Plutarch's Lives, Volume 3 · Plutarch
LIFE OF AGESILAUS.
By threats of war he compelled those Greek states who were unwilling to do so to accept the terms of the peace, especially the Thebans; for one of the articles of the peace was, that the Thebans should leave the rest of Bœotia independent, by which of course they were greatly weakened. This was proved by subsequent events. When Phœbidas, in defiance of law and decency, seized the Kadmeia, or citadel of Thebes, in time of peace, all Greeks cried shame on him, and the Spartans felt especial annoyance at it. The enemies of Agesilaus now angrily enquired of Phœbidas who ordered him to do so, and as his answers hinted at Agesilaus as having suggested the deed, Agesilaus openly declared himself to be on Phœbidas's side, and said that the only thing to be considered was, whether it was advantageous to Sparta or not; for it was always lawful to render good service to the state, even impromptu and without previous orders. Yet in his talk Agesilaus always set a high value upon justice, calling it the first of all virtues; for he argued that courage would be useless without justice; while if all men were just, there would be no need of courage.
When he was informed, "The pleasure of the great king is so-and-so," he was wont to answer, "How can he be greater than I, unless he be juster?"--thus truly pointing out that justice is the real measure of the greatness of kings. When the king of Persia sent him a letter during the peace, offering to become his guest[186] and friend, he refused to open it, saying that he was satisfied with the friendship existing between the two states, and that while that lasted he required no private bond of union with the king of Persia. However, in his actions he was far from carrying out these professions, but was frequently led into unjust acts by his ambition. In this instance he not only shielded Phœbidas from punishment for what he had done at Thebes, but persuaded Sparta to adopt his crime as its own, and continue to hold the Kadmeia, appointing as the chiefs of the garrison Archias and Leontidas,[187] by whose means Phœbidas made his way into the citadel.
XXIV. This at once gave rise to a suspicion that Phœbidas was merely an agent, and that the whole plot originated with Agesilaus himself, and subsequent events confirmed this view; for as soon as the Thebans drove out the garrison and set free their city, Agesilaus made war upon them to avenge the murder of Archias and Leontidas, who had been nominally polemarchs, but in reality despots of Thebes. At this period Agesipolis was dead, and his successor Kleombrotus was despatched into Bœotia with an army; for Agesilaus excused himself from serving in that campaign on the ground of age, as it was forty years since he had first borne arms, and he was consequently exempt by law. The real reason was that he was ashamed, having so lately been engaged in a war to restore the exiled popular party at Phlius, to be seen now attacking the Thebans in the cause of despotism.
There was a Lacedæmonium named Sphodrias, one of the faction opposed to Agesilaus, who was established as Spartan governor of the town of Thespiæ, a daring and ambitious man, but hot-headed, and prone to act without due calculation. This man, who longed to achieve distinction, and who perceived that Phœbidas had made a name throughout Greece by his exploit at Thebes, persuaded himself that it would be a much more glorious deed if he were to make himself master of the Peiræus, and so by a sudden attack cut off the Athenians from the sea. It is said that this attempt originated with the Bœotarchs, Pelopidas and Mellon, who sent emissaries to Sphodrias to praise and flatter him, and point out that he alone was capable of conducting so bold an adventure. By this language, and an affectation of sympathy with Lacedæmon, these men at length prevailed on him to attempt a most unrighteous deed, and one which required considerable boldness and good fortune to ensure its success. Daylight, however, overtook Sphodrias before he had crossed the Thriasian plain, near Eleusis. All hope of surprising Peiræus by a night attack was now gone, and it is said, also, that the soldiers were alarmed and terror-stricken by certain lights which gleamed from the temples at Eleusis. Sphodrias himself, now that his enterprise had so manifestly failed, lost heart, and after hurriedly seizing some unimportant plunder, led his men back to Thespiæ. Upon this an embassy was sent from Athens to Sparta to complain of the acts of Sphodrias; but on the arrival of the ambassadors at Sparta they found that the government there were in no need of encouragement from without to proceed against Sphodrias, for they had already summoned him home to be tried for his life. Sphodrias durst not venture to return to Sparta, for he saw that his fellow-countrymen were angry with him and ashamed of his conduct towards the Athenians, and that they wished rather to be thought fellow-sufferers by his crime than accomplices in it.
