REESE LIBRARY OF THK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA] Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/atlienianempireOOcoxgricli Epochs of Ancient History EDITED BY Rev. sir G. W. COX, Bart. M.A. and C. SANKEY, MA. THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE SIR G. W. COX EPOCHS OF ANCIENT HISTORY THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE BY THE Rev. sir GEORGE W. COX, Bart. M.A. Joint-Editor of the Series WITH FIVE MAPS maiH EDITION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1897 All rights reserved ^^ u \^' Srrsf. rrhiUd by nALI.ANTVNK, llANSON .S: CO. ytt (he nallaiityne Press PREFACE. The whole duration of the Athenian empire extends over little more than two generations. Its rapid growth and not less rapid decay stand out in marked contrast Avith the slower march of events in modern times ; but the lessons of political wisdom to be gathered from its developement and its fall are as important as any which may be learnt from the history of modern nations The narrative of its fortunes brings before us a series of efforts, scarcely conscious perhaps at the first, to weld into a compact poUtical society a number of cities whose highest ideal was found in absolute isolation. It exhibits in these cities the growth of a popular opinion decidedly favourable to the impenal city, and still more de- cidedly opposed to the narrow and exclusive policy of the oligarchic party. This party in all these towns gravitated to Sparta as naturally as the demos or main body of the people was attracted to Athens. The Peloponnesian war was, in fact, a struggle between these two parties ; and in Athens Sparta was power vi Preface. fully seconded by the members of the haughty £u- patrid houses, for whom the attainment of their oum ends became the paramount object of life, an object to be secured by secret murder and violent revolution. The lesson of indifference to law thus taught bore its hitter fruit in a deterioration of character which rendered possible the betrayal of the whole Athenian fleet to the enemy by Athenian generals, and the establishment of the iron despotism of Sparta in all the cities of the Athenian confederacy. Of almost the whole of this momentous struggle we have in the pages of Thucydides a narrative of wonderful clearness and accuracy ; and only in its closing scenes are we left to the guidance of the meagre chronicle of Xenophon or the dull compila- tions of such writers as Diodoros. I have already traversed, in the second volume of my * History of Greece,' the ground occupied by this little work ; and although the limitation of my task to the history of the Athenian empire must impart a different aspect to the narrative, I have not hesitated to reproduce substantially the same pictures of the most striking scenes and the most prominent actors in the great drama. These pictures are the result of years of thought and toil, and I trust that they may impart something of the vividness of real life to one of the most important phases in the history of mankind. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS AND THE FOUNnATION OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. B C PAOB Political education of the Athenian people . . i The reforms of Kleisthenes .... 2 Character of Athenian citizenship . . • 3 • Relations of the Athenians to the Asiatic Greeks . 4 Constitution of the Delian confederacy . . "4 Burdens and restraints imposed on the allies of Athens 6 Growth of democratic feeling in the confederacy . 6 Athens and Sparta two distinct political centres . 7 State of Athens after the Persian invasion . . 8 179 Rebuilding of the walls of Athens . . . 10 Fortification of the Peiraieus . . . .11 Treason of the Spartan Pausanias . . . n 478 Recall of Pausanias to Sparta . . . .13 477 Death of Pausanias . . . . . 14 Bearing of the case of Patisanias on that of Themis- tokles . . . . . . .14 Oligarchic opposition to Themistokles . . 16 471 Ostracism of Themistokles . . . 17 Sequel of the traditional history of Themistokles . 17 Extent of Persian power on the coasts of Asia Minor . iS 477 The assessment of Aristeides . . . i3 Relations of Themistokles with the Persian king 15 v'ln Contents. 466 04 ^55 452 450 H7 446 445 Fixity of purpose in Themistokles . Contrast between Pausanias and Themistokles . Chaiges of personal corruption brought against 1 heniis tokles ...... Disputed credibility of the narrative Growth of Athenian ambition Change in the attitude of Athens towards her allies The double victory of the Eurymcdon, and the revolt of Thasos ..... Revolt of the Helots. Alliance between Athens and Argos ...... Alliance of Megara with Athens Siege of Aigina ..... Building of the Long Walls of Athens . Culmination of the Athenian empire Fall of Aigina ..... Settlement of the Helots and Messcnians at Naupaktos Siege of Kition by Kimon .... The Peace of Kailias .... Fall of the land empire of the Athenian."! Battle of Koroneia .... Revolt of Euboia and Megara The Thirty Years' Truce fAOD 20 22 23 25 26 28 29 29 30 30 31 31 31 32 32 33 34 34 CHAPTER H. BEGINNINGS OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPAKTA. 456 440 Final developement of the Athenian constitution . 36 Policy of Perikles . , . . -36 Reforms of Ephialtes • • • • 37 Murder of Ephialtes , . . . • 3^ Pan-Hellenic theories of Perikles ... 38 Ostracism of Thoukydidcs, son of Melesias 39 Extension of Athenian settlements . 39 The revolt of Samos . . .40 Quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra . 40 Contents. ix aC. I AGB A36 Entry of the Corinthians into Epidamnos . 41 133 Embassy from Korkyra to Athens, seeking an alliance 41 Counter-argximents of the Corinthian envoys . 4a .^32 Defensive alliance of Athens with Korkyra 43 Defeat of the Korkyraians by the Corinthians 43 Revolt of Potidaia from Athens . . . -44 Meeting of the Spartan allies ... 44 Secret debate of the Spartans . . . .46 Resolution for war ..... 47 J31 Efforts of the Spartans to bring about the expulsion of Perikles . . . . , -47 Final demands of the Spartans ... 48 — Prosecutions of Anaxagoras, Pheidias, and Aspasia . 48 Real position of the Athenians in reference to the cause of the war ...... 49 CHAPTER III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE SURPRISE OF PLATAIA TO THE CAPTURE OF SPHAKTERIA. 431 Surprise of Plataia by the Thebans Treacherous dealing of the Plataians with the Theban prisoners ...... The families of the Plataians taken to Athens General excitement of the time Invasion of Attica by the Spartans The expulsion of the Aiginetans Athenian reserve fund .... Public funeral at Athens .... Funeral oration of Perikles 430 The plague at Athens .... Ravages of the plague among the Athenians before Potidaia ..... Irritation of the Athenians against Perikles , Close of the public life of Perikles ^29 Spartan attack on Plataia .... Siege of Plataia ..... 50 51 51 52 52 53 5.^ 54 54 55 57 57 58 59 60 Victory of Phorniion ia the Corinthian gulf 5i Contents. 428 427 .26 425 Battle of Naupaktos. Second victory of Phormion Proposed night attack on Peiraicus . Expedition of Sitalkes against Perdikkas The revolt of Lesbos .... Audience of the Lesbian envoys ai Olympia Investment of Mytilene by Paches . Surrender of Mytilene ..... Indignation at Athens against the Mytilenaians Influence of Kleon ..... Speech of Diodotos condemning the proposal of Kleon to massacre the Mytilenaians Withdrawal of the decree for the massacre Escape of half the citizens besieged in Plataia The destruction of Plataia Capture of Minoa by Nikias . Failure of Demosthenes in Aitolia Successes of Demosthenes against the Ambrakiots Occupation of Pylos by Demosthenes . Failure of Brasidas to dislodge the Athenians The Spartan hoplites shut up in Sphakteria Spartan embassy to Athens for peace Demands of Kleon .... The dismissal of the envoys brought about by Kleon Resumption of the war : difficulties of the Athenians Engagement of Kleon to effect the capture of the Spartans in Sphakteria .... Capture of the hoplites by Demosthenes and Kleon PAGH 62 63 64 64 65 65 66 &j ^7 68 69 70 70 72 73 73 74 77 78 79 79 80 81^ 82 83 CHAPTER IV. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, OF THE SPARTANS IN MASSACRE OF MELOS, FROM THE SURRENDER SPHAKTERIA TO THK Change of public feeling at Athens 404 Athenian occupation of Kythera Alleged massacre of Helots by the Spartans Designs of Brasidas . 84 84 85 86 Contents. x i Failure of the plans for surrendering Megara to the Athenians . . . • . ,86 Schemes of the Athenians for the recovery of their su- premacy in Boiotia .... 87 Battle of Delion . . . . . .88 Storming of the fort at Delion ... 88 March of Brasidas through Thessaly . -89 Appearance of Brasidas at Akanthos . . 90 Occupation of Amphipolis by Brasidas . . • 91 Lightness of the imperial yoke of Athens . . 93^' Punishment of Thucydides .... 93.' (23 Truce for one year between Sparta and Athens . 94 Revolt of Ski6ng . . . . -95 Recovery of Mende by the Athenians . . 96 Alliance of Perdikkas with the Athenians . . 97 422 Expedition of Kleon to Makedonia ... 97 Battle of Amphipolis. Death of Brasidas and of Kleon 98 Merits of the policy of Kleon .... 100 421 The Peace of Nikias . . . . . roi Failure of the Spartans to carry out the terms for the peace ....... 102 Surrender of the Spartan hoplites taken nt Sphakteria 102 420 Formation of a new Argive confederacy . 103 Beginning of the public Hfe of Alkibiades . 104 Deception of the Spartan envoys by Alkibiades . 105 Defensive alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia . . . . .106 419 Interference of Alkibiades in Peloponnesos . . ro6 41R Spartan and Corinthian invasion of Argos . 107 Battle of Mantineia ..... to8 The establishment of oligarchy at Argos by the Spar- tans ....... loy 41; Restoration of democracy at Argos . . . iici Unsuccessful attempt of the Athenians to recover An' phipolis . . . . . .110 416 Massacre of Mek)s . ric Xll Contents. CHAPTER V. B.C. ^27-4 424 416 415 ;i4 THE PELOFONNESIAN WAR. THE .SICILIAN EXPEDITION. Earliest interference of the Athenians in Sicily . Congress at Gela ..... Quarrel between Selinous and Egesta Embassy to Athens from Egesta Embassy from Athens to Egesta Resolution of the Athenians to send a fleet to Sicily Opposition of Nikias ..... Reply of Alkibiades .... The\vishes of Nikias defeated by his own representation of the amount of force needed for the expedition . The mutilation of the Hermai by a band of secret con spirators ..... Innocence of Alkibiades .... Alkibiades charged with profanation Departure of the fleet for Sicily Incredulity of the Syracusans Discouragement of the Athenians on approaching Sicily ...... Plan of Nikias ...... Plan of Alkibiades ..... Plan of Lamachos ..... Occupation of Katan6 by the Athenians Recall and flight of Alkibiades .... Landing of the Athenian army on the shores of the Great Harbour of Syracuse Presence of Athenian and S}Tacusnn envoys at Kama- rina ....... Inactivity of Nikias ..... Treason of Alkibiades at Sparta Mission of Gylippos to Sicily Successes of the Athenians before Syracuse First counter-work of the Syracusans Death of Lamachos in the attack on the second counter- work of the Syracusan'". KAGB 112 114 114 "5 "5 \\k 116 117 118 120 120 121 122 122 123 123 124 124 124 125 126 127 128 128 129 130 132 '3^ Contents, XI 11 Entry of the Athenian fleet into the Great Harbour . 13^ Further advantages gained by the Athenians . .13.1 Entry of the Spartan Gylippos into Syracuse . 135 Third Syracusan counter-work . . . .136 Letter of Nikias to the Athenians . . .138 J 13 Occupation of Dekeleia by the Spartans . -139 Naval victory of the Athenians in the harbour of Syra- cuse, accompanied by the loss of Plemmyrion , 140 Defeat of the Athenian fleet in the Great Harbour . 147 Arrival of Demosthenes with reinforcements from Athens ...... 142 Night-attack by Demosthenes on the third Syracusan counter-work ... ... 142 Defeat of the Athenians ... .143 Resolution of Demosthenes to return to Athens . 144 Opposition of Nikias .... 144 Eclipse of the moon ..... 145 Second defeat of the Athenian fleet in the Great Flar- bour ...... 145 Change in the popular feeling at Syracuse . , . \ijb Closing of the mouth of the Great Harbour 147 Mistake of Demosthenes . . • '47 Speech of Nikias . . . . .148 Ruin of the Athenian fleet . . . .148 Stratagem of Hermokrates to delay the retreat of the Athenians ...... 150 Departure of the Athenians from their camp . . 150 Efforts of Nikias to sustain the courage of the Athe- nians ...... 151 Surrender of Demosthenes .... 152 Surrender of Nikias ..... 152 Confinement of the prisoners in the stone-quarries of Epipolai ...... 154'' Death of Nikias and Demosthenes . . . 154 ■ Influence of the catastrophe on the subsequent historv of Atheps . , , . . -154 x^v Conte?its. CHAPTER VI. B.C. 4'3 ^12 Ml THL F'ELOPONNESIAN (OR DEKELEIAN) WAR, FROM THE FAILURE OF THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION Tf? THE SUPPRESSION OF THE OLIGARCHY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. PAGE Effects of ihe disaster in Sicily on popular feeling at Athens ....... 156 Effects of the disaster on the enemies and allies of Athens ...... 157 Persian envoys at Sparta . . • i57 Mission of Aristokrates to Chios . . .158 Revolt of Chios from Athens .... 158 Employment of the Athenian reserve fund . 160 Revolt of Miletos ..... 160 First treaty of the Spartans with the Persians . 160 Revolution at Samos in favour of Athens . . 161 Abortive revolt of the Lesbians . . .162 Ravaging of Chios . . .162 State of parties in Chios .... 164 Arrival of a Syracusan fleet under Hermokrates 164 Second treaty between Sparta and Persia . , r65 Revolt of Rhodes from Athens . . . .166 Order from Sparta for the assassination of Alkibiades 167 Counsels of Alkibiades to Tissaphernes . . 168 Overtures of Alkibiades to the oligarchs in the army at Samos ....... i63 Protest of Phrynichos . . . . 169 Counter-plots of Phrynichos and Alkibiades , 171 Progress of the revolution at Athens . 172 Action of the oligarchic clubs at Athens . 173 T he rhetor Antiphon .... 173 Rupture between the oligarchs and Alkibiades . 174 Third treaty of Tissaphernes with the Spartans 175 Revolt of Abydos and Lampsakos from Athens 175 Revolt of Thasos . . ... 176 Contents. XV Political assassinations at Athens Reign of Terror ..... Usurpation of the Four Hundred Unsuccessful attack on Athens by Agis Suppression of the oligarchic movement at Samos Resolution of the citizens at Samos to treat Athens as a revolted city Election of Alkibiades as general by the army in Samos Dismissal of the envoys of the Four Hundred from Samos .... Fortification of Eetionia by the Four Hundred Assassination of Phrynichos Demohtion of the fort on Eetionia . Revolt and loss of Euboia Suppression of the Four Hundred at Athens Restoration of democracy Trial and execution of Antiphon Inactivity of the Spartan fleet at Rhodes Discontent in the Spartan camp at Miletos Intrigues of Tissaphemes and Alkibiades Voyage of Mindaros to the Hellespont Victory of the Athenians at Kynossema Exultation at Athens . TAGh 178 179 179 180 181 183 184 r86 187 188^ 188 189 189 190 191 tio 409 408 CHAPTER Vn. THE PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN OR IONIAN) WAR FROM THE BATTLE OF KYNOSSEMA TO THE SUR- RENDER OF ATHENS. Declension of the Athenian character . . . 192'' Journey of Tissaphemes to the Hellespont . . 194 Victory of Alkibiades over the Spartans in the Bay of Dardanos ...... 194 Victory of the Athenians at Kyzikos . . 194 Effects of the victory . . . . .196 Recovery of Pylos and Nisaia from the Athenians . 196 Reduction of Chalkedon and Byzantion by the Athe- A. h. XVI Contents. Arrival of Cyrus on the Egean coast 407 Lysandros and the oligarchical chibs Return of Alkibiader. to Athens . Defeat of Antiochos by Lysandros . Alkibiadcs deprived of his command 406 Difficulties of Kallikratidas on succeeding Lysandros Blockading of Konon at Mytilenc Battle of Argennoussai .... Victory of the Athenians, and death of Kallikratidas Departure of the blockading squadron from Mytilene Accusation of the Athenian generals by Theramenes and Thrasyboulos ..... Favourable impression made on the Athenian assembly by the generals ..... Falsehoods of Theramenes Conspiracy of Theramenes . Proposition of Kallixenos Amendment of Euryptolemos Condemnation and murder of the generals Return of the Athenian fleet to Samos ^5 Activity of Lysandros .... Arrival of the Athenian fleet at Aigospotamoi Snaring of the Athenian fleet by the Spartans Escape of Konon with nine ships Massacre of the Athenian prisoners by Lysandros Treachery of some among the Athenian generals Causes tending to this treachery Di.«;may at Athens .... Preparations for undergoing a siege Operations of Lysandros in the East Blockade of Peiraieus by Lysandros Fruitless efforts to obtain peace Mission of Theramenes .... Final terms granted by the Spartans Surrender of Athens ... Demolition of the I -ong Walls Causes leading to the fall of the Athenian empire Character of the Athenian empire CojitejiU xvi» Chronological Table . . . . .223 Index .... ... 243 * * The references inserted in the te.xt with the letters G. P.. belong to the volume on 'The Greeks and the Persians.' MAPS. PAGB Athens and its Neighbourhood 6 Plan of the Harbour of Navarino, to illustrate THE Operations of Demosthenes at F*ylos . . 76 Athenian Operations before Syracuse (Plate I.) .131 „ „ „ (Plate II.) . 133 ., ,. „ (Plate HI.) • i37 THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. CHAPTER I niE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS AND THE FOUNDATION OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE. The Persian Wars, of which the battles of Plataia and Mykale practically decided the issue, acquire their supreme importance as a struggle in which the spirit of voluntary obedience to law education triumphed over the arbitrary rule of an Athenian irresponsible despot. This triumph was won people, by the inhabitants of a number of cities, for which inde- pendence meant generally little more than suspicion and jealousy of all other cities, breaking out not unfrequently into open war ; but it was insured, as Herodotos em- phatically asserts, chiefly, if not wholly, by the skill, wisdom, and energy of the Athenians. Circumstances had indeed long been combining to give to Athenian policy a character essentially different from the narrow and shortsighted exclusiveness which ruled absolutely elsewhere. Had it not been for the wider and more generous aims of her great general Themistokles, the enterprise of Xerxes would in the opinion of the historian have assuredly ended in success : and but lor the previous A. //. B 2 The A tJiCJiian Empire. ch. i. political education of the Athenian people the career of Themistokles would have been an impossibility. Not a hundred years had yet passed away from the time when Athens, still a comparatively insignificant city, seemed to lie beyond hope of deliverance under the yoke of the great Eupatrid houses. Shut out from all political power, and placed by the rigid exclusiveness of caste jnder a ban which made their adr.ii'-.sioii tD such ^^ower a profanation, the main body of the people, without energy because without a purpose, submitted themselves to each faction as it gained ascendency, or to the despot who availed himself of the rivalry of those factions to compass his own ends. So great was the danger involved in this apathy that Solon denounced the neutrality of citizens in the strife of contending factions as the worst of political crimes : but although his legislation had called into existence a class of peasant land-owners, and by making wealth an indispensable condition for filling the highest offices in the state had dealt a severe blow against the old social system, still his lessons and his warnings seemed fov ihe moment to avail nothing. But when the tyranny of Peisistratos, and perhaps even more that of his sons, had brought home to them the dire mischiefs of irresponsible rule, the people, to whom Solon had at the least given a voice in the election of magistrates and the right of passing judgement upon them at the end of their term of office, threw themselves heart of Kleis- and soul into the designs and plans of Kleis- thenes. thcnes. Thcsc plans had for their object nothing less than the complete subversion of the Eupatrid theory which regarded the enfranchisement of persons not belonging to the old religious tribes as an act of defiance against the gods rather than as a mere resistance to oppressive rulers. By suffering these tribes to exist: simply as religious societies, while he created a new set TJte Confederacy of Delos. 3 of tribes taking in the whole free population of Attica or possibly, as it is said, some also who were not free, he introduced a new order of things which was followed immediately by a marvellous wakening of popular energy ; and within fifteen years the people, which had submitted passively to the despotism of the Peisistratidai, dared to answer with a flat refusal the order of the Persian satrap Artaphernes who charged them, if they valued their safety, to admit Hippias once more into Athens. (G. P., p. 90.) But neither the reforms of Kleisthenes nor those of Solon assailed or weakened the conviction that the city was and must be, that which the nation ^, , . r 1 1 . • ,- 1- • 1 • Character of IS for us, the ultimate unit of political society. Athenian Men on whom the Eupatrids looked down <=''^^e"ship. A^ith contempt and disgust had now a share in making the laws which they obeyed ; but no approach was made to the wider view which would look upon Spartans, Athenians, Thebans, and Corinthians as members of a single state with common interests and common duties. This mighty change was not to be accomplished for centuries ; and, when it should come, it was to be accomplished neither by any Greek city nor by the Hellenic people collectively. Yet for nearly three generations the world was to see a maritime empire which seemed to give promise of effecting this beneficial consummation ; and this empire was the direct and immediate result of the Persian Wars. The mere fact that the ruin of the Persian fleet and army brought the Athenians into new relations with the Asiatic • Greeks and their former masters quickened at once their sense of duty and their promptitude in action. They were no longer dealing with matters affecting the independence nf city communities ; and the Spartans, far from being jealous of the influence which the Athenians must acquire, were for the time rather eager that others should undertake a responsibility which in plain terms 4 The Athenian Empire. en. i. ihey could scarcely with decency decline. With the con- Relations of sequences of their withdrawal tl'Cy seem not the Athe- to liavc conccmcd themselves j uor probably E"tic° * had the Athenian leaders any clear fore- Greeks, sight of the jealousy and animosity which their maritime ascendency would speedily awaken in Western Hellas. On one point alone Themistokles insisted with unshaken persistency ; and this point was the paramount need of putting out the full powers of the Athenian state to secure to itself the dominion of the sea. The results of these efforts he was content to leave to the future ; but in the meanwhile the duties which the Athenian generals had to discharge were precisely those which would weaken in them the feelings of city exclusivencss and rouse them insensibly to larger aims and a more generous policy. Having dechned peremptorily the Spartan proposal to transfer the Asiatic lonians to lands west of the Egean sea, they found themselves compelled to protect their ancient colonists against Persian tax- gatherers, — in other words, to set up and to maintain an . , orderly government with a hostile and watchful Constitution ' . . ^, u j . oftheDeiian power m the rear. They were compelled to confederacy, j^y down rules to be obeyed by each member of the new alliance, to assign to them severally their places and their duties, and to see that none reaped the benefit of the new state of things without performing his own part in upholding it. They had to provide, further, for the administration of justice. Wrongs would be committed not only by the people of one allied city against the inhabitants of another, but by Athenian citizens against their new allies. For all such cases the aggrieved persons must have access to tribunals whose impartiality they should have no reason for calling in question. But, more especially, they must learn for themselves and inforce on others the great lesson that M.c. 479, The Confederacy of Delos. 5 the common interests of large numbers of men can never be promoted except by the sacrifice of that independence which, if not curbed, runs into lawlessness, and that the voluntary restraint thus imposed is a real enlargement of freedom. In short, they were putting together the machinery of a great confederacy, consisting of cities some powerful, some insignificant ; and their whole task raised them above the confined atmosphere of men intent on furthering only their own local interests. One of the first consequences of the work thus begun was a course of action which virtually set at nought the doctrine most precious to Greek statesmen generally. When once the new alliance was formed, the adhesion of the several members could no longer be a matter of choice. What- ever benefit might result from the Delian confederacy must from its very nature be shared by every Hellenic city on the western coasts of Asia Minor and more par- ticularly by all the inhabitants of the Egean islands. No satrap must be suffered to vex the continental Greeks with his exactions ; no Persian tribute-ships must be permitted to enter the ports of the allies of Athens. These great ends could be attained only by the common efforts of all the Greeks who lay within the reach of the Persian power ; and although the adhesion of these Greeks was in the first instance voluntary, the step was practically forced upon all. In the eyes of their former masters they had sinned beyond forgiveness ; and the only refuge open to them lay in the protection of that great city without which, according to the emphatic assertion of Herodotos, the yoke of the oppressor would never have been broken. If, then, any members of this new confederacy should retain and exercise the right of quitting it at their will, a gross injustice would be done, not only to the Athenians but to their nearer neif^hbours. The burdens needed to The AtJienian Empire. CIl. I. carry out the purposes of tlic new alliance must be Burdens and ^^^^^ J ^^ money Without which the work restraints could not be donc must be forthcoming ; and the allies of if any repudiated, or even shirked these duties, Athens. ^^^^, would continuc to share all the benefits of the confederacy, while they added to the toils and anxie- ties of those who remained faithful. It was not merely the duty but the interest of Athens to secure these bene- fits as completely to the meanest as to the most impor- tant members of the confederacy ; and these members must in their turn be taught that restrictions upon the independent action of individuals are indispensable in the interests of large societies, and that in the Delian alliance the position of the cities was pretty much that of the individual citizens of an autonomous town, lliis was a gi-eat lesson indeed ; and unless some opposing force should counteract it, the inevitable result would in the end be the growth of a real Hellenic nation. Un- fortunately this opposing force, at no time lacking, was soon to be brought into violent action. While the Athenians were resolved to insist at all costs on the obe- dience of their allies to the rules which they cheerfully obeyed themselves, it was no part of their plan to inter- fere with the internal arrangements of the confederate cities ; nor in fact can such interference be at any time laid to their charge. But Aristeides, like the Athenian statesmen of earlier generations, had felt instinctively that the growth of maritime enterprise must foster ideas Growth of ^^^'"^^ ^^ ^^ exclusive theories of the Eupatrid deniocratic nobility J and by these the * sea-f:iring mob ' of theSrrde- the Peiraieus was regarded as the seedbed racy. Qf democracy. The Athenian seamen, now brought into daily contact with the citizens enrolled in the new confederation, formed a natural intimacy with those whose political faith most nearly resembled their B.C. 479. The Confederacy of Delos. 7 own, — in other words, with the democratic party, or, as tlie oligarchs would term them, the democratic faction or rabble in each city. The speedy result was the strength- ening of democratic feeling to a degree which awakened the liveliest alarm in all cities where an oligarchy still retained power ; and a new motive for secession was thus added to the more natural motives which gradually cooled the zeal of some who had been most earnest in the early days of the alliance. In these cities the oli- garchs looked necessarily to Sparta, the supposed strong- hold of Eupatrid intolerance ; and Spartan dulness in discerning the shadows of coming events was more than compensated by the clearsightedness of the Corinthians, who bad now learnt the lesson preached to them in vain by the exiled tyrant Hippias. (G. P., p. 93.) There was, in truth, a general gravitation in the Greek cities to two distinct centres ; the democratic citizens looking to Athens, the rest regarding Athens and themselves as the natural allies, if not the Sparta two r r^ .T-i r 1 1 distinct subjects, of Sparta. The fuel was thus pre- political pared which might at any time be kindled c^"^'^^^- into a fatal conflagration ; and from the first it was cer- tain that the conflict of these opposing principles must come and would probably be not long delayed. Fifty years, it is true, passed away after the overthrow of the Persians at Plataia and Mykale, before the antagonism between Sparta and Athens was brought to a head ; and nearly thirty years more were needed for the demolition of the great fabric of Athenian empire. But practically this whole period of nearly three generations was spent in the efforts of oligarchical statesmen to upset and de- stroy a system which, as they felt, must be fatal to the autonomy of each separate Hellenic city. It cannot be said that their instinct deceived them. The only question is whether the empire of Athens was, or was not, 8 TJie A tJunian Empire. en. i. more to the benefit of her allies than the supremacy of Sparta, and whether t might or might not in the end have welded the city communities of Greece into a nation. There are at least indications that such a result would have been achieved but for the sleepless animosity of the Corinthians and the more stolid hatred of the Spartans. At the outset there was little indeed to rouse the jealousy either of Sparta or of Corinth. Athens was Suite of ^^^^^^ better than a heap of ashes. Its temples Athens were burnt, its fields ravaged, its farm build- Persian in- ings taken down or demolished. A disaster vasioiu affecting still more gravely the prosperity of the country was the departure of the Metoikoi, or resident foreigners, who would not be persuaded to bring back their capital and their skilled workmanship to a land which could offer them no security either of person or of property. Without their wealth it was impossible that the country could retrieve its losses, or that Athens should become supreme on the sea as Themistokles had deter- mined that she should be. He saw therefore that no- thing less than the adequate fortification of Athens could induce them to return ; and he saw not less clearly that the true interests of the people would best be promoted by transferring the city from Athens to Peiraieus, leaving the Akropolis to serve as the homes of the ancient gods, whose temples should be there maintained in fitting splen- dour. But neither now nor yet a little later when he pro- posed the fortification of the Peiraieus could he venture in plain terms to propose the abandonment of the old city with all its time-honoured associations ; and for the moment a serious difficulty seemed likely to hinder even the lesser enterprise of restoring the walls of Athens. Following the old type of Aryan civilisation, the city of Sparta consisted of four unwalled hamlets : and with honest stupidity or with excellent craft the Spartans now 10 TJie Athenian Empire. ch. i. began to speak of walls as rather a luxury for robbers than a necessity for honest freemen. The fortifications of Thebes had done nothing but strengthen the hands of Xerxes or Mardonios ; and the Corinthian isthmus could be made to serve as a screen for the defence of the whole peninsula and therefore of all who might there seek a refuge. If such arguments were to be accepted, it was clear that the policy of all the extra-Peloponnesian cities was to be directed by the chances of a Persian invasion of the Pcloponncsos itself ; nor was Themistokles a man to hesitate in condemning the unwarrantable tyranny which would inforce such a notion, or in ridiculing the stupidity which seemed to believe that the conditions of war must remain for ever unchanged. But at the moment he was compelled to be wary and measured in speech ; and when the Spartans requested that the Athenians, instead of rebuilding their own walls, should join with them in dismantling the walls of all other cities to the north of the isthmus, he contented himself with taking no notice of the proposal, at the same time urging the Athenians to send him as ambassador to Sparta, but not to dispatch his colleagues until the walls had reached a height which would enable them to bid de- oMhiwaUs fiance to attack. In obedience to his earnest of Athens. pleading the work was carried on with the speed almost of magic, while Themistokles at Sparta ex- pressed himself at a loss to understand why his colleagues failed to put in their appearance. When at length the irritation of the Spartans seemed t*.' threaten serious con- sequences, Themistokles, again professing his ignorance, urged them to send envoys to Athens and satisfy them- selves as to the facts; but he had taken care to insure their detention, and he had no sooner heard that they were in safe keeping, than, throwing off the mask, he told them all that had been done, insisting that Athens had a full B.C. 479. TJlc Confederacy of Delos. 1 1 riglit to be girt about with walls, unless this right was to be denied to every city in the Peloponnesos. Anything like freedom of speech, he argued, would be impossible, if any one city stood on a vantage ground with respect to the rest ; and the allies of Athens must extend to her that freedom of action which, if thwarted by Athens, they would assuredly claim for themselves. But Themistokles felt that his work was still only half done, or rather that the most essential part of it was not even be^run, so long as Athens was left without ^ .^ . r 1 rr-i Fortifica- the direct protection of her navy. There was tion of the something almost absurd in claiming a maritime ^'^''"^'^"^ supremacy for a city the inhabitants of which had been compelled twice within the same year to leave their homes and seek a refuge elsewhere. The dominion of the sea would render any such disasters impossible ; but if the old city could not, as he would have wished, be abandoned, the harbours on which it must depend for its future prosperity must be placed beyond reach of attack. According to his plan the harbours of Peiraieus and Mounychia (the open waters of Phaleron he regarde(i as unsuitable for his purpose) were to be surrounded by a wall so strong and high that even in time of war old men and children should suffice to guard it. It was raised only to half the height which he had designed for it ; but even thus his end was effectually attained. Everything was thus tending to place Athens amongst the foremost of Hellenic cities ; and for the time every- thing seemed to disconcert the devices of her ^ • • J Treason of enemies. The Spartans were not easily stirred the Spartan to active enterprise ; and in their own generals 1'^"^^"'^^- they found the most effectual hindrances to any schemes of Pan-hellenic supremacy, if we are to suppose that any such schemes had been formed. At Plataia Pausanias, if we may believe the story, had expressed his amazement 1 2 The A thcnian Empire. ch. i. at the folly of the luxurious tyrant who cared to conquer a barren land and a hardy people (G. P., p. 196). But even while he spoke, he was, it would seem, dazzled by Persian wealth, and enamoured of Persian pleasures. In any case, the fact of his treason is as little open to question as the traditional details of its execution are worthy of credit. There is no doubt that on the fall of Byzantion he sent to the Persian king the prisoners taken in the city, spreading the report that they had escaped. He forwarded at the same time, we are told, by the hand ot the Eretrian Gongylos a letter in which he informed Xerxes that he wished to marry his daughter and to make him lord of all Hellas, adding that wi-th the king^s aid he felt sure of success. The spirit of Cyrus or Dareios would have been roused to rage at the presumption of the petty chief who aspired to an alliance with the royal house of Persia on the score not of what he had done, but of what he hoped to be able to do by and by. The letter was certainly brief enough to come even from a Spartan ; but it may certainly be set aside as spurious. Conspirators do not usually keep about their persons dangerous papers, when these papers are moreover quite unnecessary ; and least of all would a Spartan conspira- tor be tempted to do so. If again we cannot suppose that Pausanias would keep copies of his own letters to the Great King, it is altogether less likely that he would preserve the letters from the king which, if discovered, must bring about his condemnation. The text of Thucy- dides contains, it has been said, copies of some of the letters addressed by Pausanias to Xerxes before the final missive which his Argilian slave, suspecting mischief to himself, placed in the hands of the Ephors. This letter contained the charge that the bearer should be put to death The letters carried by the previous bearers had contained, we are told, the same injunction. How then B. c. 4 78. ^/^^ Confederacy of Delos. 1 3 were the contents of those letters made known ? They could be recovered only from the archives of Sousa ; and to the unlikelihood that such letters would be pre- served at all must be added the far greater unlikelihood that they would ever be given up to the king's professed enemies. But further there is no reason to suppose that Pausanias was himself able to write ; and we may well ask where he could find a scribe so trusty as to be made acquainted not merely with his treacherous schemes but with the injunction that the bearers of his letters should be put to death. In short, these letters, as we possess them, are forged ; and the fact of their forgery has a most important bearing on the alleged conduct of a more illustrious man than Pausanias. But keeping ourselves for the present to the case of the Spartan general, we can scarcely help thinking that the gratitude of Xerxes was easily earned if the deliverance of a few captives from Byzantion could wipe out the memory of the carnage at Plataia. However this may have been, reports reached Sparta that Pausanias, clothed in Persian garb, was aping the privacy of Oriental despots, and that when he came forth from his palace it was to make a royal progress through Thrace, surrounded by Median and Egyptian body-guards. Recalled to Sparta, and deprived of his command, he made his way again to Pausanias to Byzantion, and established himself in a forti- ^p^"^* tied position from which he was forcibly dislodged by the Athenians. But the Spartans, hearing that the victor of Plataia was busy hatching his treasons at Kolonai, sent a messenger bidding him to obey their summons on pain of being declared the enemy of the people in case of refusal. Whatever trust he may have placed in the kindly feelings of the Ephors, he had more confidence in the power of money, while he found even a better strong- hold in Spartan law, which would trust nothing less 14 TJic Athenian Empire. ch. l than the actual confession of the prisoner. The facts thus far ascertained furnished nothing more than pre- sumption against him ; and even when his Argihan slave brought to the Ephors the letter which made death his recompense for the deliver}' of it, they could only advise him to take refuge in the Temenos (or sacred ground) of Poseidon at Cape Tainaron, in the hope that Pausanias, following his servant thither, might, in the hearing of some of the Ephors hidden between the double walls of the hut, say something to criminate him- self. Their hope was not disappointed. Pausanias soon came to ask the Argilian why he had taken sanctuary. The slave retorted by asking what he had done to de- serve the treachery which for his faithful service de- signed to reward him with death. Pledging himselt solemnly that no harm should happen to him, if he would but depart at once on his errand to the Persian king, Pausanias made an admission of his guilt which satisfied the Ephors hidden behind the partition wall ; but getting Death of ^ \iv!\t of what was to happen, Pausanias in Pausanias. his tum took sanctuary at the shrine of Athcn^ of the Brazen House (Chalkioikos), where, the roof being stripped off and the doors walled up, he was left to die of hunger. It cannot be said that he had more than a just recompense for treason of the blackest sort ; but the re- ligious feeling of the time was shocked by the violence which left a criminal to starve in a sanctuary, and a curse was supposed to cleave to all who had taken part in it. The fate of Pausanias was more or less closely con- nected with that of Themistokles. It is per- thTcasfof haps enough to say that of his supposed com- o'nS of plicity in the schemes of the Spartan general Tiiemisto- thcrc is no evidence whatever ; nor after kles. the death of Pausanias were any documents discovered which established the guilt of the great B.C. 477. TJie Confederacy of Delos. 15 Athenian statesman. But the very splendour of his ser- vices had arrayed against him forces which could scarcely fail sooner or later to bear him down. The enthusiastic admiration of the Spartans had given place to feelings of dislike or even hatred after the diplomacy which had outwitted them during the rebuilding of the walls of Athens ; and the influence of Sparta was at all times paramount with that faction or party of Athenian citi- zens who even without external pressure would be sure to regard Themistokles with extreme suspicion and dislike. No one man nad ever done so much to strengthen the democratic element in the state ; in other words, none had been more successtul in lowering the ascendency of the Eupatrid oligarchs. The animosity of these men, once roused, was sleepless and pertinacious. They could afford to work slowly, so long as they knew that they were working surely. They could first get rid of the obnoxious citizen, and then string together narratives of his alleged misdeeds which, as time went on, would suf- ficiently blacken his memory ; and although in the his- torian Thucydides, from whom comes practically our whole knowledge of the later career of Themistokles, we have a writer of unswerving honesty and of almost un- wearying care in the sifting of evidence, we have in him also a man whose sympathies lay wholly with the aristo- cratic or oligarchic party. If, again, it cannot be said that Thucydides is strictly a contemporary historian when he writes about a man who died perhaps during the year which witnessed his own birth, it must further be remem- bered that the keenness of his scrutiny was directed to the examination rather of oral traditions than of writ- ten documents. In the case of the latter he was too much disposed to think that they must be what they professed to be ; and we have already been obliged to dismiss as spurious some letters from Pausanias to the Persian king i6 T/ie Athejiian Empire. en. i. which he readily accepted as genuine. It is not to Thucy- dides therefore that we could look for a summing-up from the point of view of democratic Athenian citizens ; and it is therefore no slight thing if his narrative furnishes strong presumption that the stories circulated about Themistokles were one-sided and exaggerated, and in no small part groundless. It cannot, however, be denied that in Aristeides the victor of Salamis had a rival formidable not only from Oligarchic the uprightness of his personal character but °o TheiSi from his wisdom in reading the signs of the tokles. times and his promptness in acting in accord- ance with them. Before the invasion of Xerxes Aristeides had thrown the weight of his influence against that de- velopement of the Athenian navy which seemed to him likely to secure undue preponderance to the democratic element in the state. But the conduct of the people, when the storm burst upon them, convinced him that the lowest class of citizens who by the constitution of Kleisthenes were left ineligible to the Archonship were not less deserving than the rest of filling the higher offices in the city ; and he had the good sense to propose the abolition of a restriction which the excluded class would probably not long tolerate. If, as seems not unlikely, he was prepared for the further change which should determine the election of the archons by lot, this readiness in adapting himself to the times could not fail to extend his popularity and thus to throw a larger measure of power into the hands of the oligarchic party in their struggle with Themistokles. This illustrious man was now accused ol complicity in the schemes of Pausanias by some citizens who were bribed by the Spartans to bring the charge. But the time for their triumph had not yet come, and for the present Themistokles not only escaped but was more popular than ever. Diodoros, it is true, speaks of his 471 B.C. TJlc Confederacy of Delos, ly countrymen as forgetting his services and desiring his humihation partly through fear, partly through envy. But these feelings, it is obvious, could be entertained towards him only by those who took pride in their Eupatrid descent ; and, in corroboration of this belief, Diodoros asserts distinctly that by the main body of the people he was still and always regarded with a singular love and affection. Nor is this fact in the . . least discredited by his ostracism, which only Themisto- proves that his absence from Athens appeared '^•^^471 b.c. to one-fourth of the citizens a measure desirable in the interests of the city. Leaving Athens, he betook himself to Argos ; but here the Spartans would not suffer him to remain undisturbed. By their means he w^as again charged with sharing in the treason of Pausanias, and hearing that orders had been issued for his arrest, he fled to Korkyra, and thence passed over into the territory of the Molossian chief Admetos. In after years the story ran that, making his way after many difficulties and dangers to Ephesos and journeying on thence geque! of into the interior, he sent to Artaxei-xes, who thetradi- had become king after the murder of his father tory of The- Xerxes, a letter thus worded, ' I, Themistokles, '"istokles. have come to thee, — the man who has done most harm to thy house while I was compelled to resist thy father, but who also did him most good by withholding the Greeks from destroying the bridge over the Hellespont w^hile he was journeying from Attica to Asia ; and now I am here, able to do thee much good, but persecuted by the Greeks on the score of my good-will to thee. But I wish to tarry a year and then to talk with thee about mine errand.' The young king, we are told in this version of the tale, at once granted his request ; and when at length, having thoroughly learnt the Persian language, Themistokles went up to Sousa, he acquired over Artaxerxcs a pro- A. H. C TJic Athenian Empire. CII. L digious influence resting on the promise that he would make the Persian ruler monarch of all Hellas. Returning to Asia Minor, he spent the rest of his life in great mag- nificence, having the three cities Magnesia, Myous, and Lampsakos to supply him with bread, wine, and vege- tables, but doing nothing to fulfil his promise, until at length he died by a voluntary death to escape from an impossible task. The story refutes itself by asserting that nearly twenty or perhaps more than twenty years after the Extent of formation of the Delian confederacy, two Persian citics lying almost under the shadow of Mount th^coasts of Mykale, and a third on the shores of the Asia Minor. Hellespont at the very gate of the Propontis, could be made by a Persian king to furnish a revenue for his favourites. If he could bestow these towns as appanages, he might put any others along the Egean coasts to the same use ; and thus the work of the Greeks in destroying the fleets and the armies of Xerxes would have gone for nothing. If the resources of these towns were at the disposal of Artaxerxes, there was no reason v/hy his tribute-gatherers should not be seen in every Ionian city, and therefore no reason why his armies should not take ample vengeance for the revolt whiv,h followed the fight at Mykale. In short, if this story is to be believed, the account given of the assessment of The assess- Aristcidcs must be summarily rejected. Fully AHste^des fifteen years earher the confederate leaders 477 B.C. ' had been called upon to determine the pro- portions in which the allies should contribute men, ships, and money for the common cause. The sum total of this assessment on the allies amounted to 460 talents. The items arc not given : but it seems to have been based on the amount of tribute which the citics on the eastern shores of the Egean had paid to the Persian king; and thus as the tribute for the Nomos or district, which 47 7 B. c. The Confederacy of Delos. 1 9 included the lonians, Magncsians, Aiolians, Lykians, and some others, amounted to 400 talents in silver, the remainder would represent the contributions of the islanders. Yet here we have the inhabitants of certain towns, assessed as members of the Uelian confederation, still at the beck and call of the Persian despot ; and we are left to wonder what the allies had done during the long period of some twenty years towards breaking the yoke which Cyrus had placed on the necks of the Hellenic subjects of Kroisos. Long ago, when Pausanias was hatching his treasons. Spartan authority was able to reach him at Kolonai in the Troad, and he felt himself constrained to obey the messenger who bade him follow on pain of being declared the enemy of the people if he should refuse. But now spending years of luxurious ease at Magnesia, Themistokles could bid defiance to his countrymen, whose order for his arrest had, as we have seen, driven him away from Argos. Thus at the outset we find ourselves dealing with a story open to the gravest suspicion ; and this suspicion must be increased when we learn that, in an- Relations of other version, the Persian king, far from re- Themis- garding Themistokles as a benefactor to the the Persian royal house, had put a price of 200 talents upon ^'"^' his head, and that Themistokles was accordinglyunable to reach Sousa except in the disguise of a stranger designed for the king's harem. Other tales were told which repre- sented Mandane, the sister of Xerxes, as demanding him for the indulgence of the savage vengeance of Eastern peoples, and which spoke of Themistokles as escaping only through his singular ease in the use of the Persian language. Nor is it enough to note merely that the vast wealth which Themistokles is said to have carried away with him into exile renders superfluous the bribes for which he r % 20 The AtJicnian Empire. ch. l pledged his services to the Persian despot. No judgement Fixity of passed on his supposed conduct during his ■^'h^rnisV" later years can have a claim on our consider- lokles. ation, unless it surveys his whole career. The faculties which concentrate all the powers of a man on one especial purpose are just those which leave the least chance of a radical change in more advanced life ; and for this fixity of purpose no man has ever been more remarkable than Themistokles. So mighty had been the impulse which he imparted to Athenian enterprise, so completely had it strengthened the Athenian character, that his great rival, as we have seen, gave his aid in the working of that maritime policy the introduction of which he had opposed. In this business of his life he had displayed a rapidity of perception which gave to his maturest judgements the appearance of intuition, a fertility of resource and a readiness in action which were more than equal to every emergency. He had kept those about him in some degree true to the common cause, when a blind and stupid terror seemed to make all possibility of union hopeless. Yet of this man the tra- ditional history would have us believe, not that he yielded to some mean temptation — not that he began his career in poverty and ended it in wealth ; but that from the beginning he distinctly contemplated the prospect of destroying the house which he was building up, and of seeking a home in the palace of the king on whose power and hopes he was first to inflict a deadly blow. We are told that at the very time when by an unparalleled energy of character and fixity of purpose he was driving the allies into a battle which they dreaded, he was sending to the Persian king a message which might stand him in good stead when he should himself come as a suppliant to the court of Sousa ; and that he deceived his enemy to his ruin in order to win his favour in the time of 477-466 B.C. The Confederacy of Dclos. 2r trouble which he knew to be coming. We are yet further asked to believe that in the Persian palace he actually found the refuge which he contemplated — that his claim to favour was admitted without question— that he pledged himself to inslave his country, and for twelve or fourteen years received the revenues of large towns to enable him to fulfil his word ; and yet that during this whole time he made not a single effort to fulfil even a part of his promise to the Persian king. When we look closer into the case, we find that the Spartans merely spoke of the proofs which had satisfied them of the complicity of Themistokles in the contrast treason of Pausanias. We are not told that between they exhibited these proofs to the Athenians, and Themis- or that they could be exhibited ; and if the '°'*'^^- genuineness of the letter intrusted to the Argilian slave be granted, this only proves the spuriousness of the previous letters in which Pausanias expressed his desire to marry the daughter of Xerxes (p. 12), and shows si ill more clearly that the letter of Themistokles (p. 17) placed in the hands of Thucydides is a forgery. In short, there is nothing in the case of Pausanias which will help us to any conclusion in that of Themistokles. The work of the former was ended on the field of Plataia. The mind of Themistokles after the victory of Salamis was turned to the harder task of building up the Athenian con- federacy and of imparting something like a fixed prin- ciple of union to a mass of atoms which were at any time ready to fly asunder. For Pausanias withdrawal from command meant a return to the life of a mere citizen in a place where he felt that he ought to be king, and to a rigid and monotonous routine which to him had mani- festly become intolerably irksome. Conscious of possess- ing not merely the esteem but the love of the main body of his countrymen, Themistokles had in Athens everything 22 TJie Athenian Empire. cii. i. that could make life worth living for— the sense that a great future lay before the state which he had saved from ruin, and that the coming Empire of Athens was in great part his own work. Nor must we forget for a moment that tliis work needed the fullest concentration of mind and will. It was one which had to be carried on in the face of overpowering difficulties and which a divided heart and wavering purpose could never have accomplished. Nor do the charges of bribery brought against him furnish much presumption of his guilt. Beyond the sums Charges of which he is Said to have bestowed on the personal Spartan and Corinthian leaders, we are not corrupt ion ^ ' bro-mht told that he made any use of the money aSmis- given to him by the Euboians (G. P. p. 164), tdkies although we might well suppose that a bribe would have turned the scale in more than one emer- gency. In these instances the corruption lay with the recipients of the briije, not with Themistokles, who never swerved in his purpose: and the other charges brought against him of extorting money for his private use from the Egean islanders (G. P. p. 182) may be fairly set aside as unproven, if nol as false. With his messages to Xerxes before and after the battle of Salamis we may deal not less summarily. If the first was sent, (G. P. p. 172), it was superfluous except as a device for iKistening on a battle which Xerxes had no intention of declining, or perhaps even of delaying. The second (G. P. p. 179) would have been regarded by the despot as a stupid and malicious trick, while, if we look upon it as a device for securing himself a home when he should have turned traitor, it compels us to believe that a man en- gaged in saving his country from dangers seemingly over- whelming, and struggling with the jealousy, the selfish- ness, or the disaffection of his colleagues, was actuated nt one and the same moment by two entirely distinct and 477-4^56 B.C. 'fJie Confederacy of Ddos. 2^ conflicting motives. Bent on setting his country fret, he was on this hypothesis not less bent on securing a place of retreat among the very enemies whom he was driving out. The idea is ludicrous. Such a condition of mind could, assuredly, have produced nothing but distraction of purpose and weakness in action ; a turmoil of contrary desires wdth which the calm judgement and profound energy of the man stand out in incomprehensible con- trast. Of the treachery thus imputed to him we may perhaps form some notion if we should suppose that before the fight of Trafalgar Nelson had already done his best to secure the goodwill of the tyrant Bonaparte whose fleets he was advancing to encounter. In short, wherever we turn, we are met by inconsistent or contradictory statements, by shadowy inferences or unwarranted assumptions. We may take the Disputed two letters in which Pausanias and Themis- orth?'