ground.[102]
Towards the month of June (B.C. 418) they marched with their full force, freemen as well as Helots, under king Agis, against Argos. The Tegeans and other Arcadian allies joined them on the march, while their other allies near the Isthmus,—Bœotians, Megarians, Corinthians, Sikyonians, Phliasians, etc., were directed to assemble at Phlius. The number of these latter allies were very considerable, for we hear of five thousand Bœotian hoplites, and two thousand Corinthian: the Bœotians had with them also five thousand light-armed, five hundred horsemen, and five hundred foot-soldiers, who ran alongside of the horsemen. The numbers of the rest, or of Spartans themselves, we do not know; nor probably did Thucydidês himself know: for we find him remarking elsewhere the impenetrable concealment of the Lacedæmonians on all public affairs, in reference to the numbers at the subsequent battle of Mantineia. Such muster of the Lacedæmonian alliance was no secret to the Argeians, who marching first to Mantineia, and there taking up the force of that city as well as three thousand Eleian hoplites who came to join them, met the Lacedæmonians in their march at Methydrium in Arcadia. The two armies being posted on opposite hills, the Argeians had resolved to attack Agis the next day, so as to prevent him from joining his allies at Phlius. But he eluded this separate encounter by decamping in the night, reached Phlius, and operated his junction in safety. We do not hear that there was in the Lacedæmonian army any commander of lochus, who, copying the unreasonable punctilio of Amompharetus before the battle of Platæa, refused to obey the order of retreat before the enemy, to the imminent risk of the whole army. And the fact, that no similar incident occurred now, may be held to prove that the Lacedæmonians had acquired greater familiarity with the exigencies of actual warfare.
As soon as the Lacedæmonian retreat was known in the morning, the Argeians left their position also, and marched with their allies, first to Argos itself; next, to Nemea, on the ordinary road from Corinth and Phlius to Argos, by which they imagined that the invaders would approach. But Agis acted differently. Distributing his force into three divisions, he himself with the Lacedæmonians and Arcadians, taking a short, but very rugged and difficult road, crossed the ridge of the mountains and descended straight into the plain near Argos. The Corinthians, Pellenians, and Phliasians, were directed to follow another mountain road, which entered the same plain upon a different point; while the Bœotians, Corinthians, and Sikyonians, followed the longer, more even, and more ordinary route, by Nemea. This route, though apparently frequented and convenient, led for a considerable distance along a narrow ravine, called the Trêtus, bounded on each side by mountains. The united army under Agis was much superior in number to the Argeians: but if all had marched in one line by the frequented route through the narrow Trêtus, their superiority of number would have been of little use, whilst the Argeians would have had a position highly favorable to their defence. By dividing his force, and taking the mountain road with his own division, Agis got into the plain of Argos in the rear of the Argeian position at Nemea. He anticipated that when the Argeians saw him devastating their properties near the city, they would forthwith quit the advantageous ground near Nemea, to come and attack him in the plain: the Bœotian division would thus find the road by Nemea and the Trêtus open, and would be able to march without resistance into the plain of Argos, where their numerous cavalry would act with effect against the Argeians engaged in attacking Agis. This triple march was executed. Agis with his division, and the Corinthians with theirs, got across the mountains into the Argeian plain during the night; while the Argeians,[103] hearing at daybreak that he was near their city, ravaging Saminthus and other places, left their position at Nemea to come down to the plain and attack him. In their march they had a partial skirmish with the Corinthian division, which had reached a high ground immediately above the Argeian plain, and which lay nearly in the road. But this affair was indecisive, and they soon found themselves in the plain near to Agis and the Lacedæmonians, who lay between them and their city.
On both sides, the armies were marshalled, and order taken for battle. But the situation of the Argeians was in reality little less than desperate: for while they had Agis and his division in their front, the Corinthian detachment was near enough to take them in flank, and the Bœotians marching along the undefended road through the Trêtus would attack them in the rear. The Bœotian cavalry too would act with full effect upon them in the plain, since neither Argos, Elis, nor Mantineia, seemed to have possessed any horsemen; a description of force which ought to have been sent from Athens, though from some cause which does not appear, the Athenian contingent had not yet arrived. Nevertheless, in spite of this very critical position, both the Argeians and their allies were elate with confidence and impatient for battle; thinking only of the division of Agis immediately in their front, which appeared to be inclosed between them and their city, and taking no heed to the other formidable enemies in their flank and rear. But the Argeian generals were better aware than their soldiers of the real danger; and just as the two armies were about to charge, Alkiphron, proxenus of the Lacedæmonians at Argos, accompanied Thrasyllus, one of the five generals of the Argeians, to a separate parley with Agis, without the least consultation or privity on the part of their own army. They exhorted Agis not to force on a battle, assuring him that the Argeians were ready both to give and receive equitable satisfaction, in all matters of complaint which the Lacedæmonians might urge against them, and to conclude a just peace for the future. Agis, at once acquiescing in the proposal, granted them a truce of four months to accomplish what they had promised. He on his part also took this step without consulting either his army or his allies, simply addressing a few words of confidential talk to one of the official Spartans near him. Immediately, he gave the order for retreat, and the army, instead of being led to battle, was conducted out of the Argeian territory, through the Nemean road whereby the Bœotians had just been entering. But it required all the habitual discipline of Lacedæmonian soldiers to make them obey this order of the Spartan king, alike unexpected and unwelcome.[104] For the army were fully sensible both of the prodigious advantages of their position, and of the overwhelming strength of the invading force, so that all the three divisions were loud in their denunciations of Agis, and penetrated with shame at the thoughts of so disgraceful a retreat. And when they all saw themselves in one united body at Nemea, previous to breaking up and going home,—so as to have before their eyes their own full numbers and the complete equipment of one of the finest Hellenic armies which had ever been assembled,—the Argeian body of allies, before whom they were now retiring, appeared contemptible in the comparison, and they separated with yet warmer and more universal indignation against the king who had betrayed their cause.