XXV. Sphodrias had a son, named Kleonymus, who was still quite a youth, and who was beloved by Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus. He now assisted this youth, who was pleading his father's cause as best he might, but he could not do so openly, because Sphodrias belonged to the party which was opposed to Agesilaus. When, however, Kleonymus came to him, and besought him with tears and piteous entreaties to appease Agesilaus, because the party of Sphodrias dreaded him more than any one else, the young man, after two or three days' hesitation, at length, as the day fixed for the trial approached, mustered up courage to speak to his father on the subject, telling him that Kleonymus had begged him to intercede for his father. Agesilaus was well aware of his son's intimacy with Kleonymus, which he had never discouraged; for Kleonymus promised to become as distinguished a man as any in Sparta. He did not on this occasion, however, hold out to his son any hopes of a satisfactory termination of the affair, but said that he would consider what would be the most fitting and honourable course to pursue. After this reply, Archidamus had not the heart to meet Kleonymus, although he had before been accustomed to see him several times daily. This conduct of his plunged the friends of Sphodrias into yet deeper despair of his cause, until Etymokles, one of the friends of Agesilaus, in a conference with them, explained that what Agesilaus really thought about the matter was, that the action itself deserved the greatest censure; but yet that Sphodrias was a brave energetic man, whom Sparta could not afford to lose.
Agesilaus used this language out of a desire to gratify his son, and from it Kleonymus soon perceived that Archidamus had been true to him in using his interest with his father; while the friends of Sphodrias became much more forward in his defence. Indeed Agesilaus was remarkably fond of children, and an anecdote is related of him, that when his children were very little he was fond of playing with them, and would bestride a reed as if it were a horse for their amusement. When one of his friends found him at this sport, he bade him mention it to no one before he himself became the father of a family. XXVI. Sphodrias was acquitted by the court; and the Athenians, as soon as they learned this, prepared for war. Agesilaus was now greatly blamed, and was charged with having obstructed the course of justice, and having made Sparta responsible for an outrage upon a friendly Greek state, merely in order to gratify the childish caprice of his son. As he perceived that Kleombrotus was unwilling to attack the Thebans, he himself invaded Bœotia, disregarding the law under which on a former occasion he had pleaded exemption from military service on account of his age. Here he fought the Thebans with varying success; for once, when he was being borne out of action wounded, Antalkidas observed to him, "A fine return you are getting from the Thebans for having taught them how to fight against their will." Indeed, the military power of the Thebans at that time was at its height, having as it were been exercised and practised by the many campaigns undertaken against them by the Lacedæmonians. This was why Lykurgus of old, in his three celebrated _rhetras_, forbade the Lacedæmonians to fight often with the same people, lest by constant practice they should teach them how to fight.
Agesilaus was also disliked by the allies of the Lacedæmonians, because of his hatred of Thebes and his desire to destroy that state, not on any public grounds, but merely on account of his own bitter personal dislike to the Thebans. The allies complained grievously that they, who composed the greater part of the Lacedæmonium force, should every year be led hither and thither, and exposed to great risks and dangers, merely to satisfy one man's personal pique. Hereupon we are told that Agesilaus, desiring to prove that this argument about their composing so large a part of the army was not founded on fact, made use of the following device:--He ordered all the allies to sit down in one body, and made the Lacedæmonians sit down separately. Next he gave orders, first that all the potters should stand up; and when they had risen, he ordered the smiths, carpenters, masons, and all the other tradesmen successively to do so. When then nearly all the allies had risen to their feet, the Spartans all remained seated, for they were forbidden to learn or to practise any mechanical art. At this Agesilaus smiled, and said, "You see, my men, how many more soldiers we send out than you do."
