CONTEST OF THEBES AND SPARTA.—The Spartans had fallen away from the old rules of life ascribed to Lycurgus. They were possessed by a greed for gold. There were extremes of wealth and poverty among them. After the treaty of Antalcidas, they still lorded it over other states, and were bent on governing in Peloponnesus. At length they were involved in a contest with Thebes. This was caused by the seizure of the Cadmeia, the Theban citadel, by the Spartan Phoebidas acting in conjunction with an aristocratic party in Thebes (383 B.C.). The Theban democrats, who, under Pelopidas, made Athens their place of rendezvous, liberated Thebes, and expelled the Spartans from the Cadmeia. Hostile attempts of Sparta against Athens induced the Athenians to form a new confederacy (or symmachy) composed of seventy communities (378 B.C.); and, after they had gained repeated successes on the sea, the two states concluded peace. Athens had become alarmed at the increased power of Thebes, and was ready to go over to the side of Sparta, her old enemy. It was a feeling in favor of a balance of power like that which had prompted Sparta at the close of the Peloponnesian war, to refuse to consent to the destruction of Athens, which Thebes and Corinth had desired. Cleombrotus, king of Sparta, again invaded Boeotia. The principal Boeotian leader was Epaminondas, one of the noblest patriots in all Grecian history,—in his disinterested spirit and self-government resembling Washington. The Spartan king was defeated by him in the great battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.), and was there slain. At this time the rage of party knew no bounds. The wholesale massacre of political antagonists in a city was no uncommon occurrence.
THEBAN HEGEMONY.—The victory of Leuctra gave the hegemony to Thebes. Three times the Boeotians invaded the Spartan territory. They founded Megalopolis in Arcadia, to strengthen the Arcadians against their Lacedæmonian assailants (370 B.C.). They also revived the Messenian power, recalled the Messenians who had long been in exile, and founded the city of Messene. In the battle of Mantinea (362 B.C.), Epaminondas, though victorious against the Spartans and their allies, was slain. Peace followed among the Grecian states, Sparta alone refusing to be a party to it. In the course of this intestine war, the Thebans had broken up the new maritime sway gained by them.
PERIOD III. THE MACEDONIAN ERA.
CHAPTER I. PHILIP AND ALEXANDER.
THE MACEDONIANS.—The Greeks, exhausted by long-continued war with one another, were just in a condition to fall under the dominion of Macedonia, the kingdom on the north which had been ambitious to extend its power. The Macedonians were a mixed race, partly Greek and partly Illyrian. Although they were not acknowledged to be Greeks, their kings claimed to be of Greek descent, and were allowed to take part in the Olympian games. At first an inland community, living in the country, rough and uncultivated, made up mostly of farmers and hunters, they had been growing more civilized by the efforts of their kings to introduce Greek customs. Archelaus (413-399 B.C.) had even attracted Greek artists and poets to his court. At the same time they were exerting themselves to extend their power to the sea. The people were hardy and brave. When Epaminondas died, Philip (359-336 B.C.) was on the Macedonian throne. He had lived three years at Thebes, and had learned much from Epaminondas, the best strategist and tactician of his day. The decline of public spirit in Greece had led the states to rely very much on mercenary troops, whose trade was war. Philip had a well-drilled standing army. Every thing was favorable to the gratification of his wish to make himself master of Greece. First he aimed to get possession of Greek cities in Chalcidice, of which Olynthus was the chief. The Athenians had towns in that region, besides Amphipolis, which was formerly theirs. Philip contrived to make the Olynthians his allies; and then, crossing the river Strymon, he conquered the western part of Thrace, where there were rich gold mines. There, for purposes of defense, he founded the city of Philippi.
THE SACRED WAR.—A pretext for interfering in the affairs of Greece, Philip found in the Sacred War in behalf of the temple of Delphi, which had been forced to loan money to the Phocians during a war waged by them against Thebes, to throw off the Theban supremacy. Athens and Sparta joined the Phocians. The Thessalian nobles sided with Philip. He gained the victory in his character of champion of the Amphictyonic Council, and took his place in that body, in the room of the Phocians (346 B.C.). But this was not accomplished until he had made peace with the Athenians, so that there was no Athenian force at the pass of Thermopylae to resist his progress.