On returning home, Agis incurred not less blame from the Spartan authorities than from his own army, for having thrown away so admirable an opportunity of subduing Argos. This was assuredly no more than he deserved: but we read with no small astonishment that the Argeians and their allies on returning were even more exasperated against Thrasyllus,[105] whom they accused of having traitorously thrown away a certain victory. They had indeed good ground, in the received practice, to censure him for having concluded a truce without taking the sense of the people. It was their custom on returning from a march, to hold a public court-martial before entering the city, at a place called the Charadrus, or winter torrent near the walls, for the purpose of adjudicating on offences and faults committed in the army. Such was their wrath on this occasion against Thrasyllus, that they would scarcely be prevailed upon even to put him upon his trial, but began to stone him. He was forced to seek personal safety at the altar; upon which the soldiers tried him, and he was condemned to have his property confiscated.[106]
Very shortly afterwards the expected Athenian contingent arrived, which probably ought to have come earlier: one thousand hoplites, with three hundred horsemen, under Lachês and Nikostratus. Alkibiadês came as ambassador, probably serving as a soldier also among the horsemen. The Argeians, notwithstanding their displeasure against Thrasyllus, nevertheless felt themselves pledged to observe the truce which he had concluded, and their magistrates accordingly desired the newly-arrived Athenians to depart. Nor was Alkibiadês even permitted to approach and address the public assembly, until the Mantineian and Eleian allies insisted that thus much at least should not be refused. An assembly was therefore convened, in which these allies took part, along with the Argeians. Alkibiadês contended strenuously that the recent truce with the Lacedæmonians was null and void; since it had been contracted without the privity of all the allies, distinctly at variance with the terms of the alliance. He therefore called upon them to resume military operations forthwith, in conjunction with the reinforcement now seasonably arrived. His speech so persuaded the assembly, that the Mantineians and Eleians consented at once to join him in an expedition against the Arcadian town of Orchomenus; the Argeians, also, though at first reluctant, very speedily followed them thither. Orchomenus was a place important to acquire, not merely because its territory joined that of Mantineia on the northward, but because the Lacedæmonians had deposited therein the hostages which they had taken from Arcadian townships and villages as guarantee for fidelity. Its walls were however in bad condition, and its inhabitants, after a short resistance, capitulated. They agreed to become allies of Mantineia, to furnish hostages for faithful adhesion to such alliance, and to deliver up the hostages deposited with them by Sparta.[107]
Encouraged by first success, the allies debated what they should next undertake; the Eleians contending strenuously for a march against Lepreum, while the Mantineians were anxious to attack their enemy and neighbor Tegea. The Argeians and Athenians preferred the latter, incomparably the more important enterprise of the two: but such was the disgust of the Eleians at the rejection of their proposition, that they abandoned the army altogether, and went home. Notwithstanding their desertion, however, the remaining allies continued together at Mantineia, organizing their attack upon Tegea, in which city they had a strong favorable party, who had actually laid their plans, and were on the point of proclaiming the revolt of the city from Sparta,[108] when the philo-Laconian Tegeans just saved themselves by despatching the most urgent message to Sparta, and receiving the most rapid succor. The Lacedæmonians, filled with indignation at the news of the surrender of Orchomenus, vented anew all their displeasure against Agis, whom they now threatened with the severe punishment of demolishing his house and fining him in the sum of one hundred thousand drachmæ, or about twenty-seven and two-thirds Attic talents. He urgently entreated that an opportunity might be afforded to him of redeeming by some brave deed the ill name which he had incurred: if he failed in doing so, then they might inflict on him what penalty they chose. The penalty was accordingly withdrawn: but a restriction, new to the Spartan constitution, was now placed upon the authority of the king. It had been before a part of his prerogative to lead out the army single-handed and on his own authority; but a council of ten was now named, without whose concurrence he was interdicted from exercising such power.[109]
To the great good fortune of Agis, a pressing message now arrived announcing the imminent revolt of Tegea, the most important ally of Sparta, and close upon her border. Such was the alarm occasioned by this news that the whole military population instantly started off to relieve the place, Agis at their head, the most rapid movement ever known to have been made by Lacedæmonian soldiers.[110] When they arrived at Orestheium in Arcadia, in their way, perhaps hearing that the danger was somewhat less pressing, they sent back to Sparta one-sixth part of the forces, for home defence, the oldest as well as the youngest men. The remainder marched forward to Tegea, where they were speedily joined by their Arcadian allies. They farther sent messages to the Corinthians and Bœotians, as well as to the Phocians and Lokrians, invoking the immediate presence of these contingents in the territory of Mantineia. The arrival of such reinforcements, however, even with all possible zeal on the part of the cities contributing, could not be looked for without some lapse of time; the rather, as it appears, that they could not get into the territory of Mantineia except by passing through that of Argos,[111] which could not be safely attempted until they had all formed a junction. Accordingly Agis, impatient to redeem his reputation, marched at once with the Lacedæmonians and the Arcadian allies present, into the territory of Mantineia, and took up a position near the Herakleion, or temple of Hêraklês,[112] from whence he began to ravage the neighboring lands. The Argeians and their allies presently came forth from Mantineia, planted themselves near him, but on very rugged and impracticable ground, and thus offered him battle. Nothing daunted by the difficulties of the position, he marshalled his army and led it up to attack them. His rashness on the present occasion might have produced as much mischief as his inconsiderate concession to Thrasyllus near Argos, had not an ancient Spartan called out to him that he was now merely proceeding “to heal mischief by mischief.” So forcibly was Agis impressed either with this timely admonition, or by the closer view of the position which he had undertaken to assault, that he suddenly halted the army and gave orders for retreat, though actually within distance no greater than the cast of a javelin from the enemy.[113]
