Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/326

 304 HISTORY OF GREECE and compete for the headship of Greece not only on land but at sea. In fact the rescript brought down by Pelopidus from the Persian court sanctioned this pretension, by commanding Athena to lay up her ships of war, on pain of incurring the chastisement of the Great King ; ' a mandate, which she had so completely defied as to push her maritime efforts more energetically than before. Epaminondas employed all his eloquence to impress upon his countrymen, that, Sparta being now humbled, Athens was their actual and prominent enemy. He reminded them, in language such as had been used by Brasidas in the early years of the Peloponnesian war, and by Hermokrates at Syracuse, 2 that men such as the Thebans, brave and trained soldiers on land, could soon acquire the like qualities on shipboard ; and that the Athenians themselves had once been mere landsmen, until the exigencies of the Persian war forced them to take to the sea. 3 " We must put down this haughty rival (he exhorted his country- men) ; we must transfer to our own citadel, the Kadmeia, those magnificent Propykea which adorn the entrance of the acropolis at Athens." 4 Such emphatic language, as it long lived in the hostile recol- lection of Athenian orators, so it excited at the moment extreme ardor on the part of the Theban hearers. They resolved to build and equip one hundred triremes, and to construct docks with ship- houses fit for the constant maintenance of such a number. Epami- nondas himself was named commander, to sail with the first fleet, as soon as it should be ready, to the Hellespont and the islands near Ionia ; while invitations were at the same time despatched to Rhodes, Chios, and Byzantium, encouraging them to prepare for breaking with Athens. 5 Some opposition however was made in the assembly to the new undertaking ; especially by Meneklei- das, an opposition speaker, who, being frequent and severe in his criticisms upon the leading men such as Pelopidas and Epaminon- 1 Xcn. Hellen. vii, 1, 36. * Thucyd ii, 87; vii, 21. 3 Diodor. xr, 78. 4 JBschines, Fals. Leg. p. 276, c. 32, s. 111. 'Eirauivuvdaf. ov% vTronr^a^ rb ruv 'A.'&rjvaiuv u^iufia, elire diab^Srii tv ru it'kfj'dei TUV QqlSaluv, uf del Tit rj?f 'Ai^^i'fliwv u/cpoTTO/leuf Trpcrv^aid -JLETEVEyKtlv elf rf/v irpoaTaaiav rrn 1 Diodor. xv, 78, 79.