Hiero the Tyrant and Other Treatises (Penguin Classics) (9 page)

News reached him that mutual recriminations over what had happened [33] were keeping the enemy in disarray, so he immediately set out against Sardis. On arriving there, he proceeded to burn and ransack the outskirts of the city, and at the same time he also issued a proclamation to the effect that those who wanted freedom would find him their ally, while those who claimed Asia as their own would find her liberators ready to decide the issue by trial of arms.
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However, since no one came out to confront him, he set about his [34] campaign from then on with confidence. He began to see Greeks who had previously been forced to abase themselves being regarded with respect by their former oppressors; he made those who had actually expected to enjoy the honours due to the gods incapable of even looking a Greek in the eye;
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he made his friends’ land safe from incursions, while picking his enemies’ land so clean that in two years he consecrated more than 100 talents to the god at Delphi as a tithe of his booty.
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The Persian king, however, had Tissaphernes beheaded, because [35] he blamed him for these setbacks to his power, and sent Tithraustes down to the coast instead. But subsequently the Persians’ affairs began to look even more bleak, while Agesilaus’ went from strength to strength. Every tribe and nation sent envoys to seek his friendship, and a number of places longed for freedom so much that they went so far as to rebel against Persia and seek his protection instead, with the result that Agesilaus found himself becoming the leader not only of Greeks but even of large numbers of non-Greeks.

He behaved in these circumstances in a way that deserves an [36] extraordinary degree of admiration. He was now the ruler of a great many communities on the mainland, and a great many of the Aegean islands too, since the state had attached the fleet to his command as well; his fame and power were on the increase, there was nothing to stop him doing as he wanted with all the advantages available to him, and on top of everything he was intending and hoping to overthrow the empire which had in the past invaded Greece.
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Nevertheless, he did not succumb to any of these temptations, and when he was
summoned by the authorities at home to return to help his fatherland, he obeyed the state’s command as readily as if he had in fact been standing in the Ephors’ office all alone before the five of them.
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So he made it perfectly clear that he preferred his fatherland to the whole world, old loyalties to newly acquired friends, risky but honourable and just gains to risk-free but shameful ones.

[37] How else could one describe another achievement of his during the period of his command except as the mark of a king who deserves our admiration? He found the communities he left Sparta to rule over torn by feuds because of the political turmoil engendered by the collapse of the Athenian empire, but as long as he was personally present he managed to get them to reach political unanimity and live in prosperity without the inhabitants having to resort to banishing [38] and executing one another.
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That is why the Asian Greeks were saddened by his departure; they felt they were losing not just a ruler, but a father and a comrade. And at the finish they showed that the friendship they were offering was no sham, because they volunteered to help him protect Sparta, and did so even though they knew that they would be up against an enemy who was at least their equal. Anyway, this brought his exploits in Asia to an end.

[1] His route once he had crossed the Hellespont was identical to the one taken by the Persian king with his vast army, through the territory of the same peoples, and yet Agesilaus covered in less than a month the distance which took the Persians a year, because he had no intention [2] of being too late to help his fatherland. In Thessaly (that is, after he had passed through Macedon), the people of Larissa, Crannon, Scotousa and Pharsalus, who were allies of the Boeotians – in fact the whole Thessalian population apart from those who happened to be in exile at the time – kept tailing him and harassing him. For a while he had his men adopt a hollow-square formation while on the move, with half the cavalry up in front and the other half in the rear, but the Thessalians’ attacks on the rearguard hindered his progress, so he
sent all the horsemen except his personal entourage round from the van to support the rear.

When the two armies were at battle stations facing each other, the [3] Thessalians thought better of engaging heavy infantry with their cavalry, so they turned and began gradually to withdraw.
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Agesilaus’ army followed them, but very circumspectly. Agesilaus realized that both sides were making mistakes, so he sent his own personal unit of hardy horsemen up to the front with instructions to tell the others to join them in a full-blooded pursuit and not to let the Thessalians turn and make a stand. Those of the Thessalians who tried to wheel round to face the unexpected charge – as not all of them did – were caught with their horses side on to the attack and were captured. Only the [4] Pharsalian cavalry commander, Polycharmus, succeeded in rallying his unit. He and his entourage died fighting, and at this the Thessalian army fled in complete disarray. Those who avoided death or capture did not stop running until they reached Mount Narthacium. That [5] day Agesilaus commemorated the victory by setting up a trophy between Pras and Narthacium, and stayed on the battlefield, relishing having defeated people who particularly prided themselves on their horsemanship with a cavalry force of his own devising.

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.
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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.
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[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.
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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 Orchomenians
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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 stade
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separated them the Thebans raised the war cry and charged into the attack.

When the gap was down to three plethra
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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;
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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 troops
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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,
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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;
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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 polemarch
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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.
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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.
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Subsequently
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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.
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So he mounted an expedition
against them. He laid waste to all their territory and then immediately took the pass at Tenea
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and went to Corinth, where he captured the wall connecting Corinth to the port of Lechaeum.
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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.
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[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. <…>
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When the Acarnanians attacked him in a pass, he occupied the heights above them with his light infantry,
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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.
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[21] When the enemy
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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,
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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,
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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
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there when they were being massacred by their opponents.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In other words, it would
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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.
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<In this business>
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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.
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