XXVII. On his return from his campaign against the Thebans, Agesilaus, while passing through Megara, was seized with violent pain in his sound leg, just as he was entering the town-hall in the Acropolis of that city. After this it became greatly swelled and full of blood, and seemed to be dangerously inflamed. A Syracusan physician opened a vein near the ankle, which relieved the pain, but the flow of blood was excessive, and could not be checked, so that he fainted away from weakness, and was in a very dangerous condition. At length the bleeding stopped, and he was conveyed home to Lacedæmon, but he remained ill, and unable to serve in the wars for a long time. During his illness many disasters befel the Spartans both by land and by sea. Of these, the most important was the defeat at Tegyra, where for the first time they were beaten in a fair fight by the Thebans. The Lacedæmonians were now eager to make peace with all the Greek cities, and ambassadors from all parts of Greece met at Sparta to arrange terms. Among them was Epameinondas, a man who was renowned for his culture and learning, but who had not hitherto given any proof of his great military genius. This man, perceiving that all the other ambassadors were sedulously paying their court to Agesilaus, assumed an independent attitude, and in a speech delivered before the congress declared that nothing kept the war alive except the unjust pretensions of Sparta, who gained strength from the sufferings of the other states, and that no peace could be durable unless such pretensions were laid aside, and Sparta reduced to the equality with the rest of the cities of Greece.
XXVIII. Agesilaus, observing that all the representatives of the Greek states were filled with admiration at this language, and manifested strong sympathy with the speaker, enquired whether he thought it right and just that the cities of Bœotia[188] should be left independent. Epameinondas quickly and boldly enquired in answer, whether he thought it right to leave each of the towns in Laconia independent. At this Agesilaus leaped to his feet in a rage, and asked him to state clearly whether he meant to leave Bœotia independent. As Epameinondas in reply merely repeated his question, as to whether Agesilaus meant to leave Laconia independent, Agesilaus became furious, eagerly seized the opportunity to strike the name of Thebes out of the roll of cities with whom peace was being made, and declared war against it. He ratified a treaty of peace with the other Greek cities, and bade their representatives begone, with the remark, that such of their disputes as admitted of settlement must be arranged by peaceful negotiation, and such as could not must be decided by war; but that it was too much trouble for him to act as arbitrator between them in their manifold quarrels and disagreements.
Kleombrotus, the other Spartan king, was at this time in the Phokian territory at the head of an army. The Ephors now at once sent orders to him to cross the Theban frontier, while they assembled a force from all the allied cities, who were most reluctant to serve, and objected strongly to the war, yet dared not express their discontent or disobey the Lacedæmonians. Many sinister omens were observed, which we have spoken of in the life of Epameinondas, and Prothous the Laconian openly opposed the whole campaign; yet Agesilaus would not desist, but urged on the war against Thebes, imagining that now, when all the other states were standing aloof, and Thebes was entirely isolated, he had a more favourable opportunity than might ever occur again for destroying that city. The dates of this war seem to prove that it was begun more out of ill-temper than as a consequent of any definite plan; for the peace was ratified in Lacedæmon with the other cities on the fourteenth of the month Skirophorion; and on the fifth of the next month, Hekatombæon, only twenty days afterwards, the Spartans were defeated at Leuktra. A thousand Lacedæmonians perished, among them Kleombrotus the king, and with him the flower of the best families in Sparta. There fell also the handsome son of Sphodrias, Kleonymus, who fought before the king, and was thrice struck to the ground and rose again before he was slain by the Thebans.
