The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

48 THE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
and the Persians and Spartans together would work to stop payments
to Athens from those cities. If any subjects should rebel against the
Great King, the Spartans should aid the king against them, and if there
should be any rebellion against the Spartans, the king would aid his
new allies. Both allies should fight together against Athens and make
no separate peace. 80 The an tire bel clause was entirely in favor of Persia,
for the Spartans faced no trouble from their allies, whereas the Persians
were at war with Amorges and might well consider all Greek cities
lost since 480 still to be in a state of rebellion. Nothing was said of
financial arrangements or of the level of support, financial and other,
that the Persians would provide to Sparta. The territorial clause, taken
literally, would return to the Persians all Greek lands they held before
Salamis. Later, a distinguished Spartan would proclaim his outrage at
its full implications: "It was dreadful," he said, "that the King should
even now claim to rule the lands that he and his ancestors had previously
held, for that involved the enslavement again of all the islands
and Thessaly and Locris and everything as far as Boeotia; instead of
freedom the Spartans would be imposing Persian domination upon the
Greeks." 81 Small wonder that the Spartans kept this agreement, with
its "monstrous concessions," secret. 82
The conclusion of so cynical, yet disadvantageous, an agreement
requires explanation. The treaty negotiated by Chalcideus was never
ratified by the Spartans, so the suggestion has been made that it was
never more than a draft, "an outline or sketch of preliminaries of a
treaty of alliance and that it represents essentially, or perhaps uniquely,
the point of view of Tissaphernes that he has put in the hands of the
Spartan commander Chalcideus. " 83 Presumably, Chalcideus accepted
80 8. I 8.
81
8.43. 3; the speaker was Lichas.
82
The quotation is from Busolt, GG III:2, 1426-I427. Grote likewise calls the territorial
clause "this monstrous stipulaton" (VII, 376). Busolt (GG lib, I427, n. r)
rejects the secrecy of the treaty on the basis of 8.36.2, where "the Peloponnesians,"
just before a second agreement with Persia is made, are said to be dissatisfied with the
earlier one. But these unspecified Peloponnesians were probably few, especially well
informed, and in on the secret. Hatzfeld (Alcibiade, 222, n. 4) presents persuasive
arguments in favor of secrecy, and Will, although he does not discuss the issue, makes
a statement that seems to argue strongly for the need for secrecy: "These Spartan
concessions were too scandalous not to frighten those very people who had already
'medized' and who were at present ranged in the camp of the Spartans against the
Athenians" (Le monde grec et !'orient, vol. I, Le V' siecle (szo-403) [Paris, I972], 364, my
translation).
83
G. De Sanctis, in Studi di storia della storiografia greca (Florence, I95 I), 86-87.