Chapter
One
The State of Greece from the earliest
Times
to the Commencement of the Peloponnesian
War
Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the
history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning
at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great
war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief
was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants were
in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could see the
rest of the Hellenic race taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed
doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was the greatest
movement yet known in history, not only of the Hellenes, but of a large
part of the barbarian world- I had almost said of mankind. For though the
events of remote antiquity, and even those that more immediately preceded
the war, could not from lapse of time be clearly ascertained, yet the evidences
which an inquiry carried as far back as was practicable leads me to trust,
all point to the conclusion that there was nothing on a great scale, either
in war or in other matters.
For instance, it is evident that
the country now called Hellas had in ancient times no settled population;
on the contrary, migrations were of frequent occurrence, the several tribes
readily abandoning their homes under the pressure of superior numbers.
Without commerce, without freedom of communication either by land or sea,
cultivating no more of their territory than the exigencies of life required,
destitute of capital, never planting their land (for they could not tell
when an invader might not come and take it all away, and when he did come
they had no walls to stop him), thinking that the necessities of daily
sustenance could be supplied at one place as well as another, they cared
little for shifting their habitation, and consequently neither built large
cities nor attained to any other form of greatness. The richest soils were
always most subject to this change of masters; such as the district now
called Thessaly, Boeotia, most of the Peloponnese, Arcadia excepted, and
the most fertile parts of the rest of Hellas. The goodness of the land
favoured the aggrandizement of particular individuals, and thus created
faction which proved a fertile source of ruin. It also invited invasion.
Accordingly Attica, from the poverty of its soil enjoying from a very remote
period freedom from faction, never changed its inhabitants. And here is
no inconsiderable exemplification of my assertion that the migrations were
the cause of there being no correspondent growth in other parts. The most
powerful victims of war or faction from the rest of Hellas took refuge
with the Athenians as a safe retreat; and at an early period, becoming
naturalized, swelled the already large population of the city to such a
height that Attica became at last too small to hold them, and they had
to send out colonies to Ionia.
There is also another circumstance
that contributes not a little to my conviction of the weakness of ancient
times. Before the Trojan war there is no indication of any common action
in Hellas, nor indeed of the universal prevalence of the name; on the contrary,
before the time of Hellen, son of Deucalion, no such appellation existed,
but the country went by the names of the different tribes, in particular
of the Pelasgian. It was not till Hellen and his sons grew strong in Phthiotis,
and were invited as allies into the other cities, that one by one they
gradually acquired from the connection the name of Hellenes; though a long
time elapsed before that name could fasten itself upon all. The best proof
of this is furnished by Homer. Born long after the Trojan War, he nowhere
calls all of them by that name, nor indeed any of them except the followers
of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hellenes: in his poems
they are called Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He does not even use the
term barbarian, probably because the Hellenes had not yet been marked off
from the rest of the world by one distinctive appellation. It appears therefore
that the several Hellenic communities, comprising not only those who first
acquired the name, city by city, as they came to understand each other,
but also those who assumed it afterwards as the name of the whole people,
were before the Trojan war prevented by their want of strength and the
absence of mutual intercourse from displaying any collective action.
Indeed, they could not unite for
this expedition till they had gained increased familiarity with the sea.
And the first person known to us by tradition as having established a navy
is Minos. He made himself master of what is now called the Hellenic sea,
and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent the first colonies,
expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did
his best to put down piracy in those waters, a necessary step to secure
the revenues for his own use.
For in early times the Hellenes and
the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became
more common, were tempted to turn pirates, under the conduct of their most
powerful men; the motives being to serve their own cupidity and to support
the needy. They would fall upon a town unprotected by walls, and consisting
of a mere collection of villages, and would plunder it; indeed, this came
to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached
to such an achievement, but even some glory. An illustration of this is
furnished by the honour with which some of the inhabitants of the continent
still regard a successful marauder, and by the question we find the old
poets everywhere representing the people as asking of voyagers- "Are they
pirates?"- as if those who are asked the question would have no idea of
disclaiming the imputation, or their interrogators of reproaching them
for it. The same rapine prevailed also by land.
And even at the present day many
of Hellas still follow the old fashion, the Ozolian Locrians for instance,
the Aetolians, the Acarnanians, and that region of the continent; and the
custom of carrying arms is still kept up among these continentals, from
the old piratical habits. The whole of Hellas used once to carry arms,
their habitations being unprotected and their communication with each other
unsafe; indeed, to wear arms was as much a part of everyday life with them
as with the barbarians. And the fact that the people in these parts of
Hellas are still living in the old way points to a time when the same mode
of life was once equally common to all. The Athenians were the first to
lay aside their weapons, and to adopt an easier and more luxurious mode
of life; indeed, it is only lately that their rich old men left off the
luxury of wearing undergarments of linen, and fastening a knot of their
hair with a tie of golden grasshoppers, a fashion which spread to their
Ionian kindred and long prevailed among the old men there. On the contrary,
a modest style of dressing, more in conformity with modern ideas, was first
adopted by the Lacedaemonians, the rich doing their best to assimilate
their way of life to that of the common people. They also set the example
of contending naked, publicly stripping and anointing themselves with oil
in their gymnastic exercises. Formerly, even in the Olympic contests, the
athletes who contended wore belts across their middles; and it is but a
few years since that the practice ceased. To this day among some of the
barbarians, especially in Asia, when prizes for boxing and wrestling are
offered, belts are worn by the combatants. And there are many other points
in which a likeness might be shown between the life of the Hellenic world
of old and the barbarian of to-day.
With respect to their towns, later
on, at an era of increased facilities of navigation and a greater supply
of capital, we find the shores becoming the site of walled towns, and the
isthmuses being occupied for the purposes of commerce and defence against
a neighbour. But the old towns, on account of the great prevalence of piracy,
were built away from the sea, whether on the islands or the continent,
and still remain in their old sites. For the pirates used to plunder one
another, and indeed all coast populations, whether seafaring or not.
The islanders, too, were great pirates.
These islanders were Carians and Phoenicians, by whom most of the islands
were colonized, as was proved by the following fact. During the purification
of Delos by Athens in this war all the graves in the island were taken
up, and it was found that above half their inmates were Carians: they were
identified by the fashion of the arms buried with them, and by the method
of interment, which was the same as the Carians still follow. But as soon
as Minos had formed his navy, communication by sea became easier, as he
colonized most of the islands, and thus expelled the malefactors. The coast
population now began to apply themselves more closely to the acquisition
of wealth, and their life became more settled; some even began to build
themselves walls on the strength of their newly acquired riches. For the
love of gain would reconcile the weaker to the dominion of the stronger,
and the possession of capital enabled the more powerful to reduce the smaller
towns to subjection. And it was at a somewhat later stage of this development
that they went on the expedition against Troy.
What enabled Agamemnon to raise the
armament was more, in my opinion, his superiority in strength, than the
oaths of Tyndareus, which bound the suitors to follow him. Indeed, the
account given by those Peloponnesians who have been the recipients of the
most credible tradition is this. First of all Pelops, arriving among a
needy population from Asia with vast wealth, acquired such power that,
stranger though he was, the country was called after him; and this power
fortune saw fit materially to increase in the hands of his descendants.
Eurystheus had been killed in Attica by the Heraclids. Atreus was his mother's
brother; and to the hands of his relation, who had left his father on account
of the death of Chrysippus, Eurystheus, when he set out on his expedition,
had committed Mycenae and the government. As time went on and Eurystheus
did not return, Atreus complied with the wishes of the Mycenaeans, who
were influenced by fear of the Heraclids- besides, his power seemed considerable,
and he had not neglected to court the favour of the populace- and assumed
the sceptre of Mycenae and the rest of the dominions of Eurystheus. And
so the power of the descendants of Pelops came to be greater than that
of the descendants of Perseus. To all this Agamemnon succeeded. He had
also a navy far stronger than his contemporaries, so that, in my opinion,
fear was quite as strong an element as love in the formation of the confederate
expedition. The strength of his navy is shown by the fact that his own
was the largest contingent, and that of the Arcadians was furnished by
him; this at least is what Homer says, if his testimony is deemed sufficient.
Besides, in his account of the transmission of the sceptre, he calls him
Of many an isle, and of all Argos
king. Now Agamemnon's was a continental power; and he could not have been
master of any except the adjacent islands (and these would not be many),
but through the possession of a fleet.
And from this expedition we may infer
the character of earlier enterprises. Now Mycenae may have been a small
place, and many of the towns of that age may appear comparatively insignificant,
but no exact observer would therefore feel justified in rejecting the estimate
given by the poets and by tradition of the magnitude of the armament. For
I suppose if Lacedaemon were to become desolate, and the temples and the
foundations of the public buildings were left, that as time went on there
would be a strong disposition with posterity to refuse to accept her fame
as a true exponent of her power. And yet they occupy two-fifths of Peloponnese
and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous allies without. Still,
as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned with magnificent
temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after the old fashion
of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens
were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from the
appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice
as great as it is. We have therefore no right to be sceptical, nor to content
ourselves with an inspection of a town to the exclusion of a consideration
of its power; but we may safely conclude that the armament in question
surpassed all before it, as it fell short of modern efforts; if we can
here also accept the testimony of Homer's poems, in which, without allowing
for the exaggeration which a poet would feel himself licensed to employ,
we can see that it was far from equalling ours. He has represented it as
consisting of twelve hundred vessels; the Boeotian complement of each ship
being a hundred and twenty men, that of the ships of Philoctetes fifty.
By this, I conceive, he meant to convey the maximum and the minimum complement:
at any rate, he does not specify the amount of any others in his catalogue
of the ships. That they were all rowers as well as warriors we see from
his account of the ships of Philoctetes, in which all the men at the oar
are bowmen. Now it is improbable that many supernumeraries sailed, if we
except the kings and high officers; especially as they had to cross the
open sea with munitions of war, in ships, moreover, that had no decks,
but were equipped in the old piratical fashion. So that if we strike the
average of the largest and smallest ships, the number of those who sailed
will appear inconsiderable, representing, as they did, the whole force
of Hellas. And this was due not so much to scarcity of men as of money.
Difficulty of subsistence made the invaders reduce the numbers of the army
to
a point at which it might live on the country during the prosecution of
the war. Even after the victory they obtained on their arrival- and a victory
there must have been, or the fortifications of the naval camp could never
have been built- there is no indication of their whole force having been
employed; on the contrary, they seem to have turned to cultivation of the
Chersonese and to piracy from want of supplies. This was what really enabled
the Trojans to keep the field for ten years against them; the dispersion
of the enemy making them always a match for the detachment left behind.
If they had brought plenty of supplies with them, and had persevered in
the war without scattering for piracy and agriculture, they would have
easily defeated the Trojans in the field, since they could hold their own
against them with the division on service. In short, if they had stuck
to the siege, the capture of Troy would have cost them less time and less
trouble. But as want of money proved the weakness of earlier expeditions,
so from the same cause even the one in question, more famous than its predecessors,
may be pronounced on the evidence of what it effected to have been inferior
to its renown and to the current opinion about it formed under the tuition
of the poets.
Even after the Trojan War, Hellas
was still engaged in removing and settling, and thus could not attain to
the quiet which must precede growth. The late return of the Hellenes fromIlium
caused many revolutions, and factions ensued almost everywhere; and it
was the citizens thus driven into exile who founded the cities. Sixty years
after the capture of Ilium, the modern Boeotians were driven out of Arne
by the Thessalians, and settled in the present Boeotia, the former Cadmeis;
though there was a division of them there before, some of whom joined the
expedition to Ilium. Twenty years later, the Dorians and the Heraclids
became masters of Peloponnese; so that much had to be done and many years
had to elapse before Hellas could attain to a durable tranquillity undisturbed
by removals, and could begin to send out colonies, as Athens did to Ionia
and most of the islands, and the Peloponnesians to most of Italy and Sicily
and some places in the rest of Hellas. All these places were founded subsequently
to the war with Troy.
But as the power of Hellas grew,
and the acquisition of wealth became more an object, the revenues of the
states increasing, tyrannies were by their means established almost everywhere-
the old form of government being hereditary monarchy with definite prerogatives-
and Hellas began to fit out fleets and apply herself more closely to the
sea. It is said that the Corinthians were the first to approach the modern
style of naval architecture, and that Corinth was the first place in Hellas
where galleys were built; and we have Ameinocles, a Corinthian shipwright,
making four ships for the Samians. Dating from the end of this war, it
is nearly three hundred years ago that Ameinocles went to Samos. Again,
the earliest sea-fight in history was between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans;
this was about two hundred and sixty years ago, dating from the same time.
Planted on an isthmus, Corinth had from time out of mind been a commercial
emporium; as formerly almost all communication between the Hellenes within
and without Peloponnese was carried on overland, and the Corinthian territory
was the highway through which it travelled. She had consequently great
money resources, as is shown by the epithet "wealthy" bestowed by the old
poets on the place, and this enabled her, when traffic by sea became more
common, to procure her navy and put down piracy; and as she could offer
a mart for both branches of the trade, she acquired for herself all the
power which a large revenue affords. Subsequently the Ionians attained
to great naval strength in the reign of Cyrus, the first king of the Persians,
and of his son Cambyses, and while they were at war with the former commanded
for a while the Ionian sea. Polycrates also, the tyrant of Samos, had a
powerful navy in the reign of Cambyses, with which he reduced many of the
islands, and among them Rhenea, which he consecrated to the Delian Apollo.
About this time also the Phocaeans, while they were founding Marseilles,
defeated the Carthaginians in a sea-fight. These were the most powerful
navies. And even these, although so many generations had elapsed since
the Trojan war, seem to have been principally composed of the old fifty-oars
and long-boats, and to have counted few galleys among their ranks. Indeed
it was only shortly the Persian war, and the death of Darius the successor
of Cambyses, that the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans acquired any
large number of galleys. For after these there were no navies of any account
in Hellas till the expedition of Xerxes; Aegina, Athens, and others may
have possessed a few vessels, but they were principally fifty-oars. It
was quite at the end of this period that the war with Aegina and the prospect
of the barbarian invasion enabled Themistocles to persuade the Athenians
to build the fleet with which they fought at Salamis; and even these vessels
had not complete decks.
The navies, then, of the Hellenes
during the period we have traversed were what I have described. All their
insignificance did not prevent their being an element of the greatest power
to those who cultivated them, alike in revenue and in dominion. They were
the means by which the islands were reached and reduced, those of the smallest
area falling the easiest prey. Wars by land there were none, none at least
by which power was acquired; we have the usual border contests, but of
distant expeditions with conquest for object we hear nothing among the
Hellenes. There was no union of subject cities round a great state, no
spontaneous combination of equals for confederate expeditions; what fighting
there was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbours. The
nearest approach to a coalition took place in the old war between Chalcis
and Eretria; this was a quarrel in which the rest of the Hellenic name
did to some extent take sides.
Various, too, were the obstacles
which the national growth encountered in various localities. The power
of the Ionians was advancing with rapid strides, when it came into collision
with Persia, under King Cyrus, who, after having dethroned Croesus and
overrun everything between the Halys and the sea, stopped not till he had
reduced the cities of the coast; the islands being only left to be subdued
by Darius and the Phoenician navy.
Again, wherever there were tyrants,
their habit of providing simply for themselves, of looking solely to their
personal comfort and family aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of
their policy, and prevented anything great proceeding from them; though
they would each have their affairs with their immediate neighbours. All
this is only true of the mother country, for in Sicily they attained to
very great power. Thus for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find
causes which make the states alike incapable of combination for great and
national ends, or of any vigorous action of their own.
But at last a time came when the
tyrants of Athens and the far older tyrannies of the rest of Hellas were,
with the exception of those in Sicily, once and for all put down by Lacedaemon;
for this city, though after the settlement of the Dorians, its present
inhabitants, it suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time,
still at a very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom
from tyrants which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of government
for more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late war,
and has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states.
Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants, the battle of Marathon
was fought between the Medes and the Athenians. Ten years afterwards, the
barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation of Hellas. In the
face of this great danger, the command of the confederate Hellenes was
assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of their superior power; and the
Athenians, having made up their minds to abandon their city, broke up their
homes, threw themselves into their ships, and became a naval people. This
coalition, after repulsing the barbarian, soon afterwards split into two
sections, which included the Hellenes who had revolted from the King, as
well as those who had aided him in the war. At the end of the one stood
Athens, at the head of the other Lacedaemon, one the first naval, the other
the first military power in Hellas. For a short time the league held together,
till the Lacedaemonians and Athenians quarrelled and made war upon each
other with their allies, a duel into which all the Hellenes sooner or later
were drawn, though some might at first remain neutral. So that the whole
period from the Median war to this, with some peaceful intervals, was spent
by each power in war, either with its rival, or with its own revolted allies,
and consequently afforded them constant practice in military matters, and
that experience which is learnt in the school of danger.
The policy of Lacedaemon was not
to exact tribute from her allies, but merely to secure their subservience
to her interests by establishing oligarchies among them; Athens, on the
contrary, had by degrees deprived hers of their ships, and imposed instead
contributions in money on all except Chios and Lesbos. Both found their
resources for this war separately to exceed the sum of their strength when
the alliance flourished intact.
Having now given the result of my
inquiries into early times, I grant that there will be a difficulty in
believing every particular detail. The way that most men deal with traditions,
even traditions of their own country, is to receive them all alike as they
are delivered, without applying any critical test whatever. The general
Athenian public fancy that Hipparchus was tyrant when he fell by the hands
of Harmodius and Aristogiton, not knowing that Hippias, the eldest of the
sons of Pisistratus, was really supreme, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus
were his brothers; and that Harmodius and Aristogiton suspecting, on the
very day, nay at the very moment fixed on for the deed, that information
had been conveyed to Hippias by their accomplices, concluded that he had
been warned, and did not attack him, yet, not liking to be apprehended
and risk their lives for nothing, fell upon Hipparchus near the temple
of the daughters of Leos, and slew him as he was arranging the Panathenaic
procession.
