On one point, as I have already noticed, the policy recommended by Epaminondas to his countrymen appears of questionable wisdom,—his advice to compete with Athens for transmarine and naval power. One cannot recognize in this advice the same accurate estimate of permanent causes,—the same long-sighted view, of the conditions of strength to Thebes and of weakness to her enemies, which dictated the foundation of Messênê and Megalopolis. These two towns, when once founded, took such firm root, that Sparta could not persuade even her own allies to aid in effacing them; a clear proof of the sound reasoning on which their founder had proceeded. What Epaminondas would have done,—whether he would have followed out maxims equally prudent and penetrating,—if he had survived the victory of Mantinea,—is a point which we cannot pretend to divine. He would have found himself then on a pinnacle of glory, and invested with a plenitude of power, such as no Greek ever held without abusing. But all that we know of Epaminondas justifies the conjecture that he would have been found equal, more than any other Greek, even to this great trial; and that his untimely death shut him out from a future not less honorable to himself, than beneficial to Thebes and to Greece generally.
Of the private life and habits of Epaminondas we know scarcely anything. We are told that he never married; and we find brief allusions, without any details, to attachments in which he is said to have indulged.[777] Among the countrymen of Pindar,[778] devoted attachment between mature men and beautiful youths was more frequent than in other parts of Greece. It was confirmed by interchange of mutual oaths at the tomb of Iolaus, and was reckoned upon as the firmest tie of military fidelity in the hour of battle. Asopichus and Kaphisodorus are named as youths to whom Epaminondas was much devoted. The first fought with desperate bravery at the battle of Leuktra, and after the victory caused an image of the Leuktrian trophy to be carved on his shield, which he dedicated at Delphi;[779] the second perished along with his illustrious friend and chief on the field of Mantinea, and was buried in a grave closely adjacent to him.[780]
It rather appears that the Spartans, deeply incensed against their allies for having abandoned them in reference to Messênê, began to turn their attention away from the affairs of Greece to those of Asia and Egypt. But the dissensions in Arcadia were not wholly appeased even by the recent peace. The city of Megalopolis had been founded only eight years before by the coalescence of many smaller townships, all previously enjoying a separate autonomy more or less perfect. The vehement anti-Spartan impulse, which marked the two years immediately succeeding the battle of Leuktra, had overruled to so great a degree the prior instincts of these townships, that they had lent themselves to the plans of Lykomedes and Epaminondas for an enlarged community in the new city. But since that period, reaction had taken place. The Mantineans had come to be at the head of an anti-Megalopolitan party in Arcadia; and several of the communities which had been merged in Megalopolis, counting upon aid from them and from the Eleians, insisted on seceding, and returning to their original autonomy. But for foreign aid, Megalopolis would now have been in great difficulty. A pressing request was sent to the Thebans, who despatched into Arcadia three thousand hoplites under Pammenes. This force enabled the Megalopolitans, though not without measures of considerable rigor, to uphold the integrity of their city, and keep the refractory members in communion.[781] And it appears that the interference thus obtained was permanently efficacious, so that the integrity of this recent Pan-Arcadian community was no farther disturbed.
