XXXVIII. ground. The expelled Platæans took refuge at Athens, and were admitted to the same franchise which had been bestowed on their ancestors after the like calamity.' But they were reduced to a state of extreme destitution, and it does not appear that any effort was made, either publicly or privately, to relieve their distress. Many, it is said, were forced to make over their children in bondage to their creditors; others to earn a scanty livelihood by servile drudgery.2 Isocrates pleaded their cause in an oration, which, whether it was delivered or not by a Plataan in the assembly, was meant to urge the Athenians to interpose in their behalf, or at least to break off the alliance with Thebes; and it is to this speech we owe the best means we possess of fixing the date of the events which have been just related. Before this clear and positive contemporary evidence all doubts arising from the obscurity in which some points of these transactions are involved must give way. One of the most perplexing circumstances connected with them is that Xenophon, notwithstanding his strong prejudices against Thebes, should not only take no notice of the duplicity and breach of faith with which she appears to be chargeable in this affair, but should have given such a form to his narrative, as completely to keep them out of sight. Another difficulty arises out of the conduct of the Athenians themselves. There can be no doubt, and it is sufficiently intimated by Xenophon3, that their indignation was vehemently roused by the destruction of Platea, which revived their recollection of the most odious passages of Theban history. Isocrates reminds them, that the Plataan outcasts were the offspring of legal intermarriage with Athenian citizens. All his arguments express views Diodor. u. s. τῆς ἰσοπολιτείας ἔτυχον. 2 Isocr. u. s. ( 51. πολλοὺς μὲν μικρῶν ἕνεκα συμβολαίων δουλεύοντας, ἄλλους δ ἐπὶ θητείαν ἰόντας, κ. τ. λ. 9 H. vi. 3. 1. 4 u. s. § 54. XXXVIII. and feelings which must have been shared by the CHAP. great body of his fellow-citizens. Yet they did not dissolve their connexion with Thebes. The only satisfactory explanation of this extraordinary passiveness seems to be supplied by the early renewal of hostilities with Sparta. The difference about Zacynthus shortly to be related had undoubtedly taken place before the attack upon Platæa, and probably encouraged the Thebans to venture upon that enterprise; and the war which speedily followed, in which Sparta made the first hostile demonstration, compelled the Athenians to stifle their resentment, which, if prematurely displayed, might have united Thebes and Sparta against them." A great many learned men-as Manso (Sparta ш. p. 139.), Plass (111. p. 626.), Bauch (p. 24.), and (cited by Rehdantz) Voemel (Philippic. vol. 1. p. 139.) suppose the peace of 374 never to have been concluded. Sievers (p. 229.) states it to have been concluded, but never carried into execution. This opinion is justly combated by Rehdantz (p. 71. fol.), though with argmments to which, so far as they rest on the supposition that the yearly sacrifice to the goddess Peace was instituted in commemoration of this treaty, I cannot assent; for reasons which I shall have occasion to state hereafter. In an epimetrum to his third chapter, he confutes a supposed error of Mr. Clinton's, and his translator Krueger, on this head. But I am not sure that he has correctly represented Mr. Clinton's meaning. The passage in question is in the Tables under the year 374 B. C. Mr. Clinton first quotes Xenophon's short notice of the peace, and then, after having mentioned the return of Timotheus and the occasion which it gave to a renewal of the war, proceeds to say: "Platæa had been already destroyed. Xen. Hel. vi. 3. 1. ÈKTEπτωκότας ὁρῶντες ἐκ τῆς Βοιωτίας Πλαταιέας καὶ καταπεφευγότας πρὸς αὐτούς (τους 'Aonvalovs)." Certainly Mr. Clinton appears to have committed an oversight in this quotation, which can prove nothing as to the date of the destruction of Platæa, except that the Platæans were expelled before the battle of Leuctra. But it is not clear that he meant to say that Platea was destroyed before the peace of 374. Nor do I find that he has misinterpreted Xenophon's expression, Hel. 1. 1. 1. oi Θηβαῖοι, ἐπεὶ κατεστρέψαντο τὰς ἐν τῇ Βοιωτίᾳ πόλεις, as if it signified the destruc tion of those towns; though it does appear as if Krueger had made this mistake, from a note to his translation, quoted by Rehdantz, where he says with regard to Platea: E Xenoph. v. 4. 64. coll. vi. 1. 