Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Penguin Classics)
Page 8
The next day he crossed the Achaean mountain range in Phthia and headed for the Boeotian border, passing through nothing but friendly territory. At the border with Boeotia he found an army drawn [6] up ready to do battle with him, consisting of contingents from Thebes, Athens, Argos, Corinth, the Aenianians, Euboea and both the Locrian peoples.2 With no hesitation, and in full view of the enemy, he had his men take up their battle stations. He had a regiment and a half of Spartans and some men from Phocis and Orchomenus (which were the only local places to offer support), as well as the army he had brought with him from Asia. Now, I am not going to claim that he [7] took on the enemy despite being vastly outnumbered and outclassed, because that would make Agesilaus seem mad, in my opinion, as well as showing up my own foolishness for praising someone who casually put the most vital concerns at risk. No, what I do admire in the man is that he took to the field with a force of at least the same size as the enemy’s, armed his men so as to present a solid mass of bronze and [8] red, took pains to ensure that his men were capable of strenuous efforts and filled their minds with the proud certainty that they were a match for anyone they had to fight; he also made them want to compete with their comrades to see who would demonstrate the most valour, and led them all to expect that their common good would be well served if they proved themselves to be brave and true men. For it was his view that this is the way to get men to commit themselves wholeheartedly to fighting the enemy.3
[9] As a matter of fact, he was not proved wrong – but I will describe the course of the battle, because it was the most remarkable battle of modern times.4 The two sides converged on the plain near Coroneia, with Agesilaus and his men coming from the direction of the Cephisus, and the Thebans and their allies from the direction of Mount Helicon. It was obvious to both sides that their infantry lines were evenly matched, and their cavalry units were much the same size as well. Agesilaus held the right wing of his army, with the Orchomenians5 at the other end on the left, while on the Theban side the Thebans themselves were on the right, with the Argives holding the left wing. [10] As they converged a deep silence fell on both sides for a while, but when about a stade6 separated them the Thebans raised the war cry and charged into the attack.
When the gap was down to three plethra7 a countercharge was launched from Agesilaus’ lines by Herippidas and his mercenary unit,[11] consisting of men who had marched with Agesilaus ever since he left home, along with some Cyreians;8 the Ionians, Aeolians and Hellespontine Greeks were close behind and all joined in the charge. They were just a spear’s thrust from the enemy when the lines facing them gave way. And the Argives did not even wait for Agesilaus and his men, but turned and ran for Helicon. At this point some of the mercenary troops9 were already crowning Agesilaus with a victory garland, but then he received a report that the Thebans had cut through the Orchomenian lines and were among the baggage train. He immediately wheeled his phalanx round and led it against the Thebans. However, the Thebans had seen their allies make good their escape to near Mount Helicon, and they wanted to break out and regroup with their own side, so they pushed forward resolutely.
Agesilaus’ next actions can unequivocally be described as courageous [12], but it must be said that he did not choose the safest course. He could have let them pass through, come up behind them and defeated their rearguard, but that is not what he did. Instead he smashed head on into the Thebans. So with shield thrust against shield they pushed,10 fought, killed, died. The air was not filled with cries, but it was not silent either: there were the typical sounds made by men in the heat of battle fury. In the end some of the Thebans did break through to Helicon, but many of them retreated and were killed.
Now that victory was his, Agesilaus had himself carried – he had [13] been wounded – up to his men in their battle lines. Just then some of his horsemen rode up with the news that eighty of the enemy, fully armed, had taken cover up against the temple, and they asked him what they should do. Even the many wounds he had received all over his body from all kinds of weapons did not make him forget the gods;11 his instructions were that the men should be allowed to go wherever they wanted without coming to any harm, and he ordered his personal mounted guard to escort them to a place of safety.
With the fighting over, the battlefield presented a vision of bloodstained [14] earth, corpses of friends and foes lying intermingled, shattered shields, splintered spears and daggers bare of their sheaths – some on the ground, some sticking out of bodies, some still clasped in hands. By now it was late in the afternoon, so once they had dragged the [15] bodies of the enemy dead inside their lines, they ate and bedded down for the night. Early the next day Agesilaus gave Gylis the polemarch12 his orders: he was to deploy the men at battle stations and set up a trophy, all the men were to wear garlands in honour of the god, and all the pipe-players were to play their pipes.13 While they were busy [16] carrying out these orders, the Thebans sent a herald to ask for a truce to bury their dead. This led to a truce, of course, and then Agesilaus set off for home. And so he rejected supreme power in Asia in favour of the traditional norms of ruling and being ruled at home in Sparta.14
Subsequently15 he noticed that although the Argives could comfortably [17] live off their own land, they had also appropriated Corinth and were enjoying success in the war.16 So he mounted an expedition against them. He laid waste to all their territory and then immediately took the pass at Tenea* and went to Corinth, where he captured the wall connecting Corinth to the port of Lechaeum.17 Having re-opened the gates to the Peloponnese, he returned home to play his part as directed by the choirmaster in singing the hymn of praise to the god at the Hyacinthia.18
[18] Later, however, it came to his attention that the Corinthians were using Peiraeum as a place to safeguard all their herds and flocks, and were cultivating and harvesting the whole promontory there; moreover – and most importantly, to his mind – that the Boeotians were finding it easy to get through to the Corinthians via Peiraeum from Creusis. He therefore marched on Peiraeum, but found it heavily defended. What he did, then, was move camp (after his men had eaten their morning meal) close to Corinth, to give the impression [19] that the city was about to surrender. Reinforcements were hastily sent from Peiraeum to the city under cover of darkness – but not without Agesilaus becoming aware of it. At dawn the next day he turned back and captured Peiraeum, which he found undefended. He took possession of everything in the area, including the defensive walls which had been built. Then he returned home to Sparta.
