The preceding citations, from Lysias and Isokrates, would be sufficient to show the measure which intelligent contemporaries took, both of the state of Greece and of the conduct of Sparta, during the eight years succeeding the peace of Antalkidas (387-379 B.C.). But the philo-Laconian Xenophon is still more emphatic in his condemnation of Sparta. Having described her triumphant and seemingly unassailable position after the subjugation of Olynthus and Phlius, he proceeds to say,[166]—“I could produce numerous other incidents, both in and out of Greece, to prove that the gods take careful note of impious men and of evil-doers; but the events which I am now about to relate are quite sufficient. The Lacedæmonians, who had sworn to leave each city autonomous, having violated their oaths by seizing the citadel of Thebes, were punished by the very men whom they had wronged,—though no one on earth had ever before triumphed over them. And the Theban faction who had introduced them into the citadel, with the deliberate purpose that their city should be enslaved to Sparta in order that they might rule despotically themselves,—were put down by no more than seven assailants, among the exiles whom they had banished.”
What must have been the hatred, and sense of abused ascendency, entertained towards Sparta by neutral or unfriendly Greeks, when Xenophon, alike conspicuous for his partiality to her and for his dislike of Thebes, could employ these decisive words in ushering in the coming phase of Spartan humiliation, representing it as a well-merited judgment from the gods? The sentence which I have just translated marks, in the commonplace manner of the Xenophontic Hellenica, the same moment of pointed contrast and transition,—past glory suddenly and unexpectedly darkened by supervening misfortune,—which is foreshadowed in the narrative of Thucydides by the dialogue between the Athenian envoys and the Melian[167] council; or in the Œdipus and Antigonê of Sophokles,[168] by the warnings of the prophet Teiresias.
The government of Thebes had now been for three years (since the blow struck by Phœbidas) in the hands of Leontiades and his oligarchical partisans, upheld by the Spartan garrison in the Kadmeia. Respecting the details of its proceedings we have scarce any information. We can only (as above remarked) judge of it by the analogy of the Thirty tyrants at Athens, and of the Lysandrian Dekarchies, to which it was exactly similar in origin, position, and interests. That the general spirit of it must have been cruel, oppressive, and rapacious,—we cannot doubt; though in what degree we have no means of knowing. The appetites of uncontrolled rulers, as well as those of a large foreign garrison, would ensure such a result; besides which, those rulers must have been in constant fear of risings or conspiracies amidst a body of high-spirited citizens who saw their city degraded, from being the chief of the Bœotian federation, into nothing better than a captive dependency of Sparta. Such fear was aggravated by the vicinity of a numerous body of Theban exiles, belonging to the opposite or anti-Spartan party; three or four hundred of whom had fled to Athens at the first seizure of their leader Ismenias, and had been doubtless joined subsequently by others. So strongly did the Theban rulers apprehend mischief from these exiles, that they hired assassins to take them off by private murder at Athens; and actually succeeded in thus killing Androkleidas, chief of the band and chief successor of the deceased Ismenias,—though they missed their blows at the rest.[169] And we may be sure that they made the prison in Thebes subservient to multiplied enormities and executions, when we read not only that one hundred and fifty prisoners were found in it when the government was put down,[170] but also that in the fervor of that revolutionary movement, the slain gaoler was an object of such fierce antipathy, that his corpse was trodden and spit upon by a crowd of Theban women.[171] In Thebes, as in other Grecian cities, the women not only took no part in political disputes, but rarely even showed themselves in public;[172] so that this furious demonstration of vindictive sentiment must have been generated by the loss or maltreatment of sons, husbands, and brothers.
