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AUTHOR: 
 
 ROBERTS, WILLIAM 
 RHYS 
 
 TITLE: 
 
 ANCIENT BOETIANS 
 
 PLACE: 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 DA TE : 
 
 1895 
 
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 ... Tho ancient Boootians, thoir ohoractor cmd 
 culture and thoir reputation. . • by \J. lUiyc Roberts 
 Canbridco, University press, 1895* 
 
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BOEOTIA A3fD ATTICA 
 
 i, 
 'I 
 ( 
 
 I 
 
 Mfighis in. English. Feri. 
 
 Stanfords Geiotf'Ertab. 
 
I ! 
 
 AML BAI LLE NI CHERIR. 
 
 M THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS 
 
 THEIR CHARACTER AND CULTURE, AND 
 
 THEIR REPUTATION. 
 
 BoiuTia vs. 
 
 [PiND. Olymp. VI. 90.] 
 
 Summos posse viros et magna exempla daturos 
 Vervecum in patria crassoque sub aere nasci. 
 
 Juv. Sat. X. 49. 
 
 BY 
 
 W. EHYS ROBERTS, M.A., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF NORTH WALES, BANGOR ; 
 LATE FELLOW OF KINO'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
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11.''" 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 
 V 
 
 The proverb Boeotian swine^ printed on the title-page of 
 this volume, luas ancient in Pindar s time ; it is still more ancient 
 now ; and notiuithstanding the predictions of the outspoken foes 
 and the faint-hearted friends of classical study, it is likely to 
 continue to he known, in its original Greek form, for centuries 
 to come. 
 
 But truth is more enduring even than Greek, and its tvritings 
 are in many cliaracters. Through records on the graven stone, or 
 through the remains of art, it sets men thinking, and bids them 
 examine aneio all purely literary judgments, and especially such 
 as woidd summarily condemn a whole people. 
 
 In the case of the Boeotians this sifting of all the evidence, 
 old and new, has not yet been undertaken, and justice to a much 
 decried race seems to demand a short separate inquiry, with the 
 design of showing that there are many sides to this as to other 
 questions, and that the side of luhich the least has been heard is 
 not the least pleasant and not the least true. 
 
 The greater part of this small volume was written last summer 
 in the beautiful city of St Andrews, with the aid of the resources 
 of that fine Library which is a lawful source of pride to the 
 venerable University with whose groioth it has grown. It has often 
 been thought and said that the Ancient Boeotians paid undue Jieed 
 to the developtnent of their bodies. However this may be, ive may 
 
VI 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 all recognise that not the least of the attractions of St Andrews is 
 the many-sided view of life tuhich it presents. No 'Boeotian' of 
 modern days can luell forget, though his oiun interest may centre in 
 the Links, that he is visiting the seat of the oldest Scottish university 
 and the place tuhere George Wishart suffered and John Knox 
 preached. 
 
 A word of personal acknowledgment must be added. Many 
 friends have taken an interest in this book, but special thanks 
 are due to Dr Edwin A. Abbott, whose unfailing kindness none 
 know so well as his former pupils at the City of London School. 
 
 It should be mentioned that the map is a reproduction of one 
 which will be found in the first volume of Mr H. G. Dakyns' 
 Works of Xenophon. It is based on the map of Greece issued by 
 the Military Geographical Institute of Vienna. A slight alteration 
 in the title will be noticed. For once Boeotia has been given 
 precedence, and we read ' Boeotia and Attica ' in place of the 
 customary ' Attica and Boeotia.' 
 
 University College of North Wales, Bangor. 
 February 9, 1895. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I The Literary Tradition and the Historical Authorities 
 
 II The Political History of Boeotia. 
 
 1. Internal Relations 
 
 2. Relations to Attica 
 
 3. Relations to Persia 
 
 III Literature and the Arts in Boeotia .... 
 
 IV Epaminondas. Character and culture uniquely united 
 
 V The Boeotians as the Dutchmen of Greece 
 
 VI Conclusion 
 
 Appendix. A. List of Dates . 
 
 B. List of Authorities 
 Index 
 
 Map of Boeotia and Attica. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 15 
 21 
 24 
 
 28 
 43 
 
 57 
 66 
 
 79 
 
 83 
 89 
 
 To precede Title. 
 
 i 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 i^ 
 
 .'! 
 
 y^i 
 
 .f 
 
 1 
 
 THE LITERARY TRADITION AND THE HISTORICAL 
 
 AUTHORITIES. 
 
 1. The Literary Tradition. 
 
 Bo^wr/a 1/9. — ^ Avaco-Orja-ia. 
 
 The stigma resting upon the Boeotians, both in antiquity 
 and in later times, furnishes one more illustration, if it were 
 needed, of the responsibility incurred by those who first give 
 a bad name to an individual or a people. If the ill-natured 
 saying is limited to two words, one stating who the person is 
 and the other luhat he is, its piquant brevity may gain it im- 
 mortality as a proverb, and thus what was at first only ' the 
 cackle of your bourg' will have become 'the murmur of the 
 world.' The aim of this treatise will be to bring together some 
 of the hard things which have been said of the Boeotians, and 
 to suggest certain considerations which may be urged in modi- 
 fication of so harsh an estimate and in favour of a more lenient 
 view. 
 
 It is well known that the earliest reference to the proverb 
 BoLfOTia v^ is found in the writings of a Boeotian. In his Sixth 
 Olympian (b.c. 468 : probably), Pindar, towards the close of the 
 Ode, addresses his x^po^i'^acTKoXo^, ^neas, as follows : 
 
 oTpvvov vvv iralpov^, 
 Alvia, TTpwTov fiep "Upav UapOeviav KeXaSrja-ai, 
 yuwval T €7r€iT\ dp')(^cuov oveiSo^ dXaOiatv 
 Xoyoiff el ^evyofjuev, BoccoTiav vu, 
 R. 1 
 
2 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 The passage requires some elucidation in detail, but the general 
 sense is clear. iEneas, as chorus-master, is to rouse his fellows 
 to sing the praises of the maiden Hera, and to form (or to suggest) 
 some conclusion as to the justice of an ancient national reproach. 
 The version in Boeckh's monumental edition runs thus: Inclta 
 nunc sodales, jEnea, primum lit lunonem Partheniam canant, tunc 
 ut declarent, cmtiqunm prohrum veris verbis an effugiamus, Boeotiam 
 siiem. It will be seen that Boeckh takes yvdovat in a causative sense. 
 In support of this he quotes Olymp. xiii. 2, and he might have 
 added that yvaypia-ac and yioopLfiov iroirjaac are found, by way of 
 paraphrase, in the Scholia. His view of the exact meaning and 
 connexion of the words dXadeaiv \6yoc<; is not clear from the 
 literal rendering which he gives ; but it is not in itself likely that 
 Pindar, loyal as he is to his country, intends to endorse so coarsely 
 insolent a proverb. We seem, therefore, driven to disagree with 
 the accomplished English translator who renders : *' to know 
 for sure whether we are escaped from the ancient reproach that 
 spake truly of Boeotian swine." Rather, the correct interpretation 
 is that given by Erasmus {Adagg., i. x. 6): Admonet choro- 
 didascalum, ita curet canendum kymnum, id vetiis illud pi^ohrum 
 veris rationihiis liceat effiigere, quod in amusos did consueveiit, 
 BoLcoTia U9. Here by veris rationihus we are apparently to 
 understand ' on true grounds or calculations,' ' really and truly ' : 
 so that oKaOecTLv \6yoL<; is equivalent to tuU aXrjOelaL^, rfj nXriOeia, 
 Tw ovTi ^ On this view, the translation of the whole passage will 
 be, to quote Mr Myers with a few slight alterations : " Now rouse 
 thy fellows, Aineas, first to proclaim the name of maiden Hera, and 
 next to know (or, to make known) whether in very truth we escape 
 that ancient reproach, Boeotian smine." Pindar is clearly anxious 
 that no admission shall be made which is not well considered and 
 sincere. 
 
 To pass from the interpretation of the passage to the substance 
 of the proverb. We have seen that, according to the view of 
 
 1 For the plural rah dXrieetais, see Rutherford's Babrius, Ixxv. 19. Some light 
 is thrown on the passage under discussion by the line -^u ore avas t6 Bonvnov ^dvo<i 
 ^ueirov (quoted by Schol., on Olymp. vi., from one of Pindar's Dithyrambs : cp. Strabo 
 vii. 7, 1), which is usually, and no doubt rightly, translated: erat quom sues 
 Boeoticam gentem appellareiit. 
 
 THE LITERARY TRADITION. 
 
 d 
 
 some, Pindar endorses the proverb. Others would perhaps urge 
 that the proverb itself is meant half in jest, and is not so offensive 
 as it appears. No doubt there is truth in Professor Gildersleeve's 
 somewhat quaint reminder that " the moral character of the swine 
 was not exactly the same among the Greeks as it is among us and 
 the Semites \*' But everywhere and always we may assume that 
 it has been reckoned a ' reproach' for a human being to be termed 
 a 'swine.' At all events, a ten years' acquaintance with the 
 inhabitants of the Island of Anglesey has not convinced the writer 
 that they really relish the delicate humour of the exactly parallel 
 expression Mock Mon, or that they would not turn a ready ear 
 to an ingenious Scholiast of modern days who should imitate his 
 Greek forerunner by referring us to some ancient Welsh tribe 
 analogous to those primitive Boeotian Hyantes ('Tavre^) whose 
 name, originally innocent enough, was thought to have suggested 
 the ribald jest of later times \ For, however it originated, the 
 phrase BoicoTLa tJ? must, as the Pindaric Scholiast remarks, have 
 miplied dypoiKia koI dvaywyla, by which latter word is meant 
 diraLhevaia, the equivalent given for it by Suidas ^ The proverb 
 is, as we are told elsewhere, appropriately used eVt twv dvacae^rcop 
 Kol dTraLBevTCtiv 1 In fact, we may with safety say that, whatever 
 else it indicated, it must have argued certain defects of— character 
 and culture. We feel that this twofold weakness must be attributed 
 by the irate Milton, in one of his prose writings, to an unknown 
 opponent, when he impatiently exclaims, " I mean not to dispute 
 philosophy with this pork, who never read any ^" We are quite 
 sure that, whatever else Milton means, he does not intend to 
 compliment his nameless antagonist upon uniting in his single 
 
 1 B. L. Gildersleeve, Pindar: The Olympian and Pythian Odes, p. 180. But cp. 
 Circe's swine and see (for partial confirmation only) Plato, Rep. ii. 372, Laches 196, 
 Leges vii. 819 d (Griinwald, Sprichworter u. sprichivortliche Redensarten bei Plato, 
 p. 13 ; Lingenberg, Platonische Bilder u. Sprichworter, p. 15). 
 
 - Boeckh, Pindari Opera, torn. ii. pars i., p. 151. Compare, again, Strabo 
 vii. 7, 1. 
 
 3 See E. A. Sophocles, Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods: 
 s. V. avaytjj^ia. 
 
 ^ Macarii Centuria ii. 49, in Leutsch u. Schneidewin's Coipm Paroemiogra- 
 phorum Graecorum ii. 151. 
 
 ^ Colusterion : a Reply to a nameless Answer against the Doctrine and Discipline 
 of Divorce. 
 
 1-2 
 
 !) 
 
4 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 person all the virtues of Hebraism and all the graces of Hel- 
 lenism. 
 
 The point which Pindar wished to be decided was: el (fyevyo- 
 fiev Apxacov 6v6lSo<;. If the poet is referring to his countrymen 
 at large, the answer is clearly in the negative. They did not 
 escape the reproach : their vivacious Athenian neighbours saw to 
 that. We can well imagine that the Boeotians, who were them- 
 selves given to coining proverbs, invented in revenge, unless fore- 
 stalled by the Corinthians (see Thucyd. i. 70), the phrase 'Attck6<; 
 Trdpoifco^ to denote a troublesome neighbour^ But then it is one 
 thing to invent a taunt, another to give it vogue ; and here the 
 Athenians had the advantage, for they controlled the channels of 
 
 literature. 
 
 At a later date, Plutarch expressly states that it was the people 
 of Attica who applied various opprobrious epithets to the Boeotians 
 and called them ' pigs.' His words are : rov^ yap Bol(dtov<; vfich 
 01 'AttckoI Kal iraxeh koI ailaia6r)TOV<; kuI r/XcOiov^;, ^aXiara 
 hi(i ra? dhr)<\>ayia^ iTpo<T7)y6pevov. ovroi S' av av^. Kal 6 Mevav- 
 Spo^' oi yvdOov^ exovatv {Be Esu Carnuim, orat. i. 6, p. 995)-. 
 
 This passage reminds us not only that it was the Athenians 
 particularly who gave the Boeotians their bad name, but that 
 among the Athenians the lead in this respect was taken by 
 the Comic Poets, to whom their rustic neighbours were a most 
 convenient butt. Plutarch names Menander. But long before 
 Menander, Cratinus seems to have styled the Boeotians l^vo^otco- 
 TOL, thus facetiously implying a connexion at once with (tv<; and 
 with /3o{)9^ In Aristophanes it is from Boeotia that things good 
 for eating come, and the Boeotian trader with his oddities of dialect 
 makes an excellent mark for comic shafts, while the much-prized 
 eel he brings from Lake Copais inspires one of the happiest even 
 
 1 Leutsch u. Schneid. i. 40, i. 330, ii. 149. Cp. Aristot. Rhet. ii. 21, 12. 
 
 2 "The men of Attica were in the habit of terming us Boeotians dense and 
 stupid and witless, mainly owing to our enormous appetites. They it was, also, 
 who named us pigs. And Menander called us 'the men with the jaws.'"— Of 
 course it cannot be proved that it was the Athenians who invented the proverb 
 Boicorla us, which even in Pindar's time was an dpxcuov 6v€t5os. But while it is in 
 the highest degree probable that it had an Attic origin, it is absolutely certain that 
 the feeling which it represents owed its widespread expression to Attic literature. 
 
 3 Meineke, Poet. Graec. Fragm. 71 (Didot). Kock, Comic. Attic. Fragm. i. 103. 
 
 
 THE LITERARY TRADITION. 5 
 
 of Aristophanic parodies ^ The excesses in the matter of eating 
 and drinking attributed to the Boeotians by the Comic Poets 
 generally may be estimated from Athenaeus (x. 417, 418), who 
 brings together a number of passages the burden of which is that 
 they were very valiant trenchermen {(f>ayeiv fiiy avSpt/col), and 
 something more than that'"*. 
 
 Proceeding to Demosthenes, another Athenian who is known 
 to have spoken badly of the Boeotians (especially the Thebans), 
 we shall find that his disparaging references to Theban dvaia6r}(Tla 
 and uvaXyrjaia are not so numerous as they are sometimes supposed 
 to be. Indeed the noun dvaicrOrja-la appears not to be used at 
 all by Demosthenes in connexion with the Thebans, while the 
 adjective dvaia07)To<; is thus used twice only. In the Be Pace 
 the orator makes use of the expression without perhaps actually 
 adopting it himself (et kol Trdvv (J)7](tI Tt<; avToix; dvaiaOrjrovs: 
 elvai, 61), and in the Be Corona he uses it in a fit of indignation 
 
 1 Ach., vv. 860 et seqq. Cp. Pax, vv. 1003— 1005.— For the Boeotian dialect, see 
 R. Meister, Die gnechischen Dialektc {auf Grundlage von Ahrens' Werk ' De Graecae 
 linguae diajectis'), vol. i. pp. 203—286. As Meister points out (p. 213), Aristophanes^" ^ C^.^^ 
 Hke other comic poets, has not taken the trouble to give an altogether accurate <: rA*-^'^^^ ,:U,^ 
 reproduction of the brogue he ridicules. See also Die boeotischen hitichriften by "^ "^^ 
 
 R. Meister in H. CoUitz, Samnilung d. gr. Dialekt-Inschriften (Heft iii. 1884, with. 
 Nachtrage in the same year). ^ 
 
 ^ Evidence of the Comic Poets. Many of the considerations advanced by 
 Wilhelm Vischer (A7. Schr. i. 459—485, Ueber die Benutzung der alten Komiklie als 
 geschichtlicher Quelle) are applicable not only to the Old Comedy but to Comedy 
 in general. In the present case, Athenaeus himself admits that the charge was a 
 wholesale one {Kal idvr] 5e 6\a ei's noXixpayiav eKio/jupdeiro, ciis rd Boiwroi', x. 417). It 
 would hardly be fair to judge of a City Feast solely from the pages of Punch, and in 
 the same way the lines of the Greek Comic Poets, which ascribe gluttony to the 
 Boeotians, one and all, must be taken with all due reserve. They indicate a 
 tendency, a weakness ; one cannot safely say more. The impression which the 
 Boeotians, on this side of their character, are represented as making on the 
 Athenians may be compared with that which the voracious Saxons made on the 
 Normans, whose self-indulgence took a more refined form. "The polite luxury of 
 the Norman presented a striking contrast to the coarse voracity and drunkenness of 
 his Saxon and Danish neighbours. He loved to display his magnificence, not in 
 huge piles of food and hogsheads of strong drink, but in large and stately edifices, 
 rich armour and gallant horses, choice falcons, well-ordered tournaments, banquets 
 delicate rather than abundant, and wines remarkable rather for their exquisite 
 flavour than for their intoxicating power." (Macaulay, History of England, i. 
 p. 11.) 
 
6 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 which procures for the Thessalians even a worse designation (ol fiev 
 KardiTTVCTTOL ^errakol kol dvala-OrjToi Srj^alot ^l\ov, evepyer^jv, 
 (TWTYjpa Tov ^iXiTTTTov rjyovvTo, 240) \ In the Second Philippic 
 (TKaiOTT)^ rpoircov (a turn for blundering, a native gaucherie) is 
 attributed to the Thebans and to those of the Peloponnesians 
 whom Demosthenes at the time in question thought equally mis- 
 guided ; and in the De Corona (237) we have the words t^9 
 dvaXyrjaia^ koX Trj<; /3apvTr)T0(; aTraWayrjvai ttj^ tmv ^rj^aiwv, 
 but quoted apparently from ^schines'. So that, when we come 
 to look into the matter, we see that Demosthenes' own opinion 
 as to Theban dvaLaOrjala is not so emphatically expressed as it 
 has often been thought to be ; and even where a distinctly un- 
 favourable judgment is delivered, we must make all allowance 
 for rhetorical exaggeration and political prejudice, as for instance 
 when the Athenians are told in the Leptines (490) that the 
 Thebans take greater pride in barbarity and villainy than they take 
 in kindliness and the desire to do right. An Orator, no less than 
 a Comic Poet, is prone to consider the tastes of his audience as 
 well as the demands of truth. Demosthenes himself, in the earliest 
 of his extant political speeches, allows that it was almost impossible 
 to say anything good about the Thebans owing to the hatred which 
 the Athenians entertained towards them. " Your hatred for them 
 is such that you will not care to hear anything in their favour, 
 true though it may be." "But," he there adds, "when great 
 interests are at stake, no consideration that is of moment should 
 on any account be omitted in our deliberations ^" Isocrates, too, 
 
 1 " The despicable Thessalians and dull-witted Thebans regarded Philip as their 
 friend, benefactor, saviour." 
 
 2 •♦ To be rid of the heartlessness and insolence of the Thebans." The meaning 
 of dvaiadrjTos and dvaXynros is discussed later. §apvTT]% seems to combine the 
 notions of oppressiveness and offensiveness. 
 
 3 Symmories (354 b.c), p. 187: ei rolvvv ns oterai Orj^aiov^ ^aeadai fxer' e'/cetVou 
 (sc. /3a(riX^ws), iari fxkv xaXe7r6s irpos vfxds 6 irepl tovtujp \6yos ' did yap to fiLcdv avrovs 
 ou5' dv dXrjd^s oiidev ijdius dyadbv irepl avTuv dKov<Tarr€. ov firjv dWd del rous irepl 
 irpaypidTUV fxeydXiav cTKOirovPTas ix-qbiva avfKpipouTa Xoyi(T,a6v irapaXiirelv 5id firjdefiiav 
 irp6(pa(nv. iyoi roivvv ol/xat Toaovrov dirix^'-^ Qrj^aiovs tou /uer' Ueivov ttot' dv eXdeXv 
 €irl Tovs "EXXrjva^, ufffre iroXXuiv dv xpVf^^T^^^ f* ^Xo^^*' ^oOvai, irpiaaOai yeveadai tip' 
 avToh KOLLpbv bC ov rds irporepai dvaXvaovrai irpbs tovs "EXXijvas dfxapTias. [The last 
 sentence is quoted here in anticipation of c. ii. § 3. ] 
 
 ' 
 
 I 
 
 THE LITERARY TRADITION. 7 
 
 implies that it was their enmity which led the Athenians to impute 
 crass ignorance to the Thebans^ 
 
 However, the ascription of dvaiadrjaia to the Thebans became 
 a sort of tradition among the Greek writers : for example, in an 
 oration (Ixiv. 332) attributed to Dion Chrysostomus (who, good 
 rhetorician though he is, belongs to a class of men who are apt 
 to be echoes rather than living voices) we find rrjv ^rj^aicov 
 dvaiaOrjalav spoken of as though it were the recognised thing. 
 But what exactly was thi^dvacaOrjaia ? Daniel Heinsius (Orationes, 
 p. 610 ; Lugd. Bat., 1627 a.d.) thinks that in the Emperor Claudius 
 we have its human embodiment, and in stupiditas its Latin verbal 
 equivalent. But he adds that there are the following varieties of 
 it — socordia, stultitia, obliviOy inconsideranticiy rermn ac sermonis 
 neglegentia ; and on any estimate of his character, it will be 
 allowed that Claudius was chargeable with some at least of these 
 defects. 
 
 For a more precise definition, however, we must go back to 
 the Nicomachean Ethics. In that work the word dvaiaOrjaia is 
 used to denote a defect which the author regards as practically 
 non-exisj;ent because non-human, viz. deficient se nsibili ty to 
 pleasures^ (iii. 11, 7). The virepPoXr) with regard to pleasures 
 is dKoXaaia, the /jLeaorr]^ is a(0(f>pocnjvr), and the eWetyJrcf; is (if 
 a word must be found) dvaiaOrjcrLa (ii. 7, 3 eWeiTrovTef; Be irepl 
 Ta9 r}8ovd^ ov irdvv yivovrai' Siowep ovS* ovofiaro^; T€TV')(r)KaaLv 
 ovh^ ol TocovTOL, €<TT(oaav he dvalaOrjroL Cp. ii. 2, 7 ; ii. 8, 6). 
 Thus even the a(o<f>pwv will be dKoXaaro'^ when compared with the 
 dvaiaOrjTo^;, though on the other hand he will be dvaiaOr^To^; when 
 compared with the aKoXao-ro^ (ii. 8, 2). dvaXyTjaia also denotes 
 insensibility, but insensibility to dXyo<; (implied in the term) 
 rather than to 77801/7;. Thus in i. 10, 12 we are told that 'nobility 
 of character is brilliantly displayed when a man bears cheerfully 
 many heavy blows of fortune, not through insensibility (dvaX- 
 yrjaiav), but because he is generous-hearted and magnanimous.' 
 Similarly in vi. 7, 7 we hear that 'a man would rightly be de- 
 scribed as mad or insensible {dvdXyrjTo^) if he feared nothing 
 
 ^ Isocrates, irepl dvTidoffeois 248, /cat Qrj^aioLS fxev nal roli dXXoLs ix^ P°^^ "^W 
 i/xadiai' oveidl^vciv. As the Welsh proverb on the title-page affirms, "there is 
 many a fault where love is not." 
 
t 
 
 8 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 at all, neither earthquake nor tempestuous sea, as they say of the 
 Celts \' 
 
 But, in general, 'stupid' and 'unfeeling' will be adequate 
 equivalents for dvalo-Orjro^ and dvd\yrjTo<i respectively. In the 
 Nicomachean Ethics iii. 5, 12 ignorance of a certain obvious flict is 
 regarded as the mark of an ' entirely stupid person ' {ko/jllBtj dvai- 
 (T0r)Tov). In the Character's of Theophrastus, dvaiaOrjala is defined 
 as 'mental slowness in speech and action' (Jebb's Theophrastus y 
 p. 115), and ia illustrated by various examples of an absent or a 
 vacant mind. (Near akin to the dvaiaOrjro^; is the dypotKo<; or boor, 
 in which word urban contempt for rural life and manners comes out 
 with special prominence) dypoiKia is defined by Theophrastus 
 as 'ignorance offending against propriety-.' This boorishness, or 
 clownishness, may be mitigated by culture ; and this is also the 
 case with dvaio-OrjaLa, to judge from the reference made in 
 [Demosth.] Epist iii. 1477 to culture {iraiheia) as an agency 
 which can render even tov<; dvaLa6rjTov<; tolerable. 
 
 Largely through Athenian influence, the taunts conveyed in 
 BoLcoTia U9 and in dpacaOrjala passed into a literary commonplace. 
 They had the Attic stamp and seal upon them, and were thereby 
 franked to all the world. The Latin writers, especially, join in 
 the chorus of dispraise. The best-known passage in point is 
 (/ the 'Boeotum in crasso iiirares aei;e natum ' of Horace (^j^. ii. i. 
 244); and with'Thrs may be compared the allusion in Ciceroi 
 (de Fato, iv. 7) to the belief that the brightness of the Athenians! 
 and the heaviness of the Thebans were, in some degree, due to the/ 
 
 ^ Nicomachean Ethics (Ingram Bywater's Text), i. 10, 12: didXd/xTrei to KaXdv, 
 iireidav (pepy rts evKoXus iroWas Kal fieydXas arvx^ois, ixt) 5i' dvoKyqcrlav, dWd -fevvddas 
 u)v Kcd fieyaXdTpvxos. iii. 7, 7: etrj 5' &if xis fj.aLv6fJi€vos rj dudXy-qros, ei /j.r)dev (po^oirOf 
 fi-qre ff€(.<T/j,bv fi-qre tcl KUfiara, Kaddirep (paai tovs KeXrovs. — The meaning of dvaLadrjala 
 and di'a\77;<ria might be investigated at greater length with interesting results. Cp. 
 Stewart's Notes on the Nichomachean Ethics, ii. 8, 2, 3, and the passage adduced by 
 Ramsauer. The Boeotians have seemed to their exacting critics to lack the 
 alad-nTLKT] /j.e(76TT}s, and to suffer alike from dvaKrBrjffia and hijperaesthesia, if we may 
 borrow a term from medical and physiological writers. In the same way they have 
 been charged at once with ufxoT-rjs and with di'aXyT](ria, which may be considered the 
 extremes, on either side, of irpaoTrjs. (Plutarch, Opera Moralia, Wyttenbach's 
 edition, ii. 445 a). 
 
 2 Jebb, Tlieophrastus, -pip. 117 and 220: cp. J. H. H. Schmidt, Synonymik der 
 griechischen Sprache, iii. 74. 
 
 ! 
 
 i 
 
 THE LITERARY TRADITION. 
 
 9 
 
 •^ difference in the air they breathed. Nepos observes more than 
 once (Alcib. 11, Epam. 5) that the Boeotians were more remarkable 
 for physical strength tlian for mental agility, and Tertullian 
 (de Anima, 20) refers to the traditional dullness and stupidity 
 of the natives of Thebes ^ 
 
 To come to still later times. There are many passages in 
 which Dante alludes to Thebes. But it is of legendary Thebes 
 (' la citta di Baco ') that Dante is usually thinking. However, in 
 Inf. xxxiii. 89 it is quite likely, as Mr A. J. Butler suggests, that 
 in addressing Pisa as ' New Thebes ' or ' Modern Thebes ' {Novella 
 Tehe) the poet intended to imply that Pisa was to Florence as 
 Thebes to Athens. Our own Dryden, in a ' Prologue to the 
 University of Oxford ' (Sir Walter Scott's Dryden, vol. x., p. 384), 
 makes the distinction in an unequivocal manner, and much to the 
 disadvantage of his own University of Cambridge. 
 
 If his ambition may those hopes pursue, 
 
 Who, with religion, loves your arts and you, 
 
 Oxford to him a dearer name shall be 
 
 Than his own mother-university. 
 
 Thebes did his green, unknowing, youth engage ; 
 
 He chooses Athens in his riper age. 
 
 And not in Dryden only but in Emglish literature generally the 
 Boeotians and their country have fared badly. Marston (1598 A.D.) 
 speaks of ' duU-sprighted fat Boeotian boors'; Daniel (1649 A.D.), 
 of ' fuU-paunched Boeotians'; Cudworth (1678 A.D.), of the effect 
 of the dull Boeotic air' ; Byron (1809 A.D.), of 'Jeffrey's heart, or 
 Lambe's Boeotian head'; and Carlyle (1831 A.D.), of 'Boeotian 
 simplicity ^' 
 
 ^ Cicero, de Fato, iv. 7 : Athenis tenue caelum, ex quo etiam acutiores putantur 
 Attici: crassum Thebis, itaque pingues Thebani et valentes. Nepos, Alcib. xi. 3: 
 Omnes enim Boeoti magis firmitati corporis quam ingenii acumini inserviunt. Id. 
 Epam. V. 2: Namque illi genti plus inest virium quam ingenii. Tertullian, de 
 Anima xx : Thebis hebetes et brutos nasci relatum est. 
 
 '■^ The following references are given by Dr Murray {New English Dictionary) 
 under Bueotia etc. : Marston, Figmal, ii. 142. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Hen. V. lix. 
 Cudworth, Intell. Syst. 741. Byron, Bards and Rev. 82. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 
 iii. 1. 
 
 y 
 
t^ 
 
 u 
 
 10 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 2. The Historical Authorities. 
 
 oxrrf rroWovs (ivai Bokotcov ois VTrrjp^f S^Trva rov firjvos 7rXft<u tcou fls tov 
 fifjva 8taTfTayfiev<op T^fifpciu. PoLYB. XX. 6, 6. 
 
 It will now be convenient to inquire what direct historical 
 evidence there is, one way or the other, with regard to the 
 character and culture of the Boeotians. The following are, it 
 will probably be found, the three principal judgments pronounced 
 upon the Boeotians by Greek historians or geographers. They 
 will be here given in what seems the ascending order of their 
 importance. 
 
 (1) The most detailed account is the least weighty. It is 
 that contained in the Descriptio (rroecm^ attributed to Dicaearchus ' 
 (C. MuUer, Geogr, Graec. M/?.l. pp. 97-^flO, and Frag m. Hist 
 Graec. ii. pp. 254—264). The writer goes so far as to assign (on 
 the authority of the Boeotians themselves, so he says) special 
 defects to particular towns, e.g. envy {<f>d6vo<>:) to Tanagra, conten- 
 tiousness (^iXoz^et/c/a) to Thespiae, insolence (vfipc^) to Thebes, 
 meddlesomeness (Trepcepyia) to Coroneia, pretentiousness (dXa^o- 
 ^^}Jo^^^}^3ij stupidity (dvata0rja{a) to Haliartus'. "No wonte 
 that he sums up with the line of Pherecrates : ' An thou art wise, 
 shun thou Boeotia' (avwep (j>povfi^ ev, (fyevye r^p BoicoTiav). 
 The gossip of a traveller, who thus attributes individual character- 
 istics to a number of towns only a few miles apart from each other, 
 does not deserve very serious attention. Although the fragments 
 of the Descriptio are commonly ascribed to Dicaearchus Messenius, 
 there is an alternative heading "Mrjvalov, and C. Muller per- 
 tinently remarks that an Athenian may well have been the author 
 of these gibes \ 
 
 1 Dicaearchus. This treatment of * Dicaearchus ' may seem unduly severe and 
 
 summary. It must be admitted that he says good things, as well as bad, of the 
 
 Boeotians ; and he may be wanting in judgment rather than in fairness. But in 
 
 any case, he is now generally acknowledged to be of later date than Dicaearchus 
 
 ; Messenius. It will be convenient, therefore, to refer to him as 'the Pseudo- 
 
 \ Picaearchus,' and to hazard the conjectme that he wrote about 160 ^.cT For the 
 
 i various geographical writings, of uncertain ascription an3~titierVttributed to 
 
 - Dicaearchus, see C. Wachsmuth, ArcMologische Zeituug, 1860, p. 110; C. Wachs- 
 
 muth, Die Stadt Athen im Alterthum, vol. i. p. 44; K. Lehrs, Rheinisches Museum, 
 
 New Series, vol. ii. (1843), p. 354. 
 
 r 
 
 
 THE historical AUTHORITIES. 
 
