TROUBLE WITH THEBES
It was at this time that the first connection began between Athens and the little Bœotian town of Platæa, situated on the northern slope of the range of Cithæron, between that mountain and the river Asopus, on the road from Athens to Thebes; and it is upon this first occasion that we become acquainted with the Bœotians and their polities. The Bœotian federation has already been briefly described, as composed of some twelve or thirteen autonomous towns under the headship of Thebes, which was, or professed to have been, their mother-city. Platæa had been, so the Thebans affirmed, their latest foundation; it was ill-used by them, and discontented with the alliance. Accordingly, as Cleomenes was on his way back from Athens, the Platæans took the opportunity of addressing themselves to him, craved the protection of Sparta against Thebes, and surrendered their town and territory without reserve. The Spartan king, having no motive to undertake a trust which promised nothing but trouble, advised them to solicit the protection of Athens, as nearer and more accessible for them in case of need. He foresaw that this would embroil the Athenians with Bœotia; and such anticipation was in fact his chief motive for giving the advice, which the Platæans followed.
[506 B.C.]
Selecting an occasion of public sacrifice at Athens, they despatched thither envoys, who sat down as suppliants at the altar, surrendered their town to Athens, and implored protection against Thebes. Such an appeal was not to be resisted, and protection was promised; it was soon needed, for the Thebans invaded the Platæan territory, and an Athenian force marched to defend it. Battle was about to be joined, when the Corinthians interposed with their mediation, which was accepted by both parties. They decided altogether in favour of Platæa, pronouncing that the Thebans had no right to employ force against any seceding member of the Bœotian federation. But the Thebans, finding the decision against them, refused to abide by it, and, attacking the Athenians on their return, sustained a complete defeat: the latter avenged this breach of faith by joining to Platæa the portion of Theban territory south of the Asopus, and making that river the limit between the two. By such success, however, the Athenians gained nothing, except the enmity of Bœotia, as Cleomenes had foreseen. Their alliance with Platæa, long continued, and presenting in the course of this history several incidents touching to our sympathies, will be found, if we except one splendid occasion, productive only of burden to the one party, yet insufficient as a protection to the other.
Meanwhile Cleomenes had returned to Sparta full of resentment against the Athenians, and resolved on punishing them, as well as on establishing his friend Isagoras as despot over them. Having been taught, however, by humiliating experience, that this was no easy achievement, he would not make the attempt, without having assembled a considerable force; he summoned allies from all the various states of the Peloponnesus, yet without venturing to inform them what he was about to undertake. He at the same time concerted measures with the Bœotians, and with the Chalcidians of Eubœa, for a simultaneous invasion of Attica on all sides. It appears that he had greater confidence in their hostile dispositions towards Athens than in those of the Peloponnesians; he was not afraid to acquaint them with his design, and probably the Bœotians were incensed with the recent interference of Athens in the affair of Platæa. As soon as these preparations were completed, the two kings of Sparta, Cleomenes and Demaratus, put themselves at the head of the united Peloponnesian force, marched into Attica, and advanced as far as Eleusis on the way to Athens. But when the allies came to know the purpose for which they were to be employed, a spirit of dissatisfaction manifested itself among them. They had no unfriendly sentiment towards Athens; and the Corinthians especially, favourably disposed rather than otherwise towards that city, resolved to proceed no further, withdrew their contingent from the camp, and returned home. At the same time, king Demaratus, either sharing in the general dissatisfaction, or moved by some grudge against his colleague which had not before manifested itself, renounced the undertaking also. And these two examples, operating upon the pre-existing sentiment of the allies generally, caused the whole camp to break up and return home without striking a blow.
We may here remark that this is the first instance known in which Sparta appears in act as recognised head of an obligatory Peloponnesian alliance, summoning contingents from the cities to be placed under the command of her king. Her headship, previously recognised in theory, passes now into act, but in an unsatisfactory manner, so as to prove the necessity of precaution and concert beforehand, which will be found not long wanting.