There are many other unfounded ideas
current among the rest of the Hellenes, even on matters of contemporary
history, which have not been obscured by time. For instance, there is the
notion that the Lacedaemonian kings have two votes each, the fact being
that they have only one; and that there is a company of Pitane, there being
simply no such thing. So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation
of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand. On the
whole, however, the conclusions I have drawn from the proofs quoted may,
I believe, safely be relied on. Assuredly they will not be disturbed either
by the lays of a poet displaying the exaggeration of his craft, or by the
compositions of the chroniclers that are attractive at truth's expense;
the subjects they treat of being out of the reach of evidence, and time
having robbed most of them of historical value by enthroning them in the
region of legend. Turning from these, we can rest satisfied with having
proceeded upon the clearest data, and having arrived at conclusions as
exact as can be expected in matters of such antiquity. To come to this
war: despite the known disposition of the actors in a struggle to overrate
its importance, and when it is over to return to their admiration of earlier
events, yet an examination of the facts will show that it was much greater
than the wars which preceded it.
With reference to the speeches in
this history, some were delivered before the war began, others while it
was going on; some I heard myself, others I got from various quarters;
it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one's memory,
so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded
of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible
to the general sense of what they really said. And with reference to the
narrative of events, far from permitting myself to derive it from the first
source that came to hand, I did not even trust my own impressions, but
it rests partly on what I saw myself, partly on what others saw for me,
the accuracy of the report being always tried by the most severe and detailed
tests possible. My conclusions have cost me some labour from the want of
coincidence between accounts of the same occurrences by different eye-witnesses,
arising sometimes from imperfect memory, sometimes from undue partiality
for one side or the other. The absence of romance in my history will, I
fear, detract somewhat from its interest; but if it be judged useful by
those inquirers who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to
the interpretation of the future, which in the course of human things must
resemble if it does not reflect it, I shall be content. In fine, I have
written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment,
but as a possession for all time.
The Median War, the greatest achievement
of past times, yet found a speedy decision in two actions by sea and two
by land. The Peloponnesian War was prolonged to an immense length, and,
long as it was, it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that
it brought upon Hellas. Never had so many cities been taken and laid desolate,
here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending (the old inhabitants
being sometimes removed to make room for others); never was there so much
banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field of battle, now in the strife
of faction. Old stories of occurrences handed down by tradition, but scantily
confirmed by experience, suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes
of unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with
a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great droughts in
sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous and awfully
fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the late war,
which was begun by the Athenians and Peloponnesians by the dissolution
of the thirty years' truce made after the conquest of Euboea. To the question
why they broke the treaty, I answer by placing first an account of their
grounds of complaint and points of difference, that no one may ever have
to ask the immediate cause which plunged the Hellenes into a war of such
magnitude. The real cause I consider to be the one which was formally most
kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which
this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable. Still it is well to give
the grounds alleged by either side which led to the dissolution of the
treaty and the breaking out of the war.
Chapter
Two
Causes of the War - The Affair
of Epidamnus - The Affair of Potidaea
The city of Epidamnus stands on the
right of the entrance of the Ionic Gulf. Its vicinity is inhabited by the
Taulantians, an Illyrian people. The place is a colony from Corcyra, founded
by Phalius, son of Eratocleides, of the family of the Heraclids, who had
according to ancient usage been summoned for the purpose from Corinth,
the mother country. The colonists were joined by some Corinthians, and
others of the Dorian race. Now, as time went on, the city of Epidamnus
became great and populous; but falling a prey to factions arising, it is
said, from a war with her neighbours the barbarians, she became much enfeebled,
and lost a considerable amount of her power. The last act before the war
was the expulsion of the nobles by the people. The exiled party joined
the barbarians, and proceeded to plunder those in the city by sea and land;
and the Epidamnians, finding themselves hard pressed, sent ambassadors
to Corcyra beseeching their mother country not to allow them to perish,
but to make up matters between them and the exiles, and to rid them of
the war with the barbarians. The ambassadors seated themselves in the temple
of Hera as suppliants, and made the above requests to the Corcyraeans.
But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their supplication, and they were
dismissed without having effected anything.
When the Epidamnians found that no
help could be expected from Corcyra, they were in a strait what to do next.
So they sent to Delphi and inquired of the God whether they should deliver
their city to the Corinthians and endeavour to obtain some assistance from
their founders. The answer he gave them was to deliver the city and place
themselves under Corinthian protection. So the Epidamnians went to Corinth
and delivered over the colony in obedience to the commands of the oracle.
They showed that their founder came from Corinth, and revealed the answer
of the god; and they begged them not to allow them to perish, but to assist
them. This the Corinthians consented to do. Believing the colony to belong
as much to themselves as to the Corcyraeans, they felt it to be a kind
of duty to undertake their protection. Besides, they hated the Corcyraeans
for their contempt of the mother country. Instead of meeting with the usual
honours accorded to the parent city by every other colony at public assemblies,
such as precedence at sacrifices, Corinth found herself treated with contempt
by a power which in point of wealth could stand comparison with any even
of the richest communities in Hellas, which possessed great military strength,
and which sometimes could not repress a pride in the high naval position
of an, island whose nautical renown dated from the days of its old inhabitants,
the Phaeacians. This was one reason of the care that they lavished on their
fleet, which became very efficient; indeed they began the war with a force
of a hundred and twenty galleys.
All these grievances made Corinth
eager to send the promised aid to Epidamnus. Advertisement was made for
volunteer settlers, and a force of Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Corinthians
was dispatched. They marched by land to Apollonia, a Corinthian colony,
the route by sea being avoided from fear of Corcyraean interruption. When
the Corcyraeans heard of the arrival of the settlers and troops in Epidamnus,
and the surrender of the colony to Corinth, they took fire. Instantly putting
to sea with five-and-twenty ships, which were quickly followed by others,
they insolently commanded the Epidamnians to receive back the banished
nobles- (it must be premised that the Epidamnian exiles had come to Corcyra
and, pointing to the sepulchres of their ancestors, had appealed to their
kindred to restore them)- and to dismiss the Corinthian garrison and settlers.
But to all this the Epidamnians turned a deaf ear. Upon this the Corcyraeans
commenced operations against them with a fleet of forty sail. They took
with them the exiles, with a view to their restoration, and also secured
the services of the Illyrians. Sitting down before the city, they issued
a proclamation to the effect that any of the natives that chose, and the
foreigners, might depart unharmed, with the alternative of being treated
as enemies. On their refusal the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city,
which stands on an isthmus; and the Corinthians, receiving intelligence
of the investment of Epidamnus, got together an armament and proclaimed
a colony to Epidamnus, perfect political equality being guaranteed to all
who chose to go. Any who were not prepared to sail at once might, by paying
down the sum of fifty Corinthian drachmae, have a share in the colony without
leaving Corinth. Great numbers took advantage of this proclamation, some
being ready to start directly, others paying the requisite forfeit. In
case of their passage being disputed by the Corcyraeans, several cities
were asked to lend them a convoy. Megara prepared to accompany them with
eight ships, Pale in Cephallonia with four; Epidaurus furnished five, Hermione
one, Troezen two, Leucas ten, and Ambracia eight. The Thebans and Phliasians
were asked for money, the Eleans for hulls as well; while Corinth herself
furnished thirty ships and three thousand heavy infantry.
When the Corcyraeans heard of their
preparations they came to Corinth with envoys from Lacedaemon and Sicyon,
whom they persuaded to accompany them, and bade her recall the garrison
and settlers, as she had nothing to do with Epidamnus. If, however, she
had any claims to make, they were willing to submit the matter to the arbitration
of such of the cities in Peloponnese as should be chosen by mutual agreement,
and that the colony should remain with the city to whom the arbitrators
might assign it. They were also willing to refer the matter to the oracle
at Delphi. If, in defiance of their protestations, war was appealed to,
they should be themselves compelled by this violence to seek friends in
quarters where they had no desire to seek them, and to make even old ties
give way to the necessity of assistance. The answer they got from Corinth
was that, if they would withdraw their fleet and the barbarians from Epidamnus,
negotiation might be possible; but, while the town was still being besieged,
going before arbitrators was out of the question. The Corcyraeans retorted
that if Corinth would withdraw her troops from Epidamnus they would withdraw
theirs, or they were ready to let both parties remain in statu quo, an
armistice being concluded till judgment could be given.
Turning a deaf ear to all these proposals,
when their ships were manned and their allies had come in, the Corinthians
sent a herald before them to declare war and, getting under way with seventy-five
ships and two thousand heavy infantry, sailed for Epidamnus to give battle
to the Corcyraeans. The fleet was under the command of Aristeus, son of
Pellichas, Callicrates, son of Callias, and Timanor, son of Timanthes;
the troops under that of Archetimus, son of Eurytimus, and Isarchidas,
son of Isarchus. When they had reached Actium in the territory of Anactorium,
at the mouth of the mouth of the Gulf of Ambracia, where the temple of
Apollo stands, the Corcyraeans sent on a herald in a light boat to warn
them not to sail against them. Meanwhile they proceeded to man their ships,
all of which had been equipped for action, the old vessels being undergirded
to make them seaworthy. On the return of the herald without any peaceful
answer from the Corinthians, their ships being now manned, they put out
to sea to meet the enemy with a fleet of eighty sail (forty were engaged
in the siege of Epidamnus), formed line, and went into action, and gained
a decisive victory, and destroyed fifteen of the Corinthian vessels. The
same day had seen Epidamnus compelled by its besiegers to capitulate; the
conditions being that the foreigners should be sold, and the Corinthians
kept as prisoners of war, till their fate should be otherwise decided.
After the engagement the Corcyraeans
set up a trophy on Leukimme, a headland of Corcyra, and slew all their
captives except the Corinthians, whom they kept as prisoners of war. Defeated
at sea, the Corinthians and their allies repaired home, and left the Corcyraeans
masters of all the sea about those parts. Sailing to Leucas, a Corinthian
colony, they ravaged their territory, and burnt Cyllene, the harbour of
the Eleans, because they had furnished ships and money to Corinth. For
almost the whole of the period that followed the battle they remained masters
of the sea, and the allies of Corinth were harassed by Corcyraean cruisers.
At last Corinth, roused by the sufferings of her allies, sent out ships
and troops in the fall of the summer, who formed an encampment at Actium
and about Chimerium, in Thesprotis, for the protection of Leucas and the
rest of the friendly cities. The Corcyraeans on their part formed a similar
station on Leukimme. Neither party made any movement, but they remained
confronting each other till the end of the summer, and winter was at hand
before either of them returned home.
Corinth, exasperated by the war with
the Corcyraeans, spent the whole of the year after the engagement and that
succeeding it in building ships, and in straining every nerve to form an
efficient fleet; rowers being drawn from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas
by the inducement of large bounties. The Corcyraeans, alarmed at the news
of their preparations, being without a single ally in Hellas (for they
had not enrolled themselves either in the Athenian or in the Lacedaemonian
confederacy), decided to repair to Athens in order to enter into alliance
and to endeavour to procure support from her. Corinth also, hearing of
their intentions, sent an embassy to Athens to prevent the Corcyraean navy
being joined by the Athenian, and her prospect of ordering the war according
to her wishes being thus impeded. An assembly was convoked, and the rival
advocates appeared: the Corcyraeans spoke as follows:
"Athenians! when a people that have
not rendered any important service or support to their neighbours in times
past, for which they might claim to be repaid, appear before them as we
now appear before you to solicit their assistance, they may fairly be required
to satisfy certain preliminary conditions. They should show, first, that
it is expedient or at least safe to grant their request; next, that they
will retain a lasting sense of the kindness. But if they cannot clearly
establish any of these points, they must not be annoyed if they meet with
a rebuff. Now the Corcyraeans believe that with their petition for assistance
they can also give you a satisfactory answer on these points, and they
have therefore dispatched us hither. It has so happened that our policy
as regards you with respect to this request, turns out to be inconsistent,
and as regards our interests, to be at the present crisis inexpedient.
We say inconsistent, because a power which has never in the whole of her
past history been willing to ally herself with any of her neighbours, is
now found asking them to ally themselves with her. And we say inexpedient,
because in our present war with Corinth it has left us in a position of
entire isolation, and what once seemed the wise precaution of refusing
to involve ourselves in alliances with other powers, lest we should also
involve ourselves in risks of their choosing, has now proved to be folly
and weakness. It is true that in the late naval engagement we drove back
the Corinthians from our shores single-handed. But they have now got together
a still larger armament from Peloponnese and the rest of Hellas; and we,
seeing our utter inability to cope with them without foreign aid, and the
magnitude of the danger which subjection to them implies, find it necessary
to ask help from you and from every other power. And we hope to be excused
if we forswear our old principle of complete political isolation, a principle
which was not adopted with any sinister intention, but was rather the consequence
of an error in judgment.
"Now there are many reasons why in
the event of your compliance you will congratulate yourselves on this request
having been made to you. First, because your assistance will be rendered
to a power which, herself inoffensive, is a victim to the injustice of
others. Secondly, because all that we most value is at stake in the present
contest, and your welcome of us under these circumstances will be a proof
of goodwill which will ever keep alive the gratitude you will lay up in
our hearts. Thirdly, yourselves excepted, we are the greatest naval power
in Hellas. Moreover, can you conceive a stroke of good fortune more rare
in itself, or more disheartening to your enemies, than that the power whose
adhesion you would have valued above much material and moral strength should
present herself self-invited, should deliver herself into your hands without
danger and without expense, and should lastly put you in the way of gaining
a high character in the eyes of the world, the gratitude of those whom
you shall assist, and a great accession of strength for yourselves? You
may search all history without finding many instances of a people gaining
all these advantages at once, or many instances of a power that comes in
quest of assistance being in a position to give to the people whose alliance
she solicits as much safety and honour as she will receive. But it will
be urged that it is only in the case of a war that we shall be found useful.
To this we answer that if any of you imagine that that war is far off,
he is grievously mistaken, and is blind to the fact that Lacedaemon regards
you with jealousy and desires war, and that Corinth is powerful there-
the same, remember, that is your enemy, and is even now trying to subdue
us as a preliminary to attacking you. And this she does to prevent our
becoming united by a common enmity, and her having us both on her hands,
and also to ensure getting the start of you in one of two ways, either
by crippling our power or by making its strength her own. Now it is our
policy to be beforehand with her- that is, for Corcyra to make an offer
of alliance and for you to accept it; in fact, we ought to form plans against
her instead of waiting to defeat the plans she forms against us.
"If she asserts that for you to receive
a colony of hers into alliance is not right, let her know that every colony
that is well treated honours its parent state, but becomes estranged from
it by injustice. For colonists are not sent forth on the understanding
that they are to be the slaves of those that remain behind, but that they
are to be their equals. And that Corinth was injuring us is clear. Invited
to refer the dispute about Epidamnus to arbitration, they chose to prosecute
their complaints war rather than by a fair trial. And let their conduct
towards us who are their kindred be a warning to you not to be misled by
their deceit, nor to yield to their direct requests; concessions to adversaries
only end in self-reproach, and the more strictly they are avoided the greater
will be the chance of security.
"If it be urged that your reception
of us will be a breach of the treaty existing between you and Lacedaemon,
the answer is that we are a neutral state, and that one of the express
provisions of that treaty is that it shall be competent for any Hellenic
state that is neutral to join whichever side it pleases. And it is intolerable
for Corinth to be allowed to obtain men for her navy not only from her
allies, but also from the rest of Hellas, no small number being furnished
by your own subjects; while we are to be excluded both from the alliance
left open to us by treaty, and from any assistance that we might get from
other quarters, and you are to be accused of political immorality if you
comply with our request. On the other hand, we shall have much greater
cause to complain of you, if you do not comply with it; if we, who are
in peril and are no enemies of yours, meet with a repulse at your hands,
while Corinth, who is the aggressor and your enemy, not only meets with
no hindrance from you, but is even allowed to draw material for war from
your dependencies. This ought not to be, but you should either forbid her
enlisting men in your dominions, or you should lend us too what help you
may think advisable.
"But your real policy is to afford
us avowed countenance and support. The advantages of this course, as we
premised in the beginning of our speech, are many. We mention one that
is perhaps the chief. Could there be a clearer guarantee of our good faith
than is offered by the fact that the power which is at enmity with you
is also at enmity with us, and that that power is fully able to punish
defection? And there is a wide difference between declining the alliance
of an inland and of a maritime power. For your first endeavour should be
to prevent, if possible, the existence of any naval power except your own;
failing this, to secure the friendship of the strongest that does exist.
And if any of you believe that what we urge is expedient, but fear to act
upon this belief, lest it should lead to a breach of the treaty, you must
remember that on the one hand, whatever your fears, your strength will
be formidable to your antagonists; on the other, whatever the confidence
you derive from refusing to receive us, your weakness will have no terrors
for a strong enemy. You must also remember that your decision is for Athens
no less than Corcyra, and that you are not making the best provision for
her interests, if at a time when you are anxiously scanning the horizon
that you may be in readiness for the breaking out of the war which is all
but upon you, you hesitate to attach to your side a place whose adhesion
or estrangement is alike pregnant with the most vital consequences. For
it lies conveniently for the coast- navigation in the direction of Italy
and Sicily, being able to bar the passage of naval reinforcements from
thence to Peloponnese, and from Peloponnese thither; and it is in other
respects a most desirable station. To sum up as shortly as possible, embracing
both general and particular considerations, let this show you the folly
of sacrificing us. Remember that there are but three considerable naval
powers in Hellas- Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth- and that if you allow two
of these three to become one, and Corinth to secure us for herself, you
will have to hold the sea against the united fleets of Corcyra and Peloponnese.
But if you receive us, you will have our ships to reinforce you in the
struggle."
Such were the words of the Corcyraeans.