His march was now intended to draw the Argeians away from the difficult ground which they occupied. On the frontier between Mantineia and Tegea—both situated on a lofty but inclosed plain, drained only by katabothra, or natural subterranean channels in the mountains—was situated a head of water, the regular efflux of which seems to have been kept up by joint operations of both cities for their mutual benefit. Thither Agis now conducted his army, for the purpose of turning the water towards the side of Mantineia, where it would occasion serious damage; calculating that the Mantineians and their allies would certainly descend from their position to hinder it. No stratagem however was necessary to induce the latter to adopt this resolution. For so soon as they saw the Lacedæmonians, after advancing to the foot of the hill, first suddenly halt, next retreat, and lastly disappear, their surprise was very great: and this surprise was soon converted into contemptuous confidence and impatience to pursue the flying enemy. The generals not sharing such confidence, hesitated at first to quit their secure position: upon which the troops became clamorous, and loudly denounced them for treason in letting the Lacedæmonians quietly escape a second time, as they had before done near Argos. These generals would probably not be the same with those who had incurred, a short time before, so much undeserved censure for their convention with Agis: but the murmurs on the present occasion, hardly less unreasonable, drove them, not without considerable shame and confusion, to give orders for advance. They abandoned the hill, marched down into the plain so as to approach the Lacedæmonians, and employed the next day in arranging themselves in good battle order, so as to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice.
Meanwhile it appears that Agis had found himself disappointed in his operations upon the water. He had either not done so much damage, or not spread so much terror, as he had expected: and he accordingly desisted, putting himself again in march to resume his position at the Herakleion, and supposing that his enemies still retained their position on the hill. But in the course of this march he came suddenly upon the Argeian and allied army where he was not in the least prepared to see them: they were not only in the plain, but already drawn up in perfect order of battle. The Mantineians occupied the right wing, the post of honor, because the ground was in their territory: next to them stood their dependent Arcadian allies: then the chosen Thousand-regiment of Argos, citizens of wealth and family, trained in arms at the cost of the state: alongside of them, the remaining Argeian hoplites, with their dependent allies of Kleônæ and Orneæ: last of all, on the left wing, stood the Athenians, their hoplites as well as their horsemen.
It was with the greatest surprise that Agis and his army beheld this unexpected apparition. To any other Greeks than Lacedæmonians, the sudden presentation of a formidable enemy would have occasioned a feeling of dismay from which they would have found it difficult to recover; and even the Lacedæmonians, on this occasion, underwent a momentary shock unparalleled in their previous experience.[114] But they now felt the full advantage of their rigorous training and habit of military obedience, as well as of that subordination of officers which was peculiar to themselves in Greece. In other Grecian armies orders were proclaimed to the troops in a loud voice by a herald, who received them personally from the general: each taxis, or company, indeed, had its own taxiarch, but the latter did not receive his orders separately from the general, and seems to have had no personal responsibility for the execution of them by his soldiers. Subordinate and responsible military authority was not recognized. Among the Lacedæmonians, on the contrary, there was a regular gradation of military and responsible authority, “commanders of commanders,” each of whom had his special duty in insuring the execution of orders.[115] Every order emanated from the Spartan king when he was present, and was given to the polemarchs (each commanding a mora, the largest military division), who intimated it to the lochagi, or colonels, of the respective lochi. These again gave command to each pentekontêr, or captain of a pentekosty; lastly, he to the enômotarch, who commanded the lowest subdivision, called an enômoty. The soldier thus received no immediate orders except from the enômotarch, who was in the first instance responsible for his enômoty; but the pentekontêr and the lochage were responsible also each for his larger division; the pentekosty including four enômoties, and the lochus four pentekosties, at least so the numbers stood on this occasion. All the various military manœuvres were familiar to the Lacedæmonians from their unremitting drill, so that their armies enjoyed the advantage of readier obedience along with more systematic command. Accordingly, though thus taken by surprise, and called on now for the first time in their lives, to form in the presence of an enemy, they only manifested the greater promptitude[116] and anxious haste in obeying the orders of Agis, transmitted through the regular series of officers. The battle array was attained with regularity as well as with speed.
