Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC)

by Terry Buckley

  In 366, the Thebans launched a third invasion of the Peloponnese, desiring to detach Achaea from the Peloponnesian League, but mainly to compel the allies, as required under the terms of the Boeotian–Peloponnesian alliance, to send contingents of troops to serve under the Thebans, thereby acknowledging the hegemony of Thebes (7.1.41). The Arcadians reluctantly obeyed the call to arms, for they had correctly perceived the real intentions of the Thebans in their attack upon Achaea. But the Theban pleasure at the subservience of the Arcadians was short-lived, when they requested a defensive alliance with the Athenians later in 366. The Thebans had already antagonized the Athenians by regaining control of the perennially disputed Oropus on the Boeotian–Athenian borders (7.4.1; Diodorus 15.76.1), and so the Athenians accepted the Arcadian offer of the alliance (7.4.2–3). This disturbing anti-Theban move was offset in the winter of 366/5 by the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Thebans and the Corinthians and the remaining Peloponnesian League allies, the latter having been given prior permission by the Spartans who could no longer protect their allies (7.4.6–11). It is not clear if this Peace of 366/5 was a Common Peace, as stated by Diodorus (15.76.3), but its major significance was the final break-up of the Peloponnesian League and the formal recognition by these former Spartan allies of Messene’s right to independence from Sparta. Epaminondas and the Thebans had finally achieved their ultimate aims in the Peloponnese: the final and permanent reduction of Spartan power. However, this overwhelming success did not lead to a relaxation of vigilance, for the Arcadian– Athenian defensive alliance was followed by the outbreak of war between Arcadia and Elis over Triphylia (7.4.12–19; Diodorus 15.77.1–4). It was only a matter of time before Arcadia and Thebes would finally attempt to settle the issue of the hegemony of the Peloponnese on the battlefield.

  Northern Greece: 369–367

  Jason of Pherae, who had united Thessaly and had thus created a potential major Greek power, was assassinated in 370, which led to a power struggle for the succession and civil war. By 369, Alexander of Pherae was attempting to regain Jason’s position as ‘tagos’ (ruler) of Thessaly (6.4.33–34). The success of Alexander again caused deep concern in Thebes, fearful for the security of Boeotia, and consequently Pelopidas did not accompany Epaminondas in his second invasion of the Peloponnese, but stayed behind at Thebes to watch the unfolding events in Thessaly. The Aleuadae, the leading aristocratic family in Thessalian Larissa (one of the three major centres in Thessaly, along with Pherae and Pharsalus), through fear of Alexander of Pherae appealed for help from King Alexander II of Macedon, who had succeeded to the throne in 370 but was being challenged by Ptolemy. Alexander of Macedon responded positively in the hope that success against Alexander of Pherae would lead the other Thessalians to give him military support against Ptolemy (Diodorus 15.61.3–4). In the event, Alexander of Macedon failed to defeat his Thessalian opponent and, due to his need to return quickly to Macedon in order to oppose Ptolemy, an appeal was made to Thebes.

  The Thebans saw this as an opportunity to intervene in the affairs of Thessaly, especially to check the growing power of Alexander of Pherae:

  The Boeotians, after the Thessalians had sent for them in order to free their cities and to overthrow the tyranny of Alexander of Pherae, sent Pelopidas with an army to Thessaly, instructing him to arrange the affairs of Thessaly to the benefit of the Boeotians.

  (Diodorus 15.67.3)

  Alexander of Macedon and the other Thessalians by their military support would ease the demands on Theban manpower, the majority of which was committed to the Peloponnese, and at the same time would be recognizing the leadership of Thebes. Pharsalus quickly joined the side of Pelopidas, whose effective campaigning forced Alexander of Pherae to seek an armistice in which he agreed to leave the Thessalian cities in peace (Philochorus FGrH 115 F409; Plutarch, Pelopidas 26.4). Pelopidas then (probably) reorganized and strengthened the Thessalian Confederacy, which would be both a useful ally in northern Greece and a check upon Alexander of Pherae. While still in Thessaly, Pelopidas received a request for help from Alexander of Macedon against Ptolemy. An alliance was made in which Alexander agreed to become a subject-ally and, as a token of good faith, to hand over hostages, including his brother Philip, the future King of Macedon and father of Alexander the Great (Diodorus 15.67.4; Plut., Pel. 26.4–8). However, there was little that Pelopidas could achieve through a lack of sufficient troops.

