Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)





Transcriber’s Note: As a result of editorial shortcomings in the original,
some reference letters in the text don’t have matching entries in the
reference-lists, and vice versa.




THE HISTORIANS’ HISTORY OF THE WORLD

[Illustration: HERODOTUS]




                             THE HISTORIANS’
                                 HISTORY
                              OF THE WORLD

    A comprehensive narrative of the rise and development of nations
   as recorded by over two thousand of the great writers of all ages:
    edited, with the assistance of a distinguished board of advisers
                          and contributors, by

                       HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS, LL.D.

                             [Illustration]

                         IN TWENTY-FIVE VOLUMES

               VOLUME III--GREECE TO THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

                           The Outlook Company
                                New York

                         The History Association
                                 London

                                  1904

                            COPYRIGHT, 1904,
                        BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS.

                         _All rights reserved._

                       Press of J. J. Little & Co.
                           New York, U. S. A.




Contributors, and Editorial Revisers.


  Prof. Adolf Erman, University of Berlin.
  Prof. Joseph Halévy, College of France.
  Prof. Thomas K. Cheyne, Oxford University.
  Prof. Andrew C. McLaughlin, University of Michigan.
  Prof. David H. Müller, University of Vienna.
  Prof. Alfred Rambaud, University of Paris.
  Capt. F. Brinkley, Tokio.

  Prof. Eduard Meyer, University of Berlin.
  Dr. James T. Shotwell, Columbia University.
  Prof. Theodor Nöldeke, University of Strasburg.
  Prof. Albert B. Hart, Harvard University.
  Dr. Paul Brönnle, Royal Asiatic Society.
  Dr. James Gairdner, C.B., London.

  Prof. Ulrich von Wilamowitz Möllendorff, University of Berlin.
  Prof. H. Marczali, University of Budapest.
  Dr. G. W. Botsford, Columbia University.
  Prof. Julius Wellhausen, University of Göttingen.
  Prof. Franz R. von Krones, University of Graz.
  Prof. Wilhelm Soltau, Zabern University.

  Prof. R. W. Rogers, Drew Theological Seminary.
  Prof. A. Vambéry, University of Budapest.
  Prof. Otto Hirschfeld, University of Berlin.
  Dr. Frederick Robertson Jones, Bryn Mawr College.
  Baron Bernardo di San Severino Quaranta, London.
  Dr. John P. Peters, New York.

  Dr. S. Rappoport, School of Oriental Languages, Paris.
  Prof. Hermann Diels, University of Berlin.
  Prof. C. W. C. Oman, Oxford University.
  Prof. I. Goldziher, University of Vienna.
  Prof. W. L. Fleming, University of West Virginia.
  Prof. R. Koser, University of Berlin.




CONTENTS


                               VOLUME III

                                 GREECE

                                                                      PAGE

  INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. THE SCOPE AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK HISTORY.
    By Dr. Eduard Meyer                                                  1

  GREEK HISTORY IN OUTLINE                                              13

                                CHAPTER I

  LAND AND PEOPLE                                                       26

    The land, 26. The name, 32. The origin of the Greeks, 33. Early
    conditions and movements, 36.

                               CHAPTER II

  THE MYCENÆAN AGE (_ca._ 1600-1000 B.C.)                               40

    Mycenæan civilisation, 40. The problem of Mycenæan chronology, 52.
    The testimony of art, 54. The problem of the Mycenæan race, 56.

                               CHAPTER III

  THE HEROIC AGE (1400-1200 B.C.)                                       66

    The value of the myths, 67. The exploits of Perseus, 68. The
    labours of Hercules, 69. The feats of Theseus, 71. The Seven
    against Thebes, 72. The Argonauts, 73. The Trojan War, 76. The
    town of Troy, 78. Paris and Helen, 79. The siege of Troy, 80.
    Agamemnon’s sad home-coming, 81. Character and spirit of the
    Heroic Age, 82. Geographical knowledge, 86. Navigation and
    astronomy, 88. Commerce and the arts, 89. The graphic arts, 91.
    The art of war, 92. Treatment of orphans, criminals, and slaves,
    94. Manners and customs, 97.

                               CHAPTER IV

  THE TRANSITION TO SECURE HISTORY (_ca._ 1200-800 B.C.)                99

    Beloch’s view of the conventional primitive history, 99.

                                CHAPTER V

  THE DORIANS (_ca._ 1100-1000 B.C.)                                   109

    The migration in the view of Curtius, 115. Messenia, 117. Argos,
    118. Arcadia, 121. Dorians in Crete, 124.

                               CHAPTER VI

  SPARTA AND LYCURGUS (_ca._ 885 B.C.)                                 128

    Plutarch’s account of Lycurgus, 129. The institutions of
    Lycurgus, 131. Regulations regarding marriage and the conduct
    of women, 133. The rearing of children, 135. The famed Laconic
    discourse; Spartan discipline, 136. The senate; burial customs;
    home-staying; the ambuscade, 138. Lycurgus’ subterfuge to
    perpetuate his laws, 140. Effects of Lycurgus’ system, 141.

                               CHAPTER VII

  THE MESSENIAN WARS OF SPARTA (_ca._ 764-580 B.C.)                    143

    First Messenian War, 144. The futile sacrifice of the daughter of
    Aristodemus, 146. The hero Aristomenes and the Second Messenian
    War, 147. The poet Tyrtæus, 149.

                              CHAPTER VIII

  THE IONIANS (_ca._ 650-630 B.C.)                                     152

    Origin and early history of Athens, 154. King Ægeus, 155.
    Theseus, 158. Rise of popular liberty, 162. Draco, the lawgiver,
    164.

                               CHAPTER IX

  SOME CHARACTERISTIC INSTITUTIONS (884-590 B.C.)                      167

    The oracle at Delphi, 170. National festivals, 170. The Olympian
    games, 172. Character of the games, 173. Monarchies and
    oligarchies, 175. Tyrannies, 177. Democracies, 179.

                                CHAPTER X

  THE SMALLER CITIES AND STATES                                        181

    Arcadia, Ellis, and Achaia, 181. Argos, Ægina, and Epidaurus,
    182. Sicyon and Megara, 184. Bœotia, Locris, Phocis, and Eubœa,
    187. Thessaly, 189. Corinth under Periander, 191.

                               CHAPTER XI

  CRETE AND THE COLONIES                                               194

    Beloch’s account of Greek colonisation, 198.

                               CHAPTER XII

  SOLON THE LAWGIVER (_ca._ 638-558 B.C.)                              207

    The life and laws of Solon according to Plutarch, 209. The law
    concerning debts, 213. Class legislation, 215. Miscellaneous
    laws; the rights of women, 216. Results of Solon’s legislation,
    217. Solon’s journey and return; Pisistratus, 219. A modern view
    of Solonian laws and constitution, 220.

                              CHAPTER XIII

  PISISTRATUS THE TYRANT (550-527 B.C.)                                222

    The virtues of Pisistratus’ rule, 226.

                               CHAPTER XIV

  DEMOCRACY ESTABLISHED AT ATHENS (514-490 B.C.)                       231

    Clisthenes, the reformer, 236. Ostracism, 245. The democracy
    established, 251. Trouble with Thebes, 252.

                               CHAPTER XV

  THE FIRST FOREIGN INVASION (506-490 B.C.)                            261

    The origin of animosity, 262. The Ionic revolt, 264. War with
    Ægina, 267. The first invasion, 268. Battle of Marathon, 272.
    On the courage of the Greeks, 277. If Darius had invaded Greece
    earlier, 279.

                               CHAPTER XVI

  MILTIADES AND THE ALLEGED FICKLENESS OF REPUBLICS (489 B.C.)         280

                              CHAPTER XVII

  THE PLANS OF XERXES (485-480 B.C.)                                   285

    Xerxes bridges the Hellespont, 295. How the host marched, 297.
    The size of Xerxes’ army, 301.

                              CHAPTER XVIII

  PROCEEDINGS IN GREECE FROM MARATHON TO THERMOPYLÆ (489-480 B.C.)      305

    Themistocles and Aristides, 306. Congress at Corinth, 308. The
    vale of Tempe, 313. Xerxes reviews his host, 314.

                               CHAPTER XIX

  THERMOPYLÆ (480 B.C.)                                                320

    The famous story as told by Herodotus, 320. Leonidas and his
    allies, 321. Xerxes assails the pass, 323. The treachery of
    Ephialtes, 323. The final assault, 325. Discrepant accounts of
    the death of Leonidas, 327. After Thermopylæ, 327.

                               CHAPTER XX

  THE BATTLES OF ARTEMISIUM AND SALAMIS (480 B.C.)                     330

    Battle of Artemisium, 331. Athens abandoned, 334. The fleet at
    Salamis, 337. Xerxes at Delphi, 338. Athens taken, 339. Xerxes
    inspects his fleet, 340. Schemes of Themistocles, 342. Battle of
    Salamis, 345. The retreat of Xerxes, 348. The spoils of victory,
    351. Syracusan victory over Carthage, 352.

                               CHAPTER XXI

  FROM SALAMIS TO MYCALE (479 B.C.)                                    353

    Mardonius makes overtures to Athens, 354. Mardonius moves on
    Athens, 356. Athens appeals to Sparta, 357. Mardonius destroys
    Athens and withdraws, 358. A preliminary skirmish, 360.
    Preparations for the battle of Platæa, 362. Battle of Platæa,
    366. Mardonius falls and the day is won, 370. After the battle,
    371. The Greeks attack Thebes, 373. The flight of the Persian
    remnant, 374. Contemporary affairs in Ionia, 374. Battle of
    Mycale, 376. After Mycale, 377. A review of results, 379. A
    glance forward, 379.

                              CHAPTER XXII

  THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR (478-468 B.C.)                              382

    Athens rebuilds her walls, 382. The new Athens, 384. The
    misconduct of Pausanias, 386. Athens takes the leadership, 388.
    The confederacy of Delos, 389. The treason of Pausanias, 391.
    Political changes at Athens, 394. The downfall of Themistocles,
    396.

                              CHAPTER XXIII

  THE GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE (479-462 B.C.)                     402

    The victories of Cimon, 408. Mitford’s view of the period, 409.

                              CHAPTER XXIV

  THE RISE OF PERICLES (462-440 B.C.)                                  416

    The Areopagus, 420. Cimon exiled, 423. The war with Corinth, 424.
    The Long Walls, 425. Cimon recalled, 427. The Five-Years’ Truce,
    430. The confederacy becomes an empire, 431. Commencement of
    decline, 432. The greatness of Pericles, 435. A Greek federation
    planned, 436.

                               CHAPTER XXV

  ATHENS AT WAR (440-432 B.C.)                                         438

    The Samian War, 438. The war with Corcyra, 439. The war with
    Potidæa and Macedonia, 444.

                              CHAPTER XXVI

  IMPERIAL ATHENS UNDER PERICLES (460-430 B.C.)                        448

    Judicial reforms of Pericles, 454. Rhetors and sophists, 459.
    Phidias accused, 461. Aspasia at the bar, 462. Anaxagoras also
    assailed, 463.

                              CHAPTER XXVII

  MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AGE OF PERICLES (460-410 B.C.)            465

    Cost of living and wages, 465. Schools, teachers, and books, 472.
    The position of a wife in Athens, 473.

                             CHAPTER XXVIII

  ART OF THE PERICLEAN AGE (460-410 B.C.)                              477

    Architecture, 477. Sculpture, 483. Painting, music, etc., 487.
    The artists of the other cities of Hellas, 490.

                              CHAPTER XXIX

  GREEK LITERATURE                                                     492

    Oratory and lyric poetry, 492. Tragedy, 497. Comedy, 504. The
    glory of Athens, 505.

                               CHAPTER XXX

  THE OUTBREAK OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (432-431 B.C.)                 508

    Our sources, 508. The origin of the war, 510. Preparations
    for the conflict, 517. The surprise of Platæa, 522. Pericles’
    reconcentration policy, 526. The first year’s ravage, 527.

                              CHAPTER XXXI

  THE PLAGUE; AND THE DEATH OF PERICLES (431-429 B.C.)                 535

    The oration of Pericles, 535. Thucydides’ account of the plague,
    539. Last public speech of Pericles, 545. The end and glory of
    Pericles, 548. Wilhelm Oncken’s estimate of Pericles, 551.

                              CHAPTER XXXII

  THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (429-428 B.C.)   554

    The Spartans and Thebans attack Platæa, 556. Part of the Platæans
    escape; the rest capitulate, 557. Naval and other combats, 560.

                             CHAPTER XXXIII

  THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS--AND PEACE (428-421 B.C.)              566

    The revolt of Mytilene, 566. Thucydides’ account of the revolt of
    Corcyra, 570. Demosthenes and Sphacteria, 575. Further Athenian
    successes, 579. A check to Athens; Brasidas becomes aggressive,
    580. The banishment of Thucydides, 581. A truce declared; two
    treaties of peace, 582.

                              CHAPTER XXXIV

  THE RISE OF ALCIBIADES (450-416 B.C.)                                584

                              CHAPTER XXXV

  THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION (481-413 B.C.)                               591

    Sicilian history, 591. The mutilation of the Hermæ, 596. The
    fleet sails, 599. Alcibiades takes flight, 601. Nicias tries
    strategy, 602. Spartan aid, 604. Alcibiades against Athens, 605.
    Athenian reinforcements, 606. Athenian disaster, 608. Thucydides’
    famous account of the final disasters, 610. Demosthenes
    surrenders his detachment, 613. Nicias parleys, fights, and
    surrenders, 614. The fate of the captives, 615.

                              CHAPTER XXXVI

  CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (425-404 B.C.)                        617

    Athens after the Sicilian débâcle, 617. Alcibiades again to the
    fore, 620. The overthrow of the democracy; the Four Hundred,
    624. The revolt from the Four Hundred, 627. The triumphs of
    Alcibiades, 630. Alcibiades in disfavour again, 633. Conon wins
    at Arginusæ, 634. The trial of the generals, 636. Battle of
    Ægospotami, 638. The fall of Athens, 640. A review of the war,
    642. Grote’s estimate of the Athenian Empire, 644.

  BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS                      647




                                 PART IX

                          THE HISTORY OF GREECE

              BASED CHIEFLY UPON THE FOLLOWING AUTHORITIES

      ARRIAN, JULIUS BELOCH, A. BŒCKH, JOHN B. BURY, GEORG BUSOLT,
          H. F. CLINTON, GEORGE W. COX, ERNST CURTIUS, HERMANN
               DIELS, DIODORUS SICULUS, JOHANN G. DROYSEN,
                   GEORGE GROTE, HERODOTUS, GUSTAV F.
                         HERTZBERG, ADOLF HOLM,
   JUSTIN, JOHN P. MAHAFFY, EDUARD MEYER, WILLIAM MITFORD, ULRICH VON
        WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORFF, KARL O. MÜLLER, CORNELIUS NEPOS,
              PAUSANIAS, PLATO, PLUTARCH, QUINTUS CURTIUS,
                   HEINRICH SCHLIEMANN, STRABO, CONNOP
                     THIRLWALL, THUCYDIDES, XENOPHON

                 TOGETHER WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON

               THE SCOPE AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK HISTORY

                                   BY

                              EDUARD MEYER

                               A STUDY OF

                    THE EVOLUTION OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

                                   BY

                              HERMANN DIELS

                        AND A CHARACTERISATION OF

                 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE HELLENIC SPIRIT

                                   BY

                    ULRICH VON WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORFF

                     WITH ADDITIONAL CITATIONS FROM

    CLAUDIUS ÆLIANUS, ANAXIMENES, APPIANUS ALEXANDRINUS, ARISTOBULUS,
    ARISTOPHANES, ARISTOTLE, W. ASSMANN, W. BELOE, E. G. E. L.
    BULWER-LYTTON, CALLISTHENES, CICERO, E. S. CREASY, CONSTANTINE
    VII (PORYPHYROGENITUS), DEMOSTHENES, W. DRUMANN, VICTOR DURUY,
    ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, EUGAMON, EURIPIDES, EUTROPIUS, G. H.
    A. EWALD, J. L. F. F. FLATHE, E. A. FREEMAN, A. FURTWÄNGLER AND
    LÖSCHKE, P. GARDNER, J. GILLIES, W. E. GLADSTONE, O. GOLDSMITH,
    H. GOLL, J. DE LA GRAVIÈRE, G. B. GRUNDY, H. R. HALL, G. W. F.
    HEGEL, W. HELBIG, D. G. HOGARTH, ISOCRATES, R. C. JEBB, JOSEPHUS,
    F. C. R. KRUSE, P. H. LARCHER, W. M. LEAKE, E. LERMINIER, LIVY,
    LYSIAS, J. C. F. MANSO, L. MÉNARD, H. H. MILMAN, J. A. R.
    MUNRO, B. G. NIEBUHR, W. ONCKEN, L. A. PRÉVOST-PARADOL, GEORGE
    PERROT AND CHARLES CHIPIEZ, PHILOSTEPHANUS, PIGORINI, PHOTIUS,
    R. POHLMAN, POLYBIUS, J. POTTER, PTOLEMY LAGI, JAMES RENNEL,
    W. RIDGEWAY, K. RITTER, C. ROLLIN, J. RUSKIN, F. C. SCHLOSSER,
    W. SCHORN, C. SCHUCHARDT, S. SHARPE, G. SMITH, W. SMYTH, E.
    VON STERN, THEOGNIS, THEOPOMPUS, L. A. THIERS, C. TSOUNTAS AND
    J. IRVING MANATT, TYRTÆUS, W. H. WADDINGTON, G. WEBER, B. I.
    WHEELER, F. A. WOLF, XANTHUS

                            COPYRIGHT, 1904,
                         BY HENRY SMITH WILLIAMS

                          _All rights reserved_




[Illustration]




THE SCOPE AND DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK HISTORY

WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE PRESENT WORK

BY DR. EDUARD MEYER

Professor of Ancient History in the University of Berlin


The history of Greek civilisation forms the centre of the history of
antiquity. In the East, advanced civilisations with settled states had
existed for thousands of years; and as the populations of Western Asia
and of Egypt gradually came into closer political relations, these
civilisations, in spite of all local differences in customs, religion,
and habits of thought, gradually grew together into a uniform sphere of
culture. This development reached its culmination in the rise of the
great Persian universal monarchy, the “kingdom of the lands,” _i.e._ “of
the world.” But from the very beginning these oriental civilisations
are so completely dominated by the effort to maintain what has been won
that all progress beyond this point is prevented. And although we can
distinguish an individual, active, and progressive intellectual movement
among many nations,--as in Egypt, among the Iranians and Indians, while
among the Babylonians and Phœnicians nothing of the sort is thus far
known,--nevertheless the forces that represent tradition are in the end
everywhere victorious over it and force it to bow to their yoke. Hence,
all oriental civilisations culminate in the creation of a theological
system which governs all the relations and the whole field of thought of
man, and is everywhere recognised as having existed from all eternity and
as being inviolable to all future time.

With the cessation of political life and the establishment of the
universal monarchy, the nationality and the distinctive civilisation
of the separate districts are restricted to religion, which has become
theology. The development of oriental civilisation then subsides in the
competition of these religions and the unavoidable coalescence consequent
thereupon. This is true even of that nation which experienced the richest
intellectual development, and did the most important work of all oriental
peoples--the Israelites. When the great political storms from which the
universal monarchy arose have spent their rage, Israel, the nation, has
developed into Judaism; and under the Persian rule and with the help of
the kingdom it organises itself as a church which seeks to put an end to
all free individual movement, upon which the greatness of ancient Israel
rests.

It was just the same with the ruling nation, the Persians, however
vigorous their entrance into history under Cyrus. The Persian kingdom
is, indeed, a civilised state, but the civilisations that it includes
lack the highest that a civilisation can offer: an energetic, independent
life, a combination of the firm institutions and permanent attainments
of the past with the free, progressive, and creative movement of
individuality. So the East, after the Persian period, was unable of its
own force to create anything new. It stagnated, and, had it not received
new elements from without, had it been left permanently to itself, would
perhaps in the course of centuries have altered its external form again
and again, but would hardly have produced anything new or have progressed
a step beyond what had already been attained.

But when Cyrus and Darius founded the Persian kingdom, the East no longer
stood alone. The nations and kingdoms of the East came into communication
with the coast of the Mediterranean very early--not later than the
beginning of the second millennium B.C.; and under their influence, about
1500 B.C., a civilisation arose among the Greeks bordering the Ægean. We
call it the Mycenæan, and in spite of its formal dependence upon the East
it could, in the field of art (where alone we have an exact knowledge of
it), take an independent and equal place beside the great civilisations
of the East.

How Greek civilisation continued to advance from step to step for many
centuries in the field of politics and society as well as in that of
the intellect; how it spread simultaneously over all the islands and
coasts of the Mediterranean, from Massalia on the coast of the Ligurians
and Cumæ in the land of the Oscans to the Crimea and the eastern coast
of the Black Sea, and in the south as far as Cyprus and Cilicia; how
Greek culture at the same time took root in much more remote districts,
especially in Asia Minor; and how under its influence an energetic
civilisation arose among the tribes of Italy, cannot be depicted here.

When the Persian kingdom was founded the Hellenes had developed from
a group of linguistically related tribes into a nation possessing a
completely independent culture whose equal the world had never yet seen,
a culture whose mainspring was that very political and intellectual
freedom of the individual which was completely lacking in the East.

Hence its character was purely human, its aim the complete and harmonious
development of man; and if for that very reason it always strove to
be moderate and to adapt itself to the moral and cosmical forces that
govern human life, nevertheless it could accomplish this only in free
subordination, by absorbing the moral commandment into its own will.
Therefore it did not permit the opposing theological tendencies to gain
control, strong as was their development in considerable districts of
Greece in the sixth century. At that very period, on the other hand, it
was stretching out to grasp the apples on the tree of knowledge; in the
most advanced regions of Hellas science and philosophy were opposing
theology. National as it was, this culture lacked but one thing: the
political unity of the nation, the co-ordination of all its powers in the
vigorous organism of a great state.

The instinct of freedom itself, upon which the greatness of this
civilisation rested, favoured by the geographical conformation of the
Greek soil, had caused a constantly increasing political disunion, which
saw in the complete and unlimited autonomy of every individual community,
even of the tiniest of the hundreds of city states into which Hellas
was divided, the highest ideal of liberty, the only fit existence for
a Hellene. And, internally, every one of these dwarf states was eaten
by the canker of political and social contrasts which could not be
permanently suppressed by any attempt to introduce a just political order
founded upon a codified law and a written constitution--whether the ideal
were the rule of the “best,” the rule of the whole, _i.e._ of the actual
masses, or that of a mixed constitution. The smaller the city and its
territory, the more apt were these attempts to become bloody revolutions.
Lively as was the public spirit, clearly as the justice of the demand for
subordination to law was recognised, every individual and every party
interpreted it according to its own conception and its own judgment, and
at all times there were not a few who were ready to seize for themselves
all that the moment offered.

To be sure, manifold and successful attempts to found a greater political
power were brought about by the advancing growth of industry and culture,
as well as by the development of the citizen army of hoplites, which had
a firm tactical structure and was well schooled in the art of war. In
the Peloponnesus Sparta brought the whole south under the rule of its
citizens and not only effected the union of almost the whole peninsula
into a league, but established its right, as the first military power of
Hellas, to leadership in all common affairs.

In middle Greece, Thebes succeeded in uniting Bœotia into a federal
state, while its neighbour Athens, which had maintained the unity of
the Attic district since the beginning of history, began to annex the
neighbouring districts of Megara, Bœotia, and Eubœa, and laid the
foundation of a colonial power, as Corinth had formerly done. In the
north the Thessalians acquired leadership over all surrounding tribes.
In the west, in Sicily, usurpers had founded larger monarchical unified
states, especially in Syracuse and Agrigentum.

But all these combinations were after all only of very limited extent and
by no means firmly united; on the contrary, the weaker communities felt
even the loosest kind of federation, to say nothing of dependence, as
an oppressive fetter which impaired the ideal of the individual destiny
of the autonomous state, and which at least one party,--generally the
one that happened to be out of power,--felt justified in bursting at the
first opportunity.

However, as things lay, the nation found itself forced, with this sort
of constitution, to take up the struggle for its political independence.
The Greeks of Asia Minor, formerly subjects of the kings of Sardis, had
become subjects of the Persian kingdom under Cyrus; the free Hellenes had
the most varied relations with the latter, and more than once gave him
occasion to intervene in their affairs. The Persian kingdom, which under
Darius no longer attempted conquests that were not necessary for the
maintenance of its own existence, took no advantage of these provocations
until the revolt of the Greeks of Asia Minor, supported by Athens, made
war inevitable.

After the first attempt had failed Xerxes repeated it on the greatest
scale. Against the Hellenic nation, whose alien character was everywhere
a hindrance in its path, the Orient arose in the east and the west for a
decisive struggle; the Phœnician city of Carthage, the great sea power of
the west, was in alliance with the Persian kingdom. Only the minority of
the Hellenes joined in the defence; in the west the princes of Syracuse
and Agrigentum, in the east Sparta and the Peloponnesian league, Athens,
the cities of Eubœa and a few smaller powers. But in both fields of
operation the Hellenes won a complete victory; the Carthaginians were
defeated on the Himera, in the east Themistocles broke the base of the
Persian position by destroying their sea power with the Athenian fleet
that he had created, and on the battle-field of Platæa the Persian land
forces were defeated by the superiority of the Greek armies of hoplites.

Thus the Hellenes had won the leading position in the world. For the
moment there was no other power that could oppose them by land or
sea; the Asiatic king never again ventured an attack on Greece. Her
absolute military superiority was founded upon the national character,
the energetic public spirit, the voluntary subordination to law and
discipline and the capacity for conceiving and realising great political
ideas. The Hellenes could gain and assert permanently the ascendency over
the entire Mediterranean world, and impress upon it for all time the
stamp of their nationality, provided only that they were united and saw
the way to gather together all their resources into a single firmly knit
great power.

But the Greeks were not able to meet this first and most urgent demand;
though the days of particularism were irrevocably past, the idea which
was so inseparably bound up with the very nature of Hellenism still
exerted a powerful influence. As the individual communities were no
longer able to maintain an independent existence, they gathered about the
two powers that had gained the leadership, and each of which was striving
for supremacy: the patriarchal military state of Sparta and the new
progressive great power of Athens.

With the victory over the East it had been decided that the individuality
of Hellenic culture, the intellectual liberty which gives free play to
all vigorous powers in both material and intellectual life, had asserted
itself; the future lay only along this way. Mighty was the advance that
in all fields carried Greece along with gigantic strides; after only a
few decades the time before the Persian wars seemed like a remote and
long past antiquity.

But mighty as were the advancing strides of the nation in trade
and industry, in wealth and all the luxury of civilisation, in
art and science, all these attainments finally became factors of
political disintegration. They furthered the unlimited development of
individualism, which in custom and law and political life recognises no
other rule than its own ego and its claims. The ideal world of the time
of the sophists and the politics of an Alcibiades and a Lysander are the
results of this development.

Athens perceived the political tasks that were set for the Hellenic
people and ventured an attempt to perform them. They could be
accomplished only by admitting the new ideas into the programme of
democracy, by the foundation and extension of sea power, by an aggressive
policy which aimed more and more at the subjection of the Greek world
under the hegemony of one city. In consequence all opposing elements
were forced under the banner of Sparta, which adopted the programme of
conservatism and particularism, in order to strengthen its resistance,
and restrict and, if possible, overcome its rival.

The conflict was inevitable, though both sides were reluctant to
enter upon it; twenty years after the battle of Salamis it broke out.
The fact that Athens was trying at the same time to continue the war
against Persia and wrest Cyprus and Egypt from it gave her opponents the
advantage; she had far overestimated her strength. After a struggle of
eleven years (460-449 B.C.) Athens found herself compelled to make peace
with Persia and free the Greek mainland, only retaining absolute control
over the sea.

Under the rule of Pericles she consolidated her power, and the ideals
that lived in her were embodied in splendid creations. She proved
herself equal, in spite of all internal instability and crises, to a
second attack of her Greek opponents (431-421 B.C.). But it again became
evident that the radical democracy, which was now at the helm, had no
grasp of the realities of the political situation; for the second time
it stretched out its hand for the hegemony over all Hellas, in unnatural
alliance with Alcibiades, the conscienceless, ambitious man who was
aiming at the crown of Athens and Hellas.

Mighty indeed was the plan to subdue the Western world, Sicily first of
all; then with doubled power first to crush the opponents at home and
then gain the supremacy over the whole Mediterranean world. But what a
united Hellas might have accomplished was far beyond the resources of
Athens, even if the democrats had not overthrown their dangerous ally at
the first opportunity, and thus lamed the undertaking at the outset.

The catastrophe of the Athenians before Syracuse (413 B.C.) is the
turning-point of Greek history. All the opponents of Athens united, and
the Persian king, who saw that the hour had come to regain his former
power without a struggle, made an alliance with them. Only through
his subsidies was it possible for Sparta and her allies to reduce
Athens--until she lay prostrate. And the gain fell to Persia alone,
however feeble the kingdom had meanwhile become internally. Sparta,
after overthrowing the despotism of Lysander, made an honest attempt
to reorganise the Greek world after the conservative programme, and to
fulfil the task laid upon the nation in the contest with Persia. But
she only furnished her opponents at home, and particularism, which now
immediately turned against its former ally, an occasion for a fresh
uprising, which Sparta could master only by forming a new alliance with
Persia. After the peace of 386 the king of Asia utters the decisive word
even in the affairs of the Greek mother-country.

Here dissolution is going rapidly forward. Every power that has once more
for a short time possessed some importance in Greece succumbs to it in
turn; first Sparta, then Thebes and Athens. The attempts to establish
permanent and assured conditions by local unions in small districts, as
in Chalcidice under Olynthus, in Bœotia and Arcadia, were never able to
hold out more than a short time. It was useless to look longer for the
fulfilment of the national destiny. Feeble as the Persian kingdom was
internally, every revolt against it, to say nothing of an attempt to make
conquests and acquire a new field of colonisation in Asia,--the programme
that Isocrates repeatedly urged upon the nation,--was made impossible
by internal strife. Prosperity was ruined, the energy of the nation was
exhausted in the wild feuds of brigands, the most desolate conditions
prevailed in all communities. Greek history ends in chaos, in a hopeless
struggle of all against all.

In this same period, to be sure, the positive, constructive criticism of
Socrates and his school rose in opposition to the negative tendencies of
sophistry; and made the attempt to put an end to the political misery,
to create by a proper education the true citizen who looks only to the
common welfare in place of the ignorant citizen of the existing states,
who was governed only by self-interest. These efforts resulted in the
development of science and the preservation for all future time of the
highest achievements of the intellectual life of Hellas, but they could
not produce an internal transformation of men and states, whose earthly
life does not lie within the sphere of the problems of theoretical
perception, but in that of the problems of will and power. So at the same
time that Greek culture has reached the highest point of its development,
prepared to become the culture of the world, the Greek nation is
condemned to complete impotence.

For the development in the West, different as was its course, led to no
other result. In the fifth century Greece controlled almost all Sicily
except the western point, the whole south of Italy up to Tarentum, Elea
and Posidonia and the coast of Campania. Nowhere was an enemy to be seen
that might have become dangerous. The Carthaginians were repulsed, and
the power of the Etruscans, who in the sixth century had striven for
the hegemony in Italy, decayed, partly from internal weakness, partly
in consequence of the revolt of their subjects, especially the Romans
and the Sabines. The Cumæans under Aristodemus with the Sabines as their
allies defeated Aruns, the son of Porsena of Clusium, at Aricia about 500
B.C., and in the year 474 the Etruscan sea power suffered defeat at Cumæ
from the fleet of Hiero of Syracuse.

The cities of western Greece stood then as if founded for all eternity;
they were adorned with splendid buildings, the gayest and most luxurious
life developed in their streets; and they had leisure enough, after the
Greek manner, to dissipate their energies, which were not claimed by
external enemies, in internal strife and in struggles for the hegemony.
Only the bold attempts which Phocæa made in the sixth century to turn
the western basin of the Mediterranean likewise into a Greek sea, to
get a firm footing in Corsica and southern Spain, had succumbed to the
resistance of the Carthaginians, who were in alliance with the Etruscans.
Only in the north, on the coast of Liguria from the Alps to the
Pyrenees, Massalia maintained its independence. Southern Spain, Gades,
and the coast of the land of Tarshish (Tartessus) were occupied by the
Carthaginians about the middle of the fifth century; and the Greeks and
all foreign mariners in general were cut off from the navigation of the
ocean, as well as from the coasts of North Africa and Sardinia.

In the fourth century the political situation is totally changed in
both east and west. The Greeks are reduced to the defensive and lose
one position after the other. A few years after the destruction of the
Athenian expedition the Carthaginians stretched out their hands for
Sicily; in the years 409 and 406 they take and destroy Selinus, Himera,
and Agrigentum; in the wars of the following years every other Greek city
of the island except Syracuse was temporarily occupied and plundered by
them.

In Italy after the middle of the fifth century a new people made their
entrance into history, the Sabellian (Oscan) mountain tribes. From the
valleys of the Abruzzi and the Samnitic Apennines they pressed forward
towards the rich plains of the coast, and the land of civilisation with
its inhabitants succumbed to them almost everywhere. To be sure, the
Sabines under Rome defended themselves against the Æquians and Volscians,
and so did the Apulians in the east against the Frentanians and Pentrians
of Samnium. But the Etruscans of Capua and Nola and the Greeks of Cumæ
were overcome (438 and 421 B.C.) by the Sabellian Campanians, and Naples
alone in this district was able to preserve its independence. In the
south the Lucanians advanced farther and farther, took Posidonia (Pæstum)
in 400 B.C., Pyxus, Laos, and harassed the Greek cities of the east coast
and the south.

From between these hostile powers, the Carthaginians and the Sabellians,
an energetic ruler, Dionysius of Syracuse (405-367 B.C.), once more
rescued Hellenism. In great battles, with heavy losses to be sure, and
only by the employment of the military power of the Oscans, of Campanian
mercenary troops and of the Lucanians, he succeeded in setting up once
more a powerful Greek kingdom, including two-thirds of Sicily, the south
of Italy as far as Crotona and Terina; he held Carthage in restraint,
scourged the Etruscans in the western sea, and at the same time occupied
a number of important points on the Adriatic, Lissus and Pharos in
Illyria, several Apulian towns, Ancona, and Hadria at the mouth of the
Po in Italy. Dionysius had covered his rear by a close alliance with
Sparta, which not only insured him against any republican uprising,
but made possible an uninterrupted recruiting of mercenaries from the
Peloponnesus. In return Dionysius supported the Spartans in carrying
through the Kings’ Peace and against their enemies elsewhere.

The kingdom of Dionysius seemed to rest on a firm and permanent
foundation. Had it continued to exist the whole course of the world’s
history would have been different; Hellenism could have maintained its
position in the West, which might even have received again a Greek
impress instead of becoming Italic and Roman.

But the kingdom of Dionysius was in the most direct opposition to all
that Greek political theory demanded; it was a despotic state which
made the free self-government of communities an empty form in the
capital Syracuse, and in the subject territories, for the most part,
simply abolished the city-state, the _polis_. The necessity of a strong
government that would protect Hellenism in the West against its external
enemies was indeed recognised by the discerning, but internally it seemed
possible to relax and to effect a more ideal political formation.

Under the successor of the old despot, Dionysius II, Plato’s pupil, Dion,
and Plato himself, made an attempt at reform, first with the ruler’s
support, and then in opposition to him. The result was, that the west
Grecian kingdom was shattered (357-353 B.C.), while the establishment of
the ideal state was not successful; instead anarchy appeared again, and
the struggle of all against all. Only the enemies of the nation gained.
In Sicily, to be sure, Timoleon (345-337) was able to establish a certain
degree of order; he overthrew the tyrants, repulsed the Carthaginians,
restored the cities and gave them a modified democratic constitution.
But the federation of these republics had no permanence. On the death
of Timoleon the internal and external strife began anew, and the final
verdict was uttered by the governor of the Carthaginian province.

In Italy, on the other hand, the majority of the Greek cities were
conquered by the Lucanians or the newly risen Bruttians. On the west
coast only Naples and Elea were left, in the south Rhegium; in the east
Locri, Crotona, and Thurii had great difficulty in defending themselves
against the Bruttians. Tarentum alone (upon which Heraclea and Metapontum
were dependent) possessed a considerable power, owing to its incomparable
situation on a sea-girt peninsula and to the trade and wealth which
furnished it the means again and again to enlist Greek chieftains and
mercenaries in its service for the struggle against its enemies.

It was as Plato wrote to the Syracusans in the year 352 B.C. If matters
go on in this way, no end can be foreseen “until the whole population,
supporters of tyrants and democrats, alike, has been destroyed, the
Greek language has disappeared from Sicily and the island fallen under
the power and rule of the Phœnicians or Oscans” (_Epist._ 8, 353 e).
In a century the prophecy was fulfilled. But its range extends a great
deal farther than Plato dreamed; it is the fate not only of the western
Greeks, but of the whole Hellenic nation, that he foretells here.

The Greek states were not equal to the task of maintaining the position
of their nation as a world-power and gaining control of the world for
their civilisation. When they had completely failed, a half-Greek
neighbouring people, the Macedonians, attempted to carry out this
mission. The impotence of the Greek world gave King Philip (359-336)
the opportunity, which he seized with the greatest skill and energy, of
establishing a strong Macedonian kingdom, including all Thrace as far
as the Danube, extending on the west to the Ionian Sea, and finally,
on the basis of a general peace, of uniting the Hellenic world of the
mother-country in a firm league under Macedonian hegemony (337 B.C.).

Philip adopted the national programme of the Hellenes proposed by
Isocrates and began war in Asia against the Persians (336 B.C.). His
youthful son Alexander then carried it out on a far greater scale than
his father had ever intended. His aim was to subdue the whole known
world, the οικουμένη, simultaneously to Macedonian rule and Hellenic
civilisation. Moreover, as the descendant of Hercules and Achilles, as
king of Macedonia and leader of the Hellenic league, imbued by education
with Hellenic culture, the triumphs of which he had enthusiastically
absorbed, he felt himself called as none other to this work. Darius III,
after the victory of Issus (November 333 B.C.), offered him the surrender
of Western Asia as far as the Euphrates; and the interests of his native
state and also,--we must not fail to note,--the true interests of
Hellenic culture would have been far better served by such self-restraint
than by the ways that Alexander followed.

But he would go farther, out into the immeasurable; the attraction to
the infinite, to the comprehension and mastery of the universe, both
intellectual and material, that lies in the nature of the yet inchoate
uniform world-culture, finds its most vivid expression in its champion.
When, indeed, he would advance farther and farther, from the Punjab
to the Ganges and to the ends of the world, his instrument, his army,
failed him; he had to turn back. But the Persian kingdom, Asia as far as
the Indus, he conquered, brought permanently under Macedonian rule, and
laid the foundation for its Hellenisation. With this, however, only the
smaller portion of his mission was fulfilled. The East everywhere offered
further tasks which had in part been undertaken by the Persian kingdom at
the height of its power under Darius I--the exploration of Arabia, of the
Indian Ocean, and of the Caspian Sea, the subjugation of the predatory
nomads of the great steppe that extends from the Danube through southern
Russia and Turania as far as the Jaxartes.

It was of far more importance that Hellenism had a task in the West like
that in the East; to save the Greeks of Italy and Sicily, to overcome the
Carthaginians and the tribes of Italy, to turn the whole Mediterranean
into a Greek sea, was just as urgently necessary as the conquest of
Western Asia. It was the aim that Alcibiades had set himself and on which
Athens had gone to wreck.

In the same years in which the Macedonian king was conquering the
Persians, his brother-in-law, Alexander of Epirus, at the request of
Tarentum, had devoted himself to this task. After some success at the
beginning he had been overcome by the Lucanians and Bruttians and the
opposition of Hellenic particularism (334-331 B.C.).

Now the Macedonian king made preparations to take up this work also and
thus complete his conquest of the world. That the resources of Macedonia
were inadequate for this purpose was perfectly clear to him. Since he had
rejected the proposals of Darius he had employed the conquered Asiatics
in the government of his empire, and above all had endeavoured to form an
auxiliary force to his army out of the people that had previously ruled
Asia. In his naïve overvaluation of education, due to the Socratic belief
in the omnipotence of the intellect, he thought he could make Macedonians
out of the young Persians. But as ruler of the world he must no longer
bear the fetters which the usage of his people and the terms of the
Hellenic league put upon him. He must stand above all men and peoples,
his will must be law to them, like the commandment of the gods. The march
to Ammon (331 B.C.), which at the time enjoyed the highest regard in the
Greek world, inaugurated this departure. This elevation of the kingship
to divinity was not an outgrowth of oriental views, although it resembles
them, but of political necessity and of the loftiest ideas of Greek
culture--of the teaching of Greek philosophy, common to all Socratic
schools, of the unlimited sovereignty of the true sage, whose judgment no
commandment can fetter; he is no other than the true king.

Henceforth this view is inseparable from the idea of kingship among all
occidental nations down to our own times. It returns in the absolute
monarchy that Cæsar wished to found at Rome and which then gradually
develops out of the principate of Augustus, until Diocletian and
Constantine bring it to perfection; it returns, only apparently modified
by Christian views, in the absolute monarchy of modern times, in kingship
by the grace of God as well as in the universal monarchy of Napoleon, and
in the divine foundation of the autocracy of the Czar.

But Alexander was not able to bring his state to completion. In the midst
of his plans, in the full vigour of youth, just as a boundless future
seemed to lie before him, he was carried off by death at Babylon, on the
thirteenth of June, 323 B.C., in the thirty-third year of his age.

With the death of Alexander his plans were buried. He left no heir who
could have held the empire together; his generals fought for the spoils.
The result of the mighty struggles of the period of the Diadochi, which
covers almost fifty years (323-277 B.C.), is, that the Macedonian empire
is divided into three great powers; the kingdom of the Lagidæ, who from
the seaport of Alexandria on the extreme western border of Egypt control
the eastern Mediterranean with all its coasts, and the valley of the
Nile; the kingdom of the Seleucidæ, who strive in continual wars to hold
Asia together; and the kingdom of the Antigonidæ, who obtained possession
of Macedonia, depopulated by the conquest of the world and again by
the fearful Celtic invasion (280), and who, when they wish to assert
themselves as a great power, must attempt to acquire an ascendency in
some form or other over Greece and the Ægean Sea.

Of these three powers the kingdom of the Lagidæ is most firmly welded
together, being in full possession of all the resources that trade and
sea power, money and politics, afford. To re-establish the universal
monarchy was never its aim, even when circumstances seemed to tempt
to it. But as long as strong rulers wear the crown it always stands
on the offensive against the other two; it harasses them continually,
hinders them at every step from consolidating, wrests from the Seleucidæ
almost all the coast towns of Palestine and Phœnicia as far as Thrace,
temporarily gains control of the islands of the Ægean, and supports every
hostile movement that is made in Greece against Macedonia. The Greek
mother-country is thus continually forced anew into the struggle, the
play of intrigue between the court of Alexandria and the Macedonian state
never gives it an opportunity to become settled. All revolts of the Greek
world received the support of Alexandria; the uprising of Athens and
Sparta in the war of Chremonides (264), the attempt of Aratus to give the
Peloponnesus an independent organisation by means of the Achæan league
(beginning in 252), and finally the uprising of Sparta under Cleomenes.
The aim of giving the Greek world an independent form was never attained;
finally, when at the end of the reign of Ptolemy III Euergetes (221) the
kingdom of the Lagidæ withdraws and lets Cleomenes fall, the peninsula
comes anew under the supremacy of the Macedonians, whom Aratus the
“liberator” had himself brought back to the citadel of Corinth. But
neither can the Macedonian king attain the full power that Philip and
Alexander had possessed a century earlier; in particular, its resources
are insufficient, even in alliance with the Achæans, to overthrow the
warlike, piratical Ætolian state, which is constantly increasing in
power. So Greece never gets out of these hopeless conditions; on the
contrary, indeed, through the emigration of the population to the Asiatic
colonies, through the decay of a vigorous peasant population which began
as early as in the fourth century, through the economic decline of
commerce and industry caused by the shifting of the centre of gravity to
the east, its situation becomes more and more wretched and the population
constantly diminishes. It can never attain peace of itself, but only
through an energetic and ruthlessly despotic foreign rule.

In the East, on the contrary, an active and hopeful life developed. The
great kings of the Lagidæan kingdom, the first three Ptolemies, fully
appreciated the importance of intellectual life to the position of
their kingdom in the world. All that Greek culture offered they tried
to attract to Alexandria, and they managed to win for their capital the
leading position in literature and science. But in other respects the
kingdom of the Lagidæ is by no means the state in which the life of the
new time reaches its full development. However much, in opposition to the
Greek world, in conflict with Macedonia, they coquette with the Hellenic
idea of liberty, within their own jurisdiction they cannot endure the
independence and the free constitution of the Greek _polis_, and their
subjects are by no means initiated into the new world-culture, but are
kept in complete subjugation, sharply distinguished from the ruling
classes, the Macedonians and Greeks, to whom also no freedom of political
movement whatever is granted.[1]

The development in Asia follows a very different course. Here, through
the activity of the great founders of cities, Antigonus, Lysimachus,
Seleucus I, and Antiochus I, one Greek city arises after another, from
the Hellespont through Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Media,
as far as Bactria and India; and from them grow the great centres of
culture, full of independent life, by which the Asiatic population is
introduced to the modern world-civilisation and becomes Hellenised.
Antigonus deliberately supported the independence of the cities within
the great organic body of the kingdom, thus following on the lines of the
Hellenic league under Philip and Alexander. By the pressure of political
necessity and the fact that they could maintain their power only by
winning the attachment and fidelity of their subjects, the Seleucidæ were
forced into the same ways. And side by side with the great kingdom the
political struggle creates a great number of powers of the second rank,
in part pure Greek communities, like Rhodes, Chios, Cyzicus, Byzantium,
Heraclea, in part newly formed states of Greek origin, like the kingdom
of Pergamus and later the Bactrian kingdom, in part fragments of the old
Persian kingdom, like Bithynia, Pontus, Cappadocia, Armenia, Atropatene,
and not much later the Parthian kingdom. Among these states the eastern
retain their oriental character, while the western are forced to pass
more and more into the culture of Hellenism.

Destructive as were the effects of the continual wars, and especially
of the raids of the Celtic hordes in Asia Minor, nevertheless there
pulsates here a fresh, progressive life, to which the future seems to
belong. To be sure, there is no lack of counter disturbance; beneath the
surface of Hellenism, the native population that is absorbed into the
Greek life everywhere preserves its own character, not through active
resistance, but through the passivity of its nature. When the orientals
become Hellenised, Hellenism itself begins at the same time to take on an
oriental impress.

But in this there lies no danger as yet. Hellenism everywhere retains
the upper hand and seems to come nearer and nearer to the goal of its
mission for the world. In all fields of intellectual life the cultured
classes have undisputed control and can look down with absolute contempt
on the currents that move the masses far beneath them; the exponents of
philosophical enlightenment may imagine they have completely dominated
them. When the great ideas upon which Hellenism is based have been
created by the classical period and new ones can no longer be placed
beside them, the new time sets to work to perfect what it has inherited.
The third century is the culmination of ancient science.

However, this whole civilisation lacks one thing, and that is a state
of natural growth. Of all the states that developed out of Alexander’s
empire, the kingdom of the Antigonidæ in Macedonia was the only one that
had a national basis; and therefore, in spite of the scantiness of its
resources, it was also the most capable of resistance of them all. All
others, on the contrary, were purely artificial political combinations,
lacking that innate necessity vital to the full power of a state. They
might have been altogether different, or they might not have been at
all. The separation of state and nationality, which is the result of
the development of the ancient East, exists in them also; they are not
supported by the population, which, by the contingencies of political
development, is for the moment included in them, and their subjects, so
far as the individual man or community is not bound to them by personal
advantage, have no further interest in their existence. To be sure, had
they maintained their existence for centuries, the power of custom might
have sufficed to give them a firmer constitution, such as many later
similar political formations have acquired and such as the Austrian
monarchy possesses to-day; and as a matter of fact we find the loyalty
of subjects to the reigning dynasty already quite strongly developed in
the kingdom of the Seleucidæ. But a national state can never arise on
the basis of a universal, denationalised civilisation, and the unity
is consequently only political, based only upon the dynasty and its
political successes. Therefore, except in Macedonia, none of these states
can, even in the struggle for existence, set in motion the full national
force supplied by internal unity.

The resources at the command of the Macedonio-Hellenic states were
consumed in the struggle with one another; nothing was left for the great
task that was set them in the West. The remains of Greek nationality,
still maintaining their existence here, looked in vain for a deliverer
to come from the East. An attempt made by the Spartan prince Cleonymus,
in response to the appeal of Tarentum, to take up the struggle in Italy
against the Lucanians and Romans, failed miserably through the incapacity
of its leader (303-302 B.C.). In Sicily, to be sure, the gifted general
and statesman Agathocles (317-289) had once more established, amid
streams of blood, and by mighty and ruthless battles against both
internal enemies and rivals and against Carthage, a strong Greek kingdom
that reached even to Italy and the Ionian Sea. But he was never able to
attain the position taken by Dionysius, and at his death his kingdom
goes to pieces. At this point also the rôle of the Sicilian Greeks in
the history of the world is played out; they disappear from the number
of independent powers capable of maintaining themselves by their own
resources.


FOOTNOTES

[1] It is altogether wrong to regard the kingdom of the Lagidæ as the
typical state of Hellenism. Through the mass of material that the
Egyptian papyri afford a further shifting in its favour is threatened,
which must certainly lead to a very incorrect conception of the whole of
antiquity. It is frequently quite overlooked that we have to do here only
with documents from a province of the kingdom of the Lagidæ (later of
Rome) which had a quite peculiar constitution, and that these documents
therefore show by no means typical, but in every respect exceptional,
conditions. The investigators who have made this material accessible
deserve great gratitude, but it must never be overlooked that even a
small fragment of similar documents from Asia would have infinitely
greater value for the interpretation of the whole history of antiquity
and specially that of Hellenism.




[Illustration: GREEK CITY SEALS]




GREEK HISTORY IN OUTLINE

A PRELIMINARY SURVEY, COMPRISING A CURSORY VIEW OF THE SWEEP OF EVENTS
AND A TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY


It is unnecessary in the summary of a country whose chief events are so
accurately dated and so fully understood as in the case of Greece, to
amplify the chronology. A synoptical view of these events will, however,
prove useful. Questions of origins and of earliest history are obscure
here as elsewhere. As to the earliest dates, it may be well to quote the
dictum of Prof. Flinders Petrie, who, after commenting on the discovery
in Greece, of pottery marked with the names of early Egyptian kings,
states that “the grand age of prehistoric Greece, which can well compare
with the art of classical Greece, began about 1600 B.C., was at its
highest point about 1400 B.C. and became decadent about 1200 B.C., before
its overthrow by the Dorian invasion.” The earlier phase of civilisation
in the Ægean may therefore date from the third millennium B.C.

2000-1000. Later phase of civilisation in the Ægean (the Mycenæan Age).
The Achæans and other Greeks spread themselves over Greece. Ionians
settle in Asia Minor. The Pelopidæ reign at Mycenæ. =Agamemnon=, king
of Mycenæ, commands the Greek forces at Troy. 1184. Fall of Troy
(traditional date). 1124. First migration. Northern warriors drive out
the population of Thessaly and occupy the country, causing many Achæans
to migrate to the Peloponnesus. 1104. Dorian invasion. The Peloponnesus
gradually brought under the Dorian sway. Dorian colonies sent out to
Crete, Rhodes, and Asia Minor. Argos head of a Dorian hexapolis. 885.
=Lycurgus= said to have given laws to Sparta. About this time (perhaps
much earlier) Phœnician alphabet imported into Greece. 776. The first
Olympic year. 750. First Messenian war.


PERIOD OF GREEK COLONISATION (750-550 B.C.)

683. Athens ruled by nine archons. 632. Attempt of Cylon to make himself
supreme at Athens. 621. Draconian code drawn up. 611. Anaximander of
Miletus, the constructor of the first map, born. End of seventh century.
Second Messenian war. Spartans conquer the country. The Ephors win almost
all the kingly power. =Cypselus= and his son =Periander= tyrants of
Corinth. 600. The poets Alcæus and Sappho flourish at Lesbos. 594-593.
=Solon= archon at Athens. 590-589. Sacred war of the Amphictyonic
league against Crissa. =Clisthenes= tyrant of Sicyon. 585. Pythian
games reorganised. Date of first Pythiad. 570. =Pisistratus= polemarch
at Athens. Athenians conquer Salamis and Nisæa. 561. Pisistratus makes
himself supreme in Athens. He is twice exiled. 559-556. =Miltiades=
tyrant of the Thracian Chersonesus. 556. Chilon’s reforms in Sparta.
549-548. Mycenæ and Tiryns go over to Sparta.


ATHENS UNDER THE TYRANTS (540-510 B.C.)

540. Pisistratus tyrant of Athens. 530. Pythagoras goes to Croton.
527. Pisistratus dies and is succeeded by his sons, =Hippias= and
=Hipparchus=. Homeric poems collected. 514. Hipparchus slain by Harmodius
and Aristogiton. 510. A Spartan army under Cleomenes blockades Hippias
and forces him to quit Athens.


THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY

Clisthenes and Isagoras contend for the chief power in Athens. 507.
Isagoras calls in =Cleomenes= who invades Attica. The Athenians overcome
the Spartans, and Clisthenes, who had left Athens, returns. =Clisthenes=
reforms the Athenian democracy. 506. Spartans, Bœotians, and Chalcidians
allied against Athens. The Athenians allied with Platæa. Chalcidian
territory annexed by Athens. Nearly the whole Peloponnesus forms a
league under the hegemony of Sparta. Rivalry between Athens and Ægina.
504. The Athenians refuse to restore Hippias on the Persian demand. 498.
Athens and Eretria send ships to aid the Milesians against the Persians.
496. Sophocles born at Athens. 494. Naval battle off Lade, the decisive
struggle of the Ionian war, won by the Persians. Battle of Sepeia. The
Spartans defeat the Argives. 493. =Themistocles=, archon at Athens,
fortifies the Piræus.


PERIOD OF THE PERSIAN WARS (492-479 B.C.)

492. Quarrel between the Spartan kings. King =Demaratus= flees to the
Persian court, and King Cleomenes seizes hostages from Ægina. Thrace
and Macedonia subdued by the Persians. 490. The Persians subdue Naxos
and other islands, and destroy Eretria before landing in Attica. Battle
of Marathon; the Greeks under Miltiades defeat the Persians, the latter
losing six thousand men; the Persian fleet sets sail for Asia. 489.
Miltiades’ expedition against Paros. Miltiades tried, and fined. His
death. 487. War between Athens and Ægina. Themistocles begins to equip an
Athenian fleet. 483. Aristides ostracised. 481. Xerxes musters an army to
invade Greece. Greek congress at Corinth. 480. Xerxes at the Hellespont.
The northern Greeks submit to Xerxes. The Greek army is defeated at the
pass of Thermopylæ and =Leonidas=, the Spartan king, is slain. Battle
of Artemisium. The Greek fleet retreats. Athens being evacuated, Xerxes
occupies it. Battle of Salamis and complete victory of the Greeks.
Retreat of Xerxes. The Greeks fail to follow up their victory. 479.
Mardonius invades Bœotia; occupies Athens. Retreat of Mardonius. Battle
of Platæa. Mardonius defeated and slain. Retreat of the Persian army.
Battle of Mycale and defeat of the Persian fleet.


POST-BELLUM RECONSTRUCTION (479-463 B.C.)

478. Athenians under Xanthippus capture Sestus in the Chersonesus.
Confederacy of Delos. 477. Athenian walls rebuilt. Piræus fortified.
Themistocles’ law providing for the annual increase of the navy.
Pausanias conquers Byzantium. He enters into treacherous relations
with the Persians. 476. The Spartans endeavour to reorganise the
Amphictyonic league. Their attempts defeated by Themistocles. 474. The
poet Pindar flourishes. 473. Scyros conquered by the Athenian, Cimon.
Argos defeated by the Spartans at the battle of Tegea. 472. Themistocles
ostracised. _Persæ_ of Æschylus performed. 471. The Arcadian league
against Sparta crushed at the battle of Dipæa. 470-469. Naxos secedes
from the confederacy of Delos, and is compelled to return. 470. Socrates
born. 468. Cimon defeats the Persians at the Eurymedon. Argos recovers
Tiryns. 465-463. Thasos revolts and is reduced by the fleet under Cimon.
464. Sparta stirred by terrible earthquake and a revolt of the helots.
The Third Messenian war. 463-462. Cimon persuades Athens to send help
to the Spartans, but the latter refuse the assistance. They are afraid
of Athens’ revolutionary spirit. This incident puts an end to Cimon’s
Laconian policy. It is the triumph of Ephialtes and his party.


THE AGE OF PERICLES (463-431 B.C.)

463-461. Triumph of democracy at Athens under Ephialtes and Pericles.
The Areopagus deprived of its powers. Cimon protests against the changes
effected in his absence. He is ostracised, and Athens forms a connection
with Argos, which captures and destroys Mycenæ. 460-459. Megara secedes
from the Peloponnesian league to Athens. A fleet, sent by Athens to
aid the Egyptian revolt against Persia, captures Memphis. 459. Ithome
captured by the Spartans. 459-458. Athens at war with the northern states
of the Peloponnesus. Athenian victories of Halieis, Cecryphalea, and
Ægina. 458. Long walls of Athens completed. 457. Spartan expedition to
Bœotia. Victory of Tanagra over the Athenians. Truce between Athens and
Sparta. Battle of Œnophyta and conquest of Bœotia by the Athenians. The
Phocians and Locrians make alliance with Athens. 456. Ægina surrenders
to the Athenians. 454. Greek contingent in Egypt capitulates to the
Persians; the Athenian fleet destroyed at the mouth of the Nile. 454-453.
Treasury of the confederacy of Delos transferred from the island to
Athens. 453. Pericles besieges Sicyon and Œniadæ without success. Achaia
passes under the Athenian dominion. 452-451. Five years’ truce between
Athens and the Peloponnesus. 450-449. Cimon leads an expedition against
Cyprus. Death of Cimon. The fleet on its way home wins the battle of
Salamis in Cyprus. 448. Peace of Callias concluded with Persia. Sacred
war. The Phocians withdraw from the Athenian alliance. 447. Bœotia lost
to Athens by the battle of Coronea. 447-446. Revolt of Eubœa and Megara
from the Delian confederacy. Eubœa is subdued and annexed. Pericles
plants colonies in the Thracian Chersonesus, Eubœa, Naxos, etc. 446-445.
Thirty Years’ Peace between Athens and Sparta. 444. Aristophanes born.
442. Thucydides opposes Pericles; is ostracised, leaving Pericles without
a rival in Athens, where he governs for fifteen years with absolute
power. Sophocles’ _Antigone_ produced. 440-439. Pericles subdues Samos.
Corcyræans defeat Corinthians in a sea-fight. 433. Corcyra concludes
alliance with Athens. Battle of Sybota between Corcyra and Corinth. King
=Perdiccas= of Macedonia incites the revolt of Chalcidice against Athens.
432. “Megarian decree,” passed at Athens, excludes Megarians from all
Athenian markets. Battle of Potidæa. Athenians defeat the Corinthians.


THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR (431-404 B.C.)

431. Sparta decides on war with Athens on the grounds of her having
broken the Thirty Years’ Peace. Peloponnesian War. First period called
the “Attic War.” Platæa surprised by Thebans. Thebans taken and executed
in spite of a promise for their release. King =Archidamus= of Sparta
invades Attica. The population crowd into Athens. Athens annexes Ægina.
The fleet takes several important places. 430. The plague in Athens.
Trial of Pericles for misappropriation of public money. Potidæa taken by
the Athenians and the inhabitants expelled. 429. =Archidamus= besieges
Platæa. Phormion, the Athenian, wins the victory of Naupactus. Death of
Pericles. Rivalry between contending parties under Nicias and Cleon. 428.
=Archidamus= invades Attica. Mytilene revolts and is blockaded by the
Athenians. 427. Fourth invasion of Attica by the Spartans. Surrender of
Mytilene. The Mytilenæan ringleaders executed. Surrender of Platæa to the
Peloponnesians. Oligarchs in Corcyra conspire to overthrow the democrats.
Civil war and naval engagement. Terrible slaughter. Athenian expedition
to Sicily under Laches. Birth of Plato. 426. Athenians under Demosthenes
defeated in Ætolia. Battle of Olpæ. Peloponnesians and Ambracians
defeated by Demosthenes. Purification of Delos by the Athenians. The
Delian festival revived under Athenian superintendence. 425. Athens
increases the amount of tribute to be paid by the confederacy. The
episode of Pylos, leading, after a long struggle, to the capture of
Lacedæmonian forces in Sphacteria. 424. Defeat of Hippocrates at Delium.
Thucydides, the historian, banished for not succouring Amphipolis in
time. Brasidas takes towns of Chalcidice. 423. Truce between Athens
and Sparta. Scione in Chalcidice revolts to Sparta and an Athenian
expedition under Cleon is sent against it, notwithstanding the truce.
422. Battle of Amphipolis won by Brasidas, but both he and Cleon are
slain. 421. Peace of Nicias ends the first period of the Peloponnesian
War. Mutual restoration of conquests. Scione is taken and all the male
inhabitants put to death. 420. Second period of the Peloponnesian War.
Alcibiades becomes the chief opponent of Nicias. Expedition against
Epidaurus. 418. Nicias recovers his power in Athens. The Spartans invade
Argolis. Athenians take Orchomenus, but are defeated by the Spartans.
Battle of Mantinea. Hyperbolus attempts to obtain the ostracism of
Nicias. The decree is passed against himself, being the last instance
of ostracism. Argive oligarchy overthrows the democratic government. A
counter revolution restores the democrats. Athens concludes alliance
with Argos. 416. Melos conquered by the Athenians. The Sicilian city
of Segesta appeals to Athens for help against Selinus. Nicias opposes
the sending of assistance, but is overruled and sent with Alcibiades in
command of a Sicilian expedition. 415. Mysterious mutilation of the Hermæ
statues regarded as an evil omen. Alcibiades accused of a plot. His trial
postponed. The expedition sails. Fall of Alcibiades; his escape. 414.
Siege of Syracuse. The Spartan Gylippus arrives with ships. 413. Nicias
appeals for help to Athens and a second expedition is voted. Syracusans
worsted in a sea battle. Syracusans capture an Athenian treasure fleet,
and win a battle in the harbour of Syracuse. Arrival of the second
Athenian expedition and its total defeat. The Athenians retreat by land.
The rear guard is forced to surrender and the relics of the main body are
captured after the defeat of the Asinarus. Tribute of the confederacy
abolished and replaced by an import and export duty. 412. Third period
of the Peloponnesian War, called the Decelean or Ionian War. The allies
of Athens take advantage of her misfortunes to revolt. Sparta makes a
treaty with Persia. Athens wins several naval successes. 411. “Revolution
of the Four Hundred.” The fleet and army at Samos place themselves under
the leadership of Alcibiades. Spartans defeat the Athenian fleet at
Eretria. Fall of the Four Hundred and partial restoration of Athenian
democracy. Battle of Cynossema won by the Athenians. Alcibiades defeats
the Peloponnesians at Abydos. 410. Battle of Cyzicus won by Alcibiades.
Complete restoration of Athenian democracy. 408. Alcibiades conquers
Byzantium. 407. Cyrus, viceroy of Sardis, furnishes the Spartan Lysander
with money to raise the pay of the Spartan navy. Lysander begins to set
up the oligarchical government of the decarchies in the cities conquered
by him. Battle of Notium. Athenians defeated. Alcibiades’ downfall.
406. Battle of Arginusæ. Peloponnesians defeated by the Athenians. The
victorious generals are blamed for not rescuing their wounded, and are
illegally condemned and executed. The Spartans make overtures for peace,
which are rejected. 405. Battle of Ægospotami. Most of the Athenian ships
are taken and all the prisoners are put to death. The Athenian empire
passes to Sparta. Lysander subdues the Hellespont and Thrace, and lays
siege to Athens. 404. Surrender of Athens.


SPARTAN SUPREMACY AND PERSIAN INFLUENCE

Return to Athens of exiles of the oligarchical party. Athens under the
Thirty. Thrasybulus and other exiles gain Phyle. Theramenes opposes the
violent rule of the Thirty and is put to death. 403. Battle of Munychia.
Thrasybulus defeats the army of the Thirty. Death of Critias. The
Thirty are deposed and replaced by the Ten. The Spartans under Lysander
come to the aid of the Ten, but the intervention of the Spartan king,
=Pausanias=, brings about the restoration of the Attic democracy. 401.
Cyrus’ campaign and the battle of Cunaxa. Retreat of the Ten Thousand
Greeks under Xenophon. 400. Spartan invasion of the Persian dominions.
399. Spartans under Dercyllidas occupy the Troad. Elis conquered and
dismembered by the Spartans. Socrates put to death for denying the
Athenian gods. 398. =Agesilaus= becomes king of Sparta. 397. Cinadon’s
conspiracy. 396. Agesilaus invades Phrygia. 395. Agesilaus wins the
victory of Sardis. Revolt of Rhodes. The Spartans invade Bœotia and
are repelled with the assistance of the Athenians. Thebes, Athens,
Argos, and Corinth allied against Sparta. 394. Agesilaus returns from
Asia Minor. Battle of Nemea won by the Spartans. Battle of Cnidus. The
Persian fleet under Conon destroys the Spartan fleet. Agesilaus wins the
battle of Coronea and retreats from Bœotia. 393. Pharnabazus destroys
the Spartan dominion in the eastern Ægean, and supplies Conon with funds
to restore the long walls of Athens. Beginning of the “Corinthian War.”
392. Federation of Corinth and Argos. Fighting between the Spartans and
the allies on the Isthmus of Corinth. Both sides send embassies to the
Persians. 391. The Spartans begin fresh wars in Asia. 389. Successes of
Thrasybulus in the northern Ægean. 388. Spartans dispute the supremacy
of Athens on the Hellespont and are defeated at Cremaste. 387. Peace of
Antalcidas between Persia and Sparta. Athens is compelled to accede.
386. Dissolution of the union of Corinth and Argos. Sparta compels
the Mantineans to break down their city walls and separate into small
villages. 384-382. The city of Olynthus, having united the Chalcidian
towns under her hegemony and increased her territory at the expense of
Macedonia, makes alliance with Athens and Thebes. Sparta sends help to
the towns which refuse to join. 384. Aristotle born. 382. Spartans seize
the citadel of Thebes. 380. _Panegyric_ of Isocrates, a plea for Greek
unity. 381-379. Sparta forces Phlius to submit to her dictation. 379.
Chalcidian league compelled by Sparta to dissolve. The power of Sparta at
its height. Rising of Thebes under Pelopidas against Sparta. Sphodrias,
the Spartan, invades Athenian territory. The Spartans decline to punish
the aggression.


RISE OF THEBES (378-359 B.C.)

378. Athens makes alliance with Thebes. 378-377. Formation by the
Athenians of a new maritime confederacy. 378-376. Three unsuccessful
Spartan expeditions into Bœotia. 376. Great maritime victory of the
Athenian Chabrias at Naxos. Successes of Timotheus of Athens in the
Ionian Sea. 374. Brief peace between Sparta and Athens. 374-373.
Corcyra unsuccessfully invested by the Spartans. 371. Peace of Callias,
guaranteeing the independence of each individual Greek city. Thebes
not included in the Peace. Jason of Pheræ, despot of Thessaly. Battle
of Leuctra. Epaminondas of Thebes defeats the Spartans. Revolutionary
outbreaks in Peloponnesus. 370. Arcadian union and restoration of
Mantinea. Foundation of Megalopolis. Epaminondas and Pelopidas invade
Laconia. 369. Messene restored by the Thebans as a menace to Sparta.
Alliance between Sparta and Athens. The Thebans conquer Sicyon. Pelopidas
sent to deliver the Thessalian cities from the rivals, Alexander of
Macedon and Alexander of Pheræ. 368. The Spartans win the “tearless
victory” of Midea over the Arcadians. Death of =Alexander II= of Macedon.
Succession of his brother =Perdiccas= secured by Athenian intervention.
Pelopidas captured by Alexander of Pheræ. 367. Epaminondas rescues
him. Pelopidas obtains a Persian decree settling disputed questions in
Peloponnesus. The decree disregarded in Greece. 366. The Thebans conquer
Achaia, but fail to keep it. Athens makes alliance with Arcadia. 365.
Athenians conquer and colonise Samos, and acquire Sestus and Crithote.
=Perdiccas III= of Macedon assassinates the regent. Timotheus takes
Potidæa and Torone for Athens. Elis invaded by the Arcadians. 364.
Creation of a Bœotian navy encourages the allies of Athens to revolt.
Battle of Cynoscephalæ. Alexander of Pheræ, defeated by the Bœotians
and their Thessalian allies. Pelopidas falls in the battle. Orchomenus
destroyed by the Thebans. Elis invaded by the Arcadians. Spartan
operations fail. Battle in the Altis during the Olympic games. The
Arcadians appropriate the sacred Olympian treasure. Praxiteles, the
sculptor, flourished. 362. Unsuccessful attack on Sparta by Epaminondas.
Battle of Mantinea and death of Epaminondas. 361. Agesilaus of Sparta
goes to Egypt as a leader of mercenaries. Battle of Peparethus. Alexander
of Pheræ defeats the Athenian fleet. He attacks the Piræus. 360. The
Thracian Chersonesus lost to Athens.


PHILIP OF MACEDONIA (359-336 B.C.)

359. Death of =Perdiccas III= of Macedon. =Philip= seizes the government
as guardian for his nephew, =Amyntas=. 358. Brilliant victories of Philip
over the Pæonians and Illyrians. 357. Thracian Chersonesus and Eubœa
recovered by Athens. Philip takes Amphipolis. Revolt of Athenian allies,
Chios, Cos, and Rhodes. 356. Battle of Embata lost by the Athenians.
Philip founds Philippi, takes Pydna and Potidæa, defeats the Illyrians
and sets to work to organise his kingdom on a military basis. Birth of
Alexander the Great. 355. Peace between Athens and her revolted allies.
The Athenians abandon their schemes of a naval empire. Outbreak of the
“Sacred war” against the Phocians who had seized the Delphic temple.
354. Battle of Neon. The Phocians defeated. Demosthenes begins his
political activity. Phocian successes under Onomarchus. 353. Methone
taken by Philip of Macedon. Philip and the Thessalian league opposed
to Onomarchus and the tyrants of Pheræ. Onomarchus drives Philip from
Thessaly. Philip crushes the Phocians in Magnesia and makes himself
master of Thessaly. Phocis saved from him by help from Athens. 352. War
in the Peloponnesus. Spartan schemes of aggression frustrated. Thrace
subdued by Philip. 351. Demosthenes delivers his _First Philippic_. 349.
Philip begins war against Olynthus which makes alliance with Athens.
Athenian attempt to recover Eubœa fails. 348. Philip destroys Olynthus
and the Chalcidian towns. 347. Death of Plato. 346. Peace of Philocrates
between Philip and Athens. Phocis subdued by Philip. Philip presides at
the Pythian games. Philip becomes archon of Thessaly. Demosthenes accuses
Æschines of accepting bribes from Philip. 344. Demosthenes delivers
_The Second Philippic_. 343. Megara, Chalcis, Ambracia, Acarnania,
Achaia, and Corcyra ally themselves with Athens. 342-341. Philip annexes
Thrace. He founds Philippopolis. 341. Demosthenes’ _Third Philippic_.
340. Diplomatic breach between Athens and Philip. 339. Perinthus and
Byzantium unsuccessfully besieged by Philip. Philip’s campaign on the
Danube. 338. The Amphictyonic league declares a “holy war” against
Amphissa, and requests the aid of Philip. Philip destroys Amphissa and
conquers Naupactus. Philip occupies Elatea. Athens makes alliance with
Thebes. Battle of Chæronea. Philip defeats the Athenians and Thebans. The
hegemony of Greece passes to Macedon. Philip invades the Peloponnesus
which, with the exception of Sparta, acknowledges his supremacy. Philip
establishes a Greek confederacy under the Macedonian hegemony. Lycurgus
appointed to control the public revenues in Athens. 336. Attalus and
Parmenion open the Macedonian war in Æolis.


THE AGE OF ALEXANDER (336-323 B.C.)

Murder of Philip and succession of =Alexander the Great=. Alexander
compels the Hellenes to recognise his hegemony. 335. Alexander conducts
a successful campaign on the Danube and defeats the Illyrians at Pelium.
Thebes revolts against him and is destroyed. 334. Alexander sets out for
Asia. Battle of the Granicus. Alexander defeats the Persians. Lydia,
Miletus, Caria, Halicarnassus, Lycia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia subdued.
333. Alexander goes to Gordium and cuts the Gordian knot. Death of his
chief opponent, the Persian general, Memnon. Submission of Paphlagonia
and Cilicia. Battle of Issus. Alexander puts the army of Darius to
flight. Sidon and Byblos submit. 332. Tyre besieged and taken. He
slaughters the inhabitants and marches southward, storming Gaza. Egypt
conquered. He founds Alexandria. 331. Battle of Arbela and defeat of the
Great King. Babylon opens its gates to Alexander. He enters Susa. The
Spartans rise and are defeated at Megalopolis. 330. Alexander occupies
Persepolis. Alexander in Ecbatana, in Parthia, and on the Caspian.
Philotas is accused of conspiring against Alexander’s life and is
executed. His father, the general Parmenion, put to death on suspicion.
Judicial contest between Demosthenes and Æschines ends in the latter’s
quitting Athens. Part of Gedrosia (Beluchistan) submits to Alexander.
329. Arachosia conquered. 328. Alexander conquers Bactria and Sogdiana.
327. Alexander quells the rebellion of Sogdiana and Bactria. Clitus
killed by Alexander at a banquet. Alexander marries the Sogdian Roxane.
Callisthenes, the historian, is put to death under pretext of complicity
in the conspiracy of the pages to assassinate Alexander. Beginning of the
Indian war. 326. Alexander in the Punjab; he crosses the Indus, and is
victorious at the Hydaspes. At the Hyphasis the army refuses to advance
further. Alexander builds a fleet and sails to the mouth of the Indus.
325. Conquest of the Lower Punjab. March through Gedrosia (Mekran in
Beluchistan) and Carmania. Nearchus makes a voyage of discovery in the
Indian Ocean. 324. Alexander in Susa. He punishes treasonable conduct of
officials during his absence. Alexander’s veterans discharged at Opis.
Harpalus deposits at Athens the money stolen from Alexander. The trial
respecting misappropriation of this money ends in Demosthenes being
forced to quit Athens. Alexander’s last campaign against the Kossæans.
323. Alexander returns to Babylon and reorganises his army for the
conquest of Arabia. Death of Alexander.


THE POST-ALEXANDRIAN EPOCH

323. At Alexander’s death his young half-brother, =Philip Arrhidæus=,
succeeded to his empire, while there are expectations of a posthumous
heir by Roxane. The young Alexander is born. =Perdiccas= is made regent
over the Asiatic dominions, while =Antipater= and =Craterus= take the
joint regency of the West. The Greeks, with Athens at their head, attempt
to throw off the Macedonian yoke as soon as Alexander is dead, and
the Lamian war breaks out (323-322). But one by one the states yield
to Antipater and Craterus. The direct government of the dominions in
Europe, Africa, and Western Asia is divided among Alexander’s generals.
Thirty-four shared in the allotment; the most important are: =Ptolemy
Lagus=, in Egypt and Cyrenaica; =Antigonus=, in Phrygia, Pamphylia,
and Lycia; =Eumenes=, the secretary of Alexander, in Paphlagonia and
Cappadocia; =Cassander=, in Caria; =Leonnatus=, in Hellespontine Phrygia;
=Menander=, in Lydia; and =Lysimachus=, in Thrace and the Euxine
districts. Perdiccas aims to marry Alexander’s sister, Cleopatra, as
a means of becoming absolute master of the empire. The other generals
league themselves against him, and (321) Perdiccas is murdered by his
soldiers while proceeding against Ptolemy. Antipater replaces him as
regent, and redivides the empire; =Seleucus= is given Babylonia to rule
over. Antipater dies 319, and the son =Cassander= and =Polysperchon=
become regents. In 317 and 316, Cassander conquers Greece and Macedonia.
Antigonus, with the help of Cassander, attacks and defeats Eumenes, who
is betrayed by his own forces in 316. Antigonus now has ambitions to
control the whole empire, and in 315 the terrible war of the Diadochi,
between him and the other generals, begins. Antigonus and his son,
=Demetrius Poliorcetes=, call themselves kings. Seleucus, Lysimachus,
Cassander, and others do the same. Demetrius seizes Athens in 307. At
the end of the struggle every member of Alexander’s family is dead, the
majority put to death. In 301, at the battle of Ipsus, Antigonus falls,
and Demetrius takes to flight. Cassander dies 296, and the succession
is contested by his two sons, =Philip IV= and =Antipater=. Demetrius
takes the opportunity of this quarrel to seize the European dominions. He
prepares to invade Asia, and the other successors of the empire, together
with King =Pyrrhus= of Epirus, league against him. In 287 Pyrrhus invades
Macedonia, and Demetrius’ army deserts him. Pyrrhus is welcomed as king,
and he gives Lysimachus the eastern part of Macedonia to rule over.
Demetrius renews the struggle with Pyrrhus, and at his death, in 283, his
son, =Antigonus Gonatas=, carries it on. In 282 Lysimachus is attacked
by Seleucus Nicator, and is defeated and killed on the plain of Corus in
281. =Ptolemy Ceraunus= murders Seleucus, and seizes the European kingdom
of Lysimachus. In 280 Pyrrhus goes to Tarentum to make war on the Romans.


THE ACHÆAN AND ÆTOLIAN LEAGUES

The Achæan towns of Patræ, Dyme, Tritæa, and Pharæ expel their Macedonian
garrisons and join in a confederacy. 279. The Celts descend on the
Balkan countries and on Macedonia. Death of Ptolemy Ceraunus. 278. Celts
under Brennus approach Greece. Struggle between Celts and Hellenes
round Thermopylæ. Brennus defeated at Delphi. Celts driven back.
Ætolian Confederacy becomes the most important representative of Greek
independence. 277. =Antigonus= king of Macedonia. He founds the dynasty
of the Antigonids. Pyrrhus conquers Sicily. 276. The Achæan town Ægium
expels its garrison and joins Patræ, etc., in the Achæan Confederacy.
274. Pyrrhus returns to Epirus. 273. Pyrrhus expels Antigonus from
Macedon. 272. Pyrrhus besieges Sparta, which successfully resists him.
He turns against Argos, where he is killed. Antigonus recovers his
supremacy in Greece. The Greek cities fight for their independence. 265.
The Macedonians defeat the Egyptian fleet at Cos. Antigonus recovers his
position in the Peloponnesus. 263. Chremonidean war. 263-262. Antigonus
takes Athens. End of the independent political importance of Athens.
255. The Long Walls of Athens broken down. 249. Aratus frees Sicyon from
its tyrant Nicocles, and brings the town over to the Achæan League. 245.
Aratus becomes president of the Achæan League. =Agis IV= becomes king of
Sparta and attempts to introduce reforms. 242. Aratus conquers Corinth.
Megara, Trœzen, and Epidaurus join the Achæans. 241. Agis IV executed.
239. =Demetrius=, king of Macedon. Alliance between the Achæans and
Ætolians. 238-5. Extinction of the Epirote Æacids; federative republic
in Epirus. 235. =Cleomenes III=, king of Sparta. 234. Lydiades abdicates
from his tyranny and brings Megalopolis over to the Achæan League. 231.
Illyrian corsairs ravage the western coasts of Greece and defy the Achæan
and Ætolian fleets. 229. The greater part of Argolis included in the
Achæan League. =Antigonus Doson=, regent of Macedon. Athens frees herself
from the Macedonian dominion. The Romans defeat the Illyrian corsairs.
228. Athens makes alliance with Rome. The Achæan League at the height of
its power. 227. Beginning of the Spartan war against the Achæan League.
226. Cleomenes III effects fundamental reforms in Sparta. 224. Battle at
Dyme. Cleomenes defeats the Achæan League. 223. Aratus calls in the aid
of Macedon. Egypt deserts the Achæans and becomes the ally of Sparta.
Achæans, Bœotians, Phocians, Thessalians, Epirotes, and Acarnanians form,
under the leadership of Macedon, an alliance against Sparta. 222. Battle
of Sellasia. Defeat of the Spartans. Antigonus Doson restores the Spartan
oligarchy. 220. =Philip V= king of Macedon. War of Philip and his Greek
allies, including the Achæan League, against the Ætolians supported by
Sparta. 219. =Lycurgus= (last king of Sparta). 217. Peace of Naupactus.
The destructive war against the Ætolians ended in dread of a Carthaginian
invasion. Philip V becomes protector of all the Hellenes.


THE ROMAN CONQUEST (216-146 B.C.)

216. Philip concludes an alliance with Hannibal and provokes the first
Macedonian war with Rome. 214. Battle near the mouth of the Aous. The
Romans surprise Philip and defeat him. Ætolians, Eleans, Messenians,
and Illyrians accept Roman protection. 213. Aratus poisoned at Philip’s
instigation. 211. Sparta goes over to Rome. Savage wars of the Grecian
cities against one another. 208. Philopœmen becomes general of the
Achæan League, and revives its military power. 205. Philip makes peace
with Rome, ceding the country of the Parthenians and several Illyrian
districts to Rome. Philip carries on war in Rhodes, Thrace, and Mysia,
and sends auxiliaries to Carthage. 200. Second Macedonian war declared by
Rome. Romans under Sulpicius invade Macedonia. 199. Romans kept inactive
by mutiny in the army. 198. Defeat of Philip by Flamininus. Achæans and
Spartans join the Romans. 197. Battle of Cynoscephalæ and destruction of
the Macedonian phalanx. Philip accepts humiliating terms and renounces
his supremacy over the Greeks. 194. Flamininus returns to Rome. The
Ætolians, dissatisfied, pillage Sparta, which joins the Achæan League.
=Antiochus III= of Syria comes to the aid of the Ætolians. 191. Battle of
Thermopylæ. Antiochus defeated by the Romans. 190. Battle of Magnesia.
Romans defeat Antiochus. Submission of the Ætolians. 183. Messene revolts
from the Achæan League. 179. Callicrates succeeds Philopœmen as general
of the Achæan League. Death of Philip V and accession of =Perseus=, who
conciliates the Greeks, and makes alliances with Syria, Rhodes, etc. 169.
Attempted assassination of Eumenes of Pergamum on his return from Rome.
168. Third Macedonian war declared by the Romans. Romans are unsuccessful
at first, but the battle of Pydna is won by Paulus Æmilius, the
Macedonians losing twenty thousand men. Flight and subsequent surrender
of Perseus. 150. Death of Callicrates. 152. Andriscus lays claim to the
throne of Macedon. 148. Andriscus defeated at Pydna and taken to Rome.
146. Macedon made a Roman province. Romans support Sparta in her attempt
to withdraw from the Achæan League. Corinthians take up arms, and are
joined by the Bœotians and by Chalcis. Battle of Scarphe and victory of
the Romans under Metellus. Corinth is taken by Mummius; its art treasures
are sent to Rome, and the city delivered up to pillage. Achæan and
Bœotian leagues dissolved.


THE EGYPTIAN KINGDOM OF THE PTOLEMIES OR LAGIDÆ (323-30 B.C.)

In 323 =Ptolemy I=, son of Lagus, receives the government of Egypt and
Cyrenaica in the division of Alexander’s Empire. He rules at Alexandria.
In 321 he allies himself with Antipater against the ambitious Perdiccas.
He joins the alliance against Antigonus in 315. 306. He assumes the
title of king. 304. He assists the Rhodians to repel Demetrius, and
wins the surname of Soter (Saviour). 285. He abdicates in favour of his
son, =Ptolemy (II) Philadelphus=, and dies two years later. Ptolemy
II reigns almost in undisturbed peace. About 266 he annexes Phœnicia
and Cœle-Syria. He is famous as a great patron of commerce, science,
literature, and art, and raises the Alexandrian Museum and Library to
importance. On his death in 247, his son, =Ptolemy (III) Euergetes=,
reunites Cyrenaica, of which his father’s half-brother, Magas, had
declared himself king on the death of Ptolemy I. In 245 he invades
Syria, to avenge his sister Berenice, the wife of Antiochus II, slain
by Laodice. He also marches to and captures Babylon, but is recalled to
Egypt by a revolt in 243. In 222 he is succeeded by his son, =Ptolemy
(IV) Philopator=. In 217 this king defeats Antiochus the Great at Raphia,
recovering Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria, which has been wrested from him.
=Ptolemy (V) Epiphanes= began his reign in 205 or 204. Antiochus the
Great invades Egypt, and the Romans intervene. Ptolemy marries Cleopatra,
daughter of Antiochus. He dies by poison in 181. His son, =Ptolemy (VI)
Philometor=, succeeds, with =Cleopatra= as regent until her death in 174.
Then the ministers make war on Antiochus Epiphanes, who captures Ptolemy
in 170. The king’s brother, =Ptolemy (VII) Euergetes= or =Physcon=, then
proclaims himself king, and reigns jointly with his brother after the
latter’s release. In 164 Ptolemy VII expels Ptolemy VI, but is compelled
to recall him at the demand of Rome. Ptolemy VII returns to Cyrenaica,
which he holds as a separate kingdom until his brother’s death, 146, when
he returns to Egypt, slays the legitimate heir, and rules as sole king.
The people of Alexandria expel him in 130, but he manages to get back in
127. Dies 117. His son, =Ptolemy (VIII) Philometor= or =Lathyrus=, shares
the throne with his mother, =Cleopatra III=. In 107 his mother expels
him, and puts her favourite son, =Ptolemy (IX) Alexander=, on the throne.
Ptolemy VIII keeps his power in Cyprus, and on his mother’s death the
Egyptians recall him and banish his brother. The wars with the Seleucid
princes are kept up. =Berenice III=, the daughter of Ptolemy VIII,
succeeds him in 81. Her stepson, =Ptolemy X= or =Alexander II=, son of
Ptolemy Alexander, comes from Rome as Sulla’s candidate, and marries her.
The queen is at once murdered, by her husband’s order, and the people put
him to death, 80. The legitimate line is now extinct. An illegitimate son
of Ptolemy Lathyrus, =Ptolemy (XI) Neus Dionysus= or =Auletes=, takes
Egypt; and a younger brother, Cyprus. Weary of taxation, the Alexandrians
expel Auletes in 58, but the Romans restore him in 55. His son, =Ptolemy
XII=, and his daughter, =Cleopatra=, succeed him in joint reign in 51.
In 48 Ptolemy expels his sister, who flees to Syria, and attempts to
recover Egypt by force of arms. Cæsar effects her restoration in 48, and
the civil war with Pompey results. Ptolemy is defeated on the Nile, and
drowned. Cleopatra’s career after this belongs to Roman history, _q.v._
Unwilling to appear in Octavian’s triumph after Actium, she kills herself
in some unknown way, 30 B.C.


THE SELEUCID KINGDOM OF SYRIA (312-65 B.C.)

=Seleucus (I) Nicator= receives the satrapy of Babylon from Antipater.
He founds his kingdom in 312. He extends his conquests into Central Asia
and India, assuming the title of king about 306. He takes part against
Antigonus in the battle of Ipsus, 301. After this a part of Asia Minor
is added to his dominions, and the Syrian kingdom is formed. He defeats
Lysimachus on the plain of Corus in 281 and is assassinated by Ptolemy
Ceraunus in 280. He is the builder of the capital cities of Seleucia
and Antioch. His son =Antiochus (I) Soter= succeeds. He gives up all
claim to Macedonia on the marriage of Seleucus’ daughter, Phila, to
Antigonus Gonatas. Dies 261, his son =Antiochus (II) Theos= succeeding.
In this reign the kingdom is greatly weakened by the revolt of Parthia
and Bactria, leading to the establishment of the Parthian empire by
Arsaces about 250. He also involves himself in a ruinous war with Ptolemy
Philadelphus, concluding with the peace of 250. He is killed, 246,
and succeeded by his son =Seleucus (II) Callinicus= who wars with the
Parthians and Egyptians until his death in 226. =Seleucus (III) Ceraunus=
after a short reign of three years is succeeded by his brother =Antiochus
(III) the Great=, the most famous of the Seleucidæ. 223. Alexander and
Molon the rebellious brothers of the king are subdued. Antiochus goes
to war with Ptolemy Philopator and is beaten at Raphia, 217, losing
Cœle-Syria and Phœnicia. 214. Achæus the governor of Asia Minor rebels,
and is defeated and killed. 212. Antiochus begins an attempt to regain
Parthia and Bactria, but in 205 is compelled to acknowledge their
independence. Continued warfare with Egypt. Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria
regained by battle of Paneas in 198, but these territories are given
back to Egypt when Ptolemy Epiphanes marries Cleopatra, daughter of
Antiochus. 196. The Thracian Chersonesus taken from Macedonia. 192-189.
War with the Romans, who demand restoration of the Thracian and Egyptian
provinces. 190. Battle of Magnesia; great defeat of Antiochus by the
Romans. 187. Antiochus killed by his subjects as he attempts to rob the
temple of Elymais to pay the Romans. His son =Seleucus (IV) Philopator=
succeeds. Before his death, in 175, Seleucus satisfies the Roman claims.
His successor is his brother =Antiochus (IV) Epiphanes=. Armenia, lost
by Antiochus III, is reconquered, also Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria, 171-168.
Antiochus attempts to stamp out the Jewish religion, giving rise to
the Maccabæan rebellion in 167. =Antiochus (V) Eupator= succeeds his
father in 164. Lysias is regent, as the king is only nine years old.
A peace with the Jews is concluded and then Antiochus is killed, 162,
by =Demetrius (I) Soter=, son of Seleucus Philopator, who seizes the
throne. The Maccabæans hold their own against this king. Alexander Balas,
a pretended son of Antiochus Epiphanes, organises an insurrection. He
invades Syria, and Demetrius is killed, 150, in battle. =Alexander Balas=
usurps the throne. =Demetrius (II) Nicator=, son of Demetrius I, contests
the throne but not with much success. Balas wars with Ptolemy Philopator
and is killed, 145. A war of succession begins between Demetrius Nicator
and Balas’ young son =Antiochus VI=. The latter is supported by the Jews.
Antiochus VI is slain by =Tryphon=, the general of Alexander Balas, in
142. Tryphon rules until 139, when he is put to death by =Antiochus (VII)
Sidetes=. Meanwhile one faction recognises Demetrius Nicator as king. He
marries Cleopatra, an Egyptian princess, goes to war with the Parthians,
is captured, and Antiochus Sidetes takes his place for ten years.
Sidetes wages war with the Parthians, and is killed in battle, 128.
Demetrius Nicator now resumes his rule, but owing to his misgovernment
is assassinated at the instigation of Cleopatra, in 125. The eldest son,
=Seleucus V=, is put to death the same year by Cleopatra, and the second
son, =Antiochus (VII) Grypus=, takes the throne. He expels Alexander
Zabina, a usurper. Civil war breaks out between =Antiochus= and his
half-brother, =Antiochus (IX) Cyzicenus=, who in 112 compels a division
of the kingdom, taking Phœnicia and Cœle-Syria as his share. Antiochus
VIII is assassinated, 96. Antiochus IX is killed in 95 by =Seleucus
(VI) Epiphanes=, son of Grypus, who rules only one year. =Antiochus (X)
Eusebes=, son of Antiochus IX, follows. His claims are contested by the
sons of Grypus, =Philip=, =Demetrius (III) Eucærus=, and =Antiochus
(XI) Epiphanes=. The latter is drowned fleeing from Eusebes and the
other two rule over the whole of Syria. In 88 Demetrius is captured by
the Parthians and another brother =Antiochus (XII) Dionysius=, shares
the rule with Philip. He is killed in a war with the Arabians. Civil
strife has now reached such a state that the Syrians invite =Tigranes= of
Armenia to put an end to it. He conquers Syria in 83, and rules it until
69, when, after his defeat by Lucullus, =Antiochus (XIII) Asiaticus=, son
of Antiochus Eusebes, regains the throne. He is deposed, 65, by Pompey,
and Syria becomes a Roman province.


THE SICILIAN TYRANTS (570-210 B.C.)

The government of the Greek colonies in Sicily is originally
oligarchical, but the rule soon gets into the hands of despots or
tyrants, who hold uncontrolled power. 570-554. =Phalaris=, tyrant of
Agrigentum or Acrargas, brings that city to be the most powerful in the
island. About 500, =Cleander= obtains possession of Gela. His brother
=Hippocrates= succeeds, and is followed by =Gelo=, who makes himself
master of Syracuse. 488. =Theron= is tyrant of Agrigentum, and, 481,
expels =Terillus= from Himera. Terillus appeals to the Carthaginians
who besiege Himera, 480. Gelo aids Theron and defeats Hamilcar. 478.
Gelo succeeded by his brother =Hiero I=, an oppressive ruler. 472.
=Thrasydæus= succeeds Theron in Agrigentum, but is expelled by Hiero.
467. =Thrasybulus= succeeds Hiero, but is driven from Sicily by the
people, 466. The fall of Thrasybulus is the signal for great internal
dissensions, settled, 461, by a congress, which restores peace and
prosperity for half a century, interrupted only by a quickly suppressed
revolt of the Sicels in 451. 409. Hannibal, grandson of Hamilcar,
attempts the conquest of Sicily. 405. =Dionysius= attains to despotic
power in Syracuse. 383. After constant war the limits of Greek and
Carthaginian power in Sicily are fixed. 367. =Dion= succeeds Dionysius;
after an oppressive rule he is murdered, 353. A period of confusion
follows. The younger =Dionysius= and =Hicetas= hold power against each
other. The latter calls in the Carthaginians, and Timoleon comes from
Corinth, defeats Hicetas, and restores Greek liberty in 343. Democratic
government is also reinstated in other parts of Sicily. 340. Defeat of
Hasdrubal and Hamilcar at the Crimisus puts an end to all fear from
Carthage. 317. =Agathocles= establishes a despotism in Syracuse. His
reign is oppressive and disastrous for Sicily. 310. Defeat of Agathocles
by Hamilcar at Ecnomus. Agathocles goes to Africa to carry on the
war; meanwhile Hamilcar gets possession of a large part of Sicily.
Agathocles makes peace with Carthage, and perpetrates a fearful massacre
of his opponents. 289. Death of Agathocles. =Hicetas= becomes tyrant
of Syracuse. Agrigentum, under =Phintias=, attains to great power. The
Carthaginians now begin to be predominant in the island. 278. Pyrrhus
lands in Sicily to aid the Greeks, but returns to Italy, 276. =Hiero II=
is chosen general by the Syracusans. He fights the Mamertines. 270. Hiero
assumes title of king. He allies with Carthage to expel the Mamertines.
The Romans espouse the latter’s cause, and the First Punic War is begun,
264. 263. Hiero makes peace with Rome. 241. Battle off the Ægetan
Islands. The whole island, except the territory of Hiero, becomes a Roman
province. 215. =Hieronymus=, grandson and successor of Hiero, breaks the
treaty with Rome in the Second Punic War, and is assassinated. Marcellus
is sent to Syracuse. 212. Syracuse falls into his hands. 210. Agrigentum
captured. Roman conquest completed.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE


The character of every people is more or less closely connected with
that of its land. The station which the Greeks filled among nations, the
part which they acted, and the works which they accomplished, depended
in a great measure on the position which they occupied on the face of
the globe. The manner and degree in which the nature of the country
affected the bodily and mental frame, and the social institutions of its
inhabitants, may not be so easily determined; but its physical aspect
is certainly not less important in a historical point of view, than
it is striking and interesting in itself. An attentive survey of the
geographical site of Greece, of its general divisions, and of the most
prominent points on its surface, is an indispensable preparation for
the study of its history. In the following sketch nothing more will be
attempted, than to guide the reader’s eye over an accurate map of the
country, and to direct his attention to some of those indelible features,
which have survived all the revolutions by which it has been desolated.


THE LAND

The land which its sons called Hellas, and for which we have adopted
the Roman name Greece,[2] lies on the southeast verge of Europe, and in
length extends no further than from the thirty-sixth to the fortieth
degree of latitude. It is distinguished among European countries by
the same character which distinguishes Europe itself from the other
continents--the great range of its coast compared with the extent of its
surface; so that while in the latter respect it is considerably less than
Portugal, in the former it exceeds the whole Pyrenean peninsula. The
great eastern limb which projects from the main trunk of the continent
of Europe grows more and more finely articulated as it advances towards
the south, and terminates in the peninsula of Peloponnesus, the smaller
half of Greece, which bears some resemblance to an outspread palm.
Its southern extremity is at a nearly equal distance from the two
neighbouring continents: it fronts one of the most beautiful and fertile
regions of Africa, and is separated from the nearest point of Asia by
the southern outlet of the Ægean Sea--the sea, by the Greeks familiarly
called their own, which, after being contracted into a narrow stream by
the approach of the opposite shores at the Hellespont, suddenly finds
its liberty in an ample basin as they recede towards the east and the
west, and at length, escaping between Cape Malea and Crete, confounds its
waters with the broader main of the Mediterranean. Over that part of this
sea which washes the coast of Greece, a chain of islands, beginning from
the southern headland of Attica, Cape Sunium, first girds Delos with an
irregular belt, the Cyclades, and then, in a waving line, links itself
to a scattered group (the Sporades) which borders the Asiatic coast.
Southward of these the interval between the two continents is broken by
the larger islands Crete and Rhodes. The sea which divides Greece from
Italy is contracted, between the Iapygian peninsula and the coast of
Epirus, into a channel only thirty geographical miles in breadth; and the
Italian coast may be seen not only from the mountains of Corcyra, but
from the low headland of the Ceraunian hills.

Thus on two sides Greece is bounded by a narrow sea; but towards the
north its limits were never precisely defined. The word Hellas did not
convey to the Greeks the notion of a certain geographical surface,
determined by natural or conventional boundaries: it denoted the country
of the Hellenes, and was variously applied according to the different
views entertained of the people which was entitled to that name. The
original Hellas was included in the territory of a little tribe in the
south of Thessaly. When these Hellenes had imparted their name to other
tribes, with which they were allied by a community of language and
manners, Hellas might properly be said to extend as far as these national
features prevailed. On the east, Greece was commonly held to terminate
with Mount Homole at the mouth of the Peneus; the more scrupulous,
however, excluded even Thessaly from the honour of the Hellenic name,
while Strabo,[f] with consistent laxity, admitted Macedonia. But from
Ambracia to the mouth of the Peneus, when these were taken as the extreme
northern points, it was still impossible to draw a precise line of
demarcation; for the same reason which justified the exclusion of Epirus
applied, perhaps much more forcibly, to the mountaineers in the interior
of Ætolia, whose barbarous origin, or utter degeneracy, was proved by
their savage manners, and a language which Thucydides[g] describes as
unintelligible. When the Ætolians bade the last Philip withdraw from
Hellas, the Macedonian king could justly retort, by asking where they
would fix its boundaries, and by reminding them that of their own body a
very small part was within the pale from which they wished to exclude him.

The northern part of Greece is traversed in its whole length by a range
of mountains, the Greek Apennines. This ridge first takes the name of
Pindus, where it intersects the northern boundary of Greece, at a point
where an ancient route still affords the least difficult passage from
Epirus into Thessaly. From Pindus two huge arms stretch towards the
eastern sea, and enclose the vale of Thessaly, the largest and richest
plain in Greece: on the north the Cambunian hills, after making a bend
towards the south, terminate in the loftier heights of Olympus, which
are scarcely ever entirely free from snow; the opposite and lower chain
of Othrys parting, with its eastern extremity, the Malian from the
Pagasæan Gulf, sinks gently towards the coast. A fourth rampart, which
runs parallel to Pindus, is formed by the range which includes the
celebrated heights of Pelion and Ossa; the first a broad and nearly even
ridge, the other towering into a steep conical peak, the neighbour and
rival of Olympus, with which, in the songs of the country, it is said
to dispute the pre-eminence in the depth and duration of its snows. The
mountain barrier with which Thessaly is thus encompassed is broken only
at the northeast corner, by a deep and narrow cleft, which parts Ossa
from Olympus: the defile so renowned in poetry as the vale, in history as
the pass, of Tempe. The imagination of the ancient poets and declaimers
delighted to dwell on the natural beauties of this romantic glen, and on
the sanctity of the site, from which Apollo had transplanted his laurel
to Delphi.

From other points of view, the same spot no less forcibly claims the
attention of the historian. It is the only pass through which an army
can invade Thessaly from the north, without scaling the high and rugged
ridges of its northern frontier. The whole glen is something less than
five miles long, and opens gradually to the east into a spacious plain,
stretching to the shore of the Thermaic Gulf. On each side the rocks rise
precipitously from the bed of the Peneus, and in some places only leave
room between them for the stream; and the road, which at the narrowest
point is cut in the rock, might in the opinion of the ancients be
defended by ten men against a host.

On the eastern side of the ridge which stretches from Tempe to the Gulf
of Pagasæ, a narrow strip of land, called Magnesia, is intercepted
between the mountains and the sea, broken by lofty headlands and the beds
of torrents, and exposed without a harbour to the fury of the northeast
gales.

South of this gulf the coast is again deeply indented by that of Malis,
into which the Sperchius, rising from Mount Tymphrestus, a continuation
of Pindus, winds through a long narrow vale, which, though considered
as a part of Thessaly, forms a separate region, widely distinguished
from the rest by its physical features. It is intercepted between Othrys
and Œta, a huge rugged pile, which, stretching from Pindus to the sea
at Thermopylæ, forms the inner barrier of Greece, as the Cambunian
range is the outer, to which it corresponds in direction, and is nearly
equal in height. To the south of Thessaly and between it and Bœotia
lie the countries of Doris and Phocis. Doris is small and obscure, but
interesting as the foster-mother of a race of conquerors who became the
masters of Greece. Phocis is somewhat larger than Doris, and separates it
from Bœotia.

The peculiar conformation of the principal Bœotian valleys, the barriers
opposed to the escape of the streams, and the consequent accumulation of
the rich deposits brought down from the surrounding mountains, may be
considered as a main cause of the extraordinary fertility of the land.
The vale of the Cephissus especially, with its periodical inundations,
exhibits a resemblance, on a small scale, to the banks of the Nile--a
resemblance which some of the ancients observed in the peculiar character
of its vegetation. The profusion in which the ordinary gifts of nature
were spread over the face of Bœotia, the abundant returns of its grain,
the richness of its pastures, the materials of luxury furnished by its
woods and waters, are chiefly remarkable, in a historical point of view,
from the unfavourable effect they produced on the character of the
race, which finally established itself in this envied territory. It was
this cause, more than the dampness and thickness of their atmosphere,
that depressed the intellectual and moral energies of the Bœotians, and
justified the ridicule which their temperate and witty neighbours so
freely poured on their proverbial failing.

Eubœa, that large and important island, which at a very early period
attracted the Phœnicians by its copper mines, and in later times became
almost indispensable to the subsistence of Athens, though it covers the
whole eastern coast of Locris and Bœotia, is more closely connected with
the latter of these countries. The channel of the Euripus which parts
it from the mainland, between Aulis and Chalcis, is but a few paces in
width, and is broken by a rocky islet, which now forms the middle pier of
a bridge.

A wild and rugged, though not a lofty, range of mountains, bearing the
name of Cithæron on the west, of Parnes towards the east, divides Bœotia
from Attica. Lower ridges, branching off to the south, and sending out
arms towards the east, mark the limits of the principal districts which
compose this little country, the least proportioned in extent of any
on the face of the earth to its fame and its importance in the history
of mankind. The most extensive of the Attic plains, though it is by no
means a uniform level, but is broken by a number of low hills, is that
in which Athens itself lies at the foot of a precipitous rock, and in
which, according to the Attic legend, the olive, still its most valuable
production, first sprang up.

Attica is, on the whole, a meagre land, wanting the fatness of the
Bœotian plains, and the freshness of the Bœotian streams. The waters of
its principal river, the Cephisus, are expended in irrigating a part of
the plain of Athens, and the Ilissus, though no less renowned, is a mere
brook, which is sometimes swollen into a torrent. It could scarcely boast
of more than two or three fertile tracts, and its principal riches lay in
the heart of its mountains, in the silver of Laurium, and the marble of
Pentelicus. It might also reckon among its peculiar advantages the purity
of its air, the fragrance of its shrubs, and the fineness of its fruits.
But in its most flourishing period its produce was never sufficient to
supply the wants of its inhabitants, and their industry was constantly
urged to improve their ground to the utmost. Traces are still visible
of the laborious cultivation which was carried by means of artificial
terraces, up the sides of their barest mountains. After all, they were
compelled to look to the sea even for subsistence. Attica would have been
little but for the position which it occupied, as the southeast foreland
of Greece, with valleys opening on the coast, and ports inviting the
commerce of Asia. From the top of its hills the eye surveys the whole
circle of the islands, which form its maritime suburbs, and seem to point
out its historical destination.

The isthmus connecting Attica with the Peloponnesus is not level. The
roots of the Onean Mountains are continued along the eastern coast in a
line of low cliffs, till they meet another range, which seems to have
borne the same name, at the opposite extremity of the isthmus. This is
an important feature in the face of the country: the isthmus at its
narrowest part, between the inlets of Schœnus and Lechæum, is only
between three and four miles broad; and along this line, hence called
the Diolcus, or Draughtway, vessels were often transported from sea to
sea, to avoid the delay and danger which attended the circumnavigation
of the Peloponnesus. Yet it seems not to have been before the Macedonian
period, that the narrowness of the intervening space suggested the
project of uniting the two seas by means of a canal. It was entertained
for a time by Demetrius Poliorcetes; but he is said to have been deterred
by the reports of his engineers, who were persuaded that the surface of
the Corinthian Gulf was so much higher than the Saronic, that a channel
cut between them would be useless from the rapidity of the current, and
might even endanger the safety of Ægina and the neighbouring isles.
Three centuries later, the dictator Cæsar formed the same plan, and was
perhaps only prevented from accomplishing it by his untimely death.
The above-mentioned inequality of the ground would always render this
undertaking very laborious and expensive. But the work was of a nature
rather to shock than to interest genuine Greek feelings: it seems to
have been viewed as an audacious Titanian effort of barbarian power;
and when Nero actually began it, having opened the trench with his own
hands, the belief of the country people may probably have concurred with
the aversion of the Prætorian workmen, to raise the rumour of howling
spectres, and springs of blood, by which they are said to have been
interrupted.

The face of the Peloponnesus presents outlines somewhat more intricate
than those of northern Greece. At first sight the whole land appears one
pile of mountains, which, toward the northwest, where it reaches its
greatest height, forms a compact mass, pressing close upon the Gulf of
Corinth. On the western coast it recedes farther from the sea; towards
the centre is pierced more and more by little hollows; and on the south
and east is broken by three great gulfs, and the valleys opening into
them, which suggested to the ancients the form of a plane leaf, to
illustrate that of the peninsula. On closer inspection, the highest
summits of this pile, with their connecting ridges, may be observed to
form an irregular ring, which separates the central region, Arcadia, from
the rest.

The other great divisions of the Peloponnesus are Argolis, Laconia,
Messenia, Elis, and Achaia. Argolis, when the name is taken in its
largest sense, as the part of the Peloponnesus which is bounded on the
land side by Arcadia, Achaia, and Laconia, comprehends several districts,
which, during the period of the independence of Greece, were never
united under one government, but were considered, for the purpose of
description, as one region by the later geographers. It begins on the
western side with the little territory of Sicyon, which, beside some
inland valleys, shared with Corinth a small maritime plain, which was
proverbial among the ancients for its luxuriant fertility. The dominions
of Corinth, which also extended beyond the isthmus, meeting those of
Megara a little south of the Scironian rocks, occupied a considerable
portion of Argolis. The two cities, Sicyon and Corinth, were similarly
situated--both commanding important passes into the interior of the
peninsula. The lofty and precipitous rock, called the Acrocorinthus,
on which stood the citadel of Corinth, though, being commanded by a
neighbouring height, it is of no great value for the purposes of modern
warfare, was in ancient times an impregnable fortress, and a point of the
highest importance.

The plain of Argos, which is bounded on three sides by lofty mountains,
but open to the sea, is, for Greece, and especially for the Peloponnesus,
of considerable extent, being ten or twelve miles in length, and four or
five in width. But the western side is lower than the eastern, and is
watered by a number of streams, in which the upper side is singularly
deficient. In very ancient times the lower level was injured by excess
of moisture, as it is at this day: and hence, perhaps, Argos, which lay
on the western side, notwithstanding its advantageous position, and the
strength of its citadel, flourished less, for a time, than Mycenæ and
Tiryns, which were situate to the east, where the plain is now barren
through drought.

A long valley, running southward to the sea, and the mountains which
border it on three sides, composed the territory of Laconia. It is
to the middle region, the heart of Laconia, that most of the ancient
epithets and descriptions relating to the general character of the
country properly apply. The vale of Sparta is Homer’s “hollow Lacedæmon,”
which Euripides further described as girt with mountains, rugged, and
difficult of entrance for a hostile power. The epithet “hollow” fitly
represents the aspect of a valley enclosed by the lofty cliffs in which
the mountains here abruptly terminate on each side of the Eurotas. The
character which the poet ascribes to Laconia,--that it is a country
difficult of access to an enemy,--is one which most properly belongs
to it, and is of great historical importance. On the northern and the
eastern sides there are only two natural passes by which the plain of
Sparta can be invaded.

At the northern foot of the Taygetus Mountains begins the Messenian
plain, which, like the basin of the Eurotas below Sparta, is divided into
two distinct districts, by a ridge which crosses nearly its whole width
from the eastern side. The upper of these districts, which is separated
from Arcadia by a part of the Lycæan chain, and is bounded towards the
west by the ridge of Ithome, the scene of ever memorable struggles, was
the plain of Stenyclarus, a tract not peculiarly rich, but very important
for the protection and command of the country, as the principal passes,
not only from the north, but from the east and west fall into it. The
lower part of the Messenian plain, which spreads round the head of the
gulf, was a region celebrated in poetry and history for its exuberant
fertility; sometimes designated by the title of Macaria, or the Blessed,
watered by many streams, among the rest by the clear and full Pamisus.
It was, no doubt, of this delightful vale, that Euripides meant to be
understood, when, contrasting Messenia with Laconia, he described the
excellence of the Messenian soil as too great for words to reach.

The rich pastures on the banks of the Elean Peneus were celebrated in the
earliest legends; and an ancient channel, which is still seen stretching
across them to the sea, may be the same into which Hercules was believed
to have turned the river, to cleanse the stable of Augeas.

When the necessary deduction has been made for the inequalities of its
surface, Greece may perhaps be properly considered as a land, on the
whole, not less rich than beautiful. And it probably had a better claim
to this character in the days of its youthful freshness and vigour. Its
productions were various as its aspect: and if other regions were more
fertile in grain, and more favourable to the cultivation of the vine, few
surpassed it in the growth of the olive, and of other valuable fruits.
Its hills afforded abundant pastures: its waters and forests teemed
with life. In the precious metals it was perhaps fortunately poor; the
silver mines of Laurium were a singular exception; but the Peloponnesian
Mountains, especially in Laconia and Argolis, as well as those of
Eubœa, contained rich veins of iron and copper, as well as precious
quarries. The marble of Pentelicus was nearly equalled in fineness by
that of the isle of Paros, and that of Carystus in Eubœa. The Grecian
woods still excite the admiration of travellers, as they did in the
days of Pausanias,[h] by trees of extraordinary size. Even the hills of
Attica are said to have been once clothed with forests; and the present
scantiness of its streams may be owed in a great measure to the loss of
the shade which once sheltered them. Herodotus[i] observes, that, of all
countries in the world, Greece enjoyed the most happily tempered seasons.
But it seems difficult to speak generally of the climate of a country,
in which each district has its own, determined by an infinite variety of
local circumstances. Both in northern Greece and the Peloponnesus the
snow remains long on the higher ridges; and even in Attica the winters
are often severe. On the other hand, the heat of the summer is tempered,
in exposed situations, by the strong breezes from the northwest (the
etesian winds), which prevail during that season in the Grecian seas; and
it is possible that Herodotus may have had their refreshing influence
chiefly in view.

Though no traces of volcanic eruptions appear to have been discovered in
Greece, history is full of the effects produced there by volcanic agency;
and permanent indications of its physical character were scattered over
its surface, in the hot springs of Thermopylæ, Trœzen, Ædepsus, and
other places. The sea between the Peloponnesus and Crete has been, down
to modern times, the scene of surprising changes wrought by the same
forces; and not long before the Christian era, a new hill was thrown up
on the coast near Trœzen, no less suddenly than the islands near Thera
were raised out of the sea. Earthquakes, accompanied by the rending of
mountains, the sinking of land into the sea, by temporary inundations,
and other disasters, have in all ages been familiar to Greece, more
especially to the Peloponnesus. And hence some attention seems to be due
to the numerous legends and traditions which describe convulsions of
the same kind as occurring still more frequently, and with still more
important consequences, in a period preceding connected history; and
which may be thought to point to a state of elemental warfare, which must
have subsided before the region which was its theatre could have been
fitted for the habitation of man. Such an origin we might be inclined
to assign to that class of legends which related to struggles between
Poseidon and other deities for the possession of several districts; as
his contests with Athene (Minerva) for Athens and Trœzen; with the same
goddess, or with Hera (Juno) for Argos--where he was said, according to
one account, to have dried up the springs, and according to another,
to have laid the plain under water; with Apollo for the isthmus of
Corinth.[b]


THE NAME

It is a singular anomaly that a people who habitually called themselves
Hellenes should be known to all the world beside as Greeks. This name
was derived from the Graians, a small and obscure group. The Romans,
chancing to come first in contact with this tribe, gave the name Greek
to the whole people. In the course of time it became so fixed in the
usage of other nations that it could never be shaken off. Such a change
of a proper name was very unusual in antiquity. The almost invariable
custom was, when it became necessary to use a proper name from a foreign
language, to transcribe it as literally as might be with only such minor
changes as a difference in the genius of the language made necessary.
Thus the Greeks in speaking of their Persian enemies pronounced and wrote
such words as “Cyrus” and “Darius” in as close imitation as possible of
the native pronunciation of those names, and the Egyptians in turn, in
accepting the domination of the Macedonian Ptolemies, spelled and no
doubt pronounced the names of their conquerors with as little alteration
as was possible in a language which made scant use of vowels. It was
indeed this fact of transliteration rather than translation of foreign
proper names which, as we have seen, furnished the clew to the nineteenth
century scholars in their investigations of the hieroglyphics of Egypt
and the cuneiform writing of Asia. Had not the engraver of the Rosetta
stone spelled the word Ptolemy closely as the Greeks spelled it, Dr.
Young, perhaps, never would have found the key to the interpretation of
the hieroglyphics. And had not the eighty or ninety proper names of the
great inscription at Behistun been interpreted by the same signs in the
three different forms of writing that make up that inscription, it may
well be doubted whether we should even now have any clear knowledge of
the cuneiform character of the Babylonians and Assyrians. Indeed, so
universal was this custom of retaining proper names in their original
form that the failure of the Romans to apply to the Greeks the name which
they themselves employed seems very extraordinary indeed. The custom
which they thus inaugurated, however, has not been without imitators
in modern times, as witness the translation “Angleterre” by which the
French designate England, and the even stranger use by the same nation
of the word “Allemagne” to designate the land which its residents term
“Deutschland” and which in English is spoken of as Germany.

Had the classical writings of Greece been more extensively read
throughout Europe in the Middle Ages it is probable that the Roman name
Greece would have been discarded in modern usage, and the name Hellas
restored to its proper position. An effort to effect this change has
indeed been made more recently by many classical scholars, and it is by
no means unusual to meet the terms “Hellas” and “Hellenes” in modern
books of almost every European language; but to make the substitution in
the popular mind after the word Greece has been so closely linked with so
wide a chain of associate ideas for so many generations would be utterly
impossible, at least in our generation.


THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEKS

But whether known as Hellas or as Greece, the tiny peninsula designated
by these names was inhabited by a people which by common consent was
by far the most interesting of antiquity. It has been said that they
constituted a race rather than a nation, for the most patent fact about
them, to any one who gives even casual attention to their history, was
that they lacked the political unity which lies at the foundation of true
national existence. Yet the pride of race to a certain extent made up for
this deficiency, and if the Greeks recognised no single ruler and were
never bound together into a single state, they felt more keenly perhaps
than any other nation that has lived at any other period of the world’s
history--unless perhaps an exception be made of the modern Frenchman--the
binding force of racial affinities and the full meaning of the old adage
that blood is thicker than water.

All this of course implies that the Greeks were one race in the narrow
sense of the term, sprung in relatively recent time from a single stock.
Such was undoubtedly the fact, and the division into Ionians, Dorians,
and various lesser branches, on which the historian naturally lays much
stress, must be understood always as implying only a minor and later
differentiation. One will hear much of the various dialects of the
different Greek states, but one must not forget that these dialects
represent only minor variations of speech which as compared with the
fundamental unity of the language as a whole might almost be disregarded.
To be a Greek was to be born of Greek parents, to the use of the Greek
language as a mother tongue; for the most part, following the national
custom, it was to eschew every other language and to look out upon all
peoples who spoke another tongue as “barbarians”--people of an alien
birth and an alien genius.

But whence came this people of the parent stock whose descendants made
up the historic Greek race? No one knows. The Greeks themselves hardly
dared to ask the question, and we are utterly without data for answering
it if asked. Their traditions implied a migration from some unknown
land to Greece, since those traditions told of a non-Hellenic people
who inhabited the land before them. Yet in contradiction of this idea
the Greek mind clung always to autocthony. Like most other nations, and
in far greater measure than perhaps any other, the Hellenes loved their
home--almost worshipped it. To be a Greek and yet to have no association
with the mountains and valleys and estuaries and islands of Greece seems
a contradiction of terms. True, a major part of the population at a
later day lived in distant colonies as widely separated as Asia Minor
and Italy, but even here they thought of themselves only as more or
less temporary invaders from the parent seat, and even kept up their
association with it by considering all lands which Greeks colonised as a
part of “Greater Greece.”

That the Greeks are of Aryan stock is of course made perfectly clear
by their language. Some interesting conclusions as to the time when
they branched from the parent stock are gained by philologists through
observation of words which manifestly have the same root and meaning in
the different Aryan languages. Thus, for example, the fact that such
words as Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Son, Daughter, and the like,
are clearly of the same root in Sanskrit and Greek as well as in Latin
and the Germanic speech, shows that a certain relatively advanced stage
of family life had been attained while the primitive Aryans still formed
but a single race. Again the resemblance between the Greek and the
Latin languages goes to show that the people whose descendants became
Greeks and Romans clung together till a relatively late period, after
the splitting up of the primitive race had begun. Yet on the other hand
the differences between the Greek and the Latin prove that the two races
using these languages had been separated long before either of them is
ushered into history.

From which direction the parent stock of the Greeks came into the land
that was to be their future abiding place has long been a moot point with
scholars, and is yet undetermined. So long as the original cradle of the
Aryans was held to be central Asia, it was the unavoidable conclusion
that the Aryans of Europe, including the Greeks, had come originally from
the East. But when the theory was introduced that the real cradle of the
primitive Aryan was not Asia but northwestern Europe all certainty from
_a priori_ considerations vanished, for it seemed at least as plausible
that the parent Greeks might have dropped aside from the main swarm on
its eastern journey to invade Asia as that they should have oscillated
back to Greece after that invasion had been established. And more
recently the question is still further complicated by the “Mediterranean
Race” theory, which includes the Greeks as descendants of a hypothetical
stock whose cradle was neither Asia nor Europe, but equatorial Africa.[a]

Some of the latest accounts of Greek origin are stated by Professor Bury
who says:

“It is in the lands of Thessaly and Epirus that we first dimly descry
the Greeks busy at the task for which destiny had chosen them, of
creating and shaping the thought and civilisation of Europe. The oak
wood of Dodona in Epirus is the earliest sanctuary, whereof we have any
knowledge, of their supreme god, Zeus, the dweller of the sky. Thessaly
has associations which still appeal intimately to men of European birth.
The first Greek settlers in Thessaly were the Achæans; and in the plain
of Argos, and in the mountains which gird it about, they fashioned
legends which were to sink deeply into the imagination of Europe. We know
that when the Greek conquerors came down to the coast of the Ægean they
found a material civilisation more advanced than their own; and it was
so chanced that we know more of this civilisation than we know of the
conquerors before they came under its influence.

“In Greece as in the other two great peninsulas of the Mediterranean, we
find, before the invader of Aryan speech entered in and took possession,
a white folk not speaking an Aryan tongue. Corresponding to the Iberians
in Spain and Gaul, to the Ligurians in Italy, we find in Greece a race
which was also spread over the islands of the Ægean and along the coast
of Asia Minor. The men of this primeval race gave to many a hill and
rock the name which was to abide with it forever. Corinth and Tiryns,
Parnassus and Olympus, Arne and Larissa, are names which the Greeks
received from the peoples whom they dispossessed. But this Ægean race,
as we may call it for want of a common name, had developed, before the
coming of the Greek, a civilisation of which we have only very lately
come to know. This civilisation went hand in hand with an active trade,
which in the third millennium spread its influence far beyond the borders
of the Ægean, as far at least as the Danube and the Nile, and received in
return gifts from all quarters of the world. The Ægean peoples therefore
plied a busy trade by sea, and their maritime intercourse with the
African continent can be traced back to even earlier times, since at the
very beginning of Egyptian history we find in Egypt obsidian, which can
have come only from the Ægean isles. The most notable remains of this
civilisation have been found at Troy, in the little island of Amorgos,
and in the great island of Crete.

“The conquest of the Greek peninsula by the Greeks lies a long way behind
recorded history, and the Greeks themselves, when they began to reflect
on their own past, had completely forgotten what their remote ancestors
had done ages and ages before.

“The invaders spoke an Aryan speech, but it does not follow that they all
came of Aryan stock. There was, indeed, an Aryan element among them, and
some of them were descendants of men of Aryan race who had originally
taught them their language and brought them some Aryan institutions and
Aryan deities. But the infusion of the Aryan blood was probably small;
and in describing the Greeks, as well as any other of the races who speak
sister tongues, we must be careful to call them men of Aryan speech, and
not men of Aryan stock.[c]”

Perhaps the very latest view of sterling authority is that of Professor
William Ridgeway,[d] who, after marshalling a vast amount of argument
and induction based upon the extant and newly discovered relics of early
Grecian civilisations, sums up his theories briefly and definitely. He
accepts the existence of a “Pelasgian” race, which many have scouted,
and credits it with the art-work and commerce revealed at Mycenæ
and elsewhere and called “Mycenæan.” This was a dark-skinned (or
melanochroöus) race which “had dwelt in Greece from a remote antiquity
and had at all times, in spite of conquests, remained a chief element in
the population of all Greece, whilst in Arcadia and Attica it had never
been subjugated.” The Mycenæan civilisation had its origin, he believes,
in the mainland of Greece and spread thence outwards to the isles of the
Ægean, Crete, Egypt, and north to the Euxine. This Mycenæan era differs
widely from the Homeric,--as in the treatment of the dead, and in the use
of metals,--and preceded the Homeric by a great distance, the Mycenæan
period belonging to the Bronze Age, the Homeric to the Iron Age.

The Homeric people were not melanochroöus, but xanthochroöus (fair and
blond), and were evidently a conquering race--the Achæans. These Achæans,
according to Greek tradition, came from Epirus, and indeed a study of
the relics and “the culture of the early Iron Age of Bosnia, Carniola,
Styria, Salzburg, and upper Italy revealed armour, weapons, and ornaments
exactly corresponding to those described in Homer. Moreover we found that
a fair-haired race greater in stature than the melanochroöus Ægean people
had there been domiciled for long ages, and that fresh bodies of tall,
fair-haired people from the shores of the northern ocean continually
through the ages had kept pressing down into the southern peninsulas.
From this it followed that the Achæans of Homer were one of these bodies
of Celts, who had made their way down into Greece and had become masters
of the indigenous race.”

The history of the round shield, the use of buckles and brooches, the
custom of cremating the dead, and the distribution of iron in Europe,
Asia, and Africa, seem to Professor Ridgeway to point still more sharply
to a theory that these features of Greek civilisation previously existed
in central Europe and were brought thence into Greece. A study of the
dialect in which the Homeric poems are written indicates that the
language and metre belonged to the earlier race, the Pelasgians, whom the
Achæans conquered. The earliest Greeks spoke an Aryan or Indo-Germanic
language of which the Arcadian dialect was the purest remnant, since
the Achæans and Dorians never conquered Arcadia. The introduction
of labialism into the Greek, Ridgeway believes to be a proof of the
Celtic origin of the invaders who accepted, as conquerors usually do,
the language of the conquered and yet modified it. “Labialism” is the
changing of a hard consonant as “k” into a lip-consonant as “p”--as the
older Greek word for horse was “hikkos,” which became “hippos.” The
result, then, of Ridgeway’s erudite research is his belief that “the
Achæans were a Celtic tribe who made their way into Greece,” and for this
theory he asserts that “archæology, tradition, and language are all in
harmony.”

The original source of this migration,--for it was rather migration
than an invasion,--seems to have been in the northwest of the Balkan
peninsula. Some extraordinary pressure must have been brought to bear on
the Greeks by the Illyrians who may themselves have been forced out of
their own homes by some unrecorded power. At the same time the people
then living in Macedonia and Thrace were dispossessed and shoved into
Phrygia and the regions of Troy in Asia Minor. The possession of Greece
by the Greeks was doubtless very gradual and the Peloponnesus was the
last to be visited, possibly by boat across the Corinthian Gulf. In some
places the new-comers were doubtless compelled to fight, elsewhere they
drifted in almost unnoticed and gradually asserted a sway. The new-comers
imposed their speech eventually on the older people, but as usual they
must have been themselves largely influenced by the older civilisation in
the matter of customs and conditions.[a]


EARLY CONDITIONS AND MOVEMENTS

In the Pelasgic period we find the ancient Greeks in a primitive, but
not really barbaric condition. There are settled peoples engaged in
agriculture, as well as half nomadic pastoral tribes. The latter form,
for a long time, a very unstable element of the population, ever ready
under pressure of circumstances to leave their old homes and fight for
new ones, bearing disturbance and anarchy into the civilised districts.

The life of these peasants and shepherds was very simple and patriarchal.
The ox and the horse were known to them, and drew their wagons and their
ploughs; the principal source of their wealth consisted in great herds
of swine, sheep, and cattle. Fishermen already navigated the numerous
arms of the seas that indented the land. Public life had perfectly
patriarchal forms. “Kings” were to be found everywhere as ruling heads
of the numerous small tribes. Religion appeared essentially as a cult
of the mighty forces of nature. The deities were worshipped without
temples and images, and were appealed to with prayers, with both bloody
and bloodless sacrifices,--at the head Zeus, the god of the sky; at his
side Dione, the goddess of earth, who, however, was early replaced by
the figure of Hera; Demeter, the earth mother, the patron of agriculture
and of settled life; Hestia, the patron of the hearth fire and the altar
fire; Hermes, the swift messenger of heaven, driver of the clouds and
guardian of the herds; Poseidon, the god of the waters; and the chthonic
[_i.e._ subterranean] divinity Aidoneus or Hades. The art of prophecy was
developed early; the oracle of Dodona in Epirus was universally known.

We know not how long the ancient Greeks remained in the quiet Pelasgic
conditions. But we can distinguish the causes that produced the internal
movement and mighty ferment, from which the chivalrous nation of the
Achæans finally came. Most important were the influences of the highly
developed civilisation of the Orient upon the youthful, gifted Greek
nation. The Phœnicians were the principal bearers of this influence. They
had occupied many of the islands of the Ægean, and had planted colonies
even on the mainland, as at Thebes and Acrocorinthus. The merchants
exchanged the products of Phœnician and Babylonian industry for wool,
hides, and slaves. They worked the copper mines of Cyprus and Argolis and
the gold mines of Thasos and Thrace, but obtained even greater wealth
from the purple shellfish of the Grecian waters.

For about a century the Phœnicians exerted a strong pressure on the
coasts of Greece, and they left considerable traces in Grecian mythology
and civilisation. The gifted Greeks, who in all periods of their history
were quick to profit by foreign example, were deeply impressed by the
superior civilisation of the Phœnicians. The activity and skill of
the men of Sidon in navigation and fortification had a very permanent
effect. For a long time the Greeks made the Phœnicians their masters in
architecture, mining, and engineering; later they received from them the
alphabet and the Babylonian system of weights and measures. The industry
and the artistic skill of the Greeks also began to practice on the models
brought into the land by the Sidonians.

Internal dissensions, raids of the rude pastoral tribes upon the settled
peoples of the lowlands and the coast, and feuds between the nomads
themselves, were, doubtless, also a powerful factor in the transition
from the peaceful patriarchism of Pelasgic times to the more stirring
and warlike period that followed. The necessity of protecting person
and property from bold raiders by sea and land led to the erection of
fortresses, massive walls of rough stones piled upon one another and held
together only by the law of gravity. The best example of such “Cyclopean”
remains is the well-preserved citadel of Tiryns in Argolis. Here on a
hill only fifty feet high, the top of which is nine hundred feet long
and three hundred feet wide, a wall without towers follows the edge of
the rock. With an apparent thickness of twenty-five feet the real wall,
as it appears to-day, cannot be estimated at more than fifteen feet.
On each side of this run covered passages or galleries. By degrees the
Greeks learned from Phœnician models to construct these fortresses better
and finally to make real citadels of them. Little city communities were
gradually formed at the foot of the hill, but until far into the Hellenic
period the upper city, the “acropolis” remained the more important. Here
were the sanctuaries and the council chamber, the residence of the king
and often also the houses of the nobility.

The military nobility, the ancient Greek chivalry, also originated
in pre-historic times. In the storms of the new time the patriarchal
chieftains developed into powerful military princes who everywhere forced
the “Pelasgian” peasant to keep his sling or his sword, his lance or
his javelin, always at hand. A class of lords also arose, consisting of
families that supported themselves rather by the trade of arms than by
the pursuit of agriculture. This new nobility, which gradually grew to
great numerical strength, held a very important position down to the days
of democracy.

This transition period was subsequently called by the Hellenes the
Heroic Age. The myths and legends which the memory of the Greek tribes
and their poets preserved of this period have a varied character. On
the one hand, heroic figures are repeatedly developed from the local
names or the surnames of divinities, or the mythical history of a god is
transferred to a human being. On the other hand, this imaginative people
loved to concentrate its historical recollections and to load the deeds
and experiences of whole tribes and epochs upon one or another heroic
personality, whose cycle of legends in the course of further development
underwent new colourings and extensions through the mixture of fresh
elements. This is the way in which the legends of Hercules and Theseus,
of the Argonauts and the “Seven against Thebes” grew up. The most
glorious poetical illumination is cast upon the alleged greatest deed of
pre-Hellenic times, the ten years’ war waged by nearly the whole body of
Achæan heroes against the Teucrian Troy or Ilion.

The warlike, chivalrous-romantic nation of poetry and legendary history
at the close of the pre-Hellenic period we are accustomed to call the
Achæans. It seems to us safe to accept the theory that the name Achæans
means “the noble, excellent,” and belongs to the entire “hero-nation,”
not to a single tribe after which the Greeks as a whole were afterwards
called.

At least a few important remains of the tribal and state relations of
this age passed over into the Hellenic period. The Dorians were at this
time an insignificant mountain race in the mountains on the northern
edge of the beautiful basin of northeastern Greece, which had not yet
received the name of Thessaly, while the principal part was played there
by the Lapithæ on Mount Ossa and the lower Peneus, the Bœotians in the
southwest of the Peneus district, and especially the Minyæ, with one
branch at Iolcus on the gulf of Pagasæ and another in the western part
of the basin of the Copaïs, where they were in constant rivalry with the
Cadmeans of Thebes. The Ionic race was spread over the northern coast of
the Peloponnesus on the Gulf of Corinth, over a portion of the eastern
coast of this peninsula on the Gulf of Saron, and over Megaris and
Attica. Among the Ionic cantons Attica had already attained considerable
importance. Here the so-called Theseus, or rather a family of warlike
chieftains descended from the Ionic tribal hero Theseus, had succeeded in
uniting the four different portions of this district.

Of greater importance than any of these in the pre-Doric period were
the feudal states of the Peloponnesus. The strongest among these was
the royal house of the Atridæ, upon whose glory terrible legends cast
a dark and bloody shadow. From their capital at Mycenæ they ruled over
the whole of Argolis; chieftains in Tiryns, in Argos and on the coast
of the peninsula of Parnon acknowledged their authority. The remains of
the citadel of this royal family are still preserved. The hill on which
this citadel stood is surmounted by a small circular wall, and lower
down is surrounded by a mighty wall which everywhere follows the edge of
the cliff, and which in some places is built of rough layers of massive
stones, elsewhere of carefully fitted polygonal blocks, but also for
considerable stretches of rectangular blocks, in horizontal courses.

On the southwestern side is the principal gate, the famous Gate of the
Lions, which takes its name from the oldest extant remains of sculpture
in Greece. In the triangular gap in the wall above the lintel an enormous
slab of yellow limestone is fitted; it is divided in the middle by a
perpendicular column, on either side of which stands a lioness. In this
acropolis Schliemann found graves with human remains, with vessels of
clay, alabaster, and gold, ornaments of rock-crystal, copper, silver,
gold, and ivory.

Near the Gate of the Lions begin the walls of the lower city, which
stood on the ridge extending from the western declivity of the citadel
to the south. In this lower city are a number of remarkable subterranean
buildings, sepulchres and treasure houses of the ancient monarchs.
The best preserved and largest of these is the noteworthy round
building known as the “treasure house of Atreus” (also as the “grave of
Agamemnon”), which is especially interesting on account of its _tholos_,
or interior circular vault.

So in a large part of the Greek world a not inconsiderable degree
of civilisation had already begun to flourish. War, to be sure, was
governed, even down to the period of the highest culture, by a “martial
law” that recognised no right of the vanquished, delivered conquered
cities to the flames, and gave the person and the family of the captured
enemy to the victor as booty. The battle itself however, was conducted
according to certain mutually recognised chivalrous forms. The Greek
knights, rushing into battle in their chariots, hurled their terrible
javelins at the enemy, but made less use of the sword, and still less of
the bow, sought single combat with a foe of equal birth, and as a rule
avoided slaughtering the common soldier. The development of a class of
slaves in consequence of the incessant feuds was of great influence in
determining the whole future character of the later Hellenic states.
On the other hand, it is worthy of note that the ancient cruelty and
bloodthirsty savagery disappeared more and more, although breaking out
frightfully on occasion when the heat of Greek passion burst through all
restraint. But murder and even simple homicide, as they are recorded
with traces of blood in the older legendary history, ceased to be daily
occurrences.

Tradition shows traces of a beautiful moral idealism. The tenderest
friendship, respect of the Greek youth for age, conjugal loyalty of the
women, ardent love of family, and the highest degree of receptivity for
the good and the noble shine forth from the traditions of the Achæans
with a charm that warms the heart.

The beginnings of common religious assemblages, or Amphictyons, also
appear to belong to this time. So Greek life had already a quite complex
structure when a last echo of the ancient movement of peoples on the
Illyrian-Greek peninsula once more produced a general upheaval in all the
lands between Olympus and Malea, between the Ionian Sea and the mountains
of the coast of Asia Minor, after which Greece on either side of the
Ægean Sea had acquired the ethnographic physiognomy that it retained
until the invasion of the Slavs and Bulgarians.[e]


FOOTNOTES

[2] [The Latin Græcus was, however, derived from the old Greek name
Γραϊκός.]

[Illustration]




CHAPTER II. THE MYCENÆAN AGE

    At Mycenæ in 1876 Dr. Schliemann lifted the corner of the veil
    which had so long enshrouded the elder age of Hellas. Year by
    year ever since that veil has been further withdrawn, and now
    we are privileged to gaze on more than the shadowy outline of a
    far-back age. The picture is still incomplete, but it is already
    possible to trace the salient features.… The name “Mycenæan” is
    now applied to a whole class of monuments--buildings, sepulchres,
    ornaments, weapons, pottery, engraved stones--which resemble more
    or less closely those found at Mycenæ. I think I am right when
    I say that archæologists are unanimous in considering them the
    outcome of one and the same civilisation, and the product of one
    and the same race.--WILLIAM RIDGEWAY.


MYCENÆAN CIVILISATION[3]

“Mycenæan” is a convenient epithet for a certain phase of a prehistoric
civilisation, which, as a whole, is often called “Ægean.” It owes its
vogue to the fame of Henry Schliemann’s[c] discovery at Mycenæ in
1876, but is not intended to beg the open question as to the origin or
principal seat of the Bronze Age culture of the Greek lands.

[Illustration: THE GATE OF THE LIONS, MYCENÆ]

The site of Mycenæ itself was notorious for the singular and massive
character of its ruins, long before Schliemann’s time. The great curtain
wall and towers of the citadel, of mixed Cyclopean, polygonal, and ashlar
construction, and unbroken except on the south cliff, and the main gate,
crowned with a heraldic relief of lionesses, have never been hidden; and
though much blocked with their own ruin, the larger dome-tombs outside
the citadel have always been visible, and remarked by travellers. But
since these remains were always referred vaguely to a “Heroic” or
“proto-Hellenic” period, even Schliemann’s preliminary clearing of the
gateway and two dome-tombs in 1876, which exposed the engaged columns of
the façades, and suggested certain inferences as to external revetment
and internal decoration, would not by itself have led any one to
associate Mycenæ with an individual civilisation. It was his simultaneous
attack on the unsearched area which was enclosed by the citadel walls,
and in 1876 showed no remains above ground, that led to the recognition
of a “Mycenæan civilisation.” Schliemann had published in 1868 his belief
that the Heroic graves mentioned by Pausanias lay within the citadel of
Mycenæ, and now he chose the deeply silted space just within the gate for
his first sounding. About 10 feet below the surface his diggers exposed
a double ring of upright slabs, once capped with cross slabs, and nearly
90 feet in diameter. Continuing downwards through earth full of sherds
and other débris, whose singularity was not then recognised, the men
found several sculptured limestone slabs showing subjects of war or the
chase, and scroll and spiral ornament rudely treated in relief. When,
after some delay, the work was resumed, some skeletons were uncovered
lying loose, and at last, 30 feet from the original surface, an oblong
pit-grave was found, paved with pebbles, and once roofed, which contained
three female skeletons, according to Schliemann, “smothered in jewels.”
A few feet to the west were presently revealed a circular altar, and
beneath it another grave with five corpses, two probably female, and
an even richer treasure of gold. Three more pits came to light to the
northward, each adding its quota to the hoard, and then Schliemann,
proclaiming that he had found Atreus and all his house, departed for
Athens. But his Greek ephor, clearing out the rest of the precinct, came
on yet another grave and some gold objects lying loose. Altogether there
were nineteen corpses in six pits, buried, as the grave furniture showed,
at different times, but all eventually included in a holy ring.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1600-1000 B.C.]]

These sepulchres were richer in gold than any found elsewhere in the
world, a fact which led to an absurd attempt to establish their kinship
with the later and only less golden burials of Scythians or Celts. The
metal was worked up into heavy death-masks and lighter breastplates,
diadems, baldrics, pendants, and armlets, often made of mere foil, and
also into goblets, hairpins, engraved with combats of men and beasts,
miniature balances, and an immense number of thin circular plaques and
buttons with bone, clay, or wooden cores. Special mention is due to the
inlays of gold and _niello_ on bronze dagger-blades, showing spiral
ornament or scenes of the chase, Egyptian in motive, but non-Egyptian
in style; and to little flat models of shrine-façades analogous to
those devoted to Semitic pillar-worship. The ornament on these objects
displayed a highly developed spiraliform system, and advanced adaptation
of organic forms, especially octopods and butterflies, to decorative
uses. The shrines, certain silhouette figurines, and one cup bear moulded
doves, and plant forms appear inlaid in a silver vessel. The last-named
metal was much rarer than gold, and used only in a few conspicuous
objects, notably a great hollow ox-head with gilded horns and frontal
rosette, a roughly modelled stag, and a cup, of which only small part
remains, chased with a scene of nude warriors attacking a fort. Bronze
swords and daggers and many great cauldrons were found, with arrow-heads
of obsidian, and also a few stone vases, beads of amber, intaglio gems,
sceptre heads of crystal, certain fittings and other fragments made of
porcelain and paste, and remains of carved wood. Along with this went
much pottery, mostly broken by the collapse of the roofs. It begins
with a dull painted ware, which we now know as late “proto-Mycenæan”;
and it develops into a highly glazed fabric, decorated with spiraliform
and marine schemes in lustrous paint, and showing the typical forms,
false-mouthed _amphoræ_ and long-footed vases, now known as essentially
Mycenæan. The loose objects found outside the circle include the best
intaglio ring from this site, admirably engraved with a cult scene,
in which women clad in flounced skirts are chiefly concerned, and the
worship seems to be of a sacred tree.

This treasure as a whole was admitted at once to be far too highly
developed in technique and ornament, and too individual in character,
to belong, as the lionesses over the gate used to be said to belong,
merely to a first stage in Hellenic art. It preceded in time the
classical culture of the same area; but, whether foreign or native,
it was allowed to represent a civilisation that was at its acme and
practically incapable of further development. So the bare fact of a
great prehistoric art-production, not strictly Greek, in Greece came to
be accepted without much difficulty. But before describing how its true
relations were unfolded thereafter, it may be mentioned that the site
of Mycenæ had yet much to reveal after Schliemann left it. Ten years
later the Greek Archæological Society resumed exploration there, and M.
Tsountas, probing the summit of the citadel, hit upon and opened out
a fragment of a palace with hearth of stucco, painted with geometric
design, and walls adorned with frescoes of figure subjects, armed men,
and horses. An early Doric temple was found to have been built over this
palace, a circumstance which disposed forever of the later dates proposed
for Mycenæan objects. Subsequently many lesser structures were cleared
in the east and southwest of the citadel area, which yielded commoner
vessels of domestic use, in pottery, stone, and bronze, and some more
painted objects, including a remarkable fragment of stucco, which shows
human ass-headed figures in procession, a tattooed head, and a plaque
apparently showing the worship of an aniconic deity. From the immense
variety of these domestic objects more perhaps has been learned as to the
affinities of Mycenæan civilisation than from the citadel graves. Lastly,
a most important discovery was made of a cemetery west of the citadel.
Its tombs are mostly rock-cut chambers, approached by sloping _dromoi_;
but there are also pits, from one of which came a remarkable ivory mirror
handle of oriental design. The chamber graves were found to be rich in
trinkets of gold, engraved stones, usually opaque, vases in pottery
and stone, bronze mirrors and weapons, terra-cottas and carved ivory;
but neither they nor the houses have yielded iron except in very small
quantity, and that not fashioned into articles of utility. The presence
of fibulæ and razors supplied fresh evidence as to Mycenæan fashions of
dress and wearing of the hair, and a silver bowl, with male profiles
inlaid in gold, proved that the upper lip was sometimes shaved. All the
great dome-tombs known have been cleared, but the process has added only
to our architectural knowledge. The tomb furniture had been rifled long
ago. Part of the circuit of a lower town has been traced, and narrow
embanked roadways conducted over streams on Cyclopean bridges lead to it
from various quarters.

The abundance and magnificence of the circle treasure had been needed
to rivet the attention and convince the judgment of scholars, slow
to reconstruct _ex pede Herculem_. But there had been a good deal of
evidence available previous to 1876, which, had it been collated and
seriously studied, might have greatly discounted the sensation that
the Citadel graves eventually made. Although it was recognised that
certain tributaries, represented, _e.g._, in the XVIIIth Dynasty tomb of
Rekh-ma-Ra at Egyptian Thebes, as bearing vases of peculiar form, were of
Mediterranean race, neither their precise habitat nor the degree of their
civilisation could be determined while so few actual prehistoric remains
were known in the Mediterranean lands. Nor did the Mycenæan objects
which were lying obscurely in museums in 1870 or thereabouts provide a
sufficient test of the real basis underlying the Hellenic myths of the
Argolid, the Troad, and Crete, to cause these to be taken seriously.

Even Schliemann’s first excavations at Hissarlik in the Troad did
not surprise those familiar equally with Neolithic settlements and
Hellenistic remains. But the “Burnt City” of the second stratum,
revealed in 1873, with its fortifications and vases, and the hoard of
gold, silver, and bronze objects, which the discoverer connected with
it (though its relation to the stratification is doubtful still), made
a stir, which was destined to spread far outside the narrow circle of
scholars when in 1876 Schliemann lighted on the Mycenæ graves.

Like the “letting in of water,” light at once poured in from all sides on
the prehistoric period of Greece. It was established that the character
of both the fabric and the decoration of the Mycenæan objects was not
that of any well-known art. A wide range in space was proved by the
identification of the _inselsteine_ and the Ialysos vases with the new
style, and a wide range in time by collation of the earlier Theræan and
Hissarlik discoveries. A relation between objects of art described by
Homer and the Mycenæan treasure was generally recognised, and a correct
opinion prevailed that, while certainly posterior, the civilisation of
the _Iliad_ was reminiscent of the great Mycenæan period. Schliemann
got to work again at Hissarlik in 1878, and greatly increased knowledge
of the lower strata, but did not recognise the Mycenæan remains in his
“Lydian” city of the sixth stratum; but by laying bare in 1884 the upper
remains on the rock of Tiryns, he made a contribution to the science of
domestic life in the Mycenæan period, which was amplified two years later
by Tsountas’ discovery of the Mycenæ palace. From 1886 dates the finding
of Mycenæan sepulchres outside the Argolid, from which, and from the
continuation of Tsountas’ exploration of the buildings and lesser graves
at Mycenæ, a large treasure, independent of Schliemann’s princely gift,
has been gathered into the National Museum at Athens. In that year were
excavated dome-tombs, most already rifled, in Attica, in Thessaly, in
Cephalonia, and Laconia. In 1890 and 1893 Stæs cleared out more homely
dome-tombs at Thoricus in Attica; and other graves, either rock-cut
“beehives” or chambers, were found at Spata and Aphidnæ in Attica, in
Ægina and Salamis, at the Heræum and Nauplia in the Argolid, near Thebes
and Delphi, and lastly not far from the Thessalian Larissa.

But discovery was far from being confined to the Greek mainland and its
immediate dependencies. The limits of the prehistoric area were pushed
out to the central Ægean islands, all of which are singularly rich in
evidence of the pre-Mycenæan period. The series of Syran built graves,
containing crouching corpses, is the best and most representative that is
known in the Ægean. Melos, long marked as containing early objects, but
not systematically excavated until taken in hand by the British School at
Athens in 1896, shows remains of all the Ægean periods.

Crete has been proved by the tombs of Anoja and Egarnos, by the
excavations on the site of Knossos begun in 1878 by M. Minos Kalokairinos
and resumed with startling success in 1900 by Messrs. Evans and Hogarth,
and by those in the Dictæan cave and at Phæstos, Gournia, Zakro, and
Palæokastro, to be prolific of remains of the prehistoric periods out
of all proportion to remains of classical Hellenic culture. A map of
Cyprus in the later Bronze Age now shows more than five-and-twenty
settlements in and about the Mesaorea district alone, of which one,
that at Enkomi, near the site of later Salamis, has yielded the richest
gold treasure found outside Mycenæ. Half round the outermost circle
to which Greek influence attained in the classical period remains of
the same prehistoric civilisation have been happened on. M. Chantre,
in 1894, picked up lustreless ware, like that of Hissarlik, in central
Phrygia, and the English archæological expeditions sent subsequently into
northwestern Anatolia have never failed to bring back “Ægean” specimens
from the valleys of the Rhyndacus and Sangarius, and even of the Halys.

In Egypt, Mr. Petrie found painted sherds of Cretan style at Kahun in
the Fayum in 1887, and farther up the Nile, at Tel-el-Amarna, chanced on
bits of not less than eight hundred Ægean vases in 1889. There have now
been recognised in the collections at Gizeh, Florence, London, Paris, and
Bologna several Egyptian or Phœnician imitations of the Mycenæan style
to set off against the many debts which the centres of Mycenæan culture
owed to Egypt. Two Mycenæan vases were found at Sidon in 1885, and many
fragments of Ægean, and especially Cypriote, pottery have been turned
up during the recent excavation of sites in Philistia by the Palestine
Fund. Southeastern Sicily has proved, ever since Orsi excavated the Sicel
cemetery near Lentini in 1877, a mine of early remains, among which
appear in regular succession Ægean fabrics and motives of decoration
from the period of the second stratum at Hissarlik down to the latest
Mycenæan. Sardinia has Mycenæan sites, _e.g._, at Abini near Teti, and
Spain has yielded objects recognised as Mycenæan from tombs near Cadiz,
and from Saragossa.

[Illustration: ARCHED PASSAGE WAY, MYCENÆ]

The results of three excavations will especially serve as rallying points
and supply a standard of comparison. After Schliemann’s death, Dörpfeld
returned to Hissarlik, and recognised in the huge remains of the sixth
stratum, on the southern skirts of the citadel mound, a city of the same
period as Mycenæ at its acme. Thus we can study there remains of a later
stage, in one process of development superposed on earlier remains, after
an intervening period. The links there missing are, however, apparent
at Phylakopi in Melos, excavated systematically from 1896 to 1899. Here
buildings of three main periods appear one on another. The earliest
overlie in one spot a deposit of sherds of the most primitive type known
in the Ægean and found in the earliest cist-graves. The second and third
cities rise one out of the other without evidence of long interval. A
third and more important site than either, Knossos in Crete, awaits
fuller publication. Here are ruins of a great palace, mainly of two
periods. Originally constructed about 2000 B.C., it was almost entirely
rebuilt at the acme of the Mycenæan Age, but substructures and other
remains of the earlier palace underlie the later.

Since recent researches, some of whose results are not yet published,
have demonstrated that in certain localities, for instance, Cyprus,
Crete, and most of the Ægean islands where Mycenæan remains were not
long ago supposed to be merely sporadic, they form in fact a stratum to
be expected on the site of almost every ancient Ægean settlement, we
may safely assume that Mycenæan civilisation was a phase in the history
of all the insular and peninsular territories of the east Mediterranean
basin. Into the continents on the east and south we have no reason to
suppose that its influence penetrated either very widely or very strongly.

The remains that especially concern us here belong to the later period
illustrated by these discoveries, and have everywhere a certain
uniformity. Some common influence spread at a certain era over the Ægean
area and reduced almost to identity a number of local civilisations
of similar origin but diverse development. Surviving influences of
these, however, combined with the constant geographical conditions to
reintroduce some local differentiation into the Mycenæan products.

The Neolithic Age in the Ægean has now been abundantly illustrated
from the yellow bottom clay at Knossos, and its products do not differ
materially from those implements and vessels with which man has
everywhere sought to satisfy his first needs. The mass of the stone tools
and weapons, and the coarse hand-made and burnished pottery, might well
proceed from the spontaneous invention of each locality that possessed
suitable stone and clay; but the common presence of flaked blades,
arrow-heads, and blunt choppers of an obsidian, native, so far as is
known, to Melos only, speaks of inter-communication even at this early
period between many distant localities and the city whose remains have
been unearthed at Phylakopi. The wide range of the peculiar cist-grave
strengthens the belief that late Stone Age culture in the Ægean was
not of sporadic development, and prepares us for the universality of a
certain fiddle-shaped type of stone idol. Local divergence is, however,
already apparent in the relative prevalence of certain forms: for
example, a shallow bowl is common in Crete, but not in the Cyclades,
while the _pyxis_, so common in the graves of Amorgos and Melos, has
left little sign of itself in Crete; and from this point the further
development of civilisation in the Ægean area results in increasing
differentiation. The Greek mainland has produced as yet very little of
the earlier periods (the excavators of the Heræum promise additions); but
the primitive remains in the rest of the area may be divided into four
classes of strong family likeness, but distinct development.

The pottery supplies the best criterion, and will suffice for our end.
We have no such comprehensive and certain evidence from other classes of
remains. Except for the Great Treasure of Hissarlik, and the weapons in
Cycladic graves, there have been found as yet hardly any metal products
of the period. Of the few stone products, one class, the “island idols,”
already referred to, was obviously exported widely, and supplies an ill
test either of place or date. There have not been discovered sufficiently
numerous structures or graves to afford a basis of classification.
Fortified towns have been explored in Melos, Siphnos, and the Troad, and
a few houses in Ægina and Thera; but neither unaltered houses nor tombs
of undoubted primitive character have appeared in Crete as yet, nor
elsewhere than in the Cyclad isles.

