The Humiliation Of Sparta
Thebes was free! But would she stay free? Sparta was against
her,--Sparta, the lord of Greece. Could a single city, however
liberty-loving and devoted its people, maintain itself against that
engine of war which had humbled mighty Athens and now lorded it over the
world of Greece? This is the question we have to answer; how in a brief
space the dominion of Sparta was lost, and Thebes, so long insignificant
and almost d
spised, rose to take the foremost place in Greece.
Two men did this work. As seven men had restored Thebes to freedom, two
men lifted her almost into empire. One of these was Pelopidas, the
leading spirit of the seven. The other was Epaminondas, whose name was
simply mentioned in the tale of the patriotic seven, yet who in the
coming years was to prove himself one of the greatest men Greece ever
produced.
Pelopidas belonged to one of the richest and highest families of Thebes.
He was one of the youngest of the exiles, yet a man of earnest
patriotism and unbounded daring. It was his ardent spirit that gave life
to the conspiracy, and his boldness and enterprise that led it forward
to success. And it was the death of Leontiades by his hand that freed
Thebes.
Epaminondas was a man of different character and position. Though of
ancient and honorable family, he was poor, while Pelopidas was very
rich; middle-aged, while Pelopidas was young; quiet, patient, and
thoughtful, while Pelopidas was bold, active, and energetic. In the wars
that followed he was the brain, while Pelopidas was the right hand, of
Thebes. Epaminondas had been an earnest student of philosophy and music,
and was an adept in gymnastic training. He was a listener, not a talker,
yet no Theban equalled him in eloquence in time when speech was needful.
He loved knowledge, yet he cared little for power, and nothing for
money, and he remained contentedly poor till the end of his days, not
leaving enough wealth to pay his funeral expenses. He did not love
bloodshed, even to gain liberty. He had objected to the conspiracy,
since freedom was to be gained through murder. Yet this was the man who
was to save Thebes and degrade her great enemy, Sparta.
Like Socrates and Alcibiades, these two men were the warmest friends.
Their friendship, like that of the two great Athenians, had been
cemented in battle. Standing side by side as hoplites (or heavy armed
soldiers), on an embattled field, Pelopidas had fallen wounded, and
Epaminondas had saved his life at the greatest danger to himself,
receiving several wounds while bearing his helpless friend to a place of
safety. To the end of their lives they continued intimate friends, each
recognizing the peculiar powers of the other, and the two working like
one man for Theban independence.
Epaminondas proved himself a thinker of the highest military genius,
Pelopidas a leader of the greatest military vigor. The work of the
latter was largely performed with the Sacred Band, a warlike association
of three hundred youthful Thebans, sworn to defend the citadel until
death, bound by bonds of warm friendship, and trained into the highest
military efficiency. Pelopidas was the captain of this noble band, which
was never overcome until the fatal battle of Chaeronea, and then only by
death, the Three Hundred lying dead in their ranks as they had stood.
For the events with which we have now to deal we must leap over seven
years from the freeing of Thebes. It will suffice to say that for two
years of that time Sparta fought fiercely against that city, but could
not bring it under subjection again. Then wars arose elsewhere and drew
her armies away. Thebes now took the opportunity to extend her power
over the other cities of Boeotia, and of one of these cities there is
something of interest to tell.
We have told in an earlier tale how Sparta and Thebes captured Plataea
and swept it from the face of the earth. Recently Sparta had rebuilt the
city, recalled its exiled citizens, and placed it as a Spartan outpost
against Thebes. But now, when the armies of Sparta had withdrawn, the
Thebans deemed it a good opportunity to conquer it again. One day, when
the Plataean men were at work in their fields, and unbroken peace
prevailed, a Theban force suddenly took the city by surprise, and forced
the Plataeans to surrender at discretion. Poor Plataea was again levelled
with the ground, her people were once more sent into exile, and her soil
was added to that of Thebes. It may be well to say here that most of the
Grecian cities consisted of the walled town and sufficient surrounding
land to raise food for the inhabitants within, and that the farmers went
out each morning to cultivate their fields, and returned each night
within the shelter of their walls. It was this habit that gave Thebes
its treacherous opportunity.
During the seven years mentioned we hear nothing of Epaminondas, yet we
know that he made himself felt within the walls of Thebes; for when, in
371 B.C., the cities of Greece, satisfied that it was high time to stop
cutting each other's throats, held a congress at Sparta to conclude
peace, we find him there as the representative of Thebes.
The terms of peace demanded by Athens, and agreed to by most of the
delegates, were that each city, small or large, should possess autonomy,
or self-government. Sparta and Athens were to become mutual guarantees,
dividing the headship of Greece between them. As for Thebes and her
claim to the headship of Boeotia, her demand was set aside.
This conclusion reached, the cities one after another took oath to keep
the terms of peace, each city swearing for itself except Sparta, which
took the oath for itself and its allies. When it came to the turn of
Thebes there was a break in this love-feast. Sparta had sworn for all
the cities of Laconia; Epaminondas, as the representative of Thebes,
insisted on swearing not for Thebes alone, but for Thebes as president
of all Boeotia. He made a vigorous speech, asking why Sparta was
granted rights from which other leading cities were debarred.