After they had finished, the Corinthians spoke as follows:
"These Corcyraeans in the speech
we have just heard do not confine themselves to the question of their reception
into your alliance. They also talk of our being guilty of injustice, and
their being the victims of an unjustifiable war. It becomes necessary for
us to touch upon both these points before we proceed to the rest of what
we have to say, that you may have a more correct idea of the grounds of
our claim, and have good cause to reject their petition. According to them,
their old policy of refusing all offers of alliance was a policy of moderation.
It was in fact adopted for bad ends, not for good; indeed their conduct
is such as to make them by no means desirous of having allies present to
witness it, or of having the shame of asking their concurrence. Besides,
their geographical situation makes them independent of others, and consequently
the decision in cases where they injure any lies not with judges appointed
by mutual agreement, but with themselves, because, while they seldom make
voyages to their neighbours, they are constantly being visited by foreign
vessels which are compelled to put in to Corcyra. In short, the object
that they propose to themselves, in their specious policy of complete isolation,
is
not to avoid sharing in the crimes of others, but to secure monopoly of
crime to themselves- the licence of outrage wherever they can compel, of
fraud wherever they can elude, and the enjoyment of their gains without
shame. And yet if they were the honest men they pretend to be, the less
hold that others had upon them, the stronger would be the light in which
they might have put their honesty by giving and taking what was just.
"But such has not been their conduct
either towards others or towards us. The attitude of our colony towards
us has always been one of estrangement and is now one of hostility; for,
say they: 'We were not sent out to be ill-treated.' We rejoin that we did
not found the colony to be insulted by them, but to be their head and to
be regarded with a proper respect. At any rate our other colonies honour
us, and we are much beloved by our colonists; and clearly, if the majority
are satisfied with us, these can have no good reason for a dissatisfaction
in which they stand alone, and we are not acting improperly in making war
against them, nor are we making war against them without having received
signal provocation. Besides, if we were in the wrong, it would be honourable
in them to give way to our wishes, and disgraceful for us to trample on
their moderation; but in the pride and licence of wealth they have sinned
again and again against us, and never more deeply than when Epidamnus,
our dependency, which they took no steps to claim in its distress upon
our coming to relieve it, was by them seized, and is now held by force
of arms.
"As to their allegation that they
wished the question to be first submitted to arbitration, it is obvious
that a challenge coming from the party who is safe in a commanding position
cannot gain the credit due only to him who, before appealing to arms, in
deeds as well as words, places himself on a level with his adversary. In
their case, it was not before they laid siege to the place, but after they
at length understood that we should not tamely suffer it, that they thought
of the specious word arbitration. And not satisfied with their own misconduct
there, they appear here now requiring you to join with them not in alliance
but in crime, and to receive them in spite of their being at enmity with
us. But it was when they stood firmest that they should have made overtures
to you, and not at a time when we have been wronged and they are in peril;
nor yet at a time when you will be admitting to a share in your protection
those who never admitted you to a share in their power, and will be incurring
an equal amount of blame from us with those in whose offences you had no
hand. No, they should have shared their power with you before they asked
you to share your fortunes with them.
"So then the reality of the grievances
we come to complain of, and the violence and rapacity of our opponents,
have both been proved. But that you cannot equitably receive them, this
you have still to learn. It may be true that one of the provisions of the
treaty is that it shall be competent for any state, whose name was not
down on the list, to join whichever side it pleases. But this agreement
is not meant for those whose object in joining is the injury of other powers,
but for those whose need of support does not arise from the fact of defection,
and whose adhesion will not bring to the power that is mad enough to receive
them war instead of peace; which will be the case with you, if you refuse
to listen to us. For you cannot become their auxiliary and remain our friend;
if you join in their attack, you must share the punishment which the defenders
inflict on them. And yet you have the best possible right to be neutral,
or, failing this, you should on the contrary join us against them. Corinth
is at least in treaty with you; with Corcyra you were never even in truce.
But do not lay down the principle that defection is to be patronized. Did
we on the defection of the Samians record our vote against you, when the
rest of the Peloponnesian powers were equally divided on the question whether
they should assist them? No, we told them to their face that every power
has a right to punish its own allies. Why, if you make it your policy to
receive and assist all offenders, you will find that just as many of your
dependencies will come over to us, and the principle that you establish
will press less heavily on us than on yourselves.
"This then is what Hellenic law entitles
us to demand as a right. But we have also advice to offer and claims on
your gratitude, which, since there is no danger of our injuring you, as
we are not enemies, and since our friendship does not amount to very frequent
intercourse, we say ought to be liquidated at the present juncture. When
you were in want of ships of war for the war against the Aeginetans, before
the Persian invasion, Corinth supplied you with twenty vessels. That good
turn, and the line we took on the Samian question, when we were the cause
of the Peloponnesians refusing to assist them, enabled you to conquer Aegina
and to punish Samos. And we acted thus at crises when, if ever, men are
wont in their efforts against their enemies to forget everything for the
sake of victory, regarding him who assists them then as a friend, even
if thus far he has been a foe, and him who opposes them then as a foe,
even if he has thus far been a friend; indeed they allow their real interests
to suffer from their absorbing preoccupation in the struggle.
"Weigh well these considerations,
and let your youth learn what they are from their elders, and let them
determine to do unto us as we have done unto you. And let them not acknowledge
the justice of what we say, but dispute its wisdom in the contingency of
war. Not only is the straightest path generally speaking the wisest; but
the coming of the war, which the Corcyraeans have used as a bugbear to
persuade you to do wrong, is still uncertain, and it is not worth while
to be carried away by it into gaining the instant and declared enmity of
Corinth. It were, rather, wise to try and counteract the unfavourable impression
which your conduct to Megara has created. For kindness opportunely shown
has a greater power of removing old grievances than the facts of the case
may warrant. And do not be seduced by the prospect of a great naval alliance.
Abstinence from all injustice to other first-rate powers is a greater tower
of strength than anything that can be gained by the sacrifice of permanent
tranquillity for an apparent temporary advantage. It is now our turn to
benefit by the principle that we laid down at Lacedaemon, that every power
has a right to punish her own allies. We now claim to receive the same
from you, and protest against your rewarding us for benefiting you by our
vote by injuring us by yours. On the contrary, return us like for like,
remembering that this is that very crisis in which he who lends aid is
most a friend, and he who opposes is most a foe. And for these Corcyraeans-
neither receive them into alliance in our despite, nor be their abettors
in crime. So do, and you will act as we have a right to expect of you,
and at the same time best consult your own interests."
Such were the words of the Corinthians.
When the Athenians had heard both out, two assemblies were held. In the
first there was a manifest disposition to listen to the representations
of Corinth; in the second, public feeling had changed and an alliance with
Corcyra was decided on, with certain reservations. It was to be a defensive,
not an offensive alliance. It did not involve a breach of the treaty with
Peloponnese: Athens could not be required to join Corcyra in any attack
upon Corinth. But each of the contracting parties had a right to the other's
assistance against invasion, whether of his own territory or that of an
ally. For it began now to be felt that the coming of the Peloponnesian
war was only a question of time, and no one was willing to see a naval
power of such magnitude as Corcyra sacrificed to Corinth; though if they
could let them weaken each other by mutual conflict, it would be no bad
preparation for the struggle which Athens might one day have to wage with
Corinth and the other naval powers. At the same time the island seemed
to lie conveniently on the coasting passage to Italy and Sicily. With these
views, Athens received Corcyra into alliance and, on the departure of the
Corinthians not long afterwards, sent ten ships to their assistance. They
were commanded by Lacedaemonius, the son of Cimon, Diotimus, the son of
Strombichus, and Proteas, the son of Epicles. Their instructions were to
avoid collision with the Corinthian fleet except under certain circumstances.
If it sailed to Corcyra and threatened a landing on her coast, or in any
of her possessions, they were to do their utmost to prevent it. These instructions
were prompted by an anxiety to avoid a breach of the treaty.
Meanwhile the Corinthians completed
their preparations, and sailed for Corcyra with a hundred and fifty ships.
Of these Elis furnished ten, Megara twelve, Leucas ten, Ambracia twenty-seven,
Anactorium one, and Corinth herself ninety. Each of these contingents had
its own admiral, the Corinthian being under the command of Xenoclides,
son of Euthycles, with four colleagues. Sailing from Leucas, they made
land at the part of the continent opposite Corcyra. They anchored in the
harbour of Chimerium, in the territory of Thesprotis, above which, at some
distance from the sea, lies the city of Ephyre, in the Elean district.
By this city the Acherusian lake pours its waters into the sea. It gets
its name from the river Acheron, which flows through Thesprotis and falls
into the lake. There also the river Thyamis flows, forming the boundary
between Thesprotis and Kestrine; and between these rivers rises the point
of Chimerium. In this part of the continent the Corinthians now came to
anchor, and formed an encampment. When the Corcyraeans saw them coming,
they manned a hundred and ten ships, commanded by Meikiades, Aisimides,
and Eurybatus, and stationed themselves at one of the Sybota isles; the
ten Athenian ships being present. On Point Leukimme they posted their land
forces, and a thousand heavy infantry who had come from Zacynthus to their
assistance. Nor were the Corinthians on the mainland without their allies.
The barbarians flocked in large numbers to their assistance, the inhabitants
of this part of the continent being old allies of theirs.
When the Corinthian preparations
were completed, they took three days' provisions and put out from Chimerium
by night, ready for action. Sailing with the dawn, they sighted the Corcyraean
fleet out at sea and coming towards them. When they perceived each other,
both sides formed in order of battle. On the Corcyraean right wing lay
the Athenian ships, the rest of the line being occupied by their own vessels
formed in three squadrons, each of which was commanded by one of the three
admirals. Such was the Corcyraean formation. The Corinthian was as follows:
on the right wing lay the Megarian and Ambraciot ships, in the centre the
rest of the allies in order. But the left was composed of the best sailers
in the Corinthian navy, to encounter the Athenians and the right wing of
the Corcyraeans. As soon as the signals were raised on either side, they
joined battle. Both sides had a large number of heavy infantry on their
decks, and a large number of archers and darters, the old imperfect armament
still prevailing. The sea-fight was an obstinate one, though not remarkable
for its science; indeed it was more like a battle by land. Whenever they
charged each other, the multitude and crush of the vessels made it by no
means easy to get loose; besides, their hopes of victory lay principally
in the heavy infantry on the decks, who stood and fought in order, the
ships remaining stationary. The manoeuvre of breaking the line was not
tried; in short, strength and pluck had more share in the fight than science.
Everywhere tumult reigned, the battle being one scene of confusion; meanwhile
the Athenian ships, by coming up to the Corcyraeans whenever they were
pressed, served to alarm the enemy, though their commanders could not join
in the battle from fear of their instructions. The right wing of the Corinthians
suffered most. The Corcyraeans routed it, and chased them in disorder to
the continent with twenty ships, sailed up to their camp, and burnt the
tents which they found empty, and plundered the stuff. So in this quarter
the Corinthians and their allies were defeated, and the Corcyraeans were
victorious. But where the Corinthians themselves were, on the left, they
gained a decided success; the scanty forces of the Corcyraeans being further
weakened by the want of the twenty ships absent on the pursuit. Seeing
the Corcyraeans hard pressed, the Athenians began at length to assist them
more unequivocally. At first, it is true, they refrained from charging
any ships; but when the rout was becoming patent, and the Corinthians were
pressing on, the time at last came when every one set to, and all distinction
was laid aside, and it came to this point, that the Corinthians and Athenians
raised their hands against each other.
After the rout, the Corinthians,
instead of employing themselves in lashing fast and hauling after them
the hulls of the vessels which they had disabled, turned their attention
to the men, whom they butchered as they sailed through, not caring so much
to make prisoners. Some even of their own friends were slain by them, by
mistake, in their ignorance of the defeat of the right wing For the number
of the ships on both sides, and the distance to which they covered the
sea, made it difficult, after they had once joined, to distinguish between
the conquering and the conquered; this battle proving far greater than
any before it, any at least between Hellenes, for the number of vessels
engaged. After the Corinthians had chased the Corcyraeans to the land,
they turned to the wrecks and their dead, most of whom they succeeded in
getting hold of and conveying to Sybota, the rendezvous of the land forces
furnished by their barbarian allies. Sybota, it must be known, is a desert
harbour of Thesprotis. This task over, they mustered anew, and sailed against
the Corcyraeans, who on their part advanced to meet them with all their
ships that were fit for service and remaining to them, accompanied by the
Athenian vessels, fearing that they might attempt a landing in their territory.
It was by this time getting late, and the paean had been sung for the attack,
when the Corinthians suddenly began to back water. They had observed twenty
Athenian ships sailing up, which had been sent out afterwards to reinforce
the ten vessels by the Athenians, who feared, as it turned out justly,
the defeat of the Corcyraeans and the inability of their handful of ships
to protect them. These ships were thus seen by the Corinthians first. They
suspected that they were from Athens, and that those which they saw were
not all, but that there were more behind; they accordingly began to retire.
The Corcyraeans meanwhile had not sighted them, as they were advancing
from a point which they could not so well see, and were wondering why the
Corinthians were backing water, when some caught sight of them, and cried
out that there were ships in sight ahead. Upon this they also retired;
for it was now getting dark, and the retreat of the Corinthians had suspended
hostilities. Thus they parted from each other, and the battle ceased with
night. The Corcyraeans were in their camp at Leukimme, when these twenty
ships from Athens, under the command of Glaucon, the son of Leagrus, and
Andocides, son of Leogoras, bore on through the corpses and the wrecks,
and sailed up to the camp, not long after they were sighted. It was now
night, and the Corcyraeans feared that they might be hostile vessels; but
they soon knew them, and the ships came to anchor.
The next day the thirty Athenian
vessels put out to sea, accompanied by all the Corcyraean ships that were
seaworthy, and sailed to the harbour at Sybota, where the Corinthians lay,
to see if they would engage. The Corinthians put out from the land and
formed a line in the open sea, but beyond this made no further movement,
having no intention of assuming the offensive. For they saw reinforcements
arrived fresh from Athens, and themselves confronted by numerous difficulties,
such as the necessity of guarding the prisoners whom they had on board
and the want of all means of refitting their ships in a desert place. What
they were thinking more about was how their voyage home was to be effected;
they feared that the Athenians might consider that the treaty was dissolved
by the collision which had occurred, and forbid their departure.
Accordingly they resolved to put
some men on board a boat, and send them without a herald's wand to the
Athenians, as an experiment. Having done so, they spoke as follows: "You
do wrong, Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty. Engaged in chastising
our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms against
us. Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to Corcyra, or anywhere
else that we may wish, and if you are for breaking the treaty, first take
us that are here and treat us as enemies." Such was what they said, and
all the Corcyraean armament that were within hearing immediately called
out to take them and kill them. But the Athenians answered as follows:
"Neither are we beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the
treaty; but these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are come to help them.
So if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in your way;
but if you are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her possessions,
we shall do our best to stop you."
Receiving this answer from the Athenians,
the Corinthians commenced preparations for their voyage home, and set up
a trophy in Sybota, on the continent; while the Corcyraeans took up the
wrecks and dead that had been carried out to them by the current, and by
a wind which rose in the night and scattered them in all directions, and
set up their trophy in Sybota, on the island, as victors. The reasons each
side had for claiming the victory were these. The Corinthians had been
victorious in the sea-fight until night; and having thus been enabled to
carry off most wrecks and dead, they were in possession of no fewer than
a thousand prisoners of war, and had sunk close upon seventy vessels. The
Corcyraeans had destroyed about thirty ships, and after the arrival of
the Athenians had taken up the wrecks and dead on their side; they had
besides seen the Corinthians retire before them, backing water on sight
of the Athenian vessels, and upon the arrival of the Athenians refuse to
sail out against them from Sybota. Thus both sides claimed the victory.
The Corinthians on the voyage home
took Anactorium, which stands at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf. The place
was taken by treachery, being common ground to the Corcyraeans and Corinthians.
After establishing Corinthian settlers there, they retired home. Eight
hundred of the Corcyraeans were slaves; these they sold; two hundred and
fifty they retained in captivity, and treated with great attention, in
the hope that they might bring over their country to Corinth on their return;
most of them being, as it happened, men of very high position in Corcyra.
In this way Corcyra maintained her political existence in the war with
Corinth, and the Athenian vessels left the island. This was the first cause
of the war that Corinth had against the Athenians, viz., that they had
fought against them with the Corcyraeans in time of treaty.
Almost immediately after this, fresh
differences arose between the Athenians and Peloponnesians, and contributed
their share to the war. Corinth was forming schemes for retaliation, and
Athens suspected her hostility. The Potidaeans, who inhabit the isthmus
of Pallene, being a Corinthian colony, but tributary allies of Athens,
were ordered to raze the wall looking towards Pallene, to give hostages,
to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates, and in future not to receive the
persons sent from Corinth annually to succeed them. It was feared that
they might be persuaded by Perdiccas and the Corinthians to revolt, and
might draw the rest of the allies in the direction of Thrace to revolt
with them. These precautions against the Potidaeans were taken by the Athenians
immediately after the battle at Corcyra. Not only was Corinth at length
openly hostile, but Perdiccas, son of Alexander, king of the Macedonians,
had from an old friend and ally been made an enemy. He had been made an
enemy by the Athenians entering into alliance with his brother Philip and
Derdas, who were in league against him. In his alarm he had sent to Lacedaemon
to try and involve the Athenians in a war with the Peloponnesians, and
was endeavouring to win over Corinth in order to bring about the revolt
of Potidaea. He also made overtures to the Chalcidians in the direction
of Thrace, and to the Bottiaeans, to persuade them to join in the revolt;
for he thought that if these places on the border could be made his allies,
it would be easier to carry on the war with their co-operation. Alive to
all this, and wishing to anticipate the revolt of the cities, the Athenians
acted as follows. They were just then sending off thirty ships and a thousand
heavy infantry for his country under the command of Archestratus, son of
Lycomedes, with four colleagues. They instructed the captains to take hostages
of the Potidaeans, to raze the wall, and to be on their guard against the
revolt of the neighbouring cities.
