In the early months of 403 B.C., Lysander was partly at home, partly in Attica, exerting himself to sustain the falling oligarchy of Athens against the increasing force of Thrasybulus and the Athenian exiles in Peiræus. In this purpose he was directly thwarted by the opposing views of king Pausanias, and three out of the five ephors.[347] But though the ephors thus checked Lysander in regard to Athens, they softened the humiliation by sending him abroad to a fresh command on the Asiatic coast and the Hellespont; a step which had the farther advantage of putting asunder two such marked rivals as he and Pausanias had now become. That which Lysander had tried in vain to do at Athens, he was doubtless better able to do in Asia, where he had neither Pausanias nor the ephors along with him. He could lend effective aid to the dekarchies and harmosts in the Asiatic cities, against any internal opposition with which they might be threatened. Bitter were the complaints which reached Sparta, both against him and against his ruling partisans. At length the ephors were prevailed upon to disavow the dekarchies; and to proclaim that they would not hinder the cities from resuming their former governments at pleasure.[348]
But all the crying oppressions set forth in the complaints of the maritime cities would have been insufficient to procure the recall of Lysander from his command in the Hellespont, had not Pharnabazus joined his remonstrances to the rest. These last representations so strengthened the enemies of Lysander at Sparta, that a peremptory order was sent to recall him. Constrained to obey, he came back to Sparta; but the comparative disgrace, and the loss of that boundless power which he had enjoyed on his command was so insupportable to him, that he obtained permission to go on a pilgrimage to the temple of Zeus Ammon in Libya, under the plea that he had a vow to discharge.[349] He appears also to have visited the temples of Delphi and Dodona,[350] with secret ambitious projects which will be mentioned presently. This politic withdrawal softened the jealousy against him, so that we shall find him, after a year or two, reëstablished in great influence and ascendency. He was sent as Spartan envoy, at what precise moment we do not know, to Syracuse, where he lent countenance and aid to the recently established despotism of Dionysius.[351]
The position of the Asiatic Greeks, along the coast of Ionia, Æolis, and the Hellespont, became very peculiar after the triumph of Sparta at Ægospotami. I have already recounted how, immediately after the great Athenian catastrophe before Syracuse, the Persian king had renewed his grasp upon those cities, from which the vigorous hand of Athens had kept him excluded for more than fifty years; how Sparta, bidding for his aid, had consented by three formal conventions to surrender them to him, while her commissioner Lichas even reproved the Milesians for their aversion to this bargain; how Athens also, in the days of her weakness, competing for the same advantage, had expressed her willingness to pay the same price for it.[352] After the battle of Ægospotami, this convention was carried into effect; though seemingly not without disputes between the satrap Pharnabazus on one side, and Lysander and Derkyllidas on the other.[353] The latter was Lacedæmonian harmost at Abydos, which town, so important as a station on the Hellespont, the Lacedæmonians seem still to have retained. But Pharnabazus and his subordinates acquired more complete command of the Hellespontine Æolis and of the Troad, than ever they had enjoyed before, both along the coast and in the interior.[354]
Another element, however, soon became operative. The condition of the Greek cities on the coast of Ionia, though according to Persian regulations they belonged to the satrapy of Tissaphernes, was now materially determined,—first, by the competing claims of Cyrus, who wished to take them away from him, and tried to get such transfer ordered at court,—next, by the aspirations of that young prince to the Persian throne. As Cyrus rested his hope of success on Grecian coöperation, it was highly important to him to render himself popular among the Greeks, especially on his own side of the Ægean. Partly his own manifestations of just and conciliatory temper, partly the bad name and known perfidy of Tissaphernes, induced the Grecian cities with one accord to revolt from the latter. All threw themselves into the arms of Cyrus, except Miletus, where Tissaphernes interposed in time, slew the leaders of the intended revolt, and banished many of their partisans. Cyrus, receiving the exiles with distinguished favor, levied an army to besiege Miletus and procure their restoration; while he at the same time threw strong Grecian garrisons into the other cities to protect them against attack.[355]
This local quarrel was, however, soon merged in the more comprehensive dispute respecting the Persian succession. Both parties were found on the field of Kunaxa; Cyrus with the Greek soldiers and Milesian exiles on one side,—Tissaphernes on the other. How that attempt, upon which so much hinged in the future history both of Asia Minor and of Greece, terminated, I have already recounted. Probably the impression brought back by the Lacedæmonian fleet which left Cyrus on the coast of Syria, after he had surmounted the most difficult country without any resistance, was highly favorable to his success. So much the more painful would be the disappointment among the Ionian Greeks when the news of his death was afterwards brought; so much the greater their alarm, when Tissaphernes, having relinquished the pursuit of the Ten Thousand Greeks at the moment when they entered the mountains of Karduchia, came down as victor to the seaboard; more powerful than ever,—rewarded[356] by the Great King, for the services which he had rendered against Cyrus, with all the territory which had been governed by the latter, as well as with the title of commander-in-chief over all the neighboring satraps,—and prepared not only to reconquer, but to punish, the revolted maritime cities. He began by attacking Kymê;[357] ravaging the territory, with great loss to the citizens, and exacting from them a still larger contribution, when the approach of winter rendered it inconvenient to besiege their city.