Pursuant to the scheme concerted, the Bœotians and Chalcidians attacked Attica at the same time that Cleomenes entered it. The former seized Œnoe and Hysiæ, the frontier demes of Attica on the side towards Platæa, while the latter assailed the northeastern frontier, which faces Eubœa. Invaded on three sides, the Athenians were in serious danger, and were compelled to concentrate all their forces at Eleusis against Cleomenes, leaving the Bœotians and Chalcidians unopposed. But the unexpected breaking up of the invading army from the Peloponnesus proved their rescue, and enabled them to turn the whole of their attention to the other frontier. They marched into Bœotia to the strait called Euripus, which separates it from Eubœa, intending to prevent the junction of the Bœotians and Chalcidians, and to attack the latter first apart. But the arrival of the Bœotians caused an alteration of their scheme; they attacked the Bœotians first, and gained a victory of the most complete character, killing a large number, and capturing seven hundred prisoners. On the very same day they crossed over to Eubœa, attacked the Chalcidians, and gained another victory so decisive that it at once terminated the war. Many Chalcidians were taken, as well as Bœotians, and conveyed in chains to Athens, where after a certain detention they were at last ransomed for two minæ per man; and the tenth of the sum thus raised was employed in the fabrication of a chariot and four horses in bronze, which was placed in the Acropolis to commemorate the victory. Herodotus saw this trophy when he was at Athens. He saw too, what was a still more speaking trophy, the actual chains in which the prisoners had been fettered, exhibiting in their appearance the damage undergone when the Acropolis was burnt by Xerxes: an inscription of four lines described the offerings and recorded the victory out of which they had sprung.
Another consequence of some moment arose out of this victory. The Athenians planted a body of four thousand of their citizens as cleruchs (lot-holders) or settlers upon the lands of the wealthy Chalcidian oligarchy called the hippobotæ—proprietors probably in the fertile plain of Lelantum, between Chalcis and Eretria. This is a system which we shall find hereafter extensively followed out by the Athenians in the days of their power; partly with the view of providing for their poorer citizens, partly to serve as garrison among a population either hostile or of doubtful fidelity. These Attic cleruchs (we can find no other name by which to speak of them) did not lose their birthright as Athenian citizens: they were not colonists in the Grecian sense, and they are known by a totally different name, but they corresponded very nearly to the colonies formally planted out on the conquered lands by Rome. The increase of the poorer population was always more or less painfully felt in every Grecian city. For though the aggregate population never seems to have increased very fast, yet the multiplication of children in poor families caused the subdivision of the smaller lots of land, until at last they became insufficient for a maintenance; and the persons thus impoverished found it difficult to obtain subsistence in other ways, more especially as the labour for the richer classes was so much performed by imported slaves. The numerous cleruchies sent out by Athens, of which this to Eubœa was the first, arose in a great measure out of the multiplication of the poorer population, which her extended power was employed in providing for. Her subsequent proceedings with a view to the same object will not be always found so justifiable as this now before us, which grew naturally, according to the ideas of the time, out of her success against the Chalcidians.
[498-491 B.C.]
The war between Athens, however, and Thebes with her Bœotian allies, still continued, to the great and repeated disadvantage of the latter, until at length the Thebans in despair sent to ask advice of the Delphian oracle, and were directed to “solicit aid from those nearest to them.” “How (they replied) are we to obey? Our nearest neighbours, of Tanagra, Coronea, and Thespiæ, are now, and have been from the beginning, lending us all the aid in their power.” An ingenious Theban, however, coming to the relief of his perplexed fellow-citizens, dived into the depths of legend and brought up a happy meaning. “Those nearest to us (he said) are the inhabitants of Ægina: for Thebe (the eponym of Thebes) and Ægina (the eponym of that island) were both sisters, daughters of Asopus: let us send to crave assistance from the Æginetans.” If his subtle interpretation (founded upon their descent from the same legendary progenitors) did not at once convince all who heard it, at least no one had any better to suggest; and envoys were at once sent to the Æginetans, who, in reply to a petition founded on legendary claims, sent to the help of the Thebans a reinforcement of legendary, but venerated, auxiliaries—the Æacid heroes. We are left to suppose that their effigies are here meant. It was in vain, however, that the glory and the supposed presence of the Æacids, Telamon and Peleus, were introduced into the Theban camp. Victory still continued on the side of Athens; and the discouraged Thebans again sent to Ægina, restoring the heroes, and praying for aid of a character more human and positive. Their request was granted, and the Æginetans commenced war against Athens without even the decent preliminary of a herald and declaration.