Meanwhile the Potidaeans sent envoys
to Athens on the chance of persuading them to take no new steps in their
matters; they also went to Lacedaemon with the Corinthians to secure support
in case of need. Failing after prolonged negotiation to obtain anything
satisfactory from the Athenians; being unable, for all they could say,
to prevent the vessels that were destined for Macedonia from also sailing
against them; and receiving from the Lacedaemonian government a promise
to invade Attica, if the Athenians should attack Potidaea, the Potidaeans,
thus favoured by the moment, at last entered into league with the Chalcidians
and Bottiaeans, and revolted. And Perdiccas induced the Chalcidians to
abandon and demolish their towns on the seaboard and, settling inland at
Olynthus, to make that one city a strong place: meanwhile to those who
followed his advice he gave a part of his territory in Mygdonia round Lake
Bolbe as a place of abode while the war against the Athenians should last.
They accordingly demolished their towns, removed inland and prepared for
war. The thirty ships of the Athenians, arriving before the Thracian places,
found Potidaea and the rest in revolt. Their commanders, considering it
to be quite impossible with their present force to carry on war with Perdiccas
and with the confederate towns as well turned to Macedonia, their original
destination, and, having established themselves there, carried on war in
co-operation with Philip, and the brothers of Derdas, who had invaded the
country from the interior.
Meanwhile the Corinthians, with Potidaea
in revolt and the Athenian ships on the coast of Macedonia, alarmed for
the safety of the place and thinking its danger theirs, sent volunteers
from Corinth, and mercenaries from the rest of Peloponnese, to the number
of sixteen hundred heavy infantry in all, and four hundred light troops.
Aristeus, son of Adimantus, who was always a steady friend to the Potidaeans,
took command of the expedition, and it was principally for love of him
that most of the men from Corinth volunteered. They arrived in Thrace forty
days after the revolt of Potidaea.
The Athenians also immediately received
the news of the revolt of the cities. On being informed that Aristeus and
his reinforcements were on their way, they sent two thousand heavy infantry
of their own citizens and forty ships against the places in revolt, under
the command of Callias, son of Calliades, and four colleagues. They arrived
in Macedonia first, and found the force of a thousand men that had been
first sent out, just become masters of Therme and besieging Pydna. Accordingly
they also joined in the investment, and besieged Pydna for a while. Subsequently
they came to terms and concluded a forced alliance with Perdiccas, hastened
by the calls of Potidaea and by the arrival of Aristeus at that place.
They withdrew from Macedonia, going to Beroea and thence to Strepsa, and,
after a futile attempt on the latter place, they pursued by land their
march to Potidaea with three thousand heavy infantry of their own citizens,
besides a number of their allies, and six hundred Macedonian horsemen,
the followers of Philip and Pausanias. With these sailed seventy ships
along the coast. Advancing by short marches, on the third day they arrived
at Gigonus, where they encamped.
Meanwhile the Potidaeans and the
Peloponnesians with Aristeus were encamped on the side looking towards
Olynthus on the isthmus, in expectation of the Athenians, and had established
their market outside the city. The allies had chosen Aristeus general of
all the infantry; while the command of the cavalry was given to Perdiccas,
who had at once left the alliance of the Athenians and gone back to that
of the Potidaeans, having deputed Iolaus as his general: The plan of Aristeus
was to keep his own force on the isthmus, and await the attack of the Athenians;
leaving the Chalcidians and the allies outside the isthmus, and the two
hundred cavalry from Perdiccas in Olynthus to act upon the Athenian rear,
on the occasion of their advancing against him; and thus to place the enemy
between two fires. While Callias the Athenian general and his colleagues
dispatched the Macedonian horse and a few of the allies to Olynthus, to
prevent any movement being made from that quarter, the Athenians themselves
broke up their camp and marched against Potidaea. After they had arrived
at the isthmus, and saw the enemy preparing for battle, they formed against
him, and soon afterwards engaged. The wing of Aristeus, with the Corinthians
and other picked troops round him, routed the wing opposed to it, and followed
for a considerable distance in pursuit. But the rest of the army of the
Potidaeans and of the Peloponnesians was defeated by the Athenians, and
took refuge within the fortifications. Returning from the pursuit, Aristeus
perceived the defeat of the rest of the army. Being at a loss which of
the two risks to choose, whether to go to Olynthus or to Potidaea, he at
last determined to draw his men into as small a space as possible, and
force his way with a run into Potidaea. Not without difficulty, through
a storm of missiles, he passed along by the breakwater through the sea,
and brought off most of his men safe, though a few were lost. Meanwhile
the auxiliaries of the Potidaeans from Olynthus, which is about seven miles
off and in sight of Potidaea, when the battle began and the signals were
raised, advanced a little way to render assistance; and the Macedonian
horse formed against them to prevent it. But on victory speedily declaring
for the Athenians and the signals being taken down, they retired back within
the wall; and the Macedonians returned to the Athenians. Thus there were
no cavalry present on either side. After the battle the Athenians set up
a trophy, and gave back their dead to the Potidaeans under truce. The Potidaeans
and their allies had close upon three hundred killed; the Athenians a hundred
and fifty of their own citizens, and Callias their general.
The wall on the side of the isthmus
had now works at once raised against it, and manned by the Athenians. That
on the side of Pallene had no works raised against it. They did not think
themselves strong enough at once to keep a garrison in the isthmus and
to cross over to Pallene and raise works there; they were afraid that the
Potidaeans and their allies might take advantage of their division to attack
them. Meanwhile the Athenians at home learning that there were no works
at Pallene, some time afterwards sent off sixteen hundred heavy infantry
of their own citizens under the command of Phormio, son of Asopius. Arrived
at Pallene, he fixed his headquarters at Aphytis, and led his army against
Potidaea by short marches, ravaging the country as he advanced. No one
venturing to meet him in the field, he raised works against the wall on
the side of Pallene. So at length Potidaea was strongly invested on either
side, and from the sea by the ships co-operating in the blockade. Aristeus,
seeing its investment complete, and having no hope of its salvation, except
in the event of some movement from the Peloponnese, or of some other improbable
contingency, advised all except five hundred to watch for a wind and sail
out of the place, in order that their provisions might last the longer.
He was willing to be himself one of those who remained. Unable to persuade
them, and desirous of acting on the next alternative, and of having things
outside in the best posture possible, he eluded the guardships of the Athenians
and sailed out. Remaining among the Chalcidians, he continued to carry
on the war; in particular he laid an ambuscade near the city of the Sermylians,
and cut off many of them; he also communicated with Peloponnese, and tried
to contrive some method by which help might be brought. Meanwhile, after
the completion of the investment of Potidaea, Phormio next employed his
sixteen hundred men in ravaging Chalcidice and Bottica: some of the towns
also were taken by him.
Chapter
Three
Congress of the Peloponnesian
Confederacy at Lacedaemon
The Athenians and Peloponnesians
had these antecedent grounds of complaint against each other: the complaint
of Corinth was that her colony of Potidaea, and Corinthian and Peloponnesian
citizens within it, were being besieged; that of Athens against the Peloponnesians
that they had incited a town of hers, a member of her alliance and a contributor
to her revenue, to revolt, and had come and were openly fighting against
her on the side of the Potidaeans. For all this, war had not yet broken
out: there was still truce for a while; for this was a private enterprise
on the part of Corinth.
But the siege of Potidaea put an
end to her inaction; she had men inside it: besides, she feared for the
place. Immediately summoning the allies to Lacedaemon, she came and loudly
accused Athens of breach of the treaty and aggression on the rights of
Peloponnese. With her, the Aeginetans, formally unrepresented from fear
of Athens, in secret proved not the least urgent of the advocates for war,
asserting that they had not the independence guaranteed to them by the
treaty. After extending the summons to any of their allies and others who
might have complaints to make of Athenian aggression, the Lacedaemonians
held their ordinary assembly, and invited them to speak. There were many
who came forward and made their several accusations; among them the Megarians,
in a long list of grievances, called special attention to the fact of their
exclusion from the ports of the Athenian empire and the market of Athens,
in defiance of the treaty. Last of all the Corinthians came forward, and
having let those who preceded them inflame the Lacedaemonians, now followed
with a speech to this effect:
"Lacedaemonians! the confidence which
you feel in your constitution and social order, inclines you to receive
any reflections of ours on other powers with a certain scepticism. Hence
springs your moderation, but hence also the rather limited knowledge which
you betray in dealing with foreign politics. Time after time was our voice
raised to warn you of the blows about to be dealt us by Athens, and time
after time, instead of taking the trouble to ascertain the worth of our
communications, you contented yourselves with suspecting the speakers of
being inspired by private interest. And so, instead of calling these allies
together before the blow fell, you have delayed to do so till we are smarting
under it; allies among whom we have not the worst title to speak, as having
the greatest complaints to make, complaints of Athenian outrage and Lacedaemonian
neglect. Now if these assaults on the rights of Hellas had been made in
the dark, you might be unacquainted with the facts, and it would be our
duty to enlighten you. As it is, long speeches are not needed where you
see servitude accomplished for some ofus, meditated for others- in particular
for our allies- and prolonged preparations in the aggressor against the
hour of war. Or what, pray, is the meaning of their reception of Corcyra
by fraud, and their holding it against us by force? what of the siege of
Potidaea?- places one of which lies most conveniently for any action against
the Thracian towns; while the other would have contributed a very large
navy to the Peloponnesians?
"For all this you are responsible.
You it was who first allowed them to fortify their city after the Median
war, and afterwards to erect the long walls- you who, then and now, are
always depriving of freedom not only those whom they have enslaved, but
also those who have as yet been your allies. For the true author of the
subjugation of a people is not so much the immediate agent, as the power
which permits it having the means to prevent it; particularly if that power
aspires to the glory of being the liberator of Hellas. We are at last assembled.
It has not been easy to assemble, nor even now are our objects defined.
We ought not to be still inquiring into the fact of our wrongs, but into
the means of our defence. For the aggressors with matured plans to oppose
to our indecision have cast threats aside and betaken themselves to action.
And we know what are the paths by which Athenian aggression travels, and
how insidious is its progress. A degree of confidence she may feel from
the idea that your bluntness of perception prevents your noticing her;
but it is nothing to the impulse which her advance will receive from the
knowledge that you see, but do not care to interfere. You, Lacedaemonians,
of all the Hellenes are alone inactive, and defend yourselves not by doing
anything but by looking as if you would do something; you alone wait till
the power of an enemy is becoming twice its original size, instead of crushing
it in its infancy. And yet the world used to say that you were to be depended
upon; but in your case, we fear, it said more than the truth. The Mede,
we ourselves know, had time to come from the ends of the earth to Peloponnese,
without any force of yours worthy of the name advancing to meet him. But
this was a distant enemy. Well, Athens at all events is a near neighbour,
and yet Athens you utterly disregard; against Athens you prefer to act
on the defensive instead of on the offensive, and to make it an affair
of chances by deferring the struggle till she has grown far stronger than
at first. And yet you know that on the whole the rock on which the barbarian
was wrecked was himself, and that if our present enemy Athens has not again
and again annihilated us, we owe it more to her blunders than to your protection;
Indeed, expectations from you have before now been the ruin of some, whose
faith induced them to omit preparation.
"We hope that none of you will consider
these words of remonstrance to be rather words of hostility; men remonstrate
with friends who are in error, accusations they reserve for enemies who
have wronged them. Besides, we consider that we have as good a right as
any one to point out a neighbour's faults, particularly when we contemplate
the great contrast between the two national characters; a contrast of which,
as far as we can see, you have little perception, having never yet considered
what sort of antagonists you will encounter in the Athenians, how widely,
how absolutely different from yourselves. The Athenians are addicted to
innovation, and their designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception
and execution; you have a genius for keeping what you have got, accompanied
by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you never go far enough.
Again, they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their
judgment, and in danger they are sanguine; your wont is to attempt less
than is justified by your power, to mistrust even what is sanctioned by
your judgment, and to fancy that from danger there is no release. Further,
there is promptitude on their side against procrastination on yours; they
are never at home, you are never from it: for they hope by their absence
to extend their acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what
you have left behind. They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to
recoil from a reverse. Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their country's
cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed in her service.
A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a successful enterprise
a comparative failure. The deficiency created by the miscarriage of an
undertaking is soon filled up by fresh hopes; for they alone are enabled
to call a thing hoped for a thing got, by the speed with which they act
upon their resolutions. Thus they toil on in trouble and danger all the
days of their life, with little opportunity for enjoying, being ever engaged
in getting: their only idea of a holiday is to do what the occasion demands,
and to them laborious occupation is less of a misfortune than the peace
of a quiet life. To describe their character in a word, one might truly
say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to
give none to others.
"Such is Athens, your antagonist.
And yet, Lacedaemonians, you still delay, and fail to see that peace stays
longest with those, who are not more careful to use their power justly
than to show their determination not to submit to injustice. On the contrary,
your ideal of fair dealing is based on the principle that, if you do not
injure others, you need not risk your own fortunes in preventing others
from injuring you. Now you could scarcely have succeeded in such a policy
even with a neighbour like yourselves; but in the present instance, as
we have just shown, your habits are old-fashioned as compared with theirs.
It is the law as in art, so in politics, that improvements ever prevail;
and though fixed usages may be best for undisturbed communities, constant
necessities of action must be accompanied by the constant improvement of
methods. Thus it happens that the vast experience of Athens has carried
her further than you on the path of innovation.
"Here, at least, let your procrastination
end. For the present, assist your allies and Potidaea in particular, as
you promised, by a speedy invasion of Attica, and do not sacrifice friends
and kindred to their bitterest enemies, and drive the rest of us in despair
to some other alliance. Such a step would not be condemned either by the
Gods who received our oaths, or by the men who witnessed them. The breach
of a treaty cannot be laid to the people whom desertion compels to seek
new relations, but to the power that fails to assist its confederate. But
if you will only act, we will stand by you; it would be unnatural for us
to change, and never should we meet with such a congenial ally. For these
reasons choose the right course, and endeavour not to let Peloponnese under
your supremacy degenerate from the prestige that it enjoyed under that
of your ancestors."
Such were the words of the Corinthians.
There happened to be Athenian envoys present at Lacedaemon on other business.
On hearing the speeches they thought themselves called upon to come before
the Lacedaemonians. Their intention was not to offer a defence on any of
the charges which the cities brought against them, but to show on a comprehensive
view that it was not a matter to be hastily decided on, but one that demanded
further consideration. There was also a wish to call attention to the great
power of Athens, and to refresh the memory of the old and enlighten the
ignorance of the young, from a notion that their words might have the effect
of inducing them to prefer tranquillity to war. So they came to the Lacedaemonians
and said that they too, if there was no objection, wished to speak to their
assembly. They replied by inviting them to come forward. The Athenians
advanced, and spoke as follows:
"The object of our mission here was
not to argue with your allies, but to attend to the matters on which our
state dispatched us. However, the vehemence of the outcry that we hear
against us has prevailed on us to come forward. It is not to combat the
accusations of the cities (indeed you are not the judges before whom either
we or they can plead), but to prevent your taking the wrong course on matters
of great importance by yielding too readily to the persuasions of your
allies. We also wish to show on a review of the whole indictment that we
have a fair title to our possessions, and that our country has claims to
consideration. We need not refer to remote antiquity: there we could appeal
to the voice of tradition, but not to the experience of our audience. But
to the Median War and contemporary history we must refer, although we are
rather tired of continually bringing this subject forward. In our action
during that war we ran great risk to obtain certain advantages: you had
your share in the solid results, do not try to rob us of all share in the
good that the glory may do us. However, the story shall be told not so
much to deprecate hostility as to testify against it, and to show, if you
are so ill advised as to enter into a struggle with Athens, what sort of
an antagonist she is likely to prove. We assert that at Marathon we were
at the front, and faced the barbarian single-handed. That when he came
the second time, unable to cope with him by land we went on board our ships
with all our people, and joined in the action at Salamis. This prevented
his taking the Peloponnesian states in detail, and ravaging them with his
fleet; when the multitude of his vessels would have made any combination
for self-defence impossible. The best proofof this was furnished by the
invader himself. Defeated at sea, he considered his power to be no longer
what it had been, and retired as speedily as possible with the greater
part of his army.
"Such, then, was the result of the
matter, and it was clearly proved that it was on the fleet of Hellas that
her cause depended. Well, to this result we contributed three very useful
elements, viz., the largest number of ships, the ablest commander, and
the most unhesitating patriotism. Our contingent of ships was little less
than two-thirds of the whole four hundred; the commander was Themistocles,
through whom chiefly it was that the battle took place in the straits,
the acknowledged salvation of our cause. Indeed, this was the reason of
your receiving him with honours such as had never been accorded to any
foreign visitor. While for daring patriotism we had no competitors. Receiving
no reinforcements from behind, seeing everything in front of us already
subjugated, we had the spirit, after abandoning our city, after sacrificing
our property (instead of deserting the remainder of the league or depriving
them of our services by dispersing), to throw ourselves into our ships
and meet the danger, without a thought of resenting your neglect to assist
us. We assert, therefore, that we conferred on you quite as much as we
received. For you had a stake to fight for; the cities which you had left
were still filled with your homes, and you had the prospect of enjoying
them again; and your coming was prompted quite as much by fear for yourselves
as for us; at all events, you never appeared till we had nothing left to
lose. But we left behind us a city that was a city no longer, and staked
our lives for a city that had an existence only in desperate hope, and
so bore our full share in your deliverance and in ours. But if we had copied
others, and allowed fears for our territory to make us give in our adhesion
to the Mede before you came, or if we had suffered our ruin to break our
spirit and prevent us embarking in our ships, your naval inferiority would
have made a sea-fight unnecessary, and his objects would have been peaceably
attained.
