The Historians' History of the World 04

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.]

During the first years of his reign, Evagoras doubtless paid his tribute regularly, and took no steps calculated to offend the Persian king. But as his power increased, his ambition increased also. We find him towards the year 390 B.C., engaged in a struggle not merely with the Persian king, but with Amathus and Citium in his own island, and with the great Phœnician cities on the mainland. By what steps, or at what precise period, this war began, we cannot determine. At the time of the battle of Cnidus (394 B.C.) Evagoras not only paid his tribute, but was mainly instrumental in getting the Persian fleet placed under Conon to act against the Lacedæmonians, himself serving aboard. It was in fact (if we may believe Isocrates) to the extraordinary energy, ability, and power displayed by him on that occasion in the service of Artaxerxes himself, that the jealousy and alarm of the latter against him are to be ascribed. Without any provocation, and at the very moment when he was profiting by the zealous services of Evagoras, the Great King treacherously began to manœuvre against him and forced him into the war in self-defence. Evagoras accepted the challenge, in spite of the disparity of strength, with such courage and efficiency, that he at first gained marked successes. Seconded by his son Pnytagoras, he not only worsted and humbled Amathus, Citium, and Soli, which cities, under the prince Agyris, adhered to Artaxerxes, but he also equipped a large fleet, attacked the Phœnicians on the mainland with so much vigour as even to take the great city of Tyre; prevailing, moreover, upon some of the Cilician towns to declare against the Persians. He received powerful aid from Acoris, the native and independent king in Egypt, as well as from Chabrias and the force sent out by the Athenians. Beginning apparently about 390 B.C., the war against Evagoras lasted something more than ten years, costing the Persians great efforts and an immense expenditure of money. Twice did Athens send a squadron to his assistance, from gratitude for his long protection to Conon and his energetic efforts before in the battle of Cnidus—though she thereby ran every risk of making the Persians her enemies.

[380-374 B.C.]