The Historians' History of the World 04

It was perhaps on this occasion, while the allies were advancing, that a band of about two hundred men, who had for the most part been long suspected by the government, occupied the Issorium, one of the heights on the skirt of the town towards the river. As they had received no orders, it was evident that they were acting with treasonable designs; and some proposed that they should be forthwith dislodged by force. Agesilaus, however, thought it more prudent, as the extent of the conspiracy was not known, to try a milder course; and going up to the place with a single attendant, affected to believe that they had mistaken his orders, and directed them to station themselves in different quarters. They obeyed, thinking that they had escaped detection; but fifteen of them were arrested by the orders of Agesilaus, and put to death without form of trial, in the night. The suppression of this attempt may have led to the discovery of another more dangerous conspiracy, in which a number of Spartans were implicated. They were arrested in a house where they held clandestine meetings. The clearer their guilt, the more dangerous it probably appeared to bring them to trial; yet there was no power in the state which could legally put a Spartan to death without one. Even the authority of the ephors had never yet been carried so far. They determined however, after a consultation with Agesilaus, to dispense with legal forms, and the prisoners were delivered to a secret execution. The desertions which took place among the helots and the Laconian troops were carefully concealed from public knowledge; but this may not indicate their frequency, so much as the vigilance of Agesilaus.

The reports brought to the camp of the allies, as to the state of things in Sparta, did not encourage Epaminondas to repeat the attempt in which the cavalry had been repulsed, or to prolong his stay in the neighbourhood of the capital. He directed his march southward, and ravaged the whole vale of the Eurotas as far as the coast. Some unwalled towns were committed to the flames, and an assault was made for three successive days on Gythium, the naval arsenal of Sparta, but without success. If it was the design of Epaminondas to take advantage of the discontent which was supposed to prevail in the subject population towards the government, to effect a permanent revolution, the devastation committed by his allies, which he was probably unable to restrain, must have tended to counteract it. He was joined, Xenophon says, by some of the provincials; but the majority must have looked upon the invaders as enemies. Their stay was protracted for some weeks. At length the Peloponnesian troops began to withdraw with their booty, leaving the country almost exhausted. The growing scarcity of provisions and diminution of numbers, combined with the hardships of the season, would have admonished Epaminondas to retire, even if, as Xenophon would lead his readers to suppose, his only business, after recrossing the border, had been to march homeward. But the historian has carefully suppressed the main object which Epaminondas had in view, and which he accomplished during his stay in the peninsula.

He meditated a blow much more destructive to the power and prosperity of Sparta than the invasion of her territory. His design was to deprive her of Messenia, to collect the Messenians in the land of their forefathers, and to found a new city, where they might maintain their independence. He had already sent to the various regions in which the remains of the heroic people were scattered, to invite them to return to their ancient home.

FOUNDING OF MESSENE