The extreme left of the Lacedæmonian line belonged by ancient privilege to the Skiritæ; mountaineers of the border district of Laconia, skirting the Arcadian Parrhasii, seemingly east of the Eurotas, near its earliest and highest course. These men, originally Arcadians, now constituted a variety of Laconian Periœki, with peculiar duties as well as peculiar privileges. Numbered among the bravest and most active men in Peloponnesus, they generally formed the vanguard in an advancing march; and the Spartans stand accused of having exposed them to danger as well as toil with unbecoming recklessness.[117] Next to the Skiritæ, who were six hundred in number, stood the enfranchised Helots, recently returned from serving with Brasidas in Thrace, and the Neodamôdes, both probably summoned home from Lepreum, where we were told before that they had been planted. After them, in the centre of the entire line, came the Lacedæmonian lochi, seven in number, with the Arcadian dependent allies, Heræan and Mænalian, near them. Lastly, in the right wing, stood the Tegeans, with a small division of Lacedæmonians occupying the extreme right, as the post of honor. On each flank there were some Lacedæmonian horsemen.[118]
Thucydidês, with a frankness which enhances the value of his testimony wherever he gives it positively, informs us that he cannot pretend to set down the number of either army. It is evident that this silence is not for want of having inquired; but none of the answers which he received appeared to him trustworthy: the extreme secrecy of Lacedæmonian politics admitted of no certainty about their numbers, while the empty numerical boasts of other Greeks were not less misleading. In the absence of assured information about aggregate number, the historian gives us some general information accessible to every inquirer, and some facts visible to a spectator. From his language it is conjectured, with some probability, by Dr. Thirlwall and others, that he was himself present at the battle, though in what capacity we cannot determine, as he was an exile from his country. First, he states that the Lacedæmonian army appeared more numerous than that of the enemy. Next he tells us, that independent of the Skiritæ on the left, who were six hundred in number, the remaining Lacedæmonian front, to the extremity of their right wing, consisted of four hundred and forty-eight men, each enômoty having four men in front. In respect to depth, the different enômoties were not all equal; but for the most part, the files were eight deep. There were seven lochi in all (apart from the Skiritæ); each lochus comprised four pentekosties, each pentekosty contained four enômoties.[119] Multiplying four hundred and forty-four by eight, and adding the six hundred Skiritæ, this would make a total of four thousand one hundred and eighty-four hoplites, besides a few horsemen on each flank. Respecting light-armed, nothing is said. I have no confidence in such an estimate—but the total is smaller than we should have expected, considering that the Lacedæmonians had marched out from Sparta with their entire force on a pressing emergency, and that they had only sent home one-sixth of their total, their oldest and youngest soldiers.
It does not appear that the generals on the Argeian side made any attempt to charge while the Lacedæmonian battle-array was yet incomplete. It was necessary for them, according to Grecian practice, to wind up the courage of their troops by some words of exhortation and encouragement: and before these were finished, the Lacedæmonians may probably have attained their order. The Mantineian officers reminded their countrymen that the coming battle would decide whether Mantineia should continue to be a free and imperial city, with Arcadian dependencies of her own, as she now was, or should again be degraded into a dependency of Lacedæmon. The Argeian leaders dwelt upon the opportunity which Argos now had of recovering her lost ascendency in Peloponnesus, and of revenging herself upon her worst enemy and neighbor. The Athenian troops were exhorted to show themselves worthy of the many brave allies with whom they were now associated, as well as to protect their own territory and empire by vanquishing their enemy in Peloponnesus.
It illustrates forcibly the peculiarity of Lacedæmonian character, that to them no similar words of encouragement were addressed either by Agis or any of the officers. “They knew (says the historian[120]) that long practice beforehand in the business of war, was a better preservative than fine speeches on the spur of the moment.” As among professional soldiers, bravery was assumed as a thing of course, without any special exhortation: but mutual suggestions were heard among them with a view to get their order of battle and position perfect, which at first it probably was not, from the sudden and hurried manner in which they had been constrained to form. Moreover, various war-songs, perhaps those of Tyrtæus, were chanted in the ranks. At length the word was given to attack: the numerous pipers in attendance—an hereditary caste at Sparta—began to play, while the slow, solemn, and equable march of the troops adjusted itself to the time given by these instruments without any break or wavering in the line. A striking contrast to this deliberate pace was presented by the enemy: who having no pipers or other musical instruments, rushed forward to the charge with a step vehement and even furious,[121] fresh from the exhortations just addressed to them.
It was the natural tendency of all Grecian armies, when coming into conflict, to march not exactly straight forward, but somewhat aslant towards the right. The soldiers on the extreme right of both armies set the example of such inclination, in order to avoid exposing their own unshielded side; while for the same reason every man along the line took care to keep close to the shield of his right-hand neighbor. We see from hence that, with equal numbers, the right was not merely the post of honor, but also of comparative safety. So it proved on the present occasion, even the Lacedæmonian discipline being noway exempt from this cause of disturbance. Though the Lacedæmonian front, from their superior numbers, was more extended than that of the enemy, still their right files did not think themselves safe without slanting still farther to the right, and thus outflanked very greatly the Athenians on the opposite left wing; while on the opposite side the Mantineians who formed the right wing, from the same disposition to keep the left shoulder forward, outflanked, though not in so great a degree, the Skiritæ and Brasideians on the Lacedæmonian left. King Agis, whose post was with the lochi in the centre, saw plainly that when the armies closed, his left would be certainly taken in flank and perhaps even in the rear. Accordingly, he thought it necessary to alter his dispositions even at this critical moment, which he relied upon being able to accomplish through the exact discipline, practised evolutions, and slow march, of his soldiers.
The natural mode of meeting the impending danger would have been to bring round a division from the extreme right, where it could well be spared, to the extreme left against the advancing Mantineians. But the ancient privilege of the Skiritæ, who always fought by themselves on the extreme left, forbade such an order.[122] Accordingly, Agis gave signal to the Brasideians and Skiritæ to make a flank movement on the left so as to get on equal front with the Mantineians; while in order to fill up the vacancy thus created in his line, he sent orders to the two polemarchs Aristoklês and Hipponoidas, who had their lochi on the extreme right of the line, to move to the rear and take post on the right of the Brasideians, so as again to close up the line. But these two polemarchs, who had the safest and most victorious place in the line, chose to keep it, disobeying his express orders: so that Agis, when he saw that they did not move, was forced to send a second order countermanding the flank movement of the Skiritæ, and directing them to fall in upon the centre, back into their former place. But it had now become too late to execute this second command before the hostile armies closed: and the Skiritæ and Brasideians were thus assailed while in disorder and cut off from their own centre. The Mantineians, finding them in this condition, defeated and drove them back; while the chosen Thousand of Argos, breaking in by the vacant space between the Brasideians and the Lacedæmonian centre, took them on the right flank and completed their discomfiture. They were routed and pursued even to the Lacedæmonian baggage-wagons in the rear; some of the elder troops who guarded the wagons being slain, and the whole Lacedæmonian left wing altogether dispersed.