[20] Some time later, the Achaeans desperately wanted to enter into an alliance with the Spartans and were asking for support in their campaign against Acarnania. <…>* When the Acarnanians attacked him in a pass, he occupied the heights above them with his light infantry,** joined battle and inflicted heavy losses on them. He set up a trophy commemorating the victory, but he did not leave matters there: he improved relations between the Achaeans and the Acarnanians, Aetolians and Argives, and entered into an alliance with these four nations too.19
[21] When the enemy20 sent a delegation to sue for peace, Agesilaus spoke out against it, until he forced Corinth and Argos to allow the banished members of the pro-Spartan party to return home. And on another occasion, later than this,21 he personally undertook a campaign against Phleious and restored those who had been banished from there for their Spartan sympathies. These campaigns may perhaps be criticized on other grounds,22 but there can be no doubt that they were prompted by loyalty to his comrades. After all, he also marched [22] on Thebes to help the pro-Spartans* there when they were being massacred by their opponents.23 He found all the approaches to the city thoroughly protected by trenches and stockades, but he crossed over by the pass at Cynoscephalae and laid waste to Theban territory right up to the city itself, challenging the Thebans to choose their own ground and meet him in battle either on the plain or in the hills. A year later he launched another campaign against Thebes; this time he passed through the stockades and trenches at Scolus and laid waste
to the rest of Boeotia.
So far both he and the state had jointly enjoyed success, and although [23] there were setbacks in the years that followed, no one could claim that any of them happened under Agesilaus’ leadership.24 However, after the disaster at Leuctra, when the prevalent view was that the Spartans would not dare to stir from their country for a long time, Agesilaus marched out against the Tegeans at the head of an army consisting only of Spartans, despite the fact that all the Boeotians, Arcadians and Eleans had formed an alliance, because his political opponents in Tegea, supported by the Mantineans, were murdering his supporters and guest-friends. He devastated the lands of those who were doing the killing and then returned to Sparta.
As a result of this expedition of his, Sparta was attacked by an army [24] consisting of contingents from every community in Arcadia, along with the Argives, Eleans and Boeotians, and supported by men from Phocis, both Locrian peoples, Thessaly, the Aenianians, Acarnania and Euboea.25 As if that was not enough, there was an on-going revolt involving their slaves and a number of their dependent towns as well, and the Spartiate population had been at least halved by their losses at Leuctra.26 Despite all this, and despite the city’s lack of a defensive wall, he kept it safe. He never ventured out when the terrain would unequivocally favour the enemy, but wherever the terrain would give the advantage to his fellow citizens, he had them deploy and give battle with all their might; his thinking was that if he ventured out on to the plain he would be surrounded on all sides, whereas if he kept to the passes and the heights he could get the better of anyone.27
The way in which he acted subsequently, after the enemy had [25] retreated, showed undeniable good sense. He was now too old for campaigning on foot or horseback, but he realized that in order to win military support, the state needed money. He therefore made it his business to raise money.28 He not only did everything that could be done from Sparta, but he did not hesitate to make the most of any opportunity that presented itself, and even though he could not act as a military commander, he did not think it beneath his dignity to serve as an ambassador, if this meant that he could do the state some [26] good. Nevertheless, even as an ambassador he achieved feats of which any military commander might have been proud. For instance, Autophradates was so afraid of him that he fled from Assus, where he had been besieging Ariobarzanes, who was an ally of Sparta; and Cotys also abandoned his siege of Sestus (which was at that time still in the hands of Ariobarzanes) and withdrew.29 In other words, it would* not have been unreasonable for him to have set up a trophy commemorating victories over his enemies even as a result of his ambassadorial work. Moreover, Mausolus was blockading both Sestus and Assus by sea with 100 ships, but he too left, although it was not fear that induced [27] him to do so, but Agesilaus’ powers of persuasion.30 <In this business>* he was remarkably successful, in the sense that he received money from both parties – the people he drove away, as well as those who considered themselves in his debt. Tachos and Mausolus (the latter being one of those who contributed money to Sparta, in his case because of his long-standing ties of guest-friendship with Agesilaus) also gave him a magnificent escort for his homeward journey.31
[28] Later, when he was about eighty years old, it came to his attention that the king of Egypt wanted to go to war with Persia, and that he had foot-soldiers, horsemen and money in abundance. When a message arrived appealing for his assistance, and even promising him command [29] of the expedition, he was pleased, since he thought that at a stroke he could repay the Egyptian king for the favours he had done Sparta, restore the Asian Greeks’ independence and punish the Persian king not only for past wrongs, but also because, while claiming to be an ally of the Spartans, he was demanding that they relinquish Messene.32 [30] However, the Egyptian who was asking for his help withdrew his offer of command of the expedition, and this made Agesilaus uncertain what he should do, since he had been so emphatically misled. Next, a division of the Egyptian army which was on a separate campaign rose up against the king, and then all the rest of his troops abandoned him too. The king fled the country in fear and took refuge in Sidon in Phoenicia, while civil war broke out in Egypt and two kings were chosen. Agesilaus realized at this point that if he supported neither of [31] the two kings, not only would the Greeks not be paid or provisioned by either of them, but also the eventual victor would bear them a grudge, whereas if he helped one or the other of them, whichever one he helped would probably repay the favour with goodwill. So he decided which of the two kings was apparently more pro-Greek, joined forces with him, defeated the anti-Greek one in battle and helped to settle the other one on the throne. So he established friendly relations between Egypt and Sparta, and gained a great deal of money.33 It was now the middle of winter, but even so he sailed back home, because he was in a hurry to ensure that the state would be able to mount an effective campaign against its enemies in the following summer.