"Surely, Lacedaemonians, neither
by the patriotism that we displayed at that crisis, nor by the wisdom of
our counsels, do we merit our extreme unpopularity with the Hellenes, not
at least unpopularity for our empire. That empire we acquired by no violent
means, but because you were unwilling to prosecute to its conclusion the
war against the barbarian, and because the allies attached themselves to
us and spontaneously asked us to assume the command. And the nature of
the case first compelled us to advance our empire to its present height;
fear being our principal motive, though honour and interest afterwards
came in. And at last, when almost all hated us, when some had already revolted
and had been subdued, when you had ceased to be the friends that you once
were, and had become objects of suspicion and dislike, it appeared no longer
safe to give up our empire; especially as all who left us would fall to
you. And no one can quarrel with a people for making, in matters of tremendous
risk, the best provision that it can for its interest.
"You, at all events, Lacedaemonians,
have used your supremacy to settle the states in Peloponnese as is agreeable
to you. And if at the period of which we were speaking you had persevered
to the end of the matter, and had incurred hatred in your command, we are
sure that you would have made yourselves just as galling to the allies,
and would have been forced to choose between a strong government and danger
to yourselves. It follows that it was not a very wonderful action, or contrary
to the common practice of mankind, if we did accept an empire that was
offered to us, and refused to give it up under the pressure of three of
the strongest motives, fear, honour, and interest. And it was not we who
set the example, for it has always been law that the weaker should be subject
to the stronger. Besides, we believed ourselves to be worthy of our position,
and so you thought us till now, when calculations of interest have made
you take up the cry of justice- a consideration which no one ever yet brought
forward to hinder his ambition when he had a chance of gaining anything
by might. And praise is due to all who, if not so superior to human nature
as to refuse dominion, yet respect justice more than their position compels
them to do.
"We imagine that our moderation would
be best demonstrated by the conduct of others who should be placed in our
position; but even our equity has very unreasonably subjected us to condemnation
instead of approval. Our abatement of our rights in the contract trials
with our allies, and our causing them to be decided by impartial laws at
Athens, have gained us the character of being litigious. And none care
to inquire why this reproach is not brought against other imperial powers,
who treat their subjects with less moderation than we do; the secret being
that where force can be used, law is not needed. But our subjects are so
habituated to associate with us as equals that any defeat whatever that
clashes with their notions of justice, whether it proceeds from a legal
judgment or from the power which our empire gives us, makes them forget
to be grateful for being allowed to retain most of their possessions, and
more vexed at a part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law
aside and openly gratified our covetousness. If we had done so, not even
would they have disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger.
Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent
wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like
being compelled by a superior. At all events they contrived to put up with
much worse treatment than this from the Mede, yet they think our rule severe,
and this is to be expected, for the present always weighs heavy on the
conquered. This at least is certain. If you were to succeed in overthrowing
us and in taking our place, you would speedily lose the popularity with
which fear of us has invested you, if your policy of to-day is at all to
tally with the sample that you gave of it during the brief period of your
command against the Mede. Not only is your life at home regulated by rules
and institutions incompatible with those of others, but your citizens abroad
act neither on these rules nor on those which are recognized by the rest
of Hellas.
"Take time then in forming your resolution,
as the matter is of great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions
and complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider the
vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it. As it
continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances from which
neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in the dark. It is
a common mistake in going to war to begin at the wrong end, to act first,
and wait for disaster to discuss the matter. But we are not yet by any
means so misguided, nor, so far as we can see, are you; accordingly, while
it is still open to us both to choose aright, we bid you not to dissolve
the treaty, or to break your oaths, but to have our differences settled
by arbitration according to our agreement. Or else we take the gods who
heard the oaths to witness, and if you begin hostilities, whatever line
of action you choose, we will try not to be behindhand in repelling you."
Such were the words of the Athenians.
After the Lacedaemonians had heard the complaints of the allies against
the Athenians, and the observations of the latter, they made all withdraw,
and consulted by themselves on the question before them. The opinions of
the majority all led to the same conclusion; the Athenians were open aggressors,
and war must be declared at once. But Archidamus, the Lacedaemonian king,
came forward, who had the reputation of being at once a wise and a moderate
man, and made the following speech:
"I have not lived so long, Lacedaemonians,
without having had the experience of many wars, and I see those among you
of the same age as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune
of longing for war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage
and its safety. This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one
of the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter. In a
struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is of the same
character, and it is possible to move swiftly on the different points.
But a struggle with a people who live in a distant land, who have also
an extraordinary familiarity with the sea, and who are in the highest state
of preparation in every other department; with wealth private and public,
with ships, and horses, and heavy infantry, and a population such as no
one other Hellenic place can equal, and lastly a number of tributary allies-
what can justify us in rashly beginning such a struggle? wherein is our
trust that we should rush on it unprepared? Is it in our ships? There we
are inferior; while if we are to practise and become a match for them,
time must intervene. Is it in our money? There we have a far greater deficiency.
We neither have it in our treasury, nor are we ready to contribute it from
our private funds. Confidence might possibly be felt in our superiority
in heavy infantry and population, which will enable us to invade and devastate
their lands. But the Athenians have plenty of other land in their empire,
and can import what they want by sea. Again, if we are to attempt an insurrection
of their allies, these will have to be supported with a fleet, most of
them being islanders. What then is to be our war? For unless we can either
beat them at sea, or deprive them of the revenues which feed their navy,
we shall meet with little but disaster. Meanwhile our honour will be pledged
to keeping on, particularly if it be the opinion that we began the quarrel.
For let us never be elated by the fatal hope of the war being quickly ended
by the devastation of their lands. I fear rather that we may leave it as
a legacy to our children; so improbable is it that the Athenian spirit
will be the slave of their land, or Athenian experience be cowed by war.
"Not that I would bid you be so unfeeling
as to suffer them to injure your allies, and to refrain from unmasking
their intrigues; but I do bid you not to take up arms at once, but to send
and remonstrate with them in a tone not too suggestive of war, nor again
too suggestive of submission, and to employ the interval in perfecting
our own preparations. The means will be, first, the acquisition of allies,
Hellenic or barbarian it matters not, so long as they are an accession
to our strength naval or pecuniary- I say Hellenic or barbarian, because
the odium of such an accession to all who like us are the objects of the
designs of the Athenians is taken away by the law of self-preservation-
and secondly the development of our home resources. If they listen to our
embassy, so much the better; but if not, after the lapse of two or three
years our position will have become materially strengthened, and we can
then attack them if we think proper. Perhaps by that time the sight of
our preparations, backed by language equally significant, will have disposed
them to submission, while their land is still untouched, and while their
counsels may be directed to the retention of advantages as yet undestroyed.
For the only light in which you can view their land is that of a hostage
in your hands, a hostage the more valuable the better it is cultivated.
This you ought to spare as long as possible, and not make them desperate,
and so increase the difficulty of dealing with them. For if while still
unprepared, hurried away by the complaints of our allies, we are induced
to lay it waste, have a care that we do not bring deep disgrace and deep
perplexity upon Peloponnese. Complaints, whether of communities or individuals,
it is possible to adjust; but war undertaken by a coalition for sectional
interests, whose progress there is no means of foreseeing, does not easily
admit of creditable settlement.
"And none need think it cowardice
for a number of confederates to pause before they attack a single city.
The Athenians have allies as numerous as our own, and allies that pay tribute,
and war is a matter not so much of arms as of money, which makes arms of
use. And this is more than ever true in a struggle between a continental
and a maritime power. First, then, let us provide money, and not allow
ourselves to be carried away by the talk of our allies before we have done
so: as we shall have the largest share of responsibility for the consequences
be they good or bad, we have also a right to a tranquil inquiry respecting
them.
"And the slowness and procrastination,
the parts of our character that are most assailed by their criticism, need
not make you blush. If we undertake the war without preparation, we should
by hastening its commencement only delay its conclusion: further, a free
and a famous city has through all time been ours. The quality which they
condemn is really nothing but a wise moderation; thanks to its possession,
we alone do not become insolent in success and give way less than others
in misfortune; we are not carried away by the pleasure of hearing ourselves
cheered on to risks which our judgment condemns; nor, if annoyed, are we
any the more convinced by attempts to exasperate us by accusation. We are
both warlike and wise, and it is our sense of order that makes us so. We
are warlike, because self-control contains honour as a chief constituent,
and honour bravery. And we are wise, because we are educated with too little
learning to despise the laws, and with too severe a self-control to disobey
them, and are brought up not to be too knowing in useless matters- such
as the knowledge which can give a specious criticism of an enemy's plans
in theory, but fails to assail them with equal success in practice- but
are taught to consider that the schemes of our enemies are not dissimilar
to our own, and that the freaks of chance are not determinable by calculation.
In practice we always base our preparations against an enemy on the assumption
that his plans are good; indeed, it is right to rest our hopes not on a
belief in his blunders, but on the soundness of our provisions. Nor ought
we to believe that there is much difference between man and man, but to
think that the superiority lies with him who is reared in the severest
school. These practices, then, which our ancestors have delivered to us,
and by whose maintenance we have always profited, must not be given up.
And we must not be hurried into deciding in a day's brief space a question
which concerns many lives and fortunes and many cities, and in which honour
is deeply involved- but we must decide calmly. This our strength peculiarly
enables us to do. As for the Athenians, send to them on the matter of Potidaea,
send on the matter of the alleged wrongs of the allies, particularly as
they are prepared with legal satisfaction; and to proceed against one who
offers arbitration as against a wrongdoer, law forbids. Meanwhile do not
omit preparation for war. This decision will be the best for yourselves,
the most terrible to your opponents."
Such were the words of Archidamus.
Last came forward Sthenelaidas, one of the ephors for that year, and spoke
to the Lacedaemonians as follows:
"The long speech of the Athenians
I do not pretend to understand. They said a good deal in praise of themselves,
but nowhere denied that they are injuring our allies and Peloponnese. And
yet if they behaved well against the Mede then, but ill towards us now,
they deserve double punishment for having ceased to be good and for having
become bad. We meanwhile are the same then and now, and shall not, if we
are wise, disregard the wrongs of our allies, or put off till to-morrow
the duty of assisting those who must suffer to-day. Others have much money
and ships and horses, but we have good allies whom we must not give up
to the Athenians, nor by lawsuits and words decide the matter, as it is
anything but in word that we are harmed, but render instant and powerful
help. And let us not be told that it is fitting for us to deliberate under
injustice; long deliberation is rather fitting for those who have injustice
in contemplation. Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour
of Sparta demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens,
nor betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against
the aggressors."
With these words he, as ephor, himself
put the question to the assembly of the Lacedaemonians. He said that he
could not determine which was the loudest acclamation (their mode of decision
is by acclamation not by voting); the fact being that he wished to make
them declare their opinion openly and thus to increase their ardour for
war. Accordingly he said: "All Lacedaemonians who are of opinion that the
treaty has been broken, and that Athens is guilty, leave your seats and
go there," pointing out a certain place; "all who are of the opposite opinion,
there." They accordingly stood up and divided; and those who held that
the treaty had been broken were in a decided majority. Summoning the allies,
they told them that their opinion was that Athens had been guilty of injustice,
but that they wished to convoke all the allies and put it to the vote;
in order that they might make war, if they decided to do so, on a common
resolution. Having thus gained their point, the delegates returned home
at once; the Athenian envoys a little later, when they had dispatched the
objects of their mission. This decision of the assembly, judging that the
treaty had been broken, was made in the fourteenth year of the thirty years'
truce, which was entered into after the affair of Euboea.
The Lacedaemonians voted that the
treaty had been broken, and that the war must be declared, not so much
because they were persuaded by the arguments of the allies, as because
they feared the growth of the power of the Athenians, seeing most of Hellas
already subject to them
Chapter
Four
From the end of the Persian to
the beginning of the Peloponnesian War -
The Progress from Supremacy to
Empire -
The way in which Athens came to be
placed in the circumstances under which her power grew was this. After
the Medes had returned from Europe, defeated by sea and land by the Hellenes,
and after those of them who had fled with their ships to Mycale had been
destroyed, Leotychides, king of the Lacedaemonians, the commander of the
Hellenes at Mycale, departed home with the allies from Peloponnese. But
the Athenians and the allies from Ionia and Hellespont, who had now revolted
from the King, remained and laid siege to Sestos, which was still held
by the Medes. After wintering before it, they became masters of the place
on its evacuation by the barbarians; and after this they sailed away from
Hellespont to their respective cities. Meanwhile the Athenian people, after
the departure of the barbarian from their country, at once proceeded to
carry over their children and wives, and such property as they had left,
from the places where they had deposited them, and prepared to rebuild
their city and their walls. For only isolated portions of the circumference
had been left standing, and most of the houses were in ruins; though a
few remained, in which the Persian grandees had taken up their quarters.
Perceiving what they were going to
do, the Lacedaemonians sent an embassy to Athens. They would have themselves
preferred to see neither her nor any other city in possession of a wall;
though here they acted principally at the instigation of their allies,
who were alarmed at the strength of her newly acquired navy and the valour
which she had displayed in the war with the Medes. They begged her not
only to abstain from building walls for herself, but also to join them
in throwing down the walls that still held together of the ultra-Peloponnesian
cities. The real meaning of their advice, the suspicion that it contained
against the Athenians, was not proclaimed; it was urged that so the barbarian,
in the event of a third invasion, would not have any strong place, such
as he now had in Thebes, for his base of operations; and that Peloponnese
would suffice for all as a base both for retreat and offence. After the
Lacedaemonians had thus spoken, they were, on the advice of Themistocles,
immediately dismissed by the Athenians, with the answer that ambassadors
should be sent to Sparta to discuss the question. Themistocles told the
Athenians to send him off with all speed to Lacedaemon, but not to dispatch
his colleagues as soon as they had selected them, but to wait until they
had raised their wall to the height from which defence was possible. Meanwhile
the whole population in the city was to labour at the wall, the Athenians,
their wives, and their children, sparing no edifice, private or public,
which might be of any use to the work, but throwing all down. After giving
these instructions, and adding that he would be responsible for all other
matters there, he departed. Arrived at Lacedaemon he did not seek an audience
with the authorities, but tried to gain time and made excuses. When any
of the government asked him why he did not appear in the assembly, he would
say that he was waiting for his colleagues, who had been detained in Athens
by some engagement; however, that he expected their speedy arrival, and
wondered that they were not yet there. At first the Lacedaemonians trusted
the words of Themistocles, through their friendship for him; but when others
arrived, all distinctly declaring that the work was going on and already
attaining some elevation, they did not know how to disbelieve it. Aware
of this, he told them that rumours are deceptive, and should not be trusted;
they should send some reputable persons from Sparta to inspect, whose report
might be trusted. They dispatched them accordingly. Concerning these Themistocles
secretly sent word to the Athenians to detain them as far as possible without
putting them under open constraint, and not to let them go until they had
themselves returned. For his colleagues had now joined him, Abronichus,
son of Lysicles, and Aristides, son of Lysimachus, with the news that the
wall was sufficiently advanced; and he feared that when the Lacedaemonians
heard the facts, they might refuse to let them go. So the Athenians detained
the envoys according to his message, and Themistocles had an audience with
the Lacedaemonians, and at last openly told them that Athens was now fortified
sufficiently to protect its inhabitants; that any embassy which the Lacedaemonians
or their allies might wish to send to them should in future proceed on
the assumption that the people to whom they were going was able to distinguish
both its own and the general interests. That when the Athenians thought
fit to abandon their city and to embark in their ships, they ventured on
that perilous step without consulting them; and that on the other hand,
wherever they had deliberated with the Lacedaemonians, they had proved
themselves to be in judgment second to none. That they now thought it fit
that their city should have a wall, and that this would be more for the
advantage of both the citizens of Athens and the Hellenic confederacy;
for without equal military strength it was impossible to contribute equal
or fair counsel to the common interest. It followed, he observed, either
that all the members of the confederacy should be without walls, or that
the present step should be considered a right one.
The Lacedaemonians did not betray
any open signs of anger against the Athenians at what they heard. The embassy,
it seems, was prompted not by a desire to obstruct, but to guide the counsels
of their government: besides, Spartan feeling was at that time very friendly
towards Athens on account of the patriotism which she had displayed in
the struggle with the Mede. Still the defeat of their wishes could not
but cause them secret annoyance. The envoys of each state departed home
without complaint.
In this way the Athenians walled
their city in a little while. To this day the building shows signs of the
haste of its execution; the foundations are laid of stones of all kinds,
and in some places not wrought or fitted, but placed just in the order
in which they were brought by the different hands; and many columns, too,
from tombs, and sculptured stones were put in with the rest. For the bounds
of the city were extended at every point of the circumference; and so they
laid hands on everything without exception in their haste. Themistocles
also persuaded them to finish the walls of Piraeus, which had been begun
before, in his year of office as archon; being influenced alike by the
fineness of a locality that has three natural harbours, and by the great
start which the Athenians would gain in the acquisition of power by becoming
a naval people. For he first ventured to tell them to stick to the sea
and forthwith began to lay the foundations of the empire. It was by his
advice, too, that they built the walls of that thickness which can still
be discerned round Piraeus, the stones being brought up by two wagons meeting
each other. Between the walls thus formed there was neither rubble nor
mortar, but great stones hewn square and fitted together, cramped to each
other on the outside with iron and lead. About half the height that he
intended was finished. His idea was by their size and thickness to keep
off the attacks of an enemy; he thought that they might be adequately defended
by a small garrison of invalids, and the rest be freed for service in the
fleet. For the fleet claimed most of his attention. He saw, as I think,
that the approach by sea was easier for the king's army than that by land:
he also thought Piraeus more valuable than the upper city; indeed, he was
always advising the Athenians, if a day should come when they were hard
pressed by land, to go down into Piraeus, and defy the world with their
fleet. Thus, therefore, the Athenians completed their wall, and commenced
their other buildings immediately after the retreat of the Mede.