But the victorious Mantineians and their comrades, thinking only of what was immediately before them, wasted thus a precious time when their aid was urgently needed elsewhere. Matters passed very differently on the Lacedæmonian centre and right; where Agis, with his body-guard of three hundred chosen youths called Hippeis, and with the Spartan lochi, found himself in front conflict with the centre and left of the enemy;—with the Argeians, their elderly troops and the so-called Five Lochi, with the Kleonæans and Orneates, dependent allies of Argos, and with the Athenians. Over all these troops they were completely victorious, after a short resistance, indeed, on some points with no resistance at all. So formidable was the aspect and name of the Lacedæmonians, that the opposing troops gave way without crossing spears; and even with a panic so headlong, that they trod down each other in anxiety to escape.[123] While thus defeated in front, they were taken in flank by the Tegeans and Lacedæmonians on the right of Agis’s army, and the Athenians here incurred serious hazard of being all cut to pieces, had they not been effectively aided by their own cavalry close at hand. Moreover Agis, having decidedly beaten and driven them back was less anxious to pursue them than to return to the rescue of his own defeated left wing; so that even the Athenians, who were exposed both in flank and front, were enabled to effect their retreat in safety. The Mantineians and the Argeian Thousand, though victorious on their part of the line, yet seeing the remainder of their army in disorderly flight, had little disposition to renew the combat against Agis and the conquering Lacedæmonians. They sought only to effect their retreat, which however could not be done without severe loss, especially on the part of the Mantineians; and which Agis might have prevented altogether, had not the Lacedæmonian system, enforced on this occasion by the counsels of an ancient Spartan named Pharax, enjoyed abstinence from prolonged pursuit against a defeated enemy.[124]
There fell in this battle seven hundred men of the Argeians, Kleonæans, and Orneates; two hundred Athenians, together with both the generals Lachês and Nikostratus; and two hundred Mantineians. The loss of the Lacedæmonians, though never certainly known, from the habitual secrecy of their public proceedings, was estimated at about three hundred men. They stripped the enemy’s dead, spreading out to view the arms thus acquired, and selecting some for a trophy; then picked up their own dead and carried them away for burial at Tegea, granting the customary burial-truce to the defeated enemy. Pleistoanax, the other Spartan king, had advanced as far as Tegea with a reinforcement composed of the elder and younger citizens; but on hearing of the victory, he returned back home.[125]
Such was the important battle of Mantineia, fought in the month of June 418 B.C. Its effect throughout Greece was prodigious. The numbers engaged on both sides were very considerable for a Grecian army of that day, though seemingly not so large as at the battle of Delium five years before: the number and grandeur of the states whose troops were engaged was, however, greater than at Delium. But what gave peculiar value to the battle was, that it wiped off at once the preëxisting stain upon the honor of Sparta. The disaster in Sphakteria, disappointing all previous expectation, had drawn upon her the imputation of something like cowardice; and there were other proceedings which, with far better reason, caused her to be stigmatized as stupid and backward. But the victory of Mantineia silenced all such disparaging criticism, and replaced Sparta in her old position of military preëminence before the eyes of Greece. It worked so much the more powerfully because it was entirely the fruit of Lacedæmonian courage, with little aid from that peculiar skill and tactics, which was generally seen concomitant, but had in the present case been found comparatively wanting. The manœuvre of Agis, in itself not ill-conceived, for the purpose of extending his left wing, had failed through the disobedience of the two refractory polemarchs: but in such a case the shame of failure falls more or less upon all parties concerned; nor could either general or soldiers be considered to have displayed at Mantineia any of that professional aptitude which caused the Lacedæmonians to be styled “artists in warlike affairs.” So much the more conspicuously did Lacedæmonian courage stand out to view. After the left wing had been broken, and when the Argeian Thousand had penetrated into the vacant space between the left and centre, so that they might have taken the centre in flank, and ought to have done so, had they been well advised, the troops in the centre, instead of being daunted as most Grecian soldiers would have been, had marched forward against the enemies in their front, and gained a complete victory. The consequences of the battle were thus immense in reëstablishing the reputation of the Lacedæmonians, and in exalting them again to their ancient dignity of chiefs of Peloponnesus.[126]
We are not surprised to hear that the two polemarchs, Aristoklês and Hipponoidas, whose disobedience had wellnigh caused the ruin of the army, were tried and condemned to banishment as cowards, on their return to Sparta.[127]
Looking at the battle from the point of view of the other side, we may remark, that the defeat was greatly occasioned by the selfish caprice of the Eleians in withdrawing their three thousand men immediately before the battle, because the other allies, instead of marching against Lepreum, preferred to attempt the far more important town of Tegea: an additional illustration of the remark of Periklês at the beginning of the war, that numerous and equal allies could never be kept in harmonious coöperation.[128] Shortly after the defeat, the three thousand Eleians came back to the aid of Mantineia,—probably regretting their previous untoward departure,—together with a reinforcement of one thousand Athenians. Moreover, the Karneian month began, a season which the Lacedæmonians kept rigidly holy; even despatching messengers to countermand their extra-Peloponnesian allies, whom they had invoked prior to the late battle,[129] and remaining themselves within their own territory, so that the field was for the moment left clear for the operations of a defeated enemy. Accordingly, the Epidaurians, though they had made an inroad into the territory of Argos during the absence of the Argeian main force at the time of the late battle, and had gained a partial success, now found their own territory overrun by the united Eleians, Mantineians, and Athenians, who were bold enough even to commence a wall of circumvallation round the town of Epidaurus itself. The entire work was distributed between them to be accomplished; but the superior activity and perseverance of the Athenians was here displayed in a conspicuous manner. For while the portion of work committed to them—the fortification of the cape on which the Heræum or temple of Hêrê was situated—was indefatigably prosecuted and speedily brought to completion, their allies, both Eleians and Mantineians, abandoned the tasks respectively allotted to them in impatience and disgust. The idea of circumvallation being for this reason relinquished, a joint garrison was left in the new fort at Cape Heræum, after which the allies evacuated the Epidaurian territory.[130]
