Appendix IV
Xenophon and Diodoros on the Surrender of the Kadmeia
One point in the narrative of the events of 378-375 on which Xenophon seems to contradict Diodoros outright is the length of time the garrison held out on the Kadmeia. Hellenika 5.4.10-11 suggests , but nowhere states, that the surrender took place the day after the uprising began. Diodoros 15.27.1, on the other hand, describes a process whereby the defenders were resolute, as long as they had supplies, but as they began to run out, and as the expected relieving force from the Peloponnese was long in coming, they lost courage and surrendered. Deinarchos 1.39 says that these events transpired over "a few days" (
), and Plutarch Pel . 13.1-2 emphasizes that the surrender took place just before the arrival of Kleombrotos with the army from the Peloponnese, which could hardly have happened less than ten days from the beginning of the uprising, and more likely was somewhat more.
This issue is inextricably bound with the other discrepancies between Xenophon and the tradition represented by Diodoros concerning the events of 379/8, and here, as elsewhere, the weight of the evidence supporting Diodoros must be acknowledged (see chapter 5, pp. 134, 137). Xenophon's authority in the present instance is no greater because he was a mature contemporary of these events, nor because he "is more trustworthy on military operations," as Kallet-Marx (1985, 141 and note 57) has asserted in reference to Xenophon's account of the surrender of the Kadmeia.
The issue here, in the first place, does not concern strictly military operations. Expertise in this field (which Xenophon surely had) had no bearing on the issues involved in the accounts of the surrender of the Kadmeia. On the contrary, the surrender itself was a diplomatic, not a military, event, and it involved many participants on both sides. In fact, those on the Spartan, or Peloponnesian side, both were fewer in number
and had a more impelling motive (the deflection of blame) to distort events than those on the Theban and Athenian side.
Neither Xenophon's military expertise, therefore, nor his contemporaneity requires us to believe that he provided a more reliable account or that he had access to more reliable sources than Diodoros did. At Skillous in the Peloponnese, Xenophon would have learned of these events secondhand, at best, which makes him no more credible than Deinarchos or Ephoros, who wrote of events that occurred in their fathers' generation. For, even on Xenophon's own account, a sizable number of Athenians must have participated in the events at Thebes, and even more must have joined in the political and legal debates that followed. Moreover, the generation of Ephoros and Deinarchos was not the first to commit these events to written record. Isokrates, just over five years later, in the Plataikos , gave explicit support to the version of events as described by Deinarchos and (through Ephoros) Diodoros (see appendix v). Among other historians who preceded Ephoros in their accounts of this period was Androtion, who was politically active at Athens during this period, and whose Atthis covered the events of this era in great detail (see Munn 1987, 110-11 and note 20). There is considerable weight, therefore, behind the consistency of the accounts which oppose the mere suggestions which Xenophon's account provides.
Finally, we can turn to military considerations for an appraisal of probability in terms that are independent of questions of the expertise or reliability of either account. Given the size of the Kadmeia (and hence the likelihood that substantial provisions were on hand within it), the strength of the garrison, and the ultimate purpose of the post (which was to hold Thebes for Sparta), a surrender on the first day of the siege seems, at the very least, improbable. There were supporting forces on hand at Plataia and Thespiai (Xenophon Hell . 5.4.10; Plutarch Mor . 586e-f), and one of the three Spartan commanders, Lysanoridas, was away from Thebes at the time, presumably among these forces, and probably at Plataia (Plutarch Mor . 578a, 586e, 598f; see chapter 5, pp. 138-40). Although a small relief force from Plataia was quickly cut to pieces by the Thebans (Hell . 5.4.10), there would have been reason to believe that more substantial local support might soon be organized and, failing that, that an army from the Peloponnese ought to arrive in due course. Consistent with his picture of the desperate and ineffectual garrison commander, Xenophon does not report the dispatch of a messenger to Sparta from the garrison at Thebes, though this is reported by Diodoros 15.25.3, whose account, like Plutarch's, also stresses the urgency felt by the Thebans and Athenians to complete the reduction of the Kadmeia before the arrival of the Peloponnesian army. In fact, Xenophon does report the dispatch of messengers to Plataia and Thespiai (Hell . 5.4.10), and these certainly indicate, despite Xenophon's ignorance or willful
misrepresentation, that Sparta was notified and, therefore, that those in the Kadmeia had reason to anticipate help from the Peloponnese. As a final consideration, we may note that forty-three years later, a Macedonian garrison under siege in the Kadmeia under remarkably similar circumstances, though with even less hope of immediate relief, held out for well over two weeks until Alexander arrived with his army (Arrian Anab. 1.7-8). Overall, we must conclude that the impression of an abrupt surrender given by Xenophon carries no weight in view of the testimony of the other sources.