The old king Agesilaus was compelled, at the age of eighty, to see the dominion of Sparta thus irrevocably narrowed, her influence in Arcadia overthrown, and the loss of Messênê formally sanctioned even by her own allies. All his protests, and those of his son Archidamus, so strenuously set forth by Isokrates, had only ended by isolating Sparta more than ever from Grecian support and sympathy. Archidamus probably never seriously attempted to execute the desperate scheme which he had held out as a threat some two or three years before the battle of Mantinea; that the Lacedæmonians would send away their wives and families, and convert their military population into a perpetual camp, never to lay down arms until they should have reconquered Messênê or perished in the attempt.[782] Yet he and his father, though deserted by all Grecian allies, had not yet abandoned the hope that they might obtain aid, in the shape of money for levying mercenary troops, from the native princes in Egypt and the revolted Persian satraps in Asia, with whom they seem to have been for some time in a sort of correspondence.[783]
About the time of the battle of Mantinea,—and as it would seem, for some years before,—a large portion of the western dominions of the Great King were in a state partly of revolt, partly of dubious obedience. Egypt had been for some years in actual revolt, and under native princes, whom the Persians had vainly endeavored to subdue (employing for that purpose the aid of the Athenian generals Iphikrates and Timotheus) both in 374 and 371 B.C. Ariobarzanes, satrap of the region near the Propontis and the Hellespont, appears to have revolted about the year 367-366 B.C. In other parts of Asia Minor, too,—Paphlagonia, Pisidia, etc.,—the subordinate princes or governors became disaffected to Artaxerxes. But their disaffection was for a certain time kept down by the extraordinary ability and vigor of a Karian named Datames, commander for the king in a part of Kappadokia, who gained several important victories over them by rapidity of movement and well-combined stratagem. At length the services of Datames became so distinguished as to excite the jealousy of many of the Persian grandees; who poisoned the royal mind against him, and thus drove him to raise the standard of revolt in his own district of Kappadokia, under alliance and concert with Ariobarzanes. It was in vain that Autophradates, satrap of Lydia, was sent by Artaxerxes with a powerful force to subdue Datames. The latter resisted all the open force of Persia, and was at length overcome only by the treacherous conspiracy of Mithridates (son of Ariobarzanes), who, corrupted by the Persian court and becoming a traitor both to his father Ariobarzanes and to Datames, simulated zealous coöperation, tempted the latter to a confidential interview, and there assassinated him.[784]
Still, however, there remained powerful princes and satraps in Asia Minor, disaffected to the court; Mausôlus, prince of Karia; Orontes, satrap of Mysia, and Autophradates, satrap of Lydia,—the last having now apparently joined the revolters, though he had before been active in upholding the authority of the king. It seems too that the revolt extended to Syria and Phœnicia, so that all the western coast with its large revenues, as well as Egypt, was at once subtracted from the empire. Tachos, native king of Egypt, was prepared to lend assistance to this formidable combination of disaffected commanders, who selected Orontes as their chief; confiding to him their united forces, and sending Rheomithres to Egypt to procure pecuniary aid. But the Persian court broke the force of this combination by corrupting both Orontes and Rheomithres, who betrayed their confederates, and caused the enterprise to fail. Of the particulars we know little or nothing.[785]
Both the Spartan king Agesilaus, with a thousand Lacedæmonian or Peloponnesian hoplites,—and the Athenian general Chabrias, were invited to Egypt to command the forces of Tachos; the former on land, the latter at sea. Chabrias came simply as a volunteer, without any public sanction or order from Athens. But the service of Agesilaus was undertaken for the purposes and with the consent of the authorities at home, attested by the presence of thirty Spartans who came out as his counsellors. The Spartans were displeased with the Persian king for having sanctioned the independence of Messênê; and as the prospect of overthrowing or enfeebling his empire appeared at this moment considerable, they calculated on reaping a large reward for their services to the Egyptian prince, who would in return lend them assistance towards their views in Greece. But dissension and bad judgment marred all the combinations against the Persian king. Agesilaus, on reaching Egypt,[786] was received with little respect. The Egyptians saw with astonishment, that one, whom they had invited as a formidable warrior, was a little deformed old man, of mean attire, and sitting on the grass with his troops, careless of show or luxury. They not only vented their disappointment in sarcastic remarks, but also declined to invest him with the supreme command, as he had anticipated. He was only recognized as general of the mercenary land force, while Tachos himself commanded in chief, and Chabrias was at the head of the fleet. Great efforts were made to assemble a force competent to act against the Great King; and Chabrias is said to have suggested various stratagems for obtaining money from the Egyptians.