In this incident we may note two features, which characterized Alexander to the end of his life; matchless celerity of movement, and no less remarkable favor of fortune. Had news of the Theban rising first reached him while on the Danube or among the distant Triballi,—or even when embarrassed in the difficult region round Pelion,—he could hardly by any effort have arrived in time to save the Kadmeia. But he learnt it just when he had vanquished Kleitus and Glaukias, so that his hands were perfectly free—and also when he was in a position peculiarly near and convenient for a straight march into Greece without going back to Pella. From the pass of Tschangon (or of the river Devol), near which Alexander’s last victories were gained, his road lay southward, following downwards in part the higher course of the river Haliakmon, through Upper Macedonia or the regions called Eordæa and Elymeia which lay on his left, while the heights of Pindus and the upper course of the river Aous, occupied by the Epirots called Tymphæi and Parauæi, were on the right. On the seventh day of march, crossing the lower ridges of the Cambunian mountains (which separate Olympus from Pindus and Upper Macedonia from Thessaly), Alexander reached the Thessalian town of Pelinna. Six days more brought him to the Bœotian Onchestus.[85] He was already within Thermopylæ, before any Greeks were aware that he was in march, or even that he was alive. The question about occupying Thermopylæ by a Grecian force was thus set aside. The difficulty of forcing that pass, and the necessity of forestalling Athens in it by stratagem or celerity, was present to the mind of Alexander, as it had been to that of Philip in his expedition of 346 B. C., against the Phokians.
His arrival, in itself a most formidable event, told with double force on the Greeks from its extreme suddenness. We can hardly doubt that both Athenians and Thebans had communications at Pella—that they looked upon any Macedonian invasion as likely to come from thence—and that they expected Alexander himself (assuming him to be still living, contrary to their belief) back in his capital before he began any new enterprise. Upon this hypothesis—in itself probable, and such as would have been realized if Alexander had not already advanced so far southward at the moment when he received the news[86]—they would at least have known beforehand of his approach, and would have had the option of a defensive combination open. As it happened, his unexpected appearance in the heart of Greece precluded all combinations, and checked all idea of resistance.
Two days after his arrival in Bœotia, he marched his army round Thebes, so as to encamp on the south side of the city; whereby he both intercepted the communication of the Thebans with Athens, and exhibited his force more visibly to the garrison in the Kadmeia. The Thebans, though alone and without hope of succor, maintained their courage unshaken. Alexander deferred the attack for a day or two, in hopes that they would submit; he wished to avoid an assault which might cost the lives of many of his soldiers, whom he required for his Asiatic schemes. He even made public proclamation,[87] demanding the surrender of the anti-Macedonian leaders Phœnix and Prochytes, but offering to any other Theban who chose to quit the city, permission to come and join him on the terms of the convention sworn in the preceding autumn. A general assembly being convened, the macedonizing Thebans enforced the prudence of submission to an irresistible force. But the leaders recently returned from exile, who had headed the rising, warmly opposed this proposition, contending for resistance to the death. In them, such resolution may not be wonderful, since (as Arrian[88] remarks) they had gone too far to hope for lenity. As it appears however that the mass of citizens deliberately adopted the same resolution, in spite of strong persuasion to the contrary,[89] we see plainly that they had already felt the bitterness of Macedonian dominion, and that sooner than endure a renewal of it, sure to be yet worse, coupled with the dishonor of surrendering their leaders—they had made up their minds to perish with the freedom of their city. At a time when the sentiment of Hellas as an autonomous system was passing away, and when Grecian courage was degenerating into a mere instrument for the aggrandizement of Macedonian chiefs, these countrymen of Epaminondas and Pelopidas set an example of devoted self-sacrifice in the cause of Grecian liberty, not less honorable than that of Leonidas at Thermopylæ, and only less esteemed because it proved infructuous.