^''^ tokles respectively make their overtures to the narrative, great king. The former may have been too presuming and boastful to be altogether agreeable to an eastern monarch ; but it was at least free from the falsehoods which formed the substance of the letter of Themistokles (p. 1 7). The plea that the instinct of self-preservation alone had led him to resist and repel the invasion of Xerxes must to his son Artaxerxes, who could not be altogether ignorant of the phenomena of Medism, have appeared not less ridiculous than false. The boast that as soon as he could safely do so he had compensated his injuries with greater benefits must have seemed an ex- travagant and wanton lie. More than any other man he had toiled to destroy the Persian fleets and armies, and even to ruin the Persian empire by raising up against it the most formidable confederacy which it had ever encountered. For any good service done by him to the Persians we shall assuredly look in vain. It is useless to go further. It is just possible, although most uti- 24 TJie Athenian Empire. cii. i. likely, that some sort of agreement may have been made by him with Artaxerxes ; but the terms of it we shall never discover. It is enough to know that no definite results followed, and we may therefore safely infer that it pledged him to no direct enterprise against the freedom of Athens or of Hellas. The story of his suicide was disbelieved by Thucydides ; by Diodoros it was regarded as a crowning stratagem to prevent all further attempts on the part of the Persians against Greece. That Themistokles, had he chosen, might have inflicted great damage on the growing empire of Athens, we cannot for a moment doubt ; that not a single injurious act can be alleged against him proves, not that he cheated the king by a train of gratuitous falsehoods extended over a long series of years, but that Artaxerxes imposed no such obligations as the price of his hospitality. We are thus brought to the conclusion that from first to last Themistokles well deserved the warm affection which his countrymen generally felt for him during his life, and with which they honoured his memory after his death ; that his ostracism was due to the exertions of the oligar- chic party, stimulated by the menaces or the bribes of the Spartans ; that the order for his arrest which made him fly from Argos was in like manner the result of Spartan intrigues acting on the animosity felt towards him by his personal enemies ; that in his absence these enemies strung together those slanders which would be most readily propagated by the oligarchic factions in every city ; and that these reports in the course of thirty or forty years were worked into the shape of the tradi- tional narrative preserved to us by Thucydides. We may well feel a legitimate satisfaction in this result of an in- quiry which acquits the greatest of Athenian statesmen not merely of treason but of any attempt to injure his country, and exhibits the Athenian epipire as a fabric raised by men whose moral consistency may command t77 4Ct»B.c. The Coiifedcracy of Ddos. 25 our respect while their pohtical sagacfty must win our admiration. If, then, there is no evidence that Themistokles desired and dehberately pledged himself to undo the work of his life, we may well suppose that he regarded the Growth of rapid growth of Athenian power with mingled Aihenian , • 1 -J A J ^ i. ambition. exultation and pride. Anger and resentment he may or must have felt ; but these feelings would have for their object only that party among his countrymen whose enmity persistently followed him, not the main body of the people by whom he knew himself to be beloved. The obstacles to be surmounted, even when the Persian fleet had been ruined at Mykale, were formid- able indeed. The story which represents Artaxerxes as giving three Hellenic cities to Themistokles may be absurd, because it attributes to him the absolute owner- ship of a vast ten-itory in which, at best, he could have possessed only a few military strongholds. Probably by that time he retained not a single post in that long and beautiful strip of land which had formed the brightest jewel in the crown of the Lydian kings. But fifteen or twenty years earlier it was found to be a hard, in some instances an impossible, task to dislodge the Persian gar- risons from the cities which they occupied ; and Doriskos, where Xerxes had reviewed his mighty force, was still in the hands of a Persian Governor when Herodotos was composing the later books of his history. The carrying on of the struggle must, in short, involve a serious strain for those who might persevere in it, and Sparta felt neither bound nor inchned to incur it. The Asiatic Greeks on their side were not slow to perceive the real state of Spartan feelings ; and when the Spartan commis- sioners, headed by Dorkis, came to supersede Pausanias, they were met by a passive resistance which made them still more anxious to be rid of a costly and unprofitable 26 TJlc Athenian Evipire. cii. i. duty. With Athens the case was in every way different. In rehance on her earnestness and her power to help them, the Asiatic Hellenes were again in revolt against the Persian king ; nor could she fail to see that interest and duty alike called her to place herself at the head of the cities which were willing to submit to her guidance while they rejected the supremacy of Sparta. The whole history of the war had made it clear that her power, as Themistokles had insisted, was based upon her fleet, and that this power was capable of indefinite expansion. The security of Attica, which was bringing back to the city the wealthy and skilled population of alien residents, could be maintained only by her command of the sea ; and this command secured further the benefits arising from the whole commerce of the Egean, together with the trade, chiefly in corn, which streamed from the Black Sea through the gates of the Hellespont. So wonderful was the progress made, and so great was the ambition roused by this success, that Athenian statesmen began to dream of a land empire for their city not less brilliant than their supremacy by sea ; but Themistokles assuredly never supposed that within a few years the power of Athens would extend from the harbours of Megara to the pass of Thermopylai, and if he could have foreseen it he would have deprecated these conquests as mischievous, if not fatal, to her real interests. The fact that Delos was chosen as the centre of the new confederacy is suffi- cient proof that no such schemes were at the time enter- tained by others. The events which led to these results were shaped by circumstances which could not have been anticipated ; c-x, • but of the course of these events we have Change in the .-luitude unfortunately a singularly bare and meagre towardThcr rccord. It is not that the history of this im- allies. portant time has been losL but that it never 477-4^6 B.C. The Confederacy of Ddos. 2 J was written. From Thucydides we learn that the con- federacy of Delos was at first an association of indepen- dent states whose representatives met in the Synod on terms of perfect equahty, but that ten years later a change became manifest in the attitude of Athens towards her aUies ; that at first all contributed ships and men for the common service, whether with or without further con- tributions in money ; and that the change in the relative positions of Athens and her allies was brought about wholly by the acts of the latter. It was absolutely neces- sary in the presence of a common danger, that these should faithfully keep to their engagements ; it was not less necessary that Athens should compel them to the performance of their duty in case of slackness or of failure. But with the lonians it was the old story. The Athenians were for them hard taskmasters only because they hated the very idea of long-continued strenuous exertion. But they were dealing now with men who were not to be treated like the Phokaian Dionysios in the days of Aristagoras (G. P. p. 104) ; and as in some shape or other they must bear their full measure of the general burden, the thought struck them that their end might be gained if they paid more money and furnished fewer ships and men, or none. Their proposal was accepted, and its immediate result was to inhance enormously the power of Athens, while in case of revolt they became practically helpless against a thoroughly disciplined and resolute enemy. To this end they were rapidly hastening, and the measure in which they were freed from the fear of Persian exactions marked the degree of their impatience under a confederation of which they felt themselves to be no longer voluntary members. With this change of feeling the Delian Synod was doomed. Its members could no longer meet as equals ; its deliberations became a mere waste of time ; and Deloa 28 The Athenian Empire. cii. i. was obviously no longer a fit place for the common ^, , , , treasury. Hence the Synod ceased to meet, The douLle , , ^ , / , a i r,., victory of and the funds were transferred to Athens. The mldon.'^and ^^Y^ of the Athenian Hegemonia, or leader- * f tT°'' ^^^P' vi^xQ^ now ended ; the empire of Athens had begun, and neither in laying its foundations nor in raising the fabric can the Athenians be charged with any lack of promptitude. The victory of Kimon destroyed, it is said, on one and the same day at the mouth of the Eurymedon, in Pamphylia, the Phenician fleet of 200 ships and the land forces with which 466 B.C. . , . , it was destined to co-operate. Not many months later a quarrel with the Thasians about their mines and trade on their Thrakian settlements ended in open war. Not content with blockading Thasos, the Athenians sent 10,000 men as settlers to the 465 6.C. spot called the Nine Roads, the site of the future Amphipolis ; but these, advancing rashly into the inner country, were cut to pieces by the Edonians, to whom the IMilesian Aristagoras had fallen a victim (G. P. p. 103). Undismayed by this disaster, the Athenians still blockaded the Thasian port. The siege had lasted two years, when the Thasians resolved to ask aid from Sparta. They saw that the quarrel be- tween themselves and the Athenians was one which must be decided in a struggle between the two foremost cities of Hellas ; and the readiness with which the Spartans entered into a secret engagement to invade Attica proves that, apart from the specific causes of offence, the mere great- ness of Athens was a wrong which they could not forgive, and that they had advanced not a step beyond the narrow exclusivcness of the old Aryan civilisation. To this fear and consequent hatred of Athens, and to this alone, we must trace the outbreak of the Peloponncsian war. -But for the present their power to aid the Thasians was not 464 B.C. The Confederacy of Delos. 29 equal to their v/ill ; and the Thasians, subdued at last, were compelled to pull down their walls, to give up their ships and their Thrakian settlements, and to make up the contributions which they would have paid if they had not revolted. The inability of the Spartans to invade Attica arose from a revolt of the Helots, who construed an earthquake which followed the death of Pausanias as a Revolt of sign calling upon them to rise against their the Helots, masters. The insurgents were shut up in between the old Messenian stronghold of Ithome ; ^rJ^o"^^"'^ and the Spartans, always at a loss in siege operations, besought the help of the Athenians, against whom they had made a secret pact with the Thasians. This petition was warmly se- conded by Kimon, the winner of the double victory at the Eurym.edon, who prayed his countrymen not to suffer Hellas to be lamed of one leg, or Athens to draw the cart without her yoke-fellow. Kimon himself, sent with an Athenian army, failed to carry Ithome by assault, and was dismissed by the Spartans on the plea that they had no further need of his services. Conscious of their own premeditated treachery, they imputed the same double-dealing to the Athenians ; but they mis- calculated the effect of this insult. The indignant De- mos at once proposed an alliance to the Argives, who eagerly welcomed it as a means of recovering their old supremacy in the Peloponnesos. Megara at the same time, tired out with Corinthian incroachments on r, ■, -if • -i r Alliance of her boundaries, flung herself mto the arms of Megara Athens, which thus became possessed of the withAthens. two Megarian ports, Nisaia, on the Saronic gulf, and Pegai on that of Corinth, while her possession of the passes of Geraneia rendered Spartan invasior.s of Attica practically impossible. Still further to strengthen their hold on 30 TJic Athenian Empire. en. I, Megara, the Athenians joined the city by long walls to its southern port of Nisaia, and within the fortress thus made they placed a permanent garrison. This enrolment of Megara in the new league, to which the Thessalians were also admitted, roused the fiercest Sicceof • '^^'i'''^th of the Corinthians, and of their allies of Aigina. Epidauros and Aigina. A defeat of the Corin- thians made the Aiginetans resolve on measuring their full strength with the men who had robbed them of their ancient maritime supremacy. They went into battle relying on the tactics which had proved successful against the Persians at Salamis and Mykale ; they came out of it ruined as a maritime power, and dreading Athenian strategy as much as they dreaded the fleets of Xerxes two and twenty years before. The island was strictly blockaded, and the Spartans had thus another opportu- nity for striking a blow at Athens, while her forces were busied elsewhere ; but the Helots were not yet subdued, and they were obliged to refuse help not only to the Aigine- tans, but also to a Persian envoy who prayed them to invade Attica in order to draw off a large Athenian force which had been sent to aid the Egyptians in their revolt against Artaxerxes. In truth, the history of this time, with its rush of events and its startling changes, exhibits on the Athenian side a picture of astonishing and almost preternatural energy. One army was besieging Aigina, another was in Eg>'pt ; and yet this was the time chosen Building of by Pcriklcs for carrying out at home the plan \Valls*of* which, on a small scale, had been adopted at Athens. IMegara. To join Athens with Peiraieus on the one side, and Phalcron on the other, one wall was needed of about four and a half, and another of about four English miles in length. Such an enterprise could not fail to exasperate the fears and jealousy of the Spar- tans, and to alarm the conservative statesmen of Athens, 455 B.C. The Confederacy of Delos. 3! who were especially anxious to keep on good ternts with Sparta. But it was a necessary result of the policy of Themistokles : and it became evident to the Spartans that, if the growth of Athens was to be ar- rested, it could be done only by setting up a counterpoise to her influence in northern Hellas. Hence, in order to check Athens, they swallowed down their horror of orga- nized federations, and set to work to restore the supre- macy of the Boiotian city which had been most disgrace- fully zealous in the cause of Xerxes. The Spartan force sent across the Corinthian gulf defeated the Athenians at Tanagra, within sight of the Euripos, and returned home through the passes of Geraneia. Two months later the Athenian Myronides marched into Boiotia, and by his splendid victory in the vineyards of Oino- ^ 1 • phyta raised the empire of Athens to the tion of greatest height which it ever reached. The Athenian Boiotians and Phokians became the subject ^"^P're. aUies of the Athenians, the natural consequence being that in each city the Demos rose to power and drove out the oligarchic party. This great success, which made Athens supreme from the harbours of Aiglna. Megara to the passes of Thermopylai, was ^^^ ^■^• followed by the humbling of Aigina. The walls of tliis ill-fated city were razed, and her fleet was taken away, while a tribute was imposed on her for the maintenance of the Athenian confederacy. But the enterprises undertaken by the Athenians at this time were by no means attended with uniform success. The fact to be chiefly noted is the energy which remained undiminished even by serious orthe"^^"^ reverses. Of these reverses the most terrible J^,'^!.'^'^ ?"'^ was the disaster which deprived them of the at Naupak- whole fleet sent to help the Egyptians in their '°^' revolt against the Persians ; but even this great cata- 3^^ TJlc AtJicjiian Empire. cii. i. sirophe was, in some measure, compensated by the event ^ ^ wliich enabled them to place at the entrance of the Corinthian gulf a population bitterly hos- tile to the Spartans. After a gallant resistance of nine years, the Helots in Ithome were obliged to surrender on condition of departing forthwith from the Peloponnesos. The Athenians offered them a refuge in Nau- paktos, and in the expelled Messenians they found always the most trusty and devoted allies. Three years later, the Spartans, by making a truce for five years, enabled the Athenians to turn their whole mind to ope- rations against the Persian king. The carrying out of this was the great work of Kimon's life. At home his influence was waning before the ascendency of Perikles ; at the head of a fleet he might not only strike fresh terror into an enemy often already defeated, but enrich Siege of both his country and himself. We may be Kition by ^^xxQ., therefore, that he went on a welcome Kiinon. ' ^ 450 u.c, errand, when with 200 ships he sailed for Kypros (Cyprus) ; but we have from Thucydides only a few sentences, which tell us that, while he was blockading Kition, Kimon died, and that the Athenians, compelled to abandon the siege from lack of food, won a victory, both by sea and land, over the Phenicians and Kili- kians. Later historians tell us that the Persian king, dismayed at the long run of ill-luck which attended his arms, sent to Athens ambassadors charged with pro- The Peace posals for pcacc, and that the Athenians, in of Kallias. their turn, sent Kallias to Sousa, and through him concluded the treaty which bears his name. By this convention the Persian king, it is said, bound himself to send no ships of war beyond the eastern promontory of Lykia, and to respect the Thrakian Bosporos as the en- trance to Hellenic waters. The reality of this treaty has been called into question by the fact that it is unnoticed B.C. 447- The Confederacy of Ddos. 35 by Thucydides, although by the orators of a later gene- ration it was regarded as among the most splendid of Athenian achievements. The explanation of this seeming inconsistency may perhaps be found in the fact that the convention wrought no change, and simply gave a formal sanction to arrangements which under existing circum- stances seemed advantageous to both parties. To the Athenians living at the time the treaty was, in itself, of so slight importance as to be scarcely desei-ving of notice: to those of later generations it became the evidence of political conditions which had become things of the past, and to which they looked back with a jealous and sensi- tive pride. Athens had thus reached the zenith of her greatness, not by an unbroken series of victories, but by the per- sistent resolution which will draw from sue- Fall of the cess the utmost possible encouragement, while ^iret'f [he it refuses to bend even beneath great disas- Athenians. ters. On a foundation of shifting and uncertain mate- rials she had raised the fabric of a great empire, and she had done this by compelling the several members of her confederation to work together for a common end, — in other words, to sacrifice their independence, so far as the sacrifice might be needed ; and refusal on their part had been followed by prompt and summary chastisement. She was, indeed, offending throughout, and offending fatally, the profoundest instinct of the Hellenic mind, — that instinct which had been impressed on it in the very infancy of Aryan civilisation. Whatever might be the theories of her philosophers or the language of her statesmen, Athens was doing violence to the sentiment which regarded the city as the ultimate unit of society ; and of this feeling Sparta availed herself in order to break up the league which threatened to make her insig- nificant by land as it had practically deprived her of all A. //. D 34 1^^^^ AtJicnian Empire. ch. i. power by sea. The temper of Sparta was, indeed, suffi- ciently shown in her readiness to restore to her ancient dignity the city which had been most zealous in the cause of Xerxes ; the designs of Athens were manifested by the substitution of democracy for oligarchy in the cities subjected to her rule. These changes, it is obvious, could not be accomplished without the expulsion of the Eupatrid citizens who might refuse to accept the new state of things ; and, as few of them were prepared to accept it, a formidable body of exiles furious in their hatred of Athens was scattered through Hellas, and was busily occupied nearer home in schemes for upsetting the new constitution. Nine years after the battle of Battle of Oinophyta the storm burst on the shores of Koroneia. the Lake Kopais. A battle fought at Koroneia ended in a ruinous defeat for the Athenians, those who survived the battle being, for the most part, taken prisoners. Roman feeling would proba- bly have left these unhappy men to their fate, as it re- fused to ransom the prisoners taken by Hannibal at Cannae. The Athenians were more humane, or could less afford thus to drain their strength ; and to recover these prisoners they made no less a sacrifice than the evacua- tion of Boiotia, the immediate consequence being the return of all the exiles to the several cities, and the resto- ration of the ancient oligarchies. Of this change the revolt of Euboia was the natural fruit ; but scarcely had Perikles landed with an Athenian Revolt of army on the island, when the more terrible Megar\^"'^ tidings reached them that the Megarians, re- B.c. 446, nouncing their alliance, had massacred the Athenian garrison within the Long Walls, and that a Spar- tan army was ravaging the fertile lands of Eleusis and Thrious on Attic territory. Unappalled by these dangers, Perikles returned hastily from Euboia, and after the B.C. 145- TJlc Cojifederacy of Delos. 35 departure of the Peloponnesians (brought about, as some said, by bribes) went back to the island, which he subdued thoroughly. The Athenian spirit, it was clear, was as vigorous as ever ; but it was also certain that the idea of an Athenian empire by land must be classed The thirty in the ranks of dreams which are never to be \^^^^^ realised. Her hold on the Peloponnesos was b.c. 445. to all intents already gone, although she still held the two ports of Megara ; and hence, like the alleged treaty of Kallias, the truce for thirty years, which followed the re-conquest of Euboia, gave only a formal sanction to certain accomplished facts. As things had now gone, the Athenians gave up little when they surrendered Troi- zen and Achaia, together with the Megarian harbours. But it was easier to evacuate Megara than to forgive the Megarians, to whom ten years of friendship had given the power of inflicting a deadly blow on the imperial city with which of their own free will they had allied them- selves. During all that time Athens had done them no wrong, and had conferred on them many benefits. No changes in Megara are known to us which might account for this sudden desertion. For some unexplained reason they abandoned the alliance which they had so eagerly embraced, and they roused in the Athenian mind a feel- ing of hatred which exacted a stern vengeance in after years. 36 TJie Athenian Empire, tn. ii. CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN ATHENS AND SPARTA. At Athens, since the expulsion of the Peisistiatidai, each step of the developement of the constitution had been followed by an increase of energy and more deveiope- United action on the part of the people. Any Ad"en?an^^ scrious check to this general harmony would Consiiiu- have made the oligarchic party predominant; and their policy, studying the interests rather of Sparta than of Athens, would have rendered impossible that series of enterprises which brought upon her a coali- tion of the ohgarchical states of Hellas. But although the philo-Lakonian party was strong, the party of pro- I'olicy of gress was stronger still, and at the head of it Penkles. stood Pcriklcs and Ephialtes. Of the former of these two men it may be enough to say that with the wisdom and foresight of Themistokles he combined an integrity of character altogether beyond that of his great master. Moving amongst venal men Perikles escaped even the imputation of corruption. Seeing clearly frojn the first that Themistokles had turned the energy of his countrymen in the right direction, he set himself to the task of carrying out his policy with unswerving zeal. Like Themistokles he saw that Athens must keep hold of the sea, and the Long Walls (p. 30) which he built made her practically a maritime city. Like him, also, he could see when the bounds had been reached beyond which Athenian empire ought not to pass ; and he inforccd on himself, and urged with all the strength of his eloquence B.C. 45^. Athens a7ic( Sparta. 37 on others, the principle that only at the peril of her existence could Athens commit herself to a career of distant conquests. With an earnestness equal Reforms of to that of Perikles, Ephialtes joined a keener Ephialtes. sense of political wrongs, and a more vehement impa- tience of political abuses. All classes of citizens were now eligible for the Archonship; but eligibility seldom, if ever, led to the election of a poor man. The public officers, although accountable to tne people at the end of their term of office, exercised in the meantime a jurisdiction without appeal ; and the virtually irresponsible court of Areiopagos, consisting only of life-members, possessed not merely a religious jurisdiction in cases of homicide, but a censorial authority over all the citizens, while it superseded the Probouleutic Senate (G. P. p. 88) by its privilege of preserving order in the debates of the Ekklesia or great public assembly. This privilege involved substan- tially the power of choosing the subjects for debate, as inconvenient questions might for the most part be ruled to be out of order. To Ephialtes first, and to Perikles after- wards, it became clear that attempts to redress individual cases of abuse arising from this state of things were a mere waste of time. The public officers must be deprived of their discretionary judicial powers; the Areiopagos, retaining its functions only in cases of homicide, must lose its censorial privileges and its authority in the Ekklesia, while the people themselves must become the final judges in all criminal as well as civil cases. To carry out the whole of this scheme they had a machinery ready to hand. The Heliaia in its Dikasteries or Jury- Courts had partially exercised this jurisdiction already ; nor was anything further needed than to make these Dikasteries permanent courts, the members of which should receive a regular pay for all days spent in such Ecrvice. 38 TJie Athenian Empire. en. ii. It was natural that the excitement produced by these plans of reform should make it necessary to resort to the Murder of remedy of ostracism. The measure was eagerly Ephialtes. welcomed by the Conservative party, who B.C. 456. (?) ti^o^^giit tl^^^t the vote must fall upon Ephialtes or Periklcs. In fact, it fell on the oligarchic Kimon, and the proposed political changes were accomplished. The formidable jurisdiction of the Archons was cut down to the power of inflicting a small fine, and they became simply officers for managing the preliminary business of cases to be brought before the Jury Courts. The Areio- pagos became an assembly of average Athenian citizens who had been chosen Archons by lot. In short, the old times were gone ; and the rage of the oligarchic faction could be appeased only with blood. Ephialtes was assassinated, but the despicable deed served only to strengthen the hands of Perikles. Under the guidance of this great statesman Athens reached her utmost glory; but although he could hold Pan- together a large empire and inforce that unity Hellenic ^f action which was needed for its mainten- theories of ,.,,,.. 1 i Perikles. ance, it cannot be said that his mind grasped the idea of anything like national union in the sense which those words bear for us. The judgement of the allies was not to be asked in any course of action on which Athens had resolved, and any unwillingness to take part in such action was treated as rebellion, l^erikles had, indeed, his Pan-hellenic theories ; but these theories were to be carried out rather by magnify- ing Athens than by treating the allies as if they also were Athenians. Athens with him was to be the * School of Hellas,' by uniting within her walls all that was greatest in science, all that was most brilliant in culture, all that was most magnificent in art. This great task involved vast expenditure; and here he found himself opposed by B.C. 443 Athens and Sparta. 39 Thoukydides, the son of Melesias, who, taking the place of Kimon, held that the revenues of Athens ostracism should still be used in distant enterprises ofThouky- .... aides, sou against the Persian king. Again it became ofMdesias. necessary to take the vote of ostracism. The ^'^ ^'•'^• decision went against Thoukydides, and the public works proposed by Perikles were all carried out. To prevent an enemy from occupying the large extent of ground inclosed iDCtween the two long walls already built, a third wall was carried from the city parallel to the western wall, at a distance of 550 feet, to the harbour of Mouny- chia. But the costliest works of Perikles were confined within a much narrower circuit. A new iheatre was built for the exhibition of plays during the Panathenaic festival : huge gates, called Propylaia, guarded the entrance to the summit of the rock on which art of every kind achieved its highest triumphs, while high above all towered the magnificent fabric of the Parthenon, the home of the virgin goddess, whose form, standing in front of the temple, might b<^ seen by the mariner as he doubled the cape of Sounion. The great aim of Perikles was to strengthen the power of Athens over the whole area of her confederacy. The establishment of settlers (Klerouchoi), Extension who retained their rights as Athenian citizens, of Athenian , 1, , 1 11 settlements. had answered so well, that he resolved to extend it. The islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros were thus occupied ; and Perikles himself led a body of such settlers as far as Sinope which became a member of the Athenian alliance. At the mouth of the Str>'- mon, where the previous effort (p. 28) had led ^c zi to dire disaster, Hagnon succeeded in founding the colony of Amphipolis ; but two years before the settle- ment of this city Athens had to face the revolt of another ally. Urged on by resentment against the demos which 40 TJie AtJicjiian Empire. ch.ii. at Samos, as elsewhere, made common cause with the The revolt Athenian people, the Samian oligarchs re- of Samos. volted, and induced the Byzantines to join ■ '*'*°' them. ■ Nine months later, the Samians were compelled to raze their walls, give up their ships, and pay the costs of the war ; but in the meantime, they, like the Thasians (p. 28), had appealed for aid to Sparta, and the Spartans, no longer pressed by the Helot w^r, summoned a congress of their allies to consider the matter. For the truce (p. 35), which had still twenty years to run, they cared nothing ; but they encountered an unexpected opposition from the Corinthians, who, in the synod convoked in favour of Hippias had protested against all interference with the internal affairs of an autonomous city (G. P. p. 93). In the same spirit they now insisted on the right of every independent state to deal as it pleased with its free or its subject allies ; and the Spartans were compelled to give way. The relations of the Corinthians with their own colony of Korkyra were destined soon to change their Quarrel Opinion about the principle which they had CorTnt? and ^^"^ ^'^^"^ down. The tradition which asserted Korkyra. that the first sca-fight among Greeks was a battle between the Corinthians and the Korkyraians forecasts exactly the relations of these two great mari- time states. The fierce, hatred which divided them may have sprung from jealousies of trade; but it certainly cannot be traced to any deep political convictions. The city of Epidamnos on the opposite coast had been colonised from Korkyra ; but these settlers from a demo- cratic community seem to have become oligarchs in their new abode. The strife of faction in the new colony was followed by expulsions of partisans on the losing side ; and these exiles, allying tliemselvcs with their savage neighbours, did so much mischief that the demos of Epi- B.C. 436. Athens and Sparta. 41 damnos appealed to Korkyra, and when their prayer was there rejected, to Corinth. A Corinthian ^^^^ ^^ army accordinsrly entered Epidamnos, and the the Corinth. •' ^ ■' , . , . , lans into Korkyraians, saihng thither in great wraih, Epidamnos. demanded their instant departure. Their B.c.436. demand being refused, the Korkyraians prepared to blockade the town, and the Corinthians retorted by making ready a large fleet for active operations. To avert the storm gathering over their heads, the Kor- kyraians now sent envoys to Corinth, expressing their willingness to submit matters to arbitration. To the reply of the Corinthians that the proposal could not even be considered unless the siege of Epidamnos were first raised, they answered that it should be raised if the Corinthians would themselves quit the place, or that, failing this, they would leave matters as they were on both sides, a truce being entered into until the arbiters should decide whether Epidamnos should belong to Corinth or to Korkyra. However unprincipled the con- duct of the Korkyraians may have been, they had now, technically at least, put themselves in the right ; and the Corinthians were wholly without excuse in the declaration of war by which they had replied to these proposals. The immediate result of the contest was the surrender of Epidamnos to the Korkyraians, and two years passed without any decisive operations ; the ^^' '*^^~^" Corinthians in the meanwhile getting together a fleet so powerful that the Korkyraians saw no way of escape except through an alliance with the Athenians. When the envoys appeared at Athens, they confined their arguments, perhaps rightly, to the princi- Embassy pies of commercial exchange. They needed J°JJj^ ^^ ^^ help, and they insisted on their ability to make Athens an adequate return for it. To gratitude on the aulan"!^" part of the Athenians they made no claim. » c. 433- 42 The Athenian Euipirc. ch. n. They had kept away from the fight at Salamis. and since that time they had carefully avoided all alliances. The result of this policy, they admitted, was not pleasant. They had called down on themselves the full power of enemies with whom they were quite unable to cope single-handed. To the Athenians they offered an alliance which might be of the greatest use in the struggle which was nianifestly coming between the two great states of the Hellenic world ; and the terms of the Thirty Years Truce allowed the Athenians and Spartans severally to admit into their confederacy cities which up to that time had not belonged to either. To a great extent the speech of the Korkyraian envoys placed the Corinthian ambassadors at a disadvantage. Counter- ^^ rejecting arbitration under conditions arguments which wcrc Undoubtedly fair, the Corinthians Corinthian l^^d put tlicmselvcs in the wrong ; and to get envoys. ^\^ Qf tj^jg difficulty they could only resort to hair-splitting. The arbitration, they urged, was proposed too late : it should have been offered before the Kor- kyraian blockade of Epidamnos was begun. This plea might have been reasonable if arbitration were a means for preventing the commission of wrongs, rather than of redressing them when committed. With more of truth they dwelt on the selfish isolation of the Korkyraians who, having kept aloof thus far, now wished to obtain the alliance of Athens only because they needed help; and with even more force they reminded the Athenians of the service which they had done them in the recent Synod by refusing to interfere between an imperial city and her free and subject allies, demanding that this prin- ciple should be observed by the Athenians in their turn. The fear of suffering a navy as powerful as that ol Korkyra, and second only to their own, to be absorbed by a hostile confederacy, constrained the Athenians, B.C. 432. Athens and Sparta. 43 somewhat against their will, to enter into a defensive alliance with the Korkyraians ; and the son Defensive of Kimon was dispatched in command of ten AtlSirwith ships only, with strict injunctions to remain Korkyra. neutral unless the Corinthians should attempt to land on Korkyra or on any Korkyraian settlements. The conflict which took place not long after ' *'^^' in the strait betw^een Korkyra and the mainland exhibited a scene of confusion which the Athenian seamen proba- bly regarded with infinite contempt. The discovery that the ship itself should be the most effective of all weapons in crippling the enemy had so revolutionised their naval system that they had come to dread a combat within a narrow space, as much as they had shnmk at Salamis from fighting in open waters. Their object had j^^^^^^ ^f then been to come to close quarters with the the Kor- enemy in order to bring into action the hophtes by^he"^ and bowmen who crowded the decks of the Corinthians. triremes ; and to this fashion the Korkyraians still adhered. With the Athenians the warship discharged practically the functions of the modern ram, but with a delicacy and rapidity of manoeuvre scarcely attainable with the more bulky vessels of our own day. By skilful feints of attack they sought to distract or weary their enemy, and then the beak of the trireme was dashed with a fearful impact against his ship and as suddenly withdrawn. Hence they must have surveyed with some wonderment the con- fused throng of a battle resembling not a little a fight on land. But the left wing of the Korkyraians, chasing the ships opposed to them to their camp on shore, left their right wing to be borne down by numbers so overwhelm- ing that, to save them from destruction, the Athenians joined in the fray. But further conflict was arrested by the approach of an Athenian squadron, on sight of which the Corinthians suddenly fell back. On the following 44 TJlc AtJtcnian Empire. cii. ii. day, instead of renewing- the fight, they sent tc ask if the Athenians wished to hinder their movements ; and on receiving the answer that they were free to go wherever they pleased, so long as they left Korkyra and her settle- ments unmolested, they hastened on their way homewards. They went back with feelings of animosity to the Athenians, which only grew more intense with time. Revolt of Their efforts were bent on bringing about the Potidaia revolt of their own colony of Potidaia, which AthJrns. '^v^^s now a tributary ally of Athens ; and this 432 B.c result was achieved when the Potidaians re- ceived from Sparta a positive promise that any attack made on their city should be followed by an immediate invasion of Attica. Thus for the third time (pp. 28, 40) Sparta either pledged herself to break the truce with Athens, or showed her readiness to do so. The revolt of the Potidaians was shared by the Chalkidians and Bottiaians ; and the incautiousness of the Athenians, who for a time transferred the war into Makedonia, allowed the Corinth- ians to throw into Potidaia reinforcements which enabled it to withstand a siege of two years. Before its B.C. 432-a ^^^ji^ ^^^ {■^i'[,■^\ war had been begun which was to end in the ruin of Athens herself. In truth, men's minds were becoming exasperated on both sides. Smarting under the chastisement inflicted by the Athenians on enemies who had once thrspfrun been friends, the Megarians complained loudly ^"'^^- of their exclusion from the Athenian ports as a direct breach of the truce. But in this matter Athens, although she might perhaps have shown more forbear- ance, had done nothing which she had not a full right to do ; and the Megarians, by making Athens mistress of the highway into the Peloponncsos and then suddenly breaking compact with her, had inflicted on her a most serious mischief. Nor can it with justice be said that B.C. -132. Athens and Sparta. 45 Athens had done actual wrong to the Spartan confede- racy in any of the other matters laid to her charge. The quarrel between Korkyra and Corinth was a quarrel be- tween two single cities, one of which happened to belong to the Spartan league; and both by the terms of the truce and by the international morality of the time Athens had the right of making a defensive alliance with any state not included in that confederacy. That this view was for a long time the Spartan view, may be inferred from the stress which the Corinthians laid on the indifference with which their wrongs had been treated by the Spartans. On the other hand, by bringing about the revolt of Poti- daia, the Corinthians had interfered between Athens and a city which had been included in the Athenian alliance, while they had also striven to detach from her the other allied cities on the northern shores of the Egean. In other words, they had made a deliberate effort to break up the Athenian empire ; and thus in the council sum- moned by the Spartans for the purpose of ascertaining the grievances of their allies, they could only slur over their own injustice, and misrepresent the conduct of the Athenians. This they did by affirming that the Athe- nians had seized Korkyra for the sake of its fleet, and were holding it by firce, while they had blockaded Poti- daia as being a most useful station for their dealings with the Thrace-ward settlements. The statement clearly im- plied that in both cases the action came from the Athe- nians, and that Potidaia in particular had done nothing to provoke the blockade. The rest of their speech re- solves itself into a series of contrasts between Athenian energy, versatility, and foresight on the one hand, and Spartan dilatoriness, obstinacy, and stupid self-compla- cence on the other. Whatever might be the truth of the picture thus drawn, this speech, so far as the existing truce was concerned, was invective, not argument. Hence 46 TJte AtJioiian Empire. cii. 11. the Athenian envoys, who, happening to be present on some other errand, obtained leave to speak, addressed themselves to the task, not of rebutting the charges of the Corinthians, but of explaining the real motives of Athenian policy. They reminded the Spartans that they had deliberately declined to carry on the work which the Athenians had felt bound to take up ; that great schemes, begun in pure self-defence, cannot al- ways be laid aside when their immediate purpose has been attained ; and that although her allies must feel the pressure of a common burden, yet the solid bene- fits secured to them far outweighed this annoyance. It was of course true that the aUies had been constrained to sacrifice in some measure their independence ; but imless they did so, the confederation could not be maintained at all, and Athens could not afford to let it be broken up, if only because she knew that, if she did, the cities now in alliance with her would all gravi- tate to Sparta, and make her absolutely despot of Hel- las. The subjects of Athens might chafe at the slight constraint now imposed on them ; but the yoke was light indeed in comparison of that which they had borne as subjects of the Persian king, or of that which would be laid upon them, if Sparta should succeed in ruining her rival. They would then feel how vast was the dif- ference between the system which allowed to all the allies whether against each other, or against their rulers an appeal to a common law, and a system which, like that of Sparta, placed every city under the iron rule of an autocratic oligarchy. In the secret debate which followed this council, the wise and sober warnings by which the Spartan king, Secret Archidamos, sought to dissuade them from rf!ils**?-^ coming to any hasty decision, were neutra- tsmt. Used by the insolent audacity of the cphoi B.C. 431. Athens and Sparta. dj Stlienelaidas, who did his best to hound on his country- men to take a leap in the dark. It was for wrongdoers, he said, to consider beforehand the effect of the crimes which they intended to commit ; it was for the Spartans to decree without further thought a war in which the gods would defend the right. This doughty speech car- ried the assembly with him, and a formal synod of allies was accordingly informed that in the opinion of Sparta Athens had broken the truce, and was asked to decide whether this offence furnished a sufficient case for war. The historian Thucydides takes no notice of any speech except that of the Corinthians, and this may fairly be described as full of falsehoods. In short, now that per- sonal hatred had led them to abandon that principle of non-interference on which they had so long insisted, they felt that it would be foolish to stick at anything, and that it would be well to talk of the sacred mission which bound the Spartans to liberate tiJn°fo" Hellas from an all-embracing despotism. By ^^''• such pleadings the fears of the allies were excited to the necessary point ; and the decision of war was accepted by a large majority. But the Spartans and their alhes were not prepared to begin the struggle at once ; and in the meantime it was worth while to make every effort to get Perikles Efforts of expelled from Athens. He belonged to the the Spartans family of the Alkmaionidai, to which the curse of about the Kylon (G. P. p. 89), as the Spartans chose to say, l^rikies." °^ still clave : but to their request that the Athe- 431 b-c nians should, as they phrased it, drive out this curse, the reply was that the Spartans must first get rid of the curse which rested on them for the matter of Pausanias (p. 14). A second embassy insisted that the Athenians should raise the siege of Potidaia, and withdraw the decree excluding tlie IMegarians from their ports. A third embassy de- 4S The AtJicnian Empire. en. ii. man Jed briefly the autonomy of all Hellenes now included in the Athenian confederacy. By the advice of Perikles Final an answer was given to the demands of Sparta ?hTspar'°'^ as moderate as it was dignified. By Hellenic tans. law the Athenians had as murji right to ex- clude the Megarians from their ports as the Spartans had to intrust to the ephors the power of driving all strangers from Sparta without assigning any reason for their de- crees. If the Spartans would give up these Xenelasiai or expulsions of strangers, the decree against the Megarians should be withdrawn. The allies of Athens should also be left wholly free or autonomous, if they were in this condition when the Thirty Years Truce was made, and also if the Spartans would leave to their own allies gene- rally the power of settling their internal affairs to their own liking. Lastly Athens was as ready now as she had ever been to refer the whole dispute to the judgement of arbiters approved by both the cities. In the conduct of Perikles at this decisive crisis it is difficult to determine whether we should more admire the Prosecu- determined energy with which he braced him- tionsof self to meet a conflict which must be terrible Pheid\asr^' in its coursc even if it should be happy in its andAspasia. jssue, or the generous and unselfish patriotism which could stir him to efforts thus sustained, in spite of personal wrongs not easily to be forgotten. If his own integrity was unassailable, he might be struck through his friends. The philosopher Anaxagoras was accordingly driven into exile ; the illustrious sculptor Pheidias was thrown into prison, where he died before his trial could come on ; and although Aspasia, the mother of his son Perikles, was acquitted on the charge of aiding Anaxa- goras in undermining the faith of the people, the prose- cution caused him extreme anguish. To the city, which in spile of the blows thus dealt B.C. 43 1- AtJicns and Sparta. 49 against him by his pohtical antagonists, Perikles served with such sinele-minded j^enerosity, the Reaiposi- , „. J J . J . r u tionofthe shuffling and disingenuous conduct of her Athenians adversaries cannot possibly be imputed. At |" th^I^cJuse no time had she entertained any desire of of the war. reducing Sparta or her confederate cities to the condition of her own subject aUies. It was httle more than a happy accident which made her for a short time supreme from the Corinthian isthmus to the Gates of Thessaly ; and when with the battle of Koroneia (p. 34) this supre- macy passed away, she confined herself resolutely to the task of maintaining her empire by sea. This empire in no way endangered the position of Sparta ; nor could it be said that it had either directly or indirectly done her any harm. The real breach of the peace had come not from Athens but from Corinth ; and the revolt of Poti- daia, stirred up by the Corinthians, was a foniial violation of the Thirty Years Truce. The Athenians might there- fore enter on the war with a good conscience ; and some years later the Spartans admitted that in the controversy which preceded the outbreak of the strife Athens was in no way to blame. Her strict moderation was shown by the steadiness with which to the last she refrained from doing anything which might be construed as an act of war. During the nine or ten months which passed after the formal congress at Sparta and the actual outbreak of the war, Athens might have anticipated matters with her unprepared enemies, and crushed them when they were comparatively powerless. She could not do this without making herself as unjust as they were; and this she would not do. Sparta had promised repeatedly (pp. 28, 40, 44) to aid the enemies of Athens if she could ; and one of those promises she made while Athenian citizens were helping her against the revolted Helots. Athens had been guilty of no such double-dealing with Sparta, and A. II. £ 50 The Athenian E}}ipiyc. ch. it. she relused to avail herself of the opportunity of striking her down, when she could have done so without danger or even risk to herself. CHAPTER III. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR FROM THE SURPRISE OF PLATAIA TO THE CAPTURE OF SPHAKTERIA. For nearly eighty years Plataia had been in the closest friendship with Athens ; but the little city was only eight Surprise of ri"iiles distant from Thebes, the stronghold of Plataia that reckless oligarchy which after the fall of iliebans. Mardonios had refused with desperate de- I3.C. 431. liberation to abandon the cause of despotism. Nor even in Plataia was the party extinct which desired to escape from all connexion with Athens ; and this party concerted with the Thebans an arrangement for surprising the town during a time of festival. The citizens were asleep, when the traitors admitted their Theban friends within the gates, and a herald invited the Plataians to return to the Boiotian confederacy. Thinking that opposition would be useless, the Plataians at first accepted the terms offered to them ; but dis- covering the scanty numbers of the assailants, the Plataian demos set to work to barricade the streets and then by piercing the internal walls of their houses to provide the means of combined action without rousing the suspicion of the Thebans. In that blackest dark- ness which immediately precedes the dawn they burst upon the Thebans, who resisted stoutly, until showers of stones hurled on them from the roofs by screaming women and howling slaves filled them with dismay, and their want of acquaintance with the town left them like a flock of routed sheep. A few only escaped through an B.c 431. TJie Pelopo7inesian War. 51 unguarded gate ; but the greater part, hurrying into a building which formed part of the city wall, found them- selves in a prison where they had looked for an open passage, and were compelled to surrender uncondition- ally. The reinforcement which was to have supported them had been detained partly by the darkness and still more by the swollen stream of the Asopos. Their first impulse, when on reaching Plataia they found that their scheme had miscarried, was to seize every Plataian found without the walls ; but a herald warned them that, if they did any harm to person or property within Plataian territory, the prisoners in the city should be instantly slain, adding that, in spite of their shameful breach of the truce, their departure should be followed by the restoration of their countrymen. On the strength of this promise, ratified, as they de- clared, by a solemn oath, the Thebans returned home. The Plataian version of the story wad that they Treacher- made no positive pact, but merely said that the ojjs dealing prisoners should not be killed, until negotia- Piataians tions for a settlement of matters should have xheban^ failed. Even thus the Piataians stand con- prisoners. victed out of their own mouth. They entered into no negotiations, but slew all their prisoners as soon as the Theban reinforcement had departed, and thus opened the floodgates for that exasperated warfare which was to leave Hellas little rest, so long as (it might almost be said) it was to have any history at all. On receiving tidings of the success of the Piataians the Athenians instantly sent a herald to warn them against hurting their prisoners until the matter should The families have been well considered. In the eyes of o^j'^ Perikles these prisoners furnished a hold on taken to Thebes and through Thebes on Sparta which ^'^^°'- was worth their weight in gold : but the Athenian messen- £2 52 TJic AtJicniau Empire. CH. III. gers reached the city only to find that the Plataians had thrown away a splendid opportunity for the sake of satisfying a savage rage. It is gratifying to find that Athens was not yet thus blinded to self-interest as well as to justice. The mischief could not, however, be undone ; and the Athenians, taking away all who were unfit for military service, left the town provisioned simply as a fortified post. Both sides now prepared vigorously for the conflict, and for both it was a time of fierce excitement ; nor did the Spartans shrink from inviting the aid even excitement of the Persian king against their Hellenic of the time, i^insfolk. The Connthians had shown that they were acting from an unreasoning fury; and at Athens a large population had grown up which knew nothing of warfare carried on at their own doors. The stern reality was pressed upon them, when the order was issued that the dwellers in the country must break up their pleasant homes. The city of Athens and the town of Peiraieus with the space within the Long Walls were crowded with the immigrants ; and when the Acharnians in this wretched confinement saw their luxuriant fields ravaged by the Peloponnesian army under Archidamos, they were Invasion of with the utmost difficulty restrained from b"the sallying forth to take immediate vengeance. Spartans. Their com was being reaped by the hands of other men ; yet Perikles, although he knew the fierceness of the resentment which his policy excited, would not swerve from the course which he had marked out for himself. But when at length the Spartans were moving to the coast land of Oropos, an Athenian fleet of loo ships, sailing from Peiraieus, was joined by fifty Kor- kyraian vessels off the Peloponnesian coast. Landing on the southweslcrnmost promontory of Messene, the Athenians had almost succeeded in carrying Methond' fi.c. 431- TJic Pdopo7incsian War. 53 hy assault, wncn Brasidas, the son of Tellis, who held a Spartan outpost in the neighbourhood, dashed through the Athenian force, and threw himself into the city. The promptitude now displayed by this young officer was an earnest of military exploits such as no other Spartan general ever equalled. But the Athenians were bent on doing sterner work before the summer should draw to its close. Aigina had long been called the eyesore of Peiraieus ; and The ex- 50 long as its old inhabitants were suffered to ^^^l^^ dwell in it, it would remain an eyesore still. Aiginetans. The decree was passed for their expulsion ; and the Aiginetans were cast out upon the Peloponnesian coast to find such refuge as the Spartans might give them in gratitude for their help during the Helot war. This refuge some of them found in Thyrea ; and thus it came to pass that the Spartans had a bitterly hostile population on the mouth of the Corinthian gulf, and the Athenians a population not less resentful on the march-lands of Lakonia and Argolis. On its return homeward the Athe- nian fleet effected a junction with the land army in the Megarian territory, which was now ravaged by 10,000 Athenian and 3,000 Metoikian hoplites. It was obvious that a struggle had begun which might bring either side to desperate straits before it came to an end. Hence the Athenians determined not . merely to take all possible precautions for the reserve protection of Attica, but to set aside a reserve ^""^• fund not to be touched before they found themselves face to face with a supreme necessity. A thousand talents were placed in the Akropolis under a solemn sentence that any citizen, asking a vote to dispose of this money for any other purpose than that of resisting an attack on the Peiraieus itself, should be punished with instant death. The decree was a mere form, and was 5 4 TJic A thcnian E vipirc. c i r. ii l known to be nothing more. If anyone should wish to divert the fund to other uses, he had nothing to do but to propose a repeal of the existing Psephisma or decree, and then bring forward his motion. In the meantime, the anathema expressed the sense of the people that the money was not to be used except in the last resort ; and thus the act was one not of barbarism but of the clearest foresight and of the most judicious adjustment of means to ends. The year closed at Athens with the public interment of those who had fallen in the service of their country. The citizen chosen to deliver the funeral funeral at oration was Perikles, and he determined Athens. ^^ address the people as if they were fresh from battles as momentous as those of Plataia, Salarais, or Mykalc. It was of the first importance that at the beginning of the contest the Athenians should know what they were fighting for ; and, in fact, during the year now coming to an end the people had made greater efforts than even those which had Funeral i i i i -it-.- t r oration of marked the struggle with Persia. If ever ivnkies. there was a time when the Athenians needed to be reminded of the self-devotion of their forefathers, that time was the present : and accordingly Perikles passed in rapid review the course by which the Athenians had created their empire and the results which had been thus far achieved. Within the space of fifty years Athens had pushed back the power of Persia beyond the limits of Asiatic Hellas, had raised up against the barbarian the barrier of her maritime empire, and had developed at home a genius in art, in science, and in government such as the world had never seen. Fifty years later, the fruits of this developement were almost as splendid as ever ; but the old spirit of indomitable perseverance was gone. In the age of Perikles alone could the union of the two' B.C. 431, The Pcloponncsian War. 55 be found ; and thus his funeral oration becomes an in- valuable picture of a state of things realised only for a few years, yet exhibiting in some respects a higher standard than that which we have reached at the present day. The contrast was necessarily pointed at Sparta, and the picture which it presented was that of a state which trusted rather to the spirit and patriotism of her citizens than to a rigid and unbending discipline. In the assurance that when the time for effort and sacrifice should come they would be found fully equal to the needs of the moment, Athens could afford to dispense with the network of rules and the inquisitorial system which tormented the Spartan from his cradle to his grave. As to the measure of self-sacrifice, Athenians, falhng on the battle-field, gave up infinitely more than the Spartans. The latter scarcely knew the feeling of home: the home of the former was associated with all that could fill his life with beauty and delight and inspire him with the most earnest patriotism. He had received the highest political and judicial education, and he found himself the member of an imperial society whose greatness took away from its sub- jects all the bitterness of servitude. Well therefore might Perikles rise to a strain of enthusiasm when, after his sketch of their political and social life, he addressed himself to those who were mourning for brothers and kinsfolk fallen in battle. These had shown themselves worthy of the men who had raised the fabric of Athenian empire, and had left to their survivors the task of follow- ing their example, or, if age had ended their active life, a memory full of quiet and lasting consolation. With this picture of sober resolution, arising from the consciousness of a substantially righteous cause, the history of the first year in this momentous The plague stiuggle comes to an end. The narrative of at Athens. the second year opens with a startling contrast. The 55 The AtJicnian Empite. cii. .n. invading army of the Spartans had not been many days in the land, when they learnt that their ene- B.c. 4.10. Y\\\Q.