Leon the Athenian protested against the Persian rescript, observing aloud when he heard it read,—“By Zeus, Athenians, I think it is time for you to look out for some other friend than the Great King.” This remark, made in the King’s hearing and interpreted to him, produced the following addition to the rescript: “If the Athenians have anything juster to propose, let them come to the King and inform him.” So vague a modification, however, did little to appease the murmurs of the Athenians. On the return of their two envoys to Athens, Leon accused his colleague Timagoras of having not only declined to associate with him during the journey, but also of having lent himself to the purposes of Pelopidas, of being implicated in treasonable promises, and of receiving large bribes from the Persian King. On these charges Timagoras was condemned and executed.[600] The Arcadian envoy Antiochus was equally indignant at the rescript; refusing even to receive such presents of formal courtesy as were tendered to all, and accepted by Pelopidas himself, who however strictly declined everything beyond. The conduct of this eminent Theban thus exhibited a strong contrast with the large acquisitions of the Athenian Timagoras.[601] Antiochus, on returning to Arcadia, made report of his mission to the Pan-Arcadian synod, called the Ten Thousand, at Megalopolis. He spoke in the most contemptuous terms of all that he had seen at the Persian court. There were (he said) plenty of bakers, cooks, wine-pourers, porters, etc., but as for men competent to fight against Greeks, though he looked out for them with care, he could see none; and even the vaunted golden plane-tree was not large enough to furnish shade for a grasshopper.[602]

On the other hand, the Eleian envoy returned with feelings of satisfaction, and the Thebans with triumph. Deputies from each of their allied cities were invited to Thebes, to hear the Persian rescript. It was produced by a native Persian, their official companion from Susa,—the first Persian probably ever seen in Thebes since the times immediately preceding the battle of Platæa,—who, after exhibiting publicly the regal seal, read the document aloud; as the satrap Tiribazus had done on the occasion of the peace of Antalkidas.[603]

But though the Theban leaders thus closely copied the conduct of Sparta both as to means and as to end, they by no means found the like ready acquiescence, when they called on the deputies present to take an oath to the rescript, to the Great King, and to Thebes. All replied that they had come with instructions, authorizing them to hear and report, but no more; and that acceptance or rejection must be decided in their respective cities. Nor was this the worst. Lykomedes and the other deputies from Arcadia, already jealous of Thebes, and doubtless farther alienated by the angry report of their envoy Antiochus, went yet farther, and entered a general protest against the headship of Thebes; affirming that the synod ought not to be held constantly in that city, but in the seat of war, wherever that might be. Incensed at such language, the Thebans accused Lykomedes of violating the cardinal principle of the confederacy; upon which he and his Arcadian comrades forthwith retired and went home, declaring that they would no longer sit in the synod. The other deputies appear to have followed his example. Indeed, as they had refused to take the oath submitted to them, the special purpose of the synod was defeated.

Having thus failed in carrying their point with the allies collectively, the Thebans resolved to try the efficacy of applications individually. They accordingly despatched envoys, with the Persian rescript in hand, to visit the cities successively, calling upon each for acceptance with an oath of adhesion. Each city separately (they thought) would be afraid to refuse, under peril of united hostility from the Great King and from Thebes. So confident were they in the terrors of the king’s name and seal, that they addressed this appeal not merely to the cities in alliance with them, but even to several among their enemies. Their envoys first set forth the proposition at Corinth; a city, not only at variance with them, but even serving as a centre of operation for the Athenian and Lacedæmonian forces to guard the line of Oneium, and prevent the entrance of a Theban army into Peloponnesus. But the Corinthians rejected the proposition altogether, declining formally to bind themselves by any common oaths towards the Persian king. The like refusal was experienced by the envoys as they passed on to Peloponnesus, if not from all the cities visited, at least from so large a proportion, that the mission was completely frustrated. And thus the rescript, which Thebes had been at such pains to procure, was found practically inoperative in confirming or enforcing her headship;[604] though doubtless the mere fact, that it comprised and recognized Messênê, contributed to strengthen the vitality, and exalt the dignity, of that new-born city.

In their efforts to make the Persian rescript available towards the recognition of their headship throughout Greece, the Thebans would naturally visit Thessaly and the northern districts as well as Peloponnesus. It appears that Pelopidas and Ismenias themselves undertook this mission; and that in the execution of it they were seized and detained as prisoners by Alexander of Pheræ. That despot seems to have come to meet them, under pacific appearances, at Pharsalus. They indulged hopes of prevailing on him as well as the other Thessalians to accept the Persian rescript; for we see by the example of Corinth, that they had tried their powers of persuasion on enemies as well as friends. But the Corinthians, while refusing the application, had nevertheless respected the public morality held sacred even between enemies in Greece, and had dismissed the envoys (whether Pelopidas was among them, we cannot assert) inviolate. Not so the tyrant of Pheræ. Perceiving that Pelopidas and Ismenias were unaccompanied by any military force, he seized their persons, and carried them off to Pheræ as prisoners.

