Story of the Greek and the Roman People
- Автор: Tappan Eva March
- Год: 1910
- Язык: английский
- Год: Heritage History
- Жанр: История
Электронная книга - «Story of the Greek and the Roman People». Краткое содержание книги:
Story of the Greek People
Story of the Roman People
Epaminondas aided by Pelopidas had made Thebes the ruling state of Greece. One would have expected that when he returned with his victorious army, he would at least receive a cordial welcome. Instead of that, he was met with a charge of disobedience to the laws of the country. The successes in the Peloponnesus had been won, it seemed, during the last four months, and the enemies of the generals asserted that they had kept the army away from Thebes four months beyond the time for which the command had been given to them. The penalty for such an offense was death. Epaminondas met the charge patiently, and after his acquittal did not even try to punish his enemies.
Pelopidas had declared that "wherever Epaminondas was, there was no need of any other general"; but there was need of a skillful commander in Thessaly, and thither Pelopidas was sent. The trouble was that the tyrant of one Thessalian city was forcing the other cities to obey him. The ruler of Macedonia, too, was trying to gain power in Thessaly. Pelopidas was as successful in the north as Epaminondas had been in the south, and before long he went home to report that the cities were free from the tyrant and that he had received hostages from the ruler of Macedonia.
Thus far Thebes had been making cities free, and they were glad to receive her aid. No one doubted that she was the most powerful state in Greece; but when she sent Pelopidas to the Persian king to claim that she instead of Sparta was the chief of the Greek cities, they were angry, and some of Sparta's old allies were willing to help her against Thebes. The result was that Epaminondas had to make other expeditions into the Peloponnesus. On the last he planned to attack Sparta herself. He "would have taken the city like a bird's nest deserted," said Xenophon, if King Agesilaus, who had marched out to meet the invaders, had not hurried home by a shorter route to oppose the "fire-breathing Thebans." Epaminondas knew that the Spartans would defend their city like wolves at bay, and he wisely retreated into Arcadia. The Spartans pursued, and a battle was fought in the valley of Mantinea. Here Epaminondas played the old game of the Spartans at Ægospotami, and deceived them as completely as they had deceived the Athenians. He ordered his men to pile their arms and apparently begin to encamp. Then, when his foes were entirely off their guard, he suddenly drew up his lines and advanced upon them. The Spartans and their allies were as dazed as the Athenians had been in the naval battle. They ran about wildly, one fastening on a breastplate, another bridling his horse, and all of them acting, not like the Spartans of old who were wont to advance to battle steadily and cheerfully, but, as Xenophon declared, "more like men going to suffer some harm than to inflict any on others." This time it was not the Spartans but the Thebans who advanced "steadily and cheerfully." Epaminondas had arranged part of his cavalry in a phalanx, and they cut through the Spartan ranks "like a ship of war with its beak directed against the enemy," said Xenophon, perhaps with that very naval battle of Ægospotami in mind as he wrote. Epaminondas won the victory, but he himself was slain. His last thoughts were for his country. Pelopidas had been killed in battle two years before, and now, when Epaminondas asked for one and another who might perhaps have taken his place, the reply was ever, "He has been slain." Then you must make peace with the enemy," he said, and closed his eyes in death.
The glory of Thebes was a one-man power. It was Epaminondas who had made her great. He had been her general, her leader, her counselor. Now he was gone, and in one day she fell from her proud position as the leading state of Greece.
Summary
The Mantineans scorned Sparta and rebuilt their walls.
Epaminondas united Arcadia, and founded the city of Megalopolis; he freed the Messenians and founded Messene. Aided by Pelopidas, he made Thebes the ruling state of Greece.
Pelopidas freed the cities in Thessaly.
Thebes demanded that Persia regard her as the chief state of Greece. The Greeks were angry, and several states united against her.
Epaminondas overcame Sparta at Mantinea, but was slain. Thebes was no longer the leading state of Greece.
Suggestions For Written Work
A Spartan reports what the Mantineans said when they were asked to delay building their wall.
A Messenian tells what Epaminondas had done for him and his countrymen.
A soldier describes the battle of Mantinea.
Philip of Macedonia
So it was that, first Argos, then Athens, Sparta, Thebes, became in turn the leading state of Greece. Their selfishness and jealousy of one another had wasted their wealth and the lives of their citizens, and they were exhausted. There could not have been a better time for a bold, shrewd man, who knew how to work with caution and skill, to become master of the whole country.
Such a man was on the throne of Macedonia, the country lying to the north and northeast of Greece. The Macedonians had no artists, no talented writers, no brilliant orators, no schools of philosophy. The Greeks of the south admitted that they were of Greek blood, but laughed at their rude, unpolished manners and their homely fashion of speaking. The man who sat on the throne, Philip II, was keenly alive to all these differences. He had been a boy of fifteen when Pelopidas came to Macedonia and carried him to Thebes as a hostage. There he had stayed for three years, possibly in the house of Epaminondas's father. However that may be, he certainly had an opportunity to learn how the Greeks lived, how they carried on war, and how war might sometimes be avoided by diplomacy. He learned to speak and write Greek like a Theban; his language became not only correct but eloquent. He knew it was possible that he might some day rule Macedonia, and he evidently kept his eyes and ears open to learn everything that might be of value to him and help him carry out an astonishing scheme that probably was in his mind even then.
THE MACEDONIAN PHALANX.
When the time came for him to wear the crown of his father, he began by forming a standing army, and he very wisely invited his most troublesome subjects to join it,—the half-civilized tribes that lived far up in the hills. Thus far Macedonia had made no attempt to be powerful. It had been hardly more than a piece of land through which armies might march between Greece and Asia. If war arose, it had made friends with the side that seemed inclined to be most troublesome. The first part of Philip's scheme was to make Macedonia so strong that other countries would be eager to make friends with her. Therefore he trained and drilled his soldiers until they formed the best army in the world. He had learned in Thebes how the famous Theban phalanx was formed, but he was not satisfied with even what was looked upon as a wonderful invention; he planned a somewhat different arrangement for the foot-soldiers. In this the men were placed sixteen deep, with three feet between the ranks. The spears were twenty-one feet long, and each man held his weapon fifteen feet from the point. The spears of the fifth rank, then, projected three feet in front of the first rank of men; those of the fourth rank projected six feet, and so on. It was not easy to keep the phalanx in shape on rough, uneven ground, but on a level no troops could withstand its attack.