^ were being smitten by a power more terrible than their own. For some time a strange disease had been stalking westwards from its starting point in Nubia or Ethiopia. It had worked its way through Egypt and Libya; it had ranged over a great part of the Persian empire ; and now, just as the summer heats were coming on, it burst with sudden and awful fury on the Peiraieus. The crowded state of the city and of the space between the Long Walls added to the virulence of the poison ; and the fearful rapidity of the disease taught the sufferers to accept as their death war- rant the first sensations of sickness. The scenes which followed, no Hellenic city had ever witnessed before. The evil indeed was almost too great for human endu- rance ; and a people to whom at other times seemliness in all social and religious offices was the first concern, now cared nothing for decencies of ritual, and flung their dead, as they passed along, on funeral pyres raised for others. Ln the midst of all this suffering there were not wanting, as there never are wanting, some who carried out with a literal zeal the precept which bade them eat and drink, because on the morrow they should die. But of these frightful horrors there was at least one allevia- tion. Those who had recovered from the plague were safe from a second attack ; and far from abandoning themselves to an inert selfishness, they exhibited a noble rivalry in kindly offices, and unwearied in their tender care for those who were less happy than themselves, showed that consciousness of good attained may be a more powerful stimulus to well-doiiig than the desire Df conquering a crushing evil. For forty days Archidamos ravaged the lands of Attica ; but before he left it the Athenian fleet, in spile B.C. 430. The Pdoponncsian War, 57 of the misery going on within the city, was retaliating along the Peloponnesian coast. The plague r, ^ , followed the crews on board their ships ; but the plague the losses thus caused were as nothing in J'^hTma'i* comparison of those which ensued when, later before . , , , . . , Potidaia. on m the summer, the ships were sent to aid in the reduction of Potidaia. The infection brought by the new troops spread with such terrific speed amongst the Athenians who had preceded them in besieging the place, that in less than six weeks 1,500 died out of 4,000 hoplites. At Athens the malady seems to have crushed utterly the energy of the people. While irritation envoys were sent to Sparta to sue for peace, of the the people with vehement outcries laid all against their sufferings at the door of Perikles. Sum- Pinkies, moning the assembly by the authority which he possessed as general, this great man met the people with a more direct rebuke of their faint-heartedness and a more distinct assertion of his own services than any to which he had in more prosperous times resorted. For the present disasters, he told them, he could take no blame to himself, unless they were ready to give him credit for every piece of unexpected good luck which might befall them during the war. Sudden calamities, he allowed, must shake the strongest mind, and a painful effort is needed to restore the balance. For Athenians such an effort was not merely their duty, but it would assuredly bring with it its own reward. There was, in truth, no excuse for their losing heart. Far from having any fears for the result, they were fully justified in facing their foes with a lofty sense of superiority, while there was only one danger which they could not afford to encounter, — the danger involved in the abandonment of their imperial power over their allies. The reasonings of the great statesman led the people 53 TJic Athenian Empire. cii. iii, at once to resolve that they would make no more propo* Close of the sals to the Spartans, and that the war should life'^of ^^ carried on with vigour. The plague had I'eriklcs. now laid its hand heavily on his house. His sister, and his two sons, Xanthippos and Paralos, were dead ; and his grief when he had to place the funeral wreath on the head of his younger son showed that at length the iron had entered into his soul. There remained still the son of Aspasia, who bore his own name ; and the people allowed him to inroll this surviving child, al- though his mother was an alien, amongst the number of Athenian citizens. But although he lived for two years .ind a half after the surprise of Plataia, we hear no more from this time of the man who, more than any other, saw what the capabilities of his own countrymen were, and seized the best means of bringing out their good qualities. No Athenian, according to the testimony even of his enemies, ever carried such weight in the councils of his countrymen, and none ever eschewed more the arts by which demagogues are supposed to seek popu- larity. The picture drawn by Thucydides exhibits him as a leader who has no reason to fear, and nothing to hide from, his countrymen, and whose policy was throughout justified by results. The key note of that policy was the indispensable need of sweeping away all private interests, if these should clash with the interests of Athens in this great struggle. The resources of the state were not to be wasted or risked in enterprises which at best could tend only to the benefit of individuals, while enterprises to which the state was committed were not to be starved or mismanaged in order to further the pur- poses of factious pohticians. Nothing can be more se- verely emphatic than the sentences in which Thucydides insists that on these two rocks the Athenians made ship- wreck. Periklcs worked for the welfare of Athens and B.C. 429. The Pcloponnesiau War. 5fj for that alone : they who came after him were bent first on securing each the foremost place for himself ; and, as we shall see, the inevitable consequences followed. Their powers, and the resources of the city were not concen- trated on the great tasks which without such concentra- tion could never be accomplished. If we may say that the true greatness of Athens began with Themistokles, we must also allow that with Perikles it closed. Hence- forth her course was downward. The social and political conditions which made Athens what she was in the days of Perikles were such as must arise when the theory of the independent Polis or City, educating all her citizens to the utmost, was carried to its logical results, aided by the genius of a people keenly sensitive to all impressions of art and science, of poetry, music, painting, and rhe- toric. But they were conditions which could not be comx- bined again in the same harmony. Hence the age of Perikles stands pre-eminent as the most brilliant phase in the history of mankind, and the genius of this splendid age is embodied in Perikles himself. Two invasions of Attica had now failed to produce the results aimed at by Sparta and Corinth. At the beginning of the third year of the war, the Spartan invading force was sent to Plataia, the terri- piauL°" tory of which had been declared (G.P., p. 196) b.c. 429. sacred ground. The Spartans had nothing to gain from the enterprise ; and it is surprising that the Thebans, who acted simply from inveterate hatred of the Plataians, should be able thus to divert the Peloponnesian army to an unprofitable, as well as costly task. For the Plataians, unjustifiable though the conduct of the Spartans certainly was, it was unfortunate that they should be obliged to appeal to the Athenians before they gave an answer to the Spartan demands. The^e were that the Plataians should either join them in breaking down the tyranny of 6o TJie Athenian Empire. cii. iir. Athens, or remain neutral, if they could not duly appre- ciate the blessings of oligarchic liberty. But the Plataians felt that as neutrality meant the reception of both sides as friends, the gates of their city would be thus opened to their worst enemies. To the fears thus ex- pressed Aichidamos, the Spartan king, replied by pledge ing himself and his allies to restore to them at the end of the war, without loss, all their property in lands, houses, or fruit trees, if in the meantime the Plataians woulil leave them in trust to the Spartans, and seek a refuge elsewhere. Under the circumstances it would assuredly have been wise to close with this proposal , but their wives and children were in Athens, and without the con- sent of the Athenians they could give no answer. Their envoys sent to Athens brought back the simple message that the Athenians had never yet betrayed Plataia, and would never abandon her to her enemies. These words insured the ruin of the Plataiains, while they pledged the Athenians to a course of action which was either impos- sible or too costly. In fact, no attempt was made to relieve the town, and the chief hope of the little band of men shut up within its walls lay in the proverbial stu- pidity of the Spartans in siege operations. The history of the siege shows how little numbers availed in a blockade under the rude conditions of ancient Siege of warfare. The mound which the Spartans riataia. sought to raise between wooden walls carried out at right angles from the wall of the city was rendered useless first by the raising of the city wall to a greater height in front of the mound, and then by excavations at the base. By way of further precaution the Plataians, starting from two points on either side of the portion of wall assailed by the Spartans, raised a crescent-shaped wall to the height of the old city wall, so that when the enemy should have carried the outer wall, they would find B.C. 429- TJic Pdoponncsiaii War. 6i precisely the same task before them in a more cramped and exposed position. The Spartans succeeded no be^ 'er with their battering engines, which were turned aside by means of nooses, or decapitated by heavy beams let down by chains fastened to two horizontal poles stretched out from the wall. An attempt to set fire to the city having also failed, Archidamos gave orders, it is said, for the complete circumvallation of the town, and on the com- pletion of this work led away the main body of the be- siegers. Some disasters which at this time befell the Athenian arms in Chalkidike were more than compensated by the brilliant successes of Phormion, in whom his victory of countrymen found the most able of all their na- Phormion val commanders. At the invitation of the Am- Corinthian brakiots and other clans, the Spartan admiral ^^^^^' Knemos crossed the Corinthian gulf with a force which was to aid them in reducing the Akarnanian town of Stratos, and in wresting Akarnania itself from the Athenian confederacy. The Chaonians, and other wild tribes who took part in the expedition, went first, think- ing of nothing but a headlong rush which should carry the place by storm. To the Stratians their disorderly haste suggested the idea of ambuscades to take their as- sailants in flank, while their main body should sally from the city gates. The plan was completely successful ; and Knemos was compelled to fall back on the Anapos, a stream flowmg into the Achcloos about ten miles belo\« Stratos. The reinforcements which should have reached them had fallen into the hands of Phormion. No sooner had the Corinthian ships moved from the Achaian Patrai than they saw the Athenian squadron bearing down upon them from Chalkis on the opposite coast. The day was drawing to an end, and the Corinthians pretended to take their station for the night on the Achaian shore, their in- t>2 The AtJicniaji Empire. cii. iir. tention being to steal across under cover of darkness. Phormion kept the sea all night, and at daybreak his triremes confronted the Corinthian ships, which were then creeping across the gulf. These ships were awkwardly built and poorly equipped ; and when they formed themselves into a circle with their prows outward, leaving just space enough for five of the best vessels reserved within the circle to dart upon the enemy, Phormion saw that the issue of the day was in his own hands. Soon after sun- rise the breeze blows strongly from the gulf, making it impossible for ships to maintain the steady position which even in still water is full of difficulty for unskilful seamen. PhoiTnion therefore sailed round their fleet with his ships in single line, gradually contracting his circle ; and when the breeze came down upon them, the Corin- thian ships, confined within a space narrowing from mo- ment to moment, were thrown into the wildest confusion. In the midst of this tumult, Phormion gave the order to attack. What followed was not battle, but rout. Twelve Peloponnesian ships were taken with most of their crews ; those which were not taken or sunk escaped to the Eleian docks at Kyllene, where th3y were joined by Knemos on his return from Akarnania. Indignant at an event which they could ascribe only to cowardice or sluggishness, the Spartans sent Brasidas Battle of ^^^^ ^^^° other commissioners, as bearers of Naupaktos. peremptory orders to Knemos to bring on a vktoiyof second engagement. Phormion, on his side, Phormion. j^^j g^j^^ ^^ Athens earnest entreaties for reinforcements ; but Pcrikles was now dying, and the Athenians seemed to think that they were doing right in sending the ships first on an unimportant errand to Krete. Phormion was thus left with his twenty tiremes, while seventy-five Peloponnesian triremes watched him from the opposite .^chaian shore. For six or seven days not a B.C. 429- TJlc Pdoponnesian War, 63 movement was made on either side. The Spartans feared an engagement on the open sea ; Phormion was not less afraid of being drawn within the strait gate of the gulf. But the fear of Athenian reinforcements at length led the Spartans to resolve on action ; and when their fleet began at daybreak to move in lines four deep from Panormos to the northern coast of the girif^ Phor- mion supposed that they were bearing on Naupaktos, and felt that he dared not allow so large a force to approach it. But he had no sooner fairly entered the gulf than the Peloponnesian fleet faced about. Nothing but their swiftness could now save the Athenian ships. Eleven escaped by the speed of their movements even from this supreme peril. The rest were taken, those of the crews who could not swim being slain. The Spartans now moved as if their work was done ; but the rearmost of the Athenian triremes, finding itself chased by a single Leu- kadian vessel far in advance of the rest of the Pelopon- nesian fleet, swept swiftly round a merchantman which chanced to be lying at its moorings, and dashed into the broadside of its pursuer. The Leukadian ship was dis- abled at once ; but the exploit so impressed the crews of the vessels which were coming up behind, that they ceased from rowing, while some found themselves among the shoals. Seizing the favourable moment, the ten Athenian triremes, which had taken up a defensive posi- tion near Naupaktos, flew to the attack. The conflict was soon over. The Spartan ships fled for Panormos, six being taken by the Athenians, who also recovered all their own triremes but one. The great plan of the Spartans, which was to drive the Athenians from the Corinthian gulf, had thus com- pletely failed ; but Brasidas thought that a Proposed blow might be struck against Athens itself by J|g^^tatuck a sudden attack on Peiraieus. The seamen Pelrala-is. I great ^^ Athei 64 TJic AtJioiian Rnipirc. cii. in. were embarked at the Megarian port of Nisaia ; but either the weather or their fears led them to substitute the easier task of a raid on Salamis. The assault was made known at Athens by means of fire signals, and excited extreme alarm. Hurrying down in full force to Peiraieus the Athenians hastened to Salamis only to find that the enemy had departed already, taking with them the three guardships stationed off the promontory of Boudoron for the purpose of barring access to the harbour of Megara. The Athenians were not more successful in a larger enterprise which was destined to bring upon the Make- Expedition donian king Perdikkas and the Chalkidian against""^^ towns the vast power of the Thrakian chief Perdikkas. Sitalkes. But amiies of mountaineers are not easilygathered or held together. The Athenian ships which were to co-operate with them were behind their time ; and Seuthes, the nephew of Sitalkes, having received the promise of Stratonike, the sister of Perdikkas, in mar- riage, urged with determined earnestness the necessity for retreat. Thus in thirty days from the time when the army set out, the order was given for return, and the great host melted away. he fourth year of the war brought with it for the Athenians not only another Spartan invasion, but a crisis so sudden and so serious that, for a time, their of Lesbos. power of action was almost paralysed. All H.c. 428. Lesbos was in revolt, with the exception of the single town of Methymna. Besides Chios this island was the only one which now retained the privileges of free members of the Delian confederacy ; but the Lesbian oligarchs valued still more highly the old system of isola- tion, which the Athenians seemed destined eveiywhcre to break up. Even before the beginning of the war, the oligarchs of Mytilene, like the men of Thasos (p. 28), Samos (p. 40), and Potidaia (p. 44), had besought the aid n.c. 42S. TJic Pclopoiincsian War. 65 of Sparta in their meditated revolt ; and they now again sent thither ambassadors charged with an Audience appeal still more earnest and pressing. These of the , . , 111- Lesbian envoys were admitted to plead their cause envoys at before the Hellenes assembled to celebrate the O'ympia. great Olympian festival. If the report of their speech by Thucydides may be trusted, they stand practically self- condemned. The most zealous advocate of theimperial city could scarcely have framed an harangue more completely justifying her policy, or exhibiting in a clearer h'ght the general moderation and equity of her rule. For themselves, these Lesbians have no grievance whatever to urge. They even admit that they had been treated with marked distinction. All that they could say for them- selves was, first, that the idea of revolt had been forced on them by the slavery to which other members of the Delian confederation had been reduced ; and secondly that they had been compelled to carry out their plan prematurely. Of the real relations of Athens with her free and her subject allies they said not a word. On the independence of <"hese allies in the management of their internal affairs they kept careful silence ; but the checks put on quarrels and wars between two or more allied cities were resented as involving loss of freedom. With even greater unfairness they charged the Athenians with deliberately abandoning all operations against the Persian king, and confining themselves to the subjugation of their allies. They might with equal reason have charged them with Aledism during the invasion of Xerxes. The Lesbian envoys further urged on the Spartans the need of invading Attica a second time, on the ground that the Athenians, exhausted by the , ° ' ^ Investment plague, had, further, spent all their reserve of Mytiiene funds. This last statement was true. Of the ^ ^^ ^■ 6,000 talents stored in the treasury at the beginning of A. M. ^ 66 Tlic AtJicnian Empire. en. m. the war i^oooonly remained, — that sum, namely, of which under pain of death, no one was to propose to make use except for the defence of the city itself from invading armies or fleets. But the Athenians were resolved to show that, in spite of the plague and of poverty, they were still able to hold their ground and to deal hard blows on their enemies. A thousand hoplites were sent to Lesbos under Paches, who completely invested the city of Mytilene ; but the rocky bed of a winter torrent so far broke the work of circumvallation that a Lakedaimonian ^/ named Salaithos managed to scramble up it into the town. 2^--^^ The Spartan invasion of the fifth year of the war was even more merciless than those which had preceded it. The surren- It was also prolonged in the hopes that tidings Mydleiie. °^ succoss might be brought from Lesbos : B.C. 427. but none such came. Alkidas, who had been sent out with a Spartan fleet, failed to make his appear- ance ; and Salaithos, despairing of his arrival, armed the Demos as hoplites, in order that they might sally out fiom the city against the besiegers. The step was fatal. The commons, instead of obeying the orders issued to them, insisted on an immediate distribution of corn to alleviate the famine which already pressed hard upon them, or threatened in default of this to throw open the gates to the Athenians. 'I'hus pushed, the oligarchs at once made a convention with Paches, who pledged himself to inflict no punishment on any Lesbian until the Athenian people had given their judgement in the matter. Soon after- wards, Alkidas, learning what had taken place, resolved on returning home. On his way he signalized himself by a savage massacre of the prisoners whom he had seized in the merchant vessels which, under the impres- sion ;hat any fleet in Egean waters must be Athenian, had approached his ships without suspicion. Having vainly pursued him as far as Patmos, Paches rctumcJ B.C. 427. TJie Pdoponnesian War. Oj to Lesbos, after disgracing himself at Notion by an act of treachery worthy of Alkidas himself. In Lesbos he now reduced the towns of Pyrrha and Eresos, and having obtained possession of the Lakedaimonian Salaithos, sent him to Athens with a thousand Mytilenaian prisoners. Salaithos could scarcely expect mercy ; and although he promised, probably with little likelihood, to draw off the besiegers from Piataia if his life were spared, he was instantly slain. No event had yet happened so seriously endangering the empire of Athens as the revolt of Lesbos. At no time, therefore, had the feeling of resentment indication and the desire for vengeance run so high, at Athens ,,,,,. . . 1 A 1 against the Moved by this mastenng passion, the Athe- Mytile- nians were in no mood for drawing distinc- "^'-"^"s. tions between the guilty and the innocent, and accordingly they welcomed the proposal of murdering the whole adult male population of Mytilene, probably 6,000 men, in addition to the 1,000 prisoners already at Athens. Of the orators who spoke most vehemently in favour of this proposition, the most violent, if we may believe Thucy- dides, was Kleon. Although this man is here mentioned by the historian for the hrst time, he had long since gained some notoriety by his opposition to Perikles. In the broad and coarse pictures of the comic poet Aris- influence of tophanes, he is the unprincipled schemer who K:ieon. wins influence by cajoling the people with the most fulsome flattery. No picture could be more untrue. If we may trust the narrative of an enemy, adulation of the Demos was the last sin which could be laid to his charge. It would be more true to say that he acquired power by blustering rhetoric, by boundless impudence, and by administering the harshest rebukes to the people, so long as there was some popular Reeling to which these rebukes in the end appealed. His rudeness and gross* 68 TJie AtJicn'ian Euipirc. CH. Ill, ncss were thus forgiven by the aristocratic party to \vhom tlie policy of Periklcs was distasteful ; in other words he had in his favour a powerful sentiment in their dislike of the great statesman who had dealt the last sweeping blow against their ancient privileges. In the case of the Mytilenaians he had on his side a feeling still more powerful, and probably a large majority came to the debate vehemently eager to take the vengeance to which Kleon gave the name of justice. So vast, however, was the massacre proposed, that the feeling of anger was speedily followed by a feeling of amazement at the ocean of blood which was to be shed in order to appease it ; and a resolution was carried to reconsider the question. On the following morning Kleon stood up again to administer a stern rebuke to the Demos and to urge the paramount duty of giving full play to the instinct of resentment. That against the Lesbians he had a terrible indictment, it is impossible to deny; but, if the report of Thucydides may be trusted, he uttered a direct falsehood when he asserted that the oligarchs and the Demos had been guilty of the same crime and therefore deserved the same punishment. The plea was palpably untrue. The Demos was not armed until the oligarchs felt that thus only could they escape imminent ruin ; and no sooner had they grasped their weapons than they used the power thus gained in the interests of Athens. This distinction forms the keynote of the speech by which Diodotos sought to bring the people to a better mind. In all the states of s eech of ^^^ alliance Athens had now beyond doubt a Diodotos, body of stanch friends ; and even in Lesbos the p^ropo"^ they had been overborne only by the violence sal of Kleon ^f ^\^^ oligarchic faction. By following the to massacre ° : is theMyti- advice of Kleon, they would declare that no heed would bo taken of shades of guilt or of distinctions between guilt and innocence; and thus F.c. 427. TJie Pclopojuiesiaii War. 69 friends and foes alike would be goaded to desperate resistance, while money spent in blockades would leave the Athenians in possession only of heaps of ruins when the siege was ended. The question to be decided turned, he insisted, not on the wickedness of the rebels but on the measures needed for the welfare of Athens. It was absurd to form expectations of future gain on the mere severity of punishment. The black codes which punished all offences with death had not been specially successful in lessening the number and atrocity of offences. Unless they were prepared to encounter everywhere a monotony of hatred and disgust, they would adopt his amendment, that the prisoners then at Athens should be put on trial, and that the lives of the Mytilenaians in Lesbos should be spared. This amendment was carried by a small majority : but the trireme which had been dispatched with the decree for ordering the massacre had had Withdrawal a start of nearly twenty -four hours, and there cLl'^fo^the seemed to be little chance that the more massacre, merciful decision could take effect. Stocking the second ship with an ample supply of wine and barleymeal, the Lesbian envoys promised the crew rich rewards if they reached the island in time. Their energy may have been still further quickened by the desire of saving Athens from a great crime and a great disgrace. They reached Lesbos, not indeed before the first trireme, but before Paches had begun the execution of the decree which he had already published. Here ended the repen- tance and the mercy of the Athenians. The thousand Mytilenaians at Athens were put to death ; the walls of Mytilene were pulled down ; its fleet was forfeited ; an annual tribute was imposed upon the city; and Athenian Klerouchoi (p. 39) were settled upon its territory. The subjugation of Lesbos preceded only by a few 70 The Athenian Empire. cii. in. days or weeks the destruction of Plataia. As the siege Escape of ^^°^^ '^^ ^"^ ^^^^ hope of aid from Athens half the bccame more and more faint, the Plataians citizens , , , - , . besieged in resolved to make an attempt to force their Plataia. ^^.^^ through the hnes of the besiegers. Nearly half, however, drew back when the hour for action came : but the result proved the wisdom of the 220 men who still persevered. With wonderful patience they had made all possible preparations for ascending and de- scending the walls in possession of the besiegers; and with wonderful skill and good fortune they availed themselves of a dark and stormy night to carry out their enterprise. When at length, after surmounting a thousand dangers, they found themselves in an open country, the flashing of torches showed that the patrols of the enemy w^ere hurrying up the heights of Kithairon in the hopes of overtaking the fugitives. The Plataians, thinking that they would scarcely be suspected of running towards the lion's den, marched straight for nearly a mile on the road to Thebes, and hastening thence from scenes associated with the heroic devotion of earlier days, took the mountain road which led through Erythrai to Athens. For some months longer the Plataians left in the city held out against an enemy more terrible than man ; but The de- although famine was fast doing its work, the struction of Spartan leader had a special reason for arrest- ing it before its close. If the Plataians could be brought to a voluntary surrender, there would be no need, in the event of either truce or peace, to give up the place along with others which had been forcibly occu- pied. The Plataians were invited, therefore, to submit themselves freely to the judgement of the Spartans, who would punish only the guilty. They were in no con- dition to refuse these terms; but they could at once see wiiat was to come when, on the arrival of the special a.c. 427. TJic Pcloponucsian War. 'ji commissioners from Sparta, they were called upon to answer simply the one question, whether during the present war they had done any good to the Spartans and their allies. The very form of the question showed that no reference would be suffered to their previous history ; but only by such reference was it possible to exhibit in its true light the injustice of their present treatment. They were to be sacrificed, in spite of all that they might urge, to the vindictiveness of the Thebans ; and these took care to paint in glaring colours the crime of which the Plataians had been guilty after the surprise of their city. They had promised to keep their prisoners un- harmed until they had tried the effect of negotiation : they made no attempt to try it, but straightway slew all the men, in breach of a solemn promise. The retort brings us back to the monster evil of this horrible war — the exasperated and vindictive spirit which forgot prudence, reason, and policy in the blind longing for revenge. It matters not whether we take the Theban version of the story or that of the Plataians. These by their own mouth stand on this point self-condemned (p. 51). If one crime was to serve as the justification for another, the Thebans had full warrant for demanding the death of the Plataians. But there was no need to urge a request with which the Spartans had made up their minds to comply. The prisoners were again called upon to answer, one by one, the question to which their speech had evaded a distinct reply: and as each man answered neces- sarily in the negative, he was taken away and killed. So were slain 200 Plataians and 25 Athenians who had been shut up in the town; and so fell the city of Plataia, in the 93rd year of its alliance with Athens, to rise once more, and to be once more destroyed. The town was razed to its foundations, and its territory, declared to be public land, was let out to Boiotian giazicrs. The play The Athenian Empire. « ClI. III. was played out, as the Tbebans would have it. The facts can scarcely be described in any other terms, for, awful though the drama may be, the existence or the rain of Plataia could have no serious issue or meaning in reference to the war. The summer of the fifth year of the struggle between Athens and Sparta was marked by the capture of Minoa, Capture of an islct uscd by the Megarians as a post to NikiTs.^^ defend their harbour of Nisaia. The general B.C. 427. in command of the victorious force was Nikias, a man who is said to have filled the office of strategos even as a colleague of Periklcs, but who is first noticed at this time by Thucydides. From this moment he be- comes one of the most prominent actors on the stage of Athenian politics, until his career closes under conditions thoroughly abhorrent to a nature singularly unenter- prising and cautious. Deficient in military genius, pos- sessed of not much power as an orator, caring more for the policy of his party than for the wider interests of his country, this strictly consei-vative and oligarchic states- man gained an ascendency at Athens not much less than that of Perikles, and in part for the same reason. In all that related to money Nikias, like Perikles, was incor- ruptible ; and this fact, joined with the decency of his life, secured ior him an influence with the people which, from every other point of view, was quite undeserved. Personally, indeed, he had much to recommend him to the affections of his countrymen. Endowed with ample wealth, he made use of his riches, not for indulgence in luxury and pleasure, but chiefly for the magnificent dis- charge of the liturgies, or public offices, imposed on the wealthiest citizens. The munificence with which at such times he exceeded the obligations of the law answered a double purpose. It soothed a sensitive conscience as a religious oftering to the gods ; and it procured for him a B.C. 426. TJie Pdoponncsian War. ^l general respect which the purity of his hfe heightened into admiration. In no way tainted with the philosophical tastes of Perikles, Nikias spent his leisure time in Hsten- ing to the discourses of prophets whom he kept in his pay; while both his temper and the need of attending to his property made him either unambitious of public offices or even averse to tilling them. Here, again, a carefulness, which took the form of modesty, increased the eagerness of the people to place him in positions which he wished rather to avoid, and to comply even with un- reasonable demands which he made in the hope of avoid- ing them. ^^^'The sixth year of the war was comparatively barren in events affecting immediately the Athenian empire. An unsuccessful attempt of Nikias to bring Melos pa;iure of and Thera, the two southernmost of the great Demosthe- central group of Egean islands, into the Athe- Akolia. nian confederacy, was matched by an attempt, ^■^' '''^^' not much more successful, on the part of the Spartans, to found a military colony at Herakleia, in Trachis, not far from the mountain passes associated with the exploits of Leonidas. A more serious scheme was that by which Demosthenes, the commander of an Athenian squadron off Leukas, dreamt of restoring the supremacy of Athens in Boiotia by an attempt made, not from Attica, but from the passes of the Aitolian mountains. The enterprise ended in terrible failure, and Demosthenes, not daring to face the people, remained in the neigh- bourhood of Naupaktos. His help was soon needed by the Akarnanians, whom he had offended by insisting on his march through Aitolia, when they Successes of wished him to engage in the siege of Leukas. Demosthe- They were now, at the beginning of winter, "he Ambra- assailed by the Ambrakiots, who seized Olpai. '''°''*- By the aid of Demosthenes, they won a battle in which 74 The Athenian Empire. en. m. the Spaitan commander, Eurylochos, was slain, while the Ambrakiots were compelled to make a disorderly retreat to Olpai. Another body of Ambrakiots, constituting, in fact, the main force of their state, was cut to pieces at Idomene chiefly by means of the Messenians in the service of Demosthenes ; and Ambrakia now lay at the mercy of the Akarnanians, who might have carried the town on the first assault. To this step they were strongly urged by Demosthenes ; but having gained their imme- diate end, they reverted to their old grudge and refused to follow his counsel. This campaign, marked by fearful carnage, had done little for Athens but much for De- mosthenes. Without calling on the state to aid him, he had won a victory which ensured to him the condonation of his previous mistakes. The Athenians had gained nothing beyond a pledge on the part of the Ambrakiots that they would take no part in any operation directed against Athens ; and even this gain was balanced by the engagement which bound the Akarnanians to abstain from all movements against the Peloponnesians. The seventh year of the war began with the usual invasion of Athens by the Peloponnesians, which during acdiipation ^^^ previous year had been prevented by a /of Pyios by rapid succession of earthquakes. But before / nel!"°^^ '^' they had been a fortnight in the country Agis, Stfvemh ^^^^ Spartan king, son of the old Archidamos, year of the received tidings which caused him to hurry V,*'^"^' homewards with all speed. The Messenians of Naupaktos, who had suggested to Demosthenes his unfortunate Aitolian expedition, now urged upon him the vast advantages which would accrue to Athens from the occupation of a strong military post on Spartan territory ; and the reputation which he had gained by his victories at Olpai and Idomcnc procured for him the consent of the people for employing in any operations along the B.C. 425- TJic Peloponucsian War. 75 Peloponnesian coasts the fleet of forty ships which they were sending to Korkyra and Sicily. But the generals with whom he sailed were less disposed to listen to him when he suggested that Pylos would serve well for the object which he had in view. Although, however, they insisted upon sailing on, a storm brought them back to Pylos, and there Demosthenes again vainly urged his scheme upon them ; nor had he more success at first with the subordinate officers or with the men. The storm, how- ever, lasted on for days, and the men began of their own accord to fortify the place by way of passing the time. They had no iron tools for shaping stone, and they had brought with them no vessels for carrying mortar. The blocks were, therefore, laid together, so far as was pos- sible, without mortar ; and in parts where cement was indispensable, they carried the mortar on their backs with their hands folded over the burden. They soon took a serious interest in the work which they had begun almost in sport. Six days sufficed to complete the wall on the exposed land side, and Demosthenes was left with five ships to hold the place. The spot thus chosen is de- scribed by Thucydides as a rocky promontory, separated from the island of Sphakteria by a passage wide enough to admit two triremes abreast. This island stretched from north-west to south-east, a passage capable of ad- mitting eight or nine war-ships abreast dividing it from the mainland. Within this breakwater lay the spacious harbour of Pylos. Either time has altered considerably the configuration of the ground, or the historian was not accurately informed as to measurements ; but there can be little doubt, or none, that the bay of Pylos is the present bay of Navarino, and that the spot which wit- nessed the success of Demosthenes has witnessed also the destruction of the Turkish fleet by Sir Edwara Cod- lington and his French and Russian colleagues. FLAN OF THE HARMOl K OF NAVARINO, TO ILLUSlKAlh; IHK OI'iiRATlONS Of IJLMOSTHENKS AT PYLOS. B.C. 4:5. The Pcloponncsian War. yj The tidings that the Athenians were masters of Pylos had brought Agis and his men away from Attica. The plan of the Spartans was to strain every Failure of nerve to crush the Athenians by a simulta- ^^T^a^^I? J dislodge ilie neous attack by land and sea before they Athenians, could receive any leinforcements ; and for this purpose a body of hoplites, under the command of Epitadas, was placed on the islet of Sphakteria. On his side Demos- thenes had done all that an able and brave leader could do. Having sent two ships to summon with all speed to his help the Athenian squadron at Zakynthos, he drew up his remaining triremes on the shore under the walls of his fort, and hedged them in with a stout stockade. The greater part of his force he reserved for the defence of the landward wall, while with sixty hoplites and a few archers he himself went down to the beach. The day went precisely as he had anticipated. Peloponnesian besiegers were never much to be feared, and we are only told that they did nothing. The attack by sea was made by detachments of four or five ships at a time ; but the Athenians were ready to encounter them at the narrow openings by which alone they could approach the fort, and they had a powerful ally in the rocks and reefs which gird in this dangerous promontory. The captains of the ships shrank naturally from risking the destruction of their vessels. Furious at the sight, Brasidas asked them whether for the sake of saving some timber they meant to allow the enemy to establish himself in their country ; and insisting that his own ship should be driven straight upon the beach, he took his stand on the gangAvay, ready to spring on land. But in this position he was exposed to showers of darts and arrov/s ; and as he fell back fainting with his left arm hanging over the side of the vessel, his shield slipped off into the water. Dashed up presently by the waves on the beach, it w?.s seized 78 TJie AtJienian Empire. en. in, by the Athenians, who with it crowned the tropliy reared after the battle. Evening closed on the strange victory of Athenians on the Peloponnesian coast over Peloponnesians who sought in vain to effect a landing from their own ships on their own shores. For two days more the Spartans vainly strove to obtain a footing on the beach ; on the third the Athenian fleet arrived from Zakynthos. For that night the Athenian commanders were compelled to fall back on the island of Prote. On the fourth day they advanced with the intention of forcing their way in, unless the enemy should come out to meet them on the open sea. With a strange infatuation the Spartans awaited their attack within the harbour ; and the Athenians sweeping in at both entrances dashed doAvn upon their ships, disabling many and taking five. The Spartan The Spartans saw with dismay and grief that shJt\'r^in ^^^^^ hoplites were now cut off in the island ; Sphakieria. and Something must at once be done, if these men, many of whom belonged to the first families of Sparta, were to be saved from starvation or from the risk of being captured by an overwhelming force. Hurrying at once to Pylos, the cphors arranged a truce, pending the return of envoys from Athens with the decision of the people whether for peace or for the continuance of the war. The terms were that the whole Lakedaimonian fleet should be handed over to the Athenians, to be given up again at the end of the truce, and no attack was Jo be made on their fortifications, the Spartans being allowed on these conditions to send in a fixed daily allowance of food and wine to the hoplites cut off in Sphakteria. The infraction of any one clause of the agreement was to nullify the whole. Not many days had passed since the Athenians had witnessed the premature retreat of Agis with the Spartan aimy; but they little thought that the next scene in the D.C. 425- The Peloponiicsian War. 79 drama would be the sight of Spartan envoys suing for peace with a tone of moderation in Httle harmony with their general character. The blockade of Spartan cm- their hoplites in Sphakteria had opened their ASs^fcr eyes to many duties of which they had peace, thus far been strangely forgetful. They had learnt the value of forbearance and kindliness and the folly and wickedness of carrying a quarrel too far. The Hellenic world, they added, was sorely in need of rest, and the boon would be not the less welcome because they knew not now who had begun the qjarrel, and had but a vague notion as to what they were fighting for. The Spartans were no doubt perfectly sincere for the time in their pro- fessions of kindly feeling towards the Athenians, and they never spoke more to the purpose than when they said that the time for ending the war had come. It was true that when Athens was down under the scourge of the plague, they had treated with contempt the Athenian proposals for peace ; but of the more moderate citizens many were content to overlook this inconsistency in their desire to further the interests not of Athens only but of all Hellas. Unfortunately among these moderate men not one was to be found who could venture to force these interests on the attention of the people. Perikles was dead, and Kleon was living with a spirit un- Demands of changed from the day when he hounded on f^i^on. his countr}'men to slaughter the friendly Demos as well as the rebellious oligarchy of Mytilene. Insisting that the Athenians should demand nothing less than the sur- render of the hoplites in Sphakteria with their anns, he added that, when these men had been brought to Athens, the Spartans might make a further truce on condition of giving back to the Athenians Nisaia and Pegai (p. 29;, Troizen and Achaia (p. 35). In making this demand it would be hard to say that Kleon was either wrong or un- So TJie Athenian Empire. cii. iii. just. With regard to Mcgara, the justification was two- fold. The Megarians, having vohintarily sought their friendship (pp. 29, 34), had requited the good services of the Athenians with an ingratitude which might rather be called treacheiy ; and further, as Megara could never stand alone, the state which held it in subjection and alliance would hold the key of the isthmus. It was not therefore to be expected that the Athenians would allow the Spartans to retain the privilege of throwing their armies into Attica at their will. So far Kleon was thoroughly justified ; nor would he have been in the least abandoning his position had he The dismis- assented to the request which tlie Spartan envoys^^ cnvoys now made, that commissioners should brought be appointed to discuss terms with them and kleon. ^ submit the result to the people. But with amazing folly he burst out into loud denunciations of Spartan doubledealing. He had suspected from the first that they had come with no good intent : he was sure now that they wished only to cheat the people, before whom he bade them say out plainly whatever they had to say. The envoys were taken by surprise. They were wholly without experience in addressing large popular assemblies : nor had any citizen of the moderate or conservative party, from Nikias down wnds, the cou- rage to demand that the request of the envoys should be submitted to the decision of the people. The Athenians chose to follow Kleon ; and Kleon in bringing about the contemptuous dismissal of the envoys was emphatically in the wrong. The return of the envoys to Pylos brought the truce to an end ; but alleging some infraction of the covenant, the Athenians refused to surrender the Pcloponnesian fleet. The extreme importance of preventing the escape of the hoplites in Sphakterin, suggested probably this B.C. 425. The Pcloponiiesian War. <5I most dishonest measure, which made it impossible for the Spartans to relieve Epitadas and his men unless they could first recover some portion at least Resumption of their fleet after storming the fortifications of the war. of Demosthenes. But in spite of the vast ad- of'the" vantages which they thus gained, it seemed -^ihemans. as though the Athenians would find that they had under- taken a task beyond their powers. Their slender garri- son was besieged by an army which hemmed them in by land, and their whole supply of drinking water came from one solitary spring on the summit of the little peninsula. On the other hand, the hoplites in Sphakteria had not only an excellent spring in the centre of the island, but received large supplies of food and wine brought to them by Helots urged on to the task by the promise of freedom, or by freemen stimulated by assur- ances of rich reward. The next tidings which came to Athens told the people that at the beginning of the winter season the triremes must be all withdrawn, and that on their departure the imprisoned hoplites would at once make their escape. According to the Athenian fashion of shifting all responsibihty upon advisers, popular indig- nation ran high against Kleon. The leather-seller (for such was his occupation) was indeed sorely perplexed, while his opponents, moved by mere selfishness, were in the same measure delighted. On the spur of the moment he charged the messengers from Pylos with falsehood; but when he was chosen to go as a commissioner to ascertain the state of things at the spot, he felt that he would have to retract his words, if they should be right, or be con- victed of a lie, if he should misrepresent matters. But he was none the less justified in telling the Athenians that, if they beheved the messengers, it was their business to send forthwith adequate reinforcements to Pylos, and that if the generals then present were men, they wouM A. //. G 82 The Athenian Empire. en. iii. go at once, as he should go if he were in their place. The reference to iiimself was at the worst only an indis- cretion: but Nikias, instead of admitting that Klcon had simply pointed out to him his clear duty, answered that, Engage- ^^ ^^^ ^"^^^ sccmcd to him so easy he had mentof better undertake it himself. Seeing that Kleon to -kt-i • • m i effect the iSikias was m earnest, Klcon more than Srsparuns ''^toncd for his fault by candidly confessing his in Sphak- incompetence for military command. With incredible meanness, if not with deliberate treachery, Nikias stuck to his proposal ; and the eager- ness of the people to ratify the compact was increased by the wish of Kleon to evade it. As for Nikias, it is enough to say that, regarding the matter as a fair trap for catching a political opponent, he could calmly propose to risk the destruction of an Athenian army by despatch- ing on an arduous, if not an impossible, errand, a man whom he believed to be wholly incompetent. When at length Kleon said that he would go, he added that he should set out with the assurance of bringing back within twenty days, as prisoners, the Spartan hoplites then in Sphakteria. Thucydides speaks of this promise as a sign of madness: yet Kleon had only asserted that Athens was able to do what Nikias pronounced to be im- possible, and he had further taken care that his colleague should be the general who had achieved a harder task among the Akarnanian and Amphilochian mountains. He could scarcely have shown sounder sense or greater modesty ; yet Thucydides tells us that his speech was received by the Athenians with laughter, and that sober- minded men were well pleased at an arrangement which would insure one of two good things—either the defeat of Kleon, or a victory over the Spartans, which might open a way for peace, the former being what they ratlier dosircd. In the judgement of Englishmen, these sober- B.C. 425. The Pdoponucsian War. Z^ minded men would be mere traitors ; but it is not easy to avoid the conclusion that the laughter came, not from the people generally, but only from the members of the oligarchic clubs, and from those who were afraid of offending them. Having reached Pylos, Kleon at once proposed to the Spartans to surrender the hoplites, who should be well treated until terms of peace should be Capture of arranged. But the Spartans would not hear the hoplites of it, and Demosthenes, with Kleon's full con- thenel'and sent, made ready for the attack. In fact, Kleon ^'^°"- behaved throughout as the mere lieutenant of the general in whom he rightly placed implicit trust. The great aim of Demosthenes was to do the work by means of the light- armed troops : an encounter of hoplites would lead pro- bably to the slaughter of many of the enemy whom it was of great consequence to take alive. From the first the Spartans had no chance. All attempts on their part to reach the compact mass of Athenian hophtes were foiled by showers of weapons from the light-armed troops on either side. At length they began to fall back slowly to the guard post at the north-western end of the island where the ground is highest: but this step of itself insured their doom. They had abandoned the only spring in the islet, and in a few hours more or less thirst would do its work; but Demosthenes was specially intent on saving their lives, and a Messenian guide undertook to lead a large force by a secret path which should bring them to a higher position in the rear of the enemy. As soon as the Spartans were thus surrounded, Demosthenes sent a herald to demand their unconditional surrender. The circumstances admitted of no debate, and the dropping of their shields showed that they accepted the inevitable terms. Of the 420 hoplites who had been cooped up ir\ the island, 292 lived to be taken prisoners, and of these not G 2 S4 The Athaiian Empire. CII. IV. less than 120 were genuine Spartiatai of the noblest lineage. The work was done. Within twenty days from the time of his departure Kleon redeemed what Thucydides calls his mad pledge, by bringing to the Peiraieus the costliest freight which had ever been landed on its shores. CHAPTER IV. /- THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR, FROM THE SURRENDER OF THE SPARTANS IN SPHAKTERTA TO THE MASSACRE OF MELOS. The success of Demosthenes and Kleon changed the public feeling of Athens from a desire for peace to a re- Change of solution of carrying on the war with energy. Kg at ^'^^'' Nearly three hundred Spartan hoplites were Athens. prisoncrs at Athens, ready to be brought out and slain if a Peloponnesian army should dare to cross the borders of Attica. The Spartans were, in proportion, lowered in their own self-esteem and in the eyes of the Greek tribes generally. Their humiliation was shown in more than one embassy for peace ; but there was no Perikles now living to warn the Athenians against press- Athenian ing good fortune too far. They had put one S^Kyfhem '^^'^oi^ i" the side of their enemies by the oc- B.c. 424. cupation of Pylos ; in the following, or eighth, year of the war, they thrust in another by the seizure of Kythera, the island off the south-eastern promontory of Lakonia, which had been for the Spartans a port for mer- chant vessels from Egypt and Libya, and a station from which they could with ease keep off all privateers from their coasts. The enterprise was concerted with a friendly body among the people who wished to be rid of the fi.c. 424. T/ie Peloponiiesian War. S5 oligarchic rule of Sparta ; and when Nikias and his col- leagues arrived with 2,000 hoplites and some horsemen, the resistance was more nominal than real. From Kythera, Athenian ships made descents on many places along the Lakonian shores, and their troops, landing at Thyrea, where the expelled Aiginetans (p. 31) had found a refuge, carried the place by storm. I'he Aiginetans taken within it were carried to Athens, and there put to death. Thus was swept away the remnant of that people who had shared with the Athenians the glory of Salamis ; and a catastrophe as horrible as that of Plataia attested the strength of the fatal disease which rendered impossible the growth of an Hellenic nation. Among those who risked their lives to convey food to the hoplites shut up in Sphakteria were the Helots, to whom they promised freedom as a reward. Alleged Other Helots, probably those who were not massacre of manumitted, deserted, it seems, to the Mes- theSpar-^ senians at Pylos, or made their escape to Ky- ^^"^• thera. Fearing the extent to which these desertions might be carried, the Spartans, it is said, proclaimed that all who regarded their exploits on behalf of Sparta as giving them a title to freedom, should come forward and claim it, under the assurance that if their claim should be sound, the boon would be granted. Two thousand, we are told, were selected as worthy of liberty, and with gar- lands on their heads went round to the temples of the gods. A few days later, of these 2,000 men not one was to be seen, and none was ever seen again. In the opinion of the historian Thucydides the Spartans were suffering under a paroxysm of selfish fear, which had its natural fruit in cowardly and atrocious cruelty. The contrast ot their own feeble policy with the energy of the Athenians made them sink lower in their own esteem; and their expectations for tl.e future were not of victory but o{ 83 The Athenian Empire. cii. iv. disaster. Whether such a state as Sparta was worth the saving, is another question ; but there is httle doubt thai it must have fiillen had it not been for the singularly un- Desi,Mis of Spartan genius of Brasidas. This eminent Brasida^. ^^^ g^^y j|-^,^j ^^^ ^ diversion of the Athenian forces to a distant scene would loosen the iron grasp in which they now held the Pcloponnesos ; and such a di- version was rendered possible by invitations which came at this time from the Chalkidic towns (G.P. p. 30), as well as from the faithless Makedonian chief Perdikkas. These invitations were accompanied by offers to maintain any Spartan force which might be sent to aid the towns in their design of revolt against Athens. The Spartans eagerly in- trusted the task to Brasidas, and still more eagerly seized the opportunity of getting rid of another large body of Helots. Seven hundred were armed as hoplites ; and the mere fact that after the slaughter of the 2,000 these did not take dire vengeance after they crossed the Lakonian border, or at the least desert to the Athenians rather than face them in battle, might lead us to think that the story of that horrible massacre was only a dream. Before Brasidas could get together his Peloponnesian allies for their northern march, his presence was wanted Failure of ^^arer home. The minority which, even the plans for when Megara had revolted from the great fn^Sfl^a ci^y> ^^^^ fc^t that union with Athens was to the better than independence under an olig^ar- Athenians. . ,.,,.,. chy, now concerted, with the Athenian gen- erals Hippokrates and Demosthenes, a plan for the surrender of the city. This plan was betrayed, and the Athenians, bringing tools and workmen from Athens, had all but succeeded in walling in the port of Nisaia (p. 29), when Brasidas presented himself at the gates of Megara and demanded admittance ; but both the parties within ihe city were now on their guard, and resolved to admit no Ft.c. 424. TJie Pdopoimcsian War. Zj one, until one or other side should have gained a decisive victory. Rightly divining the reason of his exclusion, Brasidas advanced towards the sea, and offered battle ; but the Athenian generals doubted whether they could run the risk of a defeat, which would be most severely felt, in order to encounter a force levied from many Pelopon- nesian cities, which would lose at the worst only a small fraction of their troops. They