Above the strata, however, which contain these remains of local
divergent development, there lies in all districts of the Ægean area a
rich layer of deposit, whose contents show a rapid and marked advance
in civilisation, are essentially uniform, and have only subsidiary
characteristics due to local influence or tradition. The civilisation
there represented is not of an origin foreign to the area. The germs of
all its characteristic fabrics, forms, and motives of decoration exist
in the underlying strata, though not equally in all districts, and the
change which Mycenæan art occasions is not always equally abrupt. It is
most reasonable to see in these remains the result of the action of some
accidental influence which greatly increased the wealth and capacity of
one locality in the area, and caused it to impose its rapidly developing
culture on all the rest. The measure of the reaction that took place in
divers localities thereafter depended naturally on the point to which
local civilisations had respectively advanced in the pre-Mycenæan period.

As to the decorative motives in vogue, there is less uniformity. The
earlier Mycenæan vessels have curvilinear and generally spiraliform
geometric schemes. These pass into naturalistic vegetable forms,
and finally become in the finest typical vases almost exclusively
marine--_algæ_, octopods, molluscs, shells, in many combinations.
Everywhere animal, bird, and human forms are but seldom found. Man
certainly appears very late, and in company with the oriental motives
which characterise the Spata objects. Insects, especially butterflies,
become common, and when their antennæ terminate in exquisite spirals,
decorative art is at the end of its progress.

[Illustration: SILVER OX-HEAD FROM MYCENÆ]

Not only in the continuous and universal commentary of painted
earthenware, but in many other media, we have evidence of “Mycenæan” art,
but varying in character according to the local abundance or variety of
particular materials. We have reached an age when the artist had at his
disposal not only terra-cotta, hard and soft stone, and wood, but much
metal, gold, silver, lead, copper, bronze containing about twelve per
cent. of tin alloy, as well as bone and ivory, and various compositions
from soft lime plaster up to opaque glass. If it were not for the
magnificent stone utensils, in the guise of lioness heads, triton shells,
palm and lotus capitals, with spirals in relief, miniature shields for
handles, which have come to light at Knossos, we should have supposed
stone to be a material used (except architecturally) only for such rude
metallic-seeming reliefs as stood over the Mycenæ gate and circle graves,
or for heavy commonplace vases and lamps.

We have discovered no large free statuary in the round in any material
as yet, though part of a hand at Knossos speaks to its existence; but
figurines in metal, painted terra-cotta, and ivory, replacing the
earlier stone idols, are fairly abundant. For these bronze is by far
the commonest medium, and two types prevail; a female with bell-like or
flounced divided skirt, and hair coiled or hanging in tails, and a male,
nude but for a loin-cloth. The position of the hands and legs varies with
the skill of the artist, as in all archaic statuary. Knossos has revealed
for the first time the Mycenæan artist’s skill in painted plaster-relief
(_gesso duro_). The life-size bull’s head from the northern entrance of
the palace and fragments of human busts challenge comparison triumphantly
with the finest Egyptian work. And from the same site comes the fullest
assurance of a high development of fresco-painting.

Tiryns had already shown us a galloping bull on its palace wall, Mycenæ
smaller figures and patterns, and Phylakopi its panel of flying-fish;
but Knossos is in advance of all with its processions of richly dressed
vase-carriers, stiff in general pose and incorrect in outline, but
admirably painted in detail and noble in type; and its yet more novel
scenes of small figures, in animated act of dance or ritual or war,
irresistibly suggestive of early Attic vase-painting. Precious fragments
of painted transparencies in rock-crystal have also survived, and both
Mycenæ and Knossos have yielded stone with traces of painted design.
Moulded glass of a cloudy blue-green texture seems to belong to the
later period, at which carved ivory, previously rare, though found even
in pre-Mycenæan strata, becomes common. The Spata tomb in Attica alone
yielded 730 pieces of the latter material, helmeted heads in profile,
mirror handles and sides of coffers of orientalising design, plaques
with outlines of heraldic animals, and so forth. Articles in paste and
porcelain of native manufacture, though often of exotic design, have
been found most commonly where Eastern influence is to be expected; for
instance, at Enkomi in Cyprus. But the glassy blue composition, known to
Homer as κύανος, an imitation of lapis-lazuli, was used in architectural
ornament at Tiryns.

But it is in precious metals, and in the kindred technique of
gem-cutting, that Mycenæan art effects its most distinctive achievements.
This is, as we have said, an age of metal. That stone implements had
not entirely passed out of use is attested by the obsidian arrow-heads
found in the circle graves, and the flint knives and basalt axes which
lay beside vases of the full “Mycenæan” style at Cozzo del Pantano
in Sicily. But they are survivals, unimportant beside the objects in
copper, bronze, and precious metals. Iron has been found with remains of
the period only as a great rarity. Some five rings, a shield boss, and
formless lumps alone represent it at Mycenæ. In the fourth circle grave
occurred thirty-four vessels of nearly pure copper. Silver makes its
appearance before gold, and is found moulded into bracelets and bowls,
and very rarely into figurines. Gold is more plentiful. Beaten, it makes
face-masks, armlets, pendants, diadems, and all kinds of small votive
objects; drawn, it makes rings whose bezels are engraved with the burin;
riveted, it makes cups; and overlaid as leaf on bone, clay, wood, or
bronze cores, it adorns hundreds of discs, buttons, and blades.

Next to Mycenæ in wealth of this metal ranks Enkomi in Cyprus, and pretty
nearly all the tombs of the later period have yielded gold, conspicuously
that of Vaphio. From the town sites, _e.g._, Phylakopi in Melos, and
Knossos, it has disappeared almost entirely. Detached from the mass of
golden objects which show primitive or tentative technique, are a few
of such elaborate finish and fineness of handiwork, that it is hard to
credit them to the same period and the same craftsmen. The Mycenæ inlaid
dagger-blades are famous examples, and the technical skill, which beat
out each of the Vaphio goblets in a single unriveted plate, has never
been excelled.

We are fortunate in possessing very considerable remains of all kinds
of construction and structural ornament of the Mycenæan period. The
great walls of Mycenæ, of Tiryns (though perhaps due to an earlier
epoch), and of the sixth layer at Hissarlik, show us the simple scheme
of fortification--massive walls with short returns and corner towers,
but no flank defences, approached by ramps or stairs from within and
furnished with one great gate and a few small sally-ports. Chambers in
the thickness of the wall seem to have served for the protection of
stores rather than of men. The great palaces at Knossos and Phæstos,
however, are of much more complicated plan. Remains of much architectural
decoration have been found in these palaces--at Mycenæ, frescoes of men
and animals; at Knossos, frescoes of men, fish, and sphinxes, vegetable
designs, painted reliefs, and rich conventional ornament, such as an
admirably carved frieze in hard limestone; at Tiryns, traces of a frieze
inlaid with lapis-lazuli glass, and also frescoes. The rough inner walls,
that appear now on these sites, must once have looked very different.

Certain chambers at Knossos, paved and lined with gypsum, and two in
Melos, have square central piers. These seem to have had a religious
significance, and are possibly shrines devoted to pillar-worship. The
houses of the great dead were hardly less elaborate. The “Treasury
of Atreus” had a moulded façade with engaged columns in a sort of
proto-Doric order and marble facing; and there is good reason to suppose
that its magnificent vault was lined within with metal ornament or
hanging draperies. The construction itself of this and the other masonry
domes bespeaks skill of a high order. For lesser folk beehive excavations
were made in the rock, and at the latest period a return was made
apparently to the tetragonal chamber; but now it has a pitched or vaulted
roof, and generally a short passage of approach whose walls converge
overhead towards a pointed arch but do not actually meet. The corpses
are laid on the floor, neither mummified nor cremated; but in certain
cases they were possibly mutilated and “scarified,” and the limbs were
then enclosed in chest urns. There is evidence for this both in Crete and
Sicily. But the order of burial, which first made Mycenæan civilisation
known to the modern world, continues singular. Similar shaft graves,
whether contained within a circle of slabs or not, have never been found
again.

The latest excavation has at last established beyond all cavil that the
civilisation which was capable of such splendid artistic achievement was
not without a system of written communication. Thousands of clay tablets
(many being evidently labels) and a few inscriptions on pottery from the
palace at Knossos have confirmed Mr. A. J. Evans’ previous deduction,
based on gems, masons’ and potters’ marks, and one short inscription on
stone found in the Dictæan cave, that more than one script was in use in
the period. Most of the Knossos tablets are written in an upright linear
alphabetic or syllabic character, often with the addition of ideographs,
and showing an intelligible system of decimal numeration. Since many
of the same characters have been found in use as potters’ marks on
sherds in Melos, which are of earlier date than the Mycenæan period, the
later civilisation cannot be credited with their invention. Other clay
objects found at Knossos, as well as gems from the east of Crete, show
a different system more strictly pictographic. This seems native to the
island, and to have survived almost to historic times; but the origin
of the linear system is more doubtful. No such tablets or sealings have
yet been found outside Crete, and their writing remains undeciphered.
The affinities of the linear script seem to be with the Asianic systems,
Cypriote and Hittite, and perhaps with later Greek. The characters are
obviously not derived from the Phœnician.

This Mycenæan civilisation, as we know it from its remains, belongs to
the Ægean area (_i.e._, roughly the Greek), and to no other area with
which we are at present acquainted. It is apparently not the product of
any of the elder races which developed culture in the civilised areas to
the east or southeast, much as it owed to those races. It would be easy
to add to the singular vase-forms, script, lustrous paint, idols, gems,
types of house and tomb, and so forth, already mentioned, a long list of
Mycenæan decorative schemes which, even if their remote source lies in
Egypt, Babylonia, or inner Anatolia, are absolutely peculiar in their
treatment. But style is conclusive. From first to last the persistent
influence of a true artistic ideal differentiates Mycenæan objects from
the hieratic or stylised products of Egypt or Phœnicia. A constant effort
to attain symmetry and decorative effect for its own sake inspires the
geometric designs. Those taken from organic life show continual reference
to the model and a “naturalistic grasp of the whole situation,” which
resists convention and often ignores decorative propriety. The human form
is fearlessly subjected to experiment, the better to attain lightness,
life, and movement in its portrayal. A foreign motive is handled with
a breadth and vitality which renders its new expression practically
independent. The conventional bull of an Assyrian relief was referred to
the image of a living bull by the Knossian artist, and made to express
his emotions of fear or wrath by the Vaphio goldsmith, the Cypriote
worker in ivory mirror handles, or the “island-gem” cutter.

[Illustration: EXTERIOR VIEW OF THE TREASURY OF ATREUS]

Since we have a continuous series of links by which the development of
the characteristic Mycenæan products can be traced within the area back
to very primitive forms, we can fearlessly assert that not only did the
full flower of the Mycenæan civilisation proper belong to the Ægean area,
but also its essential origin. That it came to have intimate relations
with other contemporary civilisations, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, perhaps
“Hittite,” and early began to contract a huge debt, especially to Egypt,
is equally certain. Not to mention the certainly imported Nilotic objects
found on Mycenæan sites, and bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions and
cartouches of Pharaonic personages, the later Ægean culture is deeply
indebted to the Nile for forms and decorative motives.

At what epoch did Ægean civilisation reach its full development? It is
little use to ask when it arose. A _terminus a quo_ in the Neolithic
Age can be dated only less vaguely than a geological stratum. But it
is known within fairly definite limits when it ceased to be a dominant
civilisation. Nothing but derived products of sub-Mycenæan style falls
within the full Iron Age in the Ægean. Bronze, among useful metals,
accompanies almost alone the genuine Mycenæan objects, at Enkomi in
Cyprus, as at Mycenæ. This fact supplies a _terminus ad quem_, to which
a date may be assigned at least as precise as scholars assign to the
Homeric lays. For these represent a civilisation spread over the same
area and in process of transition from bronze to iron, and if they fall
in the ninth century B.C., then the Mycenæan period proper ends a little
earlier, at any rate in the West. It is possible, indeed probable, that
in Asia Minor and Cyprus, where the descent of northern tribes about 1000
B.C., remembered by the Greeks as the “Dorian Invasion,” did not have
any direct effect, the Mycenæan culture survived longer in something
like purity, and passed by an uninterrupted process of development into
the Hellenic; and even in Crete, where there was certainly a cataclysm,
and in the Argolid, where art was temporarily eclipsed about the tenth
century, earlier influence survived and came once more to the surface
when peace was restored. Persistence of artistic influence under a new
order, and differences in the artistic history of different districts
widely sundered, have to be taken into account. The appearance, _e.g._,
of late Mycenæan objects in Cyprus, does not necessarily falsify the
received Mycenæan dates in mainland Greece.

For the main fact, however, viz., the age of greatest florescence all
over the area, a singular coincidence of testimony points to the period
of the XVIIIth Pharaonic Dynasty in Egypt. To this dynasty refer all
the scarabs or other objects inscribed with royal cartouches (except an
alabaster lid from Knossos, bearing the name of the earlier “Shepherd
King,” Khyan), as yet actually found with true Mycenæan objects, even in
Cyprus. In a tomb of this period at Thebes was found a bronze patera of
fine Mycenæan style. At Tel-el-Amarna, the site of a capital city which
existed only in the reign of Amenhotep IV, have been unearthed by far
the most numerous fragments of true “Ægean” pottery found in Egypt; and
of that singular style which characterises Tel-el-Amarna art, the art of
the Knossian frescoes is irresistibly suggestive. To the XVIIIth and two
succeeding dynasties belong the tomb-paintings which represent vases of
Ægean form; and to these same dynasties Mr. Petrie’s latest comparisons
between the fabrics, forms, and decorative motives of Egypt and Mycenæ
have led him. The lapse of time between the eighteenth and the tenth
centuries is by no means too long, in the opinion of most competent
authorities, to account for the changes which take place in Mycenæan art.

The question of race, which derives a special interest from the
possibility of a family relation between the Mycenæan and the subsequent
Hellenic stocks, is a controversial matter as yet. The light recently
thrown on Mycenæan cult does not go far to settle the racial problem.
The aniconic ritual, involving tree and pillar symbols of divinity,
which prevailed at one period, also prevailed widely elsewhere than in
the Ægean, and we are not sure of the divinity symbolised. Even if sure
that it was the Father God, whose symbol alike in Crete and Caria is the
_labrys_ or double axe, we could not say if Caria or Crete were prior,
and whether the Father be Aryan or Semitic or neither.

When it is remembered that, firstly, knowing not a word of the Mycenæan
language, we are quite ignorant of its affinities; secondly, not enough
Mycenæan skulls have yet been recovered to establish more than the bare
fact that the race was mixed and not wholly Asiatic; and thirdly, since
identity of civilisation in no sense necessarily entails identity of
race, we may have to do not with one or two, but with many races--it will
be conceded that it is more useful at present to attempt to narrow the
issue by excluding certain claimants than to pronounce in favour of any
one. The facial types represented not only on the Knossian frescoes, but
by statuettes and gems, are distinctly non-Asiatic, and recall strongly
the high-crowned brachycephalic type of the modern northern Albanians
and Cretan hillmen. Of the elder civilised races about the Levantine
area the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians may be dismissed at once.
We know their art from beginning to end, and its character is not at
any period the same as that of Ægean art. As for the Phœnicians, for
whom on the strength of Homeric tradition a strong claim has been put
forward, it cannot be said to be impossible that some objects thought to
be Mycenæan are of Sidonian origin, since we know little or nothing of
Sidonian art. But the presumption against this Semitic people having had
any serious share in Mycenæan development is strong, since facial types
apart, the only scripts known to have been used in the Mycenæan area and
period are in no way affiliated to the Phœnician alphabet, and neither
the characteristic forms nor the characteristic style of Phœnician art,
as we know it, appear in Mycenæan products. The one thing, of which
recent research has assured us in this matter, is this, that the Keftiu,
represented in XVIIIth Dynasty tombs at Thebes, were a “Mycenæan” folk,
an island people of the northern sea. They came into intimate contact,
both peaceful and warlike, with Egypt, and to them no doubt are owed the
Ægean styles and products found on Nile sites. Exact parallels to their
dress and products, as represented by Egyptian artists, appear in the
work of Cretan artists; and it is now generally accepted that the Keftiu
were “Mycenæans” of Crete at any rate, whatever other habitat they may
have possessed.

As to place of origin, Central Europe or any western or northern part of
the continent is out of the question. Mycenæan art is shown by various
remains to have moved westwards and northwards, not _vice versa_. It
arose within the Ægean area, in the Argolid as some, _e.g._, the Heræum
excavators, seem to propose, or the Cyclades, or Rhodes; or, if outside,
then the issue is narrowed for practical purposes to a region about which
we know next to nothing as yet, northern Libya, and to Asia Minor. So far
as the Mycenæan objects themselves testify, they point to a progress not
from south or west, but from east. In the western localities, notably
Crete and Mycenæ, we have more remains of highly developed Mycenæan
civilisation, but less of its early stages than elsewhere. Nothing in the
Argolid, but much in the Troad, prepares us for the Mycenæan metallurgy.
The appearance of Mycenæan forms and patterns is abrupt in Crete, but
graduated in other islands, especially Thera and Melos. The Cretan linear
script seems to be of “Asianic” family, and to be inscribed in Melos on
sherds of earlier date than its appearance at Knossos. Following Mycenæan
development backwards in this manner, we seem to tend towards the
Anatolian coasts of the Ægean, and especially the rich and little-known
areas of Rhodes and Caria.

It does not advance seriously the solution of the racial problem to turn
to Greek literary tradition. Now that we are assured of the wide range
and the long continuance of the influence of Mycenæan civilisation,
overlapping the rise of Hellenic art, we can hardly question that the
early peoples whom the Greeks knew as Pelasgi, Minyæ, Leleges, Danai,
Carians, and so forth, shared in it. But were they its authors? and who,
after all, were they themselves? The Greeks believed them their own
kin, but what value are we to attach to the belief of an age to which
scientific ethnology and archæology were unknown? Nor is it useful to
select traditions, _e.g._, to accept those about the Pelasgi, and to
override those which connect the Achæans equally closely with Mycenæan
centres. We are gradually learning that the classical Hellene was of no
pure race, but the result of a blend of several racial stocks, into which
those pre-existing in his land can hardly fail to have entered; and if
we have been able to determine that Mycenæan art was distinguished by
just that singular quality of idealism which is of the essence of the art
which succeeded it in the same area (whatever be the racial connection),
it can scarcely be doubted in reason that Mycenæan civilisation was in
some sense the parent of the later civilisation of Hellas. In fact,
now that the Mycenæan remains are no longer to be regarded as isolated
phenomena on Greek soil, but are seen to be intimately connected on
the one hand with a large class of objects which carry the evolution of
civilisation in the Ægean area itself back to the Stone Age, and on the
other with the earlier products of Hellenic development, the problem is
no longer purely one of antiquarian ethnology. We ask less what race was
so greatly gifted, than what geographical or other circumstances will
account for the persistence of a certain peculiar quality of civilisation
in the Ægean area.[b] An eloquent summary of our Mycenæan knowledge and
a lively description of life such as it may have been in Mycenæ has been
drawn by Chrestos Tsountas and J. Irving Manatt in their work, _The
Mycenæan Age_, from which we quote at length.

[Illustration: SEPULCHRAL ENCLOSURE, MYCENÆ]


THE PROBLEM OF MYCENÆAN CHRONOLOGY

Whether or not the authors of this distinct and stately civilisation
included among their achievements a knowledge of letters, their monuments
thus far address us only in the universal language of form and action.
Of their speech we have yet to read the first syllable. The vase handles
of Mycenæ may have some message for us, if no more than a pair of heroic
names; and the nine consecutive characters from the cave of Cretan
Zeus must have still more to say when we find the key. We may hope, at
least, if this ancient culture ever recovers its voice, to find it not
altogether unfamiliar: we need not be startled if we catch the first
lisping accent of what has grown full and strong in the Achæan epic.

But for the present we have to do with a dumb age, with a race whose
artistic expression amazes us all the more in the dead silence of their
history. So far as we yet know from their monuments, they have recorded
not one fixed point in their career, they have never even written down
their name as a people.

Now, a dateless era and a nameless race--particularly in the immediate
background of the stage on which we see the forces of the world’s golden
age deploying--are facts to be accepted only in the last resort. The
student of human culture cannot look upon the massive walls, the solemn
domes, the exquisite creations of what we call Mycenæan art, without
asking--When? By whom? In default of direct and positive evidence, he
will make the most of the indirect and probable.

We have taken a provisional and approximate date for the meridian
age of Mycenæan culture--namely, from the sixteenth to the twelfth
century B.C. We have also assumed that the Island culture was already
somewhat advanced as far back as the earlier centuries of the second
millennium before our era. This latter datum is based immediately on
geological calculations: M. Fouqué, namely, has computed a date _circa_
2000 B.C. for the upheaval which buried Thera, and thus preserved for
us the primitive monuments of Ægean civilisation. Whatever be the
value of Fouqué’s combinations--and they have been vigorously, if not
victoriously, assailed--we may reach a like result by another way round.
The Island culture is demonstrably older than the Mycenæan--it must have
attained the stage upon which we find it at Thera a century or two at
least before the bloom-time came in Argolis. If, then, we can date that
bloom-time, we can control within limits the geologists’ results.

Here we call in the aid of Egyptology. In Greece we find datable Egyptian
products in Mycenæan deposits, and conversely in datable Egyptian
deposits we find Mycenæan products.

To take the first Mycenæan finds in Egypt. In a tomb of 1100 B.C., or
within fifty years of that either way, at Kahun, Flinders Petrie found
along with some dozens of bodies, “a great quantity of pottery, Egyptian,
Phœnician, Cypriote, and Ægean”--notably an Ægean vase with an ivy leaf
and stalk on each side, which he regards as the beginning of natural
design. Further, at Gurob and elsewhere, the same untiring explorer has
traced the Mycenæan false-necked vase or _Bügelkanne_ through a series of
dated stages, “a chain of examples in sequence showing that the earliest
geometrical pottery of Mycenæ begins about 1400 B.C., and is succeeded by
the beginning of natural designs about 1100 B.C.”

But long before these actual Mycenæan products came to light in Egypt,
Egyptian art had told its story of relations with the Ægean folk. On the
tomb-frescoes of Thebes we see pictured in four groups the tributaries
of Tehutimes III (about 1500 B.C.), bringing their gifts to that great
conqueror; among them, as we are told by the hieroglyphic text that
runs with the painting, are “the princes of the land of Keftu [or Kefa]
(Phœnicia) and of the islands in the great sea.” And the tribute in their
hands includes vases of distinct Mycenæan style.

On the other hand, we find datable Egyptian products in Mycenæan deposits
in Greece. From Mycenæ itself and from Ialysos in Rhodes we have scarabs
bearing the cartouches of Amenhotep III and of his queen Thi; and
fragments of Egyptian porcelain, also from Mycenæ, bear the cartouches of
the same king, whose reign is dated to the latter half of the fifteenth
century.

We have already noted the recurrence at Gurob, Kahun, and Tel-el-Amarna
of the characters which were first found on the vase handles of Mycenæ;
and this seemed at one time to have an important bearing on Mycenæan
chronology. But in the wider view of the subject which has been opened
up by Evans’ researches, this can no longer be insisted upon as an
independent datum. However, the occurrence of these signs in a town
demonstrably occupied by Ægean peoples at a given date has corroborative
value.

While it can hardly be claimed that any or all of these facts amount to
final proof, they certainly establish a strong probability that at least
from the fifteenth century B.C. there was traffic between Egypt and the
Mycenæan world. Whatever be said for the tomb-frescoes of Tehutimes’
foreign tribute-bearers and the scarabs from Mycenæ and Rhodes, we
cannot explain away Mr. Petrie’s finds in the Fayum. The revelations of
Tel-Gurob can leave no doubt that the brief career of the ancient city
on that spot--say from 1450 to 1200 B.C.--was contemporaneous with the
bloom-time of Mycenæan civilisation.

Now most, if not all, of the “Ægean” pottery from Gurob, like that
pictured in the tomb-frescoes, belongs to the later Mycenæan styles as we
find them in the chamber-tombs and ruined houses--in the same deposits,
in fact, with the scarabs and broken porcelain which carry the cartouches
of Amenhotep and Queen Thi. The earlier period of Mycenæan art is thus
shown to be anterior to the reign of Tehutimes III; and as that period
cannot conceivably be limited to a few short generations, the sixteenth
century is none too early for the upper limit of the Mycenæan Age.
We should, perhaps, date it at least a century farther back. Thus we
approximate the chronology to which M. Fouqué has been led by geological
considerations; while, on the other hand, more recent inquirers are
inclined to reduce by a century or two the antiquity of the convulsion in
which Thera perished, and thus approximate our own datum.

For the lower limit of the Mycenæan Age we have taken the twelfth
century, though certain archæologists and historians are inclined to a
much more recent date--some even bringing it three or four centuries
further down.

This is not only improbable on its face, but at variance with the facts.
To take but one test, the Mycenæan Age hardly knew the use of iron;
at Mycenæ itself it was so rare that we find it only in an occasional
ornament such as a ring. No iron was found in the prehistoric settlements
at Hissarlik until 1890, when Dr. Schliemann came across two lumps of
the metal, one of which had possibly served as the handle of a staff.
“It is therefore certain,” he says, “that iron was already known in the
second or ‘burnt city’; but it was probably at that time rarer and more
precious than gold.” In Egypt, on the other hand, iron was known as
early as the middle of the second millennium B.C., and if the beehive
and chamber-tombs at Mycenæ are to be assigned to a period as late as
the ninth century, the rare occurrence of iron in them becomes quite
inexplicable.


_The Testimony of Art_

From the seventeenth or sixteenth to the twelfth century B.C., then, we
may regard as the bloom-time of Mycenæan culture, and of the race or
races who wrought it out. But we need not assume that their arts perished
with their political decline. Even when that gifted people succumbed to
or blended with another conquering race, their art, especially in its
minor phases, lived on, though under less favouring conditions. There
were no more patrons like the rich and munificent princes of Tiryns and
Mycenæ; and domed tombs with their wealth of decoration were no longer
built. Still, certain types of architecture, definitively wrought out
by the Mycenæans, became an enduring possession of Hellenic art, and so
of the art of the civilised world; while from other Mycenæan types were
derived new forms of equally far-reaching significance.

The correspondence of the gateways at Tiryns with the later Greek
propylæa, and that of the Homeric with the prehistoric palaces, is
noteworthy; so, too, is the obvious derivation of the typical form of
the Greek temple, consisting of vestibule and cella, from the Mycenæan
magaron. That the Doric column is of the same lineage is a fact long
ago recognised by the ablest authorities. In fact, the Mycenæan pillars
known to us, whether in actual examples as embedded in the façades of
the two beehive tombs or in art representations, as in the lion relief
and certain ivory models, while varying in important details, exhibit
now one, now another of the features of the Doric column. Thus, all have
in common abacus, echinus, and cymatium--the last member adorned with
ascending leaves just as in the earliest capitals of the Doric order.
Again, the Doric fluting is anticipated in the actual pilasters of
“Clytemnestra’s tomb,” and in an ivory model. And as the Doric column has
no base, but rests directly on the stylobate, so the wooden pillars in
the Mycenæan halls appear to rise directly from the ground in which their
stone bases are almost entirely embedded.

That Mycenæan art outlasted the social régime under which it had attained
its splendid bloom is sufficiently attested by the Homeric poems.
Doubtless, the Achæan system, when it fell before the aggressive Dorian,
must have left many an heirloom above ground, as well as those which its
tombs and ruins had hidden down to our own day. And, again, the poems in
their primitive strata undoubtedly reflect the older order, and offer us
many a picture at first hand of a contemporary age. Thus the dove-cup
of Mycenæ, or another from the same hand, may have been actually known
to the poet who described old Nestor’s goblet in our eleventh _Iliad_;
and the cyanos frieze of Tiryns may well have inspired the singer of the
Phæacian tale, or at least helped out his fancy in decorating Alcinous’
palace. Still, it is in the more recent strata of the poems that we find
the great transcripts of art-creations and the clearest indications of
the very processes met with in the monuments. To take but one instance,
there is the shield of Achilles forged at Thetis’ intercession by
Hephæstus and emblazoned with a series of scenes from actual mundane
life. (_Iliad_, XVIII. 468-613.) The subjects are at once Mycenæan and
Homeric. On the central boss, for example, the Olympian smith “wrought
the earth and the heavens and the sea and the unwearying sun,” very much
as the Mycenæan artist sets sun, moon, and sky in the upper field of his
great signet. Again, the city under siege, while “on the walls to guard
it, stand their dear wives and infant children, and with these the old
men,” appears to be almost a transcript of the scene which still stirs
our blood as we gaze upon the beleaguered town on the silver cup. But it
is less the subject than the technique that reveals artistic heredity,
and when we find Homer’s Olympian craftsman employing the selfsame
process in the forging of the shield which we can now see for ourselves
in the inlaid swords of Mycenæ, we can hardly doubt that that process was
still employed in the poet’s time.

In this sense of an aftermath of art, Mycenæan influence outlasted by
centuries the overthrow of Mycenæan power; and the fact is one to be
considered in establishing a chronology. We have taken as our lower limit
the catastrophe in which the old order at Mycenæ and elsewhere obviously
came to an end. But the old stock survived,--“scattered and peeled”
though it must have been,--and carried on, if it did not teach the
conqueror, their old arts. If we are to comprehend within the Mycenæan
Age all the centuries through which we can trace this Mycenæan influence,
then we shall bring that age down to the very dawn of historical Greece.
In this view it is no misnomer to speak of the Æginetan gold find
recently acquired by the British Museum as a Mycenæan treasure.

[Illustration: ACROPOLIS OF MYCENÆ]


THE PROBLEM OF THE MYCENÆAN RACE

We have seen that Mycenæan art was no exotic, transplanted full grown
into Greece, but rather a native growth--influenced though it was by
the earlier civilisations of the Cyclades and the East. This indigenous
art, distinct and homogeneous in character, no matter whence came its
germs and rudiments, must have been wrought out by a strong and gifted
race. That it was of Hellenic stock we have assumed to be self-evident.
But, as this premise is still in controversy, we have to inquire whether
(aside from art) there are other considerations which make against the
Hellenic origin of the Mycenæan peoples, and compel us to regard them as
immigrants from the islands or the Orient.

In the first place, recalling the results of our discussion of domestic
and sepulchral architecture, we observe that neither in the Ægean nor in
Syria do we find the gable-roof which prevails at Mycenæ. Nor would the
people of these warm and dry climates have occasion to winter their herds
in their own huts--an ancestral custom to which we have traced the origin
of the avenues to the beehive tombs.

Again, we have seen reason to refer the shaft-graves to a race or tribe
other than that whose original dwelling we have recognised in the
sunken hut. To this pit-burying stock we have assigned the upper-story
habitations at Mycenæ. If we are right, now, in explaining this type of
dwelling as a reminiscence of the pile-hut, it would follow that this
stock, too, was of northern origin. The lake-dwelling habit, we know,
prevailed throughout Northern Europe, an instance occurring, as we have
seen, even in the Illyrian peninsula; while we have no reason to look
for its origin to the Orient or the Ægean. It is indeed true that the
island-folk were no strangers to the pile-dwelling, but this rather goes
to show that they were colonists from the mainland.

But, apart from the evidence of the upper-story abodes, are there other
indications of an element among the Mycenæan people which had once
actually dwelt in lakes or marshes?

Monuments like the stone models from Melos and Amorgos have not indeed
been found in the Peloponnesus, or on the mainland, but in default
of such indirect testimony we have the immediate witness of actual
settlements. Of the four most famous cities of the age, Mycenæ, Tiryns,
Orchomenos, and Amyclæ, it is a singular fact that but one has a
mountain-site, while the other three were once surrounded by marshes. The
rock on which Tiryns is built, though it rises to a maximum elevation of
some sixty feet above the plain, yet sinks so low on the north that the
lower citadel is only a few feet above the level of the sea. Now this
plain, as Aristotle asserts, and as the nature of the ground still bears
witness, was originally an extensive morass. The founders, therefore,
must have chosen this rock for their settlement, not because it was a
stronghold in itself, but because it was protected by the swamp out of
which it rose.

What is true of Tiryns holds for Orchomenos as well. The original
site was down in the plain until the periodic inundations of the lake
forced the inhabitants to rebuild on the slopes of Mount Acontion; and
Orchomenos was not the only primitive settlement in this great marsh.
Tradition tells us also of Athenæ, Eleusis, Arne, Midea--cities which
had long perished, and were but dimly remembered in historic times.
To one of these, or to some other whose name has not come down to us,
belong the remarkable remains on the Island of Goulas or Gha, which is
connected with the shore by an ancient mole. During the Greek Revolution
this island-fort was the refuge of the neighbouring population who found
greater security there than in the mountains.

It is usually held that, when these Copaïc cities were founded, the
region was in the main drained and arable, whereas afterwards, the
natural outlets being choked up, the imprisoned waters flooded the plain,
turned it into a lake, and so overwhelmed the towns. But, obviously,
this is reversing the order of events. To have transformed the lake
into a plain and kept it such would have demanded the co-operation of
populous communities in the construction of costly embankments and
perpetual vigilance in keeping them intact. Where were such organised
forces to be found at a time anterior to the foundation of the cities
themselves? Is it not more reasonable to believe that the builders of
these cities--instead of finding Copaïs an arable plain, and failing to
provide against its inundation--were induced by the very fact of its
being a lake to establish themselves in it upon natural islands like the
rock of Goulas, on artificial elevations, or even in pile-settlements? It
is possible, indeed, that on some unusual rise of the waters, towns were
submerged, but it is quite as probable that without any such catastrophe
the inhabitants finally abandoned these of their own accord to settle in
higher, healthier, and more convenient regions.

The case of Amyclæ is no exception. The prehistoric as well as the
historic site is probably to be identified with that of the present
village of Mahmud Bey, some five miles south of Sparta. The ground is low
and wet, and in early times was undoubtedly a marsh.

In the plain of Thessaly, again, we may trace the same early order.
There, where tradition (backed by the conclusions of modern science)
tells us that the inflowing waters used to form stagnant lakes, we find
low artificial mounds strewn with primitive potsherds. On these mounds,
Lolling holds, the people pitched their settlements to secure them
against overflow.

The choice of these marshy or insulated sites is all the more singular
from the environment. Around Lake Copaïs, about Tiryns and Amyclæ, as
well as in Thessaly, rise mountains which are nature’s own fastnesses and
which would seem to invite primitive man to their shelter. The preference
for these lowland or island settlements then, can only be explained in
the first instance by immemorial custom, and, secondly, by consequent
inexperience in military architecture. Naturally, a lake-dwelling
people will be backward in learning to build stone walls strong enough
to keep off a hostile force. And in default of such skill, instead of
settling on the mountain slopes, they would in their migrations choose
sites affording the best natural fortifications akin to their ancient
environment of marsh or lake--reinforcing this on occasion by a moat, an
embankment, or a pile-platform.

That the people in question once actually followed this way of living is
beyond a doubt. Amyclæ shows no trace of wall, and probably never had
any beyond a mere earthwork. The Cyclopean wall of Tiryns, as it now
stands, does not belong to the earliest settlement, nor is it of uniform
date. Adler holds that the first fortress must have been built of wood
and sun-dried bricks. This construction may possibly account for those
remarkable galleries whose origin and function are not yet altogether
clear. The mere utility of the chambers for storage--a purpose they did
unquestionably serve--hardly answers to the enormous outlay involved
in contriving them. May we not, then, recognise in them a reminiscence
of the primitive palisade-earthwork? In the so-called Lower Citadel of
Tiryns we find no such passages, possibly because its Cyclopean wall
was built at a later date. Likewise no proper galleries have yet been
found at Mycenæ, and it is highly improbable that any such ever existed
there. What had long been taken for a gallery in the north wall proves
to be nothing but a little chamber measuring less than seven by twelve
feet. Obviously, then, the gallery was not an established thing in
fortress-architecture, and this fact shows that it did not originate with
the builders of stone walls, but came to them as a heritage from earlier
times and a more primitive art.

In fact, we find in the _terramare_ of Italy palisade and earthwork
fortifications so constructed that they may be regarded as a first
stage in the development which culminates in the Tiryns galleries. The
construction of the wall at Casione near Parma is thus described:[4]
“Piles arranged in two parallel rows are driven in the ground with an
inward slant so as to meet at the top, and this Δ-shaped gallery is then
covered with earth. Along the inside of this embankment is carried a
continuous series of square pens, built of beams laid one upon another,
filled with earth and brushwood, and finally covered with a close-packed
layer of sand and pebbles. This arrangement not only strengthens the wall
but provides a level platform for its defenders.” Thus the space between
these palisades would closely resemble the “arched” corridors of Tiryns,
while the square pens (if covered over without being filled up) would
correspond to the chambers.

These facts strengthen the inferences to which we have been led by
our study of the stone models and the upper-story dwellings. And they
point to the region beyond Mount Olympus as the earlier seat of this
lake-dwelling contingent of the Mycenæan people as well as of their
kinsmen of the earth-huts. And we have other evidence that the Mycenæan
cities, at least the four of chief importance, were founded by a people
who were not dependent on the sea and in whose life the pursuits of the
sea were originally of little moment. Mycenæ and Orchomenos are at a
considerable remove from the coast, while Amyclæ is a whole day’s journey
from the nearest salt-water. Tiryns alone lies close to the sea-board;
and, indeed, the waves of the Argolic Gulf must have washed yet nearer
when its walls were reared. But, obviously, it was not the nearness of
the sea that drew the founders to this low rock. For it is a harbourless
shore that neighbours it, while a little farther down lies the secure
haven of Nauplia guarded by the impregnable height of Palamedes; and it
is yet to be explained why the Tirynthians, if they were a sea-faring
people, did not build their city there. Again, the principal entrance to
Tiryns is not on the side towards the sea, but on the east or landward
side. This goes to show that even when the Cyclopean wall was built,
certainly long after the first settlement, the people must have been
still devoted mainly to tilling the soil and tending flocks, occupations
to which the fertile plain and marshy feeding grounds would invite them.
So in historic times, also, the town appears to have lain to the east of
the citadel, not between it and the sea.

Even if it be granted that these Mycenæan cities were settled by
immigrants who came by sea, it does not follow that they were originally
a sea-faring folk. The primitive Dorians were hardly a maritime people,
yet Grote has shown that their conquest of the Peloponnesus was in
part effected by means of a fleet which launched from the Malian Gulf;
and their kinsmen, who settled in Melos, Thera, and Crete, in all
probability, sailed straight from the same northern port.

The Minyæ, who founded Orchomenos, Curtius regards as pre-eminently a
seafaring race; and he seeks to account for their inland settlement by
assuming that they were quick to realise the wealth to be won by draining
and tilling the swamp. But this is hardly tenable. Whatever our estimate
of Minyan shrewdness, they must have had their experience in reclaiming
swamp land yet to acquire and on this ground. It was the outcome of
age-long effort in winning new fields from the waters and guarding them
when won. The region invited settlement because it offered the kind of
security to which they were wonted; the winning of wealth was not the
motive but the fortunate result.

Again, if the Mycenæans had been from the outset a maritime
race we should expect to find the ship figuring freely in their
art-representations. But this is far from being the case. We have,
at last, one apparent instance of the kind on a terra-cotta fragment
found in the acropolis at Mycenæ in 1892. On this we seem to have a
boat, with oars and rudder, and curved fore and aft like the Homeric
νῆες ἀμφιέλισσαι. Below appear what we may take to be dolphins. But
this unique example can hardly establish the maritime character of the
Mycenæans.

Along with this unfamiliarity with ships, we have to remark also their
abstinence from fish. In the remains of Tiryns and Mycenæ we have found
neither a fish-hook nor a fish-bone, though we do find oysters and other
shellfish such as no doubt could be had in abundance along the adjacent
shores. In the primitive remains of the Italian _terramare_ there is
the same absence of anything that would suggest fishing or fish-eating;
and, indeed, linguistic evidence confirms these observations. Greek and
Latin have no common term for fish; and we may fairly conclude that
the Græco-Italic stock before the separation were neither fishermen or
fish-eaters. That they were slow to acquire a taste for fish, even after
the separation, is attested not only by the negative evidence of their
remains in the Argolid and on the Po but by the curious reticence of
Homer. His heroes never go fishing but once and then only in the last
pinch of famine--“when the bread was all spent from out the ship and
hunger gnawed at their belly.”

Now that we find in Greece, five or six centuries earlier than the poems,
a people in all probability hailing from the same region whence came the
ancestors of the Homeric Greeks, with the same ignorance of, or contempt
for, a fish diet, and building their huts on piles like the primitive
Italians whose earthworks further appear to have set the copy for the
Tirynthian galleries--can we doubt that this people sprung from the same
root with the historic Greeks and their kinsmen of Italy? The conclusion
appears so natural and so logical, that it must require very serious and
solid objections to shake it. But, instead of that, our study of Mycenæan
manners and institutions--both civil and religious--affords strong
confirmation. In the matter of dress we find the historical Greeks the
heirs of the Mycenæans, and the armour of the Homeric heroes--when we get
behind the epic glamour of it--differs little from what we know in the
Mycenæan monuments.

While our knowledge of Mycenæan religion is vague at the best, and we
must recognise in the dove-idols and dove-temples the insignia of an
imported Aphrodite-cult, we have beyond a reasonable doubt also to
recognise a genuine Hellenic divinity with her historical attributes
clearly foreshadowed in Artemis. Again, while the Homeric Greeks
themselves are not presented to us as worshippers of the dead after the
custom avouched by the altar-pits of Mycenæ and Tiryns, we do find in
the poems an echo at least of this cult, and among the later Hellenes
it resumes the power of a living belief. So, though Homer seems to know
cremation only, and this has been taken for full proof that the Mycenæans
were not Greeks, the traces of embalming in the poems clearly point to
an earlier custom of simple burial as we find it uniformly attested by
the Mycenæan tombs. And, here, again, historical Greece reverts to the
earlier way. In Greece proper, at least in Attica, the dead were not
burned,--not even in the age of the Dipylon vases,--and yet the Athenians
of that day were Greeks. So, among the earlier Italians, burial was the
only mode of dealing with the dead, and the usage was so rooted in their
habits that even after cremation was introduced some member of the body
(_e.g._, a finger) was always cut off and buried intact. We need not
repeat what we have elsewhere said of the funeral banquet, the immolation
of victims, the burning of raiment--all bearing on the same conclusion
and cumulating the evidence that the Greeks of Homer, and so of the
historic age, are the lineal heirs of Mycenæan culture.

If the proof of descent on these lines is strong, it is strengthened
yet more by all we can make out regarding the political and social
organisation. That monarchy was the Mycenæan form of government is
sufficiently attested by the strong castles, each taken up in large part
by a single princely mansion. But “the rule of one man” is too universal
in early times to be a criterion of race. Far more significant is the
evidence we have for a clan-system such as we afterwards find in full
bloom among the Hellenes.

The clan, as we know it in historic times, and especially in Attica, was
a factor of prime importance in civil, social, and religious life. It was
composed of families which claim to be, and for the most part actually
were, descended from a common ancestor. These originally lived together
in clan-villages--of which we have clear reminiscences in the clan-names
of certain Attic demes, as Boutadai, Perithoidai, Skanbonidai. Not only
did the clan form a village by itself, but it held and cultivated its
land in common. It built the clan-village on the clan-estate; and as
the clansmen dwelt together in life, so in death they were not divided.
Each clan had its burial-place in its own little territory, and there
at the tomb it kept up the worship of its dead, and especially of its
hero-founder.

That the Mycenæans lived under a like clan-system, the excavation of the
tombs of the lower town has shown conclusively. The town was composed
of villages more or less removed from one another, each the seat of a
clan. We have no means of determining whether the land was held and
tilled in common, but we do know that by each village lay the common
clan-cemetery--a group of eight, ten, or more tombs, obviously answering
to the number of families or branches of the clan. In the construction of
the tombs, and in the offerings contained, we note at once differences
between different cemeteries and uniformity in the tombs of the same
group. The richest cemeteries lie nearer the acropolis, as the stronger
clans would naturally dwell nearer the king. Thus, for its population,
Mycenæ covered a large area, but its limits were not sharply defined,
and the transition from the citadel centre to the open country was not
abrupt. The villages were linked together by graveyards, gardens and
fields, highways and squares; thus the open settlement was indeed a πόλις
εὐρυάγυια--a town of broad ways.

Somewhat such must have been the aspect in primitive days of Sparta and
Athens, not to mention many other famous cities. Indeed, even in historic
times, as we know from the ruins, Sparta was still made up of detached
villages spread over a large territory for so small a population. So,
primitive Athens was composed of the central settlement on the Acropolis,
with the villages encircling it from Pnyx to Lycabettus and back again.
When the city was subsequently walled in, some of these villages were
included in the circuit, others were left outside, while still others
(as the Ceramicus) were cut in two by the wall. The same thing happened
at Mycenæ; the town wall was built simply because the fortress was an
insufficient shelter for the populace as times grew threatening; but it
could not, and did not, take in all the villages.

Such, briefly, is the objective evidence--the palpable facts--pointing
to a race connection between the Mycenæans and the Greeks of history.
We have, finally, to consider the testimony of the Homeric poems. Homer
avowedly sings of heroes and peoples who had flourished in Greece long
before his own day. Now it may be denied that these represent the
civilisation known to us as Mycenæan; but it is certainly a marvellous
coincidence (as Schuchhardt[h] observes) that “excavations invariably
confirm the former power and splendour of every city which is mentioned
by Homer as conspicuous for its wealth or sovereignty.”

Of all the cities of Hellas, it is the now established centres of
Mycenæan culture which the poet knows best and characterises with the
surest hand. Mycenæ “rich in gold” is Agamemnon’s seat, and Agamemnon
is lord of all Argos and many isles, and leader of the host at Troy. In
Laconia, in the immediate neighbourhood of the tomb which has given us
the famous Vaphio cups, is the royal seat of Menelaus, which is likened
to the court of Olympian Zeus. Bœotian Orchomenos, whose wealth still
speaks for itself in the Treasury of Minyas, is taken by the poet as a
twin type of affluence with Egyptian Thebes, “where the treasure-houses
are stored fullest.” Assuredly, no one can regard all this and many
another true touch as mere coincidence. The poet knows whereof he
affirms. He has exact knowledge of the greatness and bloom of certain
peoples and cities at an epoch long anterior to his own, with which the
poems have to do. And there is not one hint in either poem that these
races and heroes were not of the poet’s own kin.

It might be assumed that there had once ruled in those cities an alien
people, and that the monuments of Mycenæan culture were their legacy
to us, but that the Achæans who came after them have entered into the
inheritance of their fame. Such usurpations there have been in history;
but the hypothesis is out of the question here. At Mycenæ, where
exploration has been unusually thorough, the genuine Mycenæan Age is seen
to have come to a sharp and sudden end--a catastrophe so overwhelming
that we cannot conceive of any lingering bloom. Had the place passed to a
people worthy to succeed to the glory of the race who reared its mighty
walls and vaulted tombs, then we should look for remains of a different
but not a contemptible civilisation. But, in fact, we find built directly
on the ruins of the Mycenæan palace mean and shabby huts which tell us
how the once golden city was succeeded by a paltry village. Centuries
were to pass before the Doric temple rose on the accumulated ruins of
palace and hovels, and generations more before the brave little remnant
returned with the laurels of Platæa and enough of the spoil (we may
conjecture) to put the walls of the Atreidæ in repair.

If the structures peculiar to the Mycenæan age are the work of
foreigners, what have we left for Agamemnon and his Achæans? Simply the
hovels. Of the Dipylon pottery, with which it is proposed to endow them,
there is none worth mentioning at Mycenæ, very little at Tiryns, hardly a
trace at Amyclæ, or Orchomenos. In the Mycenæan acropolis, particularly,
very few fragments of this pottery have been found, and that mainly in
the huts already mentioned. Can these be the sole traces of the power and
pride of the Atreidæ?

For us at least the larger problem of nationality is solved; but there is
a further question. Can we determine the race or races among the Greeks
known to history to whom the achievements of Mycenæan civilisation are
to be ascribed? In this inquiry we may set aside the Dorians, although
many scholars (especially among the Germans) still claim for them
the marvellous remains of the Argolid. The Homeric poems, they say,
describe a state of things subsequent to the Dorian migration into the
Peloponnesus and consequent upon the revolution thereby effected. As
the Dorians themselves hold sway at Mycenæ and Sparta, they must be the
subjects of the poet’s song--the stately fabric of Mycenæan culture must
be the work of their hands.

On the other hand, Beloch,[i] while accepting the Dorian theory of this
civilisation, dismisses the traditional Dorian migration as a myth, and
maintains that Dorian settlement in the Peloponnesus was as immemorial
as the Arcadian. Just as the original advent of the Arcadians in the
district which bears their name had faded out of memory and left no trace
of a tradition, so the actual migration of the Dorians belonged to an
immemorial past.

The first of these views which attributes the Mycenæan culture to
the Dorians of the traditional migration, cannot stand the test of
chronology. For tradition refers that migration to the end of the
twelfth century B.C., whereas the Mycenæan people were established in
the Argolid before the sixteenth, probably even before the twentieth
century. While Beloch’s hypothesis is not beset with this chronological
difficulty, it is otherwise quite untenable. For, as the excavations at
Tiryns and Mycenæ abundantly prove, the Mycenæan civilisation perished
in a great catastrophe. The palaces of both were destroyed by fire after
being so thoroughly pillaged that scarcely a single bit of metal was
left in the ruins. Further, they were never rebuilt; and the sumptuous
halls of Mycenæ were succeeded by the shabby hovels of which we have
spoken. The larger domes at Mycenæ, whose sites were known, were likewise
plundered--in all probability by the same hands that fired the palace.
This is evidenced by the pottery found in the hovels and before the
doorways of two of the beehive tombs. A similar catastrophe appears to
have cut short the career of this civilisation in the other centres where
it had flourished.

How are we to account for this sudden and final overthrow otherwise than
by assuming a great historic crisis, which left these mighty cities with
their magnificent palaces only heaps of smoking ruins? And what other
crisis can this have been than the irruption of the Dorians? And their
descent into the Peloponnesus is traditionally dated at the very time
which other considerations have led us to fix as the lower limit of the
Mycenæan Age. Had that migration never been recorded by the ancients nor
attested by the state of the Peloponnesus in historic times, we should
still be led to infer it from the facts now put in evidence by the
archæologist’s spade.

Setting aside the Dorian claim as preposterous, we have nothing to do but
follow the epic tradition. The Homeric poems consistently assume that
prior to any Dorian occupation Argolis was inhabited by other peoples,
and notably by Achæans whose position is so commanding that the whole
body of Greeks before Troy usually go by their name. Their capital is
Mycenæ, and their monarch Agamemnon, King of Men; although we find them
also in Laconia under the rule of Menelaus. But the poet has other names,
hardly less famous, applied now to the people of Argolis and now to the
Greeks at large. One of these names (Ἀργεῖοι) is purely geographical,
whether it be restricted to the narrow Argolid district or extended
to the wider Argos, and has no special ethnological significance. But
the other (Δαναοί) belonged to a people distinct from and, according
to uniform tradition, more ancient than the Achæans. We find, then,
two races in Argolis before the Dorian migration, each famous in song
and story, and each so powerful that its name may stand for all the
inhabitants of Greece. The Achæans occupy Mycenæ, that is to say, the
northern mountain region of the district, while legend represents the
Danaans as inseparably connected with Argos and the sea-board, and
ascribes to them certain works of irrigation.

[Illustration: GALLERY IN THE WALL AROUND THE CITADEL OF TIRYNS]

Whatever interpretation be put upon the myth, it seems clear that Argos
could not feed its great cities without artificial irrigation, and
this it owed to Danaus and his fifty daughters, “who were condemned
perpetually to pour water in a tub full of holes,”--that is to say, into
irrigation ditches which the thirsty soil kept draining dry.

Now our study of the Mycenæan remains has already constrained us to
distinguish in the Argolid two strata of Mycenæan peoples, one of them
originally dwelling on dry land in sunken huts, the other occupying
pile settlements in lakes and swamps. And since tradition squares so
remarkably with the facts in evidence, may we not venture to identify the
marsh-folk with the Danaans and the landsmen with the Achæans?

But Achæans and Dorians were not alone in shaping and sharing Mycenæan
culture; they had their congeners in other regions. Foremost among these
were the Minyan founders of Orchomenos. As lake-dwellers and hydraulic
engineers they are assimilated to the Danaans, whose near kinsmen they
may have been, as the primitive islanders, whose abode we have found
copied in the stone vases, must have been related to them both. Tradition
has, in fact, preserved an account of the colonisation of Thera by a
people coming from Bœotia, although it is uncertain whether it refers
to the original occupation or to a settlement subsequent to the great
catastrophe.

From the Danao-Minyan stock, it would appear that the Achæans parted
company at an early date and continuing for a time in a different--most
probably a mountainous--country, there took on ways of living proper to
such environment. Later than the Danaans, according to the consistent
testimony of tradition, they came down into the Peloponnesus and by their
superior vigour and prowess prevailed over the older stock.

To these two branches of the race we may refer the two classes of tombs.
The beehive and chamber tombs, as we have seen, have their prototype in
the sunken huts: they belong to the Achæans coming down from the colder
north. The shaft-graves are proper to the Danaan marsh-men. At Tiryns
we find a shaft-grave, but no beehive or chamber tomb. At Orchomenos
the Treasury of Minyas stands alone in its kind against at least eight
_tholoi_ and sixty chamber-tombs at Mycenæ. Hence, wherever this type
of tombs abounds we may infer that an Achæan stock had its seat, as at
Pronoia, in Attica, Thessaly, and Crete. Against this it may be urged
that precisely at the Achæan capital, and within its acropolis at that,
we find the famous group of shaft-graves with their precious offerings,
as well as humbler graves of the same type outside the circle. But this,
in fact, confirms our view when we remember it was the Danaid Perseus
who founded Mycenæ and that his posterity bore rule there until the
sceptre passed to Achæan hands in the persons of the Pelopidæ.[5] We have
noted the close correspondence of the original fortress at Mycenæ with
that of Tiryns, and its subsequent enlargement. Coincident with this
extension of the citadel, the new type of tomb makes its appearance in
the great domes,--some of them certainly royal sepulchres,--although the
grave-circle of the acropolis is but half occupied. That circle, however,
ceases thenceforth to be used as a place of burial, while the humbler
graves adjacent to it are abandoned and built over with dwellings.
With the new type of tomb we note changes of burial customs, not to be
accounted for on chronological grounds: in the beehive tombs the dead
are never embalmed, nor do they wear masks, nor are they laid on pebble
beds--a practice which may have owed its origin to the wet ground about
Tiryns.

There is but one theory on which these facts can be fully explained.
It is that of a change in the ruling race and dynasty, and it clears
up the whole history of Mycenæ and the Argive Plain. The first Greek
settlers occupied the marshy sea-board, where they established themselves
at Tiryns and other points; later on, when they had learned to rear
impregnable walls, many of them migrated to the mountains which dominated
the plain and thus were founded the strongholds of Larissa, Midea, and
Mycenæ.

But while the Danaans were thus making their slow march to the north the
Achæans were advancing southward from Corinth--a base of great importance
to them then and always, as we may infer from the network of Cyclopean
highways between it and their new centre. At Mycenæ, already a strong
Perseid outpost, the two columns meet--when, we cannot say. But about
1500 B.C., or a little later, the Achæans had made themselves masters of
the place and imposed upon it their own kings.

We have no tradition of any struggle in connection with this dynastic
revolution, and it appears probable that the Achæans did not expel the
older stock. On the contrary, they scrupulously respected the tombs of
the Danaid dynasty--it may be, because they felt the claim of kindred
blood. In manners and culture there could have been but little difference
between them, for the Achæans had already entered the strong current of
Mycenæan civilisation.

Indeed, we discern a reciprocal influence of the two peoples. Within
certain of the Achæan tombs (as we may now term the beehives and rock
chambers) we find separate shaft-graves, obviously recalling the Danaid
mode of burial. On the other hand, it would appear that the typical
Achæan tomb was adopted by the ruling classes among other Mycenæan
peoples. Otherwise we cannot explain the existence of isolated tombs of
this kind as at Amyclæ (Vaphio), Orchomenos, and Menidi--obviously the
sepulchres of regal or opulent families; while the common people of these
places--of non-Achæan stock--buried their dead in the ordinary oblong
pits.

Achæan ascendency is so marked that the Achæan name prevails even where
that stock forms but an inconsiderable element of the population. Notably
this is true of Laconia, where the rare occurrence of the beehive tomb
goes to show that the pre-Dorian inhabitants were mostly descended from
the older stock, which we have encountered at Tiryns and at Orchomenos.[d]


FOOTNOTES

[3] [Reprinted, by permission of the publishers, from the article
“Mycenæan Civilisation,” by D. G. Hogarth, in the New Volumes of
the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Copyright, 1902, by The Encyclopædia
Britannica Company.]

[4] Helbig,[f] _Die Italiker in der Pœbene_, p. 11; cf. Pigorini[g] in
_Atti dell’ Accad. dei Lincei_, viii. 265 ff.

[5] This is not gainsaying the Phrygian extraction of the Pelopid line.
“The true Phrygians were closely akin to the Greeks, quite as closely
akin as the later Macedonians. We may fairly class the Pelopidæ as
Achæan.” (Percy Gardner,[e] _New Chapters of Greek History_, p. 84.)

[Illustration: RESTORATION OF A MYCENÆAN PALACE]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER III. THE HEROIC AGE


[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1400-1200 B.C.]]

In thinking of the mythical period with its citations of fables about
gods and goddesses galore and heroes unnumbered, one is apt to become
the victim of a mental mirage. One can hardly escape imagining the
period in question thus veiled in mystery and peopled with half mythical
and altogether mystical figures as really having been a time when men
and women lived an idyllic life. As one contemplates the period he
intuitively falls into a day-dream in which there dance before him
light-robed artistic figures moving in arcadian bowers, tenanted by
nymphs and satyrs and centaurs. But when one awakes to a practical view
he recognises of course that all this is an illusion. Reason tells
him that this was a mythical age, simply because the people were not
sufficiently civilised to make permanent historical records. They were
half barbarians, living as pastoral peoples everywhere live, striving for
food against wild beasts, protecting their herds, cultivating the soil,
fighting their enemies. And yet, in a sense, their life was idyllic.
Heroic elements were not altogether lacking; the men were trained
athletes, whose developed muscles were a joy to look upon, and no doubt
the women, despite a certain coarseness, shared something of that figure.
Then the people themselves believed in the gods and nymphs and satyrs and
centaurs of which we dream, and so in a sense their world was peopled
with them: in a sense they did dwell in Arcady. Still one cannot disguise
the fact that it was an Arcady which no modern, placed under similar
restrictions, would care to enter.

In that early day writing was an unknown art in Hellas, and so the people
as they emerged from their time of semi-civilisation brought with them no
specific tangible records of the life of that period, but only fables and
traditions to take the place of sober historical records. To the people
themselves these fables and traditions bore, for a long time at any rate,
a stamp of veritable truth. Even the most extravagant of their narratives
of gods and godlike heroes were believed as implicitly, no doubt, by
the major part of the people even at a comparatively late historical
period, as we to-day believe the stories of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a
Napoleon. As time went on these fables became even more intimately fixed
in the minds of the people through becoming embalmed in the verses of the
poet and the lines of the tragedian. Here and there, to be sure, there
was a man who questioned the authenticity of these tales as recitals
of fact, but we may well believe that the generality of people, even
of the most cultured class, preferred throughout the entire period of
antiquity to accept the myths at their face value. Not only so, but for
many generations later, throughout the period sometimes spoken of as the
“Age of Faith” of the western world, a somewhat similar estimate was
put upon the Greek myths as recited by the classical authors. Even after
the growth of scepticism and the development of the scientific spirit
rendered the acceptance of the myths as recitals of fact impossible, for
a long time it seemed little less than a sacrilege to think of severing
them altogether from the realm of fact.


THE VALUE OF THE MYTHS

That, considered as historical narratives, they had been elaborated and
their bald facts distorted by the creative imagination of a marvellous
people, was clearly evident. No one, for example, in recent days would
be expected to believe that the hero Achilles had been plunged into the
river Styx by his mother and rendered thereby invulnerable except as
to the heel by which he was held. But to doubt that the hero Achilles
lived and accomplished such feats as were narrated in the _Iliad_ would
seem almost a blow at the existence of the most fascinating people
of antiquity. There came a time, however, in comparatively recent
generations when scepticism no longer hesitated to invade the ranks of
the most time-honoured and best-beloved traditions, and when a warfare of
words began between a set of critics, who would wipe the whole mass of
Greek myths from the pages of history, and the champions of those myths
who were but little disposed to give them up. Thus scepticism found an
obvious measure of support in the clear fact that the mythical narratives
could not possibly be received as authentic in their entirety. Further
support was given to the sceptical party a little later by the study of
comparative mythology, which showed to the surprise of many scholars
that the Greek myths were by no means so unique in their character
as had been supposed. It was shown that in the main they are closely
paralleled by myths of other nations, and a theory was developed and
advocated with much plausibility that they had been developed out of a
superstitious regard of the sun and moon and elements, that most of them
were, in short, what came to be called solar myths, and that they had no
association whatever with the deeds of human historic personages.

Looking at the subject in the broadest way it, perhaps, does not greatly
matter which view, as to the status of myths, is the true one. After all,
the main purport of history in all its phases has value, not for what it
tells us of the deeds of individual men or the conflicts of individual
nations, but for what it can reveal of the process of the evolution of
civilisation. Weighed by this standard, the beautiful myths of the Greeks
are of value chiefly as revealing to us the essential status of the Greek
mind in the early historical period, and the stage of evolution of that
mind.

The beautiful myths of Greece cannot and must not be given up, and
fortunately they need not. The view which Grote and the host of his
followers maintained, practically solves the problem for the historian.
He may retain the legend and gain from it the fullest measure of
imaginative satisfaction; he may draw from it inferences of the greatest
value as to the mental status of the Greek people at the time when the
legends were crystallised into their final form; he may even believe
that, in the main, the legends have been built upon a substructure of
historical fact, and he may leave to specialists the controversy as to
the exact relations which this substructure bears to the finished whole,
content to accept the decision of the greatest critical historians of
Greece that this question is insoluble.

From the period of myth pure and simple when the gods and goddesses
themselves roved the earth achieving miracles, taking various shapes,
slaying pythons, titans, and other monsters, and exercising their
amorous fancies among the men and women of earth--from this period we
come to the semi-historical time of the activity of the demi-gods and the
men who, superior to the ordinary clay, were called Heroes.

The term “Heroic Age” has passed into general use with the historian
as applying to the period of Grecian history immediately preceding and
including the Trojan wars. As there are very few reliable documents at
hand relating to this period--there were none at all until recently--it
is clear that this age is in reality only the latter part of that
mythical period to which we have just referred. Recent historians tend
to treat it much more sceptically than did the historians of an earlier
epoch; some are even disposed practically to ignore it. But the term
has passed far too generally into use to be altogether abandoned; and,
indeed, it is not desirable that it should be quite given up, for,
however vague the details of the history it connotes, it is after all the
shadowy record of a real epoch of history. We shall, perhaps, do best,
therefore, to view it through the eyes of a distinguished historian of an
earlier generation, remembering only that what is here narrated is still
only half history--that is to say, history only half emerged from the
realm of legend.[a]

The real limits of this period cannot be exactly defined; but still, so
far as its traditions admit of anything like a chronological connection,
its duration may be estimated at six generations, or about two hundred
years.[6] The history of the heroic age is the history of the most
celebrated persons belonging to this class, who, in the language of
poetry, are called heroes. The term “hero” is of doubtful origin, though
it was clearly a title of honour; but in the poems of Homer, it is
applied not only to the chiefs, but also to their followers. In later
times its use was narrowed, and in some degree altered; it was restricted
to persons, whether of the Heroic or of after ages, who were believed
to be endowed with a superhuman, though not a divine, nature, and who
were honoured with sacred rites, and were imagined to have the power
of dispensing good or evil to their worshippers; and it was gradually
combined with the notion of prodigious strength and gigantic stature.
Here however we have only to do with the heroes as men. The history of
their age is filled with their wars, expeditions, and adventures; and
this is the great mine from which the materials of the Greek poetry were
almost entirely drawn. But the richer a period is in poetical materials,
the more difficult it usually is to extract from it any that are fit for
the use of the historian; and this is especially true in the present
instance. We must content ourselves with touching on some which appear
most worthy of notice, either from their celebrity, or for the light they
throw on the general character of the period, or their connection, real
or supposed, with subsequent historical events.


THE EXPLOITS OF PERSEUS

We must pass very hastily over the exploits of Bellerophon and Perseus,
and we mention them only for the sake of one remark. The scene of their
principal adventures is laid out of Greece, in the East. The former,
whose father Glaucus is the son of Sisyphus, having chanced to stain
his hands with the blood of a kinsman, flies to Argos, where he excites
the jealousy of Prœtus, and is sent by him to Lycia, the country where
Prœtus himself had been hospitably entertained in his exile. It is
in the adjacent regions of Asia that the Corinthian hero proves his
valour by vanquishing ferocious tribes and terrible monsters. Perseus
too has been sent over the sea by his grandfather Acrisius, and his
achievements follow the same direction, but take a wider range; he is
carried along the coasts of Syria to Egypt, where Herodotus heard of him
from the priests, and into the unknown lands of the South. There can be
no doubt that these fables owed many of their leading features to the
Argive colonies which were planted at a later period in Rhodes, and on
the southwest coast of Asia. But still it is not improbable that the
connection implied by them between Argolis and the nearest parts of Asia
may not be wholly without foundation. We proceed however to a much more
celebrated name, on which we must dwell a little longer--that of Hercules.


THE LABOURS OF HERCULES

It has been a subject of long dispute, whether Hercules was a real or
a purely fictitious personage; but it seems clear that the question,
according to the sense in which it is understood, may admit of two
contrary answers, both equally true. When we survey the whole mass of the
actions ascribed to him, we find that they fall under two classes. The
one carries us back into the infancy of society, when it is engaged in
its first struggles with nature for existence and security: we see him
cleaving rocks, turning the course of rivers, opening or stopping the
subterraneous outlets of lakes, clearing the earth of noxious animals,
and, in a word, by his single arm effecting works which properly belong
to the united labours of a young community. The other class exhibits a
state of things comparatively settled and mature, when the first victory
has been gained, and the contest is now between one tribe and another,
for possession or dominion; we see him maintaining the cause of the weak
against the strong, of the innocent against the oppressor, punishing
wrong, and robbery, and sacrilege, subduing tyrants, exterminating his
enemies, and bestowing kingdoms on his friends. It would be futile
to inquire, who the person was to whom deeds of the former kind were
attributed; but it is an interesting question, whether the first
conception of such a being was formed in the mind of the Greeks by their
own unassisted imagination, or was suggested to them by a different
people.

It is sufficient to throw a single glance at the fabulous adventures
called the “labours” of Hercules, to be convinced that a part of them at
least belongs to the Phœnicians, and their wandering god, in whose honour
they built temples in all their principal settlements along the coast of
the Mediterranean. To him must be attributed all the journeys of Hercules
round the shores of western Europe, which did not become known to the
Greeks for many centuries after they had been explored by the Phœnician
navigators. The number to which those labours are confined by the legend,
is evidently an astronomical period, and thus itself points to the course
of the sun which the Phœnician god represented. The event which closes
the career of the Greek hero, who rises to immortality from the flames
of the pile on which he lays himself, is a prominent feature in the same
Eastern mythology, and may therefore be safely considered as borrowed
from it. All these tales may indeed be regarded as additions made at a
late period to the Greek legend, after it had sprung up independently
at home. But it is at least a remarkable coincidence, that the birth of
Hercules is assigned to the city of Cadmus; and the great works ascribed
to him, so far as they were really accomplished by human labour, may
seem to correspond better with the art and industry of the Phœnicians,
than with the skill and power of a less civilised race. But in whatever
way the origin of the name and idea of Hercules may be explained,
he appears, without any ambiguity, as a Greek hero; and here it may
reasonably be asked, whether all or any part of the adventures they
describe, really happened to a single person, who either properly bore
the name of Hercules, or received it as a title of honour.

We must briefly mention the manner in which these adventures are linked
together in the common story. Amphitryon, the reputed father of Hercules,
was the son of Alcæus, who is named first among the children born to
Perseus at Mycenæ. The hero’s mother, Alcmene, was the daughter of
Electryon, another son of Perseus, who had succeeded to the kingdom. In
his reign, the Taphians, a piratical people who inhabited the islands
called Echinades, near the mouth of the Achelous, landed in Argolis, and
carried off the king’s herds. While Electryon was preparing to avenge
himself by invading their land, after he had committed his kingdom and
his daughter to the charge of Amphitryon, a chance like that which caused
the death of Acrisius stained the hands of the nephew with his uncle’s
blood. Sthenelus, a third son of Perseus, laid hold of this pretext to
force Amphitryon and Alcmene to quit the country, and they took refuge in
Thebes: thus it happened that Hercules, though an Argive by descent, and,
by his mortal parentage, legitimate heir to the throne of Mycenæ, was, as
to his birthplace, a Theban. Hence Bœotia is the scene of his youthful
exploits: bred up among the herdsmen of Cithæron, like Cyrus and Romulus,
he delivers Thespiæ from the lion which made havoc among its cattle.
He then frees Thebes from the yoke of its more powerful neighbour,
Orchomenos: and here we find something which has more the look of a
historical tradition, though it is no less poetical in its form. The king
of Orchomenos had been killed, in the sanctuary of Poseidon at Onchestus,
by a Theban. His successor, Erginus, imposes a tribute on Thebes; but
Hercules mutilates his heralds when they come to exact it, and then
marching against Orchomenos, slays Erginus, and forces the Minyans to pay
twice the tribute which they had hitherto received. According to a Theban
legend, it was on this occasion that he stopped the subterraneous outlet
of the Cephisus, and thus formed the lake which covered the greater part
of the plain of Orchomenos. In the meanwhile Sthenelus had been succeeded
by his son Eurystheus, the destined enemy of Hercules and his race, at
whose command the hero undertakes his labours. This voluntary subjection
of the rightful prince to the weak and timid usurper is represented as an
expiation, ordained by the Delphic oracle, for a fit of frenzy, in which
Hercules had destroyed his wife and children.

This, as a poetical or religious fiction, is very happily conceived;
but when we are seeking for a historical thread to connect the Bœotian
legends of Hercules with those of the Peloponnesus, it must be set
entirely aside; and yet it is not only the oldest form of the story, but
no other has hitherto been found or devised to fill its place with a
greater appearance of probability. The supposed right of Hercules to the
throne of Mycenæ was, as we shall see, the ground on which the Dorians,
some generations later, claimed the dominion of Peloponnesus. Yet, in
any other than a poetical view, his enmity to Eurystheus is utterly
inconsistent with the exploits ascribed to him in the peninsula. It is
also remarkable, that while the adventures which he undertakes at the
bidding of his rival are prodigious and supernatural, belonging to the
first of the two classes above distinguished, he is described as during
the same period engaged in expeditions which are only accidentally
connected with these marvellous labours, and which, if they stood alone,
might be taken for traditional facts. In these he appears in the light of
an independent prince, and a powerful conqueror. He leads an army against
Augeas, king of Elis, and having slain him, bestows his kingdom on one
of his sons, who had condemned his father’s injustice. So he invades
Pylus to avenge an insult which he had received from Neleus, and puts him
to death, with all his children, except Nestor, who was absent, or had
escaped to Gerenia. Again he carries his conquering arms into Laconia,
where he exterminates the family of the king Hippocoön, and places
Tyndareus on the throne. Here, if anywhere in the legend of Hercules, we
might seem to be reading an account of real events. Yet who can believe,
that while he was overthrowing these hostile dynasties, and giving away
sceptres, he suffered himself to be excluded from his own kingdom?

It was the fate of Hercules to be incessantly forced into dangerous and
arduous enterprises; and hence every part of Greece is in its turn the
scene of his achievements. Thus we have already seen him, in Thessaly,
the ally of the Dorians, laying the foundation of a perpetual union
between the people and his own descendants, as if he had either abandoned
all hope of recovering the crown of Mycenæ, or had foreseen that his
posterity would require the aid of the Dorians for that purpose. In
Ætolia too he appears as a friend and a protector of the royal house, and
fights its battles against the Thesprotians of Epirus. These perpetual
wanderings, these successive alliances with so many different races,
excite no surprise, so long as we view them in a poetical light, as
issuing out of one source, the implacable hate with which Juno persecutes
the son of Jove. They may also be understood as real events, if they are
supposed to have been perfectly independent of each other, and connected
only by being referred to one fabulous name. But when the poetical motive
is rejected, it seems impossible to frame any rational scheme according
to which they may be regarded as incidents in the life of one man, unless
we imagine Hercules, in the purest spirit of knight-errantry, sallying
forth in quest of adventures, without any definite object, or any
impulse but that of disinterested benevolence. It will be safer, after
rejecting those features in the legend which manifestly belong to Eastern
religions, to distinguish the Theban Hercules from the Dorian, and the
Peloponnesian hero. In the story of each some historical fragments
have most probably been preserved, and perhaps least disfigured in the
Theban and Dorian legends. In those of Peloponnesus it is difficult to
say to what extent their original form may not have been distorted from
political motives. If we might place any reliance on them, we should be
inclined to conjecture that they contain traces of the struggles by which
the kingdom of Mycenæ attained to that influence over the rest of the
peninsula, which is attributed to it by Homer, and which we shall have
occasion to notice when we come to speak of the Trojan war.


THE FEATS OF THESEUS

The name of Hercules immediately suggests that of Theseus, according to
the mythical chronology his younger contemporary, and only second to
him in renown. It was not without reason that Theseus was said to have
given rise to the proverb, _another Hercules_; for not only is there a
strong resemblance between them in many particular features, but it also
seems clear that Theseus was to Attica what Hercules was to the rest of
Greece, and that his career likewise represents the events of a period
which cannot have been exactly measured by any human life, and probably
includes many centuries. His legend is chiefly interesting to us, so
far as it may be regarded as a poetical outline of the early history of
Attica [where it will be recounted in detail].

The legend of his Cretan expedition most probably preserves some genuine
historical recollections. But the only fact which appears to be plainly
indicated by it, is a temporary connection between Crete and Attica.
Whether this intercourse was grounded solely on religion, or was the
result of a partial dominion exercised by Crete over Athens, it would
be useless to inquire; and still less can we pretend to determine the
nature of the Athenian tribute, or that of the Cretan worship to which
it related. That part of the legend which belongs to Naxos and Delos was
probably introduced after these islands were occupied by the Ionians. A
part is assigned in these traditions to Minos, who is represented by the
general voice of antiquity as having raised Crete to a higher degree of
prosperity and power than it ever reached at any subsequent period [and
whom we shall also discuss later in connection with Cretan history].

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THESEUS, ATHENS]


THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

Our plan obliges us to pass over a great number of wars, expeditions,
and achievements of these ages, which were highly celebrated in heroic
song, not because we deem them to contain less of historical reality
than others which we mention, but because they appear not to have been
attended with any important or lasting consequences. We might otherwise
have been induced to notice the quarrel which divided the royal house
of Thebes, and led to a series of wars between Thebes and Argos, which
terminated in the destruction of the former city, and the temporary
expulsion of the Cadmeans, its ancient inhabitants. Hercules and Theseus
undertook their adventures either alone, or with the aid of a single
comrade; but in these Theban wars we find a union of seven chiefs;
and such confederacies appear to have become frequent in the latter
part of the heroic age. So a numerous band of heroes was combined in
the enterprise, which, whatever may have been its real nature, became
renowned as the chase of the Calydonian boar. Plassman[f] suspects
that this was in reality a military expedition against some of the
savage Ætolian tribes, and that the name of one of them (the Aperantii)
suggested the legend. We proceed to speak of two expeditions much more
celebrated, conducted like these by a league of independent chieftains,
but directed, not to any part of Greece, but against distant lands; we
mean the voyage of the Argonauts, and the siege of Troy, which will
conclude our review of the mythical period of Grecian history.


THE ARGONAUTS

The Argonautic expedition, when viewed in the light in which it has
usually been considered, is an event which a critical historian, if
he feels himself compelled to believe it, may think it his duty to
notice, but which he is glad to pass rapidly over as a perplexing and
unprofitable riddle. For even when the ancient legend has been pared down
into a historical form, and its marvellous and poetical features have
been all effaced, so that nothing is left but what may appear to belong
to its pith and substance, it becomes indeed dry and meagre enough,
but not much more intelligible than before. It relates an adventure,
incomprehensible in its design, astonishing in its execution, connected
with no conceivable cause, and with no sensible effect. The narrative,
reduced to the shape in which it has often been thought worthy of a place
in history, runs as follows:

In the generation before the Trojan war, Jason, a young Thessalian
prince, had incurred the jealousy of his kinsman Pelias, who reigned
at Iolcus. The crafty king encouraged the adventurous youth to embark
in a maritime expedition full of difficulty and danger. It was to be
directed to a point far beyond the most remote which Greek navigation
had hitherto reached in the same quarter; to the eastern corner of the
sea, so celebrated in ancient times for the ferocity of the barbarians
inhabiting its coasts, that it was commonly supposed to have derived
from them the name of “Axenus,” the inhospitable, before it acquired the
opposite name of the “Euxine,” from the civilisation which was at length
introduced by Greek settlers. Here, in the land of the Colchians, lay the
goal, because this contained the prize, from which the voyage has been
frequently called the adventure of the golden fleece. Jason having built
a vessel of uncommon size,--in more precise terms, the first 50-oared
galley his countrymen had ever launched,--and having manned it with a
band of heroes, who assembled from various parts of Greece to share the
glory of the enterprise, sailed to Colchis, where he not only succeeded
in the principal object of his expedition, whatever this may have been,
but carried off Medea, the daughter of the Colchian king, Æetes.

Though this is an artificial statement, framed to reconcile the main
incidents of a wonderful story with nature and probability, it still
contains many points which can scarcely be explained or believed. It
carries us back to a period when navigation was in its infancy among the
Greeks; yet their first essay at maritime discovery is supposed at once
to have reached the extreme limit, which was long after attained by the
adventurers who gradually explored the same formidable sea, and gained a
footing on its coasts. The success of the undertaking however is not so
surprising as the project itself; for this implies a previous knowledge
of the country to be explored, which it is very difficult to account
for. But the end proposed is still more mysterious; and indeed can only
be explained with the aid of a conjecture. Such an explanation was
attempted by some of the later writers among the ancients, who perceived
that the whole story turned on the Golden Fleece, the supposed motive
of the voyage, and that this feature had not a sufficiently historical
appearance. But the mountain torrents of Colchis were said to sweep down
particles of gold, which the natives used to detain by fleeces dipped in
the streams.

This report suggested a mode of translating the fable into historical
language. It was conjectured that the Argonauts had been attracted by
the metallic treasures of the country, and that the Golden Fleece was a
poetical description of the process which they had observed, or perhaps
had practised: an interpretation certainly more ingenious, or at least
less absurd, than those by which Diodorus transforms the fire-breathing
bulls which Jason was said to have yoked at the bidding of Æetes, into
a band of Taurians, who guarded the fleece, and the sleepless dragon
which watched over it, into their commander Draco; but yet not more
satisfactory; for it explains a casual, immaterial circumstance, while it
leaves the essential point in the legend wholly untouched. The epithet
“golden,” to which it relates, is merely poetical and ornamental, and
signified nothing more as to the nature of the fleece than the epithets
white or purple, which were also applied to it by early poets. According
to the original and genuine tradition, the fleece was a sacred relic, and
its importance arose entirely out of its connection with the tragical
story of Phrixus, the main feature of which is the human sacrifice which
the gods had required from the house of Athamas. His son Phrixus either
offered himself, or was selected through the artifices of his stepmother
Ino, as the victim; but at the critical moment, as he stood before the
altar, the marvellous ram was sent for his deliverance, and transported
him over the sea, according to the received account, to Colchis, where
Phrixus, on his arrival, sacrificed the ram to Jupiter, as the god who
had favoured his escape; the fleece was nailed to an oak in the grove of
Mars, where it was kept by Æetes as a sacred treasure, or palladium.

But the tradition must have had a historical foundation in some real
voyages and adventures, without which it could scarcely have arisen at
all, and could never have become so generally current as to be little
inferior in celebrity to the tale of Troy itself. If however the fleece
had no existence but in popular belief, the land where it was to be
sought was a circumstance of no moment. In the earlier form of the
legend, it might not have been named at all, but only have been described
as the distant, the unknown, land; and after it had been named, it might
have been made to vary with the gradual enlargement of geographical
information. But in this case the voyage of the Argonauts can no longer
be considered as an isolated adventure, for which no adequate motive is
left; but must be regarded, like the expedition of the Tyrian Hercules,
as representing a succession of enterprises, which may have been the
employment of several generations. And this is perfectly consistent with
the manner in which the adventurers are most properly described. They
are Minyans; a branch of the Greek nation, whose attention was very
early drawn by their situation, not perhaps without some influence from
the example and intercourse of the Phœnicians, to maritime pursuits.
The form which the legend assumed was probably determined by the course
of their earliest naval expeditions. They were naturally attracted
towards the northeast, first by the islands that lay before the entrance
of the Hellespont, and then by the shores of the Propontis and its
two straits. Their successive colonies, or spots signalised either by
hostilities or peaceful transactions with the natives, would become the
landing-places of the Argonauts. That such a colony existed at Lemnos,
seems unquestionable; though it does not follow that Euneus, the son of
Jason, who is described in the Iliad as reigning there during the siege
of Troy, was a historical personage.

If however it should be asked, in what light the hero and heroine of the
legend are to be viewed on this hypothesis, it must be answered that both
are most probably purely ideal personages, connected with the religion of
the people to whose poetry they belong. Jason was perhaps no other than
the Samothracian god or hero Jasion, whose name was sometimes written in
the same manner, the favourite of Demeter, as his namesake was of Hera,
and the protector of mariners as the Thessalian hero was the chief of
the Argonauts. Medea seems to have been originally another form of Hera
herself, and to have descended, by a common transition, from the rank
of a goddess into that of a heroine, when an epithet had been mistaken
for a distinct name. We have already seen that the Corinthian tradition
claimed her as belonging properly to Corinth, one of the principal seats
of the Minyan race. The tragical scenes which rendered her stay there
so celebrated were commemorated by religious rites, which continued
to be observed until the city was destroyed by the Romans. According
to the local legend, she had not murdered her children; they had been
killed by the Corinthians; and the public guilt was expiated by annual
sacrifices offered to Hera, in whose temple fourteen boys, chosen every
twelve-month from noble families, were appointed to spend a year in all
the ceremonies of solemn mourning. But we cannot here pursue this part
of the subject any further. The historical side of the legend seems to
exhibit an opening intercourse between the opposite shores of the Ægean.
If however it was begun by the northern Greeks, it was probably not long
confined to them, but was early shared by those of the Peloponnesus. It
would be inconsistent with the piratical habits of the early navigators,
to suppose that this intercourse was always of a friendly nature; and it
may therefore not have been without a real ground, that the Argonautic
expedition was sometimes represented as the occasion of the first
conflict between the Greeks and Trojans. We therefore pass by a natural
transition out of the mythical circle we have just been tracing, into
that of the Trojan war, and the light in which we have viewed the one may
serve to guide us in forming a judgment on the historical import of the
other.

We have already seen in what manner Eurystheus, the son of Sthenelus,
had usurped the inheritance which belonged of right to Hercules, as the
legitimate representative of Perseus. Sthenelus had reserved Mycenæ and
Tiryns for himself; but he had bestowed the neighbouring town of Midea
on Atreus and Thyestes, the sons of Pelops, and uncles of Eurystheus.
On the death of Hercules, Eurystheus pursued his orphan children from
one place of refuge to another, until they found an asylum in Attica.
Theseus refused to surrender them, and Eurystheus then invaded Attica
in person; but his army was routed, and he himself slain by Hyllus,
the eldest son of Hercules, in his flight through the isthmus. Atreus
succeeded to the throne of his nephew, whose children had been all cut
off in this disastrous expedition; and thus, when his sceptre descended
to his son Agamemnon, it conveyed the sovereignty of an ample realm.
While the house of Pelops was here enriched with the spoils of Hercules,
it enjoyed the fruits of his triumphant valour in another quarter. He had
bestowed Laconia on Tyndareus, the father of Helen; and when Agamemnon’s
brother, Menelaus, had been preferred to all the other suitors of this
beautiful princess, Tyndareus resigned his dominions to his son-in-law.
In the meanwhile a flourishing state had risen up on the eastern side
of the Hellespont. Its capital, Troy, had been taken by Hercules, with
the assistance of Telamon, son of Æacus, but had been restored to Priam,
the son of its conquered king, Laomedon, who reigned there in peace and
prosperity over a number of little tribes, until his son Paris, attracted
to Laconia by the fame of Helen’s beauty, abused the hospitality of
Menelaus by carrying off his queen in his absence. All the chiefs
of Greece combined their forces, under the command of Agamemnon, to
avenge this outrage, and sailed with a great armament to Troy.[c] Their
enterprise, famous for all time as the Trojan War, stands quite by itself
in interest and importance among the traditions of the Heroic Age, and
demands exceptional treatment here.


THE TROJAN WAR

Historic criticism is almost a pendulum in its motion. Nowhere has this
been more vividly seen than in the attitude of prominent historians
toward the Trojan War and the poetical chronicle of it known as Homer’s
_Iliad_. Scholarly belief has passed through all imaginable grades of
opinion ranging between a flat denial that there was ever such a place as
Troy, such a war as the Trojan, or such a man as Homer, to an acceptance
of them all with an unquestioning credulity matching that of the early
Greeks.

It was textual criticism, the deadly work of the critical scalpel in the
verbal form of the poems that first destroyed the good standing of the
Homeric legend. It is the revivifying work of the pickaxe and shovel in
the actual ground as wielded by the excavator and archæologist that have
brought back the repute of Homer. A few years ago and a Gladstone arguing
for the reality of a Homer and of an Homeric epic was dismissed by the
professor as an old-fashioned ignoramus. To-day almost the same terms are
applied to those who cling to the fashion of yesterday and claim that the
Trojan War and Homer himself are myths. In the new swing of the pendulum,
however, the cautious will still avoid extremes.

What has already been said about the status of Greek myth applies in the
main to the Homeric poems. They are legends doubtless with some measure
of historical foundation, but they cannot be accepted by the critical
student of to-day as historical narratives in the narrow sense. But the
Homeric poems have an interest of quite another kind which gives them a
place apart among the legends of antiquity. This interest centres about
the personality of the author of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_. From the
earliest historic periods of Grecian life the authorship of the _Iliad_
and _Odyssey_ was unquestionably ascribed to a poet named Homer. If
doubts ever arose in the mind of any sceptical or critical person as to
the reality of Homer, such doubts were quite submerged by the popular
verdict. It was not generally claimed that Homer himself had written
the works ascribed to him,--it was long held, indeed, that he must have
lived at a period prior to the introduction of writing into Greece,--but
that the person whom tradition loved to speak of as the blind bard had
invented and recited his narratives _in toto_, and that these, memorised
by others, had been brought down through succeeding generations until
they were finally given permanence in writing, were accepted as the most
unequivocal of historical facts.

[Illustration: HOMER]

But in the latter half of the 18th century, these supposed historical
facts began to be called in question, Wolf[k] leading the van and holding
all scholarship in terror of his name for nearly a century. Critical
students of Homer were struck with numerous anomalies in his writings
that seemed to them inconsistent with the idea that the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_ had been composed at one time and by one person. To cite but
a single illustration, it was noted that the various parts of these
poems were not all written in the same dialect, and it seemed highly
improbable that any one person should have employed different dialects
in a single composition. Such a suggestion as this naturally led to
bitter controversies--controversies which have by no means altogether
subsided after the lapse of a century.[a] Later scholarship denies the
“stratification of language” in the poems.[b] But the controversy did not
confine itself to the mere question whether such a person as Homer had
lived and written, it came presently to involve also the subject of the
Homeric poems, in particular, of the _Iliad_.

Certain details aside, the Trojan War had been looked upon as an
historical event, quite as fully credited by the modern historian as
it had been by Alexander when he stopped to offer sacrifices at the
site of Troy. But now the iconoclastic movement being under way there
was a school of students who openly maintained that the whole recital,
by whomsoever written, was nothing but a fable which the historian
must utterly discard. It was even questioned whether such a place as
Troy had ever existed. Such a scepticism as this seemed, naturally
enough, a clear sacrilege to a large body of scholars, but for several
generations no successful efforts were made to meet it with any weapons
more tangible than words. Then came a champion of the historical verity
of the Homeric narrative who set to work to prove his case in the most
practical way. Curiously enough the man who thus championed the cause of
the closet scholars and poets and visionaries was himself a practical man
of affairs, no less experienced and no less successful in dealing with
the affairs of an everyday business than had been the man from whom the
iconoclastic movement had gained its chief support. This man was also a
German, Heinrich Schliemann.[l]

Having amassed a fortune, the income from which was more than sufficient
for all his needs, he retired from active business and devoted the
remainder of his life to a self-imposed task, which had been an ambition
with him all his life, the search, namely, for the site of Ancient
Troy. How well he succeeded all the world knows. But in opposition to
the opinions of many scholars he selected the hill of Hissarlik as the
site of ancient Ilium, and his excavations there soon demonstrated that
at least it had been the site not of one alone but of at least seven
different cities in antiquity--one being built above the ruins of another
at long intervals of time. One of these cities, the sixth from the
top,--or to put it otherwise, the most ancient but one,--was, he became
firmly convinced, Ilium itself.

The story of his achievements cannot be told here in detail,
and it is necessary to point the warning that Dr. Schliemann’s
excavations--wonderful as are their results--do not, perhaps, when
critically viewed, demonstrate quite so much as might at first sight
appear. There is, indeed, a high degree of probability that the
city which he excavated was really the one intended in the Homeric
descriptions, but it must be clear to any one who scrutinises the
matter somewhat closely, that this fact goes but a little way towards
substantiating the Homeric narrative as a whole. The city of Ilium may
have existed without giving rise to any such series of events as that
narrated in the _Iliad_. Dr. Schliemann himself was led to realise this
fact, and to modify somewhat in later years the exact tenor of some
of his more enthusiastic earlier views, yet the fact remains that the
excavations at Hissarlik must be reckoned with by whoever in future
discusses the status of the Homeric story.

This is not the place to enter into a statement of the multitudinous
phases scepticism has taken in dealing with the Trojan legend. The
story, whether pure fancy, as some have thought it, or a dramatised and
romantic version of actual history, is indispensable to any chronicle of
Greece or of Grecian influence.[a] Taking Homer as a basis, it may be
outlined as follows:


_The Town of Troy_

The origin of Dardanus, founder of the Trojan state, has been very
variously related; but the testimony of Homer to the utter uncertainty
of his birth and native country, delivered in the terms that he was
the son of Jupiter, may seem best entitled to belief. Thus however it
appears that the Greeks not unwillingly acknowledged consanguinity with
the Trojans; for many, indeed most, of the Grecian heroes also claimed
their descent from Jupiter. It is moreover remarkable that, among the
many genealogies which Homer has transmitted, none is traced so far into
antiquity as that of the royal family of Troy. Dardanus was ancestor in
the sixth degree to Hector, and may thus have lived from a hundred and
fifty to two hundred years before that hero. On one of the many ridges
projecting from the foot of the lofty mountain of Ida in the northwestern
part of Asia Minor, he founded a town, or perhaps rather a castle, which
from his own name was called Dardania.

The situation commanded the narrow but highly fruitful plain, watered
by the streams of Simois and Scamander, and stretching from the roots
of Ida to the Hellespont northward, and the Ægean Sea westward. His son
Erichthonius, who succeeded him in the sovereignty of this territory, had
the reputation of being the richest man of his age. Much of his wealth
seems to have been derived from a large stock of brood mares, to the
number, according to the poet, of three thousand, which the fertility of
his soil enabled him to maintain, and which by his care and judgment in
the choice of stallions produced a breed of horses superior to any of
the surrounding countries. Tros, son of Erichthonius, probably extended,
or in some other way improved, the territory of Dardania; since the
appellation by which it was known to posterity was derived from his
name. With the riches the population of the state of course increased.
Ilus, son of Tros, therefore, venturing to move his residence from the
mountain, founded, on a rising ground beneath, that celebrated city
called from his name Ilion [or Ilium], but more familiarly known in
modern languages by the name of Troy, derived from his father.

Twice before that war which Homer has made so famous Troy is said to have
been taken and plundered: and for its second capture by Hercules, in the
reign of Laomedon, son of Ilus, we have Homer’s authority. The government
however revived, and still advanced in power and splendour. Laomedon
after his misfortune fortified the city in a manner so superior to what
was common in his age that the walls of Troy were said to be a work of
the gods. Under his son Priam, the Trojan state was very flourishing
and of considerable extent; containing, under the name of Phrygia,
the country afterwards called Troas, together with both shores of the
Hellespont and the large and fertile island of Lesbos.

A frequent communication, sometimes friendly, but oftener hostile, was
maintained between the eastern and western coasts of the Ægean Sea;
each being an object of piracy more than of commerce to the inhabitants
of the opposite country. Cattle and slaves constituting the principal
riches of the times, men, women, and children, together with swine,
sheep, goats, oxen, and horses, were principal objects of plunder. But
scarcely was any crime more common than rapes; and it seems to have
been a kind of fashion, in consequence of which the leaders of piratical
expeditions gratified their vanity in the highest degree when they could
carry off a lady of superior rank. How usual these outrages were among
the Greeks, may be gathered from the condition said to have been exacted
by Tyndareus, king of Sparta, father of the celebrated Helen, from the
chieftains who came to ask his daughter in marriage; he required of all,
as a preliminary, to bind themselves by solemn oaths that, should she
be stolen, they would assist with their utmost power to recover her.
This tradition, with many other stories of Grecian rapes, on whatsoever
founded, indicates with certainty the opinion of the later Greeks, among
whom they were popular, concerning the manners of their ancestors. But
it does not follow that the Greeks were more vicious than other people
equally unhabituated to constant, vigorous, and well-regulated exertions
of law and government. Equal licentiousness but a few centuries ago
prevailed throughout western Europe. Hence those gloomy habitations
of the ancient nobility, which excite the wonder of the traveller,
particularly in the southern parts, where, in the midst of the finest
countries, he often finds them in situations so very inconvenient and
uncomfortable, except for what was then the one great object, security,
that now the houseless peasant will scarcely go to them for shelter. From
the licentiousness were derived the manners, and even the virtues, of the
times; and hence knight-errantry with its whimsical consequences.


_Paris and Helen_

The expedition of Paris, son of Priam king of Troy, into Greece, appears
to have been a marauding adventure, such as was then usual. It is said
indeed that he was received very hospitably, and entertained very kindly,
by Menelaus king of Sparta. But this also was consonant to the spirit
of the times; for hospitality has always been the virtue of barbarous
ages: it is at this day no less characteristical of the wild Arabs than
their spirit of robbery; and in the Scottish highlands we know robbery
and hospitality flourished together till very lately. Hospitality indeed
will be generally found in different ages and countries very nearly in
proportion to the need of it; that is, in proportion to the deficiency of
jurisprudence, and the weakness of government. Paris concluded his visit
at Sparta with carrying off Helen, wife of Menelaus, together with a
considerable treasure: and whether this was effected by fraud, or as some
have supposed, by open violence, it is probable enough that as Herodotus
relates, it was first concerted, and afterward supported, in revenge for
some similar injury done by the Greeks to the Trojans.

An outrage however so grossly injurious to one of the greatest princes
of Greece, especially if attended with a breach of the rights of
hospitality, might not unreasonably be urged as a cause requiring the
united revenge of all the Grecian chieftains. But there were other
motives to engage them in the quarrel. The hope of returning laden with
the spoil of the richer provinces of Asia was a strong incentive to
leaders poor at home, and bred to rapine. The authority and influence of
Agamemnon, king of Argos, brother of Menelaus, were also weighty. The
spirit of the age, his own temper, the extent of his power, the natural
desire of exerting it on a splendid occasion, would all incite this
prince eagerly to adopt his brother’s quarrel. He is besides represented
by character qualified to create and command a powerful league;
ambitious, active, brave, generous, humane; vain indeed and haughty,
sometimes to his own injury; yet commonly repressing those hurtful
qualities, and watchful to cultivate popularity. Under this leader
all the Grecian chieftains from the end of Peloponnesus to the end of
Thessaly, together with Idomeneus from Crete, and other commanders from
some of the smaller islands, assembled at Aulis, a seaport of Bœotia. The
Acarnanians alone, separated from the rest of Greece by lofty mountains
and a sea at that time little navigated, had no share in the expedition.


_The Siege of Troy_

A story acquired celebrity in aftertimes, that, the fleet being long
detained at Aulis by contrary winds, Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter
Iphigenia as a propitiatory offering to obtain from the gods a safe
and speedy passage to the Trojan coast. To the credit of his character
however it is added that he submitted to this abominable cruelty with
extreme reluctance, compelled by the clamours of the army, who were
persuaded that the gods required the victim; nor were there wanting
those who asserted that by a humane fraud the princess was at last
saved, under favour of a report that a fawn was miraculously sent by the
goddess Diana to be sacrificed in her stead. Indeed the story, though
of such fame, and so warranted by early authorities, that some notice
of it seemed requisite, wants, it must be confessed, wholly the best
authentication for matters of that very early age; for neither Homer,
though he enumerates Agamemnon’s daughters, nor Hesiod, who not only
mentions the assembling of the Grecian forces under his command at Aulis,
but specifies their detentions by bad weather, has left one word about so
remarkable an event as this sacrifice.

The fleet at length had a prosperous voyage. It consisted of about twelve
hundred open vessels, each carrying from fifty to a hundred and twenty
men. The number of men in the whole armament, computed from the mean
of those two numbers mentioned by Homer as the complement of different
ships, would be something more than a hundred thousand; and Thucydides,
whose opinion is of the highest authority, has reckoned this within the
bounds of probability; though a poet, he adds, would go to the utmost of
current reports. The army, landing on the Trojan coast, was immediately
so superior to the enemy as to oblige them to seek shelter within the
city walls: but here the operations were at a stand. The hazards to
which unfortified and solitary dwellings were exposed from pirates and
freebooters had driven the more peaceable of mankind to assemble in
towns for mutual security. To erect lofty walls around those towns for
defence was then an obvious resource, requiring little more than labour
for the execution. More thought, more art, more experience were necessary
for forcing the rudest fortification, if defended with vigilance and
courage. But the Trojan walls were singularly strong: Agamemnon’s army
could make no impression upon them. He was therefore reduced to the
method most common for ages after, of turning the siege into a blockade,
and patiently waiting till want of necessaries should force the enemy
to quit their shelter. But neither did the policy of the times amount
by many degrees to the art of subsisting so numerous an army for any
length of time, nor would the revenues of Greece have been equal to it
with more knowledge, nor indeed would the state of things have admitted
it, scarcely with any wealth, or by any means. For in countries without
commerce, the people providing for their own wants only, supplies cannot
be found equal to the maintenance of a superadded army. No sooner
therefore did the Trojans shut themselves within their walls than the
Greeks were obliged to give their principal attention to the means of
subsisting their numerous forces. The common method of the times was to
ravage the adjacent countries; and this was immediately put in practice.
But such a resource soon destroys itself. To have therefore a more
permanent and certain supply, a part of their army was sent to cultivate
the vales of the Thracian Chersonesus, then abandoned by the inhabitants
on account of the frequent and destructive incursions of the wild people
who occupied the interior of that continent.

Large bodies being thus detached from the army, the remainder scarcely
sufficed to deter the Trojans from taking the field again, and could not
prevent succour and supplies from being carried into the town. Thus the
siege was protracted to the enormous length of ten years. It was probably
their success in marauding marches and pirating voyages that induced
the Greeks to persevere so long. Achilles is said to have plundered no
less than twelve maritime and eleven inland towns. Lesbos, then under
the dominion of the monarch of Troy, was among his conquests; and the
women of that island were apportioned to the victorious army as a part
of the booty. But these circumstances alarming all neighbouring people
contributed to procure numerous and powerful allies to the Trojans. Not
only the Asiatic states, to a great extent eastward and southward, sent
auxiliary troops, but also the European, westward, as far as the Pæonians
of that country about the river Axius, which afterwards became Macedonia.

At length, in the tenth year of the war, after great exertions of valour
and the slaughter of numbers on both sides, among whom were many of the
highest rank, Troy yielded to its fate. Yet was it not then overcome by
open force; stratagem is reported by Homer; fraud and treachery have
been supposed by later writers. It was, however, taken and plundered:
the venerable monarch was slain: the queen and her daughters, together
with only one son remaining of a very numerous male progeny, were led
into captivity. According to some, the city was totally destroyed, and
the survivors of the people so dispersed that their very name was from
that time lost. But the tradition supported by better authority, and in
no small degree by that of Homer himself, whose words upon the occasion
seem indeed scarcely doubtful, is, that Æneas and his posterity reigned
over the Trojan country and people for some generations; the seat of
government however being removed from Troy to Scepsis: and Xenophon has
marked his respect for this tradition, ascribing the final ruin of the
Trojan state and name to that following inundation of Greeks called the
Æolic emigration.


_Agamemnon’s Sad Home-coming_

Agamemnon, we are told, triumphed over Troy; and the historical evidence
to the fact is large. But the Grecian poets themselves universally
acknowledge that it was a dear-bought, a mournful triumph. Few of the
princes, who survived to partake of it, had any enjoyment of their
hard-earned glory in their native country. None expecting that the war
would detain them so long from home, had made due provision for the
regular administration of their affairs during such an absence. It is
indeed probable that the utmost wisdom and forethought would have been
unequal to the purpose. For, in the half-formed governments of those
days, the constant presence of the prince as supreme regulator was
necessary towards keeping the whole from running presently into utter
confusion. Seditions and revolutions accordingly remain recorded almost
as numerous as the cities of Greece. Many of the princes on their return
were compelled to embark again with their adherents, to seek settlements
in distant countries. A more tragical fate awaited Agamemnon. His queen,
Clytemnestra, having given her affection to his kinsman Ægisthus,
concurred in a plot against her husband, and the unfortunate monarch on
his return to Argos was assassinated; those of his friends who escaped
the massacre were compelled to fly with his son Orestes; and, so strong
was the party which their long possession of the government had enabled
the conspirators to form, the usurper obtained complete possession of the
throne. Orestes found refuge at Athens; where alone among the Grecian
states there seems to have been then a constitution capable of bearing
both the absence and the return of the army and its commander without any
essential derangement.

Such were the Trojan war and its consequences, according to the best of
the unconnected and defective accounts remaining, among which those of
Homer have always held the first rank. In modern times, as we have seen,
the authority of the great poet as an historian has been more questioned.
It is of highest importance to the history of the early ages that it
should have its due weight; and it may therefore be proper to mention
here some of the circumstances which principally establish its authority;
others will occur hereafter. It should be observed then that in Homer’s
age poets were the only historians; whence, though it does not at all
follow that poets would so adhere to certain truth as not to introduce
ornament, yet it necessarily follows that veracity in historical
narration would make a large share of a poet’s merit in public opinion, a
circumstance which the common use of written records and prose histories
instantly and totally altered. The probability and the very remarkable
consistency of Homer’s historical anecdotes, variously dispersed as they
are among his poetical details and embellishments, form a second and
powerful testimony. Indeed, the connection and the clearness of Grecian
history, through the very early times of which Homer has treated, appear
very extraordinary when compared with the darkness and uncertainty that
begin in the instant of our losing his guidance, and continue through
ages.[h]


CHARACTER AND SPIRIT OF THE HEROIC AGE

In the tales of Grecian mythology a great difference is apparent
between the earlier and later centuries of the heroic age. They show
us a considerable progress in culture during the course of the period.
The legends of Perseus, Hercules, and Theseus, or of the battle of
the Lapithæ and Centauri, depict the early Greeks as a half wild race
tormented by fierce animals, robbers, and tyrants. Giants, fearful
snakes, and other monsters, also adventures in the nether world, often
appear in these legends, and the Grecians seem to be engaged in a battle
with the wildness of nature and with their own crudity. The same land
appears utterly different in the legends and poems of the Trojan war and
the other events of the later heroic age. In these legends the manners of
the Greeks are represented as friendlier and more peaceful, and, with a
few exceptions, we find no more real miracles, but everything points to a
quieter time and a more orderly state of affairs.

We have a poetical, yet essentially faithful, description of these last
centuries in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, the two oldest extant Grecian
literary works. Both poems are, besides the recital of a part of the
heroic legends, a true picture of the customs, the conquering spirit, and
the domestic as well as public life of the Greeks at the time of the
Trojan war and immediately after it. The Grecians at that time do not
seem to have been a very numerous people. They lived in small states,
with central cities in active intercourse with one another, not differing
much in their ways of life, customs, and language. They were a rustic,
warlike race, who rejoiced in simple customs and led a happy existence
under a friendly sky. The similarity of religion, language, and customs
made the Greeks of that time, as it were, members of a great organism,
holding together although divided into many tribes and states. At the end
of the heroic age some of the tribes were brought even closer together
by near relationship and by means of temples and feasts in common. But
the link that held them all together had not as yet become a clear
conviction; therefore, so far there was no joint name for the Greek
nation.

Agriculture and cattle raising were the principal occupations of the
people. Besides this they had few industries. Other sources of wealth
were the chase, fishing, and war. The agriculture consisted of corn and
wine-growing and horticulture. The ox was the draught animal, donkeys
and mules were used for transport, horses were but seldom used for
riding, but they drew the chariots in time of war. The herds consisted
principally of cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. Slaves were used for the
lower work. These were purchased from sea-robbers, obtained in victorious
wars, or born in the house. They had a knowledge of navigation, although
their ships generally had no decks, and were worked more by means of oars
than sails. There was no commerce on a large scale; war and piracy served
instead as a means of obtaining riches. Many metals were known; they used
iron, the working of which was still difficult. Coinage was not used at
all, or, at all events, very little. Weaving was the work of women; the
best woven stuffs, however, were obtained from the Phœnicians, who were
the reigning commercial people of the Grecian seas. They made various
kinds of arms, which were in part of artistic workmanship, ornaments
and vessels of metal, ivory, clay, and wood. The descriptions of these
objects show that the taste for plastic art, that is, the representation
of beautiful forms, was already awakened among them. They possessed
further a knowledge of architecture; towns and villages are mentioned,
also walls with towers and gates. The houses of princes were built of
stone; they contained large and lofty rooms, as well as gardens and halls.

Caste was unknown to the Grecians. The people in the heroic age, to be
sure, consisted of nobles and commons, but the latter took part in all
public affairs of importance, and the privileges of the former did not
rest upon their birth alone; an acquisition of great strength, bravery,
and adroitness was also necessary--virtues which are accessible to all.
The difference between the two classes was, therefore, not grounded, like
the oriental establishment of caste, on superstition and deception, but
on the belief that certain families possessed bodily strength and warlike
abilities, and were therefore appointed by the gods as protectors of the
country; that their only right to superiority over others lay in their
actual greater capacity for ruling and fighting.

The system of government was aristocratic monarchy, supported by the
personal feelings and co-operative opinions of all free men. The state
was thus merely a warlike assembly of vigorous men, consisting of nobles
and freemen, having a leader at their head. The latter was bound to
follow the decisions of the nobility, and in important affairs had to ask
the consent of the people.

The king was only the first of the nobility, and the only rights he
possessed which were not shared by them was that of commander in battle
and high priest. Therefore, if he wished to excel others as real ruler,
everything depended on his personality; he had to surpass others in
riches, bodily strength, bravery, discernment, and experience. The king
brought the sacrifice to the gods for the totality and directed the
religious ceremonies. He also sat in judgment, but mostly in company
with experienced old men from the nobility, being really arbitrator and
protector of the weak against the strong; for if no plaintiff appeared
there was no trial at the public judgment-seat. It was the king’s duty to
offer hospitality to the ambassadors of other states and to be hospitable
to strangers generally. His revenues consisted only of the voluntary
donations of his subjects, of a larger share in the spoils of war, and
of the produce of certain lands assigned to him. The only signs of his
royalty were the sceptre and the herald that went before him. He took the
first place at all assemblies and feasts, and at the sacrificial repasts
he received a double helping of food and drink. He was addressed in terms
of veneration, but otherwise one associated with him as with any other
noble, and there was no trace of the oriental forms of homage towards
kings among the ancient Greeks.

The nobility was composed of men of certain families to whom especial
strength and dexterity were attributed as hereditary prerogatives; they
sought to keep these up by means of knightly practices and to prove them
on the battle-field. As has already been said, they took part in the
government of the country. The common people or free citizens of the
second class were assembled on all important occasions, to give their
votes for peace or war, or any other matter of importance. The assemblies
of the people described in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ show the same
general participation in public affairs and that lively activity which
later reached such a high development in the Grecian republics. Beside
this, at that time bravery and strength showed what every man was worth,
and still more than mere bodily strength, experience, eloquence, and a
judicious insight into life and its circumstances brought to any one
honour and importance.

In time of war the decision depended more upon the bravery of the kings
and nobles than upon the fighting of the people, who arranged themselves
in close masses on the battle-field. The chiefs were not trained to be
generals or leaders, but rather brave and skilled fighters. Swiftness
in running, strength and certainty in throw, and skill in wrestling as
in the use of arms, of the lance and the sword, were the most important
items. Every leader had his own chariot, with a young companion by his
side to hold the reins, while he himself fought with a javelin. The
fortifications of the towns consisted of a trench and a wall with towers.
As yet they had no knowledge of how to conduct a siege. They knew of no
implement which would serve in the taking of a town.

Music and poetry played an important part in the lives of these warlike
people. These were inseparable from their meals, their feasts, and
military expeditions. The lyre, the flute, and the pipe were the musical
instruments in the heroic age; the trumpet was not used until the end of
that time. Flute and pipe were the instruments of shepherds and peasants.
The lyre, on the other hand, was played by poets and singers and even
by many of the kings and nobles, and always served as the accompaniment
of songs. The subjects of their songs were the deeds of living or past
heroes. There were singers or bards who composed these songs and sang
them while men stood round to listen and these bards were held in great
esteem.

Religion and politics were closely connected; but there was no trace of
a priesthood with predominant influence. The king was the director of
sacrifices, the presence of a priest not being required. There already
existed, to be sure, besides the ancient oracle of Dodona, the oracle
of Delphi in Phocis, which became so celebrated at a later period; but
neither had any great influence in the heroic age. On the other hand,
there were so-called soothsayers, who were supposed to possess much
wisdom and at the same time a kind of association with the gods. For this
reason they were consulted, so as to foretell the results of important
undertakings, and to discover the cause of general misfortunes as well as
a means of removing them.

The most renowned of these men were Orpheus, who played the part of
prophet in the expedition of the Argonauts; Amphiaraus, who joined the
expedition of the Seven against Thebes in the same character; Tiresias,
who was the prophet of the Thebans both at that time and in the war of
the Epigoni; and lastly Calchas, the soothsayer of the Greeks in the
Trojan war. Even these men had no influence to be compared with the
oriental priesthood.

They were really only looked upon as pacifiers of the outraged godhead
and as advisers; their soothsayings were not always respected, and when
their prophecies were unsatisfactory they had to face the anger of those
in power.

[Illustration: ZEUS

(From a Greek Statue)]

The religious belief of the heroic age was the origin of the later
national religion. It sprang probably from various sources. Therefore it
cannot be distinguished by any special belief like that of the Indians
and Egyptians. The religion of the Greeks was never a perfected system
and therefore not free from contradictions, especially as oriental
conceptions were introduced into it from ancient times. The Grecians of
this time believed heaven, or rather the summit of the towering Mount
Olympus, to be inhabited by beings, like the earth; they imagined that
these beings resembled human beings in appearance and inner nature, but
with the difference that they ascribed to them invisibility, greater
strength, freedom from the barriers of mortality, and a powerful
influence over earthly things. The life of the gods, according to the
representation of the heroic age, only differed from that of men in the
fact that it had a more beautiful colouring and higher pleasures. They
therefore looked upon the gods as personal beings and had that form of
religion known as anthropomorphism, the essential characteristic of which
is the belief that the gods resemble men. But joined in an inexplicable
manner with this view, was the idea that the gods were at the same time
natural phenomena and powers of nature. For instance Zeus, the king and
ruler in the kingdom of the gods, was also regarded as the god of the
atmosphere; Apollo of the sun; Poseidon the god of the sea; and the
woods, wells, valleys, and hills were believed to be inhabited by divine
beings called nymphs.

The king offered sacrifice for the people and every father for his house
and family. The religious ceremonies consisted chiefly of sacrifices and
prayers. There were but few temples, but on the other hand every town
had a piece of land set apart, on which there was an altar. They did not
feel bound to these holy places for the worship of the gods, but often
built an altar on some spot in the open field for prayer and sacrifice.
The sacrifice consisted in burning some pieces of flesh to the gods
and the pouring of wine into the fire; while the rest was consumed at
a general and merry feast. Even the appointed religious feast days had
quite a festive colouring: they feasted, drank, joked, held tournaments,
and listened while bards sang of the deeds of heroes. There was no trace
to be found among the religious ceremonies of the heroic Greeks of that
wild, intoxicating character which generally existed at the feasts of the
oriental people.

This was how the character of the later Grecian heroic age was formed.
They were a vigorous people, with warlike tastes and simple customs,
living under a mild heaven. All took part in public affairs, all were
free, and, in spite of a certain inequality among them, they were all
connected; and divided by no great contrasts in education, the community
felt no kind of oppression. The limited population of the country and the
possession of slaves permitted a careless and merry way of life. Rough
work was unknown to the greater part of the populace. They exercised
their bodies and steeled their strength with warlike undertakings,
hunting, practice with arms, and wrestling. Their mental intelligence
was directed to higher things through religious customs and soothsayers,
and developed rapidly by means of the merry association of the nobility,
frequent consultations about public affairs, and mutual military
expeditions; and, above all, by means of the poetical stories related by
the bards, who put into pleasant form what all felt, and were the real
teachers of a higher mental culture; and lastly by means of the elevating
power of music.

The Greek, under his bright heaven, looked upon life in the kind sunlight
of the upper world as a real life; but that of the lower regions
seemed to him, even if he obtained the greatest honours, and reigned
like Achilles “over the entire dead as king,” only a sombre picture
as compared with the upper world: he loved life and did not throw it
ostentatiously away, where there was no necessity. He did not look upon
flying from a stronger foe as disgrace; swiftness of foot was regarded by
him as a heroic merit, like cunning and a mighty arm.[d]


GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE

If we endeavour to ascertain the extent of Homer’s geographical
knowledge, we find ourselves almost confined to Greece and the Ægean.
Beyond this circle all is foreign and obscure: and the looseness with
which he describes the more distant regions, especially when contrasted
with his accurate delineation of those which were familiar to him,
indicates that as to the others he was mostly left to depend on vague
rumours, which he might mould at his pleasure. In the catalogue indeed
of the Trojan auxiliaries, which probably comprises all the information
which the Greeks had acquired concerning that part of the world at the
time it was composed, the names of several nations in the interior of
Asia Minor are enumerated. The remotest are probably the Halizonians of
Alyba, whose country may, as Strabo supposes, be that of the Chaldeans
on the Euxine. On the southern side of the peninsula the Lycians appear
as a very distant race, whose land is therefore a fit scene for fabulous
adventures: on its confines are the haunts of the monstrous Chimæra,
and the territory of the Amazons: farther eastward the mountains of the
fierce Solymi, from which Poseidon, on his return from the Ethiopians,
descries the bark of Ulysses sailing on the western sea. These Ethiopians
are placed by the poet at the extremity of the earth; but as they are
visited by Menelaus in the course of his wanderings, they must be
supposed to reach across to the shores of the inner sea, and to border
on the Phœnicians. Ulysses describes a voyage which he performed in
five days, from Crete to Egypt: and the Taphians, though they inhabit
the western side of Greece, are represented as engaged in piratical
adventures on the coast of Phœnicia. But as to Egypt, it seems clear
that the poet’s information was confined to what he had heard of a river
Ægyptus, and a great city called Thebes.

On the western side of Europe, the compass of his knowledge seems to be
bounded by a few points not very far distant from the coast of Greece.
The northern part of the Adriatic he appears to have considered as a vast
open sea. Farther westward, Sicily and the southern extremity of Italy
are represented as the limits of all ordinary navigation. Beyond lies a
vast sea, which spreads to the very confines of nature and space. Sicily
itself, at least its more remote parts, is inhabited by various races
of gigantic cannibals: whether, at the same time, any of the tribes who
really preceded the Greeks in the occupation of the island were known
to be settled on the eastern side, is not certain, though the Sicels
and Sicania are mentioned in the _Odyssey_. Italy, as well as Greece,
appears, according to the poet’s notions, to be bounded on the north by a
formidable waste of waters.

When we proceed to inquire how the imagination of the people filled
up the void of its experience, and determined the form of the unknown
world, we find that the rudeness of its conceptions corresponds to the
scantiness of its information. The part of the earth exposed to the
beams of the sun was undoubtedly considered, not as a spherical, but as
a plane surface, only varied by its heights and hollows; and, as little
can it be doubted, that the form of this surface was determined by that
of the visible horizon. The whole orb is girt by the ocean, not a larger
sea, but a deep river, which, circulating with constant but gentle flux,
separates the world of light and life from the realms of darkness,
dreams, and death. No feature in the Homeric chart is more distinctly
prominent than this: hence the divine artist terminates the shield of
Achilles with a circular stripe, representing “the mighty strength of
the river _Ocean_,” and all the epithets which the poet applies to it
are such as belong exclusively to a river. Homer describes all the other
rivers, all springs and wells, and the salt main itself, as issuing from
the ocean stream, which might be supposed to feed them by subterraneous
channels. Still it is very difficult to form a clear conception of
this river, or to say how the poet supposed it to be bounded. Ulysses
passes into it from the western sea; but whether the point at which he
enters is a mouth or opening, or the two waters are only separated by
an invisible line, admits of much doubt. On the farther side however is
land: but a land of darkness, which the sun cannot pierce, a land of
Cimmerians, the realm of Hades, inhabited by the shades of the departed,
and by the family of dreams. As to the other dimensions of the earth,
the poet affords us no information, and it would be difficult to decide
whether a cylinder or a cone approaches nearest to the figure which he
may have assigned to it: and as little does he intimate in what manner
he conceives it to be supported. But within it was hollowed another vast
receptacle for departed spirits, perhaps the proper abode of Hades.
Beneath this, and as far below the earth as heaven was above it, lay the
still more murky pit of Tartarus, secured by its iron gates and brazen
floor, the dungeon reserved by Jupiter for his implacable enemies.

Some of the epithets which Homer applies to the heaven, seem to imply
that he considered it as a solid vault of metal. But it is not necessary
to construe these epithets so literally, nor to draw any such inference
from his description of Atlas, who “holds the lofty pillars which keep
earth and heaven asunder.” Yet it would seem, from the manner in which
the height of heaven is compared with the depth of Tartarus, that the
region of light was thought to have certain bounds. The summit of the
Thessalian Olympus was regarded as the highest point on the earth, and
it is not always carefully distinguished from the aerian regions above.
The idea of a seat of the gods,--perhaps derived from a more ancient
tradition, in which it was not attached to any geographical site,--seems
to be indistinctly blended in the poet’s mind with that of a real
mountain. Hence Hephæstus, when hurled from the threshold of Jupiter’s
palace, falls “from morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve,” before he drops
on Lemnos; and Jupiter speaks of suspending the earth by a chain from the
top of Olympus.


NAVIGATION AND ASTRONOMY

A wider compass of geographical knowledge, and more enlarged views of
nature, would scarcely have been consistent with the state of navigation
and commerce which the Homeric poems represent. The poet expresses the
common feelings of an age when the voyages of the Greeks were mostly
confined to the Ægean. The vessels of the heroes, and probably of the
poet’s contemporaries, were slender half-decked boats: according to
the calculation of Thucydides, who seems to suspect exaggeration, the
largest contained one hundred and twenty men, the greatest number of
rowers mentioned in the catalogue: but we find twenty rowers spoken
of as a usual complement of a good ship. The mast was movable, and
was only hoisted to take advantage of a fair wind, and at the end of
a day’s voyage was again deposited in its appropriate receptacle. In
the day-time, the Greek mariner commonly followed the windings of the
coasts, or shot across from headland to headland, or from isle to isle:
at night his vessel was usually put into port, or hauled up on the
beach; for though on clear nights he might prosecute his voyage as well
as by day, yet should the sky be overcast his course was inevitably
lost. Engagements at sea are never mentioned by Homer, though he so
frequently alludes to piratical excursions. They were probably of rare
occurrence: but as they must sometimes have been inevitable, the galleys
were provided with long poles for such occasions. The approach of winter
put a stop to all ordinary navigation. Hesiod fixes the time for laying
up the merchant ship, covering it with stones, taking out the rigging,
and hanging the rudder up by the fire. According to him, the fair season
lasts only fifty days: some indeed venture earlier to sea, but a prudent
man will not then trust his substance to the waves.

The practical astronomy of the early Greeks consisted of a few
observations on the heavenly bodies, the appearances of which were
most conspicuously connected with the common occupations of life. The
succession of light and darkness, the recurring phases of the moon, and
the vicissitude of the seasons, presented three regular periods of time,
which, though all equally forced on the attention, were not all marked
with equal distinctness by sensible limits. From the first, and down to
the age of Solon, the Greeks seem to have measured their months in the
natural way, by the interval between one appearance of the new moon and
the next. Hence, their months were of unequal duration; yet they might
be described in round numbers as consisting of thirty days. It was soon
observed that the revolutions of the moon were far from affording an
exact measure of the apparent annual revolution of the sun, and that if
this were taken to be equal to twelve of the former, the seasons would
pass in succession through all the months of the year. This in itself
would have been no evil, and would have occasioned no disturbance in
the business of life. Seen under the Greek sky, the stars were scarcely
less conspicuous objects than the moon itself: some of the most striking
groups were early observed and named, and served, by their risings and
settings, to regulate the labours of the husbandman and the adventures of
the seaman.


COMMERCE AND THE ARTS

Commerce appears in Homer’s descriptions to be familiar enough to the
Greeks of the heroic age, but not to be held in great esteem. Yet in
the _Odyssey_ we find the goddess, who assumes the person of a Taphian
chief, professing that she is on her way to Temesa with a cargo of
iron to be exchanged for copper: and in the _Iliad_, Jason’s son, the
prince of Lemnos, appears to carry on an active traffic with the Greeks
before Troy. He sends a number of ships freighted with wine, for which
the purchasers pay, some in copper, some in iron, some in hides, some
in cattle, some in slaves. Of the use of money the poet gives no hint,
either in this description or elsewhere. He speaks of the precious metals
only as commodities, the value of which was in all cases determined
by weight. The _Odyssey_ represents Phœnician traders as regularly
frequenting the Greek ports; but as Phœnician slaves are sometimes
brought to Greece, so the Phœnicians do not scruple, even where they are
received as friendly merchants, to carry away Greek children into slavery.

The general impression which the Homeric pictures of society leave on
the reader is, that many of the useful arts,--that is, those subservient
to the animal wants or enjoyments of life,--had already reached such
a stage of refinement as enabled the affluent to live, not merely in
rude plenty, but in a considerable degree of luxury and splendour. The
dwellings, furniture, clothing, armour, and other such property of the
chiefs, are commonly described as magnificent, costly, and elegant, both
as to the materials and workmanship. We are struck, not only by the
apparent profusion of the precious metals and other rare and dazzling
objects in the houses of the great, but by the skill and ingenuity which
seem to be exerted in working them up into convenient and graceful forms.
Great caution, however, is evidently necessary in drawing inferences
from these descriptions as to the state of the arts in the heroic ages.
The poet has treasures at his disposal which, as they cost him nothing,
he may scatter with an unsparing hand. The shield made by Hephæstus for
Achilles cannot be considered as a specimen of the progress of art, since
it is not only the work of a god, but is fabricated on an extraordinary
occasion, to excite the admiration of men. It is clear that the poet
attributes a superiority to several Eastern nations, more especially to
the Phœnicians, not only in wealth, but in knowledge and skill, that,
compared with their progress, the arts of Greece seem to be in their
infancy. The description of a Phœnician vessel, which comes to a Greek
island freighted with trinkets, and of the manner in which a lady of the
highest rank, and her servants, handle and gaze on one of the foreign
ornaments, present the image of such a commerce as Europeans carry on
with the islanders of the South Sea. It looks as if articles of this
kind, at least, were eagerly coveted, and that there were no means of
procuring them at home.

It is possible that Homer’s pictures of the heroic style of living may
be too highly coloured, but there is reason to believe that they were
drawn from the life. He may have been somewhat too lavish of the precious
metals; but some of the others, particularly copper, were perhaps more
abundant than in later times; beside copper and iron, we find steel
and tin, which the Phœnicians appear already to have brought from the
west of Europe, frequently mentioned. There can be no doubt that the
industry of the Greeks had long been employed on these materials. We may
therefore readily believe that, even in the heroic times, the works of
Greek artisans already bore the stamp of the national genius. In some
important points, the truth of Homer’s descriptions has been confirmed
by monuments, brought to light within our own memory, of an architecture
which was most probably contemporary with the events which he celebrated.
The remains of Mycenæ and other ancient cities seem sufficiently to
attest the fidelity with which he has represented the general character
of that magnificence which the heroic chieftains loved to display. On
the other hand, the same poems afford several strong indications that,
though in the age which they describe such arts were, perhaps, rapidly
advancing, they cannot then have been so long familiar to the Greeks as
to be very commonly practised; and that a skilful artificer was rarely
found, and was consequently viewed with great admiration, and occupied
a high rank in society. Thus, the craft of the carpenter appears to be
exceedingly honourable. He is classed with the soothsayer, the physician,
and the bard, and like them is frequently sent for from a distance.
The son of a person eminent in this craft is not mixed with the crowd
on the field of battle, but comes forward among the most distinguished
warriors. And as in itself it seems to confer a sort of nobility, so it
is practised by the most illustrious chiefs. Ulysses is represented as a
very skilful carpenter. He not only builds the boat in which he leaves
the island of Calypso, but in his own palace carves a singular bedstead
out of the trunk of a tree, which he inlays with gold, silver, and ivory.
Another chief, Epeus, was celebrated as the builder of the wooden horse
in which the heroes were concealed at the taking of Troy. The goddess
Athene was held to preside over this, as over all manual arts, and to
favour those who excelled in it with her inspiring counsels.

The chances of war give occasion, as might be expected, for frequent
allusions to the healing art. The Greek army contains two chiefs who have
inherited consummate skill in this art from their father Æsculapius; and
Achilles has been so well instructed in it by Chiron, that Patroclus, to
whom he has imparted his knowledge, is able to supply their place. But
the processes described in this and other cases show that these might
often be the least danger from the treatment of the most unpractised
hands. The operation of extracting a weapon from the wound, with a knife,
seems not to have been considered as one which demanded peculiar skill;
the science of the physician was chiefly displayed in the application of
medicinal herbs, by which he stanched the blood, and eased the pain.
When Ulysses has been gored by a wild boar, his friends first bind up the
hurt, and then use a charm for stopping the flow of blood. The healing
art, such as it was, was frequently and successfully practised by the
women.

We have already seen that several of the arts which originally ministered
only to physical wants, had been so far refined before the time of Homer,
that their productions gratified the sense of beauty, and served for
ornament as well as for use. Hence our curiosity is awakened to inquire
to what extent those arts, which became in later times the highest glory
of Greece, in which she yet stands unrivalled, were cultivated in the
same period. Unfortunately, the information which the poet affords on
this subject is so scanty and obscure, as to leave room on many points
for a wide difference of opinion. If we begin with his own art, of which
his own poetry is the most ancient specimen extant, we find several
hints of its earlier condition. It was held in the highest honour among
the heroes. The bard is one of those persons whom men send for to very
distant parts; his presence is welcome at every feast; it seems as if one
was attached to the service of every great family, and treated with an
almost religious respect; Agamemnon, when he sets out on the expedition
to Troy, reposes the most important of all trusts in the bard whom he
leaves at home. It would even seem as if poetry and music were thought
fit to form part of a princely education; for Achilles is found amusing
himself with singing, while he touches the same instrument with which the
bards constantly accompany their strains. The general character of this
heroic poetry is also distinctly marked; it is of the narrative kind, and
its subjects are drawn from the exploits or adventures of renowned men.
Each song is described as a short extemporaneous effusion, but yet seems
to have been rounded into a little whole, such as to satisfy the hearer’s
immediate curiosity.


_The Graphic Arts_

An interesting and difficult question presents itself, as to the degree
in which Homer and his contemporaries were conversant with the imitative
arts, and particularly with representations of the human form. We find
such representations, on a small scale, frequently described. The garment
woven by Helen contained a number of battle scenes; as one presented by
Penelope to Ulysses was embroidered with a picture of a chase, wrought
with gold threads. The shield of Achilles was divided into compartments
exhibiting many complicated groups of figures: and though this was a
masterpiece of Hephæstus, it would lead us to believe that the poet must
have seen many less elaborate and difficult works of a like nature. But
throughout the Homeric poems there occurs only one distinct allusion
to a statue, as a work of human art. The robe which the Trojan queen
offers to Athene in her temple, is placed by the priestess on the knees
of the goddess, who was therefore represented in a sitting posture. Even
this, it may be said, proves nothing as to the Greeks. They can only be
admitted as additional indications that the poet was not a stranger to
such objects.

To pictures, or the art of painting, properly so called, the poet makes
no allusion, though he speaks of the colouring of ivory, as an art
in which the Carian and Mæonian women excelled. It must, however, be
considered that there is only one passage in which he expressly mentions
any kind of delineation, and there in a very obscure manner, though he
has described so many works which imply a previous design.[c]


THE ART OF WAR

[Illustration: PAVEMENT OF SOUTHWEST RAMPARTS OF THE WALLS OF TROY]

The art of war is among the arts of necessity, which all people, the
rudest equally and the most polished, must cultivate, or ruin will
follow the neglect. The circumstances of Greece were in some respects
peculiarly favourable to the improvement of this art. Divided into little
states, the capital of each, with the greater part of the territory,
generally within a day’s march of several neighbouring states which might
be enemies and seldom were thoroughly to be trusted as friends, while
from the establishment of slavery arose everywhere perpetual danger of
a domestic foe, it was of peculiar necessity both for every individual
to be a soldier, and for the community to pay unremitting attention to
military affairs. Accordingly we find that so early as Homer’s time the
Greeks had improved considerably upon that tumultuary warfare alone known
to many barbarous nations, who yet have prided themselves in the practice
of war for successive centuries. Several terms used by the poet, together
with his descriptions of marches, indicate that orders of battle were in
his time regularly formed in rank and file. Steadiness in the soldier,
that foundation of all those powers which distinguish an army from a
mob, and which to this day forms the highest praise of the best troops,
we find in great perfection in the _Iliad_. “The Grecian phalanges,”
says the poet, “marched in close order, the leaders directing each his
own band. The rest were mute: insomuch that you would say in so great
a multitude there was no voice. Such was the silence with which they
respectfully watched for the word of command from their officers.”

Considering the deficiency of iron, the Grecian troops appear to have
been very well armed both for offence and defence. Their defensive armour
consisted of a helmet, a breastplate, and greaves, all of brass, and
a shield, commonly of bull’s hide, but often strengthened with brass.
The breastplate appears to have met the belt, which was a considerable
defence to the belly and groin, and with an appendant skirt guarded also
the thighs. All together covered the forepart of the soldier from the
throat to the ankle; and the shield was a superadded protection for every
part. The bulk of the Grecian troops were infantry thus heavily armed,
and formed in close order many ranks deep. Any body formed in ranks and
files, close and deep, without regard to a specific number of either
ranks or files, was generally termed a phalanx. But the Locrians, under
Oïlean Ajax, were all light-armed: bows were their principal weapons; and
they never engaged in close fight.

Riding on horseback was yet little practised, though it appears to have
been not unknown. Some centuries, however, passed before it was generally
applied in Greece to military purposes; the mountainous ruggedness of
the country preventing any extensive use of cavalry, except among the
Thessalians, whose territory was a large plain. But in the Homeric armies
no chief was without his chariot, drawn generally by two, sometimes
by three horses; and these chariots of war make a principal figure in
Homer’s battles. Nestor, forming the army for action, composes the
first line of chariots only. In the second he places that part of the
infantry in which he has least confidence; and then forms a third line,
or reserve, of the most approved troops. It seems extraordinary that
chariots should have been so extensively used in war as we find they were
in the early ages. In the wide plains of Asia, indeed, we may account
for their introduction, as we may give them credit for utility: but how
they should become so general among the inhabitants of rocky, mountainous
Greece, how the distant Britons should arrive at that surprising
perfection in the use of them which they possessed when the Roman legions
first invaded this island, especially as the same mode of fighting was
little if at all practised among the Gauls and Germans, is less obvious
to conjecture.

The combat of the chiefs, so repeatedly described by Homer, advancing to
engage singly in front of their line of battle, is apt to strike a modern
reader with an appearance of absurdity perhaps much beyond the reality.
Before the use of fire-arms, that practice was not uncommon when the art
of war was at its greatest perfection. In Cæsar’s _Commentaries_ we have
a very particular account of an advanced combat, in which, not generals
indeed, but two centurions of his army engaged. The Grecian chiefs of
the heroic age, like the knights of the times of chivalry, had armour
apparently very superior to that of the common soldiers; which, with
the skill acquired by assiduous practice amid unbounded leisure, might
enable them to obviate much of the seeming danger of such skirmishes.
Nor might the effect be unimportant. Like the sharp-shooters of modern
days, a few men of superior strength, activity, and skill, superior also
by the excellence of their defensive armour, might prepare a victory by
creating disorder in the close array of the enemy’s phalanx. They threw
their weighty javelins from a distance, while none dared advance to meet
them but chiefs equally well-armed with themselves: and from the soldiers
in the ranks they had little to fear; because, in that close order, the
dart could not be thrown with any advantage. Occasionally, indeed, we
find some person of inferior name advancing to throw his javelin at a
chief occupied against some other, but retreating again immediately into
the ranks: a resource not disdained by the greatest heroes when danger
pressed. Hector himself, having thrown his javelin ineffectually at Ajax,
retires toward his phalanx, but is overtaken by a stone of enormous
weight, which brings him to the ground. If from the death or wounds of
chiefs, or slaughter in the foremost rank of soldiers, any confusion
arose in the phalanx, the shock of the enemy’s phalanx, advancing in
perfect order, must be irresistible.

Another practice common in Homer’s time is by no means equally
defensible, but on the contrary marks great barbarism; that of stopping
in the heat of action to strip the slain. Often this paltry passion
for possessing the spoil of the enemy superseded all other, even the
most important and most deeply interesting objects of battle. The poet
himself was not unaware of the danger and inconveniency of the practice,
and seems even to have aimed at a reformation of it. We find indeed in
Homer’s warfare a remarkable mixture of barbarism with regularity. Though
the art of forming an army in phalanx was known and commonly practised,
yet the business of a general, in directing its operations, was lost in
the passion, or we may call it fashion, of the great men to signalise
themselves by acts of personal courage and skill in arms. Achilles and
Hector, the first heroes of the _Iliad_, excel only in the character
of fighting soldiers: as generals and directors of the war, they are
inferior to many. Excepting indeed in the single circumstance of forming
the army in order of battle, so far from the general, we scarcely ever
discover even the officer among Homer’s heroes. It is not till most of
the principal Grecian leaders are disabled for the duty of soldiers
that at length they so far take upon themselves that of officers as to
endeavour to restore order among their broken phalanges.

We might, however, yet more wonder at another deficiency in Homer’s art
of war, were it not still universal throughout those rich and populous
countries where mankind was first civilised. Even among the Turks,
who, far as they have spread over the finest part of Europe, retain
pertinaciously every defect of their ancient Asiatic customs, the easy
and apparently obvious precaution of posting and relieving sentries,
so essential to the safety of armies, has never obtained. When, in
the ill turn of the Grecian affairs, constant readiness for defence
became more especially necessary, it is mentioned as an instance of
soldiership in the active Diomedes, that he slept on his arms without
his tent: but no kind of watch was kept; all his men were at the same
time asleep around him: and the other leaders were yet less prepared
against surprise. A guard indeed selected from the army was set, in the
manner of a modern grand-guard or out-post; but though commanded by two
officers high both in rank and reputation, yet the commander-in-chief
expresses his fear that, overcome with fatigue, the whole might fall
asleep and totally forget their duty. The Trojans, who at the same
time, after their success, slept on the field of battle, had no guard
appointed by authority, but depended wholly upon the interest which
every one had in preventing a surprise; “They exhorted one another to
be watchful,” says the poet. But the allies all slept; and he subjoins
the reason, “For they had no children or wives at hand.” However, though
Homer does not expressly blame the defect, or propose a remedy, yet he
gives, in the surprise of Rhesus, an instance of the disasters to which
armies are exposed by intermission of watching, that might admonish his
fellow-countrymen to improve their practice.

The Greeks, and equally the Trojans and their allies, encamped with great
regularity; and fortified, if in danger of an attack from a superior
enemy. Indeed Homer ascribes no superiority in the art of war, or even in
personal courage, to his fellow-countrymen. Even those inland Asiatics,
afterwards so unwarlike, are put by him upon a level with the bravest
people. Tents, like those now in use, seem to have been a late invention.
The ancients, on desultory expeditions, and in marching through a
country, slept with no shelter but their cloaks; as our light troops
often carry none but a blanket--a practice which Bonaparte extended
to his whole army, thereby providing a speedy and miserable death for
thousands in his retreat from Russia. When the ancients remained long on
a spot they hutted. Achilles’ tent or hut was built of fir, and thatched
with reeds; and it seems to have had several apartments.[h]


TREATMENT OF ORPHANS, CRIMINALS, AND SLAVES

There are two special veins of estimable sentiment, on which it may be
interesting to contrast heroic and historical Greece, and which exhibit
the latter as an improvement on the former, not less in the affections
than in the intellect.

The law of Athens was peculiarly watchful and provident with respect both
to the persons and the property of orphan minors; but the description
given in the _Iliad_ of the utter and hopeless destitution of the orphan
boy, despoiled of his paternal inheritance and abandoned by all the
friends of his father, whom he urgently supplicates, and who all harshly
cast him off, is one of the most pathetic morsels in the whole poem.
In reference again to the treatment of the dead body of an enemy, we
find all the Greek chiefs who come near (not to mention the conduct of
Achilles himself) piercing with their spears the corpse of the slain
Hector, while some of them even pass disgusting taunts upon it. We may
add, from the lost epics, the mutilation of the dead bodies of Paris
and Deiphobus by the hand of Menelaus. But at the time of the Persian
invasion, it was regarded as unworthy of a right-minded Greek to maltreat
in any way the dead body of an enemy, even where such a deed might seem
to be justified on the plea of retaliation.

The different manner of dealing with homicide presents a third test,
perhaps more striking yet, of the change in Grecian feelings and manners
during the three centuries preceding the Persian invasion. That which the
murderer in the Homeric times had to dread, was, not public prosecution
and punishment, but the personal vengeance of the kinsmen and friends
of the deceased, who were stimulated by the keenest impulses of honour
and obligation to avenge the deed, and were considered by the public as
specially privileged to do so. To escape from this danger, he is obliged
to flee the country, unless he can prevail upon the incensed kinsmen to
accept of a valuable payment (we must not speak of coined money, in the
days of Homer) as satisfaction for their slain comrade. They may, if
they please, decline the offer, and persist in their right of revenge;
but if they accept, they are bound to leave the offender unmolested,
and he accordingly remains at home without further consequences. The
chiefs in agora do not seem to interfere, except to insure payment of the
stipulated sum.

In historical Athens, this right of private revenge was discountenanced
and put out of sight, even so early as the Draconian legislation, and at
last restricted to a few extreme and special cases; while the murderer
came to be considered, first as having sinned against the gods, next
as having deeply injured the society, and thus at once as requiring
absolution and deserving punishment. On the first of these two grounds,
he is interdicted from the agora and from all holy places, as well as
from public functions, even while yet untried and simply a suspected
person; for if this were not done, the wrath of the gods would manifest
itself in bad crops and other national calamities. On the second ground,
he is tried before the council of Areopagus, and if found guilty, is
condemned to death, or perhaps to disfranchisement and banishment.
The idea of a propitiatory payment to the relatives of the deceased
has ceased altogether to be admitted: it is the protection of society
which dictates, and the force of society which inflicts, a measure of
punishment calculated to deter for the future.

The society of legendary Greece includes, besides the chiefs, the general
mass of freemen (λαοὶ), among whom stand out by special names certain
professional men, such as the carpenter, the smith, the leather-dresser,
the leech, the prophet, the bard, and the fisherman. We have no means of
appreciating their condition. Though lots of arable land were assigned in
special property to individuals, with boundaries both carefully marked
and jealously watched, yet the larger proportion of surface was devoted
to pasture. Cattle formed both the chief item in the substance of a
wealthy man, the chief means of making payments, and the common ground
of quarrels--bread and meat, in large quantities, being the constant
food of every one. The estates of the owners were tilled, and their
cattle tended, mostly by bought slaves, but to a certain degree also by
poor freemen called _thetes_, working for hire and for stated periods.
The principal slaves, who were entrusted with the care of large herds of
oxen, swine, or goats, were of necessity men worthy of confidence, their
duties placing them away from their master’s immediate eye. They had
other slaves subordinate to them, and appear to have been well-treated:
the deep and unshaken attachment of Eumæus the swineherd and Philœtius
the neatherd to the family and affairs of the absent Ulysses, is among
the most interesting points in the ancient epic. Slavery was a calamity,
which in that period of insecurity might befall any one: the chief who
conducted a freebooting expedition, if he succeeded, brought back with
him a numerous troop of slaves, as many as he could seize--if he failed,
became very likely a slave himself: so that the slave was often by birth
of equal dignity with his master--Eumæus was himself the son of a chief,
conveyed away when a child by his nurse, and sold by Phœnician kidnappers
to Laertes. A slave of this character, if he conducted himself well,
might often expect to be enfranchised by his master and placed in an
independent holding.

On the whole, the slavery of legendary Greece does not present itself as
existing under a peculiarly harsh form, especially if we consider that
all the classes of society were then very much upon a level in point
of taste, sentiment, and instruction. In the absence of legal security
or an effective social sanction, it is probable that the condition of
a slave under an average master, may have been as good as that of the
free Thete. The class of slaves whose lot appears to have been the most
pitiable were the females--more numerous than the males, and performing
the principal work in the interior of the house. Not only do they seem to
have been more harshly treated than the males, but they were charged with
the hardest and most exhausting labour which the establishment of a Greek
chief required; they brought in water from the spring, and turned by hand
the house-mills, which ground the large quantity of flour consumed in his
family. This oppressive task was performed generally by female slaves,
in historical as well as in legendary Greece. Spinning and weaving was
the constant occupation of women, whether free or slave, of every rank
and station; all the garments worn both by men and women were fashioned
at home, and Helen as well as Penelope is expert and assiduous at the
occupation. The daughters of Celeus at Eleusis go to the well with their
basins for water, and Nausicaa, daughter of Alcinous, joins her female
slaves in the business of washing her garments in the river. If we are
obliged to point out the fierceness and insecurity of an early society,
we may at the same time note with pleasure its characteristic simplicity
of manners: Rebecca, Rachel, and the daughters of Jethro, in the early
Mosaic narrative, as well as the wife of the native Macedonian chief
(with whom the Temenid Perdiccas, ancestor of Philip and Alexander, first
took service on retiring from Argos), baking her own cakes on the hearth,
exhibit a parallel in this respect to the Homeric pictures.

We obtain no particulars respecting either the common freemen generally,
or the particular class of them called _thetes_. These latter, engaged
for special jobs, or at the harvest and other busy seasons of field
labour, seem to have given their labour in exchange for board and
clothing: they are mentioned in the same line with the slaves, and were
(as has been just observed) probably on the whole little better off.
The condition of a poor freeman in those days, without a lot of land of
his own, going about from one temporary job to another, and having no
powerful family and no social authority to look up to for protection,
must have been sufficiently miserable. When Eumæus indulged his
expectation of being manumitted by his masters, he thought at the same
time that they would give him a wife, a house, and a lot of land near to
themselves; without which collateral advantages simple manumission might
perhaps have been no improvement in his condition. To be _thete_ in the
service of a very poor farmer is selected by Achilles as the maximum of
human hardship.[b]


MANNERS AND CUSTOMS

The Trojan war gives a great shock to Greece and hurls it for the first
time against Asia. Herodotus saw very well in this war, still mixed with
fables, but certain in its principal events and in its issue, the first
act of this long struggle between Greece and Asia, which will have for
end the expedition of Alexander.

The Eastern armies are richer, the habits more slack, the spirit less
active and less enterprising. Greece already lived its own life, it was
conscious of itself and practised in its own centre that military and
intellectual activity of which the Trojan War was the first development.

Marriage is no longer, as in the East, a sale, where the woman is
considered as a thing; an exchange of presents between the two families
seems to indicate a certain equality between the husband and wife. The
legitimate wife, in this society where the scourge of polygamy has not
passed, has a dignity and influence unknown in Greece. Penelope is
the companion of Ulysses. The nobleness of her sorrow, her authority,
are signs of the new destiny of women. The wife of Alcinous rules the
domestic affairs. Helen herself, after her return to family life, will
come and sit down, free and respected by the hearth of her spouse.
Lastly, Andromache is the true companion of Hector, and seems worthy of
sharing in all his fortune. But the woman is still far from being the
equal of man. Favourite slaves frequently take from her her influence,
and slavery, which the chances of war can bring down on the noblest,
vilifies her at every instant. That tripod, given to a victor in a
contest, is worth twelve oxen. We see the princes Iphitus and Ulysses,
labourers and shepherds, Anchises, who is shepherd and hunter. The shield
of Achilles shows us a king harvesting. Neleus gives his daughter in
marriage for a flock; Andromache herself takes care of Hector’s horses;
and Nausicaa, at a later and more civilised period than the _Odyssey_, is
depicted to us washing the linen of the royal family.

The guest almost makes part of the family; it is the gods who send him, a
touching and wholesome belief in that time of brigandage and of difficult
communications. You are going to spurn this guest; take care! perhaps
it is Jupiter himself. How many times have the gods not come thus to
try mortals? Also hospitality formed a sacred link which united, in the
most distant tribes, those who had received it to those who had given
it. This gave rise to duties of gratitude and friendship that nothing
could efface, and which kept their sway even to the encounters on the
battle-field. Glaucus and Diomedes met in the midst of the conflict and
exchanged weapons, which they would have a horror of staining with the
blood of a guest. It is not in vain that Hercules and Theseus travelled
over Greece, punishing the violators of hospitality. There were no castes
in the Grecian society, but slavery from the most ancient times, with the
right of life and death for sanction. War was the most ordinary cause
of servitude. The enemy spared became the slave of the victor; it is
thus that Briseis fell to the power of Achilles. There was no town taken
without slaves, and the inhabitants formed part of the booty. Hector
predicted slavery for his wife and his sons, and depicts Andromache as
fetching water from the fountain, and spinning wool in the house of a
Greek. The carrying off of children by pirates, who made a regular trade
of them, already maintained slavery; it is thus that Eumæus was sold
at Ithaca. This custom of taking away children from the inhabitants
of the coasts, lasted as long as the ancient world. The Greek comedy,
and after it Roman comedy, made of this carrying off the most ordinary
source of their intrigues. But if servitude was already rooted in Greek
civilisation, it was at least then singularly softened by the simplicity
of the customs, and above all by the rural and agricultural life, which
brought together in common works master and slave.

Poetry was already a fashion in these rising societies, and in the
middle of these hard wars the pleasures of the mind had their place.
The warriors, seated in circles, listened with an eagerness, full
of patience, to the interminable recitals of the _ædes_ or singers.
Competitions of music and religious poetry are already instituted in
the small towns, which call the rising art to their ceremonies. These
poetries were sung with the accompaniment of the lyre, and there was no
king who had not his singer. Agamemnon treated his with honour, and in
leaving, entrusted to him his wife and his treasures. This religious
and heroic poetry preceded Homer, who found established rules and fixed
types. As to the beauty of this primitive poetry, it must be judged by
the immortal creations of its most illustrious representative. Certainly
there were not many Homers, but he was not the only poet, and the
imposing simplicity of his poetry could not be a unique fact in this age
of chanted legends. Art and sciences were in infancy, but the curiosity
and admiration that the poets testify for the still imperfect work of
the artists, and for the fabulous tales of travellers, remind us that we
see at its beginning the most industrious and the most inventive race of
antiquity.[i]


FOOTNOTES

[6] [This estimate must not be taken too literally. The “Heroic Age” is
more a racial memory than a chronological epoch.]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER IV. THE TRANSITION TO SECURE HISTORY

BELOCH’S VIEW OF THE CONVENTIONAL PRIMITIVE HISTORY[7]


[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1200-800 B.C.]]

The singers of the epic poems as well as their hearers were as yet wholly
unconscious of the gap separating mythology from history. To them the
Trojan War, the march of the Seven against Thebes, the wanderings of
Ulysses and Menelaus, were historical realities and they believed just
as firmly that Achilles, Diomedes, Agamemnon, and all the other heroes
once really lived, as the Swiss until recently believed in the reality of
their Tell and Winkelried. Indeed until the fourth century hardly any one
in Greece dared to question the truth of these things. Even so critical
a person as Thucydides is still wholly under the influence of epic
tradition, so much so that he gives a statistical report of the strength
of Agamemnon’s army and tries to answer the question as to how such
masses of people could have been supported during the ten years’ siege of
Troy.

But the world which the epic described belonged to an immeasurably
distant past. The people of that time were much stronger than those
“who live to-day”; the gods still used to descend upon the earth and
did not consider it beneath them to generate sons with mortal women. In
comparison with that great by-gone age, the present and that which oral
tradition told of the immediate past seemed wholly without interest; and
if the epic did occasionally seize upon historical recollections, the
events were put back into the heroic age and became inseparably mingled
with mythical occurrences. As to how the present had grown out of this
heroic past, the poets and their contemporaries had not yet begun to ask.

The time came, however, when this question was put. People wanted to
know why the Greece of historical times looked so different from Homer’s
Greece; why for example Homer knows of no Thessaly; why he has Achæans
instead of Dorians living in Argolis; why, according to him, descendants
of Pelops instead of those of Hercules sit upon the thrones of Argos and
Sparta. It is the first awakening of the historical sense which finds
expression in such questions. The answer, however, was already given with
the question. It was clear that the Grecian tribes must have changed
their abodes to a great extent after the Trojan War; Hellas must have
been shaken by a real migration of peoples. But this single fact was not
sufficient. People wanted to know the impelling cause of the migrations,
and the particular circumstances under which they took place. The
answer was not difficult for a people endowed with such a facility for
speculation.

The very lack of colour in such accounts would be a sufficient proof for
the fact that we are not dealing here with pure speculation, not with
real tradition. Thus hardly anything more is told of the immigration of
the Thessalians into the river basin of the Peneus beyond the bald fact,
and that was sufficient to explain why Homer’s “Pelasgian Argos” was
called Thessaly in historic times. Of course the incomers must have had
a leader, consequently Thessalus, the eponymic hero of the people, was
placed at their head, a point in the story which of itself is sufficient
to stamp the whole narrative as a late invention. The Thessalians also
must have come from somewhere; but since Homer already places the races
south of Thermopylæ in the homes they actually occupied in history,
and since they could not make a Grecian tribe immigrate from Thrace or
Illyria, there was nothing else to do but to place the original home of
the conquerors in Epirus. This was all the more plausible as the name
Thessaly is really closely connected with Thessaliotis, the region about
Pharsalia and Cierium on the borders of Epirus, and first spread from
here to other parts of the country.

