The Hellenica
Xenophon’s Hellenica (Greek Affairs) covers the period from 411, where Thucydides’ history abruptly breaks off, to 362, and is divided into seven books. Books 1–2 cover the Ionian War (411–404) to Athens’ surrender; the rule in Athens of a narrow oligarchy, known as the Thirty Tyrants (404–403); and the restoration of democracy and the end of the Athenian civil war (403). Book 3 gives an account of the Spartan campaigns in Asia Minor under Thibron (400), Dercylidas (399–397) and King Agesilaos (396–395) against Persia with the alleged aim of liberating the Asiatic Greeks from Persian rule. This book also relates the formation of an anti-Spartan alliance between Boeotia and Thebes, and the defeat of a Spartan army at Haliartus in 395, which was the opening battle of the Corinthian War (395–386/7 – see Chapter 24). Book 4 deals with the recall of Agesilaos from Asia Minor (394), and the land and naval campaigns of the Corinthian War.
Book 5 covers the period from the King’s Peace (or Peace of Antalcidas) in 386, which, with Persian backing, made the Spartans the undisputed leaders of Greece, to 375. Then Xenophon recounts the exercise of power by the Spartans from 386–379: their defeat and dismemberment of Mantinea (385); the imposition of a narrow pro-Spartan oligarchy on Phlius in the Peloponnese (381–379); the seizure of Thebes by treachery (382); and the dissolution of the Chalcidian League (379). He also records the gradual erosion of Spartan power from 379–375 at the hands of the Thebans, after they regained their independence in 379 (see Chapter 25). Book 6 deals with the growing power of Jason of Pherae in Thessaly (375), but records his assassination (370) and the subsequent events in Thessaly over the following two decades. There is also the increasing rapprochement between Athens and Sparta through their mutual fear of Thebes. In addition, this book narrates the battle of Leuctra in 371, when the Thebans destroyed the myth of Spartan military invincibility forever, and the first Theban-led invasion of the Peloponnese and Laconia (370/69). Book 7 covers the events and political developments in the Peloponnese throughout the 360s, beginning with the alliance between Athens and Sparta (369), and the second invasion of the Peloponnese by the Thebans at the request of the Arcadians, Argives and Elis (369), and ending with the battle of Mantinea (362), in which all of the major Greek states and their allies were ranged on either side.
There is no agreement among scholars on the date(s) of the composition of the Hellenica. The extreme ‘unitarian’ view maintains that the whole work was composed as a unit at some time after the battle of Mantinea in 362 and even well into the 350s, since Xenophon mentions the assassination of Alexander of Thessaly (358) and the succession of Tisiphonus (6.4.35–37). The extreme ‘analyst’ view holds that as many as four separate chronological sections can be identified within the work. However, the general consensus of scholarly opinion falls between the two.
Xenophon, unlike Thucydides (1.22.2), does not inform the reader of his methodology in gathering information from his sources, but it is likely that it was based upon his own eyewitness experiences and the reports of his circle of friends. The vivid and detailed accounts of certain events, such as the civil war in Athens in 404–403 (2.4.138), and the campaigns of the Spartans, especially Agesilaos, in Asia Minor from 400–394 (3.1.3–2.20; 3.4.5–29; 4.1.1–28), supply convincing evidence that he was present on these occasions. With regard to his other sources, the bias, the partisanship and the concentration on Peloponnesian affairs throughout his work strongly suggest that the Spartans themselves and the upper-class, pro-Spartan, pro-oligarchic supporters of Agesilaos were Xenophon’s chief sources of information, and that Xenophon decided that their version of events was sufficient for his needs. These were the very men who, according to Xenophon, ‘were concerned with the best interests of the Peloponnese’ (7.4.35; 7.5.1), such as ‘the owners of landed property [in Mantinea] … who, because they were governing in an aristocratic government and were rid of the annoying demagogues, were pleased with what they [the Spartans] had done’ (5.2.7), i.e. the breaking-up of Mantinea into four or five villages and the imposition of a pro-Spartan, oligarchic government in 385.