had, moreover, already gained Nisaia, and cut off the connexion of Megarawith its long walls. They abandoned, therefore, all further attempts on Megara itself, and its gates were at once opened to admit the army of Brasidas. Before the end of the year the Megarians obtained possession of their long walls, and levelled them with the ground. The enterprise of Brasidas should have awakened the Athenians forthwith to a sense of the paramount need of baffling it at all costs. His success would Schemes of undo all the results gained by the occupation the AthenU of Pylos and the seizure of Kythera. But far ?rcov°e% of from fixing their whole mind on this task, ^a^ m^"^^" they were dreaming of restoring their supre- Boiotia, macy in Boiotia, which they had lost by the battle of Koroneia ; and they were full of hope on finding that in many of the Boiotian cities there were not a few who would gladly free themselves from the heavy yoke of the Eupatrid houses. By the help of these natural allies of Athens, it was arranged that Demosthenes should sail from Naupaktos to Siphai at the eastern end of the Corinthian gulf. Thus gaining a footing in the south, they would in the north have a like advantage by being admitted into Chaironeia, while in the east they would have even a stronger base of operations by fortifying the sacred ground of the Delion, or temple of Phcibos Apollon. The success of this plan depended on the exactness of its execution ; and unhappily the Athenian 88 The Athenian Empire. cii. iv. commanders were not punctual. Arriving at Siphai, De- mosthenes found that the plot had been betrayed, and that both Siphai and Chaironeia were held by the Boio tians in full force. In spite of this discovery, 20,000 men set out from Athens to fortify the Delion. In five days Hippokrates had practically done the work; but these five days were fatal to his enterprise. Slurrying towards Delion, the Boiotian troops found that the main body of the enemy had crossed the border ; but the scruples which they felt about attacking them on Attic soil were Battle of speedily removed by the Boiotarch Pagondas, Delion. ^vi^o told them that the Athenians were their enemies wherever they might be, and professed his in- ability to understand the subtle distinctions which for- bade them to encounter an enemy on his own ground. It was late in the day : but they resolved to fight at once. The Theban hoplites were drawn up twenty five men deep ; the Athenian front had a depth of only eight men. The contrast points to a growing consciousness that with opposing forces consisting of men equal in strength, bravery, and discipline, weight must determine the event. The battle which followed was fiercely contested ; but a body of Thebans, whom Pagondas had sent round a hill, appeared suddenly before the Athenians, and threw them into a confusion which soon became irretrievable. Nearly 1,000 Athenian hoplites, with their general, Hip- pokrates, lay dead on the field, which the Thebans care- fully guarded, while they made ready for the assault of Delion on the following day. After the battle an Athenian herald, coming to demand the bodies of the dead for burial, was met by a Boiotian herald, who, going back with hhn thrfonft to Delion, charged the Athenians with pro- Dchon. faning a sacred site, and added that the dead should not be restored to them until they had evacuated B.C. 424- ^-^^^ Peloponnesia^t War. 89 the Temenos, or close of the god. The obvious rejoinder, Ihat Hellenic law allowed no conditions to be interposed for the burial of the dead, must have been followed by the surrender of the bodies ; but the Athenians chose rather to say that as they had occupied the ground, the shrine built on it was Attic property, and therefore could not be profaned by them, and that, being thus in their own territory, the Athenians could not be asked to abandon it. To this absurd plea the Boiotians might have retorted that the conquest of a whole country carry- ing with it the temples raised within its borders was a veiy different thing from the occupation of a single sanctuary as a base of operations against the territory to which it belonged. But the temptation to repay the Athenians in their own coin was too strong to be resisted, and the Boiotians replied that if the Athenians were in their own land, they could take what they wanted without asking leave of anyone. Even here the Athenians might have insisted that Attica did not extend beyond their intrenchments, and therefore that the dead must be yielded up unconditionally. But this reply was not made, and the Boiotians proceeded at once to attack the Athenian fortifications. These, built chiefly of wood, were set on fire by means of a large beam which, being hollowed out, served as a tube through which a current of air was forced from bellows at one end to a cauldron containing charcoal and sulphur, fastened by strong iron chains at the other end. The garrison fled, and the fort was taken ; and when the Athenian herald again appeared, the bodies of the dead were surrendered without further demur. So ended a scheme which, so long as Brasidas was at large, ought never to have March of been taken in hand. By thus wasting their ^^^^^ energies they enabled that vigilant leader to Thessaiy. re ich Thessaly, and, in spite of the leaning of the maia 90 TJic Athenian Empire. en, iv. body of the people to the Athenian side, to carry his army through it into Makedonia ; nor until he had achieved this task were they awakened to a sense of their danger. Even then they merely declared war against Perdikkas — a superfluous manifesto against a chief who passed his life in betraying or deserting all his allies in turn. Nothing can show more clearly the fatal loss sustained by Athens in the death of Periklcs than the weakness now dis- played in their measures for maintaining that which they knew to be the very foundation of their empire. We may well doubt whether Perikles would have approved either of the attempts made by Demosthenes to re-estab- lish the supremacy of Athens in Boiotia : that he would have staked the whole power of the state in encountering and crushing Brasidas is not to be doubted at all. The grapes were all but ready for the gathering, and the produce of the year was therefore at his mercy, when Appearance Biasidas appeared before the gates of Akan- a[ ISn-^''^ ^^^02' ^^ t^^^ ^^se of the great peninsula ol thos. Akte, or Athos. He had looked for the eager welcome promised to him by the Chalkidian oligarchs : he was surprised to find that the gates were guarded, and that he could do no more than pray for permission to plead his cause before the Akanthians in person. With this request the demos, whose whole substance was in iiis hands, reluctantly complied. His business was to con- vince them that they could secure their own welfare only by revolting from Athens ; and he proceeded to address them after the following fashion. Assuring them that Sparta was honestly anxious to confine itself to the one task of putting down an iniquitous tyranny, he told them that he had come to set them free, and was amazed at not finding himself welcomed with open arms. He could not allow them to slight the proffered boon. Their refusal would tempt the other allies ol Athens to think B.C. 424. TJic Pelopoiinesian War. 91 ihat the freedom which he promised was visionary, or that his power to secure it was not equal to his will. But when he sought to win their confidence by assuring them that he had bound the Ephors by solemn oaths that they should allow all the cities which might join him to remain absolutely autonomous, it may not have struck him that the need of imposing such oaths might leave on others the impression that the Spartan magistrates were not much to be trusted without them. He had, however, two further arguments in store — the one addressed to that centrifugal instinct which pre-eminently marked the Hellenic race in general, the other to their purses. He assured them that when he spoke to them of freedom, his words w^ere to be taken in their literal meaning, and not as denoting merely liberation from the yoke of Athens. They were to be left absolutely to themselves, and they were free now to decide whether they would or would not join Sparta. But if they should say him nay, their ripe grapes would be trampled under foot and their vine- yards ravaged. This special pleading carried so much weight, that a majority of the citizens, voting secretly, decided on revolt from Athens. The farce of free debate and free voting v/as ended, and Stageiros soon followed the example of Akanthos in revolting from Athens. A few weeks later Brasidas appeared before the walls of Amphipohs (p. 39), a post as easily defensible by the Athenians as it was important. On no object Occupation could time, care, and money have been better °oi^"J,^'"' bestowed than on the safe keeping of this key Brasidas. to two vast regions : by a mournful infatuation it was allowed to fall without a struggle into the hands of Bra- sidas. On a stormy and snowy night the inhabitants learnt that his army was under their walls, and that their lands, and all who happened to be without the city, were at his mercy. In soite of this, the citizens not only i?isisied 92 The AtJienian Evipirc. cii. iv. that the gates should be kept sliut, but that the Athenian general Eukles should send a request for immediate aid to his colleague Thucydides, the historian, who was then with his fleet off the island of Thasos, about half a day's sail from Amphipolis. Hurrying thither with all speed, he found that Brasidas had been before him. Feeling the importance of securing Amphipolis at all cost, the Spar- tan leader offered the full rights of citizenship to all who might choose to remain ; to those who preferred to depart he allowed five days for the removal of their property. The terms were accepted, and in another twenty-four hours the Spartans would have been masters of Eion also ; but in the evening of the same day the seven ships of Thucydides entered the mouth of the Strymon, and this fresh humiliation was avoided. The care with which he points out the greatness of the danger from which his arrival saved the city, betrays the anxiety of a man who wishes to place himself right with those whose severer judgement he has good cause to fear. We can scarcely lay too much stress on the fact that in both these towns of Akanthos and Amphipolis the Lightness of majority of the people is disinclined to alliance yoke'S^'^^' with Sparta, and that in neither case is free Athens. debate or free voting allowed. No more con- clusive evidence could be desired in favour of the im- perial city than that which is furnished by the whole his- tory of the campaign. If, in spite of the reiterated promises of Brasidas that there should be no interference whatever with their management of their internal affairs, their opposition was with difficulty overcome, the con- clusion follows that, apart from the passion for inter- political independence, the subject-allies of Athens had no special grievance calling for redress. Had they been oppressed by a tribute beyond their means to pay ; had they been preyed on by collectors who drew from them sums beyond the defined assessment ; had the means of B.C. 424. The Pdoponncsian War. 9^^ tedress for injuries committed been denied to them or rendered difficult, they must assuredly have thrown themselves into the arms of Brasidas with a feeling of thankfulness that any change must be for the better. But, as we have seen (pp. 4, 27), the imperial yoke of Athens pressed on the allies as a sentimental rather than as a real grievance ; and it was precisely thus at Akanthos and Amphipolis. There was no positive love for Athens ; but as they felt that their connexion with her was on the whole to their own benefit, they were not carried away by enthusiastic admiration of a stranger, who simply pro- mised to leave them in a state of complete isolation ; and the introduction of Brasidas was brought about only by the intrigues of a small but overbearing faction, which re- solved to hurry the people into revolt under pain of ruin in case of refusal. Even thus, it is asserted, Amphipolis would have remained true to Athens, if there had been good reason for thinking that a few hours would bring to them the aid of Thucydides. The tidings of the revolt of Amphipolis filled Athens with dismay. The place was, in fact, the key to their Thrakian possessions, and the loss of this punishmenf position increased the readiness of the allies of Thucy- to revolt as much as it lowered the reputa- tion of Athens. The urgency of the peril seemed rather to paralyse the Athenians than to rouse them Nothing was done beyond despatching a few troops to reinforce the garrisons in the Thraceward cities ; and further disasters were averted only by the reluctance of the Spartans to encourage schemes which probably they did not very clearly understand. The story went that Kleon accused Thucydides of incapacity or wilful mismanagement, and that the historian, failing to defend himself, was sentenced to banishment. From his own words, we do not learn that he was formally sentenced at ail ; but he admits that he spent twenty years in exile, Q4 The Athtnian Empire. ch. iv. and his silence on the share of Klcon in the matter seems to attest the self-condemnation of the general. Had he felt the injustice of the charge and the sentence, Thucydides was not the man to rest quiet under an iniquitous imputation. Far from defending himself, he leaves the facts to speak for themselves, and these show that he was one of the generals appointed to watch over the interests of Athens in Makedonia and Thrace ; that his duty demanded his presence at Amphipolis, or at the least at Eion, which was only three miles further to the south ; that he is found with his squadron off Thasos, an island which Brasidas could not attack, be- cause he had no ships ; and that he was cruising off Thasos because his personal interests attracted him to the Thrakian gold mines of which he was a proprietor. That on hearing of the loss of Amphipolis he hastened to prevent the loss of Eion, in no way lessens his fault. No one knew better than he that a general who had failed to keep a post intrusted to him when with common care he might easily have kept it, is in no way more deserving of acquittal because he succeeds in preserving another post which but for his previous negligence would never have been endangered. In this instance, if Klcon had any- thing to do with the matter, he was perfectly right. Amphipolis was lost only through the carelessness of Thucydides and his colleague ; and the absence of Thu- cydides from his post must be set down to a preference of his own interests over those of his country. The prospects of the Athenians were growing more and more dark ; but the tale of the exploits of Brasidas Truce for w as not yct full, and before the year ended betwee^ they were to lose Toronc, a town lying on the Sparta and slope of a stccp hill at the extreme end of Athens. , ^^. , . ^ , , r ^1 ,1 • ,-, rx-i . B :. 423. the Sithonian penmsula of Chalkidike. This place Brasidas won, chiefly by assuring the inhabitants B.C. 423. TJie Pcloponnesian War. 95 that thus far they had not been free agents, that he was come to give them hberty whether they hked it or not, and that those who opposed him should share the bless- ing not less than his most zealous partisans. In the following year his schemes were damped by his country- men, who feared that his success might be for them scarcely less disastrous than his failure. The latter would assuredly assign either to death or to hopeless captivity the Sphakterian hoplites, for whose rescue they were most of all anxious : the former would probably bring them nothing more than they could now win without risk. Eager, therefore, to do all that they could to bring about a lasting peace, the Spartans agreed to a truce for one year on the general principle that each side should retain its present possessions. But if the Athenians hoped that the truce would tie the hands of Brasidas they speedily found themselves mistaken. The Spartan faction in Skione Revolt of managed to coerce those who were opposed to Skione. revolt, and to send him an invitation which he eagerly accepted. The campaign of Brasidas had now acquired a romantic character ; and when he told the Skionaians that their boldness in defying Athens would be rewarded by the special confidence and esteem of the Spartans, they were carried away by their enthusiasm. In the public assembly a golden diadem was placed on the head of the deliverer of Hellas : in private houses he was crowned as an athlete who had reached the highest standard of Hellenic humanity. In the midst of these rejoicings the Spartan and Athenian commissioners an-ived to announce the truce. After reckoning up the time, the Athenian commissioners refused to recognize the revolt of Skione as coming within the terms of the treaty ; and Brasidas boldly antedated the day of its defection, ills falsehood was believed at Sparta : at Athens it 96 TJie AtJicniaii Eiupirc. en. iv. aroused an indignation which made it easy for Kleon to obtain a decree, carried out two years later, dooming the Skionaians to the punishment whirh had been all but carried out at Mytilene (p. 69). From these enterprises among the subject-allies of Athens Brasidas was called away by the terms of his Recovery of coutract with Pcrdikkas, to an expedition Ihl Afheni. against the Lynkestian chief, Arrhibaios. But ans. Perdikkas, dismayed at learning that a force of Illyrians, whom he had hired to serve against the Lynkestai, had transferred themselves to his enemy, re- treated in all haste, leaving Brasidas to shift for himself. Here, as before, Spartan discipline and bravery prevailed against overwhelming odds ; but the revenge taken by the Peloponncsians on the beasts of burden and baggage train left behind by the Makedonians so ahenated Per- dikkas that he resolved once more to seek the alliance of the Athenians, whom he had more than once betrayed. During his absence the Athenians had stirred themselves to more vigorous action ; and Nikias had arrived with a fleet of fifty ships before Mende, which had followed the example of Toronc. His arrival gave strength to the philo-Athenian party ; and when the Spartan commander ordered the Mendaians to sally out against the enemy he was met by passive resistance. In an evil moment he ordered the arrest of a citizen who cried out that he had no intention of serving against the Athenians, and that the war was only a luxury for the rich. This insult drove the demos to seize their arms ; and the Athenians, admitted within the town, left to the judgement of the I^Iendaians those citizens whom they suspected to be the authors of the revolt. The defection of Perdikkas froni the Spartan side came opportunely for the Athenians. His experience of his lies had shown Nikias how he should be dealt wilh. B.C. 422. TJie Pcloponncsian War. 97 He was therefore told that, if he desired the friendship of Athens, he must prove that he really meant what he said. Happily for the Athenians, he could Alliance of do this and gratify his resentment against ^fth'the^* Brasidas at the same time. The reinforce- Athenians. ment for which Brasidas had so long and so earnestly prayed was known to be on its way from the Pelopon- nesos ; and a message from Perdikkas to the Thessalian chiefs cut short its march. The year's truce had come to an end ; but so anxious were both sides for peace, or so indifferent were the Spartans to the schemes of Brasidas, that Expedition nothing was done until after the celebration i^S^^^^l. of the Pythian games. No sooner, however, b.c. 422. were these ended than we find Kleon in command of a fleet which Perikles would most certainly have sent to Thrace two years earlier, before Brasidas had crossed the Thes- salian border. The facts to be noted are these : that after an interval of three years a man, who, in the public assembly of Athens, had candidly confessed his incom- petence for military command (p. 82), and who had been successful at Pylos merely because he had had the sound sense to subordinate himself to a leader of real genius, is now sent on a far more dangerous service without the aid of such a colleague as Demosthenes. Why Demosthenes did not accompany him we are not told. He may at this time have been on his old station at Naupaktos; and in this case the state of things at Athens becomes clear enough. Had Perikles lived he must have insisted that the full strength of Athens should be put forth instantly for the recovery of Amphipolis. But, throwing cold water on a policy which would have been not less pru- dent than vigorous, Nikias and his adherents had in- sisted that the schemes of Brasidas would most easily be foiled, not by sending out armies to fight him, buit by A. //. H 98 The AtJicnian Empire. cw, iv. making peace with Sparta. But Kleon cannot have faile('. to see that Brasidas had utterly disregarded the current truce, and therefore that there was no sound reason for thinking that he would respect a contract for a permanent peace. In truth, the mere fact that Kleon, whose non- employment since the capture of Pylos proves that he had not sought employment, was now sent to command on the Thrakian coasts, shows that the old trick (p. 82) ot Nikias and his adherents was repeated. The shameful policy which regarded his downfall as of more importance than the welfare of Athens, had been openly asserted before he set off for Pylos ; and the language of Thucy- dides justifies the conclusion that they were prompted by the same disgraceful motives now. We may therefore safely infer that Kleon went to Thrace merely because Nikias would not go. Throughout the whole quarrel the conduct of Nikias forebodes the crimes and the misery of which oligarchical selfishness was soon to yield at Athens an abundant and fatal harvest. Leaving Peiraieus long after the summer solstice, Kleon succeeded in wresting Torone from Brasidas, the Battle of fall of the city being followed by the slaughter beath'of '^' or Captivity of the men and the selling of the Brasidas women and children into slavery. But the real and 01 ^ Kleon. object of his expedition was the recovery of Amphipolis ; and Kleon dared not attack the town without reinforcements from Perdikkas. While he was awaiting these at Eion, Brasidas took up his post on the hill of Kerdylion, on the western bank of the river facing the city. He knew that the Athenians had no confidence in their general, and that they resented his inaction ; he could afford, therefore, to wait patiently for an opportunity of surprising him when discontent and want of disciphne had thrown his army into sufficient disorder. Blunder ait'^f blunder followed; but the disgrace of these blunders B.C. 422. The Pcloponncsian War. 99 lies not with Kleon so much as witli those who sent him on an errand which he would far ratlier have seen in- trusted to others. Whatever they were, we see them at their worst, for he had a merciless critic in the historian whom he helped to drive away from his country. Kleon, it is clear, was wholly at a loss how to act. His men were becoming impatient, and he was driven at last to the course which led him to success at Pylos. This course was seemingly nothing more than marching up- hill for the purpose of marching down again ; and even tliis manoeuvre, the historian adds with supreme con- tempt, Kleon regarded as a thing worth knowing. The wall of Amphipolis ran across the ridge which rises to the eastward until it joins the Pangaian range. This ridge Kleon ascended ; but no sooner was his army in movement than Brasidas entered the city by the bridge over the Strymon, his object being to dupe Kleon by that semblance of inactivity and inability to act which for a wary general would carry with it the strongest suspicion. On reaching the top of the bridge, which commanded an unbroken view of the city and the river, Kleon was im- pressed by the silence and quiet of the scene. Through the vast extent of country which he surveyed no bodies of men were to be seen in motion; not a man was visible on the walls, not a sign betokened preparation for battle. Brasidas was offering sacrifice before sallying forth against the enemy. This ceremony was seen by the scouts of Kleon, who also told him that under the city gates they could discern the feet of horses and men ready to issue out for battle. Having satisfied himself of the truth of these tidings, Kleon fatally resolved to retreat to Eion. He had, in fact, no one to guide him, and his incompetence, which he had never sought to hide, now produced its natural result. Wheehng to the left-, his army began its southward march, leaving the right, or 100 TJic Athenian Einpirc. Cil. IV. unshielded, side open to the enemy. ' These men will never withstand our onset,' said Brasidas : ' look at their quivering spears and nodding heads. Men who are going to fight never march in such a fashion as this. Open the gates at once, that I may rush out on them forthwith.' The sudden onslaught broke the Athenian ranks ; but in the pursuit of the Athenian left wing Brasidas fell, mortally wounded. On the right wing the resistance of the Athenians was more firm ; but Kleon, it is said, had come without any intention of fighting, and he soon made up his mind to run away. Flight, how- ever, is more easily thought of than accomplished ; and Kleon, abandoning his men, was slain by a Myrkinian peltast. So says Thucydides ; but the strong bias of his narrative may fairly lead us to suspect that his end was not so ignominious as he describes it to have been. Brasidas lived just long enough to know that the Athe- nians were defeated ; and the career of this thoroughly un-Spartan champion of Sparta was closed with a public funeral in the Agora of Amphipolis, where he received yearly henceforth the honours of a deified hero. The buildings raised by Hagnon (p. 39) were thrown down ; and Brasidas was venerated as the founder of the city. Thus were removed the two great hindrances to peace / between Athens and Sparta: but Thucydides makes no f . effort to show that peace, at the cost of sacri- \ thepoHcyof fices which Kleon was not willing to make? \ ^'«o"- was at this time to be desired for Athens, or t^\ that the line taken by Nikias and his partisans was one which Perikles would have approved ; nor, indeed, does he ask whether it is one against which Perikles would have protested as involving virtual treason. Happily the unswerving honesty which never allows him to suppress facts has shown us that, when Kleon charged the first Spartan envoys with deliberate duplicity, he was B.C. ^21. TJie Peloponnesiaii War. loi disgracing himself and running a risk of fatally injuring Athens (p. So) ; that, when the truce was once broken, he was perfectly right in insisting that at whatever cost the Spartan hoplites in Sphakteria should be brought pri- soners to Athens (p. 82) ; that he was again wrong when, after they had been so brought, he hindered the settle- ment of peace by imposing conditions too exacting and severe (p. 84) ; and, finally, that he was from first to last more than justified in insisting that Brasidas must be encountered and put down in Thrace (p. 97). That he was left to carry out this policy by himself was his mis- fortune, not his fault: that he was feebly supported at Athens and sent without competent colleagues to Thrace, redounds not to his own shame but to that of his adver- saries. The negotiations for peace were now resumed in earnest ; but it was not without difficulty that, according to the arrangement, probably, of Nikias, by whose name this peace is generally known, of Nikias. the contending parties agreed each to give up ^^- '♦^^• what they had acquired during the war. The Athenians thought that they should thus regain Plataia ; but we have seen that the Spartans had provided against this by the subterfuge of a voluntary surrender (p. 70). They remembered, however, that if the Thebans had a right tD hold Plataia, they had aright to retain Nisaia (p. 29), and they refused accordingly to give it up. By tlie terms of the peace, which was to last for fifty years, Sparta was to restore Amphipolis, while Athens was to leave independent all towns in Chalkidike which had put themselves under the protection of Brasidas, subject to their paying to Athens the tribute due by the assess- ment of Aristeides (p. 18). On their part the Athenians, who were to receive back all prisoners in the hands of the Spartans or their allies^ were to restore all captives 102 " The Athenian Ei)ipirc. en. iv. belonging to Sparta or any city of her confederacy, as uell as to surrender Pylos and Kythera. But it was now to be seen that though the Spartans might make promises in the name of their allies, they could not insure their fulfilment. The Boiotians, as being constrained to give up Panakton, (a fort which they had seized in the pre- ceding year), the Megarians (as not recovering Nisaia), and the Corinthians, would have nothing to do with the treaty. More than all, the Chalkidians would not give up Amphipolis, and the Spartan general Klearidas declared \hat he had not the means of compelling them. The Spartans were thus discredited with ihcir allies, and they had a further cause for anxiety in the fact that the Failure of ^^'"^^ ^°^ thirty years with Argos was drawing the Spartans to a closc. It was, therefore, of great impor- theTJrmrfor tance to prevent an alliance between Athens the peace. ^,^j Argos which might restore to the latter her ancient supremacy in the Peloponnesos. A special arrangement hurriedly made with the Athenians pledged Athens and Sparta to defend each the other's territories against all invaders, and bound the former to put down all risings of the Helots, — in other w^ords, to put an effectual restraint on the Messenians at Pylos. Even this would have been a concession far too great for this practically worthless alliance which Sparta offered in mere fear of Argos ; but so great was the value which Nikias and his partisans professed to put upon it that they induced the Athenians to surrender the ho|;lites Surrenderor ^akcn at Sphaktcria. Such were the first- the Spartan fruits which Athens received from the philo- taken^^ Lakonian policy of her oligarchic citizens. Sphakteria. o^y^^ ^^^5 j^Q^y practically ruled by those who prided themselves on being nobly born and nobly bred ; and these statesmen set to work to deprive her of one advantage after the other, offering her in their stead B.C. 420. Tlic Pdopounesiaii War. 103 apples of the Dead Sea. Nothing can excuse the weak- ness which could dispense with all tests for trying the sincerity of the Spartans. The continued detention of the Pylian prisoners and a demand that a combined Athenian and Spartan force should be sent to reduce Amphipolis, would at once have compelled the Spartans to show themselves in their true colours, or, as is far more likely, have secured to Athens all that she wanted. As it was, the terms of the peace were not kept on either side ; and the period which followed until the open re- sumption of the war was at best no more than a time of truce. Hence the whole period of twenty-seven years from the surprise of Plataia by the Thebans to the surrender of Athens is rightly regarded by Thucydides as being taken up with one persistent struggle. In the irritation of the moment the offended allies of Sparta turned naturally to Argos wath the language of flattery to which the Argives had been long Formation unaccustomed. The confederacy to which of a new the latter accordingly invited all autonomous confede- Peloponnesian cities was joined in the first '^'^^• instance by Mantineia, then by the Eleians, and lastly by the Corinthians, whose zeal w^as suddenly damped on learning that Tegea refused to share the new alliance. The pohtics of the leading Greek states now assume that complicated form which must result from the conflicting interests of a large number of autonomous cities seek- ing each its own supposed welfare alone. Among the tortuous intrigues which mark this time, we may note the engagement made privately between the Spartans and the Boiotians, who without this compact refused to surrender Panakton. The Spar- tans could not rest without regaining Pylos: and as the possession of Panakton was insisted on by the Athenians as an indispensable preliminary, the Spartans ended the 104 TJie AtJuiiian Empire. cii. iv. eleventh year of the great struggle with a measure which looked like deliberate treachery to the Athenians, to whom they were pledged to make no engagements with- out their knowledge and consent. The Boiotians, how- ever, were resolved that no Athenian force should occupy the fort, and they spent the winter in levelling it with the ground. Much as they were annoyed at a deed which vastly increased the difficulty of their task the Spartans still had the assurance to send envoys to demand from the Athenians the surrender of Pylos on the ground that the surrender of a site was equivalent to the surrender of the fort which had been Ixiilt upon it. But the Athenians were not in the mood for further fooling, and the envoys were dismissed after a reception which showed the depth of their indignation. This feeling was diligently fostered by Alkibiades, the son of Kleinias, who fell at Koroneia (p. 34), and the Beginning grandson of that Alkibiades who had been He life of ^ one of the most strenuous opponents of the y\ikibiades. Peisistratidai. To the possession of vast wealth this man added a readiness of wit, a fertility of invention, a power of complaisance, which invested his manner, when he wished to please, with a singular charm. Magnificent in his tastes, and revelling in the elegance of the most refined Athenian luxury, Alkibiades shrunk from no hardship in war, and faced danger with a bravery which was above cavil or question. He has been compared with Themistokles : but few comparisons could be more unjust. Professing no austere righteousness, Themis- tokles yet from first to last promoted the best interests of his country with unswerving steadiness, and carried out one uniform policy which laid the foundations of the Athenian empire, and continued to sustain its greatness. Alkibiades had no policy. Hating a demos in his heart, he was, nevertheless, as ready to destroy an oligarchy as to B.C. 420. The Pcloponnesiaii War. 105 uproot a free constitution, and he was therefore justly dreaded by men of all political parties as one treading in the paths of the old Hellenic despots. To commit the people to his plans, he could act or utter a lie with only a feeling of self-complacence at his own cleverness. Utterly selfish and unscrupulous, Alkibiades, in company with scoun- drels like Kritias, sought the conversation of Sokrates ; but the society of this wonderful man only made him more dangerous ; and if we are to believe the stones told of hinij his youthful career was one unbroken course of gilded sensuality and of barbarous ruffianism, hidden by a veil of superficial refinement. Under any circumstances, such a man must be infamous ; but Alkibiades had oppor- tunities of committing crime on a vast scale, and he availed himself of them to the utmost. To such a man a slight was a deadly offence, and Alkibiades had received a marked slight from the Spartans. His courtesies to their prisoners had not only Deception called forth no public recognition, but had of the Spar- , , - , , tan envoys seemmgly been forgotten even by the ran- byAikibi- somed men. He therefore discovered that ^'^^^■ the true means for restoring the preponderance of Athens was to bring about an alliance with Argos. By his advice, accordingly, envoys from Argos appeared at Athens in company with others from Mantineia and Ehs. At the sam.e time came a counter-embassy from Sparta ; and the fears of Alkibiades for his new scheme were roused by their saying before the senate that they had full power for the immediate settlement of all differ- ences. Such a statement, made before the asseipbly, would jeopardise his alliance with Argos. It must not therefore be made. Warning them that this profession might subject them to troublesome demands and impor- tunities, he pledged himself to secure for them the possession of Pylos and to plead their cause before the io6 The AtJicniaii Empire. cii. iv people, if they would claim no further mission than that of envoys charged only to report the wishes of the Athe- nians. The Spartans fell into the snare. The answer, given according to his prompting, roused the deep resentment of hearers who could hardly believe their senses. More vehement than all the rest, Aikibiades burst into invectives against Spartan shuffling and lying, and was proposing that the Argive envoys should at once be admitted to an audience, when an earthquake caused the adjournment of the assembly. When the assembly met on the following day, Nikias insisted successfully that important interests were not to Defensive be rashly thrown aside, and that if alliance between ^^'^^^ Sparta was to the interest of Athens, Athens, it was their duty to send commissioners to Argos, . , , . . ^ , ^ Elis, and asccrtam the real mtentions of the Spartans. Mantineia. q^^^^ thither himsclf, he could obtain nothing more than the declaration that they were ready to renew the oaths of the covenant with Athens. Dispensing with a superfluous and useless ceremony, he returned to find the Athenians ready to effect with Argos, Mantineia, and Elis a defensive alliance which distinctly recognised the imperial character of each of these states, thus intro- ducing into the Peloponnesos relations among the allies or former subjects of the Spartans which the Spartans could not consistently tolerate and the existence of which they would prefer not to acknowledge. Under the guidance of Aikibiades, Athens was rapidly committing herself to schemes which completely reversed the policy of Perikles. New conquests alone of Alklbi"'^*^ could satisfy him, and the paramount need of ades in re-establishing the Athenian empire in Chal- 1 elopon- . . A . ... nesos. kidikc was put aside for the acquisition of a ^^' '*'^' new supremacy in the Peloponnesos. Of the schemes which he set on foot for this purpose, it cannot n.c. 41 S. TJlc Pdoponncsian War. 107 be said that any one brought any gain to Athens, while all tended to keep up and to multiply occasions of strife between the chief Peloponnesian cities. The first of these enterprises was the building of long walls to bring the Achaian Patrai within the protection of an Athenian fleet ; the second the erection on the Achaian Rhion of a fortress which might serve as another Pylos. No sooner had both these schemes 1)een foiled by the Corinthians and Sikyonians than Alkibiades discovered that the occupation of Epidauros would be greatly to the advan- tage of Athens, and therefore he stirred up the Argives to the invasion of its territory. Irritated with this warfare, which really broke while it nominally respected the peace, the Spartans during the winter smuggled a force into Epidauros ; and the Argives complained at Athens that the clause of the treaty between them which asserted that neither side should allow hostile forces to pass through their territory had been violated. The Spartans had conveyed these men by sea, and the sea was specially the dominion of Athens. Pleased with this flattery, the Athenians readily adopted the suggestion of the Argives, that, by way of punishing the Spartans, the Messenians and the Helots should be brought back to Pylos, a note explaining the reason for this step being added to the inscription on the pillar of peace at Athens. But the Spartans now saw that vigorous efforts were needed, if they would prevent their confederacy from faUing to pieces ; and they resolved accord- ingly to inflict summary chastisement on the and'^Corin- Argives. A simultaneous invasion of Corin- t^i^n jpva- thian and Spartan forces from two different Argos. quarters caught the Argives in front and rear. "^" '*'^* The latter, far from fearing the destruction which, il they fought, was really inevitable, saw in their desperate position only an opportunity for taking ample revenL^e loS The Athenian Empire. cir. iv. upon their enemies, and were fiercely indignant when at the last moment two of their generals, who saw how they were placed, obtained from the Spartan king Agis a truce for four months. Thus, instead of paying the penalty for their misdeeds, the Argives were left free to listen to the oratory of Alkibiades, who urged them on, in spite of the covenant just made, to attack the Arkadian Orchomenos, which speedily surrendered to the combined forces of the Argives, Eleians, Mantincians, and Athenians. The Eleians now wished to attack Lepreon : the Mantineians were anxious to assail the more powerful town of Tegea, where a minority desired to throw off the alliance with Sparta. The Mantineians would not give way, and the Eleians went home. Thus hard was the task of securing the joint action of a number of autonomous city com- munities. These events excited at Sparta so deep an indignation against Agis that he narrowly escaped a sentence fining The battle ^^"^ 100,000 drachmas and decreeing that his of Man- house should be razed to its foundations. Asking only that he might be allowed an opportunity of redeeming his past error before the punishment was inflicted, he hastened, with a rapidity never yet matched by any Spartan leader, to the aid of the Tegeans, who sent to say that only instant help could prevent the loss of their city to the Spartan con- federacy. Finding the Argives posted on a steep and precipitous eminence, he was about to attack them with- out further thought, when a veteran cited in his hearing the old proverb of healing evil by evil. The retreat of ihe Spartan king again awakened the resentment of the Argives, who thought that their generals had been allowing their prey to slip once more from their grasp ; and the latter, taught by the peril which they had lately escaped, led their forces down to the plain. On this ground on B.C. 4iS. The Pcloponncsian War. 109 the following day was fought a battle which Thucydides describes with such singular minuteness and exactness of detail as to justify the conclusion that he must have been an eye-witness. The partial victory of the Man- tineians, with the Argive regiment of One Thousand on the right wing, was followed or accompanied by a crushing defeat of the other allies, with the Athenians and their cavalry on the left. The result did away with the impression which the surrender of the hoplites at Sphakteria had almost everywhere created ; and it was at once acknowledged that, although they may have beer. unfortunate, Spartan courage was as great and Spartan discipline as effective as ever. The battle had further consequences at Argos. The Thousand Regiment had really been victorious in the fight : the demos had been shamefully beaten. ^ . . J? ^ .,,./. Establish- The former, representmg the oligarchic party, ment of resolved on allying themselves with Sparta, ArloSy^' and with their approval the Spartans offered the Spar- the Argives either war or a treaty, which was sent to them already drawn up, binding them to restore to Sparta such hostages as might be in their keeping, and to evacuate Epidauros. A further covenant declared the autonomy of all allies whether of the Argives or of the Spartans, while questions of peace or war were to be decided by the common vote of Sparta and Argos, which was to be binding on their allies. This treaty, which nominally allowed the imperial character of the Argive BtatC; re--Established in fact the supremacy of Sparta ; and the Mantineians, seeing that they could no longer infoxce their claim to supremacy over their allies, joined once more the confederacy of Sparta. The year closed with the upsetting of the democratic constitution at Argos, and the establishment at Sikyon of a stricter oiigarchy than that which had thus far prevailed there. 1 10 TJic A I hen tail Ein/^iir. rif. IV. But the fabric thus raised stood on insecure foundations. The insolcjice of the Thousand at Argos became in- tolerable. The demos was restored ; the alliance with Restoration ^thcns was rcncwcd ; and the people set to of demo- work to connect the city by lon^r walls with the cracy at _, , . ^ , . . . , . Argos. sea. The completion of this design would B.C. 4'7- h^xQ enabled Argos to bid defiance to the at- tacks of any land army, as the Athenians could pour in from the sea any supplies which might be needed. But the oligarchic party was not rooted out ; and receiving pro- mises of help which were not fulfilled, Agis, unable to enter Argos, levelled the long walls with the ground. A seeming revival of vigour marked the conduct of the Athenians during the ensuing winter. Seeing now -, that Amphipolis, if it was to be recovered at fui attempt all, must be recovered by force, Nikias and nL^ilTto ^'^ adherents urged an expedition, subject to recover the co-opcration of a chief whose only gifts Amphipolis. Aiiit /-I- 11 to Athens had been confined, in the words of the comic poet, to shiploads of lies. Perdikkas, of course, failed to keep his engagements ; the enterprise was abandoned ; and the strength which might have re- covered Amphipolis was put forth in the following year for the destruction of a petty township in the island of j^y^g^^j.^ ^f Melos. This place, a colony from Sparta, Meios. had never been included in the Athenian con- '■'*'' federacy (p. 4) ; and if force was to be em- ployed to bring them within it, this force should have been used in the days of Aristeides, and not now, when a long war with Sparta had materially altered the com- plexion of the case. But in the sixteenth year of the war Nikias appeared before the city, and on the refusal of the Meluins to become allies of Athens, proceeded to blockade it. Time went on ; no help came from Sparta; and plots were discovered for betraying the place to the B.C. 41 6. The Peloponuedan War, ill Athenians, The Mehans resolved to anticipate them by unconditional surrender ; and their recompense for so doing was the murder of all the grown men and the selling of the women and children into slavery. But the case of the Melians is obviously quite different from that of the Mytilenaians, who were threatened with the same punishment, or of the Skionaians, on whom it was actually inflicted (p. 96). The Melians had done the Athenians no specific wrong ; and the worst charge that could have been urged against them was that they shared in the benefits arising from the Athenian confederacy and empire without sharing (if such was the fact) the burdens necessary for its maintenance. But according to the elaborate report given by Thucydides of the conference which preceded the siege, the arguments urged by the Athenians in justification of their attack were of a totally different kind. The Athenians had pre-eminently the reputation of people who were always disposed to call ugly things by pretty names ; and even average Greeks sought to throw over deeds of wanton iniquity a veil of decency, even if they could not pass them off as righteous and equitable. Least of all in the history of Athens generally do we find the temper which glories in the exertion of naked brute force and delights to insult and defy the moral instincts of mankind. But in the conference which precedes the siege and massacre of Melos we have precisely this temper ; and the Athenians are represented as trampling on all seemliness of word and action, as asserting an independence which raises them above all law, and as boasting that iniquity to the weak can do the strong no harm. In short, the whole spirit of this con- ference stands out in glaring contrast not merely with the earlier Athenian history but with that which follows it. When we remember, further, that the massacre at Melos Avas a political crime, greater, certainly, and more I !C The AtJiaiian Empire. cjr. v. atrocious than any of which they had yet been guilty, — that it brought them no gain while it insured a bitter harvest of hatred, — and that this horrible and infatuated crime preceded only by a few months the fatal expedition to Sicily, we can scarcely doubt that in his account of this conference the historian has for once left us not a record of fact, but a moral picture such as that which Herodotos has drawn of the Persian despot in his overweening arrogance and pride. From this time for- ward the strength of Athens was to be turned aside to impracticable tasks, in which even absolute success could scarcely bring a gain proportioned to the outlay, and the affairs of the city were to be conducted in the gambling spirit which stakes continually increasing sums in the hope of retrieving past losses. The supposed conference vividly inforces this contrast ; and although Thucydides nowhere mentions his name in connexion with this crime, the arguments put into the mouths of the Athenians are just those might have come from Alkibiadcs, who is said by Plutarch to have vehe- mently urged on the massacre. The conduct thus ascribed to him was a fitting prelude to the treasons of his after life. CHAPTER V. THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR— THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION. That the empire of Athens depended on the mainten- ance of her supremacy in the Egean sea, and Earliest , , . ^ "^ , , , ^^ . '. , inter- that this Supremacy could not be maintamed oMhe" without a thorough hold on the Hellenic cities AUienjans which studdcd its northern shores, and, there- in Sicily. - , r-. 111 fore, that no eftorts could be too great to reduce the towns that had revolted in that quarter, B.C. 427-5- The Pdoponucsiaii War. I 1 3 no sober-minded Athenian citizen could have doubted for a moment. It was the lesson which Perikles had preached throughout his political career ; and his warn- ings against the folly of attempting distant conquests simply expressed his conviction that slackness in the recovery of a place like Amphipolis would be a crime or a blunder not less mischievous and ruinous. But for a long time there had been signs that for a certain class of politicians in Athens the idea of interference in the dis- tant island of Sicily had special attractions. Twelve years had passed since the celebrated rhe- torician Gorgias had headed an embassy from Leontinoi to ask the aid of Athens against the Syracusans, who were at open war not only with them but with Naxos and Katane. The argument on which he chiefly laid stress was that, if the Sicilian Dorians should be suffered to subdue their Ionian kinsfolk, the Spartans would not fail to receive from Sicily the succours on which the Corinthians had long been counting. The Leontine envoys found little difficulty in obtaining pro- mises of help ; but during the autumn of that year the Athenian generals sent to their aid accomplished little. In the following summer Messene became a subject ally of Athens, hostages being taken • • '♦^ • for its fidelity ; but, in spite of this caution, the generals of the next year found the place againin thehands of the Syracusans. They had been delayed ' " ^^''' on the way partly by the circumstances which led to the occupation of Pylos by Demosthenes, and partly by the frightful seditions which were at that time turning Korkyra into a shambles. Horrible as was the state of things there, and wantonly wicked as the conduct of Eurymedon, the Athenian general, may have been, the history of this desperate strife between the Korkyraian oligarchs and commons has no direct connexion with that A. H. I 114 The Athenian Empire. en. v. of the Athenian empire ; nor had it on public opinion in Sicily anything like the effect produced by the success ol Demosthenes at Sphakteria. The conception and execu- tion of the plan which left Sparta almost helpless brought home to the Sicilian Greeks the likehhood that their incessant quarrels and wars might leave the whole island at the mercy :f a people who had shown a power of re- sistance and a fertility of resource far beyond any with which at the beginning of the war their enemies would have credited them. This fear was first felt by the citi- zens of Kamarina and Gela, and probably was first expressed by the men of the weaker city. In a congress held at Gela the Syracusan Hermokrates, for- B.C. 424. _ ^ ' Congress getting that the Sikeliot Dorians had seized on the beginning of the great struggle between Athens and Sparta as a convenient time for making an attack upon their Ionian neighbours, dwelt strongly on the necessity of settling their feuds in the presence of a danger which threatened all the Sikeliot Greeks alike. The peace which he desired was made ; but it was not likely to last longer than the general fear of Athenian ambition, a fear which was speedily dispelled by the disasters of the Boiotian campaign and the crowning catastrophe of Delion (p. 89), while at the same time the suspicion was reawakened that in the city which Hermo- krates represented the Sikeliot lonians might have an enemy more dangerous than Athens. But a quarrel between Selinous and Egesta, one of the two cities of the Elymoi, in Sicily, was destined to Quarrel producc greater results than the appeals of SeiSs Leontinoi for the help of Athens. The latter and Egesta. had comc at a moment when the intrigues of Alkibiades to secure the supremacy of Athens by means of a new Argive confederacy (p. 106), and the expedition for the recovery of Amphipolis, which was begun only to be B.C. 416-15. The Pcloponncsian War. 115 frustrated by the remissness or treachery of Perdikkas (p. 1 10), left to the Athenians no time for thinking of inter- ference in Sicily. The envoys of Egesta appeared when only a small portion of the Athenian people were finding occupation in the siege which preceded the Embassy to butchery of the Melians. The graciousness ^'g^e'su.^'^"' of their reception may also have been in some b.c. 416. measure due to the fact that they rested their claim to help not simply on the Athenian feelings of compassion but on the more constraining grounds of expediency. They could not, as they admitted, stand alone ; but they pledged their faith not merely to bring their own men into the field, if the Athenians should decide on helping them, but to take on themselves the whole costs of the war. Charmed at the prospect thus opened to them, the Athenians, instead of pausing to think whether under any circumstances they would do well to inter- Embassy fere further in Sicily, resolved to send ambas- from Athens sadors to test the resources of the Egestaians ^° ^^^^^" and their prospects of success in the war with Selinous. The Egestaians turned out to be impostors ; but the trick was discovered too late. The envoys, of whom Nikias ought to have been, but was not, one, returned with glow- ing accounts of the wealth of Selinous ; and B C. 41^. the crew of the trireme which conveyed them were loud in their expressions of admiration at the mag- nificence of the hospitahty which they had enjoyed. But the treasures of the temples were of silver, not gold ; and the ornaments which made their feasts so splendid represented the collective wealth not of Egesta only but of other cities from which they were borrowed, the whole being transferred secretly from house to house for each successive entertainment. A trick like this clearly points to bribery. But the bribery of a whole ship's crew is a somewhat costlv business ; and if these are to be Il6 TJic Athenian Evipirc. CII. V. acquitted, the good faith ol the ambassadors is still more seriously called into question. For the present, _, , . the Athenian people were convinced that the Resoliuion ^ . , , , , , , of the Egestaians had spoken the truth, when the to^cnd^a^ envoys laid before them sixty talents of un- 5?^.' 