On the other hand, the Eleian envoy returned with feelings of satisfaction, and the Thebans with triumph. Deputies from each of their allied cities were invited to Thebes, to hear the Persian rescript. It was produced by a native Persian, their official companion from Susa,—the first Persian probably ever seen in Thebes since the times immediately preceding the battle of Platæa,—who, after exhibiting publicly the regal seal, read the document aloud; as the satrap Tiribazus had done on the occasion of the peace of Antalkidas.[603]
But though the Theban leaders thus closely copied the conduct of Sparta both as to means and as to end, they by no means found the like ready acquiescence, when they called on the deputies present to take an oath to the rescript, to the Great King, and to Thebes. All replied that they had come with instructions, authorizing them to hear and report, but no more; and that acceptance or rejection must be decided in their respective cities. Nor was this the worst. Lykomedes and the other deputies from Arcadia, already jealous of Thebes, and doubtless farther alienated by the angry report of their envoy Antiochus, went yet farther, and entered a general protest against the headship of Thebes; affirming that the synod ought not to be held constantly in that city, but in the seat of war, wherever that might be. Incensed at such language, the Thebans accused Lykomedes of violating the cardinal principle of the confederacy; upon which he and his Arcadian comrades forthwith retired and went home, declaring that they would no longer sit in the synod. The other deputies appear to have followed his example. Indeed, as they had refused to take the oath submitted to them, the special purpose of the synod was defeated.
Having thus failed in carrying their point with the allies collectively, the Thebans resolved to try the efficacy of applications individually. They accordingly despatched envoys, with the Persian rescript in hand, to visit the cities successively, calling upon each for acceptance with an oath of adhesion. Each city separately (they thought) would be afraid to refuse, under peril of united hostility from the Great King and from Thebes. So confident were they in the terrors of the king’s name and seal, that they addressed this appeal not merely to the cities in alliance with them, but even to several among their enemies. Their envoys first set forth the proposition at Corinth; a city, not only at variance with them, but even serving as a centre of operation for the Athenian and Lacedæmonian forces to guard the line of Oneium, and prevent the entrance of a Theban army into Peloponnesus. But the Corinthians rejected the proposition altogether, declining formally to bind themselves by any common oaths towards the Persian king. The like refusal was experienced by the envoys as they passed on to Peloponnesus, if not from all the cities visited, at least from so large a proportion, that the mission was completely frustrated. And thus the rescript, which Thebes had been at such pains to procure, was found practically inoperative in confirming or enforcing her headship;[604] though doubtless the mere fact, that it comprised and recognized Messênê, contributed to strengthen the vitality, and exalt the dignity, of that new-born city.
In their efforts to make the Persian rescript available towards the recognition of their headship throughout Greece, the Thebans would naturally visit Thessaly and the northern districts as well as Peloponnesus. It appears that Pelopidas and Ismenias themselves undertook this mission; and that in the execution of it they were seized and detained as prisoners by Alexander of Pheræ. That despot seems to have come to meet them, under pacific appearances, at Pharsalus. They indulged hopes of prevailing on him as well as the other Thessalians to accept the Persian rescript; for we see by the example of Corinth, that they had tried their powers of persuasion on enemies as well as friends. But the Corinthians, while refusing the application, had nevertheless respected the public morality held sacred even between enemies in Greece, and had dismissed the envoys (whether Pelopidas was among them, we cannot assert) inviolate. Not so the tyrant of Pheræ. Perceiving that Pelopidas and Ismenias were unaccompanied by any military force, he seized their persons, and carried them off to Pheræ as prisoners.
