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Book XV

Contents of the Fifteenth Book of Diodorus

—How the Persians fought against Evagoras in Cyprus (chaps. 2-4, 8-9). —How the Lacedaemonians, contrary to the common agreements, deported the Mantineians from their native land (chaps. 5, 12). —On the poems of Dionysius the tyrant (chaps. 6-7). —On the arrest of Tiribazus and his acquittal (chaps. 8, 10-11). —On the death of Glos and the condemnation of Orontes (chaps. 11, 18). —How Amyntas and the Lacedaemonians made war upon the Olynthians (chaps. 19, 21-23). —How the Lacedaemonians seized the Cadmeia (chap. 20). —How they enslaved the Greek cities contrary to the covenants (chap. 23). —The settlement of the island of Pharos in the Adriatic (chap. 13). —The campaign of Dionysius against Tyrrhenia and the plundering of the temple (chap. 14). —The campaign of Dionysius against the Carthaginians; his victory and defeat (chaps. 15-17). —How the Thebans recovered the Cadmeia (chaps. 25-27). —How the Carthaginians were endangered when afflicted by a plague (chap. 24). —On the Boeotian War and the events connected with it (chaps. 28-35). —The campaign of the Triballi against Abdera (chap. 36). —The campaign of the Persians against Egypt (chaps. 41-43). —How the Thebans defeated the Lacedaemonians in the most famous battle of Leuctra and laid claim to the supremacy of Greece (chaps. 50-56). —The accomplishments of the Thebans during their invasions of the Peloponnesus (chaps. 62-66, 69, 75, 82-88 passim). —On the system of training of Iphicrates and his discoveries in the art of war (chap. 44). —The campaign of the Lacedaemonians against Corcyra (chaps. 46-47). —On the earthquake and inundation that took place in the Peloponnesus and the torch that appeared in the heavens (chaps. 48-50). —How there took place among the Argives a great slaughter which was called the reign of club-law (chaps. 57-58). —On Jason, the tyrant of Pherae, and his successors (chaps. 57, 60, 80, 95). —The synoecismos of Messene by the Thebans (chaps. 66-67). —The campaign of the Boeotians against Thessaly (chap. 67).


Throughout our entire treatise our practice has been to employ the customary freedom of speech enjoyed by history, and we have added just praise of good men for their fair deeds and meted out just censure upon bad men whenever they did wrong. By this means, as we believe, we shall lead men whose nature fortunately inclines them to virtue to undertake, because of the immortality fame accords them, the fairest deeds, whereas by appropriate obloquies we shall turn men of the opposite character from their impulse to evil. [2] Consequently, since we have come in our writing to the period when the Lacedaemonians fell upon deep distress in their unexpected defeat at Leuctra, and again in their unlooked-for repulse at Mantineia lost the supremacy over the Greeks, we believe that we should maintain the principle we have set for our writing and set forth the appropriate censure of the Lacedaemonians. [3]

For who would not judge men to be deserving of accusation who had received from their ancestors a supremacy with such firm foundations and that too preserved by the high spirit of their ancestor for over five hundred years, and now beheld it, as the Lacedaemonians of that time did, overthrown by their own folly? And this is easy to understand. For the men who had lived before them won the glory they had by many labours and great struggles, treating their subjects the while fairly and humanely; but their successors used their allies roughly and harshly, stirring up, besides, unjust and insolent wars against the Greeks, and so it is quite to be understood that they lost their rule because of their own acts of folly. [4] For the hatred of those they had wronged found in their disasters an opportunity to retaliate upon their aggressors, and they who had been unconquered from their ancestors' time were now attended by such contempt as, it stands to reason, must befall those who obliterate the virtues that characterized their ancestors. [5] This explains why the Thebans, who for many generations had been subjects of their superiors, when they defeated them to everyone's surprise, became supreme among the Greeks, but the Lacedaemonians, when once they had lost the supremacy, were never at any time able to recover the high position enjoyed by their ancestors. [6]

Now that we have sufficiently censured the Lacedaemonians, we shall in turn pass on to the further course of our history, after we have first set the timelimits of this section. The preceding Book, which is the fourteenth of our narrative, closed with the events concerned with the enslaving of the Rhegians by Dionysius and the capture of Rome by the Gauls, which took place in the year preceding the campaign of the Persians in Cyprus against Evagoras the king. In this Book we shall begin with this war and close with the year preceding the reign of Philip the son of Amyntas.1 2

