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The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «The Historians' History of the World 04 [Greece to the Roman Conquest]». Краткое содержание книги:
Aratus, again favoured by the moon which broke through the clouds as he was entangled in the most intricate part of the ascent, reached the wall of the citadel safely, and was soon engaged in a hard combat with the garrison. As soon as the alarm was raised, Archelaus, finding that the citadel was attacked, hastened with all his forces in that direction. But he chanced to light on three hundred Achæans, who, unable to find the track of their comrades, had cowered behind a projection of the rock. They now sprang out as from an ambuscade, and completely routed and dispersed his troops. But they were recalled from the pursuit by Erginus to the succour of Aratus, and their arrival decided the struggle. By sunrise he was in possession of the fortress, and the forces which had followed him from Sicyon, making their appearance at the same time, were joyfully admitted into the lower town by the Corinthians, who helped to capture the royal soldiers.d
[242-232 B.C.]
By this act, in which he generously hazarded his private fortune, Aratus gained such a degree of popular confidence that the Achæans thenceforth committed the conduct of public affairs to his hands, and followed his counsel even in the years when he was by law excluded from the office of strategus. The towns of Trœzen, Epidaurus, Cleonæ, and Megara, presently revolted from Macedonia and joined the Achæan League.
The rise of the Achæans stirred up the jealousy of other states, and incited the Macedonians to fresh exertions to recover what they had lost. The old king Antigonus concluded an alliance with the Ætolians for a joint attack on Achaia, on the basis of a partition of the territory to be acquired. But Aratus, who had chosen Ptolemy as patron of the League, and thus secured the protection of Egypt in the event of possible disaster, repulsed the Ætolian marauders before they could join hands with the Macedonians, and dissuaded King Antigonus from the proposed campaign by promising him the remaining dominions of the Peloponnesus. The aged Antigonus Gonatas died soon afterwards, and his son and heir, Demetrius II, was kept fully occupied by an invasion of his own country by the Dardans.
Aratus contrived to make use of these circumstances for fresh acquisitions. Secured from attack in the rear by an offensive and defensive alliance with the Ætolians, he induced most of the states of the Peloponnesus by force or subtlety to join the League. Thus Lydiades, the young and accomplished prince who reigned at Megalopolis, was prevailed upon to join, and the rich and extensive territory of that city was won for the League. The tyrants, abandoned by Macedonia, were no longer able to withstand the power of Achaia; they yielded voluntarily or under compulsion to the tide of democracy; so that when Demetrius II sank into his grave after ten years of feeble sovereignty, and Antigonus Doson (the Promiser) undertook the government of Macedonia during the minority of King Philip III, the Achæans ruled over Hermione, Phlius, and the greater part of Arcadia, counted the rich island of Ægina among their possessions, had induced Argos to join the League after a long struggle with three successive tyrants, and had entered into an alliance with Athens (whence, by the assistance of Aratus, the Macedonian garrisons had been forced to withdraw) on equal terms though without reciprocal civil rights. Mantinea, Tegea, Orchomenos, and Elis were the only towns that remained subject to the Ætolians, who, however, had meanwhile extended their dominion over part of Thessaly; and Sparta, just awakened from her long trance and invigorated by a new birth from within, was striving to regain the ascendency which had been hers in the glorious days of old. Out of these elements was bred the fatal conflict which broke all that was left of the strength of Greece at the very moment when the Romans began to intermeddle in the domestic concerns of warring states.e
SPARTA UNDER CLEOMENES
[232-227 B.C.]
Lacedæmon had, by this time, exchanged poverty and hardy discipline for opulence and voluptuous manners. The public meals, that last pledge of Spartan frugality and temperance, were discountenanced by the rulers of the state, and fell into disrepute and disuse. One or two princes, who endeavoured to stem the torrent of corruption, suffered deposition, exile, and even death. The laws of Lycurgus were totally disregarded. The lands were all in possession of a few families, who lived in the greatest splendour, whilst the rest of the Spartans, stripped of their patrimony, were doomed to the greatest indigence. The efforts of Agis IV, the king, to enforce the sumptuary laws, to cancel all debts, and to make a new division of lands, were opposed by the rich, and at last punished with death, on pretence of a design to alter the government.
In such a situation of affairs, Cleomenes ascended the Spartan throne, a prince who united integrity of heart with martial spirit and a love of glory. He found, on his accession, both the internal constitution and the public affairs of Sparta in the utmost confusion. Domestic distress, with its concomitant despondency of spirit, had caused throughout Laconia a universal depopulation. Instead of natives sufficient to occupy the thirty-nine thousand shares into which Lycurgus had originally divided the land, only seven hundred families of the Spartan race were now to be found; and, of these, about six hundred, sunk into abject penury and wretchedness, were incapable of exerting any degree of vigour in the public service. The slaves, too, had many of them perished through want of employment and subsistence, while others had been carried off, in great numbers, by the enemies of Sparta. Such was the miserable decay of both public and private virtue! Cleomenes, actuated by his natural disposition to arms, as well as by the representations already mentioned of the Ætolians, in order to revive the martial spirit of the Spartans, attacked Tegea, Mantinea, and Orchomenos, cities of Arcadia. Having reduced these under his obedience, he marched without delay against a certain castle in the district of Megalopolis, which commanded on that side the entrance into Laconia.
Immediately upon this act of hostility, the Achæan states declared war against the Spartans. The Spartan king forthwith took the field, with what troops he could muster, and ravaged the territories of the cities in alliance with Achaia. With five thousand men he advanced against the Achæan general Aratus, who, perceiving the resolution of the Spartans, declined an engagement, though at the head of twenty thousand. The retreat of Aratus, determined the Eleans, who had never been steady in the interests of Achaia, openly to declare against her. The Achæans attempted to chastise this defection; but they were routed by Cleomenes at Lycæum, near the Elean borders; and totally overthrown by him in the ensuing campaign, near Leuctra. Pursuing his good fortune, he reduced several of the towns of Arcadia, which he garrisoned with his Lacedæmonian troops.
[227-223 B.C.]
He returned to Sparta with the mercenaries only, and cut off the ephori, whom he considered as troublesome to himself, and oppressive to the Spartan subjects, by assassination; a course which he endeavoured to justify, by arraigning the unconstitutional establishment of this order of magistrates, and a recital of several acts of iniquity. He now seized on the administration of justice, and re-established the agrarian and sumptuary laws of Lycurgus, which he enforced by his own example. Having thus made himself master of Sparta, he diverted that energy to foreign enterprises, which might otherwise have broken out in domestic sedition. He plundered the territories of Megalopolis, forced the Achæan lines at Hecatombæum, and obtained a complete victory. The Achæan army, composed of the flower of their nation, were almost all cut off. The Mantineans, having slaughtered the Achæan garrison stationed in their city, put themselves under the protection of the Spartans. The same spirit of defection and revolt appeared in most of the other cities of Peloponnesus. In this extremity, they sued for peace to Cleomenes; but Aratus, who had for some time declined to take the lead in the public affairs of Achaia, now resumed his authority; and, by insisting on such terms as the high-spirited Cleomenes could not accept, contrived to prevent that peace which his countrymen wished for.