Treacherous as this proceeding was, it proved highly profitable to Alexander. Such was the personal importance of Pelopidas, that his imprisonment struck terror among the partisans of Thebes in Thessaly, and induced several of them to submit to the despot of Pheræ; who moreover sent to apprise the Athenians of his capture, and to solicit their aid against the impending vengeance of Thebes. Greatly impressed with the news, the Athenians looked upon Alexander as a second Jason, likely to arrest the menacing ascendency of their neighbor and rival.[605] They immediately despatched to his aid thirty triremes and one thousand hoplites under Autoklês; who, unable to get through the Euripus, when Bœotia and Eubœa were both hostile to Athens, were forced to circumnavigate the latter island. He reached Pheræ just in time; for the Thebans, incensed beyond measure at the seizure of Pelopidas, had despatched without delay eight thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry to recover or avenge him. Unfortunately for them, Epaminondas had not been rechosen commander since his last year’s proceedings in Achaia. He was now serving as an hoplite in the ranks, while Kleomenes with other Bœotarchs had the command. On entering Thessaly, they were joined by various allies in the country. But the army of Alexander, aided by the Athenians, and placed under the command of Autoklês, was found exceedingly formidable, especially in cavalry. The Thessalian allies of Thebes, acting with their habitual treachery, deserted in the hour of danger; and the enterprise, thus difficult and perilous, was rendered impracticable by the incompetence of the Bœotarchs. Unable to make head against Alexander and the Athenians, they were forced to retreat homeward. But their generalship was so unskilful, and the enemy’s cavalry so active, that the whole army was in imminent danger of being starved or destroyed. Nothing saved them now, but the presence of Epaminondas as a common soldier in the ranks. Indignant as well as dismayed, the whole army united to depose their generals, and with one voice called upon him to extricate them from their perils. Epaminondas accepted the duty,—marshalled the retreat in consummate order,—took for himself the command of the rear-guard, beating off all the attacks of the enemy,—and conducted the army safely back to Thebes.[606]

This memorable exploit, while it disgraced the unsuccessful Bœotarchs, who were condemned to fine and deposition from their office, raised higher than ever the reputation of Epaminondas among his countrymen. But the failure of the expedition was for the time a fatal blow to the influence of Thebes in Thessaly; where Alexander now reigned victorious and irresistible, with Pelopidas still in his dungeon. The cruelties and oppressions, at all times habitual to the despot of Pheræ, were pushed to an excess beyond all former parallel. Besides other brutal deeds of which we read with horror, he is said to have surrounded by his military force the unarmed citizens of Melibœa and Skotussa, and slaughtered them all in mass. In such hands, the life of Pelopidas hung by a thread; yet he himself, with that personal courage which never forsook him, held the language of unsubdued defiance and provocation against the tyrant. Great sympathy was manifested by many Thessalians, and even by Thêbê the wife of Alexander, for so illustrious a prisoner; and Alexander, fearful of incurring the implacable enmity of Thebes, was induced to spare his life, though retaining him as a prisoner. His confinement, too, appears to have lasted some time before the Thebans, discouraged by their late ill-success, were prepared to undertake a second expedition.

At length they sent a force for the purpose; which was placed, on this occasion, under the command of Epaminondas. The renown of his name rallied many adherents in the country; and his prudence, no less than his military skill, was conspicuously exhibited, in defeating and intimidating Alexander, yet without reducing him to such despair as might prove fatal to the prisoner. The despot was at length compelled to send an embassy excusing his recent violence, offering to restore Pelopidas, and soliciting to be admitted to peace and alliance with Thebes. But Epaminondas would grant nothing more than a temporary truce,[607] coupled with the engagement of evacuating Thessaly; while he required in exchange the release of Pelopidas and Ismenias. His terms were acceded to, so that he had the delight of conveying his liberated friend in safety to Thebes. Though this primary object was thus effected, however, it is plain that he did not restore Thebes to the same influence in Thessaly which she had enjoyed prior to the seizure of Pelopidas.[608] That event with its consequences still remained a blow to Thebes and a profit to Alexander; who again became master of all or most part of Thessaly, together with the Magnêtes, the Phthiot Achæans, and other tributary nations dependent on Thessaly—maintaining unimpaired his influence and connection at Athens.[609]

While the Theban arms were thus losing ground in Thessaly, an important point was gained in their favor on the other side of Bœotia. Orôpus, on the north-eastern frontier of Attica adjoining Bœotia, was captured and wrested from Athens by a party of exiles who crossed over from Eretria in Eubœa, with the aid of Themison, despot of the last-mentioned town. It had been more than once lost and regained between Athens and Thebes; being seemingly in its origin Bœotian, and never incorporated as a Deme or equal constituent member of the Athenian commonwealth, but only recognized as a dependency of Athens; though, as it was close on the frontier, many of its inhabitants were also citizens of Athens, demots of the neighboring Deme Græa.[610] So recently before as the period immediately preceding the battle of Leuktra, angry remonstrances had been exchanged between Athens and Thebes respecting a portion of the Oropian territory. At that time, it appears, the Thebans were forced to yield, and their partisans in Oropus were banished.[611] It was these partisans who, through the aid of Themison and the Eretrians, now effected their return, so as to repossess themselves of Oropus, and doubtless to banish the principal citizens friendly to Athens.[612] So great was the sensation produced among the Athenians, that they not only marched with all their force to recover the place, but also recalled their general, Chares, with that mercenary force which he commanded in the territories of Corinth and Phlius. They farther requested aid from the Corinthians and their other allies in Peloponnesus. These allies did not obey the summons; but the Athenian force alone would have sufficed to retake Oropus, had not the Thebans occupied it so as to place it beyond their attack. Athens was obliged to acquiesce in their occupation of it; though under protest, and with the understanding that the disputed right should be referred to impartial arbitration.[613]