In such a state of apprehension, these cities sent to Sparta, as the great imperial power of Greece, to entreat her protection against the aggravated slavery impending over them.[358] The Lacedæmonians had nothing farther to expect from the king of Persia, with whom they had already broken the peace by lending aid to Cyrus. Moreover, the fame of the Ten Thousand Greeks, who were now coming home along the Euxine towards Byzantium, had become diffused throughout Greece, inspiring signal contempt for Persian military efficiency, and hopes of enrichment by war against the Asiatic satraps. Accordingly, the Spartan ephors were induced to comply with the petition of their Asiatic countrymen, and to send over to Asia Thimbron at the head of a considerable force: two thousand Neodamodes (or Helots who had been enfranchised) and four thousand Peloponnesians heavy-armed, accompanied by three hundred Athenian horsemen, out of the number of those who had been adherents of the Thirty, four years before; an aid granted by Athens at the special request of Thimbron. Arriving in Asia during the winter of 400-399 B.C., Thimbron was reinforced in the spring of 399 B.C. by the Cyreian army, who were brought across from Thrace as described in my last chapter, and taken into Lacedæmonian pay. With this large force he became more than a match for the satraps, even on the plains where they could employ their numerous cavalry. The petty Grecian princes of Pergamus and Teuthrania, holding that territory by ancient grants from Xerxes to their ancestors, joined their troops to his, contributing much to enrich Xenophon at the moment of his departure from the Cyreians. Yet Thimbron achieved nothing worthy of so large an army. He not only miscarried in the siege of Larissa, but was even unable to maintain order among his own soldiers, who pillaged indiscriminately both friends and foes.[359] Such loud complaints were transmitted to Sparta of his irregularities and inefficiency, that the ephors first sent him order to march into Karia, where Tissaphernes resided,—and next, before that order was executed, despatched Derkyllidas to supersede him; seemingly in the winter 399-398 B.C. Thimbron on returning to Sparta was fined and banished.[360]
It is highly probable that the Cyreian soldiers, though excellent in the field, yet having been disappointed of reward for the prodigious toils which they had gone through in their long march, and having been kept on short allowance in Thrace, as well as cheated by Seuthes,—were greedy, unscrupulous, and hard to be restrained, in the matter of pillage; especially as Xenophon, their most influential general, had now left them. Their conduct greatly improved under Derkyllidas. And though such improvement was doubtless owing partly to the superiority of the latter over Thimbron, yet it seems also partly ascribable to the fact that Xenophon, after a few months of residence at Athens, accompanied him to Asia, and resumed the command of his old comrades.[361]
Derkyllidas was a man of so much resource and cunning, as to have acquired the surname of Sisyphus.[362] He had served throughout all the concluding years of the war, and had been harmost at Abydus during the naval command of Lysander, who condemned him, on the complaint of Pharnabazus, to the disgrace of public exposure with his shield on his arm;[363] this was (I presume) a disgrace, because an officer of rank always had his shield carried for him by an attendant, except in the actual encounter of battle. Having never forgiven Pharnabazus for thus dishonoring him, Derkyllidas now took advantage of a misunderstanding between that satrap and Tissaphernes, to make a truce with the latter, and conduct his army, eight thousand strong, into the territory of the former.[364] The mountainous region of Ida generally known as the Troad,—inhabited by a population of Æolic Greeks (who had gradually Hellenized the indigenous inhabitants), and therefore known as the Æolis of Pharnabazus,—was laid open to him by a recent event, important in itself as well as instructive to read.
The entire Persian empire was parcelled into so many satrapies; each satrap being bound to send a fixed amount of annual tribute, and to hold a certain amount of military force ready, for the court at Susa. Provided he was punctual in fulfilling these obligations, little inquiry was made as to his other proceedings, unless in the rare case of his maltreating some individual Persian of high rank. In like manner, it appears, each satrapy was divided into sub-satrapies or districts; each of these held by a deputy, who paid to the satrap a fixed tribute and maintained for him a certain military force,—having liberty to govern in other respects as he pleased. Besides the tribute, however, presents of undefined amount were of constant occurrence, both from the satrap to the king, and from the deputy to the satrap. Nevertheless, enough was extorted from the people (we need hardly add), to leave an ample profit both to the one and to the other.[365]
This region, called Æolis, had been entrusted by Pharnabazus to a native of Dardanus named Zênis, who, after holding the post for some time and giving full satisfaction, died of illness, leaving a widow with a son and daughter still minors. The satrap was on the point of giving the district to another person, when Mania, the widow of Zênis, herself a native of Dardanus, preferred her petition to be allowed to succeed her husband. Visiting Pharnabazus with money in hand, sufficient not only to satisfy himself, but also to gain over his mistresses and his ministers,[366]—she said to him,—“My husband was faithful to you, and paid his tribute so regularly as to obtain your thanks. If I serve you no worse than he, why should you name any other deputy? If I fail in giving you satisfaction, you can always remove me, and give the place to another.” Pharnabazus granted her petition, and had no cause to repent it. Mania was regular in her payment of tribute,—frequent in bringing him presents,—and splendid, beyond any of his other deputies, in her manner of receiving him whenever he visited the district.