  In 368, fresh complaints were made against Alexander of Pherae, and Pelopidas was sent to investigate, although this time without an army (Plut., Pel. 27.1). Pelopidas’ fears were raised upon his arrival, and he began to recruit an army of mercenaries. News was then received of the assassination of Alexander of Macedon and the seizure of power by Ptolemy, leading to civil war. Even more worrying for Pelopidas and Thebes was the report that the Athenians were trying to exploit the situation by sending Iphicrates and some ships to support Ptolemy against Pausanias, another contender for the Macedonian throne; their real purpose was to get a foothold in the north Aegean and especially to regain Amphipolis. The identity of the Macedonian ruler did not matter to the Thebans provided that he was pro-Theban and anti-Athenian. Consequently Pelopidas accepted Ptolemy’soffer of an alliance as a subject-ally, backed up by further hostages, so that he could check Athenian imperial aims in the north Aegean (Plut., Pel. 27.2–5).

  Pelopidas returned to Thessaly to deal with Alexander of Pherae, but he lacked an army as his mercenaries had deserted in Macedon. His attempt to intimidate Alexander in person ended in humiliation:

  Having met Alexander the tyrant of Pherae, he was suddenly arrested along with Ismenias and placed under guard. The Thebans, having been roused to anger by these events, quickly sent 8,000 ‘hoplites’ and 600 cavalry into Thessaly. Alexander, being afraid, sent ambassadors to Athens about an alliance. The Athenian people immediately sent him 30 ships and 1,000 soldiers under the command of Autocles.

  (Diodorus 15.71.2–3)

  The Athenians were determined to check the growth of Theban influence in northern Greece, having failed in the Peloponnese; at the same time they were beginning a policy of imperialism in the north Aegean, centred on control of Amphipolis, which occupied most of the 360s. The Theban army, owing to poor generalship (Epaminondas had not been elected Boeotarch for 368, probably due to internal opposition to his Peloponnesian policy), was lucky to avoid a major disaster (Diodorus 15.71.5–7). However, in 367 under the leadership of the re-elected Epaminondas, the Theban army so ravaged the territory of Alexander that he sued for peace. A 30-day truce was agreed, and Pelopidas and Ismenias were returned safely to the Thebans (Diodorus 15.75.2; Plut., Pel. 29).

  The Thebans had learnt a valuable lesson from their campaigns in Thessaly: half-hearted military intervention was going to cause serious problems. If they wished to crush Alexander of Pherae and bring Thessaly directly under their control, they would need to commit a major part of their armed forces to this theatre of war. However, this decision would involve either fighting on two fronts, thus drastically overstretching their limited manpower resources, or postponing their military operations in the Peloponnese. As the Thebans believed that the security of Boeotia was paramount and that the Peloponnese was the far more important theatre of war, they chose to stay out of Thessaly for the next three years. They knew that Alexander of Pherae, unlike Jason previously, offered no threat to their security, since the reorganized Thessalian Confederacy would act as a counter-weight to him, thereby keeping Thessaly divided and weakened. After the campaign of Epaminondas in 367, there was no fear of danger from the north.

  Theban foreign policy, 364–362

  The Aegean: 364

  The years 364/3 marked a dramatic change in Theban foreign policy when for the first time they sought to become a major naval power in the Aegean:

  Epaminondas the Theban, who possessed the greatest prestige among the citizens, addressed them during a meeting of the assembly, urging them to gain control of the ‘hegem
ony’ (leadership) of the sea. By this speech, which he had considered over a long period of time, he showed that this attempt would be useful and possible, putting forward many arguments in support of this view and especially that it was easier for those who were superior on land to gain the command (arche) of the sea.

  (Diodorus 15.78.4)

  As a result, the Boeotians voted to build a fleet of 100 ‘triremes’; to win over Rhodes, Chios and Byzantium; and to send out Epaminondas with an armed force to these three places. According to Diodorus, Epaminondas was so successful that Laches, the Athenian general who had been despatched with a large fleet to prevent the Thebans from achieving their aims, withdrew in fear, resulting in these cities attaching themselves to the Thebans (Diodorus 15.79.1).

