This act of violence, the surprise of the Theban citadel in time of peace, called forth a storm of indignation throughout the whole of Greece. Even in Sparta itself a clamour of popular displeasure arose against Phœbidas, because (as Xenophon adds) he had acted without due warrant or command. Apparently the Spartan government found it expedient to cast the odium of the proceeding upon Phœbidas, and therefore, in spite of Xenophon’s silence on the subject, there is probably some truth in the story that he was deposed from his command and condemned to pay an exorbitant fine. The wrath of Greece may well have been the reason for this mock sentence. The payment of the fine was never exacted, and in the following year he held the office of a Spartan harmost in Bœotia. For the rest, the remonstrances of Leontiades and Agesilaus, the latter of whom openly maintained that the only point to be considered in judging the case was whether the transgression of Phœbidas were profitable to the state or not, quickly persuaded the Spartans of the propriety and necessity of the coup-de-main. The citadel was not evacuated, and legal proceedings were taken against Ismenias in respect of the league. A solemn tribunal was called together in Thebes, consisting of three Spartan commissioners and a deputy from every town of the league, to pass judgment upon the crimes of Ismenias. He was condemned to death. The most repulsive feature of this judicial murder, which was merely an act of vengeance upon the whilom leader of the anti-Spartan coalition, is the farce of a tribunal which was supposed to represent national ideas and interests.
The road to Thrace was now safe, and the war against Olynthus was prosecuted with the utmost vigour.
It was probably in the spring of 382 that Teleutias, brother of Agesilaus, marched against the city with a large army. He had made up the number of his forces in Thebes, and had received auxiliary contingents from Amyntas and from Derdas, prince of Elimea. This was the beginning of a fierce and prolonged struggle. After some successes which allowed him to press forward to Olynthus itself, devastating the country as he went, he fell in a hotly contested battle, and his death was the signal for a general flight. His whole army was swept away and annihilated. With amazing perseverance the Spartans continued the war; in the spring of 380 another huge army was equipped and the leadership entrusted to the young king, Agesipolis. He was fortunate in battle, but succumbed to a violent fever the same summer. It was left for Polybiades, his successor in the command, to force the starving city, cut off from access to the sea and robbed of its harvests by the prolonged and desolating war, into surrender. In the year 379 the league was dissolved and the proud city compelled to render military service to the Spartans; the mighty chief city of the Chalcidice became a humble member of the Lacedæmonian alliance.
[380-379 B.C.]
Meanwhile the Peloponnesus itself had become the scene of a fresh struggle. It has already been mentioned that the exiled aristocrats from Phlius had been allowed to return at the request of Sparta and had been promised the restoration of their property. But here, as everywhere, the attempts at expropriation met with almost insurmountable obstacles. There may have been a lack of good will to push on the proceedings, since it is probable that in many cases the judges themselves were in possession of the estates of the exiles. But in the beginning, at least, there seems to have been no excessive difficulty or delay in giving compensation, and we hear that, in the campaign of Agesipolis, the Phliasians distinguished themselves as zealous allies of Sparta by the liberality and promptitude of their contributions. After the departure of Agesipolis, as Xenophon relates, the Phliasians hoping to be quit of Spartan intervention, neglected the settlement of the chaotic claims. The returning aristocrats, finding their demands disregarded by an unbiassed court of arbitration, turned with their grievances to Sparta. The authorities of their own city having punished them for this arbitrary proceeding, the ephors, persuaded by exiles and by Agesilaus, the fast friend of the latter, determined upon a campaign against Phlius. The Phliasians sued for peace, but naturally could not accede to the demand of Agesilaus for an unconditional surrender of their citadel.
A tedious siege then began, during which Agesilaus found himself obliged to have recourse to every kind of artifice to allay the wrath of the Lacedæmonians and their allies at making enemies of the large population of the Asopus valley for the sake of a few oligarchs. It was the first note of that discord among the Peloponnesian allies which was destined to exercise such a paralysing effect upon the future military undertakings of the Lacedæmonians. Thanks to the valiant defence of Delphion, to whom Xenophon does not refuse his due meed of praise, the city held out twice as long as had been expected. At last, in the year 379, the lack of provisions constrained the inhabitants to treat for peace, and, unwisely ignoring Agesilaus, they applied direct to Sparta. Sparta committed the sole decision to the king, and the punishment in store for Phlius was naturally not the less severe for the attempt to set Agesilaus aside. A commission was appointed, consisting of fifty oligarchs and fifty of the citizens, and they were empowered to decide the question which of the inhabitants should remain alive and which should not. The further duty of elaborating a constitution was also assigned to them. To safeguard the new order of things a Lacedæmonian garrison was left provisionally in the acropolis. Thus in Phlius, as in Olynthus, Sparta had won the victory.
At this point both Xenophon and Diodorus, with a view to providing a more striking background for subsequent events, give a summary of the expansion of the power and dominion of Sparta up to this time. And truly, from the Peace of Antalcidas to the subjugation of Olynthus the history of Greece is nothing but a history of the extension of Spartan authority. Allied with the king of Persia, the tyrant of Syracuse, and the king of Macedonia, the will of Sparta was “irresistible from the cliffs of Taygetus to Athos.” The autonomy-paragraph had broken up all anti-Spartan coalitions. In Corinth, the key of the Peloponnesus, oligarchy was restored, Bœotia had become a vassal of Sparta, the menacing Olynthian league had been annihilated, and the ruins of Mantinea and the sanguinary tribunals at Phlius showed what punishment Sparta was prepared to mete out to any attempt at mutiny or disobedience. The Spartan harmosts with their garrisons commanded the citadels everywhere, and under their protection oligarchic rulers held the populace in fetters. In the time of Lysander, indeed, the Spartan dominions had been more extensive, but Sparta had never borne sway in Hellas with more authority or less restraint. Athens might strive with unflagging perseverance to establish an ascendency at sea; she might conclude an alliance with Chios directly after the Peace of the King, an alliance which was the precursor of the maritime confederacy presently to be revived; but how insignificant were such things as opposed to the dominant position of Sparta, now at the zenith of her glory! And for the fact that her will and her word were law in Greece, Sparta was mainly indebted to the steady and consistent policy of Agesilaus.
The gray-haired monarch might well look with pride upon the object he had attained. He had reared a mighty structure: though it had been built by harshness and arbitrary power and welded together with blood and cruelty, it is none the less a moving spectacle to see how, before the eyes of its founder, stone after stone was cast down, till nothing but a vast expanse of ruins remained to bear witness to its former greatness.[b]
FATE OF EVAGORAS AND THE ASIATIC GREEKS
[394-380 B.C.]