Pausanias had first to consider what steps he would take to recover the bodies of the slain,—that of Lysander among them; whether he would fight a battle and thus take his chance of becoming master of the field,—or send the usual petition for burial-truce, which always implied confession of inferiority. On submitting the point to a council of officers and Spartan elders, their decision as well as his own was against fighting; not, however, without an indignant protest from some of the Spartan elders. He considered that the whole original plan of operations was broken up, since not only the great name and genius of Lysander had perished, but his whole army had spontaneously disbanded; that the Peloponnesian allies were generally lukewarm and reluctant, not to be counted upon for energetic behavior in case of pressing danger; that he had little or no cavalry,[557] while the Theban cavalry was numerous and excellent; lastly, that the dead body of Lysander himself lay so close to the walls of Haliartus, that even if the Lacedæmonians were victorious, they could not carry it off without serious loss from the armed defenders in their towers.[558] Such were the reasons which determined Pausanias and the major part of the council to send and solicit a truce. But the Thebans refused to grant it except on condition that they should immediately evacuate Bœotia. Though such a requisition was contrary to the received practice of Greece,[559] which imposed on the victor the duty of granting the burial-truce unconditionally, whenever it was asked and inferiority thus publicly confessed,—nevertheless, such was the reluctant temper of the army, that they heard not merely with acquiescence, but with joy,[560] the proposition of departing. The bodies were duly buried,—that of Lysander in the territory of Panopê, immediately across the Phokian border, but not far from Haliartus. And no sooner were these solemnities completed, than the Lacedæmonian army was led back to Peloponnesus; their dejection forming a mournful contrast to the triumphant insolence of the Thebans, who watched their march and restrained them, not without occasional blows, from straggling out of the road into the cultivated fields.[561]
The death of Lysander produced the most profound sorrow and resentment at Sparta. On returning thither, Pausanias found himself the subject of such virulent accusation, that he thought it prudent to make his escape, and take sanctuary in the temple of Athênê Alea, at Tegea. He was impeached, and put on trial during his absence, on two counts; first, for having been behind the time covenanted, in meeting Lysander at Haliartus; next for having submitted to ask a truce from the Thebans, instead of fighting a battle for the purpose of obtaining the bodies of the slain.
As far as there is evidence to form a judgment, it does not appear that Pausanias was guilty upon either of the two counts. The first is a question of fact; and it seems quite as likely that Lysander was before his time, as that Pausanias was behind his time, in arriving at Haliartus. Besides, Lysander, arriving there first, would have been quite safe, had he not resolved to attack without delay; in which the chances of war turned out against him; though the resolution in itself may have been well conceived. Next, as to the truce solicited for burying the dead bodies,—it does not appear that Pausanias could with any prudence have braved the chances of a battle. The facts of the case,—even as summed up by Xenophon, who always exaggerates everything in favor of the Spartans,—lead us to this conclusion. A few of the Spartan elders would doubtless prefer perishing on the field of battle, to the humiliation of sending in the herald to ask for a truce. But the mischief of fighting a battle under the influence of such a point of honor, to the exclusion of a rational estimate of consequences, will be seen when we come to the battle of Leuktra, where Kleombrotus, son of Pausanias was thus piqued into an imprudence (at least this is alleged as one of the motives) to which his own life and the dominion of Sparta became forfeit.[562] Moreover, the army of Pausanias, comprising very few Spartans, consisted chiefly of allies who had no heart in the cause, and who were glad to be required by the Thebans to depart. If he had fought a battle and lost it, the detriment to Sparta would have been most serious in every way; whereas, if he had gained a victory, no result would have followed except the acquisition of the bodies for burial; since the execution of the original plan had become impracticable through the dispersion of the army of Lysander.
Though a careful examination of the facts leads us (and seems also to have led Xenophon[563]) to the conclusion that Pausanias was innocent, he was nevertheless found guilty in his absence. He was in great part borne down by the grief felt at Sparta for the loss of Lysander, with whom he had been before in political rivalry, and for whose death he was made responsible. Moreover, the old accusation was now revived against him,[564]—for which he had been tried, and barely acquitted, eight years before,—of having tolerated the reëstablishment of the Athenian democracy at a time when he might have put it down. Without doubt this argument told prodigiously against him at the present juncture, when the Athenians had just now, for the first time since the surrender of their city, renounced their subjection to Sparta and sent an army to assist the Thebans in their defence. So violent was the sentiment against Pausanias, that he was condemned to death in his absence, and passed the remainder of his life as an exile in sanctuary at Tegea. His son, Agesipolis, was invested with the sceptre in his place.