This seizure of Oropus produced more than one material consequence. Owing to the recall of Chares from Corinth, the harbor of Sikyon could no longer be maintained against the Sikyonians in the town; who, with the aid of the Arcadians, recaptured it, so that both town and harbor again came into the league of Thebans and Arcadians. Moreover, Athens became discontented with her Peloponnesian allies, for having neglected her summons on the emergency at Oropus, although Athenian troops had been constantly in service for the protection of Peloponnesus against the Thebans. The growth of such dispositions at Athens became known to the Mantinean Lykomedes; the ablest and most ambitious leader in Arcadia, who was not only jealous of the predominance of the Thebans, but had come to a formal rupture with them at the synod held for the reception of the Persian rescript.[614] Anxious to disengage the Arcadians from Thebes as well as from Sparta, Lykomedes now took advantage of the discontent of Athens to open negotiations with that city; persuading the majority of the Arcadian Ten Thousand to send him thither as ambassador. There was difficulty among the Athenians in entertaining his proposition, from the alliance subsisting between them and Sparta. But they were reminded, that to disengage the Arcadians from Thebes, was no less in the interest of Sparta than of Athens; and a favorable answer was then given to Lykomedes. The latter took ship at Peiræus for his return, but never reached Arcadia; for he happened to land at the spot where the Arcadian exiles of the opposite party were assembled, and these men put him to death at once.[615] In spite of his death, however, the alliance between Arcadia and Athens was still brought to pass, though not without opposition.

Thebes was during this year engaged in her unsuccessful campaign in Thessaly (alluded to already) for the rescue of Pelopidas, which disabled her from effective efforts in Peloponnesus. But as soon as that rescue had been accomplished, Epaminondas, her greatest man, and her only conspicuous orator, was despatched into Arcadia to offer, in conjunction with an envoy from Argos, diplomatic obstruction to the proposed Athenian alliance. He had to speak against Kallistratus, the most distinguished orator at Athens, who had been sent by his countrymen to plead their cause amidst the Arcadian Ten Thousand, and who, among other arguments, denounced the enormities which darkened the heroic legends both of Thebes and Argos. “Were not Orestes and Alkmæon, both murderers of their mothers (asked Kallistratus), natives of Argos? Was not Œdipus, who slew his father and married his mother, a native of Thebes?”—“Yes (said Epaminondas, in his reply) they were. But Kallistratus has forgotten to tell you, that these persons, while they lived at home were innocent, or reputed to be so. As soon as their crimes became known, Argos and Thebes banished them; and then it was that Athens received them, stained with confessed guilt.”[616] This clever retort told much to the credit of the rhetorical skill of Epaminondas; but his speech as a whole, was not successful. The Arcadians concluded alliance with Athens; yet without formally renouncing friendship with Thebes.

As soon as such new alliance had been ratified, it became important to Athens to secure a free and assured entrance into Peloponnesus; while at the same time the recent slackness of the Corinthians, in regard to the summons to Oropus, rendered her mistrustful of their fidelity. Accordingly it was resolved in the Athenian assembly, on the motion of a citizen named Demotion, to seize and occupy Corinth; there being already some scattered Athenian garrisons, on various points of the Corinthian territory, ready to be concentrated and rendered useful for such a purpose. A fleet and land-force under Chares was made ready and despatched. But on reaching the Corinthian port of Kenchreæ, Chares found himself shut out even from admittance. The proposition of Demotion, and the resolution of the Athenians had become known to the Corinthians; who forthwith stood upon their guard, sent soldiers of their own to relieve the various Athenian outposts on their territory, and called upon these latter to give in any complaints for which they might have ground, as their services were no longer needed. Chares pretended to have learnt that Corinth was in danger. But both he and the remaining Athenians were dismissed, though with every expression of thanks and politeness.[617]

The treacherous purpose of Athens was thus baffled, and the Corinthians were for the moment safe. Yet their position was precarious and uncomfortable; for their enemies, Thebes and Argos, were already their masters by land, and Athens had now been converted from an ally into an enemy. Hence they resolved to assemble a sufficient mercenary force in their own pay;[618] but while thus providing for military security, they sent envoys to Thebes to open negotiations for peace. Permission was granted to them by the Thebans to go and consult their allies, and to treat for peace in conjunction with as many as could be brought to share their views. Accordingly the Corinthians went to Sparta and laid their case before the full synod of allies, convoked for the occasion. “We are on the point of ruin (said the Corinthian envoy), and must make peace. We shall rejoice to make it in conjunction with you, if you will consent; but if you think proper to persevere in the war, be not displeased if we make peace without you.” The Epidaurians and Phliasians, reduced to the like distress, held the same language of weariness and impatience for peace.[619]