There is much to enjoy and appreciate in the Hellenica, provided that it is viewed as the ‘memoirs of an old man’ (Cartledge, Agesilaos, p. 65) rather than as a work of history, using Thucydides’ and modern historical standards as the criteria for assessing Xenophon’s worth as a historian. However, for the purposes of this historical textbook, these must be the criteria employed. Consequently, Xenophon’s Hellenica must be criticized for its blatant bias and its remarkable omissions of events of the greatest historical importance.
Xenophon’s bias is most obvious in his favourable treatment of Sparta and his hostile attitude to Thebes. He dwells at excessive length on minor victories of the Spartans, for example, the ‘Tearless Battle’ in 368 against the Arcadians (7.1.29–32). But he belittles major Theban successes, either by totally ignoring or hardly mentioning them, for example, the liberation of the Messenian ‘Helots’ and the (re)foundation of Messene in 369; or by presenting them in an unfavourable light: for example, the Theban invasion of Laconia (370/69) up to the very outskirts of the city of Sparta (previously believed to be impossible and therefore deeply humiliating for the Spartans) is portrayed as tentative, fearful and deliberately avoiding any clash with the Spartan hoplites (6.5.27–32), while the Theban destruction of Sellasia, a major Spartan outpost which was strategically important for the defence of Sparta, is narrated in eight words (6.5.27). Xenophon is strongly critical of the Spartans (as opposed to individual Spartans) on only two occasions: their illegal and unprovoked seizure in 382 of the Cadmeia, the citadel of Thebes (5.4.1); and his reporting of the Athenian Autocles’ critical speech about Spartan imperialism (6.3.7–9). In the rest of his work, he finds no problem in presenting some of Sparta’s more disreputable actions in the most favourable light: for example, the King’s Peace of 386, by which the Spartans sold out the Asiatic Greeks to Persia in return for the undisputed hegemony of Greece, is portrayed as an honourable peace that brought peace between Athens and Sparta, and ensured the independence of Greek cities – the Spartans are even given the honorific title ‘champions of the peace’ (5.1.34–35).
Xenophon’s major omissions can usually be explained as other examples of his bias. The rise of Thebes, from a position of extreme weakness after the dissolution of the Boeotian League in 386 to its victory over the Spartans at Leuctra in 371 and to its pre-eminence in Greek affairs, is mentioned in a brief and piecemeal fashion, and no explanation is offered. Even more damning is the failure to give an account of the careers of the two dominant generals and statesmen of the 370s and the 360s, the architects of Thebes’ greatness, Epaminondas and Pelopidas (see Chapter 25). Both men receive their first mention, and then only in passing and in a bad light, much later than their political and military successes warranted: Epaminondas in 366, when he failed to achieve his objectives in Achaea in his third invasion of the Peloponnese (7.1.41–43); and Pelopidas in 367 in the Theban mission to the Persian king, which failed to bring about the Common Peace that Pelopidas so greatly desired, since it would have brought great advantages to the Thebans (7.1.33–40). Other very notable omissions include the formation of the Quadruple Alliance (Athens, the Boeotians, Argos and Corinth) that fought the Spartans in the Corinthian War, and destroyed their imperialist ambitions with regard to the Asiatic Greeks; the foundation of the naval Second Athenian League in 378/7, whose ostensible aim was to prevent further breaches of the Peace of Antalcidas by Sparta; the liberation of the Messenian Helots, the (re)foundation of Messene in 369, and the foundation of Megalopolis as the federal capital of the new Arcadian League between 370 and 368 – all deeply humiliating for the Spartans.