XXIX. In spite of the unparalleled disaster which had befallen the Lacedæmonians, for the Theban victory was the most complete ever won by one Greek state over another, the courage of the vanquished is nevertheless as much to be admired as that of the victors. Xenophon remarks that the conversation of good and brave men, even when jesting or sitting at table, is always worth remembering, and it is much more valuable to observe how nobly all really brave and worthy men bear themselves when in sorrow and misfortune. When the news of the defeat at Leuktra arrived at Sparta, the city was celebrating the festival of the Gymnopædia, and the chorus of grown men was going through its usual solemnity in the theatre. The Ephors, although the news clearly proved that all was lost and the state utterly ruined, yet would not permit the chorus to abridge its performance, and forbade the city to throw off its festal appearance. They privately communicated the names of the slain to their relatives, but they themselves calmly continued to preside over the contest of the choruses in the theatre, and brought the festival to a close as though nothing unusual had occurred. Next morning, when all men knew who had fallen and who had survived, one might see those whose relations had been slain, walking about in public with bright and cheerful countenances: but of those whose relatives survived, scarce one showed himself in public, but they sat at home with the women, as if mourning for the dead; or if any one of them was forced to come forth, he looked mournful and humbled, and walked with cast-down eyes. Yet more admirable was the conduct of the women, for one might see mothers receiving their sons who had survived the battle with silence and sorrow, while those whose children had fallen proceeded to the temples to return thanks to the gods, and walked about the city with a proud and cheerful demeanour.
XXX. Yet, when their allies deserted them, and when the victorious Epameinondas, excited by his success, was expected to invade Peloponnesus, many Spartans remembered the oracle about the lameness of Agesilaus, and were greatly disheartened and cast down, fearing that they had incurred the anger of Heaven, and that the misfortunes of the city were due to their own conduct in having excluded the sound man from the throne, and chosen the lame one; the very thing which the oracle had bidden them beware of doing. Nevertheless, Agesilaus was so powerful in the state, and so renowned for wisdom and courage, that they gladly made use of him as their leader in the war, and also employed him to settle a certain constitutional difficulty which arose about the political rights of the survivors of the battle. They were unwilling to disfranchise all these men, who were so numerous and powerful, because they feared that if so they would raise a revolution in the city. For the usual rule at Sparta about those who survive a defeat is, that they are incapable of holding any office in the state; nor will any one give them his daughter in marriage; but all who meet them strike them, and treat them with contempt.
They hang about the city in a squalid and degraded condition, wearing a cloak patched with pieces of a different colour, and they shave one half of their beards, and let the other half grow. Now, at the present crisis it was thought that to reduce so many citizens to this condition, especially when the state sorely required soldiers, would be an absurd proceeding; and consequently, Agesilaus was appointed lawgiver, to decide upon what was to be done. He neither altered the laws, nor proposed any new ones, but laid down his office of lawgiver at once, with the remark, that the laws must be allowed to sleep for that one day, and afterwards resume their force. By this means he both preserved the laws, retained the services of the citizens for the state, and saved them from infamy. With the intention of cheering up the young men, and enabling them to shake off their excessive despondency, he led an army into Arcadia. He was careful to avoid a battle, but captured a small fort belonging to the people of Mantinea, and overran their territory; thus greatly raising the spirits of the Spartans, who began to pluck up courage, and regard their city as not altogether ruined.
XXXI. After this, Epameinondas invaded Laconia with the army of the Thebans and their allies, amounting in all to no less than forty thousand heavy-armed soldiers. Many light troops and marauders accompanied this body, so that the whole force which entered Laconia amounted in all to seventy thousand men. This took place not less than six hundred years after the Dorians had settled in Lacedæmon; and through all that time these were the first enemies which the country had seen; for no one before this had dared to invade it. Now, however, the Thebans ravaged the whole district with fire and sword, and no one came out to resist them, for Agesilaus would not allow the Lacedæmonians to fight against what Theopompus calls 'such a heady torrent of war,' but contented himself with guarding the most important parts of the city itself, disregarding the boastful threats of the Thebans, who called upon him by name to come out and fight for his country, since he was the cause of all its misfortunes, because he had begun the war.
