simple narrative of that extraordinary enterprise wreathed for him bays that faded in the almost heartless atmosphere of the history he wrote concerning the sorrows of his country. Lysander, the conqueror of Athens, though worshipped for a time at altars as if divine,250 was losing his renown before the rising energies of the king Agesilaus, in whose campaigns in Asia, against the Persians, the old simplicity and vigor of Sparta appeared to be renewed. He was recalled on account of the peril with which his state was threatened by the league formed against it between Athens, Bootia, Corinth, Argos, and Thessaly; 251 and for several years, the strength of Greece was again wasted in unnatural contests, whose fatalness was comprehended by the same Agesilaus, when he lamented a Spartan victory as having deprived Greece of too many children.252 The peace with Persia, of Antalcidas, as it was called, after its Spartan negotiator, was welcome to all the parties to it in Greece, although it left their brethren in Asia at the mercy of the Persian king; many a year having passed and many a generous impulse flown since the Athenians sent over succours, at exceeding hazard, to save the Ionian cities from the necessity of submission. The symptoms of dissolution were stronger at this period in Sparta than in any other of the Grecian nations. Agesilaus, with all his excellence, had no 250 Plut., Lys., 18. It was said of him, that two Lysanders could not be borne. Ibid., 19. The same saying was current about Alcibiades. Plut., Alc., 17. 82. 251 A. C. 394. Diod. Sic., XIV. Xen., Hell., III. 5. 1. 252 Plut., Ages., 16. Cf. Corn. Nep., Ages., 5. VOL. I. 28 dignity to match the authority of the Ephors, upon whom the only possible check was violence or else pretended resignation on the part of the other magistrates or the kings. The few Spartans of unmixed blood who remained were in possession of all the power of the state; and in proportion as their numbers lessened, their severities and oppressions towards the inferior classes seem to have been embittered and multiplied. Lysander himself proposed some changes in the constitution, of which the account is not so clear as to furnish nearly all the information that might have been preserved; the most to be ascertained consisting in his resolution to make the royalty, in which he would then have gained a part, elective.253 A much more alarming conspiracy was set on foot by Cinadon, to murder the Ephors and superior Spartans, in order that the conspirators might obtain the justice which was denied them so long as a single class monopolized the resources and honors of the government. The attempt was discovered and its authors punished before its execution could be begun; 254 but, like the project of Lysander and the policy of Agesilaus, the sedition of Cinadon betrayed the infirmity of institutions on the wane. The strife between state and state continued; and, at the very moment of increasing feebleness, Sparta involved herself in a contest which was, under the circumstances, the most dangerous she had yet sustained. Thebes, long the head of the separate cities of Boeotia, and often engaged in the wars which have 253 Plut., Lys., 24, 25, 31. 254 Xen., Hell., III. 3. 4 et seq. been previously mentioned, was suddenly entered by one of the Spartan generals, who seized the citadel, and drove many of the principal citizens into banishment. One of the exiles was Pelopidas, a young, rich, and warm-tempered man, who watched his opportunities and returned, after three or four years, like another Thrasybulus, 255 to expel the Spartan garrison and set his fellow-citizens at liberty. Successful in his venture, and joined by his friend Epaminondas, a calmer, and, in point of fortune, a poorer man, who had not been exiled, 256 Pelopidas was the giver of a fresh bloom to the counsels and the hopes of Thebes. The Spartans were defeated at the neighbouring Leuctra; Peloponnesus was several times invaded, and Messenia was rescued too late from the meshes of her long dependence upon Sparta. But the spirit of the state which triumphed was scarcely truer to liberty than that of the state which suffered. A treaty was concluded between Thebes and Persia; and the ambition of the Theban leaders rose with their successes of every year, 257 until Pelopidas fell in Thessaly, and Epaminondas, in his fourth invasion of the Peloponnesus, was slain, in victory, at Mantinea. The fall of Thebes was swifter than its rise had been, ten years and more before. But the Spartans had met with shame and loss of which their ancestors could never have dreamed, and 255 So says Plutarch, Pel., 12. See Corn. Nep., Pel., 4. It was in A. C. 378. The battle of Leuctra was fought in 371, that of Mantinea in 362. 256 Plut., Pelop., 5. from which there could be no recovery. Invaded and dismantled without, at the same time that it was divided 258 and reduced 259 within, the state of Lycurgus lingered helpless, until the power of Rome put an end to its protracted agony. Athens was scarcely stronger; her people were few, compared with their slaves and aliens; her armies and fleets were entirely given over to mercenaries; and the changes in her taxes 260 betray the necessities she was obliged more carefully to supply. But the oil was poured upon her wounded limbs by hands like those of Demosthenes, and there was yet, a little while, the hope that her vigor would be restored. The tributary islands that still belonged to the Athenian dominion, and of which the profoundest submission would have been unavailing to the protection of their metropolis, were again become restive under hard government; 261 and when Athens, like most of the Grecian states, was dragged into the miserable war of Delphi, it seemed as if the last hours of discord and struggle were arrived. The Gladiator in the Capitol, consenting to death, without the wish to live for the liberty he had lost, is the image, but too serene, perhaps, of the nation, that was already bleeding and 258 Even by conspiracies, when the Thebans were at hand. Plut., Ages., 32. 259 We have only to borrow the judgment of Aristotle :-'ArλETO διὰ τὴν ὀλιγανθρωπίαν, “ The state was lost for want of men." Pol., II. 6. 11. The philosopher says truly, near the same place, that the Spartans perished, after having been powerful, because they knew not how to be at rest. Ibid., II. 6. 22. 260 See Boeckh, Pol. Econ. Ath., Book IV. ch. 9. 261 Diod. Sic., XVI. 7. drooping when Philip came to the throne of Macedonia. It was to a colony from Argos, settled amongst the wilder people of the North, some centuries before, that the later kings of Macedonia traced their inheritance of a part in the Grecian name. While the states we have left were jostling one another in their race for power and civilization, the northern kingdom, aloof, comparatively, from their interests, was gradually extending its dominions. The knowledge and the warfare, cast in the restless waters of the South, would often reach, as if in circles, to farther regions; but Macedonia remained possessed of a freshness and vigor that, in the present condition of its neighbours, were formidable to confront or even to behold. Philip, the eighteenth monarch of the Argive line, was placed where he could turn his talents to their uses, under the Providence that had created him ambitious, passionate, and wary. He made himself king, against the superior title of his nephew to the throne; he beat back his barbarian and deceived his civilized adversaries; until, taking advantage of the war about Delphi, he obtained a foremost position in the old Amphictyonic league and the ancient Grecian games. 262 His great ambition was to make himself the master or the leader of Greece, in whose name, and with whose assistance, he then intended to cross the sea and destroy the Persian empire. The Greeks lay almost prostrate in his way. 262 Diod. Sic., XVI. 60. |