Such was the varying point of view under which the contest in Asia presented itself to Grecian spectators, during the three years and a half between the landing of Alexander in Asia and the battle of Arbela. As to the leading states in Greece, we have to look at Athens and Sparta only; for Thebes had been destroyed and demolished as a city; and what had been once the citadel of the Kadmeia was now a Macedonian garrison.[660] Moreover, besides that garrison, the Bœotian cities, Orchomenus, Platæa, etc., were themselves strongholds of Macedonian dependence; being hostile to Thebes of old, and having received among themselves assignments of all the Theban lands.[661] In case of any movement in Greece, therefore, Antipater, the viceroy of Macedonia, might fairly count on finding in Greece interested allies, serving as no mean check upon Attica.
At Athens, the reigning sentiment was decidedly pacific. Few were disposed to brave the prince who had just given so fearful an evidence of his force by the destruction of Thebes and the enslavement of the Thebans. Ephialtes and Charidemus, the military citizens at Athens most anti-Macedonian in sentiment, had been demanded as prisoners by Alexander, and had withdrawn to Asia, there to take service with Darius. Other Athenians, men of energy and action, had followed their example, and had fought against Alexander at the Granikus, where they became his prisoners, and were sent to Macedonia to work in fetters at the mines. Ephialtes perished at the siege of Halikarnassus, while defending the place with the utmost gallantry; Charidemus suffered a more unworthy death from the shameful sentence of Darius. The anti-Macedonian leaders who remained at Athens, such as Demosthenes and Lykurgus, were not generals or men of action, but statesmen and orators. They were fully aware that submission to Alexander was a painful necessity, though they watched not the less anxiously for any reverse which might happen to him, such as to make it possible for Athens to head a new struggle on behalf of Grecian freedom.
But it was not Demosthenes nor Lykurgus who now guided the general policy of Athens.[662] For the twelve years between the destruction of Thebes and the death of Alexander, Phokion and Demades were her ministers for foreign affairs; two men of totally opposite characters, but coinciding in pacific views, and in looking to the favor of Alexander and Antipater as the principal end to be attained. Twenty Athenian triremes were sent to act with the Macedonian fleet, during Alexander’s first campaign in Asia; these, together with the Athenian prisoners taken at the Granikus, served to him farther as a guarantee for the continued submission of the Athenians generally.[663] There can be no doubt that the pacific policy of Phokion was now prudent and essential to Athens, though the same cannot be said (as I have remarked in the proper place) for his advocacy of the like policy twenty years before, when Philip’s power was growing and might have been arrested by vigorous opposition. It suited the purpose of Antipater to ensure his hold upon Athens by frequent presents to Demades, a man of luxurious and extravagant habits. But Phokion, incorruptible as well as poor to the end, declined all similar offers, though often made to him, not only by Antipater, but even by Alexander.[664]
It deserves particular notice, that though the macedonizing policy was now decidedly in the ascendent—accepted, even by dissentients, as the only course admissible under the circumstances, and confirmed the more by each successive victory of Alexander—yet statesmen, like Lykurgus and Demosthenes, of notorious anti-Macedonian sentiment, still held a conspicuous and influential position, though of course restricted to matters of internal administration. Thus Lykurgus continued to be the real acting minister of finance, for three successive Panathenaic intervals of four years each, or for an uninterrupted period of twelve years. He superintended not merely the entire collection, but also the entire disbursement of the public revenue; rendering strict periodical account, yet with a financial authority greater than had belonged to any statesman since Perikles. He improved the gymnasia and stadia of the city—multiplied the donatives and sacred furniture in the temples—enlarged, or constructed anew, docks and arsenals,—provided a considerable stock of arms and equipments, military as well as naval—and maintained four hundred triremes in a seaworthy condition, for the protection of Athenian commerce. In these extensive functions he was never superseded, though Alexander at one time sent to require the surrender of his person, which was refused by the Athenian people.[665] The main cause of his firm hold upon the public mind, was, his known and indisputable pecuniary probity, wherein he was the parallel of Phokion.