So far, the Lacedæmonians appeared to have derived little positive benefit from their late victory: but the fruits of it were soon manifested in the very centre of their enemy’s force, at Argos. A material change had taken place since the battle in the political tendencies of that city. There had been within it always an opposition party, philo-Laconian and anti-democratical: and the effect of the defeat of Mantineia had been to strengthen this party as much as it depressed their opponents. The democratical leaders, who, in conjunction with Athens and Alkibiades, had aspired to maintain an ascendency in Peloponnesus hostile and equal, if not superior to Sparta, now found their calculations overthrown and exchanged for the discouraging necessities of self-defence against a victorious enemy. And while these leaders thus lost general influence by so complete a defeat of their foreign policy, the ordinary democratical soldiers of Argos brought back with them from the field of Mantineia, nothing but humiliation and terror of the Lacedæmonian arms. But the chosen Argeian Thousand-regiment returned with very different feelings. Victorious over the left wing of their enemies, they had not been seriously obstructed in their retreat even by the Lacedæmonian centre. They had thus reaped positive glory,[131] and doubtless felt contempt for their beaten fellow-citizens. Now it has been already mentioned that these Thousand were men of rich families, and the best military age, set apart by the Argeian democracy to receive permanent training at the public expense, just at a time when the ambitious views of Argos first began to dawn, after the Peace of Nikias. So long as Argos was likely to become or continue the imperial state of Peloponnesus, these Thousand wealthy men would probably find their dignity sufficiently consulted in upholding her as such, and would thus acquiesce in the democratical government. But when the defeat of Mantineia reduced Argos to her own limits, and threw her upon the defensive, there was nothing to counterbalance their natural oligarchical sentiments, so that they became decided opponents of the democratical government in its distress. The oligarchical party in Argos, thus encouraged and reinforced, entered into a conspiracy with the Lacedæmonians to bring the city into alliance with Sparta as well as to overthrow the democracy.[132]
As the first step towards the execution of this scheme, the Lacedæmonians, about the end of September, marched out their full forces as far as Tegea, thus threatening invasion, and inspiring terror at Argos. From Tegea they sent forward as envoy Lichas, proxenus of the Argeians at Sparta, with two alternative propositions: one for peace, which he was instructed to tender and prevail upon the Argeians to accept, if he could; another, in case they refused, of a menacing character. It was the scheme of the oligarchical faction first to bring the city into alliance with Lacedæmon and dissolve the connection with Athens, before they attempted any innovation in the government. The arrival of Lichas was the signal for them to manifest themselves by strenuously pressing the acceptance of his pacific proposition. But they had to contend against a strong resistance; since Alkibiadês, still in Argos, employed his utmost energy to defeat their views. Nothing but the presence of the Lacedæmonian army at Tegea, and the general despondency of the people, at length enabled them to carry their point, and to procure acceptance of the proposed treaty; which being already adopted by the ekklesia at Sparta, was sent ready prepared to Argos, and there sanctioned without alteration. The conditions were substantially as follows:—
“The Argeians shall restore the boys whom they have received as hostages from Orchomenus, and the men-hostages from the Mænalii. They shall restore to the Lacedæmonians the men now in Mantineia, whom the Lacedæmonians had placed as hostages for safe custody in Orchomenus, and whom the Argeians and Mantineians have carried away from that place. They shall evacuate Epidaurus, and raze the fort recently erected near it. The Athenians, unless they also forthwith evacuate Epidaurus, shall be proclaimed as enemies to Lacedæmon as well as to Argos, and to the allies of both. The Lacedæmonians shall restore all the hostages whom they now have in keeping, from whatever place they may have been taken. Respecting the sacrifice alleged to be due to Apollo by the Epidaurians, the Argeians will consent to tender to them an oath, which if they swear, they shall clear themselves.[133] Every city in Peloponnesus, small or great, shall be autonomous and at liberty to maintain its own ancient constitution. If any extra-Peloponnesian city shall come against Peloponnesus with mischievous projects, Lacedæmon and Argos will take joint counsel against it, in the manner most equitable for the interest of the Peloponnesians generally. The extra-Peloponnesian allies of Sparta shall be in the same position with reference to this treaty as the allies of Lacedæmon and Argos in Peloponnesus, and shall hold their own in the same manner. The Argeians shall show this treaty to their allies, who shall be admitted to subscribe to it, if they think fit. But if the allies desire anything different, the Argeians shall send them home about their business.”[134]
Such was the agreement sent ready prepared by the Lacedæmonians to Argos, and there literally accepted. It presented a reciprocity little more than nominal, imposing one obligation of no importance upon Sparta; though it answered the purpose of the latter by substantially dissolving the alliance of Argos with its three confederates.