It had been ascertained at Thebes, that no propositions for peace could be entertained, which did not contain a formal recognition of the independence of Messênê. To this the Corinthians and other allies of Sparta had no difficulty in agreeing. But they vainly endeavored to prevail upon Sparta herself to submit to the same concession. The Spartans resolutely refused to relinquish a territory inherited from victorious forefathers, and held under so long a prescription. They repudiated yet more indignantly the idea of recognizing as free Greeks and equal neighbors, those who had so long been their slaves; and they proclaimed their determination of continuing the war, even single-handed and with all its hazards, to regain what they had lost;[620] and although they could not directly prohibit the Corinthians and other allies, whose sickness of the war had become intolerable, from negotiating a separate peace for themselves,—yet they gave only a reluctant consent. Archidamus son of Agesilaus even reproached the allies with timorous selfishness, partly in deserting their benefactress Sparta at her hour of need, partly in recommending her to submit to a sacrifice ruinous to her honor.[621] The Spartan prince conjured his countrymen, in the name of all their ancient dignity, to spurn the mandates of Thebes; to shrink neither from effort nor from peril for the reconquest of Messênê, even if they had to fight alone against all Greece; and to convert their military population into a permanent camp, sending away their women and children to an asylum in friendly foreign cities.

Though the Spartans were not inclined to adopt the desperate suggestions of Archidamus, yet this important congress ended by a scission between them and their allies. The Corinthians, Phliasians, Epidaurians, and others, went to Thebes, and concluded peace; recognizing the independence of Messênê, and affirming the independence of each separate city within its own territory, without either obligatory alliance, or headship on the part of any city. Yet when the Thebans invited them to contract an alliance, they declined, saying that this would be only embarking in war on the other side; whereas that which they sighed for was peace. Peace was accordingly sworn, upon the terms indicated in the Persian rescript, so far as regarded the general autonomy of each separate town, and specially that of Messênê; but not including any sanction, direct or indirect, of Theban headship.[622]

This treaty removed out of the war, and placed in a position of neutrality, a considerable number of Grecian states; chiefly those near the Isthmus,—Corinth, Phlius, Epidaurus; probably Trœzen and Hermionê, since we do not find them again mentioned among the contending parties. But it left the more powerful states, Thebes and Argos,—Sparta and Athens,[623]—still at war; as well as Arcadia, Achaia, and Elis. The relations between these states, however, were now somewhat complicated; for Thebes was at war with Sparta, and in alliance, though not altogether hearty alliance, with the Arcadians; while Athens was at war with Thebes, yet in alliance with Sparta as well as with Arcadia. The Argeians were in alliance with Thebes and Arcadia, and at war with Sparta; the Eleians were on unfriendly terms, though not yet at actual war, with Arcadia—yet still (it would appear) in alliance with Thebes. Lastly, the Arcadians themselves were losing their internal coöperation and harmony one with another, which had only so recently begun. Two parties were forming among them, under the old conflicting auspices of Mantinea and Tegea. Tegea, occupied by a Theban harmost and garrison, held strenuously with Megalopolis and Messênê as well as with Thebes, thus constituting a strong and united frontier against Sparta.

As the Spartans complained of their Peloponnesian allies, for urging the recognition of Messênê as an independent state,—so they were no less indignant with the Persian king; who, though still calling himself their ally, had inserted the same recognition in the rescript granted to Pelopidas.[624] The Athenians also were dissatisfied with this rescript. They had (as has been already stated) condemned to death Timagoras, one of their envoys who had accompanied Pelopidas, for having received bribes. They now availed themselves of the opening left for them in the very words of the rescript, to send a fresh embassy up to the Persian court, and solicit more favorable terms. Their new envoys, communicating the fact that Timagoras had betrayed his trust and had been punished for it, obtained from the Great King a fresh rescript, pronouncing Amphipolis to be an Athenian possession instead of a free city.[625] Whether that other article also in the former rescript, which commanded Athens to call in all her armed ships, was now revoked, we cannot say; but it seems probable.

At the same time that the Athenians sent this second embassy, they also despatched an armament under Timotheus to the coast of Asia Minor, yet with express instructions not to violate the peace with the Persian king. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, went to the same scene, though without any public force; availing himself only of his long-established military reputation to promote the interests of his country as negotiator. Both Spartan and Athenian attention was now turned, directly and specially, towards Ariobarzanes the satrap of Phrygia; who (as has been already related) had sent over to Greece, two years before, Philiskus of Abydus, with the view either of obtaining from the Thebans peace on terms favorable to Sparta, or of aiding the latter against them.[626] Ariobarzanes was then preparing, and apparently had since openly consummated, his revolt from the Persian king, which Agesilaus employed all his influence in fomenting. The Athenians, however, still wishing to avoid a distinct breach with Persia, instructed Timotheus to assist Ariobarzanes,—yet with a formal proviso, that he should not break truce with the Great King. They also conferred both upon Ariobarzanes (with his three sons), and upon Philiskus, the gift of Athenian citizenship.[627] That satrap seems now to have had a large mercenary force, and to have been in possession of both sides of the Hellespont, as well as of Perinthus on the Propontis; while Philiskus, as his chief officer, exercised extensive ascendency, disgraced by much tyranny and brutality, over the Grecian cities in that region.