When Mystichides was archon in Athens, the Romans elected in place of consuls three military tribunes, Marcus Furius, Gaius, and Aemilius. This year Artaxerxes, the King of the Persians, made war upon Evagoras, the king of Cyprus. He busied himself for a long time with the preparations for the war and gathered a large armament, both naval and land; his land force consisted of three hundred thousand men including cavalry, and he equipped more than three hundred triremes. [2] As commanders he chose for the land force his brother-in-law Orontes, and for the naval Tiribazus, a man who was held in high favour among the Persians. These commanders took over the armaments in Phocaea and Cyme, repaired to Cilicia, and passed over to Cyprus, where they prosecuted the war with vigour. [3]

Evagoras made an alliance with Acoris,3 the king of the Egyptians, who was an enemy of the Persians, and received a strong force from him, and from Hecatomnus, the lord of Caria, who was secretly co-operating with him, he got a large sum of money to support his mercenary troops. Likewise he drew on such others to join in the war with Persia as were at odds with the Persians, either secretly or openly. [4] He was master of practically all the cities of Cyprus, and of Tyre and some others in Phoenicia. He also had ninety triremes, of which twenty were Tyrian and seventy were Cyprian, six thousand soldiers of his own subjects, and many more than this number from his allies. In addition to these he enlisted many mercenaries, since he had funds in abundance. And not a few soldiers were sent him by the king of the Arabs and by certain others of whom the King of the Persians was suspicious.

Since Evagoras had such advantages, he entered the war with confidence. First, since he had not a few boats of the sort used for piracy, he lay in wait for the supplies coming to the enemy, sank some of their ships at sea, drove off others, and captured yet others. Consequently the merchants did not dare to convey food to Cyprus; and since large armaments had been gathered on the island, [2] the army of the Persians soon suffered from lack of food and the want led to revolt, the mercenaries of the Persians attacking their officers, slaying some of them, and filling the camp with tumult and revolt. It was with difficulty that the generals of the Persians and the leader of the naval armament, known as Glos, put an end to the mutiny. [3] Sailing off with their entire fleet, they transported a large quantity of grain from Cilicia and provided a great abundance of food. As for Evagoras, King Acoris transported an adequate supply of grain from Egypt and sent him money and adequate supplies for every other need. [4] Evagoras, seeing that he was much inferior in naval strength, fitted out sixty additional ships and sent for fifty from Acoris in Egypt, so that he had in all two hundred triremes. These he fitted out for battle in a way to cause terror and by continued trials and drill got ready for a sea engagement. Consequently, when the King's fleet sailed past toward Citium, he fell upon the ships unexpectedly and had a great advantage over the Persians. [5] For he attacked with his ships in compact array ships in disorder, and since he fought with men whose plans were prepared against men unready, he at once at the first encounter won a prearranged victory. For, attacking as he did with his triremes in close order triremes that were scattered and in confusion, he sank some and captured others. [6] Still the Persian admiral Glos and the other commanders put up a gallant resistance, and a fierce struggle developed in which at first Evagoras held the upper hand. Later, however, when Glos attacked in strong force and put up a gallant fight, the result was that Evagoras turned in flight and lost many of his triremes.

The Persians after their victory in the sea-fight gathered both their sea and land forces at the city of Citium. From this as their base they organized a siege of Salamis and beleaguered the city both by land and by sea. [2] Meantime Tiribazus crossed over to Cilicia after the sea-fight and continued thence to the King, reported the victory, and brought back two thousand talents for the prosecution of the war. Before the sea-fight, Evagoras, who had fallen in with a body of the land force near the sea and defeated it, had been confident of success, but when he suffered defeat in the sea-fight and found himself besieged, he lost heart. [3] Nevertheless, deciding to continue the war, he left his son Pnytagoras behind as supreme commander in Cyprus and himself took ten triremes, eluded the enemy, and got away from Salamis. On arriving in Egypt he met the king and urged him to continue the war energetically and to consider the war against the Persians a common undertaking.

