Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

SECT. XIV.

The Lacedæmonians lose the chief Command through the Pride and Arrogance of Pausanias.

a The Grecians, encouraged by the happy success which had every where attended their victorious arms, determined to send a fleet to sea, in order to deliver such of their allies as were still under the yoke of the Persians, out of their hands. Pausanias was the commander of the fleet for the Lacedæmonians; and Aristides and Cimon the son of Miltiades, commanded for the Athenians. They first directed their course to the isle of Cyprus, where they restored all the cities to their liberty: then steering towards the Hellespont, they attacked the city of Byzantium, of which they made themselves masters, and took a vast number of prisoners, a great part of whom were of the richest and most considerable families of Persia.

Pausanias, who from this time conceived thoughts of betraying his country, judged it proper to make use of this opportunity to gain the favour of Xerxes. To this end he caused a report to be spread among his troops, that the Persian noblemen, whom he had committed to the guard and care of one of his officers, had made their escape by night, and were fled: whereas he had set them at liberty himself, and sent a letter by them to Xerxes, wherein he offered to deliver the city of Sparta and all Greece, into his hands, on condition he would give him his daughter in marriage. The king did not fail to give him a favourable answer, and to send him very large sums of money also, in order to win over as many of the Grecians as he should find disposed to enter into his designs. The person he appointed to manage this intrigue with him was Artabazus; and in order to enable him to transact the matter with the greater ease and security, he made him governor of all the sea coasts of Asia Minor.

Pausanias, who was already dazzled with the prospect of his future greatness, began from this moment to change his whole conduct and behaviour. The poor, modest, and frugal way of living at Sparta; their subjection to rigid and austere laws, which neither spared nor respected any man, but were altogether as inexorable and inflexible to the greatest as to those of the meanest condition; all this, became. insupportable to Pausanias. He could not bear the thoughts of going back to Sparta after having possessed such high

a A. M 3,528. Ant. J. C. 476. Thucyd l. i. p. 63, 84, 86: Plut. in Arist. p. 332, 333.

[blocks in formation]

commands and employments, to return to a state of equality, that would confound him with the meanest of the citizens; and this was his inducement to enter into a treaty with the Barbarians. He entirely laid aside the manners and behaviour of his country; assumed both the dress and haughtiness of the Persians, and imitated them in all their expensive luxury and magnificence. He treated the allies with insufferable rudeness and insolence; never spoke to the officers but with menaces and arrogance; required extraor dinary honours to be paid to him; and by his whole behaviour rendered the Spartan dominion odious to all the confederates. On the other hand, the courteous, affable, and engaging deportment of Aristides and Cimon; an infinite remoteness from all imperious and haughty airs, which tend only to alienate the affections; a gentle, kind, and benificent disposition, which showed itself in all their actions, and which served to temper the authority of their commands, and to render it both easy and amiable; the justice and humanity, conspicuous in every thing they did; the great care they took to offend no person whatsoever, and to do kind offices to all about them: all this, hurt Pausanias exceedingly, by the contrast of their opposite characters, and exceedingly increased the general discontent. At last this dissatisfaction publicly broke out; and all the allies deserted him, and put themselves under the command and protection of the Athenians. Thus did Aristides, says Plutarch, by the prevalence of that humanity and gentleness, which he opposed to the arrogance and roughness of Pausanias, and by inspiring Cimon his colleague with the same sentiments, insensibly draw off the minds of the allies from the Lacedæmonians without their perceiving it, and at length deprived them of the command; not by open force, or by sending out armies and fleets against them, and still less by making use of any artifice or perfidious practices; but by the wisdom and moderation of his conduct, and by rendering the government of the Athenians amiable.

It must be confessed at the same time, that the Spartan people on this occasion showed a greatness of soul and a spirit of moderation, that can never be sufficiently admired. For when they were convinced, that their commanders grew haughty and insolent from their too great authority, they willingly renounced the superiority, which they had hitherto exercised over the rest of the Grecians, and forbore sending any more of their generals to command the Grecian armies; choosing rather, adds the historian, to have their citizens wise, modest, and submissive to the discipline and laws of the commonwealth, than to maintain their pre-eminence and superiority over all the other Grecian states.

SECT. XV.

Pausanias's secret Conspiracy with the Persians. His death.

Upon the repeated complaints which the Spartan commonwealth received on all hands against Pausanias, they recalled him home to give an account of his conduct. But not having sufficient evidence to convict him of having carried on a correspondence with Xerxes, they were obliged to acquit him on this first trial; after which he returned of his own private authority, and without the consent and approbation of the republic, to the city of Byzantium, from whence he continued to carry on his secret practices with Artabazus. But, as he was still guilty of many violent and unjust proceedings, whilst he resided there, the Athenians obliged him to leave the place; from whence he retired to Colonæ, a small city of the Troad. There he received an order from the Ephori to return to Sparta, on pain of being declared, in case of disobedience, a public enemy and traitor to his country. He complied with the summons and went home, hoping he should still be able to bring himself off by dint of money. On his arrival he was committed to prison, and was soon afterwards brought again upon his trial before the judges. The charge brought against him was supported by many suspicious circumstances and strong presumptions. Several of his own slaves confessed that he had promised to give them their liberty, in case they would enter into his designs, and serve him with fidelity and zeal in the execution of his projects. But, as it was the custom for the Ephori never to pronounce sentence of death against a Spartan, without a full and direct proof of the crime laid to his charge, they looked upon the evidence against him as insufficient; and the more so, as he was of the royal family, and was actually invested with the administration of the regal office; for Pausanias exercised the function of king, as being the guardian and nearest relation to Plistarchus, the son of Leonidas, who was then in his minority. He was therefore acquitted a second time, and set at liberty.