An apparently more important discrepancy emerges from Xenophon's account of the fate of the Spartan commander of the garrison, which lends support to his implication of the abruptness of the surrender. The sequence of his narrative at 5.4.13 indicates that the Spartans both learned of the uprising and put to death the harmost of the garrison before they summoned their allies and dispatched the army of Kleombrotos:
. This again is contradicted by Diodoros 15.27.2-3, who says the Spartan commanders withdrew to the Peloponnese while the Peloponnesian army, already on its way, arrived just barely too late; Plutarch Pel . 13.2 likewise reports that the Spartan commanders met Kleombrotos in Megara, and in Mor . 598f he adds that the two of the three Spartan officers who were condemned to death for their failure were executed at Corinth, before returning to Sparta.
In all other cases, apparent discrepancies can be resolved without outright rejection of one or another account, but here we have the one and only instance in which we must decide whether to accept Xenophon and reject Diodoros and his supporters, or the reverse. The implications of the decision are considerable, for entire sequences of events depend upon it. As in all other cases in which the immediate inferences from Xenophon must be set aside and reconciled with the authority represented by Diodoros, so here the decision must go against Xenophon. This leaves us with the question of how, or why, Xenophon would misrepresent events at this point.
As to why Xenophon was content to imply that the garrison commanders displayed a shockingly un-Spartan resolve in failing to stand to their posts, he is surely representing what must have been the general emotional reaction to these events among the Spartans and their supporters: How could these men have surrendered so quickly, without waiting for Kleombrotos? Any surrender, in other words, was too soon. The first day, the tenth, or the twentieth, it did not matter; it was all too soon . So Xenophon's account omits any indication of the passage of time before the surrender.
As to why Xenophon described the execution of the harmost before the resolution to send out Kleombrotos, here he may have yielded to his own emotional response to the news. While he refers to the surrender of
as a communal action (5.4.11), Xenophon also speaks of "the harmost," without naming him (5.4.10, 13). Diodoros speaks of three , two of whom were executed, one of whom was heavily fined (15.27.3). Plutarch, who calls all three commanders harmosts, also provides their names: Herippidas and Arkissos (or Arkesos), who were executed, and Lysanoridas, who was fined and went into exile (Pel . 13.2, Mor . 598f). Plutarch also specifies that Lysanoridas was the third Spartan to succeed in command of the garrison of the Kadmeia after its original establishment by Phoibidas (Mor . 576a). This would indicate that Lysanoridas was the harmost at Thebes, and so he has been accepted by Stern (1884, 58-59 note 1), Parke (1927), and Cartledge (1987, 297). But Xenophon explicitly reports that the harmost was executed. Lysanoridas was the one Spartan commander who was not executed, according to Plutarch. How is this apparent contradiction to be resolved?
