Spartan army

Being threatened with compulsion if they persisted in refusal, they appealed to Sparta, and their appeal was backed by Amyntas.

You seem not to be aware, O Spartans, said the envoys, of the great power growing up in Greece.

City after city, Greek and Macedonian, has been won over or freed.

The word must have slipped from their lips almost involuntarily.

Amintas was once more king in his own country.

His difficulties, however, were not removed, but only shifted from one quarter to another.

If Olynthos was no longer a danger, yet the influence of his good friends, the Spartans, began to wane, and before long he was so far shut off from communication with them as to be obliged to look for new allies.

In Greece, the balance of power was perpetually shifting.

For if readers are ignorant, or indeed in any doubt as to what are the facts from which the work opens, it is impossible that what follows should meet with acceptance or credence; but once we produce in them a general agreement on this point, they will give ear to all the subsequent narrative.

End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 It was, then, the nineteenth year after the battle of Aegospotami, and the sixteenth before that of Leuktra [387-385 B.C.], the year in which the Spartans made the peace known as that of Antalkidas with the King of Persia; that in which also Dionysius the Elder, after defeating the Italiot Greeks in the battle at the river Helleporos, was besieging Rhegium; and that in which the Gauls, after taking Rome itself by assault, occupied the whole of that city except the Capitol.

The Romans, after making a truce on conditions satisfactory to the Gauls, and being thus, contrary to their expectation, reinstated in their home and, as it were, now started on the road of aggrandizement, continued in the following years to wage war on their neighbours.

After subduing all the Latins by their valour and the fortune of war, they fought first against the Etruscans, then against the Celts, and next against the Samnites, whose territory was conterminous with that of the Latins on the east and north.

For it was perfectly evident to all that the Achaeans could not hold out against both adversaries, and it was still more easy for any person of intelligence to see that, if the Aetolians and Kleomenes were successful, they would push their advantage further.

The Aetolian schemes of territorial aggrandizement would never stop short of the boundaries of the Peloponnese or even those of Greece itself, while Kleomenes' personal ambition and far-reaching projects, though for the present he aimed only at supremacy in the Peloponnese, would, on his attaining this, at once develop into a claim to be overlord of all Hellas, a thing impossible without his first putting an end to the dominion of Macedon.

They implored him then to look to the future and consider which was most in his interest, to fight in the Peloponnese against Kleomenes for the supremacy of Greece with the support of the Achaeans and Boeotians, or to abandon the greatest of the Greek nations to its fate and then do battle in Thessaly for the throne of Macedonia with the Aetolians, Boeotians, Achaeans and Spartans all at once.

Should the Aetolians, still pretending to have scruples owing to the benefits received from the Achaeans in their war with Demetrius, continue their present inaction, the Achaeans alone, they said, would fight against Kleomenes and, if fortune favoured them, would require no help, but should they meet with ill-success and be attacked by the Aetolians also, they entreated him to take good heed and not let the opportunity slip, but come to the aid of the Peloponnesians while it was still possible to save them.

But once we produce in them a general agreement on this point, they will give ear to all the subsequent narrative.

End of chapter 5 Chapter 6 It was then the nineteenth year after the battle of Aegospotami, and the sixteenth before that of Leuktra, 387-385 BC, the year in which the Spartans made the peace known as that of Antokidas with the king of Persia, that in which also Dionysius the elder, after defeating the Italiath Greeks in the battle at the river Heleporos, was besieging Rhegium, and that in which the Gauls, after taking Rome itself by assault, occupied the whole of that city except the capital.

The Romans, after making a truce on conditions satisfactory to the Gauls, and being thus, contrary to their expectation, reinstated in their home and as it were now started on the road of aggrandizement, continued in the following years to wage war on their neighbors.

After subduing all the Latins by their valor and the fortune of war, they fought first against the Etruscans, then against the Celts, and next against the Samnites, whose territory was conterminous with that of the Latins on the east and north.

For it was perfectly evident to all that the Achaians could not hold out against both adversaries; and it was still more easy for any person of intelligence to see that, if the Aetolians and Kleomenes were successful, they would push their advantage further.

The Aetolian schemes of territorial aggrandizement would never stop short of the boundaries of the Peloponnese or even those of Greece itself, while Kleomenes' personal ambition and far-reaching projects, though for the present he aimed only at supremacy in the Peloponnese, would, on his attaining this, at once develop into a claim to be overlord of all Hellas, a thing impossible without his first putting an end to the dominion of Macedon.

They implored him then to look to the future and consider which was most in his interest, to fight in the Peloponnese against Kleomenes for the supremacy of Greece with the support of the Achaians and Boeotians Or to abandon the greatest of the Greek nations to its fate, and then do battle in Thessaly for the throne of Macedonia with the Aetolians, Boeotians, Achaeans, and Spartans all at once.

Should the Aetolians, still pretending to have scruples owing to the benefits received from the Achaeans in their war with Demetrius, continue their present inaction, the Achaeans alone, they said, would fight against Cleomenes, and, if fortune favored them, would require no help.

Rome itself obviously could not rule the world any more than Rutland.

I mean it could not rule the other races as the Spartans ruled the Helots or the Americans ruled the Negroes.

A machine so huge had to be human.

It had to have a handle that fitted any man's hand.

After the great achievements now described, he straightway undertook to rebuild and fortify the city, as Theopompus relates, by bribing the Spartan ephors not to oppose the project, but, as the majority say, by hoodwinking them.

He came with this object to Sparta, ostensibly on an embassy, and when the Spartans brought up the charge that the Athenians were fortifying their city, and Polyarchus was sent expressly from Aegina with the same accusation, he denied that it was so, and bade them send men to Athens to see for themselves, not only because this delay would secure time for the building of the wall, but also because he wished the Athenians to hold these envoys as hostages for his own person.

And this was what actually happened.

When the Lacedaemonians found out the truth, they did him no harm, but concealed their displeasure and sent him away.

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Themistocles, Part 3 After he had been thus banished from the city, and while he was sojourning at Argos, circumstances connected with the death of Pausanias gave his enemies at Athens ground for proceeding against him.

The one who actually brought in the indictment against him for treason was Leobotes, the son of Alcmeon, of the deme Agrol, but the Spartans supported him in the accusation.

Pausanias, while engaged in his grand scheme of treachery, at first kept it concealed from Themistocles.