But this treaty was meant by the oligarchical party in Argos only as preface to a series of ulterior measures. As soon as it was concluded, the menacing army of Sparta was withdrawn from Tegea, and was exchanged for free and peaceful intercommunication between the Lacedæmonians and Argeians. Probably Alkibiadês at the same time retired, while the renewed visits and hospitalities of Lacedæmonians at Argos strengthened the interest of their party more than ever. They were soon powerful enough to persuade the Argeian assembly formally to renounce the alliance with Athens, Elis, and Mantineia, and to conclude a special alliance with Sparta, on the following terms:—
“There shall be peace and alliance for fifty years between the Lacedæmonians and the Argeians—upon equal terms—each giving amicable satisfaction, according to its established constitution, to all complaints preferred by the other. On the same condition, also, the other Peloponnesian cities shall partake in this peace and alliance, holding their own territory, laws, and separate constitution. All extra-Peloponnesian allies of Sparta shall be put upon the same footing as the Lacedæmonians themselves. The allies of Argos shall also be put upon the same footing as Argos herself, holding their own territory undisturbed. Should occasion arise for common military operations on any point, the Lacedæmonians and Argeians shall take counsel together, determining in the most equitable manner they can for the interest of their allies. If any one of the cities hereunto belonging, either in or out of Peloponnesus, shall have disputes either about boundaries or other topics, she shall be held bound to enter upon amicable adjustment.[135] If any allied city shall quarrel with another allied city, the matter shall be referred to some third city satisfactory to both. Each city shall render justice to her own citizens according to her own ancient constitution.”
It will be observed that in this treaty of alliance, the disputed question of headship is compromised or evaded. Lacedæmon and Argos are both put upon an equal footing, in respect to taking joint counsel for the general body of allies: they two alone are to decide, without consulting the other allies, though binding themselves to have regard to the interests of the latter. The policy of Lacedæmon also pervades the treaty, that of insuring autonomy to all the lesser states of Peloponnesus, and thus breaking up the empire of Elis, Mantineia, or any other larger state which might have dependencies.[136] And accordingly the Mantineians, finding themselves abandoned by Argos, were constrained to make their submission to Sparta, enrolling themselves again as her allies, renouncing all command over their Arcadian subjects, and delivering up the hostages of these latter, according to the stipulation in the treaty between Lacedæmon and Argos.[137] The Lacedæmonians do not seem to have meddled farther with Elis. Being already possessed of Lepreum,—through the Brasideian settlers planted there,—they perhaps did not wish again to provoke the Eleians, from fear of being excluded a second time from the Olympic festival.
Meanwhile the conclusion of the alliance with Lacedæmon—about November or December, 418 B.C.—had still farther depressed the popular leaders at Argos. The oligarchical faction, and the chosen regiment of the Thousand, all men of wealth and family, as well as bound together by their common military training, now saw their way clearly to the dissolution of the democracy by force, and to the accomplishment of a revolution. Instigated by such ambitious views, and flattered by the idea of admitted headship jointly with Sparta, they espoused the new policy of the city with extreme vehemence, and began immediately to multiply occasions of collision with Athens. Joint Lacedæmonian and Argeian envoys were despatched to Thrace and Macedonia. With the Chalkidians of Thrace, the revolted subjects of Athens, the old alliance was renewed and even new engagements concluded; while Perdikkas of Macedonia was urged to renounce his covenants with Athens, and join the new confederacy. In that quarter the influence of Argos was considerable; for the Macedonian princes prized very highly their ancient descent from Argos, which constituted them brethren of the Hellenic family. Accordingly, Perdikkas consented to the demand and concluded the new treaty; insisting, however, with his habitual duplicity, that the step should for the moment be kept secret from Athens.[138] In farther pursuance of the new tone of hostility to that city, joint envoys were also sent thither, to require that the Athenians should quit Peloponnesus, and especially that they should evacuate the fort recently erected near Epidaurus. It seems to have been held jointly by Argeians, Mantineians, Eleians, and Athenians; and as the latter were only a minority of the whole, the Athenians in the city judged it prudent to send Dêmosthenês to bring them away. That general not only effected the retreat, but also contrived a stratagem, which gave to it the air almost of an advantage. On his first arrival in the fort, he proclaimed a gymnastic match outside of the gates for the amusement of the whole garrison, contriving to keep back the Athenians within until all the rest had marched out: then hastily shutting the gates, he remained master of the place.[139] Having no intention, however, of keeping it, he made it over presently to the Epidaurians themselves, with whom he renewed the truce to which they had been parties jointly with the Lacedæmonians five years before, two years before the Peace of Nikias.[140]
The mode of proceeding here resorted to by Athens, in respect to the surrender of the fort, seems to have been dictated by a desire to manifest her displeasure against the Argeians. This was exactly what the Argeian leaders and oligarchical party, on their side, most desired; the breach with Athens had become irreparable, and their plans were now matured for violently subverting their own democracy. They concerted with Sparta a joint military expedition, of one thousand hoplites from each city,—the first joint expedition under the new alliance,—against Sikyôn, for the purpose of introducing more thorough-paced oligarchy into the already oligarchical Sikyônian government. It is possible that there may have been some democratical opposition gradually acquiring strength at Sikyôn: but that city seems to have been, as far as we know, always oligarchical in policy, and passively faithful to Sparta. Probably, therefore, the joint enterprise against Sikyôn was nothing more than a pretext to cover the introduction of one thousand Lacedæmonian hoplites into Argos, whither the joint detachment immediately returned, after the business at Sikyôn had been accomplished. Thus reinforced, the oligarchical leaders and the chosen Thousand at Argos put down by force the democratical constitution in that city, slew the democratical leaders, and established themselves in complete possession of the government.[141]
This revolution, accomplished about February, B.C. 417, the result of the victory of Mantineia and the consummation of a train of policy laid by Sparta, raised her ascendency in Peloponnesus to a higher and more undisputed point than it had ever before attained. The towns in Achaia were as yet not sufficiently oligarchical for her purpose, perhaps since the march of Alkibiadês thither, two years before; accordingly, she now remodelled their governments in conformity with her own views. The new rulers of Argos were subservient to her, not merely from oligarchical sympathy, but from need of her aid to keep down internal rising against themselves: so that there was neither enemy, nor even neutral, to counter-work her or to favor Athens, throughout the whole peninsula.