Agesilaus was also distracted by the disorderly and excited state of the city itself, for the old men were in an agony of grief, resentment, and wounded honour, while the women could not be kept quiet, but were wrought to frenzy, by hearing the cries of the enemy, and seeing the fires which they lighted. He also suffered much at the thought of his own dishonour; for when he had ascended the throne, Sparta was the greatest and most powerful city in Greece, and now he beheld her shorn of all her glories, and his favourite boast, that no Laconian woman had ever seen the smoke of an enemy's fire rendered signally untrue. We are told that when some Athenian was disputing with Antalkidas about the bravery of their respective nations, and saying, "We have often chased you away from the Kephissus," Antalkidas answered, "Yes, but we have never had to chase you away from the Eurotas." This is like the answer made by some Spartan of less distinction to an Argive, who said, "Many of you Spartans lie buried in Argive soil," to which he replied, "But none of you are buried in Laconia."
XXXII. We are told at this time Antalkidas was one of the Ephors, and became so much alarmed that he sent his family away to the island of Kythera. Agesilaus, when the enemy attempted to cross the river and force their way into the city, abandoned most part of it, and drew up his forces on the high hills in the centre. At that time the river Eurotas was in high flood, as much snow had fallen, and the excessive cold of the water, as well as the strength of the stream, rendered it hard for the Thebans to cross. Epameinondas marched first, in the front rank of the phalanx; and some of those who were present pointed him out to Agesilaus, who is said to have gazed long at him, saying merely, "O thou man of great deeds."
Epameinondas was eager to assault the city itself, and to place a trophy of victory in its streets; but as he could not draw Agesilaus into a battle, he drew off his forces, and again laid waste the country. Meanwhile, in Lacedæmon itself, a body of two hundred men, of doubtful fidelity, seized the Issorium, where the temple of Artemis stands, which is a strong and easily defensible post. The Lacedæmonians at once wished to attack them, but Agesilaus, fearing that some deep-laid conspiracy might break out, ordered them to remain quiet. He himself, dressed simply in his cloak, unarmed, and attended only by one slave, went up to the two hundred, and, in a loud voice, told them that they had mistaken their orders; that they had not been ordered to go thither, nor yet to go all together in a body, but that some were to be posted _there_, pointing to some other place, and the rest elsewhere in the city. They, hearing his commands, were delighted, imagining that their treason was undiscovered, and immediately marched to the places which he indicated. Agesilaus at once occupied the Issorium with troops which he could trust, and in the ensuing night seized and put to death fifteen of the leaders of the two hundred. Another more important conspiracy was betrayed to him, whose members, full Spartan citizens, were met together in one house to arrange revolutionary schemes. At such a crisis it was equally impossible to bring these men to a regular trial, and to allow them to carry on their intrigues. Agesilaus therefore, after taking the Ephors into his confidence, put them all to death untried, though before that time no Spartan had ever been executed without a trial.
As many of the Periœki and helots who had been entrusted with arms escaped out of the city and deserted to the enemy, which greatly disheartened the Spartans, he ordered his servants to visit the quarters of these soldiers at daybreak every morning, and wherever any one was gone, to hide his arms, so that the number of deserters might not be known. We are told by some historians that the Thebans left Laconia because the weather became stormy, and their Arcadian allies began to melt away from them. Others say that they spent three entire months in the country, and laid nearly all of it waste. Theopompus relates that when the Bœotarchs had decided to leave the country, Phrixus, a Spartan, came from Agesilaus and offered them ten talents to be gone, thus paying them for doing what they had long before determined to do of their own accord. XXXIII. I cannot tell, however, how it was that Theopompus discovered this fact, and that no other historian mentions it. All writers agree, nevertheless, in declaring that at this crisis Sparta was saved by Agesilaus, who proved himself superior to party-spirit and desire of personal distinction, and steadily refused to risk an engagement. Yet he never was able to restore the city to the glorious and powerful condition which it had previously held, for Sparta, like an athlete who has been carefully trained throughout his life, suddenly broke down, and never recovered her former strength and prosperity. It is very natural that this should have happened, for the Spartan constitution was an excellent one for promoting courage, good order, and peace within the city itself; but when Sparta became the head of a great empire to be maintained by the sword, which Lykurgus would have thought a totally useless appendage to a well-governed and prosperous city, it utterly failed.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.