AN EMBASSY TO PERSIA AND A CONGRESS AT THEBES
[368-367 B.C.]
The cordial support of Athens, the force of mercenaries to be added by Philiscus, the growing aversion among the Arcadians to the Theban cause, and the troubles in the northern provinces, with the pressure of the Thessalian arms upon the Theban confederacy, together seemed likely to restore a decisive superiority to Lacedæmon, at least within her peninsula; and then, judging from experience, it was not likely to be confined there. But the able directors of the Theban councils had observed that the first and perhaps the most powerful efficient of this change in circumstances had been negotiation with Persia; and they resolved to direct also their attention to Persia, and try if they could not foil the Lacedæmonians by negotiation still more effectually than by arms. A minister from Lacedæmon, Euthycles, was actually resident at the Persian court. Upon this ground a congress of the confederacy was summoned, and, in pursuance of a common resolution, Pelopidas was sent to Susa on the part of Thebes, accompanied by ministers, from Argos, Elis, and Arcadia. The Athenians, jealous of the measure, sent their ministers also, Timagoras and Leon.
Pelopidas was treated by the Persian court with distinguishing honour. A Persian of rank was appointed to accompany Pelopidas back to Greece, bearing a rescript from the king in which the terms of his friendship were declared. It required that “the Lacedæmonians should allow the independency of Messenia; that the Athenians should lay up their fleet; that war should be made upon them if they refused; and that, if any Grecian city denied its contingent for such war, the first hostilities should be directed against that city; that those who accepted these terms would be considered as friends of the king, those who refused them as enemies.”
If we compare the style and spirit of this rescript, and the manner in which it was offered to united Greece, with the terms and circumstances of the Peace of Antalcidas, we shall hardly discover what has been the ground of distinction between them; why one has been so much reprobated, while the other, little indeed applauded, has in a manner been thrown out of observation by the imposing abundance of panegyric which the consent of ancient and modern writers has bestowed on the magnanimous patriotism of Pelopidas, and of his great associate in politics as in arms, Epaminondas. But we may perhaps be led to think that political principle has been out of view, both in the panegyric and in the reproach; that the merit of individuals has considerably swayed the general mind; yet that the great distinction has rested on party-spirit. If however, leaving the political principles of Pelopidas in that obscurity which we seem without means very satisfactorily to illuminate, we look to his political abilities, we shall see them exhibited in their fairest light, in real splendour, not by his professed panegyrists, but by the candid contemporary historian, not his friend. They are evident in the success of his Persian negotiation, to which that historian has borne full testimony; and that negotiation must unquestionably have been a business abounding with difficulties, and requiring much discernment to conduct and bring to so advantageous a conclusion.
But the Thebans appear to have been too much elated by their success, in this extraordinary and very important affair, for perfect prudence to hold through their political conduct; whether their able chiefs now erred, or rather popular presumption, in the badness of their constitution, to which Polybius bears testimony, was not to be restrained. They assumed immediately to be arbiters of Greece. Their summonses for a congress of deputies from the several republics to meet in Thebes were generally obeyed. The Persian who had accompanied the return of Pelopidas, attended, with the king’s rescript in his hand. This was read and interpreted to the congress, while the king’s seal appendant was ostentatiously displayed. The Thebans proposed, as the condition of friendship with the king and with Thebes, that the deputies should immediately swear to the acceptance of the terms, in the names of their respective cities. Readily however, as the congress had met in Thebes, the deputies did not come so prepared to take the law from Thebes.
Not simply objecting to the proposed oath, Lycomedes insisted that “Thebes was not the place in which the congress should have been assembled.” The Thebans exclaiming, with marks of resentment, that he was promoting discord in the confederacy, he declared his resolution to hold his seat in the congress no longer; and, the other Arcadian deputies concurring with him, they all retired together. The result seems to have been that the congress broke up without coming to any resolution.
Disappointed and thwarted thus, the Thebans could not yet resolve to abandon their project of arrogating that supremacy over the Greek nation which Lacedæmon had so long held; long indeed by the voluntary concession of a large majority of it. They sent requisitions separately to every city to accede to the terms proposed; expecting that the fear of incurring the united enmity of Thebes and of the king, says the contemporary historian, would bring all severally to compliance. The Corinthians, however, setting the example of a firm refusal, with the added observation, that “they wanted no alliance, no interchange of oaths with the king,” it was followed by most of the cities. And thus, continues Xenophon, this attempt of Pelopidas and the Thebans to acquire the empire of Greece finally failed.
If we refuse to Thebes the credit of a glory genuine and pure for her first successful struggle against the tyranny of Lacedæmon, we have Epaminondas himself with us, who would take no part in the revolution till the business of conspiracy, treachery, and assassination was over, and the affair came into the hands of the people at large, ready for leaders, and wanting them. We may have more difficulty to decide upon the merit or demerit of that obstinacy with which the Thebans afterwards persisted in asserting dominion over the cities of Bœotia, and thus denying peace to Greece, when proposed upon a condition which might seem, on first view, all that true Grecian patriotism could desire—universal independency. For where was to be found the sanction of that peace? Unfortunately the efficacy of any great interest pervading the country was overborne and lost in the multitude of narrow, yet pressing interests, of parties and of individuals, dividing every little community. No sooner would the independency of the Bœotian towns have been established than a revolution would have been made, or attempted in every one of them. The friends of Thebes once overpowered, and the friends of Lacedæmon prevailing among those towns, how long might Thebes itself have been secure against a second subjection to Lacedæmon, more grievous than the former? As far, then, as these considerations may apologize for the refusal of accession to the treaty of Athens, so far it may also justify the Persian embassy; though scarcely the haughtiness which success in that negotiation seems to have inspired. But what should have been the farther conduct of Thebes to secure her own quiet, without interfering in the affairs of surrounding states, or how to insure quiet among those states, without the possession and the use of power to control them, is not so easy to determine. For the business of the honest statesman, amid the seldom failing contention of factions within, and the ambition of interested neighbours without, is not so easy and obvious as presumptuous ignorance is commonly ready to suppose, and informed knavery often, with interested purposes, to affirm. How ill prepared Greece was at this time for internal quiet, what follows will but concur with all that has preceded of its history to show.[e]