The Theban exiles found at Athens not only secure shelter, but genuine sympathy with their complaints against Lacedæmonian injustice. The generous countenance which had been shown by the Thebans, twenty-four years before, to Thrasybulus and the other Athenian refugees, during the omnipotence of the Thirty, was now gratefully requited under this reversal of fortune to both cities;[173] and requited too in defiance of the menaces of Sparta, who demanded that the exiles should be expelled,—as she had in the earlier occasion demanded that the Athenian refugees should be dismissed from Thebes. To protect these Theban exiles, however, was all that Athens could do. Their restoration was a task beyond her power,—and seemingly yet more beyond their own. For the existing government of Thebes was firmly seated, and had the citizens completely under control. Administered by a small faction, Archias, Philippus, Hypatês, and Leontiades (among whom the first two were at this moment polemarchs, though the last was the most energetic and resolute)—it was at the same time sustained by the large garrison of fifteen hundred Lacedæmonians and allies,[174] under Lysanoridas and two other harmosts, in the Kadmeia,—as well as by the Lacedæmonian posts in the other Bœotian cities around,—Orchomenus, Thespiæ, Platæa, Tanagra, etc. Though the general body of Theban sentiment in the city was decidedly adverse to the government, and though the young men while exercising in the palæstra (gymnastic exercises being more strenuously prosecuted at Thebes than anywhere else except at Sparta) kept up by private communication the ardor of an earnest, but compressed, patriotism,—yet all manifestation or assemblage was forcibly kept down, and the commanding posts of the lower town, as well as the citadel, were held in vigilant occupation by the ruling minority.[175]
For a certain time the Theban exiles at Athens waited in hopes of some rising at home, or some positive aid from the Athenians. At length, in the third winter after their flight, they began to despair of encouragement from either quarter, and resolved to take the initiative upon themselves. Among them were numbered several men of the richest and highest families at Thebes, proprietors of chariots, jockeys, and training establishments, for contending at the various festivals: Pelopidas, Mellon, Damokleidas, Theopompus, Pherenikus, and others.[176]
Of these the most forward in originating aggressive measures, though almost the youngest, was Pelopidas; whose daring and self-devotion, in an enterprise which seemed utterly desperate, soon communicated itself to a handful of his comrades. The exiles, keeping up constant private correspondence with their friends in Thebes, felt assured of the sympathy of the citizens generally, if they could once strike a blow. Yet nothing less would be sufficient than the destruction of the four rulers, Leontiades and his colleagues,—nor would any one within the city devote himself to so hopeless a danger. It was this conspiracy which Pelopidas, Mellon, and five or ten other exiles (the entire band is differently numbered, by some as seven, by others, twelve[177]) undertook to execute. Many of their friends in Thebes came in as auxiliaries to them, who would not have embarked in the design as primary actors. Of all auxiliaries, the most effective and indispensable was Phyllidas, the secretary of the polemarchs; next to him, Charon, an eminent and earnest patriot. Phyllidas, having been despatched to Athens on official business, entered into secret conference with the conspirators, concerted with them the day for their coming to Thebes, and even engaged to provide for them access to the persons of the polemarchs. Charon not only promised them concealment in his house, from their first coming within the gates until the moment of striking their blow should have arrived,—but also entered his name to share in the armed attack. Nevertheless, in spite of such partial encouragements, the plan still appeared desperate to many who wished heartily for its success. Epaminondas, for example,—who now for the first time comes before us,—resident at Thebes, and not merely sympathizing with the political views of Pelopidas, but also bound to him by intimate friendship,—dissuaded others from the attempt, and declined participating in it. He announced distinctly that he would not become an accomplice in civil bloodshed. It appears that there were men among the exiles whose violence made him fear that they would not, like Pelopidas, draw the sword exclusively against Leontiades and his colleagues, but would avail themselves of success to perpetrate unmeasured violence against other political enemies.[178]
The day for the enterprise was determined by Phyllidas the secretary, who had prepared an evening banquet for Archias and Philippus, in celebration of the period when they were going out of office as polemarchs,—and who had promised on that occasion to bring into their company some women remarkable for beauty, as well as of the best families in Thebes.[179] In concert with the general body of Theban exiles at Athens, who held themselves ready on the borders of Attica, together with some Athenian sympathizers, to march to Thebes the instant that they should receive intimation,—and in concert also with two out of the ten Stratêgi of Athens, who took on themselves privately to countenance the enterprise, without any public vote,—Pelopidas and Mellon, and their five companions,[180] crossed Kithæron from Athens to Thebes. It was wet weather, about December B.C. 379; they were disguised as rustics or hunters, with no other arms than a concealed dagger; and they got within the gates of Thebes one by one at nightfall, just when the latest farming men were coming home from their fields. All of them arrived safe at the house of Charon, the appointed rendezvous.
