Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/314

 £32 HISTOKY OF GREKCE. Strengthened himself by a division of the Greek mercenaries who liad fought under Darius at Issus. In Krete, he appears to liave liad considerable temporary success ; and even in Peloponnesus, he organized some demonstrations, which Alexander sent Ain- photerus with a large naval force to repress, in the spring of 331 B. c.i At that time, Phenicia, Egypt, and all the naval mastery of the ^gean, had passed into the hands of the conqueror, so that the Persians had no direct means of acting upon Greece. Probably Amphoterus recovered Krete, but he had no land-force to attack Agis in Peloponnesus. In October 331 B. c, Darius was beaten at Aibela and be- came a fugitive in Media, leaving Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, with the buUc of his immense treasures, as a prey to the con- queror during the coming winter. After such prodigious acces- sions to Alexander's force, it would seem that any anti-Macedon- ian movement, during the spring of 330 B. c, must have been obviously hopeless and even insane. Yet it was just then that King Agis found means to enlarge his scale of operations in Pe- loponnesus, and prevailed on a considerable body of new allies to join him. As to himself personally, he and the Laceda;mon- ians had been previously in a state of proclaimed war with Macc- donia,2 and therefore incurred little additional risk ; moreover, it 1 Anian, iii. 6, 4 : Diodor. xvii. 48; Curtius, iv. 1, 39. It is to this war ni Krete, between Agis and the Macedonian party and troops, that Aristotle exposed the weakness of the Ivretan institutions — see Schneider's note on the passage. At least we do not know of any other event, suitable to the words. Susa (about December 331 b. c), sent a large remittance of 3000 talents to Antipater, as means for carrying on the war against the Lacedaemonians (Arrian, iii. 16. 17). The manifestations of Agis in Peloponnesus had be- gun in the spring of 331 b. c. (Arrian, iii. 6, 4); but his aggressive move- ments in Peloponnesus did not assume formidable proportions until tho spring of 330 b. c. At the date of the speech of ^^Eschines against Ktesi phcn (August 330 b. c), the decisive battle by which Antipater crushed the forces of Agis had only recently occurred ; for the Lacedasmonian pris- oners were only about to be sent to Alexander to learn their fate (jEsch. adv. Kt. p. 524). Curtius (vii. 1.21)is certainly mistaken in saying that the contest was terminated before the battle of Arbela. Moreover, there were Lacedscmonian envoys, present with Darius until a few days before his death
 * >robably alludes (in the few words contained, Politica, ii. 7, 8), as having
 * Alexander, as soon as he got possession of the Persian treasures at