Even more characteristic perhaps is the account of the migration of
the Bœotians. According to Homer, Cadmeans lived in Thebes, Minyæ in
Orchomenos. Hence it followed that the Bœotians must have immigrated
after the Trojan War, like the Thessalians. But a great many Thessalian
names of places and religious practices occur in Bœotia. Hence nothing
was more simple than to make the Bœotians immigrate from Thessaly, thus
at the same time explaining what had become of the original inhabitants
of Thessaly after the influx of Thessalians. To be sure this original
population, as represented by the serfs (_penestai_) of the Thessalian
nobles, presented a very different appearance; still these two views
could very well be combined: one needed only to suppose that one part of
the former population of the region had fallen into bondage, and that
the other had emigrated. Moreover, Homer already mentions Bœotians in
the region which they occupied in historic times. That made the further
supposition necessary that a part of the people had already settled in
Bœotia before the Trojan War; or else the opposite hypothesis was made,
that the Bœotians had been driven out of Bœotia after the Trojan War by
the Pelasgians and Thracians, and had returned thither after several
generations. We see plainly from this example how all such suppositions
were dependent on the epic poems.

The migration of the Eleans is a similar case. Elis is an old district
name, consequently no Eleans can ever have existed outside of Elis.
But Homer mentions the Epeans as being inhabitants of the country;
consequently it was stated that the Eleans did not enter the Peloponnesus
until after the Trojan War, and that they came from Ætolia, where Oxylus,
the mythical ancestor of the Elean royal house, was also worshipped as a
hero. According to an opposite version Ætolia was settled by emigrants
from Elis; and these two views were then combined, and the Eleans were
made first to move to Ætolia and then, after ten generations, to move
back again. As a matter of fact the Homeric Epeans are nothing else
than the inhabitants of Epea in Triphylia, whose name was extended to
include the inhabitants of the surrounding districts, like the name of
the neighbouring Pylians, since the knowledge of the Ionic rhapsodists
concerning the western part of the Peloponnesus is very scanty.

Further, since Homer knows of no Dorians in the Peloponnesus, it was
clear that the peoples inhabiting Argolis and Laconia in historic times
could have come in only after the Trojan War; it remained only to
discover from whence. This was not difficult; there was in the middle
part of Greece, between Œta and Parnassus, a small mountainous district
whose inhabitants were called Dorians, quite like the Grecian colonists
on the Carian coast. This is not at all remarkable, since in a widely
extended linguistic territory the same local names must necessarily recur
in different places, as may be seen from any topographical dictionary.
Such homonyms by no means prove an especially close relationship between
the inhabitants of such localities; in the formation of Greek racial
tradition, however, they have played an important part.

The home of the Dorians was in this way established. People now wanted
to know the reason which had led them to seek new abodes so far away. In
close connection with this was the question as to how the descendants of
Hercules had come to reign over Argos, Sparta, and Messene. The answer
was given by the tradition of the return of the Heraclidæ. Hercules, it
was related, had belonged to the royal family of Argos, but had been
robbed of his rights to the throne and had died in exile; his sons,
or grandsons as was stated later for chronological reasons, had made
good their rights with the aid of the Dorians and had also established
the claims which Hercules had to dominion over Laconia and Messenia.
The regained lands were divided under the three brothers Temenus,
Cresphontes, and Aristodemus, or between the twin sons of the latter,
Procles and Eurysthenes. This was a tradition which could be put to
admirable political use. Supported by this title, Argos could claim the
hegemony over the whole of Argolis; Sparta could justify the subjection
of the small cities of Laconia and Messenia. That was why this tradition,
once come into existence, was quickly circulated and officially
recognised.

But the mention of Messenia shows that we are here dealing with a
comparatively recent stage in the growth of tradition, since this region
could not be claimed as a heritage by the Heraclidæ until after the
Spartan conquest between the eighth and seventh centuries.

Also the eponymi of the Spartan royal dynasties of Agis and Eurypon have
no place in the tradition of the Doric migrations; a sure sign that they
were first connected with Hercules artificially. And Temenus, from whom
the Argive kings traced their descent, was, according to the Arcadian
myth,--no doubt taken from Argos,--the son of Pelasgus, of Phegeus, or of
the Argolian hero Phoroneus. It was also related that Temenus had been
brought up by Hera--the goddess of the Argolian land. He was thus an old
Argive hero who originally had nothing whatever to do with Hercules.
Just as little was known about the Doric migration on the island of
Cos at the time when the genealogy of its ruling dynasty was written,
since the latter is not traced back to Temenus, but directly to Hercules
through his son Thessalus. And anyway Hercules, as we have seen, is not
a “Doric” divinity at all, but a Bœotian, whose cult was extended to the
neighbouring countries of Bœotia, only after the colonisation of Asia
Minor. The tradition concerning the return of the Heraclidæ is thus seen
to have come into existence long after the immigration of the Dorians
into the Peloponnesus, with which it is inseparably connected. This
tradition is first mentioned by Tyrtæus towards the end of the seventh
century and in the epic poem _Ægimios_, ascribed to Hesiod, which may
have been written at the same time, or a little later. That was the
period when the Homeric poems became popular in European Greece; both
Tyrtæus and Hesiod are wholly under their influence. Moreover it is clear
that an immigration of Dorians from middle Greece into the Peloponnesus
could be talked of only after the Doric name had been carried from the
colonies of Asia Minor to the west coast of the Ægean Sea, which did
not happen until post-Homeric times. In the same way the legend of the
Thessalian migration could have grown up only after the inhabitants of
the Peneus river basin had become conscious of their racial unity and had
begun to designate themselves by the common name of Thessalians. This
must have taken place early in the eighth or seventh centuries, since, as
has already been stated, Homer is not as yet acquainted with this name,
whereas the latest part of the _Iliad_, the catalogue of ships, mentions
the eponymic hero of the people. Finally, the dependence of all these
legendary migrations upon the epic poems is shown by the fact that they
are connected only with regions which in Homer had a different population
than in historic times. The Arcadians and Athenians, on the other hand,
who already in Homer are found in the same districts they occupied in
later times, considered themselves autochthonous. Thus we see that Homer
had not only given the Greeks their gods, as Herodotus says, but their
ancient history also. We, however, do not need to be told that traditions
which did not grow up until the eighth or seventh century are entirely
worthless as helping to an understanding of conditions in Greece at a
time preceding the colonisation of Asia Minor.

After all this the question as to the internal evidence of the truth
of these traditions is really superfluous. Even a well-invented myth
is yet by no means history. Here, however, we are asked to believe the
most improbable things. The Doris on the Œta is a wild mountain valley,
measuring scarcely two hundred square kilometers in area, which could not
have contained more than a few thousand inhabitants, since farming and
grazing formed their sole means of support. In Homer’s time the eastern
Locrians were still so lightly armed that they were wholly unfitted for
fighting with the hoplites at close range; the Dorians who lived farther
inland than these Locrians cannot have been much further advanced several
centuries earlier. And a few hundreds or even thousands of such poorly
armed soldiers are to have conquered the old highly civilised districts
of the Peloponnesus with their numerous strongholds, and the superior
armour of their inhabitants? The very idea is an absurdity. No more can
we understand why the Dorians should have migrated precisely to Argolis,
and Laconia, and even to Messenia--places situated so far from their
home. The legend does indeed give a satisfactory answer to this question,
but anyone who cannot recognise Hercules, with his sons and grandsons,
as historical characters, is obliged to find some other motive for the
migration of the Dorians.

In other respects, also, there is absolutely no proof to support the
supposition of a migration of peoples upon the Grecian peninsula. The
“Mycenæan” civilisation was not, as has been supposed, suddenly destroyed
by an incursion of uncivilised tribes, but was gradually merged into the
civilisation of the classic period. Even Attica, in connection with which
there is no tradition of a migration, had its period of Mycenæan culture.
The so-called “Doric” institutions are limited to Crete and Laconia,
and in the latter country they are not older than the Spartan conquest
in the eighth century; hence they have nothing whatever to do with the
Doric migration. In the same way the serfdom of the Thessalian peasants
may very well have been the result of an economic development, like the
colonia during the Roman empire or serfdom in Germany after the end of
the Middle Ages. Also the differentiation of the Grecian dialects came
about, as we saw, after the colonisation of Asia Minor, and hence should
not be traced back to the migrations which took place within the Grecian
peninsula at some time preceding this period. And, in any case, after the
Dorians settled in the Peloponnesus they must have adopted the dialect of
the original inhabitants of the country, who were so far superior to them
in numbers and civilisation; just as no one doubts that the Thessalians
did the same after their immigration into the Peneus river basin. A
“religion of the Doric race,” however, exists only in the imagination of
modern scholars; Hercules himself, the ancestral god of the Dorians, is
of Bœotian origin. Finally, it is extremely doubtful if the Argives and
Laconians were any more closely related to each other than to the other
Grecian tribes--the so-called Doric Phyleans, at least, have until now
been traced only in Argolis and in the Argolian colonies. But even if a
closer relationship did exist between the two neighbouring tribes, it
would by no means necessarily follow that the Argo-Laconian people first
immigrated into the Peloponnesus at a time when the eastern part of the
peninsula had already reached a comparatively high grade of civilisation.
There is indeed no question but that the Peloponnesus got its Hellenic
population from the north, that is directly from middle Greece; and
it is very probable that, even after the Peloponnesus was already in
the possession of the Greeks, tribal displacements still took place in
Greece. But they occurred in so remote a period that they have left no
distinguishable trace, even in tradition. If the Greeks of Asia Minor
remembered only the bare fact of their immigration, how could a tradition
have been maintained of tribal wanderings which took place long before
this colonisation? It is an idle task to try to discover the direction of
these migrations or the more particular circumstances under which they
took place.

Hence it is a picture of the imagination which, since Herodotus,[e] has
been accepted as primitive Grecian history. But the problem which gave
rise to the traditions of mythical migrations still remains for us to
solve--the question as to why the epics present us with a different
picture of the distribution of Grecian tribes, from that found in
historic times. The answer to-day will naturally be different from the
one given two thousand years ago.

The epic poem designates Agamemnon’s followers, and indeed all the
Greeks before Troy, as Argives, Achæans, or Danaans--terms which are
used wholly synonymously even in the oldest parts of the _Iliad_. Now
we know that not only in Homeric times, but already centuries earlier,
before the colonisation of Crete and Asia Minor, Argolis was inhabited
by the same people that we find there in historic times. It would not of
itself be impossible to suppose that this people, who afterwards had no
common tribal name, should have called themselves Achæans or Danaans,
in prehistoric times, although it would be difficult to understand how
this tribal name could have been lost. But as a matter of fact a tribe
called Danaan never did exist. Danaus is an old Argive hero who is said
to have transformed the waterless Argos into a well-watered country;
his daughters, the Danaides, are water nymphs; Danæ also, the mother
of the solar hero Perseus, and herself a goddess, cannot be separated
from Danaus. The Danaans, accordingly, are the “people of Danaus”; they
belong like him to tradition, and have been transposed from heaven to
earth like the Cadmeans and Minyæ to whom we shall return later on. The
name Achæan, however, was applied in historic times to the inhabitants
of the northern coast of the Peloponnesus and of the south of Thessaly,
and it is hardly probable that it should have been more widely spread
in historic times. Agamemnon seems rather, according to the oldest
tradition, to have been a Thessalian prince, like Achilles, who continued
to be regarded as such. At the time, however, when the epic was being
formed in Ionia, the Peloponnesian Argos outshone all other parts of
the Grecian peninsula, and the poets in consequence were obliged to
transpose the governmental seat of the powerful ruler from Thessaly to
the Peloponnesus. His Achæans of course migrated with him.

Since, now, in Homer the name Achæan includes all the Grecian tribes
under Agamemnon’s command, it could no longer be used to designate the
inhabitants of one single region. Consequently in the epic the name
Achaia is not used for the northern coast of the Peloponnesus, but this
region is simply called “coast-land,” or Ægialea. This then gave rise to
the tradition--if we still call such combinations tradition--that the
Achæans who were driven out of Laconia by the Dorians had settled in
Ægialea and given their name to the country. Ionians were said to have
lived there previously, a theory which was supported by the existence of
a sanctuary of the Heliconian Poseidon on the promontory of Mycale.

Furthermore Homer mentions various peoples upon the Grecian peninsula
and the surrounding islands, which in historic times no longer existed
there; for example, the Abantes, who appear in the catalogue of ships
as inhabitants of Eubœa, whereas in the rest of the _Iliad_ they are
not localised. It is possible that there has here been a preservation
of the old tribal name of the Eubœans, which later must have been lost;
but it is also just as possible, and more probable, that the Abantes
had originally nothing whatever to do with Eubœa, but that they were
the inhabitants of Abæ in Phocis, whose name then, for the sake of
some theory, was transferred to the neighbouring island. The Caucones
according to the _Telemachus_ must have dwelt in the western part of
the Peloponnesus, not far from Pylus, whereas the _Iliad_ calls them
allies of the Trojans; and in reality even in historic times Caucones
are said to have been found on the Paphlagonian coast. The name was thus
evidently transferred from Asia Minor to the Peloponnesus, for which the
river Caucon near Dyme in Achaia may have given a reason. A comparatively
late part of the _Iliad_ tells of a war between the Curetes and the
inhabitants of Calydon in Ætolia. In Hesiod, on the other hand, the
Curetes are divine beings, related to the nymphs and satyrs. They appear
also as beneficent dæmons in the Cretan folk-lore; they are said to have
taught mankind all sorts of useful arts and also to have brought up the
infant Zeus. They belong thus to mythology, not to history. They were
probably located in Ætolia only because there was a mountain there called
Curion; and as a matter of course it was said that they had immigrated
from Crete. Since on the Ætolian coast at the foot of the Curion there
was a city called Chalcis, they were further transferred to the Eubœan
Chalcis.

There are also other cases in pre-Homeric times of mythical people having
been transposed from heaven to earth--thus the Danaans of whom we have
already spoken; furthermore, the Lapithæ, who are said to have lived in
the northern part of Thessaly at the foot of Olympus and Ossa. Their
close association with the centaurs leaves no doubt that they, like the
latter, belong to the realm of mythology. Closely related to them are
the Phlegyæ. The _Iliad_ gives us a picture of Ares, as he advances
to battle in their ranks, but leaves their dwelling-place indefinite;
later authorities placed it in Thessaly or in the valley of the Bœotian
Cephisus. Coronis, the mother of Æsculapius, belonged to this tribe;
also Ixion, who laid violent hands on Hera. Finally, the Phlegyæ are
said to have burned the Delphic temple and in punishment therefor were
destroyed by Apollo by lightning and an earthquake. The Minyæ also belong
to this circle. They compose the crew of the ship _Argo_, which goes into
the distant sun-land of the east to bring back from thence the Golden
Fleece; the daughter of their tribal hero, Minyas, is Persephone, and
no further proof is necessary to show that he himself is a god and his
people mythical. Afterwards when the starting-point of the Argonauts was
localised in the Pagasæan Gulf, the Minyæ also became a Thessalian race;
from there, like their relatives the Phlegyæ, they were brought over to
Bœotia, where Orchomenos in Homer is called “Minyean.” And since the
_Iliad_ furthermore mentions a river Minyos in the later Triphylia, the
Minyæ were placed there also.

The Pelasgians play a much more important part in the conventional
primitive history of Greece than the last-mentioned peoples. Throughout
antiquity their name is connected with the western part of the great
Thessalian plain, the “Pelasgic Argos” of Homer, the Pelasgiotis of
historic times. The _Iliad_ speaks of the Pelasgians, famed for their
spears, who lived far from Troy in broad-furrowed Larissa, and probably
intends thereby the Thessalian capital. Thessalian Achilles prays to the
Pelasgian Zeus of Dodona before the departure of his friend Patroclus.
But the _Iliad_ as yet knows nothing of Pelasgian inhabitants of Dodona;
on the contrary the catalogue of ships reckons this sacred city as
belonging to the territory of the Ænianes and Perrhæbi, and it is Hesiod
who first makes the temple to have been founded by Pelasgians. Elsewhere
Pelasgians are mentioned by Homer only in Crete.

Otherwise the later accounts. Wherever within the circle of the Ægean Sea
the name of Larissa occurs, there Pelasgians are said to have lived--in
the Peloponnesian Argos, in Æolis of Asia Minor, on the island of Lesbos,
on the Cayster near Ephesus. It is possibly for this reason that the
_Odyssey_ places Pelasgians in Crete, since there, also, there was a
Larissæan field near Hierapytna, and Gortyn is said to have been called
Larissa in ancient times. From Argos the Pelasgians also became woven
into the myths of the neighbouring Arcadia, the ancestral hero of which,
Lycaon, is called by Hesiod a son of Pelasgus.

Pelasgians were said to have lived once in Attica also. The wall
which defended the approach to the citadel of Athens bore the name
Pelargicon, and as no one knew what that meant, it was said that it had
been corrupted out of Pelasgicon and that the citadel had been built by
Pelasgians. These Pelasgians were then said to have been driven out by
the Athenians and to have migrated to Lemnos. Why they went precisely
to this place we do not know, nor why these Lemnian Pelasgians were
called Tyrrhenians. Homer places the Sinties, that is a Thracian tribe,
in Lemnos. Remnants of the original inhabitants of the island, who were
driven out by the Athenians in about the year 500 B.C., were, a hundred
years later, still living on the peninsula of Athos and on the Propontis
near Placia and Scylace; they had preserved their old language, which was
different from the Greek.

In consequence of this and similar traditions, the theory was brought
forward in the sixth century that the Hellenes had been preceded in
Greece by a Pelasgic race. Since, however, some of the Grecian tribes, as
the Arcadians and Athenians, considered themselves to be autochthonous,
there was nothing for it but to call the Pelasgians the ancestors of
the later Hellenes, and so the whole change was reduced to one of
name only. This to be sure was in contradiction of the statements of
Homer, who names the Pelasgians among the allies of Troy, and hence
evidently considered them to be racially antagonistic to the Greeks.
The genealogists and historians of antiquity never got around this
contradiction, which was indeed inexplicable with the means at their
command.

Moreover, even if a Pelasgian people ever had existed in the wide
extent attributed to them by tradition, the Greeks of antiquity would
no more have conceived of them as being a single nation, than they
themselves became conscious of their national unity before the eighth
century; they would have designated the several Pelasgian tribes by
different names. This alone shows that we are not dealing here with
real historical tradition, quite apart from the fact that there is no
historical tradition from the time preceding the colonisation of Asia
Minor. Here also it is a question of mere theorising, and the theories
already presuppose the existence of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, even to
their later songs, so that they cannot be older than the seventh or sixth
century. Historically the Pelasgians can be traced only in Thessaly.
Pelasgiotis is thus equivalent to Pelasgia, just as Thessaliotis is
equivalent to Thessalia and Elimiotis to Elimea. The Pelasgiots, however,
of historic times were of Grecian origin and we have not the slightest
reason to suppose that the same was not true of prehistoric times.
Indeed the Thessalian plain in all probability is the place in which the
Hellenes first made permanent settlements.

A similar position to that of the Pelasgians is occupied by the Leleges
in tradition. Homer speaks of them as inhabiting Pedasus in southern Troy
and even Alcæus calls Antandrus, situated in this region, a Lelegean
town. Later comers regarded the Leleges as the original inhabitants of
Caria, where there was also a Pedasus; even in the Hellenistic period
they were said to have formed a clan of serfs in this region, like the
Heliots in Sparta. Old fortresses and tombstones, concerning the origin
of which nothing was known, were ascribed to the Leleges, just as we
speak of “Pelasgian” walls. It was also supposed that the whole Ionian
coast and the islands near it were once inhabited by these people. It
was natural to suppose a similar relationship for European Greece and
here also to let a Lelegean population precede the Hellenic. Supports for
this theory were found in a number of local names, such as Physcus and
Larymna in Locris, Abæ in Phocis, Pedasus in Messenia, which occur in an
identical or similar form in Caria. One of the two citadels of Megara was
called Caria; and Zeus Carios was worshipped in various parts of Greece.
Accordingly, Leleges or Carians were said to have lived in all these
places. The supposition that the southern part of the Hellenic peninsula
was occupied by a Carian population in a pre-Grecian period has, as we
have seen, a great deal in its favour; only we should avoid trying to
discover historical tradition in late suppositions, since Homer still
knows nothing of all these myths and Hesiod is the first to make Locrus
rule over the Leleges.

Nor does Homer know anything of Thracians outside of their historic
abodes to the north of the Ægean Sea. Later tradition places them in
Phocian Daulis and in Bœotia on the Helicon. The most direct cause for
this was probably furnished by the race of Thracidæ, which attained a
prominent position in Delphi and which had probably spread into other
Phocian cities as well; another reason was the name of the Daulian king,
Tereus, which had a Thracian sound, and lastly, the cult of the Muses
which had a home on the Helicon, as also on Olympus in Thracian Pieria.
Mysteries were connected with this cult even at a comparatively early
period, as is shown by the legends of Orpheus and Musæus. Hence Eumolpus,
the mythical founder of the Eleusinian mysteries, was held to be a
Thracian; his very name shows that he is connected with the worship of
the Muses, even if he were not expressly said to be the son of Musæus.
The historic value of this tradition is thus sufficiently demonstrated.

There were also traditions of immigrations from the Orient into Greece.
These were based in part upon solar myths, which have given rise to
similar legends among the most widely separated peoples; they also
reflect the consciousness that the rudiments of a higher civilisation
were brought to the Greeks from the East. In the form in which we have
them, these myths are without exception late formations, which presuppose
close relations between Greece and the old civilisations of Asia and
Egypt. In Homer, accordingly, there is no trace of them.

Thus Pelops is said to have come from Lydia or Phrygia to the peninsula
which has since borne his name. One might be tempted to regard him as
the eponymic hero of the Peloponnesus; but Pelopia was also the name of
a daughter of Pelias or of Niobe, and of the mother of Cycnus, a son
of Ares. Pelops’ mother also is Euryanassa, a daughter of Dione; his
paternal grandfather is Xanthus (the “shining one”); two of his sons
are called Chrysippus and Alcathous. These names leave no doubt as to
the fact that Pelops was originally a solar hero; hence also the story
of his contest with Œnomaus for the possession of Hippodamia. The name
Peloponnesus, which is also unknown to Homer, means accordingly “Island
of the sun-god”; Helios, as is well known, had a celebrated temple at
the most extreme southern point of the peninsula, on the promontory
of Tænarum. Thus Pelops, originally, was not materially different
from Hercules, who for the most part has crowded him out of cult and
tradition; just as the genealogy of the Peloponnesian dynasties was
traced back to Pelops in ancient times and to Hercules at a later period.
Nevertheless Pelops has at least kept the first place in Olympia.

The tradition of the immigration of Danaus from Egypt is closely
connected with the legend of the wanderings of Io, which could not
have taken on its present form until after Egypt was opened up to the
Hellenes, that is not before the end of the seventh century. The legend
concerning the Egyptian origin of the old Attic national hero Cecrops
grew up much later in the fourth or third century, and never attained
general recognition.

We have already seen how Phœnix and his brother Cadmus became Phœnicians.
Accordingly Phœnix’s daughter, or according to a later myth his sister,
Europa, was carried off by Zeus from Phœnicia to Crete, where she gave
birth to Minos. This alone makes it clear that Minos had nothing whatever
to do with the Phœnicians, but is a good Grecian god, as are also Phœnix,
Cadmus, Europa, his wife Pasiphaë (the “all enlightening”), his daughter
Phædra (the “beaming”), and Ariadne the wife of Dionysus. Minos, also,
afterwards fell to the rank of a hero; already in Homer he appears as the
king of Knossos, and later the Cretans trace their laws back to him. The
name Minoa occurs frequently in the islands and on the coast of the Ægean
Sea; also in Crete itself, and in Amorgos, Siphnos, and on the coast of
Megaris. Hence the conclusion was drawn that Minos had ruled in all these
places and must therefore have been a great sea-king, whose dominion
extended over the whole of the Cyclades and in fact over the whole
Ægean Sea. But in Sicily there was also a Minoa, a daughter city of the
Megarian colony of Selinus, and doubtless named after the small island of
Minoa near the Nisæan Megara. Thus the tradition arose that Minos had
proceeded to Sicily and there found his death. Since Selinus was founded
in the year 650 B.C., this myth cannot have come into existence before
the sixth century.

At the beginning of the fifth century all these traditions were
combined, and connected; on the one hand, with the myths which formed
the substance of the epic poems; on the other, with the oldest historic
recollections. The genealogies of the heroes as given in part by Homer
and more completely by Hesiod served as a chronological basis. At the
beginning were placed the Pelasgians, then the immigrations from the
east, of Danaus, Pelops, Cadmus, and others. Then followed the expedition
of the Argonauts, the march of the Seven against Thebes, the Trojan War,
and whatever else of similar nature was related in the epics. Next came
the age of the great migrations; first the incursion of the Thessalians
into the plains of the Peneus, and the Bœotian migration caused thereby,
then the march of the Dorians and their allies, the Eleans, into the
Peloponnesus, which was followed by the colonisation of the islands and
of the western coast of Asia Minor.

Thus was gained the misleading appearance of a pragmatic history of
Grecian antiquity; and although even in ancient times occasional critical
doubts were not wanting, this system as a whole was accepted by the
Greeks as historical truth.[c]


FOOTNOTES

[7] [Reproduced by permission from his _Griechische Geschichte_. The
subject here treated is one on which the authorities are by no means
agreed. Other views are presented in a subsequent chapter.]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER V. THE DORIANS

    Land of the lordly mien and iron frame!
    Where wealth was held dishonour, Luxury’s smile
    Worse than a demon’s soul-destroying wile!
    Where every youth that hailed the Day-God’s beam,
    Wielded the sword, and dreamt the patriot’s dream;
    Where childhood lisped of war with eager soul,
    And woman’s hand waved on to glory’s goal.

                                                  --NICHOLAS MICHELL.


From the earliest period there were two peoples of Greece who seem, at
least in the eye of later generations, to have been pre-eminent--the
Dorians and the Ionians. Of the former the leaders are the Spartans; of
the latter, the Athenians. In the main, so preponderant are these two
cities that, viewed retrospectively, Greek history comes to seem the
history of Athens and Sparta. This appears a curious anomaly when one
considers that these cities were not great world emporiums like Babylon
and Nineveh and Rome, but at best only moderate-sized towns. Yet they
influenced humanity for all time to come; and our study of Greek history
perforce resolves itself largely into the doings of the citizens of
these two little communities. We shall first consider the history of the
Dorians, who, though in the long run the less important of the two, were
the earlier to appear prominently on the stage of history.[a]

The Dorians derived their origin from those districts in which the
Grecian nation bordered towards the north upon numerous and dissimilar
races of barbarians. As to the tribes which dwelt beyond these boundaries
we are indeed wholly destitute of information; nor is there the slightest
trace of any memorial or tradition that the Greeks originally came from
those quarters. On these frontiers, however, the events took place which
effected an entire alteration in the internal condition of the whole
Grecian nation, and here were given many of those impulses, of which
the effects were so long and generally experienced. The prevailing
character of the events alluded to, was a perpetual pressing forward of
the barbarous races, particularly of the Illyrians, into more southern
districts.

To begin then by laying down a boundary line, which may be afterwards
modified for the sake of greater accuracy, we shall suppose this to be
the mountain ridge, which stretches from Mount Olympus to the west as far
as the Acroceraunian Mountains (comprehending the Cambunian ridge and
Mount Lacmon), and in the middle comes in contact with the Pindus chain,
which stretches in a direction from north to south. The western part of
this chain separates the farthest Grecian tribes from the great Illyrian
nation, which extended back as far as the Celts in the south of Germany.

In the fashion of wearing the mantle and dressing the hair, and also in
their dialect, the Macedonians bore a great resemblance to the Illyrians,
whence it is evident that the Macedonians belonged to the Illyrian
nation. Notwithstanding which, there can be no doubt that the Greeks were
aboriginal inhabitants of this district. The plains of Emathia, the most
beautiful district of the country, were occupied by the Pelasgi, who,
according to Herodotus, also possessed Creston above Chalcidice, to which
place they had come from Thessaliotis. Hence the Macedonian dialect was
full of primitive Greek words. And that these had not been introduced by
the royal family (which was Hellenic by descent or adoption of manners)
is evident from the fact, that many signs of the most simple ideas (which
no language ever borrows from another) were the same in both, as well as
from the circumstance that these words do not appear in their Greek form,
but have been modified according to a native dialect. In the Macedonian
dialect there occur grammatical forms which are commonly called Æolic,
together with many Arcadian and Thessalian words: and what perhaps is
still more decisive, several words, which, though not to be found in the
Greek, have been preserved in the Latin language. There does not appear
to be any peculiar connection with the Doric dialect: hence we do not
give much credit to the otherwise unsupported assertion of Herodotus, of
an original identity of the Dorian and Macednian (Macedonian) nations.
In other authors Macednus is called the son of Lycaon, from whom the
Arcadians were descended, or Macedon is the brother of Magnes, or a son
of Æolus, according to Hesiod and Hellanicus, which are merely various
attempts to form a genealogical connection between this semi-barbarian
race and the rest of the Greek nation.

The Thessalians as well as the Macedonians were, as it appears, an
Illyrian race, who subdued a native Greek population; but in this
case the body of the interlopers was smaller, while the numbers and
civilisation of the aboriginal inhabitants were considerable. Hence the
Thessalians resembled the Greeks more than any of the northern races
with which they were connected: hence their language in particular was
almost purely Grecian, and indeed bore perhaps a greater affinity to the
language of the ancient epic poets than any other dialect. But the chief
peculiarities of this nation with which we are acquainted were not of
a Grecian character. Of this their national dress, which consisted in
part of the flat and broad-brimmed hat καυσία and the mantle (which last
was common to both nations, but was unknown to the Greeks of Homer’s
time, and indeed long afterwards, until adopted as the costume of the
equestrian order at Athens), is a sufficient example. The Thessalians
moreover were beyond a doubt the first to introduce into Greece the
use of cavalry. More important distinctions however than that first
alleged are perhaps to be found in their impetuous and passionate
character, and the low and degraded state of their mental faculties.
The taste for the arts shown by the rich family of the Scopadæ proves
no more that such was the disposition of the whole people, than the
existence of the same qualities in Archelaus argues their prevalence
in Macedonia. This is sufficient to distinguish them from the race of
the Greeks, so highly endowed by nature. We are therefore induced to
conjecture that this nation, which a short time before the expedition of
the Heraclidæ, migrated from Thesprotia, and indeed from the territory
of Ephyra (Cichyrus) into the plain of the Peneus, had originally come
from Illyria. On the other hand indeed, many points of similarity in
the customs of the Thessalians and Dorians might be brought forward.
Thus, for example, the love for the male sex (that usage peculiar to
the Dorians) was also common among the Illyrians, and the objects of
affection were, as at Sparta, called ἀΐται; the women also, as amongst
the Dorians, were addressed by the title of ladies (δέσποιναι), a
title uncommon in Greece, and expressive of the estimation in which
they were held. A great freedom in the manners of the female sex was
nevertheless customary among the Illyrians, who in this respect bore a
nearer resemblance to the northern nations. Upon the whole, however,
these migrations from the north had the effect of disseminating among
the Greeks manners and institutions which were entirely unknown to their
ancestors, as represented by Homer.

We will now proceed to inquire what was the extent of territory gained by
the Illyrians in the west of Greece. A great part of Epirus had in early
times been inhabited by Pelasgi, to which race the inhabitants of Dodona
are likewise affirmed by the best authorities to have belonged, as well
as the whole nation of Thesprotians; also the Chaonians at the foot of
the Acroceraunian Mountains, and the Chones, Œnotri, and Peucetii on the
opposite coast of Italy, are said to have been of this race. The ancient
buildings, institutions, and religious worship of the Epirotes are also
manifestly of Pelasgic origin. We suppose always that the Pelasgi were
Greeks, and spoke the Grecian language, an opinion however in support of
which we will on this occasion only adduce a few arguments. It must then
be borne in mind, that all the races whose migrations took place at a
late period, such as the Achæans, Ionians, Dorians, were not (the last
in particular) sufficiently powerful or numerous to effect a complete
change in the customs of a barbarous population; that many districts,
Arcadia and Perrhæbia for instance, remained entirely Pelasgic, without
being inhabited by any nation not of Grecian origin; that the most
ancient names, either of Grecian places or mentioned in their traditions,
belonged indeed to a different era of the dialect, but not to another
language; that finally, the great similarity between the Latin and Greek
can only be explained by supposing the Pelasgic language to have formed
the connecting link. Now the nations of Epirus were almost reduced to a
complete state of barbarism by the operation of causes, which could only
have had their origin in Illyria; and in the historic age, the Ambracian
Bay was the boundary of Greece. In later times more than half of Ætolia
ceased to be Grecian, and without doubt adopted the manners and language
of the Illyrians, from which point the Athamanes, an Epirote and Illyrian
nation, pressed into the south of Thessaly. Migrations and predatory
expeditions, such as the Encheleans had undertaken in the fabulous times,
continued without intermission to repress and keep down the genuine
population of Greece.

The Illyrians were in these ancient times also bounded on the east by the
Phrygians and Thracians, as well as by the Pelasgi. The Phrygians were
at this time the immediate neighbours of the Macedonians in Lebæa, by
whom they were called Brygians (Βρύγες, Βρύγοι, Βρίγες); they dwelt at
the foot of the snowy Bermius, where the fabulous rose-gardens of King
Midas were situated, while walking in which the wise Silenus was fabled
to have been taken prisoner. They also fought from this place (as the
_Telegonia_ of Eugamon related) with the Thesprotians of Epirus. At no
great distance from hence were the Mygdonians, the people nearest related
to the Phrygians. According to Xanthus, this nation did not migrate to
Asia until after the Trojan War. But, in the first place, the Cretan
traditions begin with religious ceremonies and fables, which appear from
the most ancient testimonies to have been derived from Phrygians of
Asia; and secondly the Armenians, who were beyond a doubt of a kindred
race to the Phrygians, were considered as an aboriginal nation in their
own territory. It will therefore be sufficient to recognise the same
race of men in Armenia, Asia Minor, and at the foot of Mount Bermius,
without supposing that all the Armenians and Phrygians emigrated from
the latter settlement on the Macedonian coast. The intermediate space
between Illyria and Asia, a district across which numerous nations
migrated in ancient times, was peopled irregularly from so many sides,
that the national uniformity which seems to have once existed in those
parts was speedily deranged. The most important documents respecting
the connection between the Phrygian and other nations are the traces
that remain of its dialect. It was well known in Plato’s time that many
primitive words of the Grecian language were to be recognised with a
slight alteration in the Phrygian, such as πῦρ, ὕδωρ, κύων; and the great
similarity of grammatical structure which the Armenian now displays with
the Greek, must be referred to this original connection. The Phrygians
in Asia have, however, been without doubt intermixed with Syrians, who
not only established themselves on the right bank of the Halys, but on
the left also in Lycaonia, and as far as Lycia, and accordingly adopted
much of the Syrian language and religion. Their enthusiastic and frantic
ceremonies, however, had doubtless always formed part of their religion;
these they had in common with their immediate neighbours, the Thracians:
but the ancient Greeks appear to have been almost entirely unacquainted
with such rites.

The Thracians, who settled in Pieria at the foot of Mount Olympus, and
from thence came down to Mount Helicon, as being the originators of the
worship of Bacchus and the Muses, and the fathers of Grecian poetry, are
a nation of the highest importance in the history of civilisation. We
cannot but suppose that they spoke a dialect very similar to the Greek,
since otherwise they could not have had any considerable influence upon
the latter people. They were in all probability derived originally from
the country called Thrace in later times, where the Bessi, a tribe of
the nation of the Satræ, at the foot of Mount Pangæum, presided over the
oracle of Bacchus. Whether the whole of the populous races of Edones,
Odomantes, Odrysi, Treres, etc., are to be considered as identical
with the Thracians in Pieria, or whether it is not more probable that
these barbarous nations received from the Greeks their general name
of Thracians, with which they had been familiar from early times, are
questions which we shall not attempt to determine. Into these nations,
however, a large number of Pæonians subsequently penetrated, who had
passed over at the time of a very ancient migration of the Teucrians
together with the Mysians. To this Pæonian race the Pelagonians, on the
banks of the Axius, belonged; who also advanced into Thessaly, as will
be shown hereafter. Of the Teucrians, however, we know nothing excepting
that, in concert with (Pelasgic) Dardanians, they founded the city of
Troy--where the language in use was probably allied to the Grecian, and
distinct from the Phrygian.

Now it is within the mountainous barriers above described that we must
look for the origin of the nations which in the heroic mythology are
always represented as possessing dominion and power, and are always
contrasted with an aboriginal population. These, in our opinion, were
northern branches of the Grecian nation, which had overrun and subdued
the Greeks who dwelt farther south. The most ancient abode of the
Hellenes proper (who in mythology are merely a small nation in Phthia)
was situated, according to Aristotle, in Epirus, near Dodona, to whose
god Achilles prays, as being the ancient protector of his family. In
all probability the Achæans, the ruling nation both of Thessaly and of
the Peloponnesus in fabulous times, were of the same race and origin as
the Hellenes. The Minyans, Phlegyans, Lapithæ, and Æolians of Corinth
and Salmone, came originally from the districts above Pieria, on the
frontiers of Macedonia, where the very ancient Orchomenus, Minya, and
Salmonia or Halmopia were situated. Nor is there less obscurity with
regard to the northern settlements of the Ionians; they appear, as it
were, to have fallen from heaven into Attica and Ægialea; they were
not, however, by any means identical with the aboriginal inhabitants of
these districts, and had perhaps detached themselves from some northern,
probably Achæan, race. Lastly, the Dorians are mentioned in ancient
legends and poems as established in one extremity of the great mountain
chain of Upper Greece, viz. at the foot of Mount Olympus: there are,
however, reasons for supposing that at an earlier period they had dwelt
at its other northern extremity, at the farthest limit of the Grecian
nation.

We now turn our attention to the singular nation of the Hylleans
(Ὑλλεῖς, Ὕλλοι), which is supposed to have dwelt in Illyria, but is in
many respects connected in a remarkable manner with the Dorians. The
real place of its abode can hardly be laid down; as the Hylleans are
never mentioned in any historical narrative, but always in mythological
legends; and they appear to have been known to the geographers only
from mythological writers. Yet they are generally placed in the islands
of Melita and Black-Corcyra, to the south of Liburnia. Now the name
of the Hylleans agrees strikingly with that of the first and most
noble tribe of the Dorians. Besides which, it is stated, that though
dwelling among Illyrian races, these Hylleans were nevertheless genuine
_Greeks_. Moreover they, as well as the Doric Hylleans, were supposed to
have sprung from Hyllus, a son of Hercules, whom that hero begot upon
Melite, the daughter of Ægæus: here the name Ægæus refers to a river
in Corcyra, Melite to the island just mentioned. Apollo was the chief
god of the Dorians; and so likewise these Hylleans were said to have
concealed under the earth, as the sign of inviolable sanctity, that
instrument of such importance in the religion of Apollo, a tripod. The
country of the Hylleans is described as a large peninsula, and compared
to the Peloponnesus: it is said to have contained fifteen cities; which
however had not a more real existence, than the peninsula as large as
the Peloponnesus on the Illyrian coast. How all these statements are to
be understood is hard to say. It appears however that they can only be
reconciled as follows: the Doric Hylleans had a tradition, that they
came originally from these northern districts, which then bordered on
the Illyrians, and were afterwards occupied by that people; and there
still remained in those parts some members of their tribe, some other
Hylleans. This notion of Greek Hylleans in the very north of Greece,
who also were descended from Hercules, and also worshipped Apollo, was
taken up and embellished by the poets: although it is not likely that
any one had really ever seen these Hylleans and visited their country.
Like the Hyperboreans, they existed merely in tradition and imagination.
It is possible also that the Corcyræans, in whose island there was an
“_Hyllæan_” harbour, may have contributed to the formation of these
legends, as is shown by some circumstances pointed out above; but it
cannot be supposed that the whole tradition arose from Corcyræan colonies.

Here we might conclude our remarks on this subject, did not the following
question (one indeed of great importance) deserve some consideration.
What relation can we suppose to have existed between the races which
migrated into those northern districts, and the native tribes, and what
between the different races of Greece itself? All inquiries on this
subject lead us back to the Pelasgi, who although not found in every part
of ancient Greece (for tradition makes so wide a distinction between them
and many other nations, that no confusion ever takes place), yet occur
almost universally wherever early civilisation, ancient settlements,
and worships of peculiar sanctity and importance existed. And in fact
there is no doubt that most of the ancient religions of Greece owed
their origin to this race. The Jupiter and Dione of Dodona; Jupiter
and Juno of Argos; Vulcan and Minerva of Athens; Ceres and Proserpine
of Eleusis; Mercury and Diana of Arcadia, together with Cadmus and the
Cabiri of Thebes, cannot, if properly examined, be referred to any other
origin. We must therefore attribute to that nation an excessive readiness
in creating and metamorphosing objects of religious worship, so that
the same fundamental conceptions were variously developed in different
places, a variety which was chiefly caused by the arbitrary neglect of,
or adherence to, particular parts of the same legend. In many places also
we may recognise the sameness of character which pervaded the different
worships of the above gods; everywhere we see manifested in symbols,
names, rites, and legends, an uniform character of ideas and feelings.
The religions introduced from Phrygia and Thrace, such as that of the
Cretan Jupiter and Dionysus or Bacchus, may be easily distinguished by
their more enthusiastic character from the native Pelasgic worship. The
Phœnician and Egyptian religions lay at a great distance from the early
Greeks, were almost unknown even where they existed in the immediate
neighbourhood, were almost unintelligible when the Greeks attempted
to learn them, and repugnant to their nature when understood. On the
whole, the Pelasgic worship appears to form part of a simple elementary
religion, which easily represented the various forms produced by the
changes of nature in different climates and seasons, and which abounded
in expressive signs for all the shades of feeling which these phenomena
awakened.

On the other hand, the religion of the northern races (who as being of
Hellenic descent are put in contrast with the Pelasgi) had in early
times taken a more moral turn, to which their political relations had
doubtless contributed. The heroic life (which is no fable of the poets),
the fondness for vigorous and active exertion, the disinclination to
the harmless occupations of husbandry, which is so remarkably seen in
the conquering race of the Hellenes, necessarily awakened and cherished
an entirely different train of religious feeling. Hence the Jupiter
Hellanius of Æacus, the Jupiter Laphystius of Athamas, and, finally, the
Doric Jupiter, whose son is Apollo, the prophet and warrior, are rather
representations of the moral order and harmony of the universe, after the
ancient method, than of the creative powers of nature. We do not however
deny, that there was a time when these different views had not as yet
taken a separate direction. Thus it may be shown, that the Apollo Lyceus
of the Dorians conveyed nearly the same notions as the Jupiter Lycæus
of the Arcadians, although the worship of either deity was developed
independently of that of the other. Thus also certain ancient Arcadian
and Doric usages had, in their main features, a considerable affinity.
The points of resemblance in these different worships can be only
perceived by comparison: tradition presents, at the very first outset,
an innumerable collection of discordant forms of worship belonging to
the several races, but without explaining to us how they came to be thus
separated. For these different rites were not united into a whole until
they had been first divided; and both by the connection of worships
and by the influence of poetry new combinations were introduced, which
differed essentially from those of an earlier date.

The language of the ancient Grecian race (which, together with its
religion, forms the most ancient record of its history) must, if we
may judge from the varieties of dialect and from a comparison with the
Latin language, have been very perfect in its structure, and rich and
expressive in its flexions and formations; though much of this was
polished off by the Greeks of later ages: in early times, distinctness
and precision in marking the primitive words and the inflections being
more attended to than facility of utterance. Wherever the ancient forms
had been preserved, they sounded foreign and uncouth to more modern ears;
and the language of later times was greatly softened, in comparison with
the Latin. But the peculiarities of the pure Doric dialect are (wherever
they were not owing to a faithful preservation of archaic forms) actual
deviations from the original dialect, and consequently they do not occur
in Latin; they bear a northern character. The use of the article, which
did not exist in the Latin language or in that of epic poetry, can be
ascribed to no other cause than to immigrations of new tribes, and
especially to that of the Dorians. Its introduction must, nearly as in
the Roman languages, be considered as the sign of a great revolution. The
peculiarities of the Doric dialect must have existed before the period of
the migrations; since thus only can it be explained how peculiar forms of
the Doric dialect were common to Crete, Argos, and Sparta: the same is
also true of the dialects which are generally considered as subdivisions
of the Æolic; the only reason for the resemblance of the language of
Lesbos to that of Bœotia being, that Bœotians migrated at that period to
Lesbos. The peculiarities of the Ionic dialect may, on the other hand, be
viewed in great part as deviations caused by the genial climate of Asia;
for the language of the Attic race, to which the latter were most nearly
related, could hardly have differed so widely from that of the colonies
of Athens, if the latter had not been greatly changed.[b]


THE MIGRATION--THE VIEW OF CURTIUS

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1100 B.C.]]

It is with the advance of the Dorians that the power of the mountain
peoples makes its appearance from the north to take its share in the
history of nations. For centuries they had lagged behind the coast and
maritime races, but now they stepped in with all the greater impress
of sheer natural force, and all that was transformed and reformed as a
consequence of their conquering march, had a durability which lasted
throughout the whole period of Greek history. This is the reason that
in contradistinction to the “Heroic Age” ancient historians begin the
historical period with the first deeds of the Dorians.

But, for all that, the information concerning these deeds is none the
less scanty. On the contrary: as this epoch approaches, the old sources
dry up, and new ones are not opened. Homer knows nothing of the march of
the Heraclidæ [_i.e._, descendants of Heracles or Hercules]. The Achæan
emigrants lived entirely in the memory of past days, and cherished it
beyond the sea in the faithful memorials of song. For those who remained
behind, who had to submit themselves to a strange and powerful rule, it
was no time for poetry. The Dorians themselves have always been sparing
in the matter of tradition; it was not their way to use many words about
what they had done; they had not the soaring enthusiasm of the Achæan
race, and still less were they capable of spinning out their experiences
at a pleasing length, in the fashion of the Ionians. Their inclination
and ability were directed to practical existence, to the fulfilment of
definite tasks, to earnest occupations.

Thus, then, the great incidents of the Dorian emigration were left to
chance tradition, of which all but a few faint traces have been lost,
and this is why our whole information on the conquest of the peninsula
is as poor in names as in facts. For it was only at a later date, when
the national epos itself had long died out, that an attempt was made to
recover the beginnings of Peloponnesian history.

But these later poets could no longer find any fresh and living fountain
of tradition; nor is theirs that pure and unrestrained delight in the
images of the olden time, which constitutes the very breath of life in
the Homeric poem; but there is a conscious effort to fill out the gaps
in tradition, and to join the torn threads connecting the Achæan and the
Dorian period. They sought to unify the legends of various places, to
restore the missing links, to reconcile contradictions; and thus arose
a history of the march of the Heraclidæ, in which things that had come
about gradually and in the course of centuries, were related together
with dogmatic brevity.

The Dorians crossed over from the mainland in successive troops,
accompanied by their wives and children; they spread slowly over the
country; but wherever they gained a footing the result was a complete
transformation of the conditions of life by their agency. They brought
with them their household and tribal institutions; they clung with
tenacious obstinacy to their peculiarities of speech and custom; proud
and shy, they held aloof from the other Greeks, and instead of becoming
absorbed, as the Ionians did, into the older population, they impressed
on the new home the character of their own race. The peninsula became
Dorian.

But this transmutation came about in a very varied fashion; it did
not start from one point, but had three chief centres. The legend
of the Peloponnesus has expressed it in this wise: three brothers,
Temenus, Aristodemus, and Cresphontes, who were of the race of Heracles
[Hercules], the old rightful heir to the dominion of Argos, asserted the
claims of their ancestor. They offered common sacrifices on the three
altars of Zeus Patrous and cast lots among themselves for the various
lordships in the country. Argos was the principal lot, and it fell to
Temenus; Lacedæmon, the second, came to the children of Aristodemus, who
were minors, whilst the beautiful Messenia passed, by craft, into the
third brother’s possession.

This tale of the drawing of lots by the Heraclidæ, arose in the
Peloponnesus after the states had assumed their peculiar constitution.
It contains the reasons, derived from the old heroic past, for the
erection of the three metropolitan towns; the mythical authority for
the Peloponnesian claims of the Heraclidæ, and for the new state
organisation. The historical kernel of the legend is that, from the very
beginning, the Dorians represented, not the interests of their own race,
but the interests of their leaders, who were not Dorians, but Achæans;
this is why the god, under whose authority the division of the land was
made, was none other than the ancient god of the race of Æacidæ. Further,
the foundation of the legend lies in the fact that the Dorians, in order
to gain possession of the three chief plains of the peninsula, divided,
soon after their arrival into three hosts.

Each had its Heraclid as leader of the people. Each was composed of
three races, the Hylleans, Dymanes, and Pamphylians. Each host was an
image of the entire race. Thus the whole subsequent development of
Peloponnesian history depended on the manner in which the different
hosts now established themselves in the new regions; on the extent to
which, in the midst of the ancient people of the country and in spite of
the subservience of their forces to foreign leadership, they remained
faithful to themselves and their native customs; and on the method by
which mutual relations were established.


MESSENIA

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1100-1000 B.C.]]

The new states were in part, also new territories, as was, for instance,
Messenia. For in the Homeric Peloponnesus there is no country of this
name: its eastern portion where the waters of the Pamisus connect a
higher and lower plain with one another, belongs to the lordship of
Menelaus, and the western half to the kingdom of the Neleïdes which has
its centre on the coast. The Dorians came from the north into the upper
plain, and there obtained a footing in Stenyclarus. Thence they spread
farther and drove the Thessalian Neleïdes towards the sea. The high,
island-like ocean citadel of old Navarino, seems to have been the last
spot on the coast where the latter maintained themselves, till finally,
being more and more closely pressed, they forsook the land for the sea.
The island-plain of Stenyclarus now became the kernel of the newly-formed
district, and could thence be called Messene--that is, the middle or
inner country.

With the exception of this great supplanting of one nation by another
the change was effected more peacefully than in most other quarters. At
least the native legend knows nothing of forcible conquest. A certain
portion of arable land and pasture was to be given up to the Dorians; the
remainder was to be left to the inhabitants in undisturbed possession.
The victorious visitors laid claim to no special and favoured position;
the new princes were by no means regarded as foreign conquerors, but
were received with friendliness by the nation as relatives of the
ancient Æolian kings, and on account of the dislike to the house of the
Pelopidæ. With full confidence they and their following settled among the
Messenians, and evidently with the idea that under their protection the
old and new inhabitants might peacefully amalgamate into one community.

But after this their relations did not develop in the same harmless
manner. The Dorians believed themselves betrayed by their leaders, and in
consequence of a Dorian reaction Cresphontes found himself compelled to
overthrow the old order of things; to abolish equality before the law;
to unite the Dorians in one close society in Stenyclarus, and to make
this place the capital of the country, while the rest of Messenia was
reduced to the position of a conquered district. The disturbances went
on. Cresphontes himself became the victim of a bloody insurrection; his
family were overthrown and no Cresphontidæ followed. Æpytus succeeded.
He is by name and race an Arcadian, brought up in Arcadia whence he
penetrated into Messenia, then on the verge of dissolution. He gave
order and direction to the development of the country, and hence its
subsequent kings are called Æpytidæ. But the whole direction henceforth
taken by the history of the country is different, non-Dorian, unwarlike.
The Æpytidæ are no soldier-princes, but creators of order, and founders
of forms of religious worship. And these forms are not those of the
Dorians, but decidedly non-Dorian, old Peloponnesian, like those of
Demeter, Æsculapius, the Æsculapidæ. The high festival of the country was
a mystery-service of the so-called “great deities” and unknown to the
Dorian race, while at Ithome, the lofty citadel of the country, which
raises its commanding height between the two plains of the district,
ruled the Pelasgic Zeus, whose worship was considered the distinctive
mark of the Messenian people.

Scanty as are the relics preserved of the history of the Messenian
country, some very important facts undoubtedly underlie them. From
the first a remarkable insecurity reigned in this Dorian foundation;
a deep gulf between the commander of the army and the people, which
had its origin in the king’s connection with the ancient pre-Achæan
population. He did not succeed in founding a dynasty, for it is only in
subsequent legend, which here, as in the case of all Greek pedigrees,
seeks to disguise a violent break, that Æpytus is made to be the son of
Cresphontes. But the warlike Dorian nation must have become so weakened
by internal conflicts, that it was not in a position to assert itself;
the transformation of Messenia into a Dorian country was not carried
into effect, and thus the main lines of its history were determined. For
rich though the district was in natural resources, uniting as it did two
of the finest watersheds with a coast stretching between two seas and
well provided with harbours; yet the development of the State was from
the first unfortunate. There was here no complete renewal, no powerful
Hellenic revival in the district.

It was with far different success that a second host of Dorian warriors
pressed down the long valley of the Eurotas, which from a narrow gorge
gradually widens to the smiling plain of cornfields at the foot of
Taygetus, the “Hollow Lacedæmon.” There is no Greek territory in which
one plain is so decidedly the very kernel of the whole as it is here.
Sunk deep between rugged mountains and severed from the surrounding
country by high passes, it holds in its lap all the means of comfort and
well-being. Here on the hillocks on the Eurotas above Amyclæ the Dorians
pitched their camp, from which grew up the town of Sparta, the youngest
city of the plain.

If the Dorian Sparta and the Achæan Amyclæ existed for centuries side by
side, it is manifest that no uninterrupted state of war continued during
this period. Here, no more than in Messenia, can a thorough occupation of
the whole district have taken place, but the relations between the old
and new inhabitants must have been arranged by agreement. Here, too, the
Dorians dispersed through different places and mingled with the foreign
nation.


ARGOS

The third state has its kernel in the plain of the Inachus, which was
regarded as the portion of the first-born of the Heraclidæ. For the fame
of Atrides’ might, though it was chiefly fixed at Mycenæ, also extended
over the state which was founded on the ruins of the Mycenæan kingdom.
The nucleus of the Dorian Argos was on the coast, where between the sandy
estuary of the Inachus, and that of the copious stream of the Erasinus,
a tract of firm land rises in the swampy soil. Here the Dorians had
their camp and their sanctuaries; here their commander Temenus had died
and had been buried before he had seen his people in secure possession
of the upper plain; and after him this coast town preserved the name of
Temenium. Its situation shows that the citadels and passes farther inland
were maintained by the Achæans with a more steadfast resistance, so that
the Dorians were for a long time compelled to content themselves with a
thoroughly disadvantageous situation. For it was only by degrees that the
whole strip of shore was rendered habitable, and the swampy character of
the soil was, according to Aristotle, the main reason why the sovereign
town of the Pelopidæ was placed so far back in the upper plain. Now by
the advance of the Dorian might, the high rock citadel of Larissa also
became the political centre of the district, and the Pelasgian Argos at
its foot, which had been the oldest place of assembly for the population,
was once more the capital. It came to be the seat of the reigning family
of the line of Temenus, and the starting-point for the further extension
of their power.

This extension did not result from the uniform conquest of the district
and the annihilation of the earlier settlements, but from the despatch of
Dorian bands which established themselves at the chief points between the
Ionian and Achæan populations. This was also effected in different ways,
more or less violent, and radiating in two directions, on the one side
towards the Corinthian, on the other towards the Saronic Sea.

Low passes lead from Argos into the Asopus Valley. Rhegnidas the Temenid
led Dorian armies into the upper valley, where, under the blessing of
Dionysus, flourished the old Ionian Phlius, while Phalces chose the
lower vale at whose entrance, Sicyon, the ancient capital of the coast
district of Ægialea, spread itself over a stately plateau. At both places
a peaceful division of the soil appears to have taken place; and the same
was the case in the neighbourhood of the Phliasians, at Cleonæ.

It must be confessed that it is incredible that, in this narrow and
thickly populated territory, lordless acres were to be found with which
to satisfy the strangers’ desire for territory, and even more so that
the former land-owners willingly vacated their hereditary possessions;
but the sense of the tradition is that only certain wealthy families
were compelled to give place in consequence of the Dorian immigration,
whilst the rest of the population continued in their former situation and
were exempted from political change. The passion for emigration which
had taken possession of the Ionian families throughout the north of the
peninsula softened the effects of the transfer. The hope of finding
fairer homes and a wider future beyond the sea, drove them to a distance.
Thus Hippasus the ancestor of Pythagoras, left the narrow valley of
Phlius to find in Samos a new home for him and his.

In this way it came about that good arable lands were left unoccupied in
all the coast districts, so that the governments of the small states,
which either retained their power or entered upon it in the place of
the emigrants, were able to portion out fields and hand them over to
the members of the warrior race of Dorians. For the latter were not
anxious to overthrow the ancient order and to assert new principles
of government, but only required a sufficiency of landed property for
themselves and their belongings, together with the civil rights that
belonged to it. Therefore the similarities between their worship of
gods and heroes were utilised as a means of forming peaceful bonds of
union. Thus it is expressly declared of Sicyon that from ancient times
the Heraclidæ had ruled in this very place: therefore Phalces, when he
penetrated thither with his Dorians, had allowed the ruling family to
retain its offices and titles and had come to an understanding with it by
peaceful agreement.

Towards the coast of the Saronic Gulf marched two hosts from Argos,
under Deïphontes and Agaios, who transformed the old Ionian Epidaurus
and Trœzen into Dorian towns; but from Epidaurus the march was continued
to the isthmus, where, in the strong and important city of Corinth,
whose citadel was the key of the whole peninsula, the series of Temenid
settlements found its limit.

These settlements unquestionably form the most brilliant part of the
warlike march of the Dorians through the Peloponnesus. By the energy of
these Dorians and their leaders of the race of Hercules, who must have
joined in these undertakings in specially large numbers, all parts of
the many sections into which the country was split up were successfully
occupied, and the new Argos, stretching from the island of Cythera as far
as the Attic frontiers, far exceeded the bounds of the modest settlements
on the Pamisus and Eurotas. For even if the leaders of the armies had
not everywhere founded new states, still those existing had all become
homogeneous by the acceptance of a Dorian element, which formed the
military and preponderating section of the population.

This transformation had started from Argos, and consequently all these
settlements stood in a filial relation to the mother city, so that we may
regard Argos, Phlius, Sicyon, Trœzen, Epidaurus, and Corinth as a Dorian
hexapolis forming a confederation like that in Caria.

Moreover this organisation was not an entirely new one. In Achæan times
Mycenæ had formed with Heræum the centre of the country; in the Heræum
Agamemnon had received the oath of fealty from his vassals. This was why
the goddess Hera [Juno] is said to have preceded the Temenidæ to Sicyon,
when they sought to revive the union between the towns which had become
estranged from one another. Thus here also the remodelling was connected
with the ancient tradition.

But now a central point for the confederacy was found in the worship of
Apollo, which the Dorians had found established in Argos and had merely
reconstituted, in the guise of the Delphic or Pythian god, through whose
influence they had become an active people and under whose auspices
they had hitherto been led. The towns sent their yearly offerings to
the temple of Apollo Pythæus, which stood in Argos at the foot of the
Larissa, but the mother city possessed the rights of a chief town as well
as the government of the sanctuary.

In the meantime the size of Argos and the splendour of her new
foundations, constituted a dangerous superiority. For the extension of
power implied its division, and this was in the highest degree increased
by the natural peculiarities of the Argive territory, which is more
broken than any other Peloponnesian country.

In regard to the internal relations of the different states, great
complications prevailed from the time that the older and younger
population had mutually arranged themselves. For where the victory of the
Dorians had been decided by force of arms, the old occupants had been
driven from rights and possessions; an Achæo-Dorian town was formed and
none were citizens save those belonging to the three tribes.

But in most cases it was otherwise. For example where, as in Phlius
and Sicyon, a prosperity founded on agriculture, industrial activity,
and commerce already existed; there the population did not, at least
for any length of time, submit to be oppressed and thrust on one side.
They remained no nameless and insignificant mass, but were recognised
as forming one or several tribes, side by side with the three Dorian
divisions, though not with the same rights. Where, therefore, more than
three _phylæ_ or tribes are met with; where, besides the Hylleans,
Dymanes and Pamphylians, there are also mentioned “Hyrnethians” as in
Argos, or “Ægialæans” (shore people) as in Sicyon, or a “_Chthonophyle_”
(which was perhaps the tribal name of the natives in Phlius), it may be
concluded that the immigrants had not left the older people entirely
outside the newly-founded commonwealth, but had sooner or later given
them a certain recognised standing. However insignificant the latter
might be, it was still the germ of important developments, and the
existence of such co-tribes suffices to indicate a peculiar history for
those states in which they occur.

Originally the various tribes also occupied different localities. As
the diverse sections of the army had been separated in the camp, so the
Pamphylians, the Dymanes and the Hylleans had their special quarters
in Argos, and these long subsisted as such; when the Hyrnethians were
admitted into the municipal commonwealth, they formed a fourth quarter.
How long a period generally elapsed before the various elements of
the population became amalgamated, is most clearly shown by the fact
that places like Mycenæ continued their quiet existence as Achæan
communities. Here the ancient traditions of the age of the Pelopidæ lived
on undisturbed on the very spot where they had been enacted; here the
anniversary of Agamemnon’s death was celebrated year after year at the
place of his burial, and even during the Persian War, we see the men of
Mycenæ and Tiryns, mindful of their old hero kings, as they take their
part in the national quarrel against Asia.

Thus under the Dorian influence three new states were founded in the
south and east of the peninsula, namely Messenia, Laconia, and Argos,
which differed greatly even at the outset, and early diverged upon
separate lines.


ARCADIA

At the same time great changes were taking place on the remote west
coast. The states north and south of the Alpheus with which Homer is
acquainted, were overthrown and Ætolian families, who honoured Oxylus as
their ancestor, founded new lordships on the territory of the Epeans and
Pylæans. These foundations had no apparent connection with the marches of
the Dorian armies, and it is only a legendary poem of later date which
speaks of Oxylus as having stipulated for the western land as his share
in reward for services rendered to the Dorians. This betrays that it
was a subsequent invention, by the fact that the new settlements on the
peninsula are represented in this and similar fables as a result of a
great and carefully planned undertaking; a representation which stands in
complete contradiction to the facts of history. And when it is further
related that the Dorians were conducted by their crafty leader, not along
the flat coast road but across country through Arcadia, so that they
might not be roused to envy or tempted to break their compact altogether,
by the sight of the tracts of land conceded to Oxylus; this is but a tale
invented with the object of explaining the erection of a state in Elis
independently of the Dorian immigration, and the grounds for it are to be
sought in the circumstance that the whole west coast, from the straits by
Rhium down to Navarino, is distinguished by easy tracts of level country,
such as are scarcely found elsewhere in Greek territory.

The best cornland lies at the foot of the Erymanthus Mountains, a broad
plain through which the Peneus flows and which is surrounded by vine-clad
hills stretching towards the neighbouring groups of islands. At the spot
where the Peneus issues from the Arcadian mountains and flows into the
coast-plain there rises on the left bank a stately height which looks
clear over land and island sea and on this account was called in the
Middle Ages, Calascope, or Belvidere. This height was selected by the
Ætolian immigrants as their chief citadel; it became the royal fortress
of the Oxylidæ and their following, into whose hands fell the best
estates.

From here the Ætolian state, under the territorial name of Elis spread
southward over the whole low country, where on the banks of the Alpheus
the Epeans and Pylæans had once fought out those petty feuds of which
Nestor was so fond of telling. On the decay of that maritime kingdom of
the Neleidæ which was attacked on the south by the Messenian Dorians
and on the north by the Epeans, Ætolian tribes pressed forward from the
interior of the island; these were the Minyans who being expelled from
Taygetus took possession of the mountains which run farthest in the
direction of the Sicilian Sea from Arcadia. Here they settled themselves
in six fortified towns, united by a common worship of Poseidon; Macistus
and Lapreus, were the most distinguished. Thus between the Alpheus and
the Neda, in what was afterwards the so-called Triphylia, or “country of
three tribes,” a new Minyan state was formed.

Finally the nucleus of a new state was also planted in the valley of the
Alpheus, where scattered families of Achæans under Agorius of Helice
allied themselves with Ætolian houses, and founded the state of Pisa.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 1000 B.C.]]

Thus on the western coast, partly through conquest by the northern
tribes and partly by arrivals from other parts of the peninsula, three
new states arose, namely Elis, Pisa, and Triphylia; and in this way the
whole coast district of the Peloponnesus was gradually newly populated
and partitioned out afresh. Only in the district in the heart of the
peninsula, did the country remain undisturbed in its existing state.

Arcadia was regarded by the ancients as a pre-eminently Pelasgian
country, and here it was thought the autochthonic condition of the
aboriginal inhabitants had been longest preserved and had suffered the
least disturbance. Nevertheless the native legends themselves distinctly
indicate that here also immigrations took place, interrupting the uniform
condition of Pelasgian life, and occasioning a fusion of races, of
different character and origin. Here too there is no mistaking the epoch
at which, as in all other Greek states, the historical movement began.

After Pelasgus and his sons, Arcas, as ancestor of the Arcadians, stands
at the beginning of a new era in the prehistoric life of the country. But
Arcadians were to be found in Phrygia and Bithynia as well as in Crete
and Cyprus, and the fact that colonists from the islands and shores of
the eastern sea ascended into the highlands of the Peloponnesus that
they might settle there in the beautiful valleys, is manifested by many
tokens. The Cretan myths about Zeus are repeated in the closest manner
of the Arcadian Lycæum; Tegea and Gortys are Cretan as well as Arcadian
towns, with identical forms of worship, ancient legends connect Tegea
and Paphos and the Cyprian dialect, which has only very recently been
learnt from the native monuments, shows a great likeness to the Arcadian.
Arcadians were known as navigators both in the western and in the eastern
sea, and Nauplius, the hero of the oldest Peloponnesian seaport town
appears as the servant of the Tegeatic kings, to whose house Argonauts
like Ancæus also belong.

There are remains of old traditions, which show that even the interior of
the Peloponnesus was not so remote or isolated as is commonly supposed;
that here too there were immigrations and that in consequence in the
rural districts, and particularly in the fruitful ravines of the eastern
side, a series of towns grew up, which, on account of the natural
barriers of their frontiers, early formed isolated city domains; such
as those of Pheneus, Stynphalus, Orchomenus, Cleitor and afterwards the
towns of Mantinea, Alea, Caphyæ, and Gortys. In the southwest portion of
Arcadia, in the forest range of Lycæum, and in the valley of the Alpheus
were also to be found ancient fortress towns, such as Lycosura; but these
fortresses never became political centres of the districts. The mass of
the people remained scattered and were only connected with the community
by very slight bonds.

Thus the whole of Arcadia consisted of a numerous group of municipal
and rural cantons. It was only the former which could attain historical
importance, and among them especially Tegea, which lying as it did in
the most fertile part of the great Arcadian plateau, must from the
earliest times have assumed something of the position of a capital city.
Thus it was a Tegeatic king, Echemus, the “steadfast,” who is said to
have prevented the Dorians from entering the peninsula. Yet the Tegeatæ
never succeeded in giving a unity to the whole island. Its natural
conformation was too multi-form, too diversified, and too much cut up by
high mountain ridges into numerous and sharply defined portions for it to
be able to attain to a common territorial history. It was only certain
forms of worship, with which customs and institutions were bound up,
that were universal among the whole Arcadian people. These were, in the
north country the worship of Artemis Hymnia, and in the south that of
Zeus Lycæus, on the Lycæum, whose summit had been honoured as the holy
mountain of Arcadia from primeval Pelasgian times.

The country was in this condition when the Pelopidæ founded their states;
and so it still remained when the Dorians invaded the peninsula. A wild,
impracticable mountain country, thickly populated by a sturdy people,
Arcadia offered little prospect of easy success to races in search of
territory, and could not detain them from their attempts on the river
plains of the southern and western districts. According to the legend
they were granted a free passage through the Arcadian fields. Nothing was
changed except that the Arcadians were pushed farther and farther back
from the sea, and therefore driven farther and farther from the advance
Hellenic civilisation.

If we take a glance at the peninsula as a whole, and the political
government which, in consequence of the immigration, it acquired for
all time, we shall find, first, the interior persisting in its former
condition unshaken, secondly, three districts, Lacedæmon, Messenia, and
Argos, which had undergone a thorough metamorphosis directly due to the
immigrating races; and finally the two strips of land along the north and
west coasts, which had been left untouched by the Dorians, but in part
were resettled by the ancient tribes whom the Dorians displaced, as was
the case with Triphylia and Achæa, and in part transformed by arrivals of
another kind, as happened at Elis.

Thus complicated were the results which followed the Dorian
migration. They show sufficiently how little we have here to do with
a transformation effected at one blow, like the result of a fortunate
campaign. After the races had long wandered up and down in a varying
series of territorial disputes and mutual agreements, the fate of the
peninsula was gradually decided. Only when men had forgotten the tedious
period of unrest and ferment, which memory can adorn with no incidents,
could the reconstitution of the peninsula be regarded as a sudden turn of
events by which the Peloponnesus had become Dorian.

Even in those districts which the invaders especially contended for and
occupied, the transformation of the people into a Dorian population was
only effected very gradually and in a very imperfect fashion. How could
it have been otherwise? Even the conquering hosts themselves were not of
purely Dorian blood, but intermixed with people of all sorts of races.
Nor was it as Dorians but as relatives of the Achæan princes that the
leaders of their armies laid claim to power and rule. Thus Plato saw in
the march of the Heraclids a union between Dorians and Achæans, dating
from the times of the movement of the Greek peoples, and how little
unity originally existed between the commander and his men is shown by a
series of undoubted facts. For no sooner had the force of the warriors
won a firm footing in the districts, than the interests of Heraclids and
Dorians diverged and such dissensions broke out as either endangered or
nullified the whole success of the colony.

The leaders sought to effect amalgamation of the old and new populations,
that they might thus attain a broader foundation for their power and
place themselves in a position independent of the influence of the Dorian
warriors. Everywhere do we find the same phenomena, and most distinctly
in Messenia. But in Laconia also, the Heraclids made themselves detested
by their warriors, by trying to assimilate the non-Dorian to the Dorian
people, and in Argolis we see the Heraclid Deïphontes, whose name is
thoroughly Ionic, allied with Hyrnetho, who is the representative of the
original population of the coast district. It is this same Deïphontes
who helps to establish the throne of the Temenids in Argos, to the
indignation of the other Heraclids and of the Dorians: here, therefore,
their new kingdom undoubtedly rests on the support of the pre-Dorian
population.

Thus the bonds between the Heraclids and the Dorians were loosened in all
three countries, soon after their occupation. The political institutions
were established in spite of the Dorians, and if the newly imported
popular force was to have a fruitful and beneficial effect on the soil
of the country, it required the art of a wise legislation to conciliate
opposition and regulate the forces which threatened to destroy it. The
first example of such legislation was given, as far as we know, on the
island of Crete.


DORIANS IN CRETE

Dorians in considerable numbers had passed over into Crete from Argos and
Laconia, and if in other cases islands and seacoast were not a soil on
which the Dorian races felt at home, here it was otherwise.

Crete is rather a continent than an island. With the wealth of resources
of every kind which distinguishes the country, the Cretan towns were able
to preserve themselves from the restlessness belonging to the life of a
seaport, and quietly to unfold the new germs of life which the Dorians
brought to the island. Here, too, they came as invaders: massed in great
hosts they overpowered the island people, whom no bonds of union held
together. We find Dorian tribes in Cydonia, the first place in which
the new arrivals from Cythera established themselves. Then Knossos, and
especially Lyctus, whose Dorian people hailed from Laconia, became the
chief towns of the new settlement.

The Dorians had here reached the land of an ancient civilisation,
whose fertility was not yet exhausted. They found towns with definite
constitutions and families well versed in the art of rule. State
government and religious worship had here, under quieter conditions,
retained their original connection and in especial the religion of
Apollo, administered by the old priestly families, displayed its
organising, civilising, and intellectual influence in entirety. The
Dorians brought nothing but their tempestuous courage and the strength
of their spears; compared with the Cretan nobility they were the merest
children in all that concerns the art of government and legislation.
They demanded land and left it to others to find out the ways and means
of satisfying their requirements, for the overthrow of the ancient
government signified nothing to them. But that the Dorians nevertheless
did not behave as reckless conquerors; that they did not overturn the
ancient state and found new ones, is manifest from the mere fact that the
organisation of Dorian Crete is nowhere referred to a Dorian originator.

On the contrary, Aristotle testifies that the inhabitants of the Cretan
town of Lyctus, where the Dorian institutions were most completely
developed, preserved the existing institutions of the country; according
to unanimous tradition, there was no break, no gap between the Dorian and
the pre-Dorian period; so that the name of Minos, the representative of
Cretan civilisation, could be associated both with the old and the new.

Patrician houses whose rights had come down to them from the royal
period, remained in possession of the government. Now as formerly it was
from them that the ten chief rulers of the state, “the Kosmoi,” were
taken in the different towns; from them that the senate was chosen, whose
members retained their dignity for life and were answerable to none.
These families held rule in the towns when the Dorians invaded them.
They concluded treaties with them, which took account of the interests
of both sides, they made themselves subservient to the foreign power, by
assigning the immigrants a sufficient share of the land which the state
had to dispose of, not without the accompanying obligation of military
service and the right, as the fighting portion of the community, to a
voice in all important decisions but especially when it was a question of
war and peace.

The Dorians took their place as the fighting element in the state.
For this reason, the boys as they grew up, were placed under state
discipline; united in troops; trained according to regulation, in the
public gymnasia, and schooled in the use of weapons; they were inured
to hard living and prepared by warlike games for real combats. Thus,
remote from all effeminate influences, the military qualities peculiar
to the Dorian race were to be imparted; there was also, however, some
intermixture of Cretan customs, as for instance, the use of the bow,
which was previously unknown to the Dorian. The grown youths and men,
even if they possessed households of their own, were expected to be
sensible first of all of the fact that they were comrades in arms, and
prepared to march at any moment as though in a camp. Accordingly at the
men’s daily meal they sat together by troops, as they served in the army,
and in the same way they slept in common dormitories. The costs were
met through the state from a common chest, but this chest was supplied
by each delivering the tenth part of the fruit of his possession to the
fraternity to which he belonged, and this tithe was then handed over to
the state chest. In return, the state undertook to support the warriors,
as well as the women who had charge of the house with the children and
servants, in times both of peace and war. I believe it is plain that we
have here an arrangement agreed on by treaty between the older and newer
members of the state.

In order, however, that the Dorian fighting element might be able to
devote itself wholly to its calling, its members had to be entirely
exempt from the necessity of personally cultivating their share of the
soil; otherwise they would not only have been impoverished by its neglect
in war-time, but in peace they would have been detained from military
exercises, and the equally valuable hunting excursions after the
plentiful game of the Ida Mountains. Consequently the work of agriculture
was imposed on a special class of men, who, by the chance of war, had
fallen into the condition of servitude and were deprived of civil rights.
When and how this element of serfdom was formed, is not indicated; but
there were two classes of them. The one tilled those fields which had
been preserved by the state as public property; these were the so-called
Mnoetæ; the others, the Clarotæ dwelt on the lands which had passed by
donation into the hereditary possession of the immigrants. The Dorian
landowners were their masters and had the right to demand of them the
fruit of the field at a fixed date, while it was their duty to see that
the soil was properly improved, so that nothing might be lost to the
state. Otherwise the military class lived without care, unconcerned for
the maintenance of existence, and could say, as the proverbial lines of
the Cretan Hybrias have it, “Here are my sword, spear and shield; my
whole treasure; herewith I plough and gather the harvest.”

What they learned was the use of weapons and self-command; their art,
discipline, and obedience, obedience of the younger to the older, of the
soldier to his superior, of all to the state. Higher and more liberal
culture appeared unnecessary and even dangerous, and we may suppose that
the ruling families of Crete had intentionally laid down a one-sided and
narrow education for the Dorian community, in order that they might not
feel tempted to outstep their soldierly calling, and contest the guidance
of the state with the native races.

Beside these however there remained on the peninsula a considerable part
of the older population, whose position was entirely unaffected by the
Dorian immigration; the people on the mountains and in the rural towns,
who were dependent on the larger cities of the island and paid according
to an ancient usage a yearly tax to their governments; and rural peasants
and cattle-breeders, tradesmen, fishers, and sailors who had nothing to
do with the State except willingly to submit to its ordinances, and to
pursue their occupations in a peaceful fashion.

It is on the whole, an unmistakable fact that a Greek state organisation
of a very remarkable character was here called into being, and formed a
combination in which old and new, foreign and native, were amalgamated;
an organization which Plato judged worthy to form the groundwork for
the plan of his ideal state. For here we actually have the latter’s
three classes: the class equipped with the wise foresight becoming
the rulers of the state; the class of “guards,” in which the virtue
of courage, with exclusion from a more liberal development by means
of art and science, was the object to be attained; and, finally, the
industrial class, the element which provided the necessaries of life,
and to which a disproportionately larger amount of arbitrary freedom was
permitted; it had but to provide for the physical support of itself and
the community generally. The first and third classes might have formed
the state by themselves, inasmuch as they sufficiently represented the
mutual relations of governing and governed. Between the two the guards,
or armed element, had thrust itself in, to the increase of stability
and durability. On this wise it came to pass that Crete was the first
country to succeed in assigning to the Dorian race a share in the ancient
community, and thus for the second time the island of Minos became a
typical starting-point for the Hellenic state organisation.

The later Crete is also better known to us by the effects which proceeded
from it, than in its internal condition like a heavenly body the
abundance of whose light is measured by its reflection on other objects.
Crete became for the Hellenes the cradle of a complicated civilisation.
Thence sprang a series of men who founded the art of sculpture in the
peculiar Hellenic form, and strewed its seeds in all Greek countries--for
Dipœnus and Scyllis, the earliest masters in marble sculptures, derived
their origin from Crete, the home of Dædalus. Other Cretans distinguished
themselves as masters in the art of divination, and as singers and
musicians who, educated in the service of Apollo, obtained such power
over the human soul, that they were summoned by foreign states to
interpose their aid in a disordered condition of the community and lay
the foundations of a sound system of government. These Cretan masters,
such as Thaletas and Epimenides, are not, however, sprung from the Dorian
race any more than are the sculptors; the new shoots had sprouted from
the old root of native culture, even if the admixture of various Greek
races had essentially contributed to the impulse of new vital activity.

In spite of the fact that the population of Crete received such a
reinforcement and that she had so well understood how to employ it to
strengthen her states, none the less, after the time of Minos, she
never again attained to a political influence extending over all her
shores. The chief cause lies in the condition of the island which made
the formation of a great state an impossibility. The territories of the
various towns among which the Dorians were divided, Cydonia in the west,
Knossos and Lyctus in the north and Gortys in the south of the island,
held suspiciously aloof from one another, or were at open feud; thus
the Dorian strength was squandered in the interests of petty towns.
Added to this that the Dorians, when they immigrated across the sea, of
course came only in small bands, and for the most part, unaccompanied
by women, so that for this reason alone they could not retain their
racial characteristics to the same extent as on the mainland. Finally,
even in the seats of Dorian habitation across the sea, we sometimes
find, that not all three races, but only one of them had settled in the
same town; thus in Halicarnassus there were only Dymanes; in Cydonia,
as it seems, only Hylleans. Thus a fresh dispersal and weakening of the
Dorian strength must have supervened, and it is easy to understand why
the continental settlements of the Dorians, especially those of the
Peloponnesus, still remained the most important and the ones fraught with
most consequence for history.

In the Peloponnesus, however, it was, once again, at a single point that
a Dorian history of independent and far-reaching importance developed
itself. And that point was Sparta.[c]

[Illustration: GREEK COIN]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VI. SPARTA AND LYCURGUS

    What! are these stones, yon column’s broken shaft,
    Where moss-crowned Ruin long hath sat and laughed,
    These shattered steps, these walls that earthward bow,
    All Sparta’s Royal Square can boast of now?

                                                      --NICHOLAS MICHELL.


[Sidenote: [_ca._ 885 B.C.]]

The characteristic development of Sparta depends partly on the nature of
the land and partly on the relations formed there by strange conquerors.

Sparta is a peninsular land, enclosed by an almost uninterrupted line
of mountains, a hundred miles square in area, which opens itself out
southwards towards the sea between two necks of land. On the west side
are the steep walls of Taygetus, which before entering into the Tænarian
promontory are penetrated by a pass which leads into Messenia; to the
east on the coast is the chain of Parnon. Between these mountains, which
enclose many cultivable valleys, the valley of the Eurotas runs from
north to south and is narrow in its upper part to below the defile in
which Sparta lies; south of this it extends itself in the shape of a
trough into a fertile plain which again narrows itself towards the sea;
there are no good ports. Therefore on all sides Sparta was not easily
accessible to the enemy, or even to friends; and had produce enough for
its inhabitants.

Sparta had three classes of inhabitants. They were:

(1) the Helots, those old inhabitants of the land who in consequence
of their obstinate resistance were made slaves; and were not so much
oppressed as hated and despised; they had to pay a “fixed and moderate
rent” for the land on which they (bound to the soil) dwelt, nevertheless
they were partly public and partly private slaves and could only go about
in a special slave costume; the so-called _crypteia_[8] was a yearly
campaign against them when they showed themselves refractory; it served
as military exercise or manœuvres to the youthful conquerors.

(2) The Laconians stood under far more favourable relations; they were
the populations of the hundred towns of the province; a portion of them
were strangers who had joined the Dorians at the conquest, but, for
the greater part, they were old inhabitants who early enough subjected
themselves to the conquerors. They stood in the relation of subjects, and
had no political rights, but were in no way oppressed; they had landed
property for which they paid rent to the state; and they carried on trade
and art.

(3) The Dorian conquerors, the real Spartans, dwelt in the capital, which
remained an “open camp,” all the more so as they formed only a small
part of the whole population and could keep the land in subjection only
by arms. They were the ruling citizens, possessed the best lands which
were in the vicinity of the capital, and had these cultivated by slaves
(helots) whilst they dedicated themselves to war and the affairs of state.

These relations certainly existed in the beginnings of the Dorian
conquest, but they were only brought about by circumstances, without
being regulated by law. Many errors must have arisen through this, and
they seem to have given rise to the “Legislation of Lycurgus.”[b]

While modern criticism makes few inroads upon the accepted stories of the
Spartan régime it assails the very existence of Lycurgus, the so-called
creator of it. The earliest accounts of his legislation are three
centuries later than the time of his alleged career. The old Spartan poet
Tyrtæus does not seem to have mentioned him. Pindar credits his edicts to
Ægimius the mythical ancestor of the Dorians. Hellanicus and Thucydides
do not credit them to Lycurgus, and the “argument from silence” is strong
against him. His name means “wolf-repeller,” and it is thought that from
being originally a god of protection worshipped by the predecessors of
the Dorians, he came to be accepted finally as a man and a lawgiver. But
historical cities have denied the existence of other heroes of tradition
only to restore them later to their old glory, and it is necessary to
present here the Lycurgus of venerable story, as all the traditions of
early Spartan communal life centre about his name; and their alleged
ancient lawgiver becomes, therefore, one of the most important personages
in Grecian history. As to his personality--accepting him for the nonce
as a reality--opinions differ according to the bias of the individual
historian. We shall perhaps be in best position to gain a judicious idea
of the subject by first following the biography of Lycurgus by Plutarch,
and afterward turning to modern investigators for an estimate of the
man and his laws. Whatever our individual opinion as to the personality
of the hero himself, we shall at least gain an insight into the actual
customs of the Spartans; and it perhaps does not greatly matter if we are
left in doubt as to the share which any single man--be his name Lycurgus
or what not--had in shaping them.[a]

[Illustration: THE VALLEY OF SPARTA]


PLUTARCH’S ACCOUNT OF LYCURGUS

Of Lycurgus, the lawgiver, says Plutarch, we have nothing to relate that
is certain and uncontroverted. For there are different accounts of his
birth, his travels, his death, and especially of the laws and form of
government which he established. But least of all are the times agreed
upon in which this great man lived. For some say he flourished at the
same time with Iphitus, and joined with him in settling the cessation of
arms during the Olympic Games. Among these is Aristotle the philosopher,
who alleges for proof an Olympic quoit, on which was preserved the
inscription of Lycurgus’ name. But others who, with Eratosthenes and
Apollodorus, compute the time by the succession of the Spartan kings,
place him much earlier than the first Olympiad. Timæus, however,
supposes, that, as there were two Lycurguses in Sparta at different
times, the actions of both are ascribed to one, on account of his
particular renown; and that the more ancient of them lived not long after
Homer: Nay, some say he had seen him. Xenophon, too, confirms the opinion
of his antiquity, when he makes him contemporary with the Heraclidæ. It
is true, the latest of the Lacedæmonian kings were of the lineage of
the Heraclidæ; but Xenophon there seems to speak of the first and more
immediate descendants of Hercules. As the history of those times is thus
involved, in relating the circumstances of Lycurgus’ life, we shall
endeavour to select such as are least controverted, and follow authors of
the greatest credit.

For a long time anarchy and confusion prevailed in Sparta, by which
one of its kings, the father of Lycurgus, lost his life. For while he
was endeavouring to part some persons who were concerned in a fray,
he received a wound by a kitchen knife, of which he died, leaving the
kingdom to his eldest son Polydectes.

But he, too, dying soon after, the general voice gave it for Lycurgus
to ascend the throne; and he actually did so, till it appeared that his
brother’s widow was pregnant. As soon as he perceived this, he declared
that the kingdom belonged to her issue, provided it were male, and he
kept the administration in his hands only as his guardian. This he did
with the title of Prodicos, which the Lacedæmonians give to the guardians
of infant kings. Soon after, the queen made him a private overture, that
she would destroy her child, upon condition that he would marry her
when king of Sparta. Though he detested her wickedness, he said nothing
against the proposal, but pretending to approve it, charged her not to
take any drugs to procure an abortion, lest she should endanger her own
health or life; for he would take care that the child, as soon as born,
should be destroyed. Thus he artfully drew on the woman to her full
time, and, when he heard she was in labour, he sent persons to attend
and watch her delivery, with orders, if it were a girl, to give it to
the women, but if a boy, to bring it to him, in whatever business he
might be engaged. It happened that he was at supper with the magistrates
when she was delivered of a boy, and his servants, who were present,
carried the child to him. When he received it, he is reported to have
said to the company, “Spartans, see here your new-born king.” He then
laid him down upon the chair of state, and named him Charilaus, because
of the joy and admiration of his magnanimity and justice testified by
all present. Thus the reign of Lycurgus lasted only eight months. But
the citizens had a great veneration for him on other accounts, and there
were more that paid him their attentions, and were ready to execute his
commands, out of regard to his virtues, than those that obeyed him as
a guardian to the King, and director of the administration. There were
not, however, wanting those that envied him, and opposed his advancement,
as too high for so young a man; particularly the relations and friends
of the queen-mother, who seemed to have been treated with contempt. Her
brother Leonidas one day boldly attacked him with virulent language,
and scrupled not to tell him, that he was well assured he would soon
be king. Insinuations of the same kind were likewise spread by the
queen-mother. Moved with this ill treatment, and fearing some dark
design, he determined to get clear of all suspicion, by travelling into
other countries, till his nephew should be grown up, and have a son to
succeed him in the kingdom.

He set sail, therefore, and landed in Crete. There having observed the
forms of government, and conversed with the most illustrious personages,
he was struck with admiration of some of their laws, and resolved at
his return to make use of them in Sparta. Some others he rejected. From
Crete Lycurgus passed to Asia, desirous, as is said, to compare the
Ionian expense and luxury with the Cretan frugality and hard diet, so as
to judge what effect each had on their several manners and governments.
The Egyptians likewise suppose that he visited them; and as of all their
institutions he was most pleased with their distinguishing the military
men from the rest of the people, he took the same method at Sparta, and,
by separating from these the mechanics and artificers, he rendered the
constitution more noble and more of a piece.

Returning, he immediately applied himself to alter the whole frame of the
constitution; sensible that a partial change, and the introducing of some
new laws, would be of no sort of advantage, he applied to the nobility,
and desired them to put their hands to the work; addressing himself
privately at first to his friends, and afterwards, by degrees, trying
the disposition of others, and preparing them to concur in the business.
When matters were ripe, he ordered thirty of the principal citizens to
appear armed in the market-place by break of day, to strike terror into
such as might desire to oppose him. Upon the first alarm, King Charilaus,
apprehending it to be a design against his person, took refuge in the
_Chalcioicos_ [brazen temple]. But he was soon satisfied, and accepted
their oath, and joined in the undertaking.


_The Institutions of Lycurgus_

Among the many new institutions of Lycurgus, the first and most important
was that of a senate; which sharing, as Plato says, in the power of the
kings, too imperious and unrestrained before, and having equal authority
with them, was the means of keeping them within the bounds of moderation,
and highly contributed to the preservation of the state. For before,
it had been veering and unsettled, sometimes inclining to arbitrary
power, and sometimes towards a pure democracy; but this establishment
of a senate, an intermediate body, like ballast, kept in it a just
equilibrium, and put it in a safe posture: the twenty-eight senators
adhering to the kings, whenever they saw the people too encroaching, and,
on the other hand, supporting the people, when the kings attempted to
make themselves absolute. This, according to Aristotle, was the number
of senators fixed upon, because two of the thirty associates of Lycurgus
deserted the business through fear.

He had this institution so much at heart, that he obtained from Delphi an
oracle in its behalf called _rhetra_, or _the decree_.

Though the government was thus tempered by Lycurgus, yet soon after
it degenerated into an oligarchy, whose power was exercised with such
wantonness and violence, that it wanted indeed a bridle, as Plato
expresses it. This curb they found in the authority of the ephori, about
one hundred and thirty years after Lycurgus.

A second and bolder political enterprise of Lycurgus, was a new
division of the lands. For he found a prodigious inequality, the city
over-charged with many indigent persons, who had no land, and the wealth
centred in the hands of a few. Determined, therefore, to root out the
evils of insolence, envy, avarice, and luxury, and those distempers of
a state still more inveterate and fatal, I mean poverty and riches,
he persuaded them to cancel all former divisions of land, and to make
new ones, in such a manner that they might be perfectly equal in
their possessions and way of living. Hence, if they were ambitious of
distinction they might seek it in virtue, as no other difference was left
between them, but that which arises from the dishonour of base actions
and the praise of good ones. His proposal was put in practice.

After this, he attempted to divide also the movables, in order to take
away all appearance of inequality; but he soon perceived that they could
not bear to have their goods directly taken from them, and therefore took
another method, counterworking their avarice by a stratagem. First he
stopped the currency of the gold and silver coin, and ordered that they
should make use of iron money only: then to a great quantity and weight
of this he assigned but a small value; so that to lay up ten minæ [£30
or $150] a whole room was required, and to remove it nothing less than a
yoke of oxen. When this became current, many kinds of injustice ceased
in Lacedæmon. Who would steal or take a bribe, who would defraud or rob,
when he could not conceal the booty? Their iron coin would not pass in
the rest of Greece, but was ridiculed and despised; so that the Spartans
had no means of purchasing any foreign or curious wares; nor did any
merchant-ship unlade in their harbours. There were not even to be found
in all their country either sophists, wandering fortune-tellers, keepers
of infamous houses, or dealers in gold and silver trinkets, because there
was no money. Thus luxury, losing by degrees the means that cherished and
supported it, died away of itself: even they who had great possessions,
had no advantage from them, since they could not be displayed in public,
but must lie useless, in unregarded repositories.

Desirous to complete the conquest of luxury, and exterminate the love of
riches, he introduced a third institution, which was wisely enough and
ingeniously contrived. This was the use of public tables, where all were
to eat in common of the same meat, and such kinds of it as were appointed
by law. At the same time, they were forbidden to eat at home, upon
expensive couches and tables, to call in the assistance of butchers and
cooks, or to fatten like voracious animals in private. For so not only
their manners would be corrupted, but their bodies disordered; abandoned
to all manner of sensuality and dissoluteness, they would require long
sleep, warm baths, and the same indulgence as in perpetual sickness. To
effect this was certainly very great; but it was greater still, to secure
riches from rapine and from envy, as Theophrastus expresses it, or rather
by their eating in common, and by the frugality of their table, to take
from riches their very being. For what use or enjoyment of them, what
peculiar display of magnificence could there be, where the poor man went
to the same refreshment with the rich?

The rich, therefore (we are told), were more offended with this
regulation than with any other, and, rising in a body, they loudly
expressed their indignation: nay, they proceeded so far as to assault
Lycurgus with stones, so that he was forced to fly from the assembly and
take refuge in a temple.

The public repasts were called by the Cretans _andria_; but the
Lacedæmonians styled them _phiditia_, either from their tendency to
_friendship_ and mutual benevolence, _phiditia_ being used instead of
_philitia_; or else from their teaching frugality and _parsimony_, which
the word _pheido_ signifies. But it is not at all impossible, that the
first letter might by some means or other be added, and so _phiditia_
take place of _editia_, which barely signifies _eating_. There were
fifteen persons to a table, or a few more or less. Each of them was
obliged to bring in monthly a bushel of meal, eight gallons of wine, five
pounds of cheese, two pounds and a half of figs, and a little money to
buy flesh and fish. If any of them happened to offer a sacrifice of first
fruits, or to kill venison, he sent a part of it to the public table: for
after a sacrifice or hunting, he was at liberty to sup at home: but the
rest were to appear at the usual place. For a long time this eating in
common was observed with great exactness: so that when King Agis returned
from a successful expedition against the Athenians, and from a desire to
sup with his wife, requested to have his portion at home, the polemarchs
refused to send it: nay, when, through resentment, he neglected the day
following to offer the sacrifice usual on occasion of victory, they set
a fine upon him. Children were also introduced at these public tables,
as so many schools of sobriety. There they heard discourses concerning
government, and were instructed in the most liberal breeding. There they
were allowed to jest without scurrility, and were not to take it ill when
the raillery was returned. For it was reckoned worthy of a Lacedæmonian
to bear a jest: but if any one’s patience failed, he had only to desire
them to be quiet, and they left off immediately. After they had drunk
moderately, they went home without lights. Indeed, they were forbidden to
walk with a light either on this or any other occasion, that they might
accustom themselves to march in the darkest night boldly and resolutely.
Such was the order of their public repasts.

Lycurgus left none of his laws in writing; it was ordered in one of the
_rhetræ_ that none should be written. For what he thought most conducive
to the virtue and happiness of a city, was principles interwoven with
the manners and breeding of the people. As for smaller matters, it was
better not to reduce these to a written form and unalterable method,
but to suffer them to change with the times, and to admit of additions
or retrenchments at the pleasure of persons so well educated. For he
resolved the whole business of legislation into the bringing up of youth.
And this, as we have observed, was the reason why one of his ordinances
forbade them to have any written laws.

Another ordinance levelled against magnificence and expense, directed
that the ceilings of houses should be wrought with no tool but the axe,
and the doors with nothing but the saw.


_Regulations Regarding Marriage and the Conduct of Women_

As for the education of youth, which he looked upon as the greatest and
most glorious work of a lawgiver, he began with it at the very source,
taking into consideration their conception and birth, by regulating the
marriages. For he did not (as Aristotle says) desist from his attempt
to bring the women under sober rules. They had, indeed, assumed great
liberty and power on account of the frequent expeditions of their
husbands, during which they were left sole mistresses at home, and so
gained an undue deference and improper titles; but notwithstanding this
he took all possible care of them. He ordered the virgins to exercise
themselves in running, wrestling, and throwing quoits and darts; that
their bodies being strong and vigorous, the children afterwards produced
from them might be the same; and that, thus fortified by exercise, they
might the better support the pangs of childbirth, and be delivered with
safety. In order to take away the excessive tenderness and delicacy of
the sex, the consequence of a recluse life, he accustomed the virgins
occasionally to be seen naked as well as the young men, and to dance
and sing in their presence on certain festivals. There they sometimes
indulged in a little raillery upon those that had misbehaved themselves,
and sometimes they sung encomiums on such as deserved them, thus exciting
in the young men a useful emulation and love of glory. For he who was
praised for his bravery and celebrated among the virgins, went away
perfectly happy: while their satirical glances thrown out in sport, were
no less cutting than serious admonitions; especially as the kings and
senate went with the other citizens to see all that passed. As for the
virgins appearing naked, there was nothing disgraceful in it, because
everything was conducted with modesty, and without one indecent word or
action. Nay, it caused a simplicity of manners and an emulation for the
best habit of body; their ideas, too, were naturally enlarged, while they
were not excluded from their share of bravery and honour. Hence they
were furnished with sentiments and language, such as Gorgo the wife of
Leonidas is said to have made use of. When a woman of another country
said to her, “You of Lacedæmon are the only women in the world that rule
the men:” she answered, “We are the only women that bring forth men.”

These public dances and other exercises of the young maidens naked,
in sight of the young men, were, moreover, incentives to marriage;
and, to use Plato’s expression, drew them almost as necessarily by
the attractions of love, as a geometrical conclusion follows from the
premises. To encourage it still more, some marks of infamy were set
upon those that continued bachelors. For they were not permitted to see
these exercises of the naked virgins; and the magistrates commanded
them to march naked round the market-place in the winter, and to sing a
song composed against themselves, which expressed how justly they were
punished for their disobedience to the laws. They were also deprived of
that honour and respect which the younger people paid to the old; so that
nobody found fault with what was said to Dercyllidas, though an eminent
commander. It seems, when he came one day into company, a young man,
instead of rising up and giving place, told him, “You have no child to
give place to me, when I am old.”

In their marriages the bridegroom carried off the bride by violence;
and she was never chosen in a tender age, but when she had arrived at
full maturity. Then the woman that had the direction of the wedding, cut
the bride’s hair close to the skin, dressed her in man’s clothes, laid
her upon a mattress, and left her in the dark. The bridegroom, neither
oppressed with wine nor enervated with luxury, but perfectly sober, as
having always supped at the common table, went in privately, untied her
girdle, and carried her to another bed. Having stayed there a short time,
he modestly retired to his usual apartment, to sleep with the other young
men: and observed the same conduct afterwards, spending the day with
his companions, and reposing himself with them in the night, nor even
visiting his bride but with great caution and apprehensions of being
discovered by the rest of the family; the bride at the same time exerted
all her art to contrive convenient opportunities for their private
meetings. And this they did not for a short time only, but some of them
even had children before they had an interview with their wives in the
day-time. This kind of commerce not only exercised their temperance and
chastity, but kept their bodies fruitful, and the first ardour of their
love fresh and unabated; for as they were not satiated like those that
are always with their wives, there still was place for unextinguished
desire.

When he had thus established a proper regard to modesty and decorum
with respect to marriage, he was equally studious to drive from that
state the vain and womanish passion of jealousy; by making it quite
as reputable to have children in common with persons of merit, as to
avoid all offensive freedom in their own behaviour to their wives. He
laughed at those who revenge with wars and bloodshed the communication
of a married woman’s favours; and allowed, that if a man in years should
have a young wife, he might introduce to her some handsome and honest
young man, whom he most approved of, and when she had a child of this
generous race, bring it up as his own. On the other hand, he allowed,
if a man of character should entertain a passion for a married woman on
account of her modesty and the beauty of her children, he might treat
with her husband for admission to her company, that so planting in a
beauty-bearing soil, he might produce excellent children, the congenial
offspring of excellent parents.

For in the first place, Lycurgus considered children, not so much the
property of their parents, as of the state; and therefore he would not
have them begot by ordinary persons, but by the best men in it. In the
next place, he observed the vanity and absurdity of other nations, where
people study to have their horses and dogs of the finest breed they can
procure, either by interest or money; and yet keep their wives shut up,
that they may have children by none but themselves, though they may
happen to be doting, decrepit, or infirm. As if children, when sprung
from a bad stock, and consequently good for nothing, were no detriment
to those whom they belong to, and who have the trouble of bringing them
up, nor any advantage, when well descended and of a generous disposition.
These regulations tending to secure a healthy offspring, and consequently
beneficial to the state, were so far from encouraging that licentiousness
of the women which prevailed afterwards, that adultery was not known
amongst them.


_The Rearing of Children_

It was not left to the father to rear what children he pleased, but he
was obliged to carry the child to a place called Lesche, to be examined
by the most ancient men of the tribe, who were assembled there. If it
was strong and well proportioned, they gave orders for its education,
and assigned it one of the nine thousand shares of land; but if it was
weakly and deformed, they ordered it to be thrown into the place called
Apothetæ, which is a deep cavern near the mountain Taygetus: concluding
that its life could be no advantage either to itself or to the public,
since nature had not given it at first any strength or goodness of
constitution. For the same reason the women did not wash their new-born
infants with water, but with wine, thus making some trial of their habit
of body; imagining that sickly and epileptic children sink and die under
the experiment, while healthy became more vigorous and hardy. Great care
and art was also exerted by the nurses; for, as they never swathed the
infants, their limbs had a freer turn, and their countenances a more
liberal air; besides, they used them to any sort of meat, to have no
terrors in the dark, nor to be afraid of being alone, and to leave all
ill humour and unmanly crying. Hence people of other countries purchased
Lacedæmonian nurses for their children.

The Spartan children were not in that manner, under tutors purchased or
hired with money, nor were the parents at liberty to educate them as they
pleased: but as soon as they were seven years old, Lycurgus ordered them
to be enrolled in companies, where they were all kept under the same
order and discipline, and had their exercises and recreations in common.
He who showed the most conduct and courage amongst them, was made
captain of the company. The rest kept their eyes upon him, obeyed his
orders, and bore with patience the punishment he inflicted: so that their
whole education was an exercise of obedience. The old men were present
at their diversions, and often suggested some occasion of dispute or
quarrel, that they might observe with exactness the spirit of each, and
their firmness in battle.

As for learning, they had just what was absolutely necessary. All the
rest of their education was calculated to make them subject to command,
to endure labour, to fight and conquer. They added, therefore, to their
discipline, as they advanced in age; cutting their hair very close,
making them go barefoot, and play, for the most part, quite naked. At
twelve years of age, their under garment was taken away, and but one
upper one a year allowed them. Hence they were necessarily dirty in their
persons, and not indulged the great favour of baths and oils, except on
some particular days of the year. They slept in companies, on beds made
of the tops of reeds, which they gathered with their own hands, without
knives, and brought from the banks of the Eurotas. In winter they were
permitted to add a little thistle-down, as that seemed to have some
warmth in it.

They steal, too, whatever victuals they possibly can, ingeniously
contriving to do it when persons are asleep, or keep but indifferent
watch. If they are discovered, they are punished not only with whipping,
but with hunger. Indeed, their supper is but slender at all times, that,
to fence against want, they may be forced to exercise their courage and
address. This is the first intention of their spare diet: a subordinate
one is, to make them grow tall. For when the animal spirits are not too
much oppressed by a great quantity of food, which stretches itself out
in breadth and thickness, they mount upwards by their natural lightness,
and the body easily and freely shoots up in height. This also contributes
to make them handsome: for thin and slender habits yield more freely to
nature, which then gives a fine proportion to the limbs; whilst the heavy
and gross resist her by their weight.

The boys steal with so much caution, that one of them, having conveyed a
young fox under his garment, suffered the creature to tear out his bowels
with his teeth and claws, choosing rather to die than to be detected.
Nor does this appear incredible, if we consider what their young men can
endure to this day; for we have seen many of them expire under the lash
at the altar of Diana Orthia.


_The Famed Laconic Discourse; Spartan Discipline_

The boys were also taught to use sharp repartee, seasoned with humour,
and whatever they said was to be concise and pithy. For Lycurgus, as
we have observed, fixed but a small value on a considerable quantity
of his iron money; but on the contrary, the worth of speech was to
consist in its being comprised in a few plain words, pregnant with a
great deal of sense: and he contrived that by long silence they might
learn to be sententious and acute in their replies. As debauchery often
causes weakness and sterility in the body, so the intemperance of the
tongue makes conversation empty and insipid. King Agis, therefore, when
a certain Athenian laughed at the Lacedæmonian short swords and said,
“The jugglers would swallow them with ease upon the stage,” answered in
his laconic way, “And yet we can reach our enemies’ hearts with them.”
Indeed, to me there seems to be something in this concise manner of
speaking which immediately reaches the object aimed at, and forcibly
strikes the mind of the hearer.

Lycurgus himself was short and sententious in his discourse, if we may
judge by some of his answers which are recorded: that, for instance,
concerning the constitution. When one advised him to establish a popular
government in Lacedæmon, “Go,” said he, “and first make a trial of it in
thy own family.” That again, concerning sacrifices to the deity, when
he was asked why he appointed them so trifling and of so little value,
“That we may never be in want,” said he, “of something to offer him.”
Once more, when they inquired of him, what sort of martial exercises he
allowed of, he answered, “All, except those in which you stretch out
your palms.” Several such like replies of his are said to be taken from
the letters which he wrote to his countrymen: as to their question, “How
shall we best guard against the invasion of an enemy?” “By continuing
poor, and not desiring in your possessions to be one above another.” And
to the question, whether they should enclose Sparta with walls, “That
city is well fortified which has a wall of men instead of brick.” Whether
these and some other letters ascribed to him are genuine or not, is no
easy matter to determine.

Even when they indulged a vein of pleasantry, one might perceive, that
they would not use one unnecessary word, nor let an expression escape
them that had not some sense worth attending to. For one being asked
to go and hear a person who imitated the nightingale to perfection,
answered, “I have heard the nightingale herself.”

Nor were poetry and music less cultivated among them, than a concise
dignity of expression. Their songs had a spirit, which could rouse the
soul, and impel it in an enthusiastic manner to action. The language
was plain and manly, the subject serious and moral. For they consisted
chiefly of the praises of heroes that had died for Sparta, or else of
expressions of detestation for such wretches as had declined the glorious
opportunity, and rather chose to drag on life in misery and contempt.
Nor did they forget to express an ambition for glory suitable to their
respective ages.

Hippias the sophist tells us, that Lycurgus himself was a man of great
personal valour, and an experienced commander. Philostephanus also
ascribes to him the first division of cavalry into troops of fifty, who
were drawn up in a square body. But Demetrius the Phalerean says, that
he never had any military employment, and that there was the profoundest
peace imaginable when he established the Constitution of Sparta. His
providing for a cessation of arms during the Olympic Games is likewise a
mark of the humane and peaceable man.

The discipline of the Lacedæmonians continued after they were arrived at
years of maturity. For no man was at liberty to live as he pleased; the
city being like one great camp, where all had their stated allowance,
and knew their public charge, each man concluding that he was born,
not for himself, but for his country. Hence, if they had no particular
orders, they employed themselves in inspecting the boys, and teaching
them something useful, or in learning of those that were older than
themselves. One of the greatest privileges that Lycurgus procured
his countrymen, was the enjoyment of leisure, the consequence of his
forbidding them to exercise any mechanic trade. It was not worth their
while to take great pains to raise a fortune, since riches there were of
no account: and the helots, who tilled the ground, were answerable for
the produce above-mentioned.

Lawsuits were banished from Lacedæmon with money. The Spartans knew
neither riches nor poverty, but possessed an equal competency, and had a
cheap and easy way of supplying their few wants. Hence, when they were
not engaged in war, their time was taken up with dancing, feasting,
hunting, or meeting to exercise or converse. They went not to market
under thirty years of age, all their necessary concerns being managed by
their relations and adopters. Nor was it reckoned a credit to the old to
be seen sauntering in the market-place; it was deemed more suitable for
them to pass great part of the day in the schools of exercise, or places
of conversation. Their discourse seldom turned upon money, or business,
or trade, but upon the praise of the excellent, or the contempt of the
worthless; and the last was expressed with that pleasantry and humour,
which conveyed instruction and correction without seeming to intend it.
Nor was Lycurgus himself immoderately severe in his manner; but, as
Sosibius tells us, he dedicated a little statue to the god of laughter
in each hall. He considered facetiousness as a seasoning of their hard
exercise and diet, and therefore ordered it to take place on all proper
occasions, in their common entertainments and parties of pleasures. Upon
the whole, he taught his citizens to think nothing more disagreeable than
to live by (or for) themselves.


_The Senate; Burial Customs; Home-Staying; The Ambuscade_

The Senate, as said before, consisted at first of those that were
assistants to Lycurgus in his great enterprise. Afterwards, to fill up
any vacancy that might happen, he ordered the most worthy men to be
selected, of those that were full threescore years old. This was the most
respectable dispute in the world, and the contest was truly glorious: for
it was not who should be swiftest among the swift, or strongest of the
strong, but who was the wisest and best among the good and wise. He who
had the preference was to bear this mark of superior excellence through
life, this great authority, which put into his hands the lives and honour
of the citizens, and every other important affair. The manner of the
election was this: When the people were assembled, some persons appointed
for the purpose were shut up in a room near the place; where they could
neither see nor be seen, and only hear the shouts of the constituents:
for by them they decided this and most other affairs. Each candidate
walked silently through the assembly, one after another according to lot.
Those that were shut up had writing tables, in which they set down in
different columns the number and loudness of the shouts, without knowing
whom they were for; only they marked them as first, second, third, and
so on, according to the number of the competitors. He that had the most
and loudest acclamations, was declared duly elected. Then he was crowned
with a garland, and went round to give thanks to the gods: a number of
young men followed, striving which should extol him most, and the women
celebrated his virtues in their songs, and blessed his worthy life and
conduct. Each of his relations offered him a repast, and their address
on the occasion was, “Sparta honours you with this collation.” When he
had finished the procession, he went to the common table, and lived as
before. Only two portions were set before him, one of which he carried
away: and as all the women related to him attended at the gates of the
public hall, he called her for whom he had the greatest esteem, and
presented her with the portion, saying at the same time, “That which I
received as a mark of honour, I give to you.” Then she was conducted home
with great applause by the rest of the women.

Lycurgus likewise made good regulations with respect to burials. In the
first place, to take away all superstition, he ordered the dead to be
buried in the city, and even permitted their monuments to be erected
near the temples; accustoming the youth to such sights from their
infancy, that they might have no uneasiness from them nor any horror
for death, as if people were polluted with the touch of a dead body, or
with treading upon a grave. In the next place, he suffered nothing to
be buried with the corpse, except the red cloth and the olive leaves in
which it was wrapped. Nor would he suffer the relations to inscribe any
names upon the tombs, except of those men that fell in battle, or those
women who died in some sacred office. He fixed eleven days for the time
of mourning: on the twelfth they were to put an end to it, after offering
sacrifice to Ceres. No part of life was left vacant and unimproved, but
even with their necessary actions he interwove the praise of virtue and
the contempt of vice: and he so filled the city with living examples,
that it was next to impossible for persons who had these from their
infancy before their eyes, not to be drawn and formed to honour.

For the same reason he would not permit all that desired to go abroad
and see other countries, lest they should contract foreign manners,
gain traces of a life of little discipline, and of a different form of
government. He forbade strangers, too, to resort to Sparta, who could
not assign a good reason for their coming; not, as Thucydides says, out
of fear they should imitate the constitution of that city, and make
improvements in virtue, but lest they should teach his own people some
evil. For along with foreigners come new subjects of discourse; new
discourse produces new opinions; and from these there necessarily spring
new passions and desires, which, like discords in music, would disturb
the established government. He, therefore, thought it more expedient for
the city, to keep out of it corrupt customs and manners, than even to
prevent the introduction of a pestilence.

Thus far, then, we can perceive no vestiges of a disregard to right and
wrong, which is the fault some people find with the laws of Lycurgus,
allowing them well enough calculated to produce valour, but not to
promote justice. Perhaps it was the _crypteia_, as they called it, or
_ambuscade_, if that was really one of this lawgiver’s institutions, as
Aristotle says it was, which gave Plato so bad an impression both of
Lycurgus and his laws. The governors of the youth ordered the shrewdest
of them from time to time to disperse themselves in the country, provided
only with daggers and some necessary provisions. In the day-time they
hid themselves, and rested in the most private places they could find,
but at night they sallied out into the roads, and killed all the helots
they could meet with. Nay, sometimes by day, they fell upon them in
the fields, and murdered the ablest and strongest of them. Thucydides
relates, in his history of the Peloponnesian War, that the Spartans
selected such of them as were distinguished for their courage, to the
number of two thousand or more, declared them free, crowned them with
garlands, and conducted them to the temples of the gods; but soon after
they all disappeared; and no one could, either then or since, give
account in what manner they were destroyed. Aristotle particularly
says, that the _ephori_, as soon as they were invested in their
office, declared war against the helots, that they might be massacred
under pretence of law. In other respects they treated them with great
inhumanity: sometimes they made them drink till they were intoxicated,
and in that condition led them into the public halls, to show the young
men what drunkenness was. They ordered them, too, to sing mean songs, and
to dance ridiculous dances, but not to meddle with any that were genteel
and graceful. Thus they tell us, that when the Thebans afterwards invaded
Laconia, and took a great number of the helots prisoners, they ordered
them to sing the odes of Terpander, Alcman, or Spendon the Lacedæmonian,
but they excused themselves, alleging that it was forbidden by their
masters. Those who say, that a freeman in Sparta was most a freeman, and
a slave most a slave, seem well to have considered the difference of
states. But in my opinion, it was in aftertimes that these cruelties took
place among the Lacedæmonians; chiefly after the great earthquake, when,
as history informs us, the helots, joining the Messenians, attacked them,
did infinite damage to the country, and brought the city to the greatest
extremity. I can never ascribe to Lycurgus so abominable an act as that
of the ambuscade. I would judge in this case by the mildness and justice
which appeared in the rest of his conduct.


_Lycurgus’ Subterfuge to Perpetuate His Laws_

When his principal institutions had taken root in the manners of the
people, and the government was come to such maturity as to be able to
support and preserve itself, then, as Plato says of the Deity, that he
rejoiced when he had created the world, and given it its first motion;
so Lycurgus was charmed with the beauty and greatness of his political
establishment, when he saw it exemplified in fact, and move on in
due order. He was next desirous to make it immortal, so far as human
wisdom could effect it, and to deliver it down unchanged to the latest
times. For this purpose he assembled all the people, and told them, the
provisions he had already made for the state were indeed sufficient for
virtue and happiness, but the greatest and most important matter was
still behind, which he could not disclose to them till he had consulted
the oracle; that they must therefore inviolably observe his laws, without
altering anything in them, till he returned from Delphi; and then he
would acquaint them with the pleasure of Apollo. When they had promised
to do so, he took an oath of the kings and senators, and afterwards of
all the citizens, that they would abide by the present establishment till
Lycurgus came back. He then took his journey to Delphi.

When he arrived there, he offered sacrifice to the gods, and consulted
the oracle, whether his laws were sufficient to promote virtue, and
secure the happiness of the state. Apollo answered, that the laws
were excellent, and that the city which kept to the constitution he
had established, would be the most glorious in the world. This oracle
Lycurgus took down in writing, and sent it to Sparta. He then offered
another sacrifice, and embraced his friends and his son, determined
never to release his citizens from their oath, but voluntarily there to
put a period to his life; while he was yet of an age when life was not
a burden, when death was not desirable, and while he was not unhappy in
any one circumstance. He, therefore, destroyed himself by abstaining
from food, persuaded that the very death of lawgivers, should have its
use, and their exit, so far from being insignificant, have its share
of virtue, and be considered as a great action. To him, indeed, whose
performances were so illustrious, the conclusion of life was the crown of
happiness, and his death was left guardian of those invaluable blessings
he had procured his countrymen through life, as they had taken an oath
not to depart from his establishment till his return. Nor was he deceived
in his expectations. Sparta continued superior to the rest of Greece,
both in its government at home and reputation abroad, so long as it
retained the institution of Lycurgus; and this it did during the space
of five hundred years, and the reign of fourteen successive kings, down
to Agis the son of Archidamus. As for the appointment of the ephors, it
was so far from weakening the constitution, that it gave it additional
vigour, and though it seemed to be established in favour of the people,
it strengthened the aristocracy.[c]


EFFECTS OF LYCURGUS’ SYSTEM

Thus far we have followed Plutarch; now let us see what modern authority
will say of the influence of Lycurgus.

The best commentary on the laws of Lycurgus is the history of Sparta; let
us read it and judge the tree by its fruits.

Lycurgus, if we unite under his name all the laws mentioned, without
pausing to make sure that they are rightfully attributed, had operated
with rare sagacity to render Sparta immutable and its constitution
immortal. But there exists an arch-enemy to the things of this world that
call themselves eternal--the old man with the white beard and denuded
scalp that antiquity armed with a scythe. Legislators like, no better
than poets, to take him into account; they are ready enough to declare
that they have erected an edifice more solid than brass. Time advances
and the whole structure crumbles to the earth. Sparta braved him through
several centuries, by sacrificing the liberty of her citizens whom she
kept bowed under the severest discipline. She lasted long, but never
truly lived. As soon as her inflexible, and in some respects immoral,
constitution, established outside the usual conditions under which
society exists, was shaken, her decadence was rapid and irrevocable.

Lycurgus had desired to make fixed, population, lands, and the number
and fortune of citizens; as it turned out never was there a city where
property changed hands more frequently, where the condition of citizens
was more unstable, or their number subject to more steady diminution. He
had singularly restricted individual property rights to strengthen the
power of the state; and Aristotle says: “In Sparta the state is poor, the
individual rich and avaricious.” He had failed to recognise the laws of
nature in the education and destiny of women; and Aristotle, charging the
Spartan women with immorality, with greed, and even calling into question
their courage, sees in the license they allowed themselves one of the
causes of Lacedæmon’s downfall.

He made the helots tremble under his rule, and finally sent them back to
their masters. He prohibited long wars; but he had made war attractive
by freeing the soldiers from the heavy rules laid upon the citizen, and
it was by war and victory that his republic perished. He withdrew from
his fellow-citizens all power of initiative, assigning to each moment
of their lives its particular duty; in a word, to speak with Rousseau,
who was also a master of political paradox, “His laws completely changed
the nature of man to make of him a citizen.” Yet Sparta, become a
revolutionary city, perished for want of men. He proscribed gold and
silver that there might be no corruption, and nowhere since the Median
wars, was venality so pronounced and shameless.

He banished the arts, except for the adornment of his temple of Apollo
at Amyclæ; and in this he succeeded. Pausanias makes note of some fifty
temples in Lacedæmonia, but not a stone of them remains. Rustic piety and
not art erected them. Save for a certain taste in music, the dance, and
a severe style of poetry, Sparta stands alone as a barbarian city in the
middle of Greece, a spot of darkness where all else is light; she did not
even know thoroughly the only art she practised, that of war; at least
she always remained ignorant of certain features of it.

As Aristotle says: “Trained for war, Lacedæmonia, like a sword in its
scabbard, rests in peace.” All her institutions taught her to fight, not
one to live the life of the spirit. Savage and egotistical, she satisfied
the pride of her children, and won the praise of those who admire power
and success, but what did she do for the world? A war machine perfectly
fitted to destroy but incapable of production, what has she left behind
her? Not an artist nor a man of genius, not even a ruin that bears her
name; she is dead in every part as Thucydides predicted, while Athens,
calumniated by rhetoricians of all ages, still has to show the majestic
ruins of her temples, source of inspiration to modern art in two worlds,
as her poets and philosophers are the source of eternal beauty.

To sum up, and this is the lesson taught by this history: rigidly
as Lycurgus might decree for Sparta equality of possessions, an end
contrary to natural as to social conditions, nowhere in Greece was social
inequality so marked. Something of her discipline subsisted longer, and
it was this strange social ordonnance that won for Lacedæmon her power
and renown, striking as it did all other populations with astonishment.

The Spartans have further set a noble example of sobriety, and of
contempt for passion, pain, and death. They could obey and they could
die. Law was for them, according to the felicitous expression of Pindarus
and of Montaigne: “Queen and Empress of the World.” Let us accord to them
one more virtue which does them honour, respect for those upon whose head
Time has placed the crown of whitened locks.

The aristocratic poet of Bœotia who like another Dorian, Theognis of
Megara hated the masses, admired the city where reigned under a line of
hereditary kings, “The wisdom of old men, and the lances of young, the
choirs of the Muse and sweet harmony.” Simonides more clearly recognises
the true reason of Sparta’s greatness; he called Lacedæmon “the city
which tames men.” Empire over oneself usually gives empire over others,
and for a long time the Spartan possessed both.[d]


FOOTNOTES

[8] [J. B. Bury translates it as “a secret police.”]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VII. THE MESSENIAN WARS OF SPARTA


[Sidenote: [_ca._ 764 B.C.]]

That there were two long contests between the Lacedæmonians and
Messenians, and that in both the former were completely victorious, is
a fact sufficiently attested. And if we could trust the statements in
Pausanias,--our chief and almost only authority on the subject,--we
should be in a situation to recount the history of both these wars
in considerable detail. But unfortunately, the incidents narrated in
that writer have been gathered from sources which are, even by his
own admission, undeserving of credit, from Rhianus, the poet of Bene
in Crete, who had composed an epic poem on Aristomenes and the Second
Messenian War, about B.C. 220, and from Myron of Priene, a prose author
whose date is not exactly known, but belonging to the Alexandrine age,
and not earlier than the third century before the Christian era.

The poet Tyrtæus was himself engaged on the side of the Spartans in
the second war, and it is from him that we learn the few indisputable
facts respecting both the first and the second. If the Messenians had
never been re-established in Peloponnesus, we should probably never
have heard any further details respecting these early contests. That
re-establishment, and the first foundation of the city called Messene
on Mount Ithome, was among the capital wounds inflicted on Sparta by
Epaminondas, in the year B.C. 369,--between three hundred and two hundred
and fifty years after the conclusion of the Second Messenian War. The
descendants of the old Messenians, who had remained for so long a period
without any fixed position in Greece, were incorporated in the new city,
together with various helots and miscellaneous settlers who had no
claim to a similar genealogy. The gods and heroes of the Messenian race
were reverentially invoked at this great ceremony, especially the great
hero Aristomenes; and the site of Mount Ithome, the ardour of the newly
established citizens, the hatred and apprehension of Sparta, operating
as a powerful stimulus to the creation and multiplication of what are
called _traditions_, sufficed to expand the few facts known respecting
the struggles of the old Messenians into a variety of details. In almost
all these stories we discover a colouring unfavourable to Sparta,
contrasting forcibly with the account given by Isocrates in his discourse
called _Archidamus_, wherein we read the view which a Spartan might take
of the ancient conquests of his forefathers. But a clear proof that
these Messenian stories had no real basis of tradition, is shown in the
contradictory statements respecting the prime hero Aristomenes. Wesseling
thinks that there were two persons named Aristomenes, one in the first
and one in the second war. This inextricable confusion respecting the
greatest name in Messenian antiquity, shows how little any genuine stream
of tradition can here be recognised.

Pausanias states the First Messenian War as beginning in B.C. 743 and
lasting till B.C. 724,--the Second, as beginning in B.C. 685 and lasting
till B.C. 668. Neither of these dates rest upon any assignable positive
authority; but the time assigned to the first war seems probable, that
of the second is apparently too early. Tyrtæus authenticates both the
duration of the first war, twenty years, and the eminent services
rendered in it by the Spartan king Theopompus. He says, moreover,
speaking during the second war, “the fathers of our fathers conquered
Messene;” thus loosely indicating the relative dates of the two.

The Spartans (as we learn from Isocrates, whose words date from a time
when the city of Messene was only a recent foundation) professed to have
seized the territory, partly in revenge for the impiety of the Messenians
in killing their king, the Heraclid Cresphontes, whose relative had
appealed to them for aid,--partly by sentence of the Delphian oracle.
Such were the causes which had induced them first to invade the
country, and they had conquered it after a struggle of twenty years.
The Lacedæmonian explanations, as given in Pausanias, seem for the most
part to be counter-statements arranged after the time when the Messenian
version, evidently the interesting and popular account, had become
circulated.[b]

Within the limits of Messenia there was a temple of Diana Limnatis,
which was alone common to the Messenians among the Dorians, and to the
Lacedæmonians. The Lacedæmonians asserted, that the virgins whom they
sent to the festival were violated by the Messenians; that their king,
Teleclus, was slain through endeavouring to prevent the injury, and that
the violated virgins slew themselves through shame.

The Messenians, however, relate this affair differently; that stratagems
were raised by Teleclus against those persons of quality that came to
the temple in Messene. For when the Lacedæmonians, on account of the
goodness of the land desired to possess Messenia, Teleclus adorned the
beardless youths after the manner of virgins, and so disposed them, that
they might suddenly attack the Lacedæmonians with their daggers as they
were sitting. The Messenians, however, running to their assistance, slew
both Teleclus and all the beardless youths. But the Lacedæmonians, as
they were conscious that this action was perpetrated by public consent,
never attempted to revenge the death of their king. And such are the
reports of each party, which every one believes, just as he is influenced
by his attachment to each. After this event had taken place, and when one
generation had passed away, a hatred commenced between the Lacedæmonians
and Messenians.[c]


FIRST MESSENIAN WAR

In spite of the death of Teleclus, however, the war did not actually
break out until some little time after, when Alcamenes and Theopompus
were kings at Sparta, and Antiochus and Androcles, sons of Pintas, kings
of Messenia. The immediate cause of it was a private altercation between
the Messenian Polychares (victor at the fourth Olympiad, B.C. 764) and
the Spartan Euæphnus. Polychares having been grossly injured by Euæphnus,
and his claim for redress having been rejected at Sparta, took revenge by
aggressions upon other Lacedæmonians; the Messenians refused to give him
up, though one of the two kings, Androcles, strongly insisted upon doing
so, and maintained his opinion so earnestly against the opposite sense of
the majority and of his brother, Antiochus, that a tumult arose, and he
was slain.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 750 B.C.]]

The Lacedæmonians, now resolving upon war, struck the first blow without
any formal declaration, by surprising the border town of Amphea, and
putting its defenders to the sword. They further overran the Messenian
territory, and attacked some other towns, but without success. Euphaes,
who had now succeeded his father Antiochus as king of Messenia, summoned
the forces of the country and carried on the war against them with energy
and boldness. For the first four years of the war, the Lacedæmonians
made no progress, and even incurred the ridicule of the old men of their
nation as faint-hearted warriors: in the fifth year, they made a more
vigorous invasion, under their two kings, Theopompus and Polydorus, who
were met by Euphaes with the full force of the Messenians. A desperate
battle ensued, in which it does not seem that either side gained much
advantage: nevertheless the Messenians found themselves so much enfeebled
by it, that they were forced to take refuge on the fortified mountain of
Ithome, and to abandon the rest of the country.[b]

After this battle the affairs of the Messenians were in a calamitous
situation. For, in the first place, through the great sums of money which
they had expended in fortifying their cities, they had no longer the
means of supplying their army. In the next place, their slaves had fled
to the Lacedæmonians. And lastly, a disease resembling a pestilence,
though it did not infest all their country, greatly embarrassed their
affairs. In consequence, therefore, of consulting about their present
situation, they thought proper to abandon all those cities which had the
most inland situation, and to betake themselves to the mountain Ithome.
In this mountain there was a city of no great magnitude, which, they say,
is mentioned by Homer in his catalogue:

    “And those that in the steep Ithome dwell.”

In this city, therefore, fixing their residence, they enlarged the
ancient enclosure, so that it might be sufficient to defend the whole of
its inhabitants. This place was in other respects well fortified: for
Ithome is not inferior to any of the mountains within the isthmus in
magnitude; and besides this, is most difficult of access.

When they were settled in this mountain, they determined to send to
Delphos, and consult the oracle concerning the event of the war. Tisis,
therefore, the son of Alcis, was employed on this errand; a man who, in
nobility of birth, was not inferior to any one, and who was particularly
given to divination. This Tisis, on his return from Delphos, was attacked
by a band of Lacedæmonians belonging to the guard of Amphea, but defended
himself so valiantly that they were not able to take him. It is certain,
however, that they did not desist from wounding him, till a voice was
heard, from an invisible cause, “Dismiss the bearer of the oracle.” And
Tisis, indeed, as soon as he returned to his own people, repeated the
oracle to the king, and not long after died of his wounds. But Euphaes,
collecting the Messenians together, recited the oracle, which was as
follows: “Sacrifice a pure virgin, who is allotted a descent from the
blood of the Æpytidæ, to the infernal demons, by cutting her throat
in the night: but if the virgin who is led to the altar descends from
any other family, let her voluntarily offer herself to be sacrificed.”
Such then being the declaration of the god, immediately all the virgins
descended from the Æpytidæ awaited the decision of lots: when the lot
fell upon the daughter of Lyciscus, the prophet Epebolus told them that
it was not proper that she should be sacrificed, because she was not
the genuine daughter of Lyciscus: but that the wife of Lyciscus, in
consequence of her barrenness, had falsely pretended that this was her
daughter.


_The Futile Sacrifice of the Daughter of Aristodemus_

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 750-725 B.C.]]

In the meantime, while the prophet was thus dissuading the people,
Lyciscus privately took away the virgin and fled to Sparta. But the
Messenians being greatly dejected as soon as they perceived that
Lyciscus had fled, Aristodemus, a man descended from the Æpytidæ, and
who was most illustrious in warlike concerns and other respects, offered
his own daughter as a voluntary sacrifice. Destiny, however, no less
absorbs the alacrity of mankind, than the mud of a river the pebbles
which it contains. For the following circumstance became a hindrance
to Aristodemus, who was then desirous of saving Messene by sacrificing
his daughter: A Messenian citizen whose name is not transmitted to us
happened to be in love with the daughter of Aristodemus, and was just on
the point of making her his wife. This man from the first entered into
a dispute with Aristodemus, asserting that the virgin was no longer in
the power of her father, as she had been promised to him in marriage,
but that all authority over her belonged to him as her intended husband.
However, finding that this plea was ineffectual, he made use of a
shameful lie in order to accomplish his purpose, and affirmed that he
had lain with the girl, and that she was now with child by him. But in
the end, Aristodemus was so exasperated by this lie, that he slew his
daughter, and having cut open her womb, plainly evinced that she was not
with child.

Upon this, Epebolus, who was present, exhorted them to sacrifice the
daughter of some other person, because the daughter of Aristodemus, in
consequence of having been slain by her father in a rage, could not be
the sacrifice to those dæmons which the oracle commanded. In consequence
of the prophet thus addressing the people, they immediately rushed forth
in order to slay the suitor of the dead virgin, as he had been the means
of Aristodemus becoming defiled with the blood of his offspring, and
had rendered the hope of their preservation dubious. But this man was
a particular friend of Euphaes; and in consequence of this, Euphaes
persuaded the Messenians that the oracle was accomplished in the death of
the virgin, and that they ought to be satisfied with what Aristodemus had
accomplished. All the Æpytidæ, therefore, were of the opinion of Euphaes,
because each was anxious to be liberated from the fear of sacrificing his
daughter. In consequence of this, the advice of the king was generally
received, and the assembly dissolved. And after this they turned their
attentions to the sacrifices and festival of the gods.[c]

The war still continued, and in the thirteenth year of it another
hard-fought battle took place, in which the brave Euphaes was slain,
but the result was again indecisive. Aristodemus, being elected king
in his place, prosecuted the war strenuously: the fifth year of his
reign is signalised by a third general battle, wherein the Corinthians
assist the Spartans, and the Arcadians and Sicyonians are on the side of
Messenia; the victory is here decisive on the side of Aristodemus, and
the Lacedæmonians are driven back into their own territory. It was now
their turn to send envoys and ask advice from the Delphian oracle; and
the remaining events of the war exhibit a series, partly of stratagems to
fulfil the injunctions of the priestess, partly of prodigies in which the
divine wrath is manifested against the Messenians. The king Aristodemus,
agonised with the thought that he has slain his own daughter without
saving his country, puts an end to his own life. In the twentieth year
of the war, the Messenians abandoned Ithome, which the Lacedæmonians
razed to the ground: the rest of the country was speedily conquered, and
such of the inhabitants as did not flee either to Arcadia or to Eleusis,
were reduced to complete submission.

Such is the abridgement of what Pausanias gives as the narrative of
the First Messenian War. Most of his details bear the evident stamp
of mere late romance: and it will easily be seen that the sequence
of events presents no plausible explanation of that which is really
indubitable--the result. The twenty years’ war, and the final abandonment
of Ithome, are attested by Tyrtæus, and beyond all doubt, as well as
the harsh treatment of the conquered. “Like asses worn down by heavy
burthens” (says the Spartan poet) “they were compelled to make over to
their masters an entire half of the produce of their fields, and to come
in the garb of woe to Sparta, themselves and their wives, as mourners
at the decease of the kings and principal persons.” The revolt of their
descendants, against a yoke so oppressive, goes by the name of the Second
Messenian War.


_The Hero Aristomenes and the Second Messenian War_

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 750-668 B.C.]]

Had we possessed the account of the First Messenian War as given by Myron
and Diodorus, it would evidently have been very different from the above,
because they included Aristomenes in it, and to him the leading parts
would be assigned. As the narrative now stands in Pausanias, we are not
introduced to that great Messenian hero,--the Achilles of the epic of
Rhianus,--until the second war, in which his gigantic proportions stand
prominently forward. He is the great champion of his country in the three
battles which are represented as taking place during this war: the first,
with indecisive result, at Deræ; the second, a signal victory on the part
of the Messenians, at the Boar’s Grave; the third, an equally signal
defeat, in consequence of the traitorous flight of Aristocrates, king
of the Arcadian Orchomenus, who, ostensibly embracing the alliance of
the Messenians, had received bribes from Sparta. Thrice did Aristomenes
sacrifice to Zeus Ithomates the sacrifice called Hecatomphonia, reserved
for those who had slain with their own hands a hundred enemies in battle.
At the head of a chosen band he carried his incursions more than once
into the heart of the Lacedæmonian territory, surprised Amyclæ and
Pharis, and even penetrated by night into the unfortified precinct of
Sparta itself, where he suspended his shield, as a token of defiance, in
the temple of Athene Chalciœcus. Thrice was he taken prisoner, but on two
occasions marvellously escaped before he could be conveyed to Sparta.[b]
Pausanias thus describes one of his escapes:

“Aristomenes continued to plunder the Spartan land, nor did he cease
his hostilities till, happening to meet with more than half of the
Lacedæmonian forces, together with both the kings, among other wounds
which he received in defending himself, he was struck so violently on
the head with a stone, that his eyes were covered with darkness, and
he fell to the ground. The Lacedæmonians, on seeing this, rushed in a
collected body upon him, and took him alive, together with fifty of his
men. They likewise determined to throw all of them into the Ceadas, or a
deep chasm, into which the most criminal offenders were hurled. Indeed,
the other Messenians perished after this manner; but some god who had so
often preserved Aristomenes, delivered him at that time from the fury of
the Spartans. And some who entertain the most magnificent idea of his
character, say, that an eagle flying to him bore him on its wings to the
bottom of the chasm, so that he sustained no injury by the fall.

“Indeed, he had not long reached the bottom before a dæmon shewed him
a passage, by which he might make his escape; for as he lay in this
profound chasm wrapped in a robe, expecting nothing but death, he heard
a noise on the third day, and uncovering his face (for he was now able
to look through the darkness) he saw a fox touching one of the dead
bodies. Considering, therefore, where the passage could be through
which the beast had entered, he waited till the fox came nearer to him,
and when this happened seized it with one of his hands, and with the
other, as often as it turned to him, exposed his robe for the animal to
seize. At length, the fox beginning to run away, he suffered himself to
be drawn along by her, through places almost impervious, till he saw
an opening just sufficient for the fox to pass through, and a light
streaming through the hole. And the animal, indeed, as soon as she was
freed from Aristomenes, betook herself to her usual place of retreat. But
Aristomenes, as the opening was not large enough for him to pass through,
enlarged it with his hands, and escaped safe to Ira. The fortune, indeed
by which Aristomenes was taken, was wonderful, for his spirit and courage
were so great, that no one could hope to take him; but his preservation
at Ceadas is far more wonderful, and at the same time it is evident to
all men that it did not take place without the interference of a divine
power.”[c]

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 668 B.C.]]

The fortified mountain of Ira on the banks of the river Nedon, and near
the Ionian Sea, had been occupied by the Messenians, after the battle
in which they had been betrayed by Aristocrates the Arcadian; it was
there that they had concentrated their whole force, as in the former
war at Ithome, abandoning the rest of the country. Under the conduct
of Aristomenes, assisted by the prophet Theoclus, they maintained
this strong position for eleven years. At length, they were compelled
to abandon it; but, as in the case of Ithome, the final determining
circumstances are represented to have been, not any superiority of
bravery or organisation on the part of the Lacedæmonians, but treacherous
betrayal and stratagem, seconding the fatal decree of the gods. Unable
to maintain Ira longer, Aristomenes, with his sons, and a body of his
countrymen, forced his way through the assailants, and quitted the
country--some of them retiring to Arcadia and Elis, and finally migrating
to Rhegium. He himself passed the remainder of his days in Rhodes, where
he dwelt along with his son-in-law, Damagetus, the ancestor of the noble
Rhodian family, called the Diagorids, celebrated for its numerous Olympic
victories.

Such are the main features of what Pausanias calls the Second Messenian
War, or of what ought rather to be called the Aristomeneïs of the poet
Rhianus. That after the foundation of Messene, and the recall of the
exiles by Epaminondas, favour and credence was found for many tales
respecting the prowess of the ancient hero whom they invoked in their
libations,--tales well-calculated to interest the fancy, to vivify the
patriotism, and to inflame the anti-Spartan antipathies, of the new
inhabitants,--there can be little doubt. And the Messenian maidens of
that day may well have sung, in their public processional sacrifices,
how “Aristomenes pursued the flying Lacedæmonians down to the mid-plain
of Stenyclarus, and up to the very summit of the mountain.” From such
stories, _traditions_ they ought not to be denominated, Rhianus may
doubtless have borrowed; but if proof were wanting to show how completely
he looked at his materials from the point of view of the poet, and not
from that of the historian, we should find it in the remarkable fact
noticed by Pausanias: Rhianus represented Leotychides as having been king
of Sparta during the Second Messenian War; now Leotychides, as Pausanias
observes, did not reign until near a century and a half afterwards,
during the Persian invasion.


THE POET TYRTÆUS

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 668-648 B.C.]]

To the great champion of Messenia, during this war, we may oppose, on the
side of Sparta, another remarkable person, less striking as a character
of romance, but more interesting, in many ways, to the historian--the
poet Tyrtæus, a native of Aphidnæ in Attica, an inestimable ally of
the Lacedæmonians during most part of this second struggle. According
to a story--which however has the air partly of a boast of the later
Attic orators--the Spartans, disheartened at the first successes of the
Messenians, consulted the Delphian oracle, and were directed to ask for
a leader from Athens.[b] “At the same time,” Pausanias writes, “the
Lacedæmonians received an oracle from Delphos, which commanded them to
make use of an Athenian for their counsellor. Hence, when by ambassadors
they had informed the Athenians of the oracle, and at the same time
required an Athenian as their adviser, the Athenians were by no means
willing to comply: for they considered, that the Lacedæmonians could not
without great danger to the Athenians take possession of the best part of
Peloponnesus; and at the same time, they were unwilling to disobey the
commands of the god.

[Illustration: VIEW OF DELPHI, SEAT OF THE DELPHIAN ORACLE]

“At last they adopted the following expedient: There was at Athens a
certain teacher of grammar, whose name was Tyrtæus, who appeared to
possess the smallest degree of intellect, and who was lame in one of
his feet. This man they sent to Sparta, who at one time instructed the
principal persons in what was necessary for them to do, and at another
time instructed the common people by singing elegies to them, in which
the praise of valour was contained, and verses called _anapæsti_.”[c]

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 660-610 B.C.]]

This seems to be a colouring put upon the story by later writers, and
the intervention of the Athenians in the matter in any way deserves
little credit. It seems more probable that the legendary connection of
the Dioscuri with Aphidnæ, celebrated at or near that time by the poet
Alcman, brought about, through the Delphian oracle, the presence of the
Aphidnæan poet at Sparta. Respecting the lameness of Tyrtæus, we can say
nothing: but that he was a schoolmaster (if we are constrained to employ
an unsuitable term) is highly probable, for in that day, minstrels,
who composed and sung poems, were the only persons from whom the youth
received any mental training. Moreover, his sway over the youthful mind
is particularly noted in the compliment paid to him, in after-days, by
king Leonidas: “Tyrtæus was an adept in tickling the souls of youth.”
We see enough to satisfy us that he was by birth a stranger, though he
became a Spartan by the subsequent recompense of citizenship conferred
upon him; that he was sent through the Delphian oracle; that he was an
impressive and efficacious minstrel, and that he had, moreover, sagacity
enough to employ his talents for present purposes and diverse needs;
being able, not merely to reanimate the languishing courage of the
baffled warrior, but also to soothe the discontents of the mutinous. That
his strains, which long maintained undiminished popularity among the
Spartans, contributed much to determine the ultimate issue of this war,
there is no reason to doubt; nor is his name the only one to attest the
susceptibility of the Spartan mind in that day towards music and poetry.
The first establishment of the Carneian festival, with its musical
competition, at Sparta, falls during the period assigned by Pausanias to
the Second Messenian War: the Lesbian harper, Terpander, who gained the
first recorded prize at this solemnity, is affirmed to have been sent for
by the Spartans pursuant to a mandate from the Delphian oracle, and to
have been the means of appeasing a sedition. In like manner, the Cretan
Thaletas was invited thither during a pestilence, which his art, as it is
pretended, contributed to heal (about 620 B.C.); and Aleman, Xenocritus,
Polymnastus, and Sacadas, all foreigners by birth, found favourable
reception, and acquired popularity, by their music and poetry. With the
exception of Sacadas, who is a little later, all these names fall in the
same century as Tyrtæus, between 660 B.C.-610 B.C. The fashion which the
Spartan music continued for a long time to maintain, is ascribed chiefly
to the genius of Terpander.

That the impression produced by Tyrtæus at Sparta, therefore, with
his martial music, and emphatic exhortations to bravery in the field,
as well as union at home, should have been very considerable, is
perfectly consistent with the character both of the age and of the
people; especially as he is represented to have appeared pursuant to the
injunction of the Delphian oracle. From the scanty fragments remaining
to us of his elegies and anapæsts, however, we can satisfy ourselves
only of two facts: first, that the war was long, obstinately contested,
and dangerous to Sparta as well as to the Messenians; next, that other
parties in Peloponnesus took part on both sides, especially on the
side of the Messenians. So frequent and harassing were the aggressions
of the latter upon the Spartan territory, that a large portion of the
border-land was left uncultivated: scarcity ensued, and the proprietors
of the deserted farms, driven to despair, pressed for a redivision of
the landed property in the state. It was in appeasing these discontents
that the poem of Tyrtæus, called _Eunomia_, “Legal Order,” was found
signally beneficial. It seems certain that a considerable portion of
the Arcadians, together with the Pisatæ and the Triphylians, took part
with the Messenians; there are also some statements numbering the Eleans
among their allies, but this appears not probable. The state of the case
rather seems to have been, that the old quarrel between the Eleans and
the Pisatæ, respecting the right to preside at the Olympic games, which
had already burst forth during the preceding century, in the reign of
the Argeian Pheidon, still continued. The Second Messenian War will
thus stand as beginning somewhere about the 33rd Olympiad, or 648 B.C.,
between seventy and eighty years after the close of the first, and
lasting, according to Pausanias, seventeen years; according to Plutarch,
more than twenty years.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 660-580 B.C.]]

Many of the Messenians who abandoned their country after this second
conquest are said to have found shelter and sympathy among the
Arcadians, who admitted them to a new home and gave them their daughters
in marriage; and who, moreover, punished severely the treason of
Aristocrates, king of Orchomenos, in abandoning the Messenians at the
battle of the Trench.

The Second Messenian War was thus terminated by the complete subjugation
of the Messenians. Such of them as remained in the country were
reduced to a servitude probably not less hard than that which Tyrtæus
described them as having endured between the first war and the second.
In after-times, the whole territory which figures on the map as
Messenia,--south of the river Nedon, and westward of the summit of
Taygetus,--appears as subject to Sparta, and as forming the western
portion of Laconia. Nor do we hear of any serious revolt from Sparta in
this territory until a hundred and fifty years afterwards, subsequent
to the Persian invasion--a revolt which Sparta, after serious efforts,
succeeded in crushing. So that the territory remained in her power
until her defeat at Leuctra, which led to the foundation of Messene by
Epaminondas.

Imperfectly as these two Messenian wars are known to us, we may see
enough to warrant us in saying that both were tedious, protracted, and
painful, showing how slowly the results of war were then gathered, and
adding one additional illustration to prove how much the rapid and
instantaneous conquest of Laconia and Messenia by the Dorians, which the
Heraclid legend sets forth, is contradicted by historical analogy.

The relations of Pisa and Elis form a suitable counterpart and sequel
to those of Messenia and Sparta. Unwilling subjects themselves, the
Pisatæ had lent their aid to the Messenians, and their king Pantaleon,
one of the leaders of this combined force, had gained so great a
temporary success, as to dispossess the Eleans of the _agonothesia_
or administration of the games for one Olympic ceremony, in the 34th
Olympiad. Though again reduced to their condition of subjects, they
manifested dispositions to renew their revolt. These incidents seem to
have occurred about the 50th Olympiad, or B.C. 580; and the dominion of
Elis over her Periœcid territory was thus as well assured as that of
Sparta. The Lacedæmonians, after the close of the Peloponnesian War had
left them undisputed heads of Greece, formally upheld the independence
of the Triphylian towns against Elis, and seem to have countenanced
their endeavours to attach themselves to the Arcadian aggregate, which,
however, was never fully accomplished. Their dependence on Elis became
loose and uncertain, but was never wholly shaken off.[b]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER VIII. THE IONIANS

    Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence.

                                                            --MILTON.


The complete change in the map of Greece at the close of the Achæan
period and the origin of the ethnographic system with which the history
of Hellenic times begins, were always referred by Greek tradition to
a last wandering of north Grecian tribes. The customary chronology
places the beginning of this shifting at 1133 or 1124 B.C., _i.e._, less
than three generations after the so-called conquest of Troy. Recent
chronological investigations, however, have made it seem probable that a
period at least a hundred years later should be chosen.

The first impulse was probably given by new movements of tribes in the
north. The advance of the Illyrians caused the Thessalians, a part of
the Epirot tribe of the Thesproti, to withdraw across Pindus into the
valley of the Peneus, which was afterwards called Thessaly. While the
preservation of the Greek character in Epirus was henceforth left to
the brave Molossi, the Thessalians east of Pindus fell upon the settled
Greeks of the lowlands and destroyed their states. The proudest and most
vigorous elements of the old population that survived the war, determined
to emigrate and found a new home. Thus, the Arnæ migrated to middle
Greece, destroyed the old states of Thebes and Orchomenus in the basin of
the Copaïs and united this whole district, which henceforth appears in
history as Bœotia, under their rule.

While the Thessalians were making preparations to subjugate the warlike
tribes of the highlands about the valley of the Peneus, one of these
mountain races, the Dorians, carried the mighty movement on to the
extreme south of the Peloponnesus. Within twenty years, according to
tradition, they had crossed the narrow strait of Rhium and begun the
conquest of the Peloponnesus. They ascended the valley of the Alpheus
into southern Arcadia. From here one body of them descended into the
Messenian valley of the Pamisus and overwhelmed the old kingdom of the
Melidæ of Pylos. The other branch invaded the principal districts of the
Achæans in the east and southeast of the Peloponnesus. In open battle the
rude Dorian foot-soldiers easily defeated the Achæan knights. But they
could not destroy the colossal walls of the Achæan fortresses or cities,
and were themselves finally forced to build fortifications from which
they could watch or invest the Achæan strongholds until the opportunity
was presented of storming them or forcing their capitulation. It was in
such a fortified camp that the Dorian capital Sparta had its origin.

It was probably the tenacious resistance of the Achæans in Laconia that
determined a large body of the Dorians to leave that district and turn
to the east, where they completely subjugated Argolis and made Argos the
centre of Dorian power in the eastern part of the Peloponnesus.

At the close of the Achæan period Attica was the canton which appeared to
have the most settled and uniform structure. It now became a favourite
refuge of migrant Greeks of many different tribes. This movement seems to
have strengthened little Attica in a considerable degree, for tradition
ascribes to these immigrants the successful resistance that Attica was
able to make when the hordes of the conquerors finally approached her
borders. But Attica was far too small and unproductive to retain the mass
of fugitives as permanent settlers. So the movement was finally turned
towards the islands of the Ægean and the coast of Asia Minor. According
to tradition there had already been an Archæan (or Æolian) migration to
Lesbos and Tenedos, from whence the Mysian coast and Troas were later
colonised.

The most important Ionian colonies in the east were in the Cyclades, at
Miletus, and at Ephesus. As their power continued to grow, the Ionians
gradually Hellenised a broad strip of coast and in the river valleys
pushed out a considerable distance to the eastward.

The Dorians also followed the movement of the other Greeks to the islands
and to Asia. Their most important occupations were Crete, Rhodes, and a
small portion of the southern coast of Caria, including the cities of
Cnidus and Halicarnassus.

By the first half of the eighth century B.C., the Greek world had
acquired the aspect which it retained for several centuries. The nation
had greatly increased its territory by colonisation. But the district
now called Thessaly was in possession of a race that showed little
capacity to develop beyond a vigorous and pleasure-loving feudalism;
and the Greeks of Epirus and the valley of the Achelous had been for
several centuries shut out from the evolution into Hellenism. So apart
from the newly risen power of the Bœotians, the future of Greece rested
upon the two races that had been but little named in the Achæan period.
The Dorians had become a great people. Argos had at first been the
leading power of the Peloponnesus, both in religion and in politics. The
Doric canton in the valley of the Upper Eurotas had made but slow and
difficult progress, until, at the close of the ninth and beginning of
the eighth century, that remarkable military and political consolidation
was completed which is connected with the name of Lycurgus. This was
the starting-point of a growth of Spartan power in consequence of which
before the end of the eighth century the balance of Doric power was to
pass from Argos to the south of the Peloponnesus.

Among the Ionians the Asiatic branch long remained the more important.
The Ionian Greeks of the Ægean and of the Lydio-Carian coast, through
their direct contact with the Orient, introduced to the Greek world new
elements of culture of a varied character. Of a friendly and adaptable
nature, they were specially fitted to be the traders and mariners of
Greek nationality. Politically they became pre-eminently the democratic
element of the nation, although there were powerful aristocratic
groups among them. But with them the tendency appears stronger than
among the other Greeks to allow full scope to personality, individual
right, individual liberty, and individual activity beside, and even in
opposition to the common interest.

The Asiatic Achæans appear in the historical period only under the name
of Æolians. This name also came to be applied to those members of the
Greek nation in Europe that could not be counted among either Dorians or
Ionians.

The common name borne by the Greeks after the completion of the
migrations is that of Hellenes. All the members of the various branches
exhibit the Hellenic character, though only a few communities developed
it in so ideal a form as the Athenians at the height of their historical
greatness. A beautiful heritage of all Hellenes was their appreciation
and enjoyment of art--of poetry and music as well as the plastic arts.
A warm feeling not only for the beautiful, but for the ideal and the
noble,--among the best elements also for right and harmoniously developed
life,--and a fine taste in art and in ethical perception have never been
denied the Greeks.

They were, moreover, at all periods characterised by a quick intellectual
receptivity and an incomparable union of glowing fancy, brilliant
intelligence, and sharp understanding. But mighty passion was coupled
with all this. Party spirit and furious party hatred ran through all
Greek history. The proud Greek self-assertion often degenerates into
boundless presumption. Cruelty in war, even towards Greeks themselves,
cunning and treachery, harsh self-interest and reckless greed are traits
that mar the brilliant figure of Hellenism long before the Roman and
Byzantine times.[b]


ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF ATHENS

In that part of earth termed by the Greeks Hellas, and by the Romans
Græcia, a small tract of land known by the name of Attica extends into
the Ægean Sea--the southeast peninsula of Greece. In its greatest
length it is about sixty, in its greatest breadth about twenty-four,
geographical miles. In shape it is a rude triangle,--on two sides flows
the sea--on the third, the mountain range of Parnes and Cithæron,
divides the Attic from the Bœotian territory. It is intersected by
frequent but not lofty hills, and compared with the rest of Greece, its
soil, though propitious to the growth of the olive, is not fertile or
abundant. In spite of painful and elaborate culture, the traces of which
are yet visible, it never produced a sufficiency of corn to supply its
population; and this, the comparative sterility of the land, may be
ranked among the causes which conduced to the greatness of the people.
The principal mountains of Attica are, the Cape of Sunium, Hymettus
renowned for its honey, and Pentelicus for its marble; the principal
streams which water the valleys are the capricious and uncertain rivulets
of Cephisus and Ilissus--streams breaking into lesser brooks, deliciously
pure and clear. The air is serene, the climate healthful, the seasons
temperate. Along the hills yet breathe the wild thyme and the odorous
plants which, everywhere prodigal in Greece, are more especially fragrant
in that lucid sky--and still the atmosphere colours with peculiar and
various tints the marble of the existent temples and the face of the
mountain landscapes.