 11 
 
 (2) The standing of Polybiug js very different from that of the 
 writer just quoted. But because his authority is justly so great 
 and has been so confidently invoked against the Boeotians, it is all 
 the more necessary to remember that in one point he resembles 
 the Pseudo-Dicaearchus : they are both comparatively late writers, % / 
 and both are dealing with a comparatively late period in Boeotian | ( 
 history. Polybius himself makes this clear in the words with 
 which he introduces his striking picture of Boeotian degeneracy 
 (xx. 4 — 7). ' The Boeotians had for a long time been in a dis- 
 ordered state which presented a great contrast to the prosperity 
 and reputation of their commonwealth in the past.' He goes on 
 to say that, after winning great glory and power at the time of the 
 battle of Leuctra, they had subsequently declined year after year, 
 and not merely declined but had positively been transformed, and 
 had done their best to efface their former renown. Being defeated 
 in battle by the ^tolians (B.C. 245), they were so demoralised that 
 thenceforward they never had the heart to contend for any kind of 
 distinction, nor did they share in any Hellenic undertaking or 
 contest, but ' gave themselves up to feasting and carousing, and 
 lost not only all physical but all mental and moral stamina.' There 
 were among them but few in whom might still be found ' sparks of 
 their ancestral glory.' /For nearly five and twenty years the /> 
 administration of justice was allowed to sleep, the Macedonian 
 party being in the ascendant (B.C. 210 circ). The poor were 
 corrupted by ambitious politicians who wished to obtain their 
 votes. And (this by way of climax) it became customary for men 
 
 of property to bequeath money for the maintenance of feasts and 
 drink ing-parties, to be enjoyed by the testator's friends in common: 
 * so that there were many Boeotians who had at their call more '*' 
 dinners in a month than there are days in the month V_J 
 
 (3) The last of the three passages, being brief and^ important, 
 may be quoted textually. It is a fragment of Ephorus p reserved by 
 
 ^ Boiwroi e'/c ttoWSu -^dr) xpo^^^" Kax^KToOvTe^ rjjav, Kal fJLeydXrjv elxoi' 5ia(f>opap irpbs 
 Tr}v yeyevrjfi^vrjv tve^iau Kai 86^av avrCov ttjs xoXireias. Polybius xx. 4, 1. — dW 
 6p/Jii^<ravT€s wpbs tuwxtci*' Kai pidas, ov pbvov rots <Xibpa<nv e^€\v6r)<Tav dWd Kai reus 
 yf/vxa-ts. XX. 4, 7. — ^pax^os 8^ aidvyparos eyKaraXenrop^vov rijs TrpoyovcKrjs 86^t]S, 
 ijadv Tives oi dvaapeaTovvTes rrj irapovari KaTaardaei Kai t<^ iravra Teideadai ^aKeddai. 
 XX. 5, 4. — wore 7roX\ot>s eluat. k.t.X. xx. 6, 6. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^'*^K^ 
 
12 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 A 
 i 
 
 m^ 
 
 Strabo (ix.401), who says: rrjv ^lev ovp x^P^^ i-rraivel CE(f>opo^) 
 Scd Tavra, Kai (firjac 7rp6<; yyefioviav euc^u w? exeiv, dycoyfj Se /cal 
 iraiSela /xt; xpV(^<^f^^^ov^ iircfieXel rov^ del Trpoiarafievov^ avr^^, ei 
 Kai TV TTore KarwpOwaav, i-rrl fiLKpov tov xpoJ^ov avfifjuelvac ' 
 KaOaTrep 'Eira^eivoovha^ eSei^e' reXevrrjaavro^ ydp eKeivov rrjv 
 VyefMovtav d-rro^aXelv evOv^ rov^; ST]/3aLou<; yevaapuevov^ avr^'i 
 fiovov alrtov 3e elvat to Xoycov Kai o/xtXla^ T779 irpo^ dvOpooTrov^ 
 oXiycop^aat, fi6vrj<; 8' e'TrifieXTjOrivai t^9 Kara iroXepiov dpcT^j^K 
 Strabo adds, on his own account, that the qualities thus neglected 
 are of especial consequence in dealing with Greeks, who are not, 
 like the barbarians, ' moved more by force than speech ' ; and since 
 he is writing under the Empire, it is natural for him to introduce 
 a reference to the Komans, ' who in ancient times, when waging 
 war against ruder tribes, stood in no need of such accomplishments; 
 but since they commenced to deal with more civilised tribes and 
 races, they have applied themselves to this branch of training also, 
 and become masters of the world.* 
 
 Upon reviewing as a whole the testimony adduced in the two 
 sections of this chapter, we shall find that, outside the historians 
 and geographers/there is little that can be ranked as conclusive 
 
 1 '* The country (Boeotia) is extoUed by Ephorus on these grounds (viz. certain 
 geographical advantages). He says that it was well fitted by nature for a position 
 of ascendancy, but through want of training and systematic culture its successive 
 leaders, notwithstanding some occasional successes, held their ground but for a 
 short period. This was shown in the case of Epaminondas. Upon his death the 
 Thebans immediately lost their premier position after one brief taste of it the 
 reason being that they contemned humane letters and social converse, and culti 
 vated mihtary prowess only." With the use of \6yu;^ here, cp. Pint., de genio 
 Socr. 1., dueyeipecu rb Kara BotwrcC,. dpxalou el, fiLCoXoyiav dueidos, which Erasmus 
 (Adagrj., Leyden Edition, p. 369) translates refricare vettis illud adversus Boeotos de 
 hterarum odio prohnm. [But cp. also Plato, Syinpos., 182 b.] eVt/^eXe? is read by 
 Madvig for ^TTd ^^Se. "Pro iird p.r^U, quae Meinekius iure notavit, scribendum 
 ^TTt/ieXet. (Casaub. tVtrT^Sa'^)." Adversaria Critica, i. 554. So Cobet Miscell 
 Cnt., p. 180: " Meineke Vind. Strah. pag. 135 legebat: ;u^ xpv<ra^^yovs em{f.eXec) 
 fxvSe Tovs dd irpoCarap^^uovs ktL Sed pessime retiuuit fx-qdi, quia de solis principibus 
 haec Ephorus dicebat. Latebat in p.rjb^ id ipsum-/.e\er a Meinekio de suo additum : 
 M XPV<^ap^Povs iTTCfxeXei Toi>s del wpoXaTap.ivovs avTTJs. Si haec de omnibus Thebanis 
 dixisset, non xpv<ro,fi4povs, sed xp^^f^evovs dictum oportuit." The notes of the Danish 
 and the Dutch critic are given here in full, but the passage, even as emended 
 and explained, does not seem to be free from ambiguity. It will be found, together 
 with Its context, in H. F. Tozer's Selections from Strabo, pp. 232, 8. 
 
 THE HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. 
 
 13 
 
 evidence or regarded as free from Attic bias. ) And how strong 
 that Attic bias must have been, we realise at once when we 
 consider the facts of Attico-Boeotian history. Melaenae, Plataea, 
 Oropus — these tell the same tale in prehistoric, and in early and 
 late historical times \ It is a tale of endless wrangling and 
 bitterest jealousy. The wrangling is illustrated by the names 
 just mentioned ; the bitter jealousy by many things, but most 
 of all perhaps by the attitude of Thebes towards Athens after 
 ^gospotami, and of Athens towards Thebes after Leuctra (Xen. 
 IlelleTi. ii. 2, 19; vi. 4, 20). 
 
 In the case of the historians and geographers we are bound to 
 bear in mind the comparatively late date at which, and of which, 
 the Pseudo-Dicaearchus and Polybius write. And although the 
 good faith of Polybius is beyond all question, yet we cannot help 
 feeling that it is not easy to take quite seriously all the counts in 
 his indictment. Thirl wall speaks, in this connexion, of the 'grave 
 evidence' of Polybius; but it looks, in part, like a case of too 
 much gravity and too little humour 2. Anyhow, the censure must 
 not, without further testimony, be extended beyond the period 
 to which- the historian himself applies it. We do not form our 
 estimate of the Athenians in their great days from the account 
 given of them, in their degeneracy, by the author of the Acts 
 of the Apostles, at a time when the noble pursuit after knowledge 
 had become a mere idle curiosity, when the old habit of un- 
 fettered investigation still survived but not the old spirit which 
 once had animated it, when inquiry had been exchanged for 
 inquisitiveness. 
 
 The judgment of Ephorus deserves careful consideration if 
 only because of its clear-sighted reference to a principal source 
 of Boeotian weakness. The fragment further raises regrets that 
 the whole of which it is a part has been lost, and makes us, still 
 further, think of the general ill-fortune of Boeotia in the matter 
 of its historians. The period of Epaminondas might have evoked, 
 in a degree only second to the Persian and the Peloponnesian 
 
 ^ For Melaenae, see Die Demen von Attika von W. M. Leake: aiis dem Englischen 
 iihersetzt von A. Westermann, 1840, pp. 132 and 230. [English original in Transac- 
 tions of the Royal Society, vol. i. pt. 2, London, 1829, pp. 114 — 283.] 
 
 '■^ Thirlwall, History of Greece, i. 13. 
 
 / 
 
14 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 
 Wars, the powers of a Herodotus or a Thucydides ; but the only 
 contemporary records extant are the Hellenica and the [Agesilaiis] 
 of Xenophon, and Xenophon, if he is anti-Athenian, is by ill 
 chance anti-Boeotian also. Ephorus, although not exactly a 
 contemporary, was, in this part of his work, describing events 
 which were still fresh in the minds of men, and the loss of his 
 History is the more to be deplored that he entertained no 
 prejudice against the Boeotians. He was not a historian of the 
 first rank, but where (as in treating of Epaminondas) he was 
 interested himself he could interest others to what was sometimes 
 an inconvenient extent.^ So we may judge from a characteristic 
 anecdote of Plutarch's. " A talkative fellow contrariwise, if there 
 be a matter proposed whereby he may hear and learn somewhat 
 that he knew not before, rejecteth and refuseth it ; he cannot for 
 his life hold his tongue and keep silence a little while, to gain 
 thereby some hire and reward ; but casting and rolling his thought 
 round about he never rests until he light upon some old ragged 
 rapsodies and overworn discourses, which he hath patched and 
 racked together a thousand times. Such a one there was among 
 us, who hapned by chance to have perused two or three books 
 of Ephorus ; whereby he took himself to be so great a Clerk, and 
 so well read, that he wearied every mans eares who heard him 
 talk ; there was no assembly or feast unto which he came, but he 
 would force the company to arise and depart with his unmeasur- 
 able prating of the battel of Leuctres, and the occurrents that 
 ensued thereupon, insomuch as he got himself a by-name, and 
 every man called him Epammondas:'^(Phitarch, De Garrulitate, 
 xxii. Philemon Holland's Translation) i. 
 
 In the following chapters an endeavour will be made to 
 ascertain, as far as it can now be done, the truth with regard 
 to Boeotian character and culture, and Boeotian reputation. 
 
 1 "The Philosophy, commonly called the Morals, written by the Learned 
 Philosopher, Plutarch of Chaeronea. Translated out of Greek into English, and 
 conferred with the Latine Translations and the French. By Philemon Holland, 
 Doctor of Physick." Edition of 1657. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF BOEOTIA. 
 
 It is in the Political History of Boeotia, not including the 
 Age of Epaminondas (which must be reserved for separate treat- 
 ment) that there would seem to be most room for adverse criticism 
 of the national character. And yet, even here, no abusive con- 
 demnation of a whole people will appear admissible, if only we 
 take due account of the public morality of the time, and thus apply 
 historicaf rather than dogmatic methods of criticism. To test the 
 point, let us very rapidly consider (1) the internal relations of 
 Boeotia, (2) its relations to Attica, (3) its relations to Persia. 
 
 1. Internal Relations. 
 
 Koi (Is BoKOTovs, on ofioioi rols irpivois' tovs re yap npivovs v(^ avToiv Kara- 
 KOTTTfadai, Ka\ rovs BoicoToifS npos dWrjXovs pa\op,fvov9. 
 
 Qi 
 
 Arist. Rhet. iii. 4, 3. 
 
 Iven in Greece, that ancient home of particularism, the internal 
 dissensions of Boeotia were felt to be notable, j The feelmg found 
 expression in a simile which Aristotle attributes to Pericles. 
 The Boeotians, said Pericles, resembled holm-oaks, which fell 
 one another. In this case, as in many others, the fact illustrated 
 is much clearer than the illustration employed. For whatever 
 doubt there may be as to the exact manner in which holm-oaks 
 deal mutual destruction, it is only too certain that the Boeotians 
 were constantly waging an almost internecine war with one 
 
16 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 another, dispeopling towns and laying waste the fertile country 
 round them \ 
 
 (^The theory and the practice of Boeotia were in striking 
 opposition?) In theory there had existed from very early times 
 a Boeotian League, composed of a number of confederate towns, 
 usually given as fourteen, but sometimes maintained by high 
 authorities to have been only seven \ It is likely that the number 
 varied at different times, and that both these statements are true, 
 the latter applying best to the fifth century B.C., and the former 
 to the end of the fourth century. At the earlier date, the probable 
 names of the towns, if given in the order in which they occur on 
 the map from north to south, would be: Orchomenus, Copae, 
 Coroneia, Haliartus, Thebes, Thespiae, Tanagra ; at the later date, 
 Orchomenus, Chaeroneia, Hyettus, Copae, Anthedon, Acraephium, 
 Lebadeia, Coroneia, Haliartus, Thebes, Thespiae, Tanagra, Thisbe, 
 Plataea. The full list last given receives general confirmation 
 from existing inscriptions I 
 
 1 The most probable meaning of vcf) avrdv KaTaKdwreadaL would seem to be 
 * fell one another,' or more emphatically, ' are their own headsmen or executioners,' 
 the reference being to tree-tops dashed together by the violence of the storm. Cp. 
 Thucyd. li. 77 : ijdT) yap ev opecnv v\r} Tpi<pdei(ra vir' dvifxiav wpbs avrrjv dirb TavTOfidrov 
 TTvp Kal <t>\6ya dx' ainrov dvriKev. E. M. Cope (in his edition of the Rhetoric) gives, 
 as an alternative explanation, " are cut down by their own wood," and J. E. C. 
 Welldon (in his Translation) renders: "or about the Boeotians, that they are like 
 their own holm-oaks, for, as these are cut to pieces by axes made of their own wood, 
 so are the Boeotians cut to pieces by civil war." In Mr Welldon's version two 
 difficulties .suggest themselves : (1) Is it a feasible thing ' to cut holm-oaks to 
 pieces by axes made of their own wood,' unless the reference is simply to the 
 handles of the axes ? Theophrastus, it may be pointed out, does not mention axe- 
 manufacture in any form as one of the purposes to which holm-oaks were applied 
 (Hist. Plant, v. 7, 6). There would seem to be more likelihood in Mr Cope's 
 explanation, ' to split by wedges and mallets made of their own wood.' (2) Are we 
 warranted in assuming that holm-oaks were a special feature of the Boeotian 
 landscape? The writer thinks he has somewhere seen attention called to the fact 
 that Boeotia is, or was, remarkable for the absence of holm-oaks. 
 
 2 Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorfif, //ernes, viii. 431-441: Ahrechnung eines 
 boiotischen Hipparchen. 
 
 3 Maurice Holleaux, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique, Janvier-F6vrier 
 1889, pp. 1-23, and Mars 1889, pp. 225—229 [Dedicaces Nouvelles de la Confedera- 
 tion Beotienne]. In a paper, which will presently be referred to more particularly 
 in the Numismatic Chronicle, Dr B. V. Head gives (p. 193) a slightly different list 
 based on the evidence of the coins of Boeotia..— Site of Hyettus. To the N. of 
 Copae: see Map in Miiller's Orchomenus.— Orthography of Acraephium. ''Akrai- 
 
 INTERNAL RELATIONS. 
 
 17 
 
 A main reason of dissatisfaction and disunion was the attitude 
 of Thebes, which desired a predominant position in the League, 
 and at times enforced her claims harshly and violently. One 
 active rival and opponent was Orchomenus, which occupied one of 
 the two natural basins of Boeotia while Thebes occupied the other. \ 
 Theocritus says no more than is true in his lines ' Orchomenus, the 
 abode of the Minyae, was hated of old by Thebes ' {Id. xvi. 105, 6). 
 Thebes could not forget the tradition that at one time Orchomenus 
 had exacted tribute from her ; norjjould Orchomenus forget her 
 own legendary pre-eminence \ (in the earlier historical times, 
 however, Thebes and Orchomenus, being both under oligarchical 
 government, acted fairly well together. But the feud was smoul- 
 dering, not extinguished^ At the battle of Coroneia (394 B.C.) 
 the Orchomenians were the only Boeotians fighting on the side 
 of Agesilaus against the united forces of the Athenians, Thebans, 
 and others ; and after Leuctra (371 B.C.) the Thebans would have 
 destroyed Orchomenus but for the intervention of Epaminondas \ 
 In his absence a little later (about 364 B.C.), they seized a con- 
 venient pretext and razed the city to the ground, slaying its 
 male population and selling its women and children into slavery ^ 
 
 phia I 'AKpa[(Pia, auch 'AKpal<f>iov, 'kKpaicpvLov und rd 'AKpaicpuca geschrieben." 
 G. Hirschfeld, in the new Pauly. Holleaux gives also a form Acraephi«e. 
 
 1 Diod. Sic, Bibl. Hist., XV. 79 : e/c jraXacQu ydp xp6ucvu ol Ov^aloi irpos ro6rovs 
 dXXorpiujs dUK€ivTo, bacfxocpopodvres fxeu rois Mii'vaii iv roh vpuj^Kois XP^vols, Varepop 5' 
 v<p' 'UpaKX^ovs ^XevSepujd^vTes.—ln the early historical period Orchomenus is the only 
 confederate town which does not place the Boeotian buckler (the emblem of the 
 League) on the obverse of its coins.— The latest historical event affecting the ancient 
 rivals Thebes and Orchomenus, or the modern towns which bear their name, is the 
 earthquake which has this year (1894) overwhelmed them both. 
 
 •^ Orchomenians at Coroneia. Xen. Hellen. iv. 3, 15—18 ; [Xen.] Ages. ii. 9. In 
 the enumeration of Boeotian forces given in Hellen. iv. 2, 17 the woids iird 'Opxo- 
 txivLOL ov irapyjaav are used twice in close succession, first with regard to the heavy 
 infantry, and then with regard to the cavalry. Breitenbach, in his edition of the 
 Hellenica, is offended by what seems to him to be aimless tautology. " Haec 
 verba uncis inclusi : ex antecedentibus inepte repetita ferri non possunt." But 
 surely the repetition is due to no scribe, but to the historian himself, who wishes 
 to direct special attention to the absence of the Orchomenians. 
 
 3 Destruction of Orchomenus. In W. Warde Fowler's excellent book Tlie City- 
 
 State of the Greeks and Romans, p. 293, it is stated in error that " Orchomenus, 
 
 the ancient rival of Thebes, was utterly destroyed by Epaminondas himself.'' 
 
 Ad. Holm (Gr. Gesch. iii. 138 and 142) does not go as far as that, but even he seems 
 
 R. 2 
 
 f 
 
 t 
 
18 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 Later still, Orchomenus was, after restoration, placed by Philip at 
 the mercy of the Thebans, who destroyed it once more ; and after 
 Chaeroneia (338 B.C.) it was rebuilt, together with the two towns 
 about to be mentioned, by his directions. So clearly did it present 
 itself to his eyes as a prime antagonist of Thebes. 
 
 In the south of Boeotia, both Plataea and Thespiae were often 
 in collision with the Thebans. The case of the Plataeans is 
 conspicuous. At an early date they seceded from the League and 
 entered into that close and long-enduring connexion with Athens 
 which at a later time earned them the title oV XOr^valoi Bo/ft)To^^ 
 At the siege of Syracuse they were the only Boeotians fighting on 
 the Athenian side -. The Athenians, in return for their fidelity, 
 protected them, as fjxr as it was possible to protect dwellers beyond 
 Mount Cithaeron, against the Thebans and the Spartans, and 
 
 to hold Epaminondas responsible. As Epaminondas is thus made to share in the 
 misdeeds of the Thebans, it may be well to give the evidence of Diodorus and 
 Pausanias. They are late writers, but they may be drawing on earlier sources, and 
 in any case they furnish the only means of determining, apart from conjecture, the 
 action of Epaminondas. In his account of the first design to destroy the city, Dio- 
 dorus (xv. 57) says : eVi bk tovtojp Qtj^oioi fxeyoKi^ dvvdfiei (TTparevaavres eV 'Opxo/Ufi/6i', 
 iire^dXovTO fxep i^avdpaTrodiaaadai Tr)v ttoXlv, 'Ewa/xeivijbudov Be avfj-^ovXeuffavros 6tl to, 
 5td TTjs dvdpeias KarepyacrdivTa tt} (piXavdpojTria* 5ia<pv\dTT€iv tovs ttjs tCjv "EiW7]V(i}v 
 Tfycfiovlas dpeyofx^vovs, pLer^yvuaav. In Diodorus' narrative of the actual destruction 
 of Orchomenus (c. 79 of the same Book) there is no mention of Epaminondas : the 
 inference, therefore, is that he had no share in it. Pausanias expressly states that 
 he was absent, and that he declared afterwards that, had he been at hand, the step 
 would not have been taken. (Pausan. De.^rr. Gr. ix. 15, 3 : eV Scry 5*^ dirrjv 6 
 'EirafxcLvuvSas k.t.\.) The attitude of some of the modern historians towards 
 Epaminondas on this point may be traced ultimately to the influence of Wilamowitz- 
 Moellendorff's vigorously written article in Hermes viii, in the course of which he 
 says: "Diesem grossen und praktischen Ziele hat Epameinondas nachgestrebt, 
 diesem sind Plataiai Thespiai Orchomenus zum Opfer gefallen, //^'tr/^,s- mit Epa- 
 meinondas* Wissen und Willen, dem die sentimentale Geschichtsschreibung einen 
 schlechten Dienst erweist, wenn sie ihm, voU Abscheu gegen den Bruderkrieg, den 
 Antheil an Massnahmen entreissen will, in welchen sich seine staatsmannische Logik 
 am deutlichsten vor Augen stellt." The words italicised involve a large assumption, 
 especially when we remember the limitations of Epaminondas' power at Thebes. 
 But the general question of the policy of Epaminondas in Boeotia must be dealt 
 with later. 
 
 1 'AOrjuaToi Botwroi. Pseudo-Dicaearch. {Geogr. Gr. 3Iin., p. 102). He also 
 applies the term to the men of Oropus {ib. p. 101).— Cp. Herod, vi. 108. 
 
 2 Thucyd. vii. 57. UXaraiijs 8^ KaraPTiKpv Botwroi Boiurois (ifxaxovro) /jlSpoi 
 
 INTERNAL RELATIONS. 
 
 
 19 
 
 provided them with a place of refuge when rendered homeless \ 
 The tie between Athens and Thespiae was not so exceptionally 
 close, though the Thespians were, on at least one occasion, 
 suspected of Atticism, and suffered at the hands of the Thebans 
 for this reason, or perhaps it should rather be said upon this 
 pretext (428 B.C.). In 372 B.C. the Thebans razed the walls 
 of Thespiae for the second time, and either then or more pro- 
 bably soon after the battle of Leuctra in the following_^^ear, 
 they seem to have driven its inhabitants out of Boeotia ^ I Plataea 
 and Thespiae have this great distinction in common : alone of the 
 Boeotian towns they refused to give earth and water to the 
 heralds of Xerxes V) The gallantry displayed by the Plataeans on 
 this and other occasions should not, however, prevent us from 
 endeavouring to enter into the point of view of the Thebans, who 
 claimed to be the founders of Plataea, as well as of the Boeotian 
 towns generally, and would be, in their own opinion, bound as the 
 chief power in the League to take action against all seceding 
 members \ ^ 
 
 The varying position of the several Boeotian towns, and in- 
 ferentially the varying cohesion of Boeotia generally, have been 
 well shown% a detailed examination of the coins of the country. 
 The oldest coins found (b.c. 600) are obols of Orchomenus, which 
 are closely connected in character with those of Aegina. A little 
 
 1 The Plataeans sought refuge at Athens in 427 b.c, and again in 373 Their 
 appeal for protection on the latter occasion is embodied in the Plataicus of 
 Isocrates : for an adumbration of the Theban case, see Jebb, Attic Orators (second 
 edition), 11. 181. On the question of Plataea generally, see H. Wiegand, Die Platder 
 in Athen and Plataii ziir Zeit, etc. 
 
 2 Thucyd. iv. 133 (cp. iv. 89 for Boeotia generally). 
 
 8 Herod, vii. 132, viii. 66. Cp. vii. 202, 222; viii. 1, 50; ix. 28, 30. 
 
 * Claims of Thebes. Thucyd. iii. 61, 3. i,p,eTs 8^ avroTs (sc! the Plataeans) 
 Sid<popot iyev6p.eea wpQrop, on ijfiQp KTiadpTwv TiXdraiap Varepop rij, dWrjs Boaorlas, 
 Kai dWa xojpla fier avrrjs, a ^v/x^Iktovs dpdpibnovs e^eXdcrarres ^axopL^p, oi,K ij^lovp o^toi, 
 iliarrep irdxdy) rb TrpQrop, vyep-OPe^^ecrdac v<p' r,fx(bp, ^^o: 5^ tQp &X\u,p Boiu:t(vp irapa- 
 ^aipoures rd Trdrpta, eweidrj Trpoa-qPayKd^OPTo, irpocrexibpwap Tpbs 'AdvPaiovi Kai fxer' 
 avrQp TToXXd ^^as ^^Xawrop, dpd' cop kuI dpriiraaxop. This is the Theban case in a 
 nutshell, and we are indebted to the impartiality of Thucydides for presenting it.— 
 Throughout this treatise particular reference will often be made to the Thebans as 
 distinguished from the Boeotians generally, since Thebes, as the leading town of 
 Boeotia, frequently took a hne of its own and has received special censure in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 2—2 
 
20 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 later come coins of the League, bearing the federal emblem (the 
 Boeotian Shield, or Shield of Heracles), and initials denoting a 
 particular town within the confederacy, e.g. Thebes or Thespiae. 
 After the battle of Plataea (479 B.C.) Tanagra presents coins which 
 show some connexion with Chalcis. From 446 B.C. Theban coins 
 alone are found. From 395 to 387 B.C. gold coins occur bearing 
 the name of Thebes (©E). From 387 (' Peace of Antalcidas ') to 
 about 374 B.C. nearly all the Boeotian towns mint coins of their 
 own — Chaeroneia, Copae, Coroneia, Haliartus, Lebadeia, Myca- 
 lessus, Erchomenus (Orchomenus), Tanagra, Thebes, Thespiae. 
 From the Liberation of Thebes (379 B c.) to the Battle of Chaeroneia 
 (338 B.C.) a new federal currency was in use. The coins continue 
 to tell their story of union, or of independent action, even as late 
 as the first and second centuries of the Roman Empire, which 
 countenanced the shows and forms of autonomy together with 
 much of the substance of local self-governments 
 
 However lamentable the internal dissensions indicated in this 
 section may have been as a principal source of Boeotian weakness 
 and backwardness, it is hardly wise to visit them with any censure 
 which fails to recognise that the defect was present, in some form 
 or other, in every part of Greece. Nor yet, however much we 
 may admire the brave independence of Plataea, can we, if the com- 
 parison is forced upon us, regard the aggressions and oppressions 
 of Thebes as worse than some of the deeds which stain the pages 
 of the history of sovereign Athens. At all events, it would not be 
 for the Athenians, on this ground, to take the initiative in abuse. 
 The Attic Orators were fond of dilating on the insolence (vfipi^) 
 of the Thebans, but this was a quality of which no Greek state 
 had the sole possession. And as for individuals, Epaminondas 
 (as we shall see) stood victoriously the test most trying to a Greek 
 — that of success. 
 
 ^ Coins of Boeotia. The authority for the facts here given is Dr Barclay V. 
 Head ('On the Chronological Sequence of the Coins of Boeotia': Numismatic 
 Chronicle and Journal of the Nujnismatic Society, Third Series, vol. i., 1881, pp. 
 177—275). 
 
 
 ,• 
 
 RELATIONS TO ATTICA. 21 
 
 2. Relations to Attica. 
 
 ArriKos napoiKos. 
 
 Leutsch u. Schn., Paroem. Gr. i. 40. 
 
 •npos yap rovs da-Tvyeirovai naai to avTiTraXov kgX iKcvdepov Kadia-Tarai.., 
 Tocrovro) firiKivdvporfpav crc'pcoi/ ttju napolKrja-iv rcoi/Se €^op,€v. 
 
 Thucjd. iv. 92. 
 Tals Sia TTJU yeiTviaa-LV aylnpaxlan dva^aivopeuwv eKaa-Torf rcov noXepiKcov trpos 
 aX\^\as hia(^op^v raiy noKtaiv. 
 
 Plutarch, Demosthenis Vita^ xvii. 
 
 We have seen that within the League, to a far greater extent 
 than can be summarily indicated, disputes arose, largely because 
 of alleged encroachments on the part of Thebes which the minor 
 towns resented but could not successfully resist without outside 
 aid — such aid as was lent by Athens to Plataea. 
 
 The attitude of Athens at various times towards the League 
 suggests the thought that she was very loth to recognise Boeotian 
 unity, except of course for purposes of abuse. To promote dis- 
 union she actively mingled not only in the quarrels of town with 
 town, but also in the party-spirit (o-rao-^?) which divided the 
 oligarchic and democratic factions in individual towns. During 
 the Pentecontaety (the ' Age of Pericles ') and during the Pelopon- 
 nesian War, Attica and Boeotia, or in other w^ords Athens and 
 Thebes, were in constant conflict, and the plains of Boeotia fully 
 earned the designation, afterwards given them by Epaminondas, of 
 the ' dancing-ground of the God of Battles ' ^ 
 
 Athens and Thebes have just been spoken of as if they 
 corresponded exactly to Attica and Boeotia. But this will be 
 immediately felt to be false to facts. The proportion Thebes : 
 Boeotia :: Athens : Attica does not hold. Athens held an assured 
 position in Attica owing to the early absorption of the sun'ounding 
 localities into the larger political life of the premier city-. A 
 
 ^ "Apews 6pxh<^Tpav. Plut., Marcelli Vita^ c. xxi. 
 
 2 Unification of Boeotia. For the view that the circumstances of Boeotia were 
 suited to a awoiKiarpjoi rather than to a federal system, see p. 123 of Freeman's 
 * History of Federal Government in Greece and Italy ' (edited by J. B. Bury, 1893). — 
 (XvpLtroXtrda (Polyb. xxvii. 2) is an attractive word, but the system represented by it 
 did not answer in Boeotia. 
 
 
22 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 RELATIONS TO ATTICA. 
 
