William Smith, A Smaller History of Ancient Greece

CHAPTER XVII

The Supremacy of Thebes, B.C. 371-361

HOMER

PLATO

ARISTOTLE

THE GREEK OLD TESTAMENT (SEPTUAGINT)

THE NEW TESTAMENT

PLOTINUS

DIONYSIUS THE AREOPAGITE

MAXIMUS CONFESSOR

SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN

CAVAFY

More...

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The victory of Leuctra was gained within three weeks after the exclusion of the Thebans from the peace of Callias. The effect of it throughout Greece was electrical. It was everywhere felt that a new military power had arisen--that the prestige of the old Spartan discipline and tactics had departed. Yet at Sparta itself though the reverse was the greatest that her arms had ever sustained, the news of it was received with an assumption of indifference characteristic of the people. The Ephors forbade the chorus of men, who were celebrating in the theatre the festival of the Gymnopaedia, to be interrupted. They contented themselves with directing the names of the slain to be communicated to their relatives, and with issuing an order forbidding the women to wail and mourn. Those whose friends had fallen appeared abroad on the morrow with joyful countenances, whilst the relatives of the survivors seemed overwhelmed with grief and shame.

Immediately after the battle the Thebans had sent to Jason of Pherae in Thessaly to solicit his aid against the Lacedaemonians. This despot was one of the most remarkable men of the period. He was Tagus, or Generalissimo, of all Thessaly; and Macedonia was partially dependent on him. He was a man of boundless ambition, and meditated nothing less than extending his dominion over the whole of Greece, for which his central situation seemed to offer many facilities. Upon receiving the invitation of the Thebans, Jason immediately resolved to join them. When he arrived the Thebans were anxious that he should unite with them in an attack upon the Lacedaemonian camp; but Jason dissuaded them from the enterprise, advising them not to drive the Lacedaemonians to despair, and offering his mediation. He accordingly succeeded in effecting a truce, by which the Lacedaemonians were allowed to depart from Boeotia unmolested.

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