'o coined silver as a month's pay in advance for Sicily. _ , . , , , a fleet of sixty vessels ; and a decree was passed appointing Alkibiades, Nikias, and Lamachos commanders of an expedition charged with maintaining the cause of Egesta, and with the general furtherance ol Athenian interests in Sicily. Nikias had done what he could to knock the whole scheme on the head ; but when the assembly met again Opposition to discuss the details of the expedition, his of Nikias. language lacked force, because, while he sus- pected the ambassadors, he was afraid to reflect on the sincerity of the men who had accompanied them on their mission. The life of NikiaS; born though he was to high station and great wealth, was not, indeed, particularly fortunate ; but of all his misfortunes none was greater than his strange inability to discern the road which al- most at any given time would have led him out of his difficulties. It Avas also his misfortune that his habitual hesitation, caution, or timidity, deprived his language ol all persuasiveness, even in cases where reserve or prudence became the highest wisdom. Most of all, it was his mis fortune that he had never drawn out in his mind a defi- nite policy founded on the real interests of his countr>'. Had he done so, he might have told his countrymen that although in discouraging the enterprise of Demosthenes at Pylos he was setting his face against a plan which would have had the hearty approval of Periklcs, still in deprecating any further interference in Sicilian affairs he would have had the unqualified sanction of that great statesman. As it was, he never uttered words more true B.C. 4>5- Tke Peloponnesian War. 117 than when he assured his countr)'men that they owed no duties to barbarian inhabitants of a distant island ; that the Spartans, only nominally at peace with them, would welcome the first opportunity for giving vent to their stifled wrath ; that if Athens was bent on righting wrongs, her business was to redress her own ; and that until Amphipolis was recovered and the Thrace- ward Chalkidians were again brought under obedience, it was madness to despatch fleets and armies to aid the Egestaians. With less prudence, unless he meant to persist in his opposition, he inveighed against the selfish ambition of men who outran their fortunes in the extra- vagant luxury of their private hves and in the splendour with which they competed for the prizes in the great Hellenic festivals. Expressing honestly the dread with which he saw this knot of disaffected citizens grouped together in the assembly, he besought the older men to discharge their duty by putting an effectual check, on their folly, and lastly entreated the Prytanis, or president, to disregard an irregularity which would certainly be con- doned, and once more to ask the assembly whether the expedition should be undertaken at all. The latter part of the speech of Nikias had been aimed at Alkibiades, and roused his vehement indignation. Foiled in his notion of setting up an Athenian Reply of empire in the Peloponnesos, he had turned Alkibiades. with eagerness to a scheme which seemed to promise a more tempting prize in Sicily : and therefore, making a virtue of necessity, he gloried in the acts which had called forth the censures of Nikias. He insisted that the splendour of his victories at Olympia had impressed the whole Hellenic world with a sense of the power and wealth of Athens, in which they had well-nigh ceased to believe. He had even the effrontery to boast of his Pcloponnesian intrigues, and to assert that, although 1 1 8 The A tJienian Empire. CH. V. Sparta had won the stake at Mantincia, she had not yet recovered the haughty confidence of the times preceding the disasters of Sphakteria. More especially he pleaded that the Athenians had attained their empire by bestowing their help on all, whether Hellenes or Barbarians, who chanced to ask for it ; and slackness now in aggressive movements would be virtually an abandonment of the old imperial tradition. Sicily would supply a field for such action ; the refusal to occupy this field would be followed by stagnation, and stagnation would end in death. It would have been well if his hearers could have seen through the assumptions and falsehoods of this impudent harangue. The insinuation that Athens must be de- voured with idleness if she would not decree the expe- dition to Sicily, had already been met by Nikias ; but un- fortunately his own remissness in all that concerned Amphipolis had deprived him here of a strong vantage- ground. The assertion that the Athenian empire had been acquired by indiscriminate help bestowed on every applicant was a mere lie. In the first instance it had been forced upon Athens ; and the Delian confederation, w^hich had alone made her dominion possible, had sprung up from definite needs and was confined within fixed limits. With the protection of the Asiatic Hellenes from the Persian power the work of Athens began, and with the maintenance of their safety and welfare it ended. The support which Alkibiadcs received from other orators was so great that Nikias, feeling himself vir- The wishes tually defeated, resorted to a device by which defciSby he hoped to disgust the people with the enter- his own prise. Declaring plainly that he regarded the representa- * . r , i r i ^ -i tions of the Egcstaian professions of wealth as a falsehood, force "'°'^ he insisted that they must be provided with needed for ^q ordinary fleets or crews, and that they must the e.xpedi- ^ . , , . , , • i i < lion. go amply provided with everything that could insure the well being of an army under all possible acci- B.C. 415- The PelopoHiicsian War. 119 dents of war. Far from succeeding in his purpose, Nikias united all parties by proposing a course which seemed to make failure impossible, while even the moi-e sober-minded were led to think that what Athens under- took with a superfluity of resources she would assuredly be able to accomplish. When, then, one of the citizens started up and insisted that without further preface Nikias should say plainly what he wanted, the unfortunate general was caught in his own trap. Like one passing sentence, not on himself (for his personal bravery was never questioned), but on his high-spirited, although mis- taken, countrymen, Nikias said that he must have at least 100 triremes, and, if possible, more than 5,000 hop- lites, with light troops in proportion. The die was cast ; and the efforts of Nikias to bring about the abandonment of the enterprise had secured to Alkibiades a victory far greater than any which he could have hoped for, while it staked almost the very existence of the state on the issue of the enterprise. But in justice to Nikias we must remember that his dissuasions were not founded on mere apprehensions of disaster. If he had made, up his mind that the scheme must end in failure, we may be sure that he would have refused to command in it as steadily as he had refused to take charge of the reinforcements for Pylos (p. 82). His condemnation of the scheme was based on the ground that in such an enterprise victory would be not much less a calamity than a defeat. The latter might cripple Athens for a time ; but success would extend her empire to an unmanageable size, would in- volve her in a network of difficulties, and lead to schemes of aggression v/hich would sooner or later be avenged in her downfall. The prospect for the present was singularly bright and alluring. An eager crowd of volunteers came for- ward where the generals had feared that they might have to constrain men for an iiksome service. The trierarchb 120 The AtJuiiian Empire. en. v. vied wiih each other in the lavishness with which they provided everything necessary for the comfort of their „. .. crews; and the cheerfulness of the people was The mutila- .... , , , . tion of the at its height, when they awoke one morning "baTd If ^ to find that the figures of Hermes had, with secret con- scarccly an exception, been mutilated and pir.-i o.s. defaced. These Hermai stood in the Agora, before the temples, the public buildings, the private houses ; and the people comforted themselves with the thought that the reverence which they paid to him enlisted the god on their side, and pledged him, as the Master- Thief, to protect them against the robbers, of whom he was the most adroit and subtle. The event produced a profound sensation. No part of the city was free from the profanation thus offered to the god, and therefore all Athens had fcwfeited its right to the goodwill of the deity; nor was it possible to say how far his feelings might be shared by the great company of the gods. The religious fears of the Athenians had been roused, and no people on this point were ever more sensitive. The sacrilege had been committed by men belonging to an organized body ; and hence the Athenians had in their midst a secret society which hated the existing constitution of their country, and which must have engaged in active conspiracy before it could venture on such outrage of law and decency. That some conspiracy existed, there is not the least doubt : whatever it was, it is equally certain that Alki- biades had nothing whatever to do with it. Innocence t • i i i i , , of Aikibi- It IS absurd to suppose that a man should ^'^^'^- set in motion schemes which would involve him in imminent danger, and that he would do this just when he was setting off on an expedition on which he had set his heart, and to which the discovery was likely to be fatal. Hence it may with equal safety be inferred that the end aimed at was the ruin of Alkibiadcs and the B.C. 415. T/it' Peloponncsian War, \2\ abandonment of the enterprise. The mutilation of the Hermai would appeal directly to the religious fears of Nikias, and might call forth the protests of men who were thus far afraid to break silence. As to Alkibiades, his career had raised up against him a band of bitter enemies ; and there were good grounds for thinking that if he re- turned a conqueror from Sicily, he would return with an ascendency so prodigious as to render the possibility of a despotism renewed in his person no mere dream. The great thing, then, was to prevent him from going, and in this they very nearly succeeded; but the charge brought against him had, strangely enough, nothing to Alkibiades do with the mutilation of the Hermai. Re- ^Jjfh^p^^o. wards offered for the apprehension of conspi- fanation. rators brought forward witnesses who accused him not of mutilating statues, but of mimicking in private houses the ceremonies of the Eleusinian mysteries. Of this there is no reason to suppose him innocent ; but there is no greater reason for inferring on this score his guilt in the matter of the Hermai. The demeanour of Alkibiades in this crisis was straightforward and commendable. He insis- ted on being brought to trial before he sailed, asserting, at the same time, his innocence, and professing his wiUingness to submit to any penalty if he should be found guilty. But his opponents saw that a large pro- portion of the army was on his side, and that his con- demnation might send home in wrath or disgust the Argive and Mantineian allies whom he had persuaded to join in the expedition. It was therefore decided that his trial should be postponed to some time subsequent to his recall. It was now midsummer, and the fleet was ready for sea; and never did a more magnificent force issue from Athens than when the hoplites left the city to embark on board the ships which were to bear them away to Sicily. 122 The Athenian Empire. ch. v Its splendour lay not so much in the numbers whether of the men or of the triremes ; nor was the day made ^ memorable so much by the brilliancy of the Departure ... ^ ■,-,•■, ^ , , , of the fleet military array as by the high hopes, troubled for Sicily. i^y. ^Qy^-^Q. transient misgivings, which filled the hearts of all who had accompanied their friends from the city, and were now to bid them farewell. Al- most the whole population of Athens had come down to the Peiraieus. Foreigners were there, gazing in wonder at the sumptuousness of the armament, while fathers, brothers, wives, and children felt their bright hopes fading away as they were brought face to face with the stern realities of parting. Thus far they had buoyed themselves up with the thought that the power of Athens was fully able to accomplish her purposes ; but now the length of the voyage, their scanty knowledge of the island which they were going to conquer, and the certainty that in any case many were departing who would never see their homes again, threw a dark veil over the future, and many burst into bitter weeping. The trumpets gave the signal for silence, and while some prayed to a God and Father neither local nor changeful, the voices of the heralds rose in invocation of the gods of the city. Presently the paean shout echoed over the waters, and the long line of triremes swept in file from the harbour. Even in Sparta, with its habitual wariness and se- crecy, a plan so vast could not have been formed without giving rise to rumours which would reach the Incredulity • i , of the Syra- State agamst whom these preparations were cusans. being made. At Athens ihere could be no secrecy ; but the tidings brought to Syracuse were re- ceived with an incredulity against which Hermokrates in vain raised his voice, urging them to man their tri- remes and wai* for the Athenians on the shores of Italy, B.C. 415- The Pelopoiinesian War. 123 and thus probably determine Nikias, whose dishke of the enterprise was notorious, to abandon it altogether. His opponent Athenagoras insisted, on the contrary, that the Athenians, noted as they were for sobriety of judgment, would never be so frantic as to leave a war unfinished in Chalkidike in order to undertake a war on a huger scale in Sicily, and that the persons to be punished were, there- fore, not the Athenians whom they would never see, but the orators who for their own selfish ends sought to scare them with imaginary terrors and to shut their eyes to more real perils at home. The speech of Athenagoras would have been followed, beyond doubt, by angry contro- versy, had not the Strategoi, or generals, interposing their authority, insisted that, as they were responsible for the safety of the city, so they would take the measures most likely to insure it. While with the Syracusans the coming of the enemy was a matter of doubt and controversy, tidings were brought that the Athenians had already ^. 1 1 -r^, . rr-i . Discourage. reached Rhegion. Their progress was not ment of the flattering to their hopes. The Tarantines and ^n'ap"-'^"'' Lokrians would have nothing to do with them; proaching the men of Rhegion insisted on maintaining a strict neutrality until they could learn the wishes of their fellow-Italiots ; and the ships sent forward before the fleet returned with the news that the wealth of Egesta was a fiction, and that its treasury contained no more than the modest sum of 30 talents. The discovery greatly disconcerted Alkibiades. To Nikias it was no disappointment, and his mind was soon made up. He proposed to act according to the letter of his instructions (p. 116), and, having displayed the power of pian^f Athens before the cities on the coasts of Nikias. Sicily, to return home unless any fresh events should open a way for further operations. A course so honest had 124 The Athenian Evipire. cii. v. little attractions for Alkibiades, who urged that envoys should be sent to the Sikeiiot cities in the hope of detach- ing them from Syracuse, and to the Sikel tribes in the hope of securing their friendship, as prehniinaries to an Plan of attack upon Syracuse and Sehnous. Taking Alkibiades. the view of the mere general as distinguished from the statesman, Lamachos insisted that not a mo- ment was to be lost while the impression made by their Plan of sudden arrival was still fresh. Syracuse was Lamachos. as yet quite unprepared for the struggle ; and an immediate attack upon it would be followed by either complete victory or an important success. Of these three plans that of Nikias was the best from the states- man's point of view: from that of the general the counsel of Lamachos was both bold and able ; that of Alkibiades was unworthy either of the soldier or the statesman. A more prudent and businesslike course than that which Nikias proposed can scarely be imagined ; and the result would have been a return home, if not after bril- liant success, yet without disgrace, and without that exasperation of feeling which would have followed the execution of the plan of Lamachos. That of Alkibiades was a trimming and vacillating compromise, which showed him to be as deficient in true mihtary genius as he was prominent for the arrogance of his demeanour. Un- happily it was the plan which was inforced by the ad- hesion of Lamachos, who felt, as a soldier, that it was better to run the chance of victory with Alkibiades than at once to abandon it with Nikias. An attempt of Alkibiades to win the alliance of Mes- sene was unsuccessful. Overtures, not more fortunate, Occupation made to the men of Katane, were followed by ?f JjiJ'^"^ a display of Athenian ships in the Great Athenians. Harbour of Syracusc ; but nothing was accomplished beyond a survey of the fortifications. On p.c. 415- The Pcloponnesian War. 125 their return to Katane the generals were admitted to a conference within the city ; and while Alkibiades was speaking, some Athenians found their way into the town through a postern which had been imperfectly walled up, and appeared in the Agora. The small minority which constituted the Syracusan party, seeing the enemy thus seemingly in possession of the place, hurried away : and in their absence the Katanaians, passing a decree of alliance with the Athenians, invited them to bring thither the forces which had been left at Rhegion. The news that Kamarina might be expected to join them, led the generals to sail thither. But they found only that the Kamarinaians were resolved on maintaining their neu- trality ; and on their return to Katane they learnt that the Salaminian trireme had brought a summons for Alki- biades to return to Athens for his trial. The departure of the fleet for Sicily had been followed at Athens by a religious excitement which speedily be- came intense ; but although many w-ere im- , 111, Recall and prisoned, some put to death, and others flight of sentenced, in their absence, for a share in the Alkibiades, plot of the Hermokopidai, or mutilators of the busts of Hermes, evidence criminating Alkibiades in the affair was not forthcoming, and the charge on which he was summoned home accused him simply of mimicking the Eleusinian mysteries in his own house. But although the popular indignation against Alkibiades was thus carried to a high pitch, his enemies could obtain no order for his apprehension. It was felt that such a measure might drive away the Argive and Mantineian allies, and perhaps excite dangerous discontent among the Athenian troops themselves. The commander of the Salaminian trireme had, therefore, no further charge than to deliver to Alkibiades an order to return home in his own ship. He accompanied the trireme as far as 126 The Athenian Empire. cii. v. Thourioi ; but when the ships were to sail onwards, he was nowhere to be seen, and all attempts to search for him were fruitless. Nikias and Lamachos were now joint commanders of the expedition ; but the latter hesitated to place himself f ^'^ opposition to a colleague whose influence theVthe-° with the army far exceeded his own. The fleet man army therefore sailed through the Messenian strait on the *3 shores of and coasted along the northern shore of the Harbour of island without achieving any material success. Syracuse. jhe first feelings of awe and depression felt by the Syracusans had now given way to something like con- tempt, and the discovery of this fact suggested to Nikias a device for effecting an uncontested landing in the bay of Syracuse. A Katanaian informed the Syracusans that the men of his city would set fire to the Athenian fleet if on a given day the Syracusans would attack their lines. The bait was eagerly seized. The whole force of the city was dispatched to Katane ; but while they were on their march the Athenian fleet had sailed round the island of Ortygia into the Great Harbour, and had landed its troops on the western shore, near the inlet known as the bay of Daskon. Here a strong position was speedily fortified ; and a battle, fought on the following day with the Syracusan army, which had returned, with unabated confidence, from Katane, ended in a victory of no decisive importance for the Athenians. A real defeat might have led Nikias at once to give up the enterprise, to the unspeakable benefit of Athens ; his insignificant success furnished him with an excuse for spending the winter in comparative idle- ness, and sending to Athens for troops and munitions of war. But even now the general prospect was almost as favourable as it had been at first. Between the Great Harbour and the bay of Thapsos lay the inner city on Ortygia, joined by a bridge to the mainland, and the B.C. 415 The Pdoponncsian War. 1 27 outer city on Achraclina to the north, each with its own walls. Between the two the Little Harbour afforded an unwalled landing-place ; and there was no reason why the Athenians should not at once have drawn their lines within the circuit of the wall which, during the winter now beginning, the Syracusans threw up from the shore of the Great Port, taking in the precincts of Apollon Temenites. But now, as before, the golden hours were wasted. The fleet sailed to Messene, and there they had the first practical experience of the hatred of Alkibiades. His countrymen had sentenced him to death ; he had sworn that they should feel that he was alive. Warned by him of the intended betrayal of the town, the Syracusan faction put the Athenian partisans to death. During the winter the envoys both of the Syracusans and the Athenians appeared at Kamarina ; and it is especially remarkable that the Athenian _, . . , -,, • c ^ TT Presence of Euphemos mvites the adhesion of the Ka- Athenian marinaians on just those grounds which cui?Jn-' Nikias had urged as reasons for abandoning yoys at .1 , 1 1-1 Kamanna. the enterprise altogether, and which must have failed to awaken the enthusiasm of the Athenian people. For the time the Athenians were beyond all doubt smitten with the lust of conquest, and dreamt of an indefinite extension of their empire : but Euphemos nevertheless insisted that they had not come to effect any permanent settlement in Sicily, or to make the island a part of their empire. Their objects were twofold. The one they would be glad to attain ; the other must at all costs be achieved. They earnestly desired the friendship of Kamarina and other Sikeliot cities ; but they could not afford to leave the Dorians of Sicily in a position which would enable them to give important aid to the Dorians of Peloponnesos. The fact, however, still remained that the Athenians had no reason to fear 128 The Athenian Empire. cu. v. aggression even from Syracuse, and that, therefore, the n\otives alleged by Eiiphemos for their presence in Sicily were not those which had really brought them. The envoys on both sides were dismissed with courtesy ; but Kamarina remained neutral, when the Inactivity of P'ompt action recommended by Lamachos Nikias. might have secured her hearty friendship. In fact, during the winter the plan of action, such as it was, was that of Nikias ; and it showed his incompetence as a general scarcely less than his previous career had shown his incompetence as a statesman. The fate of Athens at this time was indeed hard. Her aggressive instincts led her to put faith in the most profligate and lawless of men ; the reverence which she paid to personal integrity seduced her into the not less fatal error of trusting a momentous task to a citizen whose only merit was his respectability. Meanwhile the evil genius of Athens was busy at work elsewhere. Having received a solemn pledge for _ , his safety, Alkibiades presented himself at the Treason of . , ■" , , , , , Alkibiades City whose power he had hoped to destroy on at Sparta. ^|^^ ^^^^ ^^ Mantiiicia (p. 109). Not long after his arrival, came Corinthian and Syracusan envoys to urge an open resumption of the war with Athens. The ephors were placidly contenting themselves with the expression of a hope that the Syracusans would hold out, when Alkibiades broke in upon the debate with a vehemence for which he felt that some apology was needed. With matchless effrontery he took credit to himself for exceptional moderation and sobriety, for the prudence of his public counsels, and for his real love of oligarchy, which he had made up his mind to set up at Athens on the first convenient opportunity. Of his own share in originating the Sicilian expedition he said not a word ; but he dared to tell the Soartans that schemes B.C. 414. TJie Pclopunnesian War. 129 which even he had not ventured to put forth before the Assembly, were famihar to the minds of his countrymen generally, that they contemplated the subjugation of the whole Carthaginian empire, and intended to swamp the Peloponnesos with hordes of Iberians, and thus make themselves supreme in all Hellas. If Syracuse should fall, these visions would assuredly be realised. A Spartan force, then, should at once be sent to Syracuse ; the presence of a Spartan general to organize resistance in that city was even more needful ; but most needful of all was it to cripple the Athenians at home. The establish- ment of a permanent garrison within their borders would weight them with a burden scarcely tolerable ; and at Dekeleia, in the lower ground between Parnes and Pentelikos, they would find a post which would give them the command of the silver mines of Laureion, while it would do the Athenians mischief far more serious than the loss of a few cartloads of precious metal. When we remember that Athens lay exposed to this deadly wound only because the flower and strength of the people had been drafted away on a distant ex- Mission of pedition which Alkibiades himself had planned siciiy!'"^ '"^ and urged on with frantic passion, we can b.c. 414. scarcely avoid the conclusion that, whatever may have been his wrongs, treachery more dastardly has rarely been found in the annals of mankind. But what were his wrongs? His life at Athens had been one of enormous licence : yet even thus he had been enabled to repel an accusation for which the evidence of facts was not forth- coming. His recall had nothing to do with the mutila- tion of the Hermai: he had not even to answer any charge of political conspiracy. So great was the charm of his manner and such were his powers of persua- sion that, had he chosen, on first being charged with com- plicity in the schemes of unknown conspirators, to make A. Hs K 130 The AtJicnian Empire. cii. v. A clean breast of it, and, while asserting his ignorance of those plots, to express his regret for acts of profanity and irreverence which were never designed to be more than a private jest, and which ought not therefore to be regarded as an offence against the Athenian people or the public gods, the minor offence would in all likelihood have been condoned, and, promising greater care for the time to come, he would have departed for Sicily free from all accusations and from all suspicion. But the armour of traitors is seldom invulnerable, and Alkibiades insured his death- wound when he asserted that no man was bound to look upon a state as his country any longer than he received from that state the treatment which he regarded as his due. Such a doctrine could be tolerated nowhere, least of all, perhaps, by the stale which had cut short the career of Pausanias ; and in due time it was remembered. But for the present his work was done. It was decreed that a Spartan army should jeize on Dekeleia, and that Gylippos should at once be sent to take the command at Syracuse. The choice was fully justi- fied by the event. While Alkibiades was thus rekindling the war in the Peloponnesos, the trireme sent by Nikias for more men and money reached Athens. Both were •granted without a word to express the disappointment which the Athenians must have felt, and the strength of the state was more dangerously committed to an expe- dition which it would have been infinitely better if they had from the outset starv'ed. For the present Nikias, unenterprising and sluggish as he was, had the vast advantage of possessing a first- Successes of rate general in his remaining colleague Lama- the Athe- q}s\os \ and the change which comes over the fcians before ' ^ Syracuse. conduct of the sicge immediately after the death of the latter justifies us in attributing to Lamachos such success as the besiegers had thus far achieved. The 132 TJie Athenian Empire. cir. v occupation of the table land of Epipolai by the Athenians neutralized the effect of the wall built by the Syracusans inclosing the ground to the east of the temple of Apollon Temenites. The building of a fort on Labdalon was followed immediately by the erection of another work with a rapidity which amazed their enemies. This strongly-fortified inclosure was to serve as a stronghold for the army, and as a centre and starting-point for the blockading walls which were to run thence eastward to Trogilos and westward to the Great Harbour. The first counterwork of the Syracusans which, starting probably First from Temenites and extending to the cliffs of wo'rk'of the Epipolai, cut the intended southern wall of Syracusans. the besicgers, was carried by storm, the wall itself was destroyed, and the materials were used by the Athenians in their work of circumvallation. The Athenian generals now resolved that the Syra cusans should not have the opportunity of throwing out Death of frcsh counterworks running, like the last, to the Lamachos cliffs of Epipolai. The cliffs were themselves on the ' fortified, and the Athenians had thus an im- coumer- mense advantage in their task of carrying work of the their southward wall to the Great Harbour, .jracusans. j^i^anwhile the Syracusans were busied on a second counterwork carried from the new wall of the city across the low and marshy ground stretching to the banks of the Anapos. The Athenians thus found them- selves opposed by a fresh obstacle in their progress to the sea ; and Lamachos determined to make himself master of this stockade and of the trench by which it was defended. The fleet was ordered to sail round from Thapsos into the Great Harbour; and an attack on the counterwork at daybreak was rewarded by the capture of almost the whole of it. The rest of it was taken later on in Ihe day; but a picked body of Athenian hoplites having 134 The AtJienian Empif-e. CII. V hurried to the bridge across the Anapos in order to cut off some of the Syracusan fugitives, was attacked by a body of the enemy's horse and thrown into disorder. Seeing their danger, Lamachos hurried to their aid, and, crossing a trench, was for a moment separated from his followers. In an instant he was struck down and killed : but the Entry of the Syracusans gained no immediate advantage Athenian from his death, and the doom of Syracuse the Great sccmcd to be Sealed when the whole army Harbour. retreated within the city, while the magnifi- cent Athenian fleet, with all its splendid appointments, was seen sweeping round into the harbour which it was des- tined never to leave. Some weeks were yet to pass before Gylippos could attempt to enter Syracuse ; and the one thing of vital Further ad- ""^o^i^i^t was that the city should be com- vantages plctcly invested before that attempt should be fhe'Athe- made. A single wall, carried from the Great mans. Harbour to the central fort and thence to the sea at the northern extremity of Achradina, would have amply sufficed for this purpose. But Lamachos was no longer at hand to urge the necessity of speed, and Nikias wasted time in building the southward wall double from the first, while much of the ground which should have been guarded by the north-eastward wall was left open. But although the Syracusans were thus able still to bring in supplies by the road which passed under the rock of Euryelos, their prospects were gloomy enough. They were beginning to feel the miseries of a state of siege, and their irritation was vented upon their generals. Hermokrates and his colleagues were deprived of ihcir command ; and the elation, and consecjucnt supineness, of Nikias were increased when he learnt from the philo- Athenian party within the city that the Syracusans were on the eve of surrender. The prospect of this uncon- I B.C. 4H- The PeloJ>omiesia7t War. 135 ditional submission probably made him turn a deaf ear to the proposals which were actually made to him for a settlement of the quarrel. The Athenians seemed, in- deed, to be floating on the full tide of good fortune. Tyrrhenian ships were hastening to join their fleet, and Sikel tribes which had thus far held aloof were pressing forward to their aid. Meanwhile Gyhppos, sorely discouraged by reports which purposely exaggerated the difficulties of the Syra- cusans, was working his way to Sicily. Far Entry of the from giving him the help which he expected, Spartan the men of Thourioi sent to inform Nikias into'sy°L that a Spartan general was approaching, '^"''^• more in the guise of a pirate or privateer than as the leader of a force which should command respect. The contempt implied in the phrase soothed the vanity of Nikias, who showed his sense of his own superiority by failing to send, until it was too late, so much as a single ship to prevent his landing in Sicily. But even when Gylippos had begun his land march, Nikias had only to block the roads by which he had himself seized Epipolai, and Gylippos must have fallen back to devise some other means for succouring Syracuse. Even in this he failed ; and, by a strange irony of fate, the Syracusans were dis- cussing definitely in their public assembly the terms for' a pacification, when with a single ship the Corinthian Gongylos made his way to the city and told them that the aid of which they had despaired was almost at their doors. At once all thoughts of submission were cast to the winds, and they made ready to march out with all their forces to bring Gylippos into the town. To this Nikias interposed no hindrance. His workmen were busy on the few furlongs which remained unfinished at the end of the southern wall, where for the present there was no danger whatever, when Gylippos entered Syracuse 136 T lie Athoiian Empire. cii. v almost as a conqueror. The Athenians were at once made to feel that the parts of the actors had been changed. The Spartan general offered them a truce for five days, if they would spend this time in leaving not merely Syracuse but Sicily. The next day was marked by Third the loss of the fortress of Labdalon. At the counter-^" Same timc, a third Syracusan counterwork work, was steadily advancing which would cut the northern blockading wall at a point about 500 yards to the cast of the central fort ; and the passing of this spot would render the whole work spent on the blockading walls mere labour lost. So far as Nikias could judge, the contest must be decided in the Great Harbour, and he re- solved, while there was )-et time, to fortify the promontory of Plemmyrion, which with Ortygia, from which it is one mile distant, formed the entrance to the port. As a post commanding the access to the harbour, it had great advantages ; but it had no water, and the Syracusan horsemen harassed or destroyed the foraging parties, which were compelled to seek supplies from long dis- tances. More fatal than all was the admission, implied by this change of position, that the Athenians were rather defending themselves than attacking. Henceforth their seeming victories were to do them no good : their slightest failures or blunders were to do them infinite harm. The Syracusans were successful in carrying their third counterwork across the enemy's lines, and all hope of blockading Syracuse except by storming this counter- wall faded finally away. But Nikias still had it in his power to guard the entrances to the slopes of Epipolai, and thus to keep the ground open for the work which the new force from Athens must inevitably have to do. Again the opportunity was allowed to slip, and the Syracusans were suflered to raise the further works with- out which Gylippos saw that the city could not be safe, if ■— ¥- 138 TJic AtJicHian Empire. cir. v. an army of sufiicient strength should occupy the heights under Euryelos. These works consisted of a strong fort (seemingly not far from Labdalon), joined with the third counterwork by a single wall. On the north side of this long wall were built three forts, to serve as guard- posts in the event of an attack on the long wall So passed away the precious days, while the idleness of Nikias added to the colossal burden under which even the genius of Demosthenes broke down. While Gylippos was thus bestirring himself on behalf of Syracuse, a messenger was bearing to Athens a letter Letter of in which Nikias professed to give a plain un- thi'^Aaie^ varnished report of all that had thus far nians. befallen the fleet and army. Strict truth would have called upon him to confess that the first three months of his time in Sicily had been wholly wasted ; that by his inaction during the first winter he had allowed the Syracusans to build a new city wall, thus rendering necessary an enormous extension of the be- sieging lines ; that he had failed to turn to account the success of Lamachos in the destruction of the second Syracusan counterwork ; that he had net prevented the entry of Gylippos into Syracuse with a formidable re- inforcement ; that he had made no effort to hinder the construction of the final works and forts of the enemy which rendered the successful prosecution of the siege an almost hopeless task ; that, having brought with him a fleet of unparalleled efficiency, he had dispirited the crews either by inactivity or by employing them on use- less errands ; and that his ships, from being constantly in the water, were fast becoming unscaworthy. Far from making these admissions, Nikias, in the only two pas- sages in his letter in which he blames anyone, blames not himself, but the men under his command and the Athenians who had sent him as their commander. He B.C. 413- The Pcloponncsian War, 139 told them, in substance, that at first they had been uni- formly victorious, until Gylippos came with an army from Peloponnesos ; but he never told them that common care would have made his entrance impossible. He told them that not merely the splendid appearance but the useful- ness of their ships was wretchedly impaired, forgetting that only through his own resistance to the counsels of Lamachos they had failed to do and to finish their work long ago. He told them that either the present army must be withdrawn or another army of equal strength sent to reinforce it, adding the expression of his own wish to be relieved from his command, for which he was inca- pacitated by a painful internal disease. He had always been incapacitated for it ; but whether, when this ominous letter was read in the assembly, there were any who had the wisdom to see, and the courage to denounce, the monstrous misconduct of the expedition, we are not told. His resignation was not received ; but two of his officers, Menandros and Euthydemos, were appointed his col- leagues, until the generals should arrive with the re- inforcements from Athens. The disaster of Sphakteria had convinced the Spartans that they and their allies were under divine displeasure for the way in which they had brought about Occupation the war ; and they acknowledged that in the by?he'^'*^'^ crisis which preceded the outbreak of the Spartans. struggle the Athenians were in the right and themselves wholly in the wrong. Hence they were especially anxious that the blame of renewing the strife should attach dis- tinctly to the Athenians; and the landing of some Athenian ships with their crews at this time to ravage the territories of Epidauros and some other cities, seemed to furnish the overt breach of the peace which they wanted. Early in the spring, therefore, a Spartan ^ ' '*'^' army, marching to Dekeleia (p. 129), not merely 140 T/ie Athenian Empire. cir. v. renewed a war which had been only nominally interrupted, but seemingly without opposition built the fortress which gave its name to the ten years' struggle which followed its erection. Meanwhile, at Syracuse, Gylippos was urging the people to attack the Athenians on their own clement. Naval vie- His great object was to obtain possession of Athenians^ the entrance to the Great Harbour ; and he inthehar- therefore arranged a simultaneous attack on Syracuse, the Athenian fleet and the naval station at paniedby Plemmydon by two divisions of the Syra- the loss of cusan fleet, while his land forces should attack Flemmy- ' rion. the forts. Both m the harbour and at the naval station the Syracusans were at first victorious ; but when the Athenians at last gained sufficient room for the manoeuvre in which they were unrivalled, they speedily sunk eleven ships of the enemy at the cost of three of their own. The victory, however, came too late to do them any good. Plemmyrion was already lost. With astonishing want of caution the garrisons of the three forts had gone down to the beach to view the naval conflicts in which they could be of no use ; and in their absence Gylippos fell on the forts with overwhelming force, and thus became master not only of the entrance to the harbour but ot the large quantities of corn and money which had been placed there for safety, together with three triremes, which had been hauled up for repairs, and the sails and tackle of nearly forty ships. Henceforth, Athenian con- voys could be introduced into the harbour only after a fight. Blow after blow now fell on the besieging force. Their treasure-ships were intercepted ; the timber stored for shipbuilding was set on fire ; and it was unfortunate for Athens that the Syracusans did not succeed in their larger scheme for the destruction of the Athenian fleet before any reinforcements should reach them. The ruin I B.C. 4^3- TJie Pcloponncsian War. 141 of the navy of Nikias would have furnished to Demos- thenes sufficient excuse for taking off the army and forthwith returning home. This attack was delayed by a disaster which befell a body of allies who, on their way to Syracuse, were, at the request of Nikias, cut off by some of the Sikel ^^{^^<^ of tribes. Had Nikias taken this step while theAthe- ^ ,. , . ... . , man fleet in Gylippos was on his march, the issue of the the Great siege might have been different. As it was, ^^^o"'"- 800 of these allies were slain, but the remaining 1,500 reached the city. Nor was this the only accession of strength on the Syracusan side. Akragas (Agrigentum) alone of all the Sikeliot cities insisted on remaining neutral ; but apart from mere additions to their numbers the Syracusans were fast acquiring that power of making the best of circumstances to which the Athenians owed the rapid growth of their empire. They were well aware that for Athenian fleets ample sea-room was indispen- sable ; and as they saw the Athenian ships cooped up at one end of their harbour, they drew the conclusion that the bulk and awkwardness of their own vessels would tell in their favour only so long as the Athenians were unable to resort to their peculiar tactics. A simul- taneous attack by land and sea produced on the first day no decisive results. Two days later things were following much the same course, when a Corinthian sug- gested that the Syracusan crews should take their midday meal on the shore and then immediately renew the fight. Seeing their enemy retreat at noon, the Athenians thought that their work for the day was done. They were soon undeceived, and few of them had eaten anything when they saw the Syracusan fleet again advancing in order of battle. Even thus, in spite of the disorder arising from the hasty surprise, the Athenians had lost nothing until hunger compelled them to bring the matter to an issue. 142 The AtJicnian Empire. cii. v. The result was precisely what the Syraciisans had expected. The heavily-weighted bows of their ships crushed the slender prows of the Athenian triremes as these advanced rapidly to the encounter. Three Syra- cusan ships were lost ; but seven Athenian vessels had been sunk and many more disabled, when Demo^sihe- 73 triremes, bringing with them 5,000 hoplites, "mforce-^ ''^" with light troops in proportion, swept into the mentsfrom Great Harbour. The first feeling of the Syracusans at this fresh display of the resources of Athens, at a time when her enemies were establishing a permanent garrison at Dckeleia, was one of consterna- tion ; but Demosthenes, who commanded this reinforce- ment, saw at a glance that the temporary advantage gained by his coming must go for nothing unless some decisive success should justify the continuance of the siege. If the Syracusan cross-wall could be taken and the guards in the three forts fronting it (p. 138) be dis- armed or slain, there might be some hope of storming their counter-wall and so of effectually investing Syra- cuse. Attacks by day could, however, have little chance of success, and Demosthenes resolved on a night assault. A moonlight night was chosen for the purpose. His men, in spite of all previous sufferings, were full of hope Ni-rht at- ^^^ ^^^"^ of confidence. They were now tack by acting Under a general whose sagacity in nes"Sn\hr council and energy in the field had won him counter-^" the highest reputation, and they carried with work. them everything which might be reasonably expected to insure their success. At first, all went well. Not only did the Athenians make their way along Eury- elos, but the cross-wall itself was taken before any alarm could be given. The Athenian generals now led on a large proportion of their forces to the counter-wall, while others began to demolish the cross-wall ; and the deter- B.C. 413. T/ie Pcloponncsian War, 143 mined energy of their assault drove back Gylippos, who now came up with all the forces at his command. In fact, their work was already done, if they could onl> maintain their position : and had they set out an hour or two before dawn instead of an hour or two before midnight, they would in all likelihood have succeeded in doing so. They had turned the Syracusan lines, and the daylight would now be rather to their advantage than to that of the enemy. But Demosthenes was anxious to push the Syracusans at once as far back as possible ; and success with Greek troops generally led to neglect of discipline. The Athenians in front were already in some disorder, when they were thrown into confusion by the sudden charge of some heavy Boiotian hoplites who had been recently brought to Sicily. From theAthe- this moment the battle became a wild jumble. "*^"^* As the disorder increased, the Athenians were no longer able to see in what direction their movements should be made, nor to distinguish in the uproar the words of com- mand. The watchword, repeatedly asked for and given, became known to the enemy. The discovery was fatal ; and the presence of Dorians in the Athenian army com- pleted the catastrophe. The war-cry of the Argives and their other Dorian allies could not be distinguished from the Syracusans ; and the Athenians, dismayed already, were bewildered by the suspicion that the enemy was in their rear, was among them, was everywhere. The defeat had become utter rout. In their efforts to reach their lines on the Anapos, hundreds were pushed over the precipices which bounded the slopes, and were either sorely maimed or killed. Others, belonging to the reinforcements of Demosthenes, who knew nothing of the nature of the ground, strayed away into the country, where they were found by the Syracusan hoi se- men, and slain. 144 The Athenian Empire. ch. v. The enterprise of Demosthenes had failed ; and he now saw that, do what they would, the siege must be Resolution abandoned or end in their ruin. In such of Demos- circumstanccs he was not a man hkely to refur^to hesitate; and he discharged the duty which Athens. j^g owed as much to Athens as to himself with a manly frankness sullied by no mean or selfish feelings. For the present the fleet which he had brought made them once more masters of the sea ; and he can- didly assured Nikias that his business was to remove the army at once while the path lay open. The reply of Opposition Nikias betrays either a startling infatuation or of Nikias. ^ j^(5(. iggg startling mental depravity ; and we have to remember that it is preserved to us by an historian who reviews his career with singular indulgence and who cherished his memory with affectionate but melancholy veneration. He chose to speak of the philo-Athenian party as still strong in Syracuse : but his resolution was taken on other grounds. The Athenians, he asserted, were a people under the dominion of loud-voiced demagogues; and of the men who were now crying out under the hardships of the siege the greater number would, if they should again take their seats in the assembly, join eagerly in charging their generals with treachery or corruption. Nothing, therefore, should induce him to consent .o their retreat before he received from Athens positive orders commanding his return. In truth, he was afraid to go home, and was a coward where Demosthenes, in spite of his failures, was honest, straightforward, and brave. He was even ungenerous as well as cowardly. He had no right to slander soldiers who had done their duty admir- ably; least of all was he justified in ascribing an exacting severity to a people whose sin it had been to place un- bounded tnist in his mere respectability. In vain De- mosthenes again insisted that the siege must be given B.C. 413- The Pdoponncsian War. 1.45 up, and that even if they were to await instructions from Athens, they were bound in the meantime to remove their fleet to Katane or to Naxos. So firm was the opposition of Nikias that Demosthenes began to think that he had some private grounds for his resistance which time in the end would justify. He had none ; and when GyHppos returned to Syracuse with large reinforcements, Nikias admitted that retreat was inevitable and requested only that the order should be privately circulated, not formally decreed in a council of war. This consent, even now reluctantly extorted, came to Demosthenes as a reprieve for which he had almost ceased to hope ; and the preparations for de- Eclipse of parture were far advanced when an eclipse of '^^ ^oon. the moon filled Nikias with an agony of religious terror. The prophets must be consulted, and their decision fol- lowed. According to Thucydides, they declared that no movement must be made for twenty-seven days. Diodoros tells us that they required no more than the usual delay o1 three days ; and even Plutarch affirms that in insisting on the longer time Nikias went altogether beyond their de- mands. If this story be true, his infatuation assumes a blacker character. He had sealed the doom of the fleet and the army ; for long before the twenty-seven days had passed away, this once magnificent armament had been utterly destroyed. Through Syracuse the tidings flew like fire that the Athenians, having resolved on retreat, had been detained by the eclipse. The first decision was an ^ ... ^ - , ^ , - , , Second de- admission of defeat and hopelessness ; the feat of the second gave them ample time for securing fleet^Fn^thc their prey. An assault by the Syracusan Great Har- fleet, when all was ready, ended in the de- struction of the squadron commanded by Eurymedon. On land the Athenians had won some advantages ovei A. II, L 14^ TJic AtJicnian Empire. cm.v. ihe Syracusans, and the rules of Greek warfare com- pelled them to treat this check as a victory ; but they probably felt that the setting up of their trophy was but as the last flash of the sinking sun, which gives a more ghastly hue to the pitch-black storm-clouds around him. They had undergone a ruinous defeat by sea, and the hope that the new triremes of Demosthenes would restore the balance had failed them altogether. For the Syracusans the result of the battle had changed the whole character of the struggle. A little Change in while ago they had been fighting in the mere feding^at""^ hope of Compelling the enemy to abandon the Syracuse. sicge : the prospect was now opened to them of sweeping away the Athenian empire. With the in- toxication of men who from mountain-summits seem to look down on a world beneath them, they abandoned themselves to the conviction that henceforth they must fill a foremost place in the history of Hellas. They were now leaders, along with Spartans, Corinthians, Arkadians, and Boiotians, against the relics of the most splendid and efficient armament which had ever left the harbours of Athens. The epical conception which had led Thucydides to ascribe to the Athenians before the massacre of Melos language which belies their general reputation (p. iii) now leads him to enumerate, with a solemnity full of pathos, the tribes which were to face each other in the last awful struggle. Here, as at Marathon, the Plataians were present in the hope, perhaps, of avenging themselves on the Boiotian allies of Syracuse, but prompted still more by a devotion to Athens which had never wavered. Here Aigina was represented, not by the descendants of those who had conquered at Salamis,but by the Athenian citizens who had been thrust into their place (p. 53). Here with the Dorian allies of Athens were Messenians from Pylos and Naupak.os, and Akarnanians who were now to B.C. 413- The Pdoponncsian War. 14^ follow to their death the standard of their favourite general. On the side of the Syracusans were enrolled the Kamarinaians, for whose friendship the Athenian Euphemos had bidden largely (p. 127), and the men of Selinous who were to play their part in the closing scenes of the stupendous drama which had grown out of their petty quarrel with the barbarians of Egesta. In the enthusiasm excited by their victory the Syracu- sans resolved that the whole Athenian armament should be destroyed like vermin in a snare. Tri- closing of remes, trading ships, and vessels of all kinds ^^^ "lo"'" were anchored lengthwise across the whole Grea^t mouth of the harbour from Plemmyrion to ^^'^^°"'^- Ortygia, and strongly lashed together with ropes and chains. This was all that Nikias had gained by foster- ing silly scruples for which the men to whom Athens owed her greatness would have felt an infinite contempt; and fierce indeed must have been the indignation of Demosthenes when he saw the supreme result of the besotted folly of his colleague. Their very food was running short, for before the eclipse an order had been sent to Katane countermanding all fresh supplies. Re- gret and censure were, however, ahke vain. The lines along Epipolai must be abandoned and everything staked on a last effort to break the barrier which now lay be- tween them and safety. If this should fail, the ships were to be burnt, and the army was to retreat by land. So far as it regarded the hnes on Epipolai, this deci- sion seems to have been an error of judgement, not on the part of Nikias (for he had no judgement to exercise), but of the firm and sagacious Demosthe-^ Demosthenes. Past experience had taught ""• him that in encountering the solid prows of the enemy's ships in a cramped space they were setting themselves the task of cutting wood with a razor; but the lines 148 TJie AtJicnian Einffire. en. v. on Epipolai gave iriem free access to the country beyond and the power of effecting a deliberate and orderly re- Spcech of treat. A few only of the twenty-seven days Nikias. had passed when Nikias told the Athenians that all had been done which could be done to insure success in the coming struggle. Grappling irons were to fall on the enemy's prows and keep the ships locked in a fatal embrace until the combatants on one side or the other should be swept into the sea. In short, a hard necessity compelled them to make the fight as much as possible a land battle on the water ; and he besought the Athenians to show that in spite of bodily weakness and unparalleled misfortunes, Athenian skill could get the better of brute force rendered still more brutal by suc- cess. He told them plainly that they saw before them all the fleet and all the army of Athens, and that if they should now fail, her powers of resistance were gone. A speech more disgraceful to himself and less likely to en- courage his men has seldom been uttered by any leader. It was his fault that Syracuse had not been taken a year ago ; it was his fault that everything had gone wrong since the death of Lamachos ; it \vas his fault that Gylippos had entered the city ; it was his fault th.it they had not retreated when retreat was first urged by Demos- thenes ; and it was his fault that they had not left the harbour before the barrier of ships had been stretched across its mouth. Yet this was the man who could beseech his soldiers to remember that on the issue of this fi^^ht depended the great name of Athens and the freedom which had rendered her illustrious. The time for the great experiment had come, and the men were all on board, when Nikias in his agony made one more effort to rouse them, not to Rum of the ,^ .1-11 r m j\ Athenian greater courage (for this had never failed), '^'''-''- but to greater confidence. He cared nothing whether he repeated himself or dwelt on topics which B.C. 4U- The Pelopoiuiesian ]Var. 149 might be thought weak or stale. They were, in fact, neither the one nor the other, and they had furnished the substance of the great funeral oration of Perikles (p. 54); but it may be doubted whether he was acting judiciously in drawing to this extreme tension, at a time when steadi- ness of eye and hand were most of all needed, the nerves of a people so highly sensitive as the Athenians. At length the signal was given ; but, in spite of the rapidity of their movements and the strength of their assault, the Athenians had not succeeded in breaking the chains which bound the ships at the harbour^s mouth when the Syracusan fleet, starting from all points, attacked them in the rear. The battle was soon broken into groups, while within their lines the Athenian army, advancing to the water's edge, surveyed with alternations of passionate hope and fear the fortunes of a fight on which the lives of all depended. All, however, were not looking in the same direction ; and thus there might be seen in the Athenian camp some who, in the intensity of feverish suspense, were keeping time with their bodies to the swayings of the battle, others who were abandoning themselves to a paroxysm of agony on witnessing some disaster, others carried away by an unreasonable hope on seeing their own men drive back the enemy. At last brute force prevailed. The Athenians were pushed further and further back till their whole fleet was driven ashore. Amidst the piercing shrieks and bitter weeping of the troops, who hastened to give such help as they could, the crews of the shattered ships were landed, while some hurried to the defence of their walls, and others bethought themselves of providing only for their own safety. The sun sank upon a scene of absolute despair in the Athenian encampment and of fierce and boundless exultation within the walls of Syracuse. Demosthenes was still anxious that one more effort should be made to oreak the barrier at the mouth of the harbour ; but the 150 TJie Athenian Evipire. cii. v. men would not stir. The generals therefore determined to retreat by land : and if the retreat had been begun at Stratagem oncc, the wholc of this Still mighty armament of Hermo- might havc been saved. The roads were still krates to 111111- delay the Unguarded, and the whole city was so given [hrAthe- "P to ^ ^''^"^y of delight that Hermokrates nians. abandoned as hopeless the idea of inducing them to start at once and break up the ground on the probable line of march. But if he could not do this, he might try the effect of stratagem to detain the Athenians as victims for the slaughter ; and with Nikias, who was to be their evil genius to the end, his trick succeeded. Some Syracusan horsemen, professing to belong to the Athenian party, went down to the Athenian lines with the tidings that the roads were already blocked, and sug- gested that a careful and deliberate retreat on the follow- ing day would be better than a hasty departure during the night. Having remained over the first night, they thought it best to tarry yet another day : but early in the morning, while within the Athenian lines the flames which rose from burning ships showed that the naval war was already ended, the Syracusan troops had set out into the country, to break up or to guard carefully the roads, the forts, and the passes in the hills. With the morning of the second day after the battle the retreat which was to end in ruin began with unspeak- Departure ^^^ agony. The cup of bitterness was of the indeed filled to the brim and running over. from "heir They had looked their last on the rock and camp. shrine of the Virgin goddess with the expecta- tion that they were going to make Athens the centre and head of a Panhellenic empire ; they were now marching ignominiously, after irretrievable defeat, perhaps to slavery or to death. But although they could take their food (its weight would now be no oppressive burden), they B.C. 413- TJie Peloponnesian War. 151 could not take their sick. Hundreds were pining away with the wasting marsh fever ; hundreds were smitten down with wounds. All these must now be left, and left, not as in the less savage warfare of our own times, with the confidence that they would be treated with some humanity, but to the certainty of servitude, torture, or death. As the terrible realities of departure broke upon them, the whole camp became a scene of unutterable woe. Brothers and sons were here to be forsaken whom parents and kinsmen had accompanied with affectionate pride from the gates of Athens to the triremes at Pei- raieus. Comrades in the same tent were now to be sepa- rated, happy if, after a brief pang here, they should be re- united in the world unseen. In the agony of the moment the fever-stricken sufferers clung to their companions as these set out on their miserable march, and mangled wretches crawled feebly on, intreating to be taken with them, until strength failed and they sank down by the way. In this desperate crisis Nikias did his best to cheer and encourage the men whom his own egregious care- lessness had brought into their present un- paralleled difficulties. His words were chiefly Nikias to a comment on the homely saying that the couraV of lane must be long which has no turning, and the Athe- that the evils which they might still have to "^^^ suffer must in some degree be lightened by the conscious- ness that they were shared alike by all. Suffering from a painful malady, accustomed during his hfe to the ease of a wealthy Athenian, and, more than this, scrupulously exact in his religious worship and blameless in his private' life, he had now to bear up under the same toils and privations with themselves. This is not the language of a man who dreads the physical dangers of war ; but it is the language of one who, even in the direst extremity, cannot be brought to see that the misery which he is 152 The A tJtciiiaii Empire. ch. v. striving to alleviate is the result strictly of his own folly in wasting a series of golden opportunities. The horrors of the march, for which they had chosen the road to Katane, may be faintly imagined from the Surrenderor ^^^^ ^^^''^^' '^ ^P^^^ ^^ fearful exertion, with Dcmosthe- little food, and almost without water and without sleep, they accomplished in five days a distance which, if unhindered, they could have traversed easily in two hours. Convinced now that the northward journey was impracticable, they set forth at dead of night on the Helorine road leading to the southern coast. A panic separated the division of Nikias from that of De- mosthenes, who, being in the rear, had to think more of keeping his men in order of battle than of getting over the ground. Thus constrained to mass his troops, he found himself presently hemmed in between walls in an olive garden with a roadway on either side, where his men could be shot down by an enemy who was himself exposed to no danger. For hours the fearful carnage went on, until at length the Syracusans invited the sur- render of Demosthenes and his troops, under a covenant which included the general not less than his men, and by which the captors pledged themselves that none should be put to death either by violence, or by bonds, or by lack of the necessaries of life. The summons was obeyed, and four shields held upwards were filled with the money still possessed by the troops of Demosthenes, who were now led away to Syracuse. Nikias, five miles further to the south, had crossed the Erineos, when, early on the following day, the Syra- Surrender cusan messcngcrs informed him of the sur« of Nikias. render of Demosthenes, and summoned him to follow his example. The counter proposal of Nikias, that in exchange for the men under his command Athens should pay to the Syracusans the whole cost of the war B.C. 413- The Peloponuesian War. 153 would have filled their treasury with money sorely needed ; but the delight of trampling a fallen enemy under foot was more enticing. The terms were rejected, and all day long the harassing warfare was carried on. At night the Athenians made an attempt to escape under cover of darkness ; but the war-shout which instantly rose from the Syracusan camp showed that they were discovered, and with a feeling of blank dismay they remained where they were. On the following morning they reached the little stream of the Assinaros. The sight of the sparkling water banished all thoughts of order and discipline, all prudence and caution. Instead of turning round to the enemy and so covering the passage of those who had to cross first, each man sought only to plunge into the water himself, to quench his thirst, and to gain the other side. In an instant all was hopeless tumult, and the stream, fouled by the trampling of thousands, was soon reddened with their blood. Still the Peloponnesians mercilessly drove the masses before them upon the crowds already struggling in the water, and still the men drank on, almost in the agonies of death. To put an end to -the slaughter which had become mere butchery, Nikias surrendered himself to Gylippos personally, in the hope that the Spartans might remember the enormous benefits (p. 102) which in times past Sparta had received from him. The number of prisoners finally got together was not great. The larger number were hidden away by private men, and the state was thus defrauded of the wealth which an accept- ance of the offer of Nikias would have insured to it. Forty thousand men had left the Athenian lines on the Great Harbour ; a week later 7,000 marched as prisoners into Syracuse. What became of the sick and wounded in the camp we are not told. We can scarcely doubt that all were murdered ; and murder was 154 The AtJienian Empire. cii. v. mercy in comparison with the treatment of the 7,000, who were penned hke cattle in the stone-quarries of Epi- ^ ^ polai. The Syracusans had promised to De- Confine- , , , , . , . ,. . mentofthe mosthencs that no man belongmg to his divi- E"one '" sion should suffer a violent death, or die from quarries of bonds or from lack of necessary food ; but they insured the deaths of hundreds and of thousands as certainly as Suraj-ud-Uowlah murdered the victims of the Black Hole of Calcutta. The Athenian generals were happily spared the sight of these prolonged and excruciating tortures. Both were Death of put to death; and unless the terms of the Demosihe- »^onvention were to be kept, Demosthenes nes. could, of course, expect no mercy. Next to Perikles and to Phormion there was no leader to whom Athens in this great struggle owed so much, and none, therefore, whom the Spartans and their allies regarded with more virulent hatred. In flagrant violation of a distinct compact, the victor of Sphakteria was murdered. He died, as he had lived, without a stain on his military reputation, the victim of the superstition and the respec- tability of his colleague. So ended an expedition which changed the current of Athenian history and therefore, in a greater or less degree, innuence of of the history of the world. In the Athenian the cata- people such a project as the conquest of the siibse- Sicily was a political error of the gravest t^oi^"of '^' kind. They had been warned against all such Athens. undertakings by the most clear-sighted of their statesmen ; they had been enticed into the scheme by one of the most insolent and lawless men with which any country ever was cursed. They had allowed their plans to be enormously extended by a general who wisely advised them not to go to Sicily, and who did them a deadly mischief by consenting to go against his will. B.C. 413- The Pcloponnesian War. 155 They had hazarded on this distant venture an amount of strength which was imperiously needed for the protection of Athens and the recovery of Amphipohs ; and instead of a starvation which, as things turned out, would have been wise, they fed the expedition with bounty so lavish that failure became ruin. The power of trampling on Sicily as Gylippos and his aUies trampled on the defeated armament would have done no good to Athens or to the world ; but if the isolating policy which seeks to maintain an infinite number of autonomous units be in itself an evil, then it is unfortunate that the victory of Gylippos insured the predominance of this policy. The empire of Athens, if it could have been maintained, might have prevented the wars of many gene- rations, and might have kept within narrower bounds the empire of Rome itself. To a vast extent she could offer to her allies or her subjects common interests and com- mon ends. Sparta could offer none : but the system of Sparta fell in with instincts in the Hellenic mind which may have been weakened but were never eradicated; and against this instinct the wisdom and prudence of Athe- nian statesmen strove in vain. CHAPTER VI. THE PELOPONNESIAN, OR DEKELEIAN, WAR, FROM THE FAILURE OF THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION TO THE SUPPRESSION OF THE OLIGARCHY OF THE FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS. The Athenians were still feeding themselves on bright hopes of Sicilian conquest while the walls of the Spartan fortress of Dekeleia were daily gaining height and 156 The Athenian Einpire. cii. vi. strength. There was, in truth, need of encouragement. Previous invasions had lasted but a few weeks at the ut- Effects of most ; now the whole country lay permanently the disaster ^^ ^j^g mcrcy of the enemy. Each day they felt popular the sting of the monster evil of slavery ; and At^heifs.