In reply to the proclamation of Alexander, the Thebans made from their walls a counter-proclamation, demanding the surrender of his officers Antipater and Philotas, and inviting every one to join them, who desired, in concert with the Persian king and the Thebans, to liberate the Greeks and put down the despot of Hellas.[90] Such a haughty defiance and retort incensed Alexander to the quick. He brought up his battering engines and prepared everything for storming the town. Of the murderous assault which followed, we find different accounts, not agreeing with each other, yet not wholly irreconcilable. It appears that the Thebans had erected, probably in connection with their operations against the Kadmeia, an outwork defended by a double palisade. Their walls were guarded by the least effective soldiers, metics and liberated slaves; while their best troops were bold enough to go forth in front of the gates and give battle. Alexander divided his army into three divisions; one under Perdikkas and Amyntas, against the outwork—a second, destined to combat the Thebans who sallied out—and a third, held in reserve. Between the second of these three divisions, and the Thebans in front of the gates, the battle was so obstinately contested, that success at one time seemed doubtful, and Alexander was forced to order up his reserve. The first Macedonian success was gained by Perdikkas,[91] who, aided by the division of Amyntas and also by the Agrianian regiment and the bowmen carried the first of the two outworks, as well as a postern gate which had been left unguarded. His troops also stormed the second outwork, though he himself was severely wounded and borne away to the camp. Here the Theban defenders fled back into the city, along the hollow way which led to the temple of Herakles, pursued by the light troops, in advance of the rest. Upon these men, however, the Thebans presently turned, repelling them with the loss of Eurybotas their commanding officer and seventy men slain. In pursuing these bowmen, the ranks of the Thebans became somewhat disordered, so that they were unable to resist the steady charge of the Macedonian guards and heavy infantry coming up in support. They were broken, and pushed back into the city; their rout being rendered still more complete by a sally of the Macedonian garrison out of the Kadmeia. The assailants being victorious on this side, the Thebans who were maintaining the combat without the gates were compelled to retreat, and the advancing Macedonians forced their way into the town along with them. Within the town, however, the fighting still continued; the Thebans resisting in organized bodies as long as they could; and when broken, still resisting even single-handed. None of the military population sued for mercy; most of them were slain in the streets; but a few cavalry and infantry cut their way out into the plain and escaped. The fight now degenerated into a carnage. The Macedonians with their Pæonian contingents were incensed with the obstinate resistance; while various Greeks serving as auxiliaries—Phokians, Orchomenians, Thespians, Platæans,—had to avenge ancient and grievous injuries endured from Thebes. Such furious feelings were satiated by an indiscriminate massacre of all who came in their way, without distinction of age or sex—old men, women, and children, in houses and even in temples. This wholesale slaughter was accompanied of course by all the plunder and manifold outrage with which victorious assailants usually reward themselves.[92]
More than five hundred Macedonians are asserted to have been slain, and six thousand Thebans. Thirty thousand captives were collected.[93] The final destiny of these captives, and of Thebes itself, was submitted by Alexander to the Orchomenians, Platæans, Phokians, and other Grecian auxiliaries in the assault. He must have known well beforehand what the sentence of such judges would be. They pronounced, that the city of Thebes should be razed to the ground: that the Kadmeia alone should be maintained, as a military post with Macedonian garrison: that the Theban territory should be distributed among the allies themselves: that Orchomenus and Platæa should be rebuilt and fortified: that all the captive Thebans, men, women, and children, should be sold as slaves—excepting only priests and priestesses, and such as were connected by recognized ties of hospitality with Philip or Alexander, or such as had been proxeni of the Macedonians; that the Thebans who had escaped should be proclaimed outlaws, liable to arrest and death, wherever they were found; and that every Grecian city should be interdicted from harboring them.[94]
This overwhelming sentence, in spite of an appeal for lenity by a Theban[95] named Kleadas, was passed by the Grecian auxiliaries of Alexander, and executed by Alexander himself, who made but one addition to the excepting clauses. He left the house of Pindar standing, and spared the descendants of the poet. With these reserves, Thebes was effaced from the earth. The Theban territory was partitioned among the reconstituted cities of Orchomenus and Platæa. Nothing, except the Macedonian military post at the Kadmeia, remained to mark the place where the chief of the Bœotian confederacy had once stood. The captives were all sold, and are said to have yielded 440 talents; large prices being offered by bidders from feelings of hostility towards the city.[96] Diodorus tells us that this sentence was passed by the general synod of Greeks. But we are not called upon to believe that this synod, subservient though it was sure to be when called upon to deliberate under the armed force of Alexander, could be brought to sanction such a ruin upon one of the first and most ancient Hellenic cities. For we learn from Arrian that the question was discussed and settled only by the Grecian auxiliaries who had taken part with Alexander;[97] and that the sentence therefore represents the bitter antipathies of the Orchomenians, Platæans, etc. Without doubt, these cities had sustained harsh and cruel treatment from Thebes. In so far as they were concerned, the retribution upon the Thebans was merited. Those persons, however, who (as Arrian tells us) pronounced the catastrophe to be a divine judgment upon Thebes for having joined Xerxes against Greece[98] a century and a half before,—must have forgotten that not only the Orchomenians, but even Alexander of Macedon, the namesake and predecessor of the destroying conqueror, had served in the army of Xerxes along with the Thebans.
