Imilkon with the Carthaginian army marches from Agrigentum to attack Gela

The proceedings, recounted at the close of my last chapter, whereby Dionysius erected his despotism, can hardly have occupied less than three months; coinciding nearly with the first months of 405 b.c., inasmuch as Agrigentum was taken about the winter solstice of 406 b.c. He wras not molested during this period by the Carthaginians, who were kept inactive in quarters at Agrigentum, to repose after the hardships of the blockade; employed in despoiling the city of its moveable ornaments, for transmission to Carthage, and in burning or defacing, with barbarous antipathy, such as could not be carried away. In the spring Imilkon moved forward towards Gela, having provided himself with fresh siege-machines, and ensured his supplies from the Carthaginian territory in his rear. Finding no army to oppose him, he spread his troops over the territory both of Gela and of Kamarina, where much plunder was collected and much property ruined. He then returned to attack Gela, and established a fortified camp by clearing some plantation-ground near the river of the same name, between the city and the sea, On this spot stood, without the walls, a colossal statue of Apollo, which Imilkon caused to be carried off and sent as a present to Tyre.

The peace or convention which bears the name of Antalkidas, was an incident of serious and mournful import in Grecian history. Its true character cannot be better described than in a brief remark and reply which we find cited in Plutarch. “Alas for Hellas (observed some one to Agesilaus) when we see our Laconians medising!”–“ Nay (replied the Spartan king), say rather the Medes (Persians). laconising”.

Peace or convention of Antalkidas. Its import and character. Separate partnership between Sparta and Persia

These two propositions do not exclude each other. Both were perfectly true. The convention emanated from a separate partnership between spartan and Persian interests. It was solicited by the Spartan Antalkidas, and propounded by him to Tiribazus on the express ground, that it was exactly calculated to meet the Persian king's purposes and wishes–as we learn even from the philo-Laconian Xenophon. While Sparta and Persia were both great gainers, no other Grecian state gained anything, as the convention was originally framed. But after the first rejection, Antalkidas saw the necessity of conciliating Athens by the addition of a special article providing that Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros should be restored to her. This addition seems to have been first made in the abortive negotiations which form the subject of the discourse already mentioned, pronounced by Andokides.

The present Volume is already extended to an unusual number of pages; yet I have been compelled to close it at an inconvenient moment, mid-way in the reign of the Syracusan despot Dionysius. To carry that reign to its close, one more chapter will be required, which must be reserved for the succeeding volume.

The history of the Sicilian and Italian Greeks, forming as it does a stream essentially distinct from that of the Peloponnesians, Athenians, &c, is peculiarly interesting during the interval between 409 b.c. (the date of the second Carthaginian invasion) and the death of Timoleon in 336 b.c. It is moreover reported to us by authors (Diodorus and Plutarch), who, though not themselves very judicious as selectors, had before them good contemporary witnesses. And it includes some of the most prominent and impressive characters of the Hellenic world–Dionysius I., Dion with Plato as instructor, and Timoleon.

I thought it indispensable to give adequate development to this important period of Grecian history, even at the cost of that inconvenient break which terminates my tenth volume. At one time I had hoped to comprise in that volume not only the full history of Dionysius I., but also that of Dionysius II. and Dion–and that of Timoleon besides. Three new chapters, including all this additional matter, are already composed and ready.

Prodigious was the change operated throughout the Grecian world during the eighteen months between June 371 b.c. (when the general peace, including all except Thebes, was sworn at Sparta, twenty days before the battle of Leuktra), and the spring of 369 b.c., when the Thebans, after a victorious expedition into Peloponnesus, were reconducted home by Epaminondas.

Changes in Peloponnesus since the battle of Leuktra.

How that change worked in Peloponnesus, amounting to a partial re-constitution of the peninsula, has been sketched in the preceding chapter. Among most of the cities and districts hitherto dependent allies of Sparta, the local oligarchies, whereby Spartan influence had been maintained, were overthrown, not without harsh and violent reaction. Laconia had been invaded and laid waste, while the Spartans were obliged to content themselves with guarding their central hearth and their families from assault. The western and best half of Laconia had been wrested from them; Messênê had been constituted as a free city on their frontier; a large proportion of their Periœki and Helots had been converted into independent Greeks bitterly hostile to them; moreover the Arcadian population had been emancipated from their dependence, and organized into self-acting jealous neigh bours in the new city of Megalopolis, as well as in Tegea and Mantinea. The once philo-Laconian Tegea was now among the chief enemies of Sparta; and the Skiritæ, so long numbered as the bravest of the auxiliary troops of the latter, were now identified in sentiment with Arcadians and Thebans against her.

Great ascendency of Sparta on land in 379 b.c.

At the beginning of 379 B.C, the empire of the Lacedæmonians on land had reached a pitch never before paralleled. On the sea, their fleet was but moderately powerful, and they seem to have held divided empire with Athens over the smaller islands; while the larger islands (so far as we can make out) were independent of both. But the whole of inland Greece, both within and without Peloponnesus–except Argos, Attica, and perhaps the more powerful Thessalian cities–was now enrolled in the confederacy dependent on Sparta. Her occupation of Thebes, by a Spartan garrison and an oligarchy of local partisans, appeared to place her empire beyond all chance of successful attack; while the victorious close of the war against Olynthus carried everywhere an intimidating sense of her far-reaching power. Her allies, too–governed as they were in many cases by Spartan harmosts, and by oligarchies whose power rested on Sparta–were much more dependent upon her than they had been during the time of the Peloponnesian war.

Such a position of affairs rendered Sparta an object of the same mingled fear and hatred (the first preponderant) as had been felt towards imperial Athens fifty years before, when she was designated as the “despot city”.