Treacherous as this proceeding was, it proved highly profitable to Alexander. Such was the personal importance of Pelopidas, that his imprisonment struck terror among the partisans of Thebes in Thessaly, and induced several of them to submit to the despot of Pheræ; who moreover sent to apprise the Athenians of his capture, and to solicit their aid against the impending vengeance of Thebes. Greatly impressed with the news, the Athenians looked upon Alexander as a second Jason, likely to arrest the menacing ascendency of their neighbor and rival.[605] They immediately despatched to his aid thirty triremes and one thousand hoplites under Autoklês; who, unable to get through the Euripus, when Bœotia and Eubœa were both hostile to Athens, were forced to circumnavigate the latter island. He reached Pheræ just in time; for the Thebans, incensed beyond measure at the seizure of Pelopidas, had despatched without delay eight thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry to recover or avenge him. Unfortunately for them, Epaminondas had not been rechosen commander since his last year’s proceedings in Achaia. He was now serving as an hoplite in the ranks, while Kleomenes with other Bœotarchs had the command. On entering Thessaly, they were joined by various allies in the country. But the army of Alexander, aided by the Athenians, and placed under the command of Autoklês, was found exceedingly formidable, especially in cavalry. The Thessalian allies of Thebes, acting with their habitual treachery, deserted in the hour of danger; and the enterprise, thus difficult and perilous, was rendered impracticable by the incompetence of the Bœotarchs. Unable to make head against Alexander and the Athenians, they were forced to retreat homeward. But their generalship was so unskilful, and the enemy’s cavalry so active, that the whole army was in imminent danger of being starved or destroyed. Nothing saved them now, but the presence of Epaminondas as a common soldier in the ranks. Indignant as well as dismayed, the whole army united to depose their generals, and with one voice called upon him to extricate them from their perils. Epaminondas accepted the duty,—marshalled the retreat in consummate order,—took for himself the command of the rear-guard, beating off all the attacks of the enemy,—and conducted the army safely back to Thebes.[606]
This memorable exploit, while it disgraced the unsuccessful Bœotarchs, who were condemned to fine and deposition from their office, raised higher than ever the reputation of Epaminondas among his countrymen. But the failure of the expedition was for the time a fatal blow to the influence of Thebes in Thessaly; where Alexander now reigned victorious and irresistible, with Pelopidas still in his dungeon. The cruelties and oppressions, at all times habitual to the despot of Pheræ, were pushed to an excess beyond all former parallel. Besides other brutal deeds of which we read with horror, he is said to have surrounded by his military force the unarmed citizens of Melibœa and Skotussa, and slaughtered them all in mass. In such hands, the life of Pelopidas hung by a thread; yet he himself, with that personal courage which never forsook him, held the language of unsubdued defiance and provocation against the tyrant. Great sympathy was manifested by many Thessalians, and even by Thêbê the wife of Alexander, for so illustrious a prisoner; and Alexander, fearful of incurring the implacable enmity of Thebes, was induced to spare his life, though retaining him as a prisoner. His confinement, too, appears to have lasted some time before the Thebans, discouraged by their late ill-success, were prepared to undertake a second expedition.
At length they sent a force for the purpose; which was placed, on this occasion, under the command of Epaminondas. The renown of his name rallied many adherents in the country; and his prudence, no less than his military skill, was conspicuously exhibited, in defeating and intimidating Alexander, yet without reducing him to such despair as might prove fatal to the prisoner. The despot was at length compelled to send an embassy excusing his recent violence, offering to restore Pelopidas, and soliciting to be admitted to peace and alliance with Thebes. But Epaminondas would grant nothing more than a temporary truce,[607] coupled with the engagement of evacuating Thessaly; while he required in exchange the release of Pelopidas and Ismenias. His terms were acceded to, so that he had the delight of conveying his liberated friend in safety to Thebes. Though this primary object was thus effected, however, it is plain that he did not restore Thebes to the same influence in Thessaly which she had enjoyed prior to the seizure of Pelopidas.[608] That event with its consequences still remained a blow to Thebes and a profit to Alexander; who again became master of all or most part of Thessaly, together with the Magnêtes, the Phthiot Achæans, and other tributary nations dependent on Thessaly—maintaining unimpaired his influence and connection at Athens.[609]