Even so early as the traditional appearance of Cecrops amongst the
savages of Attica, the Pelasgians in Arcadia had probably advanced from
the pastoral to the civil life; and this, indeed, is the date assigned
by Pausanias to the foundation of that ancestral Lycosura, in whose
rude remains (by the living fountain and the waving oaks of the modern
Diaphorte) the antiquary yet traces the fortifications of “the first city
which the sun beheld.” It is in their buildings that the Pelasgi have
left the most indisputable record of their name. Their handwriting is yet
upon their walls! A restless and various people--overrunning the whole of
Greece, found northward in Dacia, Illyria, and the country of the Getæ,
colonising the coasts of Ionia, and long the master-race of the fairest
lands of Italy--they have passed away amidst the revolutions of the
elder earth, their ancestry and their descendants alike unknown.

The proofs upon which rest the reputed arrival of Egyptian colonisers,
under Cecrops, in Attica, have been shown to be slender, the authorities
for the assertion to be comparatively modern, the arguments against
the probability of such an immigration in such an age, to be at least
plausible and important. The traditions speak of them with gratitude as
civilisers, not with hatred as conquerors. Assisting to civilise the
Greeks, they then became Greeks; their posterity merged and lost amidst
the native population.

Perhaps in all countries, the first step to social improvement is in the
institution of marriage, and the second is the formation of cities. As
Menes in Egypt, as Fohi in China, so Cecrops at Athens is said first to
have reduced into sacred limits the irregular intercourse of the sexes,
and reclaimed his barbarous subjects from a wandering and unprovidential
life, subsisting on the spontaneous produce of no abundant soil. High
above the plain, and fronting the sea, which, about three miles distant
on that side, sweeps into a bay peculiarly adapted for the maritime
enterprises of an earlier age, we still behold a cragged and nearly
perpendicular rock. In length its superficies is about eight hundred,
in breadth about four hundred, feet. Below, on either side, flow the
immortal streams of the Ilissus and Cephisus. From its summit you may
survey here the mountains of Hymettus, Pentelicus, and, far away, “the
silver bearing Laurium”; below, the wide plain of Attica, broken by
rocky hills--there, the islands of Salamis and Ægina, with the opposite
shores of Argolis, rising above the waters of the Saronic Bay. On this
rock the supposed Egyptian is said to have built a fortress, and founded
a city; the fortress was in later times styled the Acropolis, and the
place itself, when the buildings of Athens spread far and wide beneath
its base, was still designated πόλις, or the City. By degrees we are
told that he extended, from this impregnable castle and its adjacent
plain, the limit of his realm, until it included the whole of Attica, and
perhaps Bœotia. It is also related that he established eleven other towns
or hamlets, and divided his people into twelve tribes, to each of which
one of the towns was apportioned--a fortress against foreign invasion,
and a court of justice in civil disputes.

If we may trust to the glimmering light which, resting for a moment,
uncertain and confused, upon the reign of Cecrops, is swallowed up in
all the darkness of fable during those of his reputed successors, it
is to this apocryphal personage that we must refer the elements both
of agriculture and law. He is said to have instructed the Athenians to
till the land, and to watch the produce of the seasons; to have imported
from Egypt the olive tree, for which the Attic soil was afterwards so
celebrated, and even to have navigated to Sicily and to Africa for
supplies of corn. That such advances, from a primitive and savage state,
were not made in a single generation, is sufficiently clear. With more
probability, Cecrops is reputed to have imposed upon the ignorance of his
subjects and the license of his followers, the curb of impartial law,
and to have founded a tribunal of justice (doubtless the sole one for
all disputes), in which after-times imagined to trace the origin of the
solemn Areopagus.[c]


KING ÆGEUS

The fortress, which Cecrops made his residence, was from his own name
called Cecropia, and was peculiarly recommended to the patronage of the
Egyptian goddess whom the Greeks worshipped by the name of Athene, and
the Latins of Minerva. Many, induced by the neighbourhood of the port,
and expecting security both from the fortress and from its tutelary
deity, erected their habitations around the foot of the rock; and thus
arose early a considerable town, which, from the name of the goddess, was
called Athenai, or, as we after the French have corrupted it, Athens.

This account of the rise of Athens, and of the origin of its government,
though possibly a village and even a fortress may have existed there
before Cecrops, is supported by a more general concurrence of traditional
testimony, and more complete consonancy to the rest of history, than is
often found for that remote age. The subsequent Attic annals are far
less satisfactory. Strabo declines the endeavour to reconcile their
inconsistencies; and Plutarch gives a strong picture of the uncertainties
and voids which occurred to him in attempting to form a history from
them. “As geographers,” he says, “in the outer parts of their maps
distinguish those countries which lie beyond their knowledge with such
remarks as these, _All here is dry and desert sand_, or _marsh darkened
with perpetual fog_, or _Scythian cold_, or _frozen sea_; so of the
earliest history we may say, _All here is monstrous and tragical land,
occupied only by poets and fabulists_.” If such apology was reckoned
necessary by Plutarch for such an account as could in his time be
collected of the life of Theseus, none can now be wanting for omitting
all disquisition concerning the four or seven kings, for even their
number is not ascertained, who are said to have governed Attica from
Cecrops to Ægeus, father of that hero. The name of Amphictyon, indeed,
whose name is in the list, excites a reasonable curiosity: but as it
is not in his government of Athens that he is particularly an object
of history, farther mention of him may best be reserved for future
opportunity.

Various, uncertain, and imperfect, then, as the accounts were which
passed to posterity concerning the early Attic princes, yet the assurance
of Thucydides may deserve respect, that Attica was the province of Greece
in which population first became settled, and where the earliest progress
was made toward civilisation. Being nearly peninsular, it lay out of the
road of emigrants and wandering freebooters by land; and its rocky soil,
supporting few cattle, afforded small temptation to either. The produce
of tillage was of less easy removal; and the gains of commerce were
secured within fortifications. Attica therefore grew populous, not only
through the safety which the natives thus enjoyed, but by a confluence of
strangers from other parts of Greece; for when either foreign invasion
or intestine broil occasioned anywhere the necessity of emigration,
Athens was the resort in highest estimation not only as a place of the
most permanent security, but also as strangers of character, able by
their wealth or their ingenuity to support themselves and benefit the
community, were easily admitted to the privilege of citizens.

But, as population increased, the simple forms of government and
jurisprudence established by Cecrops were no longer equal to their
purpose. Civil wars arose; the country was invaded by sea: Erechtheus,
called by later authors Erichthonius, and by the poets Son of the Earth,
acquired the sovereignty, bringing, according to some not improbable
reports, a second colony from Egypt.[9] Eumolpus, with a body of
Thracians, about the same time established himself in Eleusis. When,
a generation or two later, Ægeus, contemporary with Minos, succeeded
his father Pandion in the throne, the country seems to have been well
peopled, but the government ill constituted and weak. Concerning
this prince, however, and his immediate successor, tradition is more
ample; and though abundantly mixed with fable, yet in many instances
apparently more authentic than concerning any other persons of their
remote age. Plutarch has thought a history of Theseus, son of Ægeus,
not unfit to hold a place among his parallel lives of the great men of
Greece and Rome; and his account appears warranted in many points by
strong corresponding testimony from other ancient authors of various
ages. The period also is so important in the annals of Attica, and the
reports remaining altogether go so far to illustrate the manners and
circumstances of the times, that it may be proper to allow them some
scope in narration.

Ægeus, king of Athens, though an able and spirited prince, yet, in the
divided and disorderly state of his country, with difficulty maintained
his situation. When past the prime of life he had the misfortune to
remain childless, though twice married; and a faction headed by his
presumptive heirs, the numerous sons of Pallas his younger brother, gave
him unceasing disturbance. Thus urged, he went to Delphi to implore
information from the oracle how the blessing of children might be
obtained. Receiving an answer which, like most of the oracular responses,
was unintelligible, his next concern was to find some person capable
of explaining to him the will of the deity thus mysteriously declared.
Among the many establishments which Pelops had procured for his family
throughout Peloponnesus was the small town and territory of Trœzen on
the coast opposite to Athens, which he placed under the government of
his son Pittheus. Ægeus applied to that prince; who was not only in his
own age eminent for wisdom, but of reputation remaining even in the
most flourishing period of Grecian philosophy; yet so little was he
superior to the ridiculous, and often detestable superstition of his
time that, in consequence of some fancied meaning in the oracle, which
even the superstitious Plutarch confesses himself unable to comprehend,
he introduced his own daughter Æthra to an illicit commerce with Ægeus.
Perhaps it may be allowed to conjecture that the commerce was unknown to
the Trœzenian prince till the consequence became evident, and that the
interpretation of the oracle was an ensuing resource to obviate disgrace.

The affairs of Attica being in great confusion required the return
of Ægeus. His departure from Trœzen is marked by an action which, to
persons accustomed to consider modern manners only, may appear unfit to
be related but in a fable, yet is so consonant to the manners of the
times, and so characteristical of them, as to demand the notice of the
historian. He led Æthra to a sequestered spot where was a small cavity
in a rock. Depositing there a hunting-knife and a pair of sandals,
he covered them with a marble fragment of enormous weight; and then
addressing Æthra, “If,” said he, “the child you now bear should prove a
boy, let the removal of this stone be one day the proof of his strength;
when he can effect it, send him with the tokens underneath to Athens.”

Pittheus, well knowing the genius and the degree of information of his
subjects and fellow-countrymen, thought it not too gross an imposition
to report that his daughter was pregnant by the god Poseidon, or, as we
usually call him with the Latins, Neptune, esteemed the tutelary deity
of the Trœzenians. A similar expedient seems indeed to have been often
successfully used to cover the disgrace which, even in those days,
would otherwise attend such irregular amours in a lady of high rank,
though women of lower degree appear to have derived no dishonour from
concubinage with their superiors. Theseus was the produce of the singular
connection of Æthra with Ægeus. He is said to have been carefully
educated under the inspection of his grandfather, and to have given
early proofs of uncommon vigour both of body and mind. On his attaining
manhood, his mother, in pursuance of the injunction of Ægeus, unfolded to
him the reality of his parentage, and conducted him to the rock where his
father’s tokens were deposited. He removed the stone which covered them,
with a facility indicating that superior bodily strength so necessary in
those days to support the pretensions of high birth; and thus encouraged
she recommended to him to carry them to Ægeus at Athens. This proposal
perfectly suited the temper and inclination of Theseus; but when he was
farther advised to go by sea on account of the shortness and safety of
the passage, piracy being about this time suppressed by the naval power
of Minos, king of Crete, he positively refused.


THESEUS

The age of Theseus was the great era of those heroes, to whom the knights
errant of the Gothic kingdoms afterwards bore a close resemblance.
Hercules was his near kinsman. The actions of that extraordinary
personage are reported to have been for some years the subject of
universal conversation, and both an incentive and a direction to young
Theseus in the road to fame. After having destroyed the most powerful and
atrocious freebooters throughout Greece, Hercules, according to Plutarch,
was gone into Asia; and those disturbers of civil order, whom his
irresistible might and severe justice had driven to conceal themselves,
took advantage of his absence to renew their violences. Being not obscure
and vagabond thieves, but powerful chieftains, who openly defied law
and government, the dangers to be expected from them were well known
at Trœzen. Theseus however persevered in his resolution to go by land;
alleging that it would be shameful, if, while Hercules was traversing
earth and sea to repress the common disturbers of mankind, he should
avoid those at his door, disgracing his reputed father by an ignominious
flight over his own element, and carrying to his real father, for tokens,
a bloodless weapon and sandals untrodden, instead of giving proofs of his
high birth by actions worthy of it.

Proceeding in his journey he found every fastness occupied by men who,
like many of the old barons of the Western European kingdoms, gave
protection to their dependants, and disturbance to all beside within
their reach, making booty of whatever they could master. His valour,
however, and his good fortune procuring him the advantage in every
contest carried him safe through all dangers; though he found nothing
friendly till he arrived on the bank of the river Cephisus in the middle
of Attica. Some people of the country meeting him there saluted him in
the usual terms of friendship to strangers. Judging himself then past
the perils of his journey, he requested to have the accustomed ceremony
of purification from blood performed, that he might properly join in
sacrifices and other religious rites. The courteous Atticans readily
complied, and then entertained him at their houses. An ancient altar,
said to have been erected in commemoration of this meeting, dedicated to
Jupiter with the epithet of Meilichius, the friendly or kind, remained to
the time of Pausanias.

When Theseus arrived at Athens, Ægeus, already approaching dotage,
was governed by the Colchian princess Medea, so famous in poetry, who
flying from Corinth had prevailed on him to afford her protection.
Theseus, as an illustrious stranger invited to a feast, on drawing his
hunting-knife, as it seems was usual, to carve the meat before him,
was recognised by Ægeus. The old king immediately rising embraced him,
acknowledged him before the company for his son, and afterward summoning
an assembly of the people presented Theseus as their prince. The fame
of exploits suited, as those of Theseus, to acquire popularity in that
age had already prepossessed the people in his favour; strong marks of
general satisfaction followed. But the party of the sons of Pallas was
powerful: their disappointment was equally great and unexpected; and no
hope remaining to accomplish their wishes by other means, they withdrew
from the city, collected their adherents, and returned in arms. The tide
of popular inclination, however, now ran so strongly in favour of Theseus
that some even of their confidants gave way to it. A design to surprise
the city was discovered; part of their troops were in consequence cut
off, the rest dispersed; and the faction was completely quelled.

Quiet being thus restored to Athens, Theseus was diligent to increase
the popularity he had acquired. Military fame was the means to which his
active spirit chiefly inclined him; but, as the state had now no enemies,
he exercised his valour in the destruction of wild beasts, and, it is
said, added not a little to his reputation by delivering the country from
a savage bull, which had done great mischief in the neighbourhood of
Marathon.

An opportunity however soon offered for Theseus to do his country more
essential service, and to acquire more illustrious fame. The Athenians,
in a war with Minos, king of Crete, had been reduced to purchase peace
of that powerful monarch by a yearly tribute of seven youths and as many
virgins. Coined money was not common till some centuries after his age;
and slaves and cattle were not only the principal riches, but the most
commodious and usual standards by which the value of other things was
determined. A tribute of slaves therefore was perhaps the most convenient
that Minos could impose; Attica maintaining few cattle, and those being
less easily transported. The burden however could not but cause much
uneasiness among the Athenians; so that the return of the Cretan ship
at the usual time to demand the tribute excited fresh and loud murmurs
against the government of Ægeus. Theseus took an extraordinary step,
but perfectly suited to the heroic character which he affected, for
appeasing the popular discontent. The tributary youths and virgins had
been hitherto drawn by lot from the body of the people; who might however
apparently send slaves, if they had or could procure them, instead of
persons of their own family. But Theseus offered himself. Report went
that those unfortunate victims were thrown into the famous labyrinth
built by Dædalus, and there devoured by the Minotaur, a monster, half-man
and half-bull. This fable was probably no invention of the poets who
embellished it in more polished ages: it may have been devised at the
time, and even have found credit among a people of an imagination so
lively, and a judgment so uninformed, as were then the Athenians. The
offer of Theseus therefore, really magnanimous, appeared an unparalleled
effort of patriotic heroism.

Ancient writers, who have endeavoured to investigate truth among the
intricacies of fabulous tradition, tell us that the labyrinth was a
fortress where prisoners were usually kept, and that a Cretan general,
its governor, named Taurus, which in Greek signifies a bull, gave rise
to the fiction of the Minotaur. The better testimony from antiquity
however asserts that Theseus was received by Minos more agreeably to the
character of a great and generous prince than of a tyrant who gave his
captives to be devoured by monsters. But during this, the flourishing
age of Crete, letters were, if at all known, little used in Greece.
In after-times, when the Athenians bore the sway in literature, their
tragedians, flattering vulgar prejudices, exhibited Minos in odious
colours; and through the popularity of their ingenious works their
calumnious misrepresentations, as Plutarch has observed, overbore
the eulogies of the elder poets, even of Hesiod and Homer. Thus the
particulars of the adventures of Theseus in Crete, and of his return
to Athens, have been so disguised that even to guess at the truth is
difficult. For these early ages Homer is our best guide; but he has mixed
mythology with his short notice of the adventure of Theseus in Crete.

A rational interpretation nevertheless is obvious. Minos, surprised
probably at the arrival of the Athenian prince among the tributary
slaves, received him honourably, became partial to his merit, and after
some experience of it gave him his daughter Ariadne in marriage. In the
voyage toward Athens the princess being taken with sudden sickness was
landed in the island of Naxos, where Bacchus was esteemed the tutelary
deity; and she died there. If we add the supposition that Theseus, eager
to communicate the news of his extraordinary success, or urged by public
duty, proceeded on his voyage while the princess was yet living, no
further foundation would be wanting for the fables which have made these
names so familiar. Theseus however, according to what with most certainty
may be gathered from Athenian tradition, freed his country from further
payment of the ignominious and cruel tribute.

This achievement, by whatsoever means effected, was so bold in the
undertaking, so complete in the success, so important and so interesting
in the consequences, that it deservedly raised Theseus to the highest
popularity among the Athenians. Sacrifices and processions were
instituted in honour of it, and were continued while the Pagan religion
had existence in Athens. The vessel in which he made his voyage was
yearly sent in solemn pomp to the sacred island of Delos, where rites of
thanksgiving were performed to Apollo. Through the extreme veneration in
which it was held, it was so anxiously preserved that in Plato’s time
it was said to be still the same vessel; though at length its frequent
repairs gave occasion to the dispute, which became famous among the
sophists, whether it was or was not still the same. On his father’s death
the common voice supported his claim to the succession, and he showed
himself not less capable of improving the state by his wisdom than of
defending it by his valour.

The twelve districts into which Cecrops had divided Attica were become so
many nearly independent commonwealths, with scarcely any bond of union
but their acknowledgment of one chief, whose authority was not always
sufficient to keep them from mutual hostilities. The inconveniences
of such a constitution were great and obvious, but the remedy full of
difficulty. Theseus, however, undertook it; and effected that change
which laid the foundation of the following glory of Athens, while it
ranks him among the most illustrious patriots that adorn the annals of
mankind. Going through every district, with that judicial authority which
in the early state of all monarchical governments has been attached to
the kingly office, and with those powers of persuasion which he is said
largely to have possessed, he put an end to civil contest. He proposed
then the abolition of all the independent magistracies, councils,
and courts of justice, and the substitution of one common council of
legislation, and one common system of judicature. The lower people
readily acceded to his measures. The rich and powerful, who shared among
them the independent magistracies, were more inclined to opposition.
To satisfy these, therefore, he offered, with a disinterestedness of
which history affords few examples, to give up much of his own power;
and, appropriating to himself only the cares and dangers of royalty, to
share with his people authority, honour, wealth, all that is commonly
most valued in it. Few were inclined to resist so equitable and generous
a proposal: the most selfish and most obstinate dared not. Theseus
therefore proceeded quietly to new-model the commonwealth.[10]

The dissolution of all the independent councils and jurisdictions in the
several towns and districts, and the removal of all the more important
civil business to Athens, was his first measure. He wisely judged that
the civil union, so happily effected, would be incomplete, or at least
unstable, if he did not cement it by union in religion. He avoided
however to shock rooted prejudices by any abolition of established
religious ceremonies. Leaving those peculiar to each district as they
stood, he instituted, or improved and laid open for all in common, one
feast and sacrifice, in honour of the goddess Athene, or Minerva, for
all inhabitants of Attica. This feast he called _Panathenæa_, the feast
of all the Athenians or people of Minerva; and thenceforward apparently
all the inhabitants of Attica, esteeming themselves unitedly under the
particular protection of that goddess, uniformly distinguished themselves
by a name formed from hers; for they were before variously called from
their race, Ionians; from their country, Atticans; or from their princes,
Cranaans, Cecropians, or Erechtidæ. To this scheme of union, conceived
with a depth of judgment, and executed with a moderation of temper,
rarely found in that age, the Athenians may well be said to owe all their
after greatness. Otherwise Attica, like Bœotia and other provinces,
whose circumstances will come hereafter under notice, would probably
have contained several little republics, united only in name; each too
weak to preserve dignity, or even to secure independency to its separate
government; and possessing nothing so much in common as occasions for
perpetual disagreement.

A share in the legislature, extended to all, insured civil freedom to
all; and no distinction prevailed, as in other Grecian provinces, between
the people of the capital and those of the inferior towns; but all were
united under the Athenian name in the enjoyment of every privilege
of Athenian citizens. When his improvements were completed, Theseus,
according to the policy which became usual for giving authority to great
innovations and all uncommon undertakings, is said to have procured a
declaration of divine approbation from the prophetical shrine of Delphi.

Thus the province of Attica, containing a triangular tract of land with
two sides about fifty miles long, and the third forty, was moulded into
a well-united and well-regulated commonwealth, whose chief magistrate
was yet hereditary, and retained the title of king. In consequence of
so improved a state of things, the Athenians began the first of all the
Greeks to acquire more civilised manners. Thucydides remarks that they
were the first who dropped the practice, formerly general among the
Greeks, of going constantly armed; and who introduced a civil dress in
contradistinction to the military. This particularity, if not introduced
by Theseus, appears to have been not less early, since it struck Homer,
who marks the Athenians by the appellation of long-robed Ionians. If we
may credit Plutarch, Theseus coined money; which was certainly rare in
Greece two centuries after.

The rest of the history of Theseus affords little worthy of notice.
It is composed of a number of the wildest adventures, many of them
consistent enough with the character of the times, but very little so
with what is related of the former part of his life. It seems indeed
as if historians had inverted the order of things; giving to his riper
years the extravagance of youth, after having attributed to his earliest
manhood what the maturest age seldom has equalled. Whether this should
be attributed altogether, or in any part, to the fancy which afterward
prevailed among philosophical writers to mix mythology with history, will
be rather for the dissertator than the historian to inquire. Theseus
however, it may be proper to observe, is said to have lost in the end all
favour and all authority among the Athenians; and though his institutions
remained in vigour, to have died in exile. After him, Menestheus, a
person of the royal family, acquired the sovereignty, and commanded the
Athenian troops in the Trojan War.[d]

According to some historians, Theseus, however explained, deserves no
credit for the Athenian union, since at the time this union took place,
Theseus was not even a national hero but only a local and minor god
worshipped about Marathon.


RISE OF POPULAR LIBERTY

We may perhaps safely conclude from analogy, that, even while the power
of the nobles was most absolute, a popular assembly was not unknown at
Athens; and the example of Sparta may suggest a notion of the limitations
which might prevent it from endangering the privileges of the ruling
body. So long as the latter reserved to itself the office of making, or
declaring, of interpreting, and administering the laws, as well as the
ordinary functions of government, it might securely entrust many subjects
to the decision of the popular voice. Its first contests were waged, not
with the people, but with the kings.

Even in the reign of Theseus himself the legend exhibits the royal power
as on the decline. Menestheus, a descendant of the ancient kings, is
said to have engaged his brother nobles in a conspiracy against Theseus,
which finally compelled him and his family to go into exile, and placed
Menestheus on the throne. After the death of this usurper indeed the
crown is restored to the line of Theseus for some generations. But his
descendant Thymœtes is compelled to abdicate in favour of Melanthus, a
stranger, who has no claim but his superior merit. After the death of
Codrus, the nobles, taking advantage perhaps of the opportunity afforded
by the dispute between his sons, are said to have abolished the title of
king, and to have substituted for it that of archon. This change however
seems to have been important, rather as it indicated the new, precarious
tenure by which the royal power was held, than as it immediately affected
the nature of the office. It was indeed still held for life; and Medon,
the son of Codrus, transmitted it to his posterity, though it would
appear that, within the house of the Medontids, the succession was
determined by the choice of the nobles. It is added however, that the
archon was deemed a responsible magistrate, which implies that those who
elected had the power of deposing him; and consequently, though the range
of his functions may not have been narrower than that of the king’s, he
was more subject to control in the exercise of them. This indirect kind
of sway, however, did not satisfy the more ambitious spirits; and we find
them steadily, though gradually, advancing towards the accomplishment
of their final object--a complete and equal participation of the
sovereignty.

After twelve reigns, ending with that of Alcmæon,[11] the duration of
the office was limited to ten years; and through the guilt or calamity
of Hippomenes, the fourth decennial archon,[12] the house of Medon was
deprived of its privilege, and the supreme magistracy was thrown open
to the whole body of the nobles. This change was speedily followed
by one much more important. When Tlesias, the successor of Eryxias,
had completed the term which his predecessor had left unfinished, the
duration of the archonship was again reduced to a single year; and at
the same time its branches were severed, and distributed among nine new
magistrates.

Among these, the first in rank retained the distinguishing title of The
Archon, and the year was marked by his name. He represented the majesty
of the state, and exercised a peculiar jurisdiction--that which had
belonged to the king as the common parent of his people, the protector
of families, the guardian of orphans and heiresses, and of the general
rights of inheritance. For the second archon the title of king, if it
had been laid aside, was revived, as the functions assigned to him were
those most associated with ancient recollections. He represented the
king as the high priest of his people; he regulated the celebration
of the mysteries and the most solemn festivals; decided all causes
which affected the interests of religion, and was charged with the
care of protecting the state from the pollution it might incur through
the heedlessness or impiety of individuals. The third archon bore the
title of polemarch, and filled the place of the king, as the leader
of his people in war, and the guardian who watched over its security
in time of peace. Connected with this character of his office was the
jurisdiction he possessed over strangers who had settled in Attica
under the protection of the state, and over freedmen. The remaining six
archons received the common title of _thesmothetes_, which literally
signifies legislators, and was probably applied to them, as the judges
who determined the great variety of causes which did not fall under the
cognisance of their colleagues; because, in the absence of a written
code, those who declare and interpret the laws may be properly said to
make them.

These successive encroachments on the royal prerogatives, and the final
triumph of the nobles, are almost the only events that fill the meagre
annals of Attica for several centuries. Here, as elsewhere, a wonderful
stillness suddenly follows the varied stir of enterprise and adventure,
and the throng of interesting characters, that present themselves to
our view in the heroic age. Life seems no longer to offer anything for
poetry to celebrate, or for history to record. Are we to consider this
long period of apparent tranquillity, as one of public happiness, of
pure and simple manners, of general harmony and content, which has only
been rendered obscure by the absence of the crimes and the calamities
which usually leave the deepest traces in the page of history? We should
willingly believe this, if it were not that, so far as the veil is
withdrawn which conceals the occurrences of this period from our sight,
it affords us glimpses of a very different state of things. In the list
of the magistrates who held the undivided sovereignty of the state, the
only name with which any events are connected is that of Hippomenes, the
last archon of the line of Codrus. It was made memorable by the shame of
his daughter, and by the extraordinary punishment which he inflicted on
her and her paramour. Tradition long continued to point out as accursed
ground the place where she was shut up to perish from hunger, or from the
fury of a wild horse, the companion of her confinement. The nobles, glad
perhaps to seize an opportunity so favourable to their views, deposed
Hippomenes, and razed his house to the ground.

This story would seem indeed to indicate the austerity, as well as the
hardness, of the ancient manners: but on the other hand we are informed,
that the father had been urged to this excess of rigour by the reproach
that had fallen upon his family from the effeminacy and dissoluteness of
its members. Without however drawing any inference from this isolated
story, we may proceed to observe, that the accounts transmitted to us of
the legislation of Draco, the next epoch when a gleam of light breaks
through the obscurity of the Attic history, do not lead us to suppose
that the people had enjoyed any extraordinary measure of happiness under
the aristocratical government, or that their manners were peculiarly
innocent and mild.


DRACO, THE LAWGIVER

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 650-600 B.C.]]

The immediate occasion which led to Draco’s legislation is not recorded,
and even the motives which induced him to impress it with that character
of severity to which it owes its chief celebrity, are not clearly
ascertained. We know however that he was the author of the first written
laws of Athens: and as this measure tended to limit the authority of
the nobles, to which a customary law, of which they were the sole
expounders, opposed a much feebler check, we may reasonably conclude
that the innovation did not proceed from their wish, but was extorted
from them by the growing discontent of the people. On the other hand,
Draco undoubtedly framed his code as much as possible in conformity to
the spirit and the interests of the ruling class, to which he himself
belonged; and hence we may fairly infer that the extreme rigour of its
penal enactments was designed to overawe and repress the popular movement
which had produced it.

Aristotle observes that Draco made no change in the constitution; and
that there was nothing remarkable in his laws, except the severity of the
penalties by which they were enforced. It must however be remembered that
the substitution of law for custom, of a written code for a fluctuating
and flexible tradition, was itself a step of great importance; and we
also learn that he introduced some changes in the administration of
criminal justice, by transferring causes of murder, or of accidental
homicide, from the cognisance of the archons to the magistrates called
_ephetes_; though it was not clear whether he instituted, or only
modified or enlarged, their jurisdiction. Demades was thought to have
described the character of his laws very happily, when he said that they
were written not in ink, but in blood. He himself is reported to have
justified their severity, by observing that the least offences deserved
death, and that he could devise no greater punishment for the worst. This
sounds like the language of a man who proceeded on higher grounds than
those of expediency, and who felt himself bound by his own convictions
to disregard the opinions of his contemporaries. Yet it is difficult
to believe, that Draco can have been led by any principles of abstract
justice, to confound all gradations of guilt, or, as has been conjectured
with somewhat greater probability, that, viewing them under a religious
rather than a political aspect, he conceived that in every case alike
they drew down the anger of the gods, which could only be appeased by the
blood of the criminal.

It seems much easier to understand how the ruling class, which adopted
his enactments, might imagine that such a code was likely to be a
convenient instrument in their hands, for striking terror into their
subjects, and stifling the rising spirit of discontent, which their
cupidity and oppression had provoked. We are however unable to form
a well-grounded judgment on the degree in which equity may have been
violated by his indiscriminate vigour; for though we read that he enacted
the same capital punishment for petty thefts as for sacrilege and
murder, still as there were some offences for which he provided a milder
sentence, he must have framed a kind of scale, the wisdom and justice of
which we have no means of estimating.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 630 B.C.]]

The danger which threatened the nobles at length showed itself from a
side on which they probably deemed themselves most secure. Twelve years
after Draco’s legislation, a conspiracy was formed by one of their own
number for overthrowing the government. Cylon, the author of this plot,
was eminent both in birth and riches. His reputation, and still more his
confidence in his own fortune, had been greatly raised by a victory at
the Olympic games; and he had further increased the lustre and influence
of his family by an alliance with Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara,
whose daughter he married. This extraordinary prosperity elated his
presumption, and inflamed his ambition with hopes of a greatness, which
could only be attained by a dangerous enterprise. He conceived the design
of becoming master of Athens. He could reckon on the cordial assistance
of his father-in-law, who, independently of their affinity, was deeply
interested in establishing at Athens a form of government similar to that
which he himself had founded at Megara; and he had also, by his personal
influence, insured the support of numerous friends and adherents. Yet it
is probable that he would not have relied on these resources, and that
his scheme would never have suggested itself to his mind, if the general
disaffection of the people toward their rulers, the impatience produced
by the evils for which Draco had provided so inadequate a remedy, and by
the irritating nature of the remedy itself, and the ordinary signs of an
approaching change, the need of which began to be universally felt, had
not appeared to favour his aims.

At this period scarcely any great enterprise was undertaken in Greece
without the sanction of an oracle; yet we cannot but feel some surprise,
when we are informed by Thucydides, that Cylon consulted the Delphic god
on the means by which he might overthrow the government of his country,
and still more at the answer he is said to have received: that he must
seize the citadel of Athens during the principal festival of Zeus. Cylon
naturally interpreted the oracle to mean the Olympic games, the scene
of his glory; and Thucydides thinks it worth observing, that the great
Attic festival in honour of the same god occurred at a different season.
At the time however which appeared to be prescribed by his infallible
counsellor, Cylon proceeded to carry his plan into effect. With the aid
of a body of troops furnished by Theagenes, and of his partisans, he
made himself master of the citadel. Cylon and his friends soon found
themselves besieged by the forces which the government called in from all
parts of the country. When the provisions were all spent, and some had
died of hunger, the remainder abandoned the defence of the walls, and
took refuge in the temple of Athene.

The archon Megacles and his colleagues, seeing them reduced to the last
extremity of weakness, began to be alarmed lest the sanctuary should
be profaned by their death. To avoid this danger, they induced them to
surrender on condition that their lives should be spared. Thucydides
simply relates that the archons broke their promise, and put their
prisoners to death when they had quitted their asylum, and that some were
even killed at the altars of the “dread goddesses,” as the Eumenides,
or Furies, were called, to which they had fled in the tumult. Plutarch
adds a feature to the story, which seems too characteristic of the age
to be considered as a later invention. More effectually to insure their
safety, the suppliants, before they descended from the citadel, fastened
a line to the statue of Minerva, and held it in their hands, as they
passed through the midst of their enemies. But the line chancing to break
as they were passing by the sanctuary of the Eumenides, Megacles, with
the approbation of his colleagues, declared that they were no longer
under the safeguard of the goddess, who had thus visibly rejected their
supplication, and immediately proceeded to arrest them. His words were
the signal of a general massacre, from which even the awful sanctity of
the neighbouring altars did not screen the fugitives: none escaped but
those who found means of imploring female compassion.

If the conduct of the principal actors in this bloody scene had been
marked only by treachery and cruelty, it would never have exposed them
to punishment, perhaps not even to reproach. But they had been guilty
of a flagrant violation of religion; and Megacles and his whole house
were viewed with horror, as men polluted with the stain of sacrilege.
All public disasters and calamities were henceforth construed into signs
of the divine displeasure: and the surviving partisans of Cylon did not
fail to urge that the gods would never be appeased until vengeance should
have been taken on the offenders. Yet if this had been the only question
which agitated the public mind, it might have been hushed without
producing any important consequences. But it was only one ingredient in
the ferment which the conflict of parties, the grievances of the many,
and the ambition of the few, now carried to a height that called for some
extraordinary remedy. Hence Cylon’s conspiracy and its issue exercised
an influence on the history of Athens, which has rendered it forever
memorable, as the event which led the way to the legislation of Solon.[e]


FOOTNOTES

[9] [According to some, the name Erechtheus was imported into “history”
from the legend of the contest between Minerva (Athena) and Neptune
(Poseidon Erechtheus) for the Acropolis. Erechtheus, though defeated, was
permitted to remain; later he was thought of as a hero, and finally given
a place along with Cecrops (the imaginary ancestor of the Cecropes) in
the list of kings.]

[10] Payne Knight has supposed Theseus a merely fabulous personage,
because he is not mentioned in any passage of Homer’s poems, excepting
one which he has reckoned not genuine. It seems bold to oppose such
negative testimony to the positive of Thucydides and Cicero.

[11] The successors of Medon were Acastus, Archippus, Thersippus,
Phorbas, Megacles, Diognetus, Pherecles, Ariphron, Thespieus, Agamestor,
Æschylus, Alcmæon (_Ol._ VII, 1. B.C. 752).

[12] His predecessors were Charops, Æsimedes, Clidicus; he was succeeded
by Leocrates, Apsander, and Eryxias. Creon, the first annual archon,
enters upon his office B.C. 684.

[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]




[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]




CHAPTER IX. SOME CHARACTERISTIC INSTITUTIONS


Perpetual warfare, pushed to the last extremity of hostile rage,
would in no long time have consumed or ruined the little tribes whose
territories occupied only a few adjacent valleys, always open to
invasion: the necessity of mutual forbearance for general safety would
naturally suggest the prudence of entering into friendly associations,
without any ulterior views, either of aggrandisement, or of protection
against a common enemy. Such an association, formed among independent
neighbouring tribes for the regulation of their mutual intercourse, and
thus distinguished on the one hand from confederations for purposes
offensive or defensive, and on the other, from the continued friendly
relations subsisting among independent members of the same race, is the
one properly described by the Greek term _amphictyony_.

This Greek word, which we shall be obliged to borrow, has been supposed
by some ancient and modern writers to have been derived from the name
of Amphictyon, the son of Deucalion, who is said to have founded the
most celebrated of the Amphictyonic associations, that which is always
to be understood under the title of the Amphictyonic Confederacy. There
can, however, be scarcely any reasonable doubt that this Amphictyon is
a merely fictitious person, invented to account for the institution
attributed to him, the author of which, if it was the work of any
individual, was probably no better known than those of the other
amphictyonies, which did not happen to become so famous.

The term “amphictyony,” which has probably been adapted to the legend,
and would be more properly written “amphictiony,” denotes a body
referred to a local centre of union, and in itself does not imply any
national affinity: and, in fact, the associations bearing this name
include several tribes, which were but very remotely connected together
by descent. But the local centre of union appears to have been always
a religious one--a common sanctuary, the scene of periodical meetings
for the celebration of a common worship. It is probable that many
amphictyonies once existed in Greece, all trace of which has been lost:
and even with regard to those which happen to have been rescued from
total oblivion, our information is for the most part extremely defective.

Of all such institutions the most celebrated and important was the one
known, without any other local distinction, as the Amphictyonic League
or council. This last appellation refers to the fact that the affairs
of the whole Amphictyonic body were transacted by a congress, composed
of deputies sent by the several states according to rules established
from time immemorial. One peculiar feature of this congress was, that
its meetings were held at two different places. There were two regularly
convened every year; one in the spring, at Delphi, the other in the
autumn, near the little town of Anthela, within the pass of Thermopylæ,
at a temple of Demeter.

The confederate tribes are variously enumerated by different authors. A
comparison of their lists enables us to ascertain the greater part of
the names, and to form a probable conjecture as to the rest; but it also
leads us to conclude that some changes took place at a remote period in
the constitution of the council, as to which tradition is silent. The
most authentic list of the Amphictyonic tribes contains the following
names: Thessalians, Bœotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhæbians, Magnetes,
Locrians, Œtæans or Enianians, Phthiots or Achæans of Phthia, Malians
or Melians, and Phocians. The orator Æschines, who furnishes this list,
shows, by mentioning the number twelve, that one name is wanting. The
other lists supply two names to fill up the vacant place; the Dolopes,
and the Delphians. It seems not improbable that the former were finally
supplanted by the Delphians, who appear to have been a distinct race from
the Phocians.

The mere inspection of this list is sufficient to prove at once the
high antiquity of the institution and the imperfection of our knowledge
with regard to its early history. It is clear that the Dorians must
have become members of the Amphictyonic body before the conquest, which
divided them into several states, each incomparably more powerful than
most of the petty northern tribes, which possessed an equal number of
votes in the council. It may however be doubted, whether they were among
the original members, and did not rather take the place of one of the
tribes which they had dislodged from their seats in the neighbourhood of
Delphi, perhaps the Dryopes.

On the other hand the Thessalians were probably not received into the
league, before they made their appearance in Thessaly, which is commonly
believed to have taken place only twenty years before the Dorian invasion
of the Peloponnesus. It is therefore highly probable that they were
admitted in the room of some other tribe, which had lost its independence
through the convulsions of this eventful period.

The constitution of the council rested on the supposition, once perhaps
not very inconsistent with the fact, of a perfect equality among the
tribes represented by it. Each tribe, however feeble, had two votes in
the deliberation of the congress: none, however powerful, had more. The
order in which the right of sending representatives to the council was
exercised by the various states included in one Amphictyonic tribe was
perhaps regulated by private agreement; but, unless one state usurped the
whole right of its tribe, it is manifest that a petty tribe, which formed
but one community, had greatly the advantage over Sparta, or Argos, which
could only be represented in their turn, the more rarely in proportion to
the magnitude of the tribe to which they belonged. Besides the council
which held its sessions either in the temple, or in some adjacent
building, there was an Amphictyonic assembly, which met in the open air,
and was composed of persons residing in the place where the congress was
held, and of the numerous strangers who were drawn to it by curiosity,
business, or devotion.

[Illustration: A GREEK WARRIOR]

It is evident that a constitution such as we have described could not
have been suffered to last, if it had been supposed that any important
political interests depended on the decision of the council. But,
in fact, it was not commonly viewed as a national congress for such
purposes; its ordinary functions were chiefly, if not altogether,
connected with religion, and it was only by accident that it was ever
made subservient to political ends. The original objects, or at least the
essential character, of the institution, seem to be faithfully expressed
in the terms of the oath, preserved by Æschines, which bound the members
of the league to refrain from utterly destroying any Amphictyonic city,
and from cutting off its supply of water, even in war, and to defend the
sanctuary and the treasures of the Delphic god from sacrilege. In this
ancient and half-symbolical form we perceive two main functions assigned
to the council; to guard the temple, and to restrain the violence of
hostility among Amphictyonic states. There is no intimation of any
confederacy against foreign enemies, except for the protection of the
temple; nor of any right of interposing between members of the league,
unless where one threatens the existence of another.

A review of the history of the council shows that it was almost powerless
for good, except perhaps as a passive instrument, and that it was only
active for purposes which were either unimportant or pernicious. In the
great national struggles it lent no strength to the common cause; but
it now and then threw a shade of sanctity over plans of ambition or
revenge. It sometimes assumed a jurisdiction uncertain in its limits,
over its members; but it seldom had the power of executing its sentences,
and commonly committed them to the party most interested in exacting
the penalty. Thus it punished the Dolopes of Scyros for piracy, by the
hands of the Athenians, who coveted their island. But its most legitimate
sphere of action lay in cases where the honour and safety of the Delphic
sanctuary were concerned; and in these it might safely reckon on general
co-operation from all the Greeks. Thus it could act with dignity and
energy in a case where a procession, passing through the territory of
Megara towards Delphi, was insulted by some Megarians, and could not
obtain redress from the government; the Amphictyonic tribunal punished
the offenders with death or banishment.

[Sidenote: [590 B.C.]]

A much more celebrated and important instance of a similar intervention,
was that which gave occasion to the war above alluded to, which is
commonly called the Crissæan, or the First Sacred War. Crissa appears to
be the same town which is sometimes named Cirrha. Situate on that part
of the Corinthian Gulf which was called from it the Gulf of Crissa, it
commanded a harbour, much frequented by pilgrims from the West, who came
to Delphi by sea, and was also mistress of a fruitful tract, called the
Cirrhæan Plain. It is possible that there may have been real ground for
the charge which was brought against the Crissæans, of extortion and
violence used towards the strangers who landed at their port, or passed
through their territory: one ancient author, who however wrote nearly
three centuries later, assigned as the immediate occasion of the war an
outrage committed on some female pilgrims as they were returning from the
oracle. It is however at least equally probable, that their neighbours of
Delphi had long cast a jealous and a wishful eye on the customs by which
Crissa was enriched, and considered all that was there exacted from the
pilgrims as taken from the Delphic god, who might otherwise have received
it as an offering.

A complaint, however founded, was in the end preferred against Crissa
before the Amphictyons, who decreed a war against the refractory
city. They called in the aid of the Thessalians, who sent a body of
forces under Eurylochus; and their cause was also actively espoused by
Clisthenes, tyrant of Sicyon: and, according to the Athenian tradition,
Solon assisted them with important advice. They consulted the offended
god, who enjoined, as the condition of success in the war, that they
should cause the sea to beat upon his domain. In compliance with this
oracle, at the suggestion of Solon, they vowed to dedicate the Crissæans
and their territory to the god, by enslaving them, and making their land
a waste forever. If the prospect of such signal vengeance animated the
assailants, the besieged were no doubt goaded to a more obstinate defence
by the threat of extermination. The war is said to have lasted ten years,
and at length to have been brought to a close by a stratagem, which we
could wish not to have found imputed to Solon. He is reported to have
poisoned the waters of the Plistus, from which the city was supplied,
and thus to have reduced the garrison to a state in which they were
easily overpowered. When the town had fallen, the vow of the conquerors
was literally fulfilled. Crissa was razed to the ground, its harbour
choked up, its fruitful plain turned into a wilderness. This triumph was
commemorated by the institution of gymnastic games, called the Pythian,
in the room of a more ancient and simple festival. The Amphictyons,
who celebrated the new games with the spoils of Crissa, were appointed
perpetual presidents.


THE ORACLE AT DELPHI

[Sidenote: [589-585 B.C.]]

As the Delphic oracle was the object to which the principal duties
of the Amphictyons related, it might have been imagined to have been
under their control, and thus to have afforded them an engine by which
they might, at least secretly, exert a very powerful influence over
the affairs of Greece. But though this engine was not unfrequently
wielded for political purposes, it appears not to have been under the
management of the council, but of the leading citizens of Delphi, who
had opportunity of constant and more efficacious access to the persons
employed in revealing the supposed will of the god. In early times the
oracle was often consulted, not merely for the sake of learning the
unknown future, but for advice and direction, which, as it was implicitly
followed, really determined the destiny of those who received it. The
power conferred by such an instrument was unbounded; and it appears, on
the whole, not to have been ill applied: but the honour of its beneficial
effects must be ascribed almost entirely to the wisdom and patriotism of
the ruling Delphians or of the foreigners who concerted with them in the
use of the sacred machinery. But the authority of the oracle itself was
gradually weakened, partly by the progress of new opinions, and partly by
the abuse which was too frequently made of it. The organ of the prophetic
god was a woman, of an age more open to bribery than to any other kind
of seduction;[13] and, even before the Persian wars, several instances
occurred in which she had notoriously sold her answers. The credulity
of individuals might notwithstanding be little shaken: but a few such
disclosures would be sufficient to deprive the oracle of the greater part
of its political influence.


NATIONAL FESTIVALS

The character of a national institution, which the Amphictyonic council
affected, but never really acquired, more truly belonged to the public
festivals, which, though celebrated within certain districts, were
not peculiar to any tribe, but were open to all who could prove their
Hellenic blood.[b]

[Illustration: GREEK DANCING GIRL

(After Hope)]

From very early times, it had been customary among the Greeks to hold
numerous meetings for purposes of festivity and social amusement. A
foot-race, a wrestling match, or some other rude trial of bodily strength
and activity, formed originally the principal entertainment, which
seems to have been very similar in character to our country wakes. The
almost ceaseless warfare among the little Grecian states gave especial
value to military exercises, which were accordingly ordinary in those
games. The connection of these games with the warlike character may
have occasioned their introduction at funerals in honour of the dead;
a custom which, we learn from Homer, was in his time ancient. But all
the violence of the early ages was unable to repress that elegance of
imagination which seems congenial to Greece. Very anciently a contention
for a prize in poetry and music was a favourite entertainment of the
Grecian people; and when connected, as it often was, with some ceremony
of religion, drew together large assemblies of both sexes. A festival of
this kind in the little island of Delos, at which Homer assisted, brought
a numerous concourse from different parts by sea: and Hesiod informs us
of a splendid meeting for the celebration of various games at Chalcis in
Eubœa, where himself obtained the prize for poetry and song. The contest
in music and poetry seems early to have been particularly connected with
the worship of Apollo. When this was carried from the islands of the
Ægean to Delphi, a prize for poetry was instituted; and thence appear
to have arisen the Pythian games. But Homer shows that games, in which
athletic exercises and music and dancing were alternately introduced,
made a common amusement of the courts of princes; and before his time
the manner of conducting them was so far reduced to a system that public
judges of the games were of the established magistracy. Thus improved,
the games greatly resembled the tilts and tournaments of the ages of
chivalry. Only men of high rank presumed to engage in them; but a large
concourse of all orders attended as spectators; and to keep regularity
among these was perhaps the most necessary office of the judges. But the
most solemn meetings, drawing together people of distinguished rank and
character, often from distant parts, were at the funerals of eminent men.
The paramount sovereigns of the Peloponnesus did not disdain to attend
these, which were celebrated with every circumstance of magnificence and
splendour that the age could afford. The funeral of Patroclus, described
in the _Iliad_, may be considered as an example of what the poet could
imagine in its kind most complete. The games, in which prizes were there
contended for, were the chariot-race, the foot-race, boxing, wrestling,
throwing the quoit and the javelin, shooting with the bow, and fencing
with the spear. And in times when none could be rich or powerful but the
strong and active, the expert at martial exercises, all those trials of
skill appear to have been esteemed equally becoming men of the highest
rank; though it may seem, from the prizes offered and the persons
contending at the funeral of Patroclus, the poet himself saw, in the game
of the cestus, some incongruity with exalted characters.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 884 B.C.]]

Traditions are preserved of games celebrated in Elis, upon several
great occasions, in very early times, with more than ordinary pomp, by
assemblies of chiefs from different parts of Greece. Homer mentions such
at Elis under King Augeas, contemporary with Hercules, and grandfather
of one of the chiefs who commanded the Elean troops in the Trojan War;
and again at Buprasium in Elis, for the funeral of Amarynceus, while
Nestor was yet in the vigour of youth. But it does not at all appear from
Homer that in his time, or ever before him, any periodical festival was
established like that which afterward became so famous under the title
of the Olympiad or the Olympian contest, or, as our writers, translating
the Latin phrase, have commonly termed it, the Olympian Games. On the
contrary, every mention of such games, in his extant works, shows them to
have been only occasional solemnities; and Strabo has remarked that they
were distinguished by a characteristical difference from the Olympian.
In these the honour derived from receiving publicly a crown or chaplet,
formed of a branch of oleaster, was the only reward of the victor; but
in Homer’s games the prizes, not merely honorary, were intrinsically
valuable, and the value was often very considerable.

After Homer’s age, through the long troubles ensuing from the Dorian
conquest, and the great change made in the population of the country, the
customs and institutions of the Peloponnesians were so altered that even
memory of the ancient games was nearly lost.


THE OLYMPIAN GAMES

In this season of turbulence and returning barbarism, Iphitus, a
descendant, probably grandson, of Oxylus (though so deficient were the
means of transmitting information to posterity that we have no assurance
even of his father’s name), succeeded to the throne of Elis. This prince
was of a genius that might have produced a more brilliant character in a
more enlightened age, but which was perhaps more beneficial to mankind
in the rough times in which he lived. Active and enterprising, but
not by inclination a warrior, he was anxious to find a remedy for the
disorderly situation of his country. He sent a solemn embassy to Delphi
to supplicate information from the deity of the place, “How the anger of
the gods, which threatened total destruction to the Peloponnesus through
endless hostilities among its people, might be averted.” He received for
answer, what himself, as a judicious critic has observed, had probably
suggested, “That the Olympic festival must be restored; for the neglect
of that solemnity had brought on the Greeks the indignation of the god
Jupiter, to whom it was dedicated, and of the hero Hercules, by whom
it had been instituted: and that a cessation of arms must therefore
immediately be proclaimed for all cities desirous of partaking in it.”
This response of the god was promulgated throughout Greece; and Iphitus,
in obedience to it, caused the armistice to be proclaimed. But the
other Peloponnesians, full of respect for the authority of the oracle,
yet uneasy at the ascendancy thus assumed by the Eleans, sent a common
deputation to Delphi, to inquire concerning the authenticity of the
divine mandate reported to them. The Pythoness however, seldom averse to
authorise the schemes of kings and legislators, adhered to her former
answer and commanded the Peloponnesians “to submit to the direction and
authority of the Eleans, in ordering and establishing the ancient laws
and customs of their forefathers.”

Supported thus by the oracle, and encouraged by the ready acquiescence
of all the Peloponnesians, Iphitus proceeded to model his institution.
Jupiter, the chief of the gods, being now the acknowledged patron of the
plan, and the prince himself, under Apollo, the promulgator of his will,
it was ordained that a festival should be held at the temple of Jupiter
at Olympia, near the town of Pisa in Elis, open to the whole Greek
nation; and that it should be repeated at the termination of every fourth
year: that this festival should consist in solemn sacrifices to Jupiter
and Hercules, and in games celebrated to their honour; and as wars might
often prevent not only individuals, but whole states, from partaking
in the benefits with which the gods would reward those who properly
shared in the solemnity, it was ordained under the same authority, that
an armistice should take place throughout Greece for some time before
the commencement of the festival, and continue for some time after its
conclusion. For his own people, the Eleans, Iphitus procured an advantage
never perhaps enjoyed in equal extent by any other people. A tradition
was current that the Heraclidæ, on appointing Oxylus at the same time
to the throne of Elis and to the guardianship of the temple of Olympian
Jupiter, had consecrated all Elis to the god under sanction of an oath,
and denounced the severest curses, not only on any who should invade
it, but also on all who should not defend it against invaders. Iphitus
procured universal acquiescence to the authority of this tradition; and
the deference of the Grecian people towards it, during many ages, is not
among the least remarkable circumstances of Grecian history. A reputation
of sacredness became attached to the whole Elean people as the hereditary
priesthood of Jupiter, and a pointed difference in character and pursuits
arose between them and the other Greeks. Little disposed to ambition,
and regardless even of the pleasures of a town-life, their general turn
was to rural business and rural amusements. Elsewhere the country was
left to hinds and herdsmen, who were mostly slaves; men of property,
for security as well as for pursuits of ambition and pleasure, resided
in fortified towns. But the towns of Elis, Elis itself the capital,
remained unfortified. In republican governments however civil contention
would arise. Within a narrow territory the implication of domestic
party-politics with foreign interests could not be entirely obviated; and
thus foreign wars would ensue. But to the time of Polybius, who saw the
liberty of Greece expire, the Eleans maintained their general character,
and in a great degree their ancient privileges; whence they were then the
wealthiest people of the Peloponnesus, and yet the richest of them mostly
resided upon their estates, and many, as that historian avers, without
ever visiting Elis.


_Character of the Games_

At the Olympian festival, as established by Iphitus, the foot-race,
distinguished by the name of _stadion_, is said to have been the only
game exhibited; whether the various other exercises familiar in Homer’s
age had fallen into oblivion, or the barbarism and poverty, superinduced
by the violent and lasting troubles which followed the return of the
Heraclidæ, forbade those of greater splendour.

Afterwards, as the growing importance of the meeting occasioned inquiry
concerning what had been practised of old, or excited invention
concerning what might be advantageously added new, the games were
multiplied. The _diaulos_, a more complicated foot-race, was added at
the fourteenth Olympiad; wrestling, and the _pentathlon_ or game of
five exercises, at the eighteenth; boxing at the twenty-third; the
chariot-race was not restored till the twenty-fifth, of course not till
a hundred years after the institution of the festival; the _pancration_
and the horse-race were added in the thirty-third.

So much Pausanias has asserted; apparently from the Olympian register,
which on other occasions he has quoted. Originally the sacrifices,
processions, and various religious ceremonies apparently formed the
principal pageantry of the meeting. Afterwards perhaps the games became
the greater inducement for the extraordinary resort of company to
Olympia; though the religious ceremonies continued still to increase in
magnificence as the festival gained importance. The temple, like that of
Delphi, became an advantageous repository for treasure. A mart or fair
was a natural consequence of a periodical assembly of multitudes in one
place; and whatever required extensive publicity, whatever was important
for all the scattered members of the Greek nation to know, would be most
readily communicated, and most solemnly, by proclamation at the Olympian
festival. Hence treaties by mutual agreement were often proclaimed at
Olympia; and sometimes columns were erected there at the joint expense of
the contracting parties, with the treaties engraved.

Thus the Olympian meeting to a not inconsiderable degree supplied the
want of a common capital for the Greek nation; and, with a success far
beyond what the worthy founder’s imagination, urged by his warmest
wishes, could reach, contributed to the advancement of arts, particularly
of the fine arts, of commerce, of science, of civilised manners, of
liberal sentiments, and of friendly communication among all the Grecian
people. Such was the common feeling of these various advantages, it
became established as a divine law that, whatever wars were going forward
among the republics, there should be a truce, not only during the
festival, but also for some days before and after; so that persons from
all parts of Greece might safely attend it.

The advantages and gratifications in which the whole nation thus became
interested, and the particular benefits accruing to the Eleans, excited
attempts to establish or improve other similar meetings in different
parts of Greece. Three of these, the Delphian, Isthmian, and Nemean,
though they never equalled the celebrity and splendour of the Olympian,
acquired considerable fame and importance. Each was consecrated to a
different deity. In the Delphic, next in consideration to the Olympic,
Apollo was honoured; the Delphian people were esteemed his ministers;
the Amphictyonic council were the allowed protectors and regulators of
the institution. The Isthmian had its name from the Corinthian Isthmus,
near the middle of which, overlooking the scene of the solemnity,
stood a temple of the god Neptune, venerated by the Corinthian people,
administrators of the ceremonies, as their patron.

At the Nemean, sacred to Juno, the Argives (who esteemed her the tutelary
deity of their state) presided. All these meetings, like the Olympian,
were, in war as in peace, open to all Grecian people; the faith of gods
as well as of men being considered as plighted for protection of all,
under certain rules, going to, staying at, and returning from them. All
were also, like the Olympian, held at intervals of four years; so that,
taking their years in turn, it was provided that in every summer, in
the midst of the military season, there should be a respite of those
hostilities among the republics which were otherwise so continually
desolating Greece; and though this beneficial regulation was under some
pretences occasionally overborne by powerful states, yet the sequel of
history shows it to have been of very advantageous efficacy.[c]


MONARCHIES AND OLIGARCHIES

The enterprises of the heroic age, as we see from the example of the
Trojan War itself, often led to the extinction, or expulsion, of a royal
family, or of its principal members; and no principle appears to have
been generally recognised which rendered it necessary, in such cases,
to fill a vacant throne or to establish a new dynasty, while every such
calamity inevitably weakened the authority of the kings, and made them
more dependent on the nobles, who, as an order, were not affected by
any disasters to individuals. But the great convulsions which attended
the Thessalian, Bœotian, and Dorian migrations, contributed still more
effectually to the same end. In most parts of Greece they destroyed or
dislodged the line of the ancient kings, who, when they were able to
seek new seats, left behind them the treasures and the strongholds which
formed the main supports of their power: and, though the conquerors were
generally accustomed to a kingly government, it must commonly have lost
something of its vigour when transplanted to a new country, where it was
subject to new conditions, and where the prince was constantly reminded,
by new dangers, of the obligations which he owed to his companions in
arms. Yet, even this must be considered rather as the occasion which
led to the abolition of the heroic monarchy, than as the cause: that
undoubtedly lay much deeper, and is to be sought in the character of the
people--in that same energy and versatility which prevented it from ever
stiffening, even in its infancy, in the mould of oriental institutions,
and from stopping short, in any career which it had once opened, before
it had passed through every stage.

It seems to have been seldom, if ever, that royalty was abolished by
a sudden and violent revolution; the title often long survived the
substance, and this was extinguished only by slow successive steps.
These consisted in dividing it among several persons, in destroying
its inheritable quality, and making it elective, first in one family,
then in more; first for life, then for a certain term; in separating
its functions, and distributing them into several hands. In the course
of these changes it became more and more responsible to the nobles,
and frequently, at a very early stage, the name itself was exchanged
for one simply equivalent to ruler, or chief magistrate. The form of
government which thus ensued might, with equal propriety, be termed
either aristocracy or oligarchy, but, in the use of the terms to which
these correspond, the Greek political writers made a distinction,
which may at first sight appear more arbitrary than it really is. They
taught--not a very recondite truth--that the three forms of government,
that of one, that of a few, and that of the many, are all alike right and
good, so long as they are rightly administered, with a view, that is,
to the welfare of the state, and not to the interest of an individual
or of a particular class. But, when any of the three loses sight of its
legitimate object, it degenerates into a vicious species, which requires
to be marked by a peculiar name. Thus a monarchy, in which selfish aims
predominate becomes a tyranny. The government of a few, conducted on
like principles, is properly called an oligarchy. But to constitute an
aristocracy, it is not sufficient that the ruling few should be animated
by a desire to promote the public good: they must also be distinguished
by a certain character; for aristocracy signifies the rule of the best
men.

More distinctly to understand the peculiar nature of the Greek
oligarchies, it is necessary to consider the variety of circumstances
under which they arose. By the migrations which took place in the century
following the Trojan War, most parts of Greece were occupied by a new
race of conquerors. Everywhere their first object was to secure a large
portion of the conquered land; but the footing on which they placed
themselves, with regard to the ancient inhabitants, was not everywhere
the same; it varied according to the temper of the invaders, or of their
chiefs, to their relative strength, means, and opportunities. In Sparta,
and in most of the Dorian states, the invaders shunned all intermixture
with the conquered, and deprived them, if not of personal freedom, of all
political rights. But elsewhere, as in Elis, and probably in Bœotia, no
such distinction appears to have been made; the old and the new people
gradually melted into one.

An oligarchy, in the sense which we have assigned to the word, could
only exist where there was an inferior body which felt itself aggrieved
by being excluded from the political rights which were reserved to the
privileged few. Such a feeling of discontent might be roused by the
rapacity or insolence of the dominant order, as we shall find to have
happened at Athens, and as was the case at Mytilene, where some members
of the ruling house of the Penthilids went about with clubs, committing
outrages like those which Nero practised for a short time in the streets
of Rome. But, without any such provocation, disaffection might arise from
the cause which we shall see producing a revolution at Corinth, where
the aristocracy was originally established on a basis too narrow to be
durable: as Aristotle relates of the Basilids at Erythræ, that, though
they exercised their power well, they could not retain it, because the
people would no longer endure that it should be lodged in so few hands.
In general however it was a gradual, inevitable change in the relative
position of the higher and lower orders, which converted the aristocracy
into an oligarchical faction, and awakened an opposition which usually
ended in its overthrow.

The precautions which were used by the ruling class, when it began to
perceive its danger, were of various kinds, and it was more frequently
found necessary to widen the oligarchy itself, by the admission of new
families, and to change the principle of its constitution by substituting
wealth for birth as the qualification of its members. The form of
government in which the possession of a certain amount of property was
the condition of all, or at least of the highest, political privileges,
was sometimes called a timocracy, and its character varied according to
the standard adopted. When this was high, and especially if it was fixed
in the produce of land, the constitution differed little in effect from
the aristocratical oligarchy, except as it opened a prospect to those
who were excluded of raising themselves to a higher rank. But, when
the standard was placed within reach of the middling class, the form
of government was commonly termed a polity, and was considered as one
of the best tempered and most durable modifications of democracy. The
first stage however often afforded the means of an easy transition to
the second, or might be reduced to it by a change in the value of the
standard.

Another expedient, which seems to have been tried not unfrequently in
early times, for preserving or restoring tranquillity, was to invest an
individual with absolute power, under a peculiar title, which soon became
obsolete: that of _æsymnete_. At Cumæ indeed, and in other cities, this
was the title of an ordinary magistracy, probably of that which succeeded
the hereditary monarchy; but, when applied to an extraordinary office, it
was equivalent to the title of protector or dictator. It did not indicate
any disposition to revive the heroic royalty, but only the need which was
felt, either by the commonalty of protection against the nobles, or by
all parties of a temporary compromise, which induced the adverse factions
to acquiesce in a neutral government. The office was conferred sometimes
for life, sometimes only for a limited term, or for the accomplishment of
a specific object, as the sage Pittacus was chosen by universal consent
at Mytilene, when the city was threatened by a band of exiles, headed by
the poet Alcæus and his brother Antimenidas [about 612 B.C.].


TYRANNIES

The fall of an oligarchy was sometimes accelerated by accidental and
inevitable disasters, as by a protracted war, which at once exhausted
its wealth and reduced its numbers, or by the loss of a battle, in which
the flower of its youth might sometimes be cut off at one blow, and
leave it to the mercy of its subjects; a case of which we shall find a
signal instance in the history of Argos. But much more frequently the
revolutions which overthrew the oligarchical governments arose out of
the imprudence or misconduct, or the internal dissensions, of the ruling
body, or out of the ambition of some of its members. The commonalty, even
when really superior in strength, could not, all at once, shake off the
awe with which it was impressed by ages of subjection. It needed a leader
to animate, unite, and direct it.

Such was the origin of most of the governments which the Greeks described
by the term “tyranny”--a term to which a notion has been attached, in
modern languages, which did not enter into its original definition. A
tyranny, in the Greek sense of the word, was the irresponsible dominion
of a single person, not founded on hereditary right, like the monarchies
of the heroic ages and of many barbarian nations; nor on a free election,
like that of a dictator or _æsymnete_; but on force. It did not change
its character when transmitted through several generations, nor was any
other name invented to describe it when power which had been acquired
by violence was used for the public good; though Aristotle makes it an
element in the definition of tyranny, that it is exercised for selfish
ends. But, according to the ordinary Greek notions, and the usage of the
Greek historians, a mild and beneficent tyranny is an expression which
involves no contradiction. On the other hand, a government, legitimate
in its origin, might be converted into a tyranny, by an illegal forcible
extension of its powers, or of its duration; and we are informed by
Aristotle that this was frequently the case in early times, before the
regal title was abolished, or while the chief magistrate, who succeeded
under a different name to the functions of royalty, was still invested
with prerogatives dangerous to liberty. Such was the basis on which
one of the ancient tyrants, most infamous for his cruelty, Phalaris of
Agrigentum [or Acragas], established his despotism.

But most of the tyrannies which sprang up before the Persian wars owed
their existence to the cause above described, and derived their peculiar
character from the occasion which gave them birth. It was usually by a
mixture of violence and artifice that the demagogue accomplished his
ends. A hackneyed stratagem, which however seems always to have been
successful, was, to feign that his life was threatened, or had even
been attacked by the fury of the nobles, and on this pretext to procure
a guard for his person from the people. This band, though composed of
citizens, he found it easy to attach to his interests, and with its aid
made the first step towards absolute power by seizing the citadel: an
act which might be considered as a formal assumption of the tyranny,
and as declaring a resolution to maintain it by force. But in other
respects the more politic tyrants set an example which Augustus might
have studied with advantage. Like him, they as carefully avoided the
ostentation of power as they guarded its substance. They suffered the
ancient forms of the government to remain in apparent vigour, and even in
real operation, so far as they did not come into conflict with their own
authority. They assumed no title, and were not distinguished from private
citizens by any ensigns of superior rank. But they did not the less keep
a jealous eye on all whom wealth, or character, or influence might render
dangerous rivals; and commonly either forced them into exile or removed
them by the stroke of an assassin. They exerted still greater vigilance
in suppressing every kind of combination which might cover the germ of
a conspiracy. The lowest class of the commonalty they restrained from
license, and provided with employment. For this purpose, no less than
to gratify their taste or display their magnificence, they frequently
adorned their cities with costly buildings, which required years of
labour from numerous hands: and, where this expedient did not suffice,
they scrupled not to force a part of the population to quit the capital,
and seek subsistence in rural occupations. On the same ground they were
not reluctant to engage in wars, which afforded them opportunities of
relieving themselves, in a less invidious manner, both from troublesome
friends and from dangerous foes, as well as of strengthening and
extending their dominion by conquest.

Such was the ordinary policy of the best tyrants; and by these arts they
were frequently able to reign in peace, and to transmit their power to
their children. But the maxims and character of the tyranny generally
underwent a change under their successors, and scarcely an instance was
known of a tyrannical dynasty that lasted beyond the third generation.
But, even where the tyrant did not make himself universally odious,
or provoke the vengeance of individuals by his wantonness or cruelty,
he was constantly threatened by dangers, both from within and from
without, which it required the utmost vigour and prudence to avert. The
party which his usurpation had supplanted, though depressed, was still
powerful, more exasperated than humbled by its defeat, and ever ready
to take advantage of any opportunity of overthrowing him, either by
private conspiracy, or by affecting to make common cause with the lower
classes, or by calling in foreign aid. And in Greece itself such aid was
always at hand: the tyrants indeed were partially leagued together for
mutual support. But Sparta threw all her might into the opposite scale.
She not only dreaded the contagion of an example which might endanger
her own institutions, but was glad to extend her influence by taking an
active part in revolutions, which would cause the states restored, by her
intervention, to their old government to look up to her with gratitude
and dependence as their natural protectress. And accordingly Thucydides
ascribes the overthrow of most of the tyrannies which flourished in
Greece before the Persian War to the exertions of Sparta.

The immediate effect produced by the fall of the tyrants depended on the
hands by which it was accomplished. Where it was the work of Sparta, she
would aim at introducing a constitution most in conformity to her own.
But the example of Athens will show, that she was sometimes instrumental
in promoting the triumph of principles more adverse to her views than
those of the tyranny itself. When, however, the struggle which had been
interrupted by the temporary usurpation was revived, the parties were
no longer in exactly the same posture as at its outset. In general the
commonalty was found to have gained, in strength and spirit, even more
than the oligarchy had lost; and the prevalent leaning of the ensuing
period was on the side of democracy. Indeed the decisive step was that
by which the oligarchy of wealth was substituted for the oligarchy of
birth. This opened the door for all the subsequent innovations, by which
the scale of the timocracy was gradually lowered, until it was wholly
abolished.


DEMOCRACIES

The term “democracy” is used by Aristotle sometimes in a larger sense,
so as to include several forms of government, which, notwithstanding
their common character, were distinguished from each other by peculiar
features; at other times in a narrower, to denote a form essentially
vicious, which stands in the same relation to the happy temperament
to which he gives the name of polity, as oligarchy to aristocracy, or
tyranny to royalty. We shall not confine ourselves to the technical
language of his system, but will endeavour to define the notion of
democracy, as the word was commonly understood by the Greeks, so as to
separate the essence of the thing from the various accidents which have
sometimes been confounded with it by writers who have treated Greek
history as a vehicle for conveying their views on questions of modern
politics, which never arose in the Greek republics.

It must not be forgotten, that the body to which the terms oligarchy and
democracy refer formed a comparatively small part of the population in
most Greek states, since it did not include either slaves or resident
free foreigners. The sovereign power resided wholly in the native
freemen; and whether it was exercised by a part or by all of them,
was the question which determined the nature of the government. When
the barrier had been thrown down, by which all political rights were
made the inheritance of certain families,--since every freeman, even
when actually excluded from them by the want of sufficient property,
was by law capable of acquiring them,--democracy might be said to have
begun. It was advancing, as the legal condition of their enjoyment was
brought within the reach of a more numerous class; but it could not be
considered as complete, so long as any freeman was debarred from them
by poverty. Since, however, the sovereignty included several attributes
which might be separated, the character of the constitution depended on
the way in which these were distributed. It was considered as partaking
more of democracy than of oligarchy, when the most important of them
were shared by all freemen without distinction, though a part was still
appropriated to a number limited either by birth or fortune. Thus where
the legislative, or, as it was anciently termed, the deliberative, branch
of the sovereignty was lodged in an assembly open to every freeman, and
where no other qualification than free birth was required for judicial
functions, and for the election of magistrates, there the government
was called democratical, though the highest offices of the state might
be reserved to a privileged class. But a finished democracy, that which
fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in which every attribute of
sovereignty might be shared, without respect to rank or property, by
every freeman.

More than this was not implied in democracy; and little less than this
was required, according to the views of the philosophers, to constitute
the character of a citizen, which, in the opinion of Aristotle, could
not exist without a voice in the legislative assembly, and such a
share in the administration of justice as was necessary to secure the
responsibility of the magistrates. But this equality of rights left
room for a great diversity in the modes of exercising them, which
determined the real nature of a democratical constitution. There were,
indeed, certain rights, those which Aristotle considers as essential
to a citizen, which, according to the received Greek notions, could,
in a democracy, only be exercised in person. The thought of delegating
them to accountable representatives seems never to have occurred either
to practical or speculative statesmen, except in the formation of
confederacies, which rendered such an expedient necessary.

But the principle of legal equality, which was the basis of democracy,
was gradually construed in a manner which inverted the wholesome order
of nature, and led to a long train of pernicious consequences. The
administration of the commonwealth came to be regarded, not as a service,
in which all were interested, but for which some might be qualified
better than others, but as a property, in which each was entitled to an
equal share. The practical application of this view was the introduction
of an expedient for levelling, as far as possible, the inequality of
nature, by enabling the poorest to devote his time, without loss, or even
with profit, to public affairs. This was done by giving him wages for
his attendance on all occasions of exercising his franchise; and, as the
sum which could be afforded for this purpose was necessarily small, it
attracted precisely the persons whose presence was least desirable.

A further application of the same principle was, as much as possible, to
increase the number, and abridge the duration and authority of public
offices, and to transfer their power to the people in a mass. On the
same ground, chance was substituted for election in the creation of all
magistrates, whose duties did not actually demand either the security of
a large fortune or peculiar abilities and experience. In proportion as
the popular assembly, or large portions detached from it for the exercise
of judicial functions, drew all the branches of the sovereignty more and
more into their sphere, the character of their proceedings became more
and more subject to the influence of the lower class of the citizens,
which constituted a permanent majority. And thus the democracy, instead
of the equality which was its supposed basis, in fact established the
ascendancy of a faction, which, although greatly preponderant in numbers,
no more represented the whole state than the oligarchy itself; and which,
though not equally liable to fall into the mechanism of a vicious system,
was more prone to yield to the impulse of the moment, more easily misled
by blind or treacherous guides, and might thus, as frequently, though not
so deliberately and methodically, trample, not only on law and custom,
but on justice and humanity. This disease of a democracy was sometimes
designated by the term “ochlocracy,” or the dominion of the rabble.

A democracy thus corrupted exhibited many features of a tyranny. It
was jealous of all who were eminently distinguished by birth, fortune,
or reputation; it encouraged flatterers and sycophants; was insatiable
in its demands on the property of the rich, and readily listened to
charges which exposed them to death or confiscation. The class which
suffered such oppression, commonly ill satisfied with the principle of
the constitution itself, was inflamed with the most furious animosity
by the mode in which it was applied, and regarded the great mass of its
fellow-citizens as its mortal enemies.[b]


FOOTNOTES

[13] The Pythia had once been a maiden, chosen in the flower of youth;
but this practice having been attended with inconvenient consequences,
women were appointed who had passed the age of fifty, but still wore the
dress of virgins. Diodorus, xvi, 26.




[Illustration: RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO EPICURIUS, ARCADIA]




CHAPTER X. THE SMALLER CITIES AND STATES


Aristotle’s survey of the Greek forms of government was founded on a
vast store of information which he had collected on the history and
constitution of more than a hundred and fifty states, in the mother
country and the colonies, and which he had consigned to a great work
now unfortunately lost. Our knowledge of the internal conditions and
vicissitudes of almost all these states is very scanty and fragmentary:
but some of the main facts concerning them, which have been saved from
oblivion, will serve to throw light on several parts of the ensuing
history.


ARCADIA, ELIS, AND ACHAIA

We have scarcely anything to say, during this period, of the state
of parties, or even the forms of government, in Arcadia, Elis, and
Achaia. If Arcadia was ever subject to a single king, which seems to be
intimated by some accounts of its early history, it was probably only,
as in Thessaly, by an occasional election, or a temporary usurpation.
The title of king however appears not to have been everywhere abolished
down to a much later time, as we find a hint that it was retained at
Orchomenos even in the fifth century before our era. That the republican
constitutions were long aristocratical can scarcely be doubted, as the
two principal Arcadian cities, Tegea and Mantinea, were at first only the
chief among several small hamlets, which were at length united in one
capital. This, whenever it happened, was a step towards the subversion
of aristocratical privileges; and it was no doubt with this view that
the five Mantinean villages were incorporated by the Argives, as Strabo
mentions without assigning the date of the event. But it is not probable
that Argos thus interfered before her own institutions had undergone a
like change, which, as we shall see, did not take place before a later
period than our history has yet reached. Whether the union of the nine
villages, which included Tegea as their chief, was effected earlier
or later, does not appear. But, after she had once acknowledged the
supremacy of Sparta, Tegea was sheltered by Spartan influence from
popular innovations, and was always the less inclined to adopt them when
they prevailed at Mantinea: for as the position of the two Arcadian
neighbours tended to connect the one with Sparta, and the other with
Argos, so it supplied occasion for interminable feuds between them. But,
in general, the history of the western states of Arcadia is wrapt in deep
obscurity, which was only broken, in the fourth century B.C., by the
foundation of a new Arcadian capital.

In Elis the monarchical form of government continued for some generations
in the line of Oxylus, but appears to have ceased there earlier than
at Pisa, which, at the time when it was conquered and destroyed by
the Eleans, was ruled by chiefs, who were probably legitimate kings.
Immediately after the conquest, in the fiftieth Olympiad, the dignity
of _hellanodicæ_, which had been held by the kings of Elis, or shared
by them with those of Pisa, was assigned to two Elean officers by lot,
a proof that royalty was then extinct. The constitution by which it was
replaced seems to have been rigidly aristocratical, perhaps no other
than the narrow oligarchy described by Aristotle,--who observes that
the whole number of citizens exercising any political functions was
small--confined, perhaps to the six hundred mentioned by Thucydides;
and that the senate, originally composed of ninety members, who held
their office for life, and filled up vacancies at their pleasure, had
been gradually reduced to a very few. Elis, the capital, remained in
a condition like that of the above-mentioned Arcadian towns until the
Persian War, when the inhabitants of many villages were collected in its
precincts. This was probably attended by other changes of a democratical
nature--perhaps by the limitation which one Phormis is said to have
effected in the power of the senate--and henceforth the number of the
_hellanodicæ_ corresponded to that of the tribes or regions into which
the Elean territory was divided; so that, whenever any of these regions
was lost by the chance of war, the number of the _hellanodicæ_ was
proportionately reduced. So too the matrons who presided at the games in
honour of Hera, in which the Elean virgins contended at Olympia, were
chosen in equal number from each of the tribes.

In Achaia, the royal dignity was transmitted in the line of Tisamenus
down to Ogyges, whose sons, affecting despotic power, were deposed,
and the government was changed to a democracy, which is said to have
possessed a high reputation. From Pausanias it would rather seem as if
the title of king had been held by a number of petty chiefs at once.
If so, the revolution must have had its origin in causes more general
than those assigned to it by Polybius. It was probably accelerated by
the number of Achæan emigrants who sought refuge in Achaia from other
parts of the Peloponnesus, and who soon crowded the country, till it
was relieved by its Italian colonies. What Polybius and Strabo term
a democracy may however have been a polity, or a very liberal and
well-tempered form of oligarchy. Of its details we know nothing; nor
are we informed in what relation the twelve principal Achaian towns--a
division adopted from the Ionians--stood to the hamlets, of which each
had seven or eight in its territory, like those of Tegea and Mantinea.
As little are we able to describe the constitution of the confederacy in
which the twelve states were now united.


ARGOS, ÆGINA, AND EPIDAURUS

More light has been thrown by ancient authors on the history of the
states in the northeast quarter of Peloponnesus, those of Argolis in the
largest sense of the word. At Argos itself, regal government subsisted
down to the Persian wars, although the line of the Heraclid princes
appears to have become extinct toward the middle of the preceding
century. Pausanias remarks, that, from a very early period, the Argives
were led by their peculiarly independent spirit to limit the prerogatives
of their kings so narrowly as to leave them little more than the name.
We cannot however place much reliance on such a general reflection of
a late writer. But we have seen that Phidon, who, about the year 750
B.C., extended the power of Argos farther than any of his predecessors,
also stretched the royal authority so much beyond its legitimate bounds,
that he is sometimes called a tyrant, though he was rightful heir of
Temenus. After his death, as his conquests appear to have been speedily
lost, so it is probable that his successors were unable to maintain the
ascendancy which he had gained over his Dorian subjects, and the royal
dignity may henceforth have been, as Pausanias describes it, little more
than a title. Hence, too, on the failure of the ancient line, about B.C.
560, Ægon, though of a different family, may have met with the less
opposition in mounting the throne. The substance of power rested with
the Dorian freemen: in what manner it was distributed among them we can
only conjecture from analogy. Their lands were cultivated by a class
of serfs, corresponding to the Spartan helots, who served in war as
light-armed troops, whence they derived their peculiar name, “gymnesii.”
They were also sovereigns of a few towns, the inhabitants of which, like
the Laconians subject to Sparta, though personally free, were excluded
from all share in their political privileges. The events which put an end
to this state of things, and produced an entire change in the form of
government at Argos, will be hereafter related.

Among the states of the Argolic _acte_, Epidaurus deserves notice, not
so much for the few facts which are known of its internal history, as
on account of its relation to Ægina. This island, destined to take
no inconsiderable part in the affairs of Greece, was long subject to
Epidaurus, which was so jealous of her sovereignty as to compel the
Æginetans to resort to her tribunals for the trial of their causes. It
seems to have been as a dependency of Epidaurus that Ægina fell under the
dominion of the Argive Phidon. After recovering her own independence,
Epidaurus still continued mistress of the island. Whether she had any
subjects on the main land standing on the same footing, we are not
expressly informed. But here likewise the ruling class was supported by
the services of a population of bondsmen, distinguished by a peculiar
name (_conipodes_, the dusty-footed), designating indeed their rural
occupations, but certainly expressive of contempt. Towards the end of
the seventh century B.C., and the beginning of the next, Epidaurus
was subject to a ruler named Procles, who is styled a tyrant, and was
allied with Periander the tyrant of Corinth. But nothing is known as
to the origin and nature of his usurpation. He incurred the resentment
of his son-in-law Periander, who made himself master of Procles and of
Epidaurus. It was perhaps this event which afforded Ægina an opportunity
of shaking off the Epidaurian yoke. But, had it been otherwise, the
old relation between the two states could not have subsisted much
longer. Ægina was rapidly outgrowing the mother country, was engaged
in a flourishing commerce, strong in an enterprising and industrious
population, enriched and adorned by the arts of peace, and skilled in
those of war. The separation which soon after took place was embittered
by mutual resentment; and the Æginetans, whose navy soon became the most
powerful in Greece, retaliated on Epidaurus for the degradation they
had suffered by a series of insults. But the same causes to which they
owed their national independence seem to have deprived the class which
had been hitherto predominant in Ægina of its political privileges. The
island was torn by the opposite claims and interests arising out of
the old and the new order of things, and became the scene of a bloody
struggle.


SICYON AND MEGARA

The history of Sicyon presents a series of revolutions, in many points
resembling those of Corinth. At what time, or in whose person, royalty
was there extinguished, and what form of government succeeded it, we
are not expressly informed; but, as we know that there was a class
of bondsmen at Sicyon, answering to the helots, and distinguished by
peculiar names, derived from their rustic dress or occupation, there
can be little doubt that other parts of the Dorian system were also
introduced there, and subsisted until a fortunate adventurer, named
Orthagoras, or Andreas, overthrew the old aristocracy, and founded a
dynasty, which lasted a century: the longest period, Aristotle observes,
of a Greek tyranny. Orthagoras is said to have risen from a very low
station--that of a cook--and was, therefore, probably indebted for
his elevation to the commonalty. The long duration of his dynasty is
ascribed by Aristotle to the mildness and moderation with which he and
his descendants exercised their power, submitting to the laws and taking
pains to secure the good will of the people.

His successor, Myron, having gained a victory in the Olympic chariot-race
in the thirty-third Olympiad, erected a treasury at Olympia, which was
remarkable for its material, brass of Tartessus, which had not long
been introduced into Greece; for its architecture, in which the Doric
and Ionic orders were combined; and for its inscription, in which the
name of Myron was coupled with that of the people of Sicyon. It may be
collected, from an expression of Aristotle’s, that, though Myron was
succeeded, either immediately or after a short interval, by his grandson
Clisthenes, son of Aristonymus, this transmission of the tyranny did not
take place without interruption or impediment; and, if this arose from
the Dorian nobles, it would explain some points in which the government
of Clisthenes differed from that of his predecessors.

He seems to have been the most able and enterprising prince of his house,
and to have conducted many wars, beside that in which we have seen him
engaged on the side of the Amphictyons, with skill and success: he was
of a munificent temper, and displayed his love of splendour and of the
arts both in the national games and in his native city, where, out of
the spoils of Crissa, he built a colonnade, which long retained the
name of the Clisthenean. The magnificence with which he entertained the
suitors who came from all parts of Greece, and even from foreign lands,
to vie with one another, after the ancient fashion, in manly exercises,
for his daughter’s hand, was long so celebrated, that Herodotus gives a
list of the competitors. It proves how much his alliance was coveted by
the most distinguished families; and it is particularly remarkable, that
one of the suitors was a son of Phidon, king of Argos, whom Herodotus
seems to have confounded with the more ancient tyrant of the same name.
Still Clisthenes appears not to have departed from the maxims by which
his predecessors had regulated their government with regard to the
commonalty, but, in the midst of his royal state, to have carefully
preserved the appearance, at least, of equity and respect for the laws.
On the other hand, towards his Dorian subjects he displayed a spirit of
hostility which seems to have been peculiar to himself, and to have been
excited by some personal provocation. It was probably connected with a
war in which he was engaged with Argos, and it impelled him to various
political and religious innovations, the real nature of which can now be
but very imperfectly understood.

One of the most celebrated was the change which he made in the names
of the Dorian tribes, for which he substituted others, derived from
the lowest kinds of domestic animals; while a fourth tribe, to which
he himself belonged, was distinguished by the majestic title of the
_archelai_ (the princely). Herodotus supposes that he only meant to
insult the Dorians; and we could sooner adopt this opinion than believe,
with a modern author, that he took so strange a method of directing their
attention to rural pursuits. But Herodotus adds, that the new names were
retained for sixty years after the death of Clisthenes and the fall of
his dynasty, when those of the Dorian tribes were restored, and, in the
room of the fourth, a new one was created, called from a son of the
Argive hero, Adrastus, the Ægialeans. When the Dorians resumed their old
division, the commonalty was thrown into the single tribe (called not
from the hero, but from the land), the Ægialeans.

We do not know how this dynasty ended, and can only pronounce it probable
that it was overthrown at about the same time with that of the Cypselids
(B.C. 580), by the intervention of Sparta, which must have been more
alarmed and provoked by the innovations of Clisthenes than by the
tyranny of Periander. It would seem, from the history of the tribes,
that the Dorians recovered their predominance; but gradually, and not so
completely as to deprive the commonalty of all share in political rights.

On the other side of the isthmus, the little state of Megara passed
through vicissitudes similar to those of Corinth and Sicyon, but attended
with more violent struggles. Before the Dorian conquest royalty is said
to have been abolished there after the last king, Hyperion, son of
Agamemnon, had fallen by the hand of an enemy, whom he had provoked by
insolence and wrong: and a Megarian legend seems to indicate that the
elective magistrates, who took the place of the kings, bore the title of
_æsymnetes_. The Dorians of Corinth kept those of Megara, for a time,
in the same kind of subjection to which Ægina was reduced by Epidaurus;
and the Megarian peasantry were compelled to solemnise the obsequies
of every Bacchiad with marks of respect, such as were exacted from the
subjects of Sparta on the death of the king. This yoke however was cast
off at an early period; and Argos assisted the Megarians in recovering
their independence. Henceforth it is probable Megara assumed a more
decided superiority over the hamlets of her territory, which had once
been her rivals; and she must have made rapid progress in population
and in power, as is proved by her flourishing colonies in the east and
west, and by the wars which she carried on in defence of them. One of
her most illustrious citizens, Orsippus, who, in the fifteenth Olympiad,
set the example of dropping all incumbrances of dress in the Olympic
foot-race, also conducted her arms with brilliant success against her
neighbours--probably the Corinthians--and enlarged her territory to
the utmost extent of her claims. But the government still remained in
the hands of the great Dorian land-owners, who, when freed from the
dominion of Corinth, became sovereigns at home; and they appear not to
have administered it mildly or wisely. For they were not only deprived
of their power by an insurrection of the commonalty, as at Corinth and
Sicyon, but were evidently the objects of a bitter enmity, which cannot
have been wholly unprovoked.

Theagenes, a bold and ambitious man, who put himself at the head of
the popular cause, is said to have won the confidence of the people
by an attack on the property of the wealthy citizens, whose cattle he
destroyed in their pastures. The animosity provoked by such an outrage,
which was probably not a solitary one, rendered it necessary to invest
the demagogue with supreme authority. Theagenes, who assumed the tyranny
about 620 B.C., followed the example of the other usurpers of his time.
He adorned his city with splendid and useful buildings, and no doubt in
other ways cherished industry and the arts, while he made them contribute
to the lustre of his reign. He allied himself to one of the most eminent
families of Athens, and aided his son-in-law, Cylon, in his enterprise,
which, if it had succeeded, would have lent increased stability to his
own power.

The victories which deprived the Athenians of Salamis, and made them at
last despair of recovering it, were probably gained by Theagenes. Yet he
was at length expelled from Megara; whether through the discontent of the
commonalty, or by the efforts of the aristocratical party, which may have
been encouraged by the failure of Cylon’s plot, we are not distinctly
informed. Only it is said that, after his overthrow, a more moderate and
peaceful spirit prevailed for a short time, until some turbulent leaders,
who apparently wished to tread in his steps, but wanted his ability
or his fortune, instigated the populace to new outrages against the
wealthy, who were forced to throw open their houses, and to set luxurious
entertainments before the rabble, or were exposed to personal insult
and violence. But a much harder blow was aimed at their property by a
measure called the _palintocia_,--which carried the principles of Solon’s
_seisachtheia_ to an iniquitous excess,--by which creditors were required
to refund the interest which they had received from their debtors.

This transaction at the same time discloses one, at least, of the causes
which had exasperated the commonalty against the nobles, who probably
had exacted their debts no less harshly than the Athenian Eupatrids.
But, in this period of anarchy, neither justice nor religion was held
sacred: even temples were plundered; and a company of pilgrims, passing
through the territory of Megara, on their way to Delphi, was grossly
insulted; many lives even were lost, and the Amphictyonic council was
compelled to interpose, to procure the punishment of the ringleaders. It
is unquestionably of this period that Aristotle speaks, when he says that
the Megarian demagogues procured the banishment of many of the notable
citizens for the sake of confiscating their estates; and he adds, that
these outrages and disorders ruined the democracy, for the exiles became
so strong a body, that they were able to reinstate themselves by force,
and to establish a very narrow oligarchy, including those only who had
taken an active part in the revolution. Unfortunately we have no means
of ascertaining the dates of these events, though the last-mentioned
reaction cannot have taken place very long after 600 B.C.

During the following century, our information on the state of Megara is
chiefly collected from the writings of the Megarian poet, Theognis, which
however are interesting not so much for the historical facts contained
in them, as for the light they throw on the character and feelings of
the parties which divided his native city and so many others. Theognis
appears to have been born about the fifty-fifth Olympiad, not long before
the death of Solon; and to have lived down to the beginning of the
Persian wars. He left some poems, of which considerable fragments remain,
filled with moral and political maxims and reflections. We gather from
them, that the oligarchy, which followed the period of anarchy, had been
unable to keep its ground; and that a new revolution had taken place, by
which the poet, with others of the aristocratical party, had been stript
of his fortune and driven into exile. But his complaints betray a fact
which throws some doubt on the purity of his patriotism, and abates our
sympathy for his misfortunes.


BŒOTIA, LOCRIS, PHOCIS, AND EUBŒA

The peculiar circumstances under which Bœotia was conquered, by a people
who had quitted their native land to avoid slavery or subjection, would
be sufficient to account for the fact that royalty was very early
abolished there. It may indeed be doubted whether the chief named
Xanthus, who is called king, sometimes of the Bœotians, sometimes of the
Thebans, and who was slain by the Attic king Melanthus, was anything more
than a temporary leader. The most sacred functions of the Theban kings
seem to have been transferred to a magistrate, who bore the title of
archon, and, like the archon-king at Athens, was invested rather with a
priestly than a civil character.

From the death of Xanthus, down to about 500 B.C., the constitution of
Thebes continued rigidly aristocratical, having probably been guarded
from innovation as well by the inland position of the city as by the
jealousy of the rulers; and the first change, of which we have any
account, was one which threw the government into still fewer hands. But,
about the thirteenth Olympiad, it seems as if discontent had arisen,
among the members of the ruling caste itself, from the inequality in
the division of property, which had perhaps been increased by lapse of
time, until some of them were reduced to indigence. Not long after that
Olympiad, Philolaus, one of the Corinthian Bacchiads, having been led by
a private occurrence to take up his residence at Thebes, was invited to
frame a new code of laws; and one of the main objects of his institutions
was to prevent the accumulation of estates, and to fix forever the number
of those into which the Theban territory, or at least the part of it
occupied by the nobles, was divided. He too was perhaps the author of the
law which excluded every Theban from public offices who had exercised
any trade within the space of ten years. It is probable enough that his
code also embraced regulations for the education of the higher class
of citizens; and it may have been he who, with the view, as Plutarch
supposes, of softening the harshness of the Bœotian character, or to
counterbalance an excessive fondness for gymnastic exercises, to which
the Thebans were prone, made music an essential part of the instruction
of youth.

Our information on the other Bœotian towns is still scantier as to their
internal condition; but we may safely presume that it did not differ
very widely from that of Thebes, especially as we happen to know that
at Thespiæ every kind of industrious occupation was deemed degrading
to a freeman: an indication of aristocratical rigour which undoubtedly
belongs to this period, and may be taken as a sample of the spirit
prevailing in Bœotia. The Bœotian states were united in a confederacy
which was represented by a congress of deputies, who met at the festival
of the _Pambœotia_, in the temple of the Itonian Athene, near Coronea,
more perhaps for religious than for political purposes. There were also
other national councils, which deliberated on peace and war, and were
perhaps of nearly equal antiquity, though they were first mentioned at a
later period, when there were four of them. It does not appear how they
were constituted, or whether with reference to as many divisions of the
country, of which we have no other trace. The chief magistrates of the
league, called _Bœotarchs_, presided in these councils, and commanded the
national forces. They were, in later times at least, elected annually,
and rigidly restricted to their term of office.

As to the institutions of the Locrian tribes in Greece, very little is
known, and they never took a prominent part in Greek history. Down to a
late period the use of slaves was almost wholly unknown among them, as
well as among the Phocians. This fact, which indicates a people of simple
habits, strangers to luxury and commerce, and attached to ancient usages,
may lead us to the further conclusion that their institutions were mostly
aristocratical; and this conclusion is confirmed by all that we hear of
them. Opus is celebrated, in the fifth century B.C., as a seat of law and
order by Pindar.

[Illustration: MT. PARNASSUS, IN PHOCIS]

Equally scanty is our information as to the general condition of the
Phocians. Their land, though neither extensive nor fertile, was divided
among between twenty and thirty little commonwealths, which were united
like the Achæans and the Bœotians, and sent deputies at stated times to
a congress which was held in a large building, called the Phocicum, on
the road between Daulis and Delphi. But Delphi, though lying in Phocis,
disclaimed all connection with the rest of the nation. Its government,
as was to be expected under its peculiar circumstances, was strictly
aristocratical, and was in the hands of the same families which had
the management of the temple, on which the prosperity of the city and
the subsistence of a great part of the inhabitants depended. In early
times the chief magistrate bore the title of king, afterwards that of
_prytanis_. But a council of five, who were dignified with a title
marking their sanctity, and were chosen from families which traced their
origin--possibly through Dorus--to Deucalion, and held their offices for
life, conducted the affairs of the oracle.

In Eubœa an aristocracy or oligarchy of wealthy land-owners, who,
from the cavalry which they maintained, were called _hippobotæ_, long
prevailed in the two principal cities, Chalcis and Eretria. The great
number of colonies which Chalcis sent out, and which attests its early
importance, was probably the result of an oligarchical policy. Its
constitution appears to have been, in proper terms, a timocracy: a
certain amount of property was requisite for a share in the government.
Eretria, once similarly governed, seems not to have been at all inferior
in strength. She was mistress of several islands, among the rest of
Andros, Tenos, and Ceos; and, in the days of her prosperity, could
exhibit 600 horsemen, 3000 heavy-armed infantry, and 60 chariots in a
sacred procession. Chalcis and Eretria were long rivals, and a tract
called the Lelantian plain, which contained valuable copper mines,
afforded constant occasion for hostilities. These hostilities were
distinguished from the ordinary wars between neighbouring cities by
two peculiar features--the singular mode in which they were conducted,
and the general interest which they excited throughout Greece. They
were regulated, at least in early times, by a compact between the
belligerents, which was recorded by a monument in a temple, to abstain
from the use of missile weapons. But, while this agreement suggests the
idea of a feud like those which we have seen carried on, in an equally
mild spirit, between the Megarian townships, we learn with surprise from
Thucydides that the war between Eretria and Chalcis divided the whole
nation, and that all the Greek states took part with one or the other of
the rivals.

It has been suspected that the cause which drew this universal attention
to an object apparently of very slight moment was, that the quarrel
turned upon political principles; that the oligarchy at Eretria had very
early given way to democracy, while that of Chalcis, threatened by this
new danger, engaged many states to espouse its cause. We are informed
indeed that the Eretrian oligarchy was overthrown by a person named
Diagoras, of whom we also hear that he died at Corinth while on his way
to Sparta, and that he was honoured with a statue by his countrymen.
It is also certain that the oligarchy at Chalcis, though more than
once interrupted by a tyranny, was standing till within a few years of
the Persian wars. But we do not know when Diagoras lived, and, without
stronger evidence, it is difficult to believe that the revolution which
he effected took place before the fall of the Athenian aristocracy, an
epoch which appears to be too late for the war mentioned by Thucydides.


THESSALY

Thessaly seems, for some time after the conquest, to have been governed
by kings of the race of Hercules, who however may have been only chiefs
invested with a permanent military command, which ceased when it was no
longer required by the state of the country. Under one of these princes,
named Aleuas, it was divided into the four districts, Thessaliotis,
Pelasgiotis, Pthiotis, and Hestiæotis. And, as this division was retained
to the latest period of its political existence, we may conclude that
it was not a merely nominal one, but that each district was united
in itself, as well as distinct from the rest. As the four Bœotian
councils seem to imply that a like division existed in Bœotia, so we may
reasonably conjecture that each of the Thessalian districts regulated its
internal affairs by some kind of provincial council. But all that we know
with certainty is, that the principal cities exercised a dominion over
several smaller towns, and that they were themselves the seat of noble
families, sprung from the line of the ancient kings, which were generally
able to draw the government of the whole nation into their hands.
Thus Larissa was subject to the great house of the Aleuadæ, who were
considered as descendants of the ancient Aleuas; Crannon and Pharsalus
to the Scopadæ and the Creondæ, who were branches of the same stock. The
vast estates of these nobles were cultivated, and their countless flocks
and herds fed, by their serfs, the Penests, who at their call were ready
to follow them into the field on foot or on horseback. They maintained a
princely state, drew poets and artists to their courts, and shone in the
public games of Greece by their wealth and liberality.

We are not anywhere informed whether there were any institutions which
provided for the union of the four districts, and afforded regular
opportunities for consultation on their common interests. But, as often
as an occasion appeared to require it, the great families were able to
bring about the election of a chief magistrate, always of course taken
from their own body, whose proper title was that of _tagus_, but who is
sometimes called a king. We know little of the nature of his authority,
except that it was probably rather military than civil; nor of its
constitutional extent, which perhaps was never precisely ascertained,
and depended on the personal character and the circumstances of the
individual.

The population of Thessaly, beside the penests, whose condition was
nearly that of the Laconian helots, included a large class of free
subjects, in the districts not immediately occupied by the Thessalian
invaders, who paid a certain tribute for their lands, but, though
not admitted to the rights of citizens, preserved their personal
liberty unmolested. But above this class stood a third, of the common
Thessalians, who, though they could not boast, like the Aleuadæ and the
Scopadæ, of a heroic descent, and had therefore received a much smaller
portion of the conquered land, still, as the partners of their conquest,
might think themselves entitled to some share in the administration
of public affairs. Contests seem early to have arisen between this
commonalty and the ruling families, and at Larissa the aristocracy of
the Aleuadæ was tempered by some institutions of a popular tendency. We
do not know indeed to what period Aristotle refers, when he speaks of
certain magistrates at Larissa who bore the title of guardians of the
freemen, and exercised a superintendence over the admission of citizens,
but were themselves elected by the whole body of the people, out of the
privileged order, and hence were led to pay their court to the multitude
in a manner which proved dangerous to the interests of the oligarchy.
It seems not improbable that the election of a tagus, like that of a
dictator at Rome, was sometimes used as an expedient for keeping the
commonalty under. But the power of the oligarchs was also shaken by
intestine feuds; and, under the government of the Aleuadæ, such was
the state of parties at Larissa, that, by common agreement, the city
was committed to the care of an officer, who was chosen, perhaps from
the commonalty, to mediate between the opposite factions; but, being
entrusted with a body of troops, made himself master of both. This event
took place two generations before the Persian War; but the usurpation
appears to have been transitory, and not to have left any durable traces,
while the factions of Larissa continue to appear from time to time
throughout the whole course of Grecian history.

The western states of Greece are, during this period, shrouded in so
complete obscurity, that we cannot pretend to give any account of their
condition. With respect to the Ætolians indeed it is uncertain how far
they are entitled to the name of Greeks. The Acarnanians, as soon as they
begin to take a part in the affairs of Greece, distinguish themselves as
a finer and more civilised people; and it is probable that the Corinthian
colonies on the Ambracian Gulf may have exerted a beneficial influence on
their social progress.[b]


CORINTH UNDER PERIANDER

In the Isthmus of Corinth there is a pillar with a double inscription.
On the side facing Peloponnesus is written “Here is Peloponnesus and
not Ionia.” On the opposite side, which faced the territory of Megaris,
was written, “This is not Peloponnesus but Ionia.” Between the hostile
worlds of the Dorians and Ionians, Corinth was as between two stools.
Originally, however, the Corinthians favoured the Dorians because they
had been conquered by them when Peloponnesus was subjugated under the
Heraclids. Corinth took the side of Lacedæmon in the internal quarrels of
Greece.

The aristocratic genius of the Dorians without abolishing the ancient
royalty, subordinated Corinth. One of the Heraclids was called king.
He commanded the army and presided over the debates of this military
aristocracy. Later, the oligarchy made this not very powerful king
disappear, and kept for itself all the rights of sovereignty. This was at
the time of the descendants of Bacchis, the Heraclid.

The Bacchiadæ numbered over two hundred, amongst them being other
families with whom they were connected and who governed Corinth together.
Each year, one of them, elected by his fellows, exercised under the name
Prytanis, a power very much resembling royalty. One day this annual
authority fell into the hands of an ambitious man Cypselus, who was not
satisfied with his power, and became master, not only of the people
but of his equals. This tyranny was followed by that of Periander, son
of Cypselus. Periander’s first acts were popular, but a sad occurrence
weighed upon his brain and made him cruel. This was found out in Corinth,
and from that time Periander, thinking he had nothing more to hope for,
gave way to all the bad traits of his character. He banished the most
powerful citizens. He killed his wife, Melissa, by a kick in the stomach
and then wishing by way of atonement to give her a splendid funeral, he
assembled all the women of Corinth in Juno’s Temple, where his guards
stripped them of their jewels and clothes which were burnt in honour of
Melissa.

However, Periander kept down luxury. He forbade the citizens to keep
many slaves, he ordered land-owners to live on their estates in order
to cultivate them, he allowed no one to spend more than his income, and
he established no new taxes. Last of all, he increased the Corinthian
navy and he conceived the idea of piercing the isthmus. These acts were
worthy of a statesman. He wrote and composed over two thousand verses
with morals. He praised democratic government and said that he himself
was a tyrant because he thought it too dangerous to give up being so. He
recommended moderation in happiness and that friendship should not change
with fortune.

Man’s heart is large enough to have good as well as bad qualities.
Besides, to have supreme power over equals was a double spur exciting
good as well as bad actions. If the intoxication of power inflamed
the senses and passions of the usurper, and defiance had to be met
by cruelty, it was in Periander’s interest to give his town all the
advantages of good government. Also, as he was clever, he knew how to
conciliate the people. Force is always admired and worshipped when it
comes from the highest, and protects and spares the weak.

After Periander, who died in his bed, Corinth had an aristocratic
government and knew no more the tyranny of a single ruler. The people
had an assembly but the direction of the important affairs of state was
in the hands of a senate. The aristocracy of Corinth which was rich and
prudent in governing, watched with jealous care over maintaining its
power and it is due to the energy of one of its number that Corinth
escaped from a new tyranny.

Of an illustrious family, Timophanes had become the idol of the people.
His audacity, his prowess in warfare, his familiarity with the humblest
citizens delighted the multitude and seemed to invite him to take the
reins of government into his hands. But Timophanes had near him a severe
judge in his brother. This brother, though loving him very much and
having for a long time screened or excused his faults, ended by killing
him in order that Corinth should not be reduced to servitude. The verses
Virgil dedicated to the first of the Brutuses might be applied to
Timoleon.

This republican fratricide had the misfortune of being cursed by his
mother. He lived twenty years, not in repentance but in solitude, and
we shall find him again at Syracuse. Corinth had not only founded that
celebrated city in Sicily, she had founded other colonies besides,
amongst them Corcyra, with which she was a long time at war, accusing
the inhabitants of not paying the respect due to a capital. “Our other
colonies love and respect us whilst the Corcyreans are arrogant and
unjust, to such a point that they have seized Epidamnus, which belongs to
us and which they intend to keep.” These were the complaints Corinth made
through her deputies, at Athens, against her colonies. However, in spite
of the complaints, the Athenians received the alliance of Epidamnus,
which had a powerful navy, and which, in their eyes, had the great
advantage of being situated on the way to Italy and Sicily.

This determination not to help Corinth, irritated the Corinthians, whose
Dorian origin already made them Athens’ natural enemy, and was one of
the decisive causes of the Peloponnesian War. It was at the instigation
of Corinth that the Peloponnesians held a kind of congress at Sparta, in
which they denounced the ambition and audacity of the Athenians who were
born, they said, never to have rest and never to allow anybody else to
have any.

Before Athens shone by her eloquence, poetry, and art, Corinth was
the centre of Hellenic trade and was the sojourn of pleasure. All the
merchandise of Europe and of Asia was imported on payment of duty, and
all foreigners flocked there more than they did to any other town of
Greece. People came from everywhere, from Egypt as well as from Sicily;
but Corinth was a town essentially for rich men--it was the town of
Venus. The courtesans were honoured. They had the privilege of offering
the public vows to Venus, when the goddess was appealed to in a case of
great danger. They it was who asked her to grant the salvation of Greece
when that country was invaded by Xerxes. When private people had their
prayers granted by the goddess they showed their gratitude by offering
her a number of courtesans for her temple. All the countries which traded
with Corinth provided these charming priestesses.

At Sparta the glory of women was their patriotism, at Athens their
intellect, and at Corinth their beauty. Laïs was the queen of the
courtesans and received homage from the most important and serious
personages of Greece, from philosophers as well as from politicians. She
was in reality a Sicilian, captured when a child by the Athenians and
sold to Corinth. But the Corinthians idolised her, and always swore she
was born amongst them.

Riches and pleasure! It was to the interest of the Corinthians not to
get rid of these women, in order to enjoy life, and this was in itself a
guarantee against the rule of a demagogue in the city of Periander and
of Timoleon. Pindar can say with great truth in one of his Olympics,
“Harmony and good legislation are found in Corinth, also justice and
peace. The daughters of the prudent Themis dispense happiness to mankind
and watch over their cities.”

This prosperity had a tragic ending. When the Romans triumphed over the
Achæan League, Corinth perished miserably. Such lamentable ruin was like
the last day of Ilium. Everything condemned the town before the Roman
tribunals: its admirable position, the key to the whole of Greece; its
riches and works of art, which were placed in the Capitol at Rome.[c]

[Illustration: RUINS OF A TOWER OF TITHOREA, IN PHOCIS

(Near Mt. Parnassus)]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XI. CRETE AND THE COLONIES


Crete was an island, which, from its position, should have dominated
over the whole of Greece, as it had for its neighbours the coasts of
the Peloponnesus and of Asia. The Cretans were remarkable amongst
the Hellenic nations for their institutions, which bore a singular
physiognomy. Diodorus describes all the legends relating to the Greek
divinities of whom Crete boasted to be the cradle; he then adds
that during the generations succeeding the birth of the gods, many
heroes lived in the island, the most illustrious of whom were Minos,
Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. These heroes are not truly historic, and an
exact place cannot be given to their genius and passions, but at any
rate they indicate deeds and customs which have left strong impressions
on the lives of men. Antiquity believed that Crete, even from the most
ancient period, had good laws which were imitated by many of the peoples
of Greece, and above all by the Lacedæmonians.

Before teaching Greece, Crete, for a short time, dominated over her.
The Cretans, who were an insular and warlike nation made up chiefly of
Pelasgians and Dorians, at an epoch made great by the name of Minos,
had a navy with which they were able to take possession of the greater
number of the islands belonging to Greece. They also reigned over part of
the coast of Asia Minor. They were the guardians of the sea, suppressed
the Athenian pirates and made them pay tribute. These pirates had their
revenge according to the fable of the Minotaur. The Cretans pushed on
as far as Sicily, and it was there, so goes the legend, that Minos was
killed by the daughters of King Cocalus, who suffocated their father’s
guest in a bath. A few generations later, Crete sent a fleet of eighty
vessels against Priam, a new proof of maritime greatness. About the time
when the _Odyssey_ was written, this is how Greece imagined the island
of Minos: “In the middle of the vast ocean is glorious Crete, a fertile
island, where countless men live; there are eighty-six towns,[14] which
have each a different language; they are inhabited by the Achæans, the
autochthonous Cretans, high-minded heroes, the Cydonians, the Dorians,
who are divided into three tribes, and the divine Pelasgi. In the midst
of all these people is the beautiful town of Knossos, where Minos
reigned, and every nine years had an audience with Jupiter.” Thus is the
divine or religious type of legislator formed in the mind of the Greeks
and with the double help of time and poetry the name of Minos becomes
great.

Crete was as little spared from the revolutions which Thucydides foretold
would be one of the results of the Trojan War, as the peculiar state of
her soil and customs warranted. The inhabitants, living in a mountainous
and divided country, were separated into many cantons, jealous of one
another’s independence. In Crete, as in Switzerland, nature prepared
republics. For a long time royal power succeeded in preventing the
germs of discord from bursting forth; this was in the time of Minos,
of Rhadamanthus, and of Sarpedon, when the Cretans were conquerors and
masters of the sea and possessed of a legislation inspired by the first
of all the gods. Later, everything which had helped to make a sovereign
authority gave way, the towns of Crete quarrelled internally and with
one another for individual government. This spirit of independence was
doubtless encouraged by the presence of the Greeks, who, on their return
from Troy, founded colonies on the island. Little by little, royal power,
weakened by the absence of the chiefs, who had joined the princes of the
Peloponnesus in order to attack Asia, disappeared.

Through what shocks, compromises or transitions, Crete passed from
government by kings, to an aristocratic federation, with Knossos,
Gortyna, Cydonia, and Lyctus at the head, we know not. All we know is
that several generations after the Trojan War the new government had
entirely taken the place of the old, though still invoked in the sacred
name of Minos. The Cretans thus began the great practice we so often
find in ancient days, that of placing the young generations under the
protection and genius of the ancients. Man, even with a long line of
centuries behind him, is a weak creature, and when he separates from the
ancients he adds to his nothingness.

In representing Crete with a federal and aristocratic government, these
words must not be taken in their full meaning. It was not the entire
establishment of a nation, but attempts at peace and order frequently
interrupted by revolutions. This point has often escaped modern writers,
especially Montesquieu.

Crete was a fertile chaos, from which Sparta took various principles. But
Crete itself could not benefit from them. The reason for the outbreaks
was the rivalry between the different towns. When one of them conquered
the other, the result was despotism; when they strove one against the
other without either getting a decisive advantage, the result was anarchy.

At the head of each town were ten magistrates called _cosmes_ (or
_cosmoi_), taking their name from order itself, and from the necessity of
seeing it carried out, for in every town there was always an incorrigible
inclination for plotting. The cosmes, who were the forerunners of the
Spartan _ephori_, were chosen, not from all the citizens, but from a
small number of families. As they succeeded royal authority they had its
powers, they commanded the troops, concluded treaties, and ruled over
people and things alike, with an arbitrary power. The Cretan customs
were a strange contrast to this despotism, which was the unmistakable
remains of sovereignty. When by their conduct the cosmes offended some
of their colleagues, they were driven away. When they chose they could
also abdicate. Law did not rule, but the will of man, which is not a sure
rule. The Cretans had the habit, when they reached the highest point
in their quarrels, of returning to a provisional monarchy, in order
to facilitate war between them. They lived in the midst of periodical
disputes which prevented them from ever forming a great nation.

When the cosmes came to the end of their term of office, which lasted a
year, they took a place in the assembly or senate formed of the old men
of the city. This was always the custom in antiquity, as in all youthful
nations. Thus, experience in life is called in to help govern. The old
men who had been cosmes, or had been destined to be so, exercised an
irresponsible and life-long authority, deciding all things, not according
to written laws but according to their opinions. The decisions of the
cosmes and senators were presented to a general assembly where all the
citizens met; the assembly only confirmed by vote what was proposed.
There were no discussions, a mute acquiescence was alone allowed. The
senators and cosmes were the chiefs of that army which had warriors and
labourers as body and force. This division into soldiers and labourers
was common to the Egyptians and Cretans, according to Aristotle, who
traces it back, for the former, to Sesostris and for the latter to Minos,
and the ancient discipline, adds Alexander’s tutor, remained especially
strong amongst the peasants. Like all ancient nations, the Cretans had
slaves, those serving in the country were called _chrysonetes_ and those
in the towns _amphamiotes_. Their usual name was _clarotes_, because they
were divided equally by lot, as they were prisoners of war. At Cydonia,
one of the towns of Crete, the slaves had festivals during which they
were free and powerful, and could even fight the citizens. Servitude has
always provoked orgies.

All the instincts of civilisation began to develop in Crete with great
energy. The Cretans did not like inaction, they liked hunting, wrestling,
and every kind of exercise. They lived in common and divided the fruits
of the earth. These customs and habits were at the bottom of Cretan
institutions. The legislators confirmed these customs in certain cases
and in others trained or suppressed them. The laws, called the laws of
Minos, were never written down, and changed in the course of years.

Let us enter into Lyctus, a town of Crete, and see the everyday life
of the people. Each person gave up the tenth of his productions or
possessions to help support the society of which he was a member. These
contributions were divided amongst all the families of the city by the
magistrates. The citizens were divided into little societies; the care of
the meals being in the hands of one of the women who directed the work
of three or four of the public slaves, each of whom had a water-carrier.
In each city there were two public edifices; one devoted to the serving
of meals, the other to the shelter of foreigners and strangers. In the
building for the meals were two tables, called hospitable tables, where
strangers sat. The other tables were for the use of the citizens. An
equal portion was given to each, except to the young people, who had
only half a portion of meat and touched no other food. A pitcher of wine
and water was on each table, from which everybody drank; after the meal
another pitcher was placed on the table. The children had one pitcher in
which the wine was measured, the old people and men had unlimited wine.
The women who presided at the meals chose the choicest pieces for those
who had distinguished themselves by their valour or their prudence.
After the repast, public affairs were discussed, then great actions were
related and those who had been courageous were praised and set up as
models to the young.

Warfare was the object of all the institutions. On this point Plato
and Aristotle agree. Clinias the Cretan, one of Plato’s interrogators,
wished everything to be arranged for warfare; he took trouble to have it
understood that without supremacy in battle, riches and culture in art
will be of no use, since all the treasures of the defeated pass into the
hands of the conqueror. Aristotle remarked that in Crete as in Sparta,
and among the Scythians, Persians, Thracians, and Celts, everything led
up to warfare--education, laws, customs. In Crete, the men were soldiers
living under the same discipline, eating the same food, sharing perils
and pleasure, and always ready to march or to fight. They were respected
only when they were hardy, vigorous, agile, and quick. Prudence and
repose were for old age.

As soon as the children could read, they were taught poems in which the
laws were explained, and the elements of music. They were very strictly
treated, with a severity which was never changed, no matter what the
season. Clothed in rough clothes, they ate on the ground, helping one
another and waiting upon the men. When they became older, they formed
part of different companies, each one being presided over by a youth
chosen from the highest or most powerful families. These young chiefs
led the companies out hunting and racing; they had an almost parental
authority over their companions and punished the disobedient. On certain
days the companies fought against each other; to the sound of the flute
and lyre, they attacked each other with their hands or weapons. This
drilled them in the art of warfare. The Cretan towns, like other Grecian
cities, had public buildings and gymnasiums for corporal exercises,
gymnasiums for the mind were added later.

There was a time when the disputes between the different towns were
judged by a kind of federal arbitration, but it is doubtful whether
the decisions of this tribunal were respected. However, after some
civil wars between the towns, arrangements were made, and we find some
curious remains in the principal clauses of a treaty between two towns,
Hierapolis and Priansus. Each had rights of isopolity and of marriage, of
acquiring possessions in each other’s territory, and of having an equal
share in all things, divine and human. Those who wanted to reside in the
other town could do so and could buy and sell there, lend or borrow money
and make any kind of contract according to the laws of both.

Thus without unity and always at war with one another, the Cretans never
left their island and took no part in the general affairs of Greece. They
refused to enter into the league formed against Darius, giving the excuse
that their assisting Menelaus had cost them misfortune, and recalling
the conduct of the Greeks who had not hastened to avenge the death of
Minos. These were pretexts, but the real cause was the feebleness of the
Cretans, too weak and too few to take part in any great enterprise, a
weakness which kept Crete always isolated, obscure and selfish. Polybius
was indignant at Crete being compared to Lacedæmonia; he compared the
equality of wealth and contempt of riches which reigned at Sparta to the
avarice of the Cretans who were quite unscrupulous as to their means of
becoming rich.

With the exception of the fact that the cosmes were elected yearly, we
believe Polybius is wrong in esteeming Crete a democratic state. Power
was in the hands of the senate, which was a regular oligarchy. As for the
natural faults of the Cretans, which their government rather encouraged
than corrected, time succeeded only in making them increase, and it is
not astonishing that, at the time that Polybius wrote, they deserved the
severe opinion of the historian. It would be unjust not to state with
what disfavour the Greeks looked upon them. This insular race that helped
no one and was ready to accept the pay of any nation, was hated by the
Greeks. The Cretans were called treacherous liars, and it was proverbial
that it was permitted to “cretise” with a Cretan.

Crete was renowned for two causes; it was looked upon first as the cradle
of the gods, then as the nest of sea-robbers and mercenaries. After
having shone at the beginning of Greek civilisation, its development was
interrupted before its time. Anarchy unnerved it. The bad reputation of
the Cretans at Athens was also due to the jealousy of the Athenians who
could never forgive Crete a short supremacy on the sea. When the poets
wished to please the Athenians they abused Minos and the Cretans. Nothing
is more dangerous to good fame with posterity than to have for enemy a
witty nation.[b]


BELOCH’S ACCOUNT OF GREEK COLONISATION

The scene of Grecian primitive history is practically limited to the
countries bordering the Ægean Sea. But in the period which gave rise
to the great epic poems the geographical horizon had already begun to
expand. In one of the later songs of the _Iliad_, Egyptian Thebes is
mentioned; the songs relating the wanderings of Ulysses speak of the
Cimmerians, the original inhabitants of the north coast of the Pontus,
and the clear summer nights of the north, of which the Greeks could learn
only on this coast. The _Telemachus_ speaks of Libya, beside Egypt, and
the latest songs of the _Odyssey_ show an acquaintance with the Siculi
and the land of the Sicani. No tradition has preserved the names of the
bold explorers who first ventured out into the open sea which phantasy
had peopled with all kinds of monsters and fabulous beings, and which,
in reality, concealed countless terrors and dangers. Their deeds however
lived on in the songs relating the expedition of the Argo and the
home-coming of the heroes from Troy.

The settler soon followed the explorer. The need of land had once in a
dim antiquity led the Hellenes to the islands of the Ægean Sea and to
the western coast of Asia Minor; these regions were now occupied, and
whoever found his home too narrow was obliged to seek out more distant
lands. Commercial interests played no part in these migrations at first,
because there was no industry in Greece to furnish articles for export.
People were in search of fertile districts; whether or not good harbours
were close at hand was wholly a question of secondary importance. The
division of farm lands was consequently the first business of the new
settlers; at the beginning of the fifth century the ancient citizens of
Syracuse already style themselves “land owners” (γαμόροι). Herein lies
the fundamental difference between Grecian and Phœnician colonisation.
Every Phœnician settlement was primarily a commercial establishment,
which under favourable circumstances might develop into an agricultural
colony; the Grecian settlements were originally agricultural colonies out
of which, however, in the course of time extensive commercial centres
were developed.

The oldest colonial foundations of this time were like those unorganised
expeditions which once poured out upon the islands and the shores of Asia
Minor. Such were the settlements of the Achæans and Locrians in southern
Italy. As the Greeks, however, were continually being forced out to more
distant coasts, their colonisation had to take on a different character.
The navigation of the islandless sea in the west, or even the journey
to Libya and the stormy Pontus, necessitated a degree of seamanship
greater than that possessed by the inhabitants of the agricultural coast
districts of the Grecian peninsula, from among whom the settlers of the
lands across the sea had until then gone forth. Hence Africa, Bœotia,
and Argolis ceased to take an independent part in the colonisation
movement. In their place arose cities, hardly or not at all mentioned
by Homer, which by their advantageous location had come to be centres
of navigation; Chalcis and Eretria on the Euripus, the strait which
furnishes the most convenient connection between southern Greece and
Thessaly; Megara and Corinth on the isthmus, where the two seas which
wash the shores of Greece come within a few miles of each other; Rhodes,
Lesbos, and other islands of the Ægean Sea; finally the Ionian coast
towns, especially Miletus. Not that all the colonists, who went out from
here to seek new homes on distant shores were actually at home in these
cities. On the contrary, these cities were only gathering places whither
streamed the emigrants from the surrounding regions--all those who found
no chance to advance in their old homes or who were driven abroad by
love of adventure or by dissatisfaction with political conditions. But
the cities, from which the colonising expeditions went out, organised
the undertaking; they provided leaders and ships and their institutions
served as models for the colonies.

Once founded, however, the colonies were, as a rule, wholly independent
of the mother-city. The relation between them was like that between a
father and his grown son in Grecian law. The citizen of the mother-city
was always respected in the colony; and the colony, on the other hand,
could always count on finding support with the mother-city in case of
a difficult crisis. That the colony, moreover, remained in especially
active intercourse with its mother-city lay in the nature of this
colonial relationship; and in the course of time the colonies became the
surest supports for the commerce of the mother-city and the best markets
for the productions of its industrial activity.

In consequence the recollection of this relationship was kept alive for
a long time. But the circumstances which gave rise to the foundation of
all the colonies earlier than the sixth century, remain veiled in the
darkness of tradition. Historical records were as yet far removed from
this period, and the dates of foundations which have been handed down to
us are based wholly upon calculations according to generations or upon
suppositions of even less value. Such accounts can at the most give us
only approximate clews and must in each single instance be compared with
other traditions. Only so much is certain that in the first half of the
seventh century the settlement of the southern coast of Thrace was in
full progress and the Hellenes had already established themselves upon
the gulf of Tarentum.

No other field offered the Grecian colonists such favourable conditions
as the coasts of Italy and Sicily, beyond the Ionic Sea. Situated in the
same latitude as the mother-land, these countries have a climate very
similar to that of Greece.

Intercourse between the two shores existed at an early date. Fragments
of vases in the Mycenæan style have been found in Messapia, and the
pre-Hellenic necropolis in eastern Sicily shows traces of a civilisation
which is partially under Mycenæan influence. It even appears that in
pre-historic times immigrations from the Balkan peninsula into Italy
already took place by way of Otranto. At least it is related that the
Chones once dwelt on the western coast of the gulf of Tarentum; and the
similarity of names between these people and the Epirot Chaones, the
inhabitants of the region about the Acroceraunian promontory, can hardly
be accidental. Perhaps this is connected with the fact that the Italici
designate the Hellenes as Græci, since the Græci are said to have been an
Epirot tribe, which in historic times had wholly disappeared.

Be that as it may, the Hellenes had at all events taken possession of the
eastern coast of the present Calabria, during the course of the eighth,
or at latest at the beginning of the seventh century. The new settlers
called themselves Achæans and thought they were descended from the
Achæans in the Peloponnesus. As a matter of fact their dialect is closely
related to the Argolian. The Chones of Italy have since disappeared from
history, and have probably been merged into one people with the Achæans.

The new home was called Italia, after a branch of the original population
which disappeared at an early date, and this name was gradually extended
over the whole peninsula clear to the Alps. The land offered a boundless
field for Hellenic activity, and the realisation of that fact found
expression in the name Greater Hellas, which arose in the colonial
territory across the Ionian Sea in about the sixth century, in contrast
to the crowded condition of the too thickly populated mother-land. This
may have been hyperbole, but it was in a sense justified by the brilliant
development of the Achæan settlements. The coasts of the gulf of Tarentum
became covered with a circle of flourishing cities. In the north at
the mouth of the Bradanus was Metapontum, which bore on its armour the
speaking device of an ear of corn; then came Siris in the fruitful
plain at the mouth of the river of the same name, which, to the poet
Archilochus appeared an ideal place for a colony; further south where
Crathis empties into the sea, was Sybaris, whose wealth and luxury soon
became proverbial. In close rivalry with Sybaris stood Croton, situated
near the promontory of Lacinium, on the top of which the new settlers
founded the temple of Hera, the queen of heaven, which became the chief
sanctuary for the Greeks of Italy. One column of the building is still
standing, a signal for ships, and can be seen from afar over the blue
waters of the Ionian Sea. Finally, far to the south at Cape Stilo was
Caulonia, the last of the Achæan settlements.

The Achæans soon penetrated also into the interior and through the
narrow peninsula to the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Sybaris founded
here the colonies of Scidrus and Laos, and, further north, on the lower
Silarus, Posidonia [afterwards Pæstum], whose temple to-day arises in
solemn majesty from out its desolate surroundings, the most beautiful
monument of Grecian architecture which has been preserved on the western
side of the Ionian Sea. Pyxus [afterwards Buxentum], between Posidonia
and Laos, is probably a colony from Siris, which was directly opposite
it on the Ionian Sea, and was later closely associated with it. Croton
founded Pandosia in the upper valley of the Crathis, and Terina and
Scylletium (Scylacium) on the isthmus of Catanzaro where the Ionian and
Tyrrhenian seas approach to within a few miles of each other. The Achæans
now controlled the whole region from the Bradanus and Silarus southward
to the gulf of Terina and the gulf of Scylletium, an area of fifteen
thousand square kilometres.

The Achæans were soon followed by the Locrians, who lived opposite them
on the gulf of Corinth. They founded a new Locri, south of the Achæan
settlements not far from the Zephyrian promontory. This city also soon
became rich and powerful, so that its territory was extended to the west
coast of the peninsula, where it established the colonies Hipponium and
Medma.

In the meantime the inhabitants of eastern Greece had begun to direct
their gaze to the newly discovered lands in the west--first of all the
Chalcidians, the bravest men in Hellas, as they are called in an old
proverb. Since the coast of the gulf of Tarentum was already occupied,
they sailed further, to Sicily the land famed in fable as the home of
the Cyclops and Læstrygones. These were no longer to be found there,
but instead a people of Italic race, the Siceli, or the Sicani, as they
were called in the western part of the island, a brave and warlike
people, but with no national unity so that they were unable successfully
to oppose the invaders. Here, at the foot of the lofty snow pyramid of
Ætna, the Chalcidians founded Naxos, their first settlement and the
first Hellenic town on Sicilian soil. In gratitude to the god, Apollo
Archegetes, who had brought them over the sea in safety, the settlers
erected an altar. Later on, when Sicily had become an Hellenic land, all
those who were setting sail to attend the festivals in the mother-land
used to sacrifice at this place.

From Naxos the Chalcidians soon took possession of the surrounding
region. In the south they founded Catane, Leontini, Callipolis, Eubœa; in
the north, on the strait which separates Sicily from Italy, they built
Zancle, the later Messana, or Messina, and opposite this on the mainland
Rhegium was established. Here the wide Tyrrhenian Sea was open to the
Hellenes. The precipitous western coast of the Calabria of to-day and the
waterless Liparæan Islands were not indeed attractive to settlers, but on
the small island Pithecusa (Ischia), off the coast of the Osci, was the
most favourable spot a colonist could wish--the soil being luxuriantly
fertile and at the same time secure from hostile attacks. Thus the
Calcidians established themselves here at an early date, perhaps in the
eighth century. Soon they ventured over to the near-lying continent, and
on the steep trachyte cliff, upon the flat, wave-beaten shore of the gulf
of Gæta, they founded Cumæ, so called from a place [Cyme] in the old
Eubœan home-land.

Neapolis, the “new city” was colonised from here in about the year 600,
while Samian fugitives settled at Dicæarchia [afterwards Puteoli],
in close proximity to Cumæ (in 527). The second large island of the
Neapolitan Bay, Capreæ must also have been settled by Chalcidians, since
we find a Hellenic population there even in the period of the empire.

Cumæ is the most extreme westerly point of Italy which the Chalcidians,
and indeed the Hellenes as a whole, ever possessed. It has always
remained, as it was first established, the most advanced frontier post,
and the continuous territory of Grecian colonisation in Italy ends at the
Silarus. A similar position was occupied on the southern shore of the
Tyrrhenian Sea by Himera, which was colonised from Messana in about the
year 650, and was the only Grecian city on the northern coast of Sicily.
Chalcidian colonisation in the west came to an end with this settlement.

The example given by Chalcis was soon imitated. The Corinthians in the
eighth century still occupied the rich island of Corcyra and likewise
turned their steps to Sicily. Since the region around Ætna and the
strait was already occupied by Chalcidians, they went further south and
established the colony of Syracuse upon the small island of Ortygia, in
the most beautiful harbour on the eastern coast of Sicily. This colony
was destined to become the metropolis of the Grecian west. The real
colonising activity of Corinth, however, was directed chiefly towards the
northwestern part of the Grecian peninsula. In the course of the eighth
century a dense circle of Corinthian and Corintho-Corcyræan settlements
grew up here: among them Chalcis and Molycrium in Ætolia at the entrance
to the bay of Corinth.

Like Corinth, its neighbour city Megara began at an early date to take
part in the colonisation of Sicily. A new Megara arose here, between
Syracuse and the Chalcidian Leontini, professedly in the eighth century,
at any rate before Syracuse had acquired much importance and had begun
to found colonies of its own. Its powerful neighbours made it impossible
for the city to expand towards the interior and thus the Megarians were
obliged to go further west, when their territory became too cramped for
them at home. They founded Selinus, not far from the most western point
of the island on the coast of the Libyan Sea, at about the same time that
the Chalcidians laid out Himera on the opposite coast (about 650). On
account of the fertility of the district the new colony soon reached a
high grade of prosperity and established on its own account a number of
settlements, such as Minoa, near the mouth of the Halycus (Platani) so
called from the little island of like name in the old Grecian home.

Of the other states of the Grecian mother-land only Sparta took part in
the settlement of the west. Inner disturbances which broke out after the
conquest of Messenia are said to have caused a portion of the conquered
party to leave their home. The emigrants set sail for Iapygia and
established there, upon the only good harbour on the southeast coast of
Italy, the colony of Tarentum (700 B.C.). Two centuries later, shortly
before the Persian wars, the Spartans made an attempt to establish
themselves in the west.

Sicily and Italy were too far out of the way for the Asiatic Greeks,
and they consequently held almost entirely aloof from any colonising
expeditions thither. Rhodes was an exception. At the beginning of the
seventh century its citizens, together with the Cretans, established the
colony of Gela, on the fertile depression at the mouth of the Gela, which
was the first Grecian city on the south coast of Sicily. About a century
later (in 580) this city colonised Agrigentum, which is situated farther
to the west on a steep height commanding a broad outlook, not far from
the sea. This filled the gap which had been left in the row of Grecian
cities between Gela and Selinus. At about the same time Rhodians and
Cnidians under the leadership of the Heraclid Pentathlus, tried to find
a footing on the most extreme west point of Sicily, on the promontory of
Lilybæum. But the Hellenes were here successfully opposed by the Elymi,
the original inhabitants of this part of the island, and by the citizens
of the neighbouring Phœnician colony of Motya. The new settlers and
their Selinuntine allies were beaten; Pentathlus himself fell, and the
remainder of his people were forced to take refuge on the barren Liparæan
Islands, which were thus won for the Grecians.

The distant west had been opened up to Grecian commerce even before
this. It is said to have been a Samian sailor, Colœus by name, who, on a
journey to Egypt, being carried out of his way by a storm off the Libyan
coast, was the first to reach Tartessus, the rich silver-land, lying near
the Pillars of Hercules (600 B.C.) At about the same time Ionic Phocæans
founded the colony of Massalia not far from the mouth of the Rhodanus.
This soon became a centre for the commerce of these regions and extended
its influence far into the Celtic interior. From here the Phocæans
advanced along the Iberian coast to Tartessus, where they entered into
friendly relations with the natives and established the colony of Mænaca,
which was the most westerly point the Hellenes ever held. The Phocæans
settled also on Cyrnus (Corsica). In 565 they founded Alalia on the east
coast of the island. When Ionia was forced to succumb to the Persians
after the fall of Sardis (545) a large portion of the citizens of Phocæa
left their homes and turned to their tribal kinsmen in Alalia, which thus
grew from a mere mercantile settlement into a powerful city.

These results, however, were for the most part of short duration. The
Phœnicians reached the western Mediterranean at the same time with the
Hellenes, perhaps somewhat earlier even. The northern coast of Libya
from Syrtis Major to the Pillars of Hercules was covered with a line of
their settlements, among which Carthage attained the first place in the
course of time, owing to the advantage of its incomparable location. It
was not long before they crossed over to the islands lying opposite
Africa. They occupied Melita (Malta) and Gaulos (Gozzo), and founded
Motya, Panormus, and Solus in west Sicily, probably during the seventh
century. Here the Greeks formed a barrier preventing their further
expansion. The Phœnicians, however, could spread themselves upon Sardinia
without hindrance, since the Greeks, although they may have planned to
settle there, never went seriously about it. In this way a succession
of Phœnician settlements grew up along the south and west coast of the
island--Caralis, Nora, Sulci, Tharrus and others. The Pityusæ are said to
have been colonised from Carthage in the year 654-653 B.C. The Phœnicians
had already reached the silver-land of Tartessus in the eighth century.
Their chief point of support in this region was Gades, situated on a
small island beyond the Pillars of Hercules on the edge of the ocean.

A hostile encounter with the Hellenes could now no longer be avoided
and it seems to have been the danger which threatened the Phœnicians
from this side which led their scattered settlements to unite into a
single state with Carthage as its centre, or at any rate materially
assisted Carthage in her work of unification. Above all it was necessary
to drive out the Phœnicians from their newly won position on Corsica.
The Phœnicians were aided in their attempt by the Etruscans, who, as
bold pirates, had long beforehand made themselves feared by the Greeks,
and regarded the Phocæan settlements so near their coasts with no less
anxiety than the Phœnicians themselves. The Phocæans could not withstand
the attack of the two peoples, who were the most skilful navigators in
the western Mediterranean. They were indeed victorious in an open sea
fight, but they endured such severe losses that they were obliged to give
up Alalia. They next turned to south Italy and established there the
colony of Hyele, between Pyxus and Posidonia. Massalia was now isolated
and thrown upon its own resources. The distant Mænaca could consequently
be maintained no longer, and Carthage won undisputed possession of
Tartessus. But within its narrow range of power Massalia victoriously
resisted all attacks of the Phœnicians, and the final result was that a
sort of dividing line was established between the two cities. Massaliot
influence was preponderant north of the promontory of Artemisium (cape of
Nao); Carthaginian, south of it, on the east coast of Iberia.

Cyrnus came under Etruscan influence after the withdrawal of the
Phocæans. The Etruscans, it appears, had already taken possession of the
fertile plain on the lower Vulturnus and had established there a number
of settlements, whose centre was at Capua. They now proceeded to attack
Hellenic Cumæ (presumably in 524). Here, however, the superior military
skill of the Greeks won the victory, and the latter were able to defend
the Latin cities, which were friendly to them, from being brought into
subjection by the Etruscans. The strength of Cumæ, however, was not
sufficient to keep up the unequal fight for long and it was due only to
the intervention of the Syracusans that Hellenism maintained itself here
until the end of the fifth century.

Nearly contemporaneously with the beginnings of colonisation in the
west the Hellenes began to spread toward the north and southeast. The
Chalcidians again took the first place. Opposite Eubœa a long peninsula
projects from the north into the Ægean Sea, which, on account of the
numerous indentations of its coast, as well as the fertility of its soil,
invited settlement. A long succession of Grecian colonial towns grew
up here, the most of which were founded from Chalcis; hence the name
Chalcidice, which the peninsula bore in later times. The Corinthians
followed the Chalcidians here, just as they had done in the west. On the
narrow isthmus joining the peninsula of Pallene with the main body of
Chalcidice they founded the colony of Potidæa (in 600) which remained the
most important city of this region until the time of the Peloponnesian
War. The original Thracian population maintained itself only on the
rugged slopes of Athos.

Further east, in the first half of the seventh century, the Parians
took possession of the mountainous island of Thasos, which at that time
was still covered with a thick primeval forest. The new settlers soon
crossed over to the near-lying mainland, where they established a number
of commercial stations, as Œsyma and Galepsus, which had to maintain
themselves through long struggles with the warlike Thracian tribes.
Opposite Thasos, on the fruitful plain between Nestus and Lake Bistonis,
the Clazomenæans founded Abdera in 651, but they could not long maintain
themselves against the attacks of the Thracians. Colonists from Teos,
who emigrated after the conquest of Ionia by the Persians (545) and took
possession of the deserted place, were more successful; Abdera now became
the most important city on this whole coast and also took an active part
in the intellectual life of the nation.

Lesbos and Tenedos were for a long time the most advanced posts of the
Hellenic world toward the northeast. Not until the eighth century do
the inhabitants of these islands appear to have succeeded in taking
possession of the south of Troas, from the wooded slopes of Ida to the
entrance to the Hellespont. None of the numerous settlements founded
here, however, became very important. The Lesbians then went further
and crossed over to the European shore of the Hellespont, where they
built Sestus at the narrowest point of the strait and Alopeconnesus on
the northern coast of the Thracian Chersonesus. Ænus, at the mouth of
the mighty Hebrus, the principal river of Thrace, was also colonised
by Mytileneans. The further expansion of the Greeks on this coast was
arrested by the warlike tribes of Thrace.

The Lesbians were soon followed by the Milesians. In 670 they established
Abydos, opposite Sestus, and at about the same time (675) founded Cyzicus
on the isthmus connecting the mountainous peninsula of Arcotonnesus
with the Asiatic mainland. Other Ionian cities also took part in the
colonisation of these regions. Lampsacus was colonised from Phocæa (651);
Elæus from Teos; Myrlea from Colophon; Perinthus from Samos (600).

The Milesians also advanced into the Pontus at an early date. It was due
to them that this sea, which, with its inhospitable shores peopled by
wild barbarians, had been the terror of Grecian mariners, became known
as “the hospitable sea” (Pontos Euxinos), with which few other regions
could compare in importance for Grecian commerce. Miletus is said to
have founded in all no less than ninety colonies on the coasts of the
Hellespont and Pontus. In 630 Milesians built Sinope not far from the
mouth of the Halys, which soon grew to be the most important emporium in
this region, and founded in its turn a number of colonies, as Cotyora,
Trapezus, and Cerasus. The Milesians, however, turned their attention
especially to the northwest and north coasts of the Pontus, which were to
become the principal granaries of Greece. After the middle of the seventh
century a large number of Milesian colonies grew up here. The first was
Istrus south of the mouth of the Danube, said to have been founded in
656; a few years later (644) Olbia, at the mouth of the Borysthenes near
its junction with the Hypanis (Bug); then in the first half of the sixth
century on the east coast of Thrace, Apollonia, Odessus, and Tomis;
further on Tyras at the mouth of the river of like name (Dniester) and
Theodosia on the south coast of the Crimea. The Hellenic settlements
were especially frequent in the Cimmerian Bosporus, the highway uniting
the Pontus with the sea of Mæotis. Nymphæum and the Milesian colony of
Panticapæum, the later capital of the Bosporian kingdom, arose here
on the western shore; opposite, on the Asiatic shore, was Phanagorea,
founded from Teos. Finally, Tanais was founded at the mouth of the Don,
the most northerly point ever occupied by the Greeks.

The Megarians had begun to establish themselves on the Propontis at about
the same time with the Milesians. In 675 they founded Chalcedon at the
entrance to the Thracian Bosporus, and seventeen years later, Byzantium,
on the opposite European shore. Selymbria, neighbouring Byzantium on
the west, and Astacus, at the most easterly point of the Propontis, not
far from the site of the later Nicomedia, were Megarian colonies. The
Megarians, however, penetrated into the Pontus itself, at a comparatively
late date. Their first colony here was Heraclea, founded in association
with Bœotian settlers in the year 550, in the land of the Mariandyni,
about two hundred kilometres from the outlet of the Bosporus. From there
Mesembria and Callatis were colonised on the east coast of Thrace, and
Chersonesus, on the southern point of the Tauric peninsula, near the
present Sebastopol.

All of these Grecian towns, however, remained with few exceptions
isolated points in the midst of the original population of barbarians. An
actual hellenising of the country as in Sicily and lower Italy was never
accomplished. This was largely due to the configuration of the Pontine
coast, which with the exception of the Crimea has no indentations, so
that the Grecian colonies had no way to protect themselves against the
attacks of the tribes from the interior. Besides, the winter climate of
the regions north of the Pontus was very raw. The Greeks could not feel
happy in a land where the vine and olive tree grew only in sheltered
places, and only the bitterest necessity or the prospect of great
commercial gain could cause them to leave their sunny home-land for
such a country. Thus the Grecian cities on the Pontus never became very
populous; there was not one among them to compare with Sybaris, Taras,
Acragas, to say nothing of Syracuse. Condemned to a continual struggle
for existence, the Greeks here had no leisure for the cultivation of
higher interests. It is remarkable how poor the Pontine colonies have
been in intellectual greatness. Their rôle in history has practically
been confined to providing the mother-land with grain, salted fish, and
other such raw products. Only once, when the rest of the nation had
already fallen under foreign dominion, did they take an active part in
great political events. The last battle for Grecian liberty was fought
with their forces, but he who led the fight was a hellenised barbarian
king.

Although the Hellenes had been able to expand on the Italian, Sicilian,
and Pontine coasts with almost no hindrance, Grecian colonisation met an
insurmountable obstacle in the old civilised lands on the southeastern
shores of the Mediterranean, with their dense populations. In Syria the
Hellenes did not attempt a settlement; they were not even able to drive
the Phœnicians out of Cyprus. Indeed, when the Assyrian king Sargon
conquered Syria at the end of the eighth century, the Greeks on Cyprus
thought it advisable to recognise his supremacy, at least nominally, and
this relation continued under his successors until Asshurbanapal. Later,
after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, the island came under Egyptian
rule. Sargon’s son Sennacherib (705-681) repulsed an attempt of the
Greeks to settle on the Cilician plain. The warlike tribes of rough
Cilicia and Lycia also succeeded in keeping the Greeks at a distance from
their coasts, or at least prevented their further expansion. Phaselis,
founded by the Rhodians on the western shore of the gulf of Pamphylia in
700, remained the last Grecian colony in the south of Asia Minor.

The rich valley of the Nile attracted Grecian pirates at an early period,
the more so as the political divisions of the country in the eighth
and first half of the seventh century rendered an effective resistance
impossible. The superior military ability of these pirates finally caused
Psamthek, the ruler of Saïs, to hire them as mercenaries. With their aid
he got the upper hand over the other sectional princes and freed Egypt
from the Assyrian yoke (about 660-645). From that time forward, Greeks
formed the kernel of the Egyptian army, and although the Nile valley was
now closed to piracy, it was, on the other hand, open to Greek commerce.
The Milesians founded a colony on the Bolbitinic mouth of the Nile, below
Saïs; somewhat later a number of Greek mercantile settlements grew up
at Naucratis, not far from the Canopic mouth of the Nile, to which King
Aahmes granted rights of corporation. The city soon grew to be the chief
commercial emporium of Egypt and in the sixth century occupied, on a
small scale, a position like that of the later Alexandria. In the course
of time the Greeks would without doubt have become rulers of the country,
but the Persian conquest retarded their development for fully a century
and put a limit to the further expansion of Hellenism.

The route from Greece to Egypt was usually by way of Crete in a southerly
direction to the coast of Libya. This is the narrowest part of the
eastern Mediterranean, and the stretch of open sea to be crossed measures
hardly three hundred kilometers, about the same as the width of the Ægean
Sea. The need soon began to be felt of having a station at the place
where land was first touched again. Thus in 630 Greeks from Thera settled
upon the small island of Platea, which is situated off the Libyan shore
at precisely this point. After a few years the colonists felt strong
enough to cross over to the mainland. At a short distance from the coast,
where the high tableland of the interior slopes down to the sea, they
founded the city of Cyrene. The fertility of the soil and the trade in
the aromatic plant _silphion_, which is here indigenous and was highly
prized by the Greeks, assured prosperity to the newcomers. The Libyan
tribes living in the neighbourhood were subdued and an attack of the
Egyptian king Apries [Uah-ab-Ra] was successfully repulsed (570). A short
time later Barca was founded (550) on the heights of the plateau west
of Cyrene, and Teuchira and Hesperides on the coast. Carthage prevented
a further extension toward the west, and Egypt toward the east, and
consequently Cerenaica remained the only district on the south coast of
the Mediterranean, which was colonised by Hellenes.

Thus in the course of two centuries the Ionian Sea, the Propontis, and
the Pontus had become Grecian seas, and Grecian colonies had arisen in
Egypt as well as in Libya, on the west coast of Italy, and in the land
of the Celts as far as distant Iberia. The nation had grown out of the
narrow limits in which till then its history had been enacted. Greek
influence was henceforth predominant within the entire circumference of
the Mediterranean. The reaction of this on Grecian life was manifest in
all its phases.[c]


FOOTNOTES

[14] [Recent excavations have tended to confirm the existence of Crete’s
boasted hundred cities.]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XII. SOLON THE LAWGIVER


[Sidenote: [594-593 B.C.]]

It is on the occasion of Solon’s legislation that we obtain our first
glimpse--only a glimpse, unfortunately--of the actual state of Attica
and its inhabitants. It is a sad and repulsive picture, presenting to us
political discord and private suffering combined.

Violent dissensions prevailed among the inhabitants of Attica, who were
separated into three factions--the _pedicis_, or men of the plain,
comprising Athens, Eleusis, and the neighbouring territory, among whom
the greatest number of rich families were included; the mountaineers in
the east and north of Attica, called _diacrii_, who were on the whole the
poorest party; and the _paralii_ in the southern portion of Attica from
sea to sea, whose means and social position were intermediate between the
two. Upon what particular points these intestine disputes turned we are
not distinctly informed; they were not however peculiar to the period
immediately preceding the archontate of Solon; they had prevailed before,
and they reappear afterwards prior to the despotism of Pisistratus, the
latter standing forward as the leader of the _diacrii_, and as champion,
real or pretended, of the poorer population.

But in the time of Solon these intestine quarrels were aggravated by
something much more difficult to deal with--a general mutiny of the
poorer population against the rich, resulting from misery combined with
oppression. The Thetes, whose condition we have already contemplated in
the poems of Homer and Hesiod, are now presented to us as forming the
bulk of the population of Attica--the cultivating tenants, metayers, and
small proprietors of the country. They are exhibited as weighed down
by debts and dependence, and driven in large numbers out of a state of
freedom into slavery--the whole mass of them (we are told) being in debt
to the rich, who were proprietors of the greater part of the soil. They
had either borrowed money for their own necessities, or they tilled the
lands of the rich as dependent tenants, paying a stipulated portion of
the produce, and in this capacity they were largely in arrear.

All the calamitous effects were here seen of the old harsh law of debtor
and creditor,--once prevalent in Greece, Italy, Asia, and a large portion
of the world,--combined with the recognition of slavery as a legitimate
status, and of the right of one man to sell himself as well as that
of another man to buy him. Every debtor unable to fulfil his contract
was liable to be adjudged as the slave of his creditor until he could
find means either of paying or working it out; and not only he himself,
but his minor sons and unmarried daughters and sisters also, whom the
law gave him the power of selling. The poor man thus borrowed upon the
security of his body, to translate literally the Greek phrase, and upon
that of the persons in his family; and so severely had these oppressive
contracts been enforced, that many debtors had been reduced from freedom
to slavery in Attica itself, many others had been sold for exportation,
and some had only hitherto preserved their own freedom by selling their
children. Moreover, a great number of the smaller properties in Attica
were under mortgage, signified, according to the formality usual in the
Attic law, and continued down throughout the historical times, by a stone
pillar erected on the land, inscribed with the name of the lender and the
amount of the loan. The proprietors of these mortgaged lands, in case
of an unfavourable turn of events, had no other prospect except that of
irremediable slavery for themselves and their families, either in their
own native country, robbed of all its delights, or in some barbarian
region where the Attic accent would never meet their ears. Some had fled
the country to escape legal adjudication of their persons, and earned a
miserable subsistence in foreign parts by degrading occupations. Upon
several, too, this deplorable lot had fallen by unjust condemnation and
corrupt judges; the conduct of the rich, in regard to money sacred and
profane, in regard to matters public as well as private, being thoroughly
unprincipled and rapacious.

The manifold and long-continued suffering of the poor under this system,
plunged into a state of debasement not more tolerable than that of the
Gallic plebs--and the injustices of the rich in whom all political
power was then vested--are facts well attested by the poems of Solon
himself, even in the short fragments preserved to us, and it appears that
immediately preceding the time of his archonship, the evils had ripened
to such a point and the determination of the mass of sufferers, to extort
for themselves some mode of relief, had become so pronounced that the
existing laws could no longer be enforced. According to the profound
remark of Aristotle, that seditions are generated by great causes but
out of small incidents, we may conceive that some recent events had
occurred as immediate stimulants to the outbreak of the debtors--like
those which lend so striking an interest to the early Roman annals, as
the inflaming sparks of violent popular movements for which the train
had long before been laid. Condemnations by the archons of insolvent
debtors may have been unusually numerous, or the maltreatment of some
particular debtor, once a respected freeman, in his condition of slavery,
may have been brought to act vividly upon the public sympathies--like
the case of the old plebeian centurion at Rome (first impoverished by
the plunder of the enemy, then reduced to borrow, and lastly adjudged
to his creditor as an insolvent), who claimed the protection of the
people in the forum, rousing their feelings to the highest pitch by
the marks of the slave-whip visible on his person. Some such incidents
had probably happened, though we have no historians to recount them;
moreover it is not unreasonable to imagine, that that public mental
affliction which the purifier Epimenides had been invoked to appease, as
it sprung in part from pestilence, so it had its cause partly in years of
sterility, which must of course have aggravated the distress of the small
cultivators. However this may be, such was the condition of things in
594 B.C., through mutiny of the poor freemen and Thetes, and uneasiness
of the middling citizens, that the governing oligarchy, unable either to
enforce their private debts or to maintain their political power, were
obliged to invoke the well-known wisdom and integrity of Solon. Though
his vigorous protest (which doubtless rendered him acceptable to the mass
of the people) against the iniquity of the existing system, had already
been proclaimed in his poems, they still hoped that he would serve as
an auxiliary to help them over their difficulties, and they therefore
chose him, nominally as archon along with Philombrotus, but with power in
substance dictatorial.[b]

For the life of Solon we can do no better than turn to Plutarch, keeping
the very translation, by North, that Shakespeare read, but modernising
the spelling.


THE LIFE AND LAWS OF SOLON ACCORDING TO PLUTARCH

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 638-558 B.C.]]

He was of the noblest and most ancient house of the city of Athens.
For of his father’s side, he was descended of King Codrus: and for
his mother, Heraclides Ponticus writeth, she was cousin-german unto
Pisistratus’ mother. For this cause even from the beginning there was
great friendship between them, partly for their kindred, and partly also
for the courtesy and beauty of Pisistratus, with whom it is reported
Solon on a time was in love. But Solon’s father (as Hermippus writeth)
having spent his goods in liberality, and deeds of courtesy, though he
might easily have been relieved at divers men’s hands with money, he
was yet ashamed to take any, because he came of a house which was wont
rather to give and relieve others, than to take themselves: so being
yet a young man, he devised to trade merchandise. Howbeit others say,
that Solon travelled countries, rather to see the world, and to learn,
than to traffic, or gain. For sure he was very desirous of knowledge, as
appeareth manifestly: for that being now old, he commonly used to say
this verse:

    “I grow old learning still.”

Also he was not covetously bent, nor loved riches too much: for he said
in one place:

    “Whoso hath goods, and gold enough at call,
      Great herds of beasts, and flocks in many a fold;
    Both horse and mule, yea, store of corn and all
      That may content each man above the mould:
    No richer is, for all those heaps and hoards,
      Than he which hath sufficiently to feed
    And clothe his corpse with such as God affords.
      But if his joy and chief delight do breed,
    For to behold the fair and heavenly face
    Of some sweet wife, which is adorned with grace:
    Or else some child, of beauty fair and bright,
    Then hath he cause (indeed) of deep delight.”

And in another place also he saith:

    “Indeed I do desire some wealth to have at will:
    But not unless the same be got by faithful dealing still.
    For sure who so desires by wickedness to thrive,
    Shall find that justice from such goods will justly him deprive.”

