The Historians' History of the World 04

Blood flowed everywhere because everywhere were established oligarchical governments. A massacre occurred at Thasos. At Miletus eight hundred citizens belonging to the popularist party were lured from their retreats by Lysander and put to death. At Byzantium, Œtœa, and the greater part of the towns of Asia Minor similar outrages were committed. At Samos the inhabitants were all banished, with the privilege of taking away but a single garment. The defection of Chios and its navy had assured Sparta’s triumph; as a reward its most prominent citizens were sent into exile and all its triremes were seized. Lycophron, a Pheræan, made himself master of the province of Thessaly after desperate battles. “Thereafter,” relates Xenophon, “a Lacedæmonian’s lightest word was obeyed; even a citizen in private life could arrange everything to his will.” Xenophon himself appears to have shared this terror, since after the retreat of the Ten Thousand he refused the title of general-in-chief that his companions wished to bestow upon him, fearing that Sparta might view with disfavour the placing of command in the hands of an Athenian. The islanders, especially those who had betrayed the cause of Athens, hoped that with the accession to power of Lacedæmonia who was an ally of the Great King the duties established by Aristides and Pericles to protect their commerce would be removed. But they found they had simply changed masters, Sparta continuing to levy the former tribute, which amounted annually to 1000 talents [£200,000 or $1,000,000].

Athens, more adroit in establishing her empire, had proceeded without cruelty, violence, or spoliation, hence had not known, even in her time of greatest misfortune, the falling-off of her supports. Sparta was not so wise in the formation of kingdoms; force was the only instrument of which she knew the use, and with her the use of it was the abuse of it. Athens had also made use of force, but had always associated with it justice. Athens had made itself the political, military, and judiciary centre of the empire, and further, it was the metropolis of arts and letters for all Hellas. Nothing great or glorious, nothing useful or full of promise, could proceed from the Lacedæmonian dominion; it threatened to topple over in the hour of its erection. A thousand causes were at work to bring about a rapid dissolution; many of these were in Sparta or Greece, the rest in other lands.

DEGENERACY OF SPARTA

[353-240 B.C.]

The results of Lycurgus’ institutions continued to be made manifest. The Spartan city diminished in population from day to day, as though worn away by the friction of its iron institutions. The narrow circle, which it had drawn round itself, never widening but always growing smaller, finally came to enclose but an insignificant number of Spartans. Great numbers had perished in the wars, others cast by poverty into the lower classes could no longer take their seats at the public tables. Aristotle says, “Whoever is without means to contribute to the expense of these tables must forfeit his political rights.” The Spartans knew that they were menaced with destruction through lack of citizens; the cry that arose when the four hundred and twenty Spartan soldiers were imprisoned on the island of Sphacteria, still rang in every ear. Aristotle further states: “The territory of Sparta that is capable of providing sustenance for fifteen hundred cavalry and thirty thousand hoplites, to-day barely supports a thousand warriors.” In the assemblies of four thousand, there were scarcely to be seen forty Spartans; moreover, inequality of conditions grew as the people decreased in number.

Gold and silver currency had for a long time ceased to be proscribed and the disinterestedness of the Lacedæmonians to be extolled. Numerous examples of their venality were known; Eurybiades had been bought by Themistocles, Plistoanax and Cleandridas by Pericles, Leotychides by the Aleuadæ, the admiral and captains of the fleet by Tissaphernes. The kings, the senators, the ephors, all had repeatedly received bribes, and Gylippus, the liberator of Syracuse, who had been charged to carry to Sparta the plunder of Athens, kept back for his own use thirty talents [£6000 or $30,000]. Hence the remark of an interlocutor in the Alcibiades: “There is more gold and silver in Lacedæmonia than in all the rest of Greece; money flows to it from all parts and once there remains; the country is like a lion’s cave, one sees the footprints of those who enter, but of footsteps leaving there is no trace.” The commanders who returned from ports in Asia brought with them great wealth, and more than that a taste for luxury and ease, in a word, corruption; every one plunged into wild extravagance and the vices engendered by the possession of riches.

[405-240 B.C.]