Precluded by his instructions from openly aiding the revolted Ariobarzanes, Timotheus turned his force against the island of Samos; which was now held by Kyprothemis, a Grecian chief with a military force in the service of Tigranes, Persian satrap on the opposite mainland. How or when Tigranes had acquired it we do not know; but the Persians, when once left by the peace of Antalkidas in quiet possession of the continental Asiatic Greeks, naturally tended to push their dominion over the neighboring islands. After carrying on his military operations in Samos, with eight thousand peltasts and thirty triremes, for ten or eleven months, Timotheus became master of it. His success was the more gratifying, as he had found means to pay and maintain his troops during the whole time at the cost of enemies; without either drawing upon the Athenian treasury, or extorting contributions from allies.[628] An important possession was thus acquired for Athens, while a considerable number of Samians of the opposite party went into banishment, with the loss of their properties. Since Samos was not among the legitimate possessions of the king of Persia, this conquest was not understood to import war between him and Athens. Indeed it appears that the revolt of Ariobarzanes, and the uncertain fidelity of various neighboring satraps, shook for some time the king’s authority, and absorbed his revenues in these regions. Autophradates, the satrap of Lydia,—and Mausôlus, native prince of Karia under Persian supremacy,—attacked Ariobarzanes, with the view, real or pretended, of quelling his revolt; and laid siege to Assus and Adramyttium. But they are said to have been induced to desist by the personal influence of Agesilaus.[629] As the latter had no army, nor any means of allurement (except perhaps some money derived from Ariobarzanes), we may fairly presume that the two besiegers were not very earnest in the cause. Moreover, we shall find both of them, a few years afterwards, in joint revolt with Ariobarzanes himself against the Persian king.[630] Agesilaus obtained, from all three, pecuniary aid for Sparta.[631]

The acquisition of Samos, while it exalted the reputation of Timotheus, materially enlarged the maritime dominion of Athens. It seems also to have weakened the hold of the Great King on Asia Minor,—to have disposed the residents, both satraps and Grecian cities, to revolt,—and thus to have helped Ariobarzanes, who rewarded both Agesilaus and Timotheus. Agesilaus was enabled to carry home a sum of money to his embarrassed countrymen; but Timotheus, declining pecuniary aid, obtained for Athens the more valuable boon of readmission to the Thracian Chersonese. Ariobarzanes made over to him Sestus and Krithôtê in that peninsula; possessions doubly precious, as they secured to the Athenians a partial mastery of the passage of the Hellespont; with a large circumjacent territory for occupation.[632]

Samos and the Chersonese were not simply new tributary confederates aggregated to the Athenian synod. They were, in large proportion, new territories acquired to Athens, open to be occupied by Athenian citizens as out-settlers or kleruchs. Much of the Chersonese had been possessed by Athenian citizens, even from the time of the first Miltiades and afterwards down to the destruction of the Athenian empire in 405 B.C. Though all these proprietors had been then driven home and expropriated, they had never lost the hope of a favorable turn of fortune and eventual reëntry.[633] That moment had now arrived. The formal renunciation of all private appropriations of land out of Attica, which Athens had proclaimed at the formation of her second confederacy in 378 B.C., as a means of conciliating maritime allies—was forgotten, now that she stood no longer in fear of Sparta. The same system of kleruchies, which had so much discredited her former empire, was again partially commenced. Many kleruchs, or lot-holders, were sent out to occupy lands both at Samos and in the Chersonese. These men were Athenian citizens, who still remained citizens of Athens even in their foreign domicile, and whose properties formed part of the taxable schedule of Athens. The particulars of this important measure are unknown to us. At Samos the emigrants must have been new men; for there had never been any kleruchs there before.[634] But in the Chersonese, the old Athenian proprietors, who had been expropriated forty years before (or their descendants), doubtless now went back, and tried, with more or less of success, to regain their previous lands; reinforced by bands of new emigrants. And Timotheus, having once got footing at Sestus and Krithôtê, soon extended his acquisitions to Elæus and other places; whereby Athens was emboldened publicly to claim the whole Chersonese, or at least most part of it, as her own ancient possession,—from its extreme northern boundary at a line drawn across the isthmus north of Kardia, down to Elæus at its southern extremity.[635]

This transfer of lands in Samos to Athenian proprietors, combined with the resumption of the Chersonese, appears to have excited a strong sensation throughout Greece, as a revival of ambitious tendencies on the part of Athens, and a manifest departure from those disinterested professions which she had set forth in 378 B.C. Even in the Athenian assembly, a citizen named Kydias pronounced an emphatic protest against the emigration of the kleruchs to Samos.[636] However, obnoxious as the measure was to criticism, yet having been preceded by a conquering siege and the expulsion of many native proprietors, it does not seem to have involved Athens in so much real difficulty as the resumption of her old rights in the Chersonese. Not only did she here come into conflict with independent towns, like Kardia,[637] which resisted her pretensions,—and with resident proprietors whom she was to aid her citizens in dispossessing,—but also with a new enemy, Kotys, king of Thrace. That prince, claiming the Chersonese as Thracian territory, was himself on the point of seizing Sestus, when Agesilaus or Ariobarzanes drove him away,[638] to make room for Timotheus and the Athenians.

