Ἀρχίδαμος
. [Or. VI.] — At the beginning of 366 B.C. Sparta, Athens, Corinth and the smaller states dependent on Corinth, as Epidaurus and Phlius, were allied, and were at war with Thebes and her allies, of whom the chief was Argos. But in that year the treacherous attempt of Athens to seize Corinth gave the Corinthians a sense of insecurity and a desire for peace. They accordingly sent envoys to Thebes, asking on what terms peace would be granted to the allies. The Thebans prescribed, as one condition of peace, the recognition of the independence of Messene, the new state founded by Epameinondas in 370. A congress met at Sparta. The Spartans refused to recognise the independence of Messene; and accordingly remained, with Athens, at war against Thebes. The Corinthians, Epidaurians, Phliasians, and probably some other small states, accepted the condition, and made peace on their own account, B.C. 366: see § 91. The Archidamus is in the form of a deliberative speech. It purports to be spoken in 366 B.C. by Archidamus III., son of the king Agesilaus, during a debate at Sparta on the Theban proposal. There seems no reason to doubt that the speech was written in 366 B.C., either just before or soon after the actual decision of the question. It may have been composed in the first instance as an exercise; yet, as discussing a question of contemporary politics from the point of view which a large party at Sparta must really have taken, it claims to be considered as something more. Isocrates probably sent it to Archidamus, — not, of course, for delivery, but as a proof of sympathy with the Spartan policy. — Attic Orators, II. 193 f.§§ 52 — 57.
ὧν ἐνθυμουμένους Remembering the examples of recovery from apparently hopeless disaster — Dionysius of Syracuse, when he was on the point of abandoning his city to the Carthaginians (394 B.C.) — Amyntas II. of Macedon when compelled by the Illyrians to evacuate Pella (393 B.C.) — and Thebes, lately at the mercy of Sparta, and now the foremost State in Greece (§§ 40 — 51). προπετῶς...ὁμολογίας ‘commit yourselves with headlong haste to shameful terms’. — προπετῶς: cp. Philipp. § 90, p. 102, τὴν Κύρου προπέτειαν. — ὁμολογίας: the articles requiring Sparta to recognise the independence of Messene. ἢ τῶν ἄλλων ‘pursuing a less spirited policy in the defence of our own country than in the cause of others’ — e.g. of the Chians, the Syracusans, the Amphipolitans. εἰ...βοηθήσειεν...ἂν ὡμολογεῖτο ‘whenever a Lacedaemonian — were it but one — went to the rescue of an allied city under siege, it used to be allowed on all hands that the deliverance of the community was his work’. — ἂν ὡμολογεῖτο, expressing a customary action; so, though more rarely, with aor., Thuc. VII. 71, εἴ τινες ἴδοιεν...ἀνεθάρσησαν ἄν: Goodwin § 30. 2. — παρὰ τοῦτον, ‘all along of him’, i.e. indirectly the work of his spirit and example, even where it was not due to his personal effort. παρὰ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων ‘The greater number of such names may be heard from the older men among us, but even I can recount the most famous of them’. The speaker, Archidamus, was now (366 B.C.) about 35 years of age (νεώτερος ὤν § 1: see note in Attic Orators, II. 195). He means, — ‘though I am too young to remember these men, as my elders can, I am still familiar with their deeds’. παρὰ τῶν πρεσβ., κ.τ.λ., is a reminder that the days of Spartan heroism are within living memory.Πεδάριτος When Chios revolted from Athens in 412 B.C., Pedaritus was posted there as Spartan governor: Thuc. VIII. 28. Soon afterwards the Athenians set about fortifying Delphinion, a promontory on the E. coast, ib. 38. Pedaritus — who received no support from the Spartan fleet at Rhodes under Astyochus — attacked Delphinion with a small force. He was defeated and slain, Thuc. VIII. 55. The words here, then — εἰς Χίον εἰσπλεύσας τὴν πόλιν διέσωσε — convey an inaccurate impression. Pedaritus did, indeed, hold out in Chios for a year, but his command ended disastrously. — Attic Orators, II. 198. Βρασίδας The majority in Amphipolis were loyal to Athens, and it was only by offering the most favourable terms that he enticed the place to capitulate (423 B.C.): Grote VI. 559. Thuc. IV. 106. — ἐνίκησε: at the battle of Amphipolis (422 B.C.), in which both Brasidas and Cleon were killed. — ὀλίγους: Brasidas made his sally against the retreating Athenians with a mere handful of men, — ἀπολεξάμενος...πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν ὁπλίτας, Thuc. v. 8. — τῶν πολιορκουμένων: not inhabitants of Amphipolis, as the phrase suggests, but the Peloponnesian troops shut up in it: Thuc. l.c. Γύλιππος Nicias having omitted to invest Syracuse in 415 B.C., Gylippus was able to enter it in 414, and in 413 crushed the Athenian force in the last sea-fight. δύναμιν τὴν κρατοῦσαν αὐτῶν, i.e. ἣ ἐκράτει, the Athenian force which was overmastering the Syracusans — against which, alone, they could not cope. — καὶ κατὰ γῆν, κ.τ.λ., with ἔλαβεν, alluding to (1) the sea-fight, (2) the defeat and surrender of the force retreating by land: Thuc. VII. 70, 84.
