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seem shop oakley sunglasses to be but small states, who are willing to share their dangers with them, lay to heart that there is a speedy cure for this defect: with the accession of your city the reproach that, in spite of all our assistance, we are but small cities, will cease to be.
“For my part, men of Athens, I have hitherto on hearsay admired and envied this great state, whither, I was told, every one who was wronged or stood in terror of aught needed only to betake himself and he would obtain assistance. To-day I no longer hear, I am present myself and see these famous citizens of Lacedaemon here, and by their side their trustiest friends, who have come to you, and ask you in their day of need to give them help. I see Thebans also, the same who in days bygone failed to persuade the Lacedaemonians to reduce you to absolute slavery,628 today asking you to suffer those who saved you to be destroyed.
“That was a great deed and of fair renown, attributed in old story to your ancestors, that they did not suffer those Argives who died on the Cadmeia629 to lie unburied; but a fairer wreath of glory would you weave for your own brows if you suffer not these still living Lacedaemonians to be trampled under the heel of insolence and destroyed. Fair, also, was that achievement when you stayed the insolence of Eurystheus and saved the sons of Heracles;630 but fairer still than that will your deed be if you rescue from destruction, not the primal authors631 merely, but the whole city which they founded; fairest of all, if because yesterday the Lacedaemonians won you your preservation by a vote which cost them nothing, you today shall bring them help with arms, and at the price of peril. It is a proud day for some of us to stand here and give what aid we can in pleading for asistance to brave men. What, then, must you feel, who in very deed are able to render that assistance! How generous on your parts, who have been so often the friends and foes of Lacedaemon, to forget the injury and remember only the good they have done! How noble of you to repay, not for yourelves only, but for the sake of Hellas, the debt due to those who proved themselves good men and true in her behalf!”
After these speeches the Athenians deliberated, and though there was opposition, the arguments of gainsayers632 fell upon deaf ears. The assembly finally passed a decree to send assistance to Lacedaemon in force, and they chose Iphicrates general. Then followed the preliminary sacrifices, and then the general’s order to his troops to take the evening meal in the grove of the Academy.633 But the general himself, it is said, was in no hurry to leave the city; many were found at their posts before him. Presently, however, he put himself at the head of his troops, and the men followed cheerily, in firm persuasion that he was about to lead them to some noble exploit. On arrival at Corinth he frittered away some days, and there was a momentary outburst of discontent at so much waste of precious time; but as soon as he led the troops out of Corinth there was an obvious rebound. The men responded to all orders with enthusiasm, heartily following their general’s lead, and attacking whatever fortified place he might confront them with.
And now reverting to the hostile forces on Laconian territory, we find that the Arcadians, Argives, and Eleians had retired in large numbers. They had every inducement so to do since their homes bordered on Laconia; and off they went, driving or carrying whatever they had looted. The Thebans and the rest were no less anxious to get out of the country, though for other reasons, partly because the army was melting away under their eyes day by day, partly because the necessities of life were growing daily scantier, so much had been either fairly eaten up and pillaged or else recklessly squandered and reduced to ashes. Besides this, it was winter; so that on every ground there was a general desire by this time to get away home.
As son as the enemy began his retreat from Laconian soil, Iphicrates imitated his movement, and began leading back his troops out of Arcadia into Corinthia. Iphicrates exhibited much good generalship, no doubt, with which I have no sort of fault to find. But it is not so with that final feature of the campaign to which we are now come. Here I find his strategy either meaningless in intent or inadequate in execution. He made an attempt to keep guard at Oneion, in order to prevent the Boeotians making their way out homewards; but left meanwhile far the best passage through Cenchreae unguarded. Again, when he wished to discover whether or not the Thebans had passed Oneion, he sent out on a reconnaissance the whole of the Athenian and Corinthian cavalry; whereas, for the object in view, the eyes of a small detachment would have been as useful as a minute oakley sunglasses whole regiment;634 and when it came to falling back, clearly the smaller number had a better chance of hitting on a traversable road, and so effecting the desired movement quietly. But the height of folly seems to have been reached when he threw into the path of the enemy a large body of troops which were still too weak to cope with him. As a matter of fact, this body of cavalry, owing to their very numbers, could not help covering a large space of ground; and when it became necessary to retire, had to cling to a series of difficult positions in succession, so that they lost not fewer than twenty horsemen.635 It was thus the Thebans effected their object and retired from Peloponnese.