It has been already mentioned, that Kotys,[639]—the new Thracian enemy, but previously the friend and adopted citizen, of Athens,—was father-in-law of the Athenian general Iphikrates, whom he had enabled to establish and people the town and settlement called Drys, on the coast of Thrace. Iphikrates had been employed by the Athenians for the last three or four years on the coasts of Macedonia and Chalkidikê, and especially against Amphipolis; but he had neither taken the latter place, nor obtained (so far as we know) any other success; though he had incurred the expense for three years of a mercenary general named Charidemus with a body of troops. How so unprofitable a result, on the part of an energetic man like Iphikrates, is to be explained,—we cannot tell. But it naturally placed him before the eyes of his countrymen in disadvantageous contrast with Timotheus, who had just acquired Samos and the Chersonese. An additional reason for mistrusting Iphikrates, too, was presented by the fact, that Athens was now at war with his father-in-law Kotys. Hence it was now resolved by the Athenians to recall him, and appoint Timotheus[640] to an extensive command, including Thrace and Macedonia as well as the Chersonese. Perhaps party enmities between the two Athenian chiefs, with their respective friends, may have contributed to the change. As Iphikrates had been the accuser of Timotheus a few years before, so the latter may have seized this opportunity of retaliating.[641] At all events the dismissed general conducted himself in such a manner as to justify the mistrust of his countrymen; taking part with his father-in-law Kotys in the war, and actually fighting against Athens.[642] He had got into his possession some hostages of Amphipolis, surrendered to him by Harpalus; which gave great hopes of extorting the surrender of the town. These hostages he had consigned to the custody of the mercenary general Charidemus, though a vote had been passed in the Athenian assembly that they should be sent to Athens.[643] As soon as the appointment of Iphikrates was cancelled, Charidemus forthwith surrendered the hostages to the Amphipolitans themselves, thus depriving Athens of a material advantage. And this was not all. Though Charidemus had been three years with his band in the service of Athens under Iphikrates, yet when the new general Timotheus wished to reëngage him, he declined the proposition; conveying away his troops in Athenian transports, to enter into the pay of a decided enemy of Athens—Kotys; and in conjunction with Iphikrates himself.[644] He was subsequently coming by sea from Kardia to take service under her other enemies, Olynthus and Amphipolis, when he was captured by the Athenian fleet. Under these circumstances, he was again prevailed on to serve Athens.

It was against these two cities, and to the general coast of Macedonia and the Chalkidic Thrace, that Timotheus devoted his first attention, postponing for the moment Kotys and the Chersonese. In this enterprise he found means to obtain the alliance of Macedonia, which had been hostile to his predecessor Iphikrates. Ptolemy of Alôrus, regent of that country, who had assassinated the preceding king, Alexander son of Amyntas, was himself assassinated (365 B.C.) by Perdikkas, brother of Alexander.[645] Perdikkas, during the first year or two of his reign, seems to have been friendly and not hostile to Athens. He lent aid to Timotheus, who turned his force against Olynthus and other towns both in the Chalkidic Thrace and on the coast of Macedonia.[646] Probably the Olynthian confederacy may have been again acquiring strength during the years of recent Spartan humiliation; so that Perdikkas now found his account in assisting Athens to subdue or enfeeble it, just as his father Amyntas had invoked Sparta for the like purpose. Timotheus, with the assistance of Perdikkas, was very successful in these parts; making himself master of Torônê, Potidæa, Pydna, Methônê, and various other places. As he mastered many of the Chalkidic towns allied with Olynthus, the means and adherents still retained by that city became so much diminished, that Timotheus is spoken of loosely as having conquered it.[647] Here, as at Samos, he obtained his successes not only without cost to Athens, but also (as we are told) without severities upon the allies, simply from the regular contributions of the Thracian confederates of Athens, assisted by the employment of a temporary coinage of base metal.[648] Yet though Timotheus was thus victorious in and near the Thermaic Gulf, he was not more fortunate than his predecessor in his attempt to achieve that which Athens had most at heart,—the capture of Amphipolis; although, by the accidental capture of Charidemus at sea, he was enabled again to enlist that chief with his band, whose services seem to have been gratefully appreciated at Athens.[649] Timotheus first despatched Alkimachus, who was repulsed,—then landed himself and attacked the city. But the Amphipolitans, aided by the neighboring Thracians, in large numbers (and perhaps by the Thracian Kotys), made so strenuous a resistance, that he was forced to retire with loss; and even to burn some triremes, which, having been carried across to assail the city from the wide part of the river Strymon above, could not be brought off in the face of the enemy.[650]

Timotheus next turned his attention to the war against Kotys in Thrace, and to the defence of the newly-acquired Athenian possessions in the Chersonese, now menaced by the appearance of a new and unexpected enemy to Athens in the eastern waters of the Ægean,—a Theban fleet.