 23 
 
 corresponding position she grudged to Thebes ; and her opposition, 
 together with the divergent origin of the races which inhabited 
 Boeotia, was a principal cause of the Theban failure to attain it^ 
 On the other hand it seemed in itself distinctly reasonable that 
 Thebes should aim at a closer union and a firmer headship. The 
 natural features of Boeotia placed no barrier in the way of unity, 
 while the Cadmeia no less than the Athenian Acropolis seemed 
 the destined site of a true capital. There was parity of conditions 
 in other respects also. The population of the two countries was 
 much the same. At the time of the Peloponnesian War the free- 
 born inhabitants of Attica probably numbered 135,000, of Boeotia 
 100,000-. There was no great difference in area either; and as for 
 the relative size of Thebes, that town is thought to have occupied 
 m historical times as much as one-third of the whole territoiy of 
 Boeotia^. Moreover, Thebes had consistently claimed a paramount 
 position, and alleged, as we have seen, that she was the founder 
 of the other Boeotian towns including Plataea. It is known that 
 certam of the smaller towns were in some sort of dependence 
 upon various members of the League. For example, Aulis, Delium, 
 and Mycalessus were in the territory of Tanagra, Leuctra in the 
 territory of Thespiae, and Chaeroneia w^as at one time in the 
 territory of Orchomenus*. As far as we are able to judge, it 
 would have been well for Boeotia and for Greece generally if this 
 process of consolidation had gone further still. And although we 
 can appreciate the spirit of sturdy independence which clung 
 passionately, but as we may think mistakenly, to its inherited 
 autonomy, it is difficult to see what right Athens or Sparta (with 
 their constitutions) had to thwart the aspirations of Thebes, freely 
 
 1 Mixed races. Holm, Gr. Gesck, iii. 84, 85. *'Es lassen sich... zusam- 
 
 menzuhangen" and " So konnte man Abgrenzung." Ernst Curtius, Gr.' G..c/..« 
 
 m. 246 : ' Im siidlichen Theile der Landschaft erhielt sich altionische Bevolkeruni? 
 u^d wir wissen, wie sprode sich diese gegen die Aeolier verhielt. vvie verschiedene 
 Wege Plataiai und Theben gingen." The race-distinction of Aeolian and Ionian 
 should be constantly borne in mind when the relations of Attica and Boeotia are 
 being considered. 
 
 ^ Julius Beloch, Die Bevoa-enmg der griechhch-rlimischen Welt, pp. 19 162 
 0„ J;:„r"'^ ''""^'' ""''''■ ''■"'■• '■ '• -^ ^- O. MUUer-s m^p in his 
 
 • 
 
 though it be admitted that those aspirations were often pursued 
 with a vigour which passed into violence. The inconsistency in 
 the case of Athens is particularly striking, for not content to be 
 supreme in Attica she must needs convert the Confederacy of 
 Delos into an Athenian Empire. And as for Sparta, her action 
 with regard to the League was clearly dictated by her attitude 
 from time to time towards Thebes. When friendly to Thebes, she 
 helped her to maintain the confederacy against seceding members 
 supported by Athens ; when unfriendly, she followed the policy 
 which came more natural to her, that of encouraging isolation \ 
 
 Athens varied little in her hostility to Boeotian unity. Though 
 it is of the grasping attitude {irXeove^ia) of Thebes in her relation 
 to the various Boeotian towns that we naturally hear most in 
 Attic writers (e.g. Xen. Mem. iii. 5, 2), yet the aggressiveness 
 of Athens herself is clearly seen not only in the case of Plataea 
 (which lay on the Theban, not on the Athenian, side of Mount 
 Cithaeron), but in that of Oropus, which may be regarded as 
 typical of much border- warfare of wdiich we have no record, but 
 the likelihood of which the map of Attica and Boeotia, and the 
 example- of other Greek states, will sufficiently suggest I Like 
 Plataea, Oropus lay beyond the natural boundaries of Attica, 
 but it was coveted and seized because it was so convenient a 
 harbour for the corn-supply from Euboea by way of Eretria. In 
 B.C. 411 the Boeotians, to whom it was of almost equal importance, 
 regained possession of it (Thucyd. viii. 60), and after that time it 
 kept passing from one of the rival states to the other. A trial once 
 famous but now most obscure, which hinged in some way upon 
 the possession of Oropus, is alluded to by Plutarch as occurring in 
 
 1 In illustration of the earlier Spartan policy (as distinguished from that which 
 prevailed after the Peloponnesian War) see Diodor. Sic. xi. 81 (date : 457 b.c): ol 
 dk AaKedaifwvtoi Kpivavres au/xcpipovTa X^Yetc avTovs, Kai vofJ.i^ovTes tols Qri(3as, iau 
 av^Tjcruaiv, eaeadai tt} tujv 'Adrjuaiuv uiawep dvriTroXtV TLva' dioirep ^x^j/res t6t€ irepl 
 Tduaypau ^roifxou Kai fxeya (TTpaTOwedov, ttjs fxkv tQv Or](iaio}v iroXeus fiei^oua rbv irepi- 
 ^o\ov KaTecTKeuaffav, rds 5' eV Botwrtct TroXets TjvdyKaaav viroTOLTTeadai rots Q-rj^aiois. 
 
 '■^ This border- warfare was general in Greece : cp. the case of the Argives and 
 Spartans in Cynuria. — ttjv vepl 'ilpojirov Kpi(Tiv. Plutarch, Demosthenis Vita, c. v. 
 Cp. Arnold Schafer, Dem. u. seine Zeit, i. 104 et seqq. (Itevised Edition, 1885). — 
 The List of Dates, given at the end of the volume, may be found of use, as 
 illustrating the fortunes of Oropus and the general political history of Boeotia. 
 
 i'' 
 
24 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 the boyhood of Demosthenes. Demosthenes himself, when working 
 towards that deathbed reconciliation between the two rival states 
 which preceded Chaeroneia, was anxious that Oropus should be in 
 Theban hands. At a later date, Philip handed over the town to the 
 Athenians, desiring no doubt to foment ill-feeling between Athens 
 and Thebes. In the case of Oropus we see with the utmost 
 clearness how highly inconvenient it was to have an ' Attic 
 neighbour ' ; we agree with Pagondas before Delium that the 
 contiguity of the Athenians might reasonably be regarded as 
 a perpetual threat of annexation and required the special obser- 
 vance of the general rule that ' among neighbour-states antagonism 
 is a condition of freedom ' ; and we apprehend the truth of the 
 statement of Plutarch to the effect that * disputes and hostilities 
 between the two states (Athens and Thebes) were liable to break 
 out at any moment owing to petty conflicts caused by their near 
 neighbourhood.' 
 
 3. Relations to Persia. 
 
 ot yap <^oi)K€€S fxovvoi Ta>v ravrrj di/dpconcov ovk efiyjdiCov, kut aWo fX€v ov8(V, 
 cos eyco avfx^aXXofievos €vpi(TKu}, Kara di to ex^°s to Qeaa-aXcou' fi de OeaaaXol tu 
 
 'EXXtJi/WZ/ rjV^OUy (OS CfJLol d0K€€lV, €p,r]dl^OV aV ol ^(0K€€S. 
 
 Herod, viii. 30. 
 
 It is not too much to say that the part taken by Boeotia 
 in that great crisis for Greece which is marked by the Persian 
 Wars affected the whole of her later history. One of those supreme 
 struggles which are the making of nations had taken place ; and 
 Boeotia, for whatever reason, had stood upon the wrong side. 
 There was no Marathon, no Thermopylae to inspire great deeds in 
 the future ; and Leuctra came too late. 
 
 The immediate disgrace was great, and Thebes bore the full 
 weight of it. An attempt was even made to exclude Thebes from 
 the Amphictyonic Council, and her authority with the members of 
 the Boeotian League, notwithstanding their general concurrence 
 in the action she had taken, was gravely shaken \ 
 
 ^ Thebes and the Amphictyonic Council, See Plut. Themist. xx. 
 
 f) 
 
 r 
 
 RELATIONS TO PERSIA. 
 
 25 
 
 The following brief observations are offered not for the purpose 
 of vindicating the Boeotians, but simply by way of extenuation. 
 No complete apology is possible. 
 
 (1) To begin with, it is only fair to remember that all 
 Boeotia did not desert the national cause. Plataea and Thespiae 
 were, as has been already mentioned, honourable exceptions. 
 
 (2) It was a set of self-seeking and irresponsible oligarchs, 
 and not the majority of the population, in the various Boeotian 
 towns that decided the policy of their country at this momentous 
 juncture. With regard to Thebes, we are expressly told that 
 its inhabitants were divided upon the question of alliance with 
 the Persians \ 
 
 (3) These oligarchs were in strong and natural antagonism 
 to the neighbouring democracy of Athens. And quite apart from 
 political or constitutional differences, mere rivalry was, strange 
 though it may seem, enough to determine the attitude assumed 
 by the Greek states towards a common foe. A wide extension 
 can be given to Herodotus' remark that the only reason, as far as 
 he could conjecture, why the Phocians alone of the tribes in their 
 part of the ^country did not join the Persians, was that they hated 
 the Thessalians. ' If the Thessalians had supported the cause of 
 Greece, then, as it seems to me, the Phocians would have favoured 
 the Persians.' The Argives acted in a similar spirit out of jealousy 
 of Sparta ; and there is little doubt that the Boeotians acted thus 
 largely out of ill-feeling towards Athens I This is not an agree- 
 able picture of Greek politics, but it seems to be a true one. 
 The large extent to which internal politics influenced, or were 
 influenced by, the relations of the Greek states towards Persia 
 now and in later times, is perhaps best grasped when looked at 
 
 1 Divided counsels in Boeotia. Diod. Sic. xi. 4, 7. As to Thebes, cp. Thucyd. 
 iii. 62 i}fMV fxkv yap ij voXis totc iTOyxo-f^v oi^Te Ka.T oXiyapx^o-v iaovofiov TToXi.Tevov(Ta 
 oihe Kara drj/xoKpaTtav oirep 5e ecrri pofxois p.h /cat t(^ (ro}(ppove(rTdT({} epavTidjTaTov, 
 iyyvTOLTu 5e Tvpdvvov, dvvacrrela oXiyuv dvdpQv elx^ tcl irpdyfxaTa. Kai ovtoi. Idias 
 5vvd/Jt.€i.s iXwiffavTe^ ?ti fxaXXou o'x^o'cti', el to, toO ^Irjdov KpaTricreie, KaTexovTe^ iVxw Tb 
 irXrjdo'i iirrjydyovTO avrov. Kal i} ^v/xiraaa ttoXis ovk avroKpdrojp ovaa eavTTJs tovt' 
 iwpa^ev^ ou5' d^ioi' avrrj oveidiaai uv fit] /xeTO. vo/joov Tj/jLaprev. 
 
 2 For the discreditable conduct of Argos, see Plato Leges 692 e, and the general 
 remark there made, noXXd 5^ Xeywv &y ris rd totc yevbfxeva irepi eKeivov top iroXefxou 
 TTJs 'EXXddos ovda/xios evaxVH-^^^ ^^ Ka.T7]yopoi. 
 
26 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 from what Mr Freeman would have called the ' oecumenical,' or 
 world-wide, point of view in such a book as Von Ranke's Welt- 
 geschichteK In the particular case under review the Boeotians 
 knew that the Persian attack was primarily directed against the 
 Athenians, their rivals and detractors. That they should step 
 forward to intercept a blow about to be dealt their enemies by a 
 power generally believed in Greece to be irresistible would seem to 
 the Boeotians to be (if the anachronism involved in the phrase 
 may be pardoned) the height of Quixotism. But whether Quixotic 
 or not, such action would, if taken, have made all the difference 
 in the future unity and influence of Boeotia-. 
 
 1 There is an English Translation by (x. W. Prothero : Universal History, vol. i. 
 —The reference to Pindar, at the end of the chapter, is Olynq). ii. 152 : (p^vdevra 
 
 (TVVeT0i<TLV. 
 
 '^ General Note on Chapter ii., Section 3. There are many moot points in the 
 accounts which have come down to us of the Persian Wars, and the general 
 tendency among modern historians of Greece has been not to give the Boeotians the 
 benefit of the doubt when there is any, but rather to let them sutfer because of their 
 bad name. Among matters which seem to need more light thrown upon them may 
 be mentioned : the attitude of the various Greek states in the First Persian War, 
 the conduct of the Thebaus at Thermopylae, the precise meaning of BoiutQv irav rb 
 TrXrjdos ifiTidi^e (Herod, viii, 34), the motives of the Thebau oligarchy in the policy 
 they adopted (cp. Thucyd. iii. 62), the religious influences which may be supposed 
 to have acted on the Boeotians, etc., etc. Most of these points have been discussed 
 by Busolt, Duncker, Holm, and others ; but from the nature of the case, the results 
 are not convincing. One thing, however, is certain, namely, the embitterment 
 between the Athenians and the Thebans. On the side of the Thebans this was 
 sufficiently proved at Plataea (Herod, ix. 07); on the part of the Athenians it came 
 out almost brutally in the case of the golden shields bearing the legend 'Adrjvaioi 
 dirb M^5wj/ Kal Qrfliaiiou (Aesch., c. Ctesiph., 70, 1). 
 
 With regard to the attitude of one Theban in particular, Pindar, some observa- 
 tions will be found in Moritz Muller, Gesch. Thebens, pp. 28, 33, 34, 60, 65, and a 
 
 fuller treatment in A. Croiset, Histoire de la Litteraturc Grecque, ii. 369 371, and 
 
 in the same author's La Foesie de Findare et les Lois du Lyrisme Grec, pp. 259— 
 273 ('Son patriotisme a I'egard de Thebes, et sa conduite dans les evenements 
 pohtiques de son temps, notamment durant les guerres mediques'). In the volume 
 last mentioned, A. Croiset discusses and controverts the passage of Polybius (iv. 31), 
 which accuses the Thebans of acting as they did from cowardice, and which charges 
 Pindar with offering them base counsel. Is it possible that Polybius, strictly 
 impartial as he usually is, had some slight prejudice against the Boeotians wliich 
 leads him to press a point against them just a Uttle too far? [Cp. c. i. § 2.] In 
 xxvii. 2 he refers contemptuously to the dissolution of the Boeotian League 
 (171 B.C.): TO d^ Twv Botarrwj' idvos itri iroKvu xpovov auvTir-qp-qKbi ttjv Koi.vr}v au/nTroXi- 
 Telavj Kal iroWovs Kai ttolkiXovs Kaipovs dMireipevybs napado^us, tot^ TrpoireTUfs Kai 
 
 ^' 
 
 i 
 
 RELATIONS TO PE11SL\. 
 
 27 
 
 In the next chapter we shall treat of literature and the arts in 
 Boeotia. With an account of the literature alone it would be 
 necessary to fill not one but many chapters if we were to make the 
 vain attempt to recite in full its praises. But the names speak for 
 themselves. They are, each one in its way, eloquent to the under- 
 standing ear, to borrow a phrase from the indisputably brilliant 
 poet who stands second on the list. 
 
 dXoyicTTW eX6f.i€uou ra 7ra/3a Uepa^us, eiKrj Kai vaidapiojdQs TTTo-qdtv KaTeXvdrj Kal 
 buaKopTrladyi Kara irbXeis. Perhaps the fact that Polybius was a native of Megalopolis 
 made him more keenly alive to what seemed degeneiacy and flightiness on the part 
 of the later Boeotians, of the greatness of whose ancestors the very existence of 
 Megalopolis was a standing memorial. 
 
 For the tract De Malignitate Herodoti attributed to Plutarch, see pp. 98—112 of 
 the recently published work of M. Amedee Hauvette, Herodote, Historicn des 
 Guerres Mediques (Ouvrage couroune par I'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles- 
 Lettres). Pans, 1894. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LITERATURE AND THE ARTS IN BOEOTIA. 
 
 1. Literature. 
 
 Qecnrin KoWiyeufOXf, (f)i\6^(V€, fiov(To(f)L\rjT€. 
 
 Coi'iiuia. 
 
 In literature the first eminent Boeotian name is that of 
 Hesiod of Ascra. And strange though the high-pitched ad- 
 miration of the ancients may sometimes seem in the sight of 
 modern criticism, it must be remembered that Hesiod was the 
 traditional founder of a separate poetical school, one which was 
 distinctive in character and strong in influence. In modem terms 
 it may be said of him that he was ' didactic ' and ' realistic ' ; and 
 these terms will well indicate the natural bent of his mind, which 
 was not specially poetical, but conveyed its ideas in hexameter 
 verse as the accepted vehicle of literary expression. Himself a 
 son of the soil, Hesiod but seldom moved in the realm of the 
 imagination. Used himself to 'drudge thro' dirt and mire, at 
 plough or cart,' he was content with a Muse that was * homely in 
 attire.' And no doubt his influence was, in consequence, all the 
 greater with the Boeotian formers for whom he chieflv wrote. 
 We know, too, that his poems were taught in schools, and we may 
 imagine that Boeotian boys in the school at Mycalessus liad just 
 taken their places to learn portions of the national poet when those 
 murderous Thracians burst in, to the horror of Greece and of the 
 historian who tells the tale (Thucyd. vii. 29)^ 
 
 1 Hesiod. " Le realisme de sa poesie tient done au fond de son caractere. Ce 
 n'est pas chez lui doctrine d'ecole ; c'est le reflet meme de toute sa mani^re d'etre, 
 de ses plus profondes habitudes de pensee et de sentiment." Histoire de la Littera- 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 29 
 
 Whatever dispute there may have been as to the poetical 
 quality of Hesiod, there has been none as to that of Pindar, 
 who has been pronounced, by the chief spokesman of culture in 
 our day, to be 'saturated with the spirit of style.' Pindar was, 
 with the later Greeks, pre-eminently 6 XvpcKo^, and even in his 
 lifetime his fame reached every quarter of the Greek world. His 
 own Panhellenic sympathies are strikingly manifested even in 
 the narrow compass of his extant poems, in which, as has been 
 computed in a recent publication, there are allusions to no less 
 than one hundred separate Greek localities ; and from internal 
 evidence it has been thought likely that the poet had himself 
 visited most parts of Central Greece and the Peloponnese, together 
 with Thessaly, Epirus, and perhaps Macedonia, in the north ; the 
 most important towns on the east coast of Sicily; most of the 
 islands of the Aegean, particularly Euboea, Aegina, Delos, Rhodes, 
 perhaps Crete ; and lastly Cyrene. The Boeotian sites expressly 
 named by Pindar are : Thebes, Orchomenus, Onchestus, Anthedon, 
 Tanagra, Hyria. Against Athens Pindar displays no Boeotian 
 prejudice. On the contrary, his lines 
 
 CO Tol Xiirapal koI loaTe^avoi /cal (iolSi/jloc, 
 'EWa8o9 epeLCTfjLa, Kkeival ^ KOavat, hatfioviov TrroXUOpov 
 
 (Frg. 46) 
 
 were one of the chief glories of the imperial city, which shared the 
 epithet \17rapal (not yet ridiculed by the irreverent comedian) 
 with the two great cities of Boeotia, Thebes (Pyth. ii. 3) and 
 Orchomenus {Olymp. xiv. 3)\ 
 
 In his poetry generally Pindar, like Milton, speaks in the 
 
 ture Grecque i. 478 (M. Croiset). — For some examples of the realism of Hesiod, see 
 an article by J. B. Bury in the Scottish Review, January 1894, on **The Works and 
 Days: a Study in Greek Realism." For "Folk-Lore in the Works and Days of 
 Hesiod," see E. E. Sikes in Classical Review, November, 1893; for Hesiod as a 
 moralist, Grant's FAliics of Aristotle, i. pp. 86—89. — With regard to the subsequent 
 influence of Hesiod, it will be remembered that the author of the Georgics, though 
 writing with elaborate art, yet recognises his ancient model in the 'Song of Ascra.' 
 [Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen. Verg., Georg., ii. 176.] 
 
 1 H. Keinhold, GriecJiische Oertlichkeiten bei Pindaros. (Quedlinburg, 1894.) — 
 Hyria : between Thebes and Aulis on K. 0. Miiller's map. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. 
 i. 298. — For the appreciation which the Athenians showed of Pindar's hues in 
 honour of their city, see Isocr. Antidosis § 87 (Jebb's Attic Orators, second edition, 
 vol. ii. p. 140). 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 LITERATURE AND THE ARTS IN BOEOTIA. 
 
 1. Literature. 
 
 Qea-TTin KaWiyevfdXc, (jiiXo^evc, fjLov<To(l)L\rjT€. 
 
 Coriinia. 
 
 In literature the first eminent Boeotian name is that of 
 Hesiod of Ascra. And strange though the high-pitched ad- 
 miration of the ancients may sometimes seem in the sight of 
 modern criticism, it must be remembered that Hesiod was the 
 traditional founder of a separate poetical school, one which was 
 distinctive in character and strong in influence. In modern terms 
 it may be said of him that he was * didactic ' and ' realistic ' ; and 
 these terms will well indicate the natural bent of his mind, which 
 was not specially poetical, but conveyed its ideas in hexameter 
 verse as the accepted vehicle of literary expression. Himself a 
 son of the soil, Hesiod but seldom moved in the realm of the 
 imagination. Used himself to 'drudge thro' dirt and mire, at 
 plough or cart,' he was content with a Muse that was ' homely in 
 attire.' And no doubt his influence was, in consequence, all the 
 greater with the Boeotian farmers for whom he chiefly wrote. 
 We know, too, that his poems were taught in schools, and we may 
 imagine that Boeotian boys in the school at Mycalessus had just 
 taken their places to learn portions of the national poet when those 
 murderous Thracians burst in, to the horror of Greece and of the 
 historian who tells the tale (Thucyd. vii. 29) ^ 
 
 1 Hesiod. " Le realisme de sa poesie tient done au fond de son caractere. Ce 
 n'est pas chez lui doctrine d'ecole ; c'est le reflet meme de toute sa mani^re d'etre, 
 de ses plus profondes habitudes de pensee et de sentiment." Histoire de la Littera- 
 
 I 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 2.9 
 
 Whatever dispute there may have been as to the poetical 
 quality of Hesiod, there has been none as to that of Pindar, 
 who has been pronounced, by the chief spokesman of culture in 
 our day, to be ' saturated with the spirit of style.' Pindar was, 
 with the later Greeks, pre-eminently 6 XvpiKo^;, and even in his 
 lifetime his fame reached every quarter of the Greek world. His 
 own Panhellenic sympathies are strikingly manifested even in 
 the narrow compass of his extant poems, in which, as has been 
 computed in a recent publication, there are allusions to no less 
 than one hundred separate Greek localities; and from internal 
 evidence it has been thought likely that the poet had himself 
 visited most parts of Central Greece and the Peloponnese, together 
 with Thessaly, Epirus, and perhaps Macedonia, in the north ; the 
 most important towns on the east coast of Sicily; most of the 
 islands of the Aegean, particularly Euboea, Aegina, Delos, Rhodes, 
 perhaps Crete ; and lastly Cyrene. The Boeotian sites expressly 
 named by Pindar are : Thebes, Orchomenus, Onchestus, Anthedon, 
 Tanagra, Hyria. Against Athens Pindar displays no Boeotian 
 prejudice. On the contrary, his lines 
 
 w Tol XiTrapal koX loaTe^avoi fcal doLOL/iOL, 
 'E\Xa8o9 €p€LO-fjLa, Kkeival ^AOdvat, Sai/Jiovcov irroXleOpov 
 
 (Frg. 46) 
 
 were one of the chief glories of the imperial city, which shared the 
 epithet \c7rapal (not yet ridiculed by the irreverent comedian) 
 with the two great cities of Boeotia, Thebes (Pyth. ii. 3) and 
 Orchomenus (Olymp. xiv. 3)\ 
 
 In his poetry generally Pindar, like Milton, speaks in the 
 
 ture Grecque i. 478 (M. Croiset). — For some examples of the realism of Hesiod, see 
 an article by J. B. Bury in the Scottish Review, January 1894, on **The Works and 
 Days: a Study in Greek Realism." For "Folk-Lore in the Works and Days of 
 Hesiod," see E. E. Sikes in Classical Review, November, 1893; for Hesiod as a 
 moralist, Grant's FAhics of Aristotle, i. pp. 86—89. — With regard to the subsequent 
 influence of Hesiod, it will be remembered that the author of the Georgics, though 
 writing with elaborate art, yet recognises his ancient model in the * Song of Ascra.' 
 [Ascraeumque cano Romana per oppida carmen. Verg., Georg., ii. 176.] 
 
 1 H. Reinhold, Griechisclie Oertlichheiten hei Pindaros. (Quedlinburg, 1894.) — 
 Hyria : between Thebes and Aulis on K. O. Muller's map. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Gr. 
 i. 298. — For the appreciation which the Athenians showed of Pindar's lines in 
 honour of their city, see Isocr. Antidosis § 87 (Jebb's Attic Orators, second edition, 
 vol. ii. p. 140). 
 
30 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 31 
 
 same tones from first to last. The style is in both cases the man, 
 and the man is the proudly conscious holder of a sacred charge. 
 We view the ample pinion, we hear the organ-voice, in the Tenth 
 Pythian and the Ode on the Nativity, written though they were 
 when their authors had barely reached the threshold of their 
 manhood. It is only the natural prelude to all the later music 
 Avhen we read 
 
 The trumpet spake not to the carmed throng ; 
 and it is only the first of many eagle-flights which is seen in 
 
 yiolaa h ovK d7roBa/jL€L 
 
 TpoTToif; iirl ac^ejepoccn' iravrd Be X^P^^^ nrapOevwv 
 
 Xvpdv T€ ^oal Kava^ci'i' t avXwp hoveovjau' 
 
 8d(f)pa T€ ;)^/3ucrea K6fia<^ dvaBr]cravT€<=; etXaTTivd^otcrti' eu- 
 
 (l>p6vQ)<;. 
 voGoi ^ ovT€ yrjpa<i oyXofjievov fceKparai 
 lepa yevea' ttovcdv Be /cal fjia^dv drep 
 
 OLKeOKTL (f)V'y6vT€<i 
 
 Find. Pyth. x. 37. 
 
 And yet, individual and unique as he is, Pindar is also a link 
 — a massive and a priceless link — in the chain of Greek poetry. 
 ' He continues the tradition which begins with Alcman and Stesi- 
 chorus, while at the same time he may be regarded as, in a certain 
 sense, the precursor of the Attic drama' (Jebb, Growth and Influence 
 of Classical Greek Poetry, p. 144). 
 
 It will be remembered that, according to tradition, Pindar in 
 his youth engaged in a poetical contest with OoRlNNA of Tanagra, 
 and was defeated by her. At a later time Corinna, it is said, 
 gave him a hint he needed. Observing how prodigally he had 
 drawn upon the Theban mythology, she counselled him 'to sow 
 
 1 The passage is semi-metrically translated by Ernest Myers : '« Nor is the Muse 
 a stranger to their lives, but everywhere are stirring to and fro dances of maidens 
 and shrill noise of pipes : and binding golden bay-leaves in their hair they make 
 them merry cheer. Nor pestilence nor wasting eld approach that hallowed race : 
 they toil not neither do they fight, and dwell unharmed of cruel Nemesis." Mr 
 Myers accidentally omits \vpdv ^oai in his translation, but Pindar's appreciation of 
 the Athenian lyre as well as of the Athenian flute is perhaps of some significance, 
 as will be remarked later in the case of Epaminondas. 
 
 } 
 
 with the hand, not with the whole sack\' The anecdote is 
 interesting as bringing the name of Pindar into connexion with 
 that of Corinna. Corinna hei'self was said, together with Pindar, 
 to have received some instruction from another Boeotian lyric 
 poetess, Myrtis of Anthedon. The very existence of these 
 poetesses — we have not the materials for determining their exact 
 position in literature — is of some importance when we recollect 
 that no Greek woman of Ionian race is known to have submitted 
 poetry to the appreciation of the public. That it was otherwise 
 in Boeotia is regarded by Adolf Holm {Ginech. Gesch. iii. 86) as an 
 indication that women were held in higher honour there than at 
 Athens. This fact, therefore, we may put to the credit of the 
 Boeotians ; and we can feel sure that not only Thespiae which 
 Corinna singles out for praise, but many another town in Boeotia, 
 could boast a ' goodly brood ' of men and women, ' to love the 
 stranger and be by the Muses loved.' 
 
 Passing by two Boeotian authors, Dionysodorus and Anaxis, 
 of whom we know little more than that they related the history 
 of Greece up to the date of the accession of Philip of Macedon 
 (Diod. Sic. XV. 95), we come to a still later writer, Plutarch of 
 Chaeroneia. " Although living when the days of free Greece were 
 long since past, Plutarch was a genuine patriot. He was a 
 whole-hearted lover of Greece, of Boeotia, and of little Chaeroneia. 
 With regard to the last he tells us that ' he clung fondly to the 
 spot,' lest by leaving it he should make a small place, but one 
 which had witnessed thrilling scenes, 'smaller yet' (Demosthenis 
 Vita, c. ii)^. It is scarcely possible to overrate the service which 
 Plutarch has rendered to later ages by the use he has made 
 of authorities now lost ; and even granted that he himself aims 
 at ethical portraiture rather than history proper, the happy result 
 is that he has transmitted the spirit — and the inspiration — of 
 antiquity to modern times with marvellous effect. His merits 
 have been well appraised by Emerson. " Plutarch occupies a 
 unique place in literature as an encyclopaedia of Greek and 
 
 ^ Sec^afiivov 8^ Trj KopLvvtjf yeXdaaa-a iKelvr) t^ x"P^ ^f"' ^0^? (nrelpeiif, dXXd fX7] oXy 
 T^J 6v\dK(i3. Plut., De Gloria Athpnifiisium, iv. 
 
 2 T^/xeis 5^ fiiKpav oIkovpt€S ir6\iv, nal 'iva /xr) jXLKpoT^pa -^iv-qrai <pi\ox(*}povvT€S. Plut., 
 Vita Demosth., ii. 
 
32 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 Roman antiquity. Whatever is eminent in flict or in fiction, in 
 opinion, in character, in institutions, in science— natural, moral, 
 or metaphysical, or in memorable sayings, drew his attention and 
 
 came to his pen with more or less fulness of record He is 
 
 not a profound mind ; not a master in any science ; not a lawgiver, 
 like Lycurgus or Solon; not a metaphysician, like Parmenides, 
 Plato, or Aristotle ; not a naturalist, like Pliny or Linnaeus ; not a 
 leader of the miud of a generation, like Plato or Goethe. But if 
 he had not the highest powers, he was yet a man of rare gifts. 
 He had that universal sympathy with genius which makes all its 
 victories his own; though he never used verse, he had many 
 qualities of the poet in the power of his imagination, the speed 
 of his mental associations, and his sharp, objective eyes. But 
 what specially marks him, he is a chief example of the illumination 
 of the intellect by the force of morals. Though the most amiable 
 of boon-companions, this generous religion gives him aper^iis like 
 Goethe's \" 
 
 THE ARTS. 
 
 2. The Arts. 
 
 EXXas- f^€v OtJ^o? vikov npovKpivev iv avKoh. 
 
 Vers. ap. Dion. Chrys. (Or. vii. 121). 
 