A brief remark will not be here misplaced. On no topic have Grecian historians been more profuse in their reproaches, than upon the violence and injustice of democracy, at Athens and elsewhere, in condemning unsuccessful, but innocent generals. Out of the many cases in which this reproach is advanced, there are very few wherein it has been made good; but even if we grant it to be valid against Athens and her democracy, the fate of Pausanias will show us that the ephors and senate of anti-democratical Sparta were capable of the like unjust misjudgment. Hardly a single instance of Athenian condemnation occurs, which we can so clearly prove to be undeserved, as this of a Spartan king.
Turning from the banished king to Lysander,—the Spartans had indeed valid reasons for deploring the fall of the latter. He had procured for them their greatest and most decisive victories, and the time was coming when they needed his services to procure them more; for he left behind him no man of equal warlike resource, cunning, and power of command. But if he possessed those abilities which powerfully helped Sparta to triumph over her enemies, he at the same time did more than any man to bring her empire into dishonor, and to render its tenure precarious. His decemviral governments or dekarchies, diffused through the subject cities, and each sustained by a Lacedæmonian harmost and garrison, were aggravations of local tyranny such as the Grecian world had never before undergone. And though the Spartan authorities presently saw that he was abusing the imperial name of the city for unmeasured personal aggrandizement of his own, and partially withdrew their countenance from his dekarchies,—yet the general character of their empire still continued to retain the impress of partisanship and subjugation which he had originally stamped upon it. Instead of that autonomy which Sparta had so repeatedly promised, it became subjection every way embittered. Such an empire was pretty sure to be short-lived; but the loss to Sparta herself, when her empire fell away, is not the only fault which the historian of Greece has to impute to Lysander. His far deeper sin consists in his having thrown away an opportunity,—such as never occurred either before or afterwards,—for organizing some permanent, honorable, self-maintaining, Pan-hellenic combination under the headship of Sparta. This is (as I have before remarked) what a man like Kallikratidas would have attempted, if not with far-sighted wisdom, at least with generous sincerity, and by an appeal to the best veins of political sentiment in the chief city as well as in the subordinates. It is possible that with the best intentions even he might have failed; so strong was the centrifugal instinct in the Grecian political mind. But what we have to reproach in Lysander is, that he never tried; that he abused the critical moment of cure for the purpose of infusing new poison into the system; that he not only sacrificed the interests of Greece to the narrow gains of Sparta, but even the interests of Sparta to the still narrower monopoly of dominion in his own hands. That his measures worked mischievously not merely for Greece, but for Sparta herself, aggravating all her bad tendencies,—has been already remarked in the preceding pages.
That Lysander, with unbounded opportunities of gain, both lived and died poor, exhibits the honorable side of his character. Yet his personal indifference to money seems only to have left the greater space in his bosom for that thirst of power which made him unscrupulous in satiating the rapacity, as well as in upholding the oppressions, of coadjutors like the Thirty at Athens and the decemvirs in other cities. In spite of his great success and ability in closing the Peloponnesian war, we shall agree with Pausanias[565] that he was more mischievous than profitable even to Sparta,—even if we take no thought of Greece generally. What would have been the effect produced by his projects in regard to the regal succession, had he been able to bring them to bear, we have no means of measuring. We are told that the discourse composed and addressed to him by the Halicarnassian rhetor Kleon, was found after his death among his papers by Agesilaus; who first learnt from it, with astonishment and alarm, the point to which the ambition of Lysander had tended, and was desirous of exposing his real character by making the discourse public,—but was deterred by dissuasive counsel of the ephor Lakratidas. But this story (attested by Ephorus[566]) looks more like an anecdote of the rhetorical schools than like a reality. Agesilaus was not the man to set much value on sophists or their compositions; nor is it easy to believe that he remained so long ignorant of those projects which Lysander had once entertained but subsequently dropped. Moreover the probability is, that Kleon himself would make the discourse public as a sample of his own talents, even in the lifetime of Lysander; not only without shame, but as representing the feelings of a considerable section of readers throughout the Grecian world.
Most important were the consequences which ensued from the death of Lysander and the retreat of Pausanias out of Bœotia. Fresh hope and spirits were infused into all the enemies of Sparta. An alliance was immediately concluded against her by Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. Deputies from these four cities were appointed to meet at Corinth, and to take active measures for inviting the coöperation of fresh allies; so that the war which had begun as a Bœotian war, now acquired the larger denomination of Corinthian war, under which it lasted until the peace of Antalkidas. The alliance was immediately strengthened by the junction of the Eubœans,—the Akarnanians,—the Ozolian Lokrians,—Ambrakia and Leukas (both particularly attached to Corinth),—and the Chalkidians of Thrace.[567]