More than five hundred Macedonians are asserted to have been slain, and six thousand Thebans. Thirty thousand captives were collected.[93] The final destiny of these captives, and of Thebes itself, was submitted by Alexander to the Orchomenians, Platæans, Phokians, and other Grecian auxiliaries in the assault. He must have known well beforehand what the sentence of such judges would be. They pronounced, that the city of Thebes should be razed to the ground: that the Kadmeia alone should be maintained, as a military post with Macedonian garrison: that the Theban territory should be distributed among the allies themselves: that Orchomenus and Platæa should be rebuilt and fortified: that all the captive Thebans, men, women, and children, should be sold as slaves—excepting only priests and priestesses, and such as were connected by recognized ties of hospitality with Philip or Alexander, or such as had been proxeni of the Macedonians; that the Thebans who had escaped should be proclaimed outlaws, liable to arrest and death, wherever they were found; and that every Grecian city should be interdicted from harboring them.[94]

This overwhelming sentence, in spite of an appeal for lenity by a Theban[95] named Kleadas, was passed by the Grecian auxiliaries of Alexander, and executed by Alexander himself, who made but one addition to the excepting clauses. He left the house of Pindar standing, and spared the descendants of the poet. With these reserves, Thebes was effaced from the earth. The Theban territory was partitioned among the reconstituted cities of Orchomenus and Platæa. Nothing, except the Macedonian military post at the Kadmeia, remained to mark the place where the chief of the Bœotian confederacy had once stood. The captives were all sold, and are said to have yielded 440 talents; large prices being offered by bidders from feelings of hostility towards the city.[96] Diodorus tells us that this sentence was passed by the general synod of Greeks. But we are not called upon to believe that this synod, subservient though it was sure to be when called upon to deliberate under the armed force of Alexander, could be brought to sanction such a ruin upon one of the first and most ancient Hellenic cities. For we learn from Arrian that the question was discussed and settled only by the Grecian auxiliaries who had taken part with Alexander;[97] and that the sentence therefore represents the bitter antipathies of the Orchomenians, Platæans, etc. Without doubt, these cities had sustained harsh and cruel treatment from Thebes. In so far as they were concerned, the retribution upon the Thebans was merited. Those persons, however, who (as Arrian tells us) pronounced the catastrophe to be a divine judgment upon Thebes for having joined Xerxes against Greece[98] a century and a half before,—must have forgotten that not only the Orchomenians, but even Alexander of Macedon, the namesake and predecessor of the destroying conqueror, had served in the army of Xerxes along with the Thebans.

Arrian vainly endeavors to transfer from Alexander to the minor Bœotian towns the odium of this cruel destruction—unparalleled in Grecian history (as he himself says), when we look to the magnitude of the city; yet surpassed in the aggregate by the subversion, under the arms of Philip, of no less than thirty-two free Chalkidic cities, thirteen years before. The known antipathy of these Bœotians was invoked by Alexander to color an infliction which satisfied at once his sentiment, by destroying an enemy who defied him—and his policy, by serving as a terrific example to keep down other Greeks.[99] But though such were the views which governed him at the moment, he came afterwards to look back upon the proceeding with shame and sorrow. The shock to Hellenic feeling, when a city was subverted, arose not merely from the violent extinction of life, property, liberty, and social or political institutions—but also from the obliteration of legends and the suppression of religious observances, thus wronging and provoking the local gods and heroes. We shall presently find Alexander himself sacrificing at Ilium,[100] in order to appease the wrath of Priam, still subsisting and efficacious, against himself and his race, as being descended from Neoptolemus the slayer of Priam. By his harsh treatment of Thebes, he incurred the displeasure of Dionysus, the god of wine, said to have been born in that city, and one of the principal figures in Theban legend. It was to inspirations of the offended Dionysus that Alexander believed himself to owe that ungovernable drunken passion under which he afterwards killed Kleitus, as well as the refusal of his Macedonian soldiers to follow him farther into India.[101] If Alexander in after days thus repented of his own act, we may be sure that the like repugnance was felt still more strongly by others; and we can understand the sentiment under which, a few years after his decease, the Macedonian Kassander, son of Antipater, restored the destroyed city.

