Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/161

POLYDAMAS AT SPARTA. 13<J tributary circumjacent territory. The great instrument of hia dominion vas, a standing and well-appointed force of six thousand mercenary troops, from all parts of Greece. He possessed all the personal qualities requisite for conducting soldiers with the great- est effect. His bodily strength was great ; his activity indefatiga ble ; his self-command, both as to hardship and as to temptation, alike conspicuous. Always personally sharing both in the drill and in the gymnastics of the soldiers, and encouraging military merits with the utmost munificence, he had not only disciplined them, but inspired them with extreme warlike ardor and devotion to his person. Several of the neighboring tribes, together with Alketas, prince of the Molossi in Epirus, had been reduced to the footing of his dependent allies. Moreover, he had already de- feated the Pharsalians, and stripped them of many of the towns which had once been connected with them, so that it only remained for him now to carry his arms against their city. But Jason was prudent, as well as daring. Though certain of success, he wished to avoid the odium of employing force, and the danger of having malcontents for subjects. He therefore proposed to Polydamas, in a private interview, that he (Polydamas) should bring Pharsalus under Jason's dominion, accepting for himself the second place in Thessaly, under Jason installed as Tagus or president. The whole force of Thessaly thus united, with its array of tributary nations around, would be decidedly the first power in Greece, superior on land either to Sparta or Thebes, and at sea to Athens. And as to the Persian king, with his multitudes of unwarlike slaves, Jason regarded him as an enemy yet easier to overthrow ; considering what had been achieved first by the Cyreians, and afterwards by Agesilaus. Such were the propositions, and such the ambitious hopes, which the energetic despot of Pheras had laid before Polydamas ; who replied, that he himself had long been allied with Sparta, and that he could take no resolution hostile to her interests. " Go to The story (told in Plutarch, De Gen. Socrat. p. 583 F.) of Jason sending a large snm of money to Thebes, at some period anterior to the recapture of the Kadmeia, for the purpose of corrupting Epaminondas, appears not entitled to credit. Before that time, Epaminondas was too little known to be worth corrupting ; moreover, Jason did not become tagus of Thessaly until long after the recapture of the Kadmeia (Xen. Hellen. vi, 1, 18, 19).