Appendix V
Isokrates 14, Plataikos, and Rhetorical Distortion
The historiographical nexus to which all issues involving the outbreak of the Boiotian War return is the common view that the account of Diodoros and all sources that support his account are supposed to be distorted by an Athenocentric rhetorical invention, namely, that the Athenians gave immediate and enthusiastic public support to the Theban uprising. Thus, whereas Xenophon speaks only of private and covert support to the Thebans before the raid of Sphodrias, the supposedly contaminated sources suggest, and even plainly state, that the Athenians, collectively and publicly, deserve credit for the delivery of Thebes from Spartan tyranny. The claim is made outright by Isokrates (14.29), Deinarchos (1.38-39), and Aristides (Panath . 172-73, Dindorf 1.283-84); it underlies more general statements made by Demosthenes (16.14), Aischines (2.117), and Xenophon (Poroi 5.7).
Although the rich circumstantial detail of the supposed Athenian invention must give pause to those who wish to dispose of it, their position might be tenable if the infected sources were all "late" (as is sometimes stated, e.g., Ryder 1965, 55 and note 1). But Isokrates 14, Plataikos , was composed only five years after the event, and 14.29 makes an explicit reference to the salvation and restoration of the Theban exiles through the power of Athens (
), after which the ungrateful Thebans went so far as to send an embassy to Sparta indicating their willingness to abandon the Athenians and give allegiance to the Spartans. The passage makes it clear that this vacillation took place before the eventual reunification of Thebes and Athens against Sparta, which came as a resuit of the raid of Sphodrias.
Although attempts have been made to impugn the historicity of the
Plataikos (e.g., Cloché 1934, 81-84), it has been defended by Momigliano (1936, 27-31) and Cawkwell (1963, 84-85) (as it was earlier by Grote 1852, 220, and Jebb 1876, 177-83), who together find no demonstrable anachronism in the speech nor any apparent reason to invent the speech later for this particular occasion. The passage under discussion here, then (and 14.6, 17, 24, 36, which all allude to the same circumstances), can only be discounted if evidence can be adduced to demonstrate that here, at least, there is an invention.
It is not enough to allege that the vehemently anti-Theban tone of the speech should induce us to be skeptical of any reproach of Thebes, such as in this passage, as if this were sufficient to dismiss the supposedly factual basis of any reproach (so, e.g., Buckler 1979, 52). The anti-Theban tone of the speech is essential to its authenticity. Skepticism of allegations made against Thebes is certainly justified, but the nature of those allegations must be examined before deciding where fact leaves off and innuendo begins.
In this case, we must recognize that Isokrates' argument at this point does not involve an assertion that the Athenians gave open support to the returning Theban exiles; rather, it cites it as a fact already known to the audience, to support the assertion that is being made. And the assertion is that, in sending an embassy to Sparta offering terms of submission, the Thebans were behaving in a most ungrateful and even treacherous manner toward the Athenians. A further assertion is built upon this, namely, that if the Spartans had accepted that offer of submission, nothing would have prevented the Thebans from marching with the Spartans against the Athenians, their own benefactors. We may be skeptical of these assertions, but it must be acknowledged that if the factual premise of Isokrates' argument, dealing as it does here with a point of recent Athenian public policy, were not a matter of common knowledge, the argument would seem very queer to his audience and would not serve at all to advance his case against Thebes. On the basis, then, of the logical coherence of Isokrates' argument, and even more so on the basis of the sequence of events expounded in chapter 5, we must accept the premise of Isokrates' argument as true.
The assertions arising from the premise do indeed deserve our skepticism. If they were true, or rather, if they were deeply and strongly believed by Isokrates' audience (which I accept as the Athenian public in general), then it is surprising that this powerful reproach of Thebes plays so small and incidental a part in the overall structure of Isokrates' castigation of Thebes, ranging as it does from the legendary march of the Argives against the Kadmeia (53-54) through the Persian and Peloponnesian wars (31-32, 57-62) to the most recent disputes over Oropos (20, 37). The fact is, the allegations had little credibility.
As demonstrated in chapter 5, Athenian fears brought on by Kleombrotos' campaign turned back the tide of Athenian support for Thebes in the winter of 379/8. Motivated by perceptions of their own sudden vulnerability, the Athenians divorced themselves from the Thebans and set about negotiating their own entente with Sparta. The Athenians, in other words, were the treacherous party in this relationship. Theban desperation at this point is amply attested (Xenophon Hell . 5.4.20; Plutarch Pel . 14.1). The genesis of the fantastic story related by Plutarch about how Pelopidas and Gorgidas covertly induced Sphodrias to attack Athens and thus embroil her in war with Sparta is easy to understand in the atmosphere of mutual Theban-Athenian animosity, always latent but now deeply intensified. Also understandable, in this moment of desperation, is the Theban diplomatic mission to Sparta (reported by Isokrates as a fact), offering to respect all former agreements between Thebes and Sparta, which included the conventional stipulation that an ally of Sparta would march wherever the Spartans would lead (Isokrates 14.27; Plutarch Pel . 4.3-5.1; cf. Xenophon Hell . 2.2.20, 5.3.26). This was the ultimate Theban gambit to forestall the inevitable, and the Spartan ultimatum (again reported as a fact by Isokrates) that the Thebans must take back the Spartan supporters who had fled during the uprising and must expel those who had murdered the polemarchs, only confirmed the helpless isolation of Thebes at that point.
If the Athenians knew all this (and I believe they did), then how could Isokrates make such assertions against the Thebans? In Greek culture, blame never rests except on an inanimate object or a sacrificial victim (hence the Athenians' swift condemnation to death of the two generals who led them to support Thebes). The Athenians could not admit that they were to blame for the plight of the Thebans. Indeed, were they? Had not the Thebans, as much as or more than their own generals, been responsible for allowing Kleombrotos to cross Kithairon? An Athenian audience would therefore be predisposed to approve of such slander, even if they knew that they themselves had left the Theban conspirators to meet their doom alone. The important feature of this argument, however, the most pleasing part to the Athenian ear, and the fact which could not be denied, was that the Athenians had acted resolutely, in the name of autonomy and freedom, to restore the rights to those who had been wronged by Sparta (cf. 14.17), and the Thebans had never acknowledged this service. The shame that had intervened since that glorious moment did not bear mentioning.