 From literature the transition to the arts is always easy ; and 
 it is in Pindar that the most obvious connecting link will be found 
 in the present case. Lyric poetry such as Pindar's implies not 
 only supreme mastery over metre, but also skill in music, and 
 the power of uniting both music and metre with the complex 
 movements of the choral dance. Pindar is said to have studied 
 flute-playing at Athens under Lasus of Hermione ; but he would 
 appear to have had his first lessons from a member of his own 
 family, in which, as in other noble houses at Thebes, the art was 
 probably hereditary. In any case, it would not be in the least 
 necessary for him to leave his native city in order to learn ; for 
 however different it might be with the other arts, there was 
 
 1 R. W. Emerson— Introduction to Plutarch's Morah : Revised Translation by 
 W. W. Goodwin, 1870. 
 
 33 
 
 f 
 
 r 
 
 n 
 
 ground for believing, as the line given above asserts, that in flute- 
 playing the general voice of Greece assigned to Thebes a triumphant 
 place. The Athenians might not concur in the verdict ; or if they 
 did concur, it would be from contempt. The bitter words of the 
 boy Alcibiades will be recalled. Having learnt the other arts, he 
 stopped short at flute-playing. " Let Theban youths play the flute, 
 for they know not how to talk. We Athenians look to Athene 
 and Apollo as the patrons and protectors of our race ; and Athene 
 flung away the flute, while Apollo flayed alive the Flute-Player." 
 The chief personal objection of this follower of Athene's was 
 an * aesthetic ' one, which could hardly be expected to appeal to 
 the Boeotians with their deplorable dvaiaOr^aia. The inflated 
 cheeks of the flute-player were not a pretty sights 
 
 Aristotle takes up more serious ground. The flute, as an 
 instrument, was too exciting ; its moral effect, therefore, was bad I 
 This is the view maintained by Aristotle, and by others who 
 write from an Attic standpoint. But the object with which flute- 
 playing was made a part of Theban education was the exact 
 opposite of this ; it was intended to calm, not to excite. We 
 are expressly told that from early youth the Thebans were accus- 
 tomed to listen to the flute as to an instrument of high honour 
 when in grave earnest as well as when merry-making; and that 
 their passionate and violent natures were, in the opinion of their 
 legislators, thereby tempered and mollified I 
 
 The discrepancy, however, is probably not so great as at first 
 sight it seems to be. Aristotle himself, in the passage just referred 
 to, admits that the passions were relieved by flute-playing, and he 
 may have been prepared to regard this branch of music as an 
 excellent discipline for Thebans, as listeners if not as performers \ 
 
 1 Plut. Alcih. ii. 6. Cp. Plat. Rep. iii. 399 d, e. 
 
 2 Ih-i 5' ovK ^(TTLv 6 avXbs r)diK6v dXXd fidWov dpytaaTiKov, uj'crre irpbs rods roioirroi'S 
 ai)rv Katpovs xpWr^ov ip ols i] deiapia Kddapjiv fidWoy dvvarat. rj ixdd-qaLv. Ar. Polit v 
 (viii.) 6. 
 
 2 Plut. Pelop. xix. 
 
 ^ With regard to the effect on the player, it is worth noting that a modern 
 schoolmaster (E. W. Howson, in Thirteen Essays on Education, p. 36) soberly 
 maintains, as a result of his observation, that there is something in performance 
 on a wind instrument which is " particularly salutary for a boy with excessive and 
 boisterous vitality." 
 
 K. 3 
 
34 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 THE ARTS. 
 
 35 
 
 Perhaps also some of the strains played showed both of these 
 opposite tendencies. This may well have been the case Avith one 
 which had a proverbial acceptation, the Bo^wr^o? i>6/jlo^. The 
 expression was used to signify a tranquil start and an excited 
 finish \ The fact that the ascetic Pythagoreans practised flute- 
 playing would seem to show that it had a good side I The bad 
 side may have been highly developed at Athens because of the low 
 esteem into which the art itself had, as a specially Boeotian ac- 
 complishment, there fallen '\ 
 
 The necessary material for the making of flutes was always at 
 hand in Boeotia. Auletic reeds (Sd/'a/ce?) abounded in the marshy 
 neighbourhood of Lake Copais \ Nor were professors of the art 
 wanting from the earliest times. One of the fii^t to show how 
 playing of the flute could be accompanied by rhythmical move- 
 ments of the body was Cleophantus of Thebes ^ Pronomus, 
 another Theban, won a great reputation, at the time of the 
 Peloponnesian War, for artistic playing and artistic motion. A 
 more special distinction, however, for Pronomus was that, by some 
 mechanical device, he constructed a flute suitable at once for the 
 Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian modes, which previously 
 required separate instruments for their expression^. Orthagoras, 
 
 1 Cp. Leutsch u. Sclin., i. 49, i. 333, i. 357, ii. 106. Pseudo-Plutarch. Proverh. 
 Alex. 77 i-rrl tQv ras dpxas -npefiaius exourajv, a^dis 8^ (T0o5pcDs iiriyL-yvofxivuiv. Zenobius, 
 Proverb., ii. 65, where reference is made to Sophocles (see Dindorf Poet. Scen.^ ii. 
 p. 168). Cp. Aristoph. Ach. 13, 14. 
 
 - Athenaeus iv. 184 e : Kal tCov UvdayopiKwv de iroWol tt]v avXTjTiKrjv ■/jaK'naav, ws 
 Eircppdvup Kal 'Apxvras ^i\6\a6s re &X\oi re ovk dXiyoi' 6 5^ Evtppdvup Kal (n'>yypafi/jia 
 irepl avXQv KaT^Xiirev, ofxolws 5^ Kal ^Apxvras. 
 
 3 The tendency to write, upon this matter, as if the Attic were necessarily the 
 Greek standpoint is illustrated by the following extract. "Nothing shows the 
 importance which the Greeks attached to music more than their strong condemna- 
 tion of the flute as compared with the lyre. The one was the basis of true wisdom 
 and morality, the other the instrument of general laxity and corruption." Oscar 
 Browning, Educational Theories, p. 9.— It may be added here that by ai)\6s would 
 ordinarily be meant an instrument not exactly like our flute ( = 7r\a7/auXo5, i.e. 
 aiiXos held crosswise), but one more closely resembling our clarinet. 
 
 ^ Pind. Pyth. xii. 44. Strabo ix. 407. 
 
 5 Athen. i. 22, c [Poison, KXe6\ai/ t6v]. 
 
 6 Pausan. ix. 12, 5 and Q.— Dorian, Phrygian, and Lydian Modes. The latest 
 authority is the work, just published, of Dr D. B. Monro, The Modes of Ancient 
 Greek Music, Clarendon Press, lb94. The conclusions there (p. 101) arrived at are 
 (1) that "there was no such distinction in ancient Greek music as that which 
 
 ■ 
 
 / 
 
 \ 
 
 again, is alluded to in Plato\s Protagoras as one of the most famous 
 musicians of the day \ The most celebrated of all the Theban 
 masters of the flute was Antigenidas, who is to be regarded as 
 a contemporary of Epaminondas, and probably as the son of the 
 Dionysius who taught music to the great Theban in his youth \ 
 Epaminondas once indicated the eminence of Antigenidas in a 
 telling way, contrasting him with a poor player Tellen, and implying 
 that the one reached the zenith, the other the nadir of his art. He 
 had just heard that the Athenians had despatched to the Pelo- 
 ponnese a force of men accoutred in new armour. 'What now?' 
 he asked. ' Does Antigenidas groan and moan because Tellen has 
 bought a new flute =' ? ' 
 
 Thus in flute-playing Boeotia, Thebes especially, won an almost 
 unchallenged supremacy. But even in painting and sculpture, 
 that ill-famed country is not altogether without names of note. 
 It will be convenient to take painting first, although chronologically 
 
 scholars have drawn between Modes {appLovLai) and Keys (tovol or Tpbiroi)''; and (2) 
 that " the musical scales denoted by these terms were primarily distinguished by 
 difference of pitch,— ih&t in fact they were so many keys of the standard scale 
 known in its final form as the Perfect System." Dr Monro appeals for confirmation 
 to the music of the Hymn to Apollo (date, about 278 b.c.) discovered last year (1893) 
 at Delphi by the French Archaeological School of Athens. [For the 'Aeolian 
 harmony,' see Monro, p. 6.] 
 
 1 Plato, Protag,, 318 c. 
 
 2 Plut. De Mvs. 31 (E. Volkmann's edition, Leipzig, 1856). Corn. Nep. Epam. 
 2. Max Dinse, De Antigenida Thehano Musico. 
 
 ^ Plut., Beg. et Imperat. Apophthegmata, 194 a. Cp. Pseudo-Plutarch., Proverb. 
 Alex. 27, deide rovs TeXXrjuo^ ('Drone away like Tellen.' Sub. v6inovs).—A good 
 saying on the part of Antigenidas is recorded by Val. Max., Fact. Diet. Mem., Hi. 
 7, 2 (De Fidncia Sui).— Luther and the Flute. The remembrance of Luther's liking 
 for the flute ought to inspire respect for the instrument. It coulci not be said of 
 Luther as the old Greek distich said of the professional flute-player: dvbpl ^ih 
 avXrjTTJpL deol voov ovk ivicpvaav \ dW afxa t(^ (pvaav xw v6os iKT^rarai (Athenaeus 
 viii. 337 e.). "Luther's character appears to me the most worth discussing of all 
 modern men's. He is, to say it in a word, a great man in every sense ; he has the 
 soul at once of a conqueror and a poet. His attachment to music is to me a very 
 interesting circumstance ; it was the channel for many of his finest emotions, for 
 which words, even words of prayer, were but an ineffectual exponent. Is it true 
 that he did leave Wittenberg for Worms with nothing but his Bible and his flute? 
 There is no scene in European history so splendid and significant." Carlyle's 
 Journal, in Fronde's Carlyle ii. p. 76.— Cp. also Milton (Par. Lost i. 549—559) on 
 the inspiring and the soothing effect of 'the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft 
 recorders. ' 
 
 3—2 
 
36 
 
 / 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 THE ARTS. 
 
 37 
 
 it followed sculpture, in Eoeotia as in Greece generally. The art 
 flourished for a period of half-a-century, beginning a little before 
 the date of Philip's accession and not extending beyond the death 
 of Alexander. The two most distinguished members of the 
 Theban School (if so it may be called) were Nicomachus and 
 Aristeides. Aristeides was a contemporary of Apelles ; he was also 
 a relative of Nicomachus, but what the exact degree of kinship 
 was is a matter of dispute. Nicomachus himself is by Plutarch 
 ranked with Apelles and Zeuxis. And although some allowance 
 may have to be made on the score of Plutarch's Boeotian patriotism, 
 the testimony of Cicero and Pliny is subject to no such deduction. 
 They had, also, every opportunity of judging, for his finest produc- 
 tions, one of which it sometimes asked the wealth of a whole town 
 to buy, were to be seen at Rome. Some of the subjects of 
 Nicomachus were: Apollo and Artemis, Rape of Persephone, 
 Scylla, and a Victory. Small copies of the Victory are thought to 
 have been transmitted to our day on an ancient gem wrought Avith 
 rare art, and on some Roman coins bearing the name of L. Plautius 
 Plancus. The masterpiece of Nicomachus was the Tyndaridae, 
 mentioned with enthusiasm by Pliny ^ 
 
 Aristeides was even more famous than Nicomachus, from whose 
 practice he varied in one important particular. Like Nicomachus, 
 Aristeides chose, as some of his subjects, gods and battles ; but 
 unlike Nicomachus and unlike his predecessors generally, he, to 
 quote from Pliny, 'animum pinxit et sensus hominis expressit, 
 quae vocant Graeci ethe, item perturbationes.' That is to say, 
 he made a conscious effort to represent the moral workings (rjdrj), 
 and the emotions {irddrf), of the soul of man. Like Euripides, 
 he would seem to have attempted in his art a development the 
 wisdom or necessity of which this is not the place to discuss, except 
 in so far as it is obvious that, artistically, such an extension 
 imported danger to the noble simplicity and harmony which 
 
 ^ Plut., De Miilier. Virt. (Praefat.). See, also, for the particulars which follow: 
 Cic. Brut, xviii. Pliny xxxv. 32 ; 36 § 22 ; 40 § 41. Decharme, De Theh. Artif. 
 Otto Sehuchardt, Nikomachus : Eine archdologische Studie, Weimar, 1866. H. 
 Cohen, Description generale des monnaies de la repuhlique romaine, pi. xxxiii. 7, 8 
 (Paris, 1857). C. W. King, Handbook of Engraved Gems (London, 1885), p. 278 
 (doubtful ascription). — Some remarks on Nicomachus will also be found in Max 
 Lehnerdt, De Locis Plutarchi ad Artem Spectantibus. 
 
 V. 
 
 fi 
 
 f 
 
 underlay all purely Hellenic art, while historically it may be taken 
 to reflect the deepening sense of a common humanity which 
 marked the period when the political life of Greece was about to 
 be merged in that of a larger world. Aristeides expressed rd 
 rjOrj in such pictures as Tragedian and Boy, Huntsmen with Quarry, 
 Old Man teaching the Lyre to a Youth ; rd irdOr], in such as. The 
 Suppliant, The Sick Man, The Dying Mother. The last-named 
 picture, to judge from Pliny's description and from an Epigram in 
 the Anthology, did not escape the morbidity which is the besetting 
 sin of this class of art. The Huntsmen with Quarry, on the other 
 hand, was, as its subject might indicate, at once a healthy and an 
 exceedingly lifelike piece of work, if we are to follow Brunn in 
 regarding it as identical with the picture of which a detailed 
 description is given by Philostratus Junior \ 
 
 In sculpture the gi-eat name would be Myron, did we feel 
 at liberty to claim Myron as a Boeotian in virtue of his birth 
 at the frontier-town of Eleutherae. But Eleutherae belonged more 
 to Athens than to Boeotia, and Pausanias expressly calls Myron an 
 Athenian. Generally, it may be remarked that, in the case of 
 districts so small and lying so close together as Boeotia and Attica, 
 it is impossible, owing to the difficulty of determining the amount 
 of intercommunication existing at any stated time, to distinguish 
 precisely what belonged to one and what to thi' other. It has 
 been customary among archaeologists to speak of Myron as a 
 ' Boeotian artist,' but the reference has been rather to the fact of 
 his birth at a town which was once Boeotian than to his style, and 
 any further claim than is therein implied it would not be right to 
 advance I 
 
 1 Pliny xxxv. 36 § 19. P. Decharme, De Theh. Artif., pp. 34—44. (On p. 38 
 Decharme gives, after Brunn ii. 161, an interesting description of the Koman 
 fortunes of the picture Dionysus and Ariadne.) The reference to Philostratus 
 Junior is Intagg. iv. (cp. Brunn, Gesch. d. gr. Kiimtler, ii. p. 178); to the Anthology, 
 F. Diibner's Epigr. Antlt. Pal. i. vii. 623 (p. 393 : cp. p. 491).— For Greek Painting 
 generally, see Cecil Smith's article Pictura in the last edition of Sir William Smith's 
 Dictionary of Antiquities, and his promised 'Handbook of Greek Painters.' Mr 
 Cecil Smith thinks that the facts given by Pliny point to the existence of two 
 masters of the name of Aristeides. 
 
 2 Pausan. vi. 2, 2. Percy Gardner, Types of Greek Coins, p. Ill : "It is worthy 
 of remark that the time of the great Boeotian artist Myron is also the time when a 
 great variety of interesting types appear in the usually monotonous and inartistic 
 
38 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 There is reason, nevertheless, quite apart from individuals, 
 to think that, in the plastic arts as well as in other respects, the 
 Boeotians have been unduly overshadowed by the Athenians. The 
 excavations conducted from 188-t to 1888 at the temple of Apollo 
 Ptoios near Acraephium are supposed to have proved the existence 
 of an early Boeotian school of sculpture, of which the marked 
 characteristics are naturalness and sincerity. And the better- 
 known discoveries at Tanagra (1870—1889) have revealed equally 
 interesting and unsuspected artistic tendencies at a later period. 
 With regard to the terra-cotta statuettes or ' figurines ' of Tanagra, 
 the scope of this volume will not admit of more than the following 
 brief observations, which seem to accord with the views of those 
 most competent to judge \ 
 
 coinage of Boeotia."-For some account of individual Theban sculptors, see 
 Decharme, De Theh. Art., pp. 15-26 (cp. Pausan. ix. passim). They were dis- 
 tinguished mainly for their work in bronze and their statues of athletes.-Znfer- 
 coimnumcation heticeen Boeotia and Attica. See the ancient roads marked in red 
 upon the Map. See also Kiepert's New Atlas, and the section on the passes from 
 Attica to Boeotia in G. B. Grundy's Topography of the Battle of Plataea (London, 
 1894). "It (sc. Attica) is separated from Boeotia by a range of lofty, and in most 
 cases inaccessible mountains, which extend from the Corinthian Gulf to the channel 
 ot Euboea. The most important part of this range, immediately south of Thebes 
 and Plataea, and near tlie Corinthian gulf, was called Cithaeron Through 
 
 the range of Cithaeron and Parnes there are three principal passes, all of which 
 were of great importance in ancient times for the protection of Attica on the side of 
 Boeotia. The most westerly of these passes was the one through which the road 
 ran from Thebes and Plataea^ to Eleusis ; the central one was the pass of Phyle 
 through which was the direct road from Thebes to Athens ; and the eastern one was 
 the pass of Deceleia, leading from Athens to Oropus and Delium." (Smith's 
 Dictionary of Geography i. pp. 321, 2.) On the general question, cp. Ernst Curtius 
 Gesanunelte Ahhandlungen (1894), Bd. i., pp. 8-116 (' Zur Geschichte des Wegebaus 
 bei den Griechen '). b auo 
 
 1 Supposed indebtedness to Attica. Those who start with the traditional anti- 
 Boeotian prejudice would attribute everything to Attic workmanship or Attic 
 influence Let us take the case before us, that of the Tanagra statuettes, which 
 seem to bear the stamp of a native industry upon them, to say nothing of the direct 
 evidence ot Pausanias as to the local existence, at a later date, of potters if not of 
 coroplastae (Pausan. ix. 19, 8 : ^uOp^.o. 8i e. ry AvXiSc oi.ovacu ov noWoi, yrjs 6i 
 rr.hr!I r'^'^f i ^^^" suggestion of the detractors is that the statuettes were 
 pu chased by rich Boeotian citizens from Attic workmen, or that they were at best 
 ordy Boeotian copies from Attic models. But what sufficient evidence is there of 
 this . Ihere may be something in the conjecture that the Tanagra statuettes owe 
 their preservation rather to special burial customs than to special skill in art But 
 when we consider how badly Boeotia has fared in the records of literatuie ana 
 
 ) 
 
 I 
 
 THK ARTS. 
 
 39 
 
 (1) They exhibit the realism which was no doubt characteristic 
 of the age in which they were produced (:3rd and 4th centuries B.C.), 
 but was also peculiarly characteristic of Boeotia from the days of 
 Hesiod downwards. They bring vividly before the mind scenes and 
 incidents from everyday life, and with regard to details of costume 
 and coiffure they form quite a mirror of the fashions of the time. 
 
 (2) It is worth notice that the persons represented are 
 (children apart) more often women than men. Here again a 
 contemporary movement has been detected ; that which, during 
 the age inaugurated by Alexander, brought Greek women into 
 positions of greater influence and prominence. But we are free to 
 go further and to reckon this among any other indications we 
 possess that women were specially honoured in Boeotia. Among 
 these other indications is the fact, attested by inscriptions, that in 
 Boeotia women sometimes received those marks of recognition for 
 public service which elsewhere were rendered to men alone \ 
 
 (3) Altogether, the statuettes are very modern in character, 
 and naturally prompted Olivier Rayet's exclamation, when he 
 compared them with more recent works of fancy : " Qui eut dit, il y 
 a cinquanteans, que la Grece setait jamais amusee ade semblables 
 plaisanteries, que ses artistes avaient eu toute la coquetterie 
 pimpante, toute I'imagination fantaisiste du xviii*' siecle, avec cette 
 force de construction et cette discretion exquise que le xviii'' siecle 
 
 history, we shall not feel eager to explain away the records which her very tombs 
 have at last edited in refutation of Attic calumnies. — Excavations at Temple of 
 Apollo Ptoios. Holleaux, BuHetin de Correspondance helUnique^ 1885 — 1888, and 
 Diehl, Excursions in Greece, pp. 200 ff. Holleaux in a communication to the 
 volume of 1887 (p. 200) thinks himself justified in concluding that "les figures 
 d' ' ApoUon ' decouvertes dans le bassin du Copais, a Orchom^ne, a Perdico-Vrysi 
 (Acraephiae), portent ti^s-profondement marquee, Pempreinte caracteristique d'un 
 art indigene, — Part beotieu archaique jusqu'ici mal connu." He recognises, how- 
 ever, that there may be traces of Peloponnesian influence. — Is the Boeotian 
 treasure-house which is said to have been recently discovered at Delphi likely to 
 throw any light upon the question of Boeotian art ? 
 
 1 Preusi^, Quaest. Boeot.j p. 18. [For female figures in the tombs of Tanagra, 
 see a different explanation, from that given in the text, in Percy Gardner's New 
 Chapters in Greek History, p. 353.] — As to one aspect of the women of Thebes in 
 particular, see Ps.-Dic. {Geogr. Gr. Min. p. 103): oi 5e yvvaiKe^ avrQv toTs fxeyedea-i, 
 TTopeiais, pvOfiuls ciVx^/AOi'faTarat re K"at (vtrpeTreaTaTai rQv iv rrj 'EWdSt yvvaiKCju. 
 Maprvpel l,o<poK\i}s' O-ij^as X^yeis fxoi k.t.\. [The fragment will be found in l)r 
 Lewis Campbells Sophocles ii. p. 548.] 
 
40 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 n'a pas connues, et que cet esprit fin et le'ger, dont nous autres 
 Franyais nous nous attribuons volontiers I'apanage, etait ne, il y a 
 
 vingt et un siecles en Beotie^'" 
 
 (4) They also suggest, in conclusion, sundry reflexions with 
 respect to popular culture, as indicated by them or by any other 
 signs and tokens. It is probable that most of the statuettes were 
 produced subsequently to the destruction of Thebes by Alexander; 
 and from that time onward Tanagra was the most populous town 
 in Boeotia, a position which it continued to hold in the time of the 
 Emperor Augustus, when it is named, along with Thespiae, by 
 Strabo as one of the two towns of Boeotia which still stood their 
 ground '\ What, then, is implied in the way of popular character 
 and culture by these statuettes found thus at the largest town in 
 Boeotia, and also at various other centres throughout the country, 
 e. g. Thebes, Thespiae, and Abae ? Or better still, what indepen- 
 dent evidence have we as to the state of things which co-existed 
 with, or immediately followed, the period of the production of the 
 figurines ? In a general description given of the people of Tanagra 
 at a date probably subsequent to that period, we are told that the 
 inhabitants of the district are blessed with an abundance of 
 worldly possessions, but are simple in their ways of life. They 
 are upright, true, and hospitable. The pursuit of unjust gain is 
 entirely foreign to their nature. Their town is the safest of all in 
 Boeotia for strangers to dwell in, since the inhabitants are in- 
 dustrious and independent, and hate all villainy with a hatred 
 which they take no trouble to disguise or moderate. — The picture 
 just given is a pleasant one, but it should be admitted that it is 
 the work of one who is a late writer (the Pseudo-Dicaearchus) 
 and a man of doubtful judgment "'. 
 
 Whatever opinion may be held as to the native origin of these 
 statuettes (for on this point some scepticism, as we have seen, 
 has been expressed), or as to the skill and joy implied in their 
 
 1 Olivier Rayet, Monuments de VArt Antique, Paris, 1880, fol. Livraison ii., 
 Planche xii., ' Amours en terre cuite trouves a Tanagra (Musee du Louvre).' 
 
 2 Strabonis Geographica cumntibus C. Miillero et F. Dubnero, p. 352, 1. 32 
 
 3 Pseudo-Die. (C. Miiller, Geogr. Gr. Min., i. 101). It should be added that the 
 inhabitants were, in the time of the writer, irdvT,, yecopyoi, oC>k ipydrac, whatever the 
 precise significance of this may be. He testifies to the presence of local clay, and of 
 iyKavfxara dvadT)fiaTiKd ( = terra-cottas, Kekule) in public places. 
 
 // 
 
 7 
 
 i 
 i 
 
 THE ARTS. 
 
 41 
 
 modelling and in the free play of fancy which has touched and 
 re-touched them, it will probably be agreed that they prove the 
 existence of at least some amount of popular culture in the places 
 where they are now found so plentifully and once were no doubt 
 to be found in homes and places of public resort. Similarly, 
 although we may not divine with certainty the religious purpose 
 which they served, we may >^afely assume that there was some 
 religious feeling behind them \ 
 
 In Boeotia, as in Greece generally, the advance of culture was 
 closely associated with, and affected by, religious observances. 
 The effect of these observances will be variously estimated. On 
 the one baud, the leaning of the Boeotians towards superstition 
 and cruder rites must have been a hindrance, especially when 
 we compare the superior enlightenment of Athens ; on the other 
 hand, the exceptionally numerous national and local cults of the 
 country must have, in many cases, by means of attendant games 
 encouraged music and literature. Instances of festivals of this 
 nature are the Museia [Festival of the Muses] on Mount Helicon, 
 the Charitesia [Festival of the Graces] at Orchomenus.. the Fto'ia 
 [Festival oi' Apollo Ptoios] at Acraephium, and many others the 
 existence of which is proved by inscriptions ^ 
 
 1 Ernst Curtius in his paper on 'Zwei Giebelgruppen aus Tanagra' {Gesanim. 
 Abh. ii. pp. 315 — 337) says: "Die besprochenen Giebelgruppen geben uns einen 
 neuen Beweiss fiir den feinen Kunstsinn der Tanagraer und die wiirdige Art, in 
 welcher sie ihre Familiengriiber auszustatten wussten " (p. 335). — For some 
 remarks in qualification of current views as to the universal diffusion of culture in 
 Attica, see J. P. Mahaffy's Social I/ife in Greece (concluding chapters), and comp. 
 J. W. Mackail's remarks {Clasnical Review, June 1894, p. 258) on the 'curiously 
 narrow ideal of the average Greek bourgeoisie.'' The other side of the picture is 
 well given in one of the earlier essays of Macaulay, in which he refers to the 
 Athenian populace as listening to the Olympian roll of the oratory of Pericles, or 
 gazing at Pheidias as he puts up the frieze of the Parthenon ; and by Matthew 
 Arnold {Mixed Essays, p. 39), where he speaks with enthusiasm of ' the spectacle 
 of the culture of a people,'' and of ' the many who relished those arts, who were 
 not satisfied with less than those monuments.' But the rural population of Attica 
 must not be left out of account : cp. Thucyd. ii. 14, 15, and Aristophanes passim. 
 
 - Preuss, Quaest. Boeot., p. 26: " Hoc unum imprimis lapides, qui quasi patroni 
 Boeotorum exstiterunt, docent eos non ita, ut a plerisque scriptoribus traditum 
 legimus, a cultu et humanitate afuisse, quippe quos non modo deorum cultum 
 religiosissime tutatos esse, verum etiam elegantiores artes non minus coluisse quam 
 reliquas Graeciae gentes videamus." In Boeotia, Apollo and Dionysus and Heracles 
 were chiefly worshipped. The shrines of the powers of the lower world, and the 
 
42 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 An allied point is the connexion of culture in Boeotia with 
 the mythical past of the country. That past was distinguished 
 beyond measure. Seven-gated Thebes was famous when Athens 
 and Sparta were barely known. And yet it was at Athens that 
 the great Theban legends were ennobled and immortalised by 
 'gorgeous Tragedy,' and shaped by alien hands into the imposing 
 forms of an Oedipus or an Antigone. At Thebes itself the 
 imagination was apt to keep close to the ground and point out 
 the actual spot where the Sparti sprang fully armed from the soil, 
 or Teiresias watched the flight of birds, or the sons of Oedipus fell 
 with mutual slaughter. Thucydides tells us that " sixty years 
 after the capture of Ilium the present Boeotians, being driven 
 from Arne by the Thessalians, settled in the land formerly called 
 Cadmeis, but now Boeotia." The break thus caused in the national 
 tradition will help to explain, among many other things, how the 
 legends of Thebes had lost much of their vital power among the 
 inhabitants of the land. Much, but not all : for we may regard 
 it as significant that both Pindar and Epaminondas traced their 
 descent to the old Cadmean families'. 
 
 The second part of this chapter has extended to a length 
 which may well seem out of proportion to that of the earlier 
 and more important section. The reason is that the great 
 names of Boeotian literature are known to everyone, whereas 
 the fact that there was any Boeotian art at all is sometimes 
 questioned. 
 
 seats of oracles, were unusually numerous : cp. the cult of the Kd^etpc at Thebes 
 and the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadeia. For a Boeotian festival corresponding 
 to an English May Day, see Frazer's Golden liomjh i. 100. 
 
 1 Injiueuce of native mythology at Thebes. Cp. Pausan. ix. pa.sun. But perhaps 
 this reference is a little less than fair to Thebes, as (1) Pausanias is writing at a late 
 date and gives the average point of view of the multitude, (2) in earlier times those 
 capable of being inspired by such influences (men like Pindar and Epaminondas) 
 doubtless were so inspired. Both Pindar and Epaminondas were of old descent • 
 as to the latter, see Pausan. viii. 11, 8 (cp. Plut., Pelop. iii.). It may be added here 
 that, as contrasted with Pindar, Corinna, writing in the Boeotian dialect, seems to 
 have dwelt more on the Boeotian past of the race (Giote, i. 250 n.).-The reference 
 ^to Thucydides is : i. 12, l,oc<.roi re yap oi .Ov e^nKo<rr<? iru ^.ra 'IX/ou aX<.<rc. e^ 
 Ap.vs auaardures vwo 0,a<Ta\Qu rrj. uvu ^e. \U.u:rLau nporepou 5i Kad^rjtSa y^. ,a\ov- 
 
 fiep-qp ujKLaav. Cp. Herod, v. r^?. 
 
 ,i 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNIQUELY 
 
 UNITED. 
 
 Epaminondas princeps meo iudicio Guaeciae. 
 
 Cic, Tiisc. Disp.y i. 2, 4. 
 
 fi€T€(TXf yap fVl noXv naa-rjs naideias Ka\ /ioXtora rfjs UvdayopiKiis (f)i\o- 
 (To(f)ias. 
 
 Diod. Sic, Bibl. Hist., xv. 39. 
 
 One of the best possible examples of character and culture, 
 whether in Boeotia or in any other country, is furnished by 
 Epaminondas. But it may be well first to consider whether, in 
 that attractive combination, Epaminondas had, on a smaller scale, 
 any immediate Boeotian forerunners. There must have been 
 some such heralds of the dawn of the brief bright day of Boeotian 
 history, since national greatness does not come wholly unan- 
 nounced ; but in the scantiness of the materials at our disposal 
 we cannot look for much information upon the point. However, 
 two or three examples readily present themselves. They are 
 Simmias and Cebes as they cross the pages of Plato; and Proxenus 
 as lightly sketched by Xenophon. The interest of these minor 
 personalities in connexion with the great personality of Epami- 
 nondas has not, perhaps, been sufficiently observed. 
 
 Simmias and Cebes were among the close friends of Socrates 
 present at his death. They occupy the position of chief inter- 
 locutors in the last Dialogue in which Plato's master is represented 
 as taking part. Themselves disciples of Philolaus the Pythagorean 
 philosopher of Thebes, they had been drawn to Athens by the 
 magic spells of Socrates (Xen. Menior. iii. 11, 17). They are 
 mentioned by Plato as men ready to provide money in order to 
 
44 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNITED. 
 
 45 
 
 aid the escape of their master (Plato, Crito, 45). They are named 
 by Xcnophon among the select few who attached themselves to 
 Socrates not in order that they might win the great prizes of a 
 public career, but that they might act as true men in all the 
 ordinary relations of life; and in this respect they succeeded so 
 well that they lived blamelessly all their days (Xen. Mentor, i. 
 2, 48). Simmias has all the dogged pertinacity which marked 
 his race (Plato, Phaedr. 242). Both he and Cebes are models 
 of the earnest philosophical inquirer, and their importunity is 
 Socrates' delight (Fhaedo, 6S and 85). Once Cebes drops 
 smilingly into his native Boeotian, and we feel that this simplicity 
 is of a piece with his whole nature ^ He is sincere and downright 
 to the core, and evidently enjoys the warm regard of Plato as well 
 as of Socrates. 
 