While the Theban arms were thus losing ground in Thessaly, an important point was gained in their favor on the other side of Bœotia. Orôpus, on the north-eastern frontier of Attica adjoining Bœotia, was captured and wrested from Athens by a party of exiles who crossed over from Eretria in Eubœa, with the aid of Themison, despot of the last-mentioned town. It had been more than once lost and regained between Athens and Thebes; being seemingly in its origin Bœotian, and never incorporated as a Deme or equal constituent member of the Athenian commonwealth, but only recognized as a dependency of Athens; though, as it was close on the frontier, many of its inhabitants were also citizens of Athens, demots of the neighboring Deme Græa.[610] So recently before as the period immediately preceding the battle of Leuktra, angry remonstrances had been exchanged between Athens and Thebes respecting a portion of the Oropian territory. At that time, it appears, the Thebans were forced to yield, and their partisans in Oropus were banished.[611] It was these partisans who, through the aid of Themison and the Eretrians, now effected their return, so as to repossess themselves of Oropus, and doubtless to banish the principal citizens friendly to Athens.[612] So great was the sensation produced among the Athenians, that they not only marched with all their force to recover the place, but also recalled their general, Chares, with that mercenary force which he commanded in the territories of Corinth and Phlius. They farther requested aid from the Corinthians and their other allies in Peloponnesus. These allies did not obey the summons; but the Athenian force alone would have sufficed to retake Oropus, had not the Thebans occupied it so as to place it beyond their attack. Athens was obliged to acquiesce in their occupation of it; though under protest, and with the understanding that the disputed right should be referred to impartial arbitration.[613]
This seizure of Oropus produced more than one material consequence. Owing to the recall of Chares from Corinth, the harbor of Sikyon could no longer be maintained against the Sikyonians in the town; who, with the aid of the Arcadians, recaptured it, so that both town and harbor again came into the league of Thebans and Arcadians. Moreover, Athens became discontented with her Peloponnesian allies, for having neglected her summons on the emergency at Oropus, although Athenian troops had been constantly in service for the protection of Peloponnesus against the Thebans. The growth of such dispositions at Athens became known to the Mantinean Lykomedes; the ablest and most ambitious leader in Arcadia, who was not only jealous of the predominance of the Thebans, but had come to a formal rupture with them at the synod held for the reception of the Persian rescript.[614] Anxious to disengage the Arcadians from Thebes as well as from Sparta, Lykomedes now took advantage of the discontent of Athens to open negotiations with that city; persuading the majority of the Arcadian Ten Thousand to send him thither as ambassador. There was difficulty among the Athenians in entertaining his proposition, from the alliance subsisting between them and Sparta. But they were reminded, that to disengage the Arcadians from Thebes, was no less in the interest of Sparta than of Athens; and a favorable answer was then given to Lykomedes. The latter took ship at Peiræus for his return, but never reached Arcadia; for he happened to land at the spot where the Arcadian exiles of the opposite party were assembled, and these men put him to death at once.[615] In spite of his death, however, the alliance between Arcadia and Athens was still brought to pass, though not without opposition.
Thebes was during this year engaged in her unsuccessful campaign in Thessaly (alluded to already) for the rescue of Pelopidas, which disabled her from effective efforts in Peloponnesus. But as soon as that rescue had been accomplished, Epaminondas, her greatest man, and her only conspicuous orator, was despatched into Arcadia to offer, in conjunction with an envoy from Argos, diplomatic obstruction to the proposed Athenian alliance. He had to speak against Kallistratus, the most distinguished orator at Athens, who had been sent by his countrymen to plead their cause amidst the Arcadian Ten Thousand, and who, among other arguments, denounced the enormities which darkened the heroic legends both of Thebes and Argos. “Were not Orestes and Alkmæon, both murderers of their mothers (asked Kallistratus), natives of Argos? Was not Œdipus, who slew his father and married his mother, a native of Thebes?”—“Yes (said Epaminondas, in his reply) they were. But Kallistratus has forgotten to tell you, that these persons, while they lived at home were innocent, or reputed to be so. As soon as their crimes became known, Argos and Thebes banished them; and then it was that Athens received them, stained with confessed guilt.”[616] This clever retort told much to the credit of the rhetorical skill of Epaminondas; but his speech as a whole, was not successful. The Arcadians concluded alliance with Athens; yet without formally renouncing friendship with Thebes.