Solon learned to be lavish in expense, to fare delicately, and to speak
wantonly of pleasures in his poems, somewhat more licentiously than
became the gravity of a philosopher: only because he was brought up in
the trade of merchandise, wherein for that men are marvellous subject
to great losses and dangers, they seek other whiles good cheer to drive
these cares away, and liberty to make much of themselves. Poetry at the
beginning he used but for pleasure, and when he had leisure, writing no
matter of importance in his verses. Afterwards he set out many grave
matters of philosophy, and the most part of such things as he had
devised before, in the government of a commonweal, which he did not for
history or memory’s sake, but only of a pleasure to discourse: for he
showeth the reasons of that he did, and in some places he exhorteth,
chideth, and reproveth the Athenians. And some affirm also he went about
to write his laws and ordinances in verse, and do recite his preface,
which was this:

    “Vouchsafe, O mighty Jove, of heaven and earth high king:
    To grant good fortune to my laws and hests in everything.
    And that their glory grow in such triumphant wise,
    As may remain in fame for aye, which lives and never dies.”

[Sidenote: [594-590 B.C.]]

He chiefly delighted in moral philosophy, which treated of government and
commonweals: as the most part of the wise men did of those times. But for
natural philosophy, he was very gross and simple. So in effect there was
none but Thales alone of all the seven wise men of Greece, who searched
further the contemplation of things in common use among men, than he. For
setting him apart, all the others got the name of wisdom, only for their
understanding in matters of State and government. It is reported that
they met on a day all seven together in the city of Delphes, and another
time in the city of Corinth, where Periander got them together at a feast
that he made to the other six.

Anacharsis being arrived at Athens, went to knock at Solon’s gate,
saying that he was a stranger which came of purpose to see him, and to
desire his acquaintance and friendship. Solon answered him, that it was
better to seek friendship in his own country. Anacharsis replied again:
“Thou then that art at home, and in thine own country, begin to show me
friendship.” Then Solon wondering at his bold ready wit, entertained him
very courteously: and kept him a certain time in his house, and made
him very good cheer, at the self-same time wherein he was most busy in
governing the commonweal, and making laws for the state thereof. Which
when Anacharsis understood, he laughed at it, to see that Solon imagined
with written laws, to bridle men’s covetousness and injustice. “For
such laws,” said he, “do rightly resemble the spider’s cobwebs: because
they take hold of little flies and gnats which fall into them, but the
rich and mighty will break and run through them at their will.” Solon
answered him, that men do justly keep all covenants and bargains which
one makes with another, because it is to the hindrance of either party
to break them: and even so, he did so temper his laws, that he made his
citizens know, it was more for their profit to obey law and justice, than
to break it. Nevertheless afterwards, matters proved rather according
to Anacharsis’ comparison, than agreeable to the hope that Solon had
conceived. Anacharsis being by hap one day in a common assembly of the
people at Athens, said that he marvelled much, why in the consultations
and meetings of the Grecians, wise men propounded matters, and fools did
decide them.

The Athenians, having sustained a long and troublesome war against the
Megarians, for the possession of the isle of Salamis, were in the end
weary of it, and made proclamation straightly commanding upon pain of
death, that no man should presume to prefer any more to the counsel of
the city, the title or question of the possession of the isle of Salamis.
Solon could not bear this open shame, and seeing the most part of the
lustiest youths desirous still of war, though their tongues were tied for
fear of the proclamation; he feigned himself to be out of his wits, and
caused it to be given out that Solon was become a fool; and secretly he
had made certain lamentable verses, which he had conned without book, to
sing abroad the city. So one day he ran suddenly out of his house with a
garland on his head, and got him to the market-place, where the people
straight swarmed like bees about him: and getting him up upon the stone
where all proclamations are usually made out he singeth the elegies he
had made.

This elegy is entitled Salamis, and containeth an hundred verses, which
are excellently well written. And these being sung openly by Solon at
that time, his friends incontinently praised them beyond measure, and
especially Pisistratus: and they went about persuading the people that
were present, to credit that he spake. Hereupon the matter was so handled
amongst them, that by and by the proclamation was revoked, and they began
to follow the wars with greater fury than before, appointing Solon to be
general in the same.

But the common tale and report is, that he went by sea with Pisistratus
unto the temple of Venus, surnamed Colias: where he found all the women
at a solemn feast and sacrifice, which they made of custom to the
goddess. He taking occasion thereby, sent from thence a trusty man of
his own unto the Megarians, which then had Salamis: whom he instructed
to feign himself a revolted traitor, and that he came of purpose to
tell them, that if they would but go with him, they might take all the
chief ladies and gentlewomen of Athens on a sudden. The Megarians easily
believed him, and shipped forthwith certain soldiers to go with him.
But when Solon perceived the ship under sail coming from Salamis, he
commanded the women to depart, and instead of them he put lusty beardless
springalls into their apparel, and gave them little short daggers to
convey under their clothes, commanding them to play and dance together
upon the seaside, until their enemies were landed, and their ship at
anchor; and so it came to pass. For the Megarians being deceived by
that they saw afar off, as soon as ever they came to the shore side
did land in heaps, one in another’s neck, even for greediness, to take
these women: but not a man of them escaped, for they were slain every
mother’s son. This stratagem being finely handled, and to good effect,
the Athenians took sea straight, and coasted over to the isle of Salamis:
which they took upon the sudden, and won it without much resistance.

Others say that it was not taken after this sort: By order of the oracle,
Solon one night passed over to Salamis, and did sacrifice to Periphemus,
and to Cychreus, demi-gods of the country. Which done, the Athenians
delivered him five hundred men, who willingly offered themselves: and the
city made an accord with them: that if they took the isle of Salamis,
they should bear greatest authority in the commonweal. Solon embarked his
soldiers into divers fisher boats, and appointed a galliot of thirty oars
to come after him, and he anchored hard by the city of Salamis, under the
point which looketh towards the isle of Negropont. The Megarians which
were within Salamis, having by chance heard some inkling of it, but yet
knew nothing of certainty: ran presently in hurly-burly to arm them, and
manned out a ship to descry what it was. But they fondly coming within
danger, were taken by Solon, who clapped the Megarians under hatches fast
bound, and in their rooms put aboard in their ship the choicest soldiers
he had of the Athenians, commanding them to set their course direct upon
the city, and to keep themselves as close out of sight as could be.
And he himself with all the rest of his soldiers landed presently, and
marched to encounter with the Megarians, which were come out into the
field. Now whilst they were fighting together, Solon’s men whom he had
sent in the Megarians’ ship entered the haven and won the town. This is
certainly true, and testified by that which is showed yet at this day.
For to keep a memorial hereof, a ship of Athens arriveth quietly at the
first, and by and by those that are in the ship make a great shout, and
a man armed leaping out of the ship, runneth shouting towards the rock
called Sciradion, which is as they come from the firm land: and hard by
the same is the temple of Mars, which Solon built there after he had
overcome the Megarians in battle, from whence he sent back again those
prisoners that he had taken (which were saved from the slaughter of the
battle) without any ransom paying. Nevertheless, the Megarians were
sharply bent still, to recover Salamis again. Much hurt being done and
suffered on both sides: both parties in the end made the Lacedæmonians
judges of the quarrel.

Solon undoubtedly won great glory and honour by this exploit, yet was he
much more honoured and esteemed, for the oration he made in defence of
the temple of Apollo, in the city of Delphes: declaring that it was not
meet to be suffered, that the Cyrrhæans should at their pleasure abuse
the sanctuary of the oracle, and that they should aid the Delphians in
honour and reverence of Apollo. Whereupon the counsel of the Amphictyons,
being moved with his words and persuasions, proclaimed wars against the
Cyrrhæans.

Now that this sedition was utterly appeased in Athens, for that the
excommunicates were banished the country, the city fell again into their
old troubles and dissensions about the government of the commonweal: and
they were divided into so diverse parties and factions, as there were
people of sundry places and territories within the country of Attica.
For there were the people of the mountains, the people of the valleys,
and the people of the seacoast. Those of the mountains, took the common
people’s part for their lives. Those of the valley, would a few of the
best citizens should carry the sway. The coastmen would that neither of
them should prevail, because they would have had a mean government and
mingled of them both. Furthermore, the faction between the poor and rich,
proceeding of their unequality, was at that time very great. By reason
whereof the city was in great danger, and it seemed there was no way to
pacify or take up these controversies, unless some tyrant happened to
rise, that would take upon him to rule the whole. For all the common
people were so sore indebted to the rich, that either they ploughed their
lands, and yielded them the sixth part of their crop (for which cause
they were called hectemorii and servants), or else they borrowed money
of them at usury, upon gauge of their bodies to serve it out. And if
they were not able to pay them, then were they by the law delivered to
their creditors, who kept them as bondsmen and slaves in their houses,
or else they sent them into strange countries to be sold: and many even
for very poverty were forced to sell their own children (for there was no
law to forbid the contrary) or else to forsake their city and country,
for the extreme cruelty and hard dealings of these abominable usurers,
their creditors. Insomuch that many of the lustiest and stoutest of
them, banded together in companies, and encouraged one another, not to
suffer and bear any longer such extremity, but to choose them a stout
and trusty captain, that might set them at liberty, and redeem those out
of captivity, which were judged to be bondsmen and servants, for lack of
paying of their debts at their days appointed: and so to make again a new
division of all lands and tenements, and wholly to change and turn up the
whole state and government.

Then the wisest men of the city, who saw Solon only neither partner with
the rich in their oppression, neither partaker with the poor in their
necessity: made suit to him, that it would please him to take the matter
in hand, and to appease and pacify all these broils and sedition. Yet
Phanias Lesbian writeth, that he used a subtilty, whereby he deceived
both the one and the other side, concerning the commonweal. For he
secretly promised the poor to divide the lands again: and the rich also,
to confirm their covenants and bargains. Howsoever it fell out, it is
very certain that Solon from the beginning made it a great matter, and
was very scrupulous to deal between them, fearing the covetousness of
the one, and arrogancy of the other. Howbeit in the end he was chosen
governor after Philombrotus, and was made reformer of the rigour of
the laws, and the temperer of the state and commonweal, by consent and
agreement of both parties.

The rich accepted him, because he was no beggar: the poor did also like
him, because he was an honest man. They say, moreover, that one word and
sentence which he spake (which at that present was rife in every man’s
mouth) that equality did breed no strife: did as well please the rich and
wealthy, as the poor and needy. For the one sort conceived of this word
equality, that he would measure all things according to the quality of
the man: and the other took it for their purpose, that he would measure
all things by the number, and by the poll only. Thus the captains of
both sections persuaded and prayed him, boldly to take upon him that
sovereign authority, since he had the whole city now at his commandment.
The neuters also of every part, when they saw it very hard to pacify
these things with law and reason, were well content that the wisest, and
honestest man, should alone have the royal power in his hands. But his
familiar friends above all rebuked him, saying he was to be accounted no
better than a beast, if for fear of the name of tyrant, he would refuse
to take upon him a kingdom: which is the most just and honourable state,
if one take it upon him that is an honest man.

Now, notwithstanding he had refused the kingdom, yet he waxed nothing
the more remiss or soft therefor in governing, neither would he bow for
fear of the great, nor yet would frame his laws to their liking, that
had chosen him their reformer. For where the mischief was tolerable, he
did not straight pluck it up by the roots: neither did he so change the
state, as he might have done, lest if he should have attempted to turn
upside down the whole government, he might afterwards have been never
able to settle and establish the same again. Therefore he only altered
that which he thought by reason he could persuade his citizens unto, or
else by force he ought to compel them to accept, mingling as he said,
sour with sweet, and force with justice. And herewith agreeth his answer
that he made afterwards unto one that asked him, if he had made the best
laws he could for the Athenians? “Yea, sure,” saith he, “such as they
were able to receive.” And this that followeth also, they have ever since
observed in the Athenian tongue: to make certain things pleasant, that
be hateful, finely conveying them under colour of pleasing names. As
calling taxes, contributions: garrisons, guards: prisons, houses. And all
this came up first by Solon’s invention, who called clearing of debts
_seisachtheia_: in English, discharge.


_The Law Concerning Debts_

For the first change and reformation he made in government was this:
he ordained that all manner of debts past should be clear, and nobody
should ask his debtor anything for the time passed. That no man should
thenceforth lend money out to usury upon covenants for the body to be
bound, if it were not repaid. Howbeit some write (as Androtion among
other) that the poor were contented that the interest only for usury
should be moderated, without taking away the whole debt: and that Solon
called this easy and gentle discharge, _seisachtheia_, with crying up
the value of money. For he raised the pound of silver, being before but
threescore and thirteen drachmas, full up to an hundred: so they which
were to pay great sums of money, paid by tale as much as they ought,
but with less number of pieces than the debt could have been paid when
it was borrowed. And so the debtors gained much, and the creditors lost
nothing. Nevertheless the greater part of them which have written the
same, say, that this crying up of money, was a general discharge of all
debts, conditions, and covenants upon the same: whereto the very poems
themselves, which Solon wrote, do seem to agree. For he glorieth, and
breaketh forth in his verses, that he had taken away all marks that
separated men’s lands through the country of Attica, and that now he
had set at liberty, that which before was in bondage. And that of the
citizens of Athens, which for lack of payment of their debts had been
condemned for slaves to their creditors, he had brought many home again
out of strange countries, where they had been so long, that they had
forgotten to speak their natural tongue, and others which remained at
home in captivity, he had now set them all at good liberty.

But while he was in doing this, men say a thing thwarted him, that
troubled him marvellously. For having framed an edict for clearing of
all debts, and lacking only a little to grace it with words, and to give
it some pretty preface, that otherwise was ready to be proclaimed: he
opened himself somewhat to certain of his familiars whom he trusted (as
Conon, Clinias, and Hipponicus) and told them how he would not meddle
with lands and possessions, but would only clear and cut off all manner
of debts. These men, before the proclamation came out, went presently
to the money-men, and borrowed great sums of money of them, and laid it
out straight upon land. So when the proclamation came out, they kept the
lands they had purchased, but restored not the money they had borrowed.
This foul part of theirs made Solon very ill spoken of, and wrongfully
blamed: as if he had not only suffered it, but had been partaker of
this wrong and injustice. Notwithstanding he cleared himself of this
slanderous report, losing five talents by his own law. For it was well
known that so much was due unto him, and he was the first that, following
his own proclamation, did clearly release his debtors of the same.
Notwithstanding, they ever after called Solon’s friends _Chreocopides_,
cutters of debts. This law neither liked the one nor the other sort. For
it greatly offended the rich, for cancelling their bonds: and it much
more misliked the poor, because all lands and possessions they gaped for,
were not made again common, and everybody alike rich and wealthy, as
Lycurgus had made the Lacedæmonians.

But Lycurgus was the eleventh descended of the right line from Hercules,
and had many years been king of Lacedæmon, where he had gotten great
authority, and made himself many friends: all which things together, did
greatly help him to execute that, which he wisely had imagined for the
order of his commonweal. Yet also, he used more persuasion than force,
a good witness thereof the loss of his eye: preferring a law before his
private injury, which hath power to preserve a city long in union and
concord, and to make citizens to be neither poor nor rich.

Solon could not attain to this. Howbeit he did what he could possible,
with the power he had, as one seeking to win no credit with his citizens,
but only by his counsel. To begin withal, he first took away all Draco’s
bloody laws, saving for murder and manslaughter.


_Class Legislation_

Then Solon being desirous to have the chief offices of the city to remain
in rich men’s hands, as already they did, and yet to mingle the authority
of government in such sort, as the meaner people might bear a little
sway, which they never could before: he made an estimate of the goods
of every private citizen. And those which he found yearly worth five
hundred bushels of corn, and other liquid fruits and upwards, he called
_pentacosiomedimni_: as to say, five-hundred-bushel-men of revenue. And
those that had three hundred bushels a year, and were able to keep a
horse of service, he put in the second degree, and called them knights.
They that might dispend but two hundred bushels a year, were put in the
third place, and called _zeugitæ_. All other under those, were called
_thetes_, as you would say, hirelings, or craftsmen living of their
labour: whom he did not admit to bear any office in the city, neither
were they taken as free citizens, saving they had voices in elections,
and assemblies of the city, and in judgments, where the people wholly
judged.

Furthermore because his laws were written somewhat obscurely, and
might be diversely taken and interpreted, this did give a great deal
more authority and power to the judges. For, considering all their
controversies could not be ended, and judged by express law: they were
driven of necessity always to run to the judges and debated their matters
before them. Insomuch as the judges by this means came to be somewhat
above the law: for they did even expound it as they would themselves.

Yet considering it was meet to provide for the poverty of the common
sort of people: he suffered any man that would, to take upon him the
defence of any poor man’s case that had the wrong. For if a man were
hurt, beaten, forced, or otherwise wronged: any other man that would,
might lawfully sue the offender, and prosecute law against him. And this
was a wise law ordained of him, to accustom his citizens to be sorry
for another’s hurt, and so to feel it, as if any part of his own body
had been injured. And they say he made an answer on a time agreeable
to this law. For, being asked what city he thought best governed, he
answered: “That city where such as receive no wrong, do as earnestly
defend wrong offered to others, as the very wrong and injury had been
done unto themselves.” He erected also the council of the Areopagites, of
those magistrates of the city, out of which they did yearly choose their
governor: and he himself had been of that number, for that he had been
governor for a year.

Wherefore perceiving now the people were grown to a stomach and
haughtiness of mind because they were clear discharged of their debts: he
set one up for matters of state, another council of an hundred chosen out
of every tribe, whereof four hundred of them were to consult and debate
of all matters, before they were propounded to the people: that when the
great council of the people at large should be assembled, no matters
should be put forth, unless it had been before well considered of, and
digested, by the council of the four hundred. Moreover, he ordained the
higher court should have the chief authority and power over all things,
and chiefly to see the law executed and maintained: supposing that the
commonweal being settled, and stayed with these two courts (as with two
strong anchor-holds), it should be the less turmoiled and troubled, and
the people also better pacified and quieted. The most part of writers
hold this opinion, that it was Solon which erected the council of the
Areopagites, as we have said, and it is very likely to be true, for that
Draco in all his laws and ordinances made no manner of mention of the
Areopagites, but always speaketh to the ephetes (which were judges of
life and death) when he spake of murder, or of any man’s death.

Notwithstanding, the eighth law of the thirteenth table of Solon saith
thus, in these very words: All such as have been banished or detected
of naughty life, before Solon made his laws, shall be restored again to
their goods and good name, except those which were condemned by order of
the council of the Areopagites, or by the ephetes, or by the kings in
open court, for murder, and death of any man, or for aspiring to usurp
tyranny. These words to the contrary seem to prove and testify, that the
council of the Areopagites was, before Solon was chosen reformer of the
laws. For how could offenders and wicked men be condemned by order of the
council of the Areopagites before Solon, if Solon was the first that gave
it authority to judge?


_Miscellaneous Laws; the Rights of Women_

Furthermore amongst the rest of his laws, one of them indeed was of his
own device: for the like was never stablished elsewhere. And it is that
law, that pronounceth him defamed, and dishonest, who in a civil uproar
among the citizens, sitteth still a looker-on, and a neuter, and taketh
part with neither side. Whereby his mind was as it should appear, that
private men should not be only careful to put themselves and their causes
in safety, nor yet should be careless for other men’s matters, or think
it a virtue not to meddle with the miseries and misfortunes of their
country, but from the beginning of every sedition that they should join
with those that take the justest cause in hand, and rather to hazard
themselves with such, than to tarry looking (without putting themselves
in danger) which of the two should have the victory.

There is another law also, which at the first sight methinketh is very
unhonest and fond. That if any man according to the law hath matched with
a rich heir and inheritor, and of himself is impotent, and unable to do
the office of a husband, she may lawfully lie with any whom she liketh,
of her husband’s nearest kinsmen. Howbeit some affirm, that it is a wise
made law for those, which knowing themselves unmeet to entertain wedlock,
will for covetousness of lands, marry with rich heirs and possessioners,
and mind to abuse poor gentlewomen under the colour of law: and will
think to force and restrain nature. This also confirmeth the same, that
such a new-married wife should be shut up with her husband, and eat a
quince with him: and that he also which marrieth such an inheritor,
should of duty see her thrice a month at the least. For although he get
no children of her, yet it is an honour the husband doth to his wife,
arguing that he taketh her for an honest woman, that he loveth her, and
that he esteemeth of her. Besides, it taketh away many mislikings and
displeasures which oftentimes happen in such cases, and keepeth love and
good will waking, that it die not utterly between them.

Furthermore, he took away all jointures and dowries in other marriages,
and willed that the wives should bring their husbands but three gowns
only, with some other little movables of small value, and without any
other thing as it were: utterly forbidding that they should buy their
husbands, or that they should make merchandise of marriages, as of other
trades to gain, but would that man and woman should marry together for
issue, for pleasure, and for love, but in no case for money.

They greatly commend another law of Solon’s, which forbiddeth to speak
ill of the dead. For it is a good and godly thing to think, that they
ought not to touch the dead, no more than to touch holy things; and
men should take great heed to offend those that are departed out of
this world; besides it is a token of wisdom and civility, to beware of
immortal enemies. He commanded also in the self-same law, that no man
should speak ill of the living, specially in churches, during divine
service, or in council chamber of the city, nor in the theatres whilst
games were a-playing: upon pain of three silver drachmæ to be paid to him
that was injured, and two to the common treasury.

So he was marvellously well thought of, for the law that he made touching
wills and testaments. For before, men might not lawfully make their heirs
whom they would, but the goods came to the children or kindred of the
testator. But he leaving it at liberty, to dispose their goods where they
thought good, so they had no children of their own: did therein prefer
friendship before kindred, and good will and favour before necessity
and constraint, and so made every one lord and master of his own goods.
Yet he did not simply and alike allow all sorts of gifts howsoever they
were made: but those only which were made by men of sound memory, or by
those whose wits failed them not by extreme sickness, or through drinks,
medicines, poisonings, charms, or other such violence and extraordinary
means, neither yet through the enticements and persuasions of women. As
thinking very wisely, there was no difference at all between those that
were evidently forced by constraint, and those that were compassed and
wrought by subornation at length to do a thing against their will, taking
fraud in this case equal with violence, and pleasure with sorrow, as
passions with madness, which commonly have as much force the one as the
other, to draw and drive men from reason.

He made another law also, in which he appointed women their times to go
abroad into the fields, their mourning, their feasts and sacrifices,
plucking from them all disorder and wilful liberty, which they used
before. For he did forbid that they should carry out of the city with
them above three gowns, and to take victuals with them above the value
of a half-penny, neither basket nor pannier above a cubit high: and
especially he did forbid them to go in the night other than in their
coach, and that a torch should be carried before them. He did forbid them
also at the burial of the dead, to tear and spoil themselves with blows,
to make lamentations in verses, to weep at the funeral of a stranger not
being their kinsman, to sacrifice an ox on the grave of the dead, to bury
above three gowns with the corpse, to go to other men’s graves, but at
the very time of burying the corpse.


_Results of Solon’s Legislation_

And perceiving that the city of Athens began to replenish daily more
and more, by men’s repairing thither from all parts, and by reason of
the great assured safety and liberty that they found there: and also
considering how the greatest part of the realm became in manner heathy,
and was very barren, and that men trafficking the seas, are not wont to
bring any merchandise to those, which can give them nothing again in
exchange: he began to practise that his citizens should give themselves
unto crafts and occupations, and made a law, that the son should not be
bound to relieve his father being old, unless he had set him in his youth
to some occupation.

It was a wise part of Lycurgus (who dwelt in a city where was no resort
for strangers, and had so great a territory, as could have furnished
twice as many people, as Euripides saith, and moreover on all sides
was environed with a great number of slaves of the helots, whom it
was needful to keep still in labour and work continually) to have
his citizens always occupied in exercises of feats of arms, without
making them to learn any other science, but discharge them of all other
miserable occupations and handicrafts.

But Solon framing his laws unto things, and not things unto laws, when
he saw the country of Attica so lean and barren, that it could hardly
bring forth to sustain those that tilled the ground only, and therefore
much more impossible to keep so great a multitude of idle people as were
in Athens: thought it very requisite to set up occupations, and to give
them countenance and estimation. Therefore he ordered, that the council
of the Areopagites, should have full power and authority to inquire how
every man lived in the city, and also to punish such as they found idle
people, and did not labour. Yet to say truly, in Solon’s laws touching
women, there are many absurdities, as they fall out ill-favouredly. For
he maketh it lawful for any man to kill an adulterer taking him with the
fact. But he that ravisheth or forcibly taketh away a free woman, is only
condemned to pay a hundred silver drachmæ.

Of the fruits of the earth, he was contented they should transport and
sell only oil out of the realm to strangers, but no other fruit or
grain. He ordained that the governor of the city should yearly proclaim
open curses against those that should do to the contrary, or else he
himself making default therein, should be fined at a hundred drachmæ.
This ordinance is in the first table of Solon’s laws, and therefore we
may not altogether discredit those which say, they did forbid in the old
time that men should carry figs out of the country of Attica, and that
from hence it came that these pick-thanks, which bewray and accuse them
that transported figs, were called sycophants. He made another law also
against the hurt that beasts might do unto men. Wherein he ordained, that
if a dog did bite any man, he that owned him should deliver to him that
was bitten, his dog tied to a log of timber of four cubits long: and
this was a very good device, to make men safe from dogs. But he was very
straight in one law he made, that no stranger might be made denizen and
free man of the city of Athens, unless he were a banished man forever out
of his country, or else that he should come and dwell there with all his
family, to exercise some craft or science. Notwithstanding, they say he
made not this law so much to put strangers from their freedom there, as
to draw them thither, assuring them by this ordinance, they might come
and be free of the city: and he thought moreover, that both the one and
the other would be more faithful to the commonweal of Athens.

This also was another of Solon’s laws, which he ordained for those that
should feast certain days at the townhouse of the city, at other men’s
cost. For he would not allow, that one man should come often to feasts
there. And if any man were invited thither to the feast, and did refuse
to come: he did set a fine on his head, as reproving the miserable
niggardliness of the one and the presumptuous arrogancy of the other, to
contemn and despise common order.

After he had made his laws, he did stablish them to continue for the
space of one hundred years, and they were written in tables of wood
called _axones_. So all the councils and magistrates together did swear,
that they would keep Solon’s laws themselves, and also cause them to be
observed of others thoroughly and particularly. Then every one of the
_thesmothetes_ (which were certain officers attendant on the council,
and had special charge to see the laws observed) did solemnly swear
in the open market-place, near the stone where the proclamations are
proclaimed: and every one of them both promised, and vowed openly to keep
the same laws, and that if any of them did in any one point break the
said ordinances, then they were content that such offender should pay to
the temple of Apollo, at the city of Delphi, an image of fine gold, that
should weigh as much as himself.

Now after his laws were proclaimed, there came some daily unto him, which
either praised them, or misliked them: and prayed him either to take
away, or to add something unto them. Many again came and asked him how he
understood some sentence of his laws: and requested him to declare his
meaning, and how it should be taken. Wherefore considering how it were to
no purpose to refuse to do it, and again how it would get him much envy
and ill will to yield thereunto: he determined (happen what would) to
wind himself out of these briers, and to fly the groanings, complaints,
and quarrels of his citizens. So, to convey himself awhile out of the
way, he took upon him to be master of a ship in a certain voyage, and
asked license for ten years of the Athenians to go beyond sea, hoping by
that time the Athenians would be very well acquainted with his laws.


SOLON’S JOURNEY AND RETURN; PISISTRATUS

[Sidenote: [590-580 B.C.]]

So went he to the seas, and the first place of his arrival was in Egypt,
where he remained awhile. And as for the meeting and talk betwixt him
and King Crœsus, I know there are that by distance of time will prove it
but a fable, and devised of pleasure: but for my part I will not reject,
nor condemn so famous a history, received and approved by so many grave
testimonies. Moreover it is very agreeable to Solon’s manners and nature,
and also not unlike to his wisdom and magnanimity: although in all points
it agreeth not with certain tables (which they call Chronicles) where
they have busily noted the order and course of times which even to this
day, many have curiously sought to correct.[15]

But during the time of his absence, great seditions rose at Athens
amongst the inhabitants, who had gotten them several heads amongst them:
as those of the valley had made Lycurgus their head. The coast-men
Megacles, the son of Alcmæon. And those of the mountains, Pisistratus;
with whom all artificers and craftsmen living of their handy labour were
joined, which were the stoutest against the rich. So that notwithstanding
the city kept Solon’s laws and ordinances, yet was there not a man but
gaped for a change, and desired to see things in another state.

[Sidenote: [580-558 B.C.]]

The whole commonweal broiling thus with troubles, Solon arrived at
Athens, where every man did honour and reverence him: howbeit he was no
more able to speak aloud in open assembly to the people, nor to deal in
matters as he had done before, because his age would not suffer him: and
therefore he spake with every one of the heads of the several factions
apart, trying if he could agree and reconcile them together again.

Whereupon Pisistratus seemed to be more willing than any of the rest, for
he was courteous, and marvellous fair spoken, and showed himself besides
very good and pitiful to the poor, and temperate also to his enemies:
further, if any good quality were lacking in him, he did so finely
counterfeit it, that men imagined it was more in him, than in those that
naturally had it in them indeed. By this art and fine manner of his, he
deceived the poor common people. Howbeit Solon found him straight, and
saw the mark he shot at: but yet hated him not at that time, and sought
still to win him, and bring him to reason.

Shortly after Pisistratus having wounded himself, and bloodied all
his body over, caused his men to carry him in his couch into the
market-place, where he put the people in an uproar, and told them that
they were his enemies that thus traitorously had handled and arrayed
him, for that he stood with them about the governing of the commonweal:
insomuch as many of them were marvellously offended, and mutinied by and
by, crying out it was shamefully done. Then Solon drawing near said unto
him: “O thou son of Hippocrates, thou dost ill-favouredly counterfeit the
person of Homer’s Ulysses: for thou hast whipped thyself to deceive thy
citizens, as he did tear and scratch himself, to deceive his enemies.”
Notwithstanding this, the common people were still in uproar, being ready
to take arms for Pisistratus: and there was a general council assembled,
in the which one Ariston spake, that they should grant fifty men, to
carry halberds and maces before Pisistratus for guard of his person.

But Solon going up into the pulpit for orations, stoutly inveighed
against it. But in the end, seeing the poor people did tumult still,
taking Pisistratus’ part, and that the rich fled here and there, he went
his way also.

Wherefore he hied him home again, and took his weapons out of his house,
and laid them before his gate in the midst of the street, saying: “For my
part, I have done what I can possible, to help and defend the laws and
liberties of my country.”

So from that time he betook himself unto his ease, and never after dealt
any more in matters of state, or commonweal. His friends did counsel him
to fly: but all they could not persuade him to it. For he kept his house,
and gave himself to make verses, in which he sore reproved the Athenians’
faults. His friends hereupon did warn him to beware of such speeches,
and to take heed what he said, lest if it came unto the tyrant’s ears,
he might put him to death for it. And further, they asked him wherein he
trusted, that he spake so boldly. He answered them, “In my age.”

Howbeit Pisistratus, after he had obtained his purpose, sending for him
upon his word and faith, did honour and entertain him so well, that Solon
in the end became one of his council, and approved many things which he
did.

Solon lived a long time after Pisistratus had usurped the tyranny, as
Heraclides Ponticus writeth. Howbeit Phanias Ephesian writeth, that he
lived not above two years after.[d]


A MODERN VIEW OF SOLONIAN LAWS AND CONSTITUTION

As a recent summing up of Solon, we may quote Professor Bury:

“He was a poet, not because he was poetically inspired, like the Parian
Archilochus of an earlier, or the Lesbian Sappho of his own, generation;
but because at that time every man of letters was a poet; there was no
prose literature. A hundred years later Solon would have used prose as
the vehicle of his thought. We are fortunate enough to possess portions
of poems--political pamphlets--which he published for the purpose of
guiding public opinion; and thus we have his view of the situation in his
own words.

“The character of the remedial measures of Solon is imperfectly known.
His title to fame as one of the great statesmen of Europe rests upon
his reform of the constitution. He discovered a secret of democracy,
and he used his discovery to build up the constitution on democratic
foundations. The Athenian commonwealth did not actually become a
democracy till many years later. The radical measure of Solon, which was
the very corner-stone of the Athenian democracy, was his constitution
of the courts of justice. He composed the law courts out of all the
citizens, including the Thetes; and as the panels of judges were enrolled
by lot, the poorest burgher might have his turn. The constitution of the
judicial courts out of the whole people was the secret of democracy which
Solon discovered.

“It was the fate of Solon to live long enough to see the establishment
of the tyranny which he dreaded. We know not what part he had taken in
the troubled world of politics since his return to Athens. The story was
invented that he called upon the citizens to arm themselves against the
tyrant, but called in vain; and that then, laying his arms outside the
threshold of his house, he cried, ‘I have aided, so far as I could, my
country and the constitution, and I appeal to others to do likewise.’
Nor has the story that he refused to live under a tyranny and sought
refuge with his Cyprian friend the king of Soli, any good foundation. We
know only that in his later years he enjoyed the pleasures of wine and
love, and that he survived but a short time the seizure of the tyranny by
Pisistratus, who at least treated the old man with respect.”[e]


FOOTNOTES

[15] [This famous story has already been given in the Appendix to the
history of Western Asia, Vol. II.]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIII. PISISTRATUS THE TYRANT


Pisistratus directed with admirable moderation the courses of the
revolution he had produced. Many causes of success were combined in his
favour. His enemies had been the supposed enemies of the people, and the
multitude doubtless beheld the flight of the Alcmæonidæ (still odious in
their eyes by the massacre of Cylon) as the defeat of a foe, while the
triumph of the popular chief was recognised as the victory of the people.
In all revolutions the man who has sided with the people is permitted by
the people the greatest extent of license. It is easy to perceive, by the
general desire which the Athenians had expressed for the elevation of
Solon to the supreme authority, that the notion of regal authority was
not yet hateful to them, and that they were scarcely prepared for the
liberties with which they were entrusted. But although they submitted
thus patiently to the ascendency of Pisistratus, it is evident that
a less benevolent, or less artful tyrant would not have been equally
successful. Raised above the law, that subtle genius governed only by the
law; nay, he affected to consider its authority greater than his own. He
assumed no title--no attribute of sovereignty. He was accused of murder,
and he humbly appeared before the tribunal of the Areopagus--a proof not
more of the moderation of the usurper than of the influence of public
opinion. He enforced the laws of Solon, and compelled the unruly tempers
of his faction to subscribe to their wholesome rigour. The one revolution
did not, therefore, supplant, it confirmed, the other. “By these means,”
says Herodotus, “Pisistratus mastered Athens, and yet his situation was
far from secure.”

Although the heads of the more moderate party, under Megacles, had been
expelled from Athens, yet the faction, equally powerful, and equally
hostile, headed by Lycurgus, and embraced by the bulk of the nobles,
still remained. For a time, extending perhaps to five or six years,
Pisistratus retained his power; but at length, Lycurgus, uniting with
the exiled Alcmæonidæ, succeeded in expelling him from the city. But
the union that had led to his expulsion, ceased with that event. The
contests between the lowlanders and the coastmen were only more inflamed
by the defeat of the third party which had operated as a balance of
power, and the broils of their several leaders were fed by personal
ambition as by hereditary animosities. Megacles, therefore, unable to
maintain equal ground with Lycurgus, turned his thoughts towards the
enemy he had subdued, and sent proposals to Pisistratus, offering to
unite their forces, and to support him in his pretensions to the tyranny,
upon condition that the exiled chief should marry his daughter Cœsyra.
Pisistratus readily acceded to the terms, and it was resolved by a
theatrical pageant to reconcile his return to the people.[b]

[Sidenote: [550-540 B.C.]]

This was, according to Herodotus, “the most ridiculous project that was
ever imagined.” “In the Pæanean tribe was a woman named Phya,” he says,
“four cubits high, wanting three fingers, and in other respects handsome;
having dressed this woman in a complete suit of armour, and placed her
on a chariot, and having shown her beforehand how to assume the most
becoming demeanour, they drove her to the city, having sent heralds
before, who, on their arrival in the city, proclaimed what was ordered
in these terms: ‘O Athenians, receive with kind wishes Pisistratus,
whom Minerva herself, honouring above all men, now conducts back to
her own citadel.’ They then went about proclaiming this; and a report
was presently spread among the people that Minerva was bringing back
Pisistratus; and the people in the city, believing this woman to be the
goddess, both adored a human being, and received Pisistratus.”[c]

The sagacity of the Athenians was already so acute, and the artifice
appeared to Herodotus so gross, that the simple Halicarnassian could
scarcely credit the authenticity of this tale. But it is possible
that the people viewed the procession as an ingenious allegory, to
the adaptation of which they were already disposed; and that like the
populace of a later and yet more civilised people, they hailed the
goddess while they recognised the prostitute.[16] Be that as it may, the
son of Hippocrates recovered his authority and fulfilled his treaty with
Megacles by a marriage with his daughter. Between the commencement of
his first tyranny and the date of his second return, there was probably
an interval of twelve years. His sons were already adults. Partly from
a desire not to increase his family, partly from some superstitious
disinclination to the blood of the Alcmæonidæ, which the massacre of
Cylon still stigmatised with contamination, Pisistratus conducted
himself towards the fair Cœsyra with a chastity either unwelcome to her
affection, or afflicting to her pride. The unwedded wife communicated the
mortifying secret to her mother, from whose lips it soon travelled to the
father. He did not view the purity of Pisistratus with charitable eyes.
He thought it an affront to his own person that that of his daughter
should be so tranquilly regarded. He entered into a league with his
former opponents against the usurper, and so great was the danger, that
Pisistratus (despite his habitual courage) betook himself hastily to
flight--a strange instance of the caprice of human events, that a man
could with a greater impunity subdue the freedom of his country, than
affront the vanity of his wife!

Pisistratus, his sons and partisans, retired to Eretria in Eubœa: there
they deliberated as to their future proceedings--should they submit to
their exile, or attempt to retrieve their power? The counsels of his son
Hippias, prevailed with Pisistratus; it was resolved once more to attempt
the sovereignty of Athens. The neighbouring tribes assisted the exiles
with forage and shelter. Many cities accorded the celebrated noble large
sums of money, and the Thebans outdid the rest in pernicious liberality.
A troop of Argive adventurers came from the Peloponnesus to tender to
the baffled usurper the assistance of their swords, and Lygdamis, an
individual of Naxos, himself ambitious of the government of his native
state, increased his resources both by money and military force. At
length, though after a long and tedious period of no less than eleven
years, Pisistratus resolved to hazard the issue of open war. At the head
of a foreign force he advanced to Marathon, and pitched his tents upon
its immortal plain. Troops of the factious, or discontented, thronged
from Athens to his camp, while the bulk of the citizens, unaffected by
such desertions, viewed his preparations with indifference. At length,
when they heard that Pisistratus had broken up his encampment, and was
on his march to the city, the Athenians awoke from their apathy, and
collected their forces to oppose him. He continued to advance his troops,
halted at the temple of Minerva, whose earthly representative had once
so benignly assisted him, and pitched his tents opposite the fane. He
took advantage of that time in which the Athenians, during the heat of
the day, were at their entertainments, or indulging the noontide repose,
still so grateful to the inhabitants of a warmer climate, to commence his
attack. He soon scattered the foe, and ordered his sons to overtake them
in their flight, to bid them return peaceably to their employments, and
fear nothing from his vengeance. His clemency assisted the effect of his
valour, and once more the son of Hippocrates became the master of the
Athenian commonwealth.

[Sidenote: [540 B.C.]]

Pisistratus lost no time in strengthening himself by formidable
alliances. He retained many auxiliary troops, and provided large
pecuniary resources. He spared the persons of his opponents, but sent
their children as hostages to Naxos, which he first reduced and consigned
to the tyranny of his auxiliary, Lygdamis. Many of his inveterate enemies
had perished on the field--many fled from the fear of his revenge. He
was undisturbed in the renewal of his sway, and having no motive for
violence, pursued the natural bent of a mild and generous disposition,
ruling as one who wishes men to forget the means by which his power has
been attained.

It was in harmony with this part of his character that Pisistratus
refined the taste and socialised the habits of the citizens, by the
erection of buildings dedicated to the public worship, or the public
uses, and laid out the stately gardens of the Lyceum--(in after-times
the favourite haunt of Philosophy)--by the banks of the river dedicated
to Song. Pisistratus thus did more than continue the laws of Solon--he
inculcated the intellectual habits which the laws were designed to
create. And as in the circle of human events the faults of one man
often confirm what was begun by the virtues of another, so perhaps the
usurpation of Pisistratus was necessary to establish the institutions of
Solon. It is clear that the great lawgiver was not appreciated at the
close of his life as his personal authority had ceased to have influence,
so possibly might have soon ceased the authority of his code. The
citizens required repose, to examine, to feel, to estimate the blessings
of his laws--that repose they possessed under Pisistratus. Amidst the
tumult of fierce and equipoised factions it might be fortunate that a
single individual was raised above the rest, who, having the wisdom to
appreciate the institutions of Solon, had the authority to enforce them.
Silently they grew up under his usurped but benignant sway, pervading,
penetrating, exalting the people, and fitting them by degrees to the
liberty those institutions were intended to confer. If the disorders of
the republic led to the ascendency of Pisistratus so the ascendency of
Pisistratus paved the way for the renewal of the republic. As Cromwell
was the representative of the very sentiments he appeared to subvert--as
Napoleon in his own person incorporated the principles of the revolution
of France, so the tyranny of Pisistratus concentrated and embodied the
elements of that democracy he rather wielded than overthrew.

At home, time and tranquillity cemented the new laws; poetry set before
the emulation of the Athenians its noblest monument in the epics of
Homer; and tragedy put forth its first unmellowed fruits in the rude
recitations of Thespis. Pisistratus sought also to counterbalance the
growing passion for commerce by peculiar attention to agriculture, in
which it is not unlikely that he was considerably influenced by early
prepossessions, for his party had been the mountaineers attached to rural
pursuits, and his adversaries the coastmen engaged in traffic. We learn
from Aristotle that his policy consisted much in subjecting and humbling
the Pedieis, or wealthy nobles of the lowlands. But his very affection
to agriculture must have tended to strengthen an aristocracy, and his
humility to the Areopagus was a proof of his desire to conciliate the
least democratic of the Athenian courts. He probably, therefore, acted
only against such individual chiefs as had incurred his resentment, or
as menaced his power; nor can we perceive in his measures the systematic
and deliberate policy, common with other Greek tyrants, to break up an
aristocracy and create a middle class.

[Sidenote: [540-527 B.C.]]

Abroad, the ambition of Pisistratus, though not extensive, was
successful. There was a town on the Hellespont, called Sigeum, which had
long been a subject of contest between the Athenians and the Mytileneans.
Some years before the legislation of Solon, the Athenian general,
Phrynon, had been slain in single combat by Pittacus, one of the Seven
Wise Men, who had come into the field armed like the Roman retiarius,
with a net, a trident, and a dagger. This feud was terminated by the
arbitration of Periander, tyrant of Corinth, who awarded Sigeum to the
Athenians, which was then in their possession, by a wise and plausible
decree, that each party should keep what it had got. This war was chiefly
remarkable for an incident that introduces us somewhat unfavourably to
the most animated of the lyric poets. Alcæus, an eminent citizen of
Mytilene, and, according to ancient scandal, the unsuccessful lover of
Sappho, conceived a passion for military fame: in his first engagement
he seems to have discovered that his proper vocation was rather to sing
of battles than to share them. He fled from the field, leaving his
arms behind him, which the Athenians obtained, and suspended at Sigeum
in the temple of Minerva. Although this single action, which Alcæus
himself recorded, cannot be fairly held a sufficient proof of the poet’s
cowardice, yet his character and patriotism are more equivocal than his
genius. Of the last we have ample testimony,--though few remains save in
the frigid grace of the imitations of Horace. The subsequent weakness and
civil dissensions of Athens, were not favourable to the maintenance of
this distant conquest--the Mytileneans regained Sigeum. Against this town
Pisistratus now directed his arms--wrested it from the Mytileneans--and
instead of annexing it to the republic of Athens, assigned its government
to the tyranny of his natural son, Hegesistratus--a stormy dominion,
which the valour of the bastard defended against repeated assaults.

But one incident, the full importance of which the reader must wait
awhile to perceive, we shall in this place relate. Among the most
powerful of the Athenians was a noble named Miltiades, son of Cypselus.
By original descent, he was from the neighbouring island of Ægina, and
of the heroic race of Æacus; but he dated the establishment of his house
in Athens from no less distant a founder than the son of Ajax. Miltiades
had added new lustre to his name by a victory at the Olympic Games. It
was probably during the first tyranny of Pisistratus that an adventure,
attended with vast results to Greece, befell this noble. His family were
among the enemies of Pisistratus, and were regarded by that sagacious
usurper with a jealous apprehension, which almost appears prophetic.
Miltiades was, therefore, uneasy under the government of Pisistratus, and
discontented with his position in Athens.

In that narrow territory which, skirting the Hellespont, was called
the Chersonesus, or Peninsula, dwelt the Doloncians, a Thracian tribe.
Engaged in an obstinate war with the neighbouring Absinthians, the
Doloncians had sent to the oracle of Delphi to learn the result of the
contest.[b]

The Pythian answered them, “that they should take that man with them
to their country to found a colony, who after their departure from
the temple should first offer them hospitality.” Accordingly the
Doloncians, going by the sacred way, went through the territories of
the Phocians and Bœotians, and when no one invited them, turned out of
the road towards Athens. Miltiades, being seated in his own portico,
and seeing the Doloncians passing by, wearing a dress not belonging to
the country, and carrying javelins, called out to them; and upon their
coming to him, he offered them shelter and hospitality. They having
accepted his invitation, and having been entertained by him, made known
to him the whole oracle, and entreated him to obey his duty. Their words
persuaded Miltiades as soon as he heard them, for he was troubled with
the government of Pisistratus, and desired to get out of his way. He
therefore immediately set out to Delphi to consult the oracle, whether he
should do that which the Doloncians requested of him. The Pythian having
bid him do so, thereupon Miltiades, taking with him all such Athenians as
were willing to join in the expedition, set sail with the Doloncians, and
took possession of the country; and they who introduced him appointed him
tyrant.[c]

Miltiades (probably B.C. 559) first of all fortified a great part of the
isthmus, as a barrier to the attacks of the Absinthians; but shortly
afterwards, in a feud with the people of Lampsacus, he was taken prisoner
by the enemy. Miltiades, however, had already secured the esteem and
protection of Crœsus; and the Lydian monarch remonstrated with the
Lampsacenes in so formidable a tone of menace, that the Athenian obtained
his release, and regained his new principality. In the meanwhile, his
brother Cimon, (who was chiefly remarkable for his success at the
Olympic Games,) sharing the political sentiments of his house, had been
driven into exile by Pisistratus. By a transfer to the brilliant tyrant
of a victory in the Olympic chariot-race, he, however, propitiated
Pisistratus, and returned to Athens.

Full of years, and in the serene enjoyment of power, Pisistratus died
(B.C. 527). His character may already be gathered from his actions:
crafty in the pursuit of power, but magnanimous in its possession,
we have only, with some qualification, to repeat the eulogium on him
ascribed to his greater kinsman Solon--“That he was the best of tyrants,
and without a vice save that of ambition.”[b]


THE VIRTUES OF PISISTRATUS’ RULE

Pisistratus was far from overturning the constitution of Athens; rather
did Solon’s ordinances remain in full force under him. The reasonable
and necessary progress of development in the state which lay at the
root of the movement which produced Greek tyrannies, had been in every
way provided for by Solon, and consequently wise and temperate tyrants
might govern in accordance with the Solonian laws. Pisistratus honoured
the memory of his relative, with whose ideas their former intercourse
had made him familiar, and he therefore fostered and forwarded his
instructions, so far as they were consistent with his own supremacy. He
himself submitted to the laws, and is said to have appeared in person
before the Areopagus, to justify himself against a complaint, so that on
the whole his government greatly contributed to accustom the Athenians
to the laws. It must be confessed, however, that he raised the money
which he required for the maintenance of his troops, as well as for the
buildings and public festivals, by the mere right of tyranny, and by
levying a tenth on the real estate of the citizens.

His new measures and dispositions also exhibited the character of a wise
moderation, and were in harmony with Solon. Thus he insisted on the
obligation of the commonwealth to care for those who were wounded in
the wars, as well as for the families of such as had fallen in battle.
He especially took upon himself the charge of public morality, the
fostering of those good manners which consist in the respect of youth
for age and in reverence towards sacred things. He promulgated a law
against idle loitering about the streets, and, although he had himself
risen to greatness in the market through the agency of the people who had
come in from the country, still he regarded the increasing mass of the
townsfolk with anxiety. For this reason he sought to oppose a barrier
to the tendency to constitute the life of a great city, which prevailed
amongst the Ionic races, and following the precedent of Periander and
the Orthagoridæ, he made entry into the capital more difficult. He
endeavoured to raise the peasant class, which Solon had rescued, and to
encourage the taste for agriculture.

With these important dispositions, whose spirit was pre-eminently that
of Hipparchus to whom the whole civilisation of the country was so
much indebted, were also connected the great aqueducts which brought
the drinking-water from the mountains to the capital through rocky
underground conduits. That these canals might be inspected and cleaned
in every part, shafts were cut through the rock at stated intervals,
and thus light and air were introduced into the dark channels. On the
outskirts of the town the inflowing water was collected in great rock
basins, where it clarified before disseminating itself into the town and
feeding the public fountains. These wonderful works have continued in a
state of efficiency down to our own day.

Pisistratus governed Athens, but he bore no sovereign title, on the
strength of which to lay claim to unlimited supremacy. He had, in truth,
grounded his rule on force; he retained in his service a standing
army, which, dependent on him alone and uncontrolled by the vote of
the citizens, could be all the more crushingly opposed to any attempt
at a rising, since the greater part of the citizens were unarmed, the
townsfolk diminished in number, and the public interest, from political
circumstances, directed partly to rural economy, partly to the new town
institutions. The order of the officers of state remained unaltered, only
that one of them was always in the hands of a member of Pisistratus’
family, in which he managed to suppress every sign of disunion with great
skill, so that to the people the ruling house appeared united in itself
and animated by but one spirit. In this sense men spoke of the government
of the Pisistratidæ, and could not refuse recognition to the manifold
gifts which distinguished the house.

It was a wise counsel which the old state organisers gave the tyrants,
that they should bestow on their rule as much as possible the character
of ancient royalty, so that the usurping origin of their power might be
forgotten. Thus Pisistratus did not, like the Cypselidæ and Orthagoridæ,
desire to break with the past of the state, but rather to connect
himself closely with the ancient and glorious history of the country, so
that after all the evil which the party government of the nobility had
brought on Attica, she might be restored the blessing of a united rule.
Standing superior to the parties, as a relative to the ancient royal
house, he believed himself especially chosen to accomplish this end. With
this view, he lived on the citadel, near the altar of Zeus Herceios,
the family hearth of the ancient princes of the country, watching over
the turbulent citizens from the summit of the rock, which, before the
building of the Propylæa, was still more inaccessible than afterwards.
The very position of his dwelling must have drawn him into a close
relation with the goddess of the citadel and her priesthood.

The public life of the Athenians was awakened and transformed in every
direction. Athens became a new town within and without. With her new
highways and military roads, her town squares, gymnasia, fountains and
aqueducts, her new altars, temples and temple festivals, she stood out
prominently from the crowd of Greek towns, and the Pisistratidæ neglected
nothing which might contribute to lend her new importance by means of
numerous alliances with the islands and shores of the Ægean Sea.

To this end, it was not enough that the Athenians ruled in Delos, Naxos,
and at the Hellespont, but they must also appropriate to themselves the
intellectual treasures of the further coasts where the Hellenic spirit
showed itself at its best, and thus enrich their own life. For this
purpose Solon had already introduced the Homeric rhapsodies into Athens,
and ordained their public recitation at the festivals. Pisistratus joined
in these efforts, with a full appreciation of the importance of the
matter, though not with the disinterestedness of the Solonian love for
art, but designedly, and for his own advantage. For he ministered at once
to the fame of his ancestors and the splendour of his house.

These songs had hitherto been passed down by word of mouth, and the
noblest abilities of the nation had been dedicated to the preservation
of this national treasure in widely disseminated schools of bards.
Nevertheless, even with the utmost power of memory, it was unavoidable
that all kinds of confusion should be introduced into the tradition, that
the original should be disfigured, what was authentic be lost, spurious
matter creep in, and the whole, the most important collection possessed
by the Hellenic people, fall to pieces. The danger became the more
threatening, the higher rose the turbulence of the times, and the more
the individual states deviated in special directions and the interests
of modern times gained primary importance. It became, therefore, a state
obligation to meet this danger, and to take in hand the task which
individual ability had not succeeded in accomplishing; and the state was
all the more concerned in the matter since the recital of the Homeric
poems had been prescribed in the ordinances for the public festivals.

It is to the great merit of Pisistratus to have clearly recognised that
nothing could create for the Athenians a greater and more lasting renown
than could be achieved by assuming this task. He therefore summoned a
number of learned men, and commissioned them to collect and compare the
texts of the rhapsodies, to cut out what did not belong, to unite what
was scattered, and fix the Homeric epos as a whole, a great record of
national life, in a standard form. Thus Onomacritus the Athenian, Zopyras
of Heraclea, and Orpheus of Croton worked under the superintendence of
the regent; they formed a scientific commission, which had an extensive
sphere of labour; for not only were the _Odyssey_ and _Iliad_ revised,
but also that later epos, that is to say the poetic writings of the
so-called “cyclic poets,” which had come into existence as a sequel
supplementary to the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, together with the whole
treasure of the Ionic epos, which was united under the name of Homer,
besides Hesiod and the religious poems. Pisistratus took a personal
interest in the work, and even here we can trace the character of a
tyranny in that alterations, omissions, and interpolations were made
according to his taste or policy. Thus, for example, in the catalogue of
ships the Salaminians were ranged among the Athenian levies, in order to
supply a traditional authority for an ancient claim of Athens.

The end and aim of the proceeding was completely attained. The most
important branch of the poetic art, which had developed amongst the
Hellenes, namely, the epic of the Ionic and Bœotian schools, was
transplanted to Athens. Here for the first time a Hellenic philology was
founded: for, in the work of collecting, the critical faculty was first
awakened, since the collecting involved the distinction of genuine from
spurious, ancient from modern, and, though the scientific performance
as such could not bear a very close scrutiny, yet still the treasure of
the Homeric poems received from the Athenians the first appreciation of
its national significance, and it was now that writing was for the first
time employed to secure an irreplaceable national possession against the
dangers of a merely verbal tradition. The poems were not, however, by any
means alienated from ordinary life, but were raised to a higher position
in the festivals of the town and the education of the young. The city
of Pisistratus acquired an authoritative reputation in the domain of
national poetry; through him a Homer and Hesiod came into existence which
could be read in the same form to the ends of the Greek world.

The collection and investigation went back beyond Homer to the most
ancient sources of Hellenic theology, of which the Thracian Orpheus was
regarded as the founder, and which Onomacritus now worked up into a new
system of mystic wisdom, while at the same time it was utilised to give
enhanced importance to the favourite cult of the dynasty, the worship of
Dionysus. With it was joined the collection of oracular sayings, upon
which the Pisistratidæ placed a special value, as well as the arrangement
of the historical records, especially the genealogies.

Thus Athens became a centre of scientific learning and labour. If any one
wished to gain a sight of any poem worthy of remembrance which had been
written in the Hellenic tongue, or of anything concerning the knowledge
of the gods and of ethics which had been thought out by the ancients and
handed down by tradition from former times, he must journey to Athens.
Here, on the citadel of Pisistratus, the whole treasure was united; here
the works of the nation’s poets and wise men were collected together,
carefully inscribed in rolls, well arranged, and suitably disposed.

Yet it was not enough to garner what remained from ancient times; there
was also a desire to encourage living art and to have its masters in
Athens, and specially those in the lyric art, which had succeeded the
epic, and during the age of the tyrants was in full vigour. The lyric
poets were especially qualified to enhance the brilliance of courts, and
to ennoble their feasts, and were consequently summoned from one place
to another. Thus the Pisistratidæ sent out their state ships to fetch
Anacreon of Teos, the joyous poet and comrade of Polycrates, to Athens,
and thus Simonides of Ceos and Lasus of Hermione dwelt at the tyrant’s
Court of the Muses.

But quite new germs of national poetry were also unfolded under them
and by their means. For they were already the fosterers of the worship
of Dionysus [or Bacchus], and at the latter’s festivals were developed
not only the choral dance and choral song of the Dithyrambus, which
Arion had invented and Lasus further improved, but mimic representations
were added to them, in which masked choruses appeared, and singers who
assumed a rule opposite the choruses, spoke to the latter and conducted
conversations with them. Thus an action, a drama, developed itself, and
after the thing had been invented it was freed from the bacchanalian
material and changed in contents as in masks; the whole cycle of heroic
legends was gradually drawn on for dramatic treatment, and the founder of
this Dionysian play was Thespis of Icaria.

Thus the Pisistratidæ collected the after-echoes of the epic, fostered
the existing art of song in its full blossom, and called forth by their
patronage a new and genuinely Attic branch of national art, that drama
which united both lyric and epic. Besides this the best architects,
Antistates, Callicrates, Antimachides, Porinus, and sculptors were busily
employed on the Olympieum and Hecatompedon, and the best experts of their
time at the great hydraulic constructions. The most eminent men of all
faculties learnt to know each other and interchanged their experiences.
But there was also no lack of friction and mutual jealousy, and Lasus did
not shrink from publicly reproaching Onomacritus, who had attempted to
serve his master by means of forged oracles, with abuse of the princely
confidence, and thus to bring about his banishment.

Under such conditions, where everything depended on the ambitious whims
of a self-seeking ruling family, how could it fail to happen that many
underhand transactions should take place? Even in the arrangement of the
Orphic teachings, the traces of wilful forgery were brought home to the
sycophantic Onomacritus. Nevertheless the reputation of the Pisistratidæ
still remains that of extreme integrity. They clearly recognised the
vocation of Athens to unite and cultivate everything that was of national
importance, and within a short time and by incredible industry they
attained results which have never been effaced.

To the regent himself indeed, no more than to other tyrants was granted
the peaceful enjoyment of his success; he continually felt that he trod
on the brink of a volcano. Every popular commotion, every aspiring
family, every unwonted stroke of fortune attained by an Athenian was pain
and grief to him.

This is shown by the petty and superstitious means, which this powerful
man employed to quiet his mind. He allowed himself to be pleased when
Athenians who had conquered at Olympia caused the name of Pisistratus
to be called out instead of their own, as was done by Cimon, called
Coalemos, the half-brother of Miltiades, on the occasion of his second
triumph (Ol. 63; 528 B.C.), when in recognition of this loyalty he was
recalled from banishment. With anxious care inquiries were ceaselessly
made after sayings of the gods which might give security of a long
duration for the dynasty; and since the tyrant, being himself envious
and jealous, felt that he was continually beset by the malevolence of
strangers, he had the image of a locust fastened to the wall of his
princely citadel, to serve as a defence against the evil glance of envy.
Yet in advanced years, Pisistratus might confidently expect that his son
and grandson, who were both gifted with talent for rule and took part in
the government under him, would remain true to his policy to preserve
the dynasty to which Athens was so much indebted at home and abroad. In
this hope he died at a great age, surrounded by his family. (Ol. 63,
527 B.C.). Hippias succeeded to the power of the tyranny, in accordance
with his father’s will; and the brothers, as they had promised their
father, stood firmly by one another. To the gentle and refined Hipparchus
there was no hardship in being second; he employed his position for the
exercise of the peaceful side of power.[d]


FOOTNOTES

[16] The procession of the goddess of Reason in the first French
Revolution solves the difficulty that perplexed Herodotus.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIV. DEMOCRACY ESTABLISHED AT ATHENS


Pisistratus left three legitimate sons--Hippias, Hipparchus, and
Thessalus: the general belief at Athens among the contemporaries of
Thucydides was, that Hipparchus was the eldest of the three and had
succeeded him; but the historian emphatically pronounces this to be a
mistake, and certifies, upon his own responsibility, that Hippias was
both eldest son and successor. Such an assurance from him, fortified by
certain reasons in themselves not very conclusive, is sufficient ground
for our belief, the more so as Herodotus countenances the same version.
But we are surprised at such a degree of historical carelessness in
the Athenian public, and seemingly even in Plato, about a matter both
interesting and comparatively recent. In order to abate this surprise,
and to explain how the name of Hipparchus came to supplant that of
Hippias in the popular talk, Thucydides recounts the memorable story of
Harmodius and Aristogiton.

Of these two Athenian citizens, both belonging to the ancient _gens_
called Gephyræi, the former was a beautiful youth, attached to the latter
by a mutual friendship and devoted intimacy which Grecian manners did
not condemn. Hipparchus made repeated propositions to Harmodius, which
were repelled, but which, on becoming known to Aristogiton, excited
both his jealousy and his fears lest the disappointed suitor should
employ force--fears justified by the proceedings not unusual with
Grecian despots, and by the absence of all legal protection against
outrage from such a quarter. Under these feelings, he began to look
about, in the best way that he could, for some means of putting down the
despotism. Meanwhile Hipparchus, though not entertaining any designs of
violence, was so incensed at the refusal of Harmodius, that he could
not be satisfied without doing something to insult or humiliate him. In
order to conceal the motive from which the insult really proceeded, he
offered it, not directly to Harmodius, but to his sister. He caused this
young maiden to be one day summoned to take her station in a religious
procession as one of the _canephoræ_, or basket-carriers, according to
the practice usual at Athens; but when she arrived at the place where
her fellow-maidens were assembled, she was dismissed with scorn as
unworthy of so respectable a function, and the summons addressed to her
was disavowed. An insult thus publicly offered filled Harmodius with
indignation, and still further exasperated the feelings of Aristogiton:
both of them, resolving at all hazards to put an end to the despotism,
concerted means for aggression with a few select associates. They
awaited the festival of the Great Panathenæa, wherein the body of the
citizens were accustomed to march up in armed procession, with spear
and shield, to the Acropolis; this being the only day on which an armed
body could come together without suspicion. The conspirators appeared
armed like the rest of the citizens, but carrying concealed daggers
besides. Harmodius and Aristogiton undertook with their own hands to
kill the two Pisistratidæ, while the rest promised to stand forward
immediately for their protection against the foreign mercenaries; and
though the whole number of persons engaged was small, they counted upon
the spontaneous sympathies of the armed bystanders in an effort to
regain their liberties, so soon as the blow should once be struck. The
day of the festival having arrived, Hippias, with his foreign bodyguard
around him, was marshalling the armed citizens for procession, in the
Ceramicus without the gates, when Harmodius and Aristogiton approached
with concealed daggers to execute their purpose. On coming near, they
were thunder-struck to behold one of their own fellow-conspirators
talking familiarly with Hippias, who was of easy access to every man;
and they immediately concluded that the plot was betrayed. Expecting to
be seized, and wrought up to a state of desperation, they resolved at
least not to die without having revenged themselves on Hipparchus, whom
they found within the city gates near the chapel called the Leocorion,
and immediately slew him. His attendant guards killed Harmodius on the
spot; while Aristogiton, rescued for the moment by the surrounding crowd,
was afterwards taken, and perished in the tortures applied to make him
disclose his accomplices.

The news flew quickly to Hippias in the Ceramicus, who heard it earlier
than the armed citizens near him, awaiting his order for the commencement
of the procession. With extraordinary self-command, he took advantage
of this precious instant of foreknowledge, and advanced towards them,
commanding them to drop their arms for a short time, and assemble on an
adjoining ground. They unsuspectingly obeyed, and he immediately directed
his guards to take possession of the vacant arms. He was now undisputed
master, and enabled to seize the persons of all those citizens whom he
mistrusted, especially all those who had daggers about them, which it was
not the practice to carry in the Panathenaic procession.

Such is the memorable narrative of Harmodius and Aristogiton, peculiarly
valuable inasmuch as it all comes from Thucydides. To possess great
power, to be above legal restraint, to inspire extraordinary fear, is
a privilege so much coveted by the giants among mankind, that we may
well take notice of those cases in which it brings misfortune even upon
themselves. The fear inspired by Hipparchus--of designs which he did not
really entertain, but was likely to entertain, and competent to execute
without hindrance--was here the grand cause of his destruction.

[Sidenote: [514-510 B.C.]]

The conspiracy here detailed happened in 514 B.C., during the thirteenth
year of the reign of Hippias, which lasted four years longer, until 510
B.C. And these last four years, in the belief of the Athenian public,
counted for his whole reign; nay, many of them made the still greater
historical mistake of eliding these last four years altogether, and
of supposing that the conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton had
deposed the Pisistratid government and liberated Athens. Both poets and
philosophers shared this faith, which is distinctly put forth in the
beautiful and popular _scolion_ or song on the subject: the two friends
are there celebrated as the authors of liberty at Athens--“they slew the
despot and gave to Athens equal laws.” So inestimable a present was alone
sufficient to enshrine in the minds of the subsequent democracy those
who had sold their lives to purchase it: and we must further recollect
that the intimate connection between the two, so repugnant to the modern
reader, was regarded at Athens with sympathy, so that the story took
hold of the Athenian mind by the vein of romance conjointly with that
of patriotism. Harmodius and Aristogiton were afterwards commemorated
both as the winners and as the protomartyrs of Athenian liberty. Statues
were erected in their honour shortly after the final expulsion of the
Pisistratidæ; immunity from taxes and public burdens was granted to the
descendants of their families; and the speaker who proposed the abolition
of such immunities, at a time when the number had been abusively
multiplied, made his only special exception in favour of this respected
lineage. And since the name of Hipparchus was universally notorious as
the person slain, we discover how it was that he came to be considered
by an uncritical public as the predominant member of the Pisistratid
family,--the eldest son and successor of Pisistratus, the reigning
despot,--to the comparative neglect of Hippias. The same public probably
cherished many other anecdotes, not the less eagerly believed because
they could not be authenticated, respecting this eventful period.

Whatever may have been the moderation of Hippias before, indignation at
the death of his brother and fear for his own safety, now induced him
to drop it altogether. It is attested both by Thucydides and Herodotus,
and admits of no doubt, that his power was now employed harshly and
cruelly--that he put to death a considerable number of citizens. We
find also a statement, noway improbable in itself, and affirmed both
in Pausanias and in Plutarch,--inferior authorities, yet still in this
case sufficiently credible,--that he caused Leæna, the mistress of
Aristogiton, to be tortured to death, in order to extort from her a
knowledge of the secrets and accomplices of the latter. But as he could
not but be sensible that this system of terrorism was full of peril
to himself, so he looked out for shelter and support in case of being
expelled from Athens; and with this view he sought to connect himself
with Darius, king of Persia--a connection full of consequences to be
hereafter developed. Æantides, son of Hippoclus the despot of Lampsacus
on the Hellespont, stood high at this time in the favour of the Persian
monarch, which induced Hippias to give him his daughter Archedice in
marriage; no small honour to the Lampsacene, in the estimation of
Thucydides. To explain how Hippias came to fix upon this town, however,
it is necessary to say a few words on the foreign policy of the
Pisistratidæ.

[Sidenote: [537-515 B.C.]]

The expedition of Miltiades to the Chersonesus, as described in the
previous chapter, must have occurred early after the first usurpation
of Pisistratus, since even his imprisonment by the Lampsacenes
happened before the ruin of Crœsus (546 B.C.). But it was not till
much later,--probably during the third and most powerful period of
Pisistratus,--that the latter undertook his expedition against Sigeum
in the Troad. This place appears to have fallen into the hands of the
Mytileneans: Pisistratus retook it, and placed there his illegitimate
son Hegesistratus as despot. The Mytileneans may have been enfeebled at
this time (somewhere between 537-527 B.C.), not only by the strides of
Persian conquest on the mainland, but also by the ruinous defeat which
they suffered from Polycrates and the Samians. Hegesistratus maintained
the place against various hostile attempts, throughout all the reign of
Hippias, so that the Athenian possessions in those regions comprehended
at this period both the Chersonesus and Sigeum. To the former of the two,
Hippias sent out Miltiades, nephew of the first _œcist_, as governor,
after the death of his brother Stesagoras. The new governor found much
discontent in the peninsula, but succeeded in subduing it by entrapping
and imprisoning the principal men in each town. He further took into
his pay a regiment of five hundred mercenaries, and married Hegesipyle,
daughter of the Thracian king Olorus. It appears to have been about 515
B.C. that this second Miltiades went out to the Chersonesus. He seems to
have been obliged to quit it for a time, after the Scythian expedition
of Darius, in consequence of having incurred the hostility of the
Persians; but he was there from the beginning of the Ionic revolt until
about 493 B.C., or two or three years before the battle of Marathon, on
which occasion we shall find him acting-commander of the Athenian army.

Both the Chersonesus and Sigeum, though Athenian possessions, were,
however, now tributary and dependent on Persia. And it was to this
quarter that Hippias, during his last years of alarm, looked for support
in the event of being expelled from Athens: he calculated upon Sigeum as
a shelter, and upon Æantides, as well as Darius, as an ally. Neither the
one nor the other failed him.

The same circumstances which alarmed Hippias, and rendered his dominion
in Attica at once more oppressive and more odious, tended of course to
raise the hopes of his enemies, the Athenian exiles, with the powerful
Alcmæonidæ at their head. Believing the favourable moment to be come,
they even ventured upon an invasion of Attica, and occupied a post called
Leipsydrion in the mountain range of Parnes, which separates Attica from
Bœotia. But their schemes altogether failed: Hippias defeated and drove
them out of the country. His dominion now seemed confirmed, for the
Lacedæmonians were on terms of intimate friendship with him; and Amyntas,
king of Macedon, as well as the Thessalians were his allies. Yet the
exiles whom he had beaten in the open field succeeded in an unexpected
manœuvre, which, favoured by circumstances, proved his ruin.

[Sidenote: [548-514 B.C.]]

By an accident which had occurred in the year 548 B.C., the Delphian
Temple was set on fire and burnt. To repair this grave loss was an object
of solicitude to all Greece; but the outlay required was exceedingly
heavy, and it appears to have been long before the money could be
collected. The Amphictyons decreed that one-fourth of the cost should
be borne by the Delphians themselves, who found themselves so heavily
taxed by this assessment, that they sent envoys throughout all Greece to
collect subscriptions in aid, and received, among other donations, from
the Greek settlers in Egypt twenty minæ, besides a large present of alum
from the Egyptian king Amasis [Aahmes II]: their munificent benefactor
Crœsus fell a victim to the Persians in 546 B.C., so that his treasure
was no longer open to them. The total sum required was three hundred
talents, equal probably to about £115,000 sterling [or $575,000],--a
prodigious amount to be collected from the dispersed Grecian cities,
who acknowledged no common sovereign authority, and among whom the
proportion reasonable to ask from each was so difficult to determine
with satisfaction to all parties. At length, however, the money was
collected, and the Amphictyons were in a situation to make a contract for
the building of the temple. The Alcmæonidæ, who had been in exile ever
since the third and final acquisition of power by Pisistratus, took the
contract; and in executing it, they not only performed the work in the
best manner, but even went much beyond the terms stipulated; employing
Parian marble for the frontage, where the material prescribed to them
was coarse stone. As was before remarked in the case of Pisistratus when
he was in banishment, we are surprised to find exiles whose property had
been confiscated so amply furnished with money--unless we are to suppose
that Clisthenes the Alcmæonid, grandson of the Sicyonian Clisthenes,
inherited through his mother wealth independent of Attica, and deposited
it in the temple of the Samian Hera.

[Sidenote: [514-510 B.C.]]

To the Delphians, especially, the rebuilding of their temple on so
superior a scale was the most essential of all services, and their
gratitude towards the Alcmæonidæ was proportionally great. Partly
through such a feeling, partly through pecuniary presents, Clisthenes
was thus enabled to work the oracle for political purposes, and to call
forth the powerful arm of Sparta against Hippias. Whenever any Spartan
presented himself to consult the oracle, either on private or public
business, the answer of the priestess was always in one strain, “Athens
must be liberated.” The constant repetition of this mandate at length
extorted from the piety of the Lacedæmonians a reluctant compliance.
Reverence for the god overcame their strong feeling of friendship towards
the Pisistratidæ, and Anchimolius son of Aster was despatched by sea to
Athens, at the head of a Spartan force, to expel them. On landing at
Phalerum, however, he found them already forewarned and prepared, as
well as farther strengthened by one thousand horse specially demanded
from their allies in Thessaly. Upon the plain of Phalerum, this latter
force was found peculiarly effective, so that the division of Anchimolius
was driven back to their ships with great loss and he himself slain.
The defeated armament had probably been small, and its repulse only
provoked the Lacedæmonians to send a larger, under the command of their
king Cleomenes in person, who on this occasion marched into Attica by
land. On reaching the plain of Athens, he was assailed by the Thessalian
horse, but repelled them in so gallant a style, that they at once rode
off and returned to their native country; abandoning their allies with
a faithlessness not unfrequent in the Thessalian character. Cleomenes
marched on to Athens without further resistance, and found himself,
together with the Alcmæonids and the malcontent Athenians generally, in
possession of the town. At that time there was no fortification except
around the Acropolis, into which Hippias retired with his mercenaries
and the citizens most faithful to him; having taken care to provision
it well beforehand, so that it was not less secure against famine than
against assault. He might have defied the besieging force, which was
noway prepared for a long blockade; but, not altogether confiding in his
position, he tried to send his children by stealth out of the country;
and in this proceeding the children were taken prisoners. To procure
their restoration, Hippias consented to all that was demanded of him, and
withdrew from Attica to Sigeum in the Troad within the space of five days.

Thus fell the Pisistratid dynasty in 510 B.C., fifty years after the
first usurpation of its founder. It was put down through the aid of
foreigners, and those foreigners, too, wishing well to it in their
hearts, though hostile from a mistaken feeling of divine injunction.
Yet both the circumstances of its fall, and the course of events which
followed, conspire to show that it possessed few attached friends in
the country, and that the expulsion of Hippias was welcomed unanimously
by the vast majority of Athenians. His family and chief partisans would
accompany him into exile,--probably as a matter of course, without
requiring any formal sentence of condemnation; and an altar was erected
in the Acropolis, with a column hard by, commemorating both the past
iniquity of the dethroned dynasty, and the names of all its members.

[Sidenote: [510-507 B.C.]]

With Hippias disappeared the mercenary Thracian garrison, upon which
he and his father before him had leaned for defence as well as for
enforcement of authority; and Cleomenes with his Lacedæmonian forces
retired also, after staying only long enough to establish a personal
friendship, productive subsequently of important consequences, between
the Spartan king and the Athenian Isagoras. The Athenians were thus left
to themselves, without any foreign interference to constrain them in
their political arrangements.

It has been mentioned that the Pisistratidæ had for the most part
respected the forms of the Solonian Constitution: the nine archons,
and the probouleutic or preconsidering Senate of Four Hundred (both
annually changed), still continued to subsist, together with occasional
meetings of the people--or rather of such portion of the people as was
comprised in the gentes, phratries, and four Ionic tribes. The timocratic
classification of Solon (or quadruple scale of income and admeasurement
of political franchises according to it) also continued to subsist--but
all within the tether and subservient to the purposes of the ruling
family, who always kept one of their number as real master, among the
chief administrators, and always retained possession of the Acropolis as
well as of the mercenary force.

That overawing pressure being now removed by the expulsion of Hippias,
the enslaved forms became at once endued with freedom and reality.
There appeared again what Attica had not known for thirty years,
declared political parties, and pronounced opposition between two men as
leaders,--on one side, Isagoras, son of Tisander, a person of illustrious
descent,--on the other, Clisthenes the Alcmæonid, not less illustrious,
and possessing at this moment a claim on the gratitude of his countrymen
as the most persevering as well as the most effective foe of the
dethroned despots. In what manner such opposition was carried on we are
not told. It would seem to have been not altogether pacific; but at any
rate, Clisthenes had the worst of it, and in consequence of this defeat,
says the historian, “he took into partnership the people, who had been
before excluded from everything.” His partnership with the people gave
birth to the Athenian democracy: it was a real and important revolution.


GROTE’S ESTIMATE OF CLISTHENES THE REFORMER

[Sidenote: [507 B.C.]]

The political franchise, or the character of an Athenian citizen, both
before and since Solon, had been confined to the primitive four Ionic
tribes, each of which was an aggregate of so many close corporations or
quasi-families--the gentes and the phratries. None of the residents in
Attica, therefore, except those included in some gens or phratry, had
any part in the political franchise. Such non-privileged residents were
probably at all times numerous, and became more and more so by means of
fresh settlers: moreover, they tended most to multiply in Athens and
Piræus, where emigrants would commonly establish themselves. Clisthenes
broke down the existing wall of privilege, and imparted the political
franchise to the excluded mass. But this could not be done by enrolling
them in new gentes or phratries, created in addition to the old; for
the gentile tie was founded upon old faith and feeling, which, in the
existing state of the Greek mind, could not be suddenly conjured up as
a bond of union for comparative strangers: it could only be done by
disconnecting the franchise altogether from the Ionic tribes as well
as from the gentes which constituted them, and by redistributing the
population into new tribes with a character and purpose exclusively
political. Accordingly, Clisthenes abolished the four Ionic tribes, and
created in their place ten new tribes founded upon a different principle,
independent of the gentes and phratries. Each of his new tribes comprised
a certain number of demes or cantons, with the enrolled proprietors and
residents in each of them. The demes taken altogether included the entire
surface of Attica, so that the Clisthenean Constitution admitted to the
political franchise all the free native Athenians; and not merely these,
but also many metics, and even some of the superior order of slaves.
Putting out of sight the general body of slaves, and regarding only
the free inhabitants, it was in point of fact a scheme approaching to
universal suffrage, both political and judicial.

The slight and cursory manner in which Herodotus announces this
memorable revolution tends to make us overlook its real importance. He
dwells chiefly on the alteration in the number and names of the tribes:
Clisthenes, he says, despised the Ionians so much, that he would not
tolerate the continuance in Attica of the four tribes which prevailed in
the Ionic cities, deriving their names from the four sons of Ion--just
as his grandfather, the Sicyonian Clisthenes, hating the Dorians, had
degraded and nicknamed the three Dorian tribes at Sicyon. Such is the
representation of Herodotus, who seems himself to have entertained some
contempt for the Ionians, and therefore to have suspected a similar
feeling where it had no real existence. But the scope of Clisthenes was
something far more extensive: he abolished the four ancient tribes, not
because they were Ionic, but because they had become incommensurate with
the existing condition of the Attic people, and because such abolition
procured both for himself and for his political scheme new as well as
hearty allies.

As soon as Hippias was expelled, the senate and the public assembly
regained their efficiency. But had they been continued on the old
footing, including none except members of the four tribes, these tribes
would have been reinvested with a privilege which in reality they had
so long lost, that its revival would have seemed an odious novelty, and
the remaining population would probably not have submitted to it. If,
in addition, we consider the political excitement of the moment, the
restoration of one body of men from exile, and the departure of another
body into exile, the outpouring of long-suppressed hatred, partly against
these very forms, by the corruption of which the despot had reigned, we
shall see that prudence as well as patriotism dictated the adoption of
an enlarged scheme of government. Clisthenes had learned some wisdom
during his long exile; and as he probably continued, for some time after
the introduction of his new constitution, to be the chief adviser of his
countrymen, we may consider their extraordinary success as a testimony
to his prudence and skill not less than to their courage and unanimity.
For, necessary as the change had become, it was not the less a shock to
ancient Attic ideas. It radically altered the very idea of a tribe, which
now became an aggregation of demes, not of gentes; and it thus broke up
those associations, religious, social, and political, between the whole
and the parts of the old system, which operated powerfully on the mind of
every old-fashioned Athenian. The patricians at Rome, who composed the
gentes and curiæ, and the plebs, who had no part in these corporations,
formed for a long time two separate and opposing factions in the same
city, each with its own separate organisation. It was only by slow
degrees that the plebs gained ground.

So too in the Italian and German cities of the Middle Ages, the patrician
families refused to part with their own separate political identity, when
the guilds grew up by the side of them; even though forced to renounce
a portion of their power, they continued to be a separate fraternity,
and would not submit to be regimented anew, under an altered category
and denomination, along with the traders who had grown into wealth and
importance. But the reform of Clisthenes effected this change all at
once, both as to the name and as to the reality. In some cases, indeed,
that which had been the name of a gens was retained as the name of a
deme, but even then the old gentiles were ranked indiscriminately among
the remaining demots; and the Athenian people, politically considered,
thus became one homogeneous whole, distributed for convenience into
parts, numerically, locally, and politically equal. It is, however, to be
remembered, that while the four Ionic tribes were abolished, the gentes
and phratries which compose them were left untouched, and continued to
subsist as family and religious associations, though carrying with them
no political privilege.

The ten newly created tribes, arranged in an established order of
precedence, were called: Erechtheis, Ægeis, Pandionis, Leontis,
Acamantis, Œneis, Cecropis, Hippothoöntis, Æantis, Antiochis--names
borrowed chiefly from the respected heroes of Attic legend. This number
remained unaltered until the year 305 B.C., when it was increased to
twelve by the addition of two new tribes, Antigonias and Demetrias,
afterwards designated anew by the names of Ptolemais and Attalis.
The mere names of these last two, borrowed from living kings and not
from legendary heroes, betray the change from freedom to subservience
at Athens. Each tribe comprised a certain number of demes--cantons,
parishes, or townships--in Attica. But the total number of these demes is
not distinctly ascertained.

There is another point, however, which is at once more certain, and more
important to notice. The demes which Clisthenes assigned to each tribe
were in no case all adjacent to each other; and therefore, the tribe, as
a whole, did not correspond with any continuous portion of the territory,
nor could it have any peculiar local interest, separate from the entire
community. Such systematic avoidance of the factions arising out of
neighbourhood will appear to have been more especially necessary, when
we recollect that the quarrels of the Paralii, the Diacrii, the Pedieis,
during the preceding century, had all been generated from local feud,
though doubtless artfully fomented by individual ambition. Moreover, it
was only by this same precaution that the local predominance of the city,
and the formation of a city-interest distinct from that of the country,
was obviated; which could hardly have failed to arise had the city by
itself constituted either one deme or one tribe. Clisthenes distributed
the city (or found it already distributed) into several demes, and those
demes among several tribes; while Piræus and Phalerum, each constituting
a separate deme, were also assigned to different tribes; so that there
were no local advantages either to bestow predominance, or to create a
struggle for predominance, of one tribe over the rest. Each deme had its
own local interests to watch over; but the tribe was a mere aggregate of
demes for political, military, and religious purposes, with no separate
hopes or fears apart from the whole state. Each tribe had a chapel,
sacred rites and festivals, and a common fund for such meetings, in
honour of its eponymous hero, administered by members of its own choice;
and the statues of all the ten eponymous heroes, fraternal patrons of
the democracy, were planted in the most conspicuous part of the agora of
Athens. In the future working of the Athenian government we shall trace
no symptom of disquieting local factions--a capital amendment compared
with the disputes of the preceding century, and traceable, in part, to
the absence of border-relations between demes of the same tribe.

The deme now became the primitive constituent element of the
commonwealth, both as to persons and as to property. It had its own
demarch, its register of enrolled citizens, its collective property,
its public meetings and religious ceremonies, its taxes levied and
administered by itself. The register of qualified citizens was kept
by the demarch, and the inscription of new citizens took place at the
assembly of the demots, whose legitimate sons were enrolled on attaining
the age of eighteen, and their adopted sons at any time when presented
and sworn to by the adopting citizen. The citizenship could only be
granted by a public vote of the people, but wealthy non-freemen were
enabled sometimes to evade this law and purchase admission upon the
register of some poor deme, probably by means of a fictitious adoption.
At the meetings of the demots, the register was called over, and it
sometimes happened that some names were expunged--in which case the
party thus disfranchised had an appeal to the popular judicature. So
great was the local administrative power, however, of these demes, that
they are described as the substitute, under the Clisthenean system, for
the naucraries under the Solonian and anti-Solonian. The trittyes and
naucraries, though nominally preserved, and the latter (as some affirm)
augmented in number from forty-eight to fifty, appear henceforward as of
little public importance.

Clisthenes preserved, but at the same time modified and expanded, all the
main features of Solon’s political constitution; the public assembly,
or ecclesia,--the preconsidering senate, composed of members from
all the tribes,--and the habit of annual election, as well as annual
responsibility of magistrates, by and to the ecclesia. The full value
must now have been felt of possessing such pre-existing institutions to
build upon, at a moment of perplexity and dissension. But the Clisthenean
ecclesia acquired new strength, and almost a new character, from the
great increase of the number of citizens qualified to attend it; while
the annually changed senate, instead of being composed of four hundred
members taken in equal proportion from each of the old four tribes,
was enlarged to five hundred, taken equally from each of the new ten
tribes. It now comes before us, under the name of Senate of Five Hundred,
as an active and indispensable body throughout the whole Athenian
democracy: and the practice now seems to have begun (though the period
of commencement cannot be decisively proved), of determining the names
of the senators by lot. Both the senate thus constituted, and the public
assembly, were far more popular and vigorous than they had been under the
original arrangement of Solon.

The new constitution of the tribes, as it led to a change in the annual
senate, so it transformed, no less directly, the military arrangements of
the state, both as to soldiers and as to officers. The citizens called
upon to serve in arms were now marshalled according to tribes--each
tribe having its own taxiarchs as officers for the hoplites, and its own
phylarch at the head of the horsemen. Moreover, there were now created
for the first time ten strategi, or generals, one from each tribe;
and two hipparchs, for the supreme command of the horsemen. Under the
prior Athenian constitution it appears that the command of the military
force had been vested in the third archon, or polemarch, no strategi
then existing; and even after the latter had been created, under the
Clisthenean constitution, the polemarch still retained a joint right
of command along with them--as we are told at the battle of Marathon,
where Callimachus the polemarch not only enjoyed an equal vote in the
council of war along with the ten strategi, but even occupied the post
of honour on the right wing. The ten generals, annually changed, are
thus (like the ten tribes) a fruit of the Clisthenean constitution,
which was at the same time powerfully strengthened and protected by such
remodelling of the military force. The functions of the generals becoming
more extensive as the democracy advanced, they seem to have acquired
gradually not merely the direction of military and naval affairs, but
also that of the foreign relations of the city generally,--while the nine
archons, including the polemarch, were by degrees lowered down from that
full executive and judicial competence which they had once enjoyed, to
the simple ministry of police and preparatory justice. Encroached upon
by the strategi on one side, they were also restricted in efficiency
by the rise of the popular dicasteries or numerous jury-courts, on the
other. We may be very sure that these popular dicasteries had not been
permitted to meet or to act under the despotism of the Pisistratidæ, and
that the judicial business of the city must then have been conducted
partly by the senate of Areopagus, partly by the archons; perhaps with a
nominal responsibility of the latter at the end of their year of office
to an acquiescent ecclesia. And if we even assume it to be true, as some
writers contend, that the habit of direct popular judicature, over and
above this annual trial of responsibility, had been partially introduced
by Solon, it must have been discontinued during the long coercion
exercised by the supervening dynasty. But the outburst of popular spirit,
which lent force to Clisthenes, doubtless carried the people into direct
action as jurors in the aggregate heliæa, not less than as voters in the
ecclesia; and the change was thus begun which contributed to degrade the
archons from their primitive character as judges, into the lower function
of preliminary examiners and presidents of a jury. Such convocation
of numerous juries, beginning first with the aggregate body of sworn
citizens above thirty years of age, and subsequently dividing them into
separate bodies or panels, for trying particular causes, became gradually
more frequent and more systematised: until at length, in the time of
Pericles, it was made to carry a small pay, and stood out as one of the
most prominent features of Athenian life.

The financial affairs of the city underwent at this epoch as complete
a change as the military: in fact, the appointment of magistrates and
officers by tens, one from each tribe, seems to have become the ordinary
practice. From this time forward, the senate of Five Hundred steps far
beyond its original duty of preparing matters for the discussion of the
ecclesia: it embraces, besides, a large circle of administrative and
general superintendence, which hardly admits of any definition. Its
sittings become constant, with the exception of special holidays, and
the year is distributed into ten portions called prytanies--the fifty
senators of each tribe taking by turns the duty of constant attendance
during one prytany, and receiving during that time the title of the
Prytanes: the order of precedence among the tribes in these duties was
annually determined by lot.

During those later times known to us through the great orators, the
ecclesia, or formal assembly of the citizens, was convoked four times
regularly during each prytany, or oftener if necessity required--usually
by the senate, though the strategi had also the power of convoking it by
their own authority. How often the ancient ecclesia had been convoked
during the interval between Solon and Pisistratus, we cannot exactly
say--probably but seldom during the year. But under the Pisistratidæ,
its convocation had dwindled down into an inoperative formality; and the
re-establishment of it by Clisthenes, not merely with plenary determining
powers, but also under full notice and preparation of matters beforehand,
together with the best securities for orderly procedure, was in itself a
revolution impressive to the mind of every Athenian citizen. To render
the ecclesia efficient, it was indispensable that its meetings should
be both frequent and free. Men thus became trained to the duty both of
speakers and hearers, and each man, while he felt that he exercised
his share of influence on the decision, identified his own safety and
happiness with the vote of the majority, and became familiarised with
the notion of a sovereign authority which he neither could nor ought to
resist. This is an idea new to the Athenian bosom; and with it came the
feelings sanctifying free speech and equal law--words which no Athenian
citizen ever afterwards heard unmoved: together with that sentiment of
the entire commonwealth as one and indivisible, which always overruled,
though it did not supplant, the local and cantonal specialties. It is
not too much to say that these patriotic and ennobling impulses were a
new product in the Athenian mind, to which nothing analogous occurs even
in the time of Solon. They were kindled in part doubtless by the strong
reaction against the Pisistratidæ, but still more by the fact that the
opposing leader, Clisthenes, turned that transitory feeling to the best
possible account, and gave to it a vigorous perpetuity, as well as a
well-defined positive object, by the popular elements conspicuous in
his constitution. His name makes less figure in history than we should
expect, because he passed for the mere renovator of Solon’s scheme of
government after it had been overthrown by Pisistratus. Probably he
himself professed this object, since it would facilitate the success
of his propositions: and if we confine ourselves to the letter of the
case, the fact is in a great measure true, since the annual senate
and the ecclesia are both Solonian--but both of them under his reform
were clothed in totally new circumstances, and swelled into gigantic
proportions. How vigorous was the burst of Athenian enthusiasm, altering
instantaneously the position of Athens among the powers of Greece, we
shall hear presently.

But it was not only the people formally installed in their ecclesia,
who received from Clisthenes the real attributes of sovereignty; it
was by him also that the people were first called into direct action
as dicasts, or jurors. This custom may be said, in a certain limited
sense, to have begun in the time of Solon, since that lawgiver invested
the popular assembly with the power of pronouncing the judgment of
accountability upon the archons after their year of office. Here, again,
the building, afterwards so spacious and stately, was erected on a
Solonian foundation, though it was not itself Solonian. That the popular
dicasteries, in the elaborate forms in which they existed from Pericles
downward, were introduced all at once by Clisthenes, it is impossible
to believe; yet the steps by which they were gradually wrought out are
not distinctly discoverable. It would rather seem, that at first only
the aggregate body of citizens above thirty years of age exercised
judicial functions, being specially convoked and sworn to try persons
accused of public crimes, and when so employed bearing the name of the
heliæa, or heliasts; private offences and disputes between man and man
being still determined by individual magistrates in the city, and a
considerable judicial power still residing in the senate of Areopagus.
There is reason to believe that this was the state of things established
by Clisthenes, and which afterwards came to be altered by the greater
extent of judicial duty gradually accruing to the heliasts, so that
it was necessary to subdivide the collective heliæa. According to the
subdivision, as practised in the times best known, six thousand citizens
above thirty years of age were annually selected by lot out of the
whole number, six hundred from each of the ten tribes: five thousand of
these citizens were arranged in ten panels or decuries of five hundred
each, the remaining one thousand being reserved to fill up vacancies
in case of death or absence among the former. The whole six thousand
took a prescribed oath, couched in very striking words, and every man
received a ticket inscribed with his own name as well as with a letter
designating his decury. When there were causes or crimes ripe for trial,
the _thesmothets_ or six inferior archons, determined by lot, first,
which decuries should sit, according to the number wanted--next, in
which court, or under the presidency of what magistrate, the decury B
or E should sit, so that it could not be known beforehand in what cause
each would be judge. Each of these decuries sitting in judicature was
called the heliæa, a name which belongs properly to the collective
assembly of the people; this collective assembly having been itself the
original judicature. We conceive that the practice of distributing this
collective assembly, or heliæa, into sections of jurors for judicial
duty, may have begun under one form or another soon after the reform of
Clisthenes, since the direct interference of the people in public affairs
tended more and more to increase. But it could only have been matured
by degrees into that constant and systematic service which the pay of
Pericles called forth at last in completeness. Under the last mentioned
system the judicial competence of the archons was annulled, and the third
archon, or polemarch, withdrawn from all military functions. Still, this
had not been yet done at the time of the battle of Marathon, in which
Callimachus the polemarch not only commanded along with the strategi, but
enjoyed a sort of pre-eminence over them: nor had it been done during the
year after the battle of Marathon, in which Aristides was archon--for
the magisterial decisions of Aristides formed one of the principal
foundations of his honourable surname, the Just.

With this question, as to the comparative extent of judicial power vested
by Clisthenes in the popular dicastery and the archons, are in reality
connected two others in Athenian constitutional law; relating, first,
to the admissibility of all citizens for the post of archon--next, to
the choosing of archons by lot. It is well known that, in the time of
Pericles, the archons, and various other individual functionaries, had
come to be chosen by lot--moreover, all citizens were legally admissible,
and might give in their names to be drawn for by lot, subject to what was
called the docimasy, or legal examination into their status of citizen,
and into various moral and religious qualifications, before they took
office; while at the same time the function of the archon had become
nothing higher than preliminary examination of parties and witnesses for
the dicastery, and presidence over it when afterwards assembled, together
with the power of imposing by authority a fine of small amount upon
inferior offenders.

Now all these three political arrangements hang essentially together. The
great value of the lot, according to Grecian democratical ideas, was that
it equalised the chance of office between rich and poor. But so long as
the poor citizens were legally inadmissible, choice by lot could have no
recommendation either to the rich or to the poor; in fact, it would be
less democratical than election by the general mass of citizens, because
the poor citizen would under the latter system enjoy an important right
of interference by means of his suffrage, though he could not be elected
himself. Again, choice by lot could never under any circumstances be
applied to those posts where special competence, and a certain measure of
attributes possessed only by a few, could not be dispensed with without
obvious peril; nor was it ever applied, throughout the whole history
of democratical Athens, to the strategi, or generals, who were always
elected by show of hands of the assembled citizens. Accordingly, we may
regard it as certain that, at the time when the archons first came to
be chosen by lot, the superior and responsible duties once attached to
that office had been, or were in course of being, detached from it, and
transferred either to the popular dicasts or to the ten elected strategi:
so that there remained to these archons only a routine of police and
administration, important indeed to the state, yet such as could be
executed by any citizen of average probity, diligence, and capacity. At
least there was no obvious absurdity in thinking so; and the docimasy
excluded from the office men of notoriously discreditable life, even
after they might have drawn the successful lot. Pericles, though chosen
strategus, year after year successively, was never archon; and it may
even be doubted whether men of first-rate talents and ambition often
gave in their names for the office. To those of smaller aspirations it
was doubtless a source of importance, but it imposed troublesome labour,
gave no pay, and entailed a certain degree of peril upon any archon who
might have given offence to powerful men, when he came to pass through
the trial of accountability which followed immediately upon his year of
office. There was little to make the office acceptable either to very
poor men, or to very rich and ambitious men; and between the middling
persons who gave in their names, any one might be taken without great
practical mischief, always assuming the two guarantees of the docimasy
before, and accountability after, office. This was the conclusion--in
our opinion a mistaken conclusion, and such as would find no favour
at present--to which the democrats of Athens were conducted by their
strenuous desire to equalise the chances of office for rich and poor. But
their sentiment seems to have been satisfied by a partial enforcement of
the lot to the choice of some offices,--especially the archons, as the
primitive chief magistrates of the state,--without applying it to all,
or to the most responsible and difficult. Nor would they have applied
it to the archons, if it had been indispensably necessary that these
magistrates should retain their original very serious duty of judging
disputes and condemning offenders.

Now in regard to the eligibility of all Athenians indiscriminately
to the office of archon, we find a clear and positive testimony as
to the time when it was first introduced. Plutarch tells us that the
oligarchical, but high-principled Aristides, was himself the proposer of
this constitutional change--shortly after the battle of Platæa, with the
consequent expulsion of the Persians from Greece, and the return of the
refugee Athenians to their ruined city. Seldom has it happened in the
history of mankind, that rich and poor have been so completely equalised
as among the population of Athens in that memorable expatriation and
heroic struggle. Nor are we at all surprised to hear that the mass of
citizens, coming back with freshly kindled patriotism as well as with the
consciousness that their country had only been recovered by the equal
efforts of all, would no longer submit to be legally disqualified from
any office of state. It was on this occasion that the constitution was
first made really “common” to all, and that the archons, strategi, and
all functionaries, first began to be chosen from all Athenians without
any difference of legal eligibility. No mention is made of the lot in
this important statement of Plutarch, which appears in every way worthy
of credit, and which teaches us that, down to the invasion of Xerxes not
only had the exclusive principle of the Solonian law of qualification
continued in force (whereby the first three classes on the census were
alone admitted to all individual offices, and the fourth or thetic
class excluded), but also the archons had hitherto been elected by the
citizens--not taken by lot.

Now for financial purposes, the quadruple census of Solon was
retained long after this period, even beyond the Peloponnesian War
and the oligarchy of Thirty. But we thus learn that Clisthenes in his
constitution retained it for political purposes also, in part at least:
he recognised the exclusion of the great mass of the citizens from all
individual offices--such as the archon, the strategus, etc. In his time,
probably, no complaints were raised on the subject. His constitution
gave to the collective bodies--senate, ecclesia, and heliæa, or
dicastery--a degree of power and importance such as they had never before
known or imagined: and we may well suppose that the Athenian people of
that day had no objection even to the proclaimed system and theory of
being exclusively governed by men of wealth and station as individual
magistrates--especially since many of the newly enfranchised citizens
had been previously metics and slaves. Indeed, it is to be added that,
even under the full democracy of later Athens, though the people had then
become passionately attached to the theory of equal admissibility of all
citizens to office, yet, in practice, poor men seldom obtained offices
which were elected by the general vote, as will appear more fully in the
course of this history.[17]

The choice of the strategi remained ever afterwards upon the footing on
which Aristides thus placed it. But the present is not the time to enter
into the modifications which Athens underwent during the generation after
the battle of Platæa. They have been here briefly noticed for the purpose
of reasoning back, in the absence of direct evidence, to Athens as it
stood in the generation before that memorable battle, after the reform of
Clisthenes. His reform, though highly democratical, stopped short of the
mature democracy which prevailed from Pericles to Demosthenes, in three
ways especially, among various others; and it is therefore sometimes
considered by the later writers as an aristocratical constitution: (1)
It still recognised the archons as judges to a considerable extent, and
the third archon, or polemarch, as joint military commander along with
the strategi. (2) It retained them as elected annually by the body of
citizens, not as chosen by lot. (3) It still excluded the fourth class
of the Solonian census from all individual office, the archonship among
the rest. The Solonian law of exclusion, however, though retained in
principle, was mitigated in practice thus far--that whereas Solon had
rendered none but members of the highest class on the census (_the
pentakosiomedimni_) eligible to the archonship, Clisthenes opened that
dignity to all the first three classes, shutting out only the fourth.
That he did this may be inferred from the fact that Aristides, assuredly
not a rich man, became archon.

We are also inclined to believe that the senate of Five Hundred, as
constituted by Clisthenes, was taken, not by election, but by lot, from
the ten tribes, and that every citizen became eligible to it. Election
for this purpose--that is, the privilege of annually electing a batch of
fifty senators, all at once, by each tribe--would probably be thought
more troublesome than valuable; nor do we hear of separate meetings of
each tribe for purposes of election. Moreover, the office of senator
was a collective, not an individual office; the shock, therefore, to
the feelings of semi-democratised Athens, from the unpleasant idea of a
poor man sitting among the fifty prytanes, would be less than if they
conceived him as polemarch at the head of the right wing of the army, or
as an archon administering justice.

A further difference between the constitution of Solon and that of
Clisthenes is to be found in the position of the senate of Areopagus.
Under the former, that senate had been the principal body in the state,
and he had even enlarged its powers; under the latter, it must have been
treated at first as an enemy, and kept down. For as it was composed
only of all the past archons, and as, during the preceding thirty years,
every archon had been a creature of the Pisistratidæ, the Areopagites
collectively must have been both hostile and odious to Clisthenes and
his partisans, perhaps a fraction of its members might even retire into
exile with Hippias. Its influence must have been sensibly lessened by the
change of party, until it came to be gradually filled by fresh archons
springing from the bosom of the Clisthenean constitution. But during
this important interval, the new-modelled senate of Five Hundred, and
the popular assembly, stepped into that ascendency which they never
afterwards lost. From the time of Clisthenes forward, the Areopagites
cease to be the chief and prominent power in the state: yet they are
still considerable; and when the second fill of the democratical tide
took place, after the battle of Platæa, they became the focus of that
which was then considered as the party of oligarchical resistance. We
have already remarked that the archons, during the intermediate time
(about 509-477 B.C.), were all elected by the ecclesia, not chosen by
lot, and that the fourth (or poorest and most numerous) class on the
census were by law then ineligible; while election at Athens, even
when every citizen without exception was an elector and eligible, had
a natural tendency to fall upon men of wealth and station. We thus
see how it happened that the past archons, when united in the Senate
of Areopagus, infused into that body the sympathies, prejudices, and
interests of the richer classes. It was this which brought them into
conflict with the more democratical party headed by Pericles and
Ephialtes, in times when portions of the Clisthenean constitution had
come to be discredited as too much imbued with oligarchy.

One other remarkable institution, distinctly ascribed to Clisthenes, yet
remains to be noticed--the Ostracism. It is hardly too much to say that,
without this protective process, none of the other institutions would
have reached maturity.


OSTRACISM

By the ostracism, a citizen was banished without special accusation,
trial, or defence, for a term of ten years--subsequently diminished to
five. His property was not taken away, nor his reputation tainted; so
that the penalty consisted solely in the banishment from his native
city to some other Greek city. As to reputation, the ostracism was a
compliment rather than otherwise; and so it was vividly felt to be, when,
about ninety years after Clisthenes, the conspiracy between Nicias and
Alcibiades fixed it upon Hyperbolus. The two former had both recommended
the taking of an ostracising vote, each hoping to cause the banishment of
the other; but before the day arrived, they accommodated the difference.
To fire off the safety-gun of the republic against a person so little
dangerous as Hyperbolus, was denounced as the prostitution of a great
political ceremony: “It was not against such men as him,” said the comic
writer, Plato, “that the oyster-shell (or potsherd) was intended to be
used.” The process of ostracism was carried into effect by writing upon
a shell, or potsherd, the name of the person whom a citizen thought it
prudent for a time to banish; which shell, when deposited in the proper
vessel, counted for a vote towards the sentence.

We have already observed that all the governments of the Grecian
cities, when we compare them with that idea which a modern reader is
apt to conceive of the measure of force belonging to a government,
were essentially weak, the good as well as the bad--the democratical,
the oligarchical, and the despotic. The force in the hands of any
government, to cope with conspirators or mutineers, was extremely small,
with the single exception of a despot surrounded by his mercenary troop;
so that no tolerably sustained conspiracy or usurper could be put down
except by the direct aid of the people in support of the government;
which amounted to a dissolution, for the time, of constitutional
authority, and was pregnant with reactionary consequences such as no
man could foresee. To prevent powerful men from attempting usurpation
was, therefore, of the greatest possible moment; and a despot or an
oligarchy might exercise preventive means at pleasure, much sharper than
the ostracism, such as the assassination of Cimon, as directed by the
Pisistratidæ. At the very least, they might send away any one, from whom
they apprehended attack or danger, without incurring even so much as
the imputation of severity. But in a democracy, where arbitrary action
of the magistrate was the thing of all others most dreaded, and where
fixed laws, with trial and defence as preliminaries to punishment, were
conceived by the ordinary citizen as the guarantees of his personal
security and as the pride of his social condition--the creation of such
an exceptional power presented serious difficulty. If we transport
ourselves to the times of Clisthenes, immediately after the expulsion
of the Pisistratidæ, when the working of the democratical machinery
was as yet untried, we shall find this difficulty at its maximum; but
we shall also find the necessity of vesting such a power somewhere
absolutely imperative. For the great Athenian nobles had yet to learn
the lesson of respect for any constitution; their past history had
exhibited continual struggles between the armed factions of Megacles,
Lycurgus, and Pisistratus, put down after a time by the superior force
and alliances of the latter. And though Clisthenes, the son of Megacles,
might be firmly disposed to renounce the example of his father, and to
act as the faithful citizen of a fixed constitution--he would know but
too well that the sons of his father’s companions and rivals would follow
out ambitious purposes without any regard to the limits imposed by law,
if ever they acquired sufficient partisans to present a fair prospect of
success. Moreover, when any two candidates for power, with such reckless
dispositions, came into a bitter personal rivalry, the motives to each
of them, arising as well out of fear as out of ambition, to put down his
opponent at any cost to the constitution, might well become irresistible,
unless some impartial and discerning interference could arrest the strife
in time. “If the Athenians were wise (Aristides is reported to have said,
in the height and peril of his parliamentary struggle with Themistocles),
they would cast both Themistocles and me into the barathrum.” And whoever
reads the sad narrative of the Corcyræan sedition, in the third book
of Thucydides, together with the reflections of the historian upon it,
will trace the gradual exasperation of these party feuds, beginning even
under democratical forms, until at length they break down the barriers of
public as well as of private morality.

Against this chance of internal assailants Clisthenes had to protect
the democratical constitution--first, by throwing impediments in their
way and rendering it difficult for them to procure the requisite
support; next, by eliminating them before any violent projects were
ripe for execution. To do either the one or the other, it was necessary
to provide such a constitution as would not only conciliate the good
will, but kindle the passionate attachment of the mass of citizens,
insomuch that not even any considerable minority should be deliberately
inclined to alter it by force. It was necessary to create in the
multitude, and through them to force upon the leading ambitious men,
that rare and difficult sentiment which we may term a constitutional
morality; a paramount reverence for the forms of the constitution,
enforcing obedience to the authorities acting under and within those
forms, yet combined with the habit of open speech, of action subject
only to definite legal control, and unrestrained censure of those very
authorities as to all their public acts--combined too with a perfect
confidence in the bosom of every citizen, amidst the bitterness of party
contest, that the forms of the constitution will be not less sacred in
the eyes of his opponents than in his own. This coexistence of freedom
and self-imposed restraint--of obedience to authority with unmeasured
censure of the persons exercising it--may be found in the aristocracy of
England (since about 1688) as well as in the democracy of the American
United States: and because we are familiar with it, we are apt to
suppose it a natural sentiment; though there seem to be few sentiments
more difficult to establish and diffuse among a community, judging by
the experience of history. We may see how imperfectly it exists at this
day in the Swiss cantons; and the many violences of the first French
Revolution illustrate, among various other lessons, the fatal effects
arising from its absence, even among a people high in the scale of
intelligence. Yet the diffusion of such constitutional morality, not
merely among the majority of any community, but throughout the whole, is
the indispensable condition of a government at once free and peaceable;
since even any powerful and obstinate minority may render the working
of free institutions impracticable, without being strong enough to
conquer ascendency for themselves. Nothing less than unanimity, or so
overwhelming a majority as to be tantamount to unanimity, on the cardinal
point of respecting constitutional forms, even by those who do not
wholly approve of them, can render the excitement of political passion
bloodless, and yet expose all the authorities in the state to the full
license of pacific criticism.

At the epoch of Clisthenes, which by a remarkable coincidence is the same
as that of the _regifugium_ at Rome, such constitutional morality, if it
existed anywhere else, had certainly no place at Athens; and the first
creation of it in any particular society must be esteemed an interesting
historical fact. By the spirit of his reforms,--equal, popular, and
comprehensive, far beyond the previous experience of Athenians,--he
secured the hearty attachment of the body of citizens; but from the
first generation of leading men, under the nascent democracy, and with
such precedents as they had to look back upon, no self-imposed limits to
ambition could be expected: and the problem required was to eliminate
beforehand any one about to transgress these limits, so as to escape the
necessity of putting him down afterwards, with all that bloodshed and
reaction, in the midst of which the free working of the constitution
would be suspended at least, if not irrevocably extinguished. To acquire
such influence as would render him dangerous under democratical forms,
a man must stand in evidence before the public, so as to afford some
reasonable means of judging of his character and purposes; and the
security which Clisthenes provided was, to call in the positive judgment
of the citizens respecting his future promise purely and simply, so
that they might not remain too long neutral between two formidable
political rivals--pursuant in a certain way to the Solonian proclamation
against neutrality in a sedition, as we have already remarked in a
former chapter. He incorporated in the constitution itself the principle
of _privilegium_ (to employ the Roman phrase, which signifies, not
a peculiar favour granted to any one, but a peculiar inconvenience
imposed), yet only under circumstances solemn and well defined, with
full notice and discussion beforehand, and by the positive secret vote
of a large proportion of the citizens. “No law shall be made against
any single citizen, without the same being made against all Athenian
citizens; unless it shall so seem good to six thousand citizens voting
secretly.” Such was that general principle of the constitution, under
which the ostracism was a particular case. Before the vote of ostracism
could be taken, a case was to be made out in the senate and the public
assembly to justify it. In the sixth prytany of the year, these two
bodies debated and determined whether the state of the republic was
menacing enough to call for such an exceptional measure. If they decided
in the affirmative, a day was named, the agora was railed round, with ten
entrances left for the citizens of each tribe, and ten separate casks
or vessels for depositing the suffrages, which consisted of a shell, or
a potsherd, with the name of the person written on it whom each citizen
designed to banish. At the end of the day, the number of votes was summed
up, and if six thousand votes were found to have been given against any
one person, that person was ostracised; if not, the ceremony ended in
nothing. Ten days were allowed to him for settling his affairs, after
which he was required to depart from Attica for ten years, but retained
his property, and suffered no other penalty.

It was not the maxim at Athens to escape the errors of the people, by
calling in the different errors, and the sinister interest besides,
of an extra-popular or privileged few; nor was any third course open,
since the principles of representative government were not understood,
nor indeed conveniently applicable to very small communities. Beyond
the judgment of the people--so the Athenians felt--there was no appeal;
and their grand study was to surround the delivery of that judgment
with the best securities for rectitude and the best preservatives
against haste, passion, or private corruption. Whatever measure of
good government could not be obtained in that way, could not, in their
opinion, be obtained at all. We shall illustrate the Athenian proceedings
on this head more fully when we come to speak of the working of their
mature democracy: meanwhile, in respect to this grand protection of the
nascent democracy,--the vote of ostracism,--it will be found that the
securities devised by Clisthenes, for making the sentence effectual
against the really dangerous man, and against no one else, display not
less foresight than patriotism. The main object was, to render the voting
an expression of deliberate public feeling, as distinguished from mere
factious antipathy: the large minimum of votes required, one-fourth
of the entire citizen population, went far to insure this effect, the
more so, since each vote, taken as it was in a secret manner, counted
unequivocally for the expression of a genuine and independent sentiment,
and could neither be coerced nor bought. Then again, Clisthenes did not
permit the process of ostracising to be opened against any one citizen
exclusively. If opened at all, every one without exception was exposed
to the sentence; so that the friends of Themistocles could not invoke it
against Aristides, nor those of the latter against the former, without
exposing their own leader to the same chance of exile. It was not likely
to be invoked at all, therefore, until exasperation had proceeded so far
as to render both parties insensible to this chance--the precise index
of that growing internecine hostility, which the ostracism prevented
from coming to a head. Nor could it even then be ratified, unless a case
was shown to convince the more neutral portion of the senate and the
ecclesia: moreover, after all, the ecclesia did not itself ostracise,
but a future day was named, and the whole body of the citizens were
solemnly invited to vote. It was in this way that security was taken not
only for making the ostracism effectual in protecting the constitution,
but to hinder it from being employed for any other purpose. And we must
recollect that it exercised its tutelary influence, not merely on those
occasions when it was actually employed, but by the mere knowledge that
it might be employed, and by the restraining effect which that knowledge
produced on the conduct of the great men. Again, the ostracism, though
essentially of an exceptional nature, was yet an exception sanctified
and limited by the constitution itself; so that the citizen, in giving
his ostracising vote, did not in any way depart from the constitution or
lose his reverence for it. The issue placed before him--“Is there any
man whom you think vitally dangerous to the State? if so, whom?”--though
vague, was yet raised directly and legally. Had there been no ostracism,
it might probably have been raised both indirectly and illegally, on the
occasion of some special imputed crime of a suspected political leader,
when accused before a court of justice.

Care was taken to divest the ostracism of all painful consequence except
what was inseparable from exile; and this is not one of the least proofs
of the wisdom with which it was devised. Most certainly, it never
deprived the public of candidates for political influence: and when we
consider the small amount of individual evil which it inflicted,--evil
too diminished, in the cases of Cimon and Aristides, by a reactionary
sentiment which augmented their subsequent popularity after return,--two
remarks will be quite sufficient to offer in the way of justification.
First, it completely produced its intended effect; for the democracy
grew up from infancy to manhood without a single attempt to overthrow it
by force--a result, upon which no reflecting contemporary of Clisthenes
could have ventured to calculate. Next, through such tranquil working
of the democratical forms, a constitutional morality quite sufficiently
complete was produced among the leading Athenians, to enable the people
after a certain time to dispense with that exceptional security which
the ostracism offered. To the nascent democracy, it was absolutely
indispensable; to the growing yet militant democracy, it was salutary;
but the full-grown democracy both could and did stand without it. The
ostracism passed upon Hyperbolus, about ninety years after Clisthenes,
was the last occasion of its employment. And even this can hardly be
considered as a serious instance: it was a trick concerted between
two distinguished Athenians (Nicias and Alcibiades), to turn to their
own political account a process already coming to be antiquated. Nor
would such a manœuvre have been possible, if the contemporary Athenian
citizens had been penetrated with the same serious feeling of the value
of ostracism as a safeguard of democracy, as had been once entertained
by their fathers and grandfathers. Between Clisthenes and Hyperbolus,
we hear of about ten different persons as having been banished by
ostracism. First of all, Hipparchus of the deme Cholargus, the son of
Charmus, a relative of the recently expelled Pisistratid despots; then
Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, and Thucydides son of Melesias, all
of them renowned political leaders; also Alcibiades and Megacles (the
paternal and maternal grandfathers of the distinguished Alcibiades),
and Callias, belonging to another eminent family at Athens; lastly,
Damon, the preceptor of Pericles in poetry and music, and eminent for
his acquisitions in philosophy. In this last case comes out the vulgar
side of humanity, aristocratical as well as democratical; for with both,
the process of philosophy and the persons of philosophers are wont to
be alike unpopular. Even Clisthenes himself is said to be ostracised
under his own law, and Xanthippus; but both upon authority too weak to
trust. Miltiades was not ostracised at all, but tried and punished for
misconduct in his command.

We should hardly have said so much about this memorable and peculiar
institution of Clisthenes, if the erroneous accusations against the
Athenian democracy--of envy, injustice, and ill-treatment of their
superior men, had not been greatly founded upon it, and if such
criticisms had not passed from ancient times to modern with little
examination. In monarchical governments, a pretender to the throne,
numbering a certain amount of supporters, is, as a matter of course,
excluded from the country. No man treats this as any extravagant
injustice, yet it is the parallel of the ostracism, with a stronger
case in favour of the latter, inasmuch as the change from one regal
dynasty to another does not of necessity overthrow all the collateral
institutions and securities of the country. Plutarch has affirmed that
the ostracism arose from the envy and jealousy inherent in a democracy,
and not from justifiable fears--an observation often repeated, yet not
the less demonstrably untrue. Not merely because ostracism so worked as
often to increase the influence of that political leader whose rival it
removed, but still more, because, if the fact had been as Plutarch says,
this institution would have continued as long as the democracy; whereas
it finished with the banishment of Hyperbolus, at a period when the
government was more decisively democratical than it had been in the time
of Clisthenes.

It was, in truth, a product altogether of fear and insecurity, on
the part both of the democracy and its best friends--fear perfectly
well-grounded, and only appearing needless because the precautions
taken prevented attack. So soon as the diffusion of a constitutional
morality had placed the mass of the citizens above all serious fear of
an aggressive usurper the ostracism was discontinued. And doubtless
the feeling, that it might safely be dispensed with, must have been
strengthened by the long ascendancy of Pericles, by the spectacle of the
greatest statesman whom Athens ever produced, acting steadily within
the limits of the constitution; as well as by the ill-success of his
two opponents, Cimon and Thucydides,--aided by numerous partisans and
by the great comic writers, at a period when comedy was a power in the
state such as it has never been before or since,--in their attempts to
get him ostracised. They succeeded in fanning up the ordinary antipathy
of the citizens towards philosophers, so far as to procure the ostracism
of his friend and teacher Damon: but Pericles himself, to repeat the
complaint of his bitter enemy, the comic poet Cratinus, “was out of the
reach of the oyster-shell.” If Pericles was not conceived to be dangerous
to the constitution, none of his successors were at all likely to be so
regarded. Damon and Hyperbolus were the two last persons ostracised: both
of them were cases, and the only cases, of an unequivocal abuse of the
institution, because, whatever the grounds of displeasure against them
may have been, it is impossible to conceive either of them as menacing
to the state--whereas all the other known sufferers were men of such
position and power, that the six or eight thousand citizens who inscribed
each name on the shell, or at least a large proportion of them, may well
have done so under the most conscientious belief that they were guarding
the constitution against real danger. Such a change in the character of
the persons ostracised plainly evinces that the ostracism had become
dissevered from that genuine patriotic prudence which originally rendered
it both legitimate and popular. It had served for two generations an
inestimable tutelary purpose,--it lived to be twice dishonoured,--and
then passed, by universal acquiescence, into matter of history.

[Illustration: STATUE OF MINERVA]

A process analogous to the ostracism subsisted at Argos, at Syracuse, and
in some other Grecian democracies. Aristotle states that it was abused
for factious purposes: and at Syracuse, where it was introduced after
the expulsion of the Gelonian dynasty, Diodorus affirms that it was so
unjustly and profusely applied, as to deter persons of wealth and station
from taking any part in public affairs; for which reason it was speedily
discontinued. We have no particulars to enable us to appreciate this
general statement. But we cannot safely infer that because the ostracism
worked on the whole well at Athens, it must necessarily have worked well
in other states--the more so, as we do not know whether it was surrounded
with the same precautionary formalities, nor whether it even required the
same large minimum of votes to make it effective. This latter guarantee,
so valuable in regard to an institution essentially easy to abuse, is not
noticed by Diodorus in his brief account of the petalism--so the process
was denominated at Syracuse.


THE DEMOCRACY ESTABLISHED

Such was the first Athenian democracy, engendered as well by the reaction
against Hippias and his dynasty as by the memorable partnership, whether
spontaneous or compulsory, between Clisthenes and the unfranchised
multitude. It is to be distinguished, both from the mitigated oligarchy
established by Solon before, and from the full-grown and symmetrical
democracy which prevailed afterwards from the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War towards the close of the career of Pericles. It was,
indeed, a striking revolution, impressed upon the citizen not less by
the sentiments to which it appealed than by the visible change which
it made in political and social life. He saw himself marshalled in the
ranks of hoplites, alongside of new companions in arms; he was enrolled
in a new register, and his property in a new schedule, in his deme and
by his demarch, an officer before unknown; he found the year distributed
afresh, for all legal purposes, into ten parts bearing the name of
prytanies, each marked by a solemn and free-spoken ecclesia, at which he
had a right to be present; that ecclesia was convoked and presided by
senators called prytanes, members of a senate novel both as to number
and distribution; his political duties were now performed as member of a
tribe, designated by a name not before pronounced in common Attic life,
connected with one of ten heroes whose statues he now for the first time
saw in the agora, and associating him with fellow-tribesmen from all
parts of Attica. All these and many others were sensible novelties, felt
in the daily proceedings of the citizen. But the great novelty of all was
the authentic recognition of the ten new tribes as a sovereign demos,
or people, apart from all specialties of phratric or gentile origin,
with free speech and equal law; retaining no distinction except the
four classes of the Solonian property-schedule with their gradations of
eligibility. To a considerable proportion of citizens this great novelty
was still further endeared by the fact that it had raised them out of
the degraded position of metics and slaves; and to the large majority
of all the citizens, it furnished a splendid political idea, profoundly
impressive to the Greek mind, capable of calling forth the most ardent
attachment as well as the most devoted sense of active obligation
and obedience. We have now to see how their newly-created patriotism
manifested itself.

Clisthenes and his new constitution carried with them so completely the
popular favour, that Isagoras had no other way of opposing it except by
calling in the interference of Cleomenes and the Lacedæmonians. Cleomenes
listened the more readily to this call, as he was reported to have
been on an intimate footing with the wife of Isagoras. He prepared to
come to Athens; but his first aim was to deprive the democracy of its
great leader Clisthenes, who, as belonging to the Alcmæonid family, was
supposed to be tainted with the inherited sin of his great-grandfather
Megacles, the destroyer of the usurper Cylon. Cleomenes sent a herald to
Athens, demanding the expulsion “of the accursed,”--so this family were
called by their enemies, and so they continued to be called eighty years
afterwards, when the same manœuvre was practised by the Lacedæmonians
of that day against Pericles. This requisition had been recommended
by Isagoras, and was so well-timed that Clisthenes, not venturing to
disobey it, retired voluntarily, so that Cleomenes, though arriving at
Athens only with a small force, found himself master of the city. At
the instigation of Isagoras, he sent into exile seven hundred families,
selected from the chief partisans of Clisthenes: his next attempt was to
dissolve the new senate of Five Hundred and place the whole government
in the hands of three hundred adherents of the chief whose cause he
espoused. But now was seen the spirit infused into the people by their
new constitution. At the time of the first usurpation of Pisistratus, the
senate of that day had not only not resisted, but even lent themselves to
the scheme. But the new senate of Clisthenes resolutely refused to submit
to dissolution, and the citizens manifested themselves in a way at once
so hostile and so determined, that Cleomenes and Isagoras were altogether
baffled. They were compelled to retire into the Acropolis and stand upon
the defensive; and this symptom of weakness was the signal for a general
rising of the Athenians, who besieged the Spartan king on the holy rock.
He had evidently come without any expectation of finding, or any means of
overpowering, resistance; for at the end of two days his provisions were
exhausted, and he was forced to capitulate. He and his Lacedæmonians, as
well as Isagoras, were allowed to retire to Sparta; but the Athenians
of the party captured along with him were imprisoned, condemned, and
executed by the people.

Clisthenes, with the seven hundred exiled families, was immediately
recalled, and his new constitution materially strengthened by this first
success. Yet the prospect of renewed Spartan attack was sufficiently
serious to induce him to send envoys to Artaphernes, the Persian satrap
at Sardis, soliciting the admission of Athens into the Persian alliance:
he probably feared the intrigues of the expelled Hippias in the same
quarter. Artaphernes, having first informed himself who the Athenians
were, and where they dwelt, replied that, if they chose to send earth
and water to the king of Persia, they might be received as allies, but
upon no other condition. Such were the feelings of alarm under which the
envoys had quitted Athens, that they went the length of promising this
unqualified token of submission. But their countrymen, on their return,
disavowed them with scorn and indignation.


TROUBLE WITH THEBES

It was at this time that the first connection began between Athens and
the little Bœotian town of Platæa, situated on the northern slope of
the range of Cithæron, between that mountain and the river Asopus, on
the road from Athens to Thebes; and it is upon this first occasion that
we become acquainted with the Bœotians and their polities. The Bœotian
federation has already been briefly described, as composed of some twelve
or thirteen autonomous towns under the headship of Thebes, which was,
or professed to have been, their mother-city. Platæa had been, so the
Thebans affirmed, their latest foundation; it was ill-used by them, and
discontented with the alliance. Accordingly, as Cleomenes was on his
way back from Athens, the Platæans took the opportunity of addressing
themselves to him, craved the protection of Sparta against Thebes, and
surrendered their town and territory without reserve. The Spartan king,
having no motive to undertake a trust which promised nothing but trouble,
advised them to solicit the protection of Athens, as nearer and more
accessible for them in case of need. He foresaw that this would embroil
the Athenians with Bœotia; and such anticipation was in fact his chief
motive for giving the advice, which the Platæans followed.

[Sidenote: [506 B.C.]]

Selecting an occasion of public sacrifice at Athens, they despatched
thither envoys, who sat down as suppliants at the altar, surrendered
their town to Athens, and implored protection against Thebes. Such an
appeal was not to be resisted, and protection was promised; it was soon
needed, for the Thebans invaded the Platæan territory, and an Athenian
force marched to defend it. Battle was about to be joined, when the
Corinthians interposed with their mediation, which was accepted by both
parties. They decided altogether in favour of Platæa, pronouncing that
the Thebans had no right to employ force against any seceding member of
the Bœotian federation. But the Thebans, finding the decision against
them, refused to abide by it, and, attacking the Athenians on their
return, sustained a complete defeat: the latter avenged this breach of
faith by joining to Platæa the portion of Theban territory south of the
Asopus, and making that river the limit between the two. By such success,
however, the Athenians gained nothing, except the enmity of Bœotia, as
Cleomenes had foreseen. Their alliance with Platæa, long continued, and
presenting in the course of this history several incidents touching
to our sympathies, will be found, if we except one splendid occasion,
productive only of burden to the one party, yet insufficient as a
protection to the other.

Meanwhile Cleomenes had returned to Sparta full of resentment against the
Athenians, and resolved on punishing them, as well as on establishing
his friend Isagoras as despot over them. Having been taught, however,
by humiliating experience, that this was no easy achievement, he would
not make the attempt, without having assembled a considerable force;
he summoned allies from all the various states of the Peloponnesus,
yet without venturing to inform them what he was about to undertake.
He at the same time concerted measures with the Bœotians, and with the
Chalcidians of Eubœa, for a simultaneous invasion of Attica on all sides.
It appears that he had greater confidence in their hostile dispositions
towards Athens than in those of the Peloponnesians; he was not afraid to
acquaint them with his design, and probably the Bœotians were incensed
with the recent interference of Athens in the affair of Platæa. As soon
as these preparations were completed, the two kings of Sparta, Cleomenes
and Demaratus, put themselves at the head of the united Peloponnesian
force, marched into Attica, and advanced as far as Eleusis on the way
to Athens. But when the allies came to know the purpose for which they
were to be employed, a spirit of dissatisfaction manifested itself
among them. They had no unfriendly sentiment towards Athens; and the
Corinthians especially, favourably disposed rather than otherwise towards
that city, resolved to proceed no further, withdrew their contingent from
the camp, and returned home. At the same time, king Demaratus, either
sharing in the general dissatisfaction, or moved by some grudge against
his colleague which had not before manifested itself, renounced the
undertaking also. And these two examples, operating upon the pre-existing
sentiment of the allies generally, caused the whole camp to break up and
return home without striking a blow.

We may here remark that this is the first instance known in which
Sparta appears in act as recognised head of an obligatory Peloponnesian
alliance, summoning contingents from the cities to be placed under the
command of her king. Her headship, previously recognised in theory,
passes now into act, but in an unsatisfactory manner, so as to prove the
necessity of precaution and concert beforehand, which will be found not
long wanting.

Pursuant to the scheme concerted, the Bœotians and Chalcidians attacked
Attica at the same time that Cleomenes entered it. The former seized Œnoe
and Hysiæ, the frontier demes of Attica on the side towards Platæa, while
the latter assailed the northeastern frontier, which faces Eubœa. Invaded
on three sides, the Athenians were in serious danger, and were compelled
to concentrate all their forces at Eleusis against Cleomenes, leaving the
Bœotians and Chalcidians unopposed. But the unexpected breaking up of the
invading army from the Peloponnesus proved their rescue, and enabled them
to turn the whole of their attention to the other frontier. They marched
into Bœotia to the strait called Euripus, which separates it from Eubœa,
intending to prevent the junction of the Bœotians and Chalcidians, and
to attack the latter first apart. But the arrival of the Bœotians caused
an alteration of their scheme; they attacked the Bœotians first, and
gained a victory of the most complete character, killing a large number,
and capturing seven hundred prisoners. On the very same day they crossed
over to Eubœa, attacked the Chalcidians, and gained another victory so
decisive that it at once terminated the war. Many Chalcidians were taken,
as well as Bœotians, and conveyed in chains to Athens, where after a
certain detention they were at last ransomed for two minæ per man; and
the tenth of the sum thus raised was employed in the fabrication of a
chariot and four horses in bronze, which was placed in the Acropolis to
commemorate the victory. Herodotus saw this trophy when he was at Athens.
He saw too, what was a still more speaking trophy, the actual chains in
which the prisoners had been fettered, exhibiting in their appearance the
damage undergone when the Acropolis was burnt by Xerxes: an inscription
of four lines described the offerings and recorded the victory out of
which they had sprung.

Another consequence of some moment arose out of this victory. The
Athenians planted a body of four thousand of their citizens as cleruchs
(lot-holders) or settlers upon the lands of the wealthy Chalcidian
oligarchy called the _hippobotæ_--proprietors probably in the fertile
plain of Lelantum, between Chalcis and Eretria. This is a system which
we shall find hereafter extensively followed out by the Athenians in the
days of their power; partly with the view of providing for their poorer
citizens, partly to serve as garrison among a population either hostile
or of doubtful fidelity. These Attic cleruchs (we can find no other name
by which to speak of them) did not lose their birthright as Athenian
citizens: they were not colonists in the Grecian sense, and they are
known by a totally different name, but they corresponded very nearly to
the colonies formally planted out on the conquered lands by Rome. The
increase of the poorer population was always more or less painfully felt
in every Grecian city. For though the aggregate population never seems
to have increased very fast, yet the multiplication of children in poor
families caused the subdivision of the smaller lots of land, until at
last they became insufficient for a maintenance; and the persons thus
impoverished found it difficult to obtain subsistence in other ways, more
especially as the labour for the richer classes was so much performed
by imported slaves. The numerous cleruchies sent out by Athens, of
which this to Eubœa was the first, arose in a great measure out of the
multiplication of the poorer population, which her extended power was
employed in providing for. Her subsequent proceedings with a view to the
same object will not be always found so justifiable as this now before
us, which grew naturally, according to the ideas of the time, out of her
success against the Chalcidians.

[Sidenote: [498-491 B.C.]]

The war between Athens, however, and Thebes with her Bœotian allies,
still continued, to the great and repeated disadvantage of the latter,
until at length the Thebans in despair sent to ask advice of the Delphian
oracle, and were directed to “solicit aid from those nearest to them.”
“How (they replied) are we to obey? Our nearest neighbours, of Tanagra,
Coronea, and Thespiæ, are now, and have been from the beginning, lending
us all the aid in their power.” An ingenious Theban, however, coming
to the relief of his perplexed fellow-citizens, dived into the depths
of legend and brought up a happy meaning. “Those nearest to us (he
said) are the inhabitants of Ægina: for Thebe (the eponym of Thebes)
and Ægina (the eponym of that island) were both sisters, daughters of
Asopus: let us send to crave assistance from the Æginetans.” If his
subtle interpretation (founded upon their descent from the same legendary
progenitors) did not at once convince all who heard it, at least no
one had any better to suggest; and envoys were at once sent to the
Æginetans, who, in reply to a petition founded on legendary claims, sent
to the help of the Thebans a reinforcement of legendary, but venerated,
auxiliaries--the Æacid heroes. We are left to suppose that their effigies
are here meant. It was in vain, however, that the glory and the supposed
presence of the Æacids, Telamon and Peleus, were introduced into the
Theban camp. Victory still continued on the side of Athens; and the
discouraged Thebans again sent to Ægina, restoring the heroes, and
praying for aid of a character more human and positive. Their request was
granted, and the Æginetans commenced war against Athens without even the
decent preliminary of a herald and declaration.

This remarkable embassy first brings us into acquaintance with the
Dorians of Ægina,--oligarchical, wealthy, commercial, and powerful
at sea, even in the earliest days; more analogous to Corinth than to
any of the other cities called Dorian. The hostility which they now
began without provocation against Athens,--repressed by Sparta at the
critical moment of the battle of Marathon, and hushed for a while by
the common dangers of the Persian invasion under Xerxes; then again
breaking out,--was appeased only with the conquest of the island about
twenty years after that event, and with the expulsion and destruction
of its inhabitants some years later. There had been indeed, according
to Herodotus, a feud of great antiquity between Athens and Ægina, of
which he gives the account in a singular narrative, blending together
religion, politics, exposition of ancient customs, etc.; but at the time
when the Thebans solicited aid from Ægina, the latter was at peace with
Athens. The Æginetans employed their fleet, powerful for that day, in
ravaging Phalerum and the maritime demes of Attica; nor had the Athenians
as yet any fleet to resist them. It is probable that the desired effect
was produced, of diverting a portion of the Athenian force from the war
against Bœotia, and thus partially relieving Thebes. But the war of
Athens against both of them continued for a considerable time, though we
have no information respecting its details.

Meanwhile the attention of Athens was called off from these combined
enemies by a more menacing cloud, which threatened to burst upon her from
the side of Sparta. Cleomenes and his countrymen, full of resentment
at the late inglorious desertion of Eleusis, were yet more incensed by
the discovery, which appears to have been then recently made, that the
injunctions of the Delphian priestess for the expulsion of Hippias from
Athens had been fraudulently procured. Moreover, Cleomenes, when shut
up in the Acropolis of Athens with Isagoras, had found there various
prophecies previously treasured up by the Pisistratidæ, many of which
foreshadowed events highly disastrous to Sparta. And while the recent
brilliant manifestations of courage, and repeated victories, on the
part of Athens, seemed to indicate that such prophecies might perhaps
be realised, Sparta had to reproach herself, that, from the foolish
and mischievous conduct of Cleomenes, she had undone the effect of her
previous aid against the Pisistratidæ, and thus lost that return of
gratitude which the Athenians would otherwise have testified. Under such
impressions, the Spartan authorities took the remarkable step of sending
for Hippias from his residence at Sigeum to the Peloponnesus, and of
summoning deputies from all their allies to meet him at Sparta.

The convocation thus summoned deserves notice as the commencement of a
new era in Grecian politics. The previous expedition of Cleomenes against
Attica presents to us the first known example of Spartan headship passing
from theory into act: that expedition miscarried because the allies,
though willing to follow, would not follow blindly, nor be made the
instruments of executing purposes repugnant to their feelings. Sparta had
now learned the necessity, in order to insure their hearty concurrence,
of letting them know what she contemplated, so as to ascertain at least
that she had no decided opposition to apprehend. Here, then, is the
third stage in the spontaneous movement of Greece towards a systematic
conjunction, however imperfect, of its many autonomous units. First
we have Spartan headship suggested in theory, from a concourse of
circumstances which attract to her the admiration of all Greece,--power,
unrivalled training, undisturbed antiquity, etc.; next, the theory passes
into act, yet rude and shapeless; lastly, the act becomes clothed with
formalities, and preceded by discussion and determination. The first
convocation of the allies at Sparta, for the purpose of having a common
object submitted to their consideration, may well be regarded as an
important event in Grecian political history. The proceedings at the
convocation are no less important, as an indication of the way in which
the Greeks of that day felt and acted, and must be borne in mind as a
contrast with times hereafter to be described.

Hippias having been presented to the assembled allies, the Spartans
expressed their sorrow for having dethroned him, their resentment
and alarm at the new born insolence of Athens, already tasted by her
immediate neighbours, and menacing to every state represented in the
convocation, and their anxiety to restore Hippias, not less as a
reparation for past wrong, than as a means, through his rule, of keeping
Athens low and dependent. But the proposition, though emanating from
Sparta, was listened to by the allies with one common sentiment of
repugnance. They had no sympathy for Hippias, no dislike, still less any
fear, of Athens, and a profound detestation of the character of a despot.
The spirit which had animated the armed contingents at Eleusis now
reappeared among the deputies at Sparta, and the Corinthians again took
the initiative. Their deputy Sosicles protested against the project in
the fiercest and most indignant strain: no language can be stronger than
that of the long harangue which Herodotus puts into his mouth, wherein
the bitter recollections prevalent at Corinth respecting Cypselus and
Periander are poured forth. “Surely, heaven and earth are about to change
places,--the fish are coming to dwell on dry land, and mankind going to
inhabit the sea,--when you, Spartans, propose to subvert the popular
governments, and to set up in the cities that wicked and bloody thing
called a Despot. First try what it is, for yourselves at Sparta, and then
force it upon others if you can: you have not tasted its calamities as
we have, and you take very good care to keep it away from yourselves.
We adjure you, by the common gods of Hellas,--plant not despots in her
cities: if you persist in a scheme so wicked, know that the Corinthians
will not second you.”

This animated appeal was received with a shout of approbation and
sympathy on the part of the allies. All with one accord united with
Sosicles in adjuring the Lacedæmonians “not to revolutionise any
Hellenic city.” No one listened to Hippias when he replied, warning the
Corinthians that the time would come, when they, more than any one else,
would dread and abhor the Athenian democracy, and wish the Pisistratidæ
back again. He knew well, says Herodotus, that this would be, for he
was better acquainted with the prophecies than any man. But no one then
believed him, and he was forced to take his departure back to Sigeum:
the Spartans not venturing to espouse his cause against the determined
sentiment of the allies.

That determined sentiment deserves notice, because it marks the
present period of the Hellenic mind; fifty years later it will be
found materially altered. Aversion to single-headed rule, and bitter
recollection of men like Cypselus and Periander are now the chords which
thrill in an assembly of Grecian deputies: the idea of a revolution,
implying thereby a great and comprehensive change, of which the party
using the word disapproves, consists in substituting a permanent One
in place of those periodical magistrates and assemblies which were the
common attribute of oligarchy and democracy: the antithesis between
these last two is as yet in the background, nor does there prevail
either fear of Athens or hatred of the Athenian democracy. But when we
turn to the period immediately before the Peloponnesian War, we find
the order of precedence between these two sentiments reversed. The
anti-monarchical feeling has not perished, but has been overlaid by other
and more recent political antipathies,--the antithesis between democracy
and oligarchy having become, not indeed the only sentiment, but the
uppermost sentiment, in the minds of Grecian politicians generally, and
the soul of active party movement. Moreover, a hatred of the most deadly
character has grown up against Athens and her democracy, especially in
the grandsons of those very Corinthians who now stand forward as her
sympathising friends. The remarkable change of feeling here mentioned is
nowhere so strikingly exhibited as when we contrast the address of the
Corinthian Sosicles, just narrated, with the speech of the Corinthian
envoys at Sparta, immediately antecedent to the Peloponnesian War, as
given to us in Thucydides. It will hereafter be fully explained by the
intermediate events, by the growth of Athenian power, and by the still
more miraculous development of Athenian energy.

[Sidenote: [494-490 B.C.]]

Such development, the fruit of the fresh-planted democracy as well as
the seed for its sustentation and aggrandisement, continued progressive
during the whole period just adverted to. But the first unexpected burst
of it, under the Clisthenean constitution, and after the expulsion of
Hippias, is described by Herodotus in terms too emphatic to be omitted.
After narrating the successive victories of the Athenians over both
Bœotians and Chalcidians, that historian proceeds: “Thus did the
Athenians grow in strength. And we may find proof, not merely in this
instance but everywhere else, how valuable a thing freedom is: since even
the Athenians, while under a despot, were not superior in war to any
of their surrounding neighbours, but, so soon as they got rid of their
despots, became by far the first of all. These things show that while
kept down by one man, they were slack and timid, like men working for a
master; but when they were liberated, every single man became eager in
exertions for his own benefit.” The same comparison reappears a short
time afterwards, where he tells us, that “the Athenians when free, felt
themselves a match for Sparta; but while kept down by any man under a
despotism, were feeble and apt for submission.”

Stronger expressions cannot be found to depict the rapid improvement
wrought in the Athenian people by their new democracy. Of course this
did not arise merely from suspension of previous cruelties, or better
laws, or better administration. These, indeed, were essential conditions,
but the active transforming cause here was the principle and system of
which such amendments formed the detail: the grand and new idea of the
sovereign people, composed of free and equal citizens,--or liberty and
equality, to use words which so profoundly moved the French nation half
a century ago. It was this comprehensive political idea which acted
with electric effect upon the Athenians, creating within them a host
of sentiments, motives, sympathies, and capacities to which they had
before been strangers. Democracy in Grecian antiquity possessed the
privilege, not only of kindling an earnest and unanimous attachment to
the constitution in the bosoms of the citizens, but also of creating an
energy of public and private action, such as could never be obtained
under an oligarchy, where the utmost that could be hoped for was a
passive acquiescence and obedience. Mr. Burke has remarked that the
mass of the people are generally very indifferent about theories of
government; but such indifference--although improvements in the practical
working of all governments tend to foster it--is hardly to be expected
among any people who exhibit decided mental activity and spirit on other
matters; and the reverse was unquestionably true, in the year 500 B.C.,
among the communities of ancient Greece. Theories of government were
there anything but a dead letter; they were connected with emotions of
the strongest as well as of the most opposite character. The theory of
a permanent ruling One, for example, was universally odious: that of
a ruling Few, though acquiesced in, was never positively attractive,
unless either where it was associated with the maintenance of peculiar
education and habits, as at Sparta, or where it presented itself as the
only antithesis to democracy, the latter having by peculiar circumstances
become an object of terror. But the theory of democracy was pre-eminently
seductive; creating in the mass of the citizens an intense positive
attachment, and disposing them to voluntary action and suffering on its
behalf, such as no coercion on the part of other governments could extort.

Herodotus, in his comparison of the three sorts of government, puts in
the front rank of the advantages of democracy, “its most splendid name
and promise,”--its power of enlisting the hearts of the citizens in
support of their constitution, and of providing for all a common bond
of union and fraternity. This is what even democracy did not always
do: but it was what no other government in Greece could do: a reason
alone sufficient to stamp it as the best government, and presenting the
greatest chance of beneficent results, for a Grecian community. Among
the Athenian citizens, certainly, it produced a strength and unanimity
of positive political sentiment, such as has rarely been seen in the
history of mankind, which excites our surprise and admiration the more
when we compare it with the apathy which had preceded,--and which is
even applied as the natural state of the public mind in Solon’s famous
proclamation against neutrality in a sedition. Because democracy happens
to be unpalatable to some modern readers, they have been accustomed to
look upon the sentiment here described only in its least honourable
manifestations,--in the caricatures of Aristophanes, or in the empty
commonplaces of rhetorical declaimers. But it is not in this way that the
force, the earnestness, or the binding value of democratical sentiment
at Athens is to be measured. We must listen to it as it comes from the
lips of Pericles, while he is strenuously enforcing upon the people those
active duties for which it both implanted the stimulus and supplied the
courage; or from the oligarchical Nicias in the harbour of Syracuse,
when he is endeavouring to revive the courage of his despairing troops
for one last death-struggle, and when he appeals to their democratical
patriotism as to the only flame yet alive and burning even in that moment
of agony. From the time of Clisthenes downward, the creation of this new
mighty impulse makes an entire revolution in the Athenian character. And
if the change still stood out in so prominent a manner before the eyes of
Herodotus, much more must it have been felt by the contemporaries among
whom it occurred.

The attachment of an Athenian citizen to his democratical constitution
comprised two distinct veins of sentiment: first, his rights, protection,
and advantages derived from it; next, his obligations of exertion and
sacrifice towards it and with reference to it. Neither of these two
veins of sentiment was ever wholly absent; but according as the one
or the other was present at different times in varying proportions,
the patriotism of the citizen was a very different feeling. That which
Herodotus remarks is, the extraordinary efforts of heart and hand which
the Athenians suddenly displayed,--the efficacy of the active sentiment
throughout the bulk of the citizens; and we shall observe even more
memorable evidences of the same phenomenon in tracing down the history
from Clisthenes to the end of the Peloponnesian War: we shall trace a
series of events and motives eminently calculated to stimulate that
self-imposed labour and discipline which the early democracy had first
called forth. But when we advance farther down, from the restoration of
the democracy after the Thirty Tyrants to the time of Demosthenes, we
venture upon this brief anticipation, in the conviction that one period
of Grecian history can be thoroughly understood only by contrasting it
with another,--we shall find a sensible change in Athenian patriotism.
The active sentiment of obligation is comparatively inoperative, the
citizen, it is true, has a keen sense of the value of the democracy as
protecting him and insuring to him valuable rights, and he is, moreover,
willing to perform his ordinary sphere of legal duties towards it; but he
looks upon it as a thing established, and capable of maintaining itself
in a due measure of foreign ascendency, without any such personal efforts
as those which his forefathers cheerfully imposed upon themselves. The
orations of Demosthenes contain melancholy proofs of such altered tone
of patriotism,--of that languor, paralysis, and waiting for others to
act, which preceded the catastrophe of Chæronea, notwithstanding an
unabated attachment to the democracy as a source of protection and good
government. That same preternatural activity which the allies of Sparta,
at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, both denounced and admired in
the Athenians, is noted by the orator as now belonging to their enemy
Philip.

Such variations in the scale of national energy pervade history, modern
as well as ancient, but in regard to Grecian history, especially, they
can never be overlooked. For a certain measure, not only of positive
political attachment, but also of active self-devotion, military
readiness, and personal effort, was the indispensable condition of
maintaining Hellenic autonomy, either in Athens or elsewhere; and became
so more than ever when the Macedonians were once organised under an
enterprising and semi-Hellenised prince. The democracy was the first
creative cause of that astonishing personal and many-sided energy which
marked the Athenian character, for a century downwards from Clisthenes.

That the same ultra-Hellenic activity did not longer continue, is
referable to other causes, which will be hereafter in part explained. No
system of government, even supposing it to be very much better and more
faultless than the Athenian democracy, can ever pretend to accomplish its
legitimate end apart from the personal character of the people, or to
supersede the necessity of individual virtue and vigour.

During the half-century immediately preceding the battle of Chæronea,
the Athenians had lost that remarkable energy which distinguished them
during the first century of their democracy, and had fallen much more
nearly to a level with the other Greeks, in common with whom they were
obliged to yield to the pressure of a foreign enemy. We here briefly
notice their last period of languor, in contrast with the first burst of
democratical fervour under Clisthenes, now opening--a feeling which will
be found, as we proceed, to continue for a longer period than could have
been reasonably anticipated, but which was too high-strung to become a
perpetual and inherent attribute of any community.[b]


FOOTNOTES

[17] So in the Italian republics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries,
the nobles long continued to possess the exclusive right of being elected
to the consulate and the great offices of state, even after those offices
had come to be elected by the people: the habitual misrule and oppression
of the nobles gradually put an end to this right, and even created in
many towns a resolution positively to exclude them. At Milan, towards
the end of the twelfth century, the twelve consuls, with the Podestat,
possessed all the powers of government: these consuls were nominated by
one hundred electors chosen by and among the people.

[Illustration: THEATRE OF PHOCIS]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XV. THE FIRST FOREIGN INVASION

    Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground;
    No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,
    But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
    And all the muse’s tales seem truly told,
    Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
    The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon;
    Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,
    Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone:
    Age shakes Athena’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.

                                                        --BYRON.


Curtius in the well-known passage which begins his celebrated history
asks where is the division between Asia and Europe, pointing out that
the islands of the Ægean Sea are practically stepping-stones between
Asia Minor and Greece, and that from one point of view the intervening
bits of water are rather connecting links than a severing barrier. This
claim has much to support it in the view of a maritime people; yet from
another point of view a very tangible barrier does exist between the two
continents. The Persians, as is well known, having their native seat
far inland had a standing dread of water. For them the Ægean Sea was
unquestionably a barrier, not a bridge. It would probably have been long
before they attempted to cross this barrier had not the initiative been
taken from the other side. But while it was far from Asia to Europe, it
was not far, in the point of view of the sea-faring Greek, from Europe to
Asia. To him the sea was a bridge.

No one knows how early the Greeks themselves crossed the various
“bridges” of the Ægean and began to make settlements in Asia Minor, but
it is known that in a very early day these settlements on the eastern
shore had come to play a most important part in Grecian life. It is
supposed that in the early day the inhabitants of Asia Minor welcomed the
Greek colonist who became valuable to them as a manufacturer, and, in
particular, as a trader.

It was long before there seemed anything menacing in the growth of these
scattered colonies, and, before the powers of Asia Minor had aroused to
a right understanding of the political import of the colonisation that
had gone on under their eyes, the whole coast had come practically under
the control of these peaceful invaders from the West. Then indeed the
Lydians, in particular, were aroused to a realisation of what they had
permitted, and sought to make amends by subjecting the colonies that had
hitherto been their own masters. The attempt was first made on a large
scale by Crœsus, but, before he had completed the task, he was himself
overthrown by Cyrus, and the standing broil with the Greek colonies of
the coast was one of the perquisites of war which Crœsus handed over to
the Persians.

Cyrus himself seems to have thought the Greeks of small importance, as
he left a subordinate to dispose of them, while he turned his personal
attention to the more powerful Babylonians, but the Greeks were supported
by the memory of some generations of freedom, and they did not prove
the contemptible foe that they seemed. Cities once conquered were prone
to revolt, and the indomitable spirit of the Greeks on this western
border of the Persian territory proved a standing source of annoyance.
At last Darius determined to put an end to the Grecians once for all,
and it was his general who for the first time led a Persian host across
the Hellespont and into the precincts of Greece itself. The repulse of
this host by the Athenians on the field of Marathon was an event which
the Greeks of a later time never tired of celebrating, and which has
taken its place in later history as one of the half-dozen great decisive
battles of the world. Subjected to a critical view this battle of
Marathon, as we shall have occasion to see presently, was not quite so
decisive an event as the Athenians were disposed to think it. Still it
turned the Persian horde back from Greece for a decade. Then under Xerxes
came that stupendous half-organised army that has been the wonder of all
after-times; and the glorious events of Thermopylæ, Salamis, Platæa, and
Mycale in rapid succession added to the glory of Greek prowess and saved
the life of Greece as a nation--saved it from an outer foe that it might
die by its own hand. The events of this memorable epoch are among the
most important in all Grecian history, and we must view them in detail,
drawing largely for our knowledge of them on the great original source,
Herodotus, but noting also the impression which they have made upon many
generations of historians of other times and other lands.[a]


THE ORIGIN OF ANIMOSITY

Herodotus, born 484, in the midst of the Median wars, wondered at this
great conflict between the Greek and barbarian worlds and sought its
causes in times more remote than the Trojan war, even in the mythological
period.

[Sidenote: [506 B.C.]]

“The most learned of the Persians,” he says, “assert that the Phœnicians
were the original exciters of contention. This nation migrated from the
borders of the Red Sea to the place of their present settlement, and
soon distinguished themselves by their long and enterprising voyages.
They exported to Argos, among other places, the produce of Egypt and
Assyria. Argos, at that period, was the most famous of all those states
which are now comprehended under the general appellation of Greece. On
their arrival here, the Phœnicians exposed their merchandise to sale;
after remaining about six days, and when they had almost disposed of
their different articles of commerce, the king’s daughter, whom both
nations agree in calling Io, came among a great number of other women,
to visit them at their station. Whilst these females, standing near the
stern of the vessel, amused themselves with bargaining for such things
as attracted their curiosity, the Phœnicians, in conjunction, made an
attempt to seize their persons. The greater part of them escaped, but Io,
with many others, remained a captive. They carried them on board, and
directed their course for Egypt.

“The relation of the Greeks differs essentially; but this, according to
the Persians, was the cause of Io’s arrival in Egypt, and the first act
of violence which was committed. In process of time, certain Grecians,
concerning whose country writers disagree, but who were really of Crete,
are reported to have touched at Tyre, and to have carried away Europa,
the daughter of the prince. Thus far the Greeks had only retaliated; but
they were certainly guilty of the second provocation. They made a voyage
in a vessel of war to Æa, a city of Colchis, near the river Phasis; and,
after having accomplished the more immediate object of their expedition,
they forcibly carried off the king’s daughter, Medea. The king of Colchis
despatched a herald to demand satisfaction for the affront, and the
restitution of the princess; but the Greeks replied, that they should
make no reparation in the present instance, as the violence formerly
offered to Io still remained unexpiated.

“In the age which followed, Alexander [Paris], the son of Priam,
encouraged by the memory of these events, determined on obtaining a wife
from Greece, by means of similar violence; fully persuaded that this,
like former wrongs, would never be avenged.