Meanwhile Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus,
was sent out from Lacedaemon as commander-in-chief of the Hellenes, with
twenty ships from Peloponnese. With him sailed the Athenians with thirty
ships, and a number of the other allies. They made an expedition against
Cyprus and subdued most of the island, and afterwards against Byzantium,
which was in the hands of the Medes, and compelled it to surrender. This
event took place while the Spartans were still supreme. But the violence
of Pausanias had already begun to be disagreeable to the Hellenes, particularly
to the Ionians and the newly liberated populations. These resorted to the
Athenians and requested them as their kinsmen to become their leaders,
and to stop any attempt at violence on the part of Pausanias. The Athenians
accepted their overtures, and determined to put down any attempt of the
kind and to settle everything else as their interests might seem to demand.
In the meantime the Lacedaemonians recalled Pausanias for an investigation
of the reports which had reached them. Manifold and grave accusations had
been brought against him by Hellenes arriving in Sparta; and, to all appearance,
there had been in him more of the mimicry of a despot than of the attitude
of a general. As it happened, his recall came just at the time when the
hatred which he had inspired had induced the allies to desert him, the
soldiers from Peloponnese excepted, and to range themselves by the side
of the Athenians. On his arrival at Lacedaemon, he was censured for his
private acts of oppression, but was acquitted on the heaviest counts and
pronounced not guilty; it must be known that the charge of Medism formed
one of the principal, and to all appearance one of the best founded, articles
against him. The Lacedaemonians did not, however, restore him to his command,
but sent out Dorkis and certain others with a small force; who found the
allies no longer inclined to concede to them the supremacy. Perceiving
this they departed, and the Lacedaemonians did not send out any to succeed
them. They feared for those who went out a deterioration similar to that
observable in Pausanias; besides, they desired to be rid of the Median
War, and were satisfied of the competency of the Athenians for the position,
and of their friendship at the time towards themselves.
The Athenians, having thus succeeded
to the supremacy by the voluntary act of the allies through their hatred
of Pausanias, fixed which cities were to contribute money against the barbarian,
which ships; their professed object being to retaliate for their sufferings
by ravaging the King's country. Now was the time that the office of "Treasurers
for Hellas" was first instituted by the Athenians. These officers received
the tribute, as the money contributed was called. The tribute was first
fixed at four hundred and sixty talents. The common treasury was at Delos,
and the congresses were held in the temple. Their supremacy commenced with
independent allies who acted on the resolutions of a common congress. It
was marked by the following undertakings in war and in administration during
the interval between the Median and the present war, against the barbarian,
against their own rebel allies, and against the Peloponnesian powers which
would come in contact with them on various occasions. My excuse for relating
these events, and for venturing on this digression, is that this passage
of history has been omitted by all my predecessors, who have confined themselves
either to Hellenic history before the Median War, or the Median War itself.
Hellanicus, it is true, did touch on these events in his Athenian history;
but he is somewhat concise and not accurate in his dates. Besides, the
history of these events contains an explanation of the growth of the Athenian
empire.
First the Athenians besieged and
captured Eion on the Strymon from the Medes, and made slaves of the inhabitants,
being under the command of Cimon, son of Miltiades. Next they enslaved
Scyros, the island in the Aegean, containing a Dolopian population, and
colonized it themselves. This was followed by a war against Carystus, in
which the rest of Euboea remained neutral, and which was ended by surrender
on conditions. After this Naxos left the confederacy, and a war ensued,
and she had to return after a siege; this was the first instance of the
engagement being broken by the subjugation of an allied city, a precedent
which was followed by that of the rest in the order which circumstances
prescribed. Of all the causes of defection, that connected with arrears
of tribute and vessels, and with failure of service, was the chief; for
the Athenians were very severe and exacting, and made themselves offensive
by applying the screw of necessity to men who were not used to and in fact
not disposed for any continuous labour. In some other respects the Athenians
were not the old popular rulers they had been at first; and if they had
more than their fair share of service, it was correspondingly easy for
them to reduce any that tried to leave the confederacy. For this the allies
had themselves to blame; the wish to get off service making most of them
arrange to pay their share of the expense in money instead of in ships,
and so to avoid having to leave their homes. Thus while Athens was increasing
her navy with the funds which they contributed, a revolt always found them
without resources or experience for war.
Next we come to the actions by land
and by sea at the river Eurymedon, between the Athenians with their allies,
and the Medes, when the Athenians won both battles on the same day under
the conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed the
whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels. Some time afterwards
occurred the defection of the Thasians, caused by disagreements about the
marts on the opposite coast of Thrace, and about the mine in their possession.
Sailing with a fleet to Thasos, the Athenians defeated them at sea and
effected a landing on the island. About the same time they sent ten thousand
settlers of their own citizens and the allies to settle the place then
called Ennea Hodoi or Nine Ways, now Amphipolis. They succeeded in gaining
possession of Ennea Hodoi from the Edonians, but on advancing into the
interior of Thrace were cut off in Drabescus, a town of the Edonians, by
the assembled Thracians, who regarded the settlement of the place Ennea
Hodoi as an act of hostility. Meanwhile the Thasians being defeated in
the field and suffering siege, appealed to Lacedaemon, and desired her
to assist them by an invasion of Attica. Without informing Athens, she
promised and intended to do so, but was prevented by the occurrence of
the earthquake, accompanied by the secession of the Helots and the Thuriats
and Aethaeans of the Perioeci to Ithome. Most of the Helots were the descendants
of the old Messenians that were enslaved in the famous war; and so all
of them came to be called Messenians. So the Lacedaemonians being engaged
in a war with the rebels in Ithome, the Thasians in the third year of the
siege obtained terms from the Athenians by razing their walls, delivering
up their ships, and arranging to pay the moneys demanded at once, and tribute
in future; giving up their possessions on the continent together with the
mine.
The Lacedaemonians, meanwhile, finding
the war against the rebels in Ithome likely to last, invoked the aid of
their allies, and especially of the Athenians, who came in some force under
the command of Cimon. The reason for this pressing summons lay in their
reputed skill in siege operations; a long siege had taught the Lacedaemonians
their own deficiency in this art, else they would have taken the place
by assault. The first open quarrel between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians
arose out of this expedition. The Lacedaemonians, when assault failed to
take the place, apprehensive of the enterprising and revolutionary character
of the Athenians, and further looking upon them as of alien extraction,
began to fear that, if they remained, they might be tempted by the besieged
in Ithome to attempt some political changes. They accordingly dismissed
them alone of the allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely
saying that they had now no need of them. But the Athenians, aware that
their dismissal did not proceed from the more honourable reason of the
two, but from suspicions which had been conceived, went away deeply offended,
and conscious of having done nothing to merit such treatment from the Lacedaemonians;
and the instant that they returned home they broke off the alliance which
had been made against the Mede, and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy
Argos; each of the contracting parties taking the same oaths and making
the same alliance with the Thessalians.
Meanwhile the rebels in Ithome, unable
to prolong further a ten years' resistance, surrendered to Lacedaemon;
the conditions being that they should depart from Peloponnese under safe
conduct, and should never set foot in it again: any one who might hereafter
be found there was to be the slave of his captor. It must be known that
the Lacedaemonians had an old oracle from Delphi, to the effect that they
should let go the suppliant of Zeus at Ithome. So they went forth with
their children and their wives, and being received by Athens from the hatred
that she now felt for the Lacedaemonians, were located at Naupactus, which
she had lately taken from the Ozolian Locrians. The Athenians received
another addition to their confederacy in the Megarians; who left the Lacedaemonian
alliance, annoyed by a war about boundaries forced on them by Corinth.
The Athenians occupied Megara and Pegae, and built the Megarians their
long walls from the city to Nisaea, in which they placed an Athenian garrison.
This was the principal cause of the Corinthians conceiving such a deadly
hatred against Athens.
Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus,
a Libyan king of the Libyans on the Egyptian border, having his headquarters
at Marea, the town above Pharos, caused a revolt of almost the whole of
Egypt from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself at its head, invited the
Athenians to his assistance. Abandoning a Cyprian expedition upon which
they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their own and their
allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea into the Nile, and
making themselves masters of the river and two-thirds of Memphis, addressed
themselves to the attack of the remaining third, which is called White
Castle. Within it were Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and
Egyptians who had not joined the rebellion.
Meanwhile the Athenians, making a
descent from their fleet upon Haliae, were engaged by a force of Corinthians
and Epidaurians; and the Corinthians were victorious. Afterwards the Athenians
engaged the Peloponnesian fleet off Cecruphalia; and the Athenians were
victorious. Subsequently war broke out between Aegina and Athens, and there
was a great battle at sea off Aegina between the Athenians and Aeginetans,
each being aided by their allies; in which victory remained with the Athenians,
who took seventy of the enemy's ships, and landed in the country and commenced
a siege under the command of Leocrates, son of Stroebus. Upon this the
Peloponnesians, desirous of aiding the Aeginetans, threw into Aegina a
force of three hundred heavy infantry, who had before been serving with
the Corinthians and Epidaurians. Meanwhile the Corinthians and their allies
occupied the heights of Geraneia, and marched down into the Megarid, in
the belief that, with a large force absent in Aegina and Egypt, Athens
would be unable to help the Megarians without raising the siege of Aegina.
But the Athenians, instead of moving the army of Aegina, raised a force
of the old and young men that had been left in the city, and marched into
the Megarid under the command of Myronides. After a drawn battle with the
Corinthians, the rival hosts parted, each with the impression that they
had gained the victory. The Athenians, however, if anything, had rather
the advantage, and on the departure of the Corinthians set up a trophy.
Urged by the taunts of the elders in their city, the Corinthians made their
preparations, and about twelve days afterwards came and set up their trophy
as victors. Sallying out from Megara, the Athenians cut off the party that
was employed in erecting the trophy, and engaged and defeated the rest.
In the retreat of the vanquished army, a considerable division, pressed
by the pursuers and mistaking the road, dashed into a field on some private
property, with a deep trench all round it, and no way out. Being acquainted
with the place, the Athenians hemmed their front with heavy infantry and,
placing the light troops round in a circle, stoned all who had gone in.
Corinth here suffered a severe blow. The bulk of her army continued its
retreat home.
About this time the Athenians began
to build the long walls to the sea, that towards Phalerum and that towards
Piraeus. Meanwhile the Phocians made an expedition against Doris, the old
home of the Lacedaemonians, containing the towns of Boeum, Kitinium, and
Erineum. They had taken one of these towns, when the Lacedaemonians under
Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, commanding for King Pleistoanax, son of
Pausanias, who was still a minor, came to the aid of the Dorians with fifteen
hundred heavy infantry of their own, and ten thousand of their allies.
After compelling the Phocians to restore the town on conditions, they began
their retreat. The route by sea, across the Crissaean Gulf, exposed them
to the risk of being stopped by the Athenian fleet; that across Geraneia
seemed scarcely safe, the Athenians holding Megara and Pegae. For the pass
was a difficult one, and was always guarded by the Athenians; and, in the
present instance, the Lacedaemonians had information that they meant to
dispute their passage. So they resolved to remain in Boeotia, and to consider
which would be the safest line of march. They had also another reason for
this resolve. Secret encouragement had been given them by a party in Athens,
who hoped to put an end to the reign of democracy and the building of the
Long Walls. Meanwhile the Athenians marched against them with their whole
levy and a thousand Argives and the respective contingents of the rest
of their allies. Altogether they were fourteen thousand strong. The march
was prompted by the notion that the Lacedaemonians were at a loss how to
effect their passage, and also by suspicions of an attempt to overthrow
the democracy. Some cavalry also joined the Athenians from their Thessalian
allies; but these went over to the Lacedaemonians during the battle.
The battle was fought at Tanagra
in Boeotia. After heavy loss on both sides, victory declared for the Lacedaemonians
and their allies. After entering the Megarid and cutting down the fruit
trees, the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus.
Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia under
the command of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in battle at Oenophyta,
and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled the walls of
the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the Opuntian Locrians
as hostages, and finished their own long walls. This was followed by the
surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on conditions; they pulled down their
walls, gave up their ships, and agreed to pay tribute in future. The Athenians
sailed round Peloponnese under Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus, burnt the arsenal
of Lacedaemon, took Chalcis, a town of the Corinthians, and in a descent
upon Sicyon defeated the Sicyonians in battle.
Meanwhile the Athenians in Egypt
and their allies were still there, and encountered all the vicissitudes
of war. First the Athenians were masters of Egypt, and the King sent Megabazus
a Persian to Lacedaemon with money to bribe the Peloponnesians to invade
Attica and so draw off the Athenians from Egypt. Finding that the matter
made no progress, and that the money was only being wasted, he recalled
Megabazus with the remainder of the money, and sent Megabuzus, son of Zopyrus,
a Persian, with a large army to Egypt. Arriving by land he defeated the
Egyptians and their allies in a battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis,
and at length shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged
them for a year and six months. At last, draining the canal of its waters,
which he diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry
and joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on
foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin
after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling through
Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And thus Egypt
returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus, the king in the
marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the extent of the marsh;
the marshmen being also the most warlike of the Egyptians. Inaros, the
Libyan king, the sole author of the Egyptian revolt, was betrayed, taken,
and crucified. Meanwhile a relieving squadron of fifty vessels had sailed
from Athens and the rest of the confederacy for Egypt. They put in to shore
at the Mendesian mouth of the Nile, in total ignorance of what had occurred.
Attacked on the land side by the troops, and from the sea by the Phoenician
navy, most of the ships were destroyed; the few remaining being saved by
retreat. Such was the end of the great expedition of the Athenians and
their allies to Egypt.
Meanwhile Orestes, son of Echecratidas,
the Thessalian king, being an exile from Thessaly, persuaded the Athenians
to restore him. Taking with them the Boeotians and Phocians their allies,
the Athenians marched to Pharsalus in Thessaly. They became masters of
the country, though only in the immediate vicinity of the camp; beyond
which they could not go for fear of the Thessalian cavalry. But they failed
to take the city or to attain any of the other objects of their expedition,
and returned home with Orestes without having effected anything. Not long
after this a thousand of the Athenians embarked in the vessels that were
at Pegae (Pegae, it must be remembered, was now theirs), and sailed along
the coast to Sicyon under the command of Pericles, son of Xanthippus. Landing
in Sicyon and defeating the Sicyonians who engaged them, they immediately
took with them the Achaeans and, sailing across, marched against and laid
siege to Oeniadae in Acarnania. Failing however to take it, they returned
home.
Three years afterwards a truce was
made between the Peloponnesians and Athenians for five years. Released
from Hellenic war, the Athenians made an expedition to Cyprus with two
hundred vessels of their own and their allies, under the command of Cimon.
Sixty of these were detached to Egypt at the instance of Amyrtaeus, the
king in the marshes; the rest laid siege to Kitium, from which, however,
they were compelled to retire by the death of Cimon and by scarcity of
provisions. Sailing off Salamis in Cyprus, they fought with the Phoenicians,
Cyprians, and Cilicians by land and sea, and, being victorious on both
elements departed home, and with them the returned squadron from Egypt.
After this the Lacedaemonians marched out on a sacred war, and, becoming
masters of the temple at Delphi, it in the hands of the Delphians. Immediately
after their retreat, the Athenians marched out, became masters of the temple,
and placed it in the hands of the Phocians.
Some time after this, Orchomenus,
Chaeronea, and some other places in Boeotia being in the hands of the Boeotian
exiles, the Athenians marched against the above-mentioned hostile places
with a thousand Athenian heavy infantry and the allied contingents, under
the command of Tolmides, son of Tolmaeus. They took Chaeronea, and made
slaves of the inhabitants, and, leaving a garrison, commenced their return.
On their road they were attacked at Coronea by the Boeotian exiles from
Orchomenus, with some Locrians and Euboean exiles, and others who were
of the same way of thinking, were defeated in battle, and some killed,
others taken captive. The Athenians evacuated all Boeotia by a treaty providing
for the recovery of the men; and the exiled Boeotians returned, and with
all the rest regained their independence.
This was soon afterwards followed
by the revolt of Euboea from Athens. Pericles had already crossed over
with an army of Athenians to the island, when news was brought to him that
Megara had revolted, that the Peloponnesians were on the point of invading
Attica, and that the Athenian garrison had been cut off by the Megarians,
with the exception of a few who had taken refuge in Nisaea. The Megarians
had introduced the Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the town
before they revolted. Meanwhile Pericles brought his army back in all haste
from Euboea. After this the Peloponnesians marched into Attica as far as
Eleusis and Thrius, ravaging the country under the conduct of King Pleistoanax,
the son of Pausanias, and without advancing further returned home. The
Athenians then crossed over again to Euboea under the command of Pericles,
and subdued the whole of the island: all but Histiaea was settled by convention;
the Histiaeans they expelled from their homes, and occupied their territory
themselves.
Not long after their return from
Euboea, they made a truce with the Lacedaemonians and their allies for
thirty years, giving up the posts which they occupied in Peloponnese- Nisaea,
Pegae, Troezen, and Achaia. In the sixth year of the truce, war broke out
between the Samians and Milesians about Priene. Worsted in the war, the
Milesians came to Athens with loud complaints against the Samians. In this
they were joined by certain private persons from Samos itself, who wished
to revolutionize the government. Accordingly the Athenians sailed to Samos
with forty ships and set up a democracy; took hostages from the Samians,
fifty boys and as many men, lodged them in Lemnos, and after leaving a
garrison in the island returned home. But some of the Samians had not remained
in the island, but had fled to the continent. Making an agreement with
the most powerful of those in the city, and an alliance with Pissuthnes,
son of Hystaspes, the then satrap of Sardis, they got together a force
of seven hundred mercenaries, and under cover of night crossed over to
Samos. Their first step was to rise on the commons, most of whom they secured;
their next to steal their hostages from Lemnos; after which they revolted,
gave up the Athenian garrison left with them and its commanders to Pissuthnes,
and instantly prepared for an expedition against Miletus. The Byzantines
also revolted with them.