Whilst the Ephori were thus perplexed for want of clear and plain evidence against the offender, a certain slave, who was called the Argilian, came to them, and brought them a letter, written by Pausanias himself to the king of Persia, which the slave was to have carried and delivered to Artabazus. It must be observed by the way, that this Persian governor and Pausanias had agreed together, immediately to put to death all the couriers they mutually sent to one ano

A M. 3529. Ant. J. C. 475. Thucyd. I. i. p. 86-89. Diod, 1. xi. p. 34–36, Cbr. Nep. in Pausan

ther, as soon as their packets or messages were delivered, that there might be no possibility left of tracing out or discovering their correspondence. The Argilian, who saw none of his fellow-servants, that had been sent, return back again, had some suspicion; and when it came to his turn to go, he opened the letter he was intrusted with, in which Artabazus was positively desired to kill him as soon as he had delivered it. This was the letter the slave put into the hands of the Ephori; who still thought even this proof insufficient in the eye of the law, and therefore endeavoured to corroborate it by the testimony of Pausanias himself. The slave, in concert with them, withdrew to the temple of Neptune at Tenaros, as to a secure asylum. Two small closets were purposely made there, in which the Ephori and some Spartans hid themselves. The instant Pausanias was informed that the Argilian had fled to this temple, he hasted thither, to inquire the reason. The slave confessed that he had opened the letter; and that finding by the contents of it he was to be put to death, he had fled to that temple to save his life. As Pausanias could not deny the fact, he made the best excuse he could; promised the slave a great reward; and obliged him to engage not to mention what had passed between them to any person whatsoever. Pausanias then left him.

Pausanias's guilt was now but too evident. The moment he was returned to the city the Ephori were resolved to seize him. From the aspect of one of those magistrates, he plainly perceived that some evil design was meditated against him, and therefore he ran with the utmost speed to the temple of Pallas, called Chalcioecos, near that place, and got into it before the pursuers could overtake him. The entrance was immediately stopt up with great stones; and history informs us, that the criminal's mother was the first who brought one. They now tore off the roof of the chapel, as the Ephori did not dare to take him out of it by force, because this would have been a violation of that sacred asylum; they resolved to leave him exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, and accordingly he was starved to death. His corpse was buried not far from that place: but the oracle of Delphi, whom they consulted soon after, declared, that to appease the anger of the goddess, who was justly offended on account of the violation of her temple, two statues must be set up there in honour of Pausanias, which was done accordingly.

Such was the end of Pausanias, whose wild ambition had stifled in him all sentiments of probity, honour, love of his country, zeal for liberty, and of hatred and aversion for the Barbarians: sentiments, which, in some measure, were innate in all the Greeks, and particularly in the Lacedæmo nians.

SECT. XVI.

Themistocles, being pursued by the Athenians and Lacedæ monians, as an accomplice in Pausanias's Conspiracy, flies for shelter to King Admetus.

"Themistocles was also charged with being an accomplice of Pausanias. He was then in exile. A passionate thirst of glory, and a strong desire of arbitrary power, had made him very odious to his fellow-citizens. He had built, very near his house, a temple dedicated to Diana, under the title of "Diana Aristobula," that is to say, "the giver o good counsel;" as hinting to the Athenians, that he had given good counsel to their city and to all Greece; and he also had placed his statue in it which was standing in Plutarch's time. It appeared, says he, from this statue, that his physiognomy was as heroic as his valour. Finding that men listened with pleasure to all the calumnies which his enemies spread against him, in order to silence them, he was for ever expatiating, in all public assemblies, on the services he had done his country. As they were at last tired with hearing him repeat the same thing so often, "How!" says he to them, are you weary of having good offices frequently done you "by the same persons?" he did not consider, that putting them so often in mind of his services, was in a manner reproaching them with their having forgotten them, which was not very civil; and he seemed not to know, that the surest way to acquire applause is to leave the bestowing of it to others, and to resolve to do such things only as are praiseworthy and that a frequent mention of one's own virtue and exalted actions is so far from appeasing envy that it only inflames it.

66

:

Themistocles, after having been banished from Athens by the ostracism, withdrew to Argos. He was there when Pausanias was prosecuted as a traitor who had conspired against his country. He had at first concealed his machinations from Themistocles, though he was one of his best friends; but as soon as he saw that he was expelled his country, and highly resented that injury, he disclosed his projects to him, and pressed him to join in them. To induce him to comply, he showed him the letters which the king of Persia wrote to him; and endeavoured to animate him against the Athenians, by painting their injustice and ingratitude in the strongest colours. However, Themistocles rejected

a Thucyd. l. i. p. 89, 90. Plut in Themist. p. 123, 124. Corn Nep. in Themist c. viii.

b Hoc, molestum est. Nam isthæc commemoratie quasi exprobratio est im memoris beneficii. Terent in Andr.

c Plut. in Themist. p. 112.

« VorigeDoorgaan »