It was, however, by mere accident that they had not been turned back, and the whole scheme frustrated. For a Theban named Hipposthenidas, friendly to the conspiracy, but faint-hearted, who had been let into the secret against the will of Phyllidas,—became so frightened as the moment of execution approached, that he took upon himself, without the knowledge of the rest, to despatch Chlidon, a faithful slave of Mellon, ordering him to go forth on horseback from Thebes, to meet his master on the road, and to desire that he and his comrades would go back to Attica, since circumstances had happened to render the project for the moment impracticable. Chlidon, going home to fetch his bridle, but not finding it in its usual place, asked his wife where it was. The woman, at first pretending to look for it, at last confessed that she had lent it to a neighbor. Chlidon became so irritated with this delay, that he got into a loud altercation with his wife, who on her part wished him ill luck with his journey. He at last beat her, until neighbors ran in to interpose. His departure was thus accidentally frustrated, so that the intended message of countermand never reached the conspirators on their way.[181]
In the house of Charon they remained concealed all the ensuing day, on the evening of which the banquet of Archias and Philippus was to take place. Phyllidas had laid his plan for introducing them at that banquet, at the moment when the two polemarchs had become full of wine, in female attire, as being the women whose visit was expected. The hour had nearly arrived, and they were preparing to play their parts, when an unexpected messenger knocked at the door, summoning Charon instantly into the presence of the polemarchs. All within were thunderstruck with the summons, which seemed to imply that the plot had been divulged, perhaps by the timid Hipposthenidas. It was agreed among them that Charon must obey at once. Nevertheless, he himself, even in the perilous uncertainty which beset him, was most of all apprehensive lest the friends whom he had sheltered should suspect him of treachery towards themselves and their cause. Before departing, therefore, he sent for his only son, a youth of fifteen, and of conspicuous promise in every way. This youth he placed in the hands of Pelopidas, as a hostage for his own fidelity. But Pelopidas and the rest, vehemently disclaiming all suspicion, entreated Charon to put his son away, out of the reach of that danger in which all were now involved. Charon, however, could not be prevailed on to comply, and left his son among them to share the fate of the rest. He went into the presence of Archias and Philippus; whom he found already half-intoxicated, but informed, by intelligence from Athens, that some plot, they knew not by whom, was afloat. They had sent for him to question him, as a known friend of the exiles; but he had little difficulty, aided by the collusion of Phyllidas, in blinding the vague suspicions of drunken men, anxious only to resume their conviviality.[182] He was allowed to retire and rejoin his friends. Nevertheless, soon after his departure,—so many were the favorable chances which befel these improvident men,—a fresh message was delivered to Archias the polemarch, from his namesake Archias the Athenian Hierophant, giving an exact account of the names and scheme of the conspirators, which had become known to the philo-Laconian party at Athens. The messenger who bore this despatch delivered it to Archias with an intimation, that it related to very serious matters. “Serious matters for to-morrow,” said the polemarch, as he put the despatch, unopened and unread, under the pillow of the couch on which he was reclining.[183]
Returning to their carousal, Archias and Philippus impatiently called upon Phyllidas to introduce the women according to his promise. Upon this the secretary retired, and brought the conspirators, clothed in female attire, into an adjoining chamber; then going back to the polemarchs, he informed them that the women would not come in unless all the domestics were first dismissed. An order was forthwith given that these latter should depart, while Phyllidas took care that they should be well provided with wine at the lodging of one among their number. The polemarchs were thus left only with one or two friends at table, half-intoxicated as well as themselves; among them Kabeirichus, the archon of the year, who always throughout his term kept the consecrated spear of office in actual possession, and had it at that moment close to his person. Phyllidas now conducted the pretended women into the banqueting-room; three of them attired as ladies of distinction, the four others following as female attendants. Their long veils, and ample folds of clothing, were quite sufficient as disguise,—even had the guests at table been sober,—until they sat down by the side of the polemarchs; and the instant of lifting their veils was the signal for using their daggers. Archias and Philippus were slain at once and with little resistance; but Kabeirichus with his spear tried to defend himself, and thus perished with the others, though the conspirators had not originally intended to take his life.[184]