As soon as the Athenians heard the
news, they sailed with sixty ships against Samos. Sixteen of these went
to Caria to look out for the Phoenician fleet, and to Chios and Lesbos
carrying round orders for reinforcements, and so never engaged; but forty-four
ships under the command of Pericles with nine colleagues gave battle, off
the island of Tragia, to seventy Samian vessels, of which twenty were transports,
as they were sailing from Miletus. Victory remained with the Athenians.
Reinforced afterwards by forty ships from Athens, and twenty-five Chian
and Lesbian vessels, the Athenians landed, and having the superiority by
land invested the city with three walls; it was also invested from the
sea. Meanwhile Pericles took sixty ships from the blockading squadron,
and departed in haste for Caunus and Caria, intelligence having been brought
in of the approach of the Phoenician fleet to the aid of the Samians; indeed
Stesagoras and others had left the island with five ships to bring them.
But in the meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp,
which they found unfortified. Destroying the look-out vessels, and engaging
and defeating such as were being launched to meet them, they remained masters
of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried in and carried out what
they pleased. But on the arrival of Pericles, they were once more shut
up. Fresh reinforcements afterwards arrived- forty ships from Athens with
Thucydides, Hagnon, and Phormio; twenty with Tlepolemus and Anticles, and
thirty vessels from Chios and Lesbos. After a brief attempt at fighting,
the Samians, unable to hold out, were reduced after a nine months' siege
and surrendered on conditions; they razed their walls, gave hostages, delivered
up their ships, and arranged to pay the expenses of the war by instalments.
The Byzantines also agreed to be subject as before.
Chapter
Five
Second Congress at Lacedaemon
- Preparations for War and Diplomatic Skirmishes -
Cylon - Pausanias - Themistocles
After this, though not many years
later, we at length come to what has been already related, the affairs
of Corcyra and Potidaea, and the events that served as a pretext for the
present war. All these actions of the Hellenes against each other and the
barbarian occurred in the fifty years' interval between the retreat of
Xerxes and the beginning of the present war. During this interval the Athenians
succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced their
own home power to a very great height. The Lacedaemonians, though fully
aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but remained inactive
during most of the period, being of old slow to go to war except under
the pressure of necessity, and in the present instance being hampered by
wars at home; until the growth of the Athenian power could be no longer
ignored, and their own confederacy became the object of its encroachments.
They then felt that they could endure it no longer, but that the time had
come for them to throw themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power,
and break it, if they could, by commencing the present war. And though
the Lacedaemonians had made up their own minds on the fact of the breach
of the treaty and the guilt of the Athenians, yet they sent to Delphi and
inquired of the God whether it would be well with them if they went to
war; and, as it is reported, received from him the answer that if they
put their whole strength into the war, victory would be theirs, and the
promise that he himself would be with them, whether invoked or uninvoked.
Still they wished to summon their allies again, and to take their vote
on the propriety of making war. After the ambassadors from the confederates
had arrived and a congress had been convened, they all spoke their minds,
most of them denouncing the Athenians and demanding that the war should
begin. In particular the Corinthians. They had before on their own account
canvassed the cities in detail to induce them to vote for the war, in the
fear that it might come too late to save Potidaea; they were present also
on this occasion, and came forward the last, and made the following speech:
"Fellow allies, we can no longer
accuse the Lacedaemonians of having failed in their duty: they have not
only voted for war themselves, but have assembled us here for that purpose.
We say their duty, for supremacy has its duties. Besides equitably administering
private interests, leaders are required to show a special care for the
common welfare in return for the special honours accorded to them by all
in other ways. For ourselves, all who have already had dealings with the
Athenians require no warning to be on their guard against them. The states
more inland and out of the highway of communication should understand that,
if they omit to support the coast powers, the result will be to injure
the transit of their produce for exportation and the reception in exchange
of their imports from the sea; and they must not be careless judges of
what is now said, as if it had nothing to do with them, but must expect
that the sacrifice of the powers on the coast will one day be followed
by the extension of the danger to the interior, and must recognize that
their own interests are deeply involved in this discussion. For these reasons
they should not hesitate to exchange peace for war. If wise men remain
quiet, while they are not injured, brave men abandon peace for war when
they are injured, returning to an understanding on a favourable opportunity:
in fact, they are neither intoxicated by their success in war, nor disposed
to take an injury for the sake of the delightful tranquillity of peace.
Indeed, to falter for the sake of such delights is, if you remain inactive,
the quickest way of losing the sweets of repose to which you cling; while
to conceive extravagant pretensions from success in war is to forget how
hollow is the confidence by which you are elated. For if many ill-conceived
plans have succeeded through the still greater fatuity of an opponent,
many more, apparently well laid, have on the contrary ended in disgrace.
The confidence with which we form our schemes is never completely justified
in their execution; speculation is carried on in safety, but, when it comes
to action, fear causes failure.
"To apply these rules to ourselves,
if we are now kindling war it is under the pressure of injury, with adequate
grounds of complaint; and after we have chastised the Athenians we will
in season desist. We have many reasons to expect success- first, superiority
in numbers and in military experience, and secondly our general and unvarying
obedience in the execution of orders. The naval strength which they possess
shall be raised by us from our respective antecedent resources, and from
the moneys at Olympia and Delphi. A loan from these enables us to seduce
their foreign sailors by the offer of higher pay. For the power of Athens
is more mercenary than national; while ours will not be exposed to the
same risk, as its strength lies more in men than in money. A single defeat
at sea is in all likelihood their ruin: should they hold out, in that case
there will be the more time for us to exercise ourselves in naval matters;
and as soon as we have arrived at an equality in science, we need scarcely
ask whether we shall be their superiors in courage. For the advantages
that we have by nature they cannot acquire by education; while their superiority
in science must be removed by our practice. The money required for these
objects shall be provided by our contributions: nothing indeed could be
more monstrous than the suggestion that, while their allies never tire
of contributing for their own servitude, we should refuse to spend for
vengeance and self-preservation the treasure which by such refusal we shall
forfeit to Athenian rapacity and see employed for our own ruin.
"We have also other ways of carrying
on the war, such as revolt of their allies, the surest method of depriving
them of their revenues, which are the source of their strength, and establishment
of fortified positions in their country, and various operations which cannot
be foreseen at present. For war of all things proceeds least upon definite
rules, but draws principally upon itself for contrivances to meet an emergency;
and in such cases the party who faces the struggle and keeps his temper
best meets with most security, and he who loses his temper about it with
correspondent disaster. Let us also reflect that if it was merely a number
of disputes of territory between rival neighbours, it might be borne; but
here we have an enemy in Athens that is a match for our whole coalition,
and more than a match for any of its members; so that unless as a body
and as individual nationalities and individual cities we make an unanimous
stand against her, she will easily conquer us divided and in detail. That
conquest, terrible as it may sound, would, it must be known, have no other
end than slavery pure and simple; a word which Peloponnese cannot even
hear whispered without disgrace, or without disgrace see so many states
abused by one. Meanwhile the opinion would be either that we were justly
so used, or that we put up with it from cowardice, and were proving degenerate
sons in not even securing for ourselves the freedom which our fathers gave
to Hellas; and in allowing the establishment in Hellas of a tyrant state,
though in individual states we think it our duty to put down sole rulers.
And we do not know how this conduct can be held free from three of the
gravest failings, want of sense, of courage, or of vigilance. For we do
not suppose that you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which
has proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers
that it has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
"There is, however, no advantage
in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present.
For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us
and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the
fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should
have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance
to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be
with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from
fear, part from interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which
the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but
rather to support a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are
broken not by resistance but by aggression.
"Your position, therefore, from whatever
quarter you may view it, will amply justify you in going to war; and this
step we recommend in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity
of interest you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has
proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers
that it has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
"There is, however, no advantage
in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present.
For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us
and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the
fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should
have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance
to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be
with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from
fear, part from interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which
the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but
rather to support a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are
broken not by resistance but by aggression.
"Your position, therefore, from whatever
quarter you may view it, will amply justify you in going to war; and this
step we recommend in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity
of interest you have taken refuge in that contempt of an enemy which has
proved so fatal in so many instances- a feeling which from the numbers
that it has ruined has come to be called not contemptuous but contemptible.
"There is, however, no advantage
in reflections on the past further than may be of service to the present.
For the future we must provide by maintaining what the present gives us
and redoubling our efforts; it is hereditary to us to win virtue as the
fruit of labour, and you must not change the habit, even though you should
have a slight advantage in wealth and resources; for it is not right that
what was won in want should be lost in plenty; no, we must boldly advance
to the war for many reasons; the god has commanded it and promised to be
with us, and the rest of Hellas will all join in the struggle, part from
fear, part from interest. You will be the first to break a treaty which
the god, in advising us to go to war, judges to be violated already, but
rather to support a treaty that has been outraged: indeed, treaties are
broken not by resistance but by aggression.
"Your position, therefore, from whatever
quarter you may view it, will amply justify you in going to war; and this
step we recommend in the interests of all, bearing in mind that identity
of interest is the surest of bonds, whether between states or individuals.
Delay not, therefore, to assist Potidaea, a Dorian city besieged by Ionians,
which is quite a reversal of the order of things; nor to assert the freedom
of the rest. It is impossible for us to wait any longer when waiting can
only mean immediate disaster for some of us, and, if it comes to be known
that we have conferred but do not venture to protect ourselves, like disaster
in the near future for the rest. Delay not, fellow allies, but, convinced
of the necessity of the crisis and the wisdom of this counsel, vote for
the war, undeterred by its immediate terrors, but looking beyond to the
lasting peace by which it will be succeeded. Out of war peace gains fresh
stability, but to refuse to abandon repose for war is not so sure a method
of avoiding danger. We must believe that the tyrant city that has been
established in Hellas has been established against all alike, with a programme
of universal empire, part fulfilled, part in contemplation; let us then
attack and reduce it, and win future security for ourselves and freedom
for the Hellenes who are now enslaved."
Such were the words of the Corinthians.
The Lacedaemonians, having now heard all, give their opinion, took the
vote of all the allied states present in order, great and small alike;
and the majority voted for war. This decided, it was still impossible for
them to commence at once, from their want of preparation; but it was resolved
that the means requisite were to be procured by the different states, and
that there was to be no delay. And indeed, in spite of the time occupied
with the necessary arrangements, less than a year elapsed before Attica
was invaded, and the war openly begun.
This interval was spent in sending
embassies to Athens charged with complaints, in order to obtain as good
a pretext for war as possible, in the event of her paying no attention
to them. The first Lacedaemonian embassy was to order the Athenians to
drive out the curse of the goddess; the history of which is as follows.
In former generations there was an Athenian of the name of Cylon, a victor
at the Olympic games, of good birth and powerful position, who had married
a daughter of Theagenes, a Megarian, at that time tyrant of Megara. Now
this Cylon was inquiring at Delphi; when he was told by the god to seize
the Acropolis of Athens on the grand festival of Zeus. Accordingly, procuring
a force from Theagenes and persuading his friends to join him, when the
Olympic festival in Peloponnese came, he seized the Acropolis, with the
intention of making himself tyrant, thinking that this was the grand festival
of Zeus, and also an occasion appropriate for a victor at the Olympic games.
Whether the grand festival that was meant was in Attica or elsewhere was
a question which he never thought of, and which the oracle did not offer
to solve. For the Athenians also have a festival which is called the grand
festival of Zeus Meilichios or Gracious, viz., the Diasia. It is celebrated
outside the city, and the whole people sacrifice not real victims but a
number of bloodless offerings peculiar to the country. However, fancying
he had chosen the right time, he made the attempt. As soon as the Athenians
perceived it, they flocked in, one and all, from the country, and sat down,
and laid siege to the citadel. But as time went on, weary of the labour
of blockade, most of them departed; the responsibility of keeping guard
being left to the nine archons, with plenary powers to arrange everything
according to their good judgment. It must be known that at that time most
political functions were discharged by the nine archons. Meanwhile Cylon
and his besieged companions were distressed for want of food and water.
Accordingly Cylon and his brother made their escape; but the rest being
hard pressed, and some even dying of famine, seated themselves as suppliants
at the altar in the Acropolis. The Athenians who were charged with the
duty of keeping guard, when they saw them at the point of death in the
temple, raised them up on the understanding that no harm should be done
to them, led them out, and slew them. Some who as they passed by took refuge
at the altars of the awful goddesses were dispatched on the spot. From
this deed the men who killed them were called accursed and guilty against
the goddess, they and their descendants. Accordingly these cursed ones
were driven out by the Athenians, driven out again by Cleomenes of Lacedaemon
and an Athenian faction; the living were driven out, and the bones of the
dead were taken up; thus they were cast out. For all that, they came back
afterwards, and their descendants are still in the city.
This, then was the curse that the
Lacedaemonians ordered them to drive out. They were actuated primarily,
as they pretended, by a care for the honour of the gods; but they also
know that Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was connected with the curse on
his mother's side, and they thought that his banishment would materially
advance their designs on Athens. Not that they really hoped to succeed
in procuring this; they rather thought to create a prejudice against him
in the eyes of his countrymen from the feeling that the war would be partly
caused by his misfortune. For being the most powerful man of his time,
and the leading Athenian statesman, he opposed the Lacedaemonians in everything,
and would have no concessions, but ever urged the Athenians on to war.
The Athenians retorted by ordering
the Lacedaemonians to drive out the curse of Taenarus. The Lacedaemonians
had once raised up some Helot suppliants from the temple of Poseidon at
Taenarus, led them away and slain them; for which they believe the great
earthquake at Sparta to have been a retribution. The Athenians also ordered
them to drive out the curse of the goddess of the Brazen House; the history
of which is as follows. After Pausanias the Lacedaemonian had been recalled
by the Spartans from his command in the Hellespont (this is his first recall),
and had been tried by them and acquitted, not being again sent out in a
public capacity, he took a galley of Hermione on his own responsibility,
without the authority of the Lacedaemonians, and arrived as a private person
in the Hellespont. He came ostensibly for the Hellenic war, really to carry
on his intrigues with the King, which he had begun before his recall, being
ambitious of reigning over Hellas. The circumstance which first enabled
him to lay the King under an obligation, and to make a beginning of the
whole design, was this. Some connections and kinsmen of the King had been
taken in Byzantium, on its capture from the Medes, when he was first there,
after the return from Cyprus. These captives he sent off to the King without
the knowledge of the rest of the allies, the account being that they had
escaped from him. He managed this with the help of Gongylus, an Eretrian,
whom he had placed in charge of Byzantium and the prisoners. He also gave
Gongylus a letter for the King, the contents of which were as follows,
as was afterwards discovered: "Pausanias, the general of Sparta, anxious
to do you a favour, sends you these his prisoners of war. I propose also,
with your approval, to marry your daughter, and to make Sparta and the
rest of Hellas subject to you. I may say that I think I am able to do this,
with your co-operation. Accordingly if any of this please you, send a safe
man to the sea through whom we may in future conduct our correspondence."
This was all that was revealed in
the writing, and Xerxes was pleased with the letter. He sent off Artabazus,
son of Pharnaces, to the sea with orders to supersede Megabates, the previous
governor in the satrapy of Daskylion, and to send over as quickly as possible
to Pausanias at Byzantium a letter which he entrusted to him; to show him
the royal signet, and to execute any commission which he might receive
from Pausanias on the King's matters with all care and fidelity. Artabazus
on his arrival carried the King's orders into effect, and sent over the
letter, which contained the following answer: "Thus saith King Xerxes to
Pausanias. For the men whom you have saved for me across sea from Byzantium,
an obligation is laid up for you in our house, recorded for ever; and with
your proposals I am well pleased. Let neither night nor day stop you from
diligently performing any of your promises to me; neither for cost of gold
nor of silver let them be hindered, nor yet for number of troops, wherever
it may be that their presence is needed; but with Artabazus, an honourable
man whom I send you, boldly advance my objects and yours, as may be most
for the honour and interest of us both."
Before held in high honour by the
Hellenes as the hero of Plataea, Pausanias, after the receipt of this letter,
became prouder than ever, and could no longer live in the usual style,
but went out of Byzantium in a Median dress, was attended on his march
through Thrace by a bodyguard of Medes and Egyptians, kept a Persian table,
and was quite unable to contain his intentions, but betrayed by his conduct
in trifles what his ambition looked one day to enact on a grander scale.
He also made himself difficult of access, and displayed so violent a temper
to every one without exception that no one could come near him. Indeed,
this was the principal reason why the confederacy went over to the Athenians.
The above-mentioned conduct, coming
to the ears of the Lacedaemonians, occasioned his first recall. And after
his second voyage out in the ship of Hermione, without their orders, he
gave proofs of similar behaviour. Besieged and expelled from Byzantium
by the Athenians, he did not return to Sparta; but news came that he had
settled at Colonae in the Troad, and was intriguing with the barbarians,
and that his stay there was for no good purpose; and the ephors, now no
longer hesitating, sent him a herald and a scytale with orders to accompany
the herald or be declared a public enemy. Anxious above everything to avoid
suspicion, and confident that he could quash the charge by means of money,
he returned a second time to Sparta. At first thrown into prison by the
ephors (whose powers enable them to do this to the King), soon compromised
the matter and came out again, and offered himself for trial to any who
wished to institute an inquiry concerning him.
Now the Spartans had no tangible
proof against him- neither his enemies nor the nation- of that indubitable
kind required for the punishment of a member of the royal family, and at
that moment in high office; he being regent for his first cousin King Pleistarchus,
Leonidas's son, who was still a minor. But by his contempt of the laws
and imitation of the barbarians, he gave grounds for much suspicion of
his being discontented with things established; all the occasions on which
he had in any way departed from the regular customs were passed in review,
and it was remembered that he had taken upon himself to have inscribed
on the tripod at Delphi, which was dedicated by the Hellenes as the first-fruits
of the spoil of the Medes, the following couplet:
The Mede defeated, great Pausanias
raised This monument, that Phoebus might be praised.