  This naval adventure was unusual for the Thebans, as they had always traditionally concentrated on being a land power. However, Diodorus’ account is supported by the Athenian orator Aeschines, who stated that Epaminondas had argued in the Theban assembly that the Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis should be transferred to the Cadmeia, the Theban citadel (2.105) – the significance of this remark was that, since the Propylaea was a symbol of the Athenian fifth-century naval empire, he was proposing a naval empire for the Thebans on the same lines. Furthermore, Isocrates, a fourth-century pamphleteer, claimed that Theban triremes were sent to Byzantium so that they might rule by land and by sea (5.53).

  The most likely cause of this development in Theban foreign policy was the increasingly imperialistic behaviour of Athens. In the first half of the 360s the Athenians had set their sights on regaining Amphipolis and the Thracian Chersonese, thus attempting to re-establish their former empire in the northern Aegean and ignoring the original aims of the Second Athenian League which had been formed to protect its members from Sparta. This military activity was bound to worry the Thebans, but it was the Athenian treatment of Samos in 365 that probably sparked the Theban decision to intervene in the eastern Aegean. The Athenians had besieged and captured Samos, and then imposed an Athenian ‘cleruchy’ (see Glossary) on the island. ‘Cleruchies’ had been the most blatant and the most hated symbol of fifth-century Athenian imperialism, and had been expressly outlawed in the Charter of the Second Athenian League. This reintroduction at Samos in 365 raised the spectre of a renewed Athenian Empire. The need to form defensive alliances with major naval states to check this growth in Athenian imperial ambitions was almost certainly the prime motivation for the Theban naval policy.

  In the event, the Thebans had little to show for their efforts. The most that they achieved was to detach the strategically important Byzantium from the Second Athenian League or, at least, to cause a rift between the Athenians and the Byzantines who, by 362, were interfering with the passage of the vital grain ships en route to Athens (Demosthenes 1.6; 50.6). In addition, the fact that Rhodes and Chios had attached themselves to Thebes does not necessarily mean that they revolted from Athens – the Athenians themselves became allies of the Arcadian League, which was hostile to Sparta, an Athenian ally. There is no evidence, certainly not in Diodorus, that the Thebans ever built the fleet of 100 triremes; and it is probable that Laches’ retreat was caused less by fear of the Theban fleet than by fear of breaking the Peace of 366/5 if he attacked. Whatever the extent of Theban ambitions in the eastern Aegean, they proved to be short-lived due to the rapidly deteriorating situation during 364 in Thessaly and in the Peloponnese. These two areas were far more pressing for Boeotian security and far more important for Theban influence in Greek affairs. As Epaminondas must have realized, this was not the time for an ambitious naval policy.

  Thessaly: 364

  Alexander of Pherae had renewed his attempts to become the master of Thessaly by again attacking the cities of the Thessalian Confederacy. Their appeal to Thebes led to the despatch of Pelopidas with 300 mercenary cavalry and some Boeotian volunteers. This force, supplemented by the Thessalians, defeated Alexander at the battle of Cynoscephalae in July 364, but Pelopidas fell in the fighting. However, the victory had not achieved its object: the reduction of Alexander’s growing power in Thessaly. Only decisive action on a grander scale by the Thebans could curtail the threat of Alexander. The Thebans now voted to send an army of 7,000 hoplites and 700 cavalry into Thessaly which inflicted a heavy defeat on Alexander’s army:

  Alexander, having been defeated and totally crushed in a second battle, was forced by treaty to hand back to the Thessalians the cities which he had captured in war; to hand over Magnesia and Phthiotian Achaeans to the Boeotians; and in future to be the ruler only of Pherae and an ally of the Boeotians.

  (Diodorus 15.80.6)

  In other words, Alexander had surrendered unconditionally, giving up his claim to the leadership of Thessaly and becoming a subject-ally of the Thebans. They could now retire with confidence from Thessaly in order to concentrate on the Peloponnese.

