The Historians' History of the World 04

The growing schism in the opposing confederacy promised great advantage to Lacedæmon. Meanwhile, though, through vices in their civil constitution and ill-management in their administration, the Lacedæmonians had lost the best half of their territory, their negotiations abroad still carried weight, and were conducted ably and successfully. It was at this critical time that Philiscus, a Greek of Abydos, arrived as minister from the satrap of Bithynia, Ariobarzanes, professedly charged to mediate in the king of Persia’s name a general peace among the Grecian republics. This new interference of Persia in Grecian affairs was produced by Lacedæmonian intrigue. Philiscus proposed a congress at Delphi; and deputies from Thebes and from the states of the Theban confederacy readily met deputies from Lacedæmon there. No fear of Persia, so the historian, not their friend, testifies, influenced the Thebans; for Philiscus requiring, as an indispensable article, that Messenia should return under obedience to Lacedæmon, they positively refused peace but upon condition that Messenia should be free.

This resolution being firmly demonstrated, the negotiation quickly ended, and both sides prepared for war. Philiscus then gave ample proof of his disposition to the Lacedæmonian cause, by employing a large sum of money, entrusted to him by the satrap, in levying mercenaries for the Lacedæmonian service. Meanwhile a body of auxiliaries from Dionysius of Syracuse, chiefly Gauls and Spaniards, as in the former year, had joined the Lacedæmonian army; and, while the Athenians were yet but preparing to march, a battle was fought under the command of Archidamus son of Agesilaus. The united forces of Argos, Arcadia, and Messenia were defeated, with slaughter, if Diodorus may be believed, of more than ten thousand men, and, as all the historians report, without the loss of a single Spartan. After a series of calamities the intelligence of this extraordinary success made such impression at Lacedæmon that tears of joy, says the contemporary historian, beginning with Agesilaus himself, fell from the elders and ephors, and finally from the whole people. Among the friends of the Lacedæmonians nevertheless, as no tear of sorrow resulted, this action became celebrated with the title of the “Tearless Battle” of Midea.

EXPEDITION INTO THESSALY

Greek Officer sacrificing on the Eve of Battle

The war with Thessaly now pressed upon Thebes. Still urging Lacedæmon by her confederates and dependents in Peloponnesus, she not only could afford protection to her northern subjects and allies against the successor of the most formidable potentate of the age, but she could aim at dominion, or influence which would answer the purpose of dominion, among the populous and wealthy, but ill-constituted cities of Thessaly. While the rapacity and ambition of the tagus, Alexander of Pheræ, occasioned a necessity for measures of protection and defence, the disposition to revolt, which his tyranny had excited among those over whom his authority extended, gave probability to views of aggrandisement for those who might support the revolt. Accordingly Pelopidas was sent into Thessaly with an army under a commission to act there at his discretion; for the advantage however, not of the Thessalians, who had solicited protection, but of the Bœotian people, who pretended to be common protectors: a kind of commission which it has been usual in all ages for the barefaced ambition of democracies to avow, while the more decent manners of the most corrupt courts, from which such commissions may have issued, have generally covered them with a veil. Pelopidas penetrated to Larissa, and with the co-operation of its people, expelled the tyrant’s garrison. Extending negotiations then into Macedonia, he concluded a treaty with Alexander, king of that country, who desired alliance with Thebes, the better to resist the oppression which he felt or feared from the naval power and ambitious policy of Athens, which were continually exerted to extend dominion or influence over every town on every shore of the Ægean. His younger brother, Philip, then a boy, afterwards the great Philip, father of the greater Alexander, is said to have accompanied Pelopidas in his return to Thebes; whether for advantage of education and to extend friendly connection, or, as later writers have affirmed, as a hostage to insure the performance of stipulated conditions.