1. jam æstate 374 captum esse collegeris." But Rehdantz himself, while he shows very clearly from the Plataicus of Isocrates that the expulsion of the Platæans took place after the conclusion of the treaty of 374, has not sufficiently attended to the language of Isocrates, which he thinks consistent with the supposition that Platæa was not destroyed before the renewal of the war. But Weissenborn (in Zimmermann's Zeitschrift, 1847, p. 922.) has pointed out that the Plataicus must have been written while the peace was still subsisting, though at a time when there was a prospect of a fresh war. This is placed beyond a doubt by the words, v náλw yévyrai móλeμos, § 46., and by the whole of the next section. Hence Weissenborn infers that Platæa was taken in the first half of 373, which, he thinks, is confirmed by the account of Diodorus that the people were engaged at the time in rural labours, and not inconsistent with the date of Pausanias, if explained according to a common usage of historians CHAP. XXXVIII. Two of the envoys sent to conclude the peace at Sparta, according to instructions which they had brought with them, sailed from Laconia as soon as the treaty was signed, to carry the intelligence to Timotheus, with orders to return home. On his passage along the coast of Zacynthus, he stopt to land a party of exiles, who, having been expelled by their adversaries from the island, had sought his protection. They probably belonged to the democratical side, though Diodorus, with more than ordinary self-contradiction, states the reverse.' Timo and orators, by which events, which belong to the spring, are often assigned to the following archon. He also justly contends against Rehdantz (who observes, p. 129. that the peace of 374 was a separate peace between Athens and Sparta, tum inter Athenienses dumtaxat et Lacedæmonios actum esse de pace), that the Thebans were parties to the treaty; since otherwise they could not have been charged by Isocrates with the violation of oaths and treaties (§ 47. εἰ Θηβαίους μὴ διακωλύσετε παραβαίνοντας τοὺς ὅρκους καὶ τὰς συνθήκας). Compare § 5. εἰρήνης οὔσης καὶ συνθηκῶν γεγενημένων. § 25. ἐπειδὰν εἰρήνη γένηται μηδὲν περὶ πλείονος ποιεῖσθαι τῶν ὅρκων καὶ τῶν συνθηκῶν. § 46. ὑπὲρ τῶν συνθηκῶν πολεμεῖν. None of these passages can apply to the Peace of Antalcidas, though there is an allusion to that in another passage. § 18., and, as Rehdantz and Weissenborn observe, that peace was taken as the basis of the subsequent treaties. Mr. Clinton conjectures that Platæa may not have been destroyed until a year after the expulsion of the inhabitants. But it had been destroyed when Isocrates wrote. § 7. τίς γὰρ οὐκ οἶδεν ὅτι καὶ τὴν χώραν ἡμῶν κατανενέμηνται καὶ τὴν πόλιν κατεσκάφασιν ; 1 xv. 45. But in such a writer as Diodorus this affords no ground for suspecting any corruption in the text. [In the first edition I rejected the statement of Diodorus more decidedly. And I have since found my opinion confirmed by Rehdantz (Vitæ, &c. p. 84.) who likewise believes the text of Diodorus to be correct, but considers his narrative as an instance of his hallucinations. It has, however, been defended by another learned writer (Weissenborn, in Zimmermann's Zeitschrift f. d. A. 1847, p. 919, 920.), though by arguments which appear to me to have very little weight. He draws a distinction, which seems quite irrelevant, between aristocracy and oligarchy, which he illustrates by the equally irrelevant example of the Samian revolution in 412, in which—as we have seen, vol. iv. p. 30. —an oligarchical faction was formed in the bosom of the commonalty itself. He also alleges the forbearance exercised by Epaminondas, as will be hereafter related, toward the oligarchical governments of Achaia, and the application for help made by the oligarchs of Heraclea first to Timotheus, and then to Epaminondas, which was rejected by each. (Justin xvI. 4.) Then, coming nearer to the point, he observes, that the Zacynthian oligarchs could not have hoped to obtain effectual aid from Sparta, which had but a short time before suffered a defeat at Leucas, and that Timotheus himself was probably well inclined to their cause, and hoped through them to gain Zacynthus to the Athenian alliance, while, by espousing their interest, he would naturally force their adversaries to throw themselves on the protection of Sparta, and would induce Sparta to befriend them for the sake of counteracting the Athenian influence. Such are Weissenborn's arguments. But he does not notice that Diodorus introduces his singular narrative with the general remark, that the Lacedæmonians were used to side with the partisans of oligarchy, the Athenians with those of democracy; that to dislodge the political friends of XXXVIIL theus enabled them to occupy a stronghold near the CHAP. city, and furnished them with means of annoying their adversaries. The opposite party made complaints at Sparta, and Spartan envoys were sent to Athens, to remonstrate against the proceedings of Timotheus. But they obtained no satisfaction there: Hostilities the sacrifice of the exiles was thought too dear a price renewed. for peace; and at Sparta the refusal was held a sufficient ground for renewing the war, and a decree was made for raising a fleet of sixty galleys from the principal maritime states of the confederacy. A squadron of twenty-five was sent, it appears, in the autumn of the same year (374), under the command of Aristocrates, to the relief of Zacynthus. But early in the next spring the remainder, or according