Part 7 Chapter 1
B.C. 369. In the following year636 plenipotentiary ambassadors637 from the Lacedaemonians and their allies arrived at Athens to consider and take counsel in what way the alliance between Athens and Lacedaemon might be best cemented. It was urged by many speakers, foreigners and Athenians also, that the alliance ought to be based on the principle of absolute equality,638 “share and share alike,” when Procles of Phlius put forward the following argument:
“Since you have already decided, men of Athens, that holbrook oakley sunglasses it is good to secure the friendship of Lacedaemon, the point, as it appears to me, which you ought now to consider is, by what means this friendship may be made to last as long as possible. The probability is, that we shall hold together best by making a treaty which shall suit the best interests of both parties. On most points we have, I believe, a tolerable unanimity, but there remains the question of leadership. The preliminary decree of your senate anticipates a division of the hegemony, crediting you with the chief maritime power, Lacedaemon with the chief power on land; and to me, personally, I confess, that seems a division not more established by human invention than preordained by some divine naturalness or happy fortune. For, in the first place, you have a geographical position pre-eminently adapted for naval supremacy; most of the states to whom the sea is important are massed round your own, and all of these are inferior to you in strength. Besides, you have harbours and roadsteads, without which it is not possible to turn a naval power to account. Again, you have many ships of war. To extend your naval empire is a traditional policy; all the arts and sciences connected with these matters you possess as home products, and, what is more, in skill and experience of nautical affairs you are far ahead of the rest of the world. The majority of you derive your livelihood from the sea, or things connected with it; so that in the very act of minding your own affairs you are training yourselves to enter the lists of naval combat.639 Again, no other power in the world can send out a larger collective fleet, and that is no insignificant point in reference to the question of leadership. The nucleus of strength first gained becomes a rallying-point, round which the rest of the world will gladly congregate. Furthermore, your good fortune in this department must be looked upon as a definite gift of God: for, consider among the numberless great sea-fights which you have fought how few you have lost, how many you have won. It is only rational, then, that your allies should much prefer to share this particular risk with you. Indeed, to show you how natural and vital to you is this maritime study, the following reflection may serve. For several years the Lacedaemonians, when at war with you in old days, dominated your territory, but they made no progress towards destroying you. At last God granted them one day to push forward their dominion on the sea, and then in an instant you completely succumbed to them.640 Is it not self-evident that your safety altogether depends upon the sea? The sea is your natural element — your birthright; it would be base indeed to entrust the hegemony of it to the Lacedaemonians, and the more so, since, as they themselves admit, they are far less acquained with this business than yourselves; and, secondly, your risk in naval battles would not be for equal stakes — theirs involving only the loss of the men on board their ships, but yours, that of your children and your wives and the entire state.
“And if this is a fair statement of your position, turn, now, and consider that of the Lacedaemonians. The first point to notice is, that they are an inland power; as long as they are dominant on land it does not matter how much they are cut off from the sea — they can carry on existence happily enough. This they so fully recognise, that from boyhood they devote themselves to training for a soldier’s life. The keystone of this training is obedience to command,641 and in this they hold the same pre-eminence on land which you hold on the sea. Just as you with your fleets, so they on land can, at a moment’s notice, put the largest army in the field; and with the like consequence, that their allies, as is only rational, attach themselves to them with undying courage.642 Further, God has granted them to enjoy on land a like good fortune to that vouchsafed to you on sea. Among all the many contests they have entered into, it is surprising in how cheap oakley baseball sunglasses few they have failed, in how many they have been successful. The same unflagging attention which you pay to maritime affairs is required from them on land, and, as the facts of history reveal, it is no less indispensable to them. Thus, although you were at war with them for several years and gained many a naval victory over them, you never advanced a step nearer to reducing them. But once worsted on land, in an instant they were confronted with a danger affecting the very lives of child and wife, and vital to the interests of the entire state. We may very well understand, then, the strangeness, not to say monstrosity, in their eyes, of surrendering to others the military leadership on land, in matters which they have made their special study for so long and with such eminent success. I end where I began. I agree absolutely with the preliminary decrees of your own senate, which I consider the solution most advantageous to both parties. My prayer643 is that you may be guided in your deliberations to that conclusion which is best for each and all of us.”
Such were the words of the orator, and the sentiments of his speech were vehemently applaude |
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