At the time, however, the effect produced by the destruction of Thebes was one of unmitigated terror throughout the Grecian cities. All of them sought to make their peace with the conqueror. The Arcadian contingent not only returned home from the Isthmus, but even condemned their leaders to death. The Eleians recalled their chief macedonizing citizens out of exile into ascendency at home. Each tribe of Ætolians sent envoys to Alexander, entreating forgiveness for the manifestations against him. At Athens, we read with surprise that on the very day when Thebes was assaulted and taken, the great festival of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, with its multitudinous procession of votaries from Athens to Eleusis, was actually taking place, at a distance of two days’ march from the besieged city. Most Theban fugitives who contrived to escape, fled to Attica as the nearest place of refuge, communicating to the Athenians their own distress and terror. The festival was forthwith suspended. Every one hurried within the walls of Athens,[102] carrying with him his movable property into a state of security. Under the general alarm prevalent, that the conqueror would march directly into Attica, and under the hurry of preparation for defence,—the persons both most alarmed and most in real danger were, of course, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, Charidemus, and those others who had been loudest in speech against Macedonia, and had tried to prevail on the Athenians to espouse openly the cause of Thebes. Yet notwithstanding such terror of consequences to themselves, the Athenians afforded shelter and sympathy to the miserable Theban fugitives. They continued to do this even when they must have known that they were contravening the edict of proscription just sanctioned by Alexander.

Shortly afterwards, envoys arrived from that monarch with a menacing letter, formally demanding the surrender of eight or ten leading citizens of Athens—Demosthenes, Lykurgus, Hyperides, Polyeuktus, Mœroklês, Diotimus,[103] Ephialtes, and Charidemus. Of these the first four were eminent orators, the last two military men; all strenuous advocates of an anti-Macedonian policy. Alexander in his letter denounced the ten as the causes of the battle of Chæroneia, of the offensive resolutions which had been adopted at Athens after the death of Philip, and even of the recent hostile proceedings of the Thebans.[104] This momentous summons, involving the right of free speech and public debate at Athens, was submitted to the assembly. A similar demand had just been made upon the Thebans, and the consequences of refusal were to be read no less plainly in the destruction of their city than in the threats of the conqueror. That even under such trying circumstances, neither orators nor people failed in courage—we know as a general fact; though we have not the advantage (as Livy had in his time) of reading the speeches made in the debate.[105] Demosthenes, insisting that the fate of the citizens generally could not be severed from that of the specific victims, is said to have recounted in the course of his speech, the old fable—of the wolf requiring the sheep to make over to him their protecting dogs, as a condition of peace—and then, devouring the unprotected sheep forthwith. He, and those demanded along with him, claimed the protection of the people, in whose cause alone they had incurred the wrath of the conqueror. Phokion on the other hand—silent at first, and rising only under constraint by special calls from the popular voice—contended that there was not force enough to resist Alexander, and that the persons in question must be given up. He even made appeal to themselves individually, reminding them of the self-devotion of the daughters of Erechtheus, memorable in Attic legend—and calling on them to surrender themselves voluntarily for the purpose of perverting public calamity He added, that he (Phokion) would rejoice to offer up either himself, or his best friend, if by such sacrifice he could save the city.[106] Lykurgus, one of the orators whose extradition was required, answered this speech of Phokion with vehemence and bitterness; and the public sentiment went along with him, indignantly repudiating Phokion’s advice. By a resolute patriotism highly honorable at this trying juncture, it was decreed that the persons demanded should not be surrendered.[107]

On the motion of Demades, an embassy was sent to Alexander, deprecating his wrath against the ten, and engaging to punish them by judicial sentence, if any crime could be proved against them. Demades, who is said to have received from Demosthenes a bribe of five talents, undertook this mission. But Alexander was at first inexorable; refusing even to hear the envoys, and persisting in his requisition. It was only by the intervention of a second embassy, headed by Phokion, that a remission of terms was obtained. Alexander was persuaded to withdraw his requisition, and to be satisfied with the banishment of Charidemus and Ephialtes, the two anti-Macedonian military leaders. Both of them accordingly, and seemingly other Athenians with them, passed into Asia, where they took service under Darius.[108]

It was indeed no part of Alexander’s plan to undertake a siege of Athens, which might prove long and difficult, since the Athenians had a superior naval force, with the sea open to them, and the chance of effective support from Persia. When therefore he saw, that his demand for the ten orators would be firmly resisted, considerations of policy gradually overcame his wrath, and induced him to relax.