I have already mentioned that in 366 B.C., Thebes had sustained great misfortunes in Thessaly. Pelopidas had been fraudulently seized and detained as prisoner by Alexander of Pheræ; a Theban army had been sent to rescue him, but had been dishonorably repulsed, and had only been enabled to effect its retreat by the genius of Epaminondas, then serving as a private, and called upon by the soldiers to take the command. Afterwards, Epaminondas himself had been sent at the head of a second army to extricate his captive friend, which he had accomplished, but not without relinquishing Thessaly and leaving Alexander more powerful than ever. For a certain time after this defeat, the Thebans remained comparatively humbled and quiet. At length, the aggravated oppressions of the tyrant Alexander occasioned such suffering, and provoked such missions of complaint on the part of the Thessalians to Thebes, that Pelopidas, burning with ardor to revenge both his city and himself, prevailed on the Thebans to place him at the head of a fresh army for the purpose of invading Thessaly.[651]

At the same time, probably, the remarkable successes of the Athenians under Timotheus, at Samos and the Chersonese, had excited uneasiness throughout Greece, and jealousy on the part of the Thebans. Epaminondas ventured to propose to his countrymen that they should grapple with Athens on her own element, and compete for the headship of Greece not only on land but at sea. In fact the rescript brought down by Pelopidas from the Persian court sanctioned this pretension, by commanding Athens to lay up her ships of war, on pain of incurring the chastisement of the Great King;[652] a mandate, which she had so completely defied as to push her maritime efforts more energetically than before. Epaminondas employed all his eloquence to impress upon his countrymen, that, Sparta being now humbled, Athens was their actual and prominent enemy. He reminded them,—in language such as had been used by Brasidas in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, and by Hermokrates at Syracuse,[653]—that men such as the Thebans, brave and trained soldiers on land, could soon acquire the like qualities on shipboard; and that the Athenians themselves had once been mere landsmen, until the exigencies of the Persian war forced them to take to the sea.[654] “We must put down this haughty rival (he exhorted his countrymen); we must transfer to our own citadel, the Kadmeia, those magnificent Propylæa which adorn the entrance of the acropolis at Athens.”[655]

Such emphatic language, as it long lived in the hostile recollection of Athenian orators, so it excited at the moment extreme ardor on the part of the Theban hearers. They resolved to build and equip one hundred triremes, and to construct docks with ship-houses fit for the constant maintenance of such a number. Epaminondas himself was named commander, to sail with the first fleet, as soon as it should be ready, to the Hellespont and the islands near Ionia; while invitations were at the same time despatched to Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium, encouraging them to prepare for breaking with Athens.[656] Some opposition however was made in the assembly to the new undertaking; especially by Menekleidas, an opposition speaker, who, being frequent and severe in his criticisms upon the leading men such as Pelopidas and Epaminondas, has been handed down by Nepos and Plutarch in odious colors. Demagogues like him, whose power resided in the public assembly, are commonly represented as if they had a natural interest in plunging their cities into war, in order that there might be more matter of accusation against the leading men. This representation is founded mainly on the picture which Thucydides gives of Kleon in the first half of the Peloponnesian war: I have endeavored in my sixth volume to show,[657] that it is not a fair estimate even of Kleon separately, much less of the demagogues generally, unwarlike men both in tastes and aptitudes. Menekleidas at Thebes, far from promoting warlike expeditions in order that he might denounce the generals when they came back, advocated the prudence of continued peace, and accused Epaminondas of involving his country in distant and dangerous schemes, with a view to emulate the glories of Agamemnon by sailing from Aulis in Bœotia, as commander of an imposing fleet to make conquests in the Hellespont. “By the help of Thebes (replied Epaminondas) I have already done more than Agamemnon. He, with the forces of Sparta and all Greece besides, was ten years in taking a single city; while I, with the single force of Thebes and at the single day of Leuktra, have crushed the power of the Agamemnonian Sparta.”[658] While repelling the charge of personal motives, Epaminondas contended that peace would be equivalent to an abnegation of the headship of Greece; and that, if Thebes wished to maintain that ascendant station, she must keep her citizens in constant warlike training and action.

To err with Epaminondas may be considered, by some readers, as better than being right with Menekleidas. But on the main point of this debate, Menekleidas appears to have been really right. For the general exhortations ascribed to Epaminondas resemble but too closely those feverish stimulants, which Alkibiades administered at Athens to wind up his countrymen for the fatal expedition against Syracuse.[659] If we should even grant his advice to be wise, in reference to land-warfare, we must recollect that he was here impelling Thebes into a new and untried maritime career, for which she had neither aptitude nor facilities. To maintain ascendency on land alone, would require all her force, and perhaps prove too hard for her; to maintain ascendency by land and sea at once would be still more impracticable. By grasping at both she would probably keep neither. Such considerations warrant us in suspecting, that the project of stretching across the Ægean for ultramarine dependencies was suggested to this great man not so much by a sound appreciation of the permanent interests of Thebes, as by jealousy of Athens,—especially since the recent conquests of Timotheus.[660]

The project however was really executed, and a large Theban fleet under Epaminondas crossed the Ægean in 363 B.C. In the same year, apparently, Pelopidas marched into Thessaly, at the head of a Theban land-force, against Alexander of Pheræ. What the fleet achieved, we are scarcely permitted to know. It appears that Epaminondas visited Byzantium; and we are told that he drove off the Athenian guard-squadron under Laches, prevailing upon several of the allies of Athens to declare in his favor.[661] Both he and Timotheus appear to have been in these seas, if not at the same time, at least with no great interval of time between. Both were solicited by the oligarchy of the Pontic Herakleia against the people; and both declined to furnish aid.[662] Timotheus is said to have liberated the besieged town of Kyzikus: by whom it was besieged, we do not certainly know, but probably by the Theban fleet.[663] Epaminondas brought back his fleet at the end of the year, without having gained any splendid victory or acquired any tenable possession for Thebes; yet not without weakening Athens, unsettling her hold upon her dependencies, and seconding indirectly the hostilities carried on by Kotys; insomuch that the Athenian affairs in the Chersonese and Thrace were much less prosperous in 362 B.C. than they had been in 364 B.C. Probably Epaminondas intended to return with his fleet in the next year (362 B.C.), and to push his maritime enterprises still farther;[664] but we shall find him imperatively called elsewhere, to another and a fatal battle-field. And thus the first naval expedition of Thebes was likewise the last.

