greater part of Southern and Central Greece, Sparta had now stepped into the uncomfortable shoes of Athens, and found herself the mistress of more than a hundred island or seaport “cities.” Now Sparta, as she was frequently reminded, had gone into the Peloponnesian War as champion of the liberty of Hellas against a tyrant city. She had gained the day partly through the virtue of that charming phrase, but I doubt whether anybody seriously expected her to set the Ionian cities and islands at liberty. They were not used to liberty, and would not have known what to do with it. They had utterly lost the habit of fighting or doing anything but pay for their own safety. They were too lazy and broad-minded to care very much where their tribute went. None of them had been enthusiastic about its previous destination. We hear of no bitter lamentations when they discovered that Sparta was selling them wholesale back to the Persians. Pharnabazus and Tissaphernes, the western satraps of the Great King, seem to have been easygoing gentlemen of normal Eastern calm and duplicity. They were not of the stamp of conquerors or despots, but they had heaps of money and were adepts at making and breaking treaties. Sparta both by geography and by habit was an inland power. She never produced more than one competent admiral, and that was the man now at the zenith of his power, Lysander. As Sparta had now inherited a maritime empire, and as she was unable and unwilling to embark definitely upon a naval career, it became necessary to organise a system of garrisons and governors in every city under her sway. This work of organisation fell to Lysander—the nearest equivalent to a Cæsar that Greece ever produced. The Spartan empire, such as it was, was Lysander’s handiwork. Of course every state that came into Spartan hands was forcibly converted to oligarchy. This has often been represented as another example of Sparta’s tyranny. But a survey of Greece will soon convince us that oligarchy, and not democracy, is the normal condition of the Greek polis; and, in fact, with a few rare exceptions, it is only Athens and the states directly under her influence which are democracies. But Lysander was corrupt, and he entrusted the government in each town to a group of local aristocrats who had won or purchased his interest. Thus the states of the Spartan empire were generally governed by a Council of Ten, working hand in glove with a Spartan captain and a Spartan garrison. Athens, as we have seen, was also accustomed to send garrisons where she conquered. But all that we know of the Spartan temper assures us that the little finger of Sparta was thicker than the loins of Athens.
Like Pausanias before him, Admiral Lysander became intoxicated with success. A very little liberty and luxury was enough to bring giddiness to the ascetic heads of Sparta. Lysander began to think revolutionary thoughts of a Sparta where men could be rich and free like the rest of the world. And the infection spread. Sparta was now earning a thousand talents a year from her empire, and though money was still forbidden at home, and though Sparta had as yet absolutely no coinage of her own, private Spartans were unquestionably getting rich quickly. A rich Spartan was a horrid anomaly: there was nothing that money could buy in Laconia except land. Hence family estates began to change hands faster, and the class of landless, therefore voteless, men of Spartan blood rapidly multiplied. It was Sparta’s boast that she alone in all Greece had never suffered a revolution. She never came so near it as on the present occasion, when Lysander with his riches was trying to subvert the Lycurgean constitution by bribing the Delphic oracle, and the discontented Inferiors at home were planning a secret rebellion. Both failed: the conspiracy of Cinadon was detected by the vigilant Ephors and ruthlessly crushed, while Lysander in playing the part of king-maker unwittingly made a king who was his equal in ability. Very soon the conqueror of Athens found himself unnecessary to Sparta, and had to submit to the indignity of being tried and pardoned.
The new king was Agesilaus, whose long and important career was the subject of many biographies. He it was who pointed the path of glory to Alexander by revealing the utter incapacity of the Persians to guard their treasures. For Sparta had quickly fallen out with the satraps, and Agesilaus marched about the Phrygian and Lydian coasts gathering plunder with very little difficulty. One of the biographers of Agesilaus was his friend and admirer Xenophon, who was concerned in a great adventure which likewise served to betray the weakness of the Persian empire.
The British schoolboy, fleshing his young teeth upon the “Anabasis” of Xenophon, struggling in a wilderness of parasangs and paradigms and puzzling out what Cheirisophos said and where they pitched camp that night, seldom realises the romantic nature of the enterprise. There was a dynastic struggle in Persia. Cyrus, a bold and able prince, was disputing the succession to the throne with the rightful successor, Artaxerxes. Knowing the weakness of his native troops, Cyrus conceived the idea of stiffening them with ten thousand hired Greeks, for by now the use of mercenaries was growing more frequent in the Greek world. These troops were mostly Spartans, their leader was Clearchus, a Spartan, and Xenophon of Athens was a volunteer under his command. They were recruited without knowing the full nature of the enterprise, and it was only when they found themselves in the heart of Asia that they learnt to their horror that the objective was the far-distant capital. At length they reached Cunaxa, near Babylon, where a mighty host opposed their advance. In the battle Cyrus was killed and the native portion of his troops fled or surrendered or were slain. But the Greeks had fought so valiantly that the victorious army of Artaxerxes did not care to attempt their capture, though the crafty Tissaphernes succeeded in assassinating their leaders and leading the army astray into the wilderness. Thus the Ten Thousand found themselves stranded in a hostile country, without generals and without guides, nearly two thousand miles from home. But being Greeks, with a proper contempt for the barbarian, they scorned to lose heart, though the chance of a safe return must have seemed hopeless. The strong political instinct of the city-state was their salvation. They resolved themselves into a wandering polis, held assemblies, made speeches, elected generals, with Xenophon among them, and preserved perfect self-control and discipline. So began the Catabasis, an immense and dangerous march north-westward, through the passes of the Taurus and the uplands of Armenia, fighting the wild Kurds of the hills, struggling with cold and hunger, utterly ignorant of geography except for the belief that if they went on long enough in the same direction they would some day reach the sea. Their glad cry of “Thalassa! Thalassa!” when at last they saw the shining waters of the Euxine is a cry that has echoed through the ages. Henceforth they were passing through the series of Greek colonies that fringed the south coast of the Black Sea. Though many more adventures awaited them and they were seldom very welcome visitors, yet no fewer than 6000 reached home, and, we trust, lived happily ever afterwards. Not so much the fighting as the courage of the march and the sense of discipline make this one of the finest exploits in Greek history.
As for Xenophon, he retired to spend his leisure and his money close to his beloved Sparta. Purchasing an estate near Olympia, he devoted his veteran days to literature and sport. His life in Triphylia is a picture of the retired sporting colonel of religious and aristocratic tendencies. He regards his estate as a stewardship for the goddess Artemis. He builds her a shrine, an altar with a statue of cypress-wood modelled on the temple and golden statue of Ephesus. Hard by was a river full of fish, and an orchard, with pasture-lands and upland game preserves, abounding in wild boars, gazelles, and deer. Every year he gave a sacrifice to the goddess, and invited his neighbours to the feast. There would be barley porridge, wheaten loaves, and sweetmeats. Game had previously been supplied by a day’s hunting on a large scale, in which Xenophon’s sons conducted the operations and all the neighbours took part if they liked.
Xenophon is one of the most accomplished and versatile of
FIG. 1. HEAD OF A YOUTH