A further criticism of Xenophon, which is also levelled at Plutarch (see above), is his excessive concentration on personality for moralizing purposes. Agesilaos in particular is constantly portrayed as the ideal leader, since, apart from the conventional qualities of a good general, he also possessed piet
y and desired so much to destroy the Persian Empire (e.g. 3.4.3) – two things that especially appealed to Xenophon. As a result, Xenophon rarely misses an opportunity in his narrative to display Agesilaos’ qualities as a leader by his words and action. An excellent example of Xenophon’s praise for the Spartan king also includes his moralizing about what should be the ideal pursuit of mankind, both of which are contained in the section about Agesilaos’ military preparations for his campaign in 395 against the Persians:
Indeed Agesilaos made the whole city, in which he was staying, a sight worth seeing; for the market-place was filled with all kinds of horses and weapons for sale, and the copper-workers, carpenters, smiths, leather-workers and painters were all making weapons for war – as a result one would think that the city was really a military workshop. And one would also have been encouraged at seeing another sight there – Agesilaos in the front, followed by the other soldiers, wearing garlands while returning from the gymnasia and dedicating the garlands to Artemis. For where men show piety to the gods, practise the arts of war, and prepare themselves to obey orders, surely that place is filled with high hopes for the future!
(Xenophon, Hellenica 3.14.17–18)
Agesilaos is clearly the living embodiment of all that is morally desirable in mankind. Other leaders receive praise (although not as much as Agesilaos) due to their moral qualities, even if their contribution to warfare is negligible or even ends in failure: for example, there is the lengthy eulogy of Hermocrates who, while leading a small contingent of Syracusan ships and thus playing only a small part in the Ionian War (413–404) against Athens, was deposed as general and exiled by the Syracusan government (1.1.27–31); and the admirable portrayal of Callicratidas, the Spartan commander in charge of the Peloponnesian fleet, who is depicted in his two speeches as a loyal and obedient Spartan, and as a pan-Hellenist strongly opposed to the despised Persians (1.6.5, 1.6.8–11) – yet his fleet was utterly defeated at the battle of Arginusae (406).
The final major criticism of Xenophon the ‘historian’ is his inability to provide an effective analysis of the events in his narrative. Thus he provides no perceptive reasons for the shattering Spartan defeat at Leuctra in 371, preferring to attribute it to divine punishment for the illegal seizure of the Cadmeia (the citadel of Thebes) in 382 by the Spartans (5.4.1), rather than recognize the brilliant new tactics of the Thebans under Epaminondas and provide an explanation for the drastic diminution of Spartan manpower, which was also a major cause of their defeat. In the same way, Xenophon totally fails to understand the significance of Athens’ rejection of an anti-Spartan alliance with the Arcadian League, Argos and Elis in 370 – it led the triple alliance to appeal to the Thebans, who voted to become their allies (Diodorus 15.61.3) and launched their first devastating invasion of the Peloponnese in 370/69. In fact, Agesilaos’ ineffective campaign in 370 against the Arcadians, which Xenophon does describe at length and in glowing terms (6.5.11–21), led directly to Epaminondas’ invasion and the subsequent curtailment of Spartan power during the 360s.
2
THE CAUSES OF COLONIZATION IN ARCHAIC GREECE
The great age of Greek colonization is associated with the period of time that stretched from the second half of the eighth century to the first half of the sixth. Greek colonies were sent out westwards to Sicily and southern Italy, even as far as the south coast of France and the east coast of Spain; eastwards to the Thracian coast, the Hellespont and all around the shores of the Black Sea; and southwards to Cyrenaica in modern Libya on the north coast of Africa. There had been an earlier period of Greek colonization during the Dark Ages (1200–900BC) after the fall of the Mycenaean civilization in the twelfth century: the so-called Ionian and Dorian migrations. According to tradition, the Dorians under the leadership of the sons of Heracles, who had been exiled from Mycenae, returned to Greece to regain their inheritance by force, which resulted in the Ionians seeking refuge from them by crossing the Aegean Sea and settling in Asia Minor; but it was not on the same scale nor as well-organized as this later expansion. The end of the Dark Ages ushered in an era that witnessed the rediscovery of long-range travel by sea, widespread trade around the Mediterranean, the re-introduction of writing and the rise of the Greek ‘polis’ or city-state. The eighth century (799–700) was a time of remarkable economic growth, with agricultural development bringing about a general increase in the level of prosperity, especially for the aristocracy, whose political control over their own polis was based on their tenure of the best and the largest amount of land, as well as their ability to defend the state from external threats. Land, especially in a pre-coinage age, was the most valuable of all possessions because it was the sole guarantee of permanent wealth. However, the eighth century also saw the rise of serious social problems in Greece, which were linked directly or indirectly with the land.
