CHAPTER XVII
THE GREAT DAYS OF THEBES
I. LEGENDS AND EARLY HISTORY OF THEBES
Up to the end of the Peloponnesian War, the history of Greece had been chiefly the history of Athens and Sparta. The end of the war left Sparta supreme, but she did not know how to use her power. She was stern and harsh, cared little for literature, and disliked changes. She had not the imagination to put herself in the place of Athens and to understand how she should rule such independent, sea-faring, intellectually alert and artistic people. The short period of her supremacy ended in failure, and then she was, in her turn, overthrown by another Greek state. This state was Thebes, a state which had not hitherto played a very honourable part in Greek history. Always jealous of Athens, she had taken every opportunity to side against her. She had treated the sturdy, independent little city of Plataea with great cruelty; she had sided with the Barbarian invader during the Persian Wars and with Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, and it was only when the Spartan rule became intolerable to friends and enemies alike, that she offered a refuge to the Athenian exiles.
The city of Thebes lay in the rich plains of Boeotia, where meat and corn and wine were to be had abundantly. The near by hills provided excellent hunting, and the Thebans were a people known to their neighbours as loving pleasure and all the good things of the world, as being good fighters, but men who were intellectually dull. There were some exceptions, however, for Thebes produced two men of genius: Pindar, the poet, and Epaminondas, the mighty general.
Pindar was born in the sixth century B.C. but he lived to be an old man, and the Persians had been driven out of Greece before he died. He was a noble, and his poems are the last lyrics that sing of an order of society that was about to give way to the rule of the people. Many of Pindar's lyrics were written in honour of the winners at the Olympic Games, and in reading them one can almost see the chariot racing along the course, and hear the people shouting, and feel the joy of the victor as he receives his prize. Pindar was very conservative; he belonged to a generation which had not yet begun to question the existence of the gods, and all his poems are filled with unquestioning faith in them and in their righteousness. Especially did he delight to honour Apollo, and long after his death it was believed that he was particularly dear to the god, for it was said that every night at Delphi he was honoured by the summons: "Let Pindar the poet come in to the supper of the god."
But if Thebes had had no honoured past in history, she was rich in legend and story. Thebes had been founded by Cadmus in obedience to the word of Apollo. On the spot where the city was to be built, he had slain a fearful dragon, and taking the dragon's teeth he had sown them in the ground as a sower sows his seed, and immediately a host of armed men had sprung up from the ground, who became the first citizens of the new city. With their help, Cadmus built a citadel which was known through all the days of Theban history as the Cadmeia.
Thebes was surrounded by strong walls and the city was entered by seven gates. Another story told how the foundations of these walls and gateways had been laid by Amphion, who then took his lyre and played such divine music on it that the walls rose by magic as he played, until they stood in such strength that they completely protected the city, and later were able to endure a great siege.
But the gods had not always smiled upon Thebes. Pindar tells us that "for every good a mortal receives from the gods, he must likewise receive two evils," and this seemed to be true of the royal house of Thebes. Dark and tragic are the tales of the fate of these ancient rulers. It was Oedipus, who having first guessed the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx, then in ignorance killed his own father and became King, only to learn in later years of what he had done, and to be driven forth from his kingdom, blind and helpless. Other legends tell of Antigone, the faithful daughter of Oedipus, who accompanied him in his wanderings and tended him until his death.
Epaminondas was born in Thebes late in the fifth century B.C. He belonged to a very old family, one of the few which claimed to be descended from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus. Though of an ancient family, he was poor, but he was among the best educated among the Thebans; he had been taught to play the harp and to sing to its accompaniment, to play the flute and to dance. A wise philosopher was his instructor, to whom he was so attached that, young as he was, he preferred the society of the grave and stern old man to that of companions of his own age. After he grew up and began to practise gymnastics, he studied not so much to increase the strength as the agility of his body; for he thought that strength suited the purposes of wrestlers, but that agility made a man a better soldier, so he spent most of his time in war-like exercises.
Epaminondas, we are told, was
modest, prudent, grave, wisely availing himself of opportunities, skilled in war, brave in action and of remarkable courage. He was so great a lover of truth that he would not tell a falsehood, even in jest; he was also master of his passions, and gentle in disposition. He was a remarkable keeper of secrets, a quality no less serviceable sometimes than ability to speak eloquently.[1]
Amongst the statesmen who helped to make Greece great, none were more honourable or of greater integrity than Epaminondas. It was not possible to corrupt or bribe him and he was entirely free from covetousness. This was shown when the envoy of King Artaxerxes the Persian came to Thebes to bribe Epaminondas with a large sum of gold (to get the Thebans to help the King), but Epaminondas said to him:
There is no need for money in this matter; for if the King desires what is for the good of the Thebans, I am ready to do it for nothing; if otherwise, he has not sufficient silver or gold to move me, for I would not exchange the riches of the whole world for my love for my country. I do not wonder that you have tried me thus as you did not know me, seeing that you thought me like yourself, and I forgive you; but get you away immediately lest you corrupt others, though unable to corrupt me.[2]
Under Epaminondas, Thebes became the ruling power in Greece, but only for a very short time. The Thebans were good soldiers only as long as they had inspiring leaders, without a great leader they were unable to hold what they had gained. One of the characteristics of a great man is that he knows how to use his opportunities, and Epaminondas had this gift. The story of his life is the story of a great general. At his side was his friend Pelopidas, a man of extraordinary courage, of great enthusiasm, and of utter devotion to his leader.
Epaminondas made the Theban army a very formidable fighting force, and with this powerful army he set himself to break the power of Sparta and to put that of Thebes in its place. In 371 B.C. the Spartans were defeated by the Thebans under Epaminondas in a great battle at Leuctra, not far from Thebes, and this victory made Thebes for the time the chief military power in Greece. For nine years she kept her power, though fighting continued. Epaminondas wanted to capture Sparta itself, and he marched four times down into the Peloponnesus. In spite of the long marches his men were obliged to make, they were in splendid condition. They had implicit faith in their general and would follow him anywhere. "There was no labour which they would shrink from, either by night or by day; there was no danger they would flinch from; and with the scantiest provisions, their discipline never failed them."[3]
The Thebans had marched for the fourth time to the Peloponnesus, and they were at Mantinea, and here in 362 B.C. Epaminondas fought his last great battle against Sparta. Thebes was victorious, but she bought her victory dearly, for Epaminondas was mortally wounded. As he was carried from the field, he asked for the two captains who stood nearest to him and would take his place. But he was told that both had been killed. "Then make peace with the enemy," he murmured, and drawing out the spear which had wounded him, he fell back dead.
Epaminondas was dead, and there was no one to take his place. He had broken the power of Sparta, and the Peloponnesus was now divided into a number of camps, each at war with the other, and confusion reigned everywhere in Greece. Thebes had been no more able to unite Greece than Sparta had been, but under Epaminondas the art of war had been so developed and changed that in the hands of a commander of genius, an army had become a more formidable weapon than had ever before been deemed possible.
Six years before the battle of Mantinea, a half-barbarian boy of fifteen had been brought from Macedonia to Thebes as a hostage. This boy was Philip of Macedon, and he spent three years in Thebes, learning all that the greatest military state then in Greece could teach him. He was destined himself to be a great commander, and the father of one yet greater. There was now no Greek state powerful enough to uphold Greek freedom. As a statesman, Epaminondas had failed, for he left nothing but confusion behind him, but as a general of genius, he was the teacher of Philip and Alexander of Macedon, whose growing power was now to menace the freedom, not only of Greece, but of the world.