The Historians' History of the World 04

The happy result of the Corcyræan expedition, imparting universal satisfaction at Athens, was not less beneficial to Timotheus than to Iphicrates. It was in November 373 B.C., that the former, as well as his quæstor or military treasurer, Antimachus, underwent each his trial. Callistratus, having returned home, pleaded against the quæstor, perhaps against Timotheus also, as one of the accusers; though probably in a spirit of greater gentleness and moderation, in consequence of his recent joint success and of the general good temper prevalent in the city. And while the edge of the accusation against Timotheus was thus blunted, the defence was strengthened not merely by numerous citizen friends speaking in his favour with increased confidence, but also by the unusual phenomenon of two powerful foreign supporters. At the request of Timotheus, both Alcetas of Epirus, and Jason of Pheræ, came to Athens a little before the trial, to appear as witnesses in his favour. They were received and lodged by him in his house in the Hippodamian Agora, the principal square of the Piræus. And as he was then in some embarrassment for want of money, he found it necessary to borrow various articles of finery in order to do them honour—clothes, bedding, and two silver drinking-bowls—from Pasion, a wealthy banker near at hand. These two important witnesses would depose to the zealous service and estimable qualities of Timotheus; who had inspired them with warm interest, and had been the means of bringing them into alliance with Athens; an alliance which they had sealed at once by conveying Stesicles and his division across Thessaly and Epirus to Corcyra. The minds of the dicastery would be powerfully affected by seeing before them such a man as Jason of Pheræ, at that moment the most powerful individual in Greece; and we are not surprised to learn that Timotheus was acquitted. Although he was now acquitted, his reputation suffered so much by the whole affair, that in the ensuing spring he was glad to accept an invitation of the Persian satraps, who offered him the command of the Grecian mercenaries in their service for the Egyptian war; the same command from which Iphicrates had retired a little time before.

[378-373 B.C.]

That admiral, whose naval force had been reinforced by a large number of Corcyræan triremes, was committing without opposition incursions against Acarnania, and the western coast of Peloponnesus; insomuch that the expelled Messenians, in their distant exile at Hesperides in Libya, began to conceive hopes of being restored by Athens to Naupactus, which they had occupied under her protection during the Peloponnesian War. And while the Athenians were thus masters at sea both east and west of Peloponnesus, Sparta and her confederates, discouraged by the ruinous failure of their expedition against Corcyra in the preceding year, appear to have remained inactive. With such mental predispositions, they were powerfully affected by religious alarm arising from certain frightful earthquakes and inundations with which Peloponnesus was visited during this year, and which were regarded as marks of the wrath of the god Poseidon. More of these formidable visitations occurred this year in Peloponnesus than had ever before been known; especially one, the worst of all, whereby the two towns of Helice and Bura in Achaia were destroyed, together with a large portion of their population. Ten Lacedæmonian triremes, which happened to be moored on this shore on the night when the calamity occurred, were destroyed by the rush of the waters.

Under these depressing circumstances, the Lacedæmonians had recourse to the same manœuvre which had so well served their purpose fifteen years before, in 388-387 B.C. They sent Antalcidas again as envoy to Persia, to entreat both pecuniary aid and a fresh Persian intervention enforcing anew the peace which bore his name; which peace had now been infringed (according to Lacedæmonian construction) by the reconstitution of the Bœotian confederacy under Thebes as president. And it appears that in the course of the autumn or winter, Persian envoys actually did come to Greece, requiring that the belligerents should all desist from war, and wind up their dissensions on the principles of the Peace of Antalcidas. The Persian satraps, at this time renewing their efforts against Egypt, were anxious for the cessation of hostilities in Greece, as a means of enlarging their numbers of Grecian mercenaries; of which troops Timotheus had left Athens a few months before to take the command.