Phokion returned to Athens as the bearer of Alexander’s concessions, thus relieving the Athenians from extreme anxiety and peril. His influence—already great and of long standing, since for years past he had been perpetually re-elected general—became greater than ever, while that of Demosthenes and the other anti-Macedonian orators must have been lowered. It was no mean advantage to Alexander, victorious as he was, to secure the incorruptible Phokion as leader of the macedonizing party at Athens. His projects against Persia were mainly exposed to failure from the possibility of opposition being raised against him in Greece by the agency of Persian money and ships. To keep Athens out of such combinations, he had to rely upon the personal influence and party of Phokion, whom he knew to have always dissuaded her from resistance to the ever-growing aggrandizement of his father Philip. In his conversation with Phokion on the intended Asiatic expedition, Alexander took some pains to flatter the pride of Athens by describing her as second only to himself, and as entitled to the headship of Greece, in case any thing should happen to him.[109] Such compliments were suitable to be repeated in the Athenian assembly: indeed the Macedonian prince might naturally prefer the idea of Athenian headship to that of Spartan, seeing that Sparta stood aloof from him, an open recusant.

The animosity of Alexander being appeased, Athens resumed her position as a member of the confederacy under his imperial authority. Without visiting Attica, he now marched to the Isthmus of Corinth, where he probably received from various Grecian cities deputations deprecating his displeasure, and proclaiming their submission to his imperial authority. He also probably presided at a meeting of the Grecian synod, where he would dictate the contingents required for his intended Asiatic expedition in the ensuing spring. To the universal deference and submission which greeted him, one exception was found—the Cynic philosopher Diogenes, who resided at Corinth, satisfied with a tub for shelter, and with the coarsest and most self-denying existence. Alexander approached him with a numerous suite, and asked him if he wished for anything; upon which Diogenes is said to have replied,—“Nothing, except that you would stand a little out of my sunshine.” Both the philosopher and his reply provoked laughter from the bystanders, but Alexander himself was so impressed with the independent and self-sufficing character manifested, that he exclaimed,—“If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”[110]

Having visited the oracle of Delphi, and received or extorted from the priestess[111] an answer bearing favorable promise for his Asiatic schemes, he returned to Macedonia before the winter. The most important permanent effect of his stay in Greece was the reconstitution of Bœotia; that is, the destruction of Thebes, and the reconstitution of Orchomenus, Thespiæ, and Platæa, dividing between them the Theban territory; all guarded and controlled by a Macedonian garrison in the Kadmeia. It would have been interesting to learn some details about this process of destruction and restitution of the Bœotian towns; a process not only calling forth strong manifestations of sentiment, but also involving important and difficult questions to settle. But unfortunately we are not permitted to know anything beyond the general fact.

Alexander left Greece for Pella in the autumn of 335 B. C., and never saw it again.

It appears, that during this summer, while he was occupied in his Illyrian and Theban operations, the Macedonian force under Parmenio in Asia had had to contend against a Persian army, or Greek mercenaries, commanded by Memnon the Rhodian. Parmenio, marching into Æolis, besieged and took Grynium; after which he attacked Pitanê, but was compelled by Memnon to raise the siege. Memnon even gained a victory over the Macedonian force under Kallas in the Troad, compelling them to retire to Rhœteum. But he failed in an attempt to surprise Kyzikus, and was obliged to content himself with plundering the adjoining territory.[112] It is affirmed that Darius was engaged this summer in making large preparations, naval as well as military, to resist the intended expedition of Alexander. Yet all that we hear of what was actually done implies nothing beyond a moderate force.