 Not less evident is Xenophon's liking for Proxenus, one of the 
 five Greek officers entrapped by Tissaphernes soon after the battle 
 of Cunaxa (401 B.C.). Proxenus was a youug Boeotian, about 
 thirty years of age at the time of his death. Though an admirer 
 of Proxenus, Xenophon is quite alive to the weak side of a 
 character which may not have had time fully to ripen. He tells 
 us that, when yet a mere lad, Proxenus became a pupil of Gorgias 
 of Leontini, in order that he might be trained for high tasks and 
 undertakings. Afterwards, he joined the Expedition of Cyrus, 
 seeing in it an opportunity of winning f^ime and influence and 
 wealth. But much as he desired these things, he made it plain 
 that he would have none of them at the price of dishonour. He 
 had not acquired the art of controlling average men : he was not 
 in this respect the equal of the senior commander, the Spartan 
 Clearchus, who knew how to inspire his soldiers with the conviction 
 that ' Clearchus nmst be obeyed.' He trusted too much to the 
 finer feelings of his men, thinking that it was enough to praise 
 the well-doer and to refrain from praising him that did wrong. 
 Xenophon evidently feels that the qualities of the two officers 
 should have been combined. Proxenus plainly possessed that 
 ' charm of manner ' (to eTrixapi) which was wanting in Clearchus ; 
 
 ^ Phaedo, (52. Kai 6 Ki^rjs ripefia eTriyeXdaas, "Irrw Zevs, ?(pr], rfj avrov <piouv dinhv. 
 (Cp. the "Irrw ^€vs of the Boeotian trader, Aristoph. A chant. 911.) Jowett trans- 
 lates "Fery true," which suggests the Shakespearian Welshman. 
 
 y 
 
 but the meaner sort among his soldiers took advantage of his 
 goodness of nature. Clearchus could secure obedience, but he 
 secured it by measures so severe that his men stood to him ' m 
 the relation of boys to a schoolmaster' (Xen. Anah. ii. 6). On the 
 other hand Proxenus, like other Boeotians, seems to have possessed 
 (if this is possible) too large a share of that 'simplicity which enters 
 so largely into noble natures ' (to 6i7;^€9 ov to yevvalov TrXelarov 
 yLt€Te%et, Thucyd. iii. 83). 
 
 Xenophon's generous appreciation of the promise of this 
 young Boeotian, Proxenus, makes one realise with regret what a 
 delineation he might have given, at a later date, of the noble 
 figure of Epaminondas, had he not been blinded by his attachment 
 to Agesilaus and Sparta. The loss of Ephorus, and of Plutarch's 
 Epaminondas, is a serious one ; but serious above all is the attitude 
 assumed towards Epaminondas by Xenophon in his Greek History 
 (EWrjviKci), or in his Feloponnesian History {U€\o7rovvr]<TLaKd), 
 as the book has been not without justice called. The vast differ- 
 ence between his grudging account and the narrative of Diodorus 
 (founded probably on that of Ephorus), is well brought out in a 
 special dissertation by Dr H. Deiter {De Epaniinonda Xenophonteo 
 et Dlodoreo), and may also be inferred from the list of Lacunae 
 given by Mr Dakyns in the introduction to the second volume 
 of his Works of Xenophon. Xenophon leaves Epaminondas un- 
 mentioned during a considerable part of his career. He can 
 describe the Battle of Leuctra without naming either Epaminondas 
 or Pelopidas. More than that : his History does not deserve even 
 the narrower title of UeXoTrovrrjo-iaKd, when an achievement such 
 as the restoration of Messene is in question ; for that step is passed 
 by unnoticed \ 
 
 1 Partiality of Xenophon. The best defence of Xenophon will be found in 
 Holm, Gr. Gesch. iii. 15, 16. But it can scarcely be accepted as adequate in view 
 of the glaring omission of Epaminondas' name in connexion with the battle of 
 Leuctra. Of course it may be admitted that Diodorus had too much of the 
 rhetorician about him, that Ephorus was a poor authority on military matters, and 
 that Plutarch was an ardent patriot. But fortunately there has been with regard 
 to the greatness of Epaminondas a singular unanimity in ancient (cp. Polyb. ix. 8 ; 
 Pausan. viii. 11, 9; Cicero de Orat. iii. 34, 139, and Tusc. Disp. i. 2, 4) and in 
 modern times : mankind has, to its own great profit and delight, here as elsewhere, 
 divinely through all hindrance found the man.— For an unfavourable estimate of 
 Xenophon, see Freeman's Historical Essays, Second Series, p. 95. 
 
46 
 
 THE ANCTRNT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 But without further dwelling on losses which are irreparable 
 and on prejudices which we must take as we find them, we will, 
 with the materials which we possess, briefly examine the career of 
 Epaminondas, regarding him as the flower of Boeotian character 
 and culture. 
 
 Plutarch has told us with regard to Epaminondas that for -the 
 first forty years of his life he lived in obscurity, but later he 
 won the public confidence, was placed in high oflfice, and rescued 
 his own city from destruction and Greece from servitude. But 
 during these forty years he had been trained himself, and he had 
 been training othei-s. In early life he had the best teachers in 
 music, singing, and dancing. Their names are recorded, and it 
 would seem that Epaminondas learnt the Athenian lyre as well 
 as the Boeotian flute. The Boeotians, to their credit and to their 
 advantage, were not ashamed to learn of Athens \ 
 
 Diodorus has informed us, in the passage quoted at the head of 
 this chapter, that Epaminondas was deeply versed in all branches 
 of culture or education, and particularly in the Pythagorean philo- 
 sophy. The special reference here is to the Pythagorean philo- 
 sopher Lysis. It would seem that among all the teachers of 
 his youth Epaminondas owed most to this Lysis, who, when driven 
 from Southern Italy, had been received into the house of Epami- 
 nondas' father Polymnis, where he remained until his death. 
 Philolaus, it will be remembered, was another Pythagorean settled 
 at Thebes. Possibly these philosophers were connected with 
 Thebes by some family tie ; possibly they were attracted by the 
 growing appreciation shown there for the highest culture the 
 Greek world could afford. The Pythagoreans paid due heed 
 to the formation of character as well as to mental illumination. 
 They formed a sort of religious order or brotherhood, penetrated 
 by the belief that philosophy was above all things a way of life. 
 The immured Malvolio is in error when he seemingly argues, 
 from their doctrine of metempsychosis, that the Pythagoreans 
 
 ^ Early Life and Training of Epaminondas. Plut. 1129 c {De Latenter 
 Vivendo): 'Eira^eLvuvdas yovp, eh TeaaapoKoarbv Ifjoi dyvo-qdeis, ovdiv covrjae QT]^aiovs' 
 varepov 8k inaTevdeis Kai dp^as, tt^v ixh irbXiv dxoWvfjL^vrjv ^auce, ttjv dk 'EWdda 
 SovXe^ovaav rtXevdipwaev. — Corn. Nep., Epam. ii. Cic. Tusc Disp. i. 2, 4. Athe- 
 naeus iv. 184. For Dionysins, cp. Plut. De Musica 31. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNITED. 
 
 47 
 
 thought otherwise than nobly of the soul. Riithcr, there was a 
 depth and harmony about their whole philosophy which would 
 appeal strongly to the nature of Epaminondas \ The ascetic 
 practices of the school may be supposed, whatever their origin, to 
 have been of peculiar virtue among the Boeotians with their 
 alleged tendency to over-indulgence, a tendency which the example 
 of their own patron-god Heracles would do nothing to restrain l 
 Athenaeus, one of the chief retailers of the stock accusations 
 against the Boeotians, says of Pythagoras that he drank little and 
 lived with the utmost simplicity, being often content with honey 
 only ; and he immediately adds the interesting statement that 
 similar things are related of Aristeides (' the Just '), and of Epami- 
 nondas and Phocion and Phormion. It is said elsewhere of Epami- 
 nondas that he " loved to fight with those enemies who were 
 corpulent ; and such souldiers as he found in his owne bands grosse 
 and fat, he would be sure to cashire and displace them, if it were 
 for nothing else." He evidently set his face strongly against the 
 national tendency to good living, which may have been encouraged 
 by the common meals (avaaiTia), condemned for other reasons 
 by Plato in the Laws. From the yv/juvdaca or gymnastic schools 
 (referred to in the same passage of Plato) he endeavoured to derive 
 good for himself by using them as an instrument for developing 
 agile strength rather than brute force ^ 
 
 A favourite precept of the Pythagoreans was that of communism 
 
 ^ The Pythagoreans. Boeckh, PhUolaos, p. 10. Perhaps the philosopher Philo- 
 laus was descended from Philolaus, the early Bacchiad legislator of Thebes, for 
 whose work see Aristot. Politics ii. 12, 10. Groteii. 298. [Oue noteworthy provision 
 of this legislator is indicated thus : iv 077/Sais 5^ vS/xo^ ^v rbv 8iKa erQv p-r} drrecrxvi^^o^ 
 T^s dyopds prj per^x^iv dpxv^. Aristot. Polit. iii. 5, 7: vii. (vi.) 7, 4.] — For Pytha- 
 goreanism as u way of life, see Plato, Rep. x. 600 b, and J. Burnet's Early Greek 
 Philosophers ^London, 1892), pp. 91 and 87. 
 
 2 Heracles. Cp. Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie xlv. pp. 555 ff., where Julius 
 Beloch, in an article on Die Dorische JVanderuug, shows (p. 579) how wide-spread 
 the worship of Heracles was in Boeotia. Erasm. Adagg. p. 369: Sunt autem inter 
 88 cognata vitia woXvipayia et stultitia. Atque hinc Herculem Thebanum edacem 
 faciunt, sed eundem a Uteris alienissimum, adeo ut praeceptorem suum trucidarit. 
 
 ^ Epaminondas as spare liver and athlete. Athen. x. 419. — Plut., Reg. et 
 Imperat. Apophth., p. 192 : did Kcd rois TroKvcrdpKois iyroXepei, kcU riva tolovtop diri^Xaffe 
 TTJs (TTpaTLcis, eliTtJov , K.T.X. Philcmon Holland has here slightly misunderstood the 
 Greek, which refers solely to the war which Epaminondas waged against corpulence 
 in his own ranks. But his translation deserves to stand in all its original raciness. 
 
48 
 
 THK ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 among friends (kolvu rd rwv <f>L\(i)v). That precept well expresses 
 the relation between Epaminondas and Pelopidas (who were justly 
 celebrated for their friendship) on the intellectual and spiritual 
 side ; and if it did not apply on the material side also, the sole 
 reason was that Epaminondas refused the wealth which his friend 
 pressed upon him. The full record of their friendship must be 
 read elsewhere : it has iu it many of the elements of romance, 
 while of the jealousy which so often sunders public men it shows 
 no single trace. That spirit of envy {(^Sovo^) which was the 
 peculiar detestation of their national poet Pindar was altogether 
 alien to the nature of these two great Boeotians. 
 
 Epaminondas was strongly attached to his teacher Lysis, and 
 there is no doubt that his whole life and character were coloured 
 by his association with him. From him he would obtain instruc- 
 tion in much which in England we no longer include under the 
 term philosophy. The art of oratory, for example, in which 
 Epaminondas so greatly excelled, was probably taught him by 
 Lysis, unless it be conjectured that, like Proxenus, he had come 
 into contact with Gorgias, who paid a short visit to Thebes 
 in the course of what we should now call a professional tour \ 
 
 Altogether, the influence of Lysis, on Epaminondas at least, was 
 so great that Alcidamas did not speak at random when he said 
 that no sooner had the leaders at Thebes become philosophers than 
 the city entered on its period of prosperity *^ That period was an 
 approach to a realisation of Plato's dream, a nearer approach than 
 Plato himself saw under Dionysius the Younger, though not 
 so near as that under Marcus Aurelius many centuries later. 
 
 —avcralTLa and 7u/;rd<rta, Plato, Leges 636 a, b. It has not been thought necessary 
 to deal with the subject of TratbepaaTia, for which see Jowett's Plato (last edition) i. 
 537.— Corn. Nep. Epam. ii.: postquam ephebus est factus et palaestrae dare operam 
 coepit, non tarn magnitudini virium servivit quam velocitati. We might say, 
 generaUy, of Epaminondas that he lived an 'ascetic,' or laborious, life (dcr/cT^rt/c^^ 
 TLva piov, Plato, Legg., 806a), but one 'touched with no ascetic gloom.' 
 
 1 Plut., De Gen. Soci:, 583: ttXtjv ye drj Topyias 6 Aeovrluo^ eK rijs 'EXXdSos 
 dvairX^uv els St/ceXt'a;/, d7r?777eiXe roh irepl "ApKeaov ^e^aiios, AiVtSi avyyeyov^vai diarpi- 
 ^ovTL Tre pi Qr}j3as. 
 
 - Arist. Rhet. n. 23 § 10: Kal eTj^TjaLf a/xa oi TrpoaTaTat (pi\6(TO(poi iy^vovTo Kai 
 evdaifi6pT]<xev ij ttoXis. Alcidamas, to whom the words are attributed, was a 
 rhetorician, a pupil of Gorgias of Leontini. See J. E. Sandys in Classical Review 
 IX. 114. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNITED. 
 
 49 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 I. 
 
 When Epaminondas came forward as a leader, about the year 
 880 B.C., his native city, once so famous, was ground down beneath 
 the heel of the oppressor. When he died, eighteen years later, 
 Thebes was free and strong. At a bound she had become the 
 foremost state in Greece. 
 
 The particulars of the rise and greatness of Thebes are re- 
 counted at length in the Histories of Greece, and in the great 
 story of Greek freedom there are few more moving pages. Here 
 a few sentences must suffice. 
 
 After the close of the Peloponnesian War, the relations 
 between Thebes and Athens had become more friendly. There 
 were two reasons for this. First, there had been in the course of 
 the war a salutary letting of bad blood on both sides; and the 
 great activity which Thebes had shown, not only during the 
 Peloponnesian War but during the previous period of fifty years, 
 was now to be turned in a different direction. Secondly, the 
 democratic party at Thebes had lately come to the front, and this 
 meant a drawing nearer to Athens, and a growing alienation from 
 Sparta. Perceiving this and fearing for their position, the olig- 
 archical party encouraged the Spartans, their supporters, to seize 
 the Cadmeia — the Theban citadel — by treachery and violence. 
 This was done. The citadel was seized and held, and the people 
 were terrified into submission. 
 
 The bolder spirits of the popular party resolved to liberate 
 their native city, and to carry out their plan from Athens, where 
 they had taken refuge. With some Athenian help they slew the 
 tyrants, and captured the Cadmeia. Their chief leader was 
 Pelopidas, since Epaminondas was restrained by scruples from 
 sharing in a deed in which innocent blood of fellow-citizens might 
 inadvertently be shed. 
 
 But Epaminondas' opportunity for serving his country was 
 now to come. As we have already said, he had not merely been 
 carefully trained himself, but he had for long been training and 
 inspiring others. He was at the head of what Ernst Curtius 
 has aptly termed the ' Young Boeotian ' party, composed of young 
 patriots eager for the freedom and greatness of their country \ In 
 the stirring events which ensued a leading part was borne by the 
 
 1 "Die jungbootische Partei " (Curtius, Gr. Gesch., iii. 253). 
 R. 4 
 
k 
 
 50 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNITED. 
 
 51 
 
 ' followers of Epaminondas,' as Plutarch calls them '. It was from 
 this source that new blood would flow into the wpo? Xox"?. or 
 Sacred Band, which was probably re-organised rather than created 
 by Epaminondas ^ In its new form, the Sacred Band was a 
 picked body of 300 men, boniul together by close ties of comrade- 
 ship and animated by a keen sense of personal honour (of chivalry, 
 we might almost say) and of patriotism. The Battle of Leuctra 
 (371 B C) was won by the superb tactics of Epammondas, and 
 by the charge, at a critical moment, of the Sacred Band led by 
 Pelopidas At Leuctra the Spartans, so long accounted invmcible, 
 were for the first time in their history defeated m a great battle 
 by an inferior force. Thebes was now the first military state 
 in Greece, and deliberate choice could have found for the young 
 Philip of Macedon no fitter school, alike of war and culture, than 
 that which accident threw in the way of a man whose ambitions 
 were to affect so profoundly the future of mankind '. 
 
 Epaminondas is by common consent a great general. By 
 common consent he is also a great statesman. His greatne^ss 
 in both capacities may be estimated from a consideration of the 
 difficulties which he met and to a wonderful extent surmounted. 
 In Thebes itself there was a hostile party which was always on the 
 watch for a chance of overthrowing him. Further, the other towns 
 of Boeotia were a hindrance rather than a help ; they were often 
 ranged against him. In writing this chapter it would have been 
 very pleasant and more effective from a literary point of view, had 
 it but been true, to write Boeotia instead of Thebes. That this 
 is not possible was not the fault of Epaminondas, whose constant 
 desire it was to be at once a Boeotian and a Theban, uniting the 
 whole of Boeotia under Theban headship. 
 
 1 Plut., Pelop., xii. , „ , -.1. 
 
 2 Merits MuUer (Gesch. Theb., pp. 14, 15) connects the Sacred Band with certam 
 provisions of the early Theban legislators-of Philolaus (the Corinthian) possibly. 
 
 3 EpamUmndas m General. The tactics of Epaminondas at Leuctra have been 
 described by a historian who has made a special study of military matters. "Epa- 
 mmondas had determined to try a new system-modern military authors would call 
 it the attack en ecftrfoH-which he had himself devised." Oman, IIMoryof Greece. 
 p 465 See the whole passage, and also Adolf Bauer {Die griechischen KnegmHer- 
 ,«m<.r in Iwan Mailer's muMxich iv. p. 411): "Epameinondas darf als der grosste 
 
 Taktiker der Griechen bezeichnet werden er ist als Stratege nicht mmder hervor- 
 
 lagend wie als Taktiker." 
 
 ^ 
 
 I' 
 
 An additional difficulty in the path of Epaminondas was that 
 he had to face complications in Northern Greece and local feuds 
 among his allies in the south. Worse than all, revived jealousy 
 on the part of Athens cut off all hope of a union between the two 
 neighbour-states which might have been fruitful of good for 
 Greece. For this failure Epaminondas was not responsible, in- 
 asmuch as, with the possible exception of his maritime ambitions, 
 he strove sedulously to maintain good relations with Athens. 
 Nor could it any longer with truth be said that the new spirit at 
 Thebes was inferior to that of Athens in her best days, and that this 
 inferiority was a bar to union. Epaminondas expressed, meta- 
 phorically, his own aim in his well-known aspiration to have 
 the Athenian Propylaea planted at the entrance to the Cadmeia \ 
 In short, as far as his own influence extended, he endeavoured to 
 lead the Theban s to live up to the Periclean ideal of artistic and 
 intellectual tastes indulged without extravagance or effeminacy ^ 
 
 Epaminondas was a nationalist leader whom we can all admire. 
 He could obey as well as command : he ruled himself: he respected 
 the laws : he told the unpopular truth. Sick of the dissensions 
 which were the ruin of Boeotia, he aimed at uniting Boeotia 
 herself first of all, and after that he seems to have cherished the 
 widest Panhellenic aspirations. His desire was to bring out the 
 best native characteristics in a wider sphere instead of pursuing 
 a policy of narrow isolation, — to combine a local with a broader 
 patriotism. United Boeotia as a free leader among free Greek 
 peoples : that would seem to have been his aim. His statesman- 
 ship is not to be estimated simply by the vulgar standards of 
 success. He died befoie he had given full effect to his ideas, but 
 he died in the prime of manhood, and it is hard to say what Thebes 
 might not still have done had he not been cut down at Mantineia, 
 with his friend Pelopidas dead two years before and his two most 
 likely successors fallen on the field of battle I 
 
 * iEschines trfpl Trapairpcff^eias § 111: 'Eira/JLivtbuSas, ovx VTroirTrj^as rb tCjv 
 ^Adrjvaiojv d^iw/xa, elire diapprjdrjv iv t(^ TrXiJ^ei twp Qrj^aitov, ws dei tcl rijs 'Adrjvaiuv 
 CLKpoTrdXeus tt poiriXaia, fiereveyKelv els tt]v irpoaTaaiav ttjs Kad/xeias. There is reason to 
 think that the words as used by Epaminondas himself were a metaphorical aspira- 
 tion, not a literal threat. 
 
 2 <pi\oKd\ov/x€v yap fxer^ eimXeias kcu <pi\oao<poO/j.ep &vev /xaXa/ft'as (Thucyd. ii. 40). 
 
 ^ Epaminondas as Statesvian. The policy of Epaminondas, in and beyond 
 
 4—2 
 
 I 
 
62 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 Some of the anecdotes which Phitarch tells of Epaminondas 
 show at once the simplicity and the greatness of the man. Three 
 years after his signal triumph at Leuctra he might be found 
 serving as a common soldier in the ranks, and coming forward at 
 the request of his commanders to rescue the army from a position 
 of great danger. On another occasion he discharged the duties 
 of a petty civic office with so much distinction that he made 
 it honourable for ever afterwards. His love for his parents was 
 
 Boeotia, has been variously estimated. Holm, whose judgment is usually admirable, 
 seems disposed to press points rather hardly against him. Cp. his Griech. Gesch. 
 
 iii. 108, and also iii. 142 ("Denn wenn er Orchomenos gutgeheissen"). There 
 
 are several assumptions here made to the detriment of Epaminondas, and several 
 considerations left unnoticed which might be advanced in his favour. — The central 
 point in Epaminondas' policy seems to have been the desire for Union. We see 
 him pursuing this object in Southern Greece ; and the same design marks at any 
 rate his earlier relations to Attica. Boeotia he wished to convert into a united 
 whole; but he did not greatly care, we take it, whether the common name was to 
 be Qrfpaioi or Boicoroi, if only there were sofue common name, corresponding in 
 practical effect, if not in actual form, to 'A6r}vaioi in Attica. (Cp. the dropping of 
 the initials of Thebes from the federal coinage at this period, and the words fxera- 
 ypd<peiv avTi Qri^aiwv Bolujtovs in Xen. Hellen. vi. 3, 19. Compare, at a later time, 
 Demosthenes' phrase Botwroi oi ev Orj^aii, and ^Eschines' carping criticism of it in 
 c. Ctes. 142.) It has sometimes been maintained that Epaminondas wished to 
 proceed on the Athenian plan (Wilamowitz, and Busolt), or on the Spartan plan 
 (Freeman); but the evidence is, in truth, not explicit enough to enable us to come 
 to any safe conclusion, and such analogies are apt to mislead by involving the 
 assumption that Epaminondas had made up his mind to break with all federal 
 forms. — The like uncertainty prevails when we leave the question as to the form in 
 which Epaminondas would have compassed his design, and inquire how far he was 
 prepared to use force for the purpose. We can only lament that Thebes, in the 
 Persian Wars, had missed her chance of securing the best kind of union. Had she 
 then headed the Boeotian towns in resistance to the Mede, union might have 
 followed victory, Plataea (the Alsace-Lorraine of tho?e times) might have returned 
 to her alle.!-'iance, and the whole future history of Boeotia have been different. — 
 Modern analogies are (especially where the scale is so disproportionate) even more 
 treacherous than ancient ones, but we cannot help suggesting that unpopular Prussia 
 ( = Thebes) did well, through many years, to make herself omnipotent in Germany 
 ( = Boeotia), in order to render possible firm union with the Southern States 
 ( = Thespiae, Tanagra, etc.) which inclined towards Athens ( = Austria). How far 
 Prussia would have been justified in making actual use of the superior force she had 
 been acquiring is a nice question of political ethics on which different persons may 
 well hold different views. But as a question of policy, it was evidently much better 
 to possess the power without using or threatening to use it. And in the case of 
 Epaminondas the evidence, as far as we have any, goes to show that he preferred to 
 proceed by peaceable means. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNITED. 
 
 53 
 
 h 
 
 \ 
 
 also a marked feature in his character. He counted it his crowning 
 happiness that they should have lived to hear of his victory at 
 Leuctra. A favourite saying of his was that death in battle was 
 the height of glory. He met with the end he coveted \ 
 
 The military genius of Epaminondas, his statesmanship, his wide 
 and liberal culture, his purity of life, his lofty self-respect, his majestic 
 self-control, his proud humility, his honourable poverty, his absolute 
 veracity, his integrity, his freedom from jealousy and vindictiveness; 
 all these form a combination rare anywhere, but less rare among 
 the great men of Rome than among those of Greece, and we can 
 imagine that the high-sounding name of Epameinondas fell upon 
 the ears of a Cato or a Cicero with all that gravitas, or tueight, 
 which attached to such names as Coriolanus and Cincinnatus. In 
 fact we know that Cicero, notwithstanding the absence of any 
 adequate literary pourtrayal of him, is able to discern in Epaminon- 
 das ' the foremost man of Greece.' The opinion of a Roman upon 
 a question of character, and of a Cicero upon a question of culture, 
 is worth having. And culture, let it be remembered, was to 
 Cicero himianitas as to the Greeks it was iraiheia. Both the 
 Latin and the Greek word repudiate, by their very etymology, 
 that suggestion of exclusiveness which is sometimes, and not with- 
 out reason, thought to disfigure the modern term culture ^ 
 
 1 Plut., An Sent sit gerenda Resp., xxvii. Diod. Sic. xv. 71. Pausan. ix. 15. — 
 Plut., Praecepta Gerendae Rcipuhlicae, xv. Valer. Max., Fact. Diet. Mem., iii. 7, 5. 
 — Plut., Reg. et Imperat. Apophth. 193. id., An Seni etc., 786 d. id., Nan posse 
 suaviter Vivi sec. Epicurum 1098 b. No wonder that Plutarch, with his own strong 
 domestic affections, tells .this last story three times over. — Plut., Reg. et Imperat. 
 Apophth. 192. 
 
 - Plut., Catonis Maioris Vita, viii. , ov5iva 5e rwc evdaifxoui^o/xivojv ^aaiX^uv d^iov 
 clvai irapa^dWeii/ irpos 'Eirafieivuiudav tj llepi/cX^a rj QefiKTTOKX^a r} Mdviov Kovpiou tj 
 'AfuKKav rbv iinK\r]d^vTa Bdp/cai'. Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 2, 4 : Summam eruditionem 
 Graeci sitam ceusebant in nervorum vocumque cantibus : igitur et Epaminondas, 
 princeps meo iudicio Graeciae, fidibus praeclare cecinisse dicitur, Themistoclesque 
 aliquot ante annis, cum in epulis recusaret lyram, est habitus indoctior. Cic, de 
 Orat. iii. 34, 139 : aliisne igitur artibus hunc Dionem instituit Plato, aliis Isocrates 
 
 clarissimum virum Timotheum ? aut aliis Pythagoreus ille Lysis Thebauum 
 
 Epamiuondam, baud scio an summum virum unum omnis Graeciae? — There is an 
 interesting reference to Epaminondas' poverty in Epictetus, Fragm., xliv. He was 
 free from the easily besetting sin of the Greeks, that pecuniary dishonesty which is 
 apt to attend the lust of gain. — With regard to the verbal point, perhaps it is to be 
 regretted that Culture (in the sense of Bildung) has been introduced into the English 
 language at all, when the word Education {Erziehung) might have been enlarged and 
 
54 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 Cicero's words ' princeps meo iudicio Graeciae,' and (in another 
 passage) * hand scio an summus vir unus omnis Graeciae,' remind 
 us of those Latin lines on the title-page which are provided as an 
 antidote for the malice of the Greek proverb. Juvenal (x. 49, 50) 
 is speaking of Democritus and Abdera* ; but his lines apply with 
 still greater force to Epaminondas and Boeotia. Epaminondas is 
 the proof of proofs that under a foggy sky (Horace notwithstanding), 
 and in the native land of wethers (or of pigs), there may be born 
 men of the highest eminence. And men too who will be great 
 examples for posterity (' magna exempla daturi '), since we have 
 Plutarch's authority for saying that Epaminondas was the model 
 upon which at a later date three such remarkable leaders as 
 Timoleon (the old-world Garibaldi of Sicily), Aratus (the general 
 of the Achaean League), and Philopoemen (the 'last of the Greeks') 
 strove to fashion themselves '^ 
 
 One of the most brilliant and many-sided of Elizabethan 
 Englishmen, Sir Walter Raleigh, agrees with the Roman verdict 
 as to the supreme greatness of Epaminondas. " So died Epaminon- 
 das, the worthiest man that ever was bred iu that nation of Greece, 
 and hardly to be matched in any age or country ; for he equalled 
 all others in the several virtues, which in each of them were 
 singular. His justice and sincerity, his temperance, wisdom and 
 high magnanimity, were no way inferior to his military virtue ; 
 in every part whereof he so excelled that he could not properly be 
 called a wary, a valiant, a politic, a bountiful, or an industrious, and 
 a provident captain. Neither was his private conversation un- 
 answerable to those high parts which gave him praise abroad. For 
 he was grave, and yet very atfable and courteous ; resolute in 
 public business, but in his own particular easy and of much 
 mildness; a lover of his people, bearing with men's infirmities, 
 witty and pleasant in speech, far from insolence, master of his own 
 affections, and furnished with all qualities that might win and 
 
 ennobled by the inclusion of all imaginable training of mind and heart, at whatever 
 period of life and by whatever means imparted. 
 
 ^ Abdera was to ancient Greece what Aberdaron is to modern Wales. 
 
 2 Plut., T'umleontis Vita, xxxvi. ; Arati Vita, xix. ; Philopoevienis Vita, iii. (cp. 
 Pausan. viii. 49. — For Philopoemen's lloman title of "the last of the Greeks," see 
 Plut., Fhil. Vita, i., and Arati Vita, xxiv.).— For Timoleon and Garibaldi, see Ad. 
 Holm, Gesch. Sic. im AH., ii. 217. 
 
 EPAMINONDAS. CHARACTER AND CULTURE UNITED. 
 
 55 
 
 
 keep love. To these graces were added great ability of body, 
 much eloquence, and very deep knowledge in all parts of philosophy 
 and learning, wherewith his mind being enlightened, rested not in 
 the sweetness of contemplation, but broke forth into such effects 
 as gave unto Thebes, which had evermore been an underling, a 
 dreadful reputation among all people adjoining, and the highest 
 command in Greece '." Truly it was " a dreadful reputation," and 
 not lea^t in Sparta, where the women had not for generations nor 
 for centuries seen the smoke of an enemy's camp-fire. 
 
 As to the Thebans themselves during the period of the 
 greatness of their city it may be said that upon the whole they 
 made excellent followers. Ephorus has told us about them as a 
 people that they were distinguished by the attention they paid to 
 physical exercise and to military prowess-'. Indeed, one main 
 complaint against them was that they thought too much of these 
 things. Their bravery was proved at Plataea, Delium, Leuctra. 
 It was to be proved again at Chaeroneia, when the Thebans, having 
 been won over by the appeals of Demosthenes, who reminded them 
 of Epaminondas as he reminded the Athenians of Pericles, shared 
 in that great struggle for the maintenance of Greek liberty. The 
 stand then made by Theagenes and the Sacred Band was worthy of 
 Epaminondas, and what more can be said ? Not less gallant was 
 the attempt of the Thebans to throw off the Macedonian yoke 
 (:335 B.C.), and not less intrepid the resistance they then offered 
 to the incensed Alexander. Such bright chapters in their later 
 history go far to redeem their errors during the time of the 
 
 1 Historic of the World (Third Book of the First Part. Chapter xii. § 8. 
 Page 153. Edition, 1614. Modern spelling). How far is the estimate based, 
 directly or indirectly, on Diod. Sic. xv. 88 ? dXV 6>ws et tls avyKphai rhs to<,t^v 
 o.p^rk'i TV 'Ewafxeiuibudov arparvyiq, re Kal d6^v, ^o\0 ^u wpo^xo^crav evpoc rriv frepi rbv 
 'E-Kap.eivibvdav dperriU. wapa fxev yap iKdarcp rCov &.\\iov iv Sa' evpoL irpor^pvf^a r^s Sd^Tys, 
 wapd d^ TOVTip wdaas rds dperds i)dpoi<xp.iva^. Kal yap pihp-v (rw/iaros Kai \6yov deivdrvTi, 
 npds 5k toOtols rpvxvs \afjLirp6TVTL Kai fuaapyvpLg. Kai ^TrifiAcet^, Kai rb fxAyicrov, dvdpdq. 
 Kal (TTpaT-qyiKxi crvviaei ttoXu 8i7]veyK€ irdvTUJv. 
 