This was a new question. No Greek had ever asked it openly before. To
Sparta it seemed the extreme of insolence and insult. What daring
stranger was this who presumed to question her right to absolute control
of Laconia? No speech was made in her defence. Spartans never made
speeches. They prided themselves on their few words and quick
deeds,--laconic utterances, as they have since been called. The
Spartan king sprang indignantly from his seat.
"Speak plainly," he scornfully demanded. "Will you, or will you not,
leave to each of the Boeotian cities its separate autonomy?"
"Will you leave each of the Laconian towns its separate autonomy?"
demanded Epaminondas.
Not another word was said. Agesilaus, the Spartan king, who was also
president of the congress, caused the name of Thebes to be stricken from
the roll, and proclaimed that city to be excluded from the treaty of
peace.
It was a bold move on the part of Epaminondas, for it meant war with all
the power of Sparta, relieved of all other enemies by the peace. Sparta
had conquered and humbled Athens. It had conquered many other cities,
forcing some of them to throw down their walls and go back again to
their old state of villages. What upstart was this that dared defy its
wrath and power? Thebes could hope for no allies, and seemed feeble
against Spartan strength. How dared, then, this insolent delegate to
fling defiance in the teeth of the lord of Greece?
Fortunately Thebes needed no allies. It had two men of warlike genius,
Epaminondas and Pelopidas. These were to prove in themselves worth a
host of allies. The citizens were with them. Great as was the danger,
the Thebans sustained Epaminondas in his bold action, and made him
general of their army. He at once marched to occupy a pass by which it
was expected the Spartans would come. Sparta at that moment had a strong
army under Cleombrotus, one of its two kings, in Phocis, on the frontier
of Boeotia. This was at once ordered to march against defiant Thebes.
Cleombrotus lost no time, and with a military skill which Spartans
rarely showed he evaded the pass which Epaminondas held, followed a
narrow mountain-track, captured Creusis, the port of Thebes, with twelve
war-ships in the harbor, and then marched to a place called Leuctra,
within an easy march of Thebes, yet which left open communication with
Sparta by sea, by means of the captured port.
The Thebans had been outgeneralled, and were dismayed by the result. The
Spartans and their king were full of confidence and joy. All the
eloquence of Epaminondas and the boldness of Pelopidas were needed to
keep the courage of their countrymen alive and induce them to march
against their foes. And it was with much more of despair than of hope
that they took up at length a position on the hilly ground opposite the
Spartan camp.
The two armies were not long in coming to blows. The Spartans and their
allies much exceeded the Thebans in numbers. But Epaminondas prepared to
make the most of his small force by drawing it up in a new array, never
before seen in Greece.
Instead of forming the narrow line of battle always before the rule in
Greek armies, he placed in front of his left wing Pelopidas and the
Sacred Band, and behind them arranged a mass of men fifty shields deep,
a prodigious depth for a Grecian host. The centre and right were drawn
up in the usual thin lines, but were kept back on the defensive, so that
the deep column might join battle first.
Thus arrayed, the army of Thebes marched to meet its foe, in the valley
between the two declivities on which the hostile camps were placed. The
cavalry met first, and the Theban horsemen soon put the Spartan troop to
flight. Then the footmen came together with a terrible shock. Pelopidas
and his Sacred Band, and behind them the weight of the fifty shields,
proved more than the Spartans, with all their courage and discipline,
could endure. Both sides fought bravely, hand to hand; but soon
Cleombrotus fell, mortally hurt, and was with difficulty carried off
alive. Around him fell others of the Spartan leaders. The resistance was
obstinate, the slaughter terrible; but at last the Spartan right wing,
overborne by the heavy Theban mass and utterly beaten, was driven back
to its camp on the hill-side above. Meanwhile the left wing, made up of
allies, did little fighting, and quickly followed the Spartans back to
the camp.
It was a crushing defeat. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched in
confidence from the camp, only three hundred returned thither in dismay.
A thousand and more Lacedaemonians besides were left dead upon the field.
Not since the day of Thermopylae had Sparta lost a king in battle. The
loss of the Theban army was not more than three hundred men. Only twenty
days had elapsed since Epaminondas left Sparta, spurned by the scorn of
one of her kings; and now he stood victor over Sparta at Leuctra, with
her second king dead in his camp of refuge. It is not surprising that to
Greece, which had felt sure of the speedy overthrow of Thebes, these
tidings came like a thunderbolt. Sparta on land had been thought
irresistible. But here on equal ground, and with nearly double force,
she had been beaten by insignificant Thebes.
We must hasten to the end of this campaign. Sparta, wrought to
desperation by her defeat, sent all the men she could spare in
reinforcement. Thebes, too, sought allies, and found a powerful one in
Jason of Pherae, a city of Thessaly. The Theban leaders, flushed with
victory, were eager to attack the enemy in his camp, but Jason gave them
wiser advice.
