Part 31

Thus arrayed, the army of Thebes marched to meet its foe, in the valley between the two declivities on which the hostile camps were placed. The cavalry met first, and the Theban horsemen soon put the Spartan troop to flight. Then the footmen came together with a terrible shock. Pelopidas and his Sacred Band, and behind them the weight of the fifty shields, proved more than the Spartans, with all their courage and discipline, could endure. Both sides fought bravely, hand to hand; but soon Cleombrotus fell, mortally hurt, and was with difficulty carried off alive. Around him fell others of the Spartan leaders. The resistance was obstinate, the slaughter terrible; but at last the Spartan right wing, overborne by the heavy Theban mass and utterly beaten, was driven back to its camp on the hill-side above. Meanwhile the left wing, made up of allies, did little fighting, and quickly followed the Spartans back to the camp.

It was a crushing defeat. Of seven hundred Spartans who had marched in confidence from the camp, only three hundred returned thither in dismay. A thousand and more Lacedæmonians besides were left dead upon the field. Not since the day of Thermopylæ had Sparta lost a king in battle. The loss of the Theban army was not more than three hundred men. Only twenty days had elapsed since Epaminondas left Sparta, spurned by the scorn of one of her kings; and now he stood victor over Sparta at Leuctra, with her second king dead in his camp of refuge. It is not surprising that to Greece, which had felt sure of the speedy overthrow of Thebes, these tidings came like a thunderbolt. Sparta on land had been thought irresistible. But here on equal ground, and with nearly double force, she had been beaten by insignificant Thebes.

We must hasten to the end of this campaign. Sparta, wrought to desperation by her defeat, sent all the men she could spare in reinforcement. Thebes, too, sought allies, and found a powerful one in Jason of Pheræ, a city of Thessaly. The Theban leaders, flushed with victory, were eager to attack the enemy in his camp, but Jason gave them wiser advice.

"Be content," he said, "with the great victory you have gained. Do not risk its loss by attacking the Lacedæmonians driven to despair in their camp. You yourselves were in despair a few days ago. Remember that the gods take pleasure in bringing about sudden changes of fortune."

This advice taken, Jason offered the enemy the opportunity to retreat in safety from their dangerous position. This they gladly accepted, and marched in haste away. On their journey home they met a second army coming to their relief. This was no longer needed, and the whole baffled force returned home.

The military prestige held by Sparta met with a serious blow from this signal defeat. The prestige of Thebes suddenly rose into supremacy, and her control of Boeotia became complete. But the humiliation of Sparta was not yet near its end. Epaminondas was not the man to do things by halves. In November of 370 B.C. he marched an army into Arcadia (a country adjoining Laconia on the north), probably the largest hostile force that had ever been seen in the Peloponnesus. With its Arcadian and other allies it amounted to forty thousand, or, as some say, to seventy thousand, men, and among these the Thebans formed a body of splendidly drilled and disciplined troops, not surpassed by those of Sparta herself. The enthusiasm arising from victory, the ardor of Pelopidas, and the military genius of Epaminondas had made a wonderful change in the hoplites of Thebes in a year's time.

And now a new event in the history of the Spartan commonwealth was seen. For centuries the Spartans had done their fighting abroad, marching at will through all parts of Greece. They were now obliged to fight on their own soil, in defence of their own hearths and homes. Dividing his army into four portions, Epaminondas marched into rock-bounded Laconia by four passes.

The Arcadians had often felt the hard hand of their warlike neighbors. Only a snort time before one of their principal cities, Mantinea, had been robbed of its walls and converted into open villages. Since the battle of Leuctra the villagers had rebuilt their walls and defied a Spartan army. Now the Arcadians proved even more daring than the Thebans. They met a Spartan force and annihilated it.

Into the country of Laconia pushed the invaders. The city of Sellasia was taken and burned. The river Eurotas was forded. Sparta lay before Epaminondas and his men.

