Whatever negotiations may have been in progress between the cities visited by Timokrates, no union had been brought about between them when the war, kindled by an accident, broke out as a “Bœotian war,”[540] between Thebes and Sparta separately. Between the Opuntian Lokrians and the Phokians, north of Bœotia, there was a strip of disputed border land; respecting which the Phokians, imputing wrongful encroachment to the Lokrians, invaded their territory. The Lokrians, allied with Thebes, entreated her protection; upon which a body of Bœotians invaded Phokis; while the Phokians on their side threw themselves upon Lacedæmon, invoking her aid against Thebes.[541] “The Lacedæmonians (says Xenophon) were delighted to get a pretence for making war against the Thebans,—having been long angry with them on several different grounds. They thought that the present was an excellent time for marching against them, and putting down their insolence; since Agesilaus was in full success in Asia, and there was no other war to embarrass them in Greece.”[542] The various grounds on which the Lacedæmonians rested their displeasure against Thebes, begin from a time immediately succeeding the close of the war against Athens, and the sentiment was now both established and vehement. It was they who now began the Bœotian war; not the Thebans, nor the bribes brought by Timokrates.
The energetic and ambitious Lysander, who had before instigated the expedition of Agesilaus across the Ægean, and who had long hated the Thebans,—was among the foremost advisers of the expedition now decreed by the ephors against Thebes,[543] as well as the chief commander appointed to carry it into execution. He was despatched with a small force to act on the north of Bœotia. He was directed to start from Herakleia, the centre of Lacedæmonian influence in those regions,—to muster the Herakleots, together with the various dependent populations in the neighborhood of Œta, Œtæans, Malians, Ænianes, etc.—to march towards Bœotia, taking up the Phokians in his way,—and to attack Haliartus. Under the walls of this town king Pausanias engaged to meet him on a given day, with the native Lacedæmonian force and the Peloponnesian allies. For this purpose, having obtained favorable border sacrifices, he marched forth to Tegea, and there employed himself in collecting the allied contingents from Peloponnesus.[544] But the allies generally were tardy and reluctant in the cause; while the Corinthians withheld all concurrence and support,[545]—though neither did they make any manifestation in favor of Thebes.
Finding themselves thus exposed to a formidable attack on two sides, from Sparta at the height of her power, and from a Spartan officer of known ability,—being, moreover, at the same time without a single ally,—the Thebans resolved to entreat succor from Athens. A Theban embassy to Athens for any purpose, and especially for this purpose, was itself among the strongest marks of the revolution which had taken place in Grecian politics. The antipathy between the two cities had been so long and virulent, that the Thebans, at the close of the war, had endeavored to induce Sparta to root out the Athenian population. Their conduct subsequently had been favorable and sympathizing towards Thrasybulus in his struggle against the Thirty, and that leader had testified his gratitude by dedicating statues in the Theban Herakleion.[546] But it was by no means clear that Athens would feel herself called upon, either by policy or by sentiment, to assist them in the present emergency; at a moment when she had no Long Walls, no fortifications at Peiræus, no ships, nor any protection against the Spartan maritime power.
It was not until Pausanias and Lysander were both actually engaged in mustering their forces, that the Thebans sent to address the Athenian assembly. The speech of the Theban envoy sets forth strikingly the case against Sparta as it then stood. Disclaiming all concurrence with that former Theban deputy, who, without any instructions, had taken on himself to propose, in the Spartan assembly of allies, extreme severity towards the conquered Athenians,—he reminded the Athenians that Thebes had by unanimous voice declined obeying the summons of the Spartans, to aid in the march against Thrasybulus and the Peiræus; and that this was the first cause of the anger of the Spartans against her. On that ground, then, he appealed to the gratitude of democratical Athens against the Lacedæmonians. But he likewise invoked against them, with yet greater confidence, the aid of oligarchical Athens,—or of those who at that time had stood opposed to Thrasybulus and the Peiræus; for it was Sparta who, having first set up the oligarchy at Athens, had afterwards refused to sustain it, and left its partisans to the generosity of their democratical opponents, by whom alone they were saved harmless.[547] Of course Athens was eager, if possible (so he presumed), to regain her lost empire; and in this enterprise he tendered the cordial aid of Thebes as an ally. He pointed out that it was by no means an impracticable enterprise; looking to the universal hatred which Sparta had now drawn upon herself, not less on the part of ancient allies than of prior enemies. The Athenians knew by experience that Thebes could be formidable as a foe; she would now show that she could be yet more effective as a friend, if the Athenians would interfere to rescue her. Moreover, she was now about to fight, not for Syracusans or Asiatics, but for her own preservation and dignity. “We hesitate not to affirm, men of Athens (concluded the Theban speaker), that what we are now invoking at your hands is a greater benefit to you than it is to ourselves.”[548]
Eight years had now elapsed since the archonship of Eukleides and the renovation of the democracy after the crushing visitation of the Thirty. Yet we may see, from the important and well-turned allusion of the Theban speaker to the oligarchical portion of the assembly, that the two parties still stood in a certain measure distinguished. Enfeebled as Athens had been left by the war, she had never since been called upon to take any decisive and emphatic vote on a question of foreign policy; and much now turned upon the temper of the oligarchical minority, which might well be conceived likely to play a party game and speculate upon Spartan countenance. But the comprehensive amnesty decreed on the reëstablishment of the democratical constitution,—and the wise and generous forbearance with which it had been carried out, in spite of the most torturing recollections,—were now found to have produced their fruits. Majority and minority,—democrats and oligarchs,—were seen confounded in one unanimous and hearty vote to lend assistance to Thebes, in spite of all risk from hostility with Sparta. We cannot indeed doubt that this vote was considerably influenced also by the revolt of Rhodes, by the reappearance of Konon with a fleet in the Asiatic seas, and by private communications from that commander intimating his hope of acting triumphantly against the maritime power of Sparta, through enlarged aid from Persia. The vote had thus a double meaning. It proclaimed not merely the restored harmony between democrats and oligarchs at Athens, but also their common resolution to break the chain by which they were held as mere satellites and units in the regiment of Spartan allies, and to work out anew the old traditions of Athens as a self-acting and primary power, at least,—if not once again an imperial power. The vote proclaimed a renovated life in Athens, and its boldness under the existing weakness of the city, is extolled two generations afterwards by Demosthenes.[549]
After having heard the Theban orator (we are told even by the philo-Laconian Xenophon),[550] “very many Athenian citizens rose and spoke in support of his prayer, and the whole assembly with one accord voted to grant it.” Thrasybulus proposed the resolution, and communicated it to the Theban envoys.
