The school became famous throughout the Hellenic world, where able young men could be “finished.” His fees were high and he only accepted a maximum of nine students at a time. Isocrates was a good businessman and made a great deal of money. His only weakness was a poor voice and he lacked confidence as a public speaker. So he tended to write essays in the form of speeches that he published rather than delivered in person.
Isocrates became an influential opinion former. It was his firm belief that Hellas would be weakened, even destroyed, by the inability of its constituent poleis to agree on anything among their own citizens or with each other. In 380 he published a celebrated pamphlet, The Panegyric or Festival Speech, in which he drew a bleak picture of a broken Hellenic community.
Who would desire a state of affairs where pirates command the seas and mercenaries occupy our cities? Fellow-citizens, instead of waging war in defense of their territories against foreigners, are fighting each other inside their own city walls?…And so far are
poleis
from “freedom” and “autonomy” that some of them are under tyrants, some are controlled by Spartan governors, some have been sacked and razed to the ground and some are under barbarian masters—the same barbarians whom we once punished for their audacity in crossing over into Greece.
Isocrates was an admirer of the Athenian Empire in its most unblushing form and even defended its brutality at Melos. He agreed with Pericles that his city was an education to Greece. He claimed:
And so far has our city distanced the rest of mankind in thought and in speech that her pupils have become the teachers of the rest of the world. She has brought it about that the name Hellene suggests no longer a race but an intelligence, a way of thinking, and that the word is applied to those who share our culture rather than to those who share a common blood.
The clash of civilizations between Europe and Asia had been a Greek fixation ever since the war at Troy. Isocrates proposed a unification of Greece under two great powers—Athens by sea and Sparta on land—which together would lead a war of liberation against the Persian barbarians.
There was much in this proposition to please the Athenians. For some time they had been wondering if they could reconstitute their maritime league and found that across the Aegean many small states would welcome its return. The seas had become unruly, piracy was widespread, and a return to order was much to be desired. However, Isocrates’ fellow-citizens made one reservation. Although in the long run a crusade against the Great King had great appeal, a more immediate enemy had to be tackled first—Sparta, whose behavior as the dominant Greek state was oppressive.
In 378–77 the ecclesia passed a decree establishing the principle of a new league. The original stone inscription has survived (in many pieces), which states the aim as being to “compel the Spartans to allow the Greeks to enjoy peace in freedom and independence, with their lands unviolated.” The league’s sphere of operations was to be mainland Greece and the islands, and the Persians were discreetly left out of account, although they remained at the back of everyone’s mind. Troops were levied, and ships commissioned and manned.
The Athenians understood that they had to show contrition for the old empire they had deservedly lost. The allies were to have their own assembly, parallel to, but separate from, the Athenian ecclesia. It met in Athens, but Athens was to play no part in its deliberations. A measure passed by one body would only be valid if approved by the other. This double lock meant that, unlike under the first empire, the allies could veto Athenian decisions.
Obviously there had to be a common fund to pay for the fleet, of which Athens would be the treasurer, but payments into it were politely called “contributions” in place of the odious word phoros, or tribute. Cleruchies, or Athenian settlements on league members’ land, were not permitted and no Athenian was allowed to buy or mortgage any real estate there.
The new league was very popular. The first members were already allies and included Chios, Byzantium, Mytilene, Methymna, and the powerful island of Rhodes. Most of the poleis on Euboea joined, as did (extraordinarily) Thebes. Among other members were Corcyra off western Greece, and Jason, the energetic tyrant of Pherae in Thessaly. The total membership rose to about seventy.
The league was crucial for Athens. In part this was a question of pride, for it gave the impression that the empire was back. To some extent, though, this was an illusion, for the days of Pericles had passed. Where Athens used to command it now had to consult. However, it was able to afford a large fleet that could protect the trade route from the Black Sea, its most important strategic priority.
No doubt Isocrates was pleased by the rise of Athens and the unification of the seagoing city-states, but this meant little to him if Sparta was still the enemy, however badly it had behaved, and so long as the Ionian cities remained under the Great King’s thumb.
—
It was the winter of 379 and the weather was cold and windy, presaging snow. Seven exiles including a certain Pelopidas planned to overthrow a pro-Spartan oligarchy in Thebes and to remove the Spartan garrison in its citadel, the Cadmea. Dressed as peasants, they crossed into Theban territory by night and spent the next day quietly in some unpopulated spot. Then, pretending to be coming in from the fields, they joined other farm laborers who were passing through the city gate at the end of the working day.
With their faces muffled ostensibly against the bad weather, the group made its way to a “safe house” where other local conspirators were already gathered. Their plan was to enter the homes of two leading generals or polemarchs, Archias and Philippos, that evening, and assassinate them. That would be enough, they calculated, to overthrow the regime and replace it with a democracy.
A banquet was being held in honor of the polemarchs, who were leaving office that day. The celebration was organized by their administrative secretary, Phyllidas, who happened to be among the plotters. At the polemarchs’ request, he promised to lay on some attractive women (as Xenophon noted sourly, “they were that sort of men”). They feasted and soon, with a little help from their secretary, became very drunk.
A letter came in for Archias, revealing details of the plot. He put it on one side, saying he would look at it the next day. The party shouted for the women and Phyllidas went out for them. He returned with three of the more attractive conspirators in drag and wearing veils and wreaths. They were accompanied by some equally transvestite maids. They insisted demurely that the servants left before they joined the party. Once that had been done the conspirators entered the dining room and lay down next to the polemarchs, threw off their disguises, drew their daggers, and slaughtered them. The victims were too befuddled to defend themselves.
Afterwards another guilty man, the Theban oligarch who had let Phoebidas into the city three years previously, was attacked and killed in his house nearby. It was now full night and the townspeople were asleep. The triumphant conspirators tried to rouse them, shouting that the tyrants were dead. As long as it was dark nobody dared to come out, but with daybreak everyone poured into the streets and cheered the revolution.