While these events were taking place, the Lacedaemonians determined to make war upon Mantineia, without regard to the standing treaty,4 for the following reasons. The Greeks were enjoying the general peace of Antalcidas, in accordance with which all the cities had got rid of their garrisons and recovered by agreement their autonomy. The Lacedaemonians, however, who by their nature loved to command and by policy preferred war, would not tolerate the peace which they considered to be a heavy burden, and longing for their past dominance over Greece, they were poised and alert to begin a new movement. [2] At once, then, they stirred up the cities and formed partisan groups in them with the aid of their friends, being provided in some of the cities with plausible grounds for interference. For the cities, after having recovered their autonomy, demanded an accounting of the men who had been in control under the Lacedaemonian supremacy; and since the procedure was harsh, because the people bore enmity for past injuries and many were sent into exile, the Lacedaemonians took it upon themselves to give support to the defeated faction. [3] By receiving these men and dispatching a force with them to restore them to their homes, they at first enslaved the weaker cities, but afterward made war on and forced the more important cities to submit, having preserved the general peace no longer than two years.

Seeing that the city of the Mantineians lay upon their borders and was full of valiant men, the Lacedaemonians were jealous of its growth which had resulted from the peace and were bent on humbling the pride of its citizens. [4] First of all, therefore, they dispatched ambassadors to Mantineia, commanding them to destroy their walls and all of them to remove to the original five villages from which they had of old united to form Mantineia. When no one paid any attention to them, they sent out an army and laid siege to the city. [5] The Mantineians dispatched ambassadors to Athens, asking for aid. When the Athenians did not choose to make a breach of the common peace, the Mantineians none the less withstood the siege on their own account and stoutly resisted the enemy. In this way, then, fresh wars got a start in Greece.

In Sicily Dionysius, the tyrant of the Syracusans, now that he was relieved of wars with the Carthaginians, enjoyed great peace and leisure. Consequently he devoted himself with much seriousness to the writing of poetry, and summoning men of repute in this line, he accorded them special honours and resorted to them, making use of them as instructors and revisers of his poems. Elated by the flattering words with which these men repaid his benefactions, Dionysius boasted far more of his poems than of his successes in war. [2] Among the poets in his company was Philoxenus5the writer of dithyrambs, who enjoyed very high repute as a composer in his own line. After dinner, when the compositions of the tyrant, which were wretched, had been read, he was asked what was his judgement of the poetry. When he replied with a good deal of frankness, the tyrant, offended at his words, found fault with him that he had been moved by jealousy to use scurrilous language and commanded his servants to drag him off forthwith to the quarries. [3] On the next day, however, when Philoxenus' friends made petition for a grant of pardon, Dionysius made up with him and again included the same men in his company after dinner. As the drinking advanced, again Dionysius boasted of the poetry he had written, recited some lines which he considered to be happily composed, and then asked, "What do you think of the verses?" To this Philoxenus said not a word, but called Dionysius' servants and ordered them to take him away to the quarries. [4] Now at the time Dionysius, smiling at the ready wit of the words, tolerated the freedom of speech, since the joke took the edge off the censure. But when some time later his acquaintances and Dionysius as well asked him to desist from his untimely frankness, Philoxenus made a paradoxical offer. He would, he said, in his answer both respect the truth and keep the favour of Dionysius. Nor did he fail to make his word good. [5] For when the tyrant produced some lines that described harrowing events, and asked, "How do the verses strike you?", he replied, "Pitiful!", keeping his double promise by the ambiguity. For Dionysius took the word "pitiful" as signifying harrowing and deeply moving, which are successful effects of good poets, and therefore rated him as having approved them; the rest, however, who caught the real meaning, conceived that the word "pitiful" was only employed to suggest failure.

Much the same thing, as it happened, also occurred in the case of Plato the philosopher. Dionysius summoned this man to his court and at first deigned to show him the highest favour, since he saw that he practised the freedom of speech that philosophy is entitled to. But later, being offended at some of his statements, he became altogether alienated from him, exposed him in the market, and sold him as a slave for twenty minas. Those who were philosophers, however, joined together, purchased his freedom, and sent him off to Greece with the friendly admonition that a wise man should associate with tyrants either as little as possible or with the best grace possible.6 [2]

Dionysius did not renounce his zeal for poetry but dispatched to the Olympic Games7 actors with the most pleasing voices who should present a musical performance of his poems for the assembled throng. At first their pleasing voices filled the hearers with admiration, but later, on further reflection, the reciters were despised and rewarded with laughter. [3] Dionysius, on learning of the slight that was cast upon his poems, fell into a fit of melancholy.8 His condition grew constantly worse and a madness seized his mind, so that he kept saying that he was the victim of jealousy and suspected all his friends of plotting against him. At last his frenzy and madness went so far that he slew many of his friends on false charges, and he drove not a few into exile, among whom were Philistus and his own brother Leptines, men of outstanding courage who had rendered him many important services in his wars. [4] These men, then, passed their banishment in Thurii in Italy where they were cordially welcomed by the Italian Greeks. Later, at the request of Dionysius, they were reconciled with him and returned to Syracuse where they enjoyed his former goodwill, and Leptines married Dionysius' daughter.