Scholarly opinion in the past has been deeply split over the causes of colonization: whether it was land-hunger, arising from over-population, or trade that was the primary cause. These stark alternatives have proved to be unsatisfactory when all the evidence is considered, especially with the growth of archaeological excavations in colonial sites. In addition, there is a need to clarify what is meant by ‘trade’ before it can be offered as a motive for colonization: whether it is a search for foreign markets for the state’s own exports, or a search for vital resources which the state lacks and can import. It is also vital at the outset to make a clear distinction between a colony (‘apoikia’) and a trading station (‘emporion’), both of which are present from the eighth century. The colony was an independent city from the start, founded at a particular date and by a public act, which had its own government, laws and foreign policy, and whose inhabitants were citizens of the colony and not of the mother-state. The emporion was by contrast a strictly commercial trading post, which was formed spontaneously by traders from different Greek city-states, even by non-Greeks. However, even this clear distinction could at times be blurred: Herodotus refers to the Milesian colonies on the north shore of the Black Sea as emporia (4.24).
Shortage of land
Modern scholarship (e.g. Murray) now inclines to the view that land hunger, arising from over-population, was the chief cause of archaic colonization, especially at the beginning of that period, but that trading considerations were important in many colonial foundations and predominant in a few. The Greeks themselves saw colonization as a cure for land-hunger and over-population. Plato in the Laws explicitly states that colonists were sent out like a swarm of bees to relieve the pressure of land-shortage (708B) and later in the same work refers again to colonization as a means to resolve over-population (740E). Thucydides also reflects this belief:
For they, especially those who had insufficient land, made expeditions against the islands and subdued them.
(Thucydides 1.15.1)
The chief colonizers were Corinth, Megara, Achaea, Chalcis, Eretria, Phocaea and Miletus, which were all coastal towns (or had a coastline as in the case of Achaea) with fertile territory, but were prevented from expanding due to natural obstacles or by powerful neighbouring states – hence the need to expand overseas. Thus the first colonization in the west was directed towards the fertile grain-growing areas of Sicily and south Italy. Chalcis in Euboea founded Naxos (734), Leontini (728) and Catana (soon after Leontini); Corinth founded Syracuse (734); and the Achaeans founded in southern Italy Sybaris (720), Croton (c.710) and Metapontum (c.700). The Chalcidians and the Eretrians of Euboea were the most active in colonizing the northern Aegean in Chalcidice (which takes its name from Chalcis) and the Thracian coast. Megara founded Chalcedon (c.687) and Byzantium (c.660) on both sides of the entrance to the Black Sea; and Miletus was particularly active in founding colonies around the Black Sea.
It is clear from literary and archaeological evidence that there was a major problem of over-population in the second half of the eighth century. The shortage of fertile, cultivable land in mainland Greece and the tradition of dividing up
land equally among male heirs were causing major social and economic problems: there was insufficient land to absorb and support the growing population, and the increasingly smaller inheritances of land were threatening to reduce many small landowners and their families to poverty. Although an increasing number of Greeks were engaged in trade, the vast majority in the eighth century made their living from agriculture. Aristotle mentions the five main ways of gaining a living: pastoral farming, hunting, piracy, fishing, but even in the later fourth century:
the largest class of men live from the land and from the cultivation of the fruits of the earth.
(Aristotle, Politics 1.1256a)
It was for this very reason that the possession of sufficient arable land in order to provide a reasonable standard of living for their populations so dominated the thoughts of the city-states and their citizens; and these same considerations were uppermost in the minds of the Greek colonists, who were willing or compelled to undertake the arduous and dangerous task of finding a new home overseas in order to acquire the cultivable land that was not available at home. Corinth was renowned for its citizens’ commercial enterprise, but the founding of Syracuse (733) was achieved under the leadership of Archias and his followers, who came from the inland village of Tenea; and they, being farmers not seafarers, were primarily concerned with Syracuse’s agricultural potential.
Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC) Page 6