[787] The army having been thus strengthened, Agesilaus, though discontented and indignant, nevertheless accompanied Tachos on an expedition against the Persian forces in Phœnicia; from whence they were forced to return by the revolt of Nektanebis, cousin of Tachos, who caused himself to be proclaimed king of Egypt. Tachos was now full of supplications to Agesilaus to sustain him against his competitor for the Egyptian throne; while Nektanebis, also on his side, began to bid high for the favor of the Spartans. With the sanction of the authorities at home, but in spite of the opposition of Chabrias, Agesilaus decided in favor of Nektanebis, withdrawing the mercenaries from the camp of Tachos,[788] who was accordingly obliged to take flight. Chabrias returned home to Athens; either not choosing to abandon Tachos, whom he had come to serve,—or recalled by special order of his countrymen, in consequence of the remonstrance of the Persian king. A competitor for the throne presently arose in the Mendesian division of Egypt. Agesilaus, vigorously maintaining the cause of Nektanebis, defeated all the efforts of his opponent. Yet his great schemes against the Persian empire were abandoned, and nothing was effected as the result of his Egyptian expedition except the establishment of Nektanebis; who, having in vain tried to prevail upon him to stay longer, dismissed him in the winter season with large presents, and with a public donation to Sparta of two hundred and thirty talents. Agesilaus marched from the Nile towards Kyrênê, in order to obtain from that town and its ports ships for the passage home. But he died on the march, without reaching Kyrênê. His body was conveyed home by his troops, for burial, in a preparation of wax, since honey was not to be obtained.[789]
Thus expired, at an age somewhat above eighty, the ablest and most energetic of the Spartan kings. He has enjoyed the advantage, denied to every other eminent Grecian leader, that his character and exploits have been set out in the most favorable point of view by a friend and companion,—Xenophon. Making every allowance for partiality in this picture, there will still remain a really great and distinguished character. We find the virtues of a soldier, and the abilities of a commander, combined with strenuous personal will and decision, in such measure as to ensure for Agesilaus constant ascendency over the minds of others far beyond what was naturally incident to his station; and that, too, in spite of conspicuous bodily deformity, amidst a nation eminently sensitive on that point. Of the merits which Xenophon ascribes to him, some are the fair results of a Spartan education;—his courage, simplicity of life, and indifference to indulgences,—his cheerful endurance of hardship under every form. But his fidelity to engagements, his uniform superiority to pecuniary corruption, and those winning and hearty manners which attached to him all around—were virtues not Spartan but personal to himself. We find in him, however, more analogy to Lysander—a man equally above reproach on the score of pecuniary gain—than to Brasidas or Kallikratidas. Agesilaus succeeded to the throne, with a disputed title, under the auspices and through the intrigues of Lysander; whose influence, at that time predominant both at Sparta and in Greece, had planted everywhere dekarchies and harmosts as instruments of ascendency for imperial Sparta—and under the name of Sparta, for himself. Agesilaus, too high-spirited to comport himself as second to any one, speedily broke through so much of the system as had been constructed to promote the personal dominion of Lysander; yet without following out the same selfish aspirations, or seeking to build up the like individual dictatorship, on his own account. His ambition was indeed unbounded, but it was for Sparta in the first place, and for himself only in the second. The misfortune was, that in his measures for upholding and administering the imperial authority of Sparta, he still continued that mixture of domestic and foreign coërcion (represented by the dekarchy and the harmost) which had been introduced by Lysander; a sad contrast with the dignified equality, and emphatic repudiation of partisan interference, proclaimed by Brasidas, as the watchword of Sparta, at Akanthus and Torônê—and with the still nobler Pan-hellenic aims of Kallikratidas.
The most glorious portion of the life of Agesilaus was that spent in his three Asiatic campaigns, when acting under the miso-Persian impulse for which his panegyrist gives him so much credit.[790]
He was here employed in a Pan-hellenic purpose, to protect the Asiatic Greeks against that subjection to Persia which Sparta herself had imposed upon them a few years before, as the price of Persian aid against Athens.