But the Spartan ascendency at Argos was not destined to last. Though there were many cities in Greece, in which oligarchies long maintained themselves unshaken, through adherence to a traditional routine and by being usually in the hands of men accustomed to govern, yet an oligarchy erected by force upon the ruins of a democracy was rarely of long duration. The angry discontent of the people, put down by temporary intimidation, usually revived, and threatened the security of the rulers enough to render them suspicious and probably cruel. Nor was such cruelty their only fault: they found their emancipation from democratical restraints too tempting to be able to control either their lust or their rapacity. With the population of Argos, comparatively coarse and brutal in all ranks, and more like Korkyra than like Athens, such abuse was pretty sure to be speedy as well as flagrant. Especially the chosen regiment of the Thousand—men in the vigor of their age, and proud of their military prowess as well as of their wealthier station—construed the new oligarchical government which they had helped to erect as a period of individual license to themselves. The behavior and fate of their chief, Bryas, illustrates the general demeanor of the troop. After many other outrages against persons of poorer condition, he one day met in the streets a wedding procession, in which the person of the bride captivated his fancy. He caused her to be violently torn from her company, carried her to his house, and possessed himself of her by force. But in the middle of the night, this high-spirited woman revenged herself for the outrage by putting out the eyes of the ravisher while he was fast asleep:[142] a terrible revenge, which the pointed clasp-pins of the feminine attire sometimes enabled women[143] to take upon those who wronged them. Having contrived to make her escape, she found concealment among her friends, as well as protection among the people generally against the indignant efforts of the chosen Thousand to avenge their leader.
From incidents such as this, and from the multitude of petty insults which so flagitious an outrage implies as coexistent, we are not surprised to learn that the Demos of Argos soon recovered their lost courage, and resolved upon an effort to put down their oligarchical oppressors. They waited for the moment when the festival called the Gymnopædiæ was in course of being solemnized at Sparta,—a festival at which the choric performances of men and boys were so interwoven with Spartan religion as well as bodily training, that the Lacedæmonians would make no military movement until they were finished. At this critical moment, the Argeian Demos rose in insurrection, and after a sharp contest gained a victory over the oligarchy, some of whom were slain, while others only saved themselves by flight. Even at the first instant of danger, pressing messages had been sent to Sparta for aid. But the Lacedæmonians at first peremptorily refused to move during the period of their festival: nor was it until messenger after messenger had arrived to set forth the pressing necessity of their friends, that they reluctantly put aside their festival to march towards Argos. They were too late: the precious moment had already passed by. They were met at Tegea by an intimation that their friends were overthrown, and Argos in possession of the victorious people. Nevertheless, various exiles who had escaped still promised them success, urgently entreating them to proceed, but the Lacedæmonians refused to comply, returned to Sparta, and resumed their intermitted festival.[144]
Thus was the oligarchy of Argos overthrown, after a continuance of about four months,[145] from February to June, 417 B.C., and the chosen Thousand-regiment either dissolved or destroyed. The movement excited great sympathy in several Peloponnesian cities,[146] who were becoming jealous of the exorbitant preponderance of Sparta. Nevertheless, the Argeian Demos, though victorious within the city, felt so much distrust of being able to maintain themselves, that they sent envoys to Sparta to plead their cause and to entreat favorable treatment: a proceeding which proves the insurrection to have been spontaneous, not fomented by Athens. But the envoys of the expelled oligarchs were there to confront them, and the Lacedæmonians, after a lengthened discussion, adjudging the Demos to have been guilty of wrong, proclaimed the resolution of sending forces to put them down. Still, the habitual tardiness of Lacedæmonian habits prevented any immediate or separate movement. Their allies were to be summoned, none being very zealous in the cause, and least of all at this moment, when the period of harvest was at hand; so that about three months intervened before any actual force was brought together.
This important interval was turned to account by the Argeian Demos, who, being plainly warned that they were to look on Sparta only as an enemy, immediately renewed their alliance with Athens. Regarding her as their main refuge, they commenced the building of long walls to connect their city with the sea, in order that the road might always be open for supplies and reinforcement from Athens, in case they should be confined to their walls by a superior Spartan force. The whole Argeian population—men and women, free and slave—set about the work with the utmost ardor: while Alkibiadês brought assistance from Athens,[147] especially skilled masons and carpenters, of whom they stood in much need. The step may probably have been suggested by himself, as it was the same which, two years before, he had urged upon the inhabitants of Patræ. But the construction of walls adequate for defence, along the line of four miles and a half between Argos and the sea,[148] required a long time. Moreover, the oligarchical party within the town, as well as the exiles without,—a party defeated but not annihilated,—strenuously urged the Lacedæmonians to put an end to the work, and even promised them a counter-revolutionary movement in the town as soon as they drew near to assist; the same intrigue which had been entered into by the oligarchical party at Athens forty years before, when the walls down to Peiræus were in course of erection.[149] Accordingly about the end of September, 417 B.C., king Agis conducted an army of Lacedæmonians and allies against Argos, drove the population within the city, and destroyed so much of the long walls as had been already raised. But the oligarchical party within were not able to realize their engagements of rising in arms, so that he was obliged to retire after merely ravaging the territory and taking the town of Hysiæ, where he put to death all the freemen who fell into his hands. After his departure, the Argeians retaliated these ravages upon the neighboring territory of Phlius, where the exiles from Argos chiefly resided.[150]