These, then, were the events of this year. 9

When Dexitheus was archon in Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Lucius Lucretius and Servius Sulpicius. This year Evagoras, the king of the Salaminians, arrived in Cyprus from Egypt, bringing money from Acoris, the king of Egypt, but less than he had expected. When he found that Salamis was closely besieged and that he was deserted by his allies, he was forced to discuss terms of settlement. [2] Tiribazus, who held the supreme command, agreed to a settlement upon the conditions that Evagoras should withdraw from all the cities of Cyprus, that as king of Salamis alone he should pay the Persian King a fixed annual tribute, and that he should obey orders as slave to master. [3] Although these were hard terms, Evagoras agreed to them all except that he refused to obey orders as slave to master, saying that he should be subject as king to king. When Tiribazus would not agree to this, Orontes, who was the other general and envious of Tiribazus' high position, secretly sent letters to Artaxerxes against Tiribazus. [4] The charges against him were first, that although he was able to take Salamis, he was not doing so, but was receiving embassies from Evagoras and conferring with him on the question of making common cause; that he was likewise concluding a private alliance with the Lacedaemonians, being their friend; that he had sent to Pytho10 to inquire of the god regarding his plans for revolt; and, most important of all, that he was winning for himself the commanders of the troops by acts of kindness, bringing them over by honours and gifts and promises. [5] On reading the letter the King, believing the accusations, wrote to Orontes to arrest Tiribazus and dispatch him to him. When the order had been carried out, Tiribazus, on being brought to the King, asked for a trial and for the time being was put in prison. After this the King was engaged in a war with the Cadusians and postponed the trial, and so the legal action was deferred.

Orontes succeeded to the command of the forces in Cyprus. But when he saw that Evagoras was again putting up a bold resistance to the siege and, furthermore, that the soldiers were angered at the arrest of Tiribazus and so were insubordinate and listless in pressing the siege, Orontes became alarmed at the surprising change in the situation. He therefore sent men to Evagoras to discuss a settlement and to urge him to agree to a peace on the same terms Evagoras had agreed to with Tiribazus. [2] Evagoras, then, was surprisingly able to dispel the menace of capture, and agreed to peace on the conditions that he should be king of Salamis, pay the fixed tribute annually, and obey as a king the orders of the King. So the Cyprian war, which had lasted for approximately ten years, although the larger part of the period was spent in preparations and there were in all but two years of continuous warfare, came to the end we have described.11 [3]

Glos, who had been in command of the fleet and was married to the daughter of Tiribazus, fearful that it might be thought that he had co-operated with Tiribazus in his plan and that he would be punished by the King, resolved to safeguard his position by a new project of action. Since he was well supplied with money and soldiers and had furthermore won the commanders of the triremes to himself by acts of kindness, he resolved to revolt from the King. [4] At once, then, he sent ambassadors to Acoris, the king of the Egyptians, and concluded an alliance with him against the King. He also wrote the Lacedaemonians and incited them against the King, promising to give them a large sum of money and offering other great inducements. He pledged himself to full co-operation with them in Greece and to work with them in restoring the supremacy their fathers had exercised. [5] Even before this the Spartans had made up their minds to recover their supremacy, and at the time were already throwing the cities into confusion and enslaving them, as was clear to all men. Moreover, they were in bad repute because it was generally believed that in the agreement12 they had made with the King they had betrayed the Greeks of Asia, and so they repented of what they had done and sought a plausible excuse for a war against Artaxerxes. Consequently they were glad to enter the alliance with Glos.

After Artaxerxes had concluded the war with the Cadusians, he brought up the trial of Tiribazus and assigned three of the most highly esteemed Persians as judges. At this time other judges who were believed to have been corrupt were flayed alive and their skins stretched tight on judicial benches. The judges rendered their decisions seated on these, having before their eyes an example of the punishment meted out to corrupt decisions. [

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