  The Peloponnese: 364–362

  It was the continuous war between the Arcadians and the Eleans that exposed the inner tensions within the Arcadian League, leading to its disintegration. The Eleans had allied themselves with the Spartans in 365, but by 364 they were in a desperate situation: their territory had been invaded; there had been civil war within Elis; and Olympia had been occupied by the Arcadians who had handed over the presidency of the Olympian festival to the Pisatans. The Spartans’ attempt to relieve the pressure on Elis had ended in humiliating defeat at Cromnos at the hands of the Arcadians and their allies (7.4.12–32). However, this constant warfare had caused a drain on the Arcadian League’s federal funds which were used mainly to pay the wages of the ‘Eparitoi’, the 5,000-strong full-time federal army. Therefore the Arcadian League’s public officials decided to seize and use the sacred treasures of Olympia to pay the troops (7.4.33). It was this issue that revealed the underlying split between Tegea and Mantinea, traditional rivals for the leadership of Arcadia, and between the democrats and the oligarchs (Diodorus 15.82.2). The oligarchically minded Mantineans were against such an abuse of sacred money and, when the League funds became exhausted in 363 and the poorer pro-democratic soldiers in the Eparitoi were forced to leave through a lack of pay, they replaced them with more affluent pro-oligarchic supporters, thus changing the political sympathies of the army (7.4.34). The democratically minded Tegeans rightly feared that the Mantinean-led faction would seek an alliance with Sparta, and thus they appealed to Thebes for support.

  Epaminondas realized that his whole Peloponnesian policy – the most important of the three areas of Theban foreign policy – was now in grave danger of collapsing. The conclusion of peace in 362 between Arcadia and Elis, without the consent of the other members of the Boeotian–Peloponnesian alliance, gave him the legal pretext to invade the Peloponnese for the fourth and last time (7.4.40). He knew that this invasion would bring about an inevitable coalition of the Mantinean-led Arcadians, Sparta and Athens (and their allies), but a victory on the battlefield over all his major Greek enemies would lead to a Common Peace (but without Persian involvement), whose terms would be dictated by the Thebans, thus guaranteeing their hegemony in Greece. Thus the battle-lines were drawn up on the plain of Mantinea in 362: on the Theban side were their allies in central and northern Greece (except Phocis which had only a defensive alliance with Boeotia), the Tegean-led Arcadians, Argives and Messenians; on the other side were the Mantinean-led Arcadians, the Spartans, the Athenians, the Eleans and the Achaeans. For the last time Epaminondas led his troops to victory, but he himself paid the ultimate price for his bravery (7.5.20–25).

  The causes of the failure of the Theban ‘hegemony’

  Mantinea, in 362, was one of the greatest land battles in Greek history, involving over 50,000 combatants, but it resolved nothing – its result was one of widespread exhaustion and war-weariness. Immediately after the battle, with the exception of the Spartans who still refused to accept the independence of Messene, all the other Greek states agreed to the first genuine Common Peace (i.e. not involving nor dictated b
y the Persians) and an alliance, in which they agreed to keep what they held rather than what belonged to them (Diodorus 15.89.1–2). Although the Boeotians, led by the Thebans, were still the strongest state in Greece, the battle of Mantinea had shown that none of the traditional major powers could ever create a land empire in mainland Greece. The Thebans, even under the inspired leadership of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, lacked the wealth and manpower to become an imperial state, and their failure to create a formally constituted league of allies, such as Sparta’s Peloponnesian League or Athens’ fifth-century Delian League, deprived them of the organizational structure, and of the crucial extra financial and military resources that might have made the hegemony of Greece a reality.

  The cornerstone of Epaminondas’ policies was the establishment of the security of Boeotia from outside intervention. In his opinion, the greatest threat to Boeotia was Sparta, as it had been in the past. Therefore he decided that the most effective means of achieving this objective was to create an alliance of anti-Spartan Peloponnesian states which would keep Sparta trapped in the Peloponnese. He naturally believed that fear of the Spartans, who had dominated Greece for so long, would be the unifying factor for the allies and would produce a solid and long-lasting alliance. If there is to be criticism of Epaminondas as a statesman, it is in his failure to realize that Sparta’s potential as an imperialist power had been broken forever at Leuctra in 371. The Peloponnesian allies of Thebes came to recognize this in the first half of the 360s, and thus their individual ambitions and rivalries became more important than loyal adherence to the Boeotian–Peloponnesian alliance. Epaminondas failed to find a new unifying principle, which the allies could embrace and rally behind, in the way that the Athenians, after the fear of Persia had been removed in the middle of the fifth century, had championed the cause of democracy within the Delian League (see Chapter 16).