Meanwhile his friend and colleague Pelopidas had marched into Thessaly against the despot Alexander; who was now at the height of his power, holding in dependence a large portion of Thessaly together with the Phthiot Achæans and the Magnetes, and having Athens as his ally. Nevertheless, so revolting had been his cruelties, and so numerous were the malcontents who had sent to invite aid from Thebes, that Pelopidas did not despair of overpowering him. Nor was he daunted even by an eclipse of the sun, which is said to have occurred just as he was commencing his march, nor by the gloomy warnings which the prophets founded upon it; though this event intimidated many of his fellow-citizens, so that his force was rendered less numerous as well as less confident. Arriving at Pharsalus, and strengthening himself by the junction of his Thessalian allies, he found Alexander approaching to meet him at the head of a well-appointed mercenary force, greatly superior in number. The two chiefs contended who should occupy first the hills called Kynos Kephalæ, or the Dog’s Heads. Pelopidas arrived there first with his cavalry, beat the cavalry of the enemy, and pursued them to some distance; but he thus left the hills open to be occupied by the numerous infantry of the enemy, while his own infantry, coming up later, were repulsed with loss in their attempt to carry the position. Thus unpromising did the battle appear, when Pelopidas returned from the pursuit. Ordering his victorious cavalry to charge the infantry on the hill in flank, he immediately dismounted, seized his shield, and put himself at the head of his own discouraged infantry, whom he again led up the hill to attack the position. His presence infused so much fresh ardor, that his troops, in spite of being twice repulsed, succeeded in a third attempt to drive the enemy from the summit of the hill. Thus master of the hill, Pelopidas saw before him the whole army of the enemy, retiring in some disorder, though not yet beaten; while Alexander in person was on the right wing, exerting himself to rally and encourage them. When Pelopidas beheld, as it were within his reach, this detested enemy,—whose treacherous arrest and dungeon he had himself experienced, and whose cruelties filled every one’s mouth,—he was seized with a transport of rage and madness, like Cyrus the younger on the field of Kunaxa at the sight of his brother Artaxerxes. Without thinking of his duties as a general, or even looking to see by whom he was followed, he rushed impetuously forward, with loud cries and challenges to Alexander to come forth and fight. The latter, declining the challenge, retired among his guards, into the midst of whom Pelopidas plunged, with the few who followed him; and there, while fighting with desperate bravery, met his death. So rapidly had this rash proceeding been consummated, that his army behind did not at first perceive it. But they presently hastened forward to rescue or avenge him, vigorously charged the troops of Alexander, and put them to flight with severe loss.[665]

Yet this victory, though important to the Thebans, and still more important to the Thessalians, was to both of them robbed of all its sensible value by the death of Pelopidas. The demonstrations of grief throughout the army were unbounded and universal. The soldiers yet warm from their victory, the wounded men with wounds yet untended, flocked around the corpse, piling up near to it as a trophy the arms of the slain enemies. Many, refusing either to kindle fire, or to touch their evening meal, testified their affliction by cutting off their own hair as well as the manes of their horses. The Thessalian cities vied with each other in tokens of affectionate respect, and obtained from the Thebans permission to take the chief share in his funeral, as their lost guardian and protector. At Thebes, the emotion was no less strikingly manifested. Endeared to his countrymen first as the head of that devoted handful of exiles who braved every peril to rescue the city from the Lacedæmonians, Pelopidas had been reëlected without interruption to the annual office of Bœotarch during all the years that had since elapsed[666] (378-364 B.C.). He had taken a leading part in all their struggles, and all their glories; he had been foremost to cheer them in the hour of despondency; he had lent himself, with the wisdom of a patriot and the generosity of a friend, to second the guiding ascendency of Epaminondas, and his moderation of dealing towards conquered enemies.[667]

All that Thebes could do, was, to avenge the death of Pelopidas. The Theban generals, Malkitas and Diogeiton,[668] conducted a powerful force of seven thousand hoplites into Thessaly, and put themselves at the head of their partisans in that country. With this united army, they pressed Alexander hard, completely worsted him, and reduced him to submit to their own terms. He was compelled to relinquish all his dependencies in Thessaly; to confine himself to Pheræ, with its territory near the Gulf of Pagasæ; and to swear adherence to Thebes as a leader. All Thessaly, together with the Phthiot Achæans and the Magnêtes, became annexed to the headship of the Thebans, who thus acquired greater ascendency in Northern Greece than they had ever enjoyed before.[669] The power of Alexander was effectually put down on land; but he still continued both powerful and predatory at sea, as will be seen in the ensuing year.