At the time the Lacedaemonians had
at once erased the couplet, and inscribed the names of the cities that
had aided in the overthrow of the barbarian and dedicated the offering.
Yet it was considered that Pausanias had here been guilty of a grave offence,
which, interpreted by the light of the attitude which he had since assumed,
gained a new significance, and seemed to be quite in keeping with his present
schemes. Besides, they were informed that he was even intriguing with the
Helots; and such indeed was the fact, for he promised them freedom and
citizenship if they would join him in insurrection and would help him to
carry out his plans to the end. Even now, mistrusting the evidence even
of the Helots themselves, the ephors would not consent to take any decided
step against him; in accordance with their regular custom towards themselves,
namely, to be slow in taking any irrevocable resolve in the matter of a
Spartan citizen without indisputable proof. At last, it is said, the person
who was going to carry to Artabazus the last letter for the King, a man
of Argilus, once the favourite and most trusty servant of Pausanias, turned
informer. Alarmed by the reflection that none of the previous messengers
had ever returned, having counterfeited the seal, in order that, if he
found himself mistaken in his surmises, or if Pausanias should ask to make
some correction, he might not be discovered, he undid the letter, and found
the postscript that he had suspected, viz., an order to put him to death.
On being shown the letter, the ephors
now felt more certain. Still, they wished to hear Pausanias commit himself
with their own ears. Accordingly the man went by appointment to Taenarus
as a suppliant, and there built himself a hut divided into two by a partition;
within which he concealed some of the ephors and let them hear the whole
matter plainly. For Pausanias came to him and asked him the reason of his
suppliant position; and the man reproached him with the order that he had
written concerning him, and one by one declared all the rest of the circumstances,
how he who had never yet brought him into any danger, while employed as
agent between him and the King, was yet just like the mass of his servants
to be rewarded with death. Admitting all this, and telling him not to be
angry about the matter, Pausanias gave him the pledge of raising him up
from the temple, and begged him to set off as quickly as possible, and
not to hinder the business in hand.
The ephors listened carefully, and
then departed, taking no action for the moment, but, having at last attained
to certainty, were preparing to arrest him in the city. It is reported
that, as he was about to be arrested in the street, he saw from the face
of one of the ephors what he was coming for; another, too, made him a secret
signal, and betrayed it to him from kindness. Setting off with a run for
the temple of the goddess of the Brazen House, the enclosure of which was
near at hand, he succeeded in taking sanctuary before they took him, and
entering into a small chamber, which formed part of the temple, to avoid
being exposed to the weather, lay still there. The ephors, for the moment
distanced in the pursuit, afterwards took off the roof of the chamber,
and having made sure that he was inside, shut him in, barricaded the doors,
and staying before the place, reduced him by starvation. When they found
that he was on the point of expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they
brought him out of the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as
soon as he was brought out he died. They were going to throw him into the
Kaiadas, where they cast criminals, but finally decided to inter him somewhere
near. But the god at Delphi afterwards ordered the Lacedaemonians to remove
the tomb to the place of his death- where he now lies in the consecrated
ground, as an inscription on a monument declares- and, as what had been
done was a curse to them, to give back two bodies instead of one to the
goddess of the Brazen House. So they had two brazen statues made, and dedicated
them as a substitute for Pausanias. the Athenians retorted by telling the
Lacedaemonians to drive out what the god himself had pronounced to be a
curse.
To return to the Medism of Pausanias.
Matter was found in the course of the inquiry to implicate Themistocles;
and the Lacedaemonians accordingly sent envoys to the Athenians and required
them to punish him as they had punished Pausanias. The Athenians consented
to do so. But he had, as it happened, been ostracized, and, with a residence
at Argos, was in the habit of visiting other parts of Peloponnese. So they
sent with the Lacedaemonians, who were ready to join in the pursuit, persons
with instructions to take him wherever they found him. But Themistocles
got scent of their intentions, and fled from Peloponnese to Corcyra, which
was under obligations towards him. But the Corcyraeans alleged that they
could not venture to shelter him at the cost of offending Athens and Lacedaemon,
and they conveyed him over to the continent opposite. Pursued by the officers
who hung on the report of his movements, at a loss where to turn, he was
compelled to stop at the house of Admetus, the Molossian king, though they
were not on friendly terms. Admetus happened not to be indoors, but his
wife, to whom he made himself a suppliant, instructed him to take their
child in his arms and sit down by the hearth. Soon afterwards Admetus came
in, and Themistocles told him who he was, and begged him not to revenge
on Themistocles in exile any opposition which his requests might have experienced
from Themistocles at Athens. Indeed, he was now far too low for his revenge;
retaliation was only honourable between equals. Besides, his opposition
to the king had only affected the success of a request, not the safety
of his person; if the king were to give him up to the pursuers that he
mentioned, and the fate which they intended for him, he would just be consigning
him to certain death.
The King listened to him and raised
him up with his son, as he was sitting with him in his arms after the most
effectual method of supplication, and on the arrival of the Lacedaemonians
not long afterwards, refused to give him up for anything they could say,
but sent him off by land to the other sea to Pydna in Alexander's dominions,
as he wished to go to the Persian king. There he met with a merchantman
on the point of starting for Ionia. Going on board, he was carried by a
storm to the Athenian squadron which was blockading Naxos. In his alarm-
he was luckily unknown to the people in the vessel- he told the master
who he was and what he was flying for, and said that, if he refused to
save him, he would declare that he was taking him for a bribe. Meanwhile
their safety consisted in letting no one leave the ship until a favourable
time for sailing should arise. If he complied with his wishes, he promised
him a proper recompense. The master acted as he desired, and, after lying
to for a day and a night out of reach of the squadron, at length arrived
at Ephesus.
After having rewarded him with a
present of money, as soon as he received some from his friends at Athens
and from his secret hoards at Argos, Themistocles started inland with one
of the coast Persians, and sent a letter to King Artaxerxes, Xerxes's son,
who had just come to the throne. Its contents were as follows: "I, Themistocles,
am come to you, who did your house more harm than any of the Hellenes,
when I was compelled to defend myself against your father's invasion- harm,
however, far surpassed by the good that I did him during his retreat, which
brought no danger for me but much for him. For the past, you are a good
turn in my debt"- here he mentioned the warning sent to Xerxes from Salamis
to retreat, as well as his finding the bridges unbroken, which, as he falsely
pretended, was due to him- "for the present, able to do you great service,
I am here, pursued by the Hellenes for my friendship for you. However,
I desire a year's grace, when I shall be able to declare in person the
objects of my coming."
It is said that the King approved
his intention, and told him to do as he said. He employed the interval
in making what progress he could in the study of the Persian tongue, and
of the customs of the country. Arrived at court at the end of the year,
he attained to very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever
possessed before or since; partly from his splendid antecedents, partly
from the hopes which he held out of effecting for him the subjugation of
Hellas, but principally by the proof which experience daily gave of his
capacity. For Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most indubitable
signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration
quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own native capacity, alike
unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at once the best judge in
those sudden crises which admit of little or of no deliberation, and the
best prophet of the future, even to its most distant possibilities. An
able theoretical expositor of all that came within the sphere of his practice,
he was not without the power of passing an adequate judgment in matters
in which he had no experience. He could also excellently divine the good
and evil which lay hid in the unseen future. In fine, whether we consider
the extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application,
this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in
the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency. Disease was the real cause
of his death; though there is a story of his having ended his life by poison,
on finding himself unable to fulfil his promises to the king. However this
may be, there is a monument to him in the marketplace of Asiatic Magnesia.
He was governor of the district, the King having given him Magnesia, which
brought in fifty talents a year, for bread, Lampsacus, which was considered
to be the richest wine country, for wine, and Myos for other provisions.
His bones, it is said, were conveyed home by his relatives in accordance
with his wishes, and interred in Attic ground. This was done without the
knowledge of the Athenians; as it is against the law to bury in Attica
an outlaw for treason. So ends the history of Pausanias and Themistocles,
the Lacedaemonian and the Athenian, the most famous men of their time in
Hellas.
To return to the Lacedaemonians.
The history of their first embassy, the injunctions which it conveyed,
and the rejoinder which it provoked, concerning the expulsion of the accursed
persons, have been related already. It was followed by a second, which
ordered Athens to raise the siege of Potidaea, and to respect the independence
of Aegina. Above all, it gave her most distinctly to understand that war
might be prevented by the revocation of the Megara decree, excluding the
Megarians from the use of Athenian harbours and of the market of Athens.
But Athens was not inclined either to revoke the decree, or to entertain
their other proposals; she accused the Megarians of pushing their cultivation
into the consecrated ground and the unenclosed land on the border, and
of harbouring her runaway slaves. At last an embassy arrived with the Lacedaemonian
ultimatum. The ambassadors were Ramphias, Melesippus, and Agesander. Not
a word was said on any of the old subjects; there was simply this: "Lacedaemon
wishes the peace to continue, and there is no reason why it should not,
if you would leave the Hellenes independent." Upon this the Athenians held
an assembly, and laid the matter before their consideration. It was resolved
to deliberate once for all on all their demands, and to give them an answer.
There were many speakers who came forward and gave their support to one
side or the other, urging the necessity of war, or the revocation of the
decree and the folly of allowing it to stand in the way of peace. Among
them came forward Pericles, son of Xanthippus, the first man of his time
at Athens, ablest alike in counsel and in action, and gave the following
advice:
"There is one principle, Athenians,
which I hold to through everything, and that is the principle of no concession
to the Peloponnesians. I know that the spirit which inspires men while
they are being persuaded to make war is not always retained in action;
that as circumstances change, resolutions change. Yet I see that now as
before the same, almost literally the same, counsel is demanded of me;
and I put it to those of you who are allowing yourselves to be persuaded,
to support the national resolves even in the case of reverses, or to forfeit
all credit for their wisdom in the event of success. For sometimes the
course of things is as arbitrary as the plans of man; indeed this is why
we usually blame chance for whatever does not happen as we expected. Now
it was clear before that Lacedaemon entertained designs against us; it
is still more clear now. The treaty provides that we shall mutually submit
our differences to legal settlement, and that we shall meanwhile each keep
what we have. Yet the Lacedaemonians never yet made us any such offer,
never yet would accept from us any such offer; on the contrary, they wish
complaints to be settled by war instead of by negotiation; and in the end
we find them here dropping the tone of expostulation and adopting that
of command. They order us to raise the siege of Potidaea, to let Aegina
be independent, to revoke the Megara decree; and they conclude with an
ultimatum warning us to leave the Hellenes independent. I hope that you
will none of you think that we shall be going to war for a trifle if we
refuse to revoke the Megara decree, which appears in front of their complaints,
and the revocation of which is to save us from war, or let any feeling
of self-reproach linger in your minds, as if you went to war for slight
cause. Why, this trifle contains the whole seal and trial of your resolution.
If you give way, you will instantly have to meet some greater demand, as
having been frightened into obedience in the first instance; while a firm
refusal will make them clearly understand that they must treat you more
as equals. Make your decision therefore at once, either to submit before
you are harmed, or if we are to go to war, as I for one think we ought,
to do so without caring whether the ostensible cause be great or small,
resolved against making concessions or consenting to a precarious tenure
of our possessions. For all claims from an equal, urged upon a neighbour
as commands before any attempt at legal settlement, be they great or be
they small, have only one meaning, and that is slavery.
"As to the war and the resources
of either party, a detailed comparison will not show you the inferiority
of Athens. Personally engaged in the cultivation of their land, without
funds either private or public, the Peloponnesians are also without experience
in long wars across sea, from the strict limit which poverty imposes on
their attacks upon each other. Powers of this description are quite incapable
of often manning a fleet or often sending out an army: they cannot afford
the absence from their homes, the expenditure from their own funds; and
besides, they have not command of the sea. Capital, it must be remembered,
maintains a war more than forced contributions. Farmers are a class of
men that are always more ready to serve in person than in purse. Confident
that the former will survive the dangers, they are by no means so sure
that the latter will not be prematurely exhausted, especially if the war
last longer than they expect, which it very likely will. In a single battle
the Peloponnesians and their allies may be able to defy all Hellas, but
they are incapacitated from carrying on a war against a power different
in character from their own, by the want of the single council-chamber
requisite to prompt and vigorous action, and the substitution of a diet
composed of various races, in which every state possesses an equal vote,
and each presses its own ends, a condition of things which generally results
in no action at all. The great wish of some is to avenge themselves on
some particular enemy, the great wish of others to save their own pocket.
Slow in assembling, they devote a very small fraction of the time to the
consideration of any public object, most of it to the prosecution of their
own objects. Meanwhile each fancies that no harm will come of his neglect,
that it is the business of somebody else to look after this or that for
him; and so, by the same notion being entertained by all separately, the
common cause imperceptibly decays.
"But the principal point is the hindrance
that they will experience from want of money. The slowness with which it
comes in will cause delay; but the opportunities of war wait for no man.
Again, we need not be alarmed either at the possibility of their raising
fortifications in Attica, or at their navy. It would be difficult for any
system of fortifications to establish a rival city, even in time of peace,
much more, surely, in an enemy's country, with Athens just as much fortified
against it as it against Athens; while a mere post might be able to do
some harm to the country by incursions and by the facilities which it would
afford for desertion, but can never prevent our sailing into their country
and raising fortifications there, and making reprisals with our powerful
fleet. For our naval skill is of more use to us for service on land, than
their military skill for service at sea. Familiarity with the sea they
will not find an easy acquisition. If you who have been practising at it
ever since the Median invasion have not yet brought it to perfection, is
there any chance of anything considerable being effected by an agricultural,
unseafaring population, who will besides be prevented from practising by
the constant presence of strong squadrons of observation from Athens? With
a small squadron they might hazard an engagement, encouraging their ignorance
by numbers; but the restraint of a strong force will prevent their moving,
and through want of practice they will grow more clumsy, and consequently
more timid. It must be kept in mind that seamanship, just like anything
else, is a matter of art, and will not admit of being taken up occasionally
as an occupation for times of leisure; on the contrary, it is so exacting
as to leave leisure for nothing else.
"Even if they were to touch the moneys
at Olympia or Delphi, and try to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation
of higher pay, that would only be a serious danger if we could not still
be a match for them by embarking our own citizens and the aliens resident
among us. But in fact by this means we are always a match for them; and,
best of all, we have a larger and higher class of native coxswains and
sailors among our own citizens than all the rest of Hellas. And to say
nothing of the danger of such a step, none of our foreign sailors would
consent to become an outlaw from his country, and to take service with
them and their hopes, for the sake of a few days' high pay.
"This, I think, is a tolerably fair
account of the position of the Peloponnesians; that of Athens is free from
the defects that I have criticized in them, and has other advantages of
its own, which they can show nothing to equal. If they march against our
country we will sail against theirs, and it will then be found that the
desolation of the whole of Attica is not the same as that of even a fraction
of Peloponnese; for they will not be able to supply the deficiency except
by a battle, while we have plenty of land both on the islands and the continent.
The rule of the sea is indeed a great matter. Consider for a moment. Suppose
that we were islanders; can you conceive a more impregnable position? Well,
this in future should, as far as possible, be our conception of our position.
Dismissing all thought of our land and houses, we must vigilantly guard
the sea and the city. No irritation that we may feel for the former must
provoke us to a battle with the numerical superiority of the Peloponnesians.
A victory would only be succeeded by another battle against the same superiority:
a reverse involves the loss of our allies, the source of our strength,
who will not remain quiet a day after we become unable to march against
them. We must cry not over the loss of houses and land but of men's lives;
since houses and land do not gain men, but men them. And if I had thought
that I could persuade you, I would have bid you go out and lay them waste
with your own hands, and show the Peloponnesians that this at any rate
will not make you submit.
"I have many other reasons to hope
for a favourable issue, if you can consent not to combine schemes of fresh
conquest with the conduct of the war, and will abstain from wilfully involving
yourselves in other dangers; indeed, I am more afraid of our own blunders
than of the enemy's devices. But these matters shall be explained in another
speech, as events require; for the present dismiss these men with the answer
that we will allow Megara the use of our market and harbours, when the
Lacedaemonians suspend their alien acts in favour of us and our allies,
there being nothing in the treaty to prevent either one or the other: that
we will leave the cities independent, if independent we found them when
we made the treaty, and when the Lacedaemonians grant to their cities an
independence not involving subservience to Lacedaemonian interests, but
such as each severally may desire: that we are willing to give the legal
satisfaction which our agreements specify, and that we shall not commence
hostilities, but shall resist those who do commence them. This is an answer
agreeable at once to the rights and the dignity of Athens. It must be thoroughly
understood that war is a necessity; but that the more readily we accept
it, the less will be the ardour of our opponents, and that out of the greatest
dangers communities and individuals acquire the greatest glory. Did not
our fathers resist the Medes not only with resources far different from
ours, but even when those resources had been abandoned; and more by wisdom
than by fortune, more by daring than by strength, did not they beat off
the barbarian and advance their affairs to their present height? We must
not fall behind them, but must resist our enemies in any way and in every
way, and attempt to hand down our power to our posterity unimpaired."
Such were the words of Pericles.
The Athenians, persuaded of the wisdom of his advice, voted as he desired,
and answered the Lacedaemonians as he recommended, both on the separate
points and in the general; they would do nothing on dictation, but were
ready to have the complaints settled in a fair and impartial manner by
the legal method, which the terms of the truce prescribed. So the envoys
departed home and did not return again.
These were the charges and differences
existing between the rival powers before the war, arising immediately from
the affair at Epidamnus and Corcyra. Still intercourse continued in spite
of them, and mutual communication. It was carried on without heralds, but
not without suspicion, as events were occurring which were equivalent to
a breach of the treaty and matter for war. |
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