 2 Boeotian and Thehan Qualities. C. and T. Miiller, Fnigm. Hist. Graec, i., 
 234 : "E^o/ws 5^ <pT]<nv 6tl ' M-qvaloL irepl rr]v yavTiKr)u, SeTraXol irepl tt,./ t7r7rtK> 
 eirifiaeiap, Botwrot irepl tv'j t9}s yvp.ua<rias eTrt/^Aeia^, Kupryraioi de irepl tt]v Si^peurt/cV 
 iircariiMy Mx^^V^rai. Diod. 8ic. xii. 70 (where the reference is to the battle of 
 Delium): ol 5^ Qvpo^Toi, 5ia0e>o./r6S rats tC}p auifidrwu pufiais, €n^<TTp€^pav dirb rov 
 6tury/«)0, k.t.X. Cp. Diod. Sic. xv. 26: rb ydp ^os rovro Kai irX-qd^^ Tu>y dvbpQiu Kai 
 
56 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 Persian Wars. They stood aside then, but now they bore the 
 brunt; and the blow was heavy*. 
 
 dvdp€l<;f. Kara irbXeixov ovdevbs tQv 'EWtjvuv e56^€i XeiTeadai. — With respect to indi- 
 viduals, it must not, of course, be thought that Epaminondas, though he was by far 
 the greatest, was the only man of mark produced by Thebes in the day of her 
 power. Besides Pelopidas there were Ismenias, Gorgidas and Pammenes, not to 
 speak of the two generals (lolaidas and Daiphantus) to whom Epaminondas looked 
 as his successors. And we should undoubtedly have heard of other minor leaders at 
 other periods had the works of any Boeotian historian been extant. Leaders of the 
 supreme rank of Epaminondas are rare at all times and in all countries. — The 
 reference with regard to the appeals of Demosthenes is Plut., Demosthenis 
 Vita, XX. 
 
 ^ Greece, and Thebes, after Epaminondas. The confusion in Greece, the utter 
 unsettlement of the balance of power, which followed the death of Epaminondas, 
 has been vividly indicated by Xenophon in the concluding passage of the Hellenica. 
 Ad. Holm, who (as readers of his Geschichte Siciliens im Alterthum will remember) 
 is fond of historical parallels, compares the effect of the death of Epaminondas at 
 Mantineia to that of the death of Gustavus Adolphus at Liitzen {Gr. Gesch. iii. 
 140, 1). — Though, as has been indicated in the text, some of the spirit which made 
 the Thebans such excellent followers still survived, Theban greatness was of course 
 at an end. The words of Ephorus (p. 12 supra) will be recalled. Similarly 
 Demades, the orator, said : rip yap 'Ft-rra/xivibudov crw/zari <n'v4da^€ ttjv dvva/jnu tCov 
 Orj^alup 6 Kaip6<: (Dem., vtt^p rrjs 5w5e/caerias, 180). And Polybius : otl yap ovx V fijs 
 TToXiTelas (Tvaraffis alrla TOTe eyivero Qrj^alois tCov ei^ri'x^-LtaT'WJ', dW i] tCiv irpoecTTtjTojv 
 dv^p2v dperr], irapd irddas i] tvxv touto ird(Ti.v iirol-qae 5rj\ov. Kai yap avvrjv^rjdr] Kal 
 cvv7)KpLa<je Kai cvyKareXvOyj rd Qrj^alwv ^pyo. t<^ 'Eva/nivibudov Koi tov lleXovidov ^i(p 
 
 Trpo(f)auu)s (Polyb. vi. 43). And Diodorus: ^Tret 5^ (rvvairidaviv (xv. 79), and 
 
 Toiyapovv Aa^Se irelpav (xv. 88). In truth, the flowering-time of Thebes had 
 
 come too late, for the summer of Greece was almost over. The Theban decline 
 must be regarded as part of a general Greek decline. — In the time of Strabo, Thebes 
 was already one of the numerous Boeotian towns of which only names and ruins 
 survived. (Strabo, Didot edition, p. 352.) — In the Peloponnese the remains of the 
 fortifications of Messene still attest the might of Epaminondas ; and the recent 
 excavations at Megalopolis have disclosed impressive memorials of what is supposed 
 to be his influence in the Thersilion, or Parliament House of the Ten Thousand 
 Arcadians, and in the much discussed Theatre. [Jouknal of Hellenic Studies, 
 Excavations at Megalopolis, 1890 — 91 (published 1893), E. A. Gardner, W. Loring, 
 G. C. Richards, W. J. Woodhouse, and R. W. Schultz.] For Epaminondas' schemes 
 of Arcadian confederation see Grote, History of Greece, ix. 433 ff., and cp. (at a 
 later time) Demosthenes' speech inrkp twv MeyaXoiroXirujv. 
 
 
 
 { 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BOEOTIANS AS THE DUTCHMEN OF GREECE. 
 
 "Tune es, tune" ait "ille Martialis, 
 cuius iiequitias iocosque novit, 
 aurem qui mode non habet Batavam ? " 
 
 Mart. Epigr. vi. Ixxxii. 4 — 6. 
 
 Batavam codd. (hebatava ^ habebat anas corr. habet batavas Q habebat 
 avamam P habebat avam F) Schn^ Gilbert'^ p. 520 severam CO Rand v. Q Schn- 
 (L. Mueller r. m. p. 247) Boeotam Ruhnken. 
 
 Batavam. Batava viii. 33, 20 Batavi xiv. 176, 1. Ruhnkens (patriotische) 
 Conjektur Boeotam ist auch prosodisch schwerlich zulassig. L. Mueller r. m. 
 p. 247 s. L. Friedlaender. 
 
 ~ ..The Boeotians have sometimes been called in derision the 
 Dutchnien of Greece. The comparison, however unkindly meant, 
 may be regarded as conveying praise rather than reproach. 
 
 Few braver blows for liberty have anywhere been struck than 
 in the land of the Dutchmen, and in this respect William the 
 Silent as a leader resembles Epaminondas no less than in the 
 taciturnity common to them both\ 
 
 1 Epaminondas and William the Silent. It was said, by one who knew 
 Epaminondas well, that he had never met anyone who understood more and said 
 less [Plut., De Gen. Socr., xxxiii. It is apparently of this passage of Plutarch that 
 Ben Jonson was thinking when, by a curious anachronism, he mentions the name 
 of Pindar. "Epaminondas is celebrated by Pindar to be a man, that, though he 
 knew much, yet he spoke but little." Ben Jonson, Discoveries (vol. iii. p. 394 
 of Gilford's edition of Ben Jonson's Works, as issued by Chatto and Windus)]. 
 William earned his surname from the manner in which he listened to the outrage- 
 ous design communicated to him by Henry II. of France (Motley, Dutch RepubliCy 
 Pt. ii. c. i. p. 122). Both could, of course, use speech to good purpose when 
 required ; they simply possessed a gift similar to that of the modern strategist who 
 
 I 
 
\li 
 
 58 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 THE BOEOTIANS AS THE DUTCHMEN OF GREECE. 
 
 59 
 
 In the Adages of Erasmus there will be found a passage in 
 which that illustrious Dutchman (who died a few years after 
 William was born) meets the reproach of rusticitas which he dis- 
 cerns in the expression auris Batava quoted above from Martial. 
 Among other things, he claims for his countrymen that they are 
 simple and straightforward in character, and averse to deceit and 
 pretence. Their chief defect is a somewhat excessive devotion to 
 pleasure, especially the pleasures of the table. This feeling is 
 attributable to the abundance of things which provoke it, and the 
 abundance itself is due on the one hand to the ease of importation 
 by the Rhine and the Maas, and on the other hand to the fertility 
 of the soil, which is watered by rivers (themselves full of fish) 
 and abounds in rich pasture-lands. Birds, too, are found in vast 
 numbers on land and water \ 
 
 Parallels between Holland and Boeotia in the above descrip- 
 tion will readily suggest themselves : for instance, the fertile soil, 
 and the abundance of lish and of fowl '. And while the physical 
 
 was ♦ silent in seven languages.' Many other features in the character of Epami- 
 nondas and William will be found to correspond. And as to their careers, it 
 is worth noting that both were cut off prematurely, when neither indeed was young, 
 but when they both had much work ready to their hand and time to do it in. 
 The approximate date of the birth of Epaminondas was 418 B.C., of his death 
 362 B.C. William was born in 1533 a.d. and died in 1584. The name of William's 
 assassin, Gerard, is well known. There were several claimants to the distmction 
 of slaying Epaminondas in battle, one of whom seems to have been Gryllus the 
 son of Xenophon (Pausan. viii. 11, 4; ix. 15, 3: cp. i. 3, 3; viii. 9, 5).-0f course 
 William the Silent was of German origin, coming from the Duchy of Nassau. 
 
 1 Adagg., Leyden edition, p. 1083. Erasmus points out, in this passage, that 
 culture may be turned to evil purposes, and that his countrymen may deserve to be 
 congratulated rather than commiserated on their ignorance of Martial and his self- 
 confessed 'wickednesses.' The early liome which knew no art but those of wbj 
 and husbandry would compare more than favourably with the highly civihsed and 
 
 polished Kome of Martial. 
 
 ^ Aristoph , Ach. 870 ff., Fax 1003. As to Boeotian corn, see Theophr., Hist. 
 Flant., viii. 4, 5, and the following remarks of Dr B. V. Head: " Of all the cities in 
 Boeoti'a Orchomenus is the only one of which the coinage does not, in early times, 
 bear the shield, the type of all the contemporary federal money of the other allied 
 cities, but its own peculiar and distinct type, the grain of corn, referring, as a 
 religious symbol, to the extraordinary productiveness of the Orchonienian plain, 
 the fertility of which even in our own days is so remarkable that Leake was able to 
 count as many as 900 grains in a single ear of corn. The stem of this plant is very 
 strong and large, and when plastered with mud forms the most common material 
 of the present cottages near the Cephissic marshes.— Leake, N. Greece, p. 158." 
 
 
 
 features of the two countries are in question, it may perhaps be 
 added that the struggle against water, in the case of the embank- 
 ments of Holland, and of the drainage of Lake Copais in Boeotia, 
 evoked the energies of both peoples at different periods \ On the 
 other hand, the Boeotians never made use of the sea, favourably 
 situated though they were, to the same extent as the Dutchmen. 
 They never became an active commercial people, as they might 
 well have done, had poverty of soil, or an increasing population, 
 driven them to bestir themselves in this way. In them, as in the 
 Dutchmen, there lay latent an ample fund of energy, waiting only 
 to be called out. 
 
 The allied question how far Boeotian, and Dutch, wits were 
 affected by a heavy atmosphere, we cannot pretend to discuss ; 
 we will only recall the view of Strabo that in all these things 
 there is a good deal in habit — in the force that is put on nature, 
 the bent that is given to it (ov yap <l)va€c ^Adrjvaloi ijuev (fyiXoXoyoc, 
 AaKeSac/jLovLoc 3' oij, teal ol ere iyyvrepo) ^rj^aloc, dWd fidWov 
 eS^L, Strabo ii. 3). 
 
 At any rate, the mists of Holland have not prevented that 
 country from producing philologists (if we may thus represent 
 Strabo's <j)L\6\oyoi) of great repute. Erasmus, in the passage 
 just referred to, states that while men of moderate learning were 
 as numerous in Holland as in any part of the world, there was 
 a comparative dearth of finished scholarship (especially in the 
 ancient tongues), a dearth which he thinks may be caused either 
 by the luxury of the day or by the fact that among the Hollanders 
 eminence in moral character was more highly esteemed than 
 
 {Numism. Cliron., Third Series, vol. i. p. 194.) — For the poverty of its soil as 
 an advantage to Attica, see Thucyd. i. 2. 
 
 ^ The dykes and dams connected with Lake Copais were, strictly speaking, pre- 
 Boeotian ; they were the work of a sea-faring race — those Minyae who have of late 
 years, in striking confirmation of Otfried Miiller's brilliant speculations, passed from 
 the region of legend into that of historical fact. Cp, Ernst Curtius, Gesammelte 
 Abhandlungen (1894), Bd. i. pp. 266—280 (' Die Deichbauten der Minyer. Mit einer 
 Karte'), and Heiurich Schliemann, Orchomenus (Leipzig, 1881). See also Grote i. 
 pp. 130 — 132. The French engineers, who have in our time been entrusted with the 
 task of draining the Lake, have laid bare earthworks and canals which only a great 
 and powerful state can have constructed. — It may be added that Thebes and the 
 Sphinx, Orchomenus and the Minyae, remind us continually of that Oriental back- 
 ground to Greek civilisation which is every day coming into fuller relief. 
 
 I. 
 
60 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 eminence in learning. Though it might be said by Erasmus that 
 Holland was wanting in examples of " exquisita eruditio," the 
 same thing could not be said by any one who came after him ; and 
 the editor of the Leyden edition of his works, Le Clerc of Geneva, 
 is able to couple the name of Hugo Grotius with that of Erasmus 
 himself And we may add lesser names, but still names of great 
 mark, all taken from among the number of those Hellenists who 
 have taught at that University of Leyden which was founded, it 
 should always be borne in mind, by the fiat of no King or Pope 
 but by the States of Holland, in 1575 A.D., in commemoration of 
 the heroism with which the town had been defended by its 
 citizens against the Spaniards. On that occasion, as on many 
 others in which they fought their glorious battles for liberty of 
 life and conscience, the Dutchmen justified their national motto : 
 Luctor et emergo. They rose above the engulfing waves. Nothing 
 could withstand a country the watchword of whose indomitable 
 patriots was: Liever bedorven dan verloren land, "Better a drowned 
 land than a lost land." (Motley, Datch Republic, pt. iv. c. ii.)* 
 
 The names which occur are those of Heinsius, Vossius, and Gro- 
 novius (in each of which cases learning was transmitted from father 
 to son) ; of Hemsterhuys, and his pupils Valckenaer and Ruhnken; 
 of Wyttenbach, the editor of the Boeotian Plutarch ; and of Cobet. 
 These were not all born in Holland, though they all taught there ; 
 and it was probably with the over-zealous patriotism of an adopted 
 
 1 The reference in the Dutch words is, of course, to the flooding of the country 
 by opening the sluices and cutting the dykes. — This deliverance notwithstanding, 
 the University of Leyden was established at a dark hour in the country's history ; 
 and in this respect it resembles the great University of Berlin, which was founded 
 early in the present century. The history of both Universities shows what an 
 impulse to learning deeply-stirred patriotic feeling can give. In Holland the 
 needful appliances soon followed, for in no country were the great printing-houses 
 so active, and in none were better mathematical and astronomical instruments pro- 
 duced. — In Wales we have now a University of our own, the foundation of which 
 has been long and unwisely delayed, as will be allowed by all who take the trouble 
 to remember for how many centuries the four Universities of Scotland have been in 
 existence (St Andrews, 1411 a.d. ; Glasgow, 1453 a.d.; Aberdeen, 1494 a.i>. ; Edin- 
 burgh, 1582 A.D.) One can only hope that, in the future, much of the patriotism 
 of Wales may, through its Colleges and its University, find its own expression, and 
 at the same time realise more fully that it is part of the wider patriotism of 
 England and the world. 
 
 THE BOEOTIANS AS THE DUTCHMEN OF GREECE. 
 
 61 
 
 I 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 citizen that Ruhnken would, in the passage from Martial, have 
 changed aurem...Batavam into awr6m...5oeo^ar/i, " Netherlandish 
 ear" into "Boeotian ear." But Ruhnken suffered for his pains. 
 It would have been well had he allowed the text to stand, simply 
 remarkinor that the Roman slander of the Dutchman had its 
 earlier analogue in the Athenian slander of the Boeotian. But 
 unmoved by sympathy, and bent on proving, what unhappily needs 
 no proof, that the world of the scholar is no better than the world 
 at large, he must needs foist on Martial the anti-Boeotian proverb; 
 and by a just retribution he but narrowly escapes being himself 
 accredited, by a recent editor, with a " Netherlandish ear " for the 
 laws of metre. 
 
 It should be mentioned here that, in addition to Boiwrta v<^, 
 the proverbs ^olwtlov ov<; and Bolootio<; pov^; are also found ; and 
 that the former was popularly explained by the story of a poet 
 who, when reading his Thebaid to a Boeotian audience, missed the 
 applause he craved, and shutting his book petulantly exclaimed, 
 "With good reason are ye called Botojro/, for ye have oxen's ears 
 (^owv yap wra ex^re)^." It must be added that any insinuation 
 that the Boeotians had no ear for music and poetry would be as 
 true of them as it w^ould be of the modern Dutchman, that is 
 to say, it would not be true at alll 
 
 It may be fanciful to have carried thus far the comparison 
 between Holland and Boeotia, but if one observation more may be 
 hazarded, let it be by way of calling attention to the realism 
 which is common to both. If we regard Myron as half a Boeotian 
 by birth, it is open to us to point out that his Bucula was as famous 
 
 1 Additional Proverbs. Leutsch u. Schneidewin, i. 223, ii. 18; i. 357, ii. 105, 
 ii. 333. 'A.VTaybpa^ yap dvayivdoffKOJv irapa Botwrols rb rrjs 07;/3ai5os ypa/xfia, iirel 
 ovdds iTrearjfxalueTO, KXelaas rb pi^Xiov, eiVorws ^(prj, KaXeiaOe Boiwro£- ^oQv yap wra 
 
 ^X^re. (ii. 333.) 
 
 2 Music and Poetry. What has been said in chapter iii. will have shown the 
 falsehood of the charge in the case of the Boeotians ; the dwellers around Mount 
 Helicon were not, we must believe, deaf to the charms of music and poetry, 
 ('Grande locuturi nebulas Helicone legunto.' Pers. v. 7.) One does not readily 
 connect poetry with Holland; but it will be remembered that to the Dutch poet 
 Vondel Milton is sometimes supposed to owe a little. And as to music, a very 
 competent authority, Dr Joachim, has said of the modern Dutchman: "I have 
 found that the Dutch are exceptionally musical. They have branches of a large 
 and well-organised musical society in almost every town, and consequently their 
 taste is far better educated than that of many other nations." 
 
62 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 in antiquity as Paul Potter's Bull in modern days*. Myron was 
 fond of fjenre subjects, and this tendency of Boeotian art is pro- 
 minently revealed in Aristeides and in the Tanagra statuettes, while 
 genre painting is of course a principal feature of the Dutch Schools 
 The subject suggests a parallel between a famous Boeotian 
 and a famous Dutchman, both of whom have been frequently 
 mentioned already, Plutarch and Erasmus. Carlyle has some- 
 where, in his striking fashion, called Edward Gibbon ' the splendid 
 bridge from the ancient to the modern world.' The description 
 might, in a slightly different sense, be applied to both Plutarch 
 and Erasmus, even though the narrow votaries of style should 
 question, in Plutarch's case, the splendour of the structure. It is 
 the profound humanity of both writers, yet more than their 
 learning or their skill, that has enabled them to create a living 
 interest in antiquity, and to convince the slow of understanding 
 that the world, past and present, is close akin. About his own 
 life Plutarch tells us little, much as he has written of the lives of 
 others. But from his own pages we know how kindly he was to 
 all, how full of patriotic feeling, and how deeply devoted to those 
 of his own households Erasmus had no domestic circle, in youth 
 or age, but he won for himself the warm attachment of a large 
 band of friends, as well he might with his serene and genial 
 nature as disclosed in his self-revealing Letters, with his love 
 
 » Bucula. Cic, Verr., ii. 4. 60, § 185. 
 
 2 Genre Painting in Antiquity. Gebhart's pjeneral conclusion as to genre 
 painting in antiquity is: "La peinture de genre, dans rautiquit6, en Grece et a 
 Rome, Oil travaillent des artists grecs, fut id^aliste. Elle fut id<5aliste parce 
 qu'elle reproduisit, non la nature r^elle, mais une interpr(^tation de la nature. 
 Elle doua ses personnages d'ane grace ou d'nne laideur que ses modules vivants ne 
 possedaient pas tout entiere" (Emile Gebhart, Essai siir la Peinture de Genre dans 
 VAntiqidte, p. 61). But there seems ground, as seen above, for supposing that the 
 pictures of Aristeides showed a good deal of realism in subject and in treatment. 
 And of course the terms realism and idealism are purely relative. All truly great 
 artists, at any rate, are both realists and idealists.— Examples of genre work in the 
 statuettes of Tanagra are such subjects as: children at their games, or playing with 
 their favourite animals— spinning a top, or sitting astride a goose or a ram; women 
 busy with their baking or their toilet ; a barber trimming his customer's hair, or 
 a hawker vending his wares, etc. 
 
 3 A model household seems to have become traditional in the family of Plutarch : 
 cp. Marc. Aurel. i. 9, IlapA Z^t^ou, t6 evfxe.^, • Kal rb irapdbeiyna rod oIkov rod Trarpo'. 
 vofxovfiivov. Sextus of Chaeroneia, here referred to, was probably a grandson of 
 Plutarch. 
 
 . f, 
 
 THE BOEOTIANS AS THE DUTCHMEN OF GREECE. 
 
 63 
 
 I ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 of harmless comforts and of peace and quietness, with his hatred 
 of shams and affectations and pedantry. It was in the old tower 
 at Queens', as Cambridge men like to remember, that preparations 
 were made, during the year 1512 especially, for that edition of the 
 Greek Testament (the first to be printed and published) which was 
 to issue four years later from Froben's press at Basle. No better 
 example of the all-embracing love for his fellow-men which lightened 
 for Erasmus his superhuman toil during precarious health could be 
 found than in the ' Paraclesis,' or exhortation to the reader, which 
 he prefixes to that work : " I could wish that frail women every- 
 where might read the Gospels, might read the Epistles of St Paul. 
 I would that they were translated into every language throughout 
 the world, to the end that they might be read and understood not 
 only by Scotsmen and Irishmen but also by Turks and Saracens... 
 I would that the husbandman might sing their strains at the tail 
 of his plough, that the weaver might hum them at the loom, that 
 the wayfarer might beguile a weary journey with the tales that 
 the Gospels telP." 
 
 It has been said that, at the Revival of Learning, ' Greece rose 
 from the dead with the New Testament in her hand.' To that 
 joint re-awakening no single man contributed more than the 
 Scholar of Rotterdam, and his power and influence were in no 
 small measure due to the breadth of sympathy which made him 
 write : Fortasse latins se f audit spiritus Christi qinnn nos interpre- 
 tamur, et multi sunt in consortia sanctorum, qui non sunt apud nos 
 in catalogo'^ 
 
 1 The passage, more fully quoted, is: " Vehementer enim ab istis dissentio, qui 
 uolint ab idiotis legi divinas Literas in vulgi linguam transfusas, sive quasi Christus 
 tam involuta docuerit, ut vix a pauculis Theologis possint intelligi, sive quasi 
 religionis Christianae praesidium in hoc situm sit, si nesciatur. Regum mysteria 
 celare fortasse satius est. At Christus sua mysteria quam maxime cupit evulgari. 
 Optarim ut omnes mulierculae legant Euangelium, legant Paulinas Epistolas. Atque 
 utinam haec in omnes omnium linguas essent transfusa, ut non solum a Scotis et 
 Hibernis, sed a Turcis quoque et Saracenis legi cognoscique possint. Primus certe 
 gradus est, utcunque cognoscere. Esto, riderent multi, at caperentur aliquot. 
 Utinam hinc ad stivam aliquid decantet agricola, hinc nonnihil ad radios suos 
 moduletur textor, hujusmodi fabulis itineris taedium levet viator. Ex his sint 
 omnia Christianorum omnium coUoquia. Tales enim ferme sumus, quales sunt 
 quotidianae nostrae confabulationes." 
 
 2 Erasmus on Plutarch. Erasmus has frequently expressed his admiring sense 
 of the Christian spirit which pervades the writings of Plutarch, notwithstanding the 
 
64 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 ^ -J 
 
 THE BOEOTIANS AS THE DUTCHMEN OF GREECE. 
 
 65 
 
 .1- 
 
 But in transmitting the whole spirit of non-Christian antiquity 
 to modern times service no less noble was done, centuries earlier, 
 by the Sage of Chaeroneia, who caught that flickering flame, and 
 has kept it for ever alive on the Vestal altar of his works. The 
 light in which Plutarch represents Caesar's assassination is deeply 
 significant ; and it is noteworthy that in Jidivs Caesar, as well as 
 in AntoTiy and Cleopatra and Coriolanus, Shakespeare follows him 
 with a fidelity which he is far fiom observing in dealing with 
 the sources of his plays generally. Shakespeare knew Plutarch 
 through Sir Thomas North ; and it is convincing testimony to the 
 wide human interest of the works of the great Boeotian that the 
 translations of the Lives by Sir Thomas North and of the Morals 
 by Philemon Holland are landmarks in the English language 
 of hardly inferior value to Amyot's version of the Lives in 
 French. 
 
 The influence of Plutarch has at no time been confined to 
 merely literary circles — to the Montaignes, the Rousseaus, and 
 the Emersons. His works have given to many a man of action 
 a far truer appreciation of the motive forces of antiquity than has 
 been attained by scholars and writers. Standing on the broad 
 platform of humanity, Plutarch appeals, though himself an apostle 
 of the gentler virtues, not only to the men of peace and leisured 
 lives, but to the great military leaders, the kingly men, who with 
 no less love of peace than his are summoned to the field of war, 
 there to inspire their followers with that enthusiastic faith which 
 in battle overwhelms all obstacles. One example only, and that 
 the latest, will suffice. If we seek for the Ancient Hero come 
 back to life in our modern age, the mind turns naturally to Egypt, 
 
 fact that the new faith had apparently no direct influence on him. The first of the 
 following passages is, like that quoted in the text, taken from the Colloqiiia 
 Familiaria : (a) Hie codex habet aliquot Plutarchi libellos de moribus, sed selectos, 
 fet a quodam (Iraecae literaturae peritissimo non inscite descriptos; in qnibus 
 tantum reperio sanctimoniae, ut mihi prodigio simile videatur, in pectus hominis 
 ethnici tam Euangelicas potuisse venire cogitationes. Krasmi Opera Cura Clerk' i, 
 i. 688 B. (The reference, in the case of the passage quoted in the text, is i. 682 A. 
 of the same — the Leyden — edition.) {h) Nullus enim exstitit inter (xraecos scrip- 
 tores Plutarcho, praesertim quod ad mores attinet, sanctior aut lectu dignior 
 {ih. iv. 87). (c) Sed de moribus nemo feiicius scripsit quam Plutarchus, cujus 
 libelli digni sunt qui ad verbum ediscantur, e quibus Basilius et Chrysostomus multa 
 videntur hausisse. ih, v. 856 E. 
 
 '' 
 
 K: 
 
 still as of old the land of mysterious doom, and to a distant fort 
 held stoutly by a man whose life was simple, whoso devotion to 
 duty was unfaltering, whose pursuit of honour rather than of 
 honours was proved not in word only but by every deed of his 
 life. At Khartoum, during the siege, Charles Gordon wrote in his 
 diary : " Certainly I would make Plutarch's Lives a handbook for 
 our young oflficers ; it is worth any number of ' Arts of War ' or 
 ' Minor Tactics^ '." The words are written with the unpretending 
 plainness which marked the man, but they are, to apply Pindar's 
 phrase once more, eloquent to the understanding ear^. 
 
 ^ 'Journals of Major-Gen. Gordon at Khartoum,' p. 64. In other entries General 
 Gordon complains that " Plutarch's Lives are no longer in vogue" — that the idea 
 of simple duty has lost its once sovereign power. 
 
 2 It may he added here, with regard to Holland, that England has hardly 
 realised her connexion with, and indebtedness to, that country. In a recent article 
 on the 'History of English Policy' {Contemporanj Review, July, 1894) Sir J. R. 
 Seeley has pointed to the Dutch Stadtholder, bur William III., as the third of those 
 'international persons' (Queen Elizabeth, Oliver Cromwell, and William) who 
 directed English foreign policy, in its early stages, and linked England to the 
 continent. " Nor will William III. appear the only link between our State and the 
 Dutch Republic. His predecessors in the Stadtholderate, as far back as William the 
 Silent, will appear to us as figures in English history, and we shall recognise the 
 curious parallelism in the development of the two Sea Powers from the time when 
 they stood forth to break the Spanish monopoly of maritime power and colonial 
 possession." 
 
 The tone of the nineteenth-century historian is very different from that of the 
 seventeenth-century satirist : — 
 
 Holland that scarce deserves the name of land, 
 As but th' off-scouring of the British sand; 
 And so much earth as was contributed 
 By English Pilots when they heav'd the lead ; 
 Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell. 
 Of shipwreck'd cockle and the muscle-shell; 
 This indigested vomit of the sea 
 Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. 
 
 How fit a title cloaths their Governors, 
 Themselves the hogs, as all their subjects boars ! 
 
 Andrew Marvell, The Character of Holland. 
 
 R. 
 
« < — 36 l 
 
 MMM 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 67 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The aim of this investigation has been not to uphold any 
 paradox, but (as stated at the outset) simply to bring together 
 some of the hard things which have been said of the Boeotians, 
 and to advance certain considerations which may be urged in 
 modification of so harsh an estimate and in favour of a more 
 lenient view. 
 
 It will be convenient to begin the following summary of results 
 with what may be called the Attic verdict. As to the nature of 
 this verdict there is no doubt. The proverb BoLcorla u?, and such 
 words as v^pc^, irXeove^la, and dvaLo-Orjo-ia, suggest the Athenian 
 attitude towards the Boeotians in general and the Thebans in 
 particular. Cratinus, Aristophanes, Menander, and the Comic 
 Poets as a body, fill in the details. Demosthenes sometimes 
 manifests the dislike which his countrymen felt, but at other 
 times a strong sense of public duty keeps him within bounds. 
 Through the Attic writers, as the acknowledged arbiters of the 
 world of letters, a sort of literary tradition unfjxvourable to the 
 Boeotians seems to have established itself. The effect of this 
 literary tradition is seen in late Greek authors sucli as Dion 
 Chrysostomus, and in Latin authors like Cicero, Horace, Nepos, 
 and Tertullian. Its existence may possibly be traced in the 
 mediaeval Dante, while it has left its mark on writers in every 
 century of English literature from the sixteenth onward. No one 
 will contend that each of these later authors — Greek, Latin, and 
 English — had been at pains to form an independent opinion on 
 
 1 
 
 the matter. They would follow the judgment of the world — the 
 lettered world. 
 
 There is, thus, no doubt as to the nature of the Attic verdict, 
 and little doubt as to its subsequent influence in literary circles. 
 It is not less certain that the Athenians were prejudiced witnesses. 
 Demosthenes expressly admits their blinding antipathy, and it is 
 easy to give examples of it and reasons for it. With the Boeotians 
 they were engaged in perpetual hostilities, carrying on a petty 
 border-warfare, and striking blows, wherever possible, at the 
 integrity of the League. The ill-feeling almost inevitable between 
 jealous and powerful neighbours was further intensified by differ- 
 ences in political constitution. Nay more : the contrast in 
 temperament between them was so great that the Athenians, 
 even if unprejudiced otherwise, could with diflficulty have brought 
 themselves to form a just estimate of the Boeotians. The Boeotian 
 chaiacter will be spoken of more at length presently ; but what- 
 ever else it was, it will be conceded to have been, on the whole 
 and with the exception of occasional outbursts of passion, of the 
 undemonstrative order. Tiie Athenians, on the contrary, were 
 versatile, mercurial, restless, straining continually after effect, in- 
 ordinately fond of making an impression. They often show the weak 
 points of the so-called ' artistic temperament ' in an aggravated 
 form. They remind one, often, of the literary man on his weak 
 side, as characterised by Sir Walter Scott ; he cannot help thinking 
 himself a centre of interest wherever he may be. In many ways 
 Alcibiades is the typical Athenian, ambitious and given to display. 
 This phase of the Athenian character appears to have been col- 
 loquially recognised by the later Greeks in the proverb 'Attlko^ 
 etV \t/ji€va, which implied that an Athenian, when nearing 
 harbour, would row with redoubled vigour, in order to gain the 
 admiration and applause of his friends on shore \ The difference, 
 therefore, in native disposition between the Athenian and the 
 Boeotian would be something similar to that between an emotional 
 Frenchman of to-day and a phlegmatic Dutchman. Military 
 
 *^ 'Arrt/c^s ets Xifx^va. Leutsch ii. Schneidewin, i. 34, ii. 148, ii. 315. Cp. the 
 Irish car-driver, who 'reserved himself for the avenue.' — Some thoughts on the 
 desirability of combining what we may call ' Attic ' and 'Boeotian' qualities will be 
 suggested by Plato, Tiej). vi. 494 and 503, iii. 411. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 69 
 
 hostilities and commercial rivalries can do much to prejudice 
 nation against nation — witness England and Holland — but here 
 we have an opposite natural bent to take into account as well. 
 As an illustration of the effect of prejudice, but with no wish to 
 argue from a precarious historical parallel, the reputation of the 
 modern Dutchman has been thought to deserve some slight con- 
 sideration in a separate chapter. The illustration shows this, if 
 nothing else, that once a people has come to be regarded as a 
 convenient type of dullness and stupidity, any indications of an 
 opposite nature are apt to be overlooked. 
 