He told them that Athens knew well the risk which she was incurring while Peiræus was undefended; but nevertheless she was prepared to show her gratitude by giving more in requital than she had received; for she was prepared to give the Thebans positive aid, in case they were attacked—while the Thebans had done nothing more for her than to refuse to join in an aggressive march against her.[551]
Without such assurance of succor from Athens, it is highly probable that the Thebans might have been afraid to face, single-handed, Lysander and the full force of Sparta. But they now prepared for a strenuous defence. The first approach of Lysander with his army of Herakleots, Phokians, and others, from the north, was truly menacing; the more so, as Orchomenus, the second city next to Thebes in the Bœotian confederacy, broke off its allegiance and joined him. The supremacy of Thebes over the cities composing the Bœotian confederacy appears to have been often harsh and oppressive, though probably not equally oppressive towards all, and certainly not equally odious to all. To Platæa on the extreme south of Bœotia, it had been long intolerable, and the unhappy fate of that little town has saddened many pages of my preceding volumes; to Orchomenus, on the extreme north, it was also unpalatable,—partly because that town stood next in power and importance to Thebes,—partly because it had an imposing legendary antiquity, and claimed to have been once the ascendant city receiving tribute from Thebes. The Orchomenians now joined Lysander, threw open to him the way into Bœotia, and conducted him with his army, after first ravaging the fields of Lebadeia, into the district belonging to Haliartus.[552]
Before Lysander quitted Sparta, the plan of operations concerted between him and Pausanias, was that they should meet on a given day in the territory of Haliartus. And in execution of this plan Pausanias had already advanced with his Peloponnesian army as far as Platæa in Bœotia. Whether the day fixed between them had yet arrived, when Lysander reached Haliartus, we cannot determine with certainty. In the imperfection of the Grecian calendar, a mistake on this point would be very conceivable,—as had happened between the Athenian generals Hippokrates and Demosthenes in those measures which preceded the battle of Delium in 424 B.C.[553] But the engagement must have been taken by both parties, subject to obstructions in the way,—since each would have to march through a hostile country to reach the place of meeting. The words of Xenophon, however, rather indicate that the day fixed had not arrived; nevertheless, Lysander resolved at once to act against Haliartus, without waiting for Pausanias. There were as yet only a few Thebans in the town, and he, probably, had good reasons for judging that he would better succeed by rapid measures, before any more Thebans could arrive, than by delaying until the other Spartan army should join him; not to mention anxiety that the conquest should belong to himself exclusively, and confidence arising from his previous success at Orchomenus. Accordingly, he sent in an invitation to the Haliartians to follow the example of the Orchomenians, to revolt from Thebes, and to stand upon their autonomy under Lacedæmonian protection. Perhaps there may have been a party in the town disposed to comply. But the majority, encouraged too by the Thebans within, refused the proposition; upon which Lysander marched up to the walls and assaulted the town. He was here engaged, close by the gates, in examining where he could best effect an entrance, when a fresh division of Thebans, apprised of his proceedings, was seen approaching from Thebes, at their fastest pace,—cavalry, as well as hoplites. They were probably seen from the watch-towers in the city earlier than they became visible to the assailants without; so that the Haliartians, encouraged by the sight, threw open their gates, and made a sudden sally. Lysander, seemingly taken by surprise, was himself slain among the first, with his prophet by his side, by a Haliartian hoplite named Neochôrus. His troops stood some time, against both the Haliartians from the town, and the fresh Thebans who now came up. But they were at length driven back with considerable loss, and compelled to retreat to rugged and difficult ground at some distance in their rear. Here, however, they made good their position, repelling their assailants with the loss of more than two hundred hoplites.[554]
The success here gained, though highly valuable as an encouragement to the Thebans, would have been counterbalanced by the speedy arrival of Pausanias, had not Lysander himself been among the slain. But the death of so eminent a man was an irreparable loss to Sparta. His army, composed of heterogeneous masses, both collected and held together by his personal ascendency, lost confidence and dispersed in the ensuing night.[555] When Pausanias arrived soon afterwards, he found no second army to join with him. Yet his own force was more than sufficient to impress terror on the Thebans, had not Thrasybulus, faithful to the recent promise, arrived with an imposing body of Athenian hoplites, together with cavalry under Orthobulus[556]—and imparted fresh courage as well as adequate strength to the Theban cause.