to Diodorus an additional armament of sixty-five galleys, with 1500 mercenaries, sailed under Mnasippus to the same quarter, but with a different destination. The main object of this expedition was to recover Corcyra, in compliance with the solicitations of a body of refugees, who had been encouraged by the hope of Spartan protection to rise against the popular government. If we may believe Diodorus, this armament was preceded by a squadron of twenty-two galleys under the command of Alcidas, which was avowedly bound for Athens was a strange way of promoting the Athenian interest in the island; and that the personal inclinations of Timotheus, however they might have swayed his conduct, would not account for the Athenians adopting the cause of the oligarchs. Weissenborn himself adds a conjecture which seems to destroy the force of all his reasoning that perhaps it was one article in the charge afterwards brought against Timotheus, that he had supported an aristocratical party, and thereby rekindled the war. Indeed, the only specious argument that Timotheus could have urged in his own defence, would have been, that by restoring the status quo, which might have been supposed to be most agreeable to Sparta, he was doing what seemed most likely to preserve peace. I am rather surprised that Weissenborn did not refer to the conduct of Chares at Corcyra in 361. But I believe the reader will see that it affords no fair parallel to that which he attributes to Timotheus. Weissenborn seems to stand alone among the later critics in his opinion. Sievers (p. 229. n. 77.) plainly intimates a strong doubt about the accuracy of the statement of Diodorus. Lachmann (1. p. 291. n. 1.) treats it as evident that he has confounded the Zacynthian parties with one another; and Bauch (Epam. p. 24.) takes it for granted that such is the case, without a remark. Weissenborn's arguments, if they are the strongest that can be produced on the opposite side, can only XXXVIII. CHAP. Sicily, but was directed to surprise the city of Corcyra. Xenophon only says, that before the sailing of Mnasippus envoys were sent from Sparta to Syracuse, to obtain aid from Dionysius for the recovery of Corcyra, as an object not less interesting to him than to Sparta. But there is no reason to question the expedition of Alcidas'; and it seems that in the course of the winter between 374 and 373 an embassy arrived at Athens from the Corcyræans of the city, to represent the danger which threatened them and to implore succour.2 The Athenians, notwithstanding the low state of their finances, prepared vigorously to contest the possession of this important island. A fleet of sixty sail was decreed, and Timotheus was appointed to the command. But as this fleet could not be immediately equipt, Stesicles was sent before with about 600 targeteers to Epirus, and king Alcetas was requested to afford him the means of transporting them across the channel to Corcyra.3 Or to suppose, with Dodwell, that Mnasippus was substituted for him. Classe jam paratâ, non, ut decreverant, Alcidam, sed Mnasippum in Corcyræos mittunt Lacedæmonii. A perfectly arbitrary supposition. * Xenophon speaks only of one embassy (H. vi. 2. 9.) sent after the Corcyræans had been reduced to great distress by the operations of Mnasippus, and represents this as the occasion of the decree for the armament under Timotheus. But Mnasippus cannot have been sent out earlier than the spring of 373; and Timotheus was making preparations for his expedition before April of that year, when he actually sailed from Piræus, as will be shortly related. (Demosth. in Timoth. § 7. Mov νυχιῶνος μηνὸς περὶ ἀναγωγὴν ἤδη ὢν ἐν τῷ Πειραιεῖ. It is therefore absolutely necessary to suppose two embassies from Corcyra to Athens. The second was sent no doubt after the blockade had lasted some time, to hasten the promised succours; and excited the impatience of the Athenians at the dilatory proceedings of Timotheus. Rehdantz (p. 85.) observes Xenophon's omission, but deranges his chronology, by supposing that Mnasippus was sent out (as he conjectures, to succeed Alcidas) in the latter half of 373, and that Stesicles only set out in company with king Alcetas, after the trial of Timotheus (in November or December, 373.); so that Iphicrates would not sail before 372: but this seems an unnecessary and improbable deviation from Xenophon's narrative, which implies (as was perceived by Weissenborn, p. 924.) that a very short interval elapsed between the dismissal of Timotheus and the departure of Iphicrates for Corcyra. 3 Diodorus (xv. 46.) relates that a person, whom he calls Ctesicles, had been previously sent to Zacynthus, to take the command of the exiles. As to the identity of his Ctesicles with Xenophon's Stesicles, there will now be no doubt, though Wesseling seems to have thought that they were different persons (not, as Schneider represents, that Ctesicles returned from Zacynthus to Athens before he was sent to Corcyra). The way in which Schneider and Manso would reconcile Diodorus |