Even before the Lacedæmonian envoys had quitted Athens, however, an incident, alike sudden and memorable, completely altered the Athenian temper. The Lacedæmonian harmost Sphodrias (whom Kleombrotus had left at Thespiæ to prosecute the war against Thebes), being informed that Peiræus on its land side was without gates or night watch,—since there was no suspicion of attack,—conceived the idea of surprising it by a night-march from Thespiæ, and thus of mastering at one stroke the commerce, the wealth, and the naval resources of Athens. Putting his troops under march one evening after an early supper, he calculated on reaching the Peiræus the next morning before daylight. But his reckoning proved erroneous. Morning overtook him when he had advanced no farther than the Thriasian plain near Eleusis; from whence, as it was useless to proceed farther, he turned back and retreated to Thespiæ; not, however, without committing various acts of plunder against the neighboring Athenian residents.
This plan against Peiræus appears to have been not ill conceived. Had Sphodrias been a man competent to organize and execute movements as rapid as those of Brasidas, there is no reason why it might not have succeeded; in which case the whole face of the war would have been changed, since the Lacedæmonians, if once masters of Peiræus, both could and would have maintained the place. But it was one of those injustices, which no one ever commends until it has been successfully consummated,—“consilium quod non potest laudari nisi peractum.[206]” As it failed, it has been considered, by critics as well as by contemporaries, not merely as a crime but as a fault, and its author Sphodrias as a brave man, but singularly weak and hot-headed.[207] Without admitting the full extent of this censure, we may see that his present aggression grew out of an untoward emulation of the glory which Phœbidas, in spite of the simulated or transient displeasure of his countrymen, had acquired by seizing the Kadmeia. That Sphodrias received private instructions from Kleombrotus (as Diodorus states) is not sufficiently proved; while the suspicion, intimated by Xenophon as being abroad, that he was wrought upon by secret emissaries and bribes from his enemies the Thebans, for the purpose of plunging Athens into war with Sparta, is altogether improbable;[208] and seems merely an hypothesis suggested by the consequences of the act,—which were such, that if his enemies had bribed him, he could not have served them better.
The presence of Sphodrias and his army in the Thriasian plain was communicated shortly after daybreak at Athens, where it excited no less terror than surprise. Every man instantly put himself under arms for defence; but news soon arrived that the invader had retired. When thus reassured, the Athenians passed from fear to indignation. The Lacedæmonian envoys, who were lodging at the house of Kallias the proxenus of Sparta, were immediately put under arrest and interrogated. But all three affirmed that they were not less astonished, and not less exasperated, by the march of Sphodrias, than the Athenians themselves; adding, by way of confirmation, that had they been really privy to any design of seizing the Peiræus, they would have taken care not to let themselves be found in the city, and in their ordinary lodging at the house of the proxenus, where of course their persons would be at once seized. They concluded by assuring the Athenians, that Sphodrias would not only be indignantly disavowed, but punished capitally, at Sparta. And their reply was deemed so satisfactory, that they were allowed to depart; while an Athenian embassy was sent to Sparta, to demand the punishment of the offending general.[209]
The Ephors immediately summoned Sphodrias home to Sparta, to take his trial on a capital charge. So much did he himself despair of his case, that he durst not make his appearance; while the general impression was, both at Sparta and elsewhere, that he would certainly be condemned. Nevertheless, though thus absent and undefended, he was acquitted, purely through private favor and esteem for his general character. He was of the party of Kleombrotus, so that all the friends of that prince espoused his cause, as a matter of course. But as he was of the party opposed to Agesilaus, his friends dreaded that the latter would declare against him, and bring about his condemnation. Nothing saved Sphodrias except the peculiar intimacy between his son Kleonymus and Archidamus son of Agesilaus. The mournful importunity of Archidamus induced Agesilaus, when this important cause was brought before the Senate of Sparta, to put aside his judicial conviction, and give his vote in the following manner: “To be sure, Sphodrias is guilty; upon that there cannot be two opinions. Nevertheless, we cannot put to death a man like him, who, as boy, youth, and man, has stood unblemished in all Spartan honor. Sparta cannot part with soldiers like Sphodrias.[210]” The friends of Agesilaus, following this opinion and coinciding with those of Kleombrotus, ensured a favorable verdict. And it is remarkable, that Etymoklês himself, who as envoy at Athens had announced as a certainty that Sphodrias would be put to death,—as senator and friend of Agesilaus voted for his acquittal.[211]
This remarkable incident (which comes to us from a witness not merely philo-Laconian, but also personally intimate with Agesilaus) shows how powerfully the course of justice at Sparta was overruled by private sympathy and interests,—especially, those of the two kings. It especially illustrates what has been stated in a former chapter respecting the oppressions exercised by the Spartan harmosts and the dekadarchies, for which no redress was attainable at Sparta. Here was a case where not only the guilt of Sphodrias stood confessed, but in which also his acquittal was sure to be followed by a war with Athens. If, under such circumstances, the Athenian demand for redress was overruled by the favor of the two kings, what chance was there of any justice to the complaint of a dependent city, or an injured individual, against the harmost? The contrast between Spartan and Athenian proceeding is also instructive. Only a few days before, the Athenians condemned, at the instance of Sparta, their two generals who had without authority lent aid to the Theban exiles. In so doing, the Athenian dikastery enforced the law against clear official misconduct,—and that, too, in a case where their sympathies went along with the act, though their fear of a war with Sparta was stronger. But the most important circumstance to note is, that at Athens there is neither private influence, nor kingly influence, capable of overruling the sincere judicial conscience of a numerous and independent dikastery.
