The Historians' History of the World 04

The keen eye of Epaminondas did not fail to perceive that his native city could only attain to the hegemony of Greece if the dominion of the sea were snatched from the Athenians, and being as bold and enterprising as he was sagacious, he endeavoured to persuade his countrymen to build a fleet. Thebes must become a sea power, in order, as he declared before the people, “to place the Propylæa of the Athenian Acropolis under the superintendence of the Cadmea”; not that he wished to accustom the powerful national forces to the seductive life on the sea and thus weaken the heavy-armed militia; the old manner of warfare, which rested on custom, education, and tradition, was to continue to prevail; but for the foundation of a secure ascendency in Hellas a fleet was indispensable. And so influential was the voice of this great general, that in spite of the remonstrance of the popular orator Meneclidas, the Theban people immediately resolved on the building and equipment of a hundred triremes and the establishment of shipyards of their own.

He undertook the command of the fleet himself, and on his advent the islands of Chios and Rhodes and the important city of Byzantium were induced to fall away from Athens. It was the fatal destiny of Thebes and her patriotic leader, that her appearance had everywhere the effect of simply loosening such federal bonds as still existed and dissolving every force, but without enabling her to herself attain to the height of a great power. No foreign enemy could have found a means so well adapted to break up and enfeeble the Hellenic nation as was the disorganising and disintegrating policy of the Theban general.

THE BATTLE OF MANTINEA AND THE DEATH OF EPAMINONDAS

The Athenians, bitterly incensed against the Thebans by this attack on their maritime supremacy and by the occupation of the town of Oropus on the northeastern frontier, soon found an opportunity to give expression to their resentment by force of arms. In Arcadia the enmity of the supporters of a democratic state unity, with the Tegeans at their head, against the defenders of the ancient federative organisation on oligarchical principles under the standard of the Mantineans, had reached a high pitch of excitement. This was further aggravated when the Theban governor arrested a number of citizens from Mantinea who were of Laconian sympathies, and were, at Tegea, celebrating the peace recently concluded with Elis, and intended so it was said to take advantage of the opportunity for executing a stratagem which would place the city in the hands of the Spartans: frightened by the threatening attitude of their sympathisers, the governor again set them at liberty; but on complaint being made to Thebes, the aggrieved Arcadians were not granted the desired satisfaction for this breach of the peace, but on the contrary the release of the prisoners was disapproved. On this the Mantineans allied themselves with the Lacedæmonians, Athenians, Achæans, and Eleans and prepared for a struggle against the popular party in Tegea and Megalopolis, and against the Thebans who were approaching for the protection of the latter and the preservation of the frontier against Lacedæmon.

[362 B.C.]

In the spring of 362 Epaminondas and a considerable army, composed of allied Bœotians, Eubœans, Thessalians, etc., marched through Nemea without opposition to Tegea, where he collected around him the troops of the Arcadian, Argive, and Messenian allies, whilst the opposing side assembled its forces in Mantinea. When the Theban general learned that Agesilaus and the Lacedæmonian host were on the way to the meeting-place of their party, and had already reached the town of Pellana on the Arcadian and Laconian frontier, he hastily resolved to advance on Sparta by a night march, and seize the enemy’s capital, thus denuded of its defenders “like an empty nest.”