The Historians' History of the World 04

Alexander, on the other hand, wishing to give them time for better counsels, now moved slowly against the city; and even when he had encamped near the foot of the Cadmea, which they had encompassed with a double line of circumvallation, waited some time for proposals of peace, which he was ready to grant on very lenient terms. There was a strong party within which was willing to submit to his pleasure, and urged the people to cast themselves on his mercy: but the leaders of the revolt, who could expect none for themselves, resisted every such motion; and as beside their personal influence they filled most places in the government, they unhappily prevailed. It was their object to draw matters to extremities. When Alexander sent to demand Phœnix and Prothytas, two of their chiefs, they demanded Philotas and Antipater in return; and when he proclaimed an offer of pardon to all who should surrender themselves to him and share the common peace, they made a counter proclamation from the top of a tower, inviting all who desired the independence of Greece to take part with them against the tyrant. These insults, and especially the animosity and distrust which they implied, put an end to all thoughts of peace, and Alexander reluctantly prepared for an assault.

The fate of Thebes seems after all to have been decided more by accident than by design. Perdiccas, who was stationed with his division in front of the camp, not far from the Theban entrenchments, without waiting for the signal, began the attack, and forced his way into the space between the enemy’s lines, and was followed by Amyntas son of Andromenes, who commanded the next division. Alexander was thus induced to bring up the rest of his forces. Yet at first he only sent in some light troops to the support of the two divisions which were engaged with the enemy. When however Perdiccas had fallen, severely wounded, as he led his men within the second line of entrenchments, and the Thebans, who at first had given way, rallied and in their turn put the Macedonians to flight, he himself advanced to the scene of combat with the phalanx, and fell upon them in the midst of the disorder caused by the pursuit. They were instantly routed, and made for the nearest gates of the city, in such confusion that the enemy entered with them, and being soon joined by the garrison of the Cadmea, made themselves masters of the adjacent part of the city. The besieged made a short stand in the market-place; but, when they saw themselves threatened on all sides, the cavalry took to flight through the opposite gates, and the rest as they could find a passage. But few of the foot combatants effected their escape; and the conquerors glutted their rage with unresisted slaughter.

It was not however so much from the Macedonians, as from some of their auxiliaries, that the Thebans suffered the utmost excesses of hostile cruelty. Alexander had brought with him a body of Thracians among his light troops, and he had been reinforced by the Phocians and by all the Bœotian towns hostile to Thebes—more especially by Orchomenos, Thespiæ, and Platæa. The Thracians, impelled by their habitual ferocity, of which they had shown so fearful a specimen many years before, at the capture of Mycalessus; the Bœotians, eager to revenge the wrongs they had endured from Thebes in the day of her prosperity—revelled in the usual license of carnage, plunder, and wanton outrages on those whose age and sex left them most defenceless. The bloodshed, however, was restrained by cupidity, that the most valuable part of the spoil might not be lost. The number of the slain was estimated at six thousand; that of the prisoners at thirty thousand. The Macedonians lost about five hundred men.

THE FATE OF THEBES

It only remained to fix the final doom of the conquered city. Alexander, who had probably made up his mind on it, referred it to a council of his allies, in which the representatives of the Bœotian towns took a leading part. The issue of their deliberation might be easily foreseen, and did not want plausible reasons to justify it. There was a sentence which had been hanging over Thebes ever since the Persian War in which she had so recklessly betrayed the cause of Grecian liberty. It had never been forgotten, and calls had been heard from time to time for its execution. And the city which had so long been permitted by the indulgence of the Greeks to retain a forfeited existence, had nevertheless been distinguished by her merciless treatment of her conquered enemies. In the case of Platæa she had not only instigated the Spartans to a cold-blooded slaughter, forbidden by the usages of Greek warfare, but she had destroyed a city which by its heroic patriotism had earned the gratitude of the whole nation, and was itself a monument of the national triumph. Nor was it forgotten that when Athens was at the mercy of its enemies she alone had proposed to sweep it from the face of Greece.