Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/113

EFFECT UPON GREECE. 91 This revolution at Thebes came like an electric shock upon the Grecian world. With a modern reader, the assassination of the them forthwith. Demophon the general got together five thousand hoplitea and five hundred horsemen, with whom he hastened to Thebes on the next day ; and all the remaining population were prepared to follow, if necessary (iravtiTjfiei). All the other cities in Bceotia also sent aid to Thebes too, BO that there was assembled there a large force of twelve thousand hoplites and two thousand horsemen. This united force, the Athenians being among them, assaulted the Kadmeia day and night, relieving each other ; but were repelled with great loss of killed and wounded. At length the garrison found themselves without provisions ; the Spartans were tardy in sending .eiiiforcement ; and sedition broke out among the Peloponnesian allies who formed the far larger part of the garrison. These Peloponnesians, refusing to fight longer, insisted upon capitulating ; which the Lacedaemonian gov- ernor was obliged perforce to do, though both he and the Spartans along with him desired to hold out to the death. The Kadmeia was accordingly surrendered, and the garrison went back to Peloponnesus. The Lacedae- monian reinforcement from Sparta arrived only a little too late. All these circumstances stated by Diodorus are not only completely dif- ferent from Xenophon, but irreconcilable with his conception of the event. We must reject either the one or the other. Now Xenophon is not merely the better witness of the two, but is in this case sustained by all the collateral probabilities of the case. 1. Diodorus represents the Athenians as having despatched by public vote, assistance to Thebes, in order to requite the assistance which the The- bans had before sent to restore the Athenian democracy against the Thirty Now this is incorrect in point of fact. The Thebans had never sent any as- sistance, positive or ostensible, to Thrasybulus and the Athenian democrats against the Thirty. They had assisted Thrasybulus underhand, and with- out any public government-act ; and they had refused to serve along with the Spartans against him. But they never sent any force to help him against the Thirty. Consequently, the Athenians could not now have sent any public force to Thebes, in requital for a similar favor done before by the Thebans to them. 2. Had the Athenians passed a formal vote, sent a Large public army, and taken vigorous part in several bloody assaults on the Lacedtemonian garrison in the Kadmeia, this would have been the most flagrant and un- equivocal commencement of hostilities against Sparta. No Spartan envoys could, after that, have gone to Athens, and stayed safely in the house of the Proxenus, as we know from Xenophon that they did. Besides, the story of Sphodrias (presently to be recounted) proves distinctly that Athens was at peace with Sparta, and had committed no act of hostility against her, for three or four months at least after the revolution at Thebes. It therefore refutes the narrative of Diodorus about the public vote of the Athenians, and the public Athenian force under Demophon, aiding in the