The Historians' History of the World 04

Dercyllidas was already marching for Caria, when information reached him that all his hitherto successful labours for the welfare of the colonies were upon the point of being rendered utterly vain. In these alarming circumstances the interested pusillanimity of Tissaphernes relieved him. Pharnabazus was desirous of engaging; but Tissaphernes already more than half satisfied, since his property in Caria was no longer in immediate danger, would first try the effect of a conference. A herald was therefore sent to the Grecian general. The conference being held accordingly, Dercyllidas insisted on the simple proposition, “that all Grecian cities should be independent.” To this the satraps consented, with the conditions, “that the Grecian army should quit the king’s territory” (by which seems to have been meant Asia, including the Grecian colonies), “and that the Lacedæmonian governors should quit the Grecian towns.” Upon these terms a truce was concluded, to hold till the pleasure of the king and of the Lacedæmonian government could be known.

This was the first treaty, reported on any authentic or even probable testimony, by which, since the early times of the Lydian monarchy, it was provided that the Asian Greeks should be completely emancipated from foreign dominion. All the Ionian and Æolian cities, it appears, thus gained immediate enjoyment of independency in peace: the Carian seem to have waited the confirmation of the treaty by the king of Persia and the Lacedæmonian government. But it was a quiet revolution: no great battle gave it splendour; none of those striking events attended which invite the attention of the writer in proportion as they are fitted to impress the fancy of the reader. It forms, nevertheless, a memorable and interesting era in Grecian history; and the fame of Dercyllidas, less brilliant, but far purer, than that of most of the great men of Greece, though, being recorded by the pen of Xenophon, it is indeed secured against perishing, yet deserves to have been more generally and more pointedly noticed, than we find it, by writers whose theme has been Grecian history, or panegyric of the Grecian character.

WAR OF LACEDÆMON AND ELIS

[420-399 B.C.]

In that system, if it may be so called, by which the various members of the Greek nation were in some degree held together, we find a strange mixture of undefined, and sometimes repugnant claims, more or less generally admitted. While the Lacedæmonians presided, with authority far too little defined, over the political and military affairs of Greece, the Eleans asserted a prescriptive right to a kind of religious supremacy; also too little defined; universally allowed nevertheless, in a certain degree, but, like the Lacedæmonian supremacy, not always to the extent to which the claimants pretended. In the schism of Peloponnesus, which occurred during the Peloponnesian War, we have seen the imperial state of Lacedæmon summoned to the Elean tribunal, as a British corporation might be summoned to the courts at Westminster; a fine imposed, its citizens interdicted the common games and sacrifices of the nation, an opprobrious punishment publicly inflicted upon an aged and respectable Spartan, who, but by implication, offended against the Elean decrees; and, finally, these measures supported by avowed hostilities, and alliance with the enemies of Sparta. The necessity of the times induced the Lacedæmonians to make peace with these affronts unrevenged; but their smothered resentment had been revived and increased by what they esteemed a new indignity. Before the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War, Agis, king of Lacedæmon, had been sent, in pursuance of a supposed prophetical direction, to perform a sacrifice to Jupiter at Olympia. The Eleans forbade the ceremony, alleging that, according to ancient law, no oracle should be consulted for success in wars between Greeks and Greeks, and they would allow no prayer for victory in such a war. There is a beneficence, a liberal and extended patriotism in this idea, so consonant to the spirit with which Iphitus is said to have founded the Olympian festival, and so opposite to the tenets afterwards generally prevailing in Greece, that they seem to mark the law for ancient and genuine. The Lacedæmonians however were not the less offended with the Eleans for bringing forward, upon such an occasion, what, if those maxims only were considered which had prevailed through succeeding ages, would carry much the appearance of a complete novelty.

Greek Vase