 If we turn from literature in general to one branch of it — 
 history — in particular, we find that Boeotia has been unfortunate 
 here also, especially as regards the period of which we should 
 gladly have heard most. Herodotus, first of all, treats of the 
 period of the Persian Wars, when the record of Boeotia was not a 
 happy one ; he probably shows no bias, but if he had a bias at 
 all, it would, naturally and properly, be in fixvour of Athens. 
 Thucydides, though an Athenian, would have dealt impartially 
 with Boeotia, and done her justice in her greatness ; but in the 
 war which he describes Boeotia played but a secondary part, and 
 the most he can do is to say the best that can be said in defence of 
 the Theban treatment of Plataea. Xenophon, a contemporary 
 Athenian with no prejudice in favour of his own country, seemed 
 born to record in worthy style the great period of Boeotian history. 
 But Xenophon had a strong prejudice of his own ; and his admira- 
 tion of Agesilaus and Sparta made him unjust to Epaminondas 
 and Thebes. For this distortion of Xenophon's narrative, the 
 History of Ephorus and the Epaminondas of Plutarch would have 
 made some amends, but they are lost. 
 
 A surviving fragment of Ephorus is, however, the most valuable 
 of the direct historical judgments as to Boeotian character and 
 culture. Polybius' view must also be received with respect ; but 
 there seems ground for supposing that, though probably unaffected 
 by Attic prejudice, Polybius had some reason for being specially 
 sensitive on the question of Boeotian reputation. In any case it 
 must be remembered that his animadversions refer to a late 
 period. 
 
 With the modern historians of Greece and with readers generally 
 
 ) 
 
 
 ' 
 
 the Boeotians have, as a rule, suffered not only from Attic attacks, 
 but also from Attic neighbourhood. This point perhaps deserves 
 a little emphasis and amplification. In antiquity it was the hard 
 lot of the Boeotians to be harassed in war by the Athenians, and 
 beyond that to suffer in reputation through their sharp tongues. 
 But the mischief did not end even there. The Boeotians have 
 been damaged, both in antiquity and with posterity, as much 
 through the mere juxtaposition of Athens as through her biting 
 satire. Athens and Boeotia, or Athens and Thebes, became a 
 fashionable contrast or antithesis, of which we hear a distant echo 
 in Dryden's lines already given. And the contrast cannot be 
 denied. Whatever may be said as to the weak side of the 
 Athenians, they were a brilliant and unmatchable race. But then, 
 why this penalty of comparison, why this Boeotian foil ? The 
 answer must simply be, the accident of juxtaposition. This is at 
 once evident if we think of other Grecian states. We should not 
 find it difficult to say something in justification of the proverbs 
 ^Apyeia ^9, or Aa/€a)vcKrj v^, or particularly KopivOla v^ : but the 
 supposed proverbs do not exist. And yet it must not be supposed 
 that the Boeotians were the only Greek people who to their 
 neighbours appeared to be slow or stupid. The Corinthians in 
 Thucydides, for example, expressly attribute to dvalaOyrov to the 
 Lacedaemonians *. Well might the Boeotians have desired what 
 Strepsiades in the Clouds dreaded, namely that Sparta and Athens 
 should be close together on the map, for then Sparta rather than 
 Boeotia might have been branded with an evil name ^ 
 
 It should, thus, be remembered that Boeotia had, to her great 
 detriment at the time and in future reputation, restless literary 
 neighbours, who were as brilliant as they were troublesome. The 
 deeds of these neighbours were unfriendly ; their words were 
 rancorous ; and the standard of comparison which their unrivalled 
 greatness has suggested to later ages is exacting in the extreme. 
 In the modern Histories of Greece the record of Boeotia is, perhaps 
 
 1 Thucyd. i. 69. 
 
 - Aristoph., Nubes, 215, 21G. — For Sparta, cp. Jowett, Dialogues of Plato, iii. 
 cxc. : '* The genius, the poUtical inspiration of Athens, the love of liberty — all that 
 has made Greece famous with posterity, were wanting among the Spartans. They 
 had no Themistocles, or Pericles, or Aeschylus, or Sophocles, or Socrates, or Plato." 
 
MWMMMMMnati 
 
 70 
 
 THE AXCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 71 
 
 unavoidably, presented and read in contrast with that of Attica 
 rather than with that of Argos or any other of the secondary 
 states. The impression created is a very unfair one, and the ad- 
 vantage of a separate inquiry is that it brings the facts together 
 in an independent way. The facts thus viewed may be briefly 
 recapitulated. 
 
 Ephorus is no doubt right in suggesting that the Boeotians (or 
 their leaders) needed culture and were improved by it. But 
 at the same time it is clear that there are far more signs of culture, 
 individual and general, in Boeotia than is usually supposed, and 
 than Ephorus (who was not a Boeotian) may have himself been 
 aware. 
 
 In literature Boeotia presents names which, taken together, 
 can be surpassed in no other district of Greece, Attica alone 
 excepted. Hesiod and Pindar are great both in themselves and 
 in their influence beyond Boeotian boundaries, while the influence 
 of Plutarch has been universal. The names of the well-known 
 Myrtis and Corinna, and of the obscure Dionysodorus and Anaxis, 
 may suggest the thought that, in Boeotia, literary activity was not 
 confined to one field or to one sex. Inscriptions and excavations 
 also furnish evidence that there was a considerable diffusion of 
 culture, in the benefits of which women shared. It is clear, from 
 this evidence, chat there existed in Boeotia a surprising number 
 of shrines and festivals, designed to satisfy religious beliefs and 
 artistic aspirations. The literary and musical contest at Thebes 
 in which, according to the story, Corinna defeated Pindar, would 
 be but one of many festivals of the kind. 
 
 Among the musical arts, flute-playing was, at Thebes especially, 
 carried to a high degree of perfection, and men like Pronomus, 
 Orthagoras, and Antigenidas were famous throughout Greece. 
 But in the arts generally Boeotia holds a higher place than has 
 usually been assigned to her. In painting the most notable names 
 are those of Nicomachus and Aristeides. The fame of these 
 painters may be inferred from the fact that the subjects of so 
 many of their pictures are still known to us. In sculpture, we 
 should like to claim Myron (and the Discobolus) for Boeotia, did 
 his birth at the border-town of Eleutherae furnish sufficient 
 ground for doing so. 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 '». 
 
 Whatever may be the truth with regard to Myron, the ex- 
 cavations at the temple of Apollo Ptoios, and those at Tanagra, 
 tell an unmistakable tale of artistic tastes and tendencies. The 
 former point to the existence of a Boeotian school of sculpture 
 in early times ; the latter have proved the presence of a taste for 
 a form of art which appealed to popular sympathies by allowing a 
 delicate fancy to play freely upon the familiar events of every- 
 day life. 
 
 When the defective sources of our information are considered, 
 the existence of so many signs of a widespread culture in Boeotia 
 may well excite surprise. They would be remarkable anyw^here 
 but in Greece ; and in Greece itself they arc remarkable if we 
 leave Attica out of the reckoning. It must not be forgotten 
 that, in size, Boeotia (like Attica) was no larger than an average 
 English county \ 
 
 And yet there would have been still more culture with its 
 attendant advantages, had it not been for such causes as the 
 internal dissensions of the Boeotians. Boeotia is, as has just been 
 said, not larger than an average English county ; and it may be 
 added that the distance between Thebes and the town of Plataea 
 which, it will be recollected, seceded to Athens, was not more than 
 eight or nine miles. The geographical details given in the second 
 cha])ter will have shown how this little district was thickly covered 
 with city-states, which desired to be as completely independent of 
 the principal town Thebes, and of all other towns, as one modern 
 state is of another. In their passion for absolute autonomy (to use 
 a word of their own invention), the Greek city-states remind us of 
 certain lower forms of animal life which multiply by division and 
 propagate themselves by an eternal process of bisection. As a 
 natural consequence, union between different states for the common 
 good was hard to secure. Greek politics resembled, if we may 
 introduce a fresh comparison, Greek games : individual was pitted 
 against individual rather than side against side. 
 
 These divisions, within and without the cities, made themselves 
 felt, for evil, to an even greater extent in Boeotia than in the rest 
 of Greece. They led to discreditable conduct in the Persian Wars, 
 
 ^ The area of Boeotia is stated to be 1119 square miles; that of Essex, the tenth 
 in size of tJie P]nglish counties, is 1G48 square miles. 
 
mamm 
 
 mm 
 
 72 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 and they afforded a constant opening to the ambitious designs of 
 Athens at, and beyond, the Boeotian frontier. The evidence of 
 coins and inscriptions shows how fickle was the allegiance of 
 the members of the League, and how enduring was the antagonism 
 between Thebes and other Boeotian towns, Orchomenus and Plataea 
 especially. The extent to which civic individualism must have 
 at one time prevailed may be gathered from the fact that mere 
 villages, like Aulis, Delium, Mycalessus, and Chaeroneia, occupied 
 in the times within our knowledge a position which seems to have 
 implied original independence. 
 
 With these divisions and subdivisions, these feuds and jealousies, 
 existing within a narrow area itself surrounded by hostile neigh- 
 bour-states, it was impossible to achieve any worthy end. All the 
 energy of the country went in ccmtention, and popular culture 
 was gravely hindered. Union was the first condition of improve- 
 ment, as Epaminondas saw and as the example of Attica made 
 plain. 
 
 Epaminondas had himself received a wide and liberal training 
 in his youth. Like Simmias and Cebes, and like Proxenus, he had 
 come into contact with teachers of other districts than his own. 
 Not only was he, when a boy, instructed in the usual elements of 
 a Greek education, but as he grew to manhood he enjoyed the 
 companionship and guidance of the Pythagorean philosopher Lysis, 
 who resided under his fiither's roof. The Pythagoreans regarded 
 culture as an aid to the development of character. Philosophy, as 
 they understood it, was a disci2:)line which gave men power over 
 themselves and others. 
 
 Epaminondas is a striking illustration of the influence of 
 training and ideas amidst unpromising surroundings. Setting in 
 his own person the example of self-denial, he found followers 
 among a race prone to self-indulgence. In a short time he was 
 able to effect wonders in the way of liberalising, ennobling, and 
 uniting Boeotia. The rule of philosophers delivered Boeotia from 
 Spartan tyranny, and carried her from a state of semi-servitude to 
 a height of prosperity and a brilliant headship which she never knew 
 before or after. 
 
 Epaminondas grappled with the difficulties and dissensions 
 which confronted him in the spirit of a large-minded nationalist 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 73 
 
 
 
 one whose aims promise union rather than severance, the breaking 
 down of old barriers rather tlian the erection of new ones. His 
 purpose was to unify Boeotia with her warring towns and mixed 
 races, and to make her a worthy leader of the Greek peoples and a 
 power in the world. Aristotle's reflexion about the ' ability of the 
 Greek race, if united in one polity, to rule the world,' often comes 
 to mind ; and we feel that some such idea may have been in the 
 mind of Epaminondas, though he had to leave its realisation, in a 
 different form, to Alexander the Great, who extended the dominion 
 of the Greek spirit over the then known worlds 
 
 With this desire for union, and for the repression of party- 
 spirit and narrow local interests, it is natural in our day to feel 
 special sympathy ; and perhaps one of the missions of the smaller 
 nations, if they but knew it, is to foster that international amity 
 which the distant future will surely see. Boeotia has contributed 
 much towards this end, although in part involuntarily. As a country 
 she provides us with a lasting warning, but in her great men with 
 an imposing example. Epaminondas has just been mentioned. 
 Pindar was iis Panhellenic as Epaminondas. Proud as he is of 
 Thebes, Pindar feels that he is a citizen of the whole of Greece, 
 almost every quarter of which he seems, as we have seen, to have 
 visited. He does not write in the Boeotian dialect (any more 
 than Erasmus wrote in the language of Holland), but in a form 
 of Greek which will reach a wider circle. He is animated by 
 the love of noble beauty and the hatred of envy. For his art 
 he lives, and local feuds and factions drag not down his spirit. 
 And lastly there is Plutarch, whose large-hearted sympathies 
 embrace alike the family, his native town, Boeotia, Greece, the 
 Roman world, and mankind at large. It has been somewhat the 
 ftishion, on the part of German writers, to ridicule Plutarch's local 
 patriotism-. It is easy to point out that he was parted from the 
 age of Epaminondas by an even wider interval than that which 
 divides an Englishman of to-day from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 ^ Aristot., Politicx, vii. vi. (vii.): t6 8e tCov'EWtjvojv yivos (xxxirep fieaevei Kara Toui 
 rdirovs, oi'Vws d^<poLv /jut^x^'- ' '^^'- 7^P ^vdv/xov Kai diayorjnKov icrriu ' 5t67rep iXevdepov 
 re StareXet Kai (iiXTiara iroXt.Tevoixevov Kai dvud/xivoy apx'^'-v Trdi'ru'j/, /xtcts Tiryxdi/oj/ 
 TToXtrc/as. 
 
 2 Niebuhr is a special offender in this respect. See Hanske, Plutarch ids B'ooter^ 
 
 ad init. 
 
tmm 
 
 ii m" »■»" 
 
 mm 
 
 74 
 
 THE ANCIKNT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 75 
 
 But it is easy also to admire the man who can value at their true 
 worth local traditions and individual characteristics while taking 
 his part gladly in the larger world in which his own lot is cast. 
 In this volume less hesitation has been felt in treating Plutarch, 
 notwithstanding his late date, as an example of the men Boeotia 
 could breed, because it appears to the writer that Plutarch's 
 Boeotian patriotism, ridiculous though it may seem to some 
 critics, was a very real force in the formation of his character, 
 and is, in part, the secret of his subsequent great influence 
 with the world at large. 'That man's the best cosmopolite 
 Who loves his native country best.' The cosmopolitan virtues 
 are for most, if not for all men, best based upon the domestic and 
 civic virtues. 
 
 When we contrast the attitude of many Attic writers towards 
 Boeotia, it is pleasant to observe the frank admiration of Pindar 
 and Plutarch for Attica. In the case of the latter there is no 
 valid reason for supposing, as some have done, that his affection 
 for Boeotia and Chaeroneia made him unfair to Athens. Not to 
 speak of the lapse of centuries and the growth of a world-empire, 
 Plutarch had too large a heart and too good a head to have ever 
 found Athens less than glorious. His admiration is seen everywhere, 
 but best of all perhaps in his description of the imperishable youth 
 and beauty which clad the Periclean works of art at Athens. " For 
 this cause therefore the works Pericles made are more wonderfull, 
 because they were perfectly made in so short a time, and have 
 continued so long a seiison. For every one of those which were 
 finished up at that time, seemed then to be very ancient touching 
 the beauty thereof; and yet for the grace and continuance of the 
 same it looketh at this day as if it were but newly done and 
 finished, there is such a certain kind of flourishing freshness in it, 
 which letteth that the injury of time cannot impair the sight 
 thereof As if every of those foresaid works had some living spirit 
 in it, to make it seem young and fresh, and a soul that lived ever, 
 which kept them in their good continuing state." (Plutarch, 
 Pericles, c. xii. Sir Thomas North's Translation.) 
 
 To show no grudging spirit towards Athens would be more 
 difficult for Pindar than fV)r Plutarch. He lived many centuries 
 earlier, and he was a loyal Theban, proud of his ancient ancestry. 
 
 and profoundly influenced by the legends and the religious beliefs 
 of his own land. But no jealousy of Athens and the glory she 
 had won in the Persian Wars kept Pindar mute. He addressed 
 her in lines which were treasured as a national heirloom. If he 
 has inflicted an injury at all, it is upon his own country rather 
 than upon Attica. Though his aim was to vindicate Boeotia, he 
 has probably done her a disservice, in that he has helped to 
 immortalise the scurrilous proverb BotcoTLa u9, which he wished 
 to confute. Perhaps it is a needless task to assume the part of 
 the melancholy Jacpies and * moralise this spectacle,' but the trite 
 and inevitable moral, if one be required, is that Pindar acted 
 unwisely in publishing a slander even for the purpose of protesting 
 against it. If left to itself, the slander might have passed into 
 oblivion long ago. As it is, we find that it pajssed, instead, into 
 the currency of the world's judgments, whose mingled shallowness 
 and confidence it fully shares, since it rests almost entirely on the 
 unchallenged verdict of the lords of literature, those Attic neigh- 
 bours, who chose to look down upon the Boeotians as bucolic 
 and illiterate, and expressed their disdain in bucolic metaphor. 
 
 Having thus come back to the Pindaric starting-point of this 
 discussion, we may sum up the conclusions reached, as follows. 
 
 1. The Attic verdict, the source of the literary tradition adverse 
 to the Boeotians, is a highly prejudiced and exaggerated one. 
 
 2. The direct judgments of historians and geographers either 
 refer to a late period, or are (when compared with the Attic 
 verdict) mild and discriminating. 3. A consideration of the 
 political history of Boeotia does not, if due regard is paid to the 
 public morality of the age, suggest an uncjualified condemnation 
 of the national character even in the darkest period. 4. In the 
 time of Epaminondas the national character proved equal to a great 
 struggle for freedom and power. 5. A review of literature and 
 the arts in Boeotia shows great individual names and many signs 
 of a diffused culture. 6. Epaminondas is a unique example of 
 the happy union of character and culture ; Proxenus, and Simmijis 
 and Cebes, show that the two were also found attractively com- 
 bined in lesser men. 7. The breadth of mind, the extended 
 patriotism, and the wide influence of the great men of Boeotia 
 are as remarkable as are the divisions and dissensions which ruled 
 
76 
 
 THE ANCIENT BOEOTIANS. 
 
 within that little area. 8. The parallel case of Holland illustrates 
 the prevalent tendency to undervalue the stolid races. 
 
 Stolid the Boeotians no doubt were, and self-indulgent. So 
 much should be admitted. Ephorus is our authority for saying 
 that military prowess and physical strength were apt to be pursued 
 by them to the neglect of culture. The short duration of Boeotian 
 greatness, though other reasons contributed to its brevity, seems 
 to point in the same direction. And yet a large body of evidence 
 in favour of modifying the traditional reputation of the Boeotians 
 in the matter of character and culture, can, as has been seen, 
 be found, notwithstanding the undoubted ill-fortune of their 
 country in respect of historians, and of Attic prejudice and Attic 
 contrast. Under such untoward conditions, we can well believe 
 that steadiness and stolidity might come to be regarded as stupidity 
 (dpacadrjala); a proud and warlike spirit, as insolence (v^pi^); 
 simplicity in a good sense, as simplicity in a bad sense (the 
 two kinds of evT^deca); self-indulgence as swinishness (HoLcorla 1)9). 
 But such exaggerations provide, when once examined, their own 
 refutation, as in the instance before us. Whatever else they may 
 have been, there is no ground for believing that the Boeotians as 
 a people were 'swine,' sunk in utter grossness and stupidity. 
 Any sweeping judgment, good or bad, is unwise in the case of 
 an individual; it is still more unwise in the case of a pecjple ; 
 it is most of all unwise in the case of a people so divided among 
 themselves as the Boeotians. It was in the Persian Wars that the 
 worst public blot fell upon the Boeotian name ; but even in the 
 Persian Wars, Plataea and Thespiae fought, it will be remembered, 
 for the liberties of Greece. 
 
 A few final words may be added as to this self-indulgent race 
 and its great leader. The self-indulgence has been admitted. 
 The Boeotians were, it may be, tempted to enjoy, rather than to 
 exert, themselves by two things chiefly, the heaviness of their 
 atmosphere and the fertility of their land, as contrasted with the 
 physical conditions under which their neighbours lived : 
 
 Where on the ^Egeaii shore a city stands 
 Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil K 
 
 » Dryden's estimate of the effect of cHmate upon the Boeotians may be remem- 
 bered. "He (Pkitarch) was born in Cbaeronea, a smaU city of Boeotia, in Greece, 
 
 mm 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 77 
 
 Their favourite enjoyments were, it would seem, those of the 
 table. Just as the dissipation of the Athenians of the decline 
 would be to 'spend their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or 
 to hear some new thing,' so the dissipation of the Boeotians of the 
 decline would be to ' have at their call more dinners in a month 
 than there are days in the month.' This probably represents the 
 natural tendency of both peoples, extravagant though the idea of 
 the Boeotians as the over-taxed diners-out of anti(|uity may at first 
 sight appear. But this very sensuousness {sensmdiUj it would be 
 hard to call it) has its strong points when pro[)erly controlled and 
 directed ; as such it has an attraction of its own, as we see in Epami- 
 nondas with his spare diet and his strong human affections and re- 
 fined pleasures, and as we see too in the parallel case of Erasmus, 
 who with his genial love of Greek wine and English friends com- 
 bined the simplest habits of life. It must not be forgotten that the 
 Boeotians generally, if they were valiant trenchermen, were valiant 
 swordsmen also. It must not be forgotten that if Vhomme sensuel 
 moyen did more abound in Boeotia than in Attica, yet the sensual 
 world of Boeotia had its crowded hour of glorious life in the age 
 of Epaminondas. Epaminondas himself is said to have exclaimed 
 with respect to a man who, about the time of the battle of Leuctra. 
 ' died of sicknesse in his bed ' (as Doctor Philemon Holland pro- 
 fessionally phrases it), " O Hercules, how had this man any leisure 
 to dye amidst so many important affaires * ! " 
 
 The truth is that the Boeotians, if looked at neither with the 
 contempt of superior neighbours nor with a misplaced admiration 
 due to a feeling of revulsion against so much undue depreciation, 
 have many sterling claims upon our regard. There is a stability, 
 
 between Attica and Phocis, and reaching to both seas. The climate not much 
 befriended by the heavens, for the air is thick and foggy; and consequently the 
 inhabitants partaking of its influence, gross feeders and fat-witted, brawny and 
 unthinking, — just the constitution of heroes, cut out for the executive and brutal 
 business of war; but so stupid in the designing part, that in all the revolutions of 
 Greece they were never masters, but only in those few years when they were led by 
 Epaminondas, or Pelopidas." (John Dryden, Life of Plutarch : Sir Walter Scott's 
 edition of Dryden's Works, xvii. 19.) 
 
 ^ Pint., De Sanitate Praecepta, xxiii: 6ir€p yap (pacnv eiwdv rbv 'Eira/unvwvSav 
 pLfTo. TraifJta?, av5pb^ dyadov nepl ra AevKTptKo. voffu) TeXevTrjaavTos, ^il 'HpaK'Xets, ttoJs 
 eaxoXacrev dvr]p dwodaveiv ev ToaoiWois Trpdy/xaffiu ; 
 
78 
 
 thp: ancient Boeotians. 
 
 a solidity, a simplicity and naturalness, a reality and depth, about 
 them which make them an agreeable contrast to the excitable and 
 somewhat artificial Athenians, and assuredly not less welcome in 
 the general scheme of things. They had a large reserve of force, 
 and though not readily fired, they had an ample store of that latent 
 ardour which only needs the kindling touch of a great man. 
 
 The greatest of their great men was Epaminondas. And 
 though it would be folly to judge a race solely by its most dis- 
 tinguished representatives, it would be equal folly to frame any 
 estimate which took no account of them. In the eyes of all but 
 ' Attic neighbours,' Great Britain includes Shakespeare as well as 
 the most illiterate British peasant that ever found three hundred 
 words a superabundant vocabulary for the expression of his ideas. 
 
 Some reader, hard to convince, may chance to think that this 
 volume is, in design, a Laus Boeotiae, and that Laus Boeottae, in 
 spite of all that can be said, means nothing more nor less than Laus 
 Stultitiae. But if such are the phrases which present themselves 
 to his mind, he may be expected also to remember that the author 
 of the Encommm Moriae, blending jest and earnest in delightful 
 irony, intended the title he had chosen to suggest the name of his 
 friend Sir Thomas More, whom he loved and honoured as a paragon 
 among men. To the thoughts of even so sceptical a reader as the 
 one here assumed it is to be hoped that Laus Boeotiae, whatever 
 else it may suggest, will suggest Laus Epaminondae. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 B.C. 
 
 [1124] 
 
 [728] 
 
 519 
 
 491 
 
 490 
 480 
 479 
 
 457 
 
 44' 
 
 431 
 
 429-427 
 424 
 423 
 
 A. Dates w the Political History of Boeotia. 
 
 Iniinigration of the Boeotians. [Traditional date, 60 years 
 
 after the Trojan War : cp. p. 42 supra.] 
 Philolaus of Corinth legislates at Thebes. 
 
 [P'roni the earliest histoiical times we find Thebes (1) the 
 leading member of a League of Boeotian towns, (2) under oli- 
 garchical government.] 
 
 Secession of the Plataeans. 
 
 [Grote places this event ten years later.] 
 
 Darius sends heralds to Greece to demand earth and water. 
 Battle of Marathon. 
 Battle of Thermopylae. 
 Battle of Plataea. 
 
 [Position of Theban, and other oligarchies in Boeotia, 
 gravely shaken as a result of the Persian Wars.] 
 
 Battles of Tanagra and Oenophyta. 
 
 [Theban authority temporarily restored by the battle of 
 Tanagra ; but Athenian influence, and through it democracy 
 and local independence, strong in Boeotia from the battle of 
 Oenophyta (nine weeks after Tanagra) to 447 B.C.] 
 
 Battle of Coroneia (first battle of that name). 
 
 [Restoration of oligarchies throughout Boeotia, and 
 strengthening of the Confederation. Spartan infiuence con- 
 tributes to this result.] 
 
 Plataea attacked by the Thebans. 
 
 Beginning of the Peloponnesian War. 
 
 Plataea l)esieged by the Peloponnesians. 
 
 Battle of Delium. Athenians defeated. 
 
 The Thebans raze the walls of Thespiae to the ground. 
 
7 
 
 MM 
 
 80 
 
 B.C. 
 
 422 
 418 
 414 
 413 
 
 411 
 
 404 
 
 402 
 395 
 394 
 387 
 
 386 
 
 382 
 
 379 
 
 377 
 374 
 
 371 
 
 370 
 369 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Paiiactuiii seized by the Boeotians. 
 
 Epaminondas }x)rn aljout this time. 
 
 Democratic rising at Thespiae suppressed by the Thebans. 
 
 The Boeotians send help to the Syracusans. The Phitaeans 
 
 tight on the Athenian side. 
 Massacre of women and children at Mycalessus by Thracian 
 
 mercenaries. 
 Oropus seized by the Boeotians. 
 Lysander captures Athens. End of the Peloponnesian War. 
 
 Bitter attitude of Thebes. 
 [In the period which follows, the democratic party under 
 Ismenias comes to the front at Thebes, and there is increased 
 intercourse with Athens.] 
 
 The Boeotians expel the inhabitants of Oropus. 
 
 Secession of Orchomenus. 
 
 Battle of Coroneia (second battle of that name). 
 
 Peace ' of ' Antalcidas. 
 
 Dissolution of the Boeotian League. 
 
 Plataea restored by Sparta. [It had been destroyed in 
 
 427.] 
 Phoebidas seizes the Cadmeia. Lacedaemonian harmosts in 
 
 Boeotian towns. 
 Liberation of Thebes. Boeotian League re-established. 
 
 [Democracy now takes the place of oligarchy at Thebes 
 and elsewhere.] 
 
 Rising at Thespiae put down. 
 Battle of Tegyra. 
 
 [At dates, which it is not easy to give exactly, but 
 between 373 and 363 B.C., the following Boeotian towns 
 were destroyed by Tlie))es : Plataea, Thespiae, Orchomenus, 
 Coroneia.] 
 Epaminondas at Sparta claims to represent the Boeotian 
 
 League. 
 Battle of Leuctra. 
 Threatening attitude of Jason of Pherae. (The Thessalians 
 
 had previously given the Boeotians cause for alarm.) 
 Epaminondas and Pelopidas in the Peloponnese. 
 Foundation of Megalopolis. 
 Restoration of Messene. Epaminondas again in the Peloponnese. 
 
 A. DATES IN THE POLITICAL HISTORY OF BOEOTIA. 
 
 81 
 
 I 
 
 B.C. 
 
 369, 8 
 368 
 
 367 
 
 366 
 364 
 362 
 
 358 
 357 
 346 
 338 
 
 335 
 
 315 
 312 
 303 
 278 
 244 
 171 
 
 146,5 
 
 R. 
 
 Expedition of Pelopidas to Thessaly. 
 
 Pelopidas seized by Alexander of Pherae. 
 
 Pelopidas rescued by Epaminondas. 
 
 Pelopidas at Susa. 
 
 Epaminondas in Achaia. [His Third Expedition into the 
 
 Peloponnese.] 
 Oropus seized by partisans of Thebes. 
 War between Elis and Arcadia. 
 
 Naval expedition of Epaminondas as far as Byzantium. 
 Pelopidas falls at Cynoscephalae. 
 
 Fourth Expedition of Epaminondas into the Peloponnese. 
 Battle of Mantineia. 
 Death of Epaminondas. Peace made. 
 Euboic War : between the Thebans and the Athenians. 
 Sacred War : against the Phocians. 
 The men of Orchomenus driven from Boeotia. 
 Alliance between Athens and Thebes brought about by 
 
 Demosthenes. 
 Battle of Chaeroneia. 
 Macedonian garrison in the Cadmeia. 
 The inhabitants of Orchomenus, Thespiae, and Plataea, return 
 
 to Boeotia. Oropus is handed over to the Athenians by 
 
 Philip. 
 Destruction of Thebes by Alexander at the instigation of 
 
 Orchomenus, Thespiae, and Plataea. [The house once 
 
 occupied by Pindar was spared : ' the great Emathian 
 
 conqueror,' etc.] 
 Thebes restored by Cassander. 
 Oropus again in the hands of the Boeotians. 
 Demetrius Poliorcetes expels the garrison of Cassander. 
 Expedition of the Gauls into Greece. 
 The Boeotians in alliance with the Macedonians. 
 Dissolution of the League by Quintus Marcius Philippus. 
 
 (See extract from Polybius on p. 26 supra. — The finality of 
 
 this dissolution is the subject of some dispute. For one view, 
 
 see Freeman, History of Federal Government^ p. 144; for 
 
 another, Hermes viii. 434 n. 2.) 
 Capture of Corinth. Thebes destroyed. Greece a Roman 
 
 Province. 
 
 6 
 
 \ 
 
, -.t-Mi^B^jrtwtrW'iil'^wiWIWK n .III ,B--w*«.ag 
 
 82 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 B. ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 88 
 
 Of course it will be understood that (1) many of the dates given 
 above are approximate, and that (2) the list very inadequately represents 
 the chequered and stormy career of Boeotia. 
 