^' ^'^^ desertion of 20,000 men left Athens almost B.C. 413. destitute of skilled workmen. Athens had^ in truth, ceased to be a city. It was now nothing more than a garrison in which the defenders were worn out with harassing and incessant duty. The very magnitude of their tasks savoured of madness or infatuation. Athens was herself in a state of siege ; and all her fleet, with the flower of her forces, was besieging a distant city, scarcely less powerful than herself. When at length, after weeks of dreadful silence, their hopes of success in Sicily were dashed to the ground, they turned in the first burst of despairing grief on the speakers who had urged on the expedition and on the soothsayers and diviners who had augured well for the enterprise ; but such revenge was a poor consolation for the failure of a scheme which they had themselves decreed. Their thoughts were soon drawn away to more practical matters. Their army had been cut off; their fleet was either burnt or in the enemy's hands ; their docks were almost empty of ships. There was nothing to hinder their enemies from attacking the city, or to keep the subjects of Athens from joining them. But in spite of this sea of troubles one feeling only pervaded the people. The idea of submission crossed no man's mind. The struggle must be carried on vigorously and economically. Wood must be provided for shipbuilding, and all movements among their allies must be carefully watched. With the rapidity which had astonished the Syracusans (p. 132) the promontory of Sounion was strongly fortified to protect the passage of merchant vessels, while a further force was rendered «.c. 413. Tlie Pcloponnesian {Dekcleian) War. 1 5 7 available by abandoning the fort on the Peloponnesian coast facing the island of Kythera (p. 85). As for the enemies of Athens, they regarded the straggle, not unnaturally, as all but ended. It had taken long to shatter the fabric of her empire ; but „^ . ^ ,,. . . . .r \ ^ Effects of now It was fallmg to pieces of itself, and the the disaster golden age in which every Greek city should enemfcsaiid be absolutely autonomous had all but begun, ^'ijes of •KT 1 , 1 • 1 1 r Athens. Nor had the winter come to an end before some of the allies made efforts to transfer their allegiance to Sparta. The first deputation came from Euboia ; the second from Lesbos. After these came envoys from Chios and Erythrai, and with them ambassadors from Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap of Lydia, who pgrsian had received notice from the Persian king envoys at that the tributes due from the Hellenic cities ^^"^" within his jurisdiction must be paid into the treasury. The mere fact that the weakness of Athens should at once call forth such a claim might have taught the Asiatic Greeks that in seeking to be free of the Athenian yoke they were, like the frogs, simply changing king Log for king Stork. Tissaphernes, at least, knew that without Spartan aid he could not break up the Athenian empire, and that until this work could be done, he must remain a debtor to the king for a sum the mag- nitude of which was every day increasing. While the envoys of Tissaphernes were pleading the cause of the Chians, the representatives of Pharnabazos, the vice- roy of the Hellespont, came to ask that his satrapy might be made the scene of the first operations. Thus was presented the singular sight of two Persian satraps beseeching the Spartans to undo the work which they had left Athens to carry out (p. 4), and which she had carried out for nearly seventy years. That the satraps sliould be anxious to win the royal favour by being fore- 158 The A that ian E nipirc. c 1 r . v i . most in pulling down the Athenian empire, was natural enough ; that the Spartans, who in the day of need had solemnly adjured the Athenians not to betray their kins- folk to the barbarian, should now deliberately reopen the way for Persian aggression, was a treason against the liberties not only of Hellas but of Europe. But looking merely to the mode in which treachery might be made to yield its fruits most readily, they were right in inclin- ing to the side of Tissaphernes. The contest was decided by Alkibiades, who with all his strength urged the claims of the Chians as being the highest bidders. So passed away the winter which ended the nine- teenth year of the war. The spring had come ; and the Mission of Chian conspirators still waited impatiently to"chior'" for the promised succour. They were in a B.C. 412. fever of anxiety lest their plans should become known to the Athenians ; and the refusal of the Corin- thians to sail until after the celebration of the Isthmian games gave the Athenians time to verify in some measure the suspicions which they had already formed. Aristo- krates was accordingly sent to Chios, and on being assured by the government that they had no intention of revolting, he demanded a contingent of ships by the terms of the alliance. The demand was complied with, we are told, only because the conspirators desired not to call the people into their council ; and seven Chian triremes sailed for Athens. The defeat of a Peloponncsian squadron by the yUhenians off the Epidaurian coast first made the Revolt of Spartans think that the task before them Chios from might be less easy than they had anticipated ; ' ^^"^' and they at once issued an order for the recall of Chalkideus, who with five ships was taking Alkibiades lo Chios. In this resolution Alkibiades saw the death- B.C. 412. The Pdoponnesian {Dekeleian) War. 159 blow to his whole scheme. Chios could be added to the Spartan confederacy only through the success of the oligarchic plot ; and he was well aware that the con- spirators, although ready to revolt, were not ready to run the risk of ruining themselves. If these plotters should learn that Chalkideus had been recalled because the Athenians had won a victory, they would at once seek to pacify the Athenians by an increased profession of zeal for their service. He insisted that the original plan should be carried out, and pledged himself that, if he could but reach the Ionian coast, he would bring about ihe revolt not only of Chios but of the other allies of Athens. His influence gained the day; but it was necessary now to hoodwink the conspirators as well as the demos of Chios. The council was assembling when, to the dismay of the people, the Spartan triremes ap- proached the landing-place ; and Alkibiades, appearing at once before the senate, assured them that the little squadron now in their harbour was but the van of a large fleet already on its way. The plotters, convinced by this lie that they might trust to Sparta for prompt and effi- cient help, resolved to risk the solid benefits of a pros- perity unbroken for half a century for the sake of grati- fying an unreasoning instinct of isolation, — an instinct which made even the demos place but little value on a connexion from which they yet knew that they had re- ceived much good and no harm. Chios revolted from Athens ; and hei example was followed first by Erythrai and then by Klazomenai. Thus had Alkibiades once again changed the history of his country. Spartan tardi- ness would have allowed the Chian conspirators to learn the real state of the case, and to take in the full extent of the risk which they were running ; and their refusal to revolt would have insured the fidelity of the other allies. i<^ TJu Athenian Einpirc. ch. vi. The eiier;^y of the traitor turned the scale, and the voyage of Chalkideus with his five ships bore fruit in the final catastrophe. Having once committed themselves to the venture, the Chian oligarchs espoused the cause of their new friends Employ- '^^''^^^ impetuous ardour. They were not blind to ment of the thc benefits which thev received from Athens, Athem.-in ' ' reserve and while they wished to weaken her, they had no desire to impoverish themselves. Any such result they trusted to avert with the aid of Sparta. They found themselves quite mistaken ; but for the present their act had given a startling impulse to the centrifugal instincts of the allies, and had awakened at Athens feel- ings bordering on despair. Her present resources wc-e wholly inadequate for the crisis ; but there was yet the reserve fund of i,ooo talents which Pcrikles had stored up in the Akropolis (p. 53). The sanctions forbidding its use were now removed ; and the money was em- ployed to send a fleet, probably of inferior ships, to take the place of the blockading squadron off the Epidaurian coast, from which eight ships, under Strombichides, were sent to Chios, while the seven Chian ships were taken to Athens, w^here the free men among the crews were imprisoned, the slaves being set at liberty. The example set by Chios was soon followed by Mi- letos, which revolted on the arrival of Alkibiades. At Revolt of the same time, a treaty was ratified between Miletos. ^^ Spartans and the Persian king, which de- clared the latter to be the rightful owner of all lands which he or his forefathers had at any time possessed, — First treaty ^"^ Other words (according to Persian theories of the of possession), not only of the lands lying to Simrt.ins , ^ ^ .'\. ^ •' , ^ r T-u 1 with the the east of the Egean, but of Thcssaly, Fersuins. jjoiotia, Phokis, Attica, and even Megara which for a few days had been held by Mardonios. B.C. 412. The Pcloponncsian {Dckclcian) IVar. i6i There seemed, indeed, to be little or nothing to en- courage the Athenians. The cities of Lebedos and Erai were induced by the Chians to join in the Revolution revolt, while the blockade off the Epidaurian ^^^1"^^°}'"" coast was broken by the beleaguered ships. Athens. But at this time an event occurred which seemed even to make it likely that Athens might yet be victorious over her enemies. A revolution took place in Samos, not against her but in her favour. So little had Athens mterfered with the internal affairs of the island since the suppression of the first revolt (p. 40) nearly thirty years before, that the Geomoroi, or oligarchical landowners, had regained their preponderance and deprived the demos of all right of intermarriage with the »lominant class. The demos had probably been for some time watching for an opportunity for deposing their rulers, when the presence of three Athenian ships, of which Thucydides speaks as purely accidental, determined them to act at once. The oligarchy was probably taken by surprise, but they made an obstinate resistance. Two hundred were slain in the struggle ; four hundred were banished, their property being divided among the demos, who, with studied irony, treated the Geomoroi as an inferior class by forbidding the people to contract any marriages with them. These were measures which, if they cannot be justified, must be severely condemned. But it is admitted that these oligarchs intended to follow the example of their Chian brethren ; and unless it can be maintained that the people were bound to be passive while a foreign enemy was being brought in, and a yoke put upon them far harder than the mere sentimental grievance (pp. 4, 27, 65) which formed their one ground of complaint against the Athenians, then it must be granted that they took the only course open to them. The violence of the struggle was owing to the power of the dominant A. H, M 1 62 The Athcnia7i Evipirc. ch. vi. parly ; and llic punishment dealt out to them after their defeat was certainly not so heavy as that which they would have inflicted on a demos against which they might themselves have risen in successful revolt. The Samian people had given signal proof of their fidelity, and Athens rewarded them by raising them at once to the rank of an autonomous ally. The effect of this revolution soon became felt. If the Athenians were to continue the struggle at all, they Abortive must have a safe base of operations ; and r^^voUofthe such a post they now had in Samos. The Chian oligarchs, dreading to stand alone in their revolt, were making strong efforts to detach Lesbos from Athens. Thirteen Chian ships sailed to Lesbos, where Methymna and Mytilene had thrown off their allegi- ance to Athens. Not many days afterwards, a fleet of twenty-five Athenian ships took Mytilene by surprise, and the Athenians were soon masters of the whole island. H the Lesbians now escaped the punishment which was all but inflicted on the Mytilenaians in the days of Kleon, the difference was owing rather to the weakness than to the magnanimity of the conquerors. But there was nothing to prevent the Athenians from retaliating on their enemies those evils which the fortification of Dekeleia had so bitterly aggravated for themselves, and their vengeance was directed first against the conspirators of Chios. A series of defeats reduced the Chian s to a state of siege within their walls, and compelled them to Ravaging \ooV passively on the ravaging of those fruit- of Chios. ful and happy lands on which no invader had trodden since the days of Xerxes. The losses thus occa- sioned roused naturally the indignation of the demos against a struggle of which they had never approved, but by which they were sufferers not less than the oligarchs. The fortification of Uclphinion by the Athenians, some- B.C. 412, The Pcloponnesian {Dckclcian) War. 163 what to the north of the city, made all alike ftel the miseries which Sparta, by fortifying Dekeleia, had in- flicted upon Athens. The number of slaves in Chios was unusually great, and the harshness of their treatment led many to escape to the mountains, and there live by systematic plundering. To these men the fort of Del- phinipn furnished an irresistible temptation to desertion, and few slaves remained in the city. But these fugitives knew the country well, and their defection was followed by calamities which almost reduced the Chian govern- ment to despair. This was all that the plotters had gained by intrigues warily carried on and schemes care- fully matured. Thucydides, indeed, tries hard to show that if they had committed an error of judgement, it was one which might easily be pardoned. To all appearance the power of Athens was broken at Syracuse ; and they were backed, as they thought, by an adequate body of supporters. But unless it be maintained that a patrician class would be justified in bringing foreign enemies into the land against the known wishes of a whole people, these Chian oligarchs must stanJ con- demned. The demos, throughout, had had no desire to join them. They must have known that they at least had little benefit to look for from Spartan Harmostai and Persian tribute-gatherers, with whom these Spartans seemed to maintain so suspicious a friendship. The singu- lar prosperity of the island for more than half a century proved that the islanders had not only no real ground of complaint against Athens, but were indebted to her for happiness and wealth, which in like measure they would never know again. There was enough in the conduct of the Chian government to excite the indignation of Englishmen at the present day. Had it not been for Athens, they must have remained subject to the degrading yoke and arbi- trary exactions of the Persian king. As her free allies, u z 164 TJie AtJicnian Empire. en. vi. Ihey had been called upon only to furnish their yearly quota of ships for the maintenance of an order from which they derived benefits fully equal to any which Athens her- self received. It is not, indeed, too much to say that this order was the greatest political blessing which the world had yet seen. It reflected on the humblest members of this great confederacy the lustre of the most considerable states inroUed in it ; and the inhabitants of insignificant Egean islands were thoroughly aware and not a little proud of the importance thus attached to them both in the tiellenic and in the barbarian world. If they were injured by the men of other cities, they could appeal, as we have seen (p. 4), to the great assembly of the Athe- nian citizens, in whose courts, as they well knew, there was little difficulty in obtaining justice even against dis- tinguished Athenian generals. To this order, in spite State of °^ ^^^ sentimental grievances shaped by un- parties in wholcsome drcams of autonomy, the people ^^°^" in most of the allied or subject cities were honestly attached ; and in Chios their attachment was so strong that the oligarchs had to work in fear and trembling lest their plots should come prematurely to the knowledge of the Athenians. A victory gained at this time by the Athenians on l^Iilesian territory might have been of the greatest benefit Arrival of a ^^ them in their intended investment of Syracusan Mjletos, had not tidings come that a large HeJmokra^- fleet from Pcloponnesos and Sicily might at '*^s. any moment be looked for. In this fleet the Syracusan squadron was commanded by Hermokrates, who was as earnestly bent on breaking up the empire ot Athens in the Egean as he had been on destroying her forces on the soil of his own city. Joining him at Teichioussa in the gulf of lasos, Alkibiades, who had louv;lit in the battle recently won by the Athenians, told B.C. 412. TJie PclopoiJiesian [^Dekeleiun) War. 165 him in few words that unless Miletos could be relieved their whole work in sapping the empire of Athens must be frustrated. A resolution was taken to go at once to its aid ; but their mere approach did the work. The Athenian commanders wished at first to meet the Pelo- ponnesians in open fight ; but they were opposed with determined energy by Phrynichos, who insisted that the one thing which Athens in her present need could not afford to incur was defeat. For himself, he assuredly would not allow the safety of Athens to be imperilled from any fancied notions of honour or self-respect. From Samos they might at a more convenient season become assailants in their turn. The events of the ensuing winter told more, on the whole, for the Athenians than for their enemies, although in the powerful fleet assembled at Miletos the Second Spartan admiral Astyochos read the condem- treaty nation of the disgraceful treaty made by Chal- Sparta and kideus withTissaphernes (p. 160). It was not ^^^^'"• that he had any definite grievance ; but the covenant seemed to be too much in the interests of the Persian king, and accordingly he insisted on a revision of the terms. The result was a compact which formally bound the Spartans not to injure any country or city which might at any time have belonged either to the reigning Persian monarch or to any of his predecessors. From such territories or towns they were forbidden to exact any tax or tribute whatever. On his part, the Persian despot condescended to give the Spartans such help as he might be persuaded to afford, and to guarantee them to the best of his power from invasion on the part of any of his sub- jects. It may be seen at a glance that this treaty simply substituted an absurdity in place of an insult. The former covenant had secured to the king all lands which he or his lorefathers might at any time have possessed, and 1 66 The Athenian Empire. cii. vi. thus owned him as lord of Thessaly, Boiotia, Attica, and Megaia CG.P , p. i88): the latter pledged Sparta to do no mischief lo any of these lands or cities. But there was no clause declaring that Athens was jn a state of rebellion and must be brought back to her allegiance ; and therefore this treaty formally pledged the Spartans to immediate peace with the enemies against whom they were now fighting to the death. This fact alone proves the hollow- ness of the league to which neither side intended to adhere so soon as it had become inconvenient to do so. But the uselessncss of these compacts was made known to Tissaphernes, when the Spartan commissioner Lichas, feeling himself adequately backed by the combination of two Spartan fleets, told the satrap that he had not the least intention of abiding by covenants so humiliating not only to Sparta but to the Greeks generally. If the Persian king thought that Sparta would own him as lawful master of Thessaly, Lokris, and Boiotia, he was much mistaken. Taken aback by the frank avowal that under the present arrangement Sparta would not conde- scend to accept Persian subsidies, the satrap turned away a.nd went off in a rage. The retreat of the Athenians to Samos left Rhodes exposed to the full force of Spartan influence. The three Revolt of cities of the island, Lindos, lalysos, and fxovn^^ Kameiros, were inhabited by a Dorian popu- Athens. lation ; and it might be supposed that they would therefore be eager to shake off the yoke of an Ionic power. But it was not so ; and the fact speaks volumes for the general spirit of the imperial administration of Athens. Here, as elsewhere, revolt was the work not of the people but of the oligarchs. On the approach of the Peloponnesian fleet of nearly a hundred ships the demos fled in dismay to the mountains ; and the conspirators, liius left free, declared Rhodes a member of the Spartan B.C. 412. TJie Pclopoiiucsian {Dekeldaii) War. 167 confederacy. For three months the fleet lay drawn up on shore in the harbours of the island. The Spartans were here, as they wished to be, out of the way of Tissaphernes ; and, in the hope of being able to carry on the war without Persian subsidies, they levied a tribute of thirty-two talents on the Rhodians, who found thus early that free- dom from the yoke of Athens was a blessing which must be paid for. But another cause for their inaction lay in the intrigues of Alkibiades. For a man who had made treachery his trade there could obviously be no alter- native but that of pre-eminence or ruin ; and pre-emi- nence could be retained only by constant success. His treasons had indeed destroyed the Athenian fleet and army in Sicily, and had inflicted a terrible blow on Attica itself by the fortification of Dekeleia : but in the waters of the Egean things began to wear a different aspect. It was true that he had brought about the revolt of Chios, and that this had been followed by the defection of other cities on the islands and on the Asiatic continent. But Chios had been miserably ravaged : Lesbos had been re- conquered (p. 162) ; and they had to contend everywhere with the passive resistance of the people, who were sadly indifferent to the freedom held out for their acceptance by Sparta. They were still more irritated by the rising of the people in Samos (p. 161) and by the airs of superiority assumed towards them by the Persian satrap. An order to kill Alkibiades was therefore sent out to the Qrder from admiral Astyochos ; but the Athenian exile Sparta for was more than a match for the stupid trea- nation of chary of the Spartans, and he made his Alkibiades. way to Tissaphernes, contrasting probably the secret assassinations of an oligarchic community with the open courts and straightforward decrees of a vulgar demos. From this new counsellor Tissaphernes received the l6S The AthoiicDi Empire. cii. vi. suggestion which led him to reduce the pay of the Pelo' ponnesians from a drachma to half a drachma daily, and Counsels of to Stifle the discontent which might be thus tc^xS" roused by bribing their generals and trierarchs. pherr.es. The acceptance of these bribes at once enabled Alkibiades to come forward as the agent of Tissaphernes and adopt towards them a tone which they dared not openly resent. To the satrap he insisted that in the in« terests of Persia the movements of the war should be slow and that Persian aid should be so throw-n into the balance that the contending parties might gradually wear each other out. He urged, further, that if either side was to be victorious the victory of Athens would be more to the advantage of the Great King, whom she would willingly leave master of the continental cities, her object being confined to the task of bringing the Egean islanders into absolute subjection to herself ; w^hereas the Spartans might be compelled even against their will to secure to the Asiatic Hellenes the autonomy which they had so long promised them. To this string of glibly-uttered falsehoods Tissaphernes listened probably with the quiet incredulity of a man who knew himself to be in debt to the king, because for more than half a century Persian tax-gatherers had been shut out from the continental not less than the insular allies of this state, which was now described as ready to abandon the former to Persian slavery. But in his turn Alkibiades knew that, although his advice might for the present be followed, his position must be fearfully precarious; and he of^AlS?- resolved to make an effort to bring about his Jiigardw^ return to Athens by upsetting her political in the army constitution. If anything in his life could be amai-ing, it would be the impudence of the message which he sent to those of the oligarchic party who were serving in the annament at Samos. Although B.C. 412. TJic Pelopoimesia)i {Dektitian) War. 169 he was certainly guiltless of the mutilation of the Her- niai (p. 120), no one knew better than himself that that crime had been perpetrated by oligarchs provoked by his own unbearable insolence. lie knew also that if he had been innocent of the crime for which he was sum- moned from Sicily to take his trial, or if, frankly con- fessing his guilt, he had promised that the offence should not be repeated, his influence with the demos would not have been impaired. Knowing all this, he could yet dare to tell them that he owed his banishment to the demos, and that so long as this vagabond society continued to exist he would not set foot in the streets of his native city. This message was, of course, not made known to the army generally; and the oligarchs alone were assured by him that if he could return to an oligarchic Athens he could and would secure for her the active friendship of Tissaphernes. When the envoys from the camp of Sa- mos appeared before Alkibiades in answer to his letter, he went on to tell them that the Persian king was anxious to ally himself with Athens, but that it was her demo- cratic constitution which made it impossible for him to trust her citizens. The envoys were duped. Instead ot asking for some evidence that the Persian despot took this deep personal interest in the domestic concerns of Athens, they hastened back to deliver themselves of the tidings that the treasures of the Persian king were within their grasp, on the small conditions that the banishment of Alkibiades should be annulled and the democracy of Athens put down. One man only, it would seem, saw through these glaring falsehoods, and this was the general Phrynichos. With convincing clearness he pointed out Protest of to them the absurdity of supposing that the PliTnichos. Persian monarch could care whether Athens was or was not governed by a democracy. If he had any predi' I/O T/ie Athenian hjfipire. ch. vi. lection for either side, it must be for the Peloponnesians, who had done him httle or no harm, rather than for the Athen-ans, who had deprived him of some of his best possessions ; nor could the warnings inforced by the his- tory of three generations be effaced from his mind by the occurrence of an internal revolution, of which he did not know the cause and could not forecast the results. Even more earnestly Phrynichos sought to dispel the wretched delusion that the establishment of oligarchy at Athens would tend to maintain and strengthen her maritime empire. It was worse than ridiculous to count on retain- ing for their own benefit an order of things the suppres- sion of which was the one object of the enemies of Athens. The revolution would not bring back one re- volted city to its allegiance or render any one of the allies more trustworthy. Speaking from his own experi- ence, he assured them that under the exclusive regimen of oligarchs the allies would be only more troublesome and unruly, for these high-born rulers were most of all bent on securing what they called their freedom, while they hounded on the people to acts of violence which they hoped to turn to their own profit. Nay more, he knew that it was the Athenian demos alone which could hold the allies together at all. The citizens of the allied states were well aware that from an oligarchical govern- ment they had nothing to expect but capital sentences without fair trial or hearing, or perhaps the more summary method of secret murder ; and even those which were already under oligarchies rejoiced most of all in the fact that the Athenian demos was for them a haven of refuge against their masters, who stood in wholesome terror of an arraignment before the tribunal of the sovereign people. No more triumphant or emphatic eulogy of the imperial government or of the political constitution of Athens could have been pronounced than the simple statement B.C. 412. The Pelopoiinesiaii {Dt'kcleia/i) War. I'ji of facts by which Phr)-nichos sought to warn the assem- bled oHgarchs against a step hkely to involve them and the whole state in ruin. The further fact that Phrjnichos did not belong to the school of Perikles or Ephialtes (p. 36) adds only to the strength of his words, and makes his warning more memorable. If we may, as we unques- tionably may, take the account of Thucydides as an exact report of the case, Phrynichos opposed the revolu- tion only because he was resolved on keeping Alkibiades away from Athens ; and the protest with which he wound up his speech did not prevent him from furthering and joining the oligarchical movement when he had no longer any reason to fear his rivalry. In spite of his warnings the conspirators determined to send Peisandros with other envoys to Athens ; and Phr)michos, feeling that the offer of Persian counter- help would in the present impoverishment of plots of the city come with irresistible force, resolved andA'iki-"* to cut short the intrigues of Alkibiades by in- ^^'^^es. forming the Spartan admiral Astyochos of his plots. But Astyochos, who, like all his colleagues except the Syracu- san Hermokrates, had sold himself to the Persian satrap, (p. 168), went straight to Magnesia and laid the letter before Alkibiades and his patron ; and Alkibiades wrote in his turn to his friends at Samos, desiring them to put Phrynichos at once to death. Why the deed was not done, we are not told ; and Phrynichos wrote again to Astyochos, upbraiding him with his breach of confidence, and offering now to betray the whole Athenian arma- ment into his hands and so put an end to the war. This letter, he knew, would be also shown to Alkibiades. Announcing, therefore, to the army that the enemy was al)out to attack the camp, he insisted on its being for- tified with all speed. The walls were finished, when a letter from Alkibiades announced that Phr)'nichos had IJ2 The AtJienian Empire. ch. vl betrayed the army and that the enemy would immedl ately be upon them. The only result of his letter was, of course, the acquittal of Phrynichos from the charge on which in his previous letter Alkibiades had demanded his assassination. At Athens the proposals of Peisandros and his fellow envoys were met by vehement opposition, some pro- Progress of testing against the constitutional change, tlcTn'^at^^'"' others exclaiming against the restoration of a Athens. man who had defied the laws, while the officers of the Eleusinian mysteries denounced it as an insult to the gods. Disregarding the clamour, Peisandros went up to each speaker and quietly asked him how he pro- posed to carry on the war if the whole weight of Persia should be thrown into the scale against them. The speakers were silenced ; and Peisandros went on to assure the assembly that the change of constitution would win for them the confidence of the Persian king ; that constitutional forms were matters of small moment com- pared with the safety of the state ; and that if after fairly trying oligarchy they found that they did not like it, it would be easy for them to restore the democracy. He spoke to a people worn down by a series of disasters coming upon a struggle which had now lasted for nearly a generation ; and the dulness which is the common result of long-protracted anxiety led them to beheve the mere word of a man who told them that the resources for carrying on a struggle in which they could not make up their minds to confess themselves beaten would be supplied by Persia. No one asked what reason there might be for ascribing to the Great King so strange a hankering after a good understanding with a state which had destroyed Persian fleets and armies, had eflectually checked the course of Persian conquest, and taken away for more than half a century the tribute which would have B.C. 412. The Peloponnesian \Dekeleian) War. 173 found its way into the royal coffers at Sousa. In this credulous temper they resolved to send Peisandros with ten commissioners to settle matters with Alkibiades and the Lydian satrap. But before he could Action of set off, Peisandros knew that he had much chtcaufubs to do at Athens. The demos was not yet at Athens. put down, and the army at Samos was strongly op- posed to the change. It was therefore necessary to set in order the oligarchic machinery without which the foundations of democracy could not be overthrown. These foundations rested on freedom of speech ; and if this could be repressed, the constitutional forms to which they were so much attached would be found most useful in riveting their chains. Going round to all the political clubs or Hetairiai, as they were called, Peisandros concerted with them a plan of action to be carried out by the leaders who should remain behind him. At the head of these was the Rhetor jj,g Rhetor Antiphon, whose occupation, if it brought him Antiphon. large gains, had stood in the way of a singularly ambitious disposition. The Assembly felt jealous of the professed rhetoricians who, it was supposed, gave their minds to devising tricks of debate and advocacy, and with whom, therefore, ordinary ciiizens stood at an unfair disadvan- tage. Disliking the demos, partly, perhaps, because popular feeling had thus debarred him a public career, but more, probably, from a genuine oligarchical temper, Antiphon threw himself into the conspiracy with an energy equal to his abihty, and for this end worked with consum- mate skill the machinery of assassination. In private life, we are told, he was a man of genial character, kindly in his relations with his family and affectionate in his intercourse with his friends. He had, in short, the estimable qualities of Nikias ; and for the oligarchic Thucydides this was enough. Antiphon becomes in bfs 174 The Athenian Empire. ch. vi. eyes a man second to none of his age in virtue. This employer of murderous bravoes was ably seconded not only by Theramenes, son of Hagnon, the founder ol Amphipolis (p. 39), but by Phrynichos, who seems to have convinced himself that a man may do anything to save his life, and who, when it became clear that Alkibiades had lost his chance of returning with the oligarchs, began to fear his enmity as leader of the democracy. The arrival of Peisandros at Magnesia with the other envoys disconcerted Alkibiades, who saw that he was Rupture be- caught in a trap ; the fact being, as he had tweeii the now discovered, that Tissaphernes had no and^Alk^- intention of making any definite covenant biades. ^^ij-^ the Athenians. One course only re- mained open to him. To confess that he could not get the satrap to do what he wanted would be to destroy his chance of returning to Athens under any form of govern- ment; and he already began to see that he had a second string to his bow in the democracy. He must then make it appear that the failure of the negotiation was owing to the envoys, and he did this by raising the terms for Tissaphernes at each conference. With the first pro- posal, which demanded the surrender of all Ionia to the king, and with the second, which involved the cession of the islands lying off the eastern shores of the Egean, the commissioners expressed their readiness to comply ; and Alkibiades was almost at his wits' end to devise conditions more humiliating, when it struck him that his end might be gained by insisting that the king should be allowed to keep in the Egean as large a fleet as might suit his pur- poses. The commissioners, thoroughly angered by a proposal which swept away contemptuously the real or so-called convention of Kallias (p. 32), departed with the feeling that they had been both insulted and cheated by B.C. 411. TJic Pclopon7icsian {Dekclcian) War. 175 Alkibiades. Unfortunately this rebuff of the oligarchic commissioners led the Athenian army to the conclusion that in his heart Alkibiades leant to the democracy, and that he had both the power and the will to bring Tissa- phernes into active alliance with it. That satrap was, however, veering of his own accord to the Peloponnesian side. The Spartans and their allies, if stai-\'ed or lacking money, might become Third treaty dangerous neighbours, while a victory of the of Tissa- ... . , ,,.,,. . . phemes Athenians might re-establish their maritime with the supremacy. He therefore proposed a conven- Spartans. tion, which simply assigned to the king such of his posses- sions as were in Asia, reserving to him the freedom of taking such measures ' about his own country ' as might seem to him best. Less humiliating in appearance, these terms left the real state of things practically unchanged. The sovereign of Persia was free, if he chose so to put it, to consult the true interests not only of Athens (p. 166) but of Thessaly, Lokris, and even of Boiotia ; in other words, he might at any time invade them, the implied compact being that in the way of this work the Peloponnesians would place no hindrance. For Athens the year was to come to an end with the betrayal of Oropos to the Boiotians. The next, the twenty-first of this weary war, was to begin Revolt of with the revolt of Abydos and Lampsakos. Lamr"^^^'^ The latter, as being unfortified, was speedily b.c. 411. recovered by Strombichides, whose efforts to win back Abydos either by persuasion or force were unsuccess- ful. But the work of Sparta was being done more effectually by the conspirators at Samos, who, on learn- ing from Peisandros that no aid must be expected from Tissaphernes, and that in Alkibiades they had an open enemy, affected to feel special satisfaction in being rid of a man so little likely to work in harmony with them. 176 TJie AtJiciiian Empire. ch. vi. The tidings only made them more resolved to do by themselves what they had hoped to accomplish by his aid. They had extorted from the people of Athens an unwill- ing sanction for political changes by false promises of foreign help; and they resolved that the demos should be held to the terms of surrender, although this aid was not forthcoming. There was, in truth, no end to their folly and madness. They would have it that oligarchy must strengthen an empire which Phrynichos had solemnly warned them (p. 170) that it would assuredly dissolve ; and under this delusion they sent Peisandros with live of the commissioners to complete the work of revolution at Athens, and to establish oligarchies in any towns which they might visit on their way. With the remaining five Diitriphes was sent as general to operate in the Thrace- Revolt of ward regions. His first exploit was to sup- rhasos. press the government of the people in Thasos and to place the oligarchs in power. Two months later the oligarchs showed their gratitude for the boon by fortifying the town and openly joining the enemies of Athens. To his statement that the same result followed this notable experiment in many other places, Thucy- dides adds a remark which, from a different point of view, agrees closely with the warning of Phrynichos. The sobriety of temper, created by oligarchic govern- ment, inspired, he tells us, a desire for true freedom, and not for the mere sham of hberty which was all that the Athenian oligarchs had destined for them. In other words, the latter did not act up to their own principles, their duty being to release all the allied subjects of Athens from their allegiance and to carry back Athens herself to the political state from which she first began to rise in the days of Solon At Athens the dagger soon put an end to freedom of speech. Tlie first blow was inflicted on a man who had B.C. 4 ft. The Peloponncsian {Dekeleian) War. lyj been prominent amonj^ the accusers of Alkibiades before his departure for Sicily; and by a strange irony cf fortune this victim was olTered up for the special pur- Political pose of winning his favour just when that rest- fjo^'ns^J"^' less schemer was throwing his weight into the Athens. opposite scale. The work of murder once begun was not allowed to flag until it had served its purpose. Not a subject was proposed for discussion in the as- sembly except after the dictation of the oligarchs ; the men who rose to speak on these subjects belonged to their faction, and the very words of their speeches were pre-arranged. At the same time, beyond the walls of the assembly, young men, hired for the work of murder, struck down citizens whose presence might be inconvenient, and picked off all the popular speakers. The man who ven- tured to oppose a measure soon disappeared ; and the order of society was for the time broken up. Reign of No man could trust even those whom he had ^'''■'■°''- looked upon as his friends. A knot of men striking swiftly and surely had brought about a collapse of authority and that extreme depression of the people which must follow this collapse. The council of the Five Hundred (G.P., p. 88) still held their meetings: and if some had spirit enough to absent themselves from the senate- house, there were others who felt that even their absence would tell as much against them as a speech in oppo- sition to oligarchic innovations. Their presence was, indeed, all that Antiphon wanted, for if they were present they must vote ; and by their • ote they must be bound. Whatever was done, therefore, was done by the vote ol the people ; and if the people chose to pass decrees with- out debate, the responsibility of so doing must rest with themselves. Thus was the highest and best character- istic of the Athenian people — their respect for law and order — ingeniously used as an instrument for establishing A.H. N 178 The AtJiciiian Empire. ch. vi, and keeping up a reign of terror. While this terror was at its height, Peisandros, with his colleagues, arrived. Their first proposal was to appoint ten commissioners, Peisandros being one, with absolute powers, to pre- pare a plan by a given day for the better government of the city. On the day named the assembly was held, not in the Pnyx, but in the Temenos, or precinct, of Poseidon at Kolonos, about a mile beyond the city gates. Without preface or comment the commissioners proposed that anyone attempting to put in force the Graphe Para- nomon (a writ or indictment brought against any citizen who proposed or carried measures contrary to existinglaws) should be visited by heavy penalties. The next propo- sition swept away all existing offices and all pay, except for military service, while it empowered the commissioners to choose five men, who should in their turn choose one hundred, these hundred again nominating each three. These Four Hundred, invested with absolute powers, were to take their place in the senate-house, taking counsel when- ever they might wish to do so, but not other- oAhTFou" wise, with the Five Thousand citizens to whom Hundred. ^|^g franchise was to be limited, and whose abode was not in Athens but in the Aristophanic Land of Clouds and Cuckoos. The whole thing was meant to be an insolent mockery, and it was received, as such, with the silence which oligarchs loved as the best sign of popular docility. All that now remained to be done was the installation of the tyrants into the chamber of the senate which represented the Kleisthenean tribes (G.P., p. 87). Attended by a goodly band of assassins, carrying each his hidden dagger, the Four Hundred marched from Kolonos to the senate-house, and commanding the senators to depart, tendered them their pay for the fraction of their official year which was still to run out. The money was taken ; the democracy of Kleisthenes died in self-inflicted B.C. 411- The Peloponncsian{Dckcleian) War. 179 ignominy; and in its place was set up the religious associa- tion of the old Eupatrid polity. The work begun by Solon and ended by Perikles was swept away to make room for the mtolerance of the old Aryan civilization, which had proved a very upas-tree to all healthy political growth. But the traitors who had thus undone the work of a century were to receive forthwith some hard and whole- some lessons. Now that the demos was put Unsuccess- down and the oligarchs were supreme, there ^"jj Athens could surely be no difficulty in adjusting the by Agis. quarrel with Sparta. Overtures were accordingly made in full confidence to Agis at Dekeleia, and by him were treated with silent contempt. Unable to believe that the work was quite so well done as they asserted it to be, he marched to Athens in hopes of being able to carry the walls by storm ; but he found himself mistaken, A second embassy from the Four Hundred, sent after his return to Dekeleia, was more graciously received, and obtained his sanction to send envoys to make their wishes known at Sparta. But the tyrants knew that practically they had achieved nothing, so long as they failed to secure the co-operation of the army at Samos. Prudence Suppression therefore required the oligarchs to assure °^^'^j^®j °''' them that they had acted only from a dis- movement interested generosity which looked exclusively ^' Samos. to the interests of the city and the empire ; that by limiting the franchise they had effected a great saving in the public expenditure ; and that the governing body, still being 5,000, fully represented the whole mass of the people. But before the envoys charged with this message could reach Samos, the traitors had set in motion there the machinery which Antiphon had worked at home. Their task would probably have been successfully carried out, had it not been for the precautions taken by LeoD l8o llic Athenian Empire. ch v-t. and Diomedon, the commanders sent out, on the sug- gestion of Peisandros, to supersede the oligarchic Phr>'- nichos (p. 169). Honestly attached to the constitution of Athens, these men never quitted Sarnos without leaving behind them some ships to keep guard against oligarchic intriguers When, then, the oligarchs ventured to trust the issue to the sword, they were met by a determined and successful resistance ; and thus by a righteous retribution this conspiracy against law and order was suppressed by leaders sent out to supersede a man who, on being deprived of his command, had joined the ranks of the plotters. In the enthusiasm of the moment the Paralian trireme was dispatched with Chaireas to Athens with a report of what had taken place. They sailed into the hon's den. As soon as they landed, some of the men were thrown into prison : the rest, placed in another ship, were ordered to cruise round Euboia. Making his escape, Chaireas hastened to Samos to inform the army that Athens was in the hands of tyrants who were scourging the citizens and insulting their wives and children. The picture may possibly have been over-coloured ; but the historian, who has not a word of censure for the crimes of Antiphon, charges Chaireas indignantly with heaping lie on lie, because his report was not scrupulously exact do\vn to its minutest details. The results which followed the escape of Chaireas showed that the tyrants had blundered in not putting him Resolution to death. An oath inforccd by the most solemn ofiheciti- sanctions was taken by ever)' soldier in the 7ens at , , , • • 1 Samos to aiTiiy at Samos that he would mamtain har- l?a rito^S inony under the ancient constitution of Athens, ^^^y- and that he would have no dealings with the Four Hundred, whom they denounced as public enemies, liut the citizens assembled at Samos did even more. In tt formal assembly it was ruled that, as the demos at B.C. 4 J I- The Peloponnesian {Dekelt'iaii) War. i^i Atheriij had been violently put down, the lawful adminis- tration of government devolved upon themselves, and that they in fact constituted the true Athens. Exercising thus their rights of citizenship, they deposed such of their generals and trierarchs as were suspected of sharing in the oligarchic conspiracy ; Thrasyboulos and Thrasy- los being among the officers chosen in their place. With memorable terseness they declared that Athens had re- volted from them, and that this fact could not humiliate and should not discourage those who had nothing to do with her apostasy. A lawless minority was in re- belhon against the established polity of Athens; but, although they might fancy it otherwise, they stood at a terrible disadvantage with the citizens at Samos. Here tvas gathered the whole force of the city in an island which in the time of its revolt (p. 40) had done more than any other ally to shake the foundations of her empire. There was no need to change their position to carry on the war. Nay, because her army and fleet had found a refuge in Samos and friends to be trusted to the uttermost in the Samians, therefore, and only therefore, was the mouth of the Peiraieus kept open for the con- veyance of supplies to a town which must otherwise soon be starved out. In short, the conspirators at Athens had sinned by setting at naught the laws of their fathers: it was the business of the citizens at Samos to keep those laws and to compel these traitors to keep thern also. Such was the attitude of the Athenians in Samos when the envoys of the Four Hundred, reaching Delos, heard that the army would have nothing to Election of do with the oligarchic usurpers. Their fears Aikibiades of the influence of Aikibiades restrained them by the army from going further; but at first it seemed »" Samos. that their apprehensions were groundless. The maia 1 82 TJie AtJiodan EDipirc. cii. vi, body of the Athenians at Samos were strongly opposed to his restoration ; and it needed all the eloquence and energy of Thrasyboulos to induce them to consent to his recall. The narrative of the introduction of Alkibi- ades to the assembly at Samos is painful, not so much for the glibness of the lies strung together by this arch- traitor as for the pitiable credulity of his hearers. To the oligarchs he had said that nothing should induce him to set foot on Attic soil, until the demos which had driven him into exile should be put down: speaking to the people, he laid the blame of his calamities only on his own unhappy destiny. To the oligarchs he had insisted that the suppression of the democratic constitution was the indispensable condition for winning the thorough con- fidence of the Persian king: to the people he described in moving terms the absorbmg anxiety of Tissapherncs to secure the close friendship of democratic Athens. If only Alkibiades were restored, the Athenians should never lack food so long as a Dareik remained in the satrap's purse ; nay, he would provide money, if so it must be, by turning his silver couch into coin. No one, it would seem, asked why, if Tissaphernes was thus pining for the friendship of Athens, he should be so late in expressing his desire ; and so greedily were the words of Alkibiades received by his hearers, that before the assembly dispersed he was appointed general, and a strong wish was expressed to sail at once to Peiraieus and punish the men who had subverted the constitution. But sincere though Alkibiades may for the moment have been to help his countrymen, he was much more eagei to impress on Tissaphernes his greatness as an Athenian general ; and he therefore strongly dissuaded the citizens fiom the course on which they had set their hearts. Before his departure for Magnesia, the oligarchic envoys, who had been kept for a time, by their fears, at B.C. 4^1. TJie Pdopoiniesian [Dckelcian) ]Var. 183 Delos, appeared before the citizens at Samos. They were received with a storm of indignation which placed their lives in danger; but when at length they Disn^iss.