“Upon the loss of Helen, the Greeks at first employed messengers to
demand her person, as well as a compensation for the affront. All the
satisfaction they received was reproach for the injury which had been
offered to Medea; and they were further asked, how, under circumstances
entirely alike, they could reasonably require what they themselves had
denied.

“Hitherto the animosity betwixt the two nations extended no farther
than to acts of private violence. But at this period, the Greeks
certainly laid the foundation of subsequent contention; who, before the
Persians invaded Europe, doubtless made military incursions into Asia.
The Persians appear to be of opinion, that they who offer violence
to women must be insensible to the impressions of justice, but that
such provocations are as much beneath revenge, as the women themselves
are undeserving of regard: it being obvious, that all females thus
circumstanced must have been more or less accessary to the fact. They
asserted also, that although women had been forcibly carried away from
Asia, they had never resented the affront. The Greeks, on the contrary,
to avenge the rape of a Lacedæmonian woman, had assembled a mighty fleet,
entered Asia in a hostile manner, and had totally overthrown the empire
of Priam. Since which event they had always considered the Greeks as the
public enemies of their nation.”

[Sidenote: [515-499 B.C.]]

Such were the causes of the animosity between Persians and Greeks as
Herodotus conceived them. But the modern historian gives scant credence
to these tales. In reality we do not have to go back to the abduction
of Io and Helen by the Asiatics, and of Europa and Medea by the Greeks
to explain this mutual hate. Equally trivial are such incidents as the
flight of the physician Democedes, who deceived Darius that he might
return to his native Croton; and the desire of the queen, Atossa, to
include Spartan and Athenian women among her slaves. The appeals of
Hippias to be reinstated in Athens, and of the Aleuadæ of Thessaly to
be delivered from the enemies that oppressed them had, to be sure, a
somewhat more serious influence. But the real cause was Persia’s power.
This empire had at that time attained its natural limits. Being nearly
surrounded by deserts, the sea, wide rivers, and high mountains, there
was but one direction in which she could expand, the northwest; and on
that side lay a famous country, Greece, whose independence affronted
the pride of the Great King. Cyrus had conquered Asia; Cambyses a part
of Africa, so Darius, not to be outdone by his predecessors, attacked
Europe. The Sardian satrap, Artaphernes, had already replied to the
overtures of Clisthenes by demanding that Athens should come under the
rule of the Great King. Darius had reorganised his empire and restored
in his provinces the order so rudely shaken by the usurpation of the
Magian and the efforts of the conquered nations to regain their freedom;
it was necessary moreover to furnish occupation for the warlike ardour
which still characterised the Persians. With this end in view he planned
an important expedition. The Scythians had formerly invaded Asia; it was
the recollection of that injury and the desire to subjugate Thrace which
adjoined his own empire that pointed out to Darius the route he was to
follow. He set out from Susa with a numerous army, crossed the Bosporus
on a bridge of boats constructed by the Samian, Mandrocles, and entered
Europe bringing seven or eight hundred thousand men in his train, among
whom were some Asiatic Greeks commanded by the tyrants of the various
cities. He traversed Thrace, crossed the Danube (Ister) on a bridge
of boats which he left the Greeks to guard, then penetrated well into
Scythia in pursuit of an enemy whom it was impossible to seize. Darius
had told the Greeks not to expect him to return after the expiration of
sixty days. This time having passed without news of him, the Athenian,
Miltiades, tyrant of the Chersonesus, proposed to destroy the bridge
that the way into Thrace might not be left open to the Scythians whom
he supposed victorious, also that the Persian army might be destroyed
by them should it still exist. Histiæus of Miletus opposed this plan,
representing to the chiefs, who were all tyrants of Greek cities, that
they would surely be overthrown the day they lost the support of their
great leader. This reasoning saved Darius, who, returning from his
vain pursuit, left with Megabyzus eighty thousand men to complete the
subjugation of Thrace, and also to conquer Macedonia.

Megabyzus conquered Perinthus, that part of Thrace which still resisted,
Pæonia, and called upon the king of Macedonia to render him homage of
earth and water. Amyntas accorded this, and Megabyzus was able to report
to his master that the Persian empire at last adjoined Greece in Europe.
With this the expedition came to an end. Histiæus’ services were rewarded
by the gift of a vast territory on the banks of the Strymon. The site had
been well chosen, near the gold and silver mines of Mount Pangæ, at the
foot of hills rich in building woods and near the mouth of a river that
offered an excellent port on the Ægean Sea. Myrcinus, founded there by
Histiæus, would soon have attained the growth and prosperity that were to
signalise Amphipolis later on the same spot, had not Megabyzus, in alarm,
warned the king of the necessity of preventing this Greek from carrying
out the plans he meditated. Histiæus was summoned to Sardis on pretext
of being needed for an important consultation, and once there, Darius
told him simply that he could not do without his friendship and advice.
Histiæus was obliged to accept these gilded chains.


THE IONIC REVOLT

[Sidenote: [499-494 B.C.]]

Several years had passed in unbroken peace when a trivial matter and
an obscure man threw all in disorder again. Naxos, the largest of the
Cyclades, was powerful at that time, ruling over several islands,
possessing a considerable navy and able to place in the field eight
thousand hoplites. Unfortunately, like every other Grecian state, Naxos
was divided into two factions, the popular and the aristocratic. This
latter destroyed itself by an unpardonable crime, similar to that of
which Lucretia was victim about the same time in Rome. Sent into exile,
they proposed to Aristagoras, Histiæus’ son-in-law and, in his absence,
tyrant of Miletus, to take them back to their island. He acceded readily,
beholding in fancy the Cyclades, possibly also Eubœa as already under
his dominion. But unable to accomplish such an enterprise without
help, he succeeded in interesting the satrap of Sardis, Artaphernes,
who placed at his disposal a fleet of two hundred ships commanded by
Megabates. This Persian rebelled at being under the orders of a Greek and
to avenge a slight received in a quarrel that broke out between them,
sent information to the Naxians. The success of the expedition depended
on secrecy; this once destroyed, it was bound to fail. Aristagoras
held to the project four months, spending his own treasure as well as
that given him for the enterprise by the king. He feared being obliged
to make good this loss, and decided that revolt offered a preferable
alternative, in which choice he was aided by the secret instigations of
Histiæus. The army he had led before Naxos was still united, and forming
part of it were all the tyrants of the cities on the Asiatic coast.
These he seized and sent back to their respective cities where they were
placed under sentence of death or exile, then established democracy
everywhere (499 B.C.). After these deeds, finding it necessary to attach
some powerful ally to his cause, he visited Lacedæmon. Cleomenes, its
king, questioned him as to the distance of the Persian capital from the
sea. “A three months’ march,” replied Aristagoras. “In that case you
will leave this place to-morrow,” said the king, “it would be folly to
propose to Lacedæmonians to put a three months’ march between themselves
and the sea.” Aristagoras tried to bribe him to consent; but for once
Spartan virtue was incorruptible and the Ionian went on to Athens. Given
permission to speak in the assembly, he described the riches of Persia,
and laid stress on the advantage the Greeks would have over a foe to
whom the use of spear and shield was unknown, and finally adduced the
fact that Miletus was a colony of Athens. The Athenians had more than
one grievance against the Persians--the refuge given to Hippias, and the
order to recall the tyrant received as a reply to their remonstrances.
Aristagoras had little difficulty in persuading them to assure their own
safety by carrying the war with which they were menaced over into the
enemy’s country, they also believing doubtless that the matter was but
a private quarrel between the satrap and Aristagoras. They decreed to
the envoy twenty vessels to which were added five triremes from Eretria,
this state thus repaying the aid it had formerly received from Miletus
in its war against Chalcis. The allies proceeded to Ephesus and thence
to Sardis, which they took and pillaged. The houses were thatched with
reeds, and, a soldier accidentally setting fire to one of the roofs, the
entire city, with the exception of the citadel to which Artaphernes had
retired, was consumed, together with the temple of Cybele, venerated as
deeply by the Persians as by the Lydians (498). Artaphernes meanwhile had
recalled the army that was besieging Miletus, and from all sides gathered
the provincial troops; the Athenians began to think of retreat. A defeat
they suffered near Ephesus, possibly also treason among themselves,
completed their dissatisfaction. They boarded their ships and returned to
Athens, leaving their allies to extricate themselves from the difficulty
in which they were placed as best they could.

The Ionians continued the contest, drawing into their movement all the
cities on the Hellespont and the Propontis, together with Chalcedonia
and Byzantium, the Carians and the island of Cyprus. The Persians got
together several armies; one, directed northward against the cities of
the Hellespont, took several towns, then fell back towards the south
against the Carians, who, after losing two battles, surrendered. Another
attacked Cyprus with the Phœnician fleet that had been defeated by the
Ionians, but the treachery of a Cypriote chief delivered the island
over to the enemy. Acting jointly in the centre, Artaphernes and Otanes
captured Clazomenæ and Cyme, and then advanced with a considerable
force against Miletus, the last bulwark of Ionia. Here Aristagoras was
no longer chief; he had basely deserted and escaped to Myrcinus, and
was later killed in an attack on a Thracian city. As regards Histiæus,
Darius, deceived by his promises, had recently restored him to liberty,
but the Milesians, having no liking for tyrants, refused to receive him.
Getting together a small force of Mytilenæans he became a pirate and was
killed in a descent on the Asiatic coast. The Ionians assembled at the
Panionium, deliberated as to the best means of saving Miletus. It was
decided to risk a naval battle; Chios furnished a hundred ships, Lesbos
seventy, Samos sixty, and Miletus itself eighty, the fleet numbering in
all three hundred and fifty-three ships. The Persians had six hundred.

[Sidenote: [494-492 B.C.]]

In the Greek fleet was a very able man who would have saved Ionia had she
been willing to be saved. This was Dionysius, a Phocæan, who demonstrated
to the allies that strict discipline and constant practice in manœuvres
would assure them success. For seven days he drilled the crews in all the
movements of naval warfare, but at the end of this time the effeminate
Ionians had had enough; they left the ships, pitched their tents on land,
and forgot that the enemy existed. As was unavoidable after taking such
a course, their moral fibre became relaxed and treachery began to show
among them. When the day of battle arrived, the Samians, in the hottest
of the action, deserted their post and made for their own island. The
Ionians were defeated despite the splendid courage of the Chian sailors
and of Dionysius, who himself took three of the enemy’s vessels. When he
saw that the battle was lost he boldly pushed on to Tyre and sank several
merchant ships, retiring to Sicily with the wealth obtained. The rest of
his life was passed in pursuing on the open sea Phœnician, Carthaginian,
and Tyrrhenian ships.

All hope was lost for Miletus; it was taken and its inhabitants
transported to Ampe, at the mouth of the Tigris (494). Chios, Lesbos,
Tenedos, shared Miletus’ fate, and several cities of the Hellespont were
destroyed by fire. The inhabitants of Chalcedon and Byzantium abandoned
these cities to seek a home on the northwest coast of the Pontus Euxinus,
in Mesambria. Miltiades also deemed it prudent to leave the Chersonesus;
he returned to Athens, where he was soon to find himself arrayed against
those very Persians from whom he now sought flight. The news of Ionia’s
downfall echoed sadly throughout Greece, Athens, in particular, being
affected. Phrynichus presented a play entitled the _Capture of Miletus_
at which the entire audience burst into tears, and the poet was sentenced
to pay a fine of a thousand drachmæ “for having revived the memory of a
great domestic misfortune.” Tears like these expiate many faults.

Meanwhile Darius had not forgotten that after the burning of Sardis he
had sworn to be revenged on the Athenians. He gave to his son-in-law,
Mardonius, command over a newly raised army that was to enter Europe by
way of Thrace while the fleet followed along the coast. Mardonius, to
conciliate the Greeks in Asia, restored to them a democratic government,
bearing in mind that the authors of the recent revolt had been two of the
tyrants that Persia supported.

Megabazus had already subdued all the nations between the Hellespont and
Macedonia. Mardonius crossed the Strymon and gave his fleet rendezvous
in the Thermaic Gulf. He took Thasos and was passing along the coast of
Chalcidice when on doubling the promontory of Mount Athos, which rises
nineteen hundred and fifty metres out of the sea, his fleet encountered
a terrific gale that wrecked three hundred ships and destroyed twenty
thousand lives. About the same time Mardonius, attacked at night by the
Thracians, lost many of his men and was himself wounded. He continued the
expedition, but was so enfeebled after the subjugation of the Brygians
that he felt himself obliged to return to Asia.

A more formidable armament was at once prepared. Before sending it forth
Darius despatched heralds to Greece demanding homage of earth and water,
and, in the case of maritime cities, a contingent of galleys. The greater
part of the islands and several cities yielded to this demand, Ægina even
anticipating the desire of the Great King. The indignation of Athens and
Sparta was such that they forgot the respect due to envoys. “You want
earth and water?” replied the Spartans, “very well, you shall have both,”
and the unfortunate men were thrown into a well. The Greeks cast them
into the barathrum, and if a not very authentic tale may be believed,
condemned to death the interpreter who had defiled the Greek tongue by
translating into it the orders of a barbarian.[18]


WAR WITH ÆGINA

[Sidenote: [492 B.C.]]

Athens was constantly at war with the Æginetans, and she now seized an
opportunity their conduct offered to accuse them to the Lacedæmonians of
treachery to the common cause. This appeal to the Spartans was equivalent
to acknowledging their claims to supremacy as the recognised chiefs of
Hellas, the exigencies of the situation having silenced pride. Cleomenes
shared the resentment of the Athenians, and proceeded to Ægina to seize
the offenders. But his colleague Demaratus, who had already betrayed him
in an expedition into Attica, informed the islanders and the enterprise
fell through.

To put an end to his colleague’s vexatious opposition Cleomenes caused
it to be declared by the Pythia, whom he had won over, that Demaratus
was not of royal blood, thus obtaining his deposition. Leotychides,
who had joined with him in this scheme, succeeded the deposed king, to
whom he was next of kin, and by outrageous treatment drove him from
Sparta. Demaratus sought out Hippias in his exile and, like him, begged
hospitality of the great protector of kings.

Cleomenes next proceeded to Ægina and took thence ten hostages whom he
delivered over to the Athenians. This was the last public act of the
turbulent chief who later became insane and perished miserably by his own
hand; Leotychides, convicted of having taken bribes from the enemy he
should have stubbornly opposed, died in exile. “Thus,” says Herodotus,
“did the gods punish the perjury of these two princes.” Meanwhile the
Æginetans demanded the return of their hostages, and, Athens refusing to
surrender them, they attacked and captured the sacred galley that was
carrying to Cape Sunium many prominent citizens. War immediately broke
out. An Æginetan attempted to overthrow, in his island, the oligarchical
government. He got possession of the citadel, but reinforcements not
reaching him in time, he left in the hands of the enemy seven hundred of
his men, who were massacred without mercy. One of these poor creatures
succeeded in escaping and made his way to the temple of Ceres where he
expected to find safe refuge. The gates being closed, he clung with
both hands to the latch-ring, and all efforts to make him let go being
unavailing, the butchers cut off his hands, which even in the convulsions
of death still preserved their frenzied hold. Herodotus, accustomed as
he was to civil war, raises not a word of protest against this slaughter
of seven hundred citizens, he remarks only upon the sacrilege committed
on account of one of them. “No sacrifice,” he says piously, “will be
sufficient to appease the wrath of the goddess.” The nobles were all
ejected from the island before they had expiated their act of sacrilege.
This war did not close, in fact, until nine years after the second
expedition of the Persians.[d]


THE FIRST INVASION

[Sidenote: [492-490 B.C.]]

Whilst these two nations were thus engaged in hostilities, the domestic
of the Persian monarch continued regularly to bid him “Remember the
Athenians,” which incident was further enforced by the unremitting
endeavours of the Pisistratidæ to criminate that people. The king himself
was very glad of this pretext, effectually to reduce such of the Grecian
states as had refused him “earth and water.” He accordingly removed
from his command Mardonius, who had been unsuccessful in his naval
undertakings; he appointed two other officers to commence an expedition
against Eretria and Athens; these were Datis, a native of Media, and
Artaphernes his nephew, who were commanded totally to subdue both the
above places, and to bring the inhabitants captive before him.

[Illustration: GREEK FOOT SOLDIER]

These commanders, as soon as they had received their appointment,
advanced to Aleum in Cilicia, with a large and well-provided body of
infantry. Here, as soon as they encamped, they were joined by a numerous
reinforcement of marines, agreeably to the orders which had been given.
Not long afterwards, those vessels arrived to take the cavalry on board,
which in the preceding year Darius had commanded his tributaries to
supply. The horse and foot immediately embarked, and proceeded to Ionia,
in a fleet of six hundred triremes. They did not, keeping along the
coast, advance in a right line to Thrace and the Hellespont, but loosing
from Samos, they passed through the midst of the islands, and the Icarian
Sea, fearing, as we should suppose, to double the promontory of Athos,
by which they had in a former year severely suffered. They were further
induced to this course by the island of Naxos which before they had
omitted to take.

Proceeding therefore from the Icarian Sea to this island, which was
the first object of their enterprise, they met with no resistance. The
Naxians, remembering their former calamities, fled in alarm to the
mountains. Those taken captive were made slaves, the sacred buildings and
the city were burned. This done, the Persians sailed to the other islands.

At this juncture the inhabitants of Delos deserted their island and
fled to Tenos. The Persian fleet was directing its course to Delos,
when Datis, hastening to the van, obliged them to station themselves at
Rhenea, which lies beyond it. As soon as he learned to what place the
Delians had retired, he sent a herald to them with this message: “Why, oh
sacred people, do you fly, thinking so injuriously of me? If I had not
received particular directions from the king my master to this effect,
I, of my own accord, would never have molested you, nor offered violence
to a place in which two deities were born. Return therefore, and inhabit
your island as before.” Having sent this message, he offered upon one of
their altars incense to the amount of three hundred talents [£60,000 or
$300,000].

[Sidenote: [490 B.C.]]

After this measure, Datis led his whole army against Eretria, taking
with him the Ionians and Æolians. The Delians say, that at the moment of
his departure the island of Delos was affected by a tremulous motion,
a circumstance which, as the Delians affirm, never happened before or
since. The deity, as it should seem by this prodigy, forewarned mankind
of the evils which were about to happen. Greece certainly suffered more
and greater calamities during the reigns of Darius son of Hystaspes,
Xerxes son of Darius, and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, than in all the
preceding twenty generations; these calamities arose partly from the
Persians, and partly from the contentions for power among its own great
men. It was not therefore without reason that Delos, immovable before,
should then be shaken, which event indeed had been predicted by the
oracle:

    “Although Delos be immovable, I will shake it.”

It is also worth observation, that, translated into the Greek tongue,
Darius signifies one who compels, Xerxes, a warrior, Artaxerxes, a great
warrior; and thus they would call them if they used the corresponding
terms.

The barbarians, sailing from Delos to the other islands, took on
board reinforcements from them all, together with the children of the
inhabitants as hostages. Cruising round the different islands, they
arrived off Carystus; but the people of this place positively refused
either to give hostages, or to serve against their neighbours, Athens and
Eretria. They were consequently besieged, and their lands wasted; and
they were finally compelled to surrender themselves to the Persians.

The Eretrians, on the approach of the Persian army, applied to the
Athenians for assistance; this the Athenians did not think proper to
withhold; they accordingly sent them the four thousand men to whom
those lands had been assigned which formerly belonged to the Chalcidian
cavalry; but the Eretrians, notwithstanding their application to the
Athenians, were far from being firm and determined. They were so divided
in their resolutions, that whilst some of them advised the city to be
deserted, and a retreat made to the rocks of Eubœa, others, expecting a
reward from the Persians, prepared to betray their country. Æschines, the
son of Nothon, an Eretrian of the highest rank, observing these different
sentiments, informed the Athenians of the state of affairs, advising them
to return home, lest they should be involved in the common ruin. The
Athenians attended to this advice of Æschines, and by passing over to
Oropus, escaped the impending danger.

The Persians, arriving at Eretria, came near Tamynæ, Chærea, and Ægilia;
making themselves masters of these places, they disembarked the horse,
and prepared to attack the enemy. The Eretrians did not think proper
to advance and engage them; the opinion for defending the city had
prevailed, and their whole attention was occupied in preparing for a
siege. The Persians endeavoured to storm the place, and a contest of
six days was attended with very considerable loss on both sides. On the
seventh, the city was betrayed to the enemy by two of the more eminent
citizens, Euphorbus, son of Alcimachus, and Philager, son of Cyneas.
As soon as the Persians got possession of the place, they pillaged and
burned the temples to avenge the burning of their own temples at Sardis.
The people, according to the orders of Darius, were made slaves.

After this victory at Eretria, the Persians stayed a few days, and then
sailed to Attica, driving all before them, and thinking to treat the
Athenians as they had done the Eretrians. There was a place in Attica
called Marathon, not far from Eretria, well adapted for the motions of
cavalry: to this place therefore they were conducted by Hippias, son of
Pisistratus.

As soon as the Athenians heard this, they advanced to the same spot,
under the conduct of ten leaders, with the view of repelling force
by force. The last of these was Miltiades. His father Cimon, son of
Stesagoras, had been formerly driven from Athens by the influence of
Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates. During his exile, he had obtained the
prize at the Olympic games, in the chariot-race of four horses. This
honour, however, he transferred to Miltiades his uterine brother. At
the Olympic games which next followed he was again victorious, and with
the same mares. This honour he suffered to be assigned to Pisistratus,
on condition of his being recalled; a reconciliation ensued, and he was
permitted to return. Being victorious a third time, on the same occasion,
and with the same mares, he was put to death by the sons of Pisistratus,
Pisistratus himself being then dead. He was assassinated in the night,
near the Prytaneum, by some villains sent for the purpose: he was buried
in the approach to the city, near the hollow way; and in the same spot
were interred the mares which had three times obtained the prize at the
Olympic games. If we except the mares of Evagoras of Sparta, no other
ever obtained a similar honour. At this period, Stesagoras, the eldest
son of Cimon, resided in the Chersonesus with his uncle Miltiades;
the youngest was brought up at Athens under Cimon himself, and named
Miltiades, from the founder of the Chersonesus.

This Miltiades, the Athenian leader, in advancing from the Chersonesus,
escaped from two incidents which alike threatened his life: he was
pursued as far as Imbros by the Phœnicians, who were exceedingly desirous
to take him alive, and present him to the King; on his return home,
where he thought himself secure, his enemies accused, and brought him
to a public trial, under pretence of his aiming at the sovereignty of
the Chersonesus; from this also he escaped, and was afterwards chosen a
general of the Athenians by the suffrages of the people.

The Athenian leaders, before they left the city, despatched Phidippides
to Sparta: he was an Athenian by birth, and his daily employment was that
of a courier. To this Phidippides, as he himself affirmed, and related
to the Athenians, the god Pan appeared on Mount Parthenius, which is
beyond Tegea. The deity called him by his name, and commanded him to ask
the Athenians why they so entirely neglected him, who not only wished
them well, but who had frequently rendered them service, and would do so
again. All this the Athenians believed, and as soon as the state of their
affairs permitted, they erected a temple to Pan near the citadel: ever
since the above period, they venerate the god by annual sacrifices, and
the race of torches.

Phidippides, who was sent by the Athenian generals, and who related his
having met with Pan, arrived at Sparta on the second day of his departure
from Athens. He went immediately to the magistrates, and thus addressed
them: “Men of Lacedæmon, the Athenians supplicate your assistance, and
entreat you not to suffer the most ancient city of Greece to fall into
the hands of the barbarians: Eretria is already subdued, and Greece
weakened by the loss of that illustrious place.” After this speech of
Phidippides, the Lacedæmonians resolved to assist the Athenians; but
they were prevented from doing this immediately by the prejudice of an
inveterate custom. This was the ninth day of the month, and it was a
practice with them to undertake no enterprise before the moon was at the
full: for this, therefore, they waited.

In the night before Hippias conducted the barbarians to the plains of
Marathon, he saw this vision: he thought that he lay with his mother.
The inference which he drew from this was, that he should again return
to Athens, be restored to his authority, and die in his own house of old
age: he was then executing the office of a general. The prisoners taken
in Eretria he removed to Ægilia, an island belonging to the Styreans; the
vessels which arrived at Marathon, he stationed in the port, and drew up
the barbarians in order as they disembarked. Whilst he was thus employed,
he was seized with a fit of sneezing, attended with a very unusual cough.
The agitation into which he was thrown, being an old man, was so violent,
that as his teeth were loose, one of them dropped out of his mouth upon
the sand. Much pains were taken to find it, but in vain; upon which
Hippias remarked with a sigh to those around him, “This country is not
ours, nor shall we ever become masters of it--my lost tooth possesses all
that belongs to me.”

Hippias conceived that he saw in the above incident, the accomplishment
of his vision. In the meantime the Athenians, drawing themselves up
in military order near the temple of Hercules, were joined by the
whole force of the Platæans. The Athenians had formerly submitted to
many difficulties on account of the Platæans, who now, to return the
obligation, gave themselves up to their direction. The occasion was this:
the Platæans being oppressed by the Thebans, solicited the protection of
Cleomenes the son of Anaxandrides, and of such Lacedæmonians as were at
hand; they disclaimed, however, any interference, for which they assigned
this reason:

“From us,” said they, “situated at so great a distance, you can expect
but little assistance; for before we can even receive intelligence of
your danger, you may be effectually reduced to servitude; we would rather
recommend you to apply to the Athenians, who are not only near, but able
to protect you.”

The Lacedæmonians, in saying this, did not so much consider the interest
of the Platæans, as they were desirous of seeing the Athenians harassed
by a Bœotian war. The advice was nevertheless accepted, and the Platæans
going to Athens, first offered a solemn sacrifice to the twelve deities,
and then sitting near the altar, in the attitude of supplicants, they
placed themselves formally under the protection of the Athenians. Upon
this the Thebans led an army against Platæa, to defend which, the
Athenians appeared with a body of forces. As the two armies were about to
engage, the Corinthians interfered; their endeavours to reconcile them
so far prevailed, that it was agreed, on the part of both nations, to
suffer such of the people of Bœotia as did not choose to be ranked as
Bœotians, to follow their own inclinations. Having effected this, the
Corinthians retired, and their example was followed by the Athenians;
these latter were on their return attacked by the Bœotians, whom they
defeated. Passing over the boundaries, which the Corinthians had marked
out, they determined that Asopus and Hysiæ should be the future limits
between the Thebans and Platæans. The Platæans having thus given
themselves up to the Athenians, came to their assistance at Marathon.

The Athenian leaders were greatly divided in opinion; some thought that
a battle was by no means to be hazarded, as they were so inferior to
the Medes in point of number; others, among whom was Miltiades, were
anxious to engage the enemy. Of these contradictory sentiments, the less
politic appeared likely to prevail, when Miltiades addressed himself to
the polemarch, whose name was Callimachus of Aphidna. This magistrate,
elected into his office by vote, has the privilege of a casting voice:
and, according to established customs, is equal in point of dignity and
influence to the military leaders. Miltiades addressed him thus:

“Upon you, O Callimachus, it alone depends, whether Athens shall be
enslaved, or whether, in the preservation of its liberties, it shall
perpetuate your name even beyond the glory of Harmodius and Aristogiton.
Our country is now reduced to a more delicate and dangerous predicament
than it has ever before experienced; if conquered, we know our fate,
and must prepare for the tyranny of Hippias; if we overcome, our city
may be made the first in Greece. How this may be accomplished, and in
what manner it depends on you, I will explain: the sentiments of our
ten leaders are divided, some are desirous of an engagement, others the
contrary. If we do not engage, some seditious tumult will probably arise,
which may prompt many of our citizens to favour the cause of the Medes;
if we come to a battle before any evil of this kind take place, we may,
if the gods be not against us, reasonably hope for victory: all these
things are submitted to your attention, and are suspended on your will.
If you accede to my opinion, our country will be free, our city the first
in Greece.”

These arguments of Miltiades produced the desired effect upon
Callimachus, from whose interposition it was determined to fight. Those
leaders, who from the first had been solicitous to engage the enemy,
resigned to Miltiades the days of their respective command. This he
accepted, but did not think proper to commence the attack till the day of
his own particular command arrived in its course.


THE BATTLE OF MARATHON

When this happened, the Athenians were drawn up for battle in the
following order: Callimachus, as polemarch, commanded the right wing, in
conformity with the established custom of the Athenians; next followed
the tribes, ranged in close order, according to their respective ranks;
the Platæans, placed in the rear, formed the left wing. Ever since this
battle, in those solemn and public sacrifices, which are celebrated every
fifth year, the herald implores happiness for the Platæans, jointly with
the Athenians. Thus the Athenians produced a front equal in extent to
that of the Medes. The ranks in the centre were not very deep, which
of course constituted their weakest part; but the two wings were more
numerous and strong.

The preparations for the attack being thus made, and the appearance of
the victims favourable, the Athenians ran toward the barbarians. There
was betwixt the two armies an interval of about eight furlongs. The
Persians seeing them approach by running, prepared to receive them, and
as they observed the Athenians to be few in number, destitute both of
cavalry and archers, they considered them as mad, and rushing on certain
destruction; but as soon as the Greeks mingled with the enemy, they
behaved with the greatest gallantry. They were the first Greeks that we
know of, who ran to attack an enemy; they were the first also who beheld
without dismay the dress and armour of the Medes; for hitherto in Greece
the very name of a Mede excited terror.

After a long and obstinate contest, the barbarians in the centre,
composed of the Persians and the Sacæ, obliged the Greeks to give
way, and pursued the flying foe into the middle of the country. At
the same time the Athenians and Platæans, in the two wings, drove the
barbarians before them; then making an inclination toward each other, by
contracting themselves, they formed against that part of the enemy which
had penetrated and defeated the Grecian centre, and obtained a complete
victory, killing a prodigious number, and pursuing the rest to the sea,
where they set fire to their vessels.

Callimachus the polemarch, after the most signal acts of valour, lost his
life in this battle. Stesilaus also, the son of Thrasylas, and one of the
Grecian leaders, was slain. Cynægirus, son of Euphorion, after seizing
one of the vessels by the poop, had his hand cut off with an axe, and
died of his wounds: with these many other eminent Athenians perished.

In addition to their victory, the Athenians obtained possession of
seven of the enemy’s vessels. The barbarians retired with their fleet,
and taking on board the Eretrian plunder, which they had left in the
island, they passed the promontory of Sunium, thinking to circumvent the
Athenians, and arrive at their city before them. The Athenians impute the
prosecution of this measure to one of the Alcmæonidæ, who they say held
up a shield as a signal to the Persians, when they were under sail.

While they were doubling the cape of Sunium, the Athenians lost no time
in hastening to the defence of their city, and effectually prevented
the designs of the enemy. Retiring from the temple of Hercules, on the
plains of Marathon, they fixed their camp near another temple of the same
deity, in Cynosarges. The barbarians anchoring off Phalerum, the Athenian
harbour, remained there some time, and then retired to Asia.

The Persians lost in the battle of Marathon six thousand four hundred
men, the Athenians one hundred and ninety-two. In the heat of the
engagement a most remarkable incident occurred: an Athenian, the son
of Cuphagoras, whose name was Epizelus, whilst valiantly fighting, was
suddenly struck with blindness. He had received no wound, nor any kind of
injury, notwithstanding which he continued blind for the remainder of his
life. Epizelus, in relating this calamity, always declared, that during
the battle he was opposed by a man of gigantic stature, completely armed,
whose beard covered the whole of his shield: he added, that the spectre,
passing him, killed the man who stood next him.[c]

Thus far we have followed the account of Herodotus. His high repute,
for many years scoffed at, has had a sudden and cordial revival. Minute
surveys of the Grecian battle-fields have recently been made by George
Beardoe Grundy,[f] who finds Herodotus remarkably accurate in his
topography and in his sifting of evidence and discarding of what he could
not definitely substantiate. It is well to read, however, a typical
account of the battle of Marathon, by a German critic Busolt, whose
cautious use of Herodotus has made the following account of this battle
famous.[a]

At the head of the army marched Callimachus the polemarch, who in his
capacity of military chief was entitled to important privileges and
honours. Not only did he offer sacrifices and vows, and in the order of
battle assume the place of honour at the head of the right wing, but he
was also entitled to vote with the Strategi in the council of war, and
it even appears that as president of the latter he registered his vote
last. In spite of this the actual command of the army was in the hands of
the leaders of the regiments of the phylæ, amongst whom the chief command
alternated in daily rotation. The Strategi at that time included, so far
as we know, Aristides, Stesilaus, and Miltiades, who had apparently been
elected as the tenth by his phyle, the Œneis. The Athenian army is said
to have marched out nine or ten thousand strong, but no confidence can be
placed in these numbers as they rest on a later and unreliable authority.

[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF MARATHON]

Similarly, we have no decided, tangible information, as to what it was
that induced the Athenians not to fortify themselves behind the walls of
their city, but to venture into the open field to encounter an enemy,
far superior in numbers and also, since the victory over the Ionians,
evidently dreaded in Hellas. Perhaps the fate of Eretria may have
exercised a decisive influence on the resolution of the Athenians. The
town walls may not have been in the best condition, and, as in particular
there was good cause to distrust the followers of the Pisistratidæ, there
must have been some apprehension lest the latter should find occasion,
while the Persian army lay before the town, to enter into relations
with the enemy, as the Eretrian traitors had done. But if they decided
for contest in the open field it was advisable to join battle in as
favourable a position as possible; so that the country might be protected
from plunder and foraging. It was therefore necessary to renounce the
idea of barring the passes of Pentelicus and its outlying slopes, since
this position might be easily turned by way of the sea. Still less durst
they risk a battle in the open plain, where the enemy would have all
the advantage belonging to their overwhelming numbers, and the Persian
cavalry would have full play.

The most favourable place to take up a position would be in one of the
long narrow side valleys, which adjoin the plain of Marathon and in which
a small army might safely encamp opposite a large one. In one of these
side valleys and indeed in that of Avlon itself, was the temple precinct
of the Heracleum, by which the Athenian army took up its position. The
flanks were covered by the slopes of Argaliki (right) and of Kotroni
(left) and secured against a turning movement. Whilst it was well
calculated for an attack the position also afforded protection against
an advancing enemy. The limited breadth of the entrance to the valley
hindered the Persians from bringing forward the whole strength of their
infantry and from using their cavalry effectively.[19] If they elected
to make no attack but to slip past the Athenian army, two ways offered
themselves for the march against Athens. One of these led by Marathon or
Vrana to Cephisia, the other between the outlying slopes of Pentelicus
towards Pallene and the Mesogæa. But it was only this last road that
was practicable for vehicles and an army with cavalry and baggage. On
the march by either of these two routes the Persians must expose their
flank to the enemy. If they took ship, that they might make direct for
Phalerum, they were liable to be attacked by the Athenian army before
they could get away.

When the Athenians had taken up their stand at the Heracleum, the whole
fighting force of the Platæans joined them. It appears from this that
the armies had been encamped opposite one another for several days,
since the Platæans could of course only start for Marathon after they
had heard of the decisive resolution of the Athenians to go out to meet
the enemy in that place. Since the Persians showed no signs of attacking
the Attic position and since doubtful tidings had already arrived from
Sparta, Miltiades decided to anticipate the attack himself, in order, as
Herodotus says, to leave those who cherished projects of high treason no
time to affect a wider circle of citizens and create discord. Yet half of
his colleagues held the Athenian army to be too weak and declared against
a battle. Under these circumstances the decision lay with the vote of the
polemarch Callimachus, and the latter sided with Miltiades. Thereupon,
each of the Strategi, who had voted for the battle, surrendered his
command for the day on which it was his turn to assume it to Miltiades.
The latter did indeed accept it, but it is nevertheless said that he
did not advance to the attack until the day arrived on which he held
the command-in-chief himself in his own right. This statement is very
doubtful, but shows that Herodotus was unacquainted with the tradition
that Miltiades advanced to the attack when he received the news that the
Persians were embarking and that the cavalry were on the sea-shore. If
the battle-day was selected in this way, Miltiades could not certainly
have voluntarily waited for his day. Now it is principally Herodotus whom
we have to go upon, as the oldest authority and the one on which later
writers have generally preferred to draw, and, moreover, the tradition
of the embarkation of the cavalry is a completely unreliable one; all
hypotheses therefore which are built upon it and on the circumstance of
the display of the shield on the height of Pentelicus are to be regarded
as of no value.

In the order of battle the Athenians placed themselves according to the
official order of the phylæ. At their head as leader of the right wing,
stood the polemarch Callimachus, with the phyle Æantis, to which he
himself, as an Aphidnæan, belonged. The Platæans received a place on the
extreme left. The front of the Athenians was turned to the northeast. The
left wing was covered by the slope of Kotroni and the trees which fringed
it; the right was not very far from the shore. The ground permitted
Miltiades to make the line of battle the same length as that of the
enemy, in order to protect himself from a flank movement. The wings had
to be strong enough both to repel an attempt to surround them and to
effect a charge; he therefore ranged the centre only a few lines deep,
whilst the wings were relatively strong. The attack was not unexpected
by the Persians; they had time to form in order of battle with a centre
including their picked troops, Persians and Sacæ, while the cavalry
seem to have been kept in reserve behind the hills. They were, however,
astounded by the manner of the attack. According to Herodotus the space
between the two lines of battle amounted to eight stadia. The serried
ranks of the Athenians covered this distance at a run (in some nine
minutes) chiefly to avoid the chance that the cavalry might fall upon
them by the way, and in order to get as quickly as possible past the hail
of Persian arrows and come to a hand-to-hand combat. For the Persians
began their battles with a fight at a distance, and their army was
essentially a defensive army, to which Hellenic hoplites were superior
in a struggle of man against man. Moreover the speed of the forward
movement must have added force to the charge of the heavy-armed infantry.
The shock of meeting probably took place between the Charadra and the
Brexisa; the Persian foot stood firm and the fight lasted a long time.
Finally the Athenians and Platæans with great force threw back the enemy,
on either wing, although their centre was pierced by the Persians and
Sacæ and pursued inland. In consequence, the victorious wings left the
vanquished to fly, wheeled inwards and turned their united front against
the Persians and Sacæ. A new fight ensued, which ended in the total
defeat of the barbarians. Many of them were driven, in their flight, into
the great swamp of Kato Suli, and there perished.

In the meantime, the Persian wings which had been vanquished in the
onset, had had some time in which to launch a number of ships and get
first on board. In especial, the embarkation of the cavalry, which
had probably remained behind the wings, must have been effected. This
cannot have required very much time, since the horse-transports were
flat-built vessels. When the Athenians wished to follow up the pursuit of
the Persians and Sacæ by the shore, they attempted to take or set fire
to such ships as were still within reach. Thereupon there ensued a hot
fight in which fell many men of name, such as polemarch Callimachus, the
strategus Stesilaus, and Cynægirus, brother of the poet Æschylus. The
Athenians succeeded in gaining possession of only seven ships; with the
others the Persians got away and then made for the islet of Ægilia, to
take on board the Eretrians they had left there.

The Persians were already in their ships, when it was noticed in the
Athenian camps that a signal had been made by a shield, set up apparently
upon the height of Pentelicus. It was believed that it had been given
by the traitors in the town. Apparently on the morning after the battle
the Persian fleet left Ægilia and steered its course for Cape Sunium.
As soon as the Athenians observed the direction taken, the strategi
could no longer doubt that it was the town which was aimed at. Forthwith
they started with the army, and, by a rapid forced march, succeeded
in reaching Athens before the enemy, and there set up a camp on the
Heracleum, at the southern foot of Lycabettus, in Cynosarges. The Persian
fleet soon showed itself above the height of Phalerum, yet made no
attack, but only anchored for a time and then sailed back to Asia.

Presumably Datis did not venture on a landing in sight of the Athenian
army after the experience of Marathon. The defeat was not indeed a
crushing one, but had been by no means insignificant, for the Persians
had lost 6400 killed, to which a considerable number of wounded is to
be added. Of the Athenians, 192 citizens had fallen in the battle. The
town bestowed on them the peculiar honour of a common burial on the
battle-field itself. Close by, a tropæum of white marble and a monument
to Miltiades were erected. With the tithe of the spoil, the Athenians
erected, amongst other things, a bronze group at Delphi. Every year, on
the sixth of Bœdromion, the festival of Artemis Agrotera, a great goat
sacrifice was offered to that goddess for the crowd of defeated enemies,
in fulfilment of a vow of the polemarch, before the battle.

Pan, who had thrown his terror amongst the barbarians, received a
sanctuary in the grotto on the northwest side of the rock-citadel. To
him also an annual sacrifice was offered and a torch-race instituted.
The memory of the victory which the Athenians, as advance guard of the
Hellenes, had achieved always filled them with special pride. Poets and
orators could not refer to it often enough.

The day of the battle cannot be determined with precision. Only this
much is certain, that the fight took place at the time of the full moon,
in one of the last months of the summer of the year 490. For after the
full moon two thousand Lacedæmonians marched hastily from Sparta and
made every effort to reach Athens in time. On the third day they arrived
in Attica, but the battle had already been fought. After having viewed
the scene of the Persian overthrow they started on their return march
spreading eulogies on the Athenians.[g]

In an article in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ (1898), J. A. R.
Munro[h] declares that the reason the Persians chose so disadvantageous
a field as Marathon, was purely to lure Miltiades and the troops out of
Athens while the plot was maturing by which the supporters of Hippias
should open the gates and admit the Persians by way of Phalerum. But as
usually happens, something hung fire, the Spartans approached and, before
the signal of the shield could be raised, Miltiades had routed the land
forces with undreamed success and was hastening back to Athens.

In this view, the strategy of the Persians becomes somewhat less
contemptible and the march of the Spartans seems not so useless.[a]


ON THE COURAGE OF THE GREEKS

Modern history will never cease to ring with grateful praises of the
Athenians and Platæans for their defence of Greece against Persia. They
were the bulwark of the Occident against the Orient, of Europe against
Asia. The Persian scholar can see many ways in which, to his mind at
least, it would have been best if the Asiatic conquest of Greece had not
thus been postponed for centuries. We of to-day shall always be glad that
events fashioned themselves as they did until Europe was ready to resist
any general enforcement of Asiatic ideals and customs.

Granting the importance, then, of the victory to its fullest extent,
it cannot but make for truth to realise how little the Greeks knew all
they were doing, how selfish and mutually jealous they were, and in what
a humble manner they accomplished so much more than they dreamed or
desired.[a] The realism of this glorious feat could not be more vividly
phrased than by Prof. J. P. Mahaffy in his _Rambles and Studies in
Greece_:

“Byron may well be excused for raving about the liberty of the
Greeks, for truly their old conflict at Marathon where a thousand
ill-disciplined men repulsed a larger number of still worse disciplined
Orientals, without any recondite tactics,--perhaps even without any very
extraordinary heroism,--how is it that this conflict has maintained a
celebrity which has not been equalled by all the great battles of the
world, from that day down to our own? The courage of the Greeks was not
of the first order. Herodotus praises the Athenians in this very battle
for being the first Greeks that dared to look the Persians in the face.
Their generals all through history seem never to feel sure of victory,
and always endeavour to harangue their soldiers into a fury. Instead of
advising coolness, they specially incite to rage--ὀργῇ προσμίξωμεν, says
one of them in Thucydides--as if any man not in this state would be sure
to estimate the danger fully, and run away.

“It is, indeed, true that the ancient battles were hand to hand, and
therefore parallel to our charges of bayonets, which are said to be
very seldom carried out by two opposing lines, as one of them almost
always gives way before the actual collision takes place. This must
often have taken place in Greek battles, for, at Amphipolis, Brasidas
in a battle lost seven men; at a battle of Corinth, mentioned by
Xenophon--an important battle, too--the slain amounted to eight; and
these battles were fought before the days when whole armies were composed
of mercenaries, who spared one another, as Ordericus Vitalis says, ‘for
the love of God, and out of good feeling for the fraternity of arms.’
So, then, the loss of 192 Athenians, including some distinguished men,
was rather a severe one. As to the loss of the Persians, I so totally
disbelieve the Greek accounts of such things, that it is better to pass
it by in silence.

“Perhaps most readers will be astonished to hear of the Athenian army as
undisciplined, and of the science of war as undeveloped, in those times.
Yet I firmly believe this was so. The accounts of battles by almost all
the historians are so utterly vague, and so childishly conventional, that
it is evident these gentlemen were not only quite ignorant of the science
of war, but could not easily find any one to explain it to them. We know
that the Spartans, the most admired of all Greek warriors, were chiefly
so admired because they devised the system of subordinating officers to
one another within the same detachment, like our gradation from colonel
to corporal. So orders were passed down from officer to officer, instead
of being bawled out by a herald to a whole army.

“But this superiority of the Spartans who were really disciplined, and
went into battle coolly, like brave men, certainly did not extend to
strategy, but was merely a question of better drill. As soon as any
real strategist met them, they were helpless. Thus Iphicrates, when he
devised Wellington’s plan of meeting their attacking column in line,
and using missiles, succeeded against them, even without firearms. Thus
Epaminondas, when he devised Napoleon’s plan of massing troops on a
single point, while keeping his enemy’s line occupied, defeated them
without any considerable struggle. As for that general’s great battle of
Mantinea, which seems really to have been introduced by some complicated
strategical movements, it is a mere hopeless jumble in our histories.
But these men were in the distant future when the battle of Marathon was
being fought.

“Yet what signifies all this criticism? In spite of all scepticism, in
spite of all contempt, the battle of Marathon, whether badly or well
fought, and the troops at Marathon, whether well or ill trained, will
ever be more famous than any other battle or army, however important or
gigantic its dimensions. Even in this very war, the battles of Salamis
and Platæa were vastly more important and more hotly contested. The
losses were greater, the results were more enduring, yet thousands have
heard of Marathon to whom the other names are unknown. So much for
literary ability--so much for the power of talking well about one’s
deeds. Marathon was fought by Athenians; the Athenians eclipsed the
other Greeks as far as the other Greeks eclipsed the rest of the world
in literary power. This battle became the literary property of the city,
hymned by poet, cited by orator, told by aged nurse, lisped by stammering
infant; and so it has taken its position, above all criticism, as one of
the great decisive battles which assured the liberty of the West against
oriental despotism.”[j]


IF DARIUS HAD INVADED GREECE EARLIER

Had the first aggressive expedition of Darius, with his own personal
command and fresh appetite for conquest, been directed against Greece
instead of against Scythia (between 516-514 B.C.), Grecian independence
would have perished almost infallibly. For Athens was then still governed
by the Pisistratidæ. She had then no courage for energetic self-defence,
and probably Hippias himself, far from offering resistance, would
have found it advantageous to accept Persian dominion as a means of
strengthening his own rule, like the Ionian despots: moreover the Grecian
habit of co-operation was then only just commencing. But fortunately the
Persian invader did not touch the shore of Greece until more than twenty
years afterwards, in 490 B.C.; and during that precious interval, the
Athenian character had undergone the memorable revolution which has been
before described. Their energy and their organisation had been alike
improved and their force of resistance had become decupled; moreover,
their conduct had so provoked the Persians that resistance was then
a matter of necessity with them and submission on tolerable terms an
impossibility. When we come to the grand Persian invasion of Greece,
we shall see that Athens was the life and soul of all the opposition
offered. We shall see further, that with all the efforts of Athens, the
success of the defence was more than once doubtful; and would have been
converted into a very different result, if Xerxes had listened to the
best of his own counsellors. But had Darius, at the head of the very
same force which he conducted into Scythia, or even an inferior force,
landed at Marathon in 514 B.C., instead of sending Datis in 490 B.C.--he
would have found no men like the victors of Marathon to meet him. As far
as we can appreciate the probabilities, he would have met with little
resistance, except from the Spartans singly, who would have maintained
their own very defensible territory against all his effort--like the
Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor, or like the Mainots of Laconia in
later days; but Hellas generally would have become a Persian satrapy.[k]


FOOTNOTES

[18] [It is worthy of mention that since this embassy there were no
diplomatic relations between Athens and Persia until, in the last days
of 1902, a Persian ambassador was appointed to the Hellenic court--an
interval of about twenty-four hundred years.]

[19] [“Large trees felled and scattered over the plain obstructed the
movements of the cavalry,” says Bulwer-Lytton, not naming his authority.]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XVI. MILTIADES AND THE ALLEGED FICKLENESS OF REPUBLICS


Happy would it have been for Miltiades if he had shared the honourable
death of the polemarch Callimachus, in seeking to fire the ships of the
defeated Persians at Marathon. The short sequel of his history will be
found in melancholy contrast with the Marathonian heroism.

His reputation had been great before the battle, and after it the
admiration and confidence of his countrymen knew no bounds: it appears,
indeed, to have reached such a pitch that his head was turned, and he
lost both his patriotism and his prudence. He proposed to his countrymen
to incur the cost of equipping an armament of seventy ships, with an
adequate armed force, and to place it altogether at his discretion;
giving them no intimation whither he intended to go, but merely assuring
them that, if they would follow him, he would conduct them to a land
where gold was abundant, and thus enrich them. Such a promise from the
lips of the recent victor of Marathon was sufficient, and the armament
was granted, no man except Miltiades knowing what was its destination. He
sailed immediately to the island of Paros, laid siege to the town, and
sent in a herald to require from the inhabitants a contribution of one
hundred talents [£20,000 or $100,000], on pain of entire destruction. His
pretence for this attack was, that the Parians had furnished a trireme
to Datis for the Persian fleet at Marathon; but his real motive, so
Herodotus assures us, was vindictive animosity against a Parian citizen
named Lysagoras, who had exasperated the Persian general Hydarnes against
him. The Parians amused him at first with evasions, until they had
procured a little delay to repair the defective portions of their wall,
after which they set him at defiance; and Miltiades in vain prosecuted
hostilities against them for the space of twenty-six days: he ravaged
the island, but his attacks made no impression upon the town. Beginning
to despair of success in his military operations, he entered into some
negotiation--such at least was the tale of the Parians themselves--with a
Parian woman named Timo, priestess or attendant in the temple of Demeter,
near the town gates. This woman, promising to reveal to him a secret
which would place Paros in his power, induced him to visit by night a
temple to which no male person was admissible. He leaped the exterior
fence, and approached the sanctuary; but on coming near, was seized
with a panic terror and ran away, almost out of his senses: on leaping
the same fence to get back, he strained or bruised his thigh badly,
and became utterly disabled. In this melancholy state he was placed on
shipboard, the siege being raised, and the whole armament returning to
Athens.

[Sidenote: [489 B.C.]]

Vehement was the indignation both of the armament and of the remaining
Athenians against Miltiades on his return; and Xanthippus, father of
the great Pericles, became the spokesman of this feeling. He impeached
Miltiades before the popular judicature as having been guilty of
deceiving the people, and as having deserved the penalty of death.
The accused himself, disabled by his injured thigh, which even began
to show symptoms of gangrene, was unable to stand, or to say a word
in his own defence: he lay on his couch before the assembled judges,
while his friends made the best case they could in his behalf. Defence,
it appears, there was none; all they could do, was to appeal to his
previous services: they reminded the people largely and emphatically of
the inestimable exploit at Marathon, coming in addition to his previous
conquest of Lemnos. The assembled dicasts, or jurors, showed their sense
of these powerful appeals by rejecting the proposition of his accuser
to condemn him to death: but they imposed on him the penalty of fifty
talents [£10,000 or $50,000] “for his iniquity.”

Cornelius Nepos affirms that these fifty talents represented the expenses
incurred by the state in fitting out the armament; but we may more
probably believe, looking to the practice of the Athenian dicastery
in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the minor penalty actually
proposed by the defenders of Miltiades themselves, as a substitute
for the punishment of death. In those penal cases at Athens, where
the punishment was not fixed beforehand by the terms of the law, if
the person accused was found guilty, it was customary to submit to
the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as to amount
of punishment: first, the accuser named the penalty which he thought
suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name an amount of
penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained to take their choice
between these two--no third gradation of penalty being admissible for
consideration. Of course, under such circumstances, it was the interest
of the accused party to name, even in his own case, some real and serious
penalty--something which the jurors might be likely to deem not wholly
inadequate to his crime just proved; for if he proposed some penalty only
trifling, he drove them to prefer the heavier sentence recommended by his
opponent. Accordingly, in the case of Miltiades, his friends, desirous of
inducing the jurors to refuse their assent to the punishment of death,
proposed a fine of fifty talents as the self-assessed penalty of the
defendant; and perhaps they may have stated, as an argument in the case,
that such a sum would suffice to defray the costs of the expedition. The
fine was imposed, but Miltiades did not live to pay it: his injured limb
mortified, and he died, leaving the fine to be paid by his son Cimon.

According to Cornelius Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch, he was put in
prison, after having been fined, and there died. But Herodotus does not
mention this imprisonment, and the fact appears improbable: he would
hardly have omitted to notice it, had it come to his knowledge.

Thus closed the life of the conqueror of Marathon. The last act of it
produces an impression so mournful, and even shocking--his descent from
the pinnacle of glory to defeat, mean tampering with a temple-servant,
mortal bodily hurt, undefended ignominy, and death under a sentence
of heavy fine, is so abrupt and unprepared--that readers, ancient and
modern, have not been satisfied without finding some one to blame for
it: we must except Herodotus, our original authority, who recounts the
transaction without dropping a single hint of blame against any one.
To speak ill of the people, as Machiavelli has long ago observed, is
a strain in which every one at all times, even under a democratical
government, indulges with impunity and without provoking any opponent to
reply; and in this instance, the hard fate of Miltiades has been imputed
to the vices of the Athenians and their democracy--it has been cited
in proof, partly of their fickleness, partly of their ingratitude. But
however such blame may serve to lighten the mental sadness arising from
a series of painful facts, it will not be found justified if we apply to
those facts a reasonable criticism.

What is called the fickleness of the Athenians on this occasion is
nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of
Miltiades; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath. To
censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a change in
their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct. His behaviour
in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at Marathon it had
been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately after the other: what
else could ensue except an entire revolution in the Athenian feelings? He
had employed his prodigious ascendency over their minds to induce them
to follow him without knowing whither, in the confidence of an unknown
booty; he had exposed their lives and wasted their substance in wreaking
a private grudge; in addition to the shame of an unprincipled project,
comes the constructive shame of not having succeeded in it. Without
doubt, such behaviour, coming from a man whom they admired to excess,
must have produced a violent and painful revulsion in the feelings of
his countrymen. The idea of having lavished praise and confidence upon
a person who forthwith turns it to an unworthy purpose, is one of the
greatest torments of the human bosom; and we may well understand that
the intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this
reactionary sentiment, without accusing the Athenians of fickleness.

In regard to the charge of ingratitude against the Athenians, this
last-mentioned point--sufficiency of reason--stands tacitly admitted.
It is conceded that Miltiades deserved punishment for his conduct in
reference to the Parian expedition, but it is nevertheless maintained
that gratitude for his previous services at Marathon ought to have
exempted him from punishment. But the sentiment upon which, after all,
this exculpation rests, will not bear to be drawn out and stated in
the form of a cogent or justifying reason. For will any one really
contend, that a man who has rendered great services to the public, is
to receive in return a license of unpunished misconduct for the future?
Is the general, who has earned applause by eminent skill and important
victories, to be recompensed by being allowed the liberty of betraying
his trust afterwards, and exposing his country to peril, without censure
or penalty? This is what no one intends to vindicate deliberately; yet a
man must be prepared to vindicate it, when he blames the Athenians for
ingratitude towards Miltiades. It will be recollected that the death of
Miltiades arose neither from his trial nor his fine, but from the hurt in
his thigh.

The charge of ingratitude against the Athenian popular juries really
amounts to this--that, in trying a person accused of present crime or
fault, they were apt to confine themselves too strictly and exclusively
to the particular matter of charge, either forgetting or making too
little account of past services which he might have rendered. Whoever
imagines that such was the habit of Athenian dicasts, must have studied
the orators to very little purpose. Their real defect was the very
opposite: they were too much disposed to wander from the special issue
before them, and to be affected by appeals to previous services and
conduct.

This defect is one which we should naturally expect from a body of
private, non-professional citizens assembled for the occasion, and which
belongs more or less to the system of jury-trial everywhere; but it is
the direct reverse of that ingratitude, or habitual insensibility to
prior services, for which they have been so often denounced.

The fate of Miltiades, then, so far from illustrating either the
fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their just
appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral, of no small
importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs; it teaches us
the painful lesson, how perfectly maddening were the effects of a copious
draught of glory on the temperament of an enterprising and ambitious
Greek. There can be no doubt, that the rapid transition, in the course
of about one week, from Athenian terror before the battle to Athenian
exultation after it, must have produced demonstrations towards Miltiades
such as were never paid towards any other man in the whole history of
the commonwealth. Such unmeasured admiration unseated his rational
judgment, so that his mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of
insolence, and antipathy, and rapacity--that distempered state, for which
(according to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever on the
watch, and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment startling in
its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount. Had Miltiades been the
same man before the battle of Marathon as he became after it, the battle
might probably have turned out a defeat instead of a victory. We shall
presently be called upon to observe the same tendency in the case of the
Spartan Pausanias, and even in that of the Athenian Themistocles.

It is, indeed, fortunate that the reckless aspirations of Miltiades did
not take a turn more noxious to Athens than the comparatively unimportant
enterprise against Paros. For had he sought to acquire dominion and
gratify antipathies against enemies at home, instead of directing his
blow against a Parian enemy, the peace and security of his country might
have been seriously endangered.

Of the despots who gained power in Greece, a considerable proportion
began by popular conduct, and by rendering good service to their
fellow-citizens: having first earned public gratitude, they abused it
for purposes of their own ambition. There was far greater danger, in a
Grecian community, of dangerous excess of gratitude towards a victorious
soldier, than of deficiency in that sentiment: hence the person thus
exalted acquired a position such that the community found it difficult
afterwards to shake him off. Now there is a disposition almost universal
among writers and readers to side with an individual, especially an
eminent individual, against the multitude; and accordingly those who
under such circumstances suspect the probable abuse of an exalted
position, are denounced as if they harboured an unworthy jealousy of
superior abilities. But the truth is, that the largest analogies of the
Grecian character justified that suspicion, and required the community to
take precautions against the corrupting effects of their own enthusiasm.
There is no feature which more largely pervades the impressible Grecian
character, than a liability to be intoxicated and demoralised by success:
there was no fault from which so few eminent Greeks were free: there
was hardly any danger, against which it was at once so necessary and
so difficult for the Grecian governments to take security--especially
the democracies, where the manifestations of enthusiasm were always
the loudest. Such is the real explanation of those charges which have
been urged against the Grecian democracies, that they came to hate and
ill-treat previous benefactors; and the history of Miltiades illustrates
it in a manner no less pointed than painful.

If we are to predicate any attribute of the multitude, it will rather
be that of undue tenacity than undue fickleness; and there will occur
nothing in the course of this history to prove that the Athenian people
changed their opinions on insufficient grounds more frequently than an
unresponsible one or few would have changed.

But there were two circumstances in the working of the Athenian democracy
which imparted to it an appearance of greater fickleness, without the
reality: First, that the manifestations and changes of opinion were
all open, undisguised, and noisy: the people gave utterance to their
present impression, whatever it was, with perfect frankness; if their
opinions were really changed, they had no shame or scruple in avowing
it. Secondly,--and this is a point of capital importance in the working
of democracy generally,--the present impression, whatever it might
be, was not merely undisguised in its manifestations, but also had a
tendency to be exaggerated in its intensity. This arose from their
habit of treating public affairs in multitudinous assemblages, the
well-known effect of which is, to inflame sentiment in every man’s bosom
by mere contact with a sympathising circle of neighbours. Whatever the
sentiment might be,--fear, ambition, cupidity, wrath, compassion, piety,
patriotic devotion, etc.,--and whether well-founded or ill-founded,
it was constantly influenced more or less by such intensifying cause.
This is a defect which of course belongs in a certain degree to all
exercise of power by numerous bodies, even though they be representative
bodies, especially when the character of the people, instead of being
comparatively sedate and slow to move, like the English, is quick,
impressible, and fiery, like Greeks or Italians; but it operated far
more powerfully on the self-acting Demos assembled in the Pnyx. It was
in fact the constitutional malady of the democracy, of which the people
were themselves perfectly sensible,--as we shall show hereafter from
the securities which they tried to provide against it,--but which no
securities could ever wholly eradicate. Frequency of public assemblies,
far from aggravating the evil, had a tendency to lighten it. The people
thus became accustomed to hear and balance many different views as a
preliminary to ultimate judgment; they contracted personal interest
and esteem for a numerous class of dissentient speakers; and they even
acquired a certain practical consciousness of their own liability to
error.

These two attributes, then, belonged to the Athenian democracy; first,
their sentiments of every kind were manifested loudly and openly; next,
their sentiments tended to a pitch of great present intensity. Of course,
therefore, when they changed, the change of sentiment stood prominent,
and forced itself upon every one’s notice--being a transition from
one strong sentiment past to another strong sentiment present. And it
was because such alterations, when they did take place, stood out so
palpably to remark, that the Athenian people have drawn upon themselves
the imputation of fickleness: for it is not at all true that changes
of sentiment were more frequently produced in them by frivolous or
insufficient causes, than changes of sentiment in other governments.[b]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XVII. THE PLANS OF XERXES


What follows is one of the most interesting parts of Herodotus. It
exhibits the most circumstantial detail of the expedition of Xerxes
against Greece, by a writer almost contemporary. It is also impressed
with the character of authenticity, for it was recited to a multitude of
Greeks assembled at Olympia, among whom doubtless there were many who had
fought both at Salamis and Platæa.[f]

When the news of the battle of Marathon was communicated to Darius,
he, who was before incensed against the Athenians, on account of their
invasion of Sardis, became still more exasperated, and more inclined to
invade Greece. He instantly therefore sent emissaries to the different
cities under his power, to provide a still greater number of transports,
horses, corn, and provisions. In the interval which this business
employed, Asia experienced three years of confusion; her most able men
being enrolled for the Greek expedition, and making preparation for
it. In the fourth, the Egyptians, who had been reduced by Cambyses,
revolted from the Persians: but this only induced Darius to accelerate
his preparations against both nations. At this juncture there arose a
violent dispute among the sons of Darius, concerning the succession to
the throne, the Persian customs forbidding the sovereign to undertake
any expedition without naming his heir. Darius had three sons before he
ascended the throne, by the daughter of Gobryas; he had four afterwards
by Atossa, daughter of Cyrus: Artabazanes was the eldest of the former,
Xerxes of the latter. Not being of the same mother, a dispute arose
between them; Artabazanes asserted his pretensions from being the eldest
of all his father’s sons, a claim which mankind in general consent to
acknowledge. Xerxes claimed the throne because he was the grandson of
Cyrus, to whom the Persians were indebted for their liberties.

Darius having declared Xerxes his heir, prepared to march; but in the
year which succeeded the Egyptian revolt, he died; having reigned
thirty-six years, without being able to gratify his resentment against
the Egyptians and Athenians who had opposed his power. On his death,
Xerxes immediately succeeded to the throne, and from the first, seemed
wholly inclined to the Egyptian rather than the Athenian War. But
Mardonius, who was his cousin, being the son of Gobryas, by a sister of
Darius, thus addressed him:

“I should think, Sir, that the Athenians, who have so grievously injured
the Persians, ought not to escape with impunity. I would nevertheless
have you execute what you immediately propose; but when you shall
have chastised the insolence of Egypt, resume the expedition against
Athens. Thus will your reputation be established, and others in future
be deterred from molesting your dominions.” What he said was further
enforced by representing the beauties of Europe, that it was exceedingly
fertile, abounded with all kinds of trees, and deserved to be possessed
by the king alone.

[Sidenote: [485-484 B.C.]]

Mardonius said this, being desirous of new enterprises, and ambitious of
the government of Greece. Xerxes at length acceded to his counsel, to
which he was also urged by other considerations. Some messengers came
from Thessaly on the part of the Aleuadæ, imploring the king to invade
Greece; to accomplish which, they used the most earnest endeavours.
These Aleuadæ were the princes of Thessaly: their solicitations were
strengthened by the Pisistratidæ, who had taken refuge at Susa, and
who to the arguments before adduced, added others. They had among them
Onomacritus, an Athenian, a famous priest, who sold the oracles of
Musæus; with him they had been reconciled previous to their arrival
at Susa. This man had been formerly banished from Athens by the son
of Pisistratus; for Lasus of Hermione had detected him in the fact of
introducing a pretended oracle, among the verses of Musæus, intimating
that the islands contiguous to Lemnos should be overwhelmed in the ocean.
Hipparchus for this expelled him, though he had been very intimate with
him before. He accompanied the Pisistratidæ to Susa, who always spoke of
him in terms highly honourable; upon which account, whenever he appeared
in the royal presence, he recited certain oracular verses. He omitted
whatever predicted anything unfortunate to the barbarians, selecting only
what promised them auspiciously; among other things he said the fates
decreed that a Persian should throw a bridge over the Hellespont.

Thus was the mind of Xerxes assailed by the predictions of the priest,
and the opinions of the Pisistratidæ. In the year which followed the
death of Darius, he determined on an expedition against Greece, but
commenced hostilities with those who had revolted from the Persians.
These being subdued, and the whole of Egypt more effectually reduced than
it had been by Darius, he confided the government of it to Achæmenes, his
own brother, son of Darius. Achæmenes was afterwards slain by Inarus, a
Libyan, the son of Psammetichus. After the subjection of Egypt, Xerxes
prepared to lead an army against Athens, but first of all he called an
assembly of the principal Persians, to hear their sentiments, and to
deliver, without reserve, his own. He addressed them to the following
purport:

“You will remember, O Persians, that I am not about to execute any new
project of my own; I only pursue the path which has been previously
marked out for me. I have learned from my ancestors, that ever since we
recovered this empire from the Medes, after the depression of Astyages by
Cyrus, we have never been in a state of inactivity. A deity is our guide,
and auspiciously conducts us to prosperity. It must be unnecessary for me
to relate the exploits of Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius, and the nations
they added to our empire. For my own part, ever since my accession to
the throne, it has been my careful endeavour not to reflect any disgrace
upon my forefathers, by suffering the Persian power to diminish. My
deliberations on this matter have presented me with a prospect full of
glory; they have pointed out to me a region not inferior to our own in
extent, and far exceeding it in fertility, which incitements are further
promoted by the expectation of honourable revenge; I have therefore
assembled you to explain what I intend:

“I have resolved, by throwing a bridge over the Hellespont, to lead
my forces through Europe into Greece, and to inflict vengeance on the
Athenians for the injuries offered to my father and Persia. You well know
that this war was intended by Darius, though death deprived him of the
means of vengeance. Considering what is due to him and to Persia, it is
my determination not to remit my exertions, till Athens shall be taken
and burned. The Athenians, unprovoked, first insulted me and my father;
under the conduct of Aristagoras of Miletus, our dependent and slave,
they attacked Sardis, and consumed with fire our groves and temples. What
they perpetrated against you, when, led by Datis and Artaphernes, you
penetrated into their country, you know by fatal experience. Such are my
inducements to proceed against them: but I have also additional motives.

“If we reduce these and their neighbours who inhabit the country of
Pelops the Phrygian, to our power, the Persian empire will be limited by
the heavens alone; the sun will illuminate no country contiguous to ours;
I shall overrun all Europe, and with your assistance possess unlimited
dominion. For if I am properly informed, there exists no race of men, nor
can any city or nation be found, which if these be reduced, can possibly
resist our arms: we shall thus subject, as well those who have, as those
who have not, injured us. I call therefore for your assistance, which I
shall thankfully accept and acknowledge; I trust that with cheerfulness
and activity you will all assemble at the place I shall appoint. To
him who shall appear with the greatest number of well-provided troops,
I will present those gifts which in our country are thought to confer
the highest honour. That I may not appear to dictate my own wishes in
an arbitrary manner, I commit the matter to your reflection, permitting
every one to deliver his sentiments with freedom.”

When Xerxes had finished, Mardonius made the following reply:

“Sir, you are not only the most illustrious of all the Persians who
have hitherto appeared, but you may securely defy the competition of
posterity. Among other things which you have advanced, alike excellent
and just, you are entitled to our particular admiration for not suffering
the people of Ionia, contemptible as they are, to insult us with
impunity. It would indeed be preposterous, if after reducing to our power
the Sacæ, the Indians, the Ethiopians, and the Assyrians, with many other
great and illustrious nations, not in revenge of injuries received, but
solely from the honourable desire of dominion, we should not inflict
vengeance on these Greeks who, without provocation, have molested us.

“There can be nothing to excite our alarm; no multitude of troops, no
extraordinary wealth; we have tried their mode of fighting, and know
their weakness. Their descendants, who under the names of Ionians,
Æolians, and Dorians, reside within our dominions, we first subdued,
and now govern. Their prowess I myself have known, when at the command
of your father I prosecuted a war against them. I penetrated Macedonia,
advanced almost to Athens, and found no enemy to encounter.

“Beside this, I am informed that in all their military undertakings, the
Greeks betray the extremest ignorance and folly. As soon as they commence
hostilities among themselves, their first care is to find a large and
beautiful plain,[20] where they appear and give battle: the consequence
is, that even the victors suffer severe loss; of the vanquished I say
nothing, for they are totally destroyed. As they use one common language,
they ought in policy to terminate all disputes by the mediation of
ambassadors, and above all things to avoid a war among themselves: or, if
this should prove unavoidable, they should mutually endeavour to find a
place of great natural strength, and then try the issue of a battle. By
pursuing as absurd a conduct as I have described, the Greeks suffered me
to advance as far as Macedonia without resistance. But who, Sir, shall
oppose you, at the head of the forces and the fleet of Asia? The Greeks,
I think, never can be so audacious. If however I should be deceived, and
they shall be so mad as to engage us, they will soon find to their cost
that in the art of war we are the first of mankind. Let us however adopt
various modes of proceeding, for perfection and success can only be the
result of frequent experiment.”

In this manner, Mardonius seconded the speech of Xerxes.

A total silence prevailed in the assembly, no one daring to oppose what
had been said; till at length Artabanus, son of Hystaspes, and uncle to
Xerxes, deriving confidence from his relationship, thus delivered his
sentiments: “Unless, O King, different sentiments be submitted to the
judgment, no alternative of choice remains, the one introduced is of
necessity adopted. The purity of gold cannot be ascertained by a single
specimen; it is known and approved by comparing it with others. It was
my advice to Darius, your father and my brother, that he should by no
means undertake an expedition against the Scythians, a people without
towns and cities. Allured by his hopes of subduing them, he disregarded
my admonitions; and proceeding to execute his purpose was obliged to
return, having lost numbers of his best troops. The men, O King, whom you
are preparing to attack, are far superior to the Scythians, and alike
formidable by land and sea. I deem it therefore my duty to forewarn you
of the dangers you will have to encounter.

“You say that, throwing a bridge over the Hellespont, you will lead
your forces through Europe into Greece; but it may possibly happen,
that either on land or by sea, or perhaps by both, you may sustain a
defeat, for our enemies are reported to be valiant. Of this indeed we
have had sufficient testimony; for if the Athenians by themselves routed
the numerous armies of Datis and Artaphernes, it proves that we are
not, either by land or sea, perfectly invincible. If, preparing their
fleet, they shall be victorious by sea, and afterwards sailing to the
Hellespont, shall destroy your bridge, we may dread all that is bad. I do
not argue in this respect from my own private conjecture; we can all of
us remember how very narrowly we escaped destruction, when your father,
throwing bridges over the Thracian Bosporus and the Ister, passed into
Scythia. The guard of this pass was entrusted to the Ionians, whom the
Scythians urged to break it down, by the most earnest importunity. If at
this period Histiæus of Miletus had not opposed the sentiments of the
rest, there would have been an end of the Persian name.

“It is painful to repeat, and afflicting to remember, that the safety of
our prince and his dominions depended on a single man. Listen therefore
to my advice, and where no necessity demands it, do not involve yourself
in danger. For the present, dismiss this meeting; revolve the matter more
seriously in your mind, and at a future and seasonable time make known
your determination. For my own part, I have found from experience, that
deliberation produces the happiest effects. In such a case, if the event
does not answer our wishes, we still merit the praise of discretion,
and fortune is alone to be blamed. He who is rash and inconsiderate,
although fortune may be kind, and anticipate his desires, is not the less
to be censured for temerity. You may have observed how the thunderbolt
of heaven chastises the insolence of the more enormous animals, whilst
it passes over without injury the weak and insignificant: before these
weapons of the gods you must have seen how the proudest palaces and the
loftiest trees fall and perish. The most conspicuous things are those
which are chiefly singled out as objects of the divine displeasure. From
the same principle it is that a mighty army is sometimes overthrown by
one that is contemptible: for the Deity in his anger sends his terrors
among them, and makes them perish in a manner unworthy of their former
glory. Perfect wisdom is the prerogative of Heaven alone, and every
measure undertaken with temerity is liable to be perplexed with error,
and punished by misfortune. Discreet caution, on the contrary, has many
and peculiar advantages, which if not apparent at the moment, reveal
themselves in time.

“Such, O King, is my advice; and little does it become you, O son of
Gobryas, to speak of the Greeks in a language foolish as well as false.
By calumniating Greece, you excite your sovereign to war, the great
object of all your zeal: but I entreat you to forbear. Calumny is a
restless vice, where it is indulged there are always two who offer
injury. The calumniator himself is injurious, because he traduces an
absent person; he is also injurious who suffers himself to be persuaded
without investigating the truth. The person traduced is doubly injured,
first by him who propagates, and secondly by him who receives the
calumny. If this war be a measure of necessity, let it be prosecuted; but
let the king remain at home with his subjects. Suffer the children of us
two to remain in his power, as the test of our different opinions; and
do you, Mardonius, conduct the war with whatever forces you shall think
expedient. If, agreeably to your representations, the designs of the
king shall be successful, let me and my children perish; but if what I
predict shall be accomplished, let your children die, and yourself too,
in case you shall return. If you refuse these conditions, and are still
resolved to lead an army into Greece, I do not hesitate to declare, that
all those who shall be left behind will hear that Mardonius, after having
involved the Persians in some conspicuous calamity, became a prey to dogs
and ravenous birds, in the territories either of Athens or Lacedæmon,
or probably during his march thither. Thus you will know, by fatal
experience, what those men are, against whom you endeavour to persuade
the king to prosecute a war.”

When Artabanus had finished, Xerxes thus angrily replied: “Artabanus,
you are my father’s brother, which alone prevents your receiving the
chastisement due to your foolish speech. This mark of ignominy shall
however adhere to you--as you are so dastardly and mean, you shall not
accompany me to Greece, but remain at home, the companion of our women.
Without your assistance, I shall proceed in the accomplishment of my
designs; for I should ill deserve to be esteemed the son of Darius, who
was the son of Hystaspes, and reckoned among his ancestors Arsames,
Ariaramnes, Teispes, Cyrus, Cambyses, Teispes, and Achæmenes, if I did
not gratify my revenge upon the Athenians. I am well assured, that if
we on our parts were tranquil, they would not be, but would invade and
ravage our country. This we may reasonably conclude from their burning
of Sardis, and their incursions into Asia. Neither party can therefore
recede; we must advance to the attack of the Greeks, or we must prepare
to sustain theirs; we must either submit to them, or they to us; in
enmities like these there can be no medium. Injured as we have been, it
becomes us to seek for revenge; for I am determined to know what evil
is to be dreaded from those whom Pelops the Phrygian, the slave of my
ancestors, so effectually subdued, that even to this day they, as well as
their country, are distinguished by his name.”

On the approach of evening the sentiments of Artabanus gave great
disquietude to Xerxes, and after more serious deliberation with himself
in the night, he found himself still less inclined to the Grecian war.
Having decided on the subject, he fell asleep, when, as the Persians
relate, the following vision appeared to him:--He dreamed that he saw
before him a man of unusual size and beauty, who thus addressed him: “Are
you then determined, O Persian, contrary to your former resolutions, not
to lead an army against Greece, although you have ordered your subjects
to prepare their forces? This change in your sentiments is absurd in
itself, and will certainly be censured by the world. Resume therefore,
and persist in what you had resolved by day.” Having said this, the
vision disappeared.

The impression made by the vision vanished with the morning. Xerxes a
second time convoked the former meeting, and again addressed them:

“Men of Persia,” said he, “you will forgive me, if my former sentiments
are changed. I am not yet arrived at the full maturity of my judgment;
and they who wish me to prosecute the measures which I before seemed to
approve, do not remit their importunities. When I first heard the opinion
of Artabanus, I yielded to the emotions of youth, and expressed myself
more petulantly than was becoming, to a man of his years. To prove that
I see my indiscretion, I am resolved to follow his advice. It is not my
intention to undertake an expedition against Greece; remain therefore in
tranquillity.”

The Persians hearing these sentiments, prostrated themselves with joy
before the king. On the following night the same phantom appeared a
second time to Xerxes in his sleep, and spake to him as follows: “Son
of Darius, disregarding my admonitions as of no weight or value, you
have publicly renounced all thoughts of war. Hear what I say: unless you
immediately undertake that which I recommend, the same short period of
time which has seen you great and powerful, shall behold you reduced and
abject.”

Terrified at the vision, the king leaped from his couch, and sent for
Artabanus. As soon as he approached, “Artabanus,” exclaimed Xerxes, “in
return for your salutary counsel, I reproached and insulted you; but as
soon as I became master of myself I endeavoured to prove my repentance by
adopting what you proposed. This however, whatever may be my wishes, I am
unable to do. As soon as my former determinations were changed, I beheld
in my sleep a vision, which first endeavoured to dissuade me, and has
this moment left me with threats. If what I have seen proceed from the
interference of some deity, who is solicitous that I should make war on
Greece, it will doubtless appear to you, and give you a similar mandate.
This will I think be the case, if you will assume my habit, and after
sitting on my throne retire to rest in my apartment.”

Artabanus was at first unwilling to comply, alleging that he was not
worthy to sit on the throne of the king. But being urged, he finally
acquiesced, after thus expressing his sentiments: “I am of opinion, O
King, that to think well, and to follow what is well-advised, is alike
commendable: both these qualities are yours; but the artifice of evil
counsellors misleads you. Thus, the ocean is of itself most useful to
mankind, but the stormy winds render it injurious, by disturbing its
natural surface. Your reproaches gave me less uneasiness than to see that
when two opinions were submitted to public deliberation, the one aiming
to restrain, the other to countenance the pride of Persia, you preferred
that which was full of danger to yourself and your country, rejecting the
wiser counsel, which pointed out the evil tendency of ambition. Now that
you have changed your resolution with respect to Greece, a phantom has
appeared, and, as you say, by some divine interposition, has forbidden
your present purpose of dismissing your forces. But, my son, I dispute
the divinity of this interposition, for of the fallacy of dreams I, who
am more experienced than yourself, can produce sufficient testimonies.
Dreams in general originate from those incidents which have most
occupied the thoughts during the day. Two days since, you will remember
that this expedition was the object of much warm discussion: but if this
vision be really sent from heaven, your reasoning upon it is just, and it
will certainly appear to me as it has done to you, expressing itself to a
similar effect; but it will not show itself to me dressed in your robes,
and reclining on your couch, sooner than if I were in my own habit and
my own apartment. No change of dress will induce the phantom, if it does
appear, to mistake me for you. If it shall hold me in contempt, it will
not appear to me, however I may be clothed. It unquestionably however
merits attention; its repeated appearance I myself must acknowledge to
be a proof of its divinity. If you are determined in your purpose, I am
ready to go to rest in your apartment: but till I see the phantom myself
I shall retain my former opinions.”

Artabanus, expecting to find the king’s dream of no importance, did as
he was ordered. He accordingly put on the robe of Xerxes, seated himself
on the royal throne, and afterward retired to the king’s apartment.
The same phantom which had disturbed Xerxes appeared to him,[21] and
thus addressed him: “Art thou the man who, pretending to watch over the
conduct of Xerxes, art endeavouring to restrain his designs against
Greece? Your perverseness shall be punished both now and in future;
and as for Xerxes himself, he has been forewarned of the evils he will
suffer, if disobedient to my will.”

Such were the threats which Artabanus heard from the spectre, which
at the same time made an effort to burn out his eyes with a hot iron.
Alarmed at his danger, Artabanus leaped from his couch, and uttering a
loud cry, went instantly to Xerxes. After relating his vision, he thus
spake to him: “Being a man, O King, of much experience, and having seen
the undertakings of the powerful foiled by the efforts of the weak, I
was unwilling that you should indulge the fervour of your age. Of the
ill effects of inordinate ambition, I had seen a fatal proof, in the
expedition which Cyrus undertook against the Massagetæ; I knew also what
became of the army of Cambyses in their attack of Ethiopia; and lastly, I
myself witnessed the misfortunes of Darius, in his hostilities with the
Scythians. The remembrance of these incidents induced me to believe that
if you continued a peaceful reign, you would beyond all men deserve the
character of happy: but as your present inclination seems directed by
some supernatural influence, and as the Greeks seem marked out by heaven
for destruction, I acknowledge that my sentiments are changed; do you
therefore make known to the Persians the extraordinary intimations you
have received, and direct your dependents to hasten the preparations you
had before commanded. Be careful, in what relates to yourself, to second
the intentions of the gods.”

The vision indeed had so powerfully impressed the minds of both, that as
soon as the morning appeared, Xerxes communicated his intentions to the
Persians; which Artabanus, in opposition to his former sentiments, now
openly and warmly approved.

[Sidenote: [484-480 B.C.]]

Whilst everything was making ready for his departure, Xerxes saw a third
vision. The magi to whom it was related were of opinion that it portended
to Xerxes unlimited and universal empire. The king conceived himself
to be crowned with the wreath of an olive tree, whose branches covered
all the earth, but that this wreath suddenly and totally disappeared.
After the above interpretation of the magi had been made known in the
national assembly of the Persians, the governors departed to their
several provinces, eager to execute the commands they had received, in
expectation of the promised reward. Xerxes was so anxious to complete his
levies that no part of the continent was left without being ransacked
for this purpose. After the reduction of Egypt, four entire years were
employed in assembling the army and collecting provisions; but in the
beginning of the fifth he began his march with an immense body of
forces.[b]

Darius was three years in preparing for an expedition against Greece;
in the fourth Egypt revolted, and in the following year Darius died;
this therefore was the fifth year after the battle of Marathon. Xerxes
employed four years in making preparations for the same purpose; in the
fifth he began his march, he advanced to Sardis, and there wintered; in
the beginning of the following spring he entered Greece. This therefore
was in the eleventh year after the battle of Marathon; which account
agrees with that given by Thucydides.[f]

Of all the military expeditions, the fame of which has come down to us,
this was far the greatest, much exceeding that which Darius undertook
against Scythia, as well as the incursion made by the Scythians, who,
pursuing the Cimmerians, entered Media, and made themselves entire
masters of almost all the higher parts of Asia; an incursion which
afforded Darius the pretence for his attack on Scythia. It surpasses also
the famous expedition of the sons of Atreus against Troy, as well as
that of the Mysians and Teucrians before the Trojan War. These nations,
passing over the Bosporus into Europe, reduced all the inhabitants of
Thrace, advancing to the Ionian Sea, and thence as far as the southern
part of the river Peneus.

[Sidenote: [483 B.C.]]

None of the expeditions already mentioned, nor indeed any other, may at
all be compared with this of Xerxes. It would be difficult to specify
any nation of Asia, which did not accompany the Persian monarch against
Greece, or any waters, except great rivers, which were not exhausted
by his armies. Some supplied ships, some a body of infantry, others of
horse; some provided transports for the cavalry and the troops; others
brought long ships to serve as bridges; many also brought vessels
laden with corn, all which preparations were made for three years, to
guard against a repetition of the calamities which the Persian fleet
had formerly sustained, in their attempts to double the promontory of
Mount Athos. The place of rendezvous for the triremes was at Elæus
of the Chersonesus, from whence detachments from the army were sent,
and by force of blows compelled to dig a passage through Mount Athos,
with orders to relieve each other at certain regular intervals. The
undertaking was assisted by those who inhabited the mountain, and the
conduct of the work was confided to Bubares, the son of Megabazus, and
Antachæus, son of Artæus, both of whom were Persians.[b]

This incident Richardson conceives to be utterly incredible. The
promontory was, as he justly remarks, no more than two hundred miles
from Athens, and yet Xerxes is said to have employed a number of men,
three years before his crossing the Hellespont, to separate it from the
continent, and make a canal for his shipping. Themistocles, also, who
from the time of the battle of Marathon had been incessantly alarming the
Athenians with another Persian invasion, never endeavoured to support his
opinion by any allusion to this canal, the very digging of which must
have filled all Greece with astonishment, and been the subject of every
public conversation. Pococke, who visited Mount Athos, also deems the
event highly improbable, and says that he could not perceive the smallest
vestige of any such undertaking.[f]

Bury thinks that the canal was actually dug, the reason being not that
which Herodotus later suggests, a mere desire for display, but an
obedience to the axiom of Persian strategy that the army and the fleet
should not lose touch with each other. But leaving the riddle unsolved,
as needs we must, let us proceed with the narrative, Herodotus acting as
guide.[a]

Athos is a large and noble mountain projecting into the sea, and
inhabited; where it terminates on the land side, it has the appearance of
a peninsula, and forms an isthmus of about twelve stadia in breadth: the
surface of this is interspersed with several small hills, reaching from
the Acanthian Sea to that of Torone, which is opposite. Where Mount Athos
terminates, stands a Grecian city, called Sane; in the interior parts,
betwixt Sane and the elevation of Athos, are situated the towns of Dium,
Olophyxus, Acrothoum, Thyssus, and Cleonæ, inhabited by Greeks. It was
the object of the Persians to detach these from the continent.

[Illustration: THE HELLESPONT]

They proceeded to dig in this manner: the barbarians marked out the
ground in the vicinity of Sane with a rope, assigning to each nation
their particular station; then sinking a deep trench, whilst they at the
bottom continued digging, the nearest to them handed the earth to others
standing immediately above them upon ladders; it was thus progressively
elevated, till it came to the summit, where they who stood received and
carried it away. The brink of the trench giving way, except in that part
where the Phœnicians were employed, occasioned a double labour; and this,
as the trench was no wider at top than at bottom, was unavoidable. But
in this, as in other instances, the Phœnicians discovered their superior
sagacity, for in the part allotted to them they commenced by making
the breadth of the trench twice as large as was necessary; and thus
proceeding in an inclined direction, they made their work at the bottom
of the prescribed dimensions. In this part was a meadow, which was their
public place for business and for commerce, and where a vast quantity of
corn was imported from Asia.[b]

Plutarch, in his treatise _De Ira cohibenda_, has preserved a ridiculous
letter, supposed to have been written by Xerxes to Mount Athos. It was
to this effect: “O thou miserable Athos, whose top now reaches to the
heavens, I give thee in charge not to throw any great stones in my
way, which may impede my work; if thou shalt do this, I will cut thee
in pieces and cast thee into the sea.” This threat to the mountain is
however at least as sensible as the chastisement inflicted upon the
Hellespont; so that if one anecdote be true, the other may also obtain
credit.[f]

The motive of Xerxes in this work was, as far as we are able to
conjecture, the vain desire of exhibiting his power, and of leaving
a monument to posterity. When with very little trouble he might have
transported his vessels over the isthmus, he chose rather to unite
the two seas by a canal, of sufficient diameter to admit two triremes
abreast. Those employed in this business were also ordered to throw
bridges over the river Strymon.

For these bridges Xerxes provided cordage made of the bark of the biblos,
and of white flax. The care of transporting provisions for the army was
committed jointly to the Egyptians and Phœnicians, that the troops, as
well as the beasts of burden, in this expedition to Greece, might not
suffer from famine. After examining into the nature of the country, he
directed stores to be deposited in every convenient situation, which were
supplied by transports and vessels of burden, from the different parts of
Asia. Of these, the greater number were carried to that part of Thrace
which is called the “White Coast”; others to Tyrodiza of the Perinthians;
the remainder were severally distributed at Doriscus, at Eion on the
banks of the Strymon, and in Macedonia.

[Sidenote: [483-480 B.C.]]

Whilst these things were carrying on, Xerxes, at the head of all his land
forces, left Critalla in Cappadocia, and marched towards Sardis: it was
at Critalla that all those troops were appointed to assemble who were
to attend the king by land; who the commander was, that received from
the king the promised gifts, on account of the number and goodness of
his troops, we are unable to decide, nor indeed can we say whether there
was any competition on the subject. Passing the river Halys, they came
to Phrygia, and continuing to advance, arrived at Celænæ, where are the
fountains of the Mæander, as well as those of another river of equal size
with the Mæander, called Catarrhactes, which rising in the public square
of Celænæ, empties itself into the Mæander. In the forum of this city is
suspended the skin of Marsyas, which the Phrygians say was placed there
after he had been flayed by Apollo.

In this city lived a man named Pythius, son of Atys, a native of Lydia,
who entertained Xerxes and all his army with great magnificence: he
further engaged to supply the king with money for the war. Xerxes was on
this induced to inquire of his Persian attendants who this Pythius was,
and what were the resources which enabled him to make these offers: “It
is the same,” they replied, “who presented your father Darius with a
plane-tree and a vine of gold, and who, next to yourself, is the richest
of mankind.”[22]

These last words filled Xerxes with astonishment; and he could not
refrain from asking Pythius himself the amount of his wealth: “Sir,”
he replied, “I conceal nothing from you, nor affect ignorance; but as
I am able I will fairly tell you.--As soon as I heard of your approach
to the Grecian sea, I was desirous of giving you money for the war; on
examining into the state of my affairs, I found that I was possessed of
two thousand talents of silver, and four millions, wanting only seven
thousand, of gold staters of Darius; all this I give you--my slaves and
my farms will be sufficient to maintain me.”

“My Lydian friend,” returned Xerxes, much delighted, “since I first left
Persia, you are the only person who has treated my army with hospitality,
or who, appearing in my presence, has voluntarily offered me a supply
for the war; you have done both; in acknowledgment for which I offer
you my friendship; you shall be my host, and I will give you the seven
thousand staters, which are wanting to make your sum of four millions
complete.--Retain, therefore, and enjoy your property; persevere in your
present mode of conduct, which will invariably operate to your happiness.”

Xerxes having performed what he promised, proceeded on his march; passing
by a Phrygian city, called Anava, and a lake from which salt is made,
he came to Colossæ. This also is a city of Phrygia, and of considerable
eminence; here the Lycus disappears, entering abruptly a chasm in
the earth, but at the distance of seven stadia it again emerges, and
continues its course to the Mæander. The Persian army, advancing from
Colossæ, came to Cydrara, a place on the confines of Phrygia and Lydia;
here a pillar had been erected by Crœsus, with an inscription defining
the boundaries of the two countries.

On entering Lydia from Phrygia they came to a place where two roads met,
the one on the left leading to Caria, the other on the right to Sardis:
to those who go by the latter it is necessary to cross the Mæander, and
to pass Callatebus, a city where honey is made of the tamarisk and wheat.
Xerxes here found a plane tree, so very beautiful, that he adorned it
with chains of gold, and assigned the guard of it to one of the immortal
band; the next day he came to the principal city of the Lydians.

When arrived at Sardis, his first step was to send heralds into Greece,
demanding earth and water, and commanding that preparations should be
made to entertain him. He did not, however, send either to Athens or
Lacedæmon: his motive for repeating the demand to the other cities, was
the expectation that they who had before refused earth and water to
Darius would, from their alarm at his approach, send it now; this he
wished positively to know.


XERXES BRIDGES THE HELLESPONT

[Sidenote: [481 B.C.]]

Whilst he was preparing to go to Abydos, numbers were employed in
throwing a bridge over the Hellespont, from Asia to Europe; betwixt
Sestos and Madytus, in the Chersonesus of the Hellespont, the coast
toward the sea from Abydos is rough and woody. After this period, and at
no remote interval of time, Xanthippus, son of Ariphron, and commander of
the Athenians, in this place took Antayctes, a Persian, and governor of
Sestos, prisoner; he was crucified alive: he had formerly carried some
females to the temple of Protesilaus in Elæus, and perpetrated what is
detestable.

They on whom the office was imposed proceeded in the work of the bridge,
commencing at the side next Abydos. The Phœnicians used a cordage made of
linen, the Egyptians the bark of the biblos: from Abydos to the opposite
continent is a space of seven stadia. The bridge was no sooner completed,
than a great tempest arose, which tore in pieces and destroyed the whole
of their labour.

When Xerxes heard of what had happened, he was so enraged, that he
ordered three hundred lashes to be inflicted on the Hellespont, and a
pair of fetters to be thrown into the sea. We are told that he even
sent some executioners to brand the Hellespont with marks of ignominy;
but it is certain, that he ordered those who inflicted the lashes to
use these barbarous and mad expressions: “Thou ungracious water, thy
master condemns thee to this punishment for having injured him without
provocation. Xerxes the king will pass over thee, whether thou consentest
or not: just is it that no man honours thee with sacrifice, for thou art
insidious, and of an ungrateful flavour.” After thus treating the sea,
the king commanded those who presided over the construction of the bridge
to be beheaded.

These commands were executed by those on whom that unpleasing office
was conferred. A bridge was then constructed by a different set of
architects, who performed it in the following manner: they connected
together ships of different kinds, some long vessels of fifty oars,
others three-banked galleys, to the number of three hundred and sixty on
the side towards the Euxine Sea, and three hundred and thirteen on that
of the Hellespont.[23]

When these vessels were firmly connected to each other, they were secured
on each side by anchors of great length; on the upper side, because of
the winds which set in from the Euxine; on the lower, toward the Ægean
Sea, on account of the south and southeast winds. They left however
openings in three places, sufficient to afford a passage for light
vessels, which might have occasion to sail into the Euxine or from it:
having performed this, they extended cables from the shore, stretching
them upon large capstans of wood; for this purpose they did not employ
a number of separate cables, but united two of white flax with four of
biblos. These were alike in thickness, and apparently so in goodness, but
those of flax were in proportion much the more solid, weighing not less
than a talent to every cubit. When the pass was thus secured, they sawed
out rafters of wood, making their length equal to the space required for
the bridge; these they laid in order across upon the extended cables, and
then bound them fast together. They next brought unwrought wood, which
they placed very regularly upon the rafters; over all they threw earth,
which they raised to a proper height, and finished all by a fence on each
side, that the horses and other beasts of burden might not be terrified
by looking down upon the sea.

[Sidenote: [481-480 B.C.]]

The bridges were at length completed, and the work at Mount Athos
finished: to prevent the canal at this last place being choked up by
the flow of the tides, deep trenches were sunk at its mouth. The army
had wintered at Sardis, but on receiving intelligence of the above,
they marched at the commencement of the spring for Abydos. At the
moment of their departure, the sun, which before gave his full light,
in a bright unclouded atmosphere, withdrew his beams, and the darkest
night succeeded. Xerxes, alarmed at this incident, consulted the magi
upon what it might portend. They replied, that the protection of
Heaven was withdrawn from the Greeks; the sun, they observed, was the
tutelar divinity of Greece, as the moon was of Persia. The answer was
so satisfactory to Xerxes, that he proceeded with increased alacrity.
During the march, Pythius the Lydian, who was much intimidated by the
prodigy which had appeared, went to the king; deriving confidence from
the liberality he had shown and received, he thus addressed him: “Sir, I
entreat a favour no less trifling to you, than important to myself.”

Xerxes, not imagining what he was about to ask, promised to grant it, and
desired to know what he would have. Pythius on this became still more
bold: “Sir,” he returned, “I have five sons, who are all with you in this
Grecian expedition; I would entreat you to pity my age, and dispense
with the presence of the eldest. Take with you the four others, but
leave one to manage my affairs; so may you return in safety, after the
accomplishment of your wishes.”

Xerxes, in great indignation, made this reply: “Infamous man! you see
me embark my all in this Grecian war; myself, my children, my brothers,
my domestics, and my friends, how dare you then presume to mention your
son, you who are my slave, and whose duty it is to accompany me on this
occasion, with all your family, and even your wife? Remember this, the
spirit of a man resides in his ears; when he hears what is agreeable
to him, the pleasure diffuses itself over all his body; but when the
contrary happens, he is anxious and uneasy. If your former conduct was
good, and your promises yet better, you still cannot boast of having
surpassed the king in liberality. Although your present behaviour is base
and insolent, you shall be punished less severely than you deserve: your
former hospitality preserves yourself and four of your children; the
fifth, whom you most regard, shall pay the penalty of your crime.”

As soon as he had finished, the king commanded the proper officers to
find the eldest son of Pythius, and divide his body in two; he then
ordered one part of the body thrown on the right side of the road, the
other on the left, whilst the army continued their march betwixt them.


HOW THE HOST MARCHED

[Sidenote: [480 B.C.]]

The march was conducted in the following order: first of all went those
who had the care of the baggage; they were followed by a promiscuous body
of strangers of all nations, without any regularity, but to the amount of
more than half the army; after these was a considerable interval, for
these did not join the troops where the king was; next came a thousand
horse, the flower of the Persian army, who were followed by the same
number of spear-men, in like manner selected, trailing their pikes upon
the ground; behind these were ten sacred horses called Nisæan, with very
superb trappings (they take their name from a certain district in Media,
called Nisæus, remarkable for producing horses of an extraordinary size);
the sacred car of Jupiter was next in the procession, it was drawn by
eight white horses, behind which, on foot, was the charioteer, with the
reins in his hands, for no mortal is permitted to sit in this car; then
came Xerxes himself, in a chariot drawn by Nisæan horses; by his side sat
his charioteer, whose name was Patiramphes, son of Otanes the Persian.

Such was the order in which Xerxes departed from Sardis; but as often as
occasion required, he left his chariot for a common carriage. A thousand
of the first and noblest Persians attended his person, bearing their
spears according to the custom of their country; and a thousand horse,
selected like the former, immediately succeeded. A body of ten thousand
chosen infantry came next; a thousand of these had at the extremity of
their spears a pomegranate of gold, the remaining nine thousand, whom
the former enclosed, had in the same manner pomegranates of silver. They
who preceded Xerxes, and trailed their spears, had their arms decorated
with gold: they who followed him had, as we have described, golden
pomegranates: these ten thousand foot were followed by an equal number
of Persian cavalry; at an interval of about two furlongs, followed a
numerous, irregular, and promiscuous multitude.

From Lydia the army continued its march along the banks of the Caicus,
to Mysia, and leaving Mount Canæ on the left, proceeded through Atarnis
to the city Carina. Moving hence over the plains of Thebe, and passing
by Adramyttium and Antandros, a Pelasgian city, they left Mount Ida to
the left, and entered the district of Ilium. In the very first night
which they passed under Ida, a furious storm of thunder and lightning
arose, which destroyed numbers of the troops. From hence they advanced
to the Scamander; this river first of all, after their departure from
Sardis, failed in supplying them with a quantity of water sufficient for
their troops and beasts of burden. On his arrival at this river, Xerxes
ascended the citadel of Priam, desirous of examining the place. Having
surveyed it attentively, and satisfied himself concerning it, he ordered
a thousand oxen to be sacrificed to the Trojan Minerva, at the same time
the magi directed libations to be offered to the manes of the heroes;
when this was done, a panic spread itself in the night through the army.
At the dawn of morning they moved forwards, leaving to the left the towns
of Rhœteum, Ophryneum, and Dardanus, which last is very near Abydos: the
Gergithæ and Teucri were to their right.

On their arrival at Abydos, Xerxes desired to take a survey of all his
army: the inhabitants had, at his previous desire, constructed for him,
on an eminence, a seat of white marble; upon this he sat, and directing
his eyes to the shore, beheld at one view, his land and sea forces. He
next wished to see a naval combat; one was accordingly exhibited before
him, in which the Phœnicians of Sidon were victorious. The view of
this contest, as well as of the number of his forces, delighted Xerxes
exceedingly.

When the king beheld all the Hellespont crowded with ships, and all the
shore, with the plains of Abydos, covered with his troops, he at first
congratulated himself as happy, but he afterward burst into tears.

Artabanus, the uncle of Xerxes, who with so much freedom had at first
opposed the expedition against Greece, observed the king’s emotion: “How
different, Sir,” said he, addressing him, “is your present behaviour,
from what it was a few minutes since! you then esteemed yourself happy,
you now are dissolved in tears.”

“My reflection,” answered Xerxes, “on the transitory period of human
life, excited my compassion for this vast multitude, not one of whom
will complete the term of an hundred years! But tell me, has the vision
which you saw impressed full conviction on your mind, or do your former
sentiments incline you to dissuade me from this Grecian war?--speak
without reserve.”

“May the vision, O King,” replied Artabanus, “which we have mutually
seen, succeed to both our wishes! For my own part I am still so full of
apprehensions, as not at all to be master of myself: after reflecting
seriously on the subject, I discern two important things, exceedingly
hostile to your views.”

“What, my good friend, can these two things possibly be?” replied Xerxes;
“do you think unfavourably of our land army, as not being sufficiently
numerous? Do you imagine the Greeks will be able to collect one more
powerful? Can you conceive our fleet inferior to that of our enemies?--or
do both these considerations together distress you? If our force does not
seem to you sufficiently effective, reinforcements may soon be provided.”

“No one, Sir,” answered Artabanus, “in his proper senses, could object
either to your army, or to the multitude of your fleet: should you
increase their number, the more hostile would the two things be of which
I speak; I allude to the land and the sea. In case of any sudden tempest,
you will find no harbour, as I conjecture, sufficiently capacious or
convenient for the protection of your fleet; no one port would answer
this purpose, you must have the whole extent of the continent; your being
without a resource of this kind, should induce you to remember that
fortune commands men, and not men fortune. This is one of the calamities
which threaten you; I will now explain the other. The land is also your
enemy; your meeting with no resistance will render it more so, as you
will be thus seduced imperceptibly to advance; it is the nature of man,
never to be satisfied with success: thus, having no enemy to encounter
every moment of time, and addition to your progress, will be gradually
introductive of famine. He, therefore, who is truly wise, will as
carefully deliberate about the possible event of things, as he will be
bold and intrepid in action.”

Xerxes made this reply: “What you allege, Artabanus, is certainly
reasonable; but you should not so much give way to fear, as to see
everything in the worst point of view: if in consulting upon any
matter we were to be influenced by the consideration of every possible
contingency, we should execute nothing. It is better to submit to half
of the evil which may be the result of any measure, than to remain in
inactivity from the fear of what may eventually occur. You are sensible
to what a height the power of Persia has arrived, which would never
have been the case, if my predecessors had either been biassed by such
sentiments as yours, or listened to such advisers: it was their contempt
of danger which promoted their country’s glory, for great exploits are
always attended with proportionable danger. We, therefore, emulous of
their reputation, have selected the best season of the year for our
enterprise; and having effectually conquered Europe, we shall return
without experience of famine or any other calamity: we have with us
abundance of provisions, and the nations among which we arrive will
supply us with corn, for they against whom we advance are not shepherds,
but husbandmen.”

“Since, Sir,” returned Artabanus, “you will suffer no mention to be made
of fear, at least listen to my advice: where a number of things are to
be discussed, prolixity is unavoidable. Cyrus, son of Cambyses, made
all Ionia tributary to Persia, Athens excepted; do not, therefore, I
entreat you, lead these men against those from whom they are immediately
descended: without the Ionians, we are more than a sufficient match for
our opponents. They must either be most base, by assisting to reduce the
principal city of their country; or, by contributing to its freedom, will
do what is most just. If they shall prove the former, they can render us
no material service; if the latter, they may bring destruction on your
army. Remember, therefore, the truth of the ancient proverb, When we
commence a thing we cannot always tell how it will end.”

“Artabanus,” interrupted Xerxes, “your suspicions of the fidelity of the
Ionians must be false and injurious; we have had sufficient testimony
of their constancy, as you yourself must be convinced, as well as all
those who served under Darius against the Scythians. It was in their
power to save or to destroy all the forces of Persia, but they preserved
their faith, their honour, and their gratitude; add to this, they have
left their wives, their children, and their wealth, in our dominions,
and therefore dare not meditate anything against us. Indulge, therefore,
no apprehensions, but cheerfully watch over my family and preserve my
authority: to you, I commit the exercise of my power.”

Xerxes after this interview dismissed Artabanus to Susa, and a second
time called an assembly of the most illustrious Persians. As soon as
they were met, he thus addressed them: “My motive, Persians, for thus
convoking you, is to entreat you to behave like men, and not dishonour
the many great exploits of our ancestors: let us individually and
collectively exert ourselves. We are engaged in a common cause; and I the
rather call upon you to display your valour, because I understand we are
advancing against a warlike people, whom if we overcome, no one will in
future dare oppose us. Let us, therefore, proceed, having first implored
the aid of the gods of Persia.”

On the same day they prepared to pass the bridge: the next morning,
whilst they waited for the rising of the sun, they burned on the bridge
all manner of perfumes, and strewed the way with branches of myrtle. When
the sun appeared, Xerxes poured into the sea a libation from a golden
vessel, and then addressing the sun, he implored him to avert from the
Persians every calamity, till they should totally have vanquished Europe,
arriving at its extremest limits.

Xerxes then threw the cup into the Hellespont, together with a golden
goblet, and a Persian scimitar. We are not able to determine whether the
king, by throwing these things into the Hellespont, intended to make an
offering to the sun, or whether he wished thus to make compensation to
the sea, for having formerly chastised it.

When this was done, all the infantry and the horse were made to pass
over that part of the bridge which was toward the Euxine; over that to
the Ægean, went the servants of the camp, and the beasts of burden. They
were preceded by ten thousand Persians, having garlands on their heads;
and these were followed by a promiscuous multitude of all nations--these
passed on the first day. The first who went over the next day were the
knights, and they who trailed their spears; these also had garlands on
their heads: next came the sacred horses, and the sacred car; afterwards
Xerxes himself, who was followed by a body of spear-men, and a thousand
horse. The remainder of the army closed the procession, and at the same
time the fleet moved to the opposite shore: it is said that the king
himself was the last who passed the bridge.

As soon as Xerxes had set foot in Europe, he saw his troops driven over
the bridge by the force of blows; and seven whole days and as many
nights were consumed in the passage of his army. [Later authorities than
Herodotus say that the crossing took two days and that the term seven
days and nights was based first on the greatly exaggerated estimate of
Xerxes’ host, and secondly on the peculiar sanctity of the number seven.]

When Xerxes had passed the Hellespont, an inhabitant of the country
is said to have exclaimed: “Why, O Jupiter, under the appearance of a
Persian, and for the name of Jupiter taking that of Xerxes, art thou come
to distract and persecute Greece? or why bring so vast a multitude, when
able to accomplish thy purpose without them?”

When all were gone over, and were proceeding on their march, a wonderful
prodigy appeared, which, though disregarded by Xerxes, had an obvious
meaning--a mare brought forth a hare[24]: from this it might have
been inferred, that Xerxes, who had led an army into Greece with much
ostentation and insolence, should be involved in personal danger, and
compelled to return with dishonour. Whilst yet at Sardis, he had seen
another prodigy--a mule produced a young one, which had the marks of both
sexes those of the male being beneath.

Neither of these incidents made any impression on his mind, and he
continued to advance with his army by land, whilst his fleet, passing
beyond the Hellespont, coasted along the shore in an opposite direction.
The latter sailed toward the west, to the promontory of Sarpedon, where
they were commanded to remain; the former proceeded eastward through the
Chersonesus, having on their right the tomb of Helle, the daughter of
Athamas; on their left the city of Cardia. Moving onward, through the
midst of a city called Agora, they turned aside to the Gulf of Melas,
and a river of the same name, the waters of which were not sufficient
for the troops. Having passed this river, which gives its name to the
above-mentioned gulf, they directed their march westward, and passing
Ænos, a city of Æolis, and the lake Stentoris, they came to Doriscus.

Doriscus is on the coast, and is a spacious plain of Thrace, through
which the great river Hebrus flows. Here was a royal fort called
Doriscus, in which Darius, in his expedition against Scythia, had placed
a Persian garrison. This appearing a proper place for the purpose,
Xerxes gave orders to have his army here marshalled and numbered. The
fleet being all arrived off the shore near Doriscus, their officers
arranged them in order near where Sale, a Samothracian town, and Zone are
situated. At the extremity of this shore is the celebrated promontory
of Serrhium, which formerly belonged to the Ciconians. The crews having
brought their vessels to shore, enjoyed an interval of repose, whilst
Xerxes was drawing up his troops on the plain of Doriscus.[b]


THE SIZE OF XERXES’ ARMY

A curious instance of extreme critical scepticism is the opinion of
the English lexicographer, Charles Richardson: “I remain still in
doubt,” says he, “whether any such expedition was ever undertaken by
the paramount sovereign of Persia. Disguised in name by some Greek
corruption, Xerxes may possibly have been a feudatory prince or viceroy
of the western districts; and that an invasion of Greece may have
possibly taken place under this prince, I shall readily believe, but
upon a scale I must also believe infinitely narrower than the least
exaggerated description of the Greek historians.”

In Herodotus the reputed followers of Xerxes amount to 5,283,220;
Isocrates, in his _Panathenaicos_, estimates the land army in round
numbers at five million. And with them Plutarch in general agrees; but
such myriads appeared to Diodorus, Pliny, Ælianus, and other later
writers, so much stretched beyond all belief, that they at once cut off
about four-fifths, to bring them within the line of possibility. Yet what
is this, but a singular and very unauthorised liberty in one of the most
consequential points of the expedition? What circumstance in the whole
narration is more explicit in Herodotus, or by its frequent repetition,
not in figures, but in words at length, seems less liable to the mistake
of copiers?

Upon this subject, Larcher[d], who probably had never seen Richardson’s
book, writes as follows:

“This immense army astonishes the imagination, but still is not
incredible. All the people dependent on Persia were slaves; they were
compelled to march, without distinction of birth or profession. Extreme
youth or advanced age were probably the only reasons which excused them
from bearing arms. The only reasonable objection to be made to this
recital of Herodotus is that which Voltaire has omitted to make--where
were provisions to be had for so numerous an army? But Herodotus has
anticipated this objection: ‘We have with us,’ says Xerxes, ‘abundance
of provisions, and all the nations among which we shall come, not being
shepherds, but husbandmen, we shall find corn in their country, which we
shall appropriate to our own use.’ Subsequent writers have, it is true,
differed from Herodotus, and diminished the number of the army of Xerxes;
but Herodotus, who was in some measure a contemporary, and who recited
his history to Greeks assembled at Olympia, where were many who fought at
Salamis and Platæa, is more deserving of credit than later historians.”

The truth perhaps may lie betwixt the two different opinions of
Richardson and Larcher. It is not likely, as there were many exiles from
Greece at the court of Persia, that Xerxes should be ignorant of the
numbers and resources of Greece. To lead there so many millions seems at
first sight not only unnecessary but preposterous. Admitting that so vast
an army had marched against Greece, no one of common-sense would have
thought of making an attack by the way of Thermopylæ, where the passage
must have been so tedious, and any resistance, as so few in proportion
could possibly be brought to act, might be made almost on equal terms:
whilst, on the contrary, to make a descent, they had the whole range of
coast before them. With respect to provisions, the difficulty appears
still greater, and almost insurmountable. We cannot think, with Larcher,
that the numbers recorded by Herodotus are consistent with probability.

Rennell[e] says, that the Persians may be compared, in respect to the
rest of the army of Xerxes, with the Europeans in a British army in
India, composed chiefly of sepoys and native troops.

Probably Xerxes had not many more actual soldiers than the Greeks; the
rest were desultory hordes fit only for plunder, and four-fifths of the
whole were followers of the camp with rice, provisions, etc. The army
that marched under Lord Cornwallis at the siege of Seringapatam, in the
first campaign, consisted of twenty thousand troops, but the followers
were more than one hundred thousand. This is the case in all Eastern
countries.[f]

But let us hear what Herodotus has to say concerning the size of Xerxes’
horde, for after all the modern critics have only his account as a basis:

We are not able to specify what number of men each nation supplied,
as no one has recorded it. The whole amount of the land forces was
seventeen hundred thousand. Their mode of ascertaining the number was
this: they drew up in one place a body of ten thousand men; making these
stand together as compactly as possible, they drew a circle round them.
Dismissing these, they enclosed the circle with a wall breast high; into
this they introduced another and another ten thousand, till they thus
obtained the precise number of the whole. They afterwards ranged each
nation apart.

The generals in chief of all the infantry were Mardonius, son of Gobryas;
Tritantæchmes, son of Artabanus, who had given his opinion against the
Grecian war; and Smerdomenes, son of Otanes, which last two were sons of
two brothers of Darius, the uncles of Xerxes. To the above may be added
Masistes, son of Darius by Atossa; Gergis, son of Arinus; and Megabyzus,
son of Zopyrus.

These were the commanders of all the infantry, except of the ten thousand
chosen Persians, who were led by Hydarnes, son of Hydarnes. These were
called the Immortal Band, and for this reason, if any of them died in
battle, or by any disease, his place was immediately supplied. They were
thus never more nor less than ten thousand. The Persians surpassed all
the rest of the army, not only in magnificence but valour; they were
also remarkable for the quantity of gold which adorned them: they had
with them carriages for their women, and a vast number of attendants
splendidly provided. They had also camels and beasts of burden to carry
their provisions, beside those for the common occasions of the army. The
Persian horse, except a small number, whose casques were ornamented with
brass and iron, were habited like the infantry.

There appeared of the Sagartii a body of eight thousand horse. These
people lead a pastoral life, were originally of Persian descent, and used
the Persian language: their dress is something betwixt the Persian and
the Pactyan; they have no offensive weapons, either of iron or brass,
except their daggers: their principal dependence in action is upon cords
made of twisted leather, which they use in this manner: when they engage
an enemy they throw out these cords, having a noose at the extremity;
if they entangle in them either horse or man, they without difficulty
put them to death. These forces were embodied with the Persians. The
cavalry of the Medes, and also of the Cissians, are accoutred like their
infantry. The Indian horse likewise were armed like their foot; but
beside led horses they had chariots of war, drawn by horses and wild
asses. The armour of the Bactrian and Caspian horse and foot were alike.
This was also the case with the Africans, only it is to be observed that
these last all fought from chariots. The Paricanian horse were also
equipped like their foot, as were the Arabians, all of whom had camels,
by no means inferior to the horse in swiftness.

These were the cavalry, who formed a body of eighty thousand, exclusive
of camels and chariots. They were drawn up in regular order, and the
Arabians were disposed in the rear, that the horses might not be
terrified, as a horse cannot endure a camel. Harmamithres and Tithæus,
the sons of Datis, commanded the cavalry; they had shared this command
with Pharnuches, but he had been left at Sardis indisposed. As the troops
were marching from Sardis he met with an unfortunate accident: a dog ran
under the feet of his horse, which being terrified reared up and threw
his rider. Pharnuches was in consequence seized with a vomiting of blood,
which finally terminated in a consumption. His servants, in compliance
with the orders of their master, led the horse to the place where the
accident happened, and there cut off his legs at the knees. Thus was
Pharnuches deprived of his command.[b]

We give the account of the Persian fleet as stated by Herodotus, that the
reader may compare it with that which follows of Diodorus Siculus:

    Phœnicians                    300
    Egyptians                     200
    Cyprians                      150
    Cilicians                     100
    Pamphylians                    30
    Lycians                        50
    Dorians                        30
    Carians                        70
    Ionians                       100
    Islanders                      17
    Æolians                        60
    People of the Hellespont      100
                                 ----
                                 1207
                                 ----

According to Diodorus Siculus,

    Dorians                        40
    Æolians                        40
    Ionians                       100
    Hellespontians                 80
    Islanders                      50
    Egyptians                     200
    Phœnicians                    300
    Cilicians                      80
    Carians                        80
    Pamphylians                    40
    Lycians                        40
    Cyprians                      150
                                 ----
                                 1200[f]
                                 ----

The commanders-in-chief of the sea forces were Ariabignes, son of Darius,
Prexaspes, son of Aspathines, and Megabazus, son of Megabates, together
with Achæmenes, another son of Darius. The other leaders we forbear to
specify, it not appearing necessary; but it is impossible not to speak,
and with admiration, of Artemisia, who, though a female, served in this
Grecian expedition. On the death of her husband she enjoyed the supreme
authority, for her son was not yet grown up, and her great spirit and
vigour of mind alone induced her to exert herself on this occasion. She
was the daughter of Lygdamis, by her father’s side of Halicarnassus,
by her mother of Cretan descent. She had the conduct of those of
Halicarnassus, Cos, Nisyros, and Calynda. She furnished five ships, which
next to those of the Sidonians, were the best in the fleet. She was
also distinguished among all the allies for the salutary counsels which
she gave the king. Such were the maritime forces.[b] Leaving this vast
armament on its prosperous course towards Greece, let us see what has
been happening meanwhile in that busy little nation.


FOOTNOTES

[20] [The Romans, in attacking an enemy, so disposed their army, as to
be able to rally three different times. This has been thought by many
as the great secret of the Roman discipline; because fortune must have
failed their efforts three different times before they could be possibly
defeated. The Greeks drew up their forces in one extended line, and
therefore depended upon the effect of the first charge.[f]]

[21] [Larcher[d] reasonably supposes that this was a plot of Mardonius
to impose on Xerxes; and that some person, dressed and disguised for the
purpose, acted the part of the ghost.]

[22] [Many wonderful anecdotes are related of the riches of individuals
in more ancient times; among which this does not seem to be the least
marvellous. The sum of which Pythius is said to have been possessed
amounted to five millions and a half of sterling money [$27,500,000];
this is according to the estimate of Prideaux; that given by Montfaucon
differs essentially. “The denii,” says this last writer, “weighed eight
modern louis-d’ors; therefore Pythius possessed thirty-two millions of
louis-d’ors” [£25,600,000, $128,000,000].

Montfaucon, relating the story of Pythius, adds these reflections:

“‘A man might in those days safely be rich, provided he obtained his
riches honestly; and how great must have been the circulation in
commerce, if a private man could amass so prodigious a sum!’ The wealth
which the Roman Crassus possessed was not much inferior; when he had
consecrated a tenth of his property to Hercules, and at ten thousand
tables feasted all the people of Rome, beside giving as much corn to
every citizen as was sufficient to last him three months, he found
himself still possessed of seventy-one hundred Roman talents, equivalent
to a million and a half of our money. The gold which Solomon employed in
overlaying the sanctum sanctorum of the Temple, which was no more than
thirty feet square and thirty feet high, amounted to four millions three
hundred and twenty thousand pounds sterling. The gold which he had in
one year from Ophir was equal to three millions two hundred and forty
thousand pounds.”[f]]

[23] [It seems a matter of certainty that Herodotus’ numbers must be
erroneous. Vessels placed transversely must reach to a much greater
extent than the same number placed side by side; yet here the greater
number of ships is stated to have been on the side where they were
arranged transversely, that is, across the channel, with their broadsides
to the stream. What the true numbers were it is vain to conjecture, it is
sufficient to have pointed out that the present must be wrong.[f]

Since the Hellespont, in the neighbourhood of Abydos, has a very
considerable bend in its course, first running northward from Abydos
towards Sestos, and then taking a pretty sharp turn to the eastward, may
it not have been, that the two lines of ships were disposed on different
sides of the angle just mentioned, by which it might truly be said, that
the ships in one line presented their heads to the Euxine, the other
their sides, although the heads of both were presented to the current?
The different numbers in the two lines certainly indicate different
breadths of the strait, which can only be accounted for by their being at
some distance from each other: for it cannot be supposed that the line
was placed obliquely across the strait.

The cables extended from each shore appear to have been for the sole
purpose of supporting the bridgeways. The ships were kept in their places
by anchors ahead and astern; by the lateral pressure of each other, and
by side-fastening.[e]]

[24] [This story will probably excite a smile from the English reader,
whom it will remind of Mary Tofts and her rabbits.--BELOE.]

[Illustration: GREEK RINGS]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XVIII. PROCEEDINGS IN GREECE FROM MARATHON TO THERMOPYLÆ

    O Land of Solon, Plato, and of men
    Whose glorious like earth ne’er shall see again!

                                                    --NICHOLAS MICHELL.


Our information respecting the affairs of Greece immediately after the
repulse of the Persians from Marathon, is very scanty.

Cleomenes and Leotychides, the two kings of Sparta (the former belonging
to the elder or Eurysthenid, the latter to the younger or the Proclid,
race), had conspired for the purpose of dethroning the former Proclid
king Demaratus: and Cleomenes had even gone so far as to tamper with the
Delphian priestess for this purpose. His manœuvre being betrayed shortly
afterwards, he was so alarmed at the displeasure of the Spartans, that he
retired into Thessaly, and from thence into Arcadia, where he employed
the powerful influence of his regal character and heroic lineage to arm
the Arcadian people against his country. The Spartans, alarmed in their
turn, voluntarily invited him back with a promise of amnesty. But his
renewed lease did not last long: his habitual violence of character
became aggravated into decided insanity, insomuch that he struck with his
stick whomsoever he met; and his relatives were forced to confine him in
chains under a helot sentinel. By severe menaces, he one day constrained
this man to give him his sword, with which he mangled himself dreadfully
and perished.

But what surprises us most is, to hear that the Spartans, usually more
disposed than other Greeks to refer every striking phenomenon to divine
agency, recognised on this occasion nothing but a vulgar physical cause:
Cleomenes had gone mad (they affirmed) through habits of intoxication,
learnt from some Scythian envoys who had come to Sparta.

The general course of the war with Ægina, and especially the failure
of the enterprise concerted with Nicodromus in consequence of delay
in borrowing ships from Corinth, were well calculated to impress upon
the Athenians the necessity of enlarging their naval force. And it is
from the present time that we trace among them the first growth of that
decided tendency towards maritime activity which coincided so happily
with the expansion of their democracy, and opened a new phase in Grecian
history as well as a new career for themselves.

The exciting effect produced upon them by the repulse of the Persians
at Marathon has been dwelt upon. Miltiades, the victor in that field,
having been removed from the scene under circumstances already described,
Aristides and Themistocles became the chief men at Athens: and the
former was chosen archon during the succeeding year. His exemplary
uprightness in magisterial functions ensured to him lofty esteem from
the general public, not without a certain proportion of active enemies,
some of them sufferers by his justice. These enemies naturally became
partisans of his rival Themistocles, who had all the talents necessary
for bringing them into co-operation: and the rivalry between the two
chiefs became so bitter and menacing, that even Aristides himself is
reported to have said, “If the Athenians were wise, they would cast both
of us into the barathrum.”


THEMISTOCLES AND ARISTIDES

[Illustration: THEMISTOCLES]

[Sidenote: [489-481 B.C.]]

Of the particular points on which their rivalry turned, we are
unfortunately little informed. But it is highly probable that one of them
was the important change of policy above alluded to,--the conversion of
Athens from a land-power into a sea-power; the development of this new
and stirring element in the minds of the people. By all authorities, this
change of policy is ascribed principally and specially to Themistocles.
On that account, if for no other reason, Aristides would probably be
found opposed to it: but it was moreover a change not in harmony with
that old-fashioned Hellenism, undisturbed uniformity of life, and
narrow range of active duty and experience which Aristides seems to
have approved in common with the subsequent philosophers. The seaman
was naturally more of a wanderer and cosmopolite than the heavy-armed
soldier: the modern Greek seaman even at this moment is so to a
remarkable degree, distinguished for the variety of his ideas, and the
quickness of his intelligence: the land-service was a type of steadiness
and inflexible ranks, the sea-service that of mutability and adventure.
Such was the idea strongly entertained by Plato and other philosophers:
though we may remark that they do not render justice to the Athenian
seaman, whose training was far more perfect and laborious, and his habits
of obedience far more complete, than that of the Athenian hoplite or
horseman: a training beginning with Themistocles, and reaching its full
perfection about the commencement of the Peloponnesian War.

In recommending extraordinary efforts to create a navy as well as to
acquire nautical practice, Themistocles displayed all that sagacious
appreciation of the circumstances and dangers of the time for which
Thucydides gives him credit: and there can be no doubt that Aristides,
though the honester politician of the two, was at this particular crisis
the less essential to his country. Not only was there the struggle with
Ægina, a maritime power equal or more than equal, and within sight of
the Athenian harbour, but there was also in the distance a still more
formidable contingency to guard against. The Persian armament had been
driven with disgrace from Attica back to Asia; but the Persian monarch
still remained with undiminished means of aggression as well as increased
thirst for revenge; and Themistocles knew well that the danger from that
quarter would recur greater than ever. He believed that it would recur
again in the same way, by an expedition across the Ægean like that of
Datis to Marathon; against which the best defence would be found in a
numerous and well-trained fleet. Nor could the large preparations of
Darius for renewing the attack remain unknown to a vigilant observer,
extending as they did over so many Greeks subject to the Persian empire.
Such positive warning was more than enough to stimulate the active genius
of Themistocles, who now prevailed upon his countrymen to begin with
energy the work of maritime preparation, as well against Ægina as against
Persia. Not only were two hundred new ships built, and citizens trained
as seamen, but the important work was commenced, during the year when
Themistocles was either archon or general, of forming and fortifying a
new harbour for Athens at Piræus, instead of the ancient open bay of
Phalerum. The latter was indeed somewhat nearer to the city, but Piræus
with its three separate natural ports, admitting of being closed and
fortified, was incomparably superior in safety as well as in convenience.
It is not too much to say with Herodotus, that the Æginetan war was “the
salvation of Greece, by constraining the Athenians to make themselves
a maritime power.” The whole efficiency of the resistance subsequently
made to Xerxes turned upon this new movement in the organisation of
Athens, allowed as it was to attain tolerable completeness through a
fortunate concurrence of accidents; for the important delay of ten years
between the defeat of Marathon and the fresh invasion by which it was to
be avenged was, in truth, the result of accident. First, the revolt of
Egypt; next, the death of Darius; thirdly, the indifference of Xerxes at
his first accession towards Hellenic matters--postponing until 480 B.C.,
an invasion which would naturally have been undertaken in 487 or 486
B.C., and which would have found Athens at that time without her wooden
walls--the great engine of her subsequent salvation.

Another accidental help, without which the new fleet could not have been
built--a considerable amount of public money--was also by good fortune
now available to the Athenians. It is first in an emphatic passage of
the poet Æschylus, and next from Herodotus on the present occasion,
that we hear of the silver mines of Laurium in Attica, and the valuable
produce which they rendered to the state. At what time they first began
to be worked, we have no information; but it seems hardly possible that
they could have been worked with any spirit or profitable result, until
after the expulsion of Hippias and the establishment of the democratical
constitution of Clisthenes. Neither the strong local factions, by which
different portions of Attica were set against each other before the
time of Pisistratus--nor the rule of that despot succeeded by his two
sons--were likely to afford confidence and encouragement. But when the
democracy of Clisthenes first brought Attica into one systematic and
comprehensive whole, with equal rights assigned to each part, and with a
common centre at Athens--the power of that central government over the
mineral wealth of the country, and its means of binding the whole people
to respect agreements concluded with individual undertakers, would give
a new stimulus to private speculation in the district of Laurium. It was
the practice of the Athenian government either to sell, or to let for a
long term of years, particular districts of this productive region to
individuals or companies; on consideration partly of a sum or fine paid
down, partly of a reserved rent equal to one twenty-fourth part of the
gross produce.

We are told by Herodotus that there was in the Athenian treasury, at the
time when Themistocles made his proposition to enlarge the naval force,
a great sum arising from the Laurian mines, out of which a distribution
was on the point of being made among the citizens--ten drachmæ [about
8 shillings or $2] to each man. Themistocles availed himself of this
precious opportunity--set forth the necessities of the war with Ægina,
and the still more formidable menace from the great enemy in Asia--and
prevailed upon the people to forego the promised distribution for the
purpose of obtaining an efficient navy. One cannot doubt that there must
have been many speakers who would try to make themselves popular by
opposing this proposition and supporting the distribution; insomuch that
the power of the people generally to feel the force of a distant motive
as predominant over a present gain, deserves notice as an earnest of
their approaching greatness.

Immense indeed was the recompense reaped for this self-denial, not merely
by Athens but by Greece generally, when the preparations of Xerxes came
to be matured, and his armament was understood to be approaching. The
orders for equipment of ships and laying in of provisions, issued by the
Great King to his subject Greeks in Asia, the Ægean, and Thrace, would
of course become known throughout Greece proper; especially the vast
labour bestowed on the canal of Mount Athos, which would be the theme
of wondering talk with every Thasian or Acanthian citizen who visited
the festival games in the Peloponnesus. All these premonitory evidences
were public enough, without any need of that elaborate stratagem whereby
the exiled Demaratus is alleged to have secretly transmitted, from
Susa to Sparta, intelligence of the approaching expedition. The formal
announcements of Xerxes all designated Athens as the special object
of his wrath and vengeance. Other Grecian cities might thus hope to
escape without mischief: so that the prospect of the great invasion did
not at first provoke among them any unanimous disposition to resist.
Accordingly, when the first heralds despatched by Xerxes from Sardis in
the autumn of 481 B.C., a little before his march to the Hellespont,
addressed themselves to the different cities with demand of earth and
water, many were disposed to comply. Neither to Athens, nor to Sparta,
were any heralds sent; and these two cities were thus from the beginning
identified in interest and in the necessity of defence. Both of them
sent, in this trying moment, to consult the Delphian oracle; while both
at the same time joined to convene a Panhellenic congress at the Isthmus
of Corinth, for the purpose of organising resistance against the expected
invader.


CONGRESS AT CORINTH

[Sidenote: [481 B.C.]]

We have pointed out the various steps whereby the separate states of
Greece were gradually brought, even against their own natural instincts,
into something approaching more nearly to political union. The present
congress, assembled under the influence of common fear from Persia, has
more of a Panhellenic character than any political event which has yet
occurred in Grecian history. It extends far beyond the range of those
Peloponnesian states which constitute the immediate allies of Sparta:
it comprehends Athens, and is even summoned in part by her strenuous
instigation: moreover it seeks to combine every city of Hellenic race and
language, however distant, which can be induced to take part in it--even
the Cretans, Corcyræans, and Sicilians. It is true that all these states
do not actually come, but earnest efforts are made to induce them to
come: the dispersed brethren of the Hellenic family are entreated to
marshal themselves in the same ranks for a joint political purpose--the
defence of the common hearth and metropolis of the race. This is a new
fact in Grecian history, opening scenes and ideas unlike to anything
which has gone before--enlarging prodigiously the functions and duties
connected with that headship of Greece which had hitherto been in the
hands of Sparta, but which is about to become too comprehensive for her
to manage--and thus introducing increased habits of co-operation among
the subordinate states, as well as rival hopes of aggrandisement among
the leaders. The congress at the Isthmus of Corinth marks such further
advance in the centralising tendencies of Greece, and seems at first to
promise an onward march in the same direction: but the promise will not
be found realised.

Its first step was indeed one of inestimable value. While most of the
deputies present came prepared, in the name of their respective cities,
to swear reciprocal fidelity and brotherhood, they also addressed all
their efforts to appease the feuds and dissensions which reigned among
particular members of their own meeting. Of these the most prominent,
as well as the most dangerous, was the war still subsisting between
Athens and Ægina. The latter was not exempt, even now, from suspicions
of _medising_ (_i.e._, embracing the cause of the Persians), which had
been raised by her giving earth and water ten years before to Darius.
But her present conduct afforded no countenance to such suspicions:
she took earnest part in the congress as well as in the joint measures
of defence, and willingly consented to accommodate her difference with
Athens. In this work of reconciling feuds, so essential to the safety
of Greece, the Athenian Themistocles took a prominent part, as well as
Cheileus of Tegea in Arcadia. The congress proceeded to send envoys
and solicit co-operation from such cities as were yet either equivocal
or indifferent, especially Argos, Corcyra, and the Cretan and Sicilian
Greeks; and at the same time to despatch spies across to Sardis, for the
purpose of learning the state and prospects of the assembled army.

These spies presently returned, having been detected, and condemned to
death by the Persian generals, but released by express order of Xerxes,
who directed that the full strength of his assembled armament should
be shown to them, in order that the terror of the Greeks might be thus
magnified. The step was well calculated for such a purpose: but the
discouragement throughout Greece was already extreme, at this critical
period when the storm was about to burst upon them. Even to intelligent
and well-meaning Greeks, much more to the careless, the timid, or the
treacherous--Xerxes with his countless host appeared irresistible, and
indeed something more than human. Of course such an impression would be
encouraged by the large number of Greeks already his tributaries: and we
may even trace the manifestation of a wish to get rid of the Athenians
altogether, as the chief objects of Persian vengeance and chief hindrance
to tranquil submission. This despair of the very continuance of Hellenic
life and autonomy breaks forth even from the sanctuary of Hellenic
religion, the Delphian temple; when the Athenians, in their distress and
uncertainty, sent to consult the oracle. Hardly had their two envoys
performed the customary sacrifices, and sat down in the inner chamber
near the priestess Aristonice, when she at once exclaimed: “Wretched
men, why sit ye there? Quit your land and city, and flee afar! Head,
body, feet, and hands are alike rotten: fire and sword, in the train of
the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you: nor only your city, but other
cities also, as well as many even of the temples of the gods--which are
now sweating and trembling with fear, and foreshadow, by drops of blood
on their roofs, the hard calamities impending. Get ye away from the
sanctuary, with your souls steeped in sorrow.”

So terrific a reply had rarely escaped from the lips of the priestess.
The envoys were struck to the earth by it, and durst not carry it back
to Athens. In their sorrow they were encouraged yet to hope by an
influential Delphian citizen named Timon (we trace here as elsewhere
the underhand working of these leading Delphians on the priestess), who
advised them to provide themselves with the characteristic marks of
supplication, and to approach the oracle a second time in that imploring
guise: “O lord, we pray thee (they said), have compassion on these
boughs of supplication, and deliver to us something more comfortable
concerning our country; else we quit not thy sanctuary, but remain here
until death.” Upon which the priestess replied: “Athene with all her
prayers and all her sagacity cannot propitiate Olympian Zeus. But this
assurance I will give you, firm as adamant. When everything else in the
land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to Athene that the wooden
wall alone shall remain unconquered, to defend you and your children.
Stand not to await the assailing horse and foot from the continent, but
turn your backs and retire: you shall yet live to fight another day. O
divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the children of women, either at
the seed-time or at the harvest.”

This second answer was a sensible mitigation of the first. It left open
some hope of escape, though faint, dark, and unintelligible: and the
envoys wrote it down to carry back to Athens, not concealing probably
the terrific sentence which had preceded it. When read to the people,
the obscurity of the meaning provoked many different interpretations.
What was meant by “the wooden wall”? Some supposed that the Acropolis
itself, which had originally been surrounded with a wooden palisade,
was the refuge pointed out; but the greater number, and among them most
of those who were by profession expositors of prophecy, maintained that
the wooden wall indicated the fleet. But these professional expositors,
while declaring that the god bade them go on shipboard, deprecated all
idea of a naval battle, and insisted on the necessity of abandoning
Attica forever: the last lines of the oracle, wherein it was said
that Salamis would destroy the children of women, appeared to them to
portend nothing but disaster in the event of a naval combat. Such was
the opinion of those who passed for the best expositors of the divine
will. It harmonised completely with the despairing temper then prevalent,
heightened by the terrible sentence pronounced in the first oracle;
and emigration to some foreign land presented itself as the only hope
of safety even for their persons. The fate of Athens--and of Greece
generally, which would have been helpless without Athens--now hung upon a
thread, when Themistocles, the great originator of the fleet, interposed
with equal steadfastness of heart and ingenuity, to insure the proper use
of it. He contended that if the god had intended to designate Salamis as
the scene of a naval disaster to the Greeks, that island would have been
called in the oracle by some such epithet as “wretched Salamis:” but the
fact that it was termed “divine Salamis,” indicated that the parties,
destined to perish there, were the enemies of Greece, not the Greeks
themselves. He encouraged his countrymen therefore to abandon their
city and country, and to trust themselves to the fleet as the wooden
wall recommended by the god, but with full determination to fight and
conquer on board. Great indeed were the consequences which turned upon
this bold stretch of exegetical conjecture. Unless the Athenians had been
persuaded, by some plausible show of interpretation, that the sense of
the oracle encouraged instead of forbidding a naval combat, they would in
their existing depression have abandoned all thought of resistance.

Even with the help of an encouraging interpretation, however, nothing
less than the most unconquerable resolution and patriotism could have
enabled the Athenians to bear up against such terrific denunciations from
the Delphian god, and persist in resistance in place of seeking safety by
emigration. Herodotus emphatically impresses this truth upon his readers:
nay, he even steps out of his way to do so, proclaiming Athens as the
real saviour of Greece. Writing as he did about the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War--at a time when Athens, having attained the maximum of
her empire, was alike feared, hated, and admired, by most of the Grecian
states--he knows that the opinion which he is giving will be unpopular
with his hearers generally, and he apologises for it as something wrung
from him against his will by the force of the evidence. Nor was it only
that the Athenians dared to stay and fight against immense odds: they,
and they alone, threw into the cause that energy and forwardness whereby
it was enabled to succeed, as will appear further in the sequel.

But there was also a third way, not less deserving of notice, in which
they contributed to the result. As soon as the congress of deputies
met at the Isthmus of Corinth, it became essential to recognise some
one commanding state: and with regard to the land-force, no one dreamt
of contesting the pre-eminence of Sparta. But in respect to the fleet,
her pretensions were more disputable, since she furnished at most only
sixteen ships, and little or no nautical skill; while Athens brought
two-thirds of the entire naval force, with the best ships and seamen.
Upon these grounds the idea was at first started, that Athens should
command at sea and Sparta on land: but the majority of the allies
manifested a decided repugnance, announcing that they would follow no one
but a Spartan. To the honour of the Athenians, they at once waived their
pretensions, as soon as they saw that the unity of the confederate force
at this moment of peril would be compromised. To appreciate this generous
abnegation of a claim in itself so reasonable, we must recollect that
the love of pre-eminence was among the most prominent attributes of the
Hellenic character; a prolific source of their greatness and excellence,
but producing also no small amount both of their follies and their
crimes. To renounce at the call of public obligation a claim to personal
honour and glory, is perhaps the rarest of all virtues in a son of Hellen.

[Sidenote: [481-480 B.C.]]

We find thus the Athenians nerved up to the pitch of resistance,
prepared to see their country wasted, and to live as well as to fight on
shipboard, when the necessity should arrive; furnishing two-thirds of
the whole fleet, and yet prosecuting the building of fresh ships until
the last moment; sending forth the ablest and most forward leader in
the common cause, while content themselves to serve like other states
under the leadership of Sparta. During the winter preceding the march of
Xerxes from Sardis, the congress at the isthmus was trying, with little
success, to bring the Grecian cities into united action. Among the cities
north of Attica and the Peloponnesus, the greater number were either
inclined to submit, like Thebes and the greater part of Bœotia, or were
at least lukewarm in the cause of independence: so rare at this trying
moment (to use the language of the unfortunate Platæans fifty-three years
afterwards) was the exertion of resolute Hellenic patriotism against the
invader. Even in the interior of the Peloponnesus, the powerful Argos
maintained an ambiguous neutrality. It was one of the first steps of the
congress to send special envoys to Argos, setting forth the common danger
and soliciting co-operation. The result is certain, that no co-operation
was obtained--the Argives did nothing throughout the struggle; but as
to their real position, or the grounds of their refusal, contradictory
statements had reached the ears of Herodotus. They themselves affirmed
that they were ready to have joined the Hellenic cause, in spite of
dissuasion from the Delphian oracle--exacting only as conditions that the
Spartans should conclude a truce with them for thirty years, and should
equally divide the honours of headship with Argos.

Such was the story told by the Argives themselves, but seemingly not
credited either by any other Greeks, or by Herodotus himself. The
prevalent opinion was, that the Argives had a secret understanding with
Xerxes, and some even affirmed that they had been the parties who invited
him into Greece, as a means both of protection and of vengeance to
themselves against Sparta after their defeat by Cleomenes. And Herodotus
himself evidently believed that they _medised_, though he is half afraid
to say so, and disguises his opinion in a cloud of words which betray the
angry polemics going on about the matter, even fifty years afterwards. It
is certain that in act the Argives were neutral.

The Cretans declined to take any part, on the ground of prohibitory
injunctions from the oracle; the Corcyræans promised without performing,
and even without any intention to perform. Their neutrality was a serious
loss to the Greeks, since they could fit out a naval force of sixty
triremes, second only to that of Athens. With this important contingent
they engaged to join the Grecian fleet, and actually set sail from
Corcyra; but they took care not to sail round Cape Malea, or to reach the
scene of action.

The envoys who visited Corcyra proceeded onward on their mission to
Gelo the despot of Syracuse. Of that potentate, regarded by Herodotus
as more powerful than any state in Greece, we shall speak more fully in
a subsequent chapter: it is sufficient to mention now, that he rendered
no aid against Xerxes. Nor was it in his power to do so, whatever
might have been his inclinations; for the same year which brought the
Persian monarch against Greece, was also selected by the Carthaginians
for a formidable invasion of Sicily, which kept the Sicilian Greeks
to the defence of their own island. It seems even probable that this
simultaneous invasion had been concerted between the Persians and
Carthaginians.

The endeavours of the deputies of Greeks at the isthmus had thus produced
no other reinforcement to their cause except some fair words from the
Corcyræans. It was about the time when Xerxes was about to pass the
Hellespont, in the beginning of 480 B.C., that the first actual step
for resistance was taken, at the instigation of the Thessalians. Though
the great Thessalian family of the Aleuadæ were among the companions
of Xerxes, and the most forward in inviting him into Greece, with
every promise of ready submission from their countrymen--yet it seems
that these promises were in reality unwarranted. The Aleuadæ were at
the head only of a minority, and perhaps were even in exile, like the
Pisistratidæ: while most of the Thessalians were disposed to resist
Xerxes--for which purpose they now sent envoys to the isthmus, intimating
the necessity of guarding the passes of Olympus, the northernmost
entrance of Greece. They offered their own cordial aid in this defence,
adding that they should be under the necessity of making their own
separate submission, if this demand were not complied with. Accordingly a
body of ten thousand Grecian heavy-armed infantry, under the command of
the Spartan Euænetus and the Athenian Themistocles, were despatched by
sea to Alus in Achaia Phthiotis, where they disembarked and marched by
land across Achaia and Thessaly. Being joined by the Thessalian horse,
they occupied the defile of Tempe, through which the river Peneus makes
its way to the sea, by a cleft between the mountains Olympus and Ossa.


THE VALE OF TEMPE

[Illustration: GREEK STANDARD BEARER]

The long, narrow, and winding defile of Tempe formed then, and forms
still, the single entrance, open throughout winter as well as summer,
from lower or maritime Macedonia into Thessaly. The lofty mountain
precipices approach so closely as to leave hardly room enough in some
places for a road: it is thus eminently defensible, and a few resolute
men would be sufficient to arrest in it the progress of the most numerous
host. But the Greeks soon discovered that the position was such as they
could not hold--first, because the powerful fleet of Xerxes would be
able to land troops in their rear; secondly, because there was also a
second entrance passable in summer, from upper Macedonia into Thessaly,
by the mountain passes over the range of Olympus. It was in fact by this
second pass, evading the insurmountable difficulties of Tempe, that
the advancing march of the Persians was destined to be made, under the
auspices of Alexander, king of Macedon, tributary to them and active in
their service. That prince sent a communication of the fact to the Greeks
at Tempe, admonishing them that they would be trodden under foot by the
countless host approaching, and urging them to renounce their hopeless
position. He passed for a friend, and probably believed himself to be
acting as such, in dissuading the Greeks from unavailing resistance to
Persia: but he was in reality a very dangerous mediator; and as such
the Spartans had good reason to dread him, in a second intervention of
which we shall hear more hereafter. On the present occasion, the Grecian
commanders were quite ignorant of the existence of any other entrance
into Thessaly, besides Tempe, until their arrival in that region. Perhaps
it might have been possible to defend both entrances at once, and
considering the immense importance of arresting the march of the Persians
at the frontiers of Hellas, the attempt would have been worth some risk.
So great was the alarm, however, produced by the unexpected discovery,
justifying or seeming to justify the friendly advice of Alexander, that
they remained only a few days at Tempe, then at once retired back to
their ships, and returned by sea to the Isthmus of Corinth--about the
time when Xerxes was crossing the Hellespont.

This precipitate retreat produced consequences highly disastrous and
discouraging. It appeared to leave all Hellas north of Mount Cithæron
and of the Megarid territory without defence, and it served either as
reason or pretext for the majority of the Grecian states, north of
that boundary, to make their submission to Xerxes, which some of them
had already begun to do before. When Xerxes in the course of his march
reached the Thermaic Gulf, within sight of Olympus and Ossa, the heralds
whom he had sent from Sardis brought him tokens of submission from a
third portion of the Hellenic name--the Thessalians, Dolopes, Ænianes,
Perrhæbians, Magnetes, Locrians, Dorians, Melians, Phthiotic Achæans,
and Bœotians. Among the latter is included Thebes, but not Thespiæ or
Platæa. The Thessalians, especially, not only submitted, but manifested
active zeal and rendered much service in the cause of Xerxes, under the
stimulus of the Aleuadæ, whose party now became predominant: they were
probably indignant at the hasty retreat of those who had come to defend
them.

Had the Greeks been able to maintain the passes of Olympus and Ossa, all
this northern fraction might probably have been induced to partake in the
resistance instead of becoming auxiliaries to the invader. During the six
weeks or two months which elapsed between the retreat of the Greeks from
Tempe and the arrival of Xerxes at Therma, no new plan of defence was yet
thoroughly organised; for it was not until that arrival became known at
the isthmus, that the Greek army and fleet made its forward movement to
occupy Thermopylæ and Artemisium.[b]


XERXES REVIEWS HIS HOST

Xerxes having ranged and numbered his armament, was desirous to take a
survey of them all. Mounted in his car, he examined each nation in its
turn. To all of them he proposed certain questions, the replies to which
were noted down by his secretaries. In this manner he proceeded from
first to last through all the ranks, both of horse and foot. When this
was done, the fleet also was pushed off from land, whilst the monarch,
exchanging his chariot for a Sidonian vessel, on the deck of which he
sat beneath a golden canopy, passed slowly the heads of the ships,
proposing in like manner questions to each, and noting down the answers.
The commanders had severally moored their vessels at about four plethra
from shore, in one uniform line, with their sterns out to sea, and their
crews under arms, as if prepared for battle. Xerxes viewed them, passing
betwixt their prows and the shore.

When he had finished his survey, he went on shore; and sending for
Demaratus, the son of Ariston, who accompanied him in this expedition
against Greece, he thus addressed him: “From you, Demaratus, who are
a Greek, and, as I understand from yourself and others, of no mean or
contemptible city, I am desirous of obtaining information: do you think
that the Greeks will presume to make any resistance against me? For my
own part, not to mention their want of unanimity, I cannot think that
all the Greeks, joined to all the inhabitants of the west, would be able
to withstand my power: what is your opinion on this subject?” “Sir,”
said Demaratus, in reply, “shall I say what is true, or only what is
agreeable?” Xerxes commanded him to speak the truth.

“Since,” answered Demaratus, “you command me to speak the truth, it shall
be my care to deliver myself in such a manner that no one hereafter,
speaking as I do, shall be convicted of falsehood. Greece has ever been
the child of poverty; for its virtue it is indebted to the severe wisdom
and discipline, by which it has tempered its poverty, and repelled its
oppressors. To this praise all the Dorian Greeks are entitled; but
I shall now speak of the Lacedæmonians only. You may depend upon it
that your propositions, which threaten Greece with servitude, will be
rejected; and if all the other Greeks side with you against them, the
Lacedæmonians will engage you in battle. Make no inquiries as to their
number, for if they shall have but a thousand men, or even fewer, they
will fight you.”

“What, Demaratus,” answered Xerxes, smiling, “think you that a thousand
men will engage so vast a host? Tell me, you who, as you say, have been
their prince, would you now willingly engage with ten opponents? If your
countrymen be what you describe them, according to your own principles
you, who are their prince, should be equal to two of them. If, therefore,
one of them be able to contend with ten of my soldiers, you may be
reasonably expected to contend with twenty: such ought to be the test
of your assertions. But if your countrymen really resemble in form and
size you, and such other Greeks as appear in my presence, it should seem
that what you say is dictated by pride and insolence; for how can it be
shown that a thousand, or ten thousand, or even fifty thousand men, all
equally free, and not subject to the will of an individual, could oppose
so great an army? Granting them to have five thousand men, we have still
a majority of a thousand to one; they who like us are under the command
of one person, from the fear of their leader, and under the immediate
impression of the lash, are animated with a spirit contrary to their
nature, and are made to attack a number greater than their own; but they
who are urged by no constraint will not do this. If these Greeks were
even equal to us in number, I cannot think they would dare to encounter
Persians. The virtue to which you allude, is to be found among ourselves,
though the examples are certainly not numerous; there are of my Persian
guards men who will singly contend with three Greeks. The preposterous
language which you use can only, therefore, proceed from your ignorance.”

“I knew, my lord, from the first,” returned Demaratus, “that by speaking
truth I should offend you. I was induced to give you this representation
of the Spartans, from your urging me to speak without reserve. You may
judge, sir, what my attachment must be to those who, not content with
depriving me of my paternal dignities, drove me ignominiously into exile.
Your father received, protected, and supported me: no prudent man will
treat with ingratitude the kindness of his benefactor. I will never
presume to engage in fight with ten men, nor even with two, nor indeed
willingly with one; but if necessity demanded, or danger provoked me, I
would not hesitate to fight with any one of those, who is said to be a
match for three Greeks. The Lacedæmonians, when they engage in single
combat, are certainly not inferior to other men, but in a body they are
not to be equalled. Although free, they are not so without some reserve;
the law is their superior, of which they stand in greater awe than
your subjects do of you: they are obedient to what it commands, and it
commands them always not to fly from the field of battle, whatever may
be the number of their adversaries. It is their duty to preserve their
ranks, to conquer or to die. If what I say seem to you absurd, I am
willing in future to be silent. I have spoken what I think, because the
king commanded me, to whom may all he desires be accomplished.”

Xerxes smiled at these words of Demaratus, whom he dismissed without
anger, civilly from his presence. After the above conference, he removed
from Doriscus the governor who had been placed there by Darius, and
promoted in his room Mascames, son of Megadostes. He then passed through
Thrace with his army, towards Greece.

To this Mascames, as to the bravest of all the governors appointed either
by himself or by Darius, Xerxes sent presents every year, and Artaxerxes,
son of Xerxes continued to do the same to his descendants. Before this
expedition against Greece, there had constantly been governors both in
Thrace and the Hellespont, all of whom, except Mascames, the Greeks
afterwards expelled: he alone retained Doriscus in his subjection, in
defiance of the many and repeated exertions made to remove him. It was in
remembrance of these services, that he and all his descendants received
presents from the kings of Persia.

The only one of all those expelled by the Greeks, who enjoyed the good
opinion of Xerxes, was Boges, the governor of Eion; he always mentioned
this man in terms of esteem, and all his descendants were honourably
regarded in Persia. Boges was not undeserving his great reputation:
when he was besieged by the Athenians, under the conduct of Cimon, son
of Miltiades, he might, if he had thought proper, have retired into
Asia; this he refused, and defended himself to the last extremity, from
apprehensions that the king might ascribe his conduct to fear. When no
provisions were left, he caused a large pile to be raised; he then slew
his children, his wife, his concubines, and all his family and threw them
into the fire; he next cast all the gold and silver of the place from the
walls into the Strymon; lastly, he leaped himself into the flames. This
man is, therefore, very deservedly extolled by the Persians.

Xerxes, in his progress from Doriscus to Greece, compelled all the people
among whom he came to join his army. All this tract of country, as far
as Thessaly, as we have before remarked, had been made tributary to the
king, first by Megabazus, and finally by Mardonius.

Xerxes having passed the exhausted bed of the Lissus, continued his march
beyond the Grecian cities of Maronea, Dicæa, and Abdera. He proceeded
onward through the more midland cities, in one of which is a lake almost
of thirty stadia in circumference, full of fish, but remarkably salt: the
waters of this proved only sufficient for the beasts of burden. The name
of the city is Pistyrus. These Grecian and maritime cities were to the
left of Xerxes as he passed them.

The nations of Thrace, through which he marched are these: the Pæti,
Cicones, Bistones, Sapæi, Dersæi, Edoni, and the Satræ. The inhabitants
of the maritime towns followed by sea; those inland were, except the
Satræ, compelled to accompany the army by land. The Satræ, as far as we
know, never were subdued.

Xerxes continued to advance, and passed by two Pierian cities, one called
Phagra, the other Pergamus; to his right he left the mountain Pangæus,
keeping a westward direction, till he came to the river Strymon. To this
river the magi offered a sacrifice of white horses. After performing
these and many other religious rites to the Strymon, they proceeded
through the Edonian district of the Nine Ways, to where they found
bridges thrown over the Strymon: when they heard that this place was
named the Nine Ways, they buried there alive nine youths and as many
virgins, natives of the country. This custom of burying alive was common
in Persia; and Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, when she was of an advanced
age, commanded fourteen Persian children of illustrious birth to be
interred alive in honour of that deity, who, as they suppose, exists
under the earth.