Arrian vainly endeavors to transfer from Alexander to the minor Bœotian towns the odium of this cruel destruction—unparalleled in Grecian history (as he himself says), when we look to the magnitude of the city; yet surpassed in the aggregate by the subversion, under the arms of Philip, of no less than thirty-two free Chalkidic cities, thirteen years before. The known antipathy of these Bœotians was invoked by Alexander to color an infliction which satisfied at once his sentiment, by destroying an enemy who defied him—and his policy, by serving as a terrific example to keep down other Greeks.[99] But though such were the views which governed him at the moment, he came afterwards to look back upon the proceeding with shame and sorrow. The shock to Hellenic feeling, when a city was subverted, arose not merely from the violent extinction of life, property, liberty, and social or political institutions—but also from the obliteration of legends and the suppression of religious observances, thus wronging and provoking the local gods and heroes. We shall presently find Alexander himself sacrificing at Ilium,[100] in order to appease the wrath of Priam, still subsisting and efficacious, against himself and his race, as being descended from Neoptolemus the slayer of Priam. By his harsh treatment of Thebes, he incurred the displeasure of Dionysus, the god of wine, said to have been born in that city, and one of the principal figures in Theban legend. It was to inspirations of the offended Dionysus that Alexander believed himself to owe that ungovernable drunken passion under which he afterwards killed Kleitus, as well as the refusal of his Macedonian soldiers to follow him farther into India.[101] If Alexander in after days thus repented of his own act, we may be sure that the like repugnance was felt still more strongly by others; and we can understand the sentiment under which, a few years after his decease, the Macedonian Kassander, son of Antipater, restored the destroyed city.
At the time, however, the effect produced by the destruction of Thebes was one of unmitigated terror throughout the Grecian cities. All of them sought to make their peace with the conqueror. The Arcadian contingent not only returned home from the Isthmus, but even condemned their leaders to death. The Eleians recalled their chief macedonizing citizens out of exile into ascendency at home. Each tribe of Ætolians sent envoys to Alexander, entreating forgiveness for the manifestations against him. At Athens, we read with surprise that on the very day when Thebes was assaulted and taken, the great festival of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, with its multitudinous procession of votaries from Athens to Eleusis, was actually taking place, at a distance of two days’ march from the besieged city. Most Theban fugitives who contrived to escape, fled to Attica as the nearest place of refuge, communicating to the Athenians their own distress and terror. The festival was forthwith suspended. Every one hurried within the walls of Athens,[102] carrying with him his movable property into a state of security. Under the general alarm prevalent, that the conqueror would march directly into Attica, and under the hurry of preparation for defence,—the persons both most alarmed and most in real danger were, of course, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, Charidemus, and those others who had been loudest in speech against Macedonia, and had tried to prevail on the Athenians to espouse openly the cause of Thebes. Yet notwithstanding such terror of consequences to themselves, the Athenians afforded shelter and sympathy to the miserable Theban fugitives. They continued to do this even when they must have known that they were contravening the edict of proscription just sanctioned by Alexander.
Shortly afterwards, envoys arrived from that monarch with a menacing letter, formally demanding the surrender of eight or ten leading citizens of Athens—Demosthenes, Lykurgus, Hyperides, Polyeuktus, Mœroklês, Diotimus,[103] Ephialtes, and Charidemus. Of these the first four were eminent orators, the last two military men; all strenuous advocates of an anti-Macedonian policy. Alexander in his letter denounced the ten as the causes of the battle of Chæroneia, of the offensive resolutions which had been adopted at Athens after the death of Philip, and even of the recent hostile proceedings of the Thebans.[104] This momentous summons, involving the right of free speech and public debate at Athens, was submitted to the assembly. A similar demand had just been made upon the Thebans, and the consequences of refusal were to be read no less plainly in the destruction of their city than in the threats of the conqueror. That even under such trying circumstances, neither orators nor people failed in courage—we know as a general fact; though we have not the advantage (as Livy had in his time) of reading the speeches made in the debate.[105] Demosthenes, insisting that the fate of the citizens generally could not be severed from that of the specific victims, is said to have recounted in the course of his speech, the old fable—of the wolf requiring the sheep to make over to him their protecting dogs, as a condition of peace—and then, devouring the unprotected sheep forthwith. He, and those demanded along with him, claimed the protection of the people, in whose cause alone they had incurred the wrath of the conqueror. Phokion on the other hand—silent at first, and rising only under constraint by special calls from the popular voice—contended that there was not force enough to resist Alexander, and that the persons in question must be given up. He even made appeal to themselves individually, reminding them of the self-devotion of the daughters of Erechtheus, memorable in Attic legend—and calling on them to surrender themselves voluntarily for the purpose of perverting public calamity He added, that he (Phokion) would rejoice to offer up either himself, or his best friend, if by such sacrifice he could save the city.[106] Lykurgus, one of the orators whose extradition was required, answered this speech of Phokion with vehemence and bitterness; and the public sentiment went along with him, indignantly repudiating Phokion’s advice. By a resolute patriotism highly honorable at this trying juncture, it was decreed that the persons demanded should not be surrendered.[107]
On the motion of Demades, an embassy was sent to Alexander, deprecating his wrath against the ten, and engaging to punish them by judicial sentence, if any crime could be proved against them. Demades, who is said to have received from Demosthenes a bribe of five talents, undertook this mission. But Alexander was at first inexorable; refusing even to hear the envoys, and persisting in his requisition. It was only by the intervention of a second embassy, headed by Phokion, that a remission of terms was obtained. Alexander was persuaded to withdraw his requisition, and to be satisfied with the banishment of Charidemus and Ephialtes, the two anti-Macedonian military leaders. Both of them accordingly, and seemingly other Athenians with them, passed into Asia, where they took service under Darius.[108]