CHAPTER 3
So much, then, for Agesilaus’ public exploits, accomplished in front [1]of a host of witnesses. Achievements of this kind do not need supporting evidence: the mere mention of them is enough to win instant belief. However, I shall now try to present a picture of the virtue which resided in his soul, because it was this that motivated all these achievements and prompted him to feel such a passionate desire for morality and abhorrence for immorality.
Agesilaus was so religious that even his enemies trusted his oaths [2] and treaties more than they did their own ties of friendship. Although they were reluctant to meet <, for instance, when dealing with one another>,* they would put themselves into Agesilaus’ hands. To allay any disbelief, I wish actually to mention some specific cases involving particularly eminent people. First, then, when Spithridates the Persian [3] was faced with what he regarded as the monstrous behaviour of Pharnabazus, who was arranging to marry the Persian king’s daughter, but still intended to have Spithridates’ daughter as an unmarried concubine, he entrusted himself, his wife, his children and his assets [4] to Agesilaus. Then again, when Cotys,1 the ruler of Paphlagonia, refused to comply with the Persian king’s wishes, even though the demand was accompanied by the king’s personal assurances,2 he became afraid of being taken into custody and either fined a great deal of money or even put to death, but he too trusted the truce he made with Agesilaus and paid him a visit in his camp, which resulted in his entering into an alliance with Agesilaus and choosing to have his 2,000 horsemen and 4,000* light foot-soldiers fight alongside [5] Agesilaus and his men. Even Pharnabazus came and met with Agesilaus, and arranged to rebel against the Persian king if he were not given supreme command of the army. ‘However,’ he added, ‘if I do become commander-in-chief, I will do my utmost to win the war against you, Agesilaus.’ He could not have made this threat unless he had complete confidence that Agesilaus would honour the terms of their truce in his dealings with him.3 All this just goes to show how vital and admirable it is for anyone, but especially a military commander, to have and be known to have piety and trustworthiness. Anyway, so much for his religious sensibility.
CHAPTER 4
[1] As for his honesty in financial dealings, surely there could be no more telling proof than to point out that while no one ever claimed that he had been defrauded of anything by Agesilaus, many people used to acknowledge that they had benefited from his kindness. When it affords a person pleasure to give his own money away to help others, how could he think of stealing someone else’s money and so tarnishing his honour? After all, if he wanted money, it would be far simpler for him to keep his own instead of taking what does not belong to him.
[2] A person cannot be taken to court for failing to pay a debt of gratitude, so it is surely unthinkable that someone who would not deprive others of thanks might be prepared to deprive them of money, when this would actually be a crime under the law. And Agesilaus not only judged it wrong to fail to pay a debt of gratitude, but also for someone with greater resources not to pay considerable interest on the debt. How could anyone plausib
ly accuse him of stealing from [3] the state when he handed over to his country, for the public benefit, the tokens of gratitude due to him? And what about the fact that, whenever he wanted to offer a state or some friends financial assistance, he was able to help by getting the money from others? Does this not clearly imply that he was not corruptible by money, because if he had [4] been in the habit of selling his favours or accepting bribes for his services, no one would have felt at all in his debt? On the contrary, it is when favours are freely given that people are glad to do something for their benefactor, not just to repay the favour, but also in gratitude for being judged trustworthy enough to safeguard the advance loan of a favour.1
Also, when a person invariably chooses honesty and relative poverty [5] rather than dishonesty and excess, it is surely easy to acquit him of the charge of avarice. Well, when the state decreed that Agesilaus should receive Agis’ property in its entirety, he gave half of it to his relatives on his mother’s side, because he saw that they were not well off. The whole state, everyone in Sparta, can bear witness to the truth of this.2 When Tithraustes offered to shower him with gifts if he [6] would only leave the country, Agesilaus replied: ‘Where I come from, Tithraustes, it is considered better for a ruler to enrich his army rather than himself – that is, to try to take booty rather than gifts from the enemy.’