^! ^f were suffered to speak, they protested with the envoys ^ . ' , ,r . , , . , of the Four Special earnestness aganist the lies with which, Hundred as they insisted, they had been cheated by from Samos. Chaireas. There was no intention, they said, of harming their wives or their children : but their lame and stumbling apology, which preserved a discreet silence on the murders of men honestly attached to the Athenian constitution, rather inflamed than soothed the angry feelings of their hearers, of whom a large majority insisted on an imme- diate return to Peiraieus to undo the work of the traitors. But this plan, as we have seen, clashed with the designs of Alkibiades, by whose advice they contented them- selves with bidding the envoys go back and tell their masters that they must yield up their power to the Five Hundred whose place they had usurped ; that to the rule of the Five Thousand, if these were a reality and not a sham, they would make no objection ; and that for any retrenchments which might enable them to carry on the war more vigorously the Athenians at Samos could feel only gratitude to their kinsmen at home. At Athens, the usurpers feared that the ground be- neath them was already becoming insecure. They felt that the people in Athens were anxious to shake off their yoke ; they knew that in the JrildJirb people at Samos they had to deal with un- ^ '^'? ^'pr compromising enemies. Among them, also, were some (and the most prominent of these was The- ramenes) who had already found that for themselves personally oligarchy had not been quite so profitable as they thought that it would be. But, as oligarchs, they belonged to a society in which each man avowedly was strictlv for himself ; and it was only natural 184 The AtJieuian Evipire. en, m. that the eyes of these men should now be opened to the need of making the Five Thousand a reahty, — in other words, of restoring the old democracy, for as these Five Thousand had been thus far an indefinite quantity, so an indefinite quantity they would remain. The oligarchy, in short, was falling ; and while Theramenes was considering how he might best place himself at the head of a popular opposition, those of his colleagues who were hopelessly committed to the usurpation of the Four Hundred, felt that if the resistance with which they were threatened was to be put down at all, it must be put down by force. Envoys, headed by Phrynichos and Antiphon, were sent to Sparta to conclude a peace on whatever terms and at whatever cost, while their accom- plices at home set to work to prepare a place for the enemy. A mole, known by the name of Eetionia, arti- ficially narrowing the mouth of the Peiraieus, presented an open space capable of fortification. To the tyrants it was especially convenient, not merely because strong works erected here might enable them to admit the Spartans within the harbour, but because they might be made not less serviceable against the greater danger of assault from within. A further precaution was taken by running a wall through a large covered space, open perhaps on both sides, the greater portion of which was thus included in the oligarchical stronghold. Into the part so shut off was carried all the corn brought to the harbour ; and the city became dependent on the will of the Four Hundred for the daily purchase of their food. The Spartans had, indeed, nothing to do but to take possession on their own terms ; but the very abjectness Assassina. °^ ^^^^ envoys may have made the cphors don of fearful of being caught in some trap, and Phrynichos. . ,, ,^*^. '=', . , they could obtam nothmg more than a pro- mise that a fleet on its way to Euboia should pass the B.C. 411. The PeloponnesicDi {Dekeleian) War. 185 Athenian harbour. Having heard that this fleet was comingjTheramenespubhcly inveighed against the erection of the fort on Eetionia as part of a scheme arranged in concert with the Spartans. The return of the ambassador stirred the people still more deeply. In the open market- place and in the middle of the day Phrynichos was struck down by a murderer, who made his escape ; and Thera. menes, rendered bolder by the impunity which attended this crime, insisted that the Spartan fleet. Demolition which had come to Aigina and thence fallen ofthefonoo back on Epidauros, could not be going straight * '°"'^' to Euboia. In ungovernable excitement the hoplites se^ to work to throw down the fortress which they had helped to raise, and all were invited to join in the task who wished that the Five Thousand should be put in the place of the Four Hundred. It was needful even now to use this mysterious formula, for it might be rash to deny positively the existence of this unseen company and thus to create antagonists where they hoped to have only friends. On the following day the hoplites from Peiraieus took their station in the Anakeion, or sacred ground of the Dioskouroi, at the base of the Akropolis on its Rg^.^i^ ^nd northern side. With singular moderation the loss cf people accepted a compromise by which the " °'^ Four Hundred pledged themselves that the list of the Five Thousand should be publisiied, and that the ap- pointment of the senate should be in the hands of the larger body. A day was fixed for the assembly of the people in the theatre of Dionysos ; and on that day the debate had all but begun when it was announced that the Spartan fleet was off the coast of Salamis. The people rushed with furious haste to the Peiraieus ; but seeing that a surprise was not to be thought of, the Spartan commander pur:;ued his voyage eastwards, and I S6 TJie AtJuiiian Euipire. ch. vi. the Athenians now saw that his squadron was intended to cover the revolt of Euboia. Now that Attica was itself beleaguered, Euboia was to them everything ; and at all risks they must hasten to its defence, sick at heart at the miserable treachery of the oligarchs, which had cut them off from the aid of that noble army at Samos, which would have rejoiced to strike a blow for the city now restored to its right mind. The fleet of thirty-six Athenian ships, hastily got together, reached Eretria a few hours after the Spartan leader had landed at Oropos ; and Thymochares hoped that he might be in time to re- fresh his weary and hungry crews. But the Agora of the Eretrians was purposely empty ; and when his men had straggled for food even to the end of the town, a signal raised at Eretria called the Spartans to the attack. Hurrying back to the shore, the Athenians hastened as best they could to the encounter, in which two-thirds of their ships fell into the hands of the enemy, their crews being all killed or taken prisoners. The fleet was, in fact, destroyed; and the revolt of Euboia crowned the work of the murderers, who looked down calmly from their council chamber on their awful handiwork. According to their own philosophy, oligarchs might afford to do so ; but for the people, whose life-blood they Siippres- ^^^^ poured out like water, the revolt of Euboia sion of ihe sccmcd to bring with it the day of doom. The Four Hun- n c- i i i • i dred at flcct at Samos could not desert its post, and Athens. scarcely a trireme now remained in the deso- late harbour of Peiraieus. The town was indeed defence- less ; but the great catastrophe was to be delayed yet a little longer, and the respite came through the singular slowness and dulness which made the Spartans the most convenient of all enemies for the quick-witted and prompt Athenians. Only twenty ships were they able to bring together ; but happily they were not called upon to en- i.e. 41 I. TJic Pcloponiiesian [pckcleian) War. 187 counter any enemy, and the Athenians were enabled to fix their minds on the restoration of order. In an assembly held in the Pnyx the Four Hundred were solemnly deposed, and the so-called Five Thousand put in their place. No attempt was made to publish any Re<,toration list of the men included in this number ; and of demo- the phrase by which the oligarchical con- spirators had thought to rivet their own authority was made to cover the whole body of the people. The miserable conspiracy was at last put down ; and Athens once more lived under the polity of Klcisthenes and Perikles. Thus was accomplished, seemingly amidst the death-throes of the state, a change which re-asserted the supremacy of law ; and it was accomplished with a sobriety and calmness which calls forth the enthusiastic eulogy of Thucydides. For the Four Hundred, indeed, it was a fortunate thing that their usurpation was sup- pressed in some part by the co-operation of men belong- ing to their own side. If Theramenes and his helpers had not been concerned in restoring the democracy, the people would have been free to search out and punish the real murderers of the victims wlio had fallen by the hands of hired bravoes. As it was, the one act laid to their charge was the sending of the last embassy to Sparta to offer a peace clogged by no conditions ; and on this charge Theramenes, to his own future cost, came forward as the accuser. But of the men thus accused, Phrynichos had passed beyond the reach of earthly law ; others, with the most prominent leaders of the oligarchy, had taken flight when they saw that their house was falling. Three only remained at Athens, and of these two may have thought that their sins might be condoned. The hardihood of Antiphon, who must have known that he at least had sinned unpardonably, is scarcely consistent with his sagacity and practical wisdom. The 1 88 The Athenian Empire. cii. vi. decree was passed for the apprehension and trial of these three ; but before the writ could be served one of them Trial and niade his escape. Antiphon and Archeptole- execution of mos wcre tried, condemned, and executed. n'P^on. ]\i^'^ny a speech delivered before Athenian tribunals had been written by the illustrious rhetorician who now stood at their bar. The first speech which he delivered in his own person was that in which he pleaded for his life. It was more than worthy of his great reputation, and Thucydides asserts that eloquence so magnificent had never marked the defence of a criminal on a capital charge. The poet Agathon, it is said, ex- pressed to Antiphon his enthusiastic admiration of his splendid oratory, and was assured by the condemned man that his praise more than compensated him for the adverse judgment of the people. His eloquence may have impressed, it failed to convince, his judges ; and if ever an orator deserved that he should not convince hi* hearers, that orator was Antiphon. Meanwhile the relations of Tissaphernes and his Spartan allies exhibited the working of suspicion on the Inactivity of One side and of discontent fast passing into fleet^it^^" rage on the other. For nearly three months Rhodes. the Peloponnesian fleet had remained inactive at Rhodes ; and the men were the more indignant that their hands were thus tied, as they had heard of the con- tentions between the oligarchic faction and the main body of the Athenians at Samos. Astyochos at length found himself compelled to move, and, with one hundred and twelve ships, to challenge the enemy to battle. The Athe- nians, with eighty-two vessels, declined the engagement. Tired out with Tissaphernes, the Spartans now sent Klearchos, with forty ships, to the Hellespontine satrap Pharnabazos; but although his squadron was driven back to Miletos, he himself went on by land to the Hellespont, B.C. 411. The Peloponnesian {Dekclciaii) War. 189 while hib) Megarian colleague, sailing with ten ships to Byzantion, brought about the revolt of that city. The departure of these two commanders in no way discontent improved the state of things in the Pelopon- jp the nesian camp at Miletos. Not by Hermokrates camp at only, but even by others whose silence had ^'^^'^^^^ been thus far secured by bribes, Astyochos was told that in the state of starvation to which the men were reduced they must inevitably desert. The Sicilian allies showed that they were no longer to be trifled with; and Astyo- chos, making the blunder of lifting his stick to strike the Rhodian Uorieus, who commanded the ships from Thourioi, saved his Ufe only by taking refuge at a neigh- bouring altar. The Milesians averred frankly that they had counted on autonomy, — that is, on more thorough independence than Athens had allotted to them ; and protection against Persian tax-gatherers was an essential condition of this independence. With these views the Syracusans heartily agreed, and against them the Spar- tan Lichas not less earnestly protested. So long as the war lasted, they must, he said, if need be, even truckle to the Persian satrap. He had money, they had none ; and until they had put down the empire of Athens, the Asiatic Greeks must be content to fawn upon the man who could pay them if he would. If the Milesians were indignant at the cheat thus put upon them, the Spartans at home were also wearied out with the inaction of their forces in the East; and Mindaros was sent out to take the place of Astyochos. Cool and collected while his friends were thus waxing wroth, Tissaphernes now invited Lichas to accompany him to Aspendos for the purpose of returning intrigues of with the Phenician fleet. This fleet was in- nefafd^'" deed there ; but the proposal of Tissaphernes Aikibiades. was, nevertheless, only a fresh trick to gain time. After Vr^) The Athenian Empire. c.h. n. keeping the ships for a time on the Pamphylian coast, he sent them away again. But if Tissaphernes thus cheated both Lichas and Mindaros, he in turn overreached himself. It was no part of his plan to exasperate further the resentment already felt in the Spartan camp, if that result could be avoided ; but Alkibiades was resolved that it should not be avoided. Well knowing that the satrap had no intention of bringing the Phenician fleet into action, he eagerly availed himself of the opportunity to promise the Athenians at Samos that he would either bring up the Phenician ships to their help or prevent them from coming to the help of their enemies. Sailing to Aspendcs, he took care to parade ostentatiously his intimacy with the satrap ; and as the fleet was sent away, the Athenians believed that the measure was due to his influence. Sharing this belief, the Peloponnesians be- came more indignant at the treachery of Tissaphernes, and for the time Alkibiades remained the most important personage in the theatre of the war. The departure of the Phenician fleet made Mindaros resolve on transferring his forces to the satrapy of Phar- Voyage cf nabazos ; but a severe storm carried him t}Ie"Hd?ls-° southward and detained him for a week before pont. he could sail to Chios, and the Athenian com- mander Thrasylos thus hoped to be able to intercept him on his northward voyage. He was, however, himself summoned away to the Lesbian town of Eresos, which had again revolted from Athens, and he made his pre- parations for vigorously besieging it, in full confidence that the movements of Mindaros would be carefully reported to him. He was mistaken; and beacon fires suddenly warned the Athenian squadron stationed at Lesbos that the enemy's fleet had passed the mouth of the strait at Sigeion. This squadron escaped destruc- B.C. 411- The Peloponnesiajt kDekeleian) War. 191 tion,only because the orders of Mindaros kept at their post the sixteen ships which were on guard at Abydos. The Athenian triremes were thus enabled to make their way unmolested to Elaious. Four were here cut off from the main body by the ships of Mindaros ; the remainder, joining the squadron of Thrasylos, raised the number of the Athenian ships to seventy-six. Five days were spent in preparations for a battle which strikingly proves the decay of Athenian science. Pent up in a strait nowhere two miles in width, they proposed to fight with eighty ships in a space which Phormion would have regarded as quite inadequate for the proper manoeuvring of twenty (p. 62); and the details of the battle are, as we might expect, much on a par with the early tactics of the victory of Persian wars. On both sides the main object ^nVat Ky- was to outflank the enemy. The action was nossema. begun by Mindaros, who sought to work round the Athenians to the west: but Thrasylos anticipated his movement, and at the same time Thrasyboulos, in his effort to outflank the Syracusan squadron, had doubled the headland of Kynossema, and thus passed out of sight of the battle which raged to the west of the promontory. The Athenian centre was thus left dangerously weak; and on the ships so left exposed the Peloponnesians fell with a vehemence which became the means of punishing them later on in the day. In the end the Peloponnesian fleet was driven back, leaving twenty-one ships in the hands of the enemy, who, having lost fifteen vessels, were gainers only by six. Compared with the great exploits of Phormion and Demosthenes, the victory was poor indeed; but on the Athenians, to whom it came at a time when Exaltation they were depressed by an almost endless ^^ Athens, series of disasters, it exercised a moral influence scarcely 1 92 TJie AtJimian Empire, ch. \-rL less than that of the victor}- of Mantineia on the Spartans (p. 109). In either case a people whose reputation had been discredited were restored to their self-respect ; and to the Athenians the result was the more encouraging, as it seemed to be the just fruits of the restored polity of Athens after the murderous usurpation of the Four Hun- dred. The trireme sent home with the tidings was re- ceived with utabounded delight. The depression which had so long hung about them was suddenly dispelled, and they felt that the hope of a successful issue to the war was no longer a presumptuous and unreasonable delusion. CHAPTER VII. THE PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN OR IONIAN) WAR, FROM THE BATTLE OF KYNOSS^MA TO THE SUR- RENDER OF ATHENS. The battle of Kynossema was not the last victory won by Athenian fleets in the war which was now gradually Declension drawing to its close. But the whole history AtilinL-in ^^ ^^^ Struggle after the Sicilian expedition character. shows that Athens had reached a point beyond which even brilliant successes produce no permanent results. It was not merely that her fleets and armies had been destroyed, and that her revenues had become pre- carious. Against such difficulties she might have strug- gled successfully. She might even hp.ve repaired the mischief arising from the decay of that nautical skill which had made her name dreaded from the Hellespont to Sicily amd Africa. But she could not do this, unless she was seconded by the goodwill of the great body of \ B.C. 411. T/ie Peiopojuiesian ]Var. 193 her allies ; and if these were not honestly convinced that alliance with Athens was to their own interest, there could clearly be but one issue to the struggle. This con- viction was strong only in Samos ; and the principle of isolation, against which her confederacy was a protest, had even for the democratic communities of Greece the charm which brings the moth to the flaming candle. But in all the allied states there was a party which hated as well as feared her, knowing that her courts would give redress for the crimes which they dearly loved to commit. This alone would have sufficed to shake her empire to its foundations : but all hope of preserving it was gone when Athenians themselves became traitors to their own consti- tution, when they set at defiance the laws which dealt out equal justice to all the citizens, and employed the dagger to put down opposition in a city for which freedom of speech was the very breath of life. Through the resolute resist- ance of the citizens at Samos this infamous conspiracy had been put down ; but the wounds left behind it were never healed, and among the most fatal of these was the lessening of that respect for forms and processes of law which in earlier days had distinguished Athens from every other Greek city, and, therefore, from every other city in the world. From the first, indeed, the idea of the Athenian empire was one which could not be realised without reversing the most cherished principles of the ancient Hellenic and Aryan civilisation; and for this change the Greek tribes were assuredly not prepared. Athens, therefore, fell, but not until she had exhibited to the world a polity which might be the means of over- coming the miserable feuds of isolated clans and of cementing into a single people the inhabitants of cities spread over many lands. Nothing, indeed, could prove more clearly that the fall of Athens was due to the moral corruption of some, A. II. O 194 The Athenian Empire. en. vii. whether few or many, of her citizens than the wonderful series of victories which began with the battle of Kynos- Joumeyof scma. Taken singly, each of these might per- neft?lhe' ^aps have been Httle thought of some thirty Hellespont, or forty years earher ; but collectively they showed a power of recovery such as has seldom been seen in any age or country. In great alarm the satrap Tissaphernes hastened to the Hellespont, in the hope of recovering the influence which seemed to be fast slipping away from him. For the present his crafty schemes had told only in favour of Alkibiades. The dismissal of the Phenician fleet had enabled him to say that the satrap was better inclined to the Athenian cause than he had ever been. On Hahkarnassos he was able to impose a heavy fine. At the Hellespont he was enabled to decide in Victory of favour of Athens a battle which had begun in m-eiS^^ the early morning by the defeat of Dorieus in Spartans the bay of Dardanos and which had been con- of Dar-^^ tinued during the day by the fleet of Min- danos. daros. With thirty ships of the enemy the Athenians, having recovered their own captured triremes, sailed away to their station at Lesbos, where, however, they kept only forty of their ships, the rest being sent to gather money where they might and as they could. The necessities of war had substituted arbitrary and in- definite exactions for the orderly collection of tribute ; and the indifference and even the kindly feeling of the allies gave way to active dislike or fiercer indignation. Twenty years earlier a victory even such as this might have been followed by momentous consequences. All that Victory of Thrasylos could now do was to go to Athens theAtheni- to ask for more help both in ships and men. fins at n Kyzikos. The fleet sent to aid him was compelled to H.C 4JO. j.Q^^ about among the allied or other cities, exacting contributions or plundering with little respect I B.C. 410. The Pdoponnesian War. 195 to law ; and when Theramenes reached Kardia, on the northern side of the Thrakian Chersonesos, he found there Alkibiades, no longer as a friend of Tissaphernes or of the king his master, but as a fugitive from his power. The Athenian generals, accompanied by Alki- biades, now resolved on attacking Mindaros, who was busied with the siege of Kyzikos. Sailing past Abydos at night to evade the Peloponnesian guardships, they took the further precaution of seizing all passing vessels, to prevent the news of their approach from reaching the Spartan admiral. On the next day Alkibiades, candidly telling the men that all hope of Persian help was gone, warned them that they must undertake simultaneously the tasks of a sea fight, of a land battle, and of a siege. The issue of the day was decided, it is said, by a trick of Alkibiades, who, by a pretended flight, concerted with his colleagues, lured the squadron of Mindaros to some distance from the rest of the fleet and then turned fiercely round on the hoisting of a signal. However this may have been, the victory of the Athenians was complete. Mindaros was slain, fighting bravely on shore ; and more important, in the present exhaustion of resources, than the seizure of the Peloponnesian ships was the vast plunder in slaves and other booty taken in the Spartan and Persian camps. But if the victory was to have permanent fruit, the Athenians must command the gates of the Black Sea as well as those of the Egean. With Byzantion and Chalkedon, which were both in revolt, they could for the present do nothing ; but by fortifying Chrysopolis, the port of the latter city, the Athenians were enabled to levy tolls on all ships entering the Propontis, and thus again become masters of the most important road for the introduction of supplies to Athens. A few hours after the battle of Kyzikos, Hippokrates, 196 The AtJicnian Empire. or. vn. the secrctar}' of the Spartan admiral, addressed to the cphors the following letter : — ^ Our glory is gone; Min- Effects of daros is dead ; the men are famishing ; we thevictor>'. Yx\o\s not what to do.' The despatch was intercepted and carried to Athens, where the joy of the people found expression in magnificent religious processions and displays. It is said that a Spartan embassy soon reached Athens with proposals for peace : but thePeloponnesians cannot have been greatly depressed by their defeat if their terms were limited to a mere exchange of prisoners and the withdrawal of hostile garrisons on either side — in other words, to the proposal that the Spartans should quit Dekeleia and the Athenians give up Pylos. But if they were in any measure dis- couraged, Pharnabazos certainly was not. Promising unbounded supplies of ship timber from Ida, he gave a garment to each of the soldiers of Mindaros, with pro- visions for two months, issuing at the same time orders for the building of a fleet equal to that which had been lost at Kyzikos, The events of the following year made no essential change in the position of the combatants. The Athenians were defeated near Ephesos, and victorious of'^PyloZ near Methymna over the Syracusans, and from^he''^ again over Pharnabazos at Lampsakos, which Athenians. they Strongly fortified. These efforts of the Bc. 409. Athenians to retrieve their losses in the East led the Spartans to think that a determined attack on Pylos might now be successful. Sent out with thirty ships to its aid, Anytos, the future accuser of Sokrates, came back with the tale that stormy weather had pre- vented him from doubling cape Maleai (G. P. p. 19). He was brought to trial for his failure, but acquitted ; and his escape, possibly not altogether without reason, was attri- buted to the corniption of the jury. The absence of so B.C. 408. TJie Peloponnesian War. 197 many citizens on foreign service may have reduced the numbers of each dikastery within Hmits not unmanageable for bribers, and the long-standing pressure of poverty may have done the rest. Thus deserted, the Messenians held out at Pylos for a time ; and when they were compelled to surrender, they were able to secure their safe departure from a land which, if the Spartans could have had their will, they would never have left alive. The loss of this outpost was followed by that of Nisaia ; and these two disasters affected Athens more seriously than the ruin of their colony at Herakleia (p. 73) affected the Spartan^. The following year began for the Athenians with two successes, which seemed to augur well for the result of the struggle. Chalkedon was reduced, and com- Reduction pelled to become a tribute-paying ally, mak- °f Chalke- ing up all arrears due for the period spent Byzantion in revolt. The surrender of Byzantion left Athenians. Athens mistress of the highway which brought ^.c. 408. to her harbours the wealth of the corn-lands bordering on the Euxine ; and the convention, by which Pharnabazos of his own free will offered to send Athenian envoys to Sousa, was a still better omen of a settlement in their favour. The sober report of a man who had thrown himself heartily into the Spartan cause, and who now was obliged to say that even with Persian subsidies the Spartans were losing rather than gaining ground, could not but have great weight with a monarch to whom, after all, money was the chief object. Unhappily for Athens, the envoys were met on their journey by Arrival of Spartan ambassadors bearing a letter with [fJ^^'Egg^ ihe royal seal, which named the king's younger coast, son Cyrus lord of all his armies in Asia Minor; and Cyrjs was pledged to aid the Spartans to the utmost of his power. In the Persian orince now sent down to the coast 19*^ The Atheiiiaii Empire. ch. vii. Lysandros, the Spartan admiral, found not an ally only but a friend. When Lysandros expressed a hope that the war Lysandros might nowbc Carried on with real vigour, Cyrus and the oil- replied by assuring him that if the 500 talents clubs. which he had brought with him should not D.c. 407. suffice, he would, according to the Persian metaphor, turn his siher-gilt throne into coin (p. 1S2). Obtaining from him, not without difficulty, an increase of pay for his men, together with all unpaid arrears, Lysandros was careful to send for the chiefs of the oligarchical factions in the several cities allied with Athens, and to form them into clubs pledged to act by his orders. He thus became the centre of a wide-spread conspiracy, which he alone was capable of directing, Alkibiades, in the meanwhile, was working for his return to Athens. He haa sailed to the Lakonian port of Gytheion, to ascertain what amount of Return of ..,.,,. ... . , , Alkibiades ship-buildmg might be gomg on there, and to Athens. ^^,^g g^jij hesitating as to his future course, when he received the news that he had been elected strategos by the Athenians, while his friends assured him that the way before him was both open and safe. Having entered Peiraieus, the exile, whose memory must have recalled the long series of his treasons, stood for a time on the deck of his trireme, not daring to land until he saw his friends waiting to guard him on his way to the city. These would probably lose no time in letting him know the temper of the vast multitude now gathered to look upon the man who seven years before had sailed from that harbour with the most splendid armament ever sent forth by the imperial city. If they could not but admit that some denounced him as the cause of all the disasters which Athens had suffered since his departure, and of all the dangers which still threatened her, they would dwell with more satisfaction on the belief ex- B.C. 40;. TJic Pglopomicsian War, 199 pressed by others, that to him alone they were indebted for the victories which had turned their despair into some- thing hke cheerful confidence; that during his years of exile he had been the unwilling slave of men at whose hands his life was daily in danger ; and that through the whole of this weary time his one grief had arisen from his inability to do for Athens the good which he would gladly have achieved for her. But amazing as must have been the effrontery of men who could thus speak of one who had done what he could to destroy the Athenian fleets and armies at Syracuse, who had fixed a hostile force on Athenian soil, and who had lit the fire which burst into flame in the usurpation of the Four Hundred, all moderate men must have felt that, unless he was still to be treated as an enemy, his past career must not be thrown in his teeth. If they could place no real trust in him, they ought at least to put no hindrances in his path so long as, he continued to do his duty as a citizen, a statesman, and a general. Before the assembly Alkibiades played his part so well that his confiscated property was returned to him, and the tablets containing the decrees condemning him to death were thrown into the sea. The recurrence of the Eleusinian mysteries furnished him with one of those opportunities for display of which he would avail himself with eager delight. For seven years the pro- cession along the Sacred Road had been necessarily given up, and the communicants, with their sacred vessels, had been conveyed to Eleusis by sea. It should now be said that under the man who had been charged with profaning the mysteries the procession should follow its ancient path as safely as in a time of pro- found peace. The pomp issued from the gates of Athens, guarded by all the citizens of military age ; but no attack was even threatened by the garrison o? Dekeleia. 200 TJte Atlieniaii Euipin. cii. vii. Alkibiades left Athens with a head turned by the enthusiasm of his reception. The tidings which he re- Defeat of ceived on reaching Samos informed him of by L°i??. ^^^^ arrival of Cyrus, and of the energy dis- dros. played by him on tlie Spartan side. Having in vain besought Tissaphernes to impress upon the prince the need of holding an even balance between the con- tending parties, he joined Thrasyboulos, who was for- tifying Phokaia, leaving his fleet in charge of his pilot Antiochos, with strict orders to avoid all engagements with the enemy during his absence. He had scarcely departed before his deputy sailed out with only two Uiremes, and passed insultingly before the Spartan fleet at Ephesos. Lysandros came out and chased him with a few ships : Antiochos brought out more. But the Athenian ships advanced carelessly and in disorder, and the result was the loss of sixteen triremes and the death Alkibiades of Antiochos himsclf. Even more unfortunate hfs^com- °^ ^°^ Alkibiades was his attack onthe people of mand. Kyme, a town belonging to the Athenian con- federacy. The Kymaians laid their complaints before the Athenian assembly, and Alkibiades, deprived of his command, betook himself to his fortified posts on the Chersonesos. On reaching Samos, Konon, who had been sent to take the place of Alkibiades, was struck by the great Dimculties dcpression of the men. Their ships were ddas^n"^'*' becoming daily more inefficient, and for pay succeeding they had little more to depend on than Lysandros. ' ■, t ■, r 11 H.c. 406. plunder. He therefore cut down the number of his triremes from a hundred to seventy, picking out for these the best oarsmen and sending the rest of the crews away. But he was saved, perhaps, from some great disaster by the fact that the command of Lysandros expired at this time. In his cuccessor, Kallikratid-\s, B.C. 407. The Pelopojincsian War. 201 Konon found an antagonist who had not convinced him- self that the ruin of Athens would be cheaply purchased at the cost of prostration before the throne of the Persian despot. Kallikralidas had even learnt that the Hellenic tribes had something better to do than to tear each other in pieces for the benefit of the barbarians against whom, scarcely eighty years ago, they had pledged themselves to maintain a perpetual warfare. Thus deploring the miserable strife which had now dragged itself on through four and twenty years, he found himself face to face with men who practically refused to obey him. Summoning his officers, he told them that he was there by no will of his own ; that, having come, he must do tlie bidding or the state which had sent him; but that, if they thought otherwise, he would at once go back to Sparta and report the state of matters at Ephesos. An appeal so manly and straightforward could be met only by the answer that he must be obeyed. Going, then, to Cyrus, he de- manded the pay needed for the seamen. Cyrus kept him two days waiting ; and Kallikratidas, in the agony of his humiliation, bewailed the wretched fate of the Greeks w^ho, for the sake of silver and gold, were com- pelled to crouch before the Persian tyrants, and declared that if he should be spared to return home he would do all that he could to bring to an end this unnatural quarrel between Athens and Sparta. The generous hopes and desires of Kallikratidas had made him none the less formidable to his enemies. Chased by his fleet to Mytilene, Konon lost thirty out ^. , ,. . . . . , . , -, Plocl^ading of his seventy triremes, their crews happily of Konon at escaping ashore, and found himself blockaded ^^y^'^*-'"*^- in a situation where, from total lack of supplies, he must soon surrender, unless his position could be made known at Athens. Picking out the best oarsmen of the fleet, he placed them on board two triremes, and then waited vainly 202 The Athe/iia/i Empire. en. vn. through four days for an opportunity of sending them forth with any chance of success. On the fifth day the dispersion of the Spartan crews at the time of the noon- tide meal seemed to justify the attempt. The two ships therefore started, making the utmost haste, the one for the southern, the other for the northern entrance of the harbour. With all their efforts one only escaped to tell the tale, first to Diomedon at Samos and then at Athens. Diomedon, hastening rashly with only twelve triremes to the aid of his colleague, lost ten of his ships. At Athens the news roused only a more determined spirit of resist- ance. All persons, whether free or slaves, within military age, were drafted into i lo triremes, and within a month this prodigious force was on its way to the Egean. Strength- ened at Samos by ten ships, and on their onward voyage by thirty more, furnished by allied cities, the Athenian generals took up their position off the islets of Argen- noussai with 150 triremes. Leaving Eteonikos with fifty ^ , - vessels to blockade Konon, Kallikratidas had Haille of ' Argen- posted himsclf with 120 ships off the Malean noussai. cape, distant about ten miles to the west of Argcnnoussai. An attempt which he made to surprise the enemy at midnight was frustrated by a severe storm of thunder and rain. Early in the morning he advanced to the battle, in which the great effort of the Athenian officers was to prevent the Peloponncsians from perform- ing those manoeuvres which had once secured the most brilliant victories of the Athenian fleets. After a time, as in the last terrible conflict in the harbour of Syracuse, the combatants were broken up into detached groups, victorvof In one of these groups the ship of Kallikra- ianstand"" ^idas Came into contact with an Athenian ^«athof vessel with such force that the Spartan admi- Kalhkra- , , , , . , , tidas ral was hurled mto the water and never seen again. At length the left wing of the Spartan fleet gavtj B.C. 407. The PeCoponHesia)i War. 203 way ; the flight soon became general, and the whole fleet was virtually destroyed. According to one account the Athenians spent some time in chase of the flying enemy ; another tells us that the generals intrusted the trierarchs Thera- Departure menes and Thrasyboulos with the charge of "jj^g recovering from the wrecked and disabled squadron ships as many of the crews as might still be lene. living, while they themselves were anxious to sail at once against the blockading squadron of Eteonikos at MytUene. A heavy tempest compelled them, it is said, to give up this enterprise : but unless they had started immediately, they would have found Eteonikos already gone. As soon as the issue of the fight was decided, the admiral's pin- nace carried the news to Eteonikos, who, with consum- mate presence of mind, bade the crew go back to sea and return singing the psan of victory. Gravely offer- ing the sacrifice of thanksgiving, he then ordered his crews to take their meal at once, and sail to Chios with the trading ships. Then, setting fire to his camp, he withdrew his land force to Methymna. The wind was blowing fair — that is, nearly due north — when they set out for Chios ; and its violence may be inferred from the fact that although Konon suddenly found his way open before him, he could not venture to join the Athenians on their return from Argennoussai until the wind had some- what gone down. Having at length joined his colleagues, he went with them first'to Mytilene and then to Chios in the hope of recovering the city which had done them enormous mischief by its revolt. The failure of the at- tack betrays their extreme exhaustion. Lysandros could do nothing after his victory over the pilot Antiochos ; and now the whole Athenian fleet was so baffled at Chios as to be obhged to return, practically beaten, to Samos. The tempest which followed the battle of Argeryaew^s^ »^_ 204 TJie Athen'um Etnpliw en. vii. was to prove fatal to Athens. Twenty-five vessels Accusaiion belonging to the Athenian fleet had been more nfn'l^enerals' °^ ^^^'^ disabled during the action. Twelve, by by Thera- the admission of Euryptolemos, one of the Thrasy-" generals, were still above water, when the boulos. order was issued for sending forty-seven triremes to their rescue ; and thus, by the lowest possible reckoning, it would seem that 1,500 men were allowed to die who might have been saved, if the generals, instead of debating, had at once set to work to recover them. In their first despatch the generals announced their victory, stating the amount of their loss, and adding that the severe storm immediately following the battle had put it out of their power to rescue the crews of the disabled triremes. In a second despatch they stated that the task of visiting the wrecks had been deputed to Theramenes and Thrasyboulos. By these two men, who had already come to Athens, this second despatch was treated as a mere trick to transfer to others the blame of inaction for which the generals were themselves wholly responsible. They boldly denied the facts both of the storm and of their own commission. The inquiry resolved itself there- fore really into the one question, whether certain men were ordered to visit the wrecks or whether they were not. If the officers of forty-seven ships received this command, the responsibility of the generals was at an end ; and if any punishment was needed, it should fall on those who had failed to obey their orders. But the Athenian people thought that the case justified the recall of all the generals, who were accordingly bidden to hand over their command to Konon. Suspecting mischief, two followed the example of Alkibiades after receiving his summons in Sicily. The other six went back with the confidence of men who had only deserved well at the hands of tlicii countrymen. On being brought before the assembly aiJ B.C. 407 The Pcloponnesian War. 20^ pureed in asserting that, with the other trierarchs, Thera- menes and Thrasyboulos had been charged Favourable to visit the wrecks, adding that they would JS onThe not allow the accusations of Theramenes to Athenian 1 rr-i 11 • assembly tempt them into a falsehood. They had no in- by the tention of retorting his imputations. The storm z^^<^^^^^- had rendered all action impossible, and neither they nor the trierarchs, their deputies, were to blame for result? beyond their power. In proof of this fact, they relied on the evidence of their pilots and of many others who were present ; nor had Theramenes and his partisans the hardi- hood to deny before the assembly, as they had denied be- fore the senate, the fact of the commission with Avhich they had been charged. This simple and straightforward answer, backed by the testimony of witnesses whom they hr.d no grounds for mistrusting, produced its natural effect. The people were fast becoming convinced of their innocence, and Theramenes stood convicted of a he. But it was now late in the day, and the discussion was post- poned to the next assembly, the senate being ordered to con- sider how the trial of the accused should best be conducted. Thus, without going further, the conclusion is de- finitely estabhshed that the statements of the generals are consistent and substantially true ; that Falsehoods they may have been to blame for debating of Thera- a matter in which action should have been '"^"^^• spontaneous and immediate ; that their council ended in telling off a large number of ships for the rescue of the distressed crews ; and that before these could set off on their task, the wind, which had been gaining strength from a time probably preceding the end of the battle, had become a tempest which the triremes could not face. If it be true that Theramenes was busy at Athens inflaming the public feeling against the generals before their return, the conclusion seems to follow that he had come bacc 2o6 TJie Athenian Empire. ch. vn bent on br'nging about their disgrace, if not their death. What his full motive may have been it is scarcely worth while to ask. His whole career reeked of villainy. He had been a traitor to the constitution and laws of his country. He had been the willing instrument of Antiphon and his abettors in their work of organized murder ; and because he had failed to get from them the recompense which he regarded as his due, he had betrayed his confederates and thrown in his lot with men whom he hated. Lastly, we may turn to the closing scene of his life, when Kritias reviled him as the murderer of the generals, and mark his vehement reply, that he had never come forward as their accuser ; that, having laid on him- self and others the duty of rescuing the drowning men, the generals had charged them with disobedience to orders because they failed to do so ; that they failed only because the storm made it impossible for them even to leave their moorings ; and therefore that the generals deliberately laid a plan for their destruction by insisting on the practicability of the task and then taking their departure. Theramcnes forgot that if the storm was so frightful as he chose to represent it to Kritias, the generals could not have left him to his fate in case of failure to obey orders and then at once have sailed away themselves over the raging waters. The postponement of the debate had this result, that the matter could not be opened again till after the Cons irac Apatouria, a feast celebrated by the ancient of Thera- Eupatrid phratriai (G. P., pp. 6, 7), and there- '"^""' fore most closely connected with the polity of prc-Solonian Athens. In it the Athenian was carried away to a region of sentiment in which the family was everything, the state nothing ; and here was the hearth on which Theramenes might kindle the flames which should devour his victims. The clansmen of the dead, B.C. 407. 77i^ Peloponnesian War, 207 he insisted, would be bringing shame on their ancient houses if they failed to stand forth as the avengers of murder. The generals must die ;. and the kinsfolk of the men whom they had slain should besiege the assembly, clad in the garb of mourning and with their heads shorn, until the people should decree the great sacrifice. The drama was well got up. In the senate ^^ Tr „. • 1 1 , , Proposition Kallixenos carried the monstrous proposal that of Kallix- without further discussion the people should ^"°^' at once proceed to judgement, on the ground that the accusers and accused had been heard at the last meeting. When the hour for the assembly came, the dark-robed mourners were there, like beasts of prey howling for the blood of their victims. The excitement caused by their cries and tears was aggravated to fury when a man came forward to say that he, too, had been among the drowning seamen, till he had managed to escape upon a meal-tub, and that, as he floated away, the last sounds which he could hear were intreaties that he would, if saved, tell the Athenians how their commanders had abandoned the bravest of their countrymen. Athenian law demanded that no citizen should be tried except before a court of sworn jurymen ; that the accused should receive due notice of trial : and , ,,.,,. , . , ^ Amendment that, havmg had time to prepare his defence, of EurjTto- he should be brought face to face with his '^'"°^" accusers. All these forms were summarily set aside by the proposition of Kallixenos. But the proposer of un- constitutional measures was liable to indictment under the writ Graphe Paranomon (p. 178) ; and Euryptolemos, with some others, interposed this check on the madness which was coming over the people. But it was too late. The shaven mourners, in their black raiment, raised the cry, taken up by the majority of the citizens present, that the demos had a right to do what they liked. Thera- 2'jS TJlc Athenian Empire. cii. \\\. menes had indeed triumphed. Tlie frenzy which Eiiryn- tolemos could not restrain was the natural result of the teaching of Peisandros (p. 172). A spirit was abroad in the assembly which was detennined that, notwithstanding all laws and usages to the contrary, the generals should drink the hemlock juice that day ; and Eurj-ptolemos was told that, unless he withdrew his threat, he, with his helpers, should share the draught. It was decided that the proposition of Kallixenos might be submitted to the people ; but the question could not be put without the consent of the Prytaneis, or ten presiding senators and some of these protested against its shameless illegality. These also were told that continued resistance would only insure their doom. Of the ten, one only with- stood this menace ; and that one was Sokrates. His opposition was simply overruled : the question was put : and Euryptolemos rose to urge its rejection. Of the accused generals Perikles was his kinsman, and Diomedon his intimate friend ; but he had no wish to screen any who should be lawfully found guilty of any wcll-dcfmed crime against the state. Only, in the name of law and consti- tutional usage, he demanded that a day should be given to the discussion of each case separately. To his warn- ings he added a short account of the facts as, in his belief, they had really taken place ; and lastly, he reminded them that they were about to pronounce judgement on men who had won for them a victory which had all but settled the war at a stroke, and which might easily be made to lead to the re-establishment of their empire ; and these men, he as- serted, deserved not to be put to death, but to be crowned as conquerors and honoured as benefactors of the city. The amendment of Euryptolemos, on being put to the vote, was declared by the Prytaneis to be earned : but so clearly did the people see through the trick by which the presiding senators had hoped to prevent the commission of B.C. 405. The Pclopoiinesian War. 209 an enormous crime that they insisted on its being put to the vote again. It was so put, and rejected, Condemnn- and there remained only the task, as they tion f"^ , . ^ . , . , , , murder phrased it, of judgmg the generals by one of the vote. The result was, of course, that for ^^"^''^15. which Theramenes and his fellow conspirators had so persistently striven. All six generals were condemned ; all six on that night were murdered ; and thus Athens requited the lifelong labours of Perikles by slaying his son. To show still further the impartiality of the massacre, the same sentence was passed on Diomedon, who had urged that everything should be postponed to the visiting of the wrecks, and on Erasinides, who had held that everything must give way to the aiding of Konon at Mytilene. No long time passed before the Athenians repented of their madness and their crimes : but, yielding still to their old besetting sin, they insisted, as they had done in the days of Miltiades and after the catastrophe at Syracuse, on throwing the blame not on themselves but on their advisers. This great crime began at once to produce its natural fruits. The people were losing confidence in their officers, who, in their turn, felt that no services Return of th« to the state could secure them against illegal fleet^T" prosecutions and arbitrary penalties. Corrup- Samos. tion was eating its way into the heart of the state, and treason was losing its ugliness in the eyes of many who thought themselves none the worse for dallying with it. Such men found it to be their interest to keep up underhand dealings with the enemy ; nor could any feel sure that the man whom he most trusted might not be one of the traitors. The Athenian fleet had fallen back upon Samos ; and with this island as a base, the generals were occupying themselves with movements, not for crushing the enemy, but for obtaining money. These leaders A, //. P 2 10 llic AtJicnian Empire. en. vri. were now six in number, for to Philoklcs and Adeimantos, who had been sent out as colleagues of Konon, there had been added Kephisodotos, Tydeus, and lastly Menandros ^P- 139). The Spartans, whether at home or on the Asiatic coast. were now well aware that one more battle would decide Activity of t^^ issue of the war; for with another defeat the Lysandros. subsidies of the Persians would be withdrawn from them as from men doomed to failure, and perhaps be transferred to the Athenians. In the army and fleet the crj' was raised that Lysandros was the only man equal to the emergency. Spartan custom could not appoint the same man twice to the office of admiral ; but when Arakos was sent out with Lysandros as his *' ■ '*°^" secretary, it was understood that the latter was really the man in power. Early in the year the scribe set vigorously to work, appointing trusty trierarchs to the ships of Eteonikos, bringing together such vessels as had survived the wreck at Argennoussai, and ordering others to be built at Antandros. He had work of another kind to do in Miletos, where two oligarchical bodies, it seems, were in antagonism, one of them wish- ing to maintain the policy of Kallikratidas. Against these more moderate men their antagonists employed both secret assassination and public massacre. About forty of the most prominent, we are told, were murdered privately ; 300 of the wealthiest were cut down in the Agora at the busiest time of the day ; and Miletos thus remained completely in the hands of the clubmen of Lysandros. When at length Lysandros sailed from Rhodes to the Spartan station at Abydos, and thence advanced to the Arrival of assault of Lampsakos, the Athenian fleet the Athenian followed him, keeping on the seaward side AijTospota- of Chios. The tidings of the fall of Lamp- ™°'" sakos reached them at Elaious, while they B.C. 405. TJie Pdoponncsian ll'ar. 2ii were taking their moming meal. In the evening of the same day they supped at Aigospotamoi, the Goat's Stream, from which that goodly fleet of iSo triremes was never to return. In dealing with his enemies, Lysandros resolved to confine himself to strictly defensive opera- tions, which might sooner or later throw them off their guard. He could not, indeed, have been ignorant of the cause which defeated the great enterprise of Demosthenes on Epipolai (p. 143) ; and in any case he was well aware that Athenian discipline, unlike that of Sparta, was always apt to grow slack with success. At daybreak he had his ships manned, strict orders being given that the line of battle was not to be broken by advancing to attack the enemy. The evening was closing when, having faced the Peloponnesians to no purpose all day, the Athenian fleet fell back on Aigospotamoi. The squadron which fol- lowed them was under strict orders not to return until the crews of the Athenian triremes were all fairly landed. For four successive days these tactics were repeated, each day being marked by increasing carelessness in the Athenian camp, which was merely on the open beach, the nearest town, Sestos, being nearly two miles away. Over this wide extent of ground the men were every day scattered to get their food, and the ships were left dangerously unguarded. The Spartan fleet was supplied from Lampsakos, and could be moved almost at a moment's warning. From his forts on the Chersonesos Alkibiades could see distinctly the dangers to which his countr>'men were thus exposing themselves : but his advice and his warnings were rudely rejected, and by Tydeus and Menandros he was dismissed with the rebuff that they were now generals, not he. On the fifth day the Spartan squadron, which, as usual, followed the Athenian fleet as it fell back on its camping ground at Aigospotamoi, was ordered to wait until the enemy was p 2 7 1 2 TJic A ihcnian Empire. en. vii. thoroughly scattered over the country, and then, as they came back, to hoist a shield as a signal. On seeing this token, Lysandros gave the order for instant and rapid c • f onset. Every man was at once in his place, bnanng of ■' _ r » the Aihe- and in a few minutes the work was done. ihe"sp"- ^ Konon alone was at his post, and Philokles **"*• perhaps may have been close at hand : but these could do little or nothing. Of the triremes some had only two banks of rowers, some only one : most of them were quite empty. The whole fleet was insnared, but there was no battle. While the enemy was busied in capturing the ships and suiTOunding the prisoners on the shore, Konon, seeing at a glance that the case KoS with was hopeless, hastened with nine ships, the nine ships. Paralian trireme being one of them, to Abarnis, the promontory to the east of Lampsakos, and thence took away the large sails of the Peloponnesian fleet, thus greatly lessening their powers of pursuit. Then, making his way down the Hellespont, he hastened to his friend Euagoras in Kypros (Cyprus), while the Paralian ship went on its miserable errand to Athens. The captured vessels with their crews were taken to Lamp- ,j ^ ^ sakos, where Lysandros proceeded to sit in ofthe judgement on the Athenian prisoners for prisonl^rsby Crimes which, as it was said, they intended Lysandros. j_q commit if they had been victorious at Aigospotamoi. All were condemned to death, and Philokles, who had arrayed himself in white garments, was taken away at the head of the long procession to the ground of slaughter. The last words addressed to him by Lysandros charged him with opening the gates to lawless wickedness against the Hellenes, because, in spite of the opposition of Adeimantos, he had thrown the crew of a Corinthian and an Andrian vessel overboard. Lysandros well knew that Hellenic usage gave the B.C..405- The Peloponnesian War. 213 conqueror absolute power over his prisoners. If Philoktes had had a spear tnrust through the bodies of these Corinthian and Andrian captives, he would have done nothing more than Spartan commanders were in the habit of doing in every war, and not unfrequently in times of pe^ce. He chose, in fact, whatever may have been his motive, a less painful mode of putting them to death ; and he was charged with offending against the military usage of Hellas by a man who was about to insult the universal rehgious instincts of all the Hellenic tribes by refusing burial to the crowd of prisoners who were still standing alive before him. The fact is that Philokles was faithful to his country : his name is, therefore, blackened. Adeimantos was spared from the slaughter because, as many felt sure, and some said openly, he had betrayed the fleet to Lysandros ; and as it was needful to cloke his treachery and to assign a decent pretext for his escape, it was said that he opposed himself to the alleged orutality of his colleague. But if the surprise was brought about by Persian gold on the one side and Treachery Athenian greed on the other, the treachery ^J^^^^^^^ji^g could not be confined to one man alone. The Athenian constant and factious opposition of a single e^"^"^"- traitor could scarcely fail to excite the suspicions of his colleagues ; but if the number of the traitors were more nearly equal to that of the faithful generals, the action of the latter might be neutralised without any appearance of dishonesty or disaffection. Adeimantos seems to have had even the better fortune of being in a majority. Of the six generals, Philokles and Konon are beyond suspicion : of none of the rest are we told that they were put to death after the