It lay before them without a wall or tower. Through its whole history no foreign army had come so near it. It trusted for defence not to walls, but to Spartan hearts and hands. Yet now consternation reigned. Sparta the inviolate, Sparta the unassailable, was in imminent peril of suffering the same fate it had often meted out freely to its foes.

But the Spartans had not been idle. Allies had sent aid in all haste to the city. Even six thousand of the Helots were armed as hoplites, though to see such a body of their slaves in heavy armor alarmed the Spartans almost as much as to behold their foes so near at hand. In fact, many of the Helots and country people joined the Theban army, while others refused to come to the aid of the imperilled city.

Epaminondas marched on until he was in sight of the city. He did not attempt to storm it. Though without walls, Sparta had strong natural defences, and heaps of earth and stones had been hastily thrown up on the most open roads. A strong army had been gathered. The Spartans would fight to death for their homes. To attack them in their stronghold might be to lose all that had been gained. Repulse here would be ruin. Content with having faced the lion in his den, Epaminondas turned and marched down the Eurotas, his army wasting, plundering, and burning as it went, while the Spartans, though in an agony of shame and wounded honor, were held back by their king from the peril of meeting their enemy in the field.

In the end, his supplies growing scarce, his soldiers loaded with plunder, Epaminondas led his army back to Arcadia, having accomplished far more than any foe of Sparta had ever done before, and destroyed the warlike reputation of Sparta throughout Greece.

But the great Theban did not end here. He had two other important objects in view. One was to consolidate the Arcadians by building them a great central city, to be called Megalopolis (Great City), and inhabited by people from all parts of the state. This was done, thick and lofty walls, more than five miles and a half in circumference, being built round the new stronghold.

His other purpose was to restore the country of Messenia. We have already told how this country had been conquered by the Spartans centuries before, and its people exiled or enslaved. Their descendants were now to regain their liberty and their homes. A new city, to be named Messenia, was ordered by Epaminondas to be built, and this, at the request of the Messenians, was erected on Mount Ithome, where the gallant hero Aristomenes had made his last stand against his country's invaders.

The city was built, the walls rising to the music of Argeian and Boeotian flutes. The best architects and masons of Greece were invited to lay out the plans of streets and houses and of the sacred edifices. The walls were made so strong and solid that they became the admiration of after-ages. The surrounding people, who had been slaves of Sparta, were made freemen and citizens of the reorganized state. A wide area of land was taken from Laconia and given to the new communities which Epaminondas had formed. Then, in triumph, he marched back to Thebes, having utterly destroyed the power and prestige of Sparta in Greece.

Reaching home, he was put on trial by certain enemies. He had broken the law by keeping command of the army four months beyond the allotted time. He appealed to the people, with what result we can readily understand. He was acquitted by acclamation, and he and Pelopidas were immediately re-elected Boeotarchs (or generals) for the coming year.

TIMOLEON, THE FAVORITE OF FORTUNE.

In the city of Corinth dwelt two brothers; one of whom, named Timoleon, was distinguished alike for his courage, gentleness, patriotism, lack of ambition, and hatred of despots and traitors; the other, named Timophanes, was noted for bravery and enterprise, but also for unprincipled ambition and lack of patriotism. Timophanes, being a valiant soldier, had gained high rank in the army of Corinth. Timoleon loved his unworthy brother and sought to screen his faults. He did more: he saved his life at frightful peril to himself. During a battle between the army of Corinth and that of some neighboring state, Timophanes, who commanded the cavalry, was thrown from his wounded horse very near to the enemy. The cavalry fled, leaving him to what seemed certain death. But Timoleon, who was serving with the infantry, rushed from the ranks and covered his brother with his shield just as the enemy were about to pierce him. They turned in numbers on the defender, with spears and darts, but he warded off their blows, and protected his fallen brother at the cost of several wounds to himself, until others rushed to the rescue and drove back the foe.

The whole city was full of admiration of Timoleon for this act of devotion. Timophanes also was raised in public estimation through his brother's deed, and was placed in an important post. Corinth was governed by an aristocracy, who, just then, brought in a garrison of four hundred foreign soldiers and placed them in the citadel. Timophanes was given command of this garrison and control of the stronghold.