 We can see, however, that Thebes steadily claimed the headship 
 under very various conditions. As far as the facts can be unravelled 
 It would seem that the oligarchical party, in Thebes and in Boeotia 
 generally, upheld the League. In so doing it had the support of 
 Sparta, which (perhaps out of hostility to Athens) forsook its more 
 natural policy of encouraging isolation. On the other hand, the 
 Athenians promoted democracies and dissension. In the course of the 
 Peloponnesian War, for instance, we find them in communication with 
 the democratical party in various cities. This policy on the part of 
 Athens excited the special animosity of Thebes. 
 
 After the close of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta assumed an 
 oppressive attitude, and democracy (and Athenian friendship) took the 
 place of oligarchy (and Spartan friendship) at Thebes, but the policy of 
 Theban headship was now felt to be as vital as it had ever been under 
 oligarchical rule. In judging the conduct of Thebes at this time 
 towards the seceding towns, it should be remembered that the sue 
 cessive revolts were probably brought about by oligarchical factions 
 traitors to their past and preferring the dismemberment of Boeotia 
 to acquiescence in democracy. 
 
 The period of disintegration (b.c. 387-379) has been well de- 
 scribed by Dr B. V. Head : -With the proclamation of the Peace of 
 Antalcidas, in b.c. 387, the entire political status of Boeotia, and indeed 
 of Greece generally, was changed. The Boeotian League was now 
 dissolved, and oligarchies under Spartan patronage were established 
 m the various Boeotian cities. The completeness of this constitutional 
 revolution was due to the fact that there was, and always had been 
 a strong Separatist Party favourable to the absolute independent 
 autonomy of the individual communities. The Separatists were 
 however, not the majority of the population, and they were generali; 
 obliged to place reliance upon the physical force supplied by the 
 Spartans, who with their harmosts and garrisons held every strong 
 for ress in the land. Even the Cadmeia at Thebes fell into the hands 
 of the Spartans m b.c. 382. Sparta was now supreme, and for some 
 years her will was law in every Boeotian town; but with the recovery 
 of the Theban citadel by Pelopidas and his associates in 379-8 a 
 reaction commenced which after a time led to the complete restoration 
 ot the ancient Confederacy under the hegemony of Thel^es." 
 
 For the difficult question of the constitution of the Boeotian 
 League, reference may be made to Freeman, Federal Government^ 
 pp. 125 fF., and to Busolt, Griech. Alt., pp. 342 ff. The League no 
 doubt had its germ in a religious assembly, the Pamboeotia. Its 
 most important magistrates were the Boeotarchs ; its most important 
 administrative bodies, the 'Four Senates of the Boeotians' (Thucyd. 
 V. 38). 
 
 B. Ancient and Modern Atdhorities. 
 
 The sources from which our knowledge as to Boeotian history is 
 derived are indicated, to some extent, in the text of this treatise, and 
 in the references given in the notes. But a fuller list, with a few 
 comments, may here be given. 
 
 Herodotus and Thucydides supply valuable, but somewhat inci- 
 dental, information as to the periods represented by the Persian Wars, 
 the Pentecontaety, and tlie Peloponnesian War. Xenophon's evidence, 
 which covers the Spartan and Theban Supremacies, lias been character- 
 ised already ; and it has, also, been pointed out that the strictures of 
 Polybius refer to a comparatively late period. Diodorus Siculus and 
 Plutarch are still later writers than Polybius, but they are important 
 authorities owing to the breadth of ground they cover and their 
 use, if not their reproduction, of earlier narratives. Diodorus seems 
 to have drawn largely on Ephorus ; Plutarch, on Ephorus and on 
 some Boeotian authors or records. Then there are Pausanias (chiefly, 
 but by no means entirely, in the BotwrtKa), Cornelius Nepos, and 
 Justin ; and occasional help is to be derived from the Greek orators, 
 philosophers, and poets, as well as from fragments of lost historians 
 and geographers. The excavators of remains and the classifiers of 
 coins liave done much service ; and so have the editors of inscrip- 
 tions, pioneer and premier among whom stands August Boeckh. In 
 his Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum, i. pp. 717-803 (1828 a.d.), 
 Boeckh laid down the highway along which many others since have 
 followed him. 
 
 As to Plutarch's lost Epaminondas, it is worth mentioning that 
 P. L. Courier {Collection complete des patnpldets politiques et ojniscules 
 litteraires, p. 81 : Bruxelles, 1826) declares that he saw the work 
 (among a number of precious manuscripts) in a Florentine Library 
 
84 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 about the year 1808. Writing to M. Renouard he says: "Nous y 
 remarquames surtout ce Plutarque, dont je vous ai si souvent parle. 
 Ce que nous en pumes lire me parut appartenir a la vie d'Epami- 
 nondas, qui manque dans les imprimes. Quelques mois apres ce livre 
 disparut." This is tantalising ; but it may possibly have been the case, 
 after all, that Courier, whose inspection was a hurried one, really saw 
 only the A2)02)hthegniata Epaminondae which are still extant {Apophth. 
 Reg. et LnperaL), or perhaps the Life of Pelopidas. It is a hard fate 
 which has caused the Lives of three great Boeotians, Epaminondas, 
 Pindar and Hesiod, to be lost from their compatriot's w^orks. 
 
 Among the modern historians of Greece reference may be made to 
 Thirlwall, Grote, Ernst Curtius, Duncker, Busolt, Holm; to Sievers 
 (Geschichte Griechenlands voni Ende des p>eloponnesischen Krieyes bis 
 znr Schlacht hei Afantineia), and Von Stern (Geschichte der spartan- 
 ischen und thehanischen Hegemonie vom Konigsfrieden bis zicr Schlacht 
 bei Mantirieia : referred to by Holm) ; and to Von Ranke's Welt- 
 geschichte (vol. i.). To the present writer it seems that the influence 
 of Attic prejudice, or Attic contrast, is often to be traced in these 
 historians, but that Ernst Curtius, and especially Holm (see parti- 
 cularly his Griech. Gesch. iii. 86, 87) have endeavoured to take a fairer 
 view'. And here it may be mentioned that brief but valuable remarks 
 as to Boeotian reputation will be found in B. L. Gildersleeve's Essays 
 and Studies, p. 51, in J. P. Mahafffsi Ilistorg of Classical Greek Litera- 
 ture, vol. I. p. 97, in R. S. Poole's Introductioji (p. xiv) to Diehl's 
 Excursions in Greece (translated by Emma R. Perkins, London, 1893), 
 and in Ernest Myers' Introduction to his Odes of Pindar. [It is, how- 
 ever, unfortunately not open to us to claim Pausanias, as Mr Myers 
 would, as a Boeotian.] But the subject, as a whole, has not, so far 
 as the writer's knowledge extends, hitherto been dealt with, either 
 in England or abroad. The article on Boeotia in the old edition 
 of Pauly's Real-Encyclopddie der classischen Altertumsivissenschaft, 
 though written by so high an authority as Dr Conrad Bursian, shows, 
 in its estimate of the Boeotians, too much readiness to accept the 
 traditional view, and to overlook or explain away considerations 
 which suggest its modification. The article will no doubt be revised, 
 and brought up to date, in the new edition now appearing. 
 
 Among Histories of Greek Literature special reference may be 
 made to the works of Theodor Bergk and MM. A. and M. Croiset. 
 
 1 Vol. I. of the English Translation of Holm's History of Greece (Macmillan) 
 has just been issued. 
 
 B. ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 8: 
 
 VI 
 
 The following books will also be found of use from various points of 
 view : Busolt, Der boeotisclie Bund [Iwan Midler, Handbuch der klass- 
 ischen Altertumsivissenschaft — iv. 1, Griechische Altertilmer — pp. 335- 
 347 of second edition, 1892]. Freeman, History of Federal Government 
 in Greece ami Italy: edited by J. B. Bury, 1892. [The point raised 
 by Mr Freeman, pp. 125 and 137 (see also p. 640), as to the use of 
 BotwTot and 0>;/?atot in the Greek historians and orators would repay 
 working out at length, with due attention to any parallel cases, in a 
 separate dissertation by a young scholar. Cause may possibly be found 
 for suspecting that the Attic writers (particularly Xenophon and 
 Aeschines) use the title Botwrot with a somewhat grudging hand. — In 
 his treatment of the general question, Mr Freeman regards Thebes as 
 exemplifying the dangers attending the presence of a preponderant 
 capital in a federation, and Plataea as furnishing the first recorded 
 instance of secession from a political union of this nature.] Daremberg 
 et Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquites Grecques et Roinaines [Boeoticum 
 Foedus]. G. Gilbert, Harulbuch der griechischen Staats-alterthiuner, ii. 
 45-63. Wilhelm Vischer, Kleine Schriften, i. 341 ff. Karl Otfried 
 Muller, Orchomenos und die Minyer (Second edition, corrected and 
 enlarged, by F. W. Schneidewin. Breslau, 1844). [K. O. Muller 
 also wrote the article Bootien in Ersch u. Gr.'s EncycL; it has been 
 printed separately.]— For Coins, see (in addition to the references 
 already given) Barclay V. Head, British Museum Catalogue of 
 Greek Coins, Central Greece (pp. xxxvi-xlv and 32-93 : with auto- 
 type plates: 1884), and Historia Numor^im (pp. 291-300: 1887); 
 F. Imhoof-Blumer and P. Gardner, A Numismatic Commentary on 
 Pausanias (articles reprinted from the ' Journal of Hellenic Studies ') ; 
 P. Gardner, Tyj^es of Greek Coins, 1883.— For Art see, besides Brunn 
 and Furtwaengler, the following works: C. Sittl, Klassische Kun- 
 starchciologie (in Iwan Muller's Handbuch der Mass. Alt.) j O. Rayet, 
 Monuments de VArt Antique. Paris, 1880, fol. [British Museum 
 Press-Mark: 1706, c. 9]; R. Kekule, Griechische Tlvonfiguren aus 
 Tanagra. Stuttgart, 1878, fol. [Brit. Mus. Press-Mark: 562 f.] 
 Some specimens of the Art of Tanagra will be found in cases 16-22 
 of the terra-cotta room at the British Museum ; but a greater number 
 are to be seen in the Louvre and at St Petersburg. 
 
 Special Literature. The following list .of dissertations is not an 
 exhaustive one ; it consists only of those which have been collected by 
 the writer. It is especially incomplete on the side of geography and 
 topography. This aspect of the subject (for which see C. Bursian's 
 
86 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Geographie von Griechenland, vol. i. pp. 194-251, and A. W. Verrall's 
 article Thebes in Encycl. Brit. vol. xxiii. pp. 229, 230) cannot satis- 
 factorily be discussed by one who has not visited the localities, and 
 has not (it may be added) had the opportunity of ascertaining for 
 himself how far it is true that the Boeotian peasant of to-cky is 
 "distinguished from the rest of his countrymen by his heaviness of 
 temperament and his incivility " (H. F. Tozer, Selections from Strabo, 
 Oxford, 1893. P. 232). It will be noticed that many of the disserta- 
 tions are the work of Dutchmen, none of whom, however, have 
 developed the analogy between Boeotia and Holland, though all may 
 have been led to their choice of subject by a sort of latent and un- 
 defined sympathy, and by the special interest which early attempts at 
 federation must possess for a people who themselves furnish one of the 
 four great examples of federal constitutions. As many of the disserta- 
 tions are mentioned (under short titles) in the course of the notes, they 
 are here arranged, for convenience of reference, in the alphabetical 
 order of their authors' names. E. Bauch, Epamiyiondas und Thebens 
 Kampfumdie Hegemonie (Breslau, 1834). A. Boeckh, Philolaus des 
 Pythayoreers Lehren (Berlin, 1819). I. W. ten Breujel, Specimen 
 Literarium Inauyurale de Foedere Boeotico (Groningae, 1834). C. 
 Bursian, Mittheilumyen zur Topographie von Boiotien und Euboia 
 (1859). P. Decharme, De Thebanis Artificibus (Lutetiae Parisiorum, 
 1869). H. Deiter, De Epaminonda XenopKonteo et Diodoreo (Emden' 
 1874). M. Dinse, De Antiye7iida Thebano Musico (Berolini, 1856).' 
 I. C. Drabbe, Dissertatio Literaria Inauguralis de Oropo (Lugd.-Bat., 
 1846). R. Dressier, Das Geschkhtswerk des Ephoros nach seinen Frag- 
 menten mid seiner Benutzung durch Diodor (Bautzen, 1873). E. Fa- 
 bricius, Theben : eine Untersuchung itber die Topographie und Geschichte 
 der Hauptstadt Boeotiens (Freiburg, 1890). P. W. Forchammer, Topo- 
 graphia Thebarum Heptapylarum (Kiliae, 1854). O. Frick, Da^ plat- 
 aeische Weihgescheiik zu Konstantinopel : ein Beitra<i zur Geschichte 
 der Perserkriege (Leipzig, 1859). [For this votive-offering, the bronze 
 serpent inscribed with the names of the Greek cities allied a-ainst 
 Xerxes, see Curtius, Gr. Gesch. ii. 822; Busolt, 6V. Gesch. ii.^210- 
 Holm, Gr. Gesch. ii. 81 ; Wilhelm Vischer, A7. Schr. ii. 294-301.] 
 O. Friedrich, Berum Plataicarum Specimen (Berolini, 1841). E. Funk 
 De Thebanorum ab an. 378 usqice ad an. 362 actis (Berlin, 1890)! 
 Emile Gebhart, Essai sur la Peiiiture de Genre dans VAntiquite (Paris, 
 1868). Dr Hanske, Plutarch als Biioter (Wurzen, 1884). B. Haus- 
 soullier, Quomodo sepulcra Tanayraei decoravtrint (Parisiis, 1884). 
 
 B. ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORITIES. 
 
 87 
 
 A. Hauvette, Rapport stir une mission scientifique en Grece^ MaratJwn, 
 Salamine, Platees (Paris, 1892). J. Huber, Epaminondas : Versuch 
 einer Darstellung seines Lebens und Wirkens (Bastenburg, 1874 and 
 1875). Eduard John, Plutarch und Shakspere (Wertheim a. M., 1889 
 and 1890). W. A. Kliitz, De Foedere Boeotico (Berolini, 1821). 
 [W. A.] Kliitz, Epaminondas und Pelopidas : eine Parallele (Coslin, 
 1834). P. A. Koppius, Sjwcimeii Historicum exhibens Historiam Rei- 
 jmblicae Boeotorum (Groningae, 1836). G. Lahmeyer, De Libelli 
 Plutarchei, qui De Malignitate Herodoti inscribitur, et Auctontate et 
 Auctore (Gottingae, 1847). M. Lehnerdt, De locis Plutarchi ad Art em 
 spectantibus (Regimonti, 1883). P. Liman, Foederis Boeotici Instituta 
 (Gryphiswaldiae, 1882). H. Lolling, Arclmische Lischri/ten in Boeotien 
 (Berlin, 1885). H. J. Matthes, Disjmtatio Literaria de Epaminonda 
 (Lugduni Batavorum, 1830). Moritz Muller, Geschichte Thebens von 
 der Einwanderu7ig der Boioter bis zur Schlacht bei Koroneia (Leipzig, 
 1879). F. Mtinscher, De rebus Plataeensium (Hanoviae, 1841). 
 G. Pagida, Ta tt;? roTroypac^ias twi/ €7rTa7n;Xa>v ^rj/Sotv viro twi/ vcwrcpwv 
 dpxoitoX6yu)v 8t€p€i;i/o)>€va ['Ev 'A^T/Vais, 1882]. J. Pohler, Diodorus als 
 Quelle zur Geschichte von Hellas in der zeit von Thebens Aufschwung 
 und Grosse (Cassel, 1885). L. Pomtow, Das Leben des Ejyaminondas, 
 sein Charakter und seine Politik (Berlin, 1870). E. Preuss, Quaestiones 
 Boeoticae (Leipzig, 1879). G. Queck, De Fontibus Plutarchi in Vita 
 Pelopidae (Dramburgi, 1876). H. Reinhold, Griechische Oertlich- 
 keiten bei Pindaros (Quedlinburg, 1894). R. Schillbach, De Thespi- 
 arum oppidi situ ac finibus (Neu-Ruppin, 1856). A. Scholderer, 
 Tanagraearum Antiquitatum Specimen (Berolini, 1855). A. Seibt, 
 Beurteilung der Politik^ tvelche die Athener wdhrend des thebanisch- 
 spartanischen Krieges befolgt haben (Cassel, 1885). R. A. linger, 
 Libri Primi Thebanarum Rerum Specime7i (Halae, 1835). O. Wester- 
 wick, De Plutarchi Studiis Hesiodeis (Monasterii Guestf., 1893). 
 H. Wiegand, Platdd zur Zeit des Einfalls der Perser in Bootien 
 (Ratzeburg, 1886). H. Wiegand, Die Platder in Athen (Ratzeburg, 
 1888). 
 
r I 
 
 H WUli m i i iMl l wl""' 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 The Index is restricted to names of places and persons. The references throughout 
 
 are to pages. 
 
 Abae 40 
 
 Abdera 54 
 
 Aberdaron 54 
 
 Aberdeen (University) 60 
 
 Achaia 81 
 
 Acraephium 16, 38, 39, 41 
 
 Acropohs 22 
 
 Aegina 19, 29 
 
 Aegospotami 13 
 
 Aeolians 22, 35 
 
 Aeschines 6, 26, 51, 52 
 
 Aeschylus 69 
 
 Aetolians 11 
 
 Agesilaus 17, 45, 68 
 
 Alcibiades 33, 67 
 
 Alcidamas 48 
 
 Alcman 30 
 
 Alexander (the Great) 39, 40, 55, 81 
 
 (ofPherae) 81 
 Amyot 64 
 Anaxis 31, 70 
 
 Andrews, St (University) 60 and Preface 
 Anglesey 3 
 Antalcidas 20, 80, 82 
 Anthedon 16, 31 
 Antigenidas 35, 70, 86 
 Antigone 42 
 
 Antony (and Cleopatra) 64 
 Apelles 36 
 
 Apollo 33, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41 
 Aratus 54 
 Arcadians 56, 81 
 
 i'^'^'^i 23, 25, 69 
 Argos ) ^ > ^ 
 
 Aristeides (of Athens) 47 
 
 (of Thebes) 36, 62, 70 
 
 Aristophanes 4, 5, 34, 41, 44, 58, 66, 69 
 
 Aristotle 7, 8, 15, 32, 33, 47, 48, 73 
 
 Arne 42 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, quoted 29, 41 
 
 Artemis 36 
 
 Ascra 28, 29 
 
 Athenaeus 5, 34, 35, 46, 47 
 
 Athene 33 
 
 Athenians/ 
 
 Attica i ^"^'^'^^ 
 
 Aulis 22, 29, 72 
 
 Basil 64 
 
 Basle 63 
 
 Beloch 22, 47 
 
 Bergk 29, 84 
 
 Berlin (University) 60 
 
 Boeckh 2, 47, 83 
 
 Boeotia / 
 
 Boeotians! ^«*^^'"* 
 
 Browning, Oscar 34 
 
 Brunn 37 
 
 Burnet, John 47 
 
 Burns, Kobert, quoted 28 
 
 Bursian 84, 85, 86 
 
 Bury 21, 29, 85 
 
 Busolt 26, 52, 84, 85 
 
 Byron, quoted 9 
 
 Bywater, Ingram 8 
 
 Byzantium 81 
 
 Cabeiri 42 
 
 Cadmeia 22, 49, 51, 80, 81, 82 
 
 Cadmeis 42 
 
 Caesar, Julius 64 
 
 Cambridge (University) 9, 63 
 
 Campbell, Lewis 39 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, quoted 9, 35, 62 
 
 Cassander 81 
 
 Cato 53 
 
 R. 
 
u 
 
 90 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Cebes 43, 44, 72, 75 
 
 Celts 8 
 
 Chaeroneia 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 31, 55, 62, 
 64, 72, 76, 81 . , , , 
 
 Chalcis 20 
 
 Charitesia 41 
 
 Chrysostom 64 
 
 Cicero 8, 36, 43, 45, 46, 53, 54, 62, 66 
 
 Cithaeron (Mount) 18, 23, 38 
 
 Claudius (Emperor) 7 
 
 Clearchus 44, 45 
 
 Cleophantus 34 
 
 Cobet 12, 60 
 
 Comic Poets 4, 5 
 
 Copae 16, 20 
 
 Copais 4, 34, 39, 59 
 
 Corinna 28, 30, 31, 42, 70 
 
 Corinthians 4, 69 
 
 Coriolanus 53, 64 
 
 Coroneia 10, 16, 17, 20, 79, 80 
 
 Courier 83 
 
 Cratinus 4, 66 
 
 Crete 29 
 
 Croiset 26, 84 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver 65 
 
 Cudworth, quoted 9 
 
 Cunaxa 44 
 
 Curtius, Ernst 22, 38, 41, 49, 59, 84 
 
 Cynoseephalae 81 
 
 Cynuria 23 
 
 Cyrene 29 
 
 Daiphantus 56 
 
 Dakyns 45 
 
 Danes 5, 12 
 
 Dante, quoted 9 
 
 Deceleia 38 
 
 Delium 22, 24, 38, 55, 72, 79 
 
 Delos 23, 29 
 
 Delphi 35, 39 
 
 Demades 56 
 
 Demetrius Poliorcetes 81 
 
 Democritus 53 
 
 Demosthenes 5, 6, 24, 52, 55, 56, 67 
 
 Dicaearchus (Pseudo-) 10, 13, 18 39 40 
 
 Diodorus Siculus 17, 18, 25, 31,'43,'45, 
 
 46, 53, 55, 56, 83, 86, 87 
 Dion Chrysostomus 7, 32, 66 
 Dionysius the Younger 48 
 Dionysius (a musician) 35, 46 
 Dionysodorus 31, 70 
 Dionysus 41 
 
 Dryden, John, quoted 9, 69, 76 
 Duncker 26, 84 
 Dutchmen 57-65, 67, 68, 75, 86 
 
 Edinburgh (University) 60 
 Eleusis 38 
 Eleutherae 37, 70 
 
 Elis 81 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen 65 
 
 Emerson 31, 64 
 
 Epaminondas 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 20 21 
 30, 35, 42. 43-56, 57, 58, 68, 72,' 73*, 
 75-78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87 
 
 Ephorus 11, 12, 13, 14, 45, 55, 56, 68, 
 71, 76, 83, 86 » > . 
 
 Epictetus 53 
 
 Erasmus 2, 12, 47, 58, 59, 60, 62-65, 73, 
 
 Erchomenus 20 
 Eretria 23 
 Essex 71 
 Euboea 23, 29 
 Euripides 36 
 
 Florence 9 
 
 Fowler, W. Warde 17 
 
 Frazer 42 
 
 Freeman 21, 26, 45, 52, 81, 83, 85 
 
 Frenchmen 67 
 
 Friedlaender 57, 61 
 
 Froben 63 
 
 Gardner, Percy 37, 39, 85 
 
 Garibaldi 54 
 
 Gauls 81 
 
 Germany 52 
 
 Gibbon 62 
 
 Gildersleeve 3, 84 
 
 Glasgow (University) 60 
 
 Goethe 32 
 
 Gordon, Charles 64, C5 
 
 Gorgias 44, 48 
 
 Gorgidas 56 
 
 Gray, Thomas, quoted 30 
 
 Gronovius 60 
 
 Grote 42, 47, 56, 59, 84 
 
 Grotius, Hugo 60 
 
 Grundy, G. B. 38 
 
 Gryllus 58 
 
 Haliartus 10, 16, 20 
 
 Hauvette 27, 86 
 
 Head, B. V. 16, 20, 58, 82, 85 
 
 Hemsms, Daniel 7, 60 
 
 Helicon 41, 61 
 
 Hemsterhuys 60 
 
 Heracles 41, 47, 77 
 
 Herodotus 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27, 42, 68, 
 
 83, 87 
 Hesiod 28, 39, 70, 84 
 Holland, Philemon 14, 47, 64, 77 
 Holland (the country) 57-65, 75, 86 
 Holleaux 16, 39 
 
 Holm 17, 18, 22, 26, 31, 45, 52, 54, 56, 
 
 o4 
 
 Horace 8, 54, 66 
 Howson 33 
 Hyantes 3 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 91 
 
 Hyettus 16 
 Hyria 29 
 
 lolaidas 56 
 louians 22, 31 
 Irishmen 63, 67 
 Ismenias 56, 80 
 Isocrates 7, 19, 29 
 
 Jaques 75 
 
 Jason (of Pherae) 80 
 Jebb 8, 19, 29, 30 
 Joachim 61 
 Jonson, Ben 57 
 Jowett 44, 48, 69 
 Justin 83 
 Juvenal 54 
 
 Kekul^ 40, 85 
 Khartoum 65 
 Kiepert 38 
 
 Lasus 32 
 
 Leake 58 
 
 Lebadeia 16, 20, 42 
 
 Le Clerc 60 
 
 Leontini 44 
 
 Leuctra 11, 13, 14, 17, 19, 22, 24, 45, 
 
 50, 53, 55, 77, 80 
 Leyden (Town and University) 60 
 Linnaeus 32 
 Liitzen 56 
 Luther 35 
 Lycurgus 32 
 Lysander 80 
 Lysis 46, 48, 53, 72 
 
 Maas 58 
 
 Macaulay 5, 41 
 
 Macedonians 11 
 
 Mackail 41 
 
 Madvig 12 
 
 Mahaffy 41, 84 
 
 Mantineia 51, 56 
 
 Marathon 24 
 
 Marcus Aurelius 48, 62 
 
 Martial 57, 58, 61 
 
 Marvell, Andrew 65 
 
 Megalopolis 58, 80 
 
 Melaenae 13 
 
 Menander 4, 66 
 
 Messene 45, 56, 81 
 
 Milton, quoted 3, 30, 35, 42, 76, 81 
 
 Minyae 17, 59 
 
 Monro 34 
 
 Montaigne 64 
 
 More, Sir Thomas 78 
 
 Motley 57, 60 
 
 Miiller, K. 0. 22, 29, 59, 85 
 
 Museia 41 
 
 Mycalessus 20, 22, 28, 72, 80 
 Myers, Ernest 2, 30, 84 
 Myron 37, 62, 70 
 Myrtis 31, 70 
 
 Nepos, Cornelius 9, 35, 46, 48, 66, 83 
 
 Nicomachus 36, 70 
 
 Niebuhr 73 
 
 Normans 5 
 
 North, Sir Thomas 64, 74 
 
 Oedipus 42 
 
 Oenophyta 79 
 
 Oman 50 
 
 Onchestus 29 
 
 Orchomenus 16-20, 22, 29, 39, 41, 58, 
 
 72, 80, 81 
 Oropus 13, 23, 24, 38, 80, 81, 86 
 Orthagoras 34, 70 
 Oxford (University) 9 
 
 Pagondas 24 
 
 Pammenes 56 
 
 Panactum 80 
 
 Parmenides 32 
 
 Parnes 38 
 
 Parthenon 41, 74 
 
 Paul, St 63 
 
 Pausaiiias 18, 22, 34, 37, 38, 42, 45, 53, 
 
 58, 83 
 Pelopidas 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 56, 77, 81, 
 
 83, 87 
 Pericles 15, 41, 51, 55, 69, 74 
 Persia 24-27 
 Persius 61 
 Pheidias 41 
 Pherecrates 10 
 
 Philip (of Macodon) 18, 24, 50, 81 
 Philolaus (of Corinth) 47, 50, 79 
 
 (of Thebes) 34, 43, 46, 47, 86 
 Philopoemen 54 
 Philostratus (Junior) 37 
 
 Phoetnsi 2^.25,77, 81 
 
 Phocion 47 
 
 Phoebidas 80 
 
 Phormion 47 
 
 Phyle 38 
 
 Pindar 1-4, 26, 29-31, 32, 34, 42, 48, 57, 
 
 65, 70, 73, 74, 75, 84, 87 
 Pisa 9 
 
 Plancus, L, Plautius 36 
 Plataea 10, 13, 16, 18-20, 22, 23, 25, 38, 
 
 52, 55, 68, 71, 72, 76, 79, 80, 81, 86, 87 
 Plato 3, 12, 25, 32, 33, 35, 43, 44, 47, 
 
 48, 67, 69 
 Pliny (the Elder) 32, 36, 37 
 Plutarch 4, 8, 12, 14, 21, 23, 24, 27, 31, 
 
 32, 33-36, 42, 45-48, 50,52-56, 57, 62- 
 
 65, 68, 70, 73, 74, 76, 77, 83, 84, 86, 87 
 
 > i 
 
92 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Polybius 11, 13, 21, 26, 27, 45, 56, 
 
 77, 83 
 Polymnis 46 
 Poole, R. S. 84 
 Person 34 
 Potter, Paul 62 
 Pronomus 34, 70 
 Propylaea 51 
 Prothero 26 
 Proxenus 43-45, 48, 72, 75 
 
 ^ 38. 39. 41. 71 
 
 Pythagoras ) ^ , 
 Pythagoreans} ^4, 46, 47, 48, 72 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter 54 
 Ranke, Leopold von 26, 84 
 Rayet 39, 40, 85 
 Rhine 58 
 Rhodes 29 
 Rotterdam 63 
 Rousseau 64 
 Ruhnken 57, 60, 61 
 Rutherford 2 
 
 Sand, George, quoted 77 
 
 Sandys 48 
 
 Saracens 63 
 
 Saxons 5 
 
 Schaefer, Arnold 23 
 
 Schliemann 59 
 
 Scotsmen 63 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, quoted 67, 77 
 
 Seeley 65 
 
 Sextus (of Chaeroneia) 62 
 Shakespeare 44, 64, 78, 87 
 M quoted 46, 75 
 
 bimmias 43, 44, 72, 75 
 Smith, Cecil 37 
 
 Goldwin, quoted 63 
 Socrates 43, 44, 69 
 Solon 32 
 
 Sophocles 34, 39, 42, 69 
 Sparta ) ,„ «^ 
 Spartans f 1^,22,23,25,69,82 
 Sparti 42 
 Sphinx 59 
 Stesichorus 30 
 
 Strabo 2 12, 22, 34, 40, 56, 59 
 Strepsiades 69 
 Suidas 3 
 Susa 81 
 
 68, Syracuse 18, 80 
 
 Tanagra 10, 16, 20, 22, 23, 29, 30, 38- 
 
 41,52,62,71, 79,85,86,87 
 Tegyra 80 
 
 Teiresias 42 
 Tellen 35 
 
 Tennyson, quoted 1, 45, 74 
 Tertullian 9, 66 
 Theagenes 55 
 Thebes ) 
 Thebansj P""'"'^ 
 Themistocles 53, 69 
 Theocritus 17 
 Theophrastus 8, 16, 58 
 Thermopylae 24, 26, 79 
 Thersilion 56 
 
 Thespiae 10, 16, 18-20, 22, 25, 28 31 
 40,52,76,80,81,87 ' 
 
 Thessalians 6, 24, 25, 42, 55, 80, 81 
 Thirlwall 13, 84 
 Thisbe 16 
 Thracians 28, 80 
 Thucydides 4 16 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 
 
 26, 28, 41, 42, 4o, 51, 59, 68, 69, 83 
 Timoleon 54 
 Tissaphernes 44 
 Tozer 12, 86 
 Trophonius 42 
 Turks 63 
 
 Tyndaridae 36 
 
 Valckenaer 60 
 Verrall 85 
 Virgil 29 
 Vischer 5, 85 
 Vossius 60 
 
 Wales and Welsh } ., 
 
 Welsh University ^' 7» 8, 44, 54, 60 
 
 Welldon 16 
 
 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 16, 18 52 
 William the Silent 57. 58 ' 
 
 William III. 65 
 Wittenberg 35 
 Worms 35 
 Wyttenbach 8, 60 
 
 ''%:'^^tsB^l'' ''• ''- ''' «• '- 
 
 Xerxes 19 
 Zeuxis 36 
 
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