On his arrival at Acanthus, the Persian monarch interchanged the rites of
hospitality with the people, and presented each with a Median vest: he
was prompted to this conduct by the particular zeal which they discovered
towards the war, and from their having completed the work of the canal.

As soon as the royal will was made known by the heralds, the inhabitants
of the several cities divided the corn which they possessed, and employed
many months in reducing it to meal and flour. Some there were, who
purchased at a great price the finest cattle they could procure, for the
purpose of fattening them: others, with the same view of entertaining
the army, provided birds both of the land and the water, which they
preserved in cages and in ponds. Many employed themselves in making cups
and goblets of gold and silver, with other utensils of the table: these
last-mentioned articles were intended only for the king himself, and
his more immediate attendants; with respect to the army in general, it
was thought sufficient to furnish them with provision. On the approach
of the main body, a pavilion was erected, and properly prepared for the
residence of the monarch, the rest of the troops remained in the open
air. From the commencement of the feast to its conclusion, the fatigue
of those who provided it is hardly to be expressed. The guests, after
satisfying their appetite, passed the night on the place; the next
morning, after tearing up the pavilion, and plundering its contents, they
departed, without leaving anything behind them.

Upon this occasion the witty remark of Megacreon of Abdera, has been
handed down to posterity. If the Abderites, he observed, had been
required to furnish a dinner as well as a supper, they must either
have prevented the visit of the king by flight, or have been the most
miserable of human beings.

These people, severe as was the burden, fulfilled what had been enjoined
them. From Acanthus, Xerxes dismissed the commanders of his fleet,
requiring them to wait his orders at Therma. Therma is situated near the
Thermæan Gulf, to which it gives its name. He had been taught to suppose
this the most convenient road; by the command of Xerxes, the army had
marched from Doriscus to Acanthus, in three separate bodies: one went by
the seacoast, moving with the fleet, and was commanded by Mardonius and
Masistes; a second proceeded through the midst of the continent, under
the conduct of Tritantæchmes and Gergis; betwixt these went the third
detachment, with whom was Xerxes himself, and who were led by Smerdomenes
and Megabyzus.

As soon as the royal mandate was issued, the navy entered the canal which
had been cut at Mount Athos, and which was continued to the gulf. Taking
on board a supply of troops from these places, the fleet advanced towards
the Thermæan Gulf, and doubling the Toronean promontory of Ampelos, they
proceeded by a short cut to the Canastrean cape, the point, which of all
the districts of Pallene, projects farthest into the sea. Coasting onward
to the station appointed, they supplied themselves with troops from the
cities in the vicinity of Pallene, and the Thermæan Gulf. From Ænea the
fleet went in a straight direction to the Thermæan Gulf, and the coast
of Mygdonia; it ultimately arrived at Therma, where they waited for the
king. Directing his march this way, Xerxes, with all his forces, left
Acanthus, and proceeded over the continent through Pæonia and Crestonia.
In the course of this march, the camels, which carried the provisions,
were attacked by lions: in the darkness of the night they left their
accustomed abode, and without molesting man or beast, fell upon the
camels only. That the lions should attack the camels alone, animals they
had never been known before to devour, or even by mistake to have seen,
is a fact which we are totally unable to explain.

On his arrival at Therma, Xerxes halted with his army, which occupied
the whole of the coast from Therma and Mygdonia, as far as the rivers
Lydias and Haliacmon, which forming the limits of Bottiæis and Macedonia,
meet at last in the same channel. Here the barbarians encamped. Xerxes,
viewing from Therma, Olympus and Ossa, Thessalian mountains of an
extraordinary height, betwixt which was a narrow passage where the
Peneus poured its stream, and where was an entrance to Thessaly, he
was desirous of sailing to the mouth of this river. For the way he
had determined to march as the safest was through the high country of
Macedonia, by the Perrhæbi, and the town of Gonnus. He instantly however
set about the accomplishment of his wish. He accordingly went on board a
Sidonian vessel, for on such occasions he always preferred the ships of
that country; leaving here his land forces, he gave the signal for all
the fleet to prepare to set sail. Arriving at the mouth of the Peneus, he
observed it with particular admiration, and desired to know of his guides
if it would not be possible to turn the stream, and make it empty itself
into the sea in some other place.

Thessaly is said to have been formerly a marsh, on all sides surrounded
by lofty mountains[25]; to the east by Pelion and Ossa, whose bases meet
each other; to the north by Olympus, to the west by Pindus; to the south
by Othrys. The space betwixt these is Thessaly, into which depressed
region many rivers pour their waters.

Xerxes inquiring of his guides whether the Peneus might be conducted
to the sea by any other channel, received from them, who were well
acquainted with the situation of the country, this reply: “As Thessaly,
O King, is on every side encircled by mountains, the Peneus can have no
other communication with the sea.” “The Thessalians,” Xerxes is said
to have answered, “are a sagacious people. They have been careful to
decline a contest for many reasons, and particularly as they must have
discerned that their country would afford an easy conquest to an invader.
All that would be necessary to deluge the whole of Thessaly, except
the mountainous parts, would be to stop up the mouth of the river, and
thus throw back its waters upon the country.” This observation referred
to the sons of Aleuas, who were Thessalians, and the first Greeks who
submitted to the king. He presumed that their conduct declared the
general sentiments of the nation in his favour. After surveying the place
he returned to Therma.

He remained a few days in the neighbourhood of Pieria, during which
interval a detachment of the third of his army was employed in clearing
the Macedonian mountain, to facilitate the passage of the troops into
the country of the Perrhæbi. The messengers who had been sent to require
earth and water of the Greeks returned, some with and some without it.
Xerxes sent no messengers either to Athens or to Sparta, for when Darius
had before sent to these places, the Athenians threw his people into
their pit of punishment, the Lacedæmonians into wells, telling them to
get the earth and water thence, and carry it to their king. A long time
after the incident we have related, the entrails of the victims continued
at Sparta to bear an unfavourable appearance, till the people, reduced
to despondency, called a general assembly, in which they inquired by
their heralds, if any Lacedæmonian would die for his country. Upon this
Sperthies, son of Aneristus, and Bulis, son of Nicolaus, Spartans of
great accomplishments and distinction, offered themselves to undergo
whatever punishment Xerxes the son of Darius should think proper to
inflict on account of the murder of his ambassadors. These men therefore
the Spartans sent to the Medes, as to certain death.

The magnanimity of these two men, as well as the words which they used,
deserve admiration. On their way to Susa they came to Hydarnes, a native
of Persia, and governor of the vanquished places in Asia near the sea:
he entertained them with much liberality and kindness, and addressed
them as follows: “Why, O Lacedæmonians, will you reject the friendship
of the king? From me, and from my condition, you may learn how well he
knows to reward merit. He already thinks highly of your virtue, and if
you will but enter into his service, he will doubtless assign to each of
you some government in Greece.” “Hydarnes,” they replied, “your advice
with respect to us is inconsistent: you speak from the experience of your
own but with an entire ignorance of our situation. To you servitude is
familiar; but how sweet a thing liberty is, you have never known, if you
had, you yourself would have advised us to make all possible exertions to
preserve it.”

When introduced, on their arrival at Susa, to the royal presence, they
were first ordered by the guards to fall prostrate, and adore the king,
and some force was used to compel them. But this they refused to do, even
if they should dash their heads against the ground. They were not, they
said, accustomed to adore a man, nor was it for this purpose that they
came. After persevering in such conduct, they addressed Xerxes himself
in these and similar expressions: “King of the Medes, we are sent by
our countrymen to make atonement for those ambassadors who perished
at Sparta.” Xerxes with great magnanimity said he would not imitate
the example of the Lacedæmonians. They in killing his ambassadors had
violated the laws of nations; he would not be guilty of that with which
he reproached them, nor, by destroying their messengers, indirectly
justify their crime.[c]


FOOTNOTES

[25] [Rennell[d] remarks that this description of Thessaly and that of
the Straits of Thermopylæ prove how well Herodotus had considered the
scenes of particular actions.[f]]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XIX. THERMOPYLÆ


    Everything among the Spartans conduced to plant in their hearts
    the most heroic courage, by the remembrance of their ancestors,
    whose principles and sentiments were the spur to the noblest
    actions. The lowest Spartans were exalted to a level with their
    greatest chiefs by a glorious death; their memory was renewed
    by the most solemn offering to the latest posterity, and their
    images were placed next to those of the gods.--_Adapted from_
    BONNY.


THE FAMOUS STORY AS TOLD BY HERODOTUS

[Sidenote: [480 B.C.]]

Xerxes encamped in Trachinia at Melis; the Greeks, in the straits.
These straits the Greeks in general call Thermopylæ; the people of the
country Pylæ only. Here then were the two armies stationed, Xerxes
occupying all the northern region as far as Trachinia, the Greeks that
of the south. The Grecian army, which here waited the approach of the
Persian, was composed of three hundred Spartans in complete armour; five
hundred Tegeatæ, and as many Mantineans; one hundred and twenty men from
Orchomenos of Arcadia, a thousand men from the rest of Arcadia, four
hundred Corinthians, two hundred from Phlius, and eighty from Mycenæ. The
above came from the Peloponnesus: from Bœotia there were seven hundred
Thespians and four hundred Thebans.

In addition to the above, the aid of all the Opuntian Locrians had been
solicited, together with a thousand Phocians. To obtain the assistance of
these the Greeks had previously sent emissaries among them, saying, that
they were the forerunners only of another and more numerous body, whose
arrival was every day expected. They added, that the defence of the sea
was confided to the people of Athens and Ægina, in conjunction with the
rest of the fleet; that there was no occasion for alarm, as the invader
of Greece was not a god, but a mere human being; that there never was nor
could be any mortal superior to the vicissitudes of fortune; that the
most exalted characters were exposed to the greatest evils; he therefore,
a mortal, now advancing to attack them, would suffer for his temerity.
These arguments proved effectual, and they accordingly marched to Trachis
to join their allies.


_Leonidas and His Allies_

These troops were commanded by different officers of their respective
countries: but the man most regarded, and entrusted with the chief
command, was Leonidas of Sparta. His ancestors were traced back to
Hercules. An accident had placed him on the throne of Sparta; for,
as he had two brothers older than himself, Cleomenes and Dorieus, he
had entertained no thoughts of the government; but Cleomenes dying
without male issue, and Dorieus not surviving (for he ended his days in
Sicily) the crown came to Leonidas, who was older than Cleombrotus, the
youngest of the sons of Anaxandrides, and who had married the daughter
of Cleomenes. On the present occasion he took with him to Thermopylæ a
body of three hundred chosen men, all of whom had children. To these
he added the Theban troops who were conducted by Leontiades, son of
Eurymachus.[26] Leonidas had selected the Thebans to accompany him,
because a suspicion generally prevailed that they were secretly attached
to the Medes. These therefore he summoned to attend him, to ascertain
whether they would actually contribute their aid, or openly withdraw
themselves from the Grecian league. With hostile sentiments they
nevertheless sent the assistance required.[27]

The march of this body under Leonidas was accelerated by the Spartans,
that their example might stimulate their allies to action, and that they
might not make their delay a pretence for going over to the Medes. The
celebration of the Carnean festival[28] protracted the march of their
main body; but it was their intention to follow with all imaginable
expedition, leaving only a small detachment for the defence of Sparta.
The rest of the allies were actuated by similar motives, for the Olympic
games happened to recur at this period; and as they did not expect an
engagement would immediately take place at Thermopylæ, they sent only a
detachment before them.

Such were the motives of the confederate body. The Greeks who were
already assembled at Thermopylæ were seized with so much terror on the
approach of the Persians that they consulted about a retreat. Those of
the Peloponnesus were in general of opinion that they should return and
guard the isthmus; but as the Phocians and Locrians were exceedingly
averse to this measure, Leonidas prevailed on them to continue on their
post. He resolved however to send messengers round to all the states,
requiring supplies, stating that their number was much too small to
oppose the Medes with any effect.

Whilst they thus deliberated, Xerxes sent a horseman to examine their
number and their motions. He had before heard, in Thessaly, that a small
band was collected at this passage, that they were led by Lacedæmonians,
and by Leonidas of the race of Hercules. The person employed performed
his duty: all those who were without the entrenchment he was able to
reconnoitre; those who were within for the purpose of defending it,
eluded his observation. The Lacedæmonians were at that period stationed
without; of these some were performing gymnastic exercises, whilst others
were employed in combing their hair. He was greatly astonished, but he
leisurely surveyed their number and employments, and returned without
molestation, for they despised him too much to pursue him. He related to
Xerxes all that he had seen.

Xerxes, on hearing the above, was little aware of what was really the
case, that this people were preparing themselves either to conquer or to
die. The thing appeared to him so ridiculous, that he sent for Demaratus
the son of Ariston, who was then with the army. On his appearing, the
king questioned him on this behaviour of the Spartans, expressing his
desire to know what it might intimate. “I have before, Sir,” said
Demaratus, “spoken to you of this people, at the commencement of this
expedition; and as I remember, when I related to you what I knew you
would have occasion to observe, you treated me with contempt. I am
conscious of the danger of declaring the truth, in opposition to your
prejudices; but I will nevertheless do so. It is the determination of
these men to dispute this pass with us, and they are preparing themselves
accordingly. It is their custom before any enterprise of danger to adorn
their hair. Of this you may be assured, that if you vanquish these, and
their countrymen in Sparta, no other nation will presume to take up arms
against you: you are now advancing to attack a people whose realms and
city are the fairest, and whose troops are the bravest of Greece.” These
words seemed to Xerxes preposterous enough; but he demanded a second
time, how so small a number could contend with his army. “Sir,” said
Demaratus, “I will submit to suffer the punishment of falsehood, if what
I say does not happen.”


_Xerxes Assails the Pass_

Xerxes was still incredulous; he accordingly kept his position without
any movement for four days, in expectation of seeing them retreat. On
the fifth day, observing that they continued on their post, merely as he
supposed from the most impudent rashness, he became much exasperated,
and sent against them a detachment of Medes and Cissians, with a command
to bring them alive to his presence. The Medes in consequence attacked
them, and lost a considerable number. A reinforcement arrived; but though
the onset was severe, no impression was made. It now became universally
conspicuous, and no less so to the king himself, that he had many troops,
but few men.[29] The above engagement continued all day.

The Medes, after being very roughly treated, retired, and were succeeded
by the band of Persians called by the king “the Immortal,” and commanded
by Hydarnes. These it was supposed would succeed without the smallest
difficulty. They commenced the attack, but made no greater impression
than the Medes: their superior numbers were of no advantage, on account
of the narrowness of the place; and their spears also were shorter than
those of the Greeks. The Lacedæmonians fought in a manner which deserves
to be recorded; their own excellent discipline, and the unskilfulness
of their adversaries, were in many instances remarkable, and not the
least so when in close ranks they affected to retreat. The barbarians
seeing them retire, pursued them with a great and clamorous shout; but
on their near approach the Greeks faced about to receive them. The loss
of the Persians was prodigious, and a few also of the Spartans fell. The
Persians, after successive efforts made with great bodies of their troops
to gain the pass, were unable to accomplish it and obliged to retire.

It is said of Xerxes himself that, being a spectator of the contest, he
was so greatly alarmed for the safety of his men, that he leaped thrice
from his throne. On the following day, the barbarians succeeded no better
than before. They went to the onset as against a contemptible number,
whose wounds they supposed would hardly permit them to renew the combat:
but the Greeks, drawn up in regular divisions, fought each nation on its
respective post, except the Phocians, who were stationed on the summit of
the mountain to defend the pass. The Persians, experiencing a repetition
of the same treatment, a second time retired.


_The Treachery of Ephialtes_

Whilst the king was exceedingly perplexed what conduct to pursue in the
present emergence, Ephialtes, the son of Eurydemus, a Malian, demanded
an audience: he expected to receive some great recompense for showing
him the path which led over the mountain to Thermopylæ: and he indeed
it was who thus rendered ineffectual the valour of those Greeks who
perished on this station. This man, through fear of the Lacedæmonians,
fled afterwards into Thessaly; but the Pylagoræ, calling a council of the
Amphictyons at Pylæ for this express purpose, set a price upon his head,
and he was afterwards slain by Athenades, a Trachinian, at Anticyra, to
which place he had returned.

The intelligence of Ephialtes gave the king infinite satisfaction, and
he instantly detached Hydarnes, with the forces under his command, to
avail himself of it. They left the camp at the first approach of evening;
the Malians, the natives of the country, discovered this path, and by it
conducted the Thessalians against the Phocians, who had defended it by an
entrenchment, and deemed themselves secure. It had never, however, proved
of any advantage to the Malians.

The path of which we are speaking commences at the river Asopus. This
stream flows through an aperture of the mountain called Anopæa, which is
also the name of the path. This is continued through the whole length
of the mountain, and terminates near the town of Alpenus. Following the
track which has been described, the Persians passed the Asopus, and
marched all night, keeping the Œtean Mountains on the right, and the
Trachinian on the left. At the dawn of morning they found themselves at
the summit, where a band of a thousand Phocians in arms was stationed,
both to defend their own country and this pass.

[Illustration: THE PASS OF THERMOPYLÆ]

The approach of the Persians was discovered to the Phocians in this
manner: whilst they were ascending the mountain they were totally
concealed by the thick groves of oak; but from the stillness of the air
they were discovered by the noise they made by trampling on the leaves,
a thing which might naturally happen. The Phocians ran to arms, and in a
moment the barbarians appeared, who, seeing a number of men precipitately
arming themselves, were at first struck with astonishment. They did not
expect an adversary; and they had fallen in among armed troops. Hydarnes,
apprehending that the Phocians might prove to be Lacedæmonians, inquired
of Ephialtes who they were. When he was informed, he drew up the Persians
in order of battle. The Phocians, not able to sustain the heavy flight
of arrows, retreated up the mountain, imagining themselves the objects
of this attack, and expecting certain destruction: but the troops with
Hydarnes and Ephialtes did not think it worth their while to pursue them,
and descended rapidly down the opposite side of the mountain.

[Illustration: LEONIDAS (BY DAVID)]

To those Greeks stationed in the straits of Thermopylæ, Megistias the
soothsayer had previously, from inspection of the entrails, predicted
that death awaited them in the morning. Some deserters had also informed
them of the circuit the Persians had taken; and this intelligence was
in the course of the night circulated through the camp. All this was
confirmed by their sentinels, who early in the morning fled down the
sides of the mountain. In this predicament, the Greeks called a council,
who were greatly divided in their opinions: some were for remaining on
their station, others advised a retreat. In consequence of their not
agreeing, many of them dispersed to their respective cities; a part
resolved to continue with Leonidas.

It is said, that those who retired only did so in compliance with the
wishes of Leonidas, who was desirous to preserve them: but he thought
that he himself, with his Spartans, could not without the greatest
ignominy forsake the post they had come to defend. Obedient to the
direction of their leader, the confederates retired. The Thespians
and Thebans[30] alone remained with the Spartans, the Thebans indeed
very reluctantly, but they were detained by Leonidas as hostages. The
Thespians were very zealous in the cause, and refusing to abandon their
friends, perished with them. The leader of the Thespians was Demophilus,
son of Diadromas.


_The Final Assault_

Xerxes early in the morning offered a solemn libation, then waiting
till the hour of full forum, he advanced from his camp: to the above
measure he had been advised by Ephialtes. The descent from the mountain
is much shorter than the circuitous ascent. The barbarians with Xerxes
approached; Leonidas and his Greeks proceeded, as to inevitable death, a
much greater space from the defile than they had yet done. Till now they
had defended themselves behind their entrenchment, fighting in the most
contracted part of the passage; but on this day they engaged on a wider
space, and a multitude of their opponents fell. Behind each troop of
Persians, officers were stationed with whips in their hands, compelling
with blows their men to advance. Many of them fell into the sea, where
they perished; many were trodden under foot by their own troops, without
exciting the smallest pity or regard. The Greeks, conscious that their
destruction was at hand from those who had taken the circuit of the
mountain, exerted themselves with the most desperate valour against their
barbarian assailants.

Their spears being broken in pieces, they had recourse to their swords.
Leonidas fell in the engagement, having greatly signalised himself; and
with him, many Spartans of distinction, as well as others of inferior
note. Many illustrious Persians also were slain, among whom were
Abrocomes and Hyperanthes, sons of Darius.

These two brothers of Xerxes fell as they were contending for the body
of Leonidas: here the conflict was the most severe, till at length the
Greeks by their superior valour four times repelled the Persians, and
drew aside the body of their prince. In this situation they continued
till Ephialtes and his party approached. As soon as the Greeks perceived
them at hand, the scene was changed, and they retreated to the narrowest
part of the pass. Having repassed their entrenchment, they posted
themselves, all except the Thebans, in a compact body, upon a hill, which
is at the entrance of the straits, and where a lion of stone has been
erected in honour of Leonidas. In this situation, they who had swords
left, used them against the enemy, the rest exerted themselves with their
hands and their teeth. The barbarians rushing upon them, some in front,
after overturning their wall, others surrounding and pressing them in all
directions, finally overpowered them.

Such was the conduct of the Lacedæmonians and Thespians; but none of
them distinguished themselves so much as Dieneces the Spartan. A speech
of his is recorded, which he made before they came to any engagement. A
certain Trachinian having observed that the barbarians would send forth
such a shower of arrows that their multitude would obscure the sun;
he replied, like a man ignorant of fear, and despising the numbers of
the Medes, “our Trachinian friend promises us great advantages; if the
Medes obscure the sun’s light, we shall fight them in the shade, and
be protected from the heat.” Many other sayings have been handed down
as monuments of this man’s fame. Next to him, the most distinguished
of the Spartans were, Alpheus and Maron, two brothers, the sons of
Orisiphantus; of the Thespians, the most conspicuous was Dithyrambus,
son of Harmatidas. All these were interred in the place where they
fell, together with such of the confederates as were slain before
the separation of the forces by Leonidas. Upon their tomb was this
inscription:

    “Here once, from Pelops’ seagirt region brought,
    Four thousand men three hostile millions fought.”

This was applied to them all collectively. The Spartans were thus
distinguished:

    “Go, stranger, and to list’ning Spartans tell,
    That here, obedient to their laws, we fell.”

There was one also appropriated to the prophet Megistias:

    “By Medes cut off beside Sperchius’ wave,
    The seer Megistias fills this glorious grave:
    Who stood the fate he well foresaw to meet,
    And, link’d with Sparta’s leaders, scorn’d retreat.”

All these ornaments and inscriptions, that of Megistias alone excepted,
were here placed by the Amphictyons.

Of these three hundred, there were two named Eurytus and Aristodemus;
both of them, consistently with the discipline of their country,
might have secured themselves by retiring to Sparta, for Leonidas had
permitted them to leave the camp; but they continued at Alpenus, being
both afflicted by a violent disorder of the eyes: or, if they had not
thought proper to return home, they had the alternative of meeting
death in the field with their fellow-soldiers. In this situation, they
differed in opinion what conduct to pursue. Eurytus having heard of the
circuit made by the Persians, called for his arms, and putting them
on, commanded his helot to conduct him to the battle. The slave did
so, and immediately fled, whilst his master died fighting valiantly.
Aristodemus pusillanimously stayed where he was. If either Aristodemus,
being individually diseased, had retired home, or if they had returned
together, we cannot think that the Spartans could have shown any
resentment against them; but as one of them died in the field, which the
other, who was precisely in the same circumstances, refused to do, it was
impossible not to be greatly incensed against Aristodemus.

Aristodemus, on his return, was branded with disgrace and infamy; no
one would speak with him; no one would supply him with fire; and the
opprobrious term of trembler was annexed to his name; but he afterwards,
at the battle of Platæa, effectually atoned for his former conduct. It
is also said that another of the three hundred survived; his name was
Pantites, and he had been sent on some business to Thessaly. Returning to
Sparta, he felt himself in disgrace, and put an end to his life.

The Thebans, under the command of Leontiades, hitherto constrained by
force, had fought with the Greeks against the Persians; but as soon
as they saw that the Persians were victorious, when Leonidas and his
party retired to the hill, they separated themselves from the Greeks.
In the attitude of suppliants they approached the barbarians, assuring
them, what was really the truth, that they were attached to the Medes;
that they had been among the first to render earth and water; that they
had only come to Thermopylæ on compulsion, and could not be considered
as accessory to the slaughter of the king’s troops. The Thessalians
confirming the truth of what they had asserted, their lives were
preserved. Some of them however were slain; for as they approached,
the barbarians put several to the sword; but the greater part, by the
order of Xerxes, had the royal marks impressed upon them, beginning
with Leontiades himself. Eurymachus his son was afterwards slain at the
head of four hundred Thebans, by the people of Platæa, whilst he was
making an attempt upon their city. In this manner the Greeks fought at
Thermopylæ.[b]


DISCREPANT ACCOUNTS OF THE DEATH OF LEONIDAS

Such is the story of this memorable contest as Herodotus tells it. He
is our most important source by far, and his simple words give a more
realistic picture than is conveyed by any modern paraphrase. It is well
to recall, however, that there are discrepant accounts of the death
of Leonidas. None of these is so plausible as the description just
given, but two of them are worth citing, to illustrate the historical
uncertainties that attach to the subject.[a] Plutarch, in his parallels
between the Romans and Greeks, thus describes the death of Leonidas:
“Whilst they were at dinner, the barbarians fell upon them: upon which
Leonidas desired them to eat heartily, for they were to sup with Pluto.
Leonidas charged at the head of his troops, and after receiving a
multitude of wounds, got up to Xerxes himself, and snatched the crown
from his head. He lost his life in the attempt; and Xerxes, causing his
body to be opened, found his heart hairy. So says Aristides, in his first
book of his Persian History.” This fiction seems to have been taken from
the λασιόν κῆρ of Homer.

Diodorus Siculus tells us that Leonidas, when he knew that he was
circumvented, made a bold attempt by night to penetrate to the tent of
Xerxes; but this the Persian king had forsaken on the first alarm. The
Greeks however proceeded in search of him from one side to the other,
and slew a prodigious multitude. When morning approached, the Persians
perceiving the Greeks so few in number, held them in contempt; but they
still did not dare to attack them in front; encompassing them on both
sides, and behind, they slew them all with their spears. Such was the end
of Leonidas and his party.[c]


AFTER THERMOPYLÆ

Where the Spartans fell, they were afterwards buried: their tomb, as
Simonides sang, was an altar; a sanctuary, in which Greece revered the
memory of her second founders.

The inscription of the monument raised over the slain, who died from
first to last in defence of the pass, recorded that four thousand men
from the Peloponnesus had fought at Thermopylæ with three hundred
myriads. We ought not to expect accuracy in these numbers: the list in
Herodotus, if the Locrian force is only supposed equal to the Phocian,
exceeds six thousand men: the Phocians, it must be remembered, were
not engaged. But it is not easy to reconcile either account with the
historian’s statement, that the Grecian dead amounted to four thousand,
unless we suppose that the helots, though not numbered, formed a large
part of the army of Leonidas. The lustre of his achievement is not
diminished by their presence. He himself and his Spartans no doubt
considered their persevering stand in the post entrusted to them, not as
an act of high and heroic devotion, but of simple and indispensable duty.
Their spirit spoke in the lines inscribed upon their monument, which bade
the passenger tell their countrymen, that they had fallen in obedience to
their laws.

The Persians are said to have lost twenty thousand men: among them were
several of royal blood. To console himself for this loss, and to reap the
utmost advantage from his victory, Xerxes sent over to the fleet, which,
having heard of the departure of the Greeks, was now stationed on the
north coast of Eubœa, and by public notice invited all who were curious,
to see the chastisement he had inflicted on the men who had dared to defy
his power. That he had previously buried the greater part of his own dead
seems natural enough, and such an artifice, so slightly differing from
the universal practice of both ancient and modern belligerents, scarcely
deserved the name of a stratagem. He is said also to have mutilated the
body of Leonidas, and as this was one of the foremost he found on a field
which had cost him so dear, we are not at liberty to reject the tradition
on the ground that such ferocity was not consistent with the respect
usually paid by the Persians to a gallant enemy.

At Thermopylæ Xerxes learnt a lesson which he had refused to receive from
the warnings of Demaratus; and he inquired, with altered spirit, whether
he had to expect many such obstacles in the conquest of Greece. The
Spartan told him that there were eight thousand of his countrymen, who
would all be ready to do what Leonidas had done, and that at the isthmus
he would meet with a resistance more powerful and obstinate than at
Thermopylæ. But if, instead of attacking the Peloponnesus on this side,
where he would find its whole force collected to withstand him, he sent a
detachment of his fleet to seize the island of Cythera, and to infest the
coast of Laconia, the confederacy would be distracted, and its members,
deprived of their head and perhaps disunited, would successively yield to
his arms. The plan, whether Demaratus or Herodotus was the author, found
no supporters in the Persian council.

He had now the key of northern Greece in his hands, and it only remained
to determine towards which side he should first turn his arms. The
Thessalians, who ever since his arrival in their country had been zealous
in his service, now resolved to make use of their influence, and to
direct the course of the storm to their own advantage. These Thessalians,
who are mentioned on this occasion by Herodotus without any more precise
description, were probably the same nobles who, against the wishes of
their nation, had invited and forwarded the invasion. They had now an
opportunity of gratifying either their cupidity or their revenge; and
they sent to the Phocians to demand a bribe of fifty talents, as the
price at which they would consent to avert the destruction which was
impending over Phocis. The Phocians however either did not trust their
faith, or would not buy their safety of a hated rival. The Thessalians
then persuaded Xerxes to cross that part of the Œtean chain which
separates the vale of the Sperchius from the little valley of Doris.
The Dorians were spared, as friends. Those of the Phocians who had the
means of escaping took refuge on the high plains that lie under the
topmost peaks of Parnassus, or at Amphissa. But on all that remained in
their homes, on the fields, the cities, the temples of the devoted land,
the fury of the invader, directed and stimulated by the malice of the
Thessalians, poured undistinguishing ruin. Fire and sword, the cruelty
and the lust of irritated spoilers, ravaged the vale of the Cephisus
down to the borders of Bœotia. The rich sanctuary of Apollo at Abæ was
sacked and burnt, and fourteen towns shared its fate. At Panopeus, Xerxes
divided his forces; or rather detached a small body round the foot of
Parnassus to Delphi, with orders to strip the temple of its treasures,
and lay them at his feet. He had learnt their value from the best
authority at Sardis. The great army turned off toward the lower vale of
the Cephisus, to pursue its march through Bœotia to Athens.[h]


FOOTNOTES

[26] Beneath is the number of Greeks who appeared on this occasion,
according to the different representations of Herodotus, Pausanias, and
Diodorus Siculus:

                     HERODOTUS.    PAUSANIAS.                DIODORUS.
    Spartans            300           300                       300
    Tegeatæ             500           500     Lacedæmonians     700
    Mantineans          500           500     The other
    Orchomenians        120           120     nations of the
    Arcadians         1,000         1,000     Peloponnesus    3,000
    Corinthians         400           400
    Phliasians          200           200
    Mycenæans            80            80
                      -----         -----                     -----
              Totals  3,100         3,100                     4,000

The above came from the Peloponnesus; those who came from the other parts
of Greece were, according to the authors above mentioned:

    Thespians           700           700      Milesians      1,000
    Thebans             400           400                       400
    Phocians          1,000         1,000                     1,000
    Opuntian Locrians               6,000                     7,400
                      -----        ------                     -----
              Totals  5,200        11,200                     7,400[c]

[27] [Plutarch upbraids Herodotus for thus slandering the Thebans; and
Diodorus says, that Thebes was divided into two parties, one of which
sent four hundred men to Thermopylæ.[c]] [Bury[d] thinks it is certain
that this tale was invented in the light of Thebes’ later Median policy.]

[28] [This was continued for seven days at Sparta. Various reasons
are assigned for its institution; Theocritus says it commemorated the
cessation of a pestilence.[c]]

[29] [According to Plutarch, Leonidas being asked how he dared to
encounter so prodigious a multitude with so few men, replied: “If you
reckon by number, all Greece is not able to oppose a small part of that
army; but if by courage, the number I have with me is sufficient.”]

[30] [Diodorus Siculus speaks only of the Thespians. Pausanias says that
the people of Mycenæ sent eighty men to Thermopylæ, who had part in this
glorious day; and in another place he says that all the allies retired
before the battle, except the Thespians and people of Mycenæ.[e]]

[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE TOMB OF LEONIDAS OF SPARTA]




[Illustration: ELEUSIS, PART OF THE ISLAND OF SALAMIS]




CHAPTER XX. THE BATTLES OF ARTEMISIUM AND SALAMIS

    A king sate on the rocky brow
    Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
    And ships, by thousands, lay below,
    And men in nations;--all were his,
    He counted them at break of day,
    And when the sun set where were they?

                                        --BYRON.


[Sidenote: [480 B.C.]]

The days of battle at Thermopylæ had been not less actively employed by
the fleets at Aphetæ and Artemisium. It has already been mentioned that
the Greek ships, having abandoned their station at the latter place and
retired to Chalcis, were induced to return, by the news that the Persian
fleet had been nearly ruined by the recent storm, and that, on returning
to Artemisium, the Grecian commanders felt renewed alarm on seeing the
enemy’s fleet, in spite of the damage just sustained, still mustering
in overwhelming number at the opposite station of Aphetæ. Such was the
effect of this spectacle, and the impression of their own inferiority,
that they again resolved to retire without fighting, leaving the strait
open and undefended. Great consternation was caused by the news of their
determination among the inhabitants of Eubœa, who entreated Eurybiades
to maintain his position for a few days, until they could have time to
remove their families and their property. But even such postponement was
thought unsafe, and refused: and he was on the point of giving orders for
retreat, when the Eubœans sent their envoy, Pelagon, to Themistocles,
with the offer of thirty talents, on condition that the fleet should
keep its station and hazard an engagement in defence of the island.
Themistocles employed the money adroitly and successfully, giving five
talents to Eurybiades, with large presents besides to the other leading
chiefs: the most unmanageable among them was the Corinthian Adimantus,
who at first threatened to depart with his own squadron alone, if the
remaining Greeks were mad enough to remain. His alarm was silenced, if
not tranquillised, by a present of three talents.

However Plutarch may be scandalised at such inglorious revelations
preserved to us by Herodotus respecting the underhand agencies of this
memorable struggle, there is no reason to call in question the bribery
here described. But Themistocles doubtless was only tempted to do,
and enabled to do, by means of the Eubœan money, that which he would
have wished and had probably tried to accomplish without the money--to
bring on a naval engagement at Artemisium. It was absolutely essential
to the maintenance of Thermopylæ, and to the general plan of defence,
that the Eubœan strait should be defended against the Persian fleet,
nor could the Greeks expect a more favourable position to fight in. We
may reasonably presume that Themistocles, distinguished not less by
daring than by sagacity, and the great originator of maritime energies
in his country, concurred unwillingly in the projected abandonment of
Artemisium: but his high mental capacity did not exclude that pecuniary
corruption which rendered the presents of the Eubœans both admissible and
welcome--yet still more welcome to him perhaps, as they supplied means
of bringing over the other opposing chiefs and the Spartan admiral. It
was finally determined, therefore, to remain, and if necessary, to hazard
an engagement in the Eubœan strait: but at any rate to procure for the
inhabitants of the island a short interval to remove their families.
Had these Eubœans heeded the oracles, says Herodotus, they would have
packed up and removed long before; for a text of Bacis gave them express
warning; but, having neglected the sacred writings as unworthy of credit,
they were now severely punished for such presumption.

Among the Persian fleet at Aphetæ, on the other hand, the feeling
prevalent was one of sanguine hope and confidence in their superior
numbers, forming a strong contrast with the discouragement of the Greeks
at Artemisium. Had they attacked the latter immediately, when both fleets
first saw each other from their opposite stations, they would have gained
an easy victory, for the Greek fleet would have fled, as the admiral
was on the point of ordering, even without an attack. But this was not
sufficient for the Persians, who wished to cut off every ship among their
enemies even from flight and escape. Accordingly, they detached two
hundred ships to circumnavigate the island of Eubœa, and to sail up the
Eubœan strait from the south, in the rear of the Greeks,--and postponing
their own attack in front until this squadron should be in position to
intercept the retreating Greeks. But though the manœuvre was concealed
by sending the squadron round outside of the island of Sciathus, it
became known immediately among the Greeks, through a deserter--Scyllias
of Scione. This man, the best swimmer and diver of his time, and now
engaged like other Thracian Greeks in the Persian service, passed over to
Artemisium, and communicated to the Greek commanders both the particulars
of the late destructive storm and the despatch of the intercepting
squadron.


BATTLE OF ARTEMISIUM

It appears that his communications, respecting the effects of the storm
and the condition of the Persian fleet, somewhat reassured the Greeks,
who resolved during the ensuing night to sail from their station at
Artemisium for the purpose of surprising the detached squadron of two
hundred ships, and who even became bold enough, under the inspirations of
Themistocles, to go out and offer battle to the main fleet near Aphetæ.
Wanting to acquire some practical experience, which neither leaders nor
soldiers as yet possessed, of the manner in which Phœnicians and others
in the Persian fleet handled and manœuvred their ships, they waited
till a late hour of the afternoon, when little daylight remained. Their
boldness in thus advancing out, with inferior numbers and even inferior
ships, astonished the Persian admirals, and distressed the Ionians and
other subject Greeks who were serving them as unwilling auxiliaries: to
both it seemed that the victory of the Persian fleet, which was speedily
brought forth to battle, and was numerous enough to encompass the Greeks,
would be certain as well as complete. The Greek ships were at first
marshalled in a circle, with the sterns in the interior, and presenting
their prows in front at all points of the circumference; in this
position, compressed into a narrow space, they seemed to be awaiting the
attack of the enemy, who formed a larger circle around them: but on a
second signal given, their ships assumed the aggressive, rowed out from
the inner circle in direct impact against the hostile ships around, and
took or disabled no less than thirty of them; in one of which Philaon,
brother of Gorgus, despot of Salamis in Cyprus, was made prisoner. Such
unexpected forwardness at first disconcerted the Persians, who however
rallied and inflicted considerable damage and loss on the Greeks: but the
near approach of night put an end to the combat, and each fleet retired
to its former station--the Persians to Aphetæ, the Greeks to Artemisium.

The result of this first day’s combat, though indecisive in itself,
surprised both parties and did much to exalt the confidence of the
Greeks. But the events of the ensuing night did yet more. Another
tremendous storm was sent by the gods to aid them. Though it was the
middle of summer,--a season when rain rarely falls in the climate of
Greece,--the most violent wind, rain, and thunder prevailed during the
whole night, blowing right on shore against the Persians at Aphetæ,
and thus but little troublesome to the Greeks on the opposite side of
the strait. The seamen of the Persian fleet, scarcely recovered from
the former storm at Sepias Acte, were almost driven to despair by this
repetition of the same peril: the more so when they found the prows
of their ships surrounded, and the play of their oars impeded, by the
dead bodies and the spars from the recent battle, which the current
drove towards their shore. If this storm was injurious to the main
fleet at Aphetæ, it proved the entire ruin of the squadron detached to
circumnavigate Eubœa, who, overtaken by it near the dangerous eastern
coast of that island, called the Hollows of Eubœa, were driven upon the
rocks and wrecked. The news of this second conspiracy of the elements, or
intervention of the gods, against the schemes of the invaders, was highly
encouraging to the Greeks; and the seasonable arrival of fifty-three
fresh Athenian ships, which reinforced them the next day, raised them to
a still higher pitch of confidence. In the afternoon of the same day,
they sailed out against the Persian fleet at Aphetæ, and attacked and
destroyed some Cilician ships even at their moorings; the fleet having
been too much damaged by the storm of the preceding night to come out and
fight.

But the Persian admirals were not of a temper to endure such
insults,--still less to let their master hear of them. About noon on
the ensuing day, they sailed with their entire fleet near to the Greek
station at Artemisium, and formed themselves into a half moon; while the
Greeks kept near to the shore, so that they could not be surrounded,
nor could the Persians bring their entire fleet into action; the ships
running foul of each other, and not finding space to attack. The battle
raged fiercely all day, and with great loss and damage on both sides: the
Egyptians bore off the palm of valour among the Persians, the Athenians
among the Greeks. Though the positive loss sustained by the Persians was
by far the greater, and though the Greeks, being near their own shore,
became masters of the dead bodies as well as of the disabled ships
and floating fragments, still, they were themselves hurt and crippled
in greater proportion with reference to their inferior total: and the
Athenian vessels especially, foremost in the preceding combat, found
one-half of their number out of condition to renew it. The Egyptians
alone had captured five Grecian ships with their entire crews.

Under these circumstances, the Greek leaders--and Themistocles, as it
seems, among them--determined that they could no longer venture to
hold the position of Artemisium, but must withdraw the naval force
farther into Greece: though this was in fact a surrender of the pass
of Thermopylæ, and though the removal which the Eubœans were hastening
was still unfinished. These unfortunate men were forced to be satisfied
with the promise of Themistocles to give them convoy for their boats and
their persons; abandoning their sheep and cattle for the consumption of
the fleet, as better than leaving them to become booty for the enemy.
While the Greeks were thus employed in organising their retreat, they
received news which rendered retreat doubly necessary. The Athenian
Abronychus, stationed with his ship near Thermopylæ, in order to keep
up communication between the army and fleet, brought the disastrous
intelligence that Xerxes was already master of the pass, and that the
division of Leonidas was either destroyed or in flight. Upon this the
fleet abandoned Artemisium forthwith, and sailed up the Eubœan strait;
the Corinthian ships in the van, the Athenians bringing up the rear.
Themistocles, conducting the latter, stayed long enough at the various
watering-stations and landing-places to inscribe on some neighbouring
stones invitations to the Ionian contingents serving under Xerxes:
whereby the latter were conjured not to serve against their fathers, but
to desert, if possible--or at least, to fight as little and as backwardly
as they could. Themistocles hoped by this stratagem perhaps to detach
some of the Ionians from the Persian side, or, at any rate, to render
them objects of mistrust, and thus to diminish their efficiency. With no
longer delay than was requisite for such inscriptions, he followed the
remaining fleet, which sailed round the coast of Attica, not stopping
until it reached the island of Salamis.

The news of the retreat of the Greek fleet was speedily conveyed by a
citizen of Histiæa to the Persians at Aphetæ, who at first disbelieved
it, and detained the messenger until they had sent to ascertain the fact.
On the next day, their fleet passed across to the north of Eubœa, and
became master of Histiæa and the neighbouring territory: from whence
many of them, by permission and even invitation of Xerxes, crossed over
to Thermopylæ to survey the field of battle and the dead. Respecting the
number of the dead, Xerxes is asserted to have deliberately imposed upon
the spectators: he buried all his own dead, except one thousand, whose
bodies were left out--while the total number of Greeks who had perished
at Thermopylæ, four thousand in number, were all left exposed, and in
one heap, so as to create an impression that their loss had been much
more severe than their own. Moreover, the bodies of the slain helots were
included in the heap, all of them passing for Spartans or Thespians in
the estimation of the spectators. We are not surprised to hear, however,
that this trick, gross and public as it must have been, really deceived
very few.

The sentiment, alike durable and unanimous, with which the Greeks of
after-times looked back on the battle of Thermopylæ, and which they have
communicated to all subsequent readers, was that of just admiration
for the courage and patriotism of Leonidas and his band. But among the
contemporary Greeks that sentiment, though doubtless sincerely felt,
was by no means predominant: it was overpowered by the more pressing
emotions of disappointment and terror. So confident were the Spartans
and Peloponnesians in the defensibility of Thermopylæ and Artemisium,
that when the news of the disaster reached them, not a single soldier
had yet been put in motion: the season of the festival games had passed,
but no active step had yet been taken. Meanwhile the invading force,
army, and fleet, was in its progress towards Attica and the Peloponnesus,
without the least preparations--and, what was still worse, without any
combined and concerted plan--for defending the heart of Greece. The loss
sustained by Xerxes at Thermopylæ, insignificant in proportion to his
vast total, was more than compensated by the fresh Grecian auxiliaries
which he now acquired. Not merely the Malians, Locrians, and Dorians,
but also the great mass of the Bœotians, with their chief town Thebes,
all except Thespiæ and Platæa, now joined him. Demaratus, his Spartan
companion, moved forward to Thebes to renew an ancient tie of hospitality
with the Theban oligarchical leader, Attaginus, while small garrisons
were sent by Alexander of Macedon to most of the Bœotian towns, as well
to protect them from plunder as to insure their fidelity. The Thespians,
on the other hand, abandoned their city, and fled into the Peloponnesus;
while the Platæans, who had been serving aboard the Athenian ships
at Artemisium, were disembarked at Chalcis as the fleet retreated,
for the purpose of marching by land to their city, and removing their
families. Nor was it only the land-force of Xerxes which had been thus
strengthened; his fleet also had received some accessions from Carystus
in Eubœa, and from several of the Cyclades--so that the losses sustained
by the storm at Sepias and the fights at Artemisium, if not wholly made
up, were at least in part repaired, while the fleet remained still
prodigiously superior in number to that of the Greeks.

At the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, near fifty years after these
events, the Corinthian envoys reminded Sparta that she had allowed
Xerxes time to arrive from the extremity of the earth at the threshold
of the Peloponnesus, before she took any adequate precautions against
him; a reproach true almost to the letter. It was only when roused and
terrified by the news of the death of Leonidas, that the Lacedæmonians
and the other Peloponnesians began to put forth their full strength. But
it was then too late to perform the promise made to Athens, of taking up
a position in Bœotia so as to protect Attica. To defend the isthmus of
Corinth was all that they now thought of, and seemingly all that was now
open to them: thither they rushed with all their available population
under the conduct of Cleombrotus, king of Sparta (brother of Leonidas),
and began to draw fortifications across it, as well as to break up
the Scironian road from Megara to Corinth, with every mark of anxious
energy. The Lacedæmonians, Arcadians, Eleans, Corinthians, Sicyonians,
Epidaurians, Phliasians, Trœzenians, and Hermionians, were all present
here in full numbers; many myriads of men (bodies of ten thousand each)
working and bringing materials night and day. As a defence to themselves
against attack by land, this was an excellent position: they considered
it as their last chance, abandoning all hope of successful resistance at
sea. But they forgot that a fortified isthmus was no protection even to
themselves against the navy of Xerxes, while it professedly threw out
not only Attica, but also Megara and Ægina. And thus rose a new peril
to Greece from the loss of Thermopylæ: no other position could be found
which, like that memorable strait, comprehended and protected at once all
the separate cities. The disunion thus produced brought them within a
hair’s breadth of ruin.


ATHENS ABANDONED

If the causes of alarm were great for the Peloponnesians, yet more
desperate did the position of the Athenians appear. Expecting, according
to agreement, to find a Peloponnesian army in Bœotia ready to sustain
Leonidas, or at any rate to co-operate in the defence of Attica, they
had taken no measures to remove their families or property: but they
saw with indignant disappointment as well as dismay, on retreating from
Artemisium, that the conqueror was in full march from Thermopylæ, that
the road to Attica was open to him, and that the Peloponnesians were
absorbed exclusively in the defence of their own isthmus and their own
separate existence. The fleet from Artemisium had been directed to muster
at the harbour of Trœzen, there to await such reinforcements as could be
got together: but the Athenians entreated Eurybiades to halt at Salamis,
so as to allow them a short time for consultation in the critical state
of their affairs, and to aid them in the transport of their families.
While Eurybiades was thus staying at Salamis, several new ships which had
reached Trœzen came over to join him; and in this way Salamis became for
a time the naval station of the Greeks, without any deliberate intention
beforehand.

Meanwhile Themistocles and the Athenian seamen landed at Phalerum, and
made their mournful entry into Athens. Gloomy as the prospect appeared,
there was little room for difference of opinion, and still less room
for delay. The authorities and the public assembly at once issued a
proclamation, enjoining every Athenian to remove his family out of the
country in the best way he could. We may conceive the state of tumult and
terror which followed on this unexpected proclamation, when we reflect
that it had to be circulated and acted upon throughout all Attica, from
Sunium to Oropus, within the narrow space of less than six days; for no
longer interval elapsed before Xerxes actually arrived at Athens, where
indeed he might have arrived even sooner.

The whole Grecian fleet was doubtless employed in carrying out the
helpless exiles; mostly to Trœzen, where a kind reception and generous
support were provided for them,--the Trœzenian population being seemingly
semi-Ionic, and having ancient relations of religion as well as of
traffic with Athens,--but in part also to Ægina: there were, however,
many who could not, or would not, go farther than Salamis. Themistocles
impressed upon the sufferers that they were only obeying the oracle,
which had directed them to abandon the city and to take refuge behind
the wooden walls; and either his policy, or the mental depression of the
time, gave circulation to other stories, intimating that even the divine
inmates of the Acropolis were for a while deserting it. In the ancient
temple of Athene Polias on that rock, there dwelt, or was believed
to dwell, as guardian to the sanctuary and familiar attendant of the
goddess, a sacred serpent, for whose nourishment a honey cake was placed
once in the month. The honey cake had been hitherto regularly consumed;
but at this fatal moment the priestess announced that it remained
untouched: the sacred guardian had thus set the example of quitting the
acropolis, and it behooved the citizens to follow the example, confiding
in the goddess herself for future return and restitution.

The migration of so many ancient men, women, and children, was a scene
of tears and misery inferior only to that which would have ensued on the
actual capture of the city.[31] Some few individuals, too poor to hope
for maintenance, or too old to care for life elsewhere,--confiding,
moreover, in their own interpretation of the wooden wall which the
Pythian priestess had pronounced to be inexpugnable,--shut themselves up
in the Acropolis along with the administrators of the temple, obstructing
the entrance or western front with wooden doors and palisades. When we
read how great were the sufferings of the population of Attica near
half a century afterwards, compressed for refuge within the spacious
fortifications of Athens at the first outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,
we may form some faint idea of the incalculably greater misery which
overwhelmed an emigrant population, hurrying, they knew not whither, to
escape the long arm of Xerxes. Little chance did there seem that they
would ever revisit their homes except as his slaves.

In the midst of circumstances thus calamitous and threatening, neither
the warriors nor the leaders of Athens lost their energy--arm as well
as mind was strung to the loftiest pitch of human resolution. Political
dissensions were suspended: Themistocles proposed to the people a decree,
and obtained their sanction, inviting home all who were under sentence of
temporary banishment: moreover, he not only included but even specially
designated among them his own great opponent Aristides, now in the
third year of ostracism. Xanthippus the accuser, and Cimon, the son of
Miltiades, were partners in the same emigration: the latter, enrolled by
his scale of fortune among the horsemen of the state, was seen with his
companions cheerfully marching through the Ceramicus to dedicate their
bridles in the Acropolis, and to bring away in exchange some of the
sacred arms there suspended, thus setting an example of ready service on
shipboard, instead of on horseback. It was absolutely essential to obtain
supplies of money, partly for the aid of the poorer exiles, but still
more for the equipment of the fleet; there were no funds in the public
treasury--but the senate of Areopagus, then composed in large proportion
of men from the wealthier classes, put forth all its public authority
as well as its private contributions and example to others, and thus
succeeded in raising the sum of eight drachmæ for every soldier serving.

This timely help was indeed partly obtained by the inexhaustible resource
of Themistocles, who, in the hurry of embarkation, either discovered or
pretended that the Gorgon’s head from the statue of Athene was lost,
and directing upon this ground every man’s baggage to be searched,
rendered any treasures, which private citizens might be carrying out,
available to the public service. By the most strenuous efforts, these few
important days were made to suffice for removing the whole population
of Attica,--those of military competence to the fleet at Salamis,--the
rest to some place of refuge,--together with as much property as the case
admitted. So complete was the desertion of the country, that the host
of Xerxes, when it became master, could not seize and carry off more
than five hundred prisoners. Moreover, the fleet itself, which had been
brought home from Artemisium partially disabled, was quickly repaired, so
that, by the time the Persian fleet arrived, it was again in something
like fighting condition.


THE FLEET AT SALAMIS

The combined fleet which had now got together at Salamis consisted
of three hundred and sixty-six ships,--a force far greater than at
Artemisium. Of these, no less than two hundred were Athenian; twenty
among which, however, were lent to the Chalcidians, and manned by them.
Forty Corinthian ships, thirty Æginetan, twenty Megarian, sixteen
Lacedæmonian, fifteen Sicyonian, ten Epidaurian, seven from Ambracia, and
as many from Eretria, five from Trœzen, three from Hermione, and the same
number from Leucas; two from Ceos, two from Styra, and one from Cythnos;
four from Naxos, despatched as a contingent to the Persian fleet, but
brought by the choice of their captains and seamen to Salamis;--all these
triremes, together with a small squadron of the inferior vessels called
penteconters, made up the total. From the great Grecian cities in Italy
there appeared only one trireme, a volunteer, equipped and commanded by
an eminent citizen named Phaÿllus, thrice victor at the Pythian games.
The entire fleet was thus a trifle larger than the combined force, three
hundred and fifty-eight ships, collected by the Asiatic Greeks at Lade,
fifteen years earlier, during the Ionic revolt. We may doubt, however,
whether this total, borrowed from Herodotus, be not larger than that
which actually fought a little afterwards at the battle of Salamis, and
which Æschylus gives decidedly as consisting of three hundred sail, in
addition to ten prime and chosen ships. That great poet, himself one of
the combatants, and speaking in a drama represented only seven years
after the battle, is better authority on the point even than Herodotus.

Hardly was the fleet mustered at Salamis, and the Athenian population
removed, when Xerxes and his host overran the deserted country, his fleet
occupying the roadstead of Phalerum with the coast adjoining. His land
force had been put in motion under the guidance of the Thessalians, two
or three days after the battle of Thermopylæ, and he was assured by some
Arcadians who came to seek service, that the Peloponnesians were, even at
that moment, occupied with the celebration of the Olympic games. “What
prize does the victor receive?” he asked. Upon the reply made, that the
prize was a wreath of the wild olive, Tritantæchmes, son of the monarch’s
uncle Artabanus, is said to have burst forth, notwithstanding the
displeasure both of the monarch himself and of the bystanders: “Heavens,
Mardonius, what manner of men are these against whom thou hast brought us
to fight! men who contend not for money, but for honour!” Whether this be
a remark really delivered, or a dramatic illustration imagined by some
contemporary of Herodotus, it is not the less interesting as bringing to
view a characteristic of Hellenic life, which contrasts not merely with
the manners of contemporary Orientals, but even with those of the earlier
Greeks themselves during the Homeric times.

Among all the various Greeks between Thermopylæ and the borders
of Attica, there were none except the Phocians disposed to refuse
submission: and they refused only because the paramount influence of
their bitter enemies the Thessalians made them despair of obtaining
favourable terms. Nor would they even listen to a proposition of the
Thessalians, who, boasting that it was in their power to guide as they
pleased the terrors of the Persian host, offered to insure lenient
treatment to the territory of Phocis, provided a sum of fifty talents
were paid to them. The proposition being indignantly refused, they
conducted Xerxes through the little territory of Doris, which _medised_
and escaped plunder, into the upper valley of the Cephisus, among the
towns of the inflexible Phocians. All of them were found deserted; the
inhabitants having previously escaped either to the wide-spreading
summit of Parnassus, called Tithorea, or even still farther, across that
mountain into the territory of the Ozolian Locrians. Ten or a dozen small
Phocian towns, the most considerable of which were Elatea and Hyampolis,
were sacked and destroyed by the invaders, nor was the holy temple and
oracle of Apollo at Abæ better treated than the rest: all its treasures
were pillaged, and it was then burnt. From Panopeus Xerxes detached
a body of men to plunder Delphi, marching with his main army through
Bœotia, in which country he found all the towns submissive and willing,
except Thespiæ and Platæa: both were deserted by their citizens, and
both were now burnt. From hence he conducted his army into the abandoned
territory of Attica, reaching without resistance the foot of the
Acropolis at Athens.


XERXES AT DELPHI

Very different was the fate of that division which he had detached from
Panopeus against Delphi: Apollo defended his temple here more vigorously
than at Abæ. The cupidity of the Persian king was stimulated by accounts
of the boundless wealth accumulated at Delphi, especially the profuse
donations of Crœsus. The Delphians, in the extreme of alarm, while
they sought safety for themselves on the heights of Parnassus, and for
their families by transport across the gulf into Achaia, consulted the
oracle whether they should carry away or bury the sacred treasures.
Apollo directed them to leave the treasures untouched, saying that he
was competent himself to take care of his own property. Sixty Delphians
alone ventured to remain, together with Aceratus, the religious superior:
but evidences of superhuman aid soon appeared to encourage them. The
sacred arms suspended in the interior cell, which no mortal hand was
ever permitted to touch, were seen lying before the door of the temple;
and when the Persians, marching along the road called Schiste, up that
rugged path under the steep cliffs of Parnassus which conducts to Delphi,
had reached the temple of Athene Pronœa, on a sudden, dreadful thunder
was heard, two vast mountain crags detached themselves and rushed down
with deafening noise among them, crushing many to death, the war shout
was also heard from the interior of the temple of Athene. Seized with a
panic terror, the invaders turned round and fled; pursued not only by the
Delphians, but also, as they themselves affirmed, by two armed warriors
of superhuman stature and destructive arm. The triumphant Delphians
confirmed this report, adding that the two auxiliaries were the heroes
Phylacus and Autonoüs, whose sacred precincts were close adjoining:
and Herodotus himself when he visited Delphi, saw in the sacred ground
of Athene the identical masses of rock which had overwhelmed the
Persians.[32] Thus did the god repel these invaders from his Delphian
sanctuary and treasures, which remained inviolate until one hundred and
thirty years afterwards, when they were rifled by the sacrilegious hands
of the Phocian Philomelus. On this occasion, as will be seen presently,
the real protectors of the treasures were the conquerors at Salamis and
Platæa.


ATHENS TAKEN

Four months had elapsed since the departure from Asia when Xerxes reached
Athens, the last term of his advance. He brought with him the members of
the Pisistratid family, who doubtless thought their restoration already
certain, and a few Athenian exiles attached to their interest. Though
the country was altogether deserted, the handful of men collected in the
Acropolis ventured to defy him: nor could all the persuasions of the
Pisistratids, eager to preserve the holy place from pillage, induce them
to surrender.

The Athenian Acropolis--a craggy rock rising abruptly about one hundred
and fifty feet, with a flat summit of about one thousand feet long from
east to west, by five hundred feet broad from north to south--had no
practicable access except on the western side: moreover, in all parts
where there seemed any possibility of climbing up, it was defended by the
ancient fortification called the Pelasgic wall. Obliged to take the place
by force, the Persian army was posted around the northern and western
sides, and commenced their operations from the eminence immediately
adjoining on the northwest, called Areopagus: from whence they bombarded,
if we may venture upon the expression, with hot missiles, the woodwork
before the gates; that is, they poured upon it multitudes of arrows with
burning tow attached to them. The wooden palisades and boarding presently
took fire and were consumed: but when the Persians tried to mount to the
assault by the western road leading up to the gate, the undaunted little
garrison still kept them at bay, having provided vast stones, which they
rolled down upon them in the ascent.

For a time the Great King seemed likely to be driven to the slow process
of blockade; but at length some adventurous men among the besiegers tried
to scale the precipitous rock before them on its northern side, hard
by the temple or chapel of Aglaurus, which lay nearly in front of the
Persian position, but behind the gates and the western ascent. Here the
rock was naturally so inaccessible, that it was altogether unguarded,
and seemingly even unfortified: moreover, the attention of the little
garrison was all concentrated on the host which fronted the gates. Hence
the separate escalading party was enabled to accomplish their object
unobserved, and to reach the summit in the rear of the garrison; who,
deprived of their last hope, either cast themselves headlong from the
walls, or fled for safety to the inner temple. The successful escaladers
opened the gates to the entire Persian host, and the whole Acropolis was
presently in their hands. Its defenders were slain, its temples pillaged,
and all its dwellings and buildings, sacred as well as profane, consigned
to the flames. The citadel of Athens fell into the hands of Xerxes by a
surprise, very much the same as that which had placed Sardis in those of
Cyrus.

Thus was divine prophecy fulfilled: Attica passed entirely into the hands
of the Persians, and the conflagration of Sardis was retaliated upon the
home and citadel of its captors, as it also was upon their sacred temple
of Eleusis. Xerxes immediately despatched to Susa intelligence of the
fact, which is said to have excited unmeasured demonstrations of joy,
confuting, seemingly, the gloomy predictions of his uncle Artabanus.
On the next day but one, the Athenian exiles in his suite received his
orders, or perhaps obtained his permission, to go and offer sacrifice
amidst the ruins of the Acropolis, and atone, if possible, for the
desecration of the ground: they discovered that the sacred olive tree
near the chapel of Erechtheus, the special gift of the goddess Athene,
though burnt to the ground by the recent flames, had already thrown
out a fresh shoot of one cubit long,--at least the piety of restored
Athens afterwards believed this encouraging portent, as well as that
which was said to have been seen by Dicæus, an Athenian companion of the
Pisistratids, in the Thriasian plain.

It was now the day set apart for the celebration of the Eleusinian
mysteries; and though in this sorrowful year there was no celebration,
nor any Athenians in the territory, Dicæus still fancied that he
beheld the dust and heard the loud multitudinous chant, which was wont
to accompany in ordinary times the processional march from Athens to
Eleusis. He would even have revealed the fact to Xerxes himself, had
not Demaratus deterred him from doing so: but he as well as Herodotus
construed it as an evidence that the goddesses themselves were passing
over from Eleusis to help the Athenians at Salamis. But whatever may
have been received in after times, on that day certainly no man could
believe in the speedy resurrection of conquered Athens as a free
city: not even if he had witnessed the portent of the burnt olive
tree suddenly sprouting afresh with preternatural vigour. So hopeless
did the circumstances of the Athenians then appear, not less to their
confederates assembled at Salamis than to the victorious Persians.

About the time of the capture of the Acropolis, the Persian fleet also
arrived safely in the Bay of Phalerum, reinforced by ships from Carystus
as well as from various islands of the Cyclades, so that Herodotus
reckons it to have been as strong as before the terrible storm at Sepias
Acte--an estimate certainly not admissible.


XERXES INSPECTS HIS FLEET

Soon after their arrival, Xerxes himself descended to the shore to
inspect the fleet, as well as to take counsel with the various naval
leaders about the expediency of attacking the hostile fleet, now so near
him in the narrow strait between Salamis and the coasts of Attica. He
invited them all to take their seats in an assembly, wherein the king
of Sidon occupied the first place and the king of Tyre the second. The
question was put to each of them separately by Mardonius, and when we
learn that all pronounced in favour of immediate fighting, we may be
satisfied that the decided opinion of Xerxes himself must have been
well known to them beforehand. One exception alone was found to this
unanimity,--Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus in Caria; into whose mouth
Herodotus puts a speech of some length, deprecating all idea of fighting
in the narrow strait of Salamis, predicting that if the land-force were
moved forwards to attack the Peloponnesus, the Peloponnesians in the
fleet at Salamis would return for the protection of their own homes,
and thus the fleet would disperse, the rather as there was little or no
food in the island, and intimating, besides, unmeasured contempt for the
efficacy of the Persian fleet and seamen as compared with the Greek,
as well as for the subject contingents of Xerxes generally. That Queen
Artemisia gave this prudent counsel, there is no reason to question; and
the historian of Halicarnassus may have had means of hearing the grounds
on which her opinion rested: but we find a difficulty in believing
that she can have publicly delivered any such estimate of the maritime
subjects of Persia--an estimate not merely insulting to all who heard
it, but at the time not just, though it had come to be nearer the truth
at the time when Herodotus wrote, and though Artemisia herself may have
lived to entertain the conviction afterwards. Whatever may have been
her reasons, the historian tells us that friends as well as rivals were
astonished at her rashness in dissuading the monarch from a naval battle,
and expected that she would be put to death. But Xerxes heard the advice
with perfect good temper, and even esteemed the Carian queen the more
highly: though he resolved that the opinion of the majority, or his own
opinion, should be acted upon: and orders were accordingly issued for
attacking the next day, while the land-force should move forwards towards
the Peloponnesus.

Whilst, on the shore of Phalerum, an omnipotent will compelled seeming
unanimity and precluded all real deliberation, great, indeed, was the
contrast presented by the neighbouring Greek armament at Salamis, among
the members of which unmeasured dissension had been reigning. It has
already been stated that the Greek fleet had originally got together at
that island, not with any view of making it a naval station, but simply
in order to cover and assist the emigration of the Athenians. This object
being accomplished, and Xerxes being already in Attica, Eurybiades
convoked the chiefs to consider what position was the fittest for a naval
engagement. Most of them, especially those from the Peloponnesus, were
averse to remaining at Salamis, and proposed that the fleet should be
transferred to the isthmus of Corinth, where it would be in immediate
communication with the Peloponnesian land-force, so that in case of
defeat at sea, the ships would find protection on shore, and the men
would join in the land service--while if worsted in a naval action near
Salamis, they would be inclosed in an island from whence there were no
hopes of escape. In the midst of the debate, a messenger arrived with
news of the capture and conflagration of Athens and her Acropolis by the
Persians: and such was the terror produced by this intelligence, that
some of the chiefs, without even awaiting the conclusion of the debate
and the final vote, quitted the council forthwith, and began to hoist
sail, or prepare their rowers, for departure. The majority came to a vote
for removing to the isthmus, but as night was approaching, actual removal
was deferred until the next morning.

Now was felt the want of a position like that of Thermopylæ, which had
served as a protection to all the Greeks at once, so as to check the
growth of separate fears and interests. We can hardly wonder that the
Peloponnesian chiefs--the Corinthian in particular, who furnished so
large a naval contingent, and within whose territory the land-battle
at the isthmus seemed about to take place--should manifest such an
obstinate reluctance to fight at Salamis, and should insist on removing
to a position where, in case of naval defeat, they could assist, and
be assisted by, their own soldiers on land. On the other hand, Salamis
was not only the most favourable position, in consequence of its narrow
strait, for the inferior numbers of the Greeks, but could not be
abandoned without breaking up the unity of the allied fleet; since Megara
and Ægina would thus be left uncovered, and the contingents of each would
immediately retire for the defence of their homes, while the Athenians
also, a large portion of whose expatriated families were in Salamis and
Ægina, would be in like manner distracted from combined maritime efforts
at the isthmus. If transferred to the latter place, probably not even
the Peloponnesians themselves would have remained in one body; for the
squadrons of Epidaurus, Trœzen, Hermione, etc., each fearing that the
Persian fleet might make a descent on one or other of these separate
ports, would go home to repel such a contingency, in spite of the efforts
of Eurybiades to keep them together. Hence the order for quitting
Salamis and repairing to the isthmus was nothing less than a sentence of
extinction for all combined maritime defence; and it thus became doubly
abhorrent to all those who, like the Athenians, Æginetans, and Megarians,
were also led by their own separate safety to cling to the defence of
Salamis. In spite of all such opposition, however, and in spite of the
protest of Themistocles, the obstinate determination of the Peloponnesian
leaders carried the vote for retreat, and each of them went to his ship
to prepare for it on the following morning.


SCHEMES OF THEMISTOCLES

When Themistocles returned to his ship, with the gloom of this melancholy
resolution full upon his mind, and with the necessity of providing for
removal of the expatriated Athenian families in the island as well as
for that of the squadron, he found an Athenian friend named Mnesiphilus,
who asked him what the synod of chiefs had determined. Concerning
this Mnesiphilus, who is mentioned generally as a sagacious practical
politician, we unfortunately have no particulars: but it must have been
no common man whom fame selected, truly or falsely, as the inspiring
genius of Themistocles. On learning what had been resolved, Mnesiphilus
burst out into remonstrance on the utter ruin which its execution would
entail: there would presently be neither any united fleet to fight,
nor any aggregate cause and country to fight for. He vehemently urged
Themistocles again to open the question, and to press by every means
in his power for a recall of the vote for retreat, as well as for a
resolution to stay and fight at Salamis.

Themistocles had already in vain tried to enforce the same view: but
disheartened as he was by ill success, the remonstrances of a respected
friend struck him so forcibly as to induce him to renew his efforts. He
went instantly to the ship of Eurybiades, asked permission to speak with
him, and being invited aboard, reopened with him alone the whole subject
of the past discussion, enforcing his own views as emphatically as he
could. In this private communication, all the arguments bearing upon the
case were more unsparingly laid open than it had been possible to do in
an assembly of the chiefs, who would have been insulted if openly told
that they were likely to desert the fleet when once removed from Salamis.
Speaking thus freely and confidentially, and speaking to Eurybiades
alone, Themistocles was enabled to bring him partially round, and even
prevailed upon him to convene a fresh synod. So soon as this synod had
assembled, even before Eurybiades had explained the object and formally
opened the discussion, Themistocles addressed himself to each of the
chiefs separately, pouring forth at large his fears and anxiety as to the
abandonment of Salamis: insomuch that the Corinthian Adimantus rebuked
him by saying, “Themistocles, those who in the public festival-matches
rise up before the proper signal, are scourged.” “True,” rejoined the
Athenian, “but those who lag behind the signal win no crowns.”

Eurybiades then explained to the synod that doubts had arisen in his
mind, and that he called them together to reconsider the previous
resolve: upon which Themistocles began the debate, and vehemently
enforced the necessity of fighting in the narrow sea of Salamis and
not in the open waters at the isthmus, as well as of preserving Megara
and Ægina: contending that a naval victory at Salamis would be not less
effective for the defence of the Peloponnesus than if it took place at
the isthmus, whereas, if the fleet were withdrawn to the latter point,
they would only draw the Persians after them. Nor did he omit to add,
that the Athenians had a prophecy assuring to them victory in this, their
own island. But his speech made little impression on the Peloponnesian
chiefs, who were even exasperated at being again summoned to reopen
a debate already concluded, and concluded in a way which they deemed
essential to their safety. In the bosom of the Corinthian Adimantus,
especially, this feeling of anger burst all bounds. He sharply denounced
the presumption of Themistocles, and bade him be silent as a man who had
now no free Grecian city to represent, Athens being in the power of the
enemy: nay, he went so far as to contend that Eurybiades had no right to
count the vote of Themistocles, until the latter could produce some free
city as accrediting him to the synod.

Such an attack, alike ungenerous and insane, upon the leader of more
than half of the whole fleet, demonstrates the ungovernable impatience
of the Corinthians to carry away the fleet to their isthmus: it provoked
a bitter retort against them from Themistocles, who reminded them
that while he had around him two hundred well-manned ships, he could
procure for himself anywhere both city and territory as good or better
than Corinth. But he now saw clearly that it was hopeless to think
of enforcing his policy by argument, and that nothing would succeed
except the direct language of intimidation. Turning to Eurybiades,
and addressing him personally, he said: “If thou wilt stay here, and
fight bravely here, all will turn out well: but if thou wilt not stay,
thou wilt bring Hellas to ruin. For with us, all our means of war are
contained in our ships. Be thou yet persuaded by me. If not, we Athenians
shall migrate with our families on board, just as we are, to Siris in
Italy, which is ours from of old, and which the prophecies announce that
we are one day to colonise. You chiefs then, when bereft of allies like
us, will hereafter recollect what I am now saying.”

Eurybiades had before been nearly convinced by the impressive pleading of
Themistocles. But this last downright menace clenched his determination,
and probably struck dumb even the Corinthian and Peloponnesian opponents:
for it was but too plain, that without the Athenians the fleet was
powerless. He did not, however, put the question again to vote, but took
upon himself to rescind the previous resolution and to issue orders for
staying at Salamis to fight. In this order all acquiesced, willing or
unwilling; the succeeding dawn saw them preparing for fight instead of
for retreat, and invoking the protection and companionship of the Æacid
heroes of Salamis,--Telamon and Ajax: they even sent a trireme to Ægina
to implore Æacus himself and the remaining Æacids. It seems to have been
on this same day, also, that the resolution of fighting at Salamis was
taken by Xerxes, whose fleet was seen in motion, towards the close of the
day, preparing for attack the next morning.

But the Peloponnesians, though not venturing to disobey the orders of
the Spartan admiral, still retained unabated their former fears and
reluctance, which began again after a short interval to prevail over
the formidable menace of Themistocles, and were further strengthened
by the advices from the isthmus. The messengers from that quarter
depicted the trepidation and affright of their absent brethren while
constructing their cross wall at that point, to resist the impending
land invasion. Why were they not there also, to join hands and to help
in the defence,--even if worsted at sea,--at least on land, instead of
wasting their efforts in defence of Attica, already in the hands of
the enemy? Such were the complaints which passed from man to man, with
many a bitter exclamation against the insanity of Eurybiades: at length
the common feeling broke out in public and mutinous manifestation, and
a fresh synod of the chiefs was demanded and convoked. Here the same
angry debate, and the same irreconcilable difference, was again renewed;
the Peloponnesian chiefs clamouring for immediate departure, while the
Athenians, Æginetans, and Megarians were equally urgent in favour of
staying to fight. It was evident to Themistocles that the majority of
votes among the chiefs would be against him, in spite of the orders
of Eurybiades; and the disastrous crisis, destined to deprive Greece
of all united maritime defence, appeared imminent, when he resorted
to one last stratagem to meet the desperate emergency, by rendering
flight impossible. Contriving a pretext for stealing away from the
synod, he despatched a trusty messenger across the strait with a secret
communication to the Persian generals. Sicinnus his slave--seemingly an
Asiatic Greek, who understood Persian, and had perhaps been sold during
the late Ionic revolt, but whose superior qualities are marked by the
fact that he had the care and teaching of the children of his master--was
instructed to acquaint them privately and in the name of Themistocles,
who was represented as wishing success at heart to the Persians, that
the Greek fleet was not only in the utmost alarm, meditating immediate
flight, but that the various portions of it were in such violent
dissension, that they were more likely to fight against each other than
against any common enemy. A splendid opportunity, it was added, was thus
opened to the Persians, if they chose to avail themselves of it without
delay, first, to inclose and prevent their flight, and then to attack a
disunited body, many of whom would, when the combat began, openly espouse
the Persian cause.

Such was the important communication despatched by Themistocles across
the narrow strait, only a quarter of a mile in breadth at the narrowest
part, which divides Salamis from the neighbouring continent on which the
enemy were posted. It was delivered with so much address as to produce
the exact impression which he intended, and the glorious success which
followed caused it to pass for a splendid stratagem: had defeat ensued,
his name would have been covered with infamy. What surprises us the
most is, that after having reaped signal honour from it in the eyes of
the Greeks, as a stratagem, he lived to take credit for it, during the
exile of his latter days, as a capital service rendered to the Persian
monarch: nor is it improbable, when we reflect upon the desperate
condition of Grecian affairs at the moment, that such facility of double
interpretation was in part his inducement for sending the message.

It appears to have been delivered to Xerxes shortly after he had issued
his orders for fighting on the next morning: and he entered so greedily
into the scheme, as to direct his generals to close up the strait of
Salamis on both sides during the night, to the north as well as to the
south of the town of Salamis, at the risk of their heads if any opening
were left for the Greeks to escape. The station of the numerous Persian
fleet was along the coast of Attica,--its headquarters were in the
Bay of Phalerum, but doubtless parts of it would occupy those three
natural harbours, as yet unimproved by art, which belonged to the deme
of Piræus,--and would perhaps extend besides to other portions of the
western coast southward of Phalerum: while the Greek fleet was in the
harbour of the town called Salamis, in the portion of the island facing
Mount Ægaleos, in Attica.

During the night, a portion of the Persian fleet, sailing from Piræus
northward along the western coast of Attica, closed round to the north
of the town and harbour of Salamis, so as to shut up the northern issue
from the strait on the side of Eleusis: while another portion blocked up
the other issue between Piræus and the southeastern corner of the island,
landing a detachment of troops on the desert island of Psyttalea, near to
that corner. These measures were all taken during the night, to prevent
the anticipated flight of the Greeks, and then to attack them in the
narrow strait close on their own harbour the next morning.

Meanwhile, that angry controversy among the Grecian chiefs, in the midst
of which Themistocles had sent over his secret envoy, continued without
abatement and without decision. It was the interest of the Athenian
general to prolong the debate, and to prevent any concluding vote until
the effect of his stratagem should have rendered retreat impossible: nor
was prolongation difficult in a case so critical, where the majority of
chiefs was on one side and that of naval force on the other--especially
as Eurybiades himself was favourable to the view of Themistocles.
Accordingly, the debate was still unfinished at nightfall, and either
continued all night, or was adjourned to an hour before daybreak on the
following morning, when an incident, interesting as well as important,
gave to it a new turn.

The ostracised Aristides arrived at Salamis from Ægina. Since the
revocation of his sentence, proposed by Themistocles himself, he had
had no opportunity of revisiting Athens, and he now for the first time
rejoined his countrymen in their exile at Salamis; not uninformed of the
dissensions raging, and of the impatience of the Peloponnesians to retire
to the isthmus. He was the first to bring the news that such retirement
had become impracticable from the position of the Persian fleet, which
his own vessel, in coming from Ægina, had only eluded under favour of
night. He caused Themistocles to be invited out from the assembled synod
of chiefs, and after a generous exordium, wherein he expressed his
hope that their rivalry would for the future be only a competition in
doing good to their common country, apprised him that the new movement
of the Persians excluded all hope of now reaching the isthmus and
rendered farther debate useless. Themistocles expressed his joy at the
intelligence, and communicated his own secret message whereby he had
himself brought the movement about, in order that the Peloponnesian
chiefs might be forced to fight at Salamis, even against their own
consent. He moreover desired Aristides to go himself into the synod, and
communicate the news: for if it came from the lips of Themistocles, the
Peloponnesians would treat it as a fabrication. So obstinate indeed was
their incredulity, that they refused to accept it as truth even on the
assertion of Aristides: nor was it until the arrival of a Tenian vessel,
deserting from the Persian fleet, that they at last brought themselves
to credit the actual posture of affairs and the entire impossibility of
retreat. Once satisfied of this fact, they prepared themselves at dawn
for the impending battle.


THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS

Having caused his land-force to be drawn up along the shore opposite to
Salamis, Xerxes had erected for himself a lofty seat, or throne, upon
one of the projecting declivities of Mount Ægaleos, near the Heracleum,
and immediately overhanging the sea, from whence he could plainly review
all the phases of the combat and the conduct of his subject troops. He
was persuaded himself that they had not done their best at Artemisium,
in consequence of his absence, and that his presence would inspire them
with fresh valour: moreover, his royal scribes stood ready by his side to
take the names both of the brave and of the backward combatants. On the
right wing of his fleet--which approached Salamis on the side of Eleusis,
and was opposed to the Athenians on the Grecian left--were placed the
Phœnicians and Egyptians; on his left wing the Ionians, approaching
from the side of Piræus, and opposed to the Lacedæmonians, Æginetans,
and Megarians. The seamen of the Persian fleet, however, had been on
shipboard all night, in making that movement which had brought them into
their actual position: while the Greek seamen now began without previous
fatigue, fresh from the animated harangues of Themistocles and the other
leaders: moreover, just as they were getting on board, they were joined
by the triremes which had been sent to Ægina to bring to their aid Æacus,
with the other Æacid heroes. Honoured with this precious heroic aid,
which tended so much to raise the spirits of the Greeks, the Æginetan
trireme now arrived just in time to take her post in the line, having
eluded pursuit from the intervening enemy.

The Greeks rowed forward from the shore to attack with the usual pæan,
or war-shout, which was confidently returned by the Persians; and the
latter were the most forward of the two to begin the fight: for the Greek
seamen, on gradually nearing the enemy, became at first disposed to
hesitate, and even backed water for a space, so that some of them touched
ground on their own shore: until the retrograde movement was arrested by
a supernatural feminine figure hovering over them, who exclaimed, with a
voice that rang through the whole fleet, “Ye worthies, how much farther
are ye going to back water?” The very circulation of this fable attests
the dubious courage of the Greeks at the commencement of the battle. The
brave Athenian captains Aminias and Lycomedes (the former, brother of
the poet Æschylus) were the first to obey either the feminine voice or
the inspirations of their own ardour: though according to the version
current at Ægina, it was the Æginetan ship, the carrier of the Æacid
heroes, which first set this honourable example. The Naxian Democritus
was celebrated by Simonides as the third ship in action. Aminias, darting
forth from the line, charged with the beak of his ship full against
a Phœnician, and the two became entangled so that he could not again
get clear; other ships came in aid on both sides, and the action thus
became general. Herodotus, with his usual candour, tells us that he
could procure few details about the action, except as to what concerned
Artemisia, the queen of his own city: so that we know hardly anything
beyond the general facts. But it appears that, with the exception of the
Ionic Greeks, many of whom--apparently a greater number than Herodotus
likes to acknowledge--were lukewarm, and some even averse, the subjects
of Xerxes conducted themselves generally with great bravery: Phœnicians,
Cyprians, Cilicians, Egyptians, vied with the Persians and Medes, serving
as soldiers on shipboard, in trying to satisfy the exigent monarch who
sat on shore watching their behaviour.

Their signal defeat was not owing to any want of courage, but, first,
to the narrow space which rendered their superior number a hindrance
rather than a benefit: next, to their want of orderly line and discipline
as compared with the Greeks: thirdly, to the fact that, when once
fortune seemed to turn against them, they had no fidelity or reciprocal
attachment, and each ally was willing to sacrifice or even to run down
others, in order to effect his own escape. Their numbers and absence of
concert threw them into confusion, and caused them to run foul of each
other: those in the front could not recede, nor could those in the rear
advance: the oar blades were broken by collision, the steersmen lost
control of their ships, and could no longer adjust the ship’s course
so as to strike that direct blow with the beak which was essential in
ancient warfare. After some time of combat, the whole Persian fleet was
driven back and became thoroughly unmanageable, so that the issue was no
longer doubtful, and nothing remained except the efforts of individual
bravery to protract the struggle.

While the Athenian squadron on the left, which had the greatest
resistance to surmount, broke up and drove before them the Persian right,
the Æginetans on the right intercepted the flight of the fugitives to
Phalerum: Democritus, the Naxian captain, was said to have captured
five ships of the Persians with his own single trireme. The chief
admiral, Ariabignes, brother of Xerxes, attacked at once by two Athenian
triremes, fell, gallantly trying to board one of them, and the number of
distinguished Persians and Medes who shared his fate was great: the more
so, as few of them knew how to swim, while among the Greek seamen who
were cast into the sea, the greater number were swimmers, and had the
friendly shore of Salamis near at hand. It appears that the Phœnician
seamen of the fleet threw the blame of defeat upon the Ionic Greeks;
and some of them, driven ashore during the heat of the battle under the
immediate throne of Xerxes, excused themselves by denouncing the others
as traitors. The heads of the Ionic leaders might have been endangered if
the monarch had not seen with his own eyes an act of surprising gallantry
by one of their number. An Ionic trireme from Samothrace charged and
disabled an Attic trireme, but was herself almost immediately run down
by an Æginetan. The Samothracian crew, as their vessel lay disabled on
the water, made such excellent use of their missile weapons, that they
cleared the decks of the Æginetan, sprung on board, and became masters of
her. This exploit, passing under the eyes of Xerxes himself, induced him
to treat the Phœnicians as dastardly calumniators, and to direct their
heads to be cut off: his wrath and vexation, Herodotus tells us, were
boundless, and he scarcely knew on whom to vent it.

In this disastrous battle itself, as in the debate before the battle,
the conduct of Artemisia of Halicarnassus was such as to give him full
satisfaction. It appears that this queen maintained her full part in
the battle until the disorder had become irretrievable; she then sought
to escape, pursued by the Athenian trierarch, Aminias, but found her
progress obstructed by the number of fugitive or embarrassed comrades
before her. In this dilemma, she preserved herself from pursuit by
attacking one of her own comrades; she charged the trireme of the Carian
prince, Damasithymus of Calynda, ran it down and sunk it, so that the
prince with all his crew perished. Had Aminias been aware that the vessel
which he was following was that of Artemisia, nothing would have induced
him to relax in the pursuit, for the Athenian captains were all indignant
at the idea of a female invader assailing their city; but knowing her
ship only as one among the enemy, and seeing her thus charge and destroy
another enemy’s ship, he concluded her to be a deserter, turned his
pursuit elsewhere, and suffered her to escape. At the same time, it so
happened that the destruction of the ship of Damasithymus happened under
the eyes of Xerxes and of the persons around him on shore, who recognised
the ship of Artemisia, but supposed the ship destroyed to be a Greek.
Accordingly they remarked to him, “Master, seest thou not how well
Artemisia fights, and how she has just sunk an enemy’s ship?” Assured
that it was really her deed, Xerxes is said to have replied, “My men have
become women; my women, men.” Thus was Artemisia not only preserved, but
exalted to a higher place in the esteem of Xerxes by the destruction of
one of his own ships, among the crew of which not a man survived to tell
the true story.

Of the total loss of either fleet, Herodotus gives us no estimate; but
Diodorus states the number of ships destroyed on the Grecian side as
forty, on the Persian side as two hundred; independent of those which
were made prisoners with all their crews. To the Persian loss is to be
added the destruction of all those troops whom they had landed before
the battle in the island of Psyttalea: as soon as the Persian fleet was
put to flight, Aristides carried over some Grecian hoplites to that
island, overpowered the enemy, and put them to death to a man. This loss
appears to have been much deplored, as they were choice troops; in great
proportion the native Persian guards.


THE RETREAT OF XERXES

Great and capital as the victory was, there yet remained after it a
sufficient portion of the Persian fleet to maintain even maritime war
vigorously, not to mention the powerful land-force, as yet unshaken. And
the Greeks themselves, immediately after they had collected in their
island, as well as could be done, the fragments of shipping and the
dead bodies, made themselves ready for a second engagement. But they
were relieved from this necessity by the pusillanimity of the invading
monarch, in whom the defeat had occasioned a sudden revulsion from
contemptuous confidence, not only to rage and disappointment, but to
the extreme of alarm for his own personal safety. He was possessed with
a feeling of mingled wrath and mistrust against his naval force, which
consisted entirely of subject nations--Phœnicians, Egyptians, Cilicians,
Cyprians, Pamphylians, Ionic Greeks, etc., with a few Persians and Medes
serving on board, in a capacity probably not well suited to them. None
of these subjects had any interest in the success of the invasion, or
any other motive for service except fear, while the sympathies of the
Ionic Greeks were even decidedly against it. Xerxes now came to suspect
the fidelity, or undervalue the courage, of all these naval subjects;
he fancied that they could make no resistance to the Greek fleet, and
dreaded lest the latter should sail forthwith to the Hellespont, so as to
break down the bridge and intercept his personal retreat; for, upon the
maintenance of that bridge he conceived his own safety to turn, not less
than that of his father Darius, when retreating from Scythia, upon the
preservation of the bridge over the Danube. Against the Phœnicians, from
whom he had expected most, his rage broke out in such fierce threats,
that they stole away from the fleet in the night, and departed homeward.
Such a capital desertion made future naval struggle still more hopeless,
and Xerxes, though at first breathing revenge, and talking about a vast
mole or bridge to be thrown across the strait to Salamis, speedily ended
by giving orders to the whole fleet to leave Phalerum in the night, not
without disembarking, however, the best soldiers who served on board.
They were to make straight for the Hellespont, and there to guard the
bridge against his arrival.

This resolution was prompted by Mardonius, who saw the real terror which
beset his master, and read therein sufficient evidence of danger to
himself. When Xerxes despatched to Susa intelligence of his disastrous
overthrow, the feeling at home was not simply that of violent grief for
the calamity, and fear for the personal safety of the monarch--it was
farther embittered by anger against Mardonius, as the instigator of this
ruinous enterprise. That general knew full well that there was no safety
for him in returning to Persia with the shame of failure on his head: it
was better for him to take upon himself the chance of subduing Greece,
which he had good hopes of being yet able to do, and to advise the return
of Xerxes himself to a safe and easy residence in Asia. Such counsel
was eminently palatable to the present alarm of the monarch, while it
opened to Mardonius himself a fresh chance not only of safety, but of
increased power and glory. Accordingly, he began to reassure his master,
by representing that the recent blow was after all not serious--that it
had only fallen upon the inferior part of his force, and upon worthless
foreign slaves, like Phœnicians, Egyptians, etc., while the native
Persian troops yet remained unconquered and unconquerable, fully adequate
to execute the monarch’s revenge upon Hellas; that Xerxes might now very
well retire with the bulk of his army if he were disposed; and that he,
Mardonius, would pledge himself to complete the conquest, at the head of
three hundred thousand chosen troops.

This proposition afforded at the same time consolation for the monarch’s
wounded vanity, and safety for his person: his confidential Persians, and
Artemisia herself, on being consulted, approved of the step. The latter
had acquired his confidence by the dissuasive advice which she had given
before the recent deplorable engagement, and she had every motive now to
encourage a proposition indicating solicitude for his person, as well as
relieving herself from the obligation of further service. “If Mardonius
desires to remain (she remarked, contemptuously), by all means let him
have the troops: should he succeed, thou wilt be the gainer: should he
even perish, the loss of some of thy slaves is trifling, so long as thou
remainest safe, and thy house in power. Thou hast already accomplished
the purpose of thy expedition, in burning Athens.” Xerxes, while
adopting this counsel, and directing the return of his fleet, showed his
satisfaction with the Halicarnassian queen, by entrusting her with some
of his children, directing her to transport them to Ephesus.

The Greeks at Salamis learned with surprise and joy the departure of the
hostile fleet from the Bay of Phalerum, and immediately put themselves
in pursuit; following as far as the island of Andros without success.
Themistocles and the Athenians are even said to have been anxious to push
on forthwith to the Hellespont, and there break down the bridge of boats,
in order to prevent the escape of Xerxes, had they not been restrained by
the caution of Eurybiades and the Peloponnesians, who represented that
it was dangerous to detain the Persian monarch in the heart of Greece.
Themistocles readily suffered himself to be persuaded, and contributed
much to divert his countrymen from the idea; while he at the same time
sent the faithful Sicinnus a second time to Xerxes, with the intimation
that he, Themistocles, had restrained the impatience of the Greeks to
proceed without delay and burn the Hellespontine bridge, and that he had
thus, from personal friendship to the monarch, secured for him a safe
retreat. Though this is the story related by Herodotus, we can hardly
believe that, with the great Persian land-force in the heart of Attica,
there could have been any serious idea of so distant an operation as that
of attacking the bridge at the Hellespont. It seems more probable that
Themistocles fabricated the intention, with a view of frightening Xerxes
away, as well as of establishing a personal claim upon his gratitude in
reserve for future contingencies.

Such crafty manœuvres and long-sighted calculations of possibility,
seem extraordinary: but the facts are sufficiently attested--since
Themistocles lived to claim as well as to receive fulfilment of the
obligation thus conferred--and though extraordinary, they will not
appear inexplicable, if we reflect, first, that the Persian game, even
now, after the defeat of Salamis, was not only not desperate, but might
perfectly well have succeeded, if it had been played with reasonable
prudence: next, that there existed in the mind of this eminent man an
almost unparalleled combination of splendid patriotism, long-sighted
cunning, and selfish rapacity. Themistocles knew better than any one
else that the cause of Greece had appeared utterly desperate, only a few
hours before the late battle; moreover, a clever man, tainted with such
constant guilt, might naturally calculate on being one day detected and
punished, even if the Greeks proved successful.

He now employed the fleet among the islands of the Cyclades, for the
purpose of levying fines upon them as a punishment for adherence to the
Persian. He first laid siege to Andros, telling the inhabitants that he
came to demand their money, bringing with him two great gods--Persuasion
and Necessity. To which the Andrians replied, that “Athens was a great
city, and blest with excellent gods: but that they were miserably poor,
and that there were two unkind gods who always stayed with them and
would never quit the island--Poverty and Helplessness. In these gods the
Andrians put their trust, refusing to deliver the money required; for the
power of Athens could never overcome their inability.” While the fleet
was engaged in contending against the Andrians with their sad protecting
deities, Themistocles sent round to various other cities, demanding from
them private sums of money on condition of securing them from attack.
From Carystus, Paros, and other places, he thus extorted bribes for
himself apart from the other generals, but it appears that Andros was
found unproductive, and after no very long absence the fleet was brought
back to Salamis.

The intimation sent by Themistocles perhaps had the effect of hastening
the departure of Xerxes, who remained in Attica only a few days after
the battle of Salamis, and then withdrew his army through Bœotia into
Thessaly, where Mardonius made choice of the troops to be retained
for his future operations. He retained all the Persians, Medes, Sacæ,
Bactrians, and Indians, horse as well as foot, together with select
detachments of the remaining contingents: making in all, according to
Herodotus, three hundred thousand men. But as it was now the beginning of
September, and as sixty thousand out of his forces, under Artabazus, were
destined to escort Xerxes himself to the Hellespont, Mardonius proposed
to winter in Thessaly, and to postpone further military operations until
the ensuing spring.

[Illustration: THE VICTORY OF SALAMIS (BY CORMOT)]

Having left most of these troops under the orders of Mardonius in
Thessaly, Xerxes marched away with the rest to the Hellespont, by the
same road as he had taken in his advance a few months before. Respecting
his retreat, a plentiful stock of stories were circulated, inconsistent
with each other, fanciful, and even incredible: Grecian imagination, in
the contemporary poet Æschylus, as well as in the Latin moralisers Seneca
or Juvenal, delighted in handling this invasion with the maximum of light
and shadow, magnifying the destructive misery and humiliation of the
retreat so as to form an impressive contrast with the superhuman pride
of the advance, and illustrating the antithesis with unbounded license
of detail. The sufferings from want of provision were doubtless severe,
and are described as frightful and death-dealing: the magazines stored
up for the advancing march had been exhausted, so that the retiring army
were now forced to seize upon the corn of the country through which they
passed--an insufficient maintenance, eked out by leaves, grass, the bark
of trees, and other wretched substitutes for food. Plague and dysentery
aggravated their misery, and occasioned many to be left behind among the
cities through whose territory the retreat was carried; strict orders
being left by Xerxes that these cities should maintain and tend them.
After forty-five days’ march from Attica, he at length found himself at
the Hellespont, whither his fleet, retreating from Salamis, had arrived
long before him. But the short-lived bridge had already been knocked to
pieces by a storm, so that the army was transported on shipboard across
to Asia, where it first obtained comfort and abundance, and where the
change from privation to excess engendered new maladies. In the time of
Herodotus, the citizens of Abdera still showed the gilt scimitar and
tiara, which Xerxes had presented to them when he halted there in his
retreat, in token of hospitality and satisfaction: and they even went the
length of affirming that never, since his departure from Attica, had he
loosened his girdle until he reached their city. So fertile was Grecian
fancy in magnifying the terror of the repulsed invader--who re-entered
Sardis, with a broken army and humbled spirit, only eight months after he
had left it as the presumed conqueror of the western world.


THE SPOILS OF VICTORY

Meanwhile the Athenians and Peloponnesians, liberated from the immediate
presence of the enemy either on land or sea, and passing from the extreme
of terror to sudden ease and security, indulged in the full delight and
self-congratulation of unexpected victory. On the day before the battle,
Greece had seemed irretrievably lost: she was now saved even against all
reasonable hope, and the terrific cloud impending over her was dispersed.
In the division of the booty, the Æginetans were adjudged to have
distinguished themselves most in the action, and to be entitled to the
choice lot; while various tributes of gratitude were also set apart for
the gods. Among them were three Phœnician triremes, which were offered
in dedication to Ajax at Salamis, to Athene at Sunium, and to Poseidon
at the Isthmus of Corinth; further presents were sent to Apollo at
Delphi, who, on being asked whether he was satisfied, replied, that all
had done their duty to him except the Æginetans: from them he required
additional munificence on account of the prize awarded to them, and they
were constrained to dedicate in the temple four golden stars upon a staff
of brass, which Herodotus himself saw there. Next to the Æginetans,
the second place of honour was awarded to the Athenians; the Æginetan
Polycritus, and the Athenians Eumenes and Aminias, being ranked first
among the individual combatants.

Besides the first and second prizes of valour, the chiefs at the isthmus
tried to adjudicate among themselves the first and second prizes of skill
and wisdom. Each of them deposited two names on the altar of Poseidon:
and when these votes came to be looked at, it was found that each man had
voted for himself as deserving the first prize, but that Themistocles
had a large majority of votes for the second. The result of such voting
allowed no man to claim the first prize, nor could the chiefs give a
second prize without it; so that Themistocles was disappointed of his
reward, though exalted so much the higher, perhaps, through that very
disappointment, in general renown. He went shortly afterwards to Sparta,
where he received from the Lacedæmonians honours such as were never paid
before or afterwards to any foreigner. A crown of olive was indeed given
to Eurybiades as the first prize, but a like crown was at the same time
conferred on Themistocles as a special reward for unparalleled sagacity;
together with a chariot, the finest which the city afforded. Moreover,
on his departure, the three hundred select youths called _hippeis_, who
formed the active guard and police of the country, all accompanied him in
a body as escort of honour to the frontiers of Tegea. Such demonstrations
were so astonishing, from the haughty and immovable Spartans, that they
were ascribed by some authors to their fear lest Themistocles should be
offended by being deprived of the general prize.[b]


SYRACUSAN VICTORY OVER CARTHAGE

On the very same day on which the Persians were defeated at Salamis,
another portion of the Hellenic race, the Sicilian Greeks, also obtained
a victory over an immense barbarian force. There is reason to believe
that the invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians was concerted with
Xerxes, and that the simultaneous attack on two distinct Grecian peoples,
by two immense armaments, was not merely the result of chance. It was,
however, in the internal affairs of Sicily that the Carthaginians sought
the pretext and the opportunity for their invasion. About the year 481
B.C., Theron, despot of Agrigentum, a relative of Gelo, the powerful
ruler of Syracuse, expelled Terillus from Himera, and took possession of
that town. Terillus, backed by some Sicilian cities which formed a kind
of Carthaginian party, applied to the Carthaginians to restore him. The
Carthaginians complied with the invitation; and in the year 480 B.C.,
Hamilcar landed at Panormus with a force composed of various nations,
which is said to have amounted to the enormous sum of three hundred
thousand men. Having drawn up his vessels on the beach, and protected
them with a rampart, Hamilcar proceeded to besiege the Himeræans, who
on their part prepared for an obstinate defence. At the instance of
Theron, Gelo marched to the relief of the town with fifty thousand foot
and five thousand horse. An obstinate and bloody engagement ensued,
which, by a stratagem of Gelo’s, was at length determined in his favour.
The ships of the Carthaginians were fired, and Hamilcar himself slain.
According to the statement of Diodorus, one hundred and fifty thousand
Carthaginians fell in the engagement, while the greater part of the
remainder surrendered at discretion, twenty ships alone escaping with a
few fugitives. This account may justly be regarded as an exaggeration;
yet it cannot be doubted that the victory was a decisive one, and the
number very great of the prisoners and slain.

In Sicily, Greek taste made the sinews of the prisoners subserve the
purposes of art; and many of the public structures which adorned and
distinguished Agrigentum rose by the labour of the captive Carthaginians.
Thus were the arms of Greece victorious on all sides, and the outposts of
Europe maintained against the incursions of the semi-barbarous hordes of
Asia and Africa.[f]


FOOTNOTES

[31] In the years 1821 and 1822, during the struggle which preceded the
liberation of Greece, the Athenians were forced to leave their country
and seek refuge in Salamis three several times. These incidents are
sketched in a manner alike interesting and instructive by Dr. Waddington,
in his _Visit to Greece_ (London, 1825), Letters vi, vii, x. He states,
p. 92, “Three times have the Athenians emigrated in a body, and sought
refuge from the sabre among the houseless rocks of Salamis. Upon these
occasions, I am assured, that many have dwelt in caverns, and many in
miserable huts, constructed on the mountain-side by their own feeble
hands. Many have perished too, from exposure to an intemperate climate;
many, from diseases contracted through the loathsomeness of their
habitations; many, from hunger and misery. On the retreat of the Turks,
the survivors returned to their country. But to what a country did they
return? To a land of desolation and famine; and in fact, on the first
reoccupation of Athens, after the departure of Omer Brioni, several
persons are known to have subsisted for some time on grass, till a supply
of corn reached the Piræus from Syra and Hydra.” In the war between the
Turks and Venetians in 1688, the population of Attica was forced to
emigrate to Salamis, Ægina, and Corinth.

[32] Compare the account given in Pausanias (X, 23) of the subsequent
repulse of Brennus and the Gauls from Delphi: in his account, the repulse
is not so exclusively the work of the gods as in that of Herodotus:
there is a larger force of human combatants in defence of the temple,
though greatly assisted by divine intervention: there is also loss on
both sides. A similar descent of crags from the summit is mentioned.
Many great blocks of stone and cliff are still to be seen near the spot,
which have rolled down from the top, and which remind the traveller of
these passages. The attack here described to have been made by order of
Xerxes upon the Delphian temple seems not easy to reconcile with the
words of Mardonius: still less can it be reconciled with the statement of
Plutarch, who says that the Delphian temple was burnt by the Medes.




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXI. FROM SALAMIS TO MYCALE


The battle of Salamis is a watchword of Greek triumph, and yet it by no
means solved the problem of independence, for a great army was still
in the country, enjoying the confidence and aid of many Greek allies.
The defeated Persian fleet itself was still of sufficient power to be a
lively danger.

The remainder of the fleet of Xerxes, which, flying from Salamis, arrived
in Asia, after transporting the king and his forces from the Chersonesus
to Abydos, wintered at Cyme. In the commencement of the spring it
assembled at Samos, where some other vessels had continued during the
winter. This armament was principally manned by Persians and Medes, and
was under the conduct of Mardontes, the son of Bagæus, and Artayntes,
son of Artachæus, whose uncle Amitres had been joined to him as his
colleague. As the alarm of their former defeat was not yet subsided,
they did not attempt to advance farther west, nor indeed did any one
impel them to do so. Their vessels, with those of the Ionians, amounted
to three hundred, and they stationed themselves at Samos, to secure
the fidelity of Ionia. They did not think it probable that the Greeks
would penetrate into Ionia, but would be satisfied with defending their
country. They were confirmed in this opinion, as the Greeks, after the
battle of Salamis, never attempted to pursue them, but were themselves
content to retire also.

With respect to their affairs at sea, the Persians were sufficiently
depressed; but they expected that Mardonius would do great things by
land. Remaining on their station at Samos, they consulted how they might
annoy the enemy, and they anxiously attended to the progress and affairs
of Mardonius.

The approach of the spring, and the appearance of Mardonius in Thessaly,
roused the Greeks. Their land army was not yet got together, but their
fleet, consisting of a hundred and ten ships, was already at Ægina,
under the command of Leotychides. He was descended in a right line from
Hercules. He was of the second royal family, and all his ancestors,
except the two named after Leotychides, had been kings of Sparta. The
Athenians were commanded by Xanthippus, son of Ariphron.

When the fleet of the Greeks had arrived at Ægina, the same individuals
who had before been at Sparta to entreat the assistance of that people to
deliver Ionia, arrived among the Greeks. Herodotus, the son of Basilides,
was with them; they were in all seven, and had together concerted the
death of Strattis, tyrant of Chios. Their plot having been discovered by
one of the accomplices, the other six had withdrawn themselves to Sparta,
and now came to Ægina to persuade the Greeks to enter Ionia: they were
induced, though not without difficulty, to advance as far as Delos. All
beyond this, the Greeks viewed as full of danger, as well because they
were ignorant of the country, as because they supposed the enemy’s forces
were in all these parts strong and numerous: Samos they considered as
not less remote than the pillars of Hercules. Thus the barbarians were
kept by their apprehensions from advancing beyond Samos, and the Greeks,
notwithstanding the solicitations of the Chians, would not move farther
eastward than Delos. Their mutual alarm thus kept the two parties at a
distance from each other.

Whilst the Greeks thus moved to Delos, Mardonius, who had wintered in
Thessaly, began to break up his quarters. His first step was to send an
European, whose name was Mys, to the different oracles, ordering him to
use his endeavours, and consult them all.


MARDONIUS MAKES OVERTURES TO ATHENS

[Sidenote: [479 B.C.]]

As soon as the oracular declarations had been conveyed to Mardonius, he
sent Alexander the Macedonian, son of Amyntas, ambassador to Athens. His
choice of him was directed from his being connected with the Persians
by ties of consanguinity and from his being a man of munificent and
hospitable spirit. For these reasons he deemed him the most likely to
conciliate the Athenians, who were represented to him as a valiant and
numerous people, and who had principally contributed to the defeats which
the Persians had sustained by sea. He reasonably presumed, that if he
could prevail on them to unite their forces with his own, he might easily
become master of the sea. His power by land was in his opinion superior
to all resistance, and as the oracles had probably advised him to make
an alliance with the Athenians, he hoped by these means effectually to
subdue the Greeks.

When Alexander arrived at Athens, as deputed by Mardonius, he delivered
the following speech: “Men of Athens, Mardonius informs you by me, that
he has received a commission from the king of the following import:
‘Whatever injuries the Athenians may have done me, I willingly forgive:
return them therefore their country; let them add to it from any other
they may prefer, and let them enjoy their own laws. If they will consent
to enter into an alliance with me, you have my orders to rebuild all
their temples which I have burned.’

“It will be my business to do all this unless you prevent me. I will now
give you my own sentiments: What infatuation can induce you to continue
your hostilities against a king to whom you can never be superior, and
whom you cannot always resist: you already know the forces and exploits
of Xerxes: neither can you be ignorant of the army under me. If you
should even repel and conquer us, of which if you be wise you can indulge
no hope, another army not inferior in strength will soon succeed ours. Do
not, therefore, by endeavouring to render yourselves equal to so great a
king, risk not only the loss of your native country, but the security of
your persons: accept, therefore, of our friendship, and avail yourselves
of the present honourable opportunity of averting the indignation of
Xerxes. Be free, and let us mutually enter into a solemn alliance without
fraud or treachery. Let, then, my offers prevail with you as their
importance merits, for to you alone of all the Greeks, the king forgives
the injuries he has sustained, wishing to become your friend.”

The Lacedæmonians having heard that this prince was gone to Athens to
invite the Athenians to an alliance with the Persians, were exceedingly
alarmed. They could not forget the oracle which foretold that they, with
the rest of the Dorians, should be driven from the Peloponnesus by a
junction of the Medes with the Athenians, to whom therefore they lost no
time in sending ambassadors. These were present at the Athenian council,
for the Athenians had endeavoured to gain time, well knowing that the
Lacedæmonians would learn that an ambassador was come to invite them to
a confederacy with the Persians, and would consequently send deputies to
be present on the occasion; they therefore deferred the meeting, that the
Lacedæmonians might be present at the declaration of their sentiments.

When Alexander had finished speaking, the Spartan envoys made this
immediate reply: “We have been deputed by the Spartans, to entreat you
not to engage in anything which may operate to the injury of our common
country, nor listen to any propositions of Xerxes; such a conduct would
not be equitable in itself, and would be particularly base in you from
various reasons: you were the first promoters of this war, in opposition
to our opinion; it was first of all commenced in vindication of your
liberties, though all Greece was afterwards drawn into the contest. It
will be most of all intolerable, that the Athenians should become the
instruments of enslaving Greece, who, from times the most remote, have
restored their liberties to many. Your present condition does not fail to
excite in us sentiments of the sincerest pity, who, for two successive
seasons, have been deprived of the produce of your lands, and have so
long seen your mansions in ruin. From reflecting on your situation, we
Spartans, in conjunction with your other allies, undertake to maintain,
as long as the war shall continue, not only your wives, but such other
parts of your families as are incapable of military service. Let not,
therefore, this Macedonian Alexander, softening the sentiments of
Mardonius, seduce you: the part he acts is consistent; a tyrant himself,
he espouses the interests of a tyrant. If you are wise you will always
remember, that the barbarians are invariably false and faithless.”

After the above address of the Spartans, the Athenians made this reply to
Alexander: “It was not at all necessary for you to inform us, that the
power of the Persians was superior to our own: nevertheless, in defence
of our liberties, we will continue our resistance to the utmost of our
abilities. You may be assured that your endeavours to persuade us into
an alliance with the barbarians never will succeed: tell, therefore,
Mardonius, on the part of the Athenians, that as long as the sun shall
continue its ordinary course, so long will we avoid any friendship with
Xerxes, and so long will we continue to resist him. Tell him, we shall
always look with confidence to the protecting assistance of those gods
and heroes whose shrines and temples he has contemptuously destroyed.
Hereafter do not you presume to enter an Athenian assembly with overtures
of this kind, lest whilst you appear to mean us well, you prompt us to do
what is abominable. We are unwilling that you should receive any injury
from us, having been our guest and our friend.”

The above was the answer given to Alexander; after which the Athenians
thus spoke to the Lacedæmonians: “That the Spartans should fear our
entering into an alliance with the barbarians seems natural enough;
but in doing this, as you have had sufficient testimonies of Athenian
firmness, you certainly did us injury. There is not upon earth a quantity
of gold, nor any country so rich or so beautiful, as to seduce us to take
part with the Medes, or to act injuriously to the liberties of Greece.

“If of ourselves we were so inclined, there still exist many important
circumstances to deter us: in the first place, what is of all motives
the most powerful, the shrines and temples of our deities, consumed by
fire, and levelled with the ground, prompt us to the prosecution of a
just revenge, and manifestly compel us to reject every idea of forming
an alliance with him who perpetrated these impieties. In the next place,
our common consanguinity, our using the same language, our worship of
the same divinities, and our practice of the same religious ceremonies,
render it impossible that the Athenians should prove perfidious. If you
knew it not before, be satisfied now, that as long as one Athenian shall
survive, we will not be friends with Xerxes; in the mean time, your
interest in our fortunes, your concern for the ruin of our mansions,
and your offers to provide for the maintenance of our families, demand
our gratitude, and may be considered as the perfection of generosity.
We will, however, bear our misfortunes as we may be able, and not be
troublesome to you; be it your care to bring your forces into the field
as expeditiously as possible; it is not probable that the barbarian will
long defer his invasion of our country, he will be upon us as soon as he
shall be informed that we have rejected his proposals: before he shall be
able to penetrate into Attica, it becomes us to advance to the assistance
of Bœotia.”


MARDONIUS MOVES ON ATHENS

On receiving this answer from the Athenians, the ambassadors returned
to Sparta. As soon as Mardonius heard from Alexander the determination
of the Athenians, he moved from Thessaly, directing by rapid marches
his course towards Athens. Wherever he came, he furnished himself with
supplies of troops. The princes of Thessaly were so far from repenting
of the part they had taken, that they endeavoured still more to animate
Mardonius. Of these, Thorax of Larissa, who had attended Xerxes in his
flight, now openly conducted Mardonius into Greece.

As soon as the army in its progress arrived at Bœotia, the Thebans
received Mardonius. They endeavoured to persuade him to fix his station
where he was, assuring him that a place more convenient for a camp, or
better adapted for the accomplishment of his purpose, could not be found.
They told him that by staying here he might subdue the Greeks without a
battle. He might be satisfied, they added, from his former experience,
that as long as the Greeks were united, it would be impossible for any
body of men to subdue them. “If,” said they, “you will be directed by our
advice, you will be able, without difficulty, to counteract their wisest
counsels. Send a sum of money to the most powerful men in each city:
you will thus create anarchy in Greece, and by the assistance of your
partisans, easily overcome all opposition.”

This was the advice of the Thebans, which Mardonius was prevented from
following, partly by his earnest desire of becoming a second time master
of Athens, and partly by his pride. He was also anxious to inform the
king at Sardis, by means of fires disposed at certain distances along
the islands, that he had taken Athens. Proceeding therefore to Attica,
he found it totally deserted; the inhabitants, as he was informed, being
either at Salamis or on board the fleet. He then took possession of
Athens a second time, ten months after its capture by Xerxes. Whilst he
continued at Athens, he despatched to Salamis, Murichides, a native of
the Hellespont, with the same propositions that Alexander the Macedonian
had before made to the Athenians.

Murichides went to the council, and delivered the sentiments of
Mardonius. A senator named Lycidas gave his opinion, that the terms
offered by Murichides were such as it became them to listen to, and
communicate to the people; he said this, either from conviction, or
seduced by the gold of Mardonius; but he had no sooner thus expressed
himself, than both the Athenians who heard him, and those who were
without, rushed with indignation upon him, and stoned him to death.[33]
They dismissed Murichides without injury. The Athenian women soon heard
of the tumult which had been excited at Salamis on account of Lycidas,
when, in a body mutually stimulating each other, they ran impetuously to
his house, and stoned his wife and his children.


ATHENS APPEALS TO SPARTA

These were the inducements with the Athenians for returning to Salamis:
as long as they entertained any expectation of assistance from the
Peloponnesus, they stayed in Attica; but when they found their allies
careless and inactive, and that Mardonius was already in Bœotia, they
removed with all their effects to Salamis. At the same time they sent
envoys to Lacedæmon, to complain that the Spartans, instead of advancing
with them to meet the barbarian in Bœotia, had suffered him to enter
Attica. They told them by what liberal offers the Persian had invited
them to his friendship; and they forewarned them, that if they were not
speedy in their communication of assistance, the Athenians must seek some
other remedy. The Lacedæmonians were then celebrating what are called the
_hyacinthia_, which solemnity, they deem of the highest importance; they
were also at work upon the wall of the isthmus, the battlements of which
were already erected.

The ephori heard the deputies, but deferred answering them till the next
day; when the morrow came, they put them off till the day following,
and this they did for ten days successively. In this interval, the
Peloponnesians prosecuted with great ardour on the isthmus, their work
of the wall, which they nearly completed. Why the Spartans discovered
so great an anxiety on the arrival of Alexander at Athens, lest the
Athenians should come to terms with the Medes, and why now they did
not seem to concern themselves about them, is more than we are able to
explain, unless it was that the wall of the Isthmus was unfinished, after
which they did not want the aid of the Athenians: but when Alexander
arrived at Athens, this work was not completed, although from terror of
the Persians they eagerly pursued it.

The answer and motions of the Spartans were finally these: on the day
preceding that which was last appointed, a man of Tegea, named Chileus,
who enjoyed at Lacedæmon greater reputation than any other foreigner,
inquired from one of the ephori what the Athenians had said; which
when he knew, he thus addressed them: “Things, O ephori, are thus
circumstanced. If the Athenians, withdrawing from our alliance, shall
unite with the Persian, strong as our wall on the isthmus may be, the
enemy will still find an easy entrance into the Peloponnesus. Let us
therefore hear them, before they do anything which may involve Greece in
ruin.”

The ephori were so impressed by what Chileus had said, that without
communicating with the deputies of the different states, whilst it was
yet night, they sent away a detachment of five thousand Spartans, each
accompanied by seven helots, under the conduct of Pausanias, son of
Cleombrotus.

With these forces Pausanias left Sparta: the deputies, ignorant of the
matter, when the morning came went to the ephori, having previously
resolved to return to their respective cities: “You, O Lacedæmonians,”
they exclaimed, “lingering here, solemnise the _hyacinthia_, and are
busy in your public games, basely deserting your allies. The Athenians,
injured by you, and but little assisted by any, will make their peace
with the Persians on the best terms they can obtain. When the enmity
betwixt us shall have ceased, and we shall become the king’s allies, we
shall fight with him wherever he may choose to lead us: you may know
therefore what consequences you have to expect.”

In answer to this declaration of the ambassadors, the ephori protested,
upon oath, that they believed their troops were already in Oresteum,
on their march against the strangers; by which expression they meant
the barbarians. The deputies, not understanding them, requested an
explanation. When the matter was properly represented to them, they
departed with astonishment to overtake them, accompanied by five thousand
armed troops from the neighbourhood of Sparta.

Whilst these were hastening to the isthmus, the Argives, as soon as they
heard of the departure of Pausanias at the head of a body of troops from
Sparta, sent one of their fleetest messengers to Mardonius in Attica.
They had before undertaken to prevent the Lacedæmonians from taking
the field. When the herald arrived at Athens, “I am sent,” said he to
Mardonius, “by the Argives, to inform you that the forces of Sparta are
already on their march, and we have not been able to prevent them; avail
yourself therefore of this information.” Saying this, he returned.


MARDONIUS DESTROYS ATHENS AND WITHDRAWS

Mardonius, hearing this, determined to stay no longer in Attica. He had
continued until this time, willing to see what measures the Athenians
would take; and he had refrained from offering any kind of injury to the
Athenian lands, hoping they would still make peace with him. When it was
evident that this was not to be expected, he withdrew his army, before
Pausanias and his detachment arrived at the isthmus. He did not however
depart without setting fire to Athens,[34] and levelling with the ground
whatever of the walls, buildings, or temples, still remained entire.
He was induced to quit his station, because the country of Attica was
ill adapted for cavalry, and because in case of defeat he had no other
means of escape but through straits where a handful of men might cut off
his retreat. He therefore determined to remove to Thebes, that he might
have the advantage of fighting near a confederate city and in a country
convenient for his cavalry.

Mardonius was already on his march, when another courier came in haste to
inform him, that a second body of a thousand Spartans was moving towards
Megara. He accordingly deliberated how he might intercept this latter
party. Turning aside towards Megara, he sent on his cavalry to ravage the
Megarian lands. These were the extreme limits on the western parts of
Europe, to which the Persian army penetrated.

Another messenger now came to tell him, that the Greeks were assembled
with great strength at the isthmus; he therefore turned back through
Decelea. The Bœotian chiefs had employed their Asopian neighbours as
guides, who conducted Mardonius first to Sphendaleas, and thence to
Tanagra. At Tanagra, Mardonius passed the night, and the next day came
to Scolos, in the Theban territory. Here the lands of the Thebans,
though the friends and allies of the Medes, were laid waste, not from
any enmity, but from the urgent necessities of the army. The general was
desirous to fortify his camp, and to have some place of refuge in case
of defeat. His camp extended from Erythræ, by Hysiæ, as far as Platæa,
on the banks of the Asopus. It was protected by a wall, which did not
continue the whole extent of the camp, but which occupied a space of ten
stadia in each of the four fronts.

Whilst Mardonius was stationed in Bœotia, all the Greeks who were
attached to the Persians supplied him with troops, and joined him in his
attack on Athens; the Phocians alone did not; these had indeed, and with
apparent ardour, favoured the Medes, not from inclination but necessity.
A few days after the entertainment given at Thebes, they arrived with a
thousand well-armed troops under the command of Harmocydes, one of their
most popular citizens. Mardonius, on their following him to Thebes, sent
some horsemen, commanding them to halt by themselves in the plain where
they were: at the same moment, all the Persian cavalry appeared in sight.
A rumour instantly circulated among those Greeks who were in the Persian
camp, that the Phocians were going to be put to death by the cavalry.
The same also spread through the Phocians, on which account their leader
Harmocydes thus addressed them:

“My friends, I am convinced that we are destined to perish by the swords
of these men, and from the accusations of the Thessalians. Let each
man therefore prove his valour. It is better to die like men, exerting
ourselves in our own defence, than to suffer ourselves to be slain tamely
and without resistance: let these barbarians know, that the men whose
deaths they meditate are Greeks.”

With these words Harmocydes animated his countrymen. When the cavalry had
surrounded them, they rode up as if to destroy them: they made a show
of hurling their weapons, which some of them probably did. The Phocians
upon this closed their ranks, and on every part fronted the enemy.
The Persians seeing this, faced about and retired. We are not able to
decide whether, at the instigation of the Thessalians, the Phocians were
actually doomed to death; or whether, observing them determined to defend
themselves, the Persians retired from the fear of receiving some injury
themselves, and as if they had been so ordered by Mardonius, merely
to make experiment of their valour. After the cavalry were withdrawn,
a herald came to them on the part of Mardonius: “Men of Phocis,” he
exclaimed, “be not alarmed; you have given a proof of resolution which
Mardonius had been taught not to expect; assist us therefore in the war
with alacrity, for you shall neither outdo me nor the king in generosity.”

The Lacedæmonians arriving at the isthmus, fortified their camp. As soon
as this was known to the rest of the Peloponnesians, all were unwilling
to be surpassed by the Spartans, as well they who were actuated by a love
of their country, as they who had seen the Lacedæmonians proceed on their
march. The victims which were sacrificed having a favourable appearance,
they left the isthmus in a body, and came to Eleusis. The sacrifices at
this place being again auspicious, they continued to advance, having been
joined at Eleusis by the Athenians, who had passed over from Salamis.
On their arrival at Erythræ, in Bœotia, they learned that the barbarians
were encamped near the Asopus; then they marched to the foot of Mount
Cithæron.


A PRELIMINARY SKIRMISH

As they did not descend into the plain[35] Mardonius sent the whole of
his cavalry against them, under the command of Masistius, called by
the Greeks Macistius. He was a Persian of distinction, and was on this
occasion mounted on a Nisæan horse, decorated with a bridle of gold, and
other splendid trappings. When they came near the Greeks, they attacked
them in squadrons, did them considerable injury, and by way of insult
called them women. The situation of the Megarians being most easy of
access, was most exposed to the enemy’s attack. Being hardly pressed
by the barbarians, they sent a herald, who thus addressed the Grecian
commanders: “We Megarians, O allies, are unable to stand the shock of
the enemy’s cavalry in our present position: if you are not speedy in
relieving us, we shall be compelled to quit the field.”

After this report of the heralds, Pausanias wished to see if any of
the Greeks would voluntarily offer themselves to take the post of the
Megarians. All refused, except a chosen band of three hundred Athenians,
commanded by Olympiodorus, the son of Lampon.

This body, which took upon itself the defence of a post declined by
all the other Greeks encamped at Erythræ, brought with them a band of
archers. The engagement, after an obstinate dispute, terminated thus:
The enemies’ horse attacked in squadrons; the steed of Masistius, being
conspicuous above the rest, was wounded in the side by an arrow; it
reared, and becoming unruly from the pain of the wound, threw its rider.
The Athenians rushed upon him, seized the horse, and notwithstanding
his resistance, killed Masistius. In doing this, however, they had some
difficulty, on account of his armour. Over a purple tunic he wore a
breastplate covered with plates of gold. This repelled all their blows,
which some person perceiving, killed him by wounding him in the eye.
The death of Masistius was unknown to the rest of his troops; they did
not see him fall from his horse, and were ignorant of his fate, their
attention being entirely occupied by succeeding in regular squadrons to
the charge. At length making a stand, they perceived themselves without a
leader. Upon this they rushed in with united force to bring off the body
of Masistius.

The Athenians seeing them advance in a collected body, called out for
relief. While the infantry were moving to their support, the body of
Masistius was vigorously disputed. While the three hundred were alone,
they were compelled to give ground, and recede from the body; but other
forces coming to their relief, the cavalry in their turn gave way, and,
with the body of their leader, lost a great number of their men. Retiring
for the space of two stadia, they held a consultation, and being without
a commander, determined to return to Mardonius. On their arrival at the
camp, the death of Masistius spread a general sorrow through the army,
and greatly afflicted Mardonius himself. They cut off the hair from
themselves, their horses, and their beasts of burden, and all Bœotia
resounded with their cries and lamentations. The man they had lost, was,
next to Mardonius, most esteemed by the Persians and the king.

The Greeks having not only sustained but repelled the attacks of the
cavalry, were inspired with increasing resolution. The body of Masistius,
which from its beauty and size deserved admiration, they placed on a
carriage, and passed through the ranks, while all quitted their stations
to view it. They afterwards determined to remove to Platæa; they thought
this a more commodious place for a camp than Erythræ, as well for other
reasons as because there was plenty of water. To this place, near
which is the fountain of Gargaphia, they resolved to go and pitch a
regularly fortified camp. Taking their arms, they proceeded by the foot
of Cithæron, and passing Hysiæ, came to Platæa. They drew themselves
up in regular divisions of the different nations, near the fountain of
Gargaphia and the shrine of the hero Androcrates, some on a gently rising
ground, others on the plain.

In the arrangement of the several nations, a violent dispute arose
betwixt the Tegeatæ and Athenians, each asserting their claim to one of
the wings, in vindication of which they appealed to their former as well
as more recent exploits. The Tegeatæ spoke to this effect:

“The post which we now claim has ever been given us by the joint consent
of the allies, in all the expeditions made beyond the Peloponnesus:
we not only speak of ancient but of less distant periods. After the
death of Eurystheus, when the Heraclidæ made an attempt to return to
the Peloponnesus, the rank we now vindicate was allowed us. With you,
O Lacedæmonians, we do not enter into competition, we are willing that
you should take your post in which wing you think proper; the command of
the other, which has so long been allowed us, we now claim. Not to dwell
upon the action we have recited, we are certainly more worthy of this
post than the Athenians. On your account, O Spartans, as well as for the
benefit of others, we have fought again and again with success and glory.
Let not then the Athenians be on this occasion preferred to us; for they
have never in an equal manner distinguished themselves in past or in more
recent periods.”

The Athenians made this reply: “We are well aware, that the motive of our
assembling here is not to spend our time in altercations, but to fight
the barbarians; but since it has been thought necessary to urge on the
part of the Tegeatæ their ancient as well as more recent exploits, we
feel ourselves obliged to assert that right, which we receive from our
ancestors, to be preferred to the Arcadians as long as we shall conduct
ourselves well. Those Heraclidæ, whose leader they boast to have slain
at the isthmus, after being rejected by all the Greeks with whom they
wished to take refuge from the servitude of the people of Mycenæ, found
a secure retreat with us alone. In conjunction with them we chastised
the insolence of Eurystheus, and obtained a complete victory over those
possessing the Peloponnesus. The Argives, who under Polynices fought
against Thebes, remaining unburied, we undertook an expedition against
the Cadmeans, recovered the bodies, and interred them in our country at
Eleusis. A further instance of our prowess was exhibited in our repulsion
of the Amazons, who advanced from the river Thermodon to invade Attica.
We were no less conspicuous at the siege of Troy.

“But this recital is vain and useless; the people who were then
illustrious might now be base, or dastards then, might now be heroes.
Enough therefore of the examples of our former glory, though we are still
able to introduce more and greater; for if any of the Greeks at the
battle of Marathon merited renown, we may claim this, and more also. On
that day we alone contended with the Persian, and after a glorious and
successful contest were victorious over an army of forty-six different
nations; which action must confessedly entitle us to the post we
claim; but in the present state of affairs, all dispute about rank is
unseasonable; we are ready, O Lacedæmonians, to oppose the enemy wherever
you shall choose to station us. Wherever we may be, we shall endeavour to
behave like men. Lead us on therefore, we are ready to obey you.”

When the Athenians had thus delivered their sentiments, the Lacedæmonians
were unanimous in declaring that the Arcadians must yield to the people
of Athens the command of one of the wings. They accordingly took their
station in preference to the Tegeatæ.


PREPARATIONS FOR THE BATTLE OF PLATÆA

[Illustration: GREEK OFFICER

(After Hope)]

The Greeks who came afterwards, with those who were present before,
were thus disposed. The Lacedæmonians, to the number of ten thousand,
occupied the right wing; of these, five thousand were Spartans, who were
followed by thirty-five thousand helots lightly armed, allowing seven
helots to each Spartan. The Tegeatæ, to the number of fifteen hundred,
were placed by the Spartans next themselves, in consideration of their
valour, and as a mark of honour. Nearest the Tegeatæ were five thousand
Corinthians, who, in consequence of their request to Pausanias, had
contiguous to them three hundred Potidæans of Pallene. Next in order
were six hundred Arcadians of Orchomnene, three thousand Sicyonians,
eight hundred Epidaurians, and a thousand Trœzenians. Contiguous to
these last were two hundred Lepreatæ; next to whom were four hundred
Mycenæans and Tirynthians. Stationed by the Tirynthians were, in regular
succession, a thousand Phliasians, three hundred Hermionians, six hundred
Eretrians and Styrians; next came four hundred Chalcidians, five hundred
Ambracians, eight hundred Leucadians and Anactorians; to whom two hundred
Paleans of Cephallenia, and five hundred Æginetæ, successively joined.
Three thousand Megarians and six hundred Platæans were contiguous to
the Athenians, who to the number of eight thousand, under the command
of Aristides, son of Lysimachus, occupied the left wing at the other
extremity of the army.

The amount of this army, independent of the seven helots to each Spartan,
was thirty-eight thousand seven hundred men, all of them completely armed
and drawn together to repel the barbarian. Of the light-armed troops
were the thirty-five thousand helots, each well prepared for battle, and
thirty-four thousand five hundred attendant on the Lacedæmonians and
other Greeks,[36] reckoning a light-armed soldier to every man; the whole
of these therefore amounted to sixty-nine thousand five hundred.

Thus the whole of the Grecian army assembled at Platæa, including both
the heavy-and light-armed troops, was one hundred and eight thousand two
hundred men; adding to these one thousand and eight hundred Thespians,
who were with the Greeks, but without arms, the complete number was one
hundred and ten thousand. These were encamped on the banks of the Asopus.

The barbarian army having ceased to lament Masistius, as soon as they
knew that the Greeks were advanced to Platæa, marched also to that part
of the Asopus nearest to it; where they were thus disposed by Mardonius.
Opposed to the Lacedæmonians were the Persians, who, as they were
superior in number, fronted the Tegeatæ also. Of this body the select
part was opposed to the Lacedæmonians, the less effective to the Tegeatæ.
In making which arrangement, Mardonius followed the advice of the
Thebans. Next to the Persians were the Medes, opposed to the Corinthians,
Potidæans, Orchomenians, and Sicyonians. The Bactrians were placed
next, to encounter the Epidaurians, Trœzenians, Lepreatæ, Tirynthians,
Mycenæans, and Phliasians. Contiguous to the Bactrians the Indians
were disposed, in opposition to the Hermionians, Eretrians, Styrians,
and Chalcidians. The Sacæ, next in order, fronted the Ambracians,
Anactorians, Leucadians, Paleans, and Æginetæ. The Athenians, Platæans,
and Megarians were ultimately faced by the Bœotians, Locrians, Melians,
Thessalians, and a thousand Phocians. All the Phocians did not assist the
Medes; some of them, about Parnassus, favoured the Greeks, and from that
station attacked and harassed both the troops of Mardonius and those of
the Greeks who were with him. The Macedonians and Thessalians were also
opposed to the Athenians.

In this manner Mardonius arranged those nations who were the most
numerous and the most illustrious; with these were promiscuously mixed
bodies of Phrygians, Thracians, Mysians, Pæonians, and others. To
the above might be added the Ethiopians, and those Egyptians named
Hermotybians and Calasirians, who alone of that country follow the
profession of arms. These had formerly served on board the fleet,
whence they had been removed to the land-forces by Mardonius when at
Phalerum: the Egyptians had not been reckoned with those forces which
Xerxes led against Athens. We have before remarked, that the barbarian
army consisted of three hundred thousand men; the number of the Greek
confederates of Mardonius, as it was never taken, cannot be ascertained;
but as far as conjecture may determine, they amounted to about fifty
thousand men. Such was the arrangement of the infantry; the cavalry were
posted apart by themselves.

Both armies being thus ranged in nations and squadrons, on the following
day offered sacrifices. The sacrifices promised victory to the Greeks if
they acted on the defensive, but the contrary if, passing the Asopus,
they began the fight. Mardonius, though anxious to engage, had nothing
to hope from the entrails, unless he acted on the defensive only. He had
also sacrificed according to the Grecian rites, using as his soothsayer
Hegesistratus, an Elean, and the most illustrious of the Telliadæ.
The Spartans had formerly seized this man, thrown him into prison,
and menaced him with death, as one from whom they had received many
and atrocious injuries. In this distress, alarmed not merely for his
life, but with the idea of having previously to suffer many severities,
he accomplished a thing which can hardly be told. He was confined in
some stocks bound with iron, but accidentally obtaining a knife, he
perpetrated the boldest thing which has ever been recorded.

Calculating what part of the remainder he should be able to draw out,
he cut off the extremity of his foot; this done, notwithstanding he was
guarded, he dug a hole under the wall, and escaped to Tegea, travelling
only by night, and concealing himself in the woods during the day.
Eluding the strictest search of the Lacedæmonians, he came on the third
night to Tegea, his keepers being astonished at his resolution, for they
saw the half of his foot, but could not find the man. In this manner
Hegesistratus escaped to Tegea, which was not at that period in amity
with Sparta. When his wound was healed he procured himself a wooden
foot, and became an avowed enemy to Sparta. His animosity against the
Lacedæmonians proved ultimately of no advantage to himself; he was taken
in the exercise of his office at Zacynthus, and put to death. The fate
of Hegesistratus was subsequent to the battle of Platæa: at the time of
which we were speaking, Mardonius, for a considerable sum, had prevailed
with him to sacrifice, which he eagerly did, as well from his hatred of
the Lacedæmonians, as from the desire of reward; but the appearance of
the entrails gave no encouragement to fight, either to the Persians or
their confederate Greeks, who also had their own appropriate soothsayer,
Hippomachus of Leucadia. As the Grecian army continually increased,
Timagenidas of Thebes, son of Herpys, advised Mardonius to guard the pass
of Cithæron, representing that he might thus intercept great bodies, who
were every day thronging to the allied army of the Greeks.

The hostile armies had already remained eight days encamped opposite
to each other, when the above counsel was given to Mardonius. He
acknowledged its propriety, and immediately on the approach of night
detached some cavalry to that part of Cithæron leading to Platæa, a place
called by the Bœotians the “Three Heads,” by the Athenians the “Heads of
Oak.” This measure had its effect, and they took a convoy of five hundred
beasts of burden, carrying a supply of provisions from the Peloponnesus
to the army: with the carriages, they took also all the men who conducted
them. Masters of this booty, the Persians, with the most unrelenting
barbarity, put both men and beasts to death: when their cruelty was
satiated, they returned with what they had taken to Mardonius.

After this event two days more passed, neither army being willing to
engage. The barbarians, to irritate the Greeks, advanced as far as the
Asopus, but neither army would pass the stream. The cavalry of Mardonius
greatly and constantly harassed the Greeks. The Thebans, who were very
zealous in their attachment to the Medes, prosecuted the war with ardour,
and did everything but join battle; the Persians and Medes supported them
and performed many illustrious actions.

In this situation things remained for the space of ten days: on the
eleventh, the armies retaining the same position with respect to each
other, and the Greeks having received considerable reinforcements,
Mardonius became disgusted with their inactivity. He accordingly held a
conference with Artabazus, the son of Pharnaces, who was one of the few
Persians whom Xerxes honoured with his esteem: it was the opinion of
Artabazus that they should immediately break up their camp, and withdraw
beneath the walls of Thebes, where was already prepared a magazine of
provisions for themselves, and corn for their cavalry: here they might
at their leisure terminate the war by the following measures. They had
in their possession a great quantity of coined and uncoined gold, with
an abundance of silver and plate: it was recommended to send these with
no sparing hand to the Greeks, and particularly to those of greatest
authority in their respective cities. It was urged, that if this were
done, the Greeks would soon surrender their liberties, nor again risk
the hazard of a battle. This opinion was seconded by the Thebans, who
thought that it would operate successfully. Mardonius was of a contrary
opinion, fierce, obstinate, and unyielding. His own army he thought
superior to that of the Greeks, and that they should by all means fight
before the Greeks received further supplies; that they should give no
importance to the declarations of Hegesistratus, but without violating
the laws of Persia, commence a battle in their usual manner. This opinion
of Mardonius nobody thought proper to oppose, for to him, and not to
Artabazus, the king had confided the supreme command of the army. He
therefore ordered that everything should be properly disposed to commence
the attack early in the morning.

When the night was far advanced, and the strictest silence prevailed
through the army, which was buried in sleep, Alexander, son of Amyntas,
general and prince of the Macedonians, rode up to the Athenian outposts,
and earnestly desired to speak with their commanders. On hearing this,
the greater number continued on their posts, while some hastened to their
officers, whom they informed that a horseman was arrived from the enemy’s
army, who, naming the principal Greeks, would say nothing more than that
he desired to speak with them.

The commanders lost no time in repairing to the advanced guard, where,
on their arrival, they were thus addressed by Alexander: “I am come, O
Athenians, to inform you of a secret which you must impart to Pausanias
only, lest my ruin ensue. Nor would I speak now, were not I anxious for
the safety of Greece. I from remote antiquity am of Grecian origin, and
I would not willingly see you exchange freedom for servitude: I have
therefore to inform you, that if Mardonius and his army could have drawn
favourable omens from their victims, a battle would long since have
taken place: intending to pay no further attention to these, it is his
determination to attack you early in the morning, being afraid, as I
suppose, that your forces will be yet more numerous. Be, therefore, on
your guard; but if he still defer his purpose of an engagement, do you
remain where you are, for he has provisions but for a few days more. If
the event of this war shall be agreeable to your wishes, it will become
you to make some efforts to restore my independence, who, on account of
my partiality to the Greeks, have exposed myself to so much danger in
thus acquainting you with the intention of Mardonius, to prevent the
barbarians attacking you by surprise. I am Alexander of Macedon.”

When he had thus spoken, he returned to his station in the Persian camp.

The Athenian chiefs went to the right wing, and informed Pausanias of
what they had learned from Alexander. Pausanias, who stood in much awe of
the Persians, addressed them thus in reply:

“As a battle is to take place in the morning, I think it advisable that
you, Athenians, should front the Persians, and we, those Bœotians and
Greeks who are now posted opposite to you. You have before contended with
the Medes, and know their mode of fighting by experience at Marathon; we
have never had this opportunity; but we have before fought the Bœotians,
and Thessalians; take, therefore, your arms, and let us exchange
situations.”

“From the first,” answered the Athenians, “when we observed the Persians
opposed to you, we wished to make the proposal we now hear from you; we
have been only deterred by our fear of offending you: as the overture
comes from you, we are ready to comply with it.”

This being agreeable to both, as soon as the morning dawned they
changed situations; this the Bœotians observed, and communicated to
Mardonius. The Persian general immediately exerted himself to oppose
the Lacedæmonians with his troops. Pausanias, on seeing his scheme thus
detected, again removed the Spartans to the right wing, as did Mardonius
instantly his Persians to the left.

[Illustration: THE FIELD OF PLATÆA]


THE BATTLE OF PLATÆA

When the troops had thus resumed their former posts, Mardonius sent
a herald with this message to the Spartans: “Your character, O
Lacedæmonians, is highly celebrated among all these nations, as men who
disdain to fly; who never desert your ranks, determined either to slay
your enemies or die. Nothing of this is true: we perceive you in the act
of retreating, and of deserting your posts before a battle is commenced:
we see you delegating to the Athenians the more dangerous attempt of
opposing us, and placing yourselves against our slaves, neither of which
actions is consistent with bravery. We are, therefore, greatly deceived
in our opinion of you; we expected, that from a love of glory you would
have despatched a herald to us, expressing yourselves desirous to
combat with the Persians alone. Instead of this we find you alarmed and
terrified; but as you have offered no challenge to us, we propose one to
you. As you are esteemed the most illustrious of your army, why may not
an equal number of you on the part of the Greeks, and of us on the part
of the barbarians, contend for victory? If it be agreeable to you, the
rest of our common forces may afterwards engage; if this be unnecessary,
we will alone engage; and whichever conquers shall be esteemed victorious
over the whole of the adverse army.”

The herald, after delivering his commission, waited some time for an
answer; not receiving any, he returned to Mardonius. He was exceedingly
delighted, and already anticipating a victory, sent his cavalry to attack
the Greeks; these with their lances and arrows materially distressed the
Grecian army, and forbade any near approach. Advancing to the Gargaphian
fountain, which furnished the Greeks with water, they disturbed and
stopped it up. The Lacedæmonians alone were stationed near this fountain,
the other Greeks, according to their different stations, were more or
less distant, but all of them in the vicinity of the Asopus; but as
they were debarred from watering here, by the missile weapons of the
cavalry, they all came to the fountain. In this predicament the leaders
of the Greeks, seeing the army cut off from the water, and harassed
by the cavalry, came in crowds to Pausanias on the right wing, to
deliberate about these and other emergencies. Unpleasant as the present
incident might be, they were still more distressed from their want of
provision; their servants, who had been despatched to bring this from the
Peloponnesus, were prevented by the cavalry from returning to the camp.

The Grecian leaders, after deliberating upon the subject, determined,
if the Persians should for one day more defer coming to an engagement,
to pass to the island opposite to Platæa, and about ten stadia from the
Asopus and the fountain Gargaphia, where they were at present encamped.
This island is thus connected with the continent: the river, descending
from Cithæron to the plain, divides itself into two streams, which, after
flowing separately for about the distance of three stadia, again unite,
thus forming the island which is called Oëroë, who, according to the
natives, is the daughter of Asopus.

The Greeks by this measure proposed to themselves two advantages; first
to be secure of water, and secondly to guard against being further
annoyed by the enemy’s cavalry. They resolved to decamp at the time of
the second watch by night, lest the Persians, perceiving them, should
pursue and harass them with their cavalry. It was also their intention,
when arrived at the spot where the Asopian Oëroë is formed by the
division of the waters flowing from Cithæron, to detach one-half of their
army to the mountain to relieve a body of their servants, who, with a
convoy of provisions, were there encompassed.

After taking the above resolutions, they remained all that day much
incommoded by the enemy’s horse: when these, at the approach of evening,
retired, and the appointed hour was arrived, the greater part of the
Greeks began to move with their baggage, but without any design of
proceeding to the place before resolved on. The moment they began to
march, occupied with no idea but that of escaping the cavalry, they
retired towards Platæa, and fixed themselves near the temple of Juno,
which is opposite to the city, and at the distance of twenty stadia from
the fountain of Gargaphia: in this place they encamped.

Pausanias, observing them in motion, gave orders to the Lacedæmonians to
take their arms, and follow their route, presuming they were proceeding
to the appointed station. The officers all showed themselves disposed to
obey the orders of Pausanias, except Amompharetus, the son of Poliadas,
captain of the band of Pitanatæ, who asserted that he would not fly
before the barbarians, and thus be accessory to the dishonour of Sparta:
he had not been present at the previous consultation, and knew not what
was intended. Pausanias and Euryanax, though indignant at his refusal to
obey the orders which had been issued, were still but little inclined
to abandon the Pitanatæ, on the account of their leader’s obstinacy;
thinking, that by their prosecuting the measure which the Greeks in
general had adopted, Amompharetus and his party must unavoidably perish.
With these sentiments the Lacedæmonians were commanded to halt, and pains
were taken to dissuade the man from his purpose, who alone, of all the
Lacedæmonians and Tegeatæ, was determined not to quit his post.

At this crisis the Athenians determined to remain quietly on their
posts, knowing it to be the genius of the Lacedæmonians to say one thing
and think another. But as soon as they observed the troops in motion,
they despatched a horseman to learn whether the Lacedæmonians intended
to remove, and to inquire of Pausanias what was to be done. When the
messenger arrived, he found the men in their ranks, but their leaders
in violent altercation. Pausanias and Euryanax were unsuccessfully
attempting to persuade Amompharetus not to involve the Lacedæmonians
alone in danger by remaining behind, when the Athenian messenger came up
to them. At this moment, in the violence of dispute, Amompharetus took up
a stone with both his hands, and throwing it at the feet of Pausanias,
exclaimed: “There is my vote for not flying before the foreigners!”

Pausanias, after telling him that he could be only actuated by frenzy,
turned to the Athenian, who delivered his commission. He afterwards
desired him to return, and communicate to the Athenians the state in
which he found them, and to entreat them immediately to join their
forces, and act in concert, as should be deemed expedient.

The messenger accordingly returned to the Athenians, whilst the Spartan
chiefs continued their disputes till the morning. Thus far Pausanias
remained indecisive, but thinking, as the event proved, that Amompharetus
would certainly not stay behind, if the Lacedæmonians actually advanced,
he gave orders to all the forces to march forward by the heights, in
which they were followed by the Tegeans. The Athenians, keeping close to
their ranks, pursued a route opposite to that of the Lacedæmonians; these
last, who were in great awe of the cavalry, advanced by the steep paths
which led to the foot of Mount Cithæron; the Athenians marched over the
plain.

Amompharetus, never imagining that Pausanias would venture to abandon
them, made great exertions to keep his men on their posts; but when he
saw Pausanias advancing with his troops, he concluded himself effectually
given up; taking therefore his arms, he with his band proceeded slowly
after the rest of the army. These continuing their march for a space of
ten stadia, came to a place called Agriopius, near the river Moloës,
where is a temple of the Eleusinian Ceres, and there halted, waiting
for Amompharetus and his party. The motive of Pausanias in doing this
was, that he might have the opportunity of returning to the support
of Amompharetus, if he should be still determined not to quit his
post. Here Amompharetus and his band joined them; the whole force of
the enemy’s horse continuing as usual to harass them. As soon as the
Barbarians discovered that the spot where the Greeks had before encamped
was deserted, they put themselves in motion, overtook, and materially
distressed them.

Mardonius being informed that the Greeks had decamped by night, and
seeing their former station unoccupied, led the Persians over the Asopus,
and pursued the path which the Greeks had taken, whom he considered
as flying from his arms. The Lacedæmonians and Tegeatæ were the sole
objects of his attack, for the Athenians, who had marched over the plain,
were concealed by the hills from his view. The other Persian leaders
seeing the troops moving, as if in pursuit of the Greeks, raised their
standards, and followed the rout with great impetuosity, but without
regularity or discipline; they hurried on with tumultuous shouts,
considering the Greeks as absolutely in their power.

When Pausanias found himself thus pressed by the cavalry, he sent a
horseman with the following message to the Athenians: “We are menaced,
O Athenians, by a battle, the event of which will determine the freedom
or slavery of Greece; and in this perplexity you, as well as ourselves,
have, in the preceding night, been deserted by our allies. It is
nevertheless our determination to defend ourselves to the last, and to
render you such assistance as we may be able. If the enemy’s horse had
attacked you, we should have thought it our duty to have marched with
the Tegeatæ, who are in our rear, and still faithful to Greece, to your
support. As the whole operation of the enemy seems directed against
us, it becomes you to give us the relief we materially want; but if
you yourselves are so circumstanced, as to be unable to advance to our
assistance, at least send us a body of archers. We confess, that in this
war your activity has been far the most conspicuous, and we therefore
presume on your compliance with our request.”

The Athenians, without hesitation, and with determined bravery, advanced
to communicate the relief which had been required. When they were already
on their march, the confederate Greeks, in the service of the king,
intercepted and attacked them: they were thus prevented from assisting
the Lacedæmonians, a circumstance which gave them extreme uneasiness. In
this situation the Spartans, to the amount of fifty thousand light-armed
troops, with three thousand Tegeatæ,[37] who on no occasion were
separated from them, offered a solemn sacrifice, with the resolution of
encountering Mardonius.

The victims, however, were not auspicious, and in the mean time many of
them were slain, and more wounded. The Persians, under the protection
of their bucklers, showered their arrows upon the Spartans with
prodigious effect. At this moment Pausanias, observing the entrails still
unfavourable, looked earnestly towards the temple of Juno at Platæa,
imploring the interposition of the goddess, and entreating her to prevent
their disgrace and defeat.

Whilst he was in the act of supplicating the goddess, the Tegeatæ
advanced against the barbarians: at the same moment the sacrifices became
favourable, and Pausanias, at the head of his Spartans, went up boldly to
the enemy. The Persians, throwing aside their bows, prepared to receive
them. The engagement commenced before the barricade: when this was thrown
down, a conflict took place near the temple of Ceres, which was continued
with unremitted obstinacy till the fortune of the day was decided.

The barbarians, seizing their adversaries’ lances, broke them in
pieces, and discovered no inferiority either in strength or courage;
but their armour was inefficient, their attack without skill, and their
inferiority, with respect to discipline, conspicuous. In whatever manner
they rushed upon the enemy, from one to ten at a time, they were cut in
pieces by the Spartans.


_Mardonius Falls and the Day is Won_

The Greeks were most severely pressed where Mardonius himself, on a white
horse, at the head of a thousand chosen Persians, directed his attack.
As long as he lived, the Persians, both in their attack and defence,
conducted themselves well, and slew great numbers of the Spartans; but as
soon as Mardonius was slain, and the band which fought near his person,
and which was the flower of the army, was destroyed, all the rest turned
their backs and fled. They were much oppressed and encumbered by their
long dresses, besides which, being lightly armed, they had to oppose men
in full and complete armour.

On this day, as the oracle had before predicted, the death of Leonidas
was amply revenged upon Mardonius, and the most glorious victory which
has ever been recorded, was then obtained by Pausanias. Mardonius was
slain by Æmnestus, a Spartan of distinguished reputation. Æmnestus long
after this Persian war, together with three hundred men, was killed in an
engagement at Stenyclarus, in which he opposed the united force of the
Messenians.

The Persians, routed by the Spartans at Platæa, fled in the greatest
confusion towards their camp, and to the wooden entrenchment which they
had constructed in the Theban territories. It seems somewhat surprising
that although the battle was fought near the grove of Ceres, not a single
Persian took refuge in the temple, nor was slain near it; but the greater
part of them perished beyond the limits of the sacred ground. Such was
the issue of the battle of Platæa.

Artabazus, the son of Pharnaces, who had from the first disapproved of
the king’s leaving Mardonius behind him, and who had warmly, though
unsuccessfully, endeavoured to prevent a battle, determined on the
following measures. He was at the head of no small body of troops; they
amounted to forty thousand men: being much averse to the conduct of
Mardonius, and foreseeing what the event of an engagement must be, he
prepared and commanded his men to follow him wherever he should go, and
to remit or increase their speed by his example. He then drew out his
army, as if to attack the enemy; but he soon met the Persians flying from
them: he then immediately and precipitately fled with all his troops in
disorder, not directing his course to the entrenchment or to Thebes, but
towards Phocis, intending to gain the Hellespont with all possible speed.

Of those Greeks who were in the royal army, all except the Bœotians, from
a preconcerted design, behaved themselves ill. The Bœotians fought the
Athenians with obstinate resolution: those Thebans who were attached to
the Medes made very considerable exertions, fighting with such courage,
that three hundred of their first and boldest citizens fell by the
swords of the Athenians. They fled at length, and pursued their way to
Thebes, avoiding the route which the Persians had taken with the immense
multitude of confederates, who, so far from making any exertions, had
never struck a blow.

In the midst of all this tumult, intelligence was conveyed to those
Greeks posted near the temple of Juno, and remote from the battle,
that the event was decided, and Pausanias victorious. The Corinthians
instantly, without any regularity, hurried over the hills which lay at
the foot of the mountain, to arrive at the temple of Ceres. The Megarians
and Phliasians, with the same intentions, posted over the plain, the more
direct and obvious road. As they approached the enemy, they were observed
by the Theban horse, commanded by Asopodorus, son of Timander, who,
taking advantage of their want of order, rushed upon them and slew six
hundred, driving the rest towards Mount Cithæron. Thus did these perish
ingloriously.

The Persians, and a promiscuous multitude along with them, as soon as
they arrived at the entrenchment, endeavoured to climb the turrets before
the Lacedæmonians should come up with them. Having effected this, they
endeavoured to defend themselves as well as they could. The Lacedæmonians
soon arrived, and a severe engagement commenced.

Before the Athenians came up, the Persians not only defended themselves
well, but had the advantage, as the Lacedæmonians were ignorant of the
proper method of attack; but as soon as the Athenians advanced to their
support, the battle was renewed with greater fierceness, and was long
continued. The valour and firmness of the Athenians finally prevailed.
Having made a breach they rushed into the camp: the Tegeatæ were the
first Greeks that entered, and were they who plundered the tent of
Mardonius, taking from thence, among other things, the manger from
which his horses were fed, made entirely of brass, and very curious.
This was afterwards deposited by the Tegeatæ in the temple of the Alean
Minerva: the rest of the booty was carried to the spot where the common
plunder was collected. As soon as their entrenchment was thrown down,
the barbarians dispersed themselves different ways, without exhibiting
any proof of their former bravery; they were, indeed, in a state of
stupefaction and terror, from seeing their immense multitude overpowered
in so short a period.


AFTER THE BATTLE

So great was the slaughter made by the Greeks, that of this army, which
consisted of three hundred thousand men, not three thousand escaped, if
we except the forty thousand who fled with Artabazus. The Lacedæmonians
of Sparta lost ninety-one men; the Tegeatæ sixteen; the Athenians
fifty-two.[38]

Of those who most distinguished themselves on the part of the barbarians,
are to be reckoned the Persian infantry, the Sacian cavalry, and
lastly, Mardonius himself. Of the Greeks, the Tegeatæ and Athenians
were eminently conspicuous; they were, nevertheless, inferior to the
Lacedæmonians. The most daring of the Spartans, was Aristodemus; the same
who alone returning from Thermopylæ fell into disgrace and infamy; next
to him, Posidonius, Phylocyon, and Amompharetus the Spartan, behaved the
best. Nevertheless, when it was disputed in conversation what individual
had on that day most distinguished himself, the Spartans who were
present said, that Aristodemus, being anxious to die conspicuously, as
an expiation of his former crime, in an emotion of fury had burst from
his rank, and performed extraordinary exploits; but that Posidonius had
no desire to lose his life, and therefore his behaviour was the more
glorious: but this remark might have proceeded from envy. All those slain
on this day, were highly honoured, except Aristodemus. To him, for the
reason above mentioned, no respect was paid, as having voluntarily sought
death.