The governors of the city did not know their man. Here was an opportunity for the unlimited ambition of the new commander. Gaining some armed partisans among the poorer citizens, and availing himself of the control of fort and garrison, Timophanes soon made himself master of the city, and seized and put to death all who opposed him among the chief citizens. Unwittingly the Corinthian aristocrats had put over themselves a cruel despot.

But they found also a defender. The crimes of his brother at first filled Timoleon with shame and sorrow. He went to the citadel and begged Timophanes, by all he held sacred, to renounce his ambitious projects. The new despot repelled his appeal with contempt. Timoleon went again, this time with three friends, but with no better effect. Timophanes laughed them to scorn, and as they continued their pleading he grew angry and refused to hear more. Then the three friends drew their swords and killed the tyrant on the spot, while Timoleon stood aside, with his face hidden and his eyes bathed in tears.

He who had saved his brother's life at the risk of his own had now consented to his death to save his country. But personally, although all Corinth warmly applauded his patriotic act, he was thrown into the most violent grief and remorse. This was the greater from the fact that his mother viewed his deed with horror and execration, invoked curses on his head, and refused even to see him despite his earnest supplications.

The gratitude of the city was overcome in his mind by grief for his brother, and he was attacked by the bitterest pangs of remorse. The killing of the tyrant he had felt to be a righteous and necessary act. The murder of his brother afflicted him with despair. For a time he refused food, resolving to end his odious life by starvation. Only the prayers of his friends made him change this resolution. Then, like one pursued by the furies, he fled from the city, hid himself in solitude, and kept aloof from the eyes and voices of men. For several years he thus dwelt in self-afflicting solitude, and when at length time reduced his grief and he returned to the city, he shunned all prominent positions, and lived in humility and retirement. Thus time went on until twenty years had passed, Timoleon still, in spite of the affection and sympathy of his fellow-citizens, refusing any office or place of authority.

But now an event occurred which was to make this grieving patriot famous through all time, as the favored of the gods and one of the noblest of men,--the Washington of the far past. To tell how this came about we must go back some distance in time. Corinth, though it played no leading part in the wars of Greece, like Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, was still a city of much importance, its situation on the isthmus between the Peloponnesus and northern Greece being excellent for commerce and maritime enterprise. Many years before it had sent out a colony which founded the city of Syracuse, in Sicily. It was in aid of this city of Syracuse that Timoleon was called upon to act.

We have already told how Athens sought to capture this city and ruined herself in the enterprise. After that time of triumph Syracuse passed through several decades of terror and woe. Tyrants set their feet on her fair neck, and almost crushed her into the earth. One of these, Dionysius by name, had made his power felt by far-off Greece and nearer Carthage, and for years ruled over Sicily with a rod of iron. His successor, Dion, a friend and pupil of the philosopher Plato, became an oppressor when he came into power. Then another Dionysius gained the throne, a cowardly and drunken wretch, who repeated the acts of his tyrannical father.

Such was the state of affairs in Sicily when Timoleon was dwelling quietly at home in Corinth, a man of fifty, with no ambitious thought and no ruling desire except to reach the end of his sorrow-laden life. So odious now had the tyranny of Dionysius become that the despairing Syracusans sent a pathetic appeal to Corinth, their mother city, praying for aid against this brutal despot and the Carthaginians, who had invaded the island of Sicily in force.

Corinth just then, fortunately, had no war on hand,--a somewhat uncommon condition for a Greek city at that day. The citizens voted at once to send the aid asked for. But who should be the leader? There were danger and difficulty in the enterprise, with little hope for profit, and none of the Corinthian generals or politicians seemed eager to lead this forlorn hope. The archons called out their names one by one, but each in succession declined. The archons had come nearly to their wits' end whom to choose, when from an unknown voice in the assembly came the name "Timoleon." The archons seized eagerly on the suggestion, hastily chose Timoleon for the post which all the leading men declined, and the assembly adjourned.