As to Demosthenes, he did not hold any such commanding public appointments as Lykurgus; but he enjoyed great esteem and sympathy from the people generally, for his marked line of public counsel during the past. The proof of this is to be found in one very significant fact. The indictment, against Ktesiphon’s motion for crowning Demosthenes, was instituted by Æschines, and official entry made of it, before the death of Philip—which event occurred in August 336 B. C. Yet Æschines did not venture to bring it on for trial until August 330 B. C., after Antipater had subdued the ill-fated rising of the Lacedæmonian king Agis; and even at that advantageous moment, when the macedonizers seemed in full triumph, he signally failed. We thus perceive, that though Phokion and Demades were now the leaders of Athenian affairs, as representing a policy which every one felt to be unavoidable—yet the preponderant sentiment of the people went with Demosthenes and Lykurgus. In fact, we shall see that after the Lamian war, Antipater thought it requisite to subdue or punish this sentiment by disfranchising or deporting two-thirds of the citizens.[666] It seems however that the anti-Macedonian statesmen were very cautious of giving offence to Alexander, between 334 and 330 B. C. Ktesiphon accepted a mission of condolence to Kleopatra, sister of Alexander, on the death of her husband Alexander of Epirus; and Demosthenes stands accused of having sent humble and crouching letters to Alexander (the Great) in Phenicia, during the spring of 331 B. C. This assertion of Æschines, though not to be trusted as correct, indicates the general prudence of Demosthenes as to his known and formidable enemy.[667]
It was not from Athens, but from Sparta, that anti-Macedonian movements now took rise.
In the decisive battle unsuccessfully fought by Athens and Thebes at Chæroneia against Philip, the Spartans had not been concerned. Their king Archidamus,—who had been active conjointly with Athens in the Sacred War, trying to uphold the Phokians against Philip and the Thebans,—had afterwards withdrawn himself from Central Greece to assist the Tarentines in Italy, and had been slain in a battle against the Messapians.[668] He was succeeded by his son Agis, a brave and enterprising man, under whom the Spartans, though abstaining from hostilities against Philip, resolutely declined to take part in the synod at Corinth, whereby the Macedonian prince was nominated Leader of the Greeks; and even persisted in the same denial on Alexander’s nomination also. When Alexander sent to Athens three hundred panoplies after his victory at the Granikus, to be dedicated in the temple of Athênê, he expressly proclaimed in the inscription, that they were dedicated “by Alexander and the Greeks, excepting the Lacedæmonians.”[669] Agis took the lead in trying to procure Persian aid for anti-Macedonian operations in Greece. Towards the close of summer 333 B. C., a little before the battle of Issus, he visited the Persian admirals at Chios, to solicit men and money for intended action in Peloponnesus.[670] At that moment, they were not zealous in the direction of Greece, anticipating (as most Asiatics then did) the complete destruction of Alexander in Kilikia. As soon, however, as the disaster of Issus became known, they placed at the disposal of Agis thirty talents and ten triremes; which he employed, under his brother Agesilaus, in making himself master of Krete—feeling that no movement in Greece could be expected at such a discouraging crisis. Agis himself soon afterwards went to that island, having strengthened himself by a division of the Greek mercenaries who had fought under Darius at Issus. In Krete, he appears to have had considerable temporary success; and even in Peloponnesus, he organized some demonstrations, which Alexander sent Amphoterus with a large naval force to repress, in the spring of 331 B. C.[671] At that time, Phenicia, Egypt, and all the naval mastery of the Ægean, had passed into the hands of the conqueror, so that the Persians had no direct means of acting upon Greece. Probably Amphoterus recovered Krete, but he had no land-force to attack Agis in Peloponnesus.