"Be content," he said, "with the great victory you have gained. Do not
risk its loss by attacking the Lacedaemonians driven to despair in their
camp. You yourselves were in despair a few days ago. Remember that the
gods take pleasure in bringing about sudden changes of fortune."
This advice taken, Jason offered the enemy the opportunity to retreat in
safety from their dangerous position. This they gladly accepted, and
marched in haste away. On their journey home they met a second army
coming to their relief. This was no longer needed, and the whole baffled
force returned home.
The military prestige held by Sparta met with a serious blow from this
signal defeat. The prestige of Thebes suddenly rose into supremacy, and
her control of Boeotia became complete. But the humiliation of Sparta
was not yet near its end. Epaminondas was not the man to do things by
halves. In November of 370 B.C. he marched an army into Arcadia (a
country adjoining Laconia on the north), probably the largest hostile
force that had ever been seen in the Peloponnesus. With its Arcadian and
other allies it amounted to forty thousand, or, as some say, to seventy
thousand, men, and among these the Thebans formed a body of splendidly
drilled and disciplined troops, not surpassed by those of Sparta
herself. The enthusiasm arising from victory, the ardor of Pelopidas,
and the military genius of Epaminondas had made a wonderful change in
the hoplites of Thebes in a year's time.
And now a new event in the history of the Spartan commonwealth was seen.
For centuries the Spartans had done their fighting abroad, marching at
will through all parts of Greece. They were now obliged to fight on
their own soil, in defence of their own hearths and homes. Dividing his
army into four portions, Epaminondas marched into rock-bounded Laconia
by four passes.
The Arcadians had often felt the hard hand of their warlike neighbors.
Only a snort time before one of their principal cities, Mantinea, had
been robbed of its walls and converted into open villages. Since the
battle of Leuctra the villagers had rebuilt their walls and defied a
Spartan army. Now the Arcadians proved even more daring than the
Thebans. They met a Spartan force and annihilated it.
Into the country of Laconia pushed the invaders. The city of Sellasia
was taken and burned. The river Eurotas was forded. Sparta lay before
Epaminondas and his men.
It lay before them without a wall or tower. Through its whole history no
foreign army had come so near it. It trusted for defence not to walls,
but to Spartan hearts and hands. Yet now consternation reigned. Sparta
the inviolate, Sparta the unassailable, was in imminent peril of
suffering the same fate it had often meted out freely to its foes.
But the Spartans had not been idle. Allies had sent aid in all haste to
the city. Even six thousand of the Helots were armed as hoplites, though
to see such a body of their slaves in heavy armor alarmed the Spartans
almost as much as to behold their foes so near at hand. In fact, many of
the Helots and country people joined the Theban army, while others
refused to come to the aid of the imperilled city.
Epaminondas marched on until he was in sight of the city. He did not
attempt to storm it. Though without walls, Sparta had strong natural
defences, and heaps of earth and stones had been hastily thrown up on
the most open roads. A strong army had been gathered. The Spartans would
fight to death for their homes. To attack them in their stronghold
might be to lose all that had been gained. Repulse here would be ruin.
Content with having faced the lion in his den, Epaminondas turned and
marched down the Eurotas, his army wasting, plundering, and burning as
it went, while the Spartans, though in an agony of shame and wounded
honor, were held back by their king from the peril of meeting their
enemy in the field.
In the end, his supplies growing scarce, his soldiers loaded with
plunder, Epaminondas led his army back to Arcadia, having accomplished
far more than any foe of Sparta had ever done before, and destroyed the
warlike reputation of Sparta throughout Greece.
But the great Theban did not end here. He had two other important
objects in view. One was to consolidate the Arcadians by building them a
great central city, to be called Megalopolis (Great City), and inhabited
by people from all parts of the state. This was done, thick and lofty
walls, more than five miles and a half in circumference, being built
round the new stronghold.
His other purpose was to restore the country of Messenia. We have
already told how this country had been conquered by the Spartans
centuries before, and its people exiled or enslaved. Their descendants
were now to regain their liberty and their homes. A new city, to be
named Messenia, was ordered by Epaminondas to be built, and this, at the
request of the Messenians, was erected on Mount Ithome, where the
gallant hero Aristomenes had made his last stand against his country's
invaders.
The city was built, the walls rising to the music of Argeian and
Boeotian flutes. The best architects and masons of Greece were invited
to lay out the plans of streets and houses and of the sacred edifices.
The walls were made so strong and solid that they became the admiration
of after-ages. The surrounding people, who had been slaves of Sparta,
were made freemen and citizens of the reorganized state. A wide area of
land was taken from Laconia and given to the new communities which
Epaminondas had formed. Then, in triumph, he marched back to Thebes,
having utterly destroyed the power and prestige of Sparta in Greece.
Reaching home, he was put on trial by certain enemies. He had broken the
law by keeping command of the army four months beyond the allotted time.
He appealed to the people, with what result we can readily understand.
He was acquitted by acclamation, and he and Pelopidas were immediately
re-elected Boeotarchs (or generals) for the coming year.