[335 B.C.]
The accounts which reached Greece of Alexander’s operations in these wild and distant regions, were, it may be supposed, very imperfect and confused; and at length, during an interval in which no news was heard of him, a report of his death sprang up, or was studiously set afloat. The report seems to have encouraged a party of Theban exiles to enter the city by night, and attempt a revolution. They began in an unhappy spirit with the massacre of two officers of the Macedonian garrison. They then summoned an assembly, and prevailed on the people to rise in open insurrection, and lay siege to the Cadmea. The citizens who were still in exile were recalled, the slaves enfranchised, the aliens won by new privileges. Demosthenes furnished them with a subsidy which enabled them to procure arms, and induced the Athenians to enter into an alliance with them, and emboldened the people to decree an expedition in aid of the Thebans. This decree, however, was not carried into effect. Elis, too, openly espoused the cause of the Thebans so far as even to send their forces as far as the isthmus, where they were joined by those of some Arcadian states. But here their generals were induced to halt, by the tidings which reached them of Alexander’s return.
He was still at Pelium when he heard of the revolt of Thebes. He knew that unless it was crushed in time it would probably spread, and he was anxious about the garrison of the Cadmea. He therefore set out immediately for Bœotia. In seven days, having traversed the upper provinces of Macedonia and crossed the Cambunian range towards its junction with Pindus, he reached Pelinna in Thessaly. Six days more brought him into Bœotia. So rapid were his movements that, before the Thebans had heard that he had passed Thermopylæ, he had arrived at Onchestus. The authors of the insurrection would not at first listen to the news of his approach; they gave out that it was Antipater who commanded the Macedonian army: and then that Alexander, the son of Æropus, had been taken for his royal namesake. But when the truth was ascertained, they found the people still willing to persevere in the struggle which had now become so hopeless.
Alexander, on the other hand, wishing to give them time for better counsels, now moved slowly against the city; and even when he had encamped near the foot of the Cadmea, which they had encompassed with a double line of circumvallation, waited some time for proposals of peace, which he was ready to grant on very lenient terms. There was a strong party within which was willing to submit to his pleasure, and urged the people to cast themselves on his mercy: but the leaders of the revolt, who could expect none for themselves, resisted every such motion; and as beside their personal influence they filled most places in the government, they unhappily prevailed. It was their object to draw matters to extremities. When Alexander sent to demand Phœnix and Prothytas, two of their chiefs, they demanded Philotas and Antipater in return; and when he proclaimed an offer of pardon to all who should surrender themselves to him and share the common peace, they made a counter proclamation from the top of a tower, inviting all who desired the independence of Greece to take part with them against the tyrant. These insults, and especially the animosity and distrust which they implied, put an end to all thoughts of peace, and Alexander reluctantly prepared for an assault.
The fate of Thebes seems after all to have been decided more by accident than by design. Perdiccas, who was stationed with his division in front of the camp, not far from the Theban entrenchments, without waiting for the signal, began the attack, and forced his way into the space between the enemy’s lines, and was followed by Amyntas son of Andromenes, who commanded the next division. Alexander was thus induced to bring up the rest of his forces. Yet at first he only sent in some light troops to the support of the two divisions which were engaged with the enemy. When however Perdiccas had fallen, severely wounded, as he led his men within the second line of entrenchments, and the Thebans, who at first had given way, rallied and in their turn put the Macedonians to flight, he himself advanced to the scene of combat with the phalanx, and fell upon them in the midst of the disorder caused by the pursuit. They were instantly routed, and made for the nearest gates of the city, in such confusion that the enemy entered with them, and being soon joined by the garrison of the Cadmea, made themselves masters of the adjacent part of the city. The besieged made a short stand in the market-place; but, when they saw themselves threatened on all sides, the cavalry took to flight through the opposite gates, and the rest as they could find a passage. But few of the foot combatants effected their escape; and the conquerors glutted their rage with unresisted slaughter.
It was not however so much from the Macedonians, as from some of their auxiliaries, that the Thebans suffered the utmost excesses of hostile cruelty. Alexander had brought with him a body of Thracians among his light troops, and he had been reinforced by the Phocians and by all the Bœotian towns hostile to Thebes—more especially by Orchomenos, Thespiæ, and Platæa. The Thracians, impelled by their habitual ferocity, of which they had shown so fearful a specimen many years before, at the capture of Mycalessus; the Bœotians, eager to revenge the wrongs they had endured from Thebes in the day of her prosperity—revelled in the usual license of carnage, plunder, and wanton outrages on those whose age and sex left them most defenceless. The bloodshed, however, was restrained by cupidity, that the most valuable part of the spoil might not be lost. The number of the slain was estimated at six thousand; that of the prisoners at thirty thousand. The Macedonians lost about five hundred men.
THE FATE OF THEBES
It only remained to fix the final doom of the conquered city. Alexander, who had probably made up his mind on it, referred it to a council of his allies, in which the representatives of the Bœotian towns took a leading part. The issue of their deliberation might be easily foreseen, and did not want plausible reasons to justify it. There was a sentence which had been hanging over Thebes ever since the Persian War in which she had so recklessly betrayed the cause of Grecian liberty. It had never been forgotten, and calls had been heard from time to time for its execution. And the city which had so long been permitted by the indulgence of the Greeks to retain a forfeited existence, had nevertheless been distinguished by her merciless treatment of her conquered enemies. In the case of Platæa she had not only instigated the Spartans to a cold-blooded slaughter, forbidden by the usages of Greek warfare, but she had destroyed a city which by its heroic patriotism had earned the gratitude of the whole nation, and was itself a monument of the national triumph. Nor was it forgotten that when Athens was at the mercy of its enemies she alone had proposed to sweep it from the face of Greece.
It seems that these old offences were placed in the foreground, while little notice was taken of the later acts of violence and oppression towards the Bœotian towns, which were the real grounds of their implacable resentment. The decree of the council was that the Cadmea should be left standing, to be occupied by a Macedonian garrison; that the lower city should be levelled with the ground, and the territory, except the part which belonged to the temples, divided among the allies: the men, women, and children, sold as slaves, all but the priests and priestesses, and some citizens who stood in a relation of hospitality to Philip or Alexander, or held the office of proxenus to the state of Macedonia. Under this head were probably included most of the conqueror’s political adherents. He made one other exception, which was honourable rather to his taste than his humanity. He bade spare the house of Pindar, and as many as were to be found of his descendants. The council likewise decreed that Orchomenos and Platæa should be rebuilt. The demolished buildings of Thebes may have furnished materials for the restoration of Platæa.
