Читать книгу The History of Greece from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Hellenistic Age - John Bagnell Bury - Страница 45

While a tyrant was moulding the destinies of Athens, the growth of the Spartan power had changed the political aspect of the Peloponnesus. About the middle of the sixth century Sparta won successes against her northern neighbours Tegea and Argos; and in consequence of these successes she became the predominant power in the peninsula.

Eastern Arcadia is marked by a large plain, high above the sealevel; the villages in the north of this plain had coalesced into the town of Mantinea, those in the south had been united in Tegea. Sparta had gradually pressed up to the borders of the Tegean territory, and a long war was the result. This war is associated with an interesting legend based on the tradition that the Laconian hero Orestes was buried in Tegea. When the Spartans asked the Delphic oracle whether they might hope to achieve the conquest of Arcadia, they received a promise that the god would give them Tegea. Then, on account of this answer, they went forth against Tegea with fetters, but were defeated; and bound in the fetters which they had brought to bind the Tegeates were compelled to till the Tegean plain. Herodotus professed that in his day the very fetters hung in the temple of Athena Alea, the protectress of Tegea. War went on, and the Spartans, invariably defeated, at last consulted the oracle again. The god bade them bring back the bones of Orestes, but they could find no trace of the hero’s burying-place, and they asked the god once more. This time they received an oracle couched in obscure enigmatic words:

Among Arcadian hills a level space

Holds Tegea, where blow two blasts perforce

And woe is laid on woe and face to face

Striker and counter-striker; there the corse

Thou seekest lies, even Agamemnon’s son;

Convey him home and victory is won.

This did not help them much.But it befell that, during a truce with the Tegeates, a certain Lichas, a Spartan man, was in Tegea and entering a smith’s shop saw the process of beating out iron. The smith in conversation told him that wishing to dig a well in his courtyard he had found a coffin seven cubits long and within it a corpse of the same length, which he replaced. Lichas guessed at once that he had won the solution of the oracular enigma, and returning to Sparta communicated his discovery. The courtyard was hired from the reluctant smith, the coffin was found, and the bones brought home to Laconia. Then Tegea was conquered, and here we return from fable to fact. The territory of the Arcadian city was not treated like Messenia; it was not incorporated in the territory of Lacedaemon. It became a dependent state, contributing a military contingent to the army of its conqueror; and it bound itself to harbour no Messenians within its borders.

At this period the counsels of Sparta seem to have been guided by Chilon, whose name became proverbial for wisdom. It was much about the same time, perhaps shortly after the victory over Tegea, that Sparta at length succeeded in rounding off the frontier of Laconia on the north-eastern side by wresting the disputed territory of Thyreatis from Argos. The armies of the two states met in the marchland, but the Spartan kings and the Argive chiefs agreed to decide the dispute by a combat between three hundred chosen champions on either side. The story is that all the six hundred were slain except three, one Spartan and two Argives; and that while the Argives hurried home to announce their victory, the Spartan—Othryades was his name—remained on the field and erected a trophy. In any case, the trial was futile, for both parties claimed the victory and a battle was fought in which the Argives were utterly defeated. Thyreatis was the last territorial acquisition of Sparta. She changed her policy, and instead of aiming at gaining new territory, she endeavoured to make the whole Peloponnesus a sphere of Lacedaemonian influence. This change of policy was exhibited in her dealing with Tegea.

The defeat of Argos placed Sparta at the head of the peninsula. All the Peloponnesian states, except Argos and Achaea, were enrolled in a loose confederacy, engaging themselves to supply military contingents in the common interest, Lacedaemon being the leader. The meetings of the confederacy were held at Sparta, and each member sent representatives. Corinth readily joined; for Corinth was naturally ranged against Argos, while her commercial rival, the island state of Aegina, was a friend of Argos. Periander had already inflicted a blow upon the Argives by seizing Epidaurus and thus cutting off their nearest communications with Aegina. The other Isthmian state, Megara, in which the rule of the nobles had been restored, was also enrolled. Everywhere Sparta exerted her influence to maintain oligarchy, everywhere she discountenanced democracy; so that her supremacy had important consequences for the constitutional development of the Peloponnesian states.

In northern Greece the power of the Thessalians was declining; and thus Sparta became the strongest state in Greece in the second half of the sixth century. She was on the most friendly terms with Athens throughout the reign of Pisistratus; but the tyrant was careful to maintain good relations with Argos also. With Argos herself indeed Athens had no cause for collision; but the rivalry which existed between Athens and Aegina naturally ranged Athens and Argos in opposite camps. It was, perhaps, not long before the accession of Pisistratus that the Athenians had landed forces in Aegina and had been repulsed with Argive help. The policy of Pisistratus avoided a conflict with his island neighbour and courted the friendship of Argos; but the deeper antagonism is shown by the embargo which Argos and Aegina placed upon the importation of Attic pottery. The excavations of the temple of the Argive Hera have illustrated this hostile measure; hardly any fragments of Attic pottery, dating from the period of Pisistratus or fifty years after his death, have been found in the precinct.