DEMOSTHENES.—The Athenians had placed themselves at the head of an Aegean League, and, had they managed with more spirit and prudence, they might have checked Philip. There was one man, worthy of the best days of Greece, who penetrated the designs of Philip, and exerted his great powers to stimulate his countrymen to a timely resistance. This was Demosthenes (385-322 B.C.). He was the prince of the school of orators who had sprung up in these troublous times. Overcoming natural obstacles, he had trained himself with such assiduity that a place at the head of all orators, ancient and modern, is generally conceded to him. He was a great statesman, moved by a patriotic spirit: his speeches were for the welfare and salvation of the state. In 358 B.C., a war broke out between Athens and its maritime allies, in which Athens was unsuccessful. It was on the conquest of Thessaly by Philip, that Demosthenes made against him the first of that series of famous speeches known as Philippics (351 B.C.). In vain he urged the Athenians to rescue Olynthus. The inefficiency of the aid rendered, enabled Philip to conquer and destroy that city, and to sell its inhabitants as slaves (348 B.C.). Thirty cities he destroyed, and annexed all Chalcidice to Macedon. A Macedonian party was formed at Athens, the foremost leader of which was Aeschines, not a good citizen, but an orator only second in rank to Demosthenes. They contended that it was futile to resist the advance of the Macedonian power. Demosthenes went at the head of an embassy to the Peloponnesian states which had taken sides with Philip, but his efforts to dissuade them from this suicidal policy were unavailing. What he wanted was a union of all Greeks against the common enemy, who was bent on robbing them of their liberty. He gathered, at length, a strong party about him at Athens. The overtures of peace from Philip, who was prosecuting his conquests in Thrace, were rejected. Athenian forces obliged the king to give up the siege of Byzantium (341 B.C.). The consequent enlarged influence of Demosthenes was used by him to secure an increase of the fund for carrying on the war. But Philip had his paid supporters in all the Greek states. Aeschines at Athens proved an efficient helper. A deputy at the Amphictyonic Council, in 338 B.C., he contrived to bring about another "holy war" against Amphissa in Locris, the end being to give Philip the command. Philip seized Elatea, in the east of Phocis, which commanded the entrance to Boeotia and Attica. Dismay spread through Greece. Demosthenes roused the Athenian assembly, where all were silent through fear, to confront Philip boldly, and himself went to Thebes, which he induced to form an alliance with Athens. But the allies were defeated at the fatal battle of Chaeronea (August, 338 B.C.), where Alexander, Philip's youthful son, decided the fortune of the day by vanquishing the Theban "sacred band." Philip treated the Thebans with great severity. He placed a garrison in the Cadmeia. To Athens he granted favorable terms. Marching into Peloponnesus, he took from Sparta a large part of its territory, and apportioned it to the Messenians, Argives, and Arcadians. At a national assembly at Corinth, from which the Spartans were absent, Philip caused himself to be created leader of the Grecian forces against Persia, with the powers of a dictator. Each of the Greek states was to retain its autonomy; and a congress, to meet at Corinth, was to settle differences among them. Two years after the battle of Chaeronea, at the marriage festival of his daughter with the king of Epirus, Philip was assassinated by means of a conspiracy, in which his queen is thought to have been a partner.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT.—Alexander was twenty years old when his father died. His bodily health and vigor qualified him for combats and toils which few soldiers in his army could endure. His energy, rapidity, and military skill lift him to a level with Hannibal and the foremost commanders of any age. He was not without a generous appreciation of art and literature. The great philosopher, Aristotle, was one of his tutors. For the eminent authors and artists of Greece he cherished a warm admiration. But his temper was passionate and imperious. Homer was his delight, and in Homer he took Agamemnon for his model; but the direst act of cruelty done by Achilles—that of dragging Hector after his chariot—he exceeded when he dragged Batis, a general who had opposed him, at the tail of his chariot through the streets of Gaza. Especially when his passions were inflamed by strong drink,—as at banquets, occasions where Macedonian princes before him had been wont to drink to excess,—he was capable of savage deeds.
ALEXANDER IN GREECE: HIS ARMY.—At a congress in Corinth, Alexander was recognized as the leader and general of Greece. In the spring of 335 B.C., he made a campaign against the barbarous peoples north of Macedonia,—the Thracians, the Getae, and the Illyrians. A false report of his death led to an uprising of the Greeks. Quickly returning, he took vengeance on the Thebans by razing their city to the ground, sparing only the temples and Pindar's house, and by selling its thirty thousand inhabitants into slavery. Athens prayed for pardon, which was granted, even the demand for the surrender of Demosthenes and other leaders being revoked. All resistance in Greece was over. Alexander's hands were free to complete his preparations for the task of conquering the Persian Empire. His army was strong through its valor and discipline rather than its numbers. The Macedonian phalanx was the most effective force which had hitherto been used in war. It was made up of foot soldiers drawn up in ranks, three feet apart, with spears twenty-one feet in length, held fifteen feet from the point. The length of the spears and the projection of so many in front of the first rank, gave to the phalanx a great advantage, although such a body of troops could be turned around with difficulty. Alexander began his battles with other troops, and used the phalanx for the decisive charge. Only native Macedonians served in the phalanx. This was the case, also, with the Guard, a body of infantry, and with two divisions of cavalry, one clad in heavy armor, and one in light. With these troops were Greek and barbarian soldiers, infantry and cavalry, and a division for hurling stones, which was used not only in sieges, but also in battles. There was a band of young Macedonian soldiers called pages, also a body-guard selected from these by promotion; and out of this the king chose his generals. The army consisted of not more than forty thousand men, but it was so organized as to be completely under the control of Alexander; and he was a military genius of the first order.
THE CAMPAIGN OF ALEXANDER: TO THE BATTLE OF ISSUS.—In the spring of 334 B.C., Alexander crossed the Hellespont at Abydos. At Ilium (Troy) he performed various rites in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, his romantic sympathy with whom was the principal tie between him and the Greeks. A Persian army disputed the passage of the Granicus. He was the first to enter the river, and in the battle displayed the utmost personal valor. His decisive victory caused nearly the whole of Asia Minor to submit to him. Halicarnassus, and the few other towns that held out, were taken by storm. At Tarsus he was cured by his physician, Philip, of a dangerous fever, brought on by a bath in the chilly waters of the river Cydnus. Darius III., the king of Persia, with a large army, approaching from the Euphrates, encountered him in a valley near Issus, in Cilicia. There (333 B.C.) was fought the memorable battle which settled the fate of the Persian Empire. The host of Darius was defeated with great slaughter; and his camp, with his treasures and his family, fell into the hands of the victor.