The Historians' History of the World 04

The Athenians now saw themselves not only exposed to constant annoyance from Ægina, but in danger of falling again under the power of the enemy, and losing all the benefit of Conon’s victory. They were therefore heartily desirous of an honourable peace. Most of the other states were probably still more anxious for the termination of a contest from which they could expect no advantage. When therefore Tiribazus, in his master’s name, summoned a congress of deputies to listen to the proposals which he was commissioned to announce, all the belligerents readily sent their ministers to attend it. In the presence of this assembly Tiribazus, having shown the royal seal, read his master’s decree, which ran in the following imperial style:

“King Artaxerxes thinks it right that the Greek cities in Asia, and the islands of Clazomenæ and Cyprus, should belong to himself; but that all the other Greek cities, both small and great, should be left independent, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, and that these should as of old belong to the Athenians. If any state refuse to accept this peace, I will make war against it, with those who consent to these terms, by land and by sea, with ships and with money.”

THE KING’S PEACE

[387-386 B.C.]

The treaty founded on these conditions was ratified by all the parties almost without opposition. A little delay arose from the Thebans, who were reluctant to part with the sovereignty they had hitherto exercised over many of the Bœotian towns, and wished, for the sake of at least retaining their pretensions, to ratify in the name of all the other Bœotians. But Agesilaus, who was charged to receive the oath of their ministers, refused to accept it in this form, and required them strictly to conform to the Persian ordinance, and expressly to acknowledge the independence of all other states. One impediment to the general peace still remained. The governments of Corinth and Argos did not consider themselves bound by the treaty to alter the relations which had hitherto subsisted between them; and it was only when Agesilaus threatened them with war, that they consented, the one to dismiss, and the other to withdraw, the Argive garrison from Corinth. Its departure was attended by an immediate reaction in the state of the Corinthian parties. The authors of the massacre, knowing themselves to be generally odious to their fellow citizens, thought themselves no longer safe at home, and left the city. Most of them found refuge at Athens, where they met with a much more honourable reception than they deserved. The exiles of the opposite faction were recalled; and their return dissolved the union with Argos, and restored the influence of Sparta, and the oligarchical institutions.

This treaty, which was long celebrated under the name of the Peace of Antalcidas, was undoubtedly a masterpiece of policy, nor does it appear to deserve the censure which it incurred from the Attic orators and from Plutarch, and which has been repeated by some modern writers, as a breach of political morality. Sparta in her transactions with Persia during the Peloponnesian War, had more than once acknowledged the title of the Persian king to the dominion of the Asiatic Greeks; she had never pledged herself to maintain their independence; and even if she had done so, the revival of the maritime power of Athens, and its union with that of Persia, would have afforded a fair plea for receding from an engagement which she was no longer able to fulfil. The clause in favour of Athens was perhaps only designed to excite jealousy and discord between Athens and the hated Bœotians. It has been attributed to a deeper policy; it has been considered as a device, by which Sparta reserved a pretext for eluding the conditions of the treaty which she rigorously enforced in the case of other states. But it is doubtful whether the exception expressly made concerning the three islands which Athens was allowed to retain, could have been needed, or if needful could have availed, as a colour under which Sparta, while she stripped Thebes of her sovereignty in Bœotia, might keep possession of Messenia and the subject districts of Laconia. Sparta did not permit a question to be raised on this point. She was constituted the interpreter of the treaty; she expounded it by the rule, not of reason, but of might, with the sword in hand, and the power of Persia at her back.e