The Historians' History of the World 04

“Another act in the great drama had been thus played out; and the whole Hellenic world had at length learned that the promises of freedom made by Sparta had been from beginning to end a lie—a lie scantily veiled at first by the rhetoric of Brasidas, but put forth afterward in the nakedness of unblushing effrontery. Not a single pledge had she redeemed; not a single burden had been removed, not a single abuse redressed. She had hailed the downfall of Athens as the beginning of a golden age for Hellas, and in order to realise it she had aided and abetted her victorious generals in setting up everywhere societies of murderers. Her enemies were prostrate; and she trampled on them without a touch of commiseration. Her allies were too much overpowered by the consciousness of their inferiority really to dispute her will; and she refused to share her spoils with the partners of her robberies. She had put down the Athenian empire with the courts, which, at the least, offered to the free or the subject allies the means of redress for wrongs inflicted or received; and by way of improving matters she had, with gigantic cruelty, let loose upon them a crowd of rapacious and lustful tyrants against whom she would hear no complaint.

“In short the supremacy of Sparta had been from first to last the supremacy of high-handed violence and wanton tyranny. Nor could it have been anything else but what it was. Much has been said of the golden opportunities which the course of events offered to Sparta, and which she deliberately threw away, opportunities presented first in the unlimited freedom of action which followed the seizure of the Athenian fleet at Ægospotami, and again when the return of the Cyrean Greeks placed her at the head of a splendid army in her involuntary conflict with the Persian king. But in truth it is absurd to speak of opportunities of feasting on the loveliest of landscapes, to the man who has extinguished in himself all sense of beauty, of opportunities for generous action to the man whose whole life exhibits nothing but the working of unvarying and consistent selfishness. Whether after Ægospotami, or after the return of the Ten Thousand, it was impossible for Sparta to do anything towards establishing a real Panhellenic union, in other words, a real Greek nation, without reverting in greater or less degree to the works of Athens. To go back to any such system would be for the Spartans what the changing of his skin would be to the Ethiopian, or of his spots to the leopard.”

Before returning to the crescent glory of Epaminondas, it is necessary to pause to note the sudden phenomenon of a singular genius, Jason of Pheræ, who flares up and overawes Greece only to expire at once. He is a striking personage, and important as a forewarning flash of the irresistible storm rising in the North.a

JASON OF THESSALY

Intelligence of the fatal blow at Leuctra, carried to Lacedæmon, was borne with much real magnanimity, and with all that affectation of unconcern which the institutions of Lycurgus commanded. It happened to be the last day of the festival called the Naked Games; and the chorus of men was on the stage, before the assembled people, when the officer charged with the despatches arrived. The ephors were present, as their official duty required, and to them the despatches were delivered. Without interrupting the entertainment they communicated the names of the slain to their relations, with an added admonition, that the women should avoid that clamorous lamentation which was usual, and bear the calamity in silence. On the morrow all the relations of the slain appeared as usual in public, with a deportment of festivity and triumph, while the few kinsmen of the survivors, who showed themselves abroad, carefully marked in their appearance humiliation and dejection.