In October 331 B. C., Darius was beaten at Arbela and became a fugitive in Media, leaving Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, with the bulk of his immense treasures, as a prey to the conqueror during the coming winter. After such prodigious accessions to Alexander’s force, it would seem that any anti-Macedonian movement, during the spring of 330 B. C., must have been obviously hopeless and even insane. Yet it was just then that King Agis found means to enlarge his scale of operations in Peloponnesus, and prevailed on a considerable body of new allies to join him. As to himself personally, he and the Lacedæmonians had been previously in a state of proclaimed war with Macedonia,[672] and therefore incurred little additional risk; moreover, it was one of the effects of the Asiatic disasters to cast back upon Greece small hands of soldiers who had hitherto found service in the Persian armies. These men willingly came to Cape Tænarus to enlist under a warlike king of Sparta; so that Agis found himself at the head of a force which appeared considerable to Peloponnesians, familiar only with the narrow scale of Grecian war-muster, though insignificant as against Alexander or his viceroy in Macedonia.[673] An unexpected ray of hope broke out from the revolt of Memnon, the Macedonian governor of Thrace. Antipater was thus compelled to withdraw some of his forces to a considerable distance from Greece; while Alexander, victorious as he was, being in Persis or Media, east of Mount Zagros, appeared in the eyes of a Greek to have reached the utmost limits of the habitable world.[674] Of this partial encouragement Agis took advantage, to march out of Lakonia with all the troops, mercenary and native, that he could muster. He called on the Peloponnesians for a last effort against Macedonian dominion, while Darius still retained all the eastern half of his empire, and while support from him in men and money might yet be anticipated.[675]
Respecting this war, we know very few details. At first, a flush of success appeared in attend Agis. The Eleians, the Achæans (except Pellênê), the Arcadians (except Megalopolis) and some other Peloponnesians, joined his standard; so that he was enabled to collect an army stated at 20,000 foot and 2000 horse. Defeating the first Macedonian forces sent against him, he proceeded to lay siege to Megalopolis; which city, now as previously, was the stronghold of Macedonian influence in the peninsula, and was probably occupied by a Macedonian garrison. An impulse manifested itself at Athens in favor of active sympathy, and equipment of a fleet to aid this anti-Macedonian effort. It was resisted by Phokion and Demades, doubtless upon all views of prudence, but especially upon one financial ground, taken by the latter, that the people would be compelled to forego the Theoric distribution.[676] Even Demosthenes himself, under circumstances so obviously discouraging, could not recommend the formidable step of declaring against Alexander—though he seems to have indulged in the expression of general anti-Macedonian sympathies, and to have complained of the helplessness into which Athens had been brought by past bad policy.[677] Antipater, closing the war in Thrace on the best terms that he could, hastened into Greece with his full forces, and reached Peloponnesus in time to relieve Megalopolis, which had begun to be in danger. One decisive battle, which took place in Arcadia, sufficed to terminate the war. Agis and his army, the Lacedæmonians especially, fought with gallantry and desperation, but were completely defeated. Five thousand of their men were slain, including Agis himself; who, though covered with wounds, disdained to leave the field, and fell resisting to the last. The victors, according to one account, lost 3500 men; according to another, 1000 slain, together with a great many wounded. This was a greater loss than Alexander had sustained either at Issus or at Arbela; a plain proof that Agis and his companions, however unfortunate in the result, had manifested courage worthy of the best days of Sparta.
The allied forces were now so completely crushed, that all submitted to Antipater. After consulting the philo-Macedonian synod at Corinth, he condemned the Achæans and Eleians to pay 120 talents to Megalopolis, and exacted from the Tegeans the punishment of those among their leading men who had advised the war.[678] But he would not take upon him to determine the treatment of the Lacedæmonians, without special reference to Alexander. Requiring from them fifty hostages, he sent up to Alexander in Asia some Lacedæmonian envoys or prisoners, to throw themselves on his mercy.[679] We are told that they did not reach the king until a long time afterwards, at Baktra;[680] what he decided about Sparta generally, we do not know.