τότε μὲν ἕκαστον...νυνὶ δὲ πάντας ‘that, whereas in those days the individual Spartan was capable of guarding foreign cities, now the Spartans collectively should not even attempt to preserve their own land’. τότε μὲν ἕκαστος διεφύλαττεν — νυνὶ δὲ πάντες οὐδὲ πειρώμεθα: when such a contrast is to be expressed in dependence on a comment, such as αἰσχρόν ἐστι, the regular Greek idiom co-ordinates the clauses, turning διεφύλαττεν as well as πειρώμεθα into the infin. A modern composer would be apt to write (e.g.) αἰσχρόν ἐστιν, εἴπερ τότε ἕκαστος διεφύλαττε, νυνὶ πάντας μηδὲ πειρᾶσθαι.
ἑτέρας μὲν πόλεις Alluding to such cases as those of Syracuse, Mytilene, Melos, all of which might be said, in some sense, to have suffered ὑπὲρ τῆς Λακεδ. ἀρχῆς, in the cause of Spartan against Athenian ascendancy. ἀδηφαγούντων ‘eating their heads off’: Phot. 9. 23 ἔφη δὲ καὶ ἀδηφαγοῦσα Σοφοκλῆς καὶ ἀδηφαγεῖν Ἕρμιππος (poet of the Old Comedy), Meinek. Frag. Com. p. 145. Cp. κριθῶν πῶλος, Aesch. Ag. 1641, ἵππος ἀκοστήσας ἐπὶ φάτνῃ, Il. VI. 506. οὕτω referring to ὥσπερ, i.e. οὕτω ποιούμεθα, ὥσπερ οἱ εἰς τὰς δ. ἀνάγκ. ἀφιγμ. (ποιοῦνται or ποιοῖντο ἄν), ‘to make peace on conditions fit only for those who’, etc.
σχετλιώτατον ‘most intolerable’: cp. Philipp. § 103, p. 105, σχετλιώτατος, ‘most heartless’: or. XVIII. § 35, λέξειν ὡς δεινὰ καὶ σχέτλια πείσεται, ‘monstrous and cruel things’. φιλοπονώτατοι ‘most laborious’: referring to the military and athletic exercises of the Spartans. Cp. Arist. Pol. v [VIII] 4. § 4, ἔτι δ᾽ αὐτοὺς τοὺς Λάκωνας ἴσμεν, ἕως μὲν αὐτοὶ προσήδρευον ταῖς φιλοπονίαις, ὑπερέχοντας τῶν ἄλλων, νῦν δὲ καὶ τοῖς γυμνασίοις καὶ τοῖς πολεμικοῖς ἀγῶσι λειπομένους ἑτέρων. Isocr. or. I. § 40, πειρῶ τῷ μὲν σώματι εἶναι φιλόπονος, τῇ δὲ ψυχῇ φιλόσοφος. But of literary industry as opp. to physical effort, Epist. VIII. § 5, δωρεῶν ἀξιοῦσι τοὺς ἐν τοῖς γυμνικοῖς ἀγῶσι κατορθοῦντας μᾶλλον ἢ τοὺς τῇ φρονήσει καὶ τῇ φιλοπονίᾳ τι τῶν χρησίμων εὑρίσκοντας. ὧν καὶ ποιήσασθαι, κ.τ.λ. ‘worthy of any [καί] mention’ — Thuc. I. 15, κατὰ γῆν δὲ πόλεμος, ὅθεν τις καὶ δύναμις (any power) παρεγένετο, οὐδεὶς ξυνέστη: IV. 48, οὐ γάρ ἔτι ἦν ὑπόλοιπον τῶν ἑτέρων ὅ τι καὶ ἀξιόλογον. ἅπαξ ἡττηθέντες by the Thebans under Epameinondas at Leuctra, 371 B.C.: cp. § 10 of this speech, εἰ δέ...προησόμεθά τι τῶν ἡμετέρων αὐτῶν, βεβαιώσομεν τὰς Θηβαίων ἀλαζονείας καὶ πολὺ σεμνότερον τρόπαιον τοῦ περὶ Λεῦκτρα...στήσομεν καθ᾽ ἡμῶν αὐτῶν. μιᾶς εἰσβολῆς At this time (366 B.C.) Epameinondas had thrice invaded the Peloponnesus — in 370, 369, 367 B.C. But he had invaded Laconia only once — in 370 B.C. The next invasion of Laconia occurred shortly before the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.C. πῶς δ᾽ ἂν...ἀνταρκέσειαν ‘And how should such men [i.e. those who succumb to a single reverse] hold out against prolonged ill fortune?’ δυστυχοῦντες implies εἰ δυστυχοῖεν, but is in close connection with ἀνταρκέσειαν.
Μεσσηνίων ‘Who would not reproach us, if, when the Messenians stood a siege of twenty years in defence of this territory, we should resign it so hastily under a treaty?’ The πολιορκία is the siege of Ithome in the first Messenian War, 743 — 723 B.C., acc. to the legendary chronology. Cp. § 27 διὰ τετρακοσίων ἐτῶν μέλλουσι κατοικίζειν, they propose to restore Messene after the lapse of 400 years: where τριακοσίων would agree better with the common tradition that the Second Messenian War ended, and the conquest of the country by Sparta was completed, about 688 B.C. — Attic Orators, II. 197 — 9. καὶ μηδὲ τῶν προγ. μνησθείημεν ‘and should not even mention our ancestors’ — i.e. should not once recall their laborious conquest of Messenia: — not ‘remember’, which would be μεμνῴμεθα (or μεμνῄμεθα).
