Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/300

 278 HISTORY OF GREECE. riias now proceeded as envoys to Susa ; doubtless under a forma] vote of the allied synod, since the Arcadian Antiochus, a celebrat- ed pankratiast, the Eleian Archidamus, and a citizen from Argos. accompanied them. Informed of the proceeding, the Athenians also sent Timagoras and Leon to Susa ; and we read with some surprise that these hostile envoys all went up thither in the same company. 1 Pelopidas, though he declined to perform the usual ceremony of prostration, 9 was favorably received by the Persian court. Xenophon, who recounts the whole proceeding in a manner unfairly invidious towards the Thebans, forgetting that they were now only copying the example of Sparta in courting Persian aid, affirms that his application was greatly furthered by the recol- lection of the ancient alliance of Thebes with Xerxes, against Athens and Sparta, at the time of the battle of Plataja ; and by the fact that Thebes had not only refused to second, but had actu- ally discountenanced, the expedition of Agesilaus against Asia. We may perhaps doubt, whether this plea counted for much ; or the straightforward eloquence of Pelopidas, so much extolled by Plutarch, 3 which could only reach Persian ears through an inter- preter. But the maui fact for the Great King to know was, that the Thebans had been victorious at Leuktra ; that they had sub- sequently trodden down still farther the glory of Sparta, by car- rying their arms over Laconia, and emancipating the conquered half of the country ; that when they were no longer in Pelopon- 1 Xen. Hellen. vii, 1, 33-38; Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 30; Plutarch, Arta- xerx. c. 22. * The words of Xenophon J)Koh6v&ei 6e nai 'Apyetof must allude to some Argeian envoy ; though the name is not mentioned, and must probably have dropped out, or perhaps the word nq, as Xenophon may not have heard the name. It would appear that in the mission which Pharnabazus conducted up to the Persian court (or at least undertook to conduct) in 408 B. c., envoys from hostile Greek cities were included in the same company (Xen. Hellen. i, 3, 13), as on the present occasion. His colleague Ismenias, however, is said to have dropped his ring, and then to have stooped to pick it up, immediately before the king; thug going through the prostration. 3 Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 30.
 * Plutarch, Artaxerx. c. 22.