Parke (1927) showed the way, by pointing out circumstantial evidence indicating that, while Lysanoridas was harmost specifically of Thebes, Herippidas was harmost for a military command in central Greece, where he had recently seen to the establishment of a pro-Spartan government at Oreos on Euboia (Diodoros 15.30.3-4, correcting
to , after Casaubon). Herippidas, then, would have been wintering his force at Thebes, a circumstance that explains the remarkable strength of the Theban garrison at this time, 1,500 men, compared to the 700 who garrisoned Athens under Kallibios in 404/3 (Aristotle AthPol . 37.2). By this explanation, both Lysanoridas and Herippidas could be legitimately described as harmosts, and Herippidas, who was at Thebes at the time of the surrender (Plutarch Mor . 586e, 598f) could therefore have been the harmost referred to by Xenophon. Parke has concluded otherwise, however, by suggesting that the third commander, Arkissos, whose precise rank we do not know, was most likely a second-in-command to Lysanoridas and was therefore, in Lysanoridas' absence, acting harmost of Thebes at the time of the surrender. Arkissos, therefore, would have been the harmost of Thebes at the time of the surrender, and it is to him, according to Parke, that Xenophon refers. Xenophon thereby omits "what it would pain him to record" (Parke 1927, 164), namely, Herippidas' similar fate, since Herippidas was personally known to Xenophon (see below).
This is a peculiar explanation, though not entirely implausible in light of Xenophon's personal quirks and their influence on his choice of subject matter. But it does not get us any closer to an explanation of the
problem posed above, namely, why Xenophon gave notice of the execution of the harmost priority over his description of Kleombrotos' rescue mission. Another explanation of Xenophon's allusion will serve us better. We must admit that we do not know anything of the rank of Arkissos. He could well have been a second-in-command at Thebes, possibly a polemarch (cf. Xenophon Hell . 5.4.46), or as Parke also admits (and in accordance with Plutarch's designation of all three men as harmosts),like Herippidas he could have been the commander of another force detailed to this area. What is truly striking, however, is that, outside of this episode, we know nothing of either Lysanoridas or Arkissos. Herippidas, by contrast, is known to have had a distinguished career up to this point and ought to be regarded as the senior commander in the area at the time, and the one most likely to be referred to anonymously by Xenophon.
Even before the episode at Oreos mentioned above, Herippidas had already served in central Greece, probably as a harmost, and had proven himself ruthlessly efficient in holding down a difficult command at Herakleia in Trachis, beginning in 399 (Diodoros 14.38.4-5; Polyainos 2.21). In 396 we find Herippidas closely associated with Agesilaos as his special emissary in Asia (Xenophon Hell . 3.4.6), and in 395 Herippidas replaced Lysander as the leading spokesman of the thirty Spartiate officers accompanying Agesilaos (Hell . 3.4.20). In that year, Herippidas also took over command of the Cyreans, and accompanying Agesilaos back to Greece the following year, he led that body of troops in the battle of Koroneia (Hell . 3.4.20, 4.3.15, 17; Ages . 2.10-11). For well over a year, then, at the end of Xenophon's service as a mercenary in Agesilaos' army, Herippidas had been Xenophon's immediate superior officer. As Parke has suggested, but, as I suggest, for different reasons, this personal connection must be the basis for Xenophon's aberrant account of Herippidas ' execution. Cartledge notes that Xenophon speaks with "disparagement" of Herippidas and that his leadership at Koroneia was "not to the satisfication of Xenophon" (1987, 156, 321). In one instance (an episode described by Xenophon Hell . 4.1.20-28), Herippidas does draw sharp criticism for his lack of tact, while Xenophon also makes a point of his inability to motivate his men sufficiently (a significant factor in 379/8, according to Diodoros 15.27.2). In the latter instance, however, I am unable to detect any reproach in Xenophon's account of the rout of their opponents by Herippidas' men, Xenophon among them. Nevertheless, on balance, and in view of Herippidas' deeds at Heraldeia (though these were not recorded by Xenophon), I agree with Cartledge, and I suggest that Xenophon found Herippidas to be a harsh and insensitive commander. Although he did not name the man (an avoidance of reference to personal involvement or connection so characteristic of Xeno-
phon; cf., e.g., Hell . 3.1.1-2, and 7.5.15-17), it would seem that Xenophon chose to highlight the fate of the senior and most famous harmost from Thebes by placing it here, in 5.4.13, before beginning his lengthy account of the expedition of Kleombrotos. In so doing, moreover, he lent more emphasis to the impression of a precipitate surrender by the garrison. How ineffectual a commander! How well deserved his fate!