battle. According to the geographer Pausanias, Tydeus was bribed not less than Adeimantos. As to Menandros, it is significant that he should have associated himself with Tydeus in his insolent rejectica 2 14 The A tJienian Empire. ch. vu. of the counsel of Alkibiades. Of Kephisodotos alone, nothing can be said, because nothing has been recorded : but it was the conviction of Konon that Lysandros planned and Adeimantos deliberately wrought the destruc- tion of the Athenian fleet. If he was right in so thinking, the whole narrative of this horrible catastrophe becomes luminously clear : on any other supposition, it is a be- wildering and insoluble riddle. But treachery on so vast a scale can spring only from wide and deeply ingrained corruption. If out of six Causes gcncrals three, if not four, could be found to [hls^ireach- betray the Athenian fleet to the enemy, then ery. Athens was no longer the Athens of Aristeides or of Perikles. The only possibility for the success of Adeimantos in his treason lay in his being joined by a sufficient number of his colleagues to paralyse the action of the rest without drawing on themselves a dangerous suspicion. Nothing more was then needed than to place the fleet in a position of extreme danger under the pretence of holding at bay an enemy conscious of his own weakness. The challenge given every day by the Athenian fleet, and refused with seeming timorousness by the Peloponnesians, would be used as a theme for exciting in the men a profound contempt for the enemy, and the fatal confidence thus fostered would bring about the state of things most desired by the wolves to whom the hirelings had bargained to betray the fold. For the general corruption, without which such a scheme could not have been matured, many causes were at work : but all may be resolved into that neglect of law and that disregard of constitutional forms which had marked the history of Athens since the catastrophe in Sicily. The Athenian demos had been persuaded into decreeing away its own powers on the very ground that forms ot i;overnmenl were of little consequence in comparison B.C. 403. TJie Pelopoiinesian War. 2 1 5 with the independence of the state from foreign coercion (p. 172) ; and when they had put down the tyranny which had convinced them that government by an ohgarchy meant simply submission to Sparta, they still believed or asserted that the demos was free from the duty of obeying the law, and could in fact do as it liked (p. 207). If Konon and Philokles had been supported by colleagues like themselves, the defeat of Lysandros must probably have been as signal as that of Mindaros or Kallikratidas, and another disaster must have taught Cyrus that in supporting the enemies of Athens he was playing a losing game. It was clear that either on the one side or on the other one more defeat would end the war in the Egean and the Hellespont. Athens could not produce another fleet ; if she was victorious, it was unlikely that the Persian king would continue to subsidise men who failed to show anything for his bounty ; and it was certain that without his aid Sparta could not maintain the contest by sea, if the result at Aigospotamoi had repeated the disaster at Argennoussai. The tidings of the catastrophe came upon the Athenians with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. The cry of agony and despair, which on the Dismay at arrival of the Paralian trireme passed along -^'^^^5. the double line of walls, rose into a piercing wail when it reached the city. All that night the mourning went up to heaven, for none could close their eyes in sleep. In this hour of overpowering dismay their thoughts recalled with terrible distinctness their own misdeeds in the days which were past. The wide prospect revealed not a gleam of comfort ; but an unconditional surrender, which would enable the Spartans to slay every Preparations Athenian citizen and send their wives and for under- going a children into slavery, was still not to be siege. thought of. A decree was passed for blocking the en- /l6 TIlc Athenian Eijipire, ch. vii. trance to the harbour, and for making every preparation for undergoing a siege. Put Lysandros was in no hurry to begin the blockade. He knew that Alliens must yield or starve, and he took Operations care that the Athenians should be made to feel dJosmTne ^^^^ sting of famine at once. The Athenian K.ist. garrisons in Chalkedon and Byzantion were sent straight to Athens, their lives being spared only on tlie condition that they should take up their abode within the city walls. His own immediate task was the estab- lishment of that Spartan supremacy which the members of the Athenian confederacy had been e.xhorted to regard as the greatest of blessings. He had now no hindrances in his path. Nowhere was the least opposition offered except in Samos, where the citizens, feeling themselves too deeply compromised by their suppression of the oligarchy (p. i6i), determined to hold out. At last Lysandros set out for Athens. A force of 150 ships, having ravaged Salamis, appeared before the „, , ^ , harbour from which scarcely more than ten Blockade of , , . , , n Peiraieus by ycars before had issued that fleet, more .ysan ros. magnificent if not so large, which was to establish the supremacy of Athens over Sicily and to win for her a Panhellenic empire. Now it was a ques- tion whether she could insist on any terms at all, or whether she must submit herself unconditionally to the . conqueror. The fust embassy sent to Agis eirortstoob- offered free alliance with Sparta, reserving to tarn peace. Athens the possession of Peiraieus and the Long Walls. By him they were referred to the Ephors, who bade them go home and return with more reasonable conditions. To the beleaguered people, in their appalling misery, this rebuff seemed to show that nothing less tlian their complete destruction would satisfy the Spartans ; but whatever doubt there might be on this point, there B c. 405- TJie Peloponnesian War. 217 was none that hundreds or thousands must starve before any arrangements could be proposed or made. One con- dition there was on which the Spartans had declared their readiness to treat ; but the Athenians could not yet bring themselves to pull down one mile in length of each of the Long Walls. Still the increasing intensity of the famine convinced them that something must be done. Thera- menes was sent on a second mission ; but three ... . ' Mission of months of frightful misery had passed before Thera- he was seen again, and even then he brought ""^"^^ from Lysandros no further answer than that terms of peace could be considered only by the Ephors. Further hesitation would be absolute ruin. The victims of famine were lying unburied throughout the city ; and Thera- menes with nine colleagues was sent to Sparta, authorised to make peace on any terms. There they were brought face to face with the representatives of the great Dorian confederacy, to which the power of Athens had long been a rock of offence. The voices of the Corinthians and Thebans were raised for her destruction ; but if the Spartans declared that they would never allow a city to be inslaved which had done so much good to liellai, we may not unjustly ascribe their mercy to a consciousness that at no very distant day the existence of Athens might be of more value to them than that of Thebes, e\en if Athens should not be needed to help them against Thebes. The discussion ended with the Final terms decree that the Athenians must pull down f^" s^^r-*"^ their walls, must yield up all their ships tans, except twelve, receive back their exiles, and follow im- plicitly the biddings of Sparta. As Theramenes and his colleagues made their way with these tidings from Peiraieus, crowds thronged round him to learn whether their miseries were now to end, or to be borne until none should be left to bear them. They were told that their 2iS The Athoiiaii Empire. ch. vu. lives and their freedom were safe ; but not until the following day were the precise terms of the peace made, known. A few still protested against the last humiliation, but they were overborne by the vast majority. The Surrender of submission of Athens was made, and the long Athens. Strife was at an end. Into that harbour from which but a little while befoie had issued the fleet which Adeimantos had decoyed to its own ruin and the ruin of Athens, Lysandros now entered with the fleet of Sparta, bringing with him those exiles whose crimes had made their names infamous. While the arsenals were dis- mantled and the unfmished ships in the docks burnt, the demolition of the Long Walls was begun to Demolition , . . _ , ° , , , of the Long the music of flute-playcrs and the measured *• movements of dancing women. Twelve ships only were left in the desolate haven of Peiraieus ; and so began, according to Spartan phrase, the first day of freedom for Hellas. Thus passed away the great Athenian empire which Themistokles had shaped, and which Perikles sought to Causes lead- surround with impregnable safeguards ; and ing to the thus was brought to nought (for that empire Athenian was never really revived) the work of these empire. {.^^q great Statesmen. No other end could be looked for, so soon as it became clear that the great Dorian state with its allies was determined to resist to the uttermost the idea which underlay the polity of Athens, and that in Athens itself a powerful minority was not less resolved on pertinacious opposition to it. This polity, even in its crudest and most imperfect form, was a protest against that spirit of isolation under which the old Eupatrid houses had grown up to power. To the form of society thus created the Spartan clung with vehement tenacity ; and in this attitude he had Ihe sympathy of the Hellenic world generally. Even B.C. 405- The Pelopojiiiesian War. 219 when the Athenian empire had reached its greatest ex- tension, and her power seemed most firmly established ; when moreover her allies must have felt that from her they received benefits which they could never have secured for themselves, they still felt a certain sore- ness at her interference with those autonomous instincts which they invested with an inviolable sanctity. These allies, although they could prove no positive grievance (p. 65), could never be brought to rejoice in the good fortune which had connected them with Athens, and they regarded the idea of separating from her with cool in- difference, if not with a more active desire. But the empire of Athens, as her enemies asserted and as her friend ssometimes maintained, was aggressive. It could not be otherwise. The same political character instincts which maintain the union of Great ^^f^®. Athenian Britain with her vast and scattered colo- empire nies led the statesmen of Athens to build up that coherent fabric which, so far as it was carried, exhibited a singular likeness to the polity of our own country. The necessities which gave birth to the Delian confederacy, and, through it, led to the more highly developed supremacy of Athens, compelled the imperial city to inteifere to a certain extent with the freedom, or rather with the Hcense, of those states which, although they might be able to do little good, could yet be power- ful for mischief, and which, if they did nothing, would reap the same benefits with those members of the con- federacy who did everything. How slight, on the whole, that interference was, how jealously Athens guarded the liberty and rights of her allies even against her own citizens, how great a protection her (?ourts afforded to those allies in their disputes with one another, and how carefully she shielded them against the attacks of foreign powers, the whole course of this history has shown. 2 20 The Athenian Empire. cir. vii. Briefly, with all their faults and crimes, the Athenians were fighting for a law and order which, they felt, could not be maintained at all if it was to be confined within the bounds of a single city. So far as they went, they were working to make a nation ; but into a nation the Hellenic tribes and cities were determined that they would not be moulded. The resistance which Athens encountered compelled her to keep her allies more thoroughly under control, and imparted to her govern- ment an appearance of despotism which, however, was at its worst a slight yoke indeed when compared with the horrors of Spartan rule. She had attempted great things, for which the world was not yet ripe ; and the cities which had been induced to band themselves ag.iinst her awoke for the most part to the conviction that they had suffered themselves to be cheated with a shadow. Henceforth there was to be no sovereign people to which the allies might appeal against the violence or injustice whether of other allied cities or of Athenian officers (p. 4) ; no Demos which inspired the oligarchic citizens with a wholesome fear ; no supreme assembly which was ready to hear complaints even against the most distinguished generals, and to punish with impartiality men of the highest or the meanest lineage. Above all, there was to be no ruling state in which everything was done by open pro- cess of law, after the confronting of the accuser with the accused, and a patient and careful examination of evi- dence. In place of this the members of the Athenian confederacy were now to feel the contrast of a system which imposed on every city the regimen of oligarchs, which governed these oligarchs by means of commis- sioners sent from Sparta, and which refused redress even for the most monstrous iniquities of these com- missioners or their myrmidons. Henceforth they were to carry to Sparta complaints such as at Athens had brought I B.C. 405. TJic Peloponnesian War. 221 a swift retribution to a general so eminent as Paches (p. 66), and to be dismissed unheard. Above all, they were to be subject to a government which condemned with- out trial, which struck without warning, and which for open law courts substituted the arbitrary action of irresponsible magistrates who through the Harmosts, or governors, of the subject cities exercised everywhere a power practi- cally absolute. Henceforth, therefore, there was to be no political growth, no generous emulation for the pro- motion of common interests, no legitimate pride even in the power of a confederacy which existed for the benefit of all its members. In short the Hellenic cities were to feel under their Dorian lords that the freedom promised by Sparta was a privilege strictly confined to masters who demanded from their subjects the unquestioning submission of slaves. \ I CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. B.C 479 PAGE 10 478 12 477 13 14 14 471 465 17 28 464 29 461 ?46o 30 31 Atheni . . . Rebuilding of the city, ar.d fortifi- cation of Peiraieus. Mission of Themistokles to Sparta. Byzaniion . . Pausanias sends to Xerxes the prisoners taken in the city, Pausanias recalled to Sparta and deprived of his command. Asia Minor . . Withdrawing from all interference in the affairs of the Asiatic Greeks, the Spartans leave the ground open for the formation of the Athenian confederacy. Sparta . . . Treason and death of Pausanias. Athens . , . Developement of the Kleisthenean constitution. Ostracism of Themistokles. Thasos . . . Revolt of Thasos, which is recon- quered after a siege of two years. Peloponnesos . . Revolt of the Helots. Dismissal of the Athenian troops by the Spartans. Alliance between Athens and Argos. Alliance of Megara with Athens. Building of the Long Walls of Megara. Athens . . . The Athenians send a fleet and army to aid the Egyptians against the Persians. Aigina , . . Siege of Aigina by the Athenians. Peloponnesos . . Defeat of the Corinthians by My- ronides Athens . . . Building of the Long Walls of Athens. 224 RC. 457 ?456 Chronological Tabic. PAGH I 31 n.T/oti,! ^8 455 52 31 32 4-17 18 34 446 443 39 440 40 436 39 40 41 ♦ 3f Athens t'eiopuiincsos Aigiiia Egypt . . Kypros (Cyprus) Mag )7 est a . Boiotia . , Euboia . , Athens . . Sa vtos Amphipolis Korkyra . fCoykvra . Defeat of the Athenians at Tan agra. Victory of tlic Athenians at Oino- phyta. Greatest extension of the Athenian empire. Banishment of Kimon. Reforms of Epliialtes, followed by his murder. The expelled Helots placed by the Athenians in Naupaktos. Siege and conquest of Aigina by ihf? Athenians. Destniction of the Athenian fl'>?t at Memphis. Final victories and death of Kimoii. Alleged convention of Kallias. Death of Themistokles. Defeat of the Athenians at Koro neia under Tolmides : Evacua- tion of Boiotia. Revolt of Euboia and Megarafrom Athens. Ostracism of Thoukydides, son of Melesias. Public works of Perikles. ICxtension of Athenian settlements to Lemnos, Imbros, Skyros, and Sinope. The revolt of Samos, effected by the oligarchical party, is followed by the revolt of Byzantion. The Samians ask help from the Spartans. The Corinthians in- sist on the right of every indepen- dent state to manage its own affairs. Founding of Amphipolis by Hag- non. The Korkymians refuse to help the demos of Epidamnos, who apply to the Corinthians. A Corinthian army admitted into Epidamnos. The proposal of the Korkyraians to submit tlie question to arbitra- tion is rejected by the Corinth- ians. Chronological Table. 12 S B.C 433 432 PAGH 43 Surrender of Epidamnos. Defensive alliance of Korkyra with Athens. Defeat of the Korkyraians by the Corinthians. As the Korkyraians are aided by the Athenians, the result is adduced as the FIRST ALT.EGEl) CAUSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 44 Potidata Embassy from Potidaia to Sparta, asking for help against Athens. The Corinthian Aristeus forces his way into Potidaia. Blockade of Potidaia by ihe Athe- nians. Hence the SECOND ALLEGED CAUSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 431 431 Megara Sparta Athens Plataia The Megarians excluded from all Athenian ports. In an assembly of Peloponnesian allies the Corinthians insist on war with Athens. Counter-argu- ments of Athenian envoys who happen to be present in Sparta. In a secret debate the ephor Sthe- nela'idas puts aside the pacific arguments of Archidamos, and a majority in the assembly decides on war. Autumn. In a congress held ai Sparta the question is put to the allies, and answered in the affir- mative by a large majority. Efforts of the Spartans to bring about the banishment of Perikles. The final demands of the Pelopon- nesians are rejected by the Athe- nians, who express their readi- ness to submit to arbitration. Prosecutions of Anaxagoras, I'hei- dias, and Aspasia. Surprise of Plataia by a party of Thebans invited by some Pla- taian citizens. A.H. 226 Chronological Table. PAGE ! 51 I 52 The Thebans in their turn surprised by the Plataians, who, in direct breach of promise, slay their prisoners. The Plataian families remove to Athens. PELOPONNESIAN WAR. FIRST YEAR. I 52 Aitica . . Pdop.yniiesos 53 Ai^^ina Megara . Athens 54 The Peloponnesian forces assem- bled at the Isthmus are led on into Attica by Archidamos, and attack Oinofi. Ravaging of the demos of Achar- nai. The Athenians attack Meth6n6, which is saved by the Spartan Brasidas. The inhabitants of Aigina, expelled by the Athenians, are allowed by the Spartans to settle in the Thy- reatis. The Athenians ravage the Megarian territory. A reserve fund of 1000 talents placed in the Akropolis. Funeral oration of Perikles. SPXOND YEAR. 430 1 56 i Athens 57! 429 44 59 Potidaia . Second invasion of Attica. Outbreak of the plague at Athens. Unpopularity of Perikles conse- quent on the ravages of the disease. He is fined, but re- elected Strategos. Terrible losses by the plague in the Athenian camp. Surrender of Potidaia. THIRD YEAR. Plataia The Spartan army invades the territory of Plataia. On the re- jection of his proposals for th*! neutrality of the Plataians, Ar- chidamos invests the place. Chronological Table. 227 PELOPONNESIAN WAR. THIRD YEAR [continued). u.c. 429 PAGE 61 62 63 428 64 65 66 ♦87 Akarnania . . Wishing to detach Akarnania from Athens, the Spartan Knemos de- termines to attack Stratos with a force of Chaonian, Molossian, and Thesprotian allies. Disorderly advance of the moun- taineers against Stratos. Defeat of the clans, and retreat of Knemos. Naupaktos . . Phormion intercepts the Corinthian fleet, and wins a splendid victory. Krete .... Fruitless Athenian expedition to Krete. Naupaktos . . The Peloponnesian fleet contrives to entice Phormion into the Corinthian gulf ; but the success of the Spartans at the first is turned into a second victory for Phormion. Salamis . . . Raid on Salamis by Brasidas and Knemos, who are compelled to give up the plan of a night attack on Peiraieus. Makedonia .. . Abortive expedition of the Thra- kian chief Sitalkes into Make- donia, FOURTH YEAR. Lesdos .... Revolt of Lesbos. On the prayer of the Lesbian en- voys who appear at the Olympic festival, a fleet of forty ships under Alkidas is ordered to sup- port the revolt. The Lakedaimonian Salaithos con- trives to enter Mytil^n^ and en- courages the oligarchs to hold out. FIFTH YEAR. Attica. . . . Invasion of Attica by the Pelopon- nesians under the Spartan Kleo menes. lAibos .... The oligarchs arm the demos, who insist on a distribution of corn, threatening in default to throw open the gates to the Athenians. <^ 2 228 Chrojiohgical Table. PELOPONNESIAN WAR. FIFTH YEAR {continued). B.C. I PAGE 427 66 67 68 69 70 71 "3 72 Lesbos Athens Plata ia Sicily . Megara Athens The Mytilenaian oligarchs make a convention with Paches. Alkidas arrives too late, and being resolved to return home, mas- sacres his prisoners by the way. The Mytilenaian prisoners, about 1000 in number, are sent to Athens, along with Salaithos, who is at once put to death. In the debate which follows, Kleon proposes the slaughter of the whole Mytilenaian people. The sentence is passed, but revoked on the ne.xt day, chiefly through the exertions of Diodotos. The prisoners at Athens are slain ; but the trireme sent to arrest the execution of the decree arrives just in time. Upwards of 200 Plataians escape from the city. The rest are com- pelled to surrender through famine, and, in accordance with the Theban plan, are all put to death. Embassy from Leontinoi to Athens to ask help against S>Tacuse. Conquest of Minoa by Nikias. Second outbreak of plague in the summer. ^26 73 74 SIXTH YEAR. ^felos .... Unsuccessful expedition of Nikias to the Spartan colonies of Melos and Thera. Trachis . . . Foundation of the Spartan colony of Herakleia. Akatnania . . Demosthenes resolves on a cam- paign in Aitolia, with the view of advancing into Boiotia and there restoring the supremacy of Athens. His defeat and return to Naiipak- tos. Defeat of the Ambrakiots at Ido- mcn6. Chronotogical Table. 220 PELOPONNESIAN WAR. SEVENTH YEAR. I..C. PAGH 4^5 74 78 79 80 81 82 83 Pyloi Athens Pylos Athens Pylo% Demosthenes occupies Pylos, from which Brasidas tries in vain to dislodge him. Defeat of the Spartan fleet in ihe harbour of Sphalcteria. Blockade of the Spartan hoplites in the island. Terms of truce arranged on the surrender of the Spartan fleet to the Athenian generals. Spartan envoys appear at Athens with proposals for peace. Kleon brings about their ignominious dismissal. On the ending of the truce the Athenians refuse to restore the Spartan fleet. Distress of the besieging force. The news from Pylos causes great dissatisfaction at Athens. Nikias treacherously abandons his com- mand to Kleon, who promises to return victorious in twenty days. Kleon leaves the arrangement of the plan of assault to Demos- thenes. Attack on Sphakteria. Capture of 292 hoplites, who are conveyed to Athens. Establishment of a pennanent Athenian garrison. f24 84 85 86 EIGHTH YEAR. Pehponnews . . The Athenians occupy Kythera, and take Thyrea by storm. The Aiginetans captured within it are taken to Athens and put to death. Alleged massacre of 2000 Helots by the Spartans, who receive overtures from Perdikkas and the Chalkidic towns for com- bined operations against the Athenian empire. Mission of Brasidas to Thrace. 2^0 Chronological Table. rELOPONNESIAN WAR. EIGHTH YEAR {conlinued). B.C. PAGE 424 87 114 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 Pelopon7iesos. Sicily . . . Boiotia . . Thrace The Athenians take Nisaia, but retreat from Megara when Bra- sidas offers battle. The Meg;irians demolish their Long Walls. In the congress of Sicilian Greeks at Gela, Hermokrates inveighs against the aggressiveness of the Athenians. General peace be- tween the Sikeliot cities. Failure of the plan concerted be- tween Demosthenes and Hippo- krates for the subjugation of Boiotia. The Athenians fortify Delion. Battle of Delion. Victfiry of the Thebans, who refuse to yield up the Athenian dead. Assault and capture of Delion. Brasidas appears before Akanthot, where the people are averse to the idea of revolt from Athens. The REVOLT OF Akanthos is brought about by the eloquence and threats of Brasidas, sup- ported by the oligarchic faction. Surrenderor Amphipolis to Brasi- das. Thucydides arrives on the same day at ETon. For his remissness in failing to save Amphipolis, Thucydides is banished or goes into voluntary exile. Brasidas takes Tor6n^, and dis- courses to the people on the blessings of Spartan freedom. NINTH YEAR. ;a3 95 I Sparta . . . The Spartans draw up terms for a I year's truce, which is acceptixJ by the Athenians, the basis Iteing j generally the maintenance of the status quo. Chronological Table. 231 PELOPONNESIAN WAR. NINTH YEAR {continued). B.C. PAGE 423 95 96 Thrace Brasidas is received into Skion^ against the wishes of the party favourable to Athens, and by his eloquence wins for himself an enthusiastic welcome. The commissioners arrive to an- nounce the truce. Brasidas in- sists that Skion^ revolted before it began. Revolt of MendS from Athens. Perdikkas resolves to ally himself again with the Athenians. Recovery of MendS by the Athe- nians. t?:nth year. 422 97 ' Athens 98 100 Thrace Kleon is placed in command of an army for operations in Thrace. Recovery of Toronfi by Kleon. Battle of Amphipolis. Death of Brasidas and of Kleon. ELEVENTH YEAR. *21 lOI 102 XO3 Athens . . . Ratification of the peace of Nikias. The peace is not accepted by the Corinthians, Boiotians, and Me- garians ; and the Chalkidians refuse to give up Amphipolis. Amphipolis . . Klearidas withdraws the Pelopon- nesian garrison. Athens . . . Separate treaty between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians surrender the prisoners taken at Sphakteria. Peloponnesos . . The Argives, urged by the Corinth- ians, invite adhesions to their confederacy, which is joined by the Mantineians, theEleians, and the Chalkidians of Thrace. The Tegeans refuse to join it. The Athenians are induced to with- draw the Messenians and Helots from Pylos. 232 Chronological Table. PELOPONNESIAN WAR. TWELFTH YEAK. B.C. 420 PAGE 104 lOS 419 106 107 Peloponnesos . 418 108 109 The Spartans make a separate treaty with the Boiotians in vio- lation of the terms of their agree- ment with the Athenians. Athens . . . The Athenians refuse to give up Pylos in exchange for the site of the demohshed fort of Panakton. Alkibiades stirs up their feehngs of displeasure against the Spar- tans, and, having induced the Argives, Mantineians, and Ele- ians to send envoys to Athens, cheats the Spartan ambassadors into a denial of the powers with which they had been entrusted. Defensive alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and Mantineia. THIRTEENTH YEAR. Peloponnesos . . Alkibiades makes a progress through Achaia. His plans at Patrai and Rhion are; foiled by the Corinthians. Tlie Athenians bring back to Pylos the Helots and Messenians whom they had placed in Kephallenia. FOURTEENTH YEAR. Invasion of Argos by the Spartans under Agis. Desperate danger of the Argive army, from which they are rescued by two of their generals, who obtain a truce for four months. Indignation on both sides. The people of Tegea ask help from Sparta. Agis advances into the territory of Mantineia. Battle of Mantineia. Com- plete victory of the Spartans, who thus regain their old position. Oligarchical conspiracy at Argos l)y the Thousand and others. Mantineia joins the confederacy of Sparta. Chronological Table. 233 PELOPONNESIAN WAR. FIFTEENTH YEAR. B.C. PAGE no Peloponnesos . . Rising of the Argive demos againsi the oligarchs. Building of the Long Walls of Argos, which in the following winter are destroyed by Agis. Thrace . . . Failure of an Athenian expedition for the recovery of Amphipolis. SIXTEENTH YEAR. 416 I A/e/os 1 m "5 Athens Expedition of the Athenians to coerce Melos into their confede- racy. The massacre of Melos. Arrival of envoys from Egesta in Sicily to ask help against the people of Selinous. The Eges- taians promise to bear the costs of the war. SEVENTEENTH YEAR. 415 18 120 121 Syracuse The envoys sent to Egesta return with a glowing account of its wealth. The Athenians appoint Nikias, Alkibiades, and Lamachos gene- rals of an expedition to maintain the cause of Egesta, and to further Athenian interests gene- rally in Sicily. The expedition is opposed by Nikias, and vehemently urged on by Alkibiades. The scale of the enterprise is in- creased owing to the require- ments of Nikias. Mutilation of the Hermai. Accusation of Alkibiades for pro- fanation of the mysteries ; his trial posponed until after his re- call from Sicily. Departure of the fleet from Athens. Hermokrates warns the Syracusans of the coming invasion. His statements are contradicted by Athenagoras. 234 Chronological Table. PELOPONNESIAN WAR. SEVENTEENTH VE/\R {continued). B.C. 41: 123 124 125 126 127 129 Italy . Sicily Sparta , The Athenian fleet reaches Rhe- gion. The wealth of Egesta is discovered to be a cheat. Alkibiades fails in an attempt to gain the alliance of Mess^nfi. The Athenian fleet sails to Syra- cuse. The Athenians occupy KatanS. Recall of Alkibiades, who escapes from Thoiu-ioi and is sentenced to death by the people in his absence. By a stratagem Nikias draws off the Syracusan force to Katanfi, while the Athenian fleet lands the army in the Great Harbour. The Athenians win a victory, which is turned to no account. Nikias loses the opportunity for invest- ing Syracuse while yet imper- fectly fortified. The fleet takes up its winter quar- ters at Naxos. The Kamarinaians, after hearing the Syracusan Hermokrates and the Athenian Euphemos, resolve to remain neutral. Alkibiades vu-ges the active resump- tion of the war against Athens, the mission of a Spartan general to Syracuse, and the establish- ment of a permanent garrison in Attica. EIGHTEENTH YEAR. 414 132 Syracuse 134 Surprise of Epipolai by the .Athe- nians, who build a fort on Lab- dalon. The SjTacusans raise their first counter-work, which is taken by the .Athenians. Capture of the second Syracusan counter-work. Laniachos is killed. The Athenian fleet enters the Great Harbour. Chronological Table. 235 PELOPONNESIAN FAGH 13-1 136 138 WAR. EIGHTEENTH YEAR [contimted). . The Athenians again have every- thing in their favour. Nikias loses the golden opportunity. Gylippos reaches Italy. Neglect of Nikias to intercept him. Gylippos enters Syracuse. He takes the fort on Labdalon. Nikias fortifies Plemmyrion. The Syracusans, being first beaten, defeat the Athenians. Nikias writes for further help from Athens. 139 NINETEENTH YEAR. Attica The Peloponnesians ravage Attica, and by fortifying Dekeleia beein the so-called 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 DEKELEIAN WAR. Syracuse ... A naval victory of the Athenians is made worthless by the loss of Plemmyrion, which is taken by Gylippos, Some reinforcements for Syracuse are cut off by the Sikel chiefs in the interior. The destruction of the fleet of Nikias is prevented by the arri- val of Demosthenes with seventy- three triremes. Failure of the attempt of Demos- thenes to break the Syracusan counter-wall by a night attack on Epipolai. Nikias refuses to retreat, or even to withdraw the fleet to Katanfi or Naxos. Finally, after resolving on retreat, he retracts his consent owing to an ecUpse of the moon, and re- fuses to move for tweniy-sevec days. Defeat of the Athenian fleet, and death of Eurymedon. 2i,6 Chronological Table. PELOPONNESfAN (DEKELEIAN) WAR. YEAR {continued). NINETEENTH B.C. 4^3 PAGE 148 150 152 >53 154 156 157 158 Syracuse . The Syracusans close up the mouih of tlie Great Harbour. Ruin of tlie Athenian fleet in the battle fought to break through the barrier. The Athenian retreat delayed by a stratagem of Hermokrates. After a retreat of terrible suffering, extended over seven days, the division of Demosthenes surren- Uers on a promise that the lives of all shall be safe. Destruction of the force ol Nikias on the banks of the Assinaros. Nikias surrenders himself to Gylippos. The prisoners are thrown into the quarries of Epi- polai. In defiance of the com- pact made with him, Demos- thenes is put to death along with Nikias. . The Athenian slaves desert in large bodies to the Spartans at De- keleia. TAe Egean and \ The Euboians and Lesbians ask Asia Minor, j" help from Sparta in their medi- tated revolt against Athens. The Persian king claims the tribute assessed on the Asiatic Greeks. Phamabazos seeks to induce the Spartans to transfer the war to the Hellespont. By the influence of .Mkibiades, the Spartans determine to aid the Chians first. Attica TWENTIETH YEAR. 41a «59 The Athenians demand a squadron of ships from the Chians, ac- cording to the terms of the alli- ance. Alkibiades sails with Chalkideus for Chios, and brings about the revolt of that island, which is Chronological Table. 2X\ 412 PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN OR IONIAN) WAR. TWENTIETH YEAR [contimiei). followed by that of Lebedos and j Erai. On hr iring of tliese r6o j revolts, the Athenians resolve to I make use of the reserve funds in the Akropolis (p. 53). The Egean avd\ Revolt of Miletos. First treaty Asia hi in or | between the Spartans and the Persians. 161 Insurrection of the people of Samos against the oligarchical government : 200 of the oli- garchic party killed, 400 ban- ished, and their property con- fiscated. 162 Revolt in Lesbos. The Athe- nians storm Mytilene and re- duce the whole island. The Athenians ravage Chios. 162 The Athenians fortify Delphinion and again ravage Chios. 165 Second treaty between the Spartans and Tissapherties. [66 Lichas repudiates the two treaties made by the Spartans with the Persians. The revolt of Rhodes from Athens brought about by the oligarchic faction. 167 The Spartans send an order foi the assassination of Alkibiades, who takes refuge with Tissa- 168 phernes, and makes overtures to the oligarchs serving among the Athenians at Samos, promising them the help of the Persian king, if the Athenian democracy is put down. 169 The envoys sent from Samos to Alkibiades return with assurances which make the oligarchs eager to carry out their schemes. 171 Protest of Phrynichos, who out-manoeuvres Alkibiades. 23^ Oironological Tabic. PEI B.C. 412 -OPONNESIAN (DEKELEIA.X OR IONIAN) WAR. TWENTIETH YEAR [lontlnued). FACE 171 173 174 175 Athens The Reeu Peisandros comes as an envoy from Samos, saying that the Persian king will supply them witli money, if the Athenians will receive Alkibiades and change their constitution. The Athenians appoint ten com- missioners to settle matters with Alkibiades and Tissaphemes. Peisandros organises the conspi- racy in which Antiphon eagerly takes part, aided by Theramene's and afterwards by Phrynichos. Alkibiades baffles the Athenian commissioners, by demanding that the Persian king shall main- tain a fleet in the Egean. Third treaty betiueen Tissapherna aiid the Spartans. TWENTY-FIRST YEAR. 411 Asia Minor 176 177 178 179 T ha SOS Athens Sa fnos Revolt of Abydos and Lampsakos from Athens. Lampsakos is retaken by the Athe- nians. An oligarchy set up in Thasos, which soon after revolts from Athens. By a series of assassinations, the oligarchical conspirators set up a reign of terror. The Demos is made to vote for the government of the Four Hun- dred and the Five Thousand. E.xpulsion of the Kleisthenean council of the Five Hundred. The first overtures of the Four Hundred are rejected by Agis, who, failing in an attempt to surprise Athens, allows a second set of envoys to go to Spaita. The Athenian army resolve to maintain the Kleisthenean con- stitution, and send Chaireas to Chronological Table. 239 PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN OR IONIAN) WAR. TWENTY-FIRST YEAR [continued). Athens, where he is seized by the Four Hundred. Making his es- cape, he returns to Samos. Samos .... The Athenians and Samians join in solemn oaths to maintain the old laws of Athens, and declare Athens in revolt from the people. Thrasyboulos brings Alkibiades to Samos, where he is elected Strategos by the citizens. The envoys from the conspirators at Athens are sent back with the answer that the Four Hundred must be put down. Athens . . . Theramenes insists that the Five Thousand shall be made a reality. The Four Hundred send envoys to Sparta, offering unconditional submission, and fortify Eetionia for the purpose of consummating their treason. Destruction of Eetionia. The Four Hundred propose a com- promise. Euboia . . . Total defeat of the AtheniAn fleet under Thymochares. Revolt of Euboia from Athens. A/hens . . . The Four Hundred are suppressed. Practical restoration of the Peri- klean polity. Trial and condemnation of Anti- phon. Asia Minor . Revolt of Byzantion from Athens. The Spartans send Mindaros to supersede Astyochos. Tissaphernes sends back the Phe- nician fleet from Aspendos. Victory of the Athenians imder Thrasyboulos and Thrasylos off Kynossema. Defeat of Dorieus and Mindaros in the bay of Dardanos. B.C. PAGE 180 411 181 183 18S 186 188 189 190 191 194 240 Ckrotwlogical Table. PELOPONNESIAN {DEKELEIAN OR IONIAN) WAR TWENTY-SECOND YEAR. B.C. PAGH 410 195 Asia Minor . . Theramenes sails to the Athenian naval station at Kardia, where he is joined by Alkibiades after his escape from prison at Sardeis. Battle of Kyzikos. Death of Mindaros ; destruction of the Peloponnesian fleet. By seizing Chrysopolis, the port of Chalkedon, the Athenians again become masters of the highway of the Hellespont. TWENTY-THIRD YEAR. 409 196 197 Py^os Megaf Attack of the Spartans on Pylos. The Athenian Anytos fails ic succour the besieged Messenians, who are compelled to surrender. The Megarians recover the fort of Nisaia. ♦08 TWENTY-FOURTH YEAR. Asia Minor . , The Athenians reduce Chalkedon and Byzantion. The Athenian envoys on their way to Sousa are stopped by Cyrus^ who is sent down as the Per- sian commander-in-chief in Asia Minor. 407 198 '99 TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR. Lysandros organizes the oligarchi- cal clubs. Athens . . . Return of Alkibiades as general to Athens, where he conducts the Eleusinian procession along the Sacred Road. T/ie Egian . . Antiochos, the sailing-master of Alkibiades, disobeys orders, challenges Lysandros, and is de- feated off Notion. Oironological Table. 241 PELOPONNESIAN (DEKELEIAN OR IONIAN) WAR. TWENTY-FIFTH YEAR {continued). S.C. I PAGE 407 200 406 I CO I 203 204 206 207 208 209 2TO The Egcan . . Alkibiades, having attacked and plundered Kymg, a town of the Athenian confederacy.is deposed from his command by the people. TWENTY-SIXTH YEAR. Kallikratidas, having succeeded I.ysandros, blockades Konon in Mytilene. An Athenian trireme conveys the news to Athens, whence a fleet of no ships is sent to his aid. Battle of Argennoussai. Complete victory of the Athe- nians. Death of Kallikratidas. The Athenian generals commission Theramenes and Thrasyboulos to rescue the crews of the dis- abled vessels. A siorm prevents the execution of the order. . A despatch from the generals makes known these facts : and Theramenes resolves to destroy the generals, six of whom, re- turning to Athens, are charged with neglecting to save the crews. Theramenes avails himself of the festival of Apatouria to increase the feeling against them. The proposal of Kallixenos that the people shall proceed at once tc pronounce judgement on all the six together, is submitted to the people. Protest of Sokrates. Euryptolemos vainly tries to secure for them a legal trial. Murder of the six generals. , , Appomiment of Lysandros as secretary to Arakos. Athens Spa "ta A.H. 242 CJironological Table. PELOPONNESIAN (DKKliLElAN OR IONIAN) WAR. TW ENTY-SEVENTH VEAR. B C. to5 i'A(;e 2IO ' The Egean 212 2l6 2lS Atkem Lysandros lakes Lampsakos. The Athenian fleet of i8o tiirenie-,, posted at Aigospotamoi, is be- trayed into the hands of Lysan- dros, who orders all the Athenian prisoners to be put to death. Escape of Konon to Kypros (Cy- prus). Blockade of Peiraieus by Lysan- dros. Surrender of the city, followed by the dismantling of The Lon^ Walls. INDEX ABY A BYDOS, 175 I\. Acharnai, ravaging of, 52 Achradina, 127 Adeimantos, 210, 213 Admetos the Molossian, 17 /Egina,>1Lginetans[Aigina,Aiginetansl iEgospotami [Aigospotamoi] /Etolia [Aitolia] Agathon, rS8 Agis, king of Sparta, 74 ; grants a truce to the Argives, 108 ; wins the battle of Mantineia, 109 ; attacks Athens unsuccessfully, 179 Aigina, siege of, 30 ; fall of, 31 Aiginetans expelled by the Athenians, 53, 85 Aigospotamoi, 210 Aitolia, 73 Akanthos, 90 Akamanians, 73, 74 Alkibiades, early career of, 104 ; de- ceives the Spartan en%roys, 105 . in terference of, in Peloponnesos, 106 ; appointed to command in Sicily, 1 16 : innocent of all share in the plot of the Hermokopidai, 120 ; accused of profanation, 121 ; recall and flight of, 125 ; at Sparta urges the renewal of the war and the fortification of Dekeleia, 129 ; brings about the re- volt of the Chians and other allies of Athens, 159 ; makes his escape to Tissaphemes, 167 ; writes to the Athenian oligarchs at Samos, 168 ; and Phrynichos, 171 ; breaks with the oligarchic plotters, 174 ; at Sa- mos, 182 ; at Aspendos, 190; victory of, in the bay of Dardanos, 194 ; at Kyzikos, igs*; return of, to Athens, IQ9 ; plunders Kvme, and is de- ATH prived of his command, 200 ; warnt the_ Athenian generals at Aigospota- moi, 211 Alkidas, 66 Allies of Athens, tetpper cf the, 193 Ambrakiots, 7;, 74 Amphipolis, foundation of, 28, 39 ; Oc- cupied by Brasidas, 9.1 Anaxagoras, 48 Antiochos, 200 Antiphon, 173, 184, 188 Anytos, 196 Apatouria, 206 Arakos, 210 Archidamos, 46, 52, 56, 68 Archonship at Athens, 37 Areiopagos, 37 Argennoussai, 202 Arginusae [Argennoussai] Argos, formation of a new confeder- acy under, 103 ; invasion of by Spartans ax-d Corinthians, lo; . re volutions at, 109, no Aristeides, 6, 16 ; assessment of, 28 Aristokrates, 158 Arrhibaios, 96 Artaxerxes, 17, 19 Aspasia, 48 Assassinations, political, at Athens, 177 Astyochos, 165, 188 Athenagoras, 123 Athenian character, question of tnc deterioration of the, during the Peloponnesian war, 192 ; causes ot the deterioration of the, 192, 207 Athenian constitution. 37 Athenian dislike of responsibility, 156, 200 Athenian empire, rise of the. 25 ei seg.; character of the, 319 244 Index. ATH EKK Athenian fleet, destroyed at Memphis, 31 ; snared at Aigospotamoi, 212 \thenian seamen, reputation of, 6 ; naval tactics, 43 Athenians, vdctorious at Oinophyta, 31 ; defeated at Koroneia, evacuate Boiotia, 34 ; make a defensive alli- ance with the Korkyraians, 43 ; not chargeable with the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war, 49 ; place a reserve fund in the Akropolis, 53 ; decree the massacre of the people of Mytilene, 67 ; withdraw the decree, 69 ; slaughter the Mytilenaian pri- soners, 69 ; occupy Kythera, 84 ; de- feated at Delion, 88 ; surrender the hoplites taken at Sphakteria, 102 ; make a defensive alliance withArgos, 106 ; try, unsuccessfully, to recover Amphipolis, no; massacre the Me- lians. III ; decree an expedition to Sicily, 116 ; win a victory in the harbour of Syracuse, and lose Plemmyrion, 140 ; their fleet de- feated by Gylippos, 142 ; fail utterly in the Sicilian expedition, _ 153 ; make use of the reserve fund in the Akropolis, 160 ; fortify Delphinion, and ravage Chios, 162 ; at Samos resolve to treat Athens as a revolted city, 180 ; lose Euboia, 186 ; sup- press the Four Hundred, 187 ; victorious at Kynossema, 191; in the bay of Dardanos, 194 ; at Kyzikos, igS ; lose Pylos, 196 ; and Nisaia, 197 ; make a convention with Phar- nabazos, 197 : victorious at Argen- noussai, 202 ; murder the six gene- rals, 209 ; lose their fleet at Aigospo- tamoi, 212 Athens, relation of, to her allies, 27, 65 ; and Sparta, two distinct political centres, 7 ; fortification of, 9 ; em- pire of, 28 ; Long Walls of, 30.; land-empire of, js ; plagae at, 55 ; oligarchical revolution at, 177 Long Walls of, pulled down, 218 BOIOTIA, movement in, in favour of Athens, 87 Boiotians reject the peace of Nikias, 102 Boudoron, 64 Biasidas relieves Methone, 53 ; sent to the fleet of Knemos, 62 ; proposes a night-attack od Peiraieus, 63 ; at Pylos, 77 ; at Megara, 87 ; in llies saly, 90 : at Akanthos, 90 . at Am- phipolis, 91 ; at Torone, 94 ; at Skione, 95 ; killed in the battle of Amphipolis, 100 Byzantion revolts against Athens. 40 second revolt of, 195, 197 CHAIREAS, 180 Chalkedon, 197 Chalkideus, 158 Chios revolts from Athens. 159 ravaged, 162 Corcyra [Korkyra] Corinthians, 9 ; quarrel with their colony of Korkyra, 41 ; defeated by Phormion, 61, 63 ; reject the peace of Nikias, 102 ; join the Argive confederacy, 103 ; demand the dc struction of Athens, 217 Cyrus, the younger, 197 DASKON, 126 Dekeleia, 129 Delian confederacy, 4, 5 Delion, 87 Delos, synod of. 26. 27 Delphinion, 162 Demos at Mytilene, 66 Demosthenes, failure of, in Aitolia.73 , his successes against the Ambrakiots, 74 ; occupies Pylos, 75 ; at Nisaia, 86 ; at Siphai, 87 ; brings reinforce- ments to Syracuse, 142 ; fails in the night-attack on Epipolai, 143 ; his resolution to retreat opposed by Nikias, 144 ; abandons the lines along Epipolai, 147 ; surrender of, 152 ; murder of, 154 Diitrephes, 176 Diodotos and Kleon, 68 Diomedon, 180, 202 : murder of, 209 Dorieus, 189, 194 Doriskos, 24 Dorkis, 24 EETIONIA, 183 Egesta, 114, 12^ Egypt, revolt of against Ariax'trxft**. hion, Q4 Ekklesia. 37 Index. 245 EPH Ephialtes, 36 ; murdered, 38 Epidamnos, 40 Epidauros, 107 Epipolai, 132 Epitadas, 77, 81 Erai, 161 Erasinides, murder of, 209 Eresos, 190 Erythrai, 159 Eteonikos, 202, 203, 210 Euagoras, 212 Euboia, revolt of, against Athens, 34 ; second revolt of, 185 Eukles, 92 Euphemos, 127 Euryelos, 135 Eurylochos, 74 Eurymedon, the river, 28 Eurymedon, the Athenian general, ^ "3, 145 Eurvptolemos, 207 Euthydemos. 139 FIVE HUNDRED, 177 Five Thousand, 178 Forced letters of Pausanias and The- mistokles, 12 Four Hundred, 178 Funeral oration of Perikles, 54 GELA, Congress of, 114 Geomoroi, 161 Gongylos, the Eretrian, 12 Gorgias, 113 Graphe ParanomSn, 178, 207 Gylippos sent to Syracuse, 130 ; enters the city, 135 HAGNON, 39 Heliaia, 37 Helots, revolt of the, 29 ; placed at Naupaktos, 32 ; massacre of, 85 Heralileia in Trachis, 73, 197 Hermai, mutilation of the, 120 Hermokopidai, 125 Hermokrates at congress of Gela, 114 ; deprived of his command, 134 ; de- lays the retreat of the Athenians by a stratagem, 150 ; at Miletos, 164, 189 Hetairiai, 173 Hippokrates, £6 ; killed at Delion, 88 - the Spartan, 195 ' TDOMENE, 74 1. Imbros, 39 lonians. 4 KALLIAS, convention of, 31 Kallikratidas, 200, 202 Kallixenos, 207 Kamarina, 125, 127 Katanc, 124 Kephisodotos, 210, 214 Kimon, victory of, at the Eurymedou, 28 ; at Ithome, 29 ; ostracism of, 38 ; death of 3? Kition, 32 Klazomenai, 159 Klearchos, 188 Kleisthenes, 2 Kleisthenean ccnstitution, 3 ; restora- tion of the, after the tyranny of the Four Hundred, 187 Kleon, urges the massacre of the Myti- lenaians, 67 ; terms demanded by, as conditions of peace with Sparta, 79 ; brings about the dismissal of the Spartan envoys, 80 ; and Nikias, 82 ; at Pylos, 83 ; and Thucydides, 93 ; sent to Thrace, 97 ; killed in the battle of Amphipolis, 100 ; general policy of, loi Klerouchoi, 39 Knemos, 61 Konon, 200 ; blockaded at Mytilene, 202 ; escapes from Aigospotamoi, 212, 214 Korkyra, quarrel of, with Corinth, 40 Korkyraians ask aid of Athens, 42 Koroneia, battle of, 34 Koryphasion [PylosJ Kritias, 206 Kyme, 200 Kynossema, 191 Kythera, 84 Kyzikos, battle of, 195 LABDALON, 132 Lamachos appointed to command in Sicily, 116 : his plan of operations, 124 ; his death, 133 Lampsakos, 18, 175, 21 Laureion, 129 Lebedos, 161 Lemnos, 39 Leon, 179 Leontinoi, 113 Lesbians ask aid of Sparta, 6s 246 J 71 a ex. LES Lesbos, revolt of, from Athens, 64 ; envoys from, heard at Olympia, 65 ; second revolt of, 162 Lichas, 166, 189 Long Walls of Megara, 30, 30. 87 of Athens, 30, 218 of Argos, no Lynkestai, 96 Lysandros, 198, 210, 216, 218 M- AGNESIA, 18 Mandane, 19 Mantineia, battle of, 109 Maskames, 25 Megara, allies herself with Athens, 29 ; revolts, 34, 80 ; refuses to recognise the peace of Nikias, 104 Melos, 73 ; massacre of, 111 Menandros, 139, 210, 213 Mende, 96 Methone, 52 Metoikoi, 7 Miletos, 160 Mindaros, 189, 195 Minoa taken by Nikias, 72 Mounychia, u, 39 Myronides, 31 Mytilene, invested by I'nches, 65 ; surrenders, 66 ; punishment of, 69 NAVARINO, 75 Naupaktos, 62 Nikias, takes Minoa, 72 ; and K icon, 82 : peace of, 101 ; appointed to command in Sicily, 116; opposes the expedition, 117 ; caught in his own trap, log ; asks for reinforce- ments at Syracuse, lyi', fails to pre- vent the entry of Gylippos into Syra- cuse, 135 ; letter of, to the Athe- nians, 138 ; refuses to retreat, 145 ; surrender of, 153 ; death of, 154 Misaia, 29, 79, 197 OINOPIIV'TA. battle of, 31 Olii'.-irchs, intrigues of, 24 ■ at Athens 177 ft scq. Olpai, 7 j Oratioi., funeral, of Perikles, 54 Ortygia, 126 SIL! Panakton, 102, 103 Paralos, 58 Paranomun Graphe. 178, 20" Parthenon, 39 Patrai, 107 Pausanias, 11, 19, 21 Pegai, 29, 79 Peiraieus, fortification of, n ; propovoi of Rrasidas to attack, 64 Peisandros, 17^, 172, 178 Peloponnesian war, the Allienians not chargeable with the outbreak of the. 49. Perdikkas, 64, 90, 06 Perikles, builds tn- Long Walls o( Athens, 30 ; and Kimon, 32 ; cha- racter of, 36 ; iiilrigues of the Spar- tans against, 47 ; funeral oration of, I 54 ; later yf-.ars of, 58 Perikles, son of Aspasia. 48. 58 ; mur- der of, ^-oy Phaleron 1 1 Pharnaliazos, 157, 196 Pheidiab, 48 Phil'ikles, 210, 212 P)i(;rmioii. victories of, in the Cormth- lan Gulf, 61, 63 Phr^michos, 165 ; protests a^^^ainst the proposed oligarchical revolution at Athens, 170: superseded, 180; mur- dered, 185 Plague at Athens, 55 Plataia, surprised by the Thebans, 50 . attacked by the Spartans, 59 : siege of. 60 ; destruction of, 70 Plemmyrion, 136 Potidaia revolts against Athens, 44 Probouleutic senate, 37 Propylaia, 39 Prytaneis, 20S Pylos occupied by Demosthenes, 75 : recovered by the Spartans. 196 J ACHES, OS Pagondas, RHION, 107 Rhodes revolts from Athens, 166 SALAITHOS, 66, 67 Samians, revolt of the, 40 ; re- volt of the demos in favour of Athens, i6i ; hold out against Lysandros, 216 Selinous, 114 Seuthes, 64 Sicily, first interference of the Athe- niall^ in the affairs of, 113 : failure of the /\ih«;nians \n. i^i Index. 247 SIN Sinope, 39 Sitallces, 64 Skione, 9s Skyros, 3^ Sokrates, 208 Solon, imprecation of, 2 Spartans withdraw from further inter- ference in the struggle with Persia, 25 ; ask Athenian aid against the Helots, 29 ; summon a council of their allies, 44 ; in a secret debate decide that the Athenians have broken the Thirty Years' Truce, 47 ; promise to aid the allies of Athens, 5i8, 40, 44, 49, 64 ; send embassy to Athens for peace, 79 ; accept peace of Nikias, loi ; first treatj^ of, with the Persians, 160; second treaty, 165 ; third treaty, 175 ; dictate terms of peace to Athens, 217 Sphakteria, geography of, 75 ; Spartan hoplites in, 78, 83 Stageiros, 91 Sthenelaidas, 47 Stratonike, 64 btratos, 61 Strombichides. 160 Syracuse, 126 TANAGRA, battle of, 31 Thasians, revolt of the, 28 second revolt, 176 XEN Thebans, the, surprise Plataia, 30 . bring about the destruction of the city, 71 ; demand the destruction ol Athens, 217 _ Themistokles, policy of, 4 ; mission of, to Sp'Jta, 10; ostracism of, 17 : al- leged treason of, 20 et scg. Thera, 73 Theramenes, son of Hagnon, 174, 183 ; accuses the generals, 204 ; sent to Sparta, 217 Thirty Years' Truce, 35 Thoukydides, son of Melesias, 39 Thousand Regiment at Argos, 109 Thrasyboulos, 181 Thrasylos, 181, 191 Thucydides fails to defend AmphipoIi^ 92 ; saves Eion, 92 ; banished, 9-: Thymochares, 186 Thyrea, the Aiginetans at, 53, 85 Tissaphernes, 157, 189 Torone, 94, 98 Tribes of Kleisthenes, 178 Tribute of the Asiatic Greeks, 18 Troizen, 35, 79 Tydeus, 210, 213 XANTHIPPOS. 5S Xenelasiaj. 48 ^ 'v^V;-'^ .. 't ■«• ' \ UHV-' Printed by Ballantyne, Hansom <2r» Co. Edinburgh S^ London i Epochs of English History. Edited by MANDELL CREIGPITON, D.D., LL.D., LATE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. EARLY ENGLAND TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. By F. York Powell, M.A. is. ENGLAND A CONTINENTAL POWER, 1066-1216. By Mrs. Mandell Creighton. gd. RISE OF THE PEOPLE AND THE GROWTH OF PARLIA- MENT, 1215-1485. By James Rowley, M.A. gd. TUDORS AND THE REFORMATION, 1485-1603. By Mandell Creighton, D.D., LL.D., late Bishop of London, gd. STRUGGLE AGAINST ABSOLUTE MONARCHY, 1603-1688. By Mrs. S. K. Gardiner, gd. SETTLEMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION, 1689-1784. By James Rowley, M.A. gd. ENGLAND DURING THE AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN WARS from 1765 to I £20. By the Rev. O. W. Taxcock, M.A. gd. MODERN ENGLAND, from 1820 to 1897. Bv Oscar Browning, M.A. gd. EPOCHS OF ENGLISH HISTORY. Edited by MANDELL CREIGHTON, D.D., LL.D., LATE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. Complete in One Volume, with 27 Tables and Pedigrees and 23 Ma Fcap. 8vo, ss. THE SHILLING HISTORY OF ENGLAND. An Introductory Volume to " Epochs of English History." By MANDELL CREIGHTON, D.D., LL.D., LATE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON- Fcap. 8vO, IS. MODERN FRANCE, from 1814 to 1879. By Oscar Browning, M.A Fcap. 8vo, 15. LONGMANS, GREEN. AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY. Epochs of Ancient History, EDITED liY ■; HE Rev. Sir GEORGE ^VILLIA^r COX, Bart., M.A. LATH SCHOLAR OF TKINITY COLLEGE, OXFORD AND JOINTLY BY CHARLES SANKEV, M.A. LATE SCHOLAR OF QUEEN's COLLEGK, OXFORD. lo Volumes. Price 2s. 6d. each. GREECE. The GREEKS and the PERSIANS. By the Rev. Sir <;. W. Cox, Mart., M.A., Joint-Editor c f ihe Series. With 4 Coloured Maps. The ATHENIAN EMPIRE from the FLIGHT of XF.KXKS to tlie F.\LL of ATHKNS. I'.y t:.e Kev. S:r G. W. Cox, Bart., M..\., Joint-Editor of the Series W.th 5 Maps. The SPARTAN and THEBAN SUPREMACIES. By Chakle.-. .Sankev, M.A., Joint-Editor of tiic Scries. \\'i:.'i 5 Map-^. The RISE of the MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. By Akthur M. Curteis, M.A.,formerIv Fell wof Trinity College, Oxford. With 8 Map*. ROME. ROME to its CAPTURE by the GAULS. By Wilhelm IiiNi:, Auliior 01 '" History o; Koine." With a Coloured Map. ROME and CARTHAGE, the PUNIC WARS. By R. I'osw' v in Smiih, M a, formerly .Assistant- M.istcr, Harrow Schol. With 9 Maps and Plan-.. The GRACCHI, MARIUS, and SULLA. Bv A. II. I'.EEsi.v, M.A. With -• Maps. The ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By Charles Merivale, I). D., late I'oaa of Ely. Wiih a Co ourcd .Map. The EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE. From the Assassina- tion o' I; Lit s C vs.\i: t .> the .\ss.,ssiiiation of 1 )t>M ITIAN. By the Rev. W. W ,.i.KE Caies, .M..\. Willi 2 Coloured Maps. The ROMAN EMPIRE cf the SECOND CENTURY, or the AGE of the .\N lOMNE.S. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Cafes, M.A. With 3 Coiourcd -M.nps. LONGMANS. GREEN, AND CO. LONDO.N. NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY Epochs of Church History Edited by the Right Hon. and Right Rev. M. CREIGHTON, D.D.. LATE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON. Fcap. 8vo, price 2s. 6d. each. "Among the series of class-books and educational manuais now so numerous, there are few that offer such sound preparative material for honesl study as the ' Epochs of Church History. " — Saturday Review. THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN OTHER LANDS. By the Rev. 11. W. TuciCER, M.A. THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. By the Rev. George G. Perky, M.A. THE CHURCH OF THE EARLY FATHERS. By the Rev. A. Plu.mmer, D.L). THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By ihe Rev. J. H. Overton, D.D. A HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. B^ the Hon. G. C. Brodkick, D.C.L. ^ HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. By J. Bass Mullingkr, M.A THE CHURCH AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE. By the Rev A. Cark, M.A. THE CHURCH AND THE PURITANS. 1570-1660. By H Offlev Waichman, M..-\. THE CHURCH AND THE EASTERN EMPIRE. By the Rev II. F. lozER, M.A. HILDEBRAND AND HIS TIMES. By the Very Rev. W. R. W Stei'Hens, B.D. THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE AGES, By the Rev. W. Hunt, Al.A., Trinity College, Oxi'ord. THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY. By the Rev. H. M. Gwatkin, M.A. THE COUNTER-REFORMATION. By A. W. Ward. WYCLIFFE AND EARLY MOVEMENTS OF REFORM By Re';inald L. Poole, M.A. THE POPES AND THE HOHENSTAUFEN ByUGoBALZANi LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. LONDON, NEW YORK, AND BOMBAY. EPOCHS OF MODERN HISTORY, Edited by C. COLBECK, M.A. 19 Volumes. Fcap. 8vo. price is. 6d. each. THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE AGES. By Richard William Chukch, D.C.L., late Dean of St. Paul's. With 3 Maps. THE NORMANS IN EUROPE. By the Rev. A. H. Johnson, M.A. Witii 3 Maps. THE CRUSADES. By the Rev. Sir G. W Cox, Bart., M.A. With a Map. THE EARLY PLANTAGENETS. By the Right Rev. W. Stubbs, D.D., Late Bishop of Oxford. With 2 Maps. EDWARD THE THIRD. By the Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. With 3 Maps and 3 Genealogical Tables. THE HOUSES OF LANCASTER AND YORK; with the Con- quest and Loss of France. By James Gairdner. With 5 Maps. THE EARLY TUDORS. By the Rev. C. E. Mobeklv, M.A. THE ERA OF THE PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. Hy F. Serbohm, LL.D. With 4 Maps and 12 Diagrams. THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. By the Right Rev. Manpkil Creighton, D.D., LL.D., late Bishop of London. With 5 Maps ind 4 Cenealogic.Tl Tables. THE FIRST TWO STUARTS AND THE PURITAN REVOLUTION, i6o3-i6'-o. Rv -Samuel Rawson Gardiner. D.C.L., LL.D. With 4 iM.Lis. THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618-1648. By Samuel Rawson Gardiner, D.C.L., LT,.D With a Map. THE ENGLISH RESTORATION AND LOUIS XIV., 1648- 1678. By Osmund AiKV, LL.D., oneof H.M. Inspectors of Schools. THE FALL OF THE STUARTS; and WESTERN EUROPE from 1678 to 1697. By the Rev. Edwakd Hale, .M.A. With ri Maps and Plans. THE AGE OF ANNE. By E. E. Morris, M.A. With 7 Maps and Plans, THE EARLY HANOVERIANS. By E. E. Morris. M.A. With 9 Maps and Plans. FREDERICK THE GREAT and the SEVEN YEARS' WAR. By F. W. LoNt.MAN With 2 Maps. THE WAR OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1775-1783- ^y J. M. Ludlow. \\ itii 4 .Maps. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789-1795. By Mrs. S. R. Gak- diner. With 7 ALips. THE EPOCH OF REFORM, 1830-1850. By Justin McCarthy LONCiMANS, GREEN. AND CO. lX).NijON. NEW.-TOlpi< 3a/Si# PP ( "i/NiVERSITYJ 14 DAY USE lETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. Kim : 1 fk L «W»'lAB/-xp|i^ iT„e--- •• ■- ftPR 81970 0(f RECEIVED iW^?'7n-aPM r-^ H T.I) 2 1 A-fi0»i-2.'67 General Library