The Historians' History of the World 04

Now the day of reckoning had come. Spartan ambassadors came to Mantinea, bringing a multitude of complaints, together with the demand for the demolition of the walls about the city. This demand being met by a refusal, Sparta declared war. Agesilaus begged to be excused from the chief command of the army, as the Mantineans had rendered his father great services during the Messenian War. Agesipolis marched against Mantinea and endeavoured to force the people into compliance by devastating their territory. When this expedient proved fruitless he laid siege to the city. The inhabitants made an obstinate defence, but they were obliged to surrender unconditionally after Agesipolis had dammed the river Ophis, which flowed through the town, and thus caused an inundation which brought about the fall of its walls of unbaked brick. By the intercession of Pausanias, who was living in exile at Tegea, the leaders of the people and the partisans of democracy, sixty in number, were allowed to withdraw in safety, a portion of the population was allowed to inhabit Mantinea as an unfortified place, and the remainder was obliged to settle in four distinct unprotected villages. To each of these villages a Spartan xenagos was appointed. Xenophon adds that the Mantineans were at first indignant at being removed, but that they afterwards expressed their satisfaction at what had been done, as under an aristocratic government they could lead a quiet life near their estates and free from troublesome demagogues. This is a reproduction of the Spartan and oligarchic view of the matter.

Greek Weapons

In both ancient and modern times the treatment meted out to Mantinea has invariably been branded as an act of most brutal and barbarous violence and arbitrary cruelty, the outcome of the policy of Agesilaus. In this general and (to a certain extent) just censure of the ruler of the Spartan state at the time, one point has been overlooked. In a democratic constitution the Spartans could see nothing but a reign of revolutionary terrorism which oppressed the peaceful and sober part of the community, their own friends and adherents. To help the latter, to put them in power again, they held to be the duty of the sovereign state. Spartan policy was sure of its aims, and in its consistency lies the secret of Sparta’s superiority at this period. And if we are right in assuming that a Spartan must have ceased to be a Spartan before he could conceive otherwise of the state of affairs, there is no justification for heaping personal abuse and scandalous imputations upon a writer who reflects the opinions of his circle.

[385-383 B.C.]

The punishment of Mantinea produced a profound effect upon the other Peloponnesian cities. With high hopes of an equally energetic interference on their behalf the aristocratic exiles from Phlius immediately turned to Sparta with the entreaty that the Spartans would intercede for their restoration to their homes. A bare admonition from the ephors to the municipal authorities to receive back the friends they had cast out for no sufficient reason, was enough to evoke a decree by which the sentence of banishment was repealed and the exiles were promised the restoration of their property. The spirit of resistance had been broken by the fate of Mantinea.

The Spartans next turned their attention to Bœotia. Although the Bœotian league, not being based on the principle of autonomy, had been broken up by the second paragraph of the peace, they felt the need of taking precautions against any attempt on the part of Thebes—the city which they regarded as the author of the whole ill-starred war and which had defied them to the last to re-establish its authority. Hence, as a first step, a Spartan garrison was retained in the friendly city of Orchomenos, and both Thespiæ and Tanagra were induced to throw in their lot with Sparta. But the most telling stroke at Thebes was the restoration of Platæa. For one thing, the Thebans were thereby deprived of the usufruct of Platæan territory, and for another, the newly founded city, being of course wholly dependent upon Sparta, afforded an excellent base for attack upon Thebes itself. Here again we see the relentless and energetic policy of Sparta in action.

THE OLYNTHIAN WAR

[383 B.C.]