The result of the acquittal of Sphodrias must have been well known beforehand to all parties at Sparta. Even by the general voice of Greece, the sentence was denounced as iniquitous.[212] But the Athenians, who had so recently given strenuous effect to the remonstrances of Sparta against their own generals, were stung by it to the quick; and only the more stung, in consequence of the extraordinary compliments to Sphodrias on which the acquittal was made to turn. They immediately contracted hearty alliance with Thebes, and made vigorous preparations for war against Sparta both by land and sea. After completing the fortifications of Peiræus, so as to place it beyond the reach of any future attempt, they applied themselves to the building of new ships of war, and to the extension of their naval ascendency, at the expense of Sparta.[213]
From this moment, a new combination began in Grecian politics. The Athenians thought the moment favorable to attempt the construction of a new confederacy, analogous to the Confederacy of Delos, formed a century before; the basis on which had been reared the formidable Athenian empire, lost at the close of the Peloponnesian war. Towards such construction there was so far a tendency, that Athens had already a small body of maritime allies; while rhetors like Isokrates (in his Panegyrical Discourse, published two years before) had been familiarizing the public mind with larger ideas. But the enterprise was now pressed with the determination and vehemence of men smarting under recent insult. The Athenians had good ground to build upon; since, while the discontent against the ascendency of Sparta was widely spread, the late revolution in Thebes had done much to lessen that sentiment of fear upon which such ascendency chiefly rested. To Thebes, the junction with Athens was preëminently welcome, and her leaders gladly enrolled their city as a constituent member of the new confederacy.[214] They cheerfully acknowledged the presidency of Athens,—reserving, however, tacitly or expressly, their own rights as presidents of the Bœotian federation, as soon as that could be reconstituted; which reconstitution was at this moment desirable even for Athens, seeing that the Bœotian towns were now dependent allies of Sparta under harmosts and oligarchies.
The Athenians next sent envoys round to the principal islands and maritime cities in the Ægean, inviting all of them to an alliance on equal and honorable terms. The principles were in the main the same as those upon which the confederacy of Delos had been formed against the Persians, almost a century before. It was proposed that a congress of deputies should meet at Athens, one from each city, small as well as great, each with one vote; that Athens should be president, yet each individual city autonomous; that a common fund should be raised, with a common naval force, through assessment imposed by this congress upon each, and applied as the same authority might prescribe; the general purpose being defined to be, maintenance of freedom and security from foreign aggression, to each confederate, by the common force of all. Care was taken to banish as much as possible those associations of tribute and subjection which rendered the recollection of the former Athenian empire unpopular.[215] And as there were many Athenian citizens, who, during those times of supremacy, had been planted out as kleruchs or out-settlers in various dependencies, but had been deprived of their properties at the close of the war,—it was thought necessary to pass a formal decree,[216] renouncing and barring all revival of these suspended rights. It was farther decreed that henceforward no Athenian should on any pretence hold property, either in house or land, in the territory of any one of the confederates; neither by purchase, nor as security for money lent, nor by any other mode of acquisition. Any Athenian infringing this law, was rendered liable to be informed against before the synod; who, on proof of the fact, were to deprive him of the property,—half of it going to the informer, half to the general purposes of the confederacy.
Such were the liberal principles of confederacy now proposed by Athens,—who, as a candidate for power, was straightforward and just, like the Herodotean Deiokês,[217]—and formally ratified, as well by the Athenians as by the general voice of the confederate deputies assembled within their walls. The formal decree and compact of alliance was inscribed on a stone column and placed by the side of the statue of Zeus Eleutherius or the Liberator; a symbol, of enfranchisement from Sparta accomplished, as well as of freedom to be maintained against Persia and other enemies.[218] Periodical meetings of the confederate deputies were provided to be held (how often, we do not know) at Athens, and the synod was recognized as competent judge of all persons, even Athenian citizens, charged with treason against the confederacy. To give fuller security to the confederates generally, it was provided in the original compact, that if any Athenian citizen should either speak, or put any question to the vote, in the Athenian assembly, contrary to the tenor of that document,—he should be tried before the synod for treason; and that, if found guilty, he might be condemned by them to the severest punishment.
Three Athenian leaders stood prominent as commissioners in the first organization of the confederacy, and in the dealings with those numerous cities whose junction was to be won by amicable inducement,—Chabrias, Timotheus son of Konon, and Kallistratus.[219]