Among the troops of the Æginetæ, assembled at Platæa, was Lampon, one of
their principal citizens, and son of Pytheas. This man went to Pausanias,
giving him the following most impious counsel: “Son of Cleombrotus, what
you have done is beyond comparison splendid, and deserving admiration.
The deity, in making you the instrument of Greece’s freedom, has placed
you far above all your predecessors in glory: in concluding this business
so conduct yourself that your reputation may be still increased, and
that no barbarian may ever again attempt to perpetrate atrocious actions
against Greece. When Leonidas was slain at Thermopylæ, Mardonius and
Xerxes cut off his head, and suspended his body from a cross. Do the same
with respect to Mardonius, and you will deserve the applause of Sparta
and of Greece, and avenge the cause of your uncle Leonidas.” Thus spake
Lampon, thinking he should please Pausanias.

“Friend of Ægina,” replied Pausanias, “I thank you for your good
intentions, and commend your foresight; but what you say violates every
principle of equity.[39] After elevating me, my country, and this recent
victory, to the summit of fame, you again depress us to infamy, in
recommending me to inflict vengeance on the dead. You say, indeed, that
by such an action I shall exalt my character; but I think it is more
consistent with the conduct of barbarians than of Greeks, as it is one
of those things for which we reproach them. I must therefore dissent
from the Æginetæ, and all those who approve their sentiments. For me, it
is sufficient to merit the esteem of Sparta, by attending to the rules
of honour, both in my words and actions: Leonidas, whom you wish me to
avenge, has, I think, received the amplest vengeance. The deaths of this
immense multitude must sufficiently have atoned for him, and for those
who fell with him at Thermopylæ. I would advise you in future, having
these sentiments, to avoid my presence; and I would have you think it a
favour, that I do not punish you.”

Pausanias afterwards proclaimed by a herald, that no person should touch
any of the booty; and he ordered the helots to collect the money into
one place. They, as they dispersed themselves over the camp, found tents
decorated with gold and silver, couches of the same, goblets, cups, and
drinking vessels of gold, besides sacks of gold, and silver cauldrons
placed on carriages. The dead bodies they stripped of bracelets, chains,
and scimitars of gold; to their habits of various colours they paid no
attention. Many things of value the helots secreted, and sold to the
Æginetæ; others, unable to conceal, they were obliged to produce. The
Æginetæ from this became exceedingly rich; for they purchased gold of the
helots at the price of brass.

From the wealth thus collected, a tenth part was selected for sacred
purposes. To the deity of Delphi was presented a golden tripod, resting
on a three-headed snake of brass: it was placed near the altar. To the
Olympian god they erected a Jupiter, ten cubits high: to the god of
the isthmus, the figure of Neptune, in brass, seven cubits high. When
this was done, the remainder of the plunder was divided among the army,
according to their merits; it consisted of Persian concubines, gold,
silver, beasts of burden, with various riches. What choice things were
given to those who most distinguished themselves at Platæa, has never
been mentioned, though certain presents were made them. It is certain,
that a tenth part of the whole was given to Pausanias, consisting among
other things of women, horses, talents, and camels.

It is further recorded, that when Xerxes fled from Greece, he left all
his equipage to Mardonius: Pausanias seeing this composed of gold,
silver, and cloth of the richest embroidery, gave orders to the cooks
and domestics to prepare an entertainment for him, as for Mardonius. His
commands were executed, and he beheld couches of gold and silver, tables
of the same, and everything that was splendid and magnificent. Astonished
at the spectacle, he again with a smile directed his servants to prepare
a Lacedæmonian repast. When this was ready the contrast was so striking,
that he laughing sent for the Grecian leaders: when they were assembled,
he showed them the two entertainments. “Men of Greece,” said he, “I have
called you together to bear testimony to the king of Persia’s folly,
who forsook all this luxury to plunder us who live in so much poverty.”
These were the words which Pausanias is said to have used to the Grecian
leaders.

In succeeding times, many of the Platæans found on the field of battle,
chests of gold, silver, and other riches. This thing also happened: when
the flesh had fallen from the bones of the dead bodies, the Platæans, in
removing them to some other spot, discovered a skull as one entire bone,
without any suture. Two jaw bones also were found with their teeth, which
though divided were of one entire bone, the grinders as well as the rest.
The body of Mardonius was removed the day after the battle; but it is not
known by whom.

[Illustration: SARCOPHAGI AT PLATÆA]

The Greeks, after the division of the plunder at Platæa, proceeded to
inter their dead, each nation by themselves. The Lacedæmonians sunk three
trenches: in the one they deposited the bodies of their priests; in the
second were interred the other Spartans; in the third, the helots. The
Tegeatæ were buried by themselves, but with no distinction: the Athenians
in like manner, and also the Megarians and Phliasians who were slain by
the cavalry. Mounds of earth were raised over the bodies of all these
people. With respect to the others shown at Platæa, they were raised by
those, who being ashamed of their absence from the battle, wished to
secure the esteem of posterity.


THE GREEKS ATTACK THEBES

Having buried their dead on the plain of Platæa, the Greeks, after
serious deliberation, resolved to attack Thebes, and demand the
persons of those who had taken part with the Medes. Of these the most
distinguished were Timagenidas and Attaginus, the leaders of the
faction. They determined, unless these were given up, not to leave Thebes
without utterly destroying it.

On the eleventh day after the battle, they besieged the Thebans,
demanding the men whom we have named. They refused to surrender them,
in consequence of which their lands were laid waste and their walls
attacked. This violence being continued, Timagenidas, on the twentieth
day, thus addressed the Thebans: “Men of Thebes, since the Greeks are
resolved not to retire from Thebes till they shall either have destroyed
it, or you shall deliver us into their power, let not Bœotia on our
account be farther distressed. If their demand of our persons be merely
a pretence to obtain money, let us satisfy them from the wealth of the
public, as not we alone but all of us have been equally and openly active
on the part of the Medes; if their real object in besieging Thebes is
to obtain our persons, we are ready to go ourselves, and confer with
them.” The Thebans approving his advice, sent immediately a herald to
Pausanias, saying they were ready to deliver up the men. As soon as this
measure was determined, Attaginus fled, but his children were delivered
to Pausanias, who immediately dismissed them, urging that infants could
not possibly have any part in the faction of the Medes. The other Thebans
who were given up, imagined they should have the liberty of pleading
for themselves, and by the means of money hoped to escape. Pausanias
suspecting that such a thing might happen, as soon as he got them in his
power, dismissed all the forces of the allies; then removing the Thebans
to Corinth, he there put them to death.


THE FLIGHT OF THE PERSIAN REMNANT

Artabazus son of Pharnaces fled from Platæa to the Thessalians. They
received him with great hospitality, and entirely ignorant of what had
happened, inquired after the remainder of the army. The Persian was
fearful that if he disclosed the whole truth, he might draw upon him
the attack of all who knew it, and consequently involve himself and
army in the extremest danger. This reflection had before prevented his
communication of the matter to the Phocians: and on the present occasion
he thus addressed the Thessalians:

“I am hastening, as you perceive, with great expedition to Thrace, being
despatched thither from our camp with this detachment, on some important
business. Mardonius with his troops follows me at no great distance: show
him the rights of hospitality and every suitable attention. You will
finally have no occasion to repent of your kindness.”

He then proceeded through Thessaly and Macedonia, immediately to Thrace,
with evident marks of being in haste. Directing his march through the
midst of the country, he arrived at Byzantium, with the loss of great
numbers of his men, who were either cut in pieces by the Thracians, or
quite worn out by fatigue and hunger. From Byzantium, he passed over his
army in transports, and thus effected his return to Asia.


CONTEMPORARY AFFAIRS IN IONIA

On the very day[40] of the battle of Platæa, a victory was gained at
Mycale in Ionia. Whilst the Grecian fleet was yet at Delos, under the
command of Leotychides the Lacedæmonian, ambassadors came to them
from Samos. On their arrival, they sought the Grecian leaders, whom
Hegesistratus (one of the ambassadors) addressed with various arguments.
He urged that as soon as they should show themselves, all the Ionians
would shake off their dependence, and revolt from the Persians; he told
them that they might wait in vain for the prospect of a richer booty.
He implored also their common deities, that being Greeks, they would
deliver those who also were Greeks from servitude, and avenge them
on the barbarian. He concluded by saying, that this might be easily
accomplished, as the ships of the enemy were slow sailers, and by no
means equal to those of the Greeks.

The Samians, with an oath, engaged to become the confederates of the
Greeks. Leotychides then dismissed them all excepting Hegesistratus, who,
on account of his name, he chose to take along with him. The Greeks,
after remaining that day on their station, on the next sacrificed with
favourable omens; Deiphonus, son of Evenius of Apollonia, in the Ionian
Gulf, being their minister.

The Greeks having sacrificed favourably, set sail from Delos towards
Samos. On their arrival at Calami of Samos, they drew themselves up
near the temple of Juno, and prepared for a naval engagement. When
the Persians heard of their approach, they moved with the residue of
their fleet towards the continent, having previously permitted the
Phœnicians to retire. They had determined, after a consultation, not to
risk an engagement, as they did not think themselves a match for their
opponents. They therefore made towards the continent, that they might
be covered by their land forces at Mycale, to whom Xerxes had intrusted
the defence of Ionia. These, to the amount of sixty thousand, were under
the command of Tigranes the Persian, one of the handsomest and tallest
of his countrymen. To these troops the commanders of the fleet resolved
to retire: it was also their intention to draw their vessels on shore,
and to throw up an intrenchment round them, which might equally serve
as a protection to their vessels and themselves. After this resolution,
they proceeded on their course, and were carried near the temple of the
Eumenidæ at Mycale. Here the Persians drew their ships to land, defending
them with an intrenchment formed of stones, branches of fruit trees cut
down upon the spot, and pieces of timber closely fitted together. In
this position they were ready to sustain a blockade, and with hopes of
victory, being prepared for either event.

When the Greeks received intelligence that the barbarians were retired to
the continent, they considered them as escaped out of their hands. They
were exceedingly exasperated, and in great perplexity whether they should
return or proceed towards the Hellespont. Their ultimate determination
was to follow the enemy towards the continent. Getting therefore all
things ready for an engagement by sea, and providing themselves with
scaling ladders, and such other things as were necessary, they sailed
to Mycale. When they approached the enemy’s station, they perceived no
one advancing to meet them; but beheld the ships drawn on shore, secured
within an intrenchment, and a considerable body of infantry ranged
along the coast. Leotychides upon this advanced before all the rest in
his ship, and coming as near the shore as he could, thus addressed the
Ionians by a herald:

“Men of Ionia, all you who hear me, listen to what I say, for the
Persians will understand nothing of what I tell you. When the engagement
shall commence, remember first of all our common liberties; in the next
place take notice, our watch-word is Hebe. Let those who hear me, inform
all who do not.”

The motive of this conduct was the same with that of Themistocles at
Artemisium. These expressions, if not intelligible to the barbarians,
might make the desired impression on the Ionians; or if explained to the
former, might render the fidelity of the latter suspected.

When Leotychides had done this, the Greeks approached the shore,
disembarked, and prepared for battle. The Persians observing this, and
knowing the purport of the enemy’s address to the Ionians, took their
arms from the Samians, suspecting them of a secret attachment to the
Greeks. The Samians had purchased the freedom of five hundred Athenians,
and sent them back with provisions to their country, who having been
left in Attica, had been taken prisoners by the Persians, and brought
away in the barbarian fleet. The circumstance of their thus releasing
five hundred of the enemies of Xerxes, made them greatly suspected. To
the Milesians, under pretence of their knowledge of the country, the
Persians confided the guard of the paths to the heights of Mycale: their
real motive was to remove them to a distance. By these steps the Persians
endeavoured to guard against those Ionians, who might wish, if they had
the opportunity, to effect a revolt. They next heaped their bucklers upon
each other, to make a temporary rampart.


THE BATTLE OF MYCALE

The Greeks being drawn up, advanced to attack the barbarians: as they
were proceeding, a herald’s wand was discovered on the beach, and a
rumour circulated through the ranks, that the Greeks had obtained a
victory over the forces of Mardonius and Bœotia.[41] On the same day that
their enemies were slaughtered at Platæa, and were about to be defeated
at Mycale, the rumour of the former victory being circulated to this
distance, rendered the Greeks more bold, and animated them against every
danger. It appears farther worthy of observation, that both battles took
place near the temple of the Eleusinian Ceres. The battle of Platæa, as
we have before remarked, was in the vicinity of the temple of Ceres; the
one at Mycale was in a similar situation.

The Athenians, who with those that accompanied them, constituted
one-half of the army, advanced by the coast, and along the plain: the
Lacedæmonians and their auxiliaries made their way by the more woody and
mountainous places.

Whilst the Lacedæmonians were making a circuit, the Athenians in
the other wing were already engaged. The Persians, as long as their
entrenchment remained uninjured, defended themselves well, and without
any inferiority; but when the Athenians, with those who supported them,
increased their exertions, mutually exhorting one another, that they and
not the Lacedæmonians might have the glory of the day, the face of things
was changed; the rampart was thrown down, and a sensible advantage was
obtained over the Persians. They sustained the shock for a considerable
time, but finally gave way, and retreated behind their entrenchments. The
Athenians, Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Trœzenians, rushed in with them;
for this part of the army was composed of these different nations.

When the wall was carried, the barbarians gave no testimony of their
former prowess, but, except the Persians, indiscriminately fled. These
last, though few in number, vigorously resisted the Greeks, who poured
in upon them in crowds. Artayntes and Ithamitres, the commanders of
the fleet, saved themselves by flight: but Mardontes, and Tigranes the
general of the land-forces, were slain. Whilst the Persians still refused
to give ground, the Lacedæmonians and their party arrived, and put all
who survived to the sword. Upon this occasion many of the Greeks were
slain, and among a number of the Sicyonians, Perilaus their leader. The
Samians, who were in the Persian army, and from whom their weapons had
been taken, no sooner saw victory incline to the side of the Greeks,
than they assisted them with all their power. The other Ionians seeing
this, revolted also, and turned their arms against the barbarians. The
Milesians had been ordered, the better to provide for the safety of the
Persians, to guard the paths to the heights, so that in case of accident
the barbarians, under their guidance, might take refuge on the summits
of Mycale; with this view, as well as to remove them to a distance, and
thus guard against their perfidy, the Milesians had been so disposed; but
they acted in direct contradiction to their orders. Those who fled, they
introduced directly into the midst of their enemies, and finally were
active beyond all the rest in putting them to the sword. In this manner
did Ionia a second time revolt from the Persian power.


AFTER MYCALE

In this battle the Athenians most distinguished themselves, and next
to the Athenians, they who obtained the greatest reputation were the
Corinthians, Trœzenians, and Sicyonians. The greater number of the
barbarians being slain, either in the battle or in the pursuit, the
Greeks burned their ships, and totally destroyed their wall: the plunder
they collected upon the shore, among which was a considerable quantity
of money. Having done this, they sailed from the coast. When they came
to Samos, they deliberated on the propriety of removing the Ionians to
some other place, wishing to place them in some part of Greece where
their authority was secure; but they determined to abandon Ionia to the
barbarians. They were well aware both of the impossibility of defending
the Ionians on every emergency, and of the danger which these would
incur from the Persians, if they did not. The Peloponnesian magistrates
were of opinion, that those nations who had embraced the cause of the
Medes should be expelled, and their lands given to the Ionians. The
Athenians would not consent that the Ionians should be transported from
their country, nor would they allow the Peloponnesians to decide on the
destruction of Athenian colonies. Seeing them tenacious of this opinion,
the Peloponnesians no longer opposed them. Afterwards the people of
Samos, Chios, Lesbos, and the other islands who had assisted with their
arms in the present exigence, were received into the general confederacy,
having by an oath, promised constant and inviolable fidelity. This
ceremony performed, they sailed towards the Hellespont, meaning to
destroy the bridge, which they expected to find in its original state.

The barbarians who saved themselves by flight, came to the heights
of Mycale, and thence escaped in no great numbers to Sardis. During
the retreat, Masistes, son of Darius, who had been present at the
late unfortunate engagement, severely reproached Artayntes the
commander-in-chief: among other things, he said, that in the execution of
his duty he had behaved more like a woman than a man, and had materially
injured the interests of his master. To say that a man is more dastardly
than a woman is with the Persians the most infamous of all reproaches.
Artayntes, after bearing the insult for some time, became at length so
exasperated, that he drew his scimitar, intending to kill Masistes. He
was prevented by Xenagoras, son of Praxilaus, a native of Halicarnassus,
who happening to be behind Artayntes, seized him by the middle, and threw
him to the ground: at the same time the guards of Masistes came up.
Xenagoras by this action not only obtained the favour of Masistes, but so
much obliged Xerxes, by thus preserving his brother, that he was honoured
with the government of all Cilicia. Nothing further of consequence
occurred on their way to Sardis, where they found the king, who after his
retreat from Athens, and his ill success at sea, had there resided.

The Greeks, sailing from Mycale towards the Hellespont, were obliged by
contrary winds to put in at Lectum: thence they proceeded to Abydos. Here
they found the bridge, which they imagined was entire, and which was the
principal object of their voyage, effectually broken down. They on this
held a consultation; Leotychides, and the Lacedæmonians with him, were
for returning to Greece; the Athenians, with their leader Xanthippus,
advised them to continue where they were, and make an attempt on the
Chersonesus. The Peloponnesians returned; but the Athenians, passing
from Abydos to the Chersonesus, laid siege to Sestus. To this place, as
by far the strongest in all that district, great numbers had retired
from the neighbouring towns, as soon as it was known that the Greeks
were in the Hellespont: among others was Œobazus of Cardia, a Persian
who had previously collected here all that remained of the bridge. The
town itself was possessed by the native Æolians, but they had with
them a great number of Persians and other allies. The governor of this
place, under Xerxes, was Artayctes, a Persian, of a cruel and profligate
character.

Whilst they were prosecuting the siege, the autumn arrived. The
Athenians, unable to make themselves masters of the place, and uneasy
at being engaged in an expedition so far from their country, entreated
their leaders to conduct them home. They refused to do this, till they
should either succeed in their enterprise, or be recalled by the people
of Athens, so intent were they on the business before them.

The besieged, under Artayctes, were reduced to such extremity of
wretchedness, that they were obliged to boil for food the cords of which
their beds were composed. When these also were consumed, Artayctes,
Œobazus, and some other Persians, fled, under cover of the night,
escaping by an avenue behind the town, which happened not to be blockaded
by the enemy.

When the morning came, the people of the Chersonesus made signals to
the Athenians from the turrets, and opened to them the gates. The
greater part commenced a pursuit of the Persians, the remainder took
possession of the town. Œobazus fled into Thrace; but he was here seized
by the Absinthians, and sacrificed, according to their rites, to their
god Plistorus: his followers were put to death in some other manner.
Artayctes and his adherents, who fled the last, were overtaken near
the waters of Ægos, where, after a vigorous defence, part were slain,
and part taken prisoners. The Greeks put them all in chains, Artayctes
and his son with the rest, and carried them to Sestus. Conducting him
therefore to the shore where the bridge of Xerxes had been constructed,
they there crucified him; though some say this was done upon an eminence
near the city of Madytus. The son was stoned in his father’s presence.

The Athenians, after the above transactions, returned to Greece, carrying
with them, besides vast quantities of money, the fragments of the bridge,
to be suspended in their temples.[b]


A REVIEW OF RESULTS

The disproportion between the immense host assembled by Xerxes, and
the little which he accomplished, naturally provokes both contempt for
Persian force and an admiration for the comparative handful of men
by whom they were so ignominiously beaten. Both these sentiments are
just, but both are often exaggerated beyond the point which attentive
contemplation of the facts will justify. The Persian mode of making
war (which we may liken to that of the modern Turks, now that the
period of their energetic fanaticism has passed away) was in a high
degree disorderly and inefficient: the men indeed, individually taken,
especially the native Persians, were not deficient in the qualities of
soldiers, but their arms and their organisation were wretched--and their
leaders yet worse. On the other hand, the Greeks, equal, if not superior,
in individual bravery, were incomparably superior in soldier-like order
as well as in arms: but here too the leadership was defective, and the
disunion a constant source of peril. Those who, like Plutarch (or rather
the Pseudo-Plutarch) in his treatise on the malignity of Herodotus,
insist on acknowledging nothing but magnanimity and heroism in the
proceedings of the Greeks throughout these critical years, are forced
to deal very harshly with the inestimable witness on whom our knowledge
of the facts depends, and who intimates plainly that, in spite of the
devoted courage displayed, not less by the vanquished at Thermopylæ
than by the victors at Salamis, Greece owed her salvation chiefly to
the imbecility, cowardice, and credulous rashness of Xerxes. Had he
indeed possessed either the personal energy of Cyrus or the judgment of
Artemisia, it may be doubted whether any excellence of management, or
any intimacy of union, could have preserved the Greeks against so great
a superiority of force; but it is certain that all their courage as
soldiers in line would have been unavailing for that purpose, without a
higher degree of generalship, and a more hearty spirit of co-operation,
than that which they actually manifested.


A GLANCE FORWARD

One hundred and fifty years after this eventful period, we shall see
the tables turned, and the united forces of Greece under Alexander of
Macedon becoming invaders of Persia. We shall find that in Persia no
improvement has taken place during this long interval, that the scheme
of defence under Darius Codomannus labours under the same defects as
that of attack under Xerxes, that there is the same blind and exclusive
confidence in pitched battles with superior numbers, that the advice of
Mentor the Rhodian, and of Charidemus, is despised like that of Demaratus
and Artemisia, that Darius Codomannus, essentially of the same stamp as
Xerxes, is hurried into the battle of Issus by the same ruinous temerity
as that which threw away the Persian fleet at Salamis, and that the
Persian native infantry (not the cavalry) even appear to have lost that
individual gallantry which they displayed so conspicuously at Platæa.
But on the Grecian side, the improvement in every way is very great: the
orderly courage of the soldier has been sustained and even augmented,
while the generalship and power of military combination has reached a
point unexampled in the previous history of mankind. Military science may
be esteemed a sort of creation during this interval, and will be found
to go through various stages: Demosthenes and Brasidas, the Cyreian army
and Xenophon, Agesilaus, Iphicrates, Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon,
Alexander: for the Macedonian princes are borrowers of Greek tactics,
though extending and applying them with a personal energy peculiar to
themselves, and with advantages of position such as no Athenian or
Spartan ever enjoyed. In this comparison between the invasion of Xerxes
and that of Alexander we contrast the progressive spirit of Greece,
serving as herald and stimulus to the like spirit in Europe, with the
stationary mind of Asia, occasionally roused by some splendid individual,
but never appropriating to itself new social ideas or powers, either for
war or for peace.

It is out of the invasion of Xerxes that those new powers of combination,
political as well as military, which lighten up Grecian history during
the next two centuries, take their rise. They are brought into agency
through the altered position and character of the Athenians--improvers,
to a certain extent, of military operations on land, but the great
creators of marine tactics and manœuvring in Greece, and the earliest
of all Greeks who showed themselves capable of organising and directing
the joint action of numerous allies and dependents, thus uniting the two
distinctive qualities of the Homeric Agamemnon--ability in command, with
vigour in execution.

In the general Hellenic confederacy, which had acted against Persia
under the presidency of Sparta, Athens could hardly be said to occupy
any ostensible rank above that of an ordinary member: the post of second
dignity in the line at Platæa had indeed been adjudged to her, but only
after a contending claim from Tegea. But without any difference in
ostensible rank, she was in the eye and feeling of Greece no longer the
same power as before. She had suffered more, and at sea had certainly
done more, than all the other allies put together: even on land at
Platæa, her hoplites had manifested a combination of bravery, discipline,
and efficiency against the formidable Persian cavalry superior even to
the Spartans: nor had any Athenian officer committed so perilous an act
of disobedience as the Spartan Amompharetus. After the victory of Mycale,
when the Peloponnesians all hastened home to enjoy their triumph, the
Athenian forces did not shrink from prolonged service for the important
object of clearing the Hellespont, thus standing forth as the willing and
forward champions of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia. Besides these
exploits of Athens collectively, the only two individuals gifted with any
talents for command, whom this momentous conquest had thrown up, were
both of them Athenians: first, Themistocles; next, Aristides. From the
beginning to the end of the struggle, Athens had displayed an unreserved
Panhellenic patriotism, which had been most ungenerously requited by the
Peloponnesians; who had kept within their isthmian walls, and betrayed
Attica twice to hostile ravage; the first time, perhaps, unavoidably,
but the second time a culpable neglect, in postponing their outward
march against Mardonius. And the Peloponnesians could not but feel, that
while they had left Attica unprotected, they owed their own salvation
at Salamis altogether to the dexterity of Themistocles and the imposing
Athenian naval force.

Considering that the Peloponnesians had sustained little or no mischief
by the invasion, while the Athenians had lost for the time even their
city and country, with a large proportion of their movable property
irrecoverably destroyed, we might naturally expect to find the former,
if not lending their grateful and active aid to repair the damage in
Attica, at least cordially welcoming the restoration of the ruined city
by its former inhabitants. Instead of this, we find the same selfishness
again prevalent among them; ill-will and mistrust for the future,
aggravated by an admiration which they could not help feeling, overlays
all their gratitude and sympathy.[g]


FOOTNOTES

[33] A man of the name of Cyrsilus had ten months before met a similar
fate for having advised the people to stay in their city and receive
Xerxes. The Athenian women in like manner stoned his wife. During the
French Revolution the women of Paris, better distinguished by the name
of _Poissardes_, in every particular imitated this brutality, and
whoever differed with them in opinion were exposed to the danger of the
_Lanterne_.[c]

[34] The fate of Athens has been various. It was first burned by Xerxes;
the following year by Mardonius; it was a third time destroyed in the
Peloponnesian War; it received a Roman garrison to protect it against
Philip son of Demetrius, but was not long afterwards ravaged and defaced
by Sulla; in the reign of Arcadius and Honorius it was torn in pieces by
Alaric, king of the Goths.[c]

[35] Plutarch relates some particulars previous to this event, which are
worth transcribing:

Whilst Greece found itself brought to a most delicate crisis, some
Athenian citizens of the noblest families of the place, seeing themselves
ruined by the war, and considering that with their effects they had also
lost their credit and their influence, held some secret meetings, and
determined to destroy the popular government of Athens; in which project
if they failed, they resolved to ruin the state, and surrender Greece
to the barbarians. This conspiracy had already made some progress, when
it was discovered to Aristides. He at first was greatly alarmed, from
the juncture at which it happened; but as he knew not the precise number
of conspirators, he thought it expedient not to neglect an affair of so
great importance, and yet not to investigate it too minutely, in order
to give those concerned opportunity to repent. He satisfied himself with
arresting eight of the conspirators; of these, two as the most guilty
were immediately proceeded against, but they contrived to escape. The
rest he dismissed, that they might show their repentance by their valour,
telling them, that a battle should be the great tribunal to determine
their sincere and good intentions to their country.[c]

[36] Let it be remembered, to the honour of Greece, that on this occasion
the Greeks, whose number only amounted to one hundred and ten thousand,
were opposed by fifty thousand of their treacherous countrymen.[c]

[37]

    Of the Spartans there were                    5,000
    Seven helots to each Spartan                 35,000
    Lacedæmonians                                 5,000
    A light-armed soldier to each Lacedæmonian    5,000
    Tegeatæ                                       1,500
    Light-armed Tegeatæ                           1,500
                                                 ------
                                           Total 53,000[c]

[38] The Greeks, according to Plutarch, lost in all 1360 men: all those
who were slain of the Athenians were of one particular tribe. Plutarch
is much incensed at Herodotus for his account of this battle; but the
authority of our historian seems entitled to most credit.[c] [Bury,
however, thinks he gave the Athenians too large a share in the victory.]

[39] Pausanias altered materially afterwards. He aspired to the supreme
power, became magnificent and luxurious, fierce and vindictive.[e]

[40] [Bury declares it to have been a few days later.]

[41] It is unnecessary to remark, that the superstition of Herodotus is
in this passage conspicuous. Diodorus Siculus is most sagacious, when
he says that Leotychides, and those who were with him, knew nothing of
the victory of Platæa; but that they contrived this stratagem to animate
their troops. Polyænus relates the same in his _Stratagemata_.[e] “These
things which happen by divine interposition,” says Herodotus, “are made
known by various means.”

[Illustration: WINGED VICTORY

(From a Greek Statuette now in the British Museum)]




[Illustration: A GREEK DRINKING HORN]




CHAPTER XXII. THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR


When the Persians had retreated from Europe after being conquered both by
sea and land by the Greeks, and those of them had been destroyed who had
fled with their ships to Mycale, Leotychides, king of the Lacedæmonians,
returned home with the allies that were from the Peloponnesus, as we have
already noted; while the Athenians, and the allies from Ionia and the
Hellespont, who had now revolted from the king, stayed behind, and laid
siege to Sestus, of which the Medes were in possession. Having spent the
winter before it, they took it, after the barbarians had evacuated it;
and then sailed away from the Hellespont, each to his own city. And the
people of Athens, when they found the barbarians had departed from their
country, proceeded immediately to carry over their children and wives,
and the remnant of their furniture, from where they had put them out of
the way; and were preparing to rebuild their city and their walls. For
short spaces of the enclosure were standing, and, though the majority
of the houses had fallen, a few remained in which the grandees of the
Persians had themselves taken up their quarters.


ATHENS REBUILDS HER WALLS

[Sidenote: [478-476 B.C.]]

The Lacedæmonians, perceiving what they were about to do, sent an embassy
to them; partly because they themselves would have been more pleased to
see neither them nor any one else in possession of a wall; but still more
because the allies instigated them, and were afraid of their numerous
fleet, which before they had not had, and of the bravery they had shown
in the Persian War. And they begged them not to build their walls, but
rather to join them in throwing down those of the cities out of the
Peloponnesus; not betraying their real wishes, and their suspicious
feelings towards the Athenians; but representing that the barbarian, if
he should again come against them, would not then be able to make his
advances from any stronghold, as in the present instance he had done
from Thebes; and the Peloponnesus, they said, was sufficient for all,
as a place to retreat into and sally forth from. When the Lacedæmonians
had thus spoken, the Athenians, by the advice of Themistocles, answered
that they would send ambassadors to them concerning what they spoke of;
and they immediately dismissed them. And Themistocles advised them to
send himself as quickly as possible to Lacedæmon, and having chosen
other ambassadors besides himself, not to despatch them immediately,
but to wait till such time as they should have raised their wall to the
height most absolutely necessary for fighting from; and that the whole
population in the city, men, women, and children, should build it,
sparing neither private nor public edifice, from which any assistance
towards the work would be gained, but throwing down everything. After
giving these instructions, and suggesting that he would himself manage
all other matters there, he took his departure. On his arrival at
Lacedæmon he did not apply to the authorities, but kept putting off and
making excuses. And whenever any of those who were in office asked him
why he did not come before the assembly, he said that he was waiting for
his colleagues; that owing to some engagement they had been left behind;
he expected, however, that they would shortly come, and wondered that
they were not already there.

When they heard this, they believed Themistocles through their friendship
for him; but when every one else came and distinctly informed them that
the walls were building, and already advancing to some height, they did
not know how to discredit it. When he found this, he told them not to be
led away by tales, but rather to send men of their own body who were of
good character, and would bring back a credible report after inspection.
They despatched them therefore; and Themistocles secretly sent directions
about them to the Athenians, to detain them, with as little appearance
of it as possible, and not to let them go until they themselves had
returned back; (for by this time his colleagues, Abronychus, the son of
Lysicles, and Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, had also come to him
with the news that the wall was sufficiently advanced) for he was afraid
that the Lacedæmonians, when they heard the truth, might not then let
them go. So the Athenians detained the ambassadors, as was told them;
and Themistocles, having come to an audience of the Lacedæmonians, then
indeed told them plainly that their city was already walled, so as to be
capable of defending its inhabitants; and if the Lacedæmonians or the
allies wished to send any embassy to them, they should in future go as
to men who could discern what were their own and the general interests.
For when they thought it better to abandon their city and to go on board
their ships, they said that they had made up their minds, and had the
courage to do it, without consulting them; and again, on whatever matters
they had deliberated with them, they had shown themselves inferior to
none in judgment. And so at the present time, likewise, they thought it
was better that their city should have a wall, and that it would be more
expedient for their citizens in particular, as well as for the allies in
general; for it was not possible for any one without equal resources to
give any equal or fair advice for the common good. Either all therefore,
he said, should join the confederacy without walls, or they should
consider that the present case also was as it ought to be.

The Lacedæmonians, on hearing this, did not let their anger appear to the
Athenians; for they had not sent their embassy to obstruct their designs,
but to offer counsel, they said, to their state; and besides, they were
at that time on very friendly terms with them owing to their zeal against
the Mede; in secret, however, they were annoyed at failing in their wish.
So the ambassadors of each state returned home without any complaint
being made.

In this way, Thucydides continues, the Athenians walled their city in
a short time. And the building shows even now that it was executed in
haste; for the foundations are laid with stones of all kinds, and in
some places not wrought together, but as the several parties at any
time brought them to the spot: and many columns from tombs, and wrought
stones, were worked up in them.[b]


THE NEW ATHENS

The first indispensable step, in the renovation of Athens after her
temporary extinction, was now happily accomplished: the city was made
secure against external enemies. But Themistocles, to whom the Athenians
owed the late successful stratagem, and whose influence must have been
much strengthened by its success, had conceived plans of a wider and
more ambitious range. He had been the original adviser of the great
maritime start taken by his countrymen, as well as of the powerful naval
force which they had created during the last few years, and which had
so recently proved their salvation. He saw in that force both the only
chance of salvation for the future, in case the Persians should renew
their attack by sea,--a contingency at that time seemingly probable,--and
boundless prospects of future ascendency over the Grecian coasts and
islands: it was the great engine of defence, of offence, and of ambition.
To continue this movement required much less foresight and genius than
to begin it, and Themistocles, the moment that the walls of the city had
been finished, brought back the attention of his countrymen to those
wooden walls which had served them as a refuge against the Persian
monarch. He prevailed upon them to provide harbour-room at once safe and
adequate, by the enlargement and fortification of the Piræus. This again
was only the prosecution of an enterprise previously begun: for he had
already, while in office two or three years before, made his countrymen
sensible that the open roadstead of Phalerum was thoroughly insecure, and
had prevailed upon them to improve and employ in part the more spacious
harbours of Piræus and Munychia--three natural basins, all capable of
being closed and defended. Something had then been done towards the
enlargement of this port, though it had probably been subsequently ruined
by the Persian invaders: but Themistocles now resumed the scheme on a
scale far grander than he could then have ventured to propose--a scale
which demonstrates the vast auguries present to his mind respecting the
destinies of Athens.

Piræus and Munychia, in his new plan, constituted a fortified space as
large as the enlarged Athens, and with a wall far more elaborate and
unassailable. The wall which surrounded them, sixty stadia in circuit
[about seven and a half miles], was intended by him to be so stupendous,
both in height and thickness, as to render assault hopeless, and to
enable the whole military population to act on shipboard, leaving only
old men and boys as a garrison. We may judge how vast his project was,
when we learn that the wall, though in practice always found sufficient,
was only carried up to half the height which he had contemplated. In
respect to thickness, however, his ideas were exactly followed: two carts
meeting one another brought stones which were laid together right and
left on the outer side of each, and thus formed two primary parallel
walls, between which the interior space--of course, at least as broad
as the joint breadth of the two carts--was filled up, “not with rubble,
in the usual manner of the Greeks, but constructed, throughout the
whole thickness, of squared stones, cramped together with metal.” The
result was a solid wall, probably not less than fourteen or fifteen feet
thick, since it was intended to carry so very unusual a height. In the
exhortations whereby he animated the people to this fatiguing and costly
work, he laboured to impress upon them that Piræus was of more value to
them than Athens itself, and that it afforded a shelter into which, if
their territory should be again overwhelmed by a superior land-force,
they might securely retire, with full liberty of that maritime action in
which they were a match for all the world. We may even suspect that if
Themistocles could have followed his own feelings, he would have altered
the site of the city from Athens to Piræus: the attachment of the people
to their ancient and holy rock doubtless prevented any such proposition.
Nor did he at that time, probably, contemplate the possibility of those
long walls which in a few years afterwards consolidated the two cities
into one.

Forty-five years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War,
we shall hear from Pericles, who espoused and carried out the large ideas
of Themistocles, this same language about the capacity of Athens to
sustain a great power exclusively or chiefly upon maritime action. But
the Athenian empire was then an established reality, whereas in the time
of Themistocles it was yet a dream, and his bold predictions, surpassed
as they were by the future reality, mark that extraordinary power of
practical divination which Thucydides so emphatically extols in him. And
it proves the exuberant hope which had now passed into the temper of the
Athenian people, when we find them, on the faith of these predictions,
undertaking a new enterprise of so much toil and expense; and that too
when just returned from exile into a desolated country, at a moment of
private distress and public impoverishment. However, Piræus served other
purposes besides its direct use as a dockyard for military marine: its
secure fortifications and the protection of the Athenian navy, were
well calculated to call back those metics, or resident foreigners, who
had been driven away by the invasion of Xerxes, and who might feel
themselves insecure in returning, unless some new and conspicuous means
of protection were exhibited.

To invite them back, and to attract new residents of a similar
description, Themistocles proposed to exempt them from the _metoikion_,
or non-freeman’s annual tax: but this exemption can only have lasted for
a time, and the great temptation for them to return must have consisted
in the new securities and facilities for trade, which Athens, with her
fortified ports and navy, now afforded. The presence of numerous metics
was profitable to the Athenians, both privately and publicly: much of
the trading, professional, and handicraft business was in their hands:
and the Athenian legislation, while it excluded them from the political
franchise, was in other respects equitable and protective to them.

We are further told that Themistocles prevailed on the Athenians to build
every year twenty new ships of the line--so we may designate the trireme.
Whether this number was always strictly adhered to, it is impossible to
say; but to repair the ships, as well as to keep up their numbers, was
always regarded among the most indispensable obligations of the executive
government. It does not appear that the Spartans offered any opposition
to the fortification of the Piræus, though it was an enterprise greater,
more novel, and more menacing, than that of Athens. But Diodorus tells
us, probably enough, that Themistocles thought it necessary to send an
embassy to Sparta, intimating that his scheme was to provide a safe
harbour for the collective navy of Greece, in the event of future Persian
attack.

Works on so vast a scale must have taken a considerable time, and
absorbed much of the Athenian force; yet they did not prevent Athens
from lending active aid towards the expedition which, in the year after
the battle of Platæa (478 B.C.), set sail for Asia under the Spartan
Pausanias. Twenty ships from the various cities of the Peloponnesus
were under his command: the Athenians alone furnished thirty, under
the orders of Aristides and Cimon: other triremes also came from the
Ionian and insular allies. They first sailed to Cyprus, in which island
they liberated most of the Grecian cities from the Persian government:
next, they turned to the Bosporus of Thrace, and undertook the siege of
Byzantium, which, like Sestus in the Chersonesus, was a post of great
moment, as well as of great strength--occupied by a considerable Persian
force, with several leading Persians and even kinsmen of the monarch. The
place was captured, seemingly after a prolonged siege: it might probably
hold out even longer than Sestus, as being taken less unprepared. The
line of communication between the Euxine Sea and Greece was thus cleared
of obstruction.


THE MISCONDUCT OF PAUSANIAS

[Sidenote: [478 B.C.]]

The capture of Byzantium proved the signal for a capital and unexpected
change in the relations of the various Grecian cities; a change, of which
the proximate cause lay in the misconduct of Pausanias, but towards which
other causes, deep-seated as well as various, also tended. In recounting
the history of Miltiades, we noticed the deplorable liability of the
Grecian leading men to be spoiled by success: this distemper worked with
singular rapidity on Pausanias. As conqueror of Platæa, he had acquired
a renown unparalleled in Grecian experience, together with a prodigious
share of the plunder: the concubines, horses, camels, and gold plate,
which had thus passed into his possession, were well calculated to make
the sobriety and discipline of Spartan life irksome, while his power
also, though great on foreign command, became subordinate to that of the
ephors when he returned home. His newly acquired insolence was manifested
immediately after the battle, in the commemorative tripod dedicated
by his order at Delphi, which proclaimed himself by name and singly,
as commander of the Greeks and destroyer of the Persians: an unseemly
boast, of which the Lacedæmonians themselves were the first to mark their
disapprobation, by causing the inscription to be erased, and the names
of the cities who had taken part in the combat to be all enumerated on
the tripod. Nevertheless, he was still sent on the command against Cyprus
and Byzantium, and it was on the capture of this latter place that his
ambition and discontent first ripened into distinct treason. He entered
into correspondence with Gongylus the Eretrian exile (now a subject of
Persia, and invested with the property and government of a district
in Mysia), to whom he entrusted his new acquisition of Byzantium, and
the care of the valuable prisoners taken in it. These prisoners were
presently suffered to escape, or rather sent away underhand to Xerxes;
together with a letter from the hand of Pausanias, himself, to the
following effect: “Pausanias, the Spartan commander, having taken these
captives, sends them back, in his anxiety to oblige thee. I am minded,
if it so please thee, to marry thy daughter, and to bring under thy
dominion both Sparta and the rest of Greece: with thy aid, I think myself
competent to achieve this. If my proposition be acceptable, send some
confidential person down to the sea-board, through whom we may hereafter
correspond.”

Xerxes, highly pleased with the opening thus held out, immediately sent
down Artabazus (the same who had been second in command in Bœotia)
to supersede Megabates in the satrapy of Dascylium; the new satrap,
furnished with a letter of reply bearing the regal seal, was instructed
to further actively the projects of Pausanias. The letter was to this
purport: “Thus saith King Xerxes to Pausanias. Thy name stands forever
recorded in my house as a well-doer, on account of the men whom thou hast
saved for me beyond sea at Byzantium: and thy propositions now received
are acceptable to me. Relax not either night or day in accomplishing
that which thou promisest, nor let thyself be held back by cost, either
gold or silver, or numbers of men, if thou standest in need of them, but
transact in confidence thy business and mine jointly with Artabazus, the
good man whom I have now sent, in such manner as may be best for both of
us.”

Throughout the whole of this expedition, Pausanias had been insolent and
domineering, degrading the allies at quarters and watering-places in the
most offensive manner as compared with the Spartans, and treating the
whole armament in a manner which Greek warriors could not tolerate, even
in a Spartan Heraclid, and a victorious general. But when he received the
letter from Xerxes, and found himself in immediate communication with
Artabazus, as well as supplied with funds for corruption, his insane
hopes knew no bounds, and he already fancied himself son-in-law of the
Great King, as well as despot of Hellas. Fortunately for Greece, his
treasonable plans were not deliberately laid and veiled until ripe for
execution, but manifested with childish impatience. He clothed himself in
Persian attire--(a proceeding which the Macedonian army, a century and a
half afterwards, could not tolerate, even in Alexander the Great),--he
traversed Thrace with a body of Median and Egyptian guards,--he copied
the Persian chiefs, both in the luxury of his table and in his conduct
towards the free women of Byzantium. Cleonice, a Byzantine maiden of
conspicuous family, having been ravished from her parents by his order,
was brought to his chamber at night: he happened to be asleep, and being
suddenly awakened, knew not at first who was the person approaching his
bed, but seized his sword and slew her. Moreover, his haughty reserve,
with uncontrolled bursts of wrath, rendered him unapproachable; and the
allies at length came to regard him as a despot rather than a general.
The news of such outrageous behaviour, and the manifest evidences of his
alliance with the Persians, were soon transmitted to the Spartans, who
recalled him to answer for his conduct, and seemingly the Spartan vessels
along with him.

In spite of the flagrant conduct of Pausanias, the Lacedæmonians
acquitted him on the allegations of positive and individual wrong;
yet, mistrusting his conduct in reference to collusion with the enemy,
they sent out Dorcis to supersede him as commander. But a revolution,
of immense importance for Greece, had taken place in the minds of the
allies. The headship, or hegemony, was in the hands of Athens, and Dorcis
the Spartan found the allies not disposed to recognise his authority.

Even before the battle of Salamis, the question had been raised, whether
Athens was not entitled to the command at sea, in consequence of the
preponderance of her naval contingent. The repugnance of the allies to
any command except that of Sparta, either on land or water, had induced
the Athenians to waive their pretensions at that critical moment. But
the subsequent victories had materially exalted the latter in the eyes
of Greece: while the armament now serving, differently composed from
that which had fought at Salamis, contained a large proportion of the
newly enfranchised Ionic Greeks, who not only had no preference for
Spartan command, but were attached to the Athenians on every ground--as
well from kindred race, as from the certainty that Athens with her
superior fleet was the only protector upon whom they could rely against
the Persians. Moreover, it happened that the Athenian generals on this
expedition, Aristides and Cimon, were personally just and conciliating,
forming a striking contrast with Pausanias. Hence the Ionic Greeks in
the fleet, when they found that the behaviour of the latter was not only
oppressive towards themselves but also revolting to Grecian sentiment
generally, addressed themselves to the Athenian commanders for protection
and redress, on the plausible ground of kindred race; entreating to
be allowed to serve under Athens as leader instead of Sparta. The
Spartan government about this time recalled Pausanias to undergo an
examination, in consequence of the universal complaints against him
which had reached them. He seems to have left no Spartan authority
behind him,--even the small Spartan squadron accompanied him home: so
that the Athenian generals had the best opportunity for insuring to
themselves and exercising that command which the allies besought them to
undertake. So effectually did they improve the moment, that when Dorcis
arrived to replace Pausanias, they were already in full supremacy; while
Dorcis, having only a small force, and being in no condition to employ
constraint, found himself obliged to return home.


ATHENS TAKES THE LEADERSHIP

[Illustration: TYPE OF GREEK HELMET]

This incident, though not a declaration of war against Sparta, was
the first open renunciation of her authority as presiding state among
the Greeks; the first avowed manifestation of a competitor for that
dignity, with numerous and willing followers; the first separation of
Greece--considered in herself alone and apart from foreign solicitations,
such as the Persian invasion--into two distinct organised camps,
each with collective interests and projects of its own. In spite of
mortified pride, Sparta was constrained, and even in some points of
view not indisposed, to patient acquiescence. The example of their king
Leotychides, too, near about this time, was a second illustration of the
same tendency. At the same time, apparently, that Pausanias embarked
for Asia to carry on the war against the Persians, Leotychides was sent
with an army into Thessaly to put down the Aleuadæ and those Thessalian
parties who had sided with Xerxes and Mardonius. Successful in this
expedition, he suffered himself to be bribed, and was even detected with
a large sum of money actually on his person: in consequence of which the
Lacedæmonians condemned him to banishment, and razed his house to the
ground; he died afterwards in exile at Tegea. Two such instances were
well calculated to make the Lacedæmonians distrust the conduct of their
Heraclid leaders when on foreign service, and this feeling weighed much
in inducing them to abandon the Asiatic headship in favour of Athens. It
appears that their Peloponnesian allies retired from this contest at the
same time as they did, so that the prosecution of the war was thus left
to Athens as chief of the newly emancipated Greeks.

It was from these considerations that the Spartans were induced to submit
to that loss of command which the misconduct of Pausanias had brought
upon them. Their acquiescence facilitated the immense change about to
take place in Grecian politics. According to the tendencies in progress
prior to the Persian invasion, Sparta had become gradually more and
more the president of something like a Panhellenic union, comprising
the greater part of the Grecian states. Such at least was the point
towards which things seemed to be tending; and if many separate states
stood aloof from this union, none of them at least sought to form any
counter-union, if we except the obsolete and impotent pretensions of
Argos.

But the sympathies of the Peloponnesians still clung to Sparta, while
those of the Ionian Greeks had turned to Athens: and thus not only the
short-lived symptoms of an established Panhellenic union, but even all
tendencies towards it from this time disappear. There now stands out a
manifest schism, with two pronounced parties, towards one of which nearly
all the constituent atoms of the Grecian world gravitate: the maritime
states, newly enfranchised from Persia, towards Athens--the land-states,
which had formed most part of the confederate army at Platæa, towards
Sparta. Along with this national schism and called into action by it,
appears the internal political schism in each separate city between
oligarchy and democracy. Of course, the germ of these parties had already
previously existed in the separate states, but the energetic democracy
of Athens, and the pronounced tendency of Sparta to rest upon the native
oligarchies in each separate city as her chief support, now began to
bestow, on the conflict of internal political parties, an Hellenic
importance, and an aggravated bitterness, which had never before belonged
to it.


THE CONFEDERACY OF DELOS

[Sidenote: [478-476 B.C.]]

The general conditions of the confederacy of Delos were regulated
in a common synod of the members appointed to meet periodically for
deliberative purposes, in the temple of Apollo and Artemis at Delos--of
old, the venerated spot for the religious festivals of the Ionic cities,
and at the same time a convenient centre for the members. A definite
obligation, either in equipped ships of war or in money, was imposed
upon every separate city; and the Athenians, as leaders, determined in
which form contribution should be made by each: their assessment must
of course have been reviewed by the synod, nor had they at this time
power to enforce any regulation not approved by that body. It had been
the good fortune of Athens to profit by the genius of Themistocles on
two recent critical occasions (the battle of Salamis and the rebuilding
of her walls), where sagacity, craft, and decision were required in
extraordinary measure, and where pecuniary probity was of less necessity:
it was no less her good fortune now--in the delicate business of
assessing a new tax and determining how much each state should bear,
without precedents to guide them, when unimpeachable honesty in the
assessor was the first of all qualities--not to have Themistocles; but to
employ in his stead the well-known, we might almost say the ostentatious
probity of Aristides. This must be accounted good fortune, since at
the moment when Aristides was sent out, the Athenians could not have
anticipated that any such duty would devolve upon him. His assessment not
only found favour at the time of its original proposition, when it must
have been freely canvassed by the assembled allies, but also maintained
its place in general esteem, after Athens had degenerated into an
unpopular empire.

Respecting this first assessment, we scarcely know more than one single
fact--the aggregate in money was four hundred and sixty talents [equal to
about £106,000 or $530,000].

Of the items composing such aggregate, of the individual cities which
paid it, of the distribution of obligations to furnish ships and money,
we are entirely ignorant: the little information which we possess on
these points relates to a period considerably later, shortly before
the Peloponnesian War, under the uncontrolled empire then exercised by
Athens. Thucydides, in his brief sketch, makes us clearly understand
the difference between presiding Athens, with her autonomous and
regularly assembled allies in 476 B.C., and imperial Athens, with her
subject allies in 432 B.C.; the Greek word equivalent to ally left
either of these epithets to be understood, by an ambiguity exceedingly
convenient to the powerful states,--and he indicates the general causes
of the change: but he gives us few particulars as to the modifying
circumstances, and none at all as to the first start. He tells us only
that the Athenians appointed a peculiar board of officers, called
the _hellenotamiæ_, to receive and administer the common fund,--that
Delos was constituted the general treasury, where the money was to be
kept,--and that the payment thus levied was called the _phorus_; a name
which appears then to have been first put into circulation, though
afterwards usual, and to have conveyed at first no degrading import,
though it afterwards became so odious as to be exchanged for a more
innocent synonym.

The public import of the name _hellenotamiæ_, coined for the occasion,
the selection of Delos as a centre, and the provision for regular
meetings of the members, demonstrate the patriotic and fraternal purpose
which the league was destined to serve. In truth, the protection of the
Ægean Sea against foreign maritime force and lawless piracy, as well as
that of the Hellespont and Bosporus against the transit of a Persian
force, was a purpose essentially public, for which all the parties
interested were bound in equity to provide by way of common contribution:
any island or seaport which might refrain from contributing, was a gainer
at the cost of others: and we cannot doubt that the general feeling of
this common danger as well as equitable obligation, at a moment when the
fear of Persia was yet serious, was the real cause which brought together
so many contributing members, and enabled the forward parties to shame
into concurrence such as were more backward.

How it was that the confederacy came to be turned afterwards to the
purposes of Athenian ambition, we shall see at the proper time: but in
its origin it was an equal alliance, in so far as alliance between the
strong and the weak can ever be equal, not an Athenian empire: nay, it
was an alliance in which every individual member was more exposed, more
defenceless, and more essentially benefited in the way of protection,
than Athens.

We have here in truth one of the few moments in Grecian history wherein
a purpose at once common, equal, useful, and innocent, brought together
spontaneously many fragments of this disunited race, and overlaid for
a time that exclusive bent towards petty and isolated autonomy which
ultimately made slaves of them all. It was a proceeding equitable and
prudent, in principle as well as in detail; promising at the time
the most beneficent consequences, not merely protection against the
Persians, but a standing police of the Ægean Sea, regulated by a common
superintending authority. And if such promise was not realised, we shall
find that the inherent defects of the allies, indisposing them to the
hearty appreciation and steady performance of their duties as equal
confederates, are at least as much chargeable with the failure as the
ambition of Athens. We may add that, in selecting Delos as a centre, the
Ionic allies were conciliated by a renovation of the solemnities which
their fathers, in the days of former freedom, had crowded to witness in
that sacred island.

[Sidenote: [477-470 B.C.]]

At the time when this alliance was formed, the Persians still held not
only the important posts of Eion on the Strymon and Doriscus in Thrace,
but also several other posts in that country, which are not specified
to us. We may thus understand why the Greek cities on and near the
Chalcidic peninsula,--Argilus, Stagiras, Acanthus, Scolus, Olynthus,
Spartolus, etc.,--which we know to have joined under the first assessment
of Aristides, were not less anxious to seek protection in the bosom of
the new confederacy, than the Dorian islands of Rhodes and Cos, the Ionic
islands of Samos and Chios, the Æolic Lesbos and Tenedos, or continental
towns such as Miletus and Byzantium: by all of whom adhesion to this
alliance must have been contemplated, in 477 or 476 B.C., as the sole
condition of emancipation from Persia. Nothing more was required for
the success of a foreign enemy against Greece generally than complete
autonomy of every Grecian city, small as well as great--such as the
Persian monarch prescribed and tried to enforce ninety years afterwards,
through the Lacedæmonian Antalcidas, in the pacification which bears
the name of the latter. Some sort of union, organised and obligatory
upon each city, was indispensable to the safety of all. Nor was it by
any means certain, at the time when the confederacy of Delos was first
formed, that, even with that aid, the Asiatic enemy would be effectually
kept out; especially as the Persians were strong, not merely from their
own force, but also from the aid of internal parties in many of the
Grecian states--traitors within, as well as exiles without.


THE TREASON OF PAUSANIAS

Among these, the first in rank as well as the most formidable, was the
Spartan Pausanias. Summoned home from Byzantium to Sparta, in order
that the loud complaints against him might be examined, he had been
acquitted of the charges of wrong and oppression against individuals;
yet the presumptions of _medism_, or treacherous correspondence with
the Persians, appeared so strong that, though not found guilty, he was
still not reappointed to the command. Such treatment seems to have only
emboldened him in the prosecution of his designs against Greece, and he
came out with this view to Byzantium in a trireme belonging to Hermione,
under pretence of aiding as a volunteer without any formal authority in
the war. He there resumed his negotiations with Artabazus: his great
station and celebrity still gave him a strong hold on men’s opinions,
and he appears to have established a sort of mastery in Byzantium, from
whence the Athenians, already recognised heads of the confederacy, were
constrained to expel him by force: and we may be very sure that the
terror excited by his presence as well as by his known designs tended
materially to accelerate the organisation of the confederacy under
Athens. He then retired to Colonæ in the Troad, where he continued for
some time in the farther prosecution of his schemes, trying to form a
Persian party, despatching emissaries to distribute Persian gold among
various cities of Greece, and probably employing the name of Sparta to
impede the formation of the new confederacy: until at length the Spartan
authorities, apprised of his proceedings, sent a herald out to him, with
peremptory orders that he should come home immediately along with the
herald: if he disobeyed, “the Spartans would declare war against him,”
or constitute him a public enemy.

[Sidenote: [_ca._ 470 B.C.]]

As the execution of this threat would have frustrated all the ulterior
schemes of Pausanias, he thought it prudent to obey; the rather, as
he felt entire confidence of escaping all the charges against him at
Sparta by the employment of bribes, the means for which were abundantly
furnished to him through Artabazus. He accordingly returned along with
the herald, and was, in the first moments of indignation, imprisoned by
order of the ephors; who, it seems, were legally competent to imprison
him, even had he been king instead of regent. But he was soon let out,
on his own requisition, and under a private arrangement with friends
and partisans, to take his trial against all accusers. Even to stand
forth as accuser against so powerful a man was a serious peril: to
undertake the proof of specific matter of treason against him was yet
more serious: nor does it appear that any Spartan ventured to do either.
It was known that nothing short of the most manifest and invincible
proof would be held to justify his condemnation, and amidst a long chain
of acts carrying conviction when taken in the aggregate, there was no
single treason sufficiently demonstrable for the purpose. Accordingly,
Pausanias remained not only at large but unaccused, still audaciously
persisting both in his intrigues at home and his correspondence abroad
with Artabazus. He ventured to assail the unshielded side of Sparta by
opening negotiations with the helots, and instigating them to revolt;
promising them both liberation and admission to political privilege; with
a view, first, to destroy the board of ephors, and render himself despot
in his own country, next, to acquire through Persian help the supremacy
of Greece. Some of those helots to whom he addressed himself revealed
the plot to the ephors, who, nevertheless, in spite of such grave
peril, did not choose to take measures against Pausanias upon no better
information--so imposing was still his name and position. But though
some few helots might inform, probably, many others, both gladly heard
the proposition and faithfully kept the secret: we shall find, by what
happened a few years afterwards, that there were a large number of them
who had their spears in readiness for revolt. Suspected as Pausanias was,
yet by the fears of some and the connivance of others, he was allowed to
bring his plans to the very brink of consummation: and his last letters
to Artabazus, intimating that he was ready for action, and bespeaking
immediate performance of the engagements concerted between them, were
actually in the hands of the messenger. Sparta was saved from an outbreak
of the most formidable kind, not by the prudence of her authorities, but
by a mere accident, or rather by the fact that Pausanias was not only a
traitor to his country, but also base and cruel in his private relations.

The messenger to whom these last letters were entrusted was a native of
Argilus in Thrace, a favourite and faithful slave of Pausanias; once
connected with him by that intimate relation which Grecian manners
tolerated, and admitted even to the full confidence of his treasonable
projects. It was by no means the intention of this Argilian to betray
his master; but, on receiving the letter to carry, he recollected, with
some uneasiness, that none of the previous messengers had ever come back.
Accordingly he broke the seal and read it, with the full view of carrying
it forward to its destination, if he found nothing inconsistent with his
own personal safety: he had further taken the precaution to counterfeit
his master’s seal, so that he could easily reclose the letter. On
reading it, he found his suspicions confirmed by an express injunction
that the bearer was to be put to death--a discovery which left him no
alternative except to deliver it to the ephors. But those magistrates,
who had before disbelieved the helot informers, still refused to believe
even the confidential slave with his master’s autograph and seal, and
with the full account besides, which doubtless he would communicate
at the same time, of all that had previously passed in the Persian
correspondence. Partly from the suspicion which, in antiquity, always
attached to the testimony of slaves, except when it was obtained under
the pretended guarantee of torture, partly from the peril of dealing
with so exalted a criminal, the ephors would not be satisfied with any
evidence less than his own speech and their own ears. They directed the
Argilian slave to plant himself as a suppliant in the sacred precinct
of Poseidon, near Cape Tænarus, under the shelter of a double tent, or
hut, behind which two of them concealed themselves. Apprised of this
unexpected mark of alarm, Pausanias hastened to the temple, and demanded
the reason: upon which the slave disclosed his knowledge of the contents
of the letter, and complained bitterly that, after a long and faithful
service,--with a secrecy never once betrayed, throughout this dangerous
correspondence,--he was at length rewarded with nothing better than
the same miserable fate which had befallen the previous messengers.
Pausanias, admitting all these facts, tried to appease the slave’s
disquietude, and gave him a solemn assurance of safety if he would quit
the sanctuary; urging him at the same time to proceed on the journey
forthwith, in order that the schemes in progress might not be retarded.

All this passed within the hearing of the concealed ephors; who at
length, thoroughly satisfied, determined to arrest Pausanias immediately
on his return to Sparta. They met him in the public street, not far from
the temple of Athene Chalciœcus (or of the Brazen House); but as they
came near, either their menacing looks, or a significant nod from one of
them, revealed to this guilty man their purpose; and he fled for refuge
to the temple, which was so near that he reached it before they could
overtake him. He planted himself as a suppliant, far more hopeless than
the Argilian slave whom he had so recently talked over at Tænarus, in a
narrow-roofed chamber belonging to the sacred building; where the ephors,
not warranted in touching him, took off the roof, built up the doors, and
kept watch until he was on the point of death by starvation. According
to a current story, not recognised by Thucydides, yet consistent with
Spartan manners, his own mother was the person who placed the first stone
to build up the door, in deep abhorrence of his treason. His last moments
being carefully observed, he was brought away just in time to expire
without, and thus to avoid the desecration of the temple. The first
impulse of the ephors was to cast his body into the ravine, or hollow,
called the Cæadas, the usual place of punishment for criminals: probably,
his powerful friends averted this disgrace, and he was buried not far
off, until, some time afterwards, under the mandate of the Delphian
oracle, his body was exhumed and transported to the exact spot where
he had died. Nor was the oracle satisfied even with this reinterment:
pronouncing the whole proceeding to be a profanation of the sanctity of
Athene, it enjoined that two bodies should be presented to her as an
atonement for the one carried away. In the very early days of Greece,
or among the Carthaginians, even at this period, such an injunction
would probably have produced the slaughter of two human victims: on the
present occasion, Athene, or Hicesius, the tutelary god of suppliants,
was supposed to be satisfied by two brazen statues; not, however, without
some attempts to make out that the expiation was inadequate.

Thus perished a Greek who reached the pinnacle of renown simply from
the accidents of his lofty descent, and of his being general at Platæa,
where it does not appear that he displayed any superior qualities. His
treasonable projects implicated and brought to disgrace a man far greater
than himself, the Athenian Themistocles.

[Sidenote: [478-470 B.C.]]

The chronology of this important period is not so fully known as to
enable us to make out the full dates of particular events; but we
are obliged--in consequence of the subsequent events connected with
Themistocles, whose flight to Persia is tolerably well marked as to
date--to admit an interval of about nine years between the retirement of
Pausanias from his command at Byzantium, and his death. To suppose so
long an interval engaged in treasonable correspondence, is perplexing;
and we can only explain it to ourselves very imperfectly by considering
that the Spartans were habitually slow in their movements, and that the
suspected regent may perhaps have communicated with partisans, real or
expected, in many parts of Greece. Among those whom he sought to enlist
as accomplices was Themistocles, still in great power--though, as it
would seem, in declining power--at Athens: and the charge of collusion
with the Persians connects itself with the previous movement of political
parties in that city.

[Illustration: THE DYING PAUSANIAS CARRIED FROM THE TEMPLE]


POLITICAL CHANGES AT ATHENS

[Sidenote: [478-476 B.C.]]

The rivalry of Themistocles and Aristides had been greatly appeased
by the invasion of Xerxes, which had imposed upon both the peremptory
necessity of co-operation against a common enemy. Nor was it apparently
resumed, during the times which immediately succeeded the return of
the Athenians to their country: at least we hear of both in effective
service, and in prominent posts. Themistocles stands forward as the
contriver of the city walls and architect of Piræus: Aristides is
commander of the fleet, and first organiser of the confederacy of Delos.
Moreover, we seem to detect a change in the character of the latter: he
had ceased to be the champion of Athenian old-fashioned landed interest,
against Themistocles as the originator of the maritime innovations. Those
innovations had now, since the battle of Salamis, become an established
fact; a fact of overwhelming influence on the destinies and character,
public as well as private, of the Athenians. During the exile at Salamis,
every man, rich or poor, landed proprietor or artisan, had been for the
time a seaman: and the anecdote of Cimon, who dedicated the bridle of
his horse in the Acropolis, as a token that he was about to pass from
the cavalry to service on shipboard, is a type of that change of feeling
which must have been impressed more or less upon every rich man in
Athens. From henceforward the fleet is endeared to every man as the grand
force, offensive and defensive, of the state, in which character all the
political leaders agree in accepting it.

We see by the active political sentiment of the German people, after the
great struggles of 1813 and 1814, how much an energetic and successful
military effort of the people at large, blended with endurance of
serious hardship, tends to stimulate the sense of political dignity and
the demand for developed citizenship: and if this be the tendency even
among a people habitually passive on such subjects, much more was it to
be expected in the Athenian population, who had gone through a previous
training of near thirty years under the democracy of Clisthenes. At
the time when that constitution was first established, it was perhaps
the most democratical in Greece: it had worked extremely well and had
diffused among the people a sentiment favourable to equal citizenship
and unfriendly to avowed privilege: so that the impressions made by the
struggle at Salamis found the popular mind prepared to receive them.
Early after the return to Attica, the Clisthenean constitution was
enlarged as respects eligibility to the magistracy. According to that
constitution, the fourth or last class of the Solonian census, including
the considerable majority of the freemen, were not admissible to offices
of state, though they possessed votes in common with the rest: no person
was eligible to be a magistrate unless he belonged to one of the three
higher classes. This restriction was now annulled, and eligibility
extended to all the citizens. We may appreciate the strength of feeling
with which such reform was demanded, when we find that it was proposed
by Aristides, a man the reverse of what is called a demagogue, and a
strenuous friend of the Clisthenean constitution. No political system
would work after the Persian War, which formally excluded “the maritime
multitude” from holding magistracy. We rather imagine that election
of magistrates was still retained, and not exchanged for drawing lots
until a certain time, though not a long time, afterwards. That which the
public sentiment first demanded was the recognition of the equal and
open principle: after a certain length of experience, it was found that
poor men, though legally qualified to be chosen, were in point of fact
rarely chosen: then came the lot, to give them an equal chance with the
rich. The principle of sortition, or choice by lot, was never applied, as
we have before remarked, to all offices at Athens--never, for example,
to the strategi, or generals, whose functions were more grave and
responsible than those of any other person in the service of the state,
and who always continued to be elected by show of hands.

And it was probably about this period, during the years immediately
succeeding the battle of Salamis,--when the force of old habit
and tradition had been partially enfeebled by so many stirring
novelties,--that the archons were withdrawn altogether from political
and military duties, and confined to civil or judicial administration.
At the battle of Marathon, the polemarch is a military commander,
president of the ten strategi: we know him afterwards only as a civil
magistrate, administering justice to the metics, or non-freemen, while
the strategi perform military duties without him. The special and
important change which characterised the period immediately succeeding
the battle of Salamis, was the more accurate line drawn between the
archons and the strategi; assigning the foreign and military department
entirely to the strategi, and rendering the archons purely civil
magistrates,--administrative as well as judicial. It was by some such
steps that the Athenian administration gradually attained that complete
development which it exhibits in practise during the century from the
Peloponnesian War downward, to which nearly all our positive and direct
information relates.


THE DOWNFALL OF THEMISTOCLES

[Sidenote: [476-472 B.C.]]

With this expansion both of democratical feeling and of military activity
at Athens, Aristides appears to have sympathised; and the popularity
thus insured to him, probably heightened by some regret for his previous
ostracism, was calculated to acquire permanence from his straightforward
and incorruptible character, now brought into strong relief from his
function as assessor to the new Delian confederacy. On the other hand,
the ascendency of Themistocles, though so often exalted by his unrivalled
political genius and daring, as well as by the signal value of his public
recommendations, was as often overthrown by his duplicity of means and
unprincipled thirst for money. New political opponents sprang up against
him, men sympathising with Aristides, and far more violent in their
antipathy than Aristides himself. Of these, the chief were Cimon, son
of Miltiades and Alcmæon; moreover, it seems that the Lacedæmonians,
though full of esteem for Themistocles immediately after the battle of
Salamis, had now become extremely hostile to him--a change which may be
sufficiently explained from his stratagem respecting the fortifications
of Athens, and his subsequent ambitious projects in reference to the
Piræus. The Lacedæmonian influence, then not inconsiderable in Athens,
was employed to second the political combinations against him. He is said
to have given offence by manifestations of personal vanity, by continual
boasting of his great services to the state, and by the erection of a
private chapel, close to his own house, in honour of Artemis Aristobule,
or Artemis of admirable counsel; just as Pausanias had irritated the
Lacedæmonians by inscribing his own single name on the Delphian tripod,
and as the friends of Aristides had displeased the Athenians by endless
encomiums upon his justice.

[Illustration: ARISTIDES AND THE PEASANT]

But the main cause of his discredit was the prostitution of his great
influence for arbitrary and corrupt purposes. In the unsettled condition
of so many different Grecian communities, recently emancipated from
Persia, when there was past misrule to avenge, wrong-doers to be deposed
and perhaps punished, exiles to be restored, and all the disturbance and
suspicions accompanying so great a change of political condition as well
as of foreign policy, the influence of the leading men at Athens must
have been great in determining the treatment of particular individuals.
Themistocles, placed at the head of an Athenian squadron and sailing
among the islands, partly for the purposes of war against Persia, partly
for organising the new confederacy, is affirmed to have accepted bribes
without scruple, for executing sentences just and unjust, restoring some
citizens, expelling others, and even putting some to death. We learn
this from a friend and guest of Themistocles, the poet Timocreon of
Ialysus in Rhodes, who had expected his own restoration from the Athenian
commander, but found that it was thwarted by a bribe of three talents
from his opponents; so that he was still kept in exile on the charge of
_medism_. The assertions of Timocreon, personally incensed on this ground
against Themistocles, are doubtless to be considered as passionate and
exaggerated: nevertheless, they are a valuable memorial of the feelings
of the time, and are far too much in harmony with the general character
of this eminent man to allow of our disbelieving them entirely. Timocreon
is as emphatic in his admiration of Aristides as in his censure of
Themistocles, whom he denounces as “a lying and unjust traitor.”

[Sidenote: [472-471 B.C.]]

Such conduct as that described by this new Archilochus, even making
every allowance for exaggeration, must have caused Themistocles to
be both hated and feared among the insular allies, whose opinion was
now of considerable importance to the Athenians. A similar sentiment
grew up partially against him in Athens itself, and appears to have
been connected with suspicions of treasonable inclinations towards the
Persians. As the Persians could offer the highest bribes, a man open to
corruption might naturally be suspected of inclinations towards their
cause; and if Themistocles had rendered pre-eminent service against
them, so also had Pausanias, whose conduct had undergone so fatal a
change for the worse. It was the treason of Pausanias, suspected and
believed against him by the Athenians even when he was in command at
Byzantium, though not proved against him at Sparta until long afterwards,
which first seems to have raised the presumption of _medism_ against
Themistocles also, when combined with the corrupt proceedings which
stained his public conduct: we must recollect, also, that Themistocles
had given some colour to these presumptions, even by the stratagems in
reference to Xerxes, which wore a double-faced aspect, capable of being
construed either in a Persian or in a Grecian sense. The Lacedæmonians,
hostile to Themistocles since the time when he had outwitted them
respecting the walls of Athens, and fearing him also as a supposed
accomplice of the suspected Pausanias, procured the charge of _medism_
to be preferred against him at Athens; by secret instigations, and, as
it is said, by bribes, to his political opponents. But no satisfactory
proof could be furnished of the accusation, which Themistocles himself
strenuously denied, not without emphatic appeals to his illustrious
services. In spite of violent invectives against him from Alcmæon
and Cimon, tempered, indeed, by a generous moderation on the part of
Aristides, his defence was successful. He carried the people with him and
was acquitted of the charge. Nor was he merely acquitted, but, as might
naturally be expected, a reaction took place in his favour: his splendid
qualities and exploits were brought impressively before the public mind,
and he seemed for the time to acquire greater ascendency than ever.

Such a charge, and such a failure, must have exasperated to the utmost
the animosity between him and his chief opponents,--Aristides, Cimon,
Alcmæon, and others; nor can we wonder that they were anxious to get
rid of him by ostracism. In explaining this peculiar process, we have
already stated that it could never be raised against any one individual
separately and ostensibly, and that it could never be brought into
operation at all, unless its necessity were made clear, not merely
to violent party men, but also to the assembled senate and people,
including, of course, a considerable proportion of the more moderate
citizens. We may well conceive that the conjuncture was deemed by many
dispassionate Athenians well suited for the tutelary intervention of
ostracism, the express benefit of which consisted in its separating
political opponents when the antipathy between them threatened to push
one or the other into extra-constitutional proceedings--especially
when one of those parties was Themistocles, a man alike vast in his
abilities and unscrupulous in his morality. Probably also there were not
a few wished to revenge the previous ostracism of Aristides: and lastly,
the friends of Themistocles himself, elate with his acquittal and his
seemingly augmented popularity, might indulge hopes that the vote of
ostracism would turn out in his favour, and remove one or other of his
chief political opponents. From all these circumstances we learn without
astonishment, that a vote of ostracism was soon after resorted to. It
ended in the temporary banishment of Themistocles.

[Sidenote: [471-466 B.C.]]

He retired into exile, and was residing at Argos, whither he carried
a considerable property, yet occasionally visiting other parts of
the Peloponnesus, when the exposure and death of Pausanias, together
with the discovery of his correspondence, took place at Sparta. Among
this correspondence were found proofs, which Thucydides seems to have
considered as real and sufficient, of the privity of Themistocles.
According to Ephorus and others, he is admitted to have been solicited
by Pausanias, and to have known his plans, but to have kept them secret
while refusing to co-operate in them, but probably after his exile he
took a more decided share in them than before; being well-placed for that
purpose at Argos, a city not only unfriendly to Sparta, but strongly
believed to have been in collusion with Xerxes at his invasion of Greece.
On this occasion the Lacedæmonians sent to Athens, publicly to prefer a
formal charge of treason against him, and to urge the necessity of trying
him as a Panhellenic criminal before the synod of the allies assembled
at Sparta. Whether this latter request would have been granted, or
whether Themistocles would have been tried at Athens, we cannot tell:
for no sooner was he apprised that joint envoys from Sparta and Athens
had been despatched to arrest him, than he fled forthwith from Argos to
Corcyra. The inhabitants of that island, though owing gratitude to him
and favourably disposed, could not venture to protect him against the
two most powerful states in Greece, but sent him to the neighbouring
continent.

Here, however, being still tracked and followed by the envoys, he was
obliged to seek protection from a man whom he had formerly thwarted in a
demand at Athens, and who had become his personal enemy--Admetus, king
of the Molossians. Fortunately for him, at the moment when he arrived,
Admetus was not at home; and Themistocles, becoming a suppliant to
his wife, conciliated her sympathy so entirely, that she placed her
child in his arms, and planted him at the hearth in the full solemnity
of supplication to soften her husband. As soon as Admetus returned,
Themistocles revealed his name, his pursuers, and his danger, entreating
protection as a helpless suppliant in the last extremity. He appealed to
the generosity of the Epirotic prince not to take revenge on a man now
defenceless, for offence given under such very different circumstances;
and for an offence too, after all, not of capital moment, while the
protection now entreated was to the suppliant a matter of life or death.
Admetus raised him up from the hearth with the child in his arms, an
evidence that he accepted the appeal and engaged to protect him; refusing
to give him up to the envoys, and at last only sending him away on the
expression of his own wish to visit the king of Persia. Two Macedonian
guides conducted him across the mountains to Pydna, in the Thermaic
Gulf, where he found a merchant ship about to set sail for the coast
of Asia Minor, and took a passage on board; neither the master nor the
crew knowing his name. An untoward storm drove the vessel to the island
of Naxos, at that moment besieged by an Athenian armament: had he been
forced to land there, he would of course have been recognised and seized,
but his wonted subtlety did not desert him. Having communicated both his
name and the peril which awaited him, he conjured the master of the ship
to assist in saving him, and not to suffer any one of the crew to land;
menacing that if by any accident he were discovered, he would bring the
master to ruin along with himself, by representing him as an accomplice
induced by money to facilitate the escape of Themistocles: on the other
hand, in case of safety, he promised a large reward. Such promises and
threats weighed with the master, who controlled his crew, and forced them
to beat about during a day and a night off the coast, without seeking
to land. After that dangerous interval, the storm abated, and the ship
reached Ephesus in safety.

[Sidenote: [466-460 (?) B.C.]]

Thus did Themistocles, after a series of perils, find himself safe on
the Persian side of the Ægean. At Athens, he was proclaimed a traitor,
and his property confiscated: nevertheless, as it frequently happened
in cases of confiscation, his friends secreted a considerable sum, and
sent it over to him in Asia, together with the money which he had left at
Argos; so that he was thus enabled liberally to reward the ship-captain
who had preserved him. With all this deduction, the property which he
possessed of a character not susceptible of concealment, and which
was therefore actually seized, was found to amount to eighty talents
[about £16,000 or $80,000] according to Theophrastus, to one hundred
talents according to Theopompus. In contrast with this large sum, it
is melancholy to learn that he had begun his political career with a
property not greater than three talents. The poverty of Aristides at the
end of his life presents an impressive contrast to the enrichment of his
rival.

The escape of Themistocles, and his adventures in Persia, appear to have
formed a favourite theme for the fancy and exaggeration of authors a
century afterwards: we have thus many anecdotes which contradict either
directly or by implication the simple narrative of Thucydides. Thus we
are told that at the moment when he was running away from the Greeks, the
Persian king also had proclaimed a reward of two hundred talents for his
head, and that some Greeks on the coast of Asia were watching to take
him for this reward: that he was forced to conceal himself strictly near
the coast, until means were found to send him up to Susa in a closed
litter, under pretence that it was a woman for the king’s harem: that
Mandane, sister of Xerxes, insisted upon having him delivered up to her
as an expiation for the loss of her son at the battle of Salamis: that
he learned Persian so well, and discoursed in it so eloquently, as to
procure for himself an acquittal from the Persian judges, when put upon
his trial through the importunity of Mandane: that the officers of the
king’s household at Susa, and the satraps on his way back, threatened
him with still further perils: that he was admitted to see the king in
person, after having received a lecture from the chamberlain on the
indispensable duty of falling down before him to do homage, etc., with
several other uncertified details, which make us value more highly
the narrative of Thucydides. Indeed, Ephorus, Dinon, Clitarchus, and
Heraclides, from whom these anecdotes appear mostly to be derived, even
affirmed that Themistocles had found Xerxes himself alive and seen him:
whereas, Thucydides and Charon, the two contemporary authors, for the
former is nearly contemporary, asserted that he had found Xerxes recently
dead, and his son Artaxerxes on the throne.

According to Thucydides, the eminent exile does not seem to have
been exposed to the least danger in Persia. He presented himself as
a deserter from Greece, and was accepted as such: moreover,--what is
more strange, though it seems true,--he was received as an actual
benefactor of the Persian king, and a sufferer from the Greeks on
account of such dispositions, in consequence of his communications made
to Xerxes respecting the intended retreat of the Greeks from Salamis,
and respecting the contemplated destruction of the Hellespontine bridge.
He was conducted by some Persians on the coast up to Susa, where he
addressed a letter to the king couched in the following terms, such as
probably no modern European king would tolerate except from a Quaker: “I,
Themistocles, am come to thee, having done to thy house more mischief
than any other Greek, as long as I was compelled in my own defence to
resist the attack of thy father--but having also done him yet greater
good, when I could do so with safety to myself, and when his retreat was
endangered. Reward is yet owing to me for my past service: moreover, I am
now here, chased away by the Greeks, in consequence of my attachment to
thee, but able still to serve thee with great effect. I wish to wait a
year, and then to come before thee in person to explain my views.”

Whether the Persian interpreters, who read this letter to Artaxerxes
Longimanus, exactly rendered its brief and direct expression, we cannot
say. But it made a strong impression upon him, combined with the previous
reputation of the writer, and he willingly granted the prayer for delay:
though we shall not readily believe that he was so transported as to
show his joy by immediate sacrifice to the gods, by an unusual measure
of convivial indulgence, and by crying out thrice in his sleep, “I have
got Themistocles the Athenian,”--as some of Plutarch’s authors informed
him. In the course of the year granted, Themistocles had learned so
much of the Persian language and customs as to be able to communicate
personally with the king, and acquire his confidence: no Greek, says
Thucydides, had ever before attained such a commanding influence and
position at the Persian court. His ingenuity was now displayed in laying
out schemes for the subjugation of Greece to Persia, which were eminently
captivating to the monarch, who rewarded him with a Persian wife and
large presents, sending him down to Magnesia, on the Mæander, not far
from the coast of Ionia. The revenues of the district round that town,
amounting to the large sum of fifty talents [£10,000 or $50,000] yearly,
were assigned to him for bread: those of the neighbouring seaport of
Myus, for articles of condiment to his bread, which was always accounted
the main nourishment: those of Lampsacus on the Hellespont, for wine.
Not knowing the amount of these two latter items, we can not determine
how much revenue Themistocles received altogether: but there can be no
doubt, judging from the revenues of Magnesia alone, that he was a great
pecuniary gainer by his change of country. After having visited various
parts of Asia, he lived for a certain time at Magnesia, in which place
his family joined him from Athens. How long his residence at Magnesia
lasted we do not know, but seemingly long enough to acquire local
estimation and leave mementos behind him. He at length died of sickness,
when sixty-five years old, without having taken any step towards the
accomplishment of those victorious campaigns which he had promised to
Artaxerxes. That sickness was the real cause of his death, we may believe
on the distinct statement of Thucydides; who at the same time notices a
rumour partially current in his own time, of poison voluntarily taken,
from painful consciousness on the part of Themistocles himself that the
promises made could never be performed--a further proof of the general
tendency to surround the last years of this distinguished man with
impressive adventures, and to dignify his last moments with a revived
feeling, not unworthy of his earlier patriotism. The report may possibly
have been designedly circulated by his friends and relatives, in order to
conciliate some tenderness towards his memory (his sons still continued
citizens at Athens, and his daughters were married there). These friends
further stated that they had brought back his bones to Attica, at his
own express command, and buried them privately without the knowledge
of the Athenians; no condemned traitor being permitted to be buried in
Attic soil. If, however, we even suppose that this statement was true,
no one could point out with certainty the spot wherein such interment
had taken place: nor does it seem, when we mark the cautious expressions
of Thucydides, that he himself was satisfied of the fact: moreover, we
may affirm with confidence that the inhabitants of Magnesia, when they
showed the splendid sepulchral monument erected in honour of Themistocles
in their own market-place, were persuaded that his bones were really
enclosed within it.

[Sidenote: [468 B.C.]]

Aristides died about three or four years after the ostracism of
Themistocles; but respecting the place and manner of his death, there
were several contradictions among the authors whom Plutarch had before
him. Some affirmed that he perished on foreign service in the Euxine Sea;
others, that he died at home, amidst the universal esteem and grief of
his fellow-citizens. A third story, confined to the single statement of
Craterus, and strenuously rejected by Plutarch, represents Aristides as
having been falsely accused before the Athenian judicature and condemned
to a fine of fifty minæ [£180, or $900], on the allegation of having
taken bribes during the assessment of the tribute on the allies--which
fine he was unable to pay, and was therefore obliged to retire to Ionia,
where he died. Dismissing this last story, we find nothing certain
about his death except one fact,--but that fact at the same time the
most honourable of all,--that he died very poor. It is even asserted
that he did not leave enough to pay funeral expenses, that a sepulchre
was provided for him at Phalerum at the public cost, besides a handsome
donation to his son Lysimachus, and a dowry to each of his two daughters.
In the two or three ensuing generations, however, his descendants still
continued poor, and even at that remote day, some of them received aid
out of the public purse, from the recollection of their incorruptible
ancestor. Near a century and a half afterwards, a poor man, named
Lysimachus, descendant of the just Aristides, was to be seen at Athens,
near the chapel of Iacchus, carrying a mysterious tablet, and obtaining
his scanty fee of two oboli [3d. or 6 cents] for interpreting the dreams
of the passers-by: Demetrius the Phalerean procured from the people, for
the mother and aunt of this poor man, a small daily allowance.

On all these points the contrast is marked when we compare Aristides with
Themistocles. The latter, having distinguished himself by ostentatious
cost at Olympia, and by a choregic victory at Athens, with little
scruple as to the means of acquisition, ended his life at Magnesia in
dishonourable affluence greater than ever, and left an enriched posterity
both at that place and at Athens. More than five centuries afterwards,
his descendant, the Athenian Themistocles, attended the lectures of the
philosopher Ammonius at Athens, as the comrade and friend of Plutarch
himself.[c]

[Illustration: GRECIAN SEAL RINGS]




[Illustration: GREEK BOAT

(From a wall decoration)]




CHAPTER XXIII. THE GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE

    Athens! thou birthplace of the great, the free!
    Though bowed thy power, and dimmed thy name may be,
    Though old Renown’s once dazzling sun hath set,
    Fair beams the star of Memory o’er thee yet.
    City! where sang the bard, and taught the sage,
    Thy shrines may fall, thou ne’er wilt know old age;
    Fresh shall thy image glow in every heart,
    And but with Time’s last hour thy fame depart.

                                                  --NICHOLAS MICHELL.


The history of this time with its rush of events and its startling
changes exhibits on the Athenian side a picture of astonishing and
almost preternatural energy.[b] The transition from the Athenian
hegemony to the Athenian empire was doubtless gradual, so that no one
could determine precisely where the former ends and the latter begins:
but it had been consummated before the thirty years’ truce, which was
concluded fourteen years before the Peloponnesian War, and it was in
fact the substantial cause of that war. Empire then came to be held by
Athens,--partly as a fact established, resting on acquiescence rather
than attachment or consent in the minds of the subjects,--partly as a
corollary from necessity of union combined with her superior force: while
this latter point, superiority of force as a legitimate title, stood
more and more forward, both in the language of her speakers and in the
conceptions of her citizens. Nay, the Athenian orators of the middle of
the Peloponnesian War venture to affirm that their empire had been of
this same character ever since the repulse of the Persians: an inaccuracy
so manifest, that if we could suppose the speech made by the Athenian
Euphemus at Camarina in 415 B.C., to have been heard by Themistocles or
Aristides fifty years before, it would have been alike offensive to the
prudence of the one and to the justice of the other.

The imperial state of Athens, that which she held at the beginning of
the Peloponnesian War, when her allies, except Chios and Lesbos, were
tributary subjects, and when the Ægean Sea was an Athenian lake, was
of course the period of her greatest splendour and greatest action
upon the Grecian world. It was also the period most impressive to
historians, orators, and philosophers, suggesting the idea of some one
state exercising dominion over the Ægean, as the natural condition of
Greece, so that if Athens lost such dominion, it would be transferred to
Sparta, holding out the dispersed maritime Greeks as a tempting prize for
the aggressive schemes of some new conqueror, and even bringing up by
association into men’s fancies the mythical Minos of Crete, and others,
as having been rulers of the Ægean in times anterior to Athens.

[Sidenote: [479-466 B.C.]]

Even those who lived under the full-grown Athenian empire had before
them no good accounts of the incidents between 479-450 B.C.; for we may
gather from the intimation of Thucydides, as well as from his barrenness
of facts, that while there were chroniclers both for the Persian invasion
and for the times before, no one cared for the times immediately
succeeding. Hence, the little light which has fallen upon this blank
has all been borrowed--if we except the careful Thucydides--from a
subsequent age; and the Athenian hegemony has been treated as a mere
commencement of the Athenian empire: credit has been given to Athens
for a long-sighted ambition, aiming from the Persian War downwards at
results which perhaps Themistocles may have partially divined, but
which only time and successive accidents opened even to distant view.
But such systematic anticipation of subsequent results is fatal to any
correct understanding, either of the real agents or of the real period;
both of which are to be explained from the circumstances preceding and
actually present, with some help, though cautious and sparing, from our
acquaintance with that which was then an unknown future. When Aristides
and Cimon dismissed the Lacedæmonian admiral Dorcis, and drove Pausanias
away from Byzantium on his second coming out, they had to deal with the
problem immediately before them; they had to complete the defeat of the
Persian power, still formidable, and to create and organise a confederacy
as yet only inchoate. This was quite enough to occupy their attention,
without ascribing to them distant views of Athenian maritime empire.

In that brief sketch of incidents preceding the Peloponnesian War,
which Thucydides introduces as “the throwing off of his narrative,” he
neither gives, nor professes to give, a complete enumeration of all which
actually occurred. During the interval between the first desertion of the
Asiatic allies from Pausanias to Athens, in 477 B.C., and the revolt of
Naxos in 466 B.C., he recites three incidents only: first, the siege and
capture of Eion, on the Strymon, with its Persian garrison; next, the
capture of Scyros, and appropriation of the island to Athenian cleruchs,
or out-citizens; thirdly, the war with Carystus in Eubœa and reduction of
the place by capitulation. It has been too much the practice to reason
as if these three events were the full history of ten or eleven years.
Considering what Thucydides states respecting the darkness of this
period, we might perhaps suspect that they were all which he could learn
about it on good authority: and they are all, in truth, events having a
near and special bearing on the subsequent history of Athens herself;
for Eion was the first stepping-stone to the important settlement of
Amphipolis, and Scyros in the time of Thucydides was the property of
outlying Athenian citizens, or cleruchs.

Still, we are left in almost entire ignorance of the proceedings of
Athens, as conducting the newly established confederate force: for it is
certain that the first ten years of the Athenian hegemony must have been
years of most active warfare against the Persians. One positive testimony
to this effect has been accidentally preserved to us by Herodotus,
who mentions, that “before the invasion of Xerxes, there were Persian
commanders and garrisons everywhere in Thrace and the Hellespont, all of
whom were conquered by the Greeks after that invasion, with the single
exception of Mascames, governor of Doriscus, who could never be taken,
though many different Grecian attempts were made upon the fortress.
Of those who were captured by the Greeks, not one made any defence
sufficient to attract the admiration of Xerxes, except Boges, governor
of Eion.” Boges, after bravely defending himself, and refusing offers
of capitulation, found his provisions exhausted, and further resistance
impracticable. He then kindled a vast funeral pile, slew his wives,
children, concubines, and family, and cast them into it, threw his
precious effects over the wall into the Strymon, and lastly, precipitated
himself into the flames. His brave despair was the theme of warm
encomium among the Persians, and his relatives in Persia were liberally
rewarded by Xerxes. This capture of Eion, effected by Cimon, has been
mentioned, as already stated, by Thucydides; but Herodotus here gives
us to understand that it was only one of a string of enterprises, all
unnoticed by Thucydides, against the Persians. Nay, it would seem from
his language, that Mascames maintained himself in Doriscus during the
whole reign of Xerxes, and perhaps longer, repelling successive Grecian
assaults.

The valuable indication here cited from Herodotus would be of itself a
sufficient proof that the first years of the Athenian hegemony were full
of busy and successful hostility against the Persians. And in truth this
is what we should expect: the battles of Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale,
drove the Persians out of Greece, and overpowered their main armaments,
but did not remove them at once from all the various posts which they
occupied throughout the Ægean and Thrace. Without doubt, the Athenians
had to clear the coasts and the islands of a great number of different
Persian detachments: an operation never short nor easy, with the then
imperfect means of siege, as we may see by the cases of Sestus and
Eion; nor, indeed, always practicable, as the case of Doriscus teaches
us. The fear of these Persians, yet remaining in the neighbourhood,
and even the chance of a renewed Persian invading armament, formed one
pressing motive for Grecian cities to join the new confederacy: while the
expulsion of the enemy added to it those places which he had occupied.
It was by these years of active operations at sea against the common
enemy, that the Athenians first established that constant, systematic,
and laborious training, among their own ships’ crews, which transmitted
itself with continual improvements down to the Peloponnesian War: it
was by these, combined with the present fear, that they were enabled to
organise the largest and most efficient confederacy ever known among
Greeks, to bring together deliberative deputies, to plant their own
ascendency as enforcers of the collective resolutions, and to raise a
prodigious tax from universal contribution. Lastly, it was by these
same operations, prosecuted so successfully as to remove present alarm,
that they at length fatigued the more lukewarm and passive members of
the confederacy, and created in them a wish either to commute personal
service for pecuniary contribution, or to escape from the obligation of
service in any way. The Athenian nautical training would never have been
acquired, the confederacy would never have become a working reality, the
fatigue and discontents among its members would never have arisen, unless
there had been a real fear of the Persians, and a pressing necessity for
vigorous and organised operations against them, during the ten years
between 477 and 466 B.C.

But after a few years several of the confederates becoming weary of
personal military service, prevailed upon the Athenians to provide
ships and men in their place, and imposed upon themselves in exchange a
money payment of suitable amount. This commutation, at first probably
introduced to meet some special case of inconvenience, was found so
suitable to the taste of all parties that it gradually spread through
the larger portion of the confederacy. To unwarlike allies, hating
labour and privation, it was a welcome relief, while to the Athenians,
full of ardour and patient of labour, as well as discipline, for
the aggrandisement of their country, it afforded constant pay for a
fleet more numerous than they could otherwise have kept afloat. It is
plain from the statement of Thucydides that this altered practice was
introduced from the petition of the confederates themselves, not from
any pressure or stratagem on the part of Athens. But though such was its
real source, it did not the less fatally degrade the allies in reference
to Athens, and extinguish the original feeling of equal rights and
partnership in the confederacy, with communion of danger as well as of
glory, which had once bound them together.

The Athenians came to consider themselves as military chiefs and
soldiers, with a body of tribute-paying subjects, whom they were entitled
to hold in dominion, and restrict, both as to foreign policy and internal
government, to such extent as they thought expedient, but whom they were
also bound to protect against foreign enemies. The military force of
these subject-states was thus in a great degree transferred to Athens, by
their own act, just as that of so many of the native princes in India was
made over to the English.

Under such circumstances several of the confederate states grew tired
even of paying their tribute, and averse to continuance as members.
They made successive attempts to secede, but Athens, acting seemingly
in conjunction with the synod, repressed their attempts one after the
other, conquering, fining, and disarming the revolters; which was the
more easily done, since in most cases their naval force had been in great
part handed over to her. As these events took place, not all at once,
but successively in different years, the number of mere tribute-paying
allies as well as of subdued revolters continually increasing, so there
was never any one moment of conspicuous change in the character of the
confederacy: the allies slid unconsciously into subjects, while Athens,
without any predetermined plan, passed from a chief into a despot. By
strictly enforcing the obligations of the pact upon unwilling members,
and by employing coercion against revolters, she had become unpopular in
the same proportion as she acquired new power, and that, too, without
any guilt of her own. In this position, even if she had been inclined to
relax her hold upon the tributary subjects, considerations of her own
safety would have deterred her from doing so; for there was reason to
apprehend that they might place their strength at the disposal of her
enemies. It is very certain that she never was so inclined; it would have
required a more self-denying public morality than has ever been practised
by any state, either ancient or modern, even to conceive the idea of
relinquishing voluntarily an immense ascendency as well as a lucrative
revenue: least of all was such an idea likely to be conceived by Athenian
citizens, whose ambition increased with their power, and among whom
the love of Athenian ascendency was both passion and patriotism. But
though the Athenians were both disposed and qualified to push all the
advantages offered, and even to look out for new, we must not forget that
the foundations of their empire were laid in the most honourable causes:
voluntary invitation, efforts both unwearied and successful against a
common enemy, unpopularity incurred in discharge of an imperative duty,
and inability to break up the confederacy without endangering themselves
as well as laying open the Ægean Sea to the Persians.

There were two causes, besides that which has just been adverted to,
for the unpopularity of imperial Athens. First, the existence of the
confederacy, imposing permanent obligations, was in conflict with the
general instinct of the Greek mind, tending towards separate political
autonomy of each city, as well as with the particular turn of the Ionic
mind, incapable of that steady personal effort which was requisite for
maintaining the synod of Delos, on its first large and equal basis.
Next,--and this is the great cause of all,--Athens, having defeated
the Persians, and thrust them to a distance, began to employ the force
and the tribute of her subject-allies in warfare against Greeks,
wherein these allies had nothing to gain from success, everything to
apprehend from defeat, and a banner to fight for, offensive to Hellenic
sympathies. On this head, the subject-allies had great reason to complain
throughout the prolonged wars of Greek against Greek for the purpose
of sustaining Athenian predominance: but on the point of practical
grievances or oppression they had little ground for discontent and little
feeling of actual discontent. Among the general body of citizens in the
subject-allied cities, the feeling towards Athens was rather indifference
than hatred: the movement of revolt against her proceeded from small
parties of leading men, acting apart from the citizens, and generally
with collateral views of ambition for themselves; and the positive hatred
towards her was felt chiefly by those who were not her subjects.

It is probable that the same indisposition to personal effort, which
prompted the confederates of Delos to tender money payment as a
substitute for military service, also induced them to neglect attendance
at the synod. But we do not know the steps whereby this assembly, at
first an effective reality, gradually dwindled into a mere form and
vanished. Nothing, however, can more forcibly illustrate the difference
of character between the maritime allies of Athens, and the Peloponnesian
allies of Sparta, than the fact that, while the former shrank from
personal service, and thought it an advantage to tax themselves in place
of it, the latter were “ready enough with their bodies,” but uncomplying
and impracticable as to contributions. The contempt felt by these Dorian
landsmen for the military efficiency of the Ionians recurs frequently,
and appears even to have exceeded what the reality justified: but when we
turn to the conduct of the latter twenty years earlier, at the battle of
Lade, in the very crisis of the Ionic revolt from Persia, we detect the
same want of energy, the same incapacity of personal effort and labour,
as that which broke up the confederacy of Delos with all its beneficial
promise. To appreciate fully the indefatigable activity and daring,
together with the patient endurance of laborious maritime training,
which characterised the Athenians of that day, we have only to contrast
them with these confederates, so remarkably destitute of both. Amidst
such glaring inequalities of merit, capacity, and power, to maintain a
confederacy of equal members was impossible: it was in the nature of
things that the confederacy should either break up, or be transmuted into
an Athenian empire.

It has already been mentioned that the first aggregate assessment of
tribute, proposed by Aristides, and adopted by the synod at Delos, was
four hundred and sixty talents in money (about £92,000, or $460,000). At
that time many of the confederates paid their quota, not in money but
in ships; but this practice gradually diminished, as the commutations
above alluded to, of money in place of ships, were multiplied, while the
aggregate tribute, of course, became larger. It was no more than six
hundred talents at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War, forty-six
years after the first formation of the confederacy; from whence we
may infer that it was never at all increased upon individual members
during the interval. For the difference between four hundred and sixty
talents and six hundred admits of being fully explained by the numerous
commutations of service for money, as well as by the acquisitions of
new members, which doubtless Athens had more or less the opportunity of
making. It is not to be imagined that the confederacy had attained its
maximum number, at the date of the first assessment of tribute: there
must have been various cities, like Sinope and Ægina, subsequently added.

Without some such preliminary statements as those just given, respecting
the new state of Greece between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars,
beginning with the Athenian hegemony, or headship, and ending with the
Athenian empire, the reader would hardly understand the bearing of those
particular events which our authorities enable us to recount; events
unhappily few in number, though the period must have been full of action,
and not well authenticated as to dates.

[Sidenote: [470-468 B.C.]]

The first known enterprise of the Athenians in their new
capacity,--whether the first absolutely or not, we cannot
determine,--between 476 B.C. and 466 B.C., was the conquest of the
important post of Eion, on the Strymon, where the Persian governor,
Boges, starved out after a desperate resistance, destroyed himself rather
than capitulate, together with his family and precious effects, as has
already been stated. The next events named are their enterprises against
the Dolopes and Pelasgi in the island of Scyros, seemingly about 470
B.C., and the Dryopes in the town and district of Carystus, in Eubœa.
To the latter, who were of a different kindred from the inhabitants
of Chalcis and Eretria, and received no aid from them, they granted a
capitulation: the former were more rigorously dealt with, and expelled
from their island. Scyros was barren, and had little to recommend it,
except a good maritime position and an excellent harbour; while its
inhabitants, seemingly akin to the Pelasgian residents in Lemnos, prior
to the Athenian occupation of that spot, were alike piratical and cruel.
Some Thessalian traders, recently plundered and imprisoned by them, had
raised a complaint against them before the Amphictyonic synod, which
condemned the island to make restitution: the mass of the islanders
threw the burden upon those who had committed the crime; and these men,
in order to evade payment, invoked Cimon with the Athenian armament who
conquered the island, expelled the inhabitants, and peopled it with
Athenian settlers.

Such clearance was a beneficial act, suitable to the new character of
Athens as guardian of the Ægean Sea against piracy: but it seems also
connected with Athenian plans. The island lay very convenient for the
communication with Lemnos, which the Athenians had doubtless reoccupied
after the expulsion of the Persians, and became, as well as Lemnos, a
recognised adjunct, or outlying portion, of Attica: moreover, there were
old legends which connected the Athenians with it, as the tomb of their
hero Theseus, whose name, as the mythical champion of democracy, was
in peculiar favour at the period immediately following the return from
Salamis. It was in the year 476 B.C., that the oracle had directed them
to bring home the bones of Theseus from Scyros, and to prepare for that
hero a splendid entombment and edifice in their new city: they had tried
to effect this, but the unsocial manners of the Dolopians had prevented a
search, and it was only after Cimon had taken the island that he found,
or pretended to find, the body. It was brought to Athens in the year
469 B.C., and after being welcomed by the people in solemn and joyous
procession, as if the hero himself had come back, was deposited in the
interior of the city; the monument called the Theseum, with its sacred
precinct being built on the spot, and invested with the privilege of a
sanctuary for men of poor condition who might feel ground for dreading
the oppressions of the powerful, as well as for slaves in case of
cruel usage. Such were the protective functions of the mythical hero
of democracy, whose installation is interesting as marking the growing
intensity of democratical feeling in Athens since the Persian War.


THE VICTORIES OF CIMON

[Sidenote: [468-465 B.C.]]

It was about two years or more after this incident, that the first breach
of union in the confederacy of Delos took place. The important island of
Naxos, the largest of the Cyclades,--an island which thirty years before
had boasted a large marine force and eight thousand hoplites,--revolted;
on what special ground we do not know: but probably the greater islands
fancied themselves better able to dispense with the protection of the
confederacy than the smaller--at the same time they were more jealous of
Athens. After a siege of unknown duration by Athens and the confederate
force, it was forced to surrender, and reduced to the condition of a
tributary subject; its armed ships being doubtless taken away, and its
fortifications razed: whether any fine or ulterior penalty was levied, we
have no information.

[Illustration: GREEK HELMET AND WEAPONS

(In the British Museum)]

Though we know no particulars respecting operations against Persia,
since the attack on Eion, such operations must have been going on; but
the expedition under Cimon, undertaken not long after the Naxian revolt,
was attended with memorable results. That commander, having under him
two hundred triremes from Athens, and one hundred from the various
confederates, was despatched to attack the Persians on the southwestern
and southern coast of Asia Minor. He attacked and drove out several of
their garrisons from various Grecian settlements, both in Caria and
Lycia: among others, the important trading city of Phaselis, though
at first resisting, and even standing a siege, was prevailed upon by
the friendly suggestions of the Chians in Cimon’s armament to pay a
contribution of ten talents and join in the expedition. From the length
of time occupied in these various undertakings, the Persian satraps had
been enabled to assemble a powerful force, both fleet and army, near
the mouth of the river Eurymedon, in Pamphylia, under the command of
Tithraustes and Pherendates, both of the regal blood. The fleet, chiefly
Phœnician, seems to have consisted of two hundred ships, but a further
reinforcement of eighty Phœnician ships was expected, and was actually
near at hand, and the commanders were unwilling to hazard a battle before
its arrival. Cimon, anxious for the same reason to hasten on the combat,
attacked them vigorously: partly from their inferiority of numbers,
partly from discouragement at the absence of the reinforcement, they seem
to have made no strenuous resistance. They were put to flight and driven
ashore, so speedily, and with so little loss to the Greeks, that Cimon
was enabled to disembark his men forthwith, and attack the land-force
which was drawn up on shore to protect them.

The battle on land was long and gallantly contested, but Cimon at length
gained a complete victory, dispersed the army with the capture of many
prisoners, and either took or destroyed the entire fleet. As soon as
his victory and his prisoners were secured, he sailed to Cyprus for the
purpose of intercepting the reinforcement of eighty Phœnician ships in
their way, and was fortunate enough to attack them while yet they were
ignorant of the victories of the Eurymedon. These ships too were all
destroyed, though most of the crews appear to have escaped ashore on the
island. Two great victories, one at sea and the other on land, gained
on the same day by the same armament, counted with reason among the
most glorious of all Grecian exploits, and were extolled as such in the
inscription on the commemorative offering to Apollo, set up out of the
tithe of the spoils. The number of prisoners, as well as the booty taken
by the victors, was immense.

A victory thus remarkable, which thrust back the Persians to the region
eastward of Phaselis, doubtless fortified materially the position
of the Athenian confederacy against them; but it tended not less to
exalt the reputation of Athens, and even to popularise her with the
confederates generally, from the large amount of plunder divisible among
them. Probably this increased power and popularity stood her in stead
throughout her approaching contest with Thasos, and at the same time it
explains the increasing fear and dislike of the Peloponnesians.[c]

Athens, become, within a very few years, from the capital of a small
province, in fact though not yet in avowed pretension, the head of an
empire, exhibited a new and singular phenomenon in politics, a sovereign
people; a people, not, as in many other Grecian democracies, sovereign
merely of that state which themselves, maintained by slaves, composed,
but supreme over other people in subordinate republics, acknowledging a
degree of subjection, yet claiming to be free. Under this extraordinary
political constitution philosophy and the arts were beginning to make
Athens their principal resort. Migrating from Egypt and the east, they
had long been fostered on the western coast of Asia. In Greece itself
they had owed some temporary encouragement principally to those called
tyrants; the Pisistratidæ at Athens, and Periander at Corinth. But their
efforts were desultory and comparatively feeble till the communication
with the Asian Greeks, checked and interrupted by their subjection to
Persia, was restored, and Athens, chief of the glorious confederacy by
whose arms the deliverance had been effected, began to draw everything
toward itself as a common centre, the capital of an empire. Already
science and fine taste were so far perfected that Æschylus had exhibited
tragedy in its utmost dignity, and Sophocles and Euripides were giving it
the highest polish, when Cimon returned in triumph to his country.


MITFORD’S VIEW OF THE PERIOD

It was the peculiar felicity of Athens in this period that, of the
constellation of great men which arose there, each was singularly fitted
for the situation in which the circumstances of the time required him
to act; and none filled his place more advantageously than Cimon. But
the fate of all those great men, and the resources employed, mostly in
vain, to avert it, sufficiently mark, in this splendid era, a defective
constitution, and law and justice ill assured. Aristides, we are told,
though it is not undisputed, had founded his security upon extreme
poverty: Cimon endeavoured to establish himself by a splendid, and almost
unbounded, yet politic liberality. To ward against envy, and to secure
his party with that tremendous tyrant, as the comic poet not inaptly
calls the sovereign people, he made a parade of throwing down the fences
of his gardens and orchards in the neighbourhood of Athens, and permitted
all to partake of their produce; a table was daily spread at his house
for the poorer citizens, but more particularly for those of his own ward,
whom he invited from the agora, the courts of justice, or the general
assembly; a bounty which both enabled and disposed them to give their
time at his call whenever his interest required their support. In going
about the city he was commonly attended by a large retinue, handsomely
clothed; and if he met an elderly citizen ill clad, he directed one of
his attendants to change cloaks with him. To the indigent of higher rank
he was equally attentive, lending or giving money, as he found their
circumstances required, and always managing his bounty with the utmost
care that the object of it should not be put to shame.[42]

His conduct, in short, was a continual preparation for an election; not,
as in England, to decide whether the candidate should or should not
be a member of the legislature; but whether he should be head of the
commonwealth or an exile.[43] In his youth he had affected a roughness of
manners, and a contempt for the elegances generally reckoned becoming his
rank, and which his fortune enabled him to command. In his riper years
he discovered that virtue and grossness have no natural connection: he
became himself a model of politeness, patronised every liberal art, and
studied to procure elegant as well as useful indulgences for the people.
By him were raised the first of those edifices which, for want of a more
proper name, we call porticos, under whose magnificent shelter, in their
torrid climate, it became the delight of the Athenians to assemble, and
pass their leisure in promiscuous conversation. The widely celebrated
groves of Academia acknowledged him as the founder of their fame. In the
wood, before rude and without water, he formed commodious and elegant
walks, and adorned them with running fountains. Nor was the planting of
the agora, or great market-place of Athens, with that beautiful tree,
the oriental plane, forgotten as a benefit from Cimon; while, ages after
him, his trees flourished, affording an agreeable and salutary shade to
those who exposed their wares there, and to those who came to purchase
them. Much, if not the whole of these things, we are given to understand,
was done at his private expense; but our information upon the subject
is inaccurate. Those stores, with which his victories had enriched the
treasury, probably furnished the sums employed upon some of the public
works executed under his direction, as, more especially, the completion
of the fortification of the citadel, whose principal defence hitherto, on
the southern side, had been the precipitous form of the rock.

While with this splendid and princely liberality Cimon endeavoured
to confirm his own interest, he was attentive to promote the general
welfare, and to render permanent the superiority of Athens among the
Grecian republics. The citizens of the allied states grew daily more
impatient of the requisitions regularly made to take their turn of
service on shipboard, and longed for uninterrupted enjoyment of their
homes, in that security against foreign enemies which their past labours
had, they thought, now sufficiently established. But that the common
interest still required the maintenance of a fleet was a proposition
that could not be denied, while the Persian empire existed, or while the
Grecian seas offered temptation for piracy. Cimon therefore proposed
that any commonwealth of the confederacy might compound for the personal
service of its citizens, by furnishing ships, and paying a sum of money
to the common treasury: the Athenians would then undertake the manning
of the fleet. The proposal was at the moment popular; most of the allies
acceded to it, unaware or heedless of the consequences; for, while they
were thus depriving themselves of all maritime force, making that of
Athens irresistible, they gave that ambitious republic claims upon them,
uncertain in their nature, and which, as they might be made, could now
also be enforced, at its pleasure.

[Sidenote: [465-463 B.C.]]

Having thus at the same time strengthened itself and reduced to impotence
many of the allied states, the Athenian government became less scrupulous
of using force against any of the rest which might dispute its sovereign
authority. The reduction of Eion, by the confederate arms under Cimon,
had led to new information of the value of the adjacent country; where
some mines of gold and silver, and a lucrative commerce with the
surrounding Thracian hordes, excited avidity. But the people of the
neighbouring island of Thasos, very anciently possessed of that commerce,
and of the more accessible mines, insisted that these, when recovered
from the common enemy by the arms of that confederacy of which they were
members, should revert entire to them. The Athenians, asserting the
right of conquest, on the contrary, claimed the principal share as their
own. The Thasians, irritated, renounced the confederacy. Cimon then was
commanded to lead the confederate armament against them. They venturing
an action at sea, were defeated; and Cimon, debarking his forces on the
island, became quickly master of everything but the principal town, to
which he laid siege. The Athenians then hastened to appropriate that
inviting territory on the continent, which was their principal object,
by sending thither a colony of no less than ten thousand men, partly
Athenian citizens, partly from the allied commonwealths.

The Thasians had not originally trusted in their own strength alone for
the hope of final success. Early in the dispute they had sent ministers
to Lacedæmon, soliciting protection against the oppression of Athens. The
pretence was certainly favourable, and the Lacedæmonian government, no
longer pressed by domestic troubles, determined to use the opportunity
for interfering to check the growing power of the rival commonwealth,
so long an object of jealousy, and now become truly formidable. Without
a fleet capable of contending with the Athenian, they could not send
succour immediately to Thasos: but they were taking measures secretly
for a diversion in its favour, by invading Attica, when a sudden and
extraordinary calamity, an earthquake which overthrew the city of
Sparta, and in its immediate consequences threatened destruction to the
commonwealth, compelled them to confine all their attention at home.
Nevertheless the siege, carried on with great vigour, and with all
the skill of the age under the direction of Cimon, was, during three
years, obstinately resisted. Even then the Thasians obtained terms,
severe indeed, but by which they obviated the miseries, death often for
themselves and slavery for their families, to which Grecian people, less
able to defend themselves, were frequently reduced by Grecian arms.
Their fortifications however were destroyed; their ships of war were
surrendered; they paid immediately a sum of money; they bound themselves
to an annual tribute; and they yielded all claim upon the opposite
continent, and the valuable mines there.

The sovereignty of the Athenian people over the allied republics would
thus gain some present confirmation; but in the principal object
their ambition and avarice were, apparently through over-greediness,
disappointed. The town of Eion stood at the mouth of the river Strymon.
For the new settlement a place called the Nine Ways, a few miles up the
river, was chosen; commodious for the double purpose of communicating
with the sea, and commanding the neighbouring country. But the Edonian
Thracians, in whose territory it was, resenting the encroachment,
infested the settlers with irregular but continual hostilities. To put
an end to so troublesome a war the whole force of the colony marched
against them. As the Greeks advanced, the Edonians retreated; avoiding a
general action, while they sent to all the neighbouring Thracian tribes
for assistance, as in a common cause. When they were at length assembled
in sufficient numbers, having engaged the Greeks far within a wild and
difficult country, they attacked, overpowered, and cut in pieces their
army, and annihilated the colony.

Cimon, on his return to Athens, did not meet the acclamations to which
he had been accustomed. Faction had been busy in his absence. Apparently
the fall of the colony of the Nine Ways furnished both instigation and
opportunity, perhaps assisted by circumstances of which no information
remains. A prosecution was instituted against him, on the pretence,
according to the biographers, that he ought to have extended the Athenian
dominion by conquest in Macedonia, and that bribes from Alexander,
king of that country, had stopped his exertions. The covetous ambition
indeed of the Athenian people, inflamed by interested demagogues, was
growing boundless. Cimon, indignant at the ungrateful return for a life
divided between performing the most important services to his country,
and studying how most to gratify the people, would enter little into
particulars in refuting a charge, one part of which he considered as
attributing to him no crime, the other as incapable of credit, and
therefore beneath his regard. He told the assembled people that “they
mistook both him and the country which it was said he ought to have
conquered. Other generals have cultivated an interest with the Ionians
and the Thessalians, whose riches might make an interference in their
concerns profitable. For himself, he had never sought any connection with
those people; but he confessed he esteemed the Macedonians, who were
virtuous and brave, but not rich; nor would he ever prefer riches to
those qualities, though he had his satisfaction in having enriched his
country with the spoils of its enemies.” The popularity of Cimon was yet
great; his principal opponents apparently found it not a time for pushing
matters to extremity against him, and such a defence sufficed to procure
an honourable acquittal.

[Sidenote: [464-462 B.C.]]

Meanwhile Lacedæmon had been in the utmost confusion and on the brink
of ruin. In the year 464 B.C. the earthquake came suddenly at mid-day,
with a violence before unheard of. The youths of the principal families,
assembled in the gymnasium at the appointed hour for exercise, were in
great numbers crushed by its fall: many of both sexes and of all ages
were buried under the ruins of other buildings: the shocks were repeated;
the earth opened in several places; vast fragments from the summits
of Taygetus were tumbled down its sides: in the end only five houses
remained standing in Sparta, and it was computed that twenty thousand
lives were lost.

The first strokes of this awful calamity filled all ranks with the same
apprehensions. But, in the continuance of it, that wretched multitude,
excluded from all participation in the prosperity of their country, began
to found hope on its distress: a proposal, obscurely made, was rapidly
communicated, and the helots assembled from various parts with one
purpose, of putting their severe masters to death, and making the country
their own. The ready foresight and prudent exertion of Archidamus, who
had succeeded his grandfather Leotychides in the throne of the house
of Procles, preserved Lacedæmon. In the confusion of the first alarm,
while some were endeavouring to save their most valuable effects from
the ruins of the city, others flying various ways for personal safety,
Archidamus, collecting what he could of his friends and attendants
about him, caused trumpets to sound to arms, as if an enemy were at
hand. The Lacedæmonians, universally trained to the strictest military
discipline, obeyed the signal; arms were the only necessaries sought; and
civil rule, dissipated by the magnitude of the calamity, was, for the
existing circumstances, most advantageously supplied by military order.
The helots, awed by the very unexpected appearance of a regular army
instead of a confused and flying multitude, desisted from their meditated
attempt; but, quitting the city, spread themselves over the country, and
excited their fellows universally to rebellion.

[Sidenote: [462 B.C.]]

The greater part of those miserable men, whom the Lacedæmonians held in
so cruel a bondage, were descendants of the Messenians, men of the same
blood with themselves, Greeks and Dorians. Memory of the wars of their
ancestors, of their hero Aristomenes, and of the defence of Ithome,
was not obsolete among them. Ithome accordingly they seized and made
their principal post; and they so outnumbered the Lacedæmonians that,
though deficiently armed, yet, being not without discipline acquired
in attendance upon their masters in war, they were capable of being
formidable even in the field. Nor was it thus only that the rebellion
was distressing.[44] The Lacedæmonians, singularly ready and able in the
use of arms, were singularly helpless in almost every other business.
Deprived of their slaves they were nearly deprived of the means of
subsistence; agriculture stopped, and mechanic arts ceased. Application
was therefore made to the neighbouring allies for succour. The zealous
friendship of the Æginetans upon the occasion we find afterwards
acknowledged by the Lacedæmonian government, and assistance came from as
far as Platæa. Thus re-enforced the spirited and well-directed exertions
of Archidamus quickly so far reduced the rebellion that the insurgents
remaining in arms were blockaded in Ithome. But the extraordinary natural
strength of that place, the desperate obstinacy of the defenders, and
the deficiency of the assailants in the science of attack, giving reason
to apprehend that the business might not be soon accomplished, the
Lacedæmonians sent to desire assistance from the Athenians, who were
esteemed, beyond the other Greeks, experienced and skilful in the war of
sieges.

This measure seems to have been on many accounts imprudent. There was
found at Athens a strong disposition to refuse the aid. But Cimon, who,
with a universal liberality, always professed particular esteem for the
Lacedæmonians, prevailed upon his countrymen to take the generous part;
and a considerable body of forces marched under his command into the
Peloponnesus. Upon their arrival at the camp of the besiegers an assault
upon the place was attempted, but with so little success that recourse
was again had to the old method of blockade. It was in the leisure of
that inactive and tedious mode of attack that principally arose those
heartburnings which first occasioned an avowed national aversion between
the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, and led, not indeed immediately, but
in a direct line, to the fatal Peloponnesian War. All the prudence and
all the authority of Cimon could not prevent the vivacious spirit of
the Athenians from exulting, perhaps rather insultingly, in the new
pre-eminence of their country; wherever danger called, they would be
ostentatiously forward to meet it; and an assumed superiority, without a
direct pretension to it, was continually appearing.

The Spartan pride was offended by their arrogance; the Spartan gravity
was disturbed by their lively forwardness: it began to be considered
that, though Greeks, they were Ionians, whom the Peloponnesians
considered as an alien race; and it occurred that if, in the continuance
of the siege, any disgust should arise, there was no security that they
might not renounce their present engagements, and even connect themselves
with the helots; who, as Greeks, had, not less than the Lacedæmonians,
a claim to friendship and protection from every other Grecian people.
Mistrust thus arose on one side; disgust became quickly manifest on
both; and the Lacedæmonians shortly resolved to dismiss the Athenian
forces. This however they endeavoured to do, as far as might be, without
offence, by declaring that an “assault having been found ineffectual,
the assistance of the Athenians was superfluous for the blockade, and
the Lacedæmonians would not give their allies unnecessary trouble.” All
the other allies were however retained, and the Athenians alone returned
home; so exasperated by this invidious distinction that, on their arrival
at Athens, the party adverse to Cimon proposing a decree for renouncing
the confederacy with Lacedæmon, it was carried. An alliance with Argos,
the inveterate enemy of Sparta, immediately followed; and soon after the
Thessalians acceded to the new confederacy.

While Lacedæmon was engaged with this dangerous insurrection, a petty
war arose in the Peloponnesus, affording one of the most remarkable,
among the many strong instances on record, of the miseries to which the
greater part of Greece was perpetually liable from the defects of its
political system. Argos, the capital of Argolis, and formerly of the
Peloponnesus under the early kings of the Danaan race, or perhaps before
them, lost its preeminence, as we have already seen, during the reigns
of the Persidæan and Pelopidæan princes, under whom Mycenæ became the
first city of Greece. On the return of the Heraclidæ, Temenus fixed
his residence at Argos, which thus regained its superiority. But, as
the oppressions, arising from a defective political system, occasioned
very generally through Greece the desire, so the troubles of the Argive
government gave the means for the inferior towns to become independent
republics. Like the rest, or perhaps more than the rest, generally
oppressive, that government was certainly often ill-conducted and weak;
and Lacedæmon, its perpetual enemy, fomented the rebellious disposition
of its dependencies. During the ancient wars of Sparta and Messenia, the
Argives had expelled the people of their towns of Asine and Nauplia,
and forced them to seek foreign settlements; a resource sufficiently
marking a government both weak and oppressive. Mycenæ was now a much
smaller town than Argos; but its people, encouraged by Lacedæmon, formed
lofty pretensions. The far-famed temple of Juno, the tutelar deity of
the country, situated about five miles from Argos, and little more than
one from Mycenæ, was considered by the Argives as theirs; and, from the
time, it was supposed, of the Heraclidæ, the priestess had been appointed
and the sacred ceremonies administered under the protection of their
government. Nevertheless the Mycenæans now claimed the right to this
superintendency. The games of Nemea, from their institution, or, as
it was called, their restoration, had been under the direction of the
Argives; but the Mycenæan government claimed also the prior right to
preside there. These however were but branches of a much more important
claim; for they wanted only power, or sufficient assistance from Sparta,
to assert a right of sovereignty over Argos itself and all Argolis; and
they were continually urging another pretension, not the less invidious
to Argos because better founded, a pretension to merit with all the
Greek nation for having joined the confederacy against Persia, while
the Argives allied themselves with the common enemy of Greece. The
favourable opportunity afforded by the helot rebellion was eagerly seized
by the Argives for ridding themselves of such troublesome and dangerous
neighbours, whom they considered as rebellious subjects. Laying siege to
Mycenæ they took the place, reduced the surviving people to slavery, and
dedicating a tenth of the spoil to the gods destroyed the town, which was
never rebuilt.

At Athens, after the banishment of Themistocles, Cimon remained long
in possession of a popularity which nothing could resist; and his
abilities, his successes, and his moderation, his connection with
the aristocratical interest, and his favour with the people, seemed
altogether likely to insure, if anything could insure, permanency and
quiet to his administration. But in Athens, as in every free government,
there would always be a party adverse to the party in the direction of
public affairs: matters had been for some time ripening for a change;
and the renunciation of the Lacedæmonian alliance was the triumph of the
opposition.[d]


FOOTNOTES

[42] Plutarch says that “Cimon’s house was a kind of common hall for
all the people; the first fruits of his lands were theirs; whatever
the seasons produced of excellent and agreeable, they freely gathered;
nor were strangers in the least debarred from them: so that he in some
measure revived the community of goods, which prevailed in the reign of
Saturn, and which the poets tell so much of.”

[43] Gorgias the Leontine gave him this character: “He got riches to use
them, and used them so as to be honoured on their account.”

[44] [This war has been called the Third Messenian War.]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF ERECHTHEUS]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXIV. THE RISE OF PERICLES

    This was the ruler of the land
      When Athens was the land of fame:
    This was the light that led the band
      When earth was like a living flame;
    The centre of earth’s noblest ring--
    Of more than men the more than king.

                                        --GEORGE CROLY.


Cimon was beyond dispute the ablest and most successful general of his
day: and his victories had shed a lustre on the arms of Athens, which
almost dimmed the glories of Marathon and Salamis. But while he was
gaining renown abroad, he had rivals at home, who were endeavouring
to supplant him in the affections of the people, and to establish a
system of domestic and foreign policy directly counter to his views,
and were preparing contests for him in which his military talents would
be of little avail. While Themistocles and Aristides were occupying the
political stage, an extraordinary genius had been ripening in obscurity,
and was only waiting for a favourable juncture to issue from the shade
into the broad day of public life. Xanthippus, the conqueror of Mycale,
had married Agariste, a descendant of the famous Clisthenes, and had left
two sons, Ariphron and Pericles. Of Ariphron little is known beside his
name: but Pericles, to an observing eye, gave early indications of a mind
formed for great things, and a will earnestly bent on them.

In his youth he had not rested satisfied with the ordinary Greek
education, but had applied himself, with an ardour which was not even
abated by the lapse of years, nor stifled by his public avocations, to
intellectual pursuits, which were then new at Athens, and confined to a
very narrow circle of inquisitive spirits. His birth and fortune afforded
him the means of familiar intercourse with all the men most eminent in
every kind of knowledge and art, who were already beginning to resort to
Athens as a common seat of learning. Thus, though Pythoclides taught him
to touch the cithara, he sought the elements of a higher kind of music
in the lessons of Damon, who was believed to have contributed mainly to
train him for his political career: himself no ordinary person; for he
was held up by the comic poets to public jealousy, as a secret favourer
of tyranny, and was driven from Athens by the process of ostracism. But
Pericles also entered with avidity into the abstrusest philosophical
speculations, and even took pleasure in the arid subtleties of the
Eleatic school, or at least in the ingenuity and the dialectic art with
which they were unfolded to him by Zeno. But his principal guide in such
researches, and the man who appears to have exercised the most powerful
and durable influence on his mind and character, was the philosopher
Anaxagoras, with whom he was long united in intimate friendship. Not only
his public and private deportment, and his habits of thought, but the
tone and style of his eloquence were believed to have been formed by his
intercourse with Anaxagoras. It was commonly supposed that this effect
was produced by the philosopher’s physical speculations, which, elevating
his disciple above the ignorant superstition of the vulgar, had imparted
to him the serene condescension and dignified language of a superior
being. But we should be loth to believe that it was the possession
of such physical secrets as Anaxagoras was able to communicate, that
inspired Pericles with his lofty conceptions, or that he was intoxicated
with the little taste of science which had weaned him from a few popular
prejudices. We should rather ascribe so deep an impression to the
distinguishing tenet of the Anaxagorean system, by which the philosopher
himself was supposed to have acquired the title of Mind.

It was undoubtedly not for the mere amusement of his leisure that
Pericles had enriched his mind with so many rare acquirements. All
of them were probably considered by him as instruments for the use
of the statesman: and even those which seemed most remote from all
practical purposes, may have contributed to the cultivation of that
natural eloquence, to which he owed so much of his influence. He left no
specimens of his oratory behind him, and we can only estimate it, like
many other fruits of Greek genius, by the effect it produced. The few
minute fragments preserved by Plutarch, which were recorded by earlier
authors because they had sunk deep in the mind of his hearers, seem to
indicate that he loved to concentrate his thoughts in a bold and vivid
image: as when he called Ægina the eyesore of Piræus, and said that he
descried war lowering from the Peloponnesus. But though signally gifted
and accomplished for political action, it was not without much hesitation
and apprehension that he entered on a field, where he saw ample room
indeed for the display of his powers, but also many enemies and great
dangers. The very superiority of which he could not but be conscious,
suggested a motive for alarm, as it might easily excite suspicion in the
people of views adverse to their freedom: and these fears were heightened
by some circumstances, trifling in themselves, but capable of awakening
or confirming a popular prejudice.

His personal appearance was graceful and majestic, notwithstanding
a remarkable disproportion in the length of his head, which became
a subject of inexhaustible pleasantry for the comic poets of this
day: but the old men who remembered Pisistratus, were struck by the
resemblance which they discovered between the tyrant and the young heir
of the Alemæonids, and not only in their features, but in the sweetness
of voice, and the volubility of utterance, with which both expressed
themselves. Still, after the ostracism of Themistocles, and the death of
Aristides, while Cimon was engaged in continual expeditions, Pericles
began to present himself more and more to the public eye, and was soon
the acknowledged chief of a powerful party, which openly aimed at
counteracting Cimon’s influence, and introducing opposite maxims into the
public counsels.

To some of the ancients indeed it appeared that the course of policy
adopted by Pericles was entirely determined by the spirit of emulation,
which induced him to take a different ground from that which he found
already occupied by Cimon: and that, as Cimon was at the head of the
aristocratical party which had been represented by Aristides, he
therefore placed himself in the front of that which had been led by
Themistocles. The difference between these parties, after the revolution
by which the ancestor of Pericles had undermined the power of the old
aristocracy, was for some time very faintly marked, and we have seen
that Aristides himself was the author of a very democratical measure,
which threw the first officers of the state open to all classes of the
citizens. The aristocracy had no hope of recovering what it had lost;
but, as the commonalty grew more enterprising, it became also more
intent on keeping all that it had retained, and on stopping all further
innovation at home. Abroad too, though it was no longer a question,
whether Athens should continue to be a great maritime power, or should
reduce her navy to the footing of the old _naucraries_, and though Cimon
himself had actively pursued the policy of Themistocles, there was room
for great difference of opinion as to the course which was to be followed
in her foreign relations. The aristocratical party wished, for their
own sake at least as much as for that of peace and justice, to preserve
the balance of power as steady as possible in Greece, and directed the
Athenian arms against the Persian empire with the greater energy, in the
hope of diverting them from intestine warfare. The democratical party had
other interests, and concurred only with that part of these views which
tended towards enriching and aggrandising the state.

It is difficult wholly to clear Pericles from the charge of having been
swayed by personal motives in the choice of his political system, as it
would be to establish it. But even if it were certain that his decision
was not the result of conviction, it might as fairly be attributed to
a hereditary prepossession in favour of the principles for which his
ancestors had contended, and which had probably been transmitted in his
family, as to his competition with Cimon, or to his fear of incurring
the suspicion that he aimed at a tyranny, or unconstitutional power;
a suspicion to which he was much more exposed in the station which
he actually filled. But if his personal character might seem better
adapted to an aristocratical than to a democratical party, it must also
render us unwilling to believe, that he devoted himself to the cause
of the commonalty merely that he might make it the instrument of his
own ambition. There seems to be much better ground for supposing that
he deliberately preferred the system which he adopted, as the most
consistent, if not alone reconcilable, with the prosperity and safety
of Athens: though his own agency in directing and controlling it might
be a prominent object in all his views. But he might well think that
the people had gone too far to remain stationary, even if there was any
reason why it should not seize the good which lay within its reach. Its
greatness had risen with the growth of the commonalty, and, it might
appear to him, could only be maintained and extended by the same means:
at home by a decided ascendency of the popular interest over that of the
old aristocracy, and every other class in the state; abroad by an equally
decided supremacy over the rest of Greece.

The contest between the parties seems for some time to have been carried
on, without much violence or animosity, and rather with a noble emulation
in the service of the public, than with assaults on one another. Cimon
had enriched his country with the spoil and ransom of the Persians; and
he had also greatly increased his private fortune. His disposition was
naturally inclined to liberality, and he made a munificent use of his
wealth.

The state of things had undergone a great change at Athens in favour of
the poorer class, since Solon had been obliged to interpose, to protect
them from the rigour of creditors, who first impoverished, and then
enslaved them. Since this time the aristocracy had found it expedient to
court the commonalty which it could no longer oppress, and to part with a
portion of its wealth for the sake of retaining its power. There were of
course then, as at all times, benevolent individuals, who only consulted
the dictates of a generous nature: but the contrast between the practice
which prevailed before and after the age of Solon, seems clearly to mark
the spurious origin of the ordinary beneficence. Yet Isocrates, when he
extols the bounty of the good old times, which prevented the pressure of
poverty from being ever felt, speaks of land granted at low rents, sums
of money advanced at low interest, and asserts that none of the citizens
were then in such indigence, as to depend on casual relief. Cimon’s
munificence therefore must have been remarkable, not only in its degree,
but in its kind: and was not the less that of a demagogue, because he
sought popularity, not merely for his own sake, but for that of his order
and his party.

Such was the light in which it was viewed by Pericles; and some of the
measures which most strongly marked his administration were adopted to
counteract its effects. He was not able to rival Cimon’s profusion, and
he even husbanded his private fortune with rigid economy, that he might
keep his probity in the management of public affairs free both from
temptation and suspicion. His friend Demonides is said first to have
suggested the thought of throwing Cimon’s liberality into the shade,
and rendering it superfluous, by proposing a similar application of the
public revenue. Pericles perhaps deemed it safer and more becoming, that
the people should supply the poorer citizens with the means of enjoyment
out of its own funds, than that they should depend on the bounty of
opulent individuals. He might think that the generation which had raised
their country to such a pitch of greatness, was entitled to reap the
fruits of the sacrifice which their fathers had made, in resigning the
produce of the mines of Laurium to the use of the state.

Very early therefore he signalised his appearance in the assembly by
becoming the author of a series of measures, all tending to provide for
the subsistence and gratification of the poorer class at the public
expense. But we must here observe, that, while he was courting the favour
of the multitude by these arts, he was no less studious to command its
respect. From his first entrance into public life, he devoted himself
with unremitting application to business; he was never to be seen out
of doors, but on the way between his house and the seat of council:
and, as if by way of contrast to Cimon’s convivial tastes, declined all
invitations to the entertainments of his acquaintance--once only during
the whole period he broke through this rule, to honour the wedding of
his relative Euryptolemus with his presence--and confined himself to
the society of a very select circle of intimate friends. He bestowed
the most assiduous attention on the preparation of his speeches, and so
little disguised it, that he used to say he never mounted the _bema_,
without praying that no inappropriate word might drop from his lips. The
impression thus produced was heightened by the calm majesty of his air
and carriage, and by the philosophical composure which he maintained
under all provocations.[45] And he was so careful to avoid the effect
which familiarity might have on the people, that he was sparing even
in his attendance at the assembly, and, reserving his own appearance
for great occasions, carried many of his measures through the agency
of his friends and partisans. Among them the person whose name is
most frequently associated with that of Pericles was Ephialtes, son of
Sophonides, a person not much less conspicuous for his rigid integrity
than Aristides himself, and who seems to have entered into the views of
Pericles with disinterested earnestness, and fearlessly to have borne the
brunt of the conflict with the opposite party.

Immediately after the conquest of Thasos an occasion occurred for the
two parties to measure their strength. As has been described, Cimon had
received instructions, before he brought home his victorious armament,
to attempt some further conquest on the mainland between the newly
conquered district and Macedonia. Plutarch says, that he was expected
to have invaded Macedonia, and to have added a large tract of it to the
dominions of Athens. Yet it does not clearly appear how the conquest
of Thasos afforded an opportunity of effecting this with greater ease:
nor is any motive suggested for such an attack on the territories of
Alexander. We might hence be inclined to suspect, that the expedition
which Cimon had neglected to undertake, though called for by the people’s
wishes, if not by their express orders, was to have been directed, not
against Macedonia, but against the Thracian tribes on its frontier,
who had so lately cut off their colonists on the Strymon: a blow which
the Athenians were naturally impatient to avenge, but which the king
of Macedonia might well be supposed to have witnessed without regret,
even if he did not instigate those who inflicted it. However this may
be, Cimon’s forbearance disappointed and irritated the people, and his
adversaries inflamed the popular indignation by ascribing his conduct
to the influence of Macedonian gold. This part of the charge at least
was undoubtedly groundless; and Pericles, though appointed by the people
one of Cimon’s accusers, when he was brought to trial for treason,
seems to have entered into the prosecution with reluctance. The danger
however was great, and Elpinice came to the house of Pericles to plead
with him for her brother. Pericles, playfully, though it would seem not
quite so delicately as our manners would require, reminded her that she
was past the age at which female intercession is most powerful; but
in effect he granted her request; for he kept back the thunder of his
eloquence, and only rose once, for form’s sake, to second the accusation.
Plutarch says that Cimon was acquitted; and there seems to be no reason
for doubting the fact, except a suspicion, that this was the trial to
which Demosthenes alludes, when he says that Cimon narrowly escaped with
his life, and was condemned to a penalty of fifty talents: a singular
repetition of his father’s destiny.


THE AREOPAGUS

This however was only a prelude to a more momentous struggle, which
involved the principles of the parties, and excited much stronger
feelings of mutual resentment. It appears to have been about this time
that Pericles resolved on attacking the aristocracy in its ancient and
revered stronghold, the Areopagus. We have seen that this body, at once
a council and a court of justice, was composed, according to Solon’s
regulation, of the ex-archons. Its character was little altered after the
archonship was filled by lot, so long as it was open to none but citizens
of the wealthiest class. But, by the innovation introduced by Aristides,
the poorest Athenian might gain admission to the Areopagus. Still the
change which this measure produced in its composition was probably for a
long time scarcely perceptible, and attended with no effect on its maxims
and proceedings. When Pericles made his attack on it, it was perhaps
as much as ever an aristocratical assembly. The greater part of the
members had come in under the old system, and most of those who followed
them probably belonged to the same class; for though in the eye of the
law the archonship had become open to all, it is not likely that many
of a lower station would immediately present themselves to take their
chance. But even if any such were successful, they could exert but little
influence on the general character of the council, which would act much
more powerfully on them. The poor man who took his seat among a number
of persons of superior rank, fortune, and education, would generally be
eager to adopt the tone and conform to the wishes of his colleagues;
and hence the prevailing spirit might continue for many generations
unaltered. This may be the main point which Isocrates had in view, when
he observed that the worst men, as soon as they entered the Areopagus,
seemed to change their nature. Pericles therefore had reason to consider
it as a formidable obstacle to his plans. He did not however attempt,
or perhaps desire, to abolish an institution so hallowed by tradition;
but he aimed at narrowing the range of its functions, so as to leave it
little more than an august name. Ephialtes was his principal coadjutor in
this undertaking, and by the prominent part which he took in it exposed
himself to the implacable enmity of the opposite party, which appears to
have set all its engines in motion to ward off the blow.

It is not certain whether this struggle had begun, or was only impending,
at the time of the embassy which came from Sparta to request the aid
of the Athenians against Ithome. But the two parties were no less at
variance on this subject than on the other. The aristocratical party
considered Sparta as its natural ally, and did not wish to see Athens
without a rival in Greece. Cimon was personally attached to Sparta,
possessed the confidence of the Spartans, and took every opportunity of
expressing the warmest admiration for their character and institutions;
and, to mark his respect for them, gave one of his sons the name of
Lacedæmonius. He himself was in some degree indebted to their patronage
for his political elevation, and had requited their favour by joining
with them in the persecution of Themistocles. When therefore Ephialtes
dissuaded the people from granting the request of the Spartans, and
exclaimed against the folly of raising a fallen antagonist, Cimon
urged them “not to permit Greece to be lamed, and Athens to lose her
yoke-fellow.” This advice prevailed, and Cimon was sent with a large
force to assist the Spartans at the siege of Ithome.

The first effect produced by the affront Sparta later gave to Athens,
was, as we have seen, a resolution to break off all connection with
Sparta, and, to make the rupture more glaring, they had entered into an
alliance with Sparta’s old rival, Argos.

This turn of events was extremely agreeable to the democratical party at
Athens, not only in itself, on account of the assistance which they might
hope to receive from Argos, but because it immediately afforded them a
great advantage in their conflict with their domestic adversaries, and
in particular furnished them with new arms against Cimon. He instantly
became obnoxious, both as the avowed friend of Sparta, and as the
author and leader of the expedition which had drawn so rude an insult
on his countrymen. The attack on the authority of the Areopagus was now
prosecuted with greater vigour, and Cimon had little influence left
to exert in its behalf. Yet his party seems not by any means to have
remained passive, but to have put forth all its strength in a last effort
to save its citadel: and it was supported by an auxiliary which had in
its possession some very powerful engines to wield in its defence.

[Sidenote: [525-456 B.C.]]

This was the poet Æschylus, who was attached to it by his character
and his early associations. Himself a Eupatrid, perhaps connected with
the priestly families of Eleusis, his deme, if not his birth-place,
he gloried in the laurels which he had won at Marathon, above all the
honours earned by his sword and by his pen, though he had also fought at
Salamis, and had founded a new era of dramatic poetry. He was an admirer
of Aristides, whose character he had painted in one of his tragedies,
under the name of an ancient hero, with a truth which was immediately
recognised by the audience.

[Illustration: ÆSCHYLUS]

The contest with Persia, which was the subject of one of his great
works, probably appeared to him the legitimate object for the energies
of Greece. Beside this general disposition to side with Cimon’s party,
against Pericles, the whole train of his poetical and religious feelings
was nourished by a study of the mythical and religious traditions of
Greek antiquity. In his tragedy, entitled the _Eumenides_, he exhibits
the mythical origin of the court and council of Areopagus, in the form
which best suited his purpose, tracing it to the cause first pleaded
there between the Argive matricide Orestes, who pledges his country to
eternal alliance with Athens, and the “dread goddesses,” who sought
vengeance for the blood which he had shed. The poet brings these terrible
beings on the stage, as well as the tutelary goddess of the city, who
herself institutes the tribunal, “to last throughout all ages,” and
exhorts her people to preserve it as the glory and safeguard of the city;
and the spectators are led to consider the continuance of the blessings
which the pacified avengers promise to the land, as depending on the
permanence of the institution which had succeeded to their function.[b]

Owing to a misunderstanding as to the date of this tragedy, it was long
believed that Æschylus wrote it in reproof of Pericles for diminishing
the power of the Areopagus. When it became certain that the play was not
produced till 458, a new light was thrown on the affair, showing Æschylus
as a defender of the merely judicial function of the Areopagus, for
Pericles and Ephialtes left the Areopagus its judicial dignity and merely
removed its political weight, as will be more fully shown in a later
chapter. Æschylus therefore appears as one in no sense protesting, but
rather as showing the true origin and strictly judicial function of the
Areopagus, and approving Ephialtes who carried the day and reduced its
pretensions.[a]


CIMON EXILED

[Sidenote: [461-460 _B.C._]]

This triumph of Pericles and his party over the Areopagus seems to have
been immediately followed by the ostracism of Cimon, which took place
about two years after the return of the Athenians from Messenia: and it
is therefore not improbable that his exile may have been not so much an
effect of popular resentment, as a measure of precaution, which may have
appeared necessary even to the moderate men of both parties, for the
establishment of public tranquillity.[b]

The new character which Athens had assumed, as a competitor for landed
alliances not less than for maritime ascendency, came opportunely for the
protection of the neighbouring town of Megara. It appears that Corinth,
perhaps instigated like Argos by the helplessness of the Lacedæmonians,
had been making border encroachments--on the one side upon Cleonæ, on the
other side upon Megara: on which ground the latter, probably despairing
of protection from Lacedæmon, renounced the Lacedæmonian connection, and
obtained permission to enrol herself as an ally of Athens. This was an
acquisition of signal value to the Athenians, since it both opened to
them the whole range of territory across the outer Isthmus of Corinth
to the interior of the Crissæan gulf, on which the Megarian port of
Pegæ was situated, and placed them in possession of the passes of Mount
Geranea, so that they could arrest the march of a Peloponnesian army
over the isthmus, and protect Attica from invasion. It was moreover of
great importance in its effects on Grecian politics: for it was counted
as a wrong by Lacedæmon, gave deadly offence to the Corinthians, and
lighted up the flames of war between them and Athens; their allies the
Epidaurians and Æginetans taking their part. Though Athens had not yet
been guilty of unjust encroachment against any Peloponnesian state, her
ambition and energy had inspired universal awe; while the maritime states
in the neighbourhood, such as Corinth, Epidaurus, and Ægina, saw these
terror-striking qualities threatening them at their own doors, through
her alliance with Argos and Megara. Moreover, it is probable that the
ancient feud between the Athenians and Æginetans, though dormant since a
little before the Persian invasion, had never been appeased or forgotten:
so that the Æginetans, dwelling within sight of Piræus, were at once best
able to appreciate, and most likely to dread, the enormous maritime power
now possessed by Athens. Pericles was wont to call Ægina the eyesore of
Piræus: but we may be sure that Piræus, grown into a vast fortified port
within the existing generation, was in a much stronger degree the eyesore
of Ægina.

The Athenians were at this time actively engaged in prosecuting the war
against Persia, having a fleet of no less than two hundred sail, equipped
by or from the confederacy collectively, now serving in Cyprus and on
the Phœnician coast. Moreover the revolt of the Egyptians under Inarus
(about 460 B.C.) opened to them new means of action against the Great
King. Their fleet, by invitation of the rebels, sailed up the Nile to
Memphis, where there seemed at first a good prospect of throwing off the
Persian dominion. Yet in spite of so great an abstraction from their
disposable force, their military operations near home were conducted with
unabated vigour: and the inscription which remains--a commemoration of
their citizens of the Erechthid tribe who were slain in one and the same
year in Cyprus, Egypt, Phœnicia, the Halieis, Ægina, and Megara--brings
forcibly before us that remarkable energy which astonished and even
alarmed their contemporaries.

[Sidenote: [460-458 B.C.]]

Their first proceedings at Megara were of a nature altogether novel, in
the existing condition of Greece. It was necessary for the Athenians
to protect their new ally against the superiority of the Peloponnesian
land-force, and to insure a constant communication with it by sea. But
the city (like most of the ancient Hellenic towns) was situated on a hill
at some distance from the sea, separated from its port Nisæa by a space
of nearly one mile. One of the earliest proceedings of the Athenians was
to build two lines of wall, near and parallel to each other, connecting
the city with Nisæa; so that the two thus formed one continuous fortress,
wherein a standing Athenian garrison was maintained, with the constant
means of succour from Athens in case of need. These “Long Walls,” though
afterwards copied in other places and on a larger scale, were at that
juncture an ingenious invention, and were erected for the purpose of
extending the maritime arm of Athens to an inland city.


THE WAR WITH CORINTH

The first operations of Corinth however were not directed against Megara.
The Athenians, having undertaken a landing in the territory of the
Halieis (the population of the southern Argolic peninsula, bordering
on Trœzen and Hermione), were defeated on land by the Corinthian and
Epidaurian forces: possibly it may have been in this expedition that
they acquired possession of Trœzen, which we find afterwards in their
dependance, without knowing when it became so. But in a sea-fight which
took place off the island of Cecryphaleia (between Ægina and the Argolic
peninsula) the Athenians gained the victory. After this victory and
defeat--neither of them apparently very decisive--the Æginetans began to
take a more energetic part in the war, and brought out their full naval
force together with that of their allies--Corinthians, Epidaurians, and
other Peloponnesians: while Athens equipped a fleet of corresponding
magnitude, summoning her allies also; though we do not know the actual
numbers on either side.

In the great naval battle which ensued off the island of Ægina, the
superiority of the new nautical tactics acquired by twenty years’
practice of the Athenians since the Persian War--over the old Hellenic
ships and seamen, as shown in those states where at the time of the
battle of Marathon the maritime strength of Greece had resided--was
demonstrated by a victory most complete and decisive. The Peloponnesian
and Dorian seamen had as yet had no experience of the improved seacraft
of Athens, and when we find how much they were disconcerted with it even
twenty-eight years afterwards at the beginning of the Peloponnesian
War, we shall not wonder at its destructive effect upon them in this
early battle. The maritime power of Ægina was irrecoverably ruined. The
Athenians captured seventy ships of war, landed a large force upon the
island, and commenced the siege of the city by land as well as by sea.

If the Lacedæmonians had not been occupied at home by the blockade of
Ithome, they would have been probably induced to invade Attica as a
diversion to the Æginetans; especially as the Persian Megabazus came
to Sparta at this time on the part of Artaxerxes to prevail upon them
to do so, in order that the Athenians might be constrained to retire
from Egypt. This Persian brought with him a large sum of money, but
was nevertheless obliged to return without effecting his mission. The
Corinthians and Epidaurians, however, while they carried to Ægina a
reinforcement of three hundred hoplites, did their best to aid her
further by an attack upon Megara; which place, it was supposed, the
Athenians could not possibly relieve without withdrawing their forces
from Ægina, inasmuch as so many of their men were at the same time
serving in Egypt. But the Athenians showed themselves equal to all these
three exigencies at one and the same time--to the great disappointment of
their enemies. Myronides marched from Athens to Megara at the head of the
citizens in the two extremes of military age, old and young; these being
the only troops at home. He fought the Corinthians near the town, gaining
a slight, but debatable advantage, which he commemorated by a trophy,
as soon as the Corinthians had returned home. But the latter, when they
arrived at home, were so much reproached by their own old citizens, for
not having vanquished the refuse of the Athenian military force, that
they returned back at the end of twelve days and erected a trophy on
their side, laying claim to a victory in the past battle. The Athenians,
marching out of Megara, attacked them a second time, and gained on this
occasion a decisive victory. The defeated Corinthians were still more
unfortunate in their retreat; for a body of them, missing their road,
became entangled in a space of private ground enclosed on every side by
a deep ditch and having only one narrow entrance. Myronides, detecting
this fatal mistake, planted his hoplites at the entrance to prevent their
escape, and then surrounded the enclosure with his light-armed troops,
who with their missile weapons slew all the Corinthian hoplites, without
possibility either of flight or resistance. The bulk of the Corinthian
army effected their retreat, but the destruction of this detachment was a
sad blow to the city.


THE LONG WALLS

[Sidenote: [458 B.C.]]

Splendid as the success of the Athenians had been during this year, both
on land and at sea, it was easy for them to foresee that the power of
their enemies would presently be augmented by the Lacedæmonians taking
the field. Partly on this account--partly also from the more energetic
phase of democracy, and the long-sighted views of Pericles, which were
now becoming ascendant in the city--the Athenians began the stupendous
undertaking of connecting Athens with the sea by means of long walls. The
idea of this measure had doubtless been first suggested by the recent
erection of long walls, though for so much smaller a distance, between
Megara and Nisæa: for without such an intermediate stepping-stone, the
project of a wall forty stadia (about 4½ English miles) to join Athens
with Piræus, and another wall of thirty-five stadia (nearly 4 English
miles) to join it with Phalerum, would have appeared extravagant even
to the sanguine temper of Athenians--as it certainly would have seemed
a few years earlier to Themistocles himself. Coming as an immediate
sequel of great recent victories, and while Ægina, the great Dorian naval
power, was prostrate and under blockade, it excited the utmost alarm
among the Peloponnesians--being regarded as the second great stride, at
once conspicuous and of lasting effect, in Athenian ambition, next to
the fortification of Piræus. But besides this feeling in the bosom of
enemies, the measure was also interwoven with the formidable contention
of political parties then going on at Athens. Cimon had been recently
ostracised; and the democratical movement pressed by Pericles and
Ephialtes (of which more presently) was in its full tide of success; yet
not without a violent and unprincipled opposition on the part of those
who supported the existing constitution.

Now the Long Walls formed a part of the foreign policy of Pericles,
continuing on a gigantic scale the plans of Themistocles when he first
schemed the Piræus. They were framed to render Athens capable of
carrying on war against any superiority of land attack, and of bidding
defiance to the united force of Peloponnesus. But though thus calculated
for contingencies which a long-sighted man might see gathering in the
distance, the new walls were, almost on the same grounds, obnoxious to a
considerable number of Athenians: to the party recently headed by Cimon,
which was attached to the Lacedæmonian connection, and desired above all
things to maintain peace at home, reserving the energies of the state
for anti-Persian enterprise: to many landed proprietors in Attica, whom
they seemed to threaten with approaching invasion and destruction of
their territorial possessions: to the rich men and aristocrats of Athens,
averse to a still closer contact and amalgamation with the maritime
multitude in Piræus: lastly, perhaps, to a certain vein of old Attic
feeling, which might look upon the junction of Athens with the separate
demes of Piræus and Phalerum as effacing the special associations
connected with the holy rock of Athene. When to all these grounds of
opposition we add the expense and trouble of the undertaking itself,
the interference with private property, the peculiar violence of party
which happened then to be raging, and the absence of a large proportion
of military citizens in Egypt, we shall hardly be surprised to find that
the projected long walls brought on a risk of the most serious character
both for Athens and her democracy. If any further proof were wanting of
the vast importance of these long walls, in the eyes both of friends and
of enemies, we might find it in the fact that their destruction was the
prominent mark of Athenian humiliation after the battle of Ægospotami,
and their restoration the immediate boon of Pharnabazus and Conon after
the victory of Cnidus.

[Sidenote: [457 B.C.]]

Under the influence of the alarm now spread by the proceedings of Athens,
the Lacedæmonians were prevailed upon to undertake an expedition out
of Peloponnesus, although the helots in Ithome were not yet reduced to
surrender. Their force consisted of fifteen hundred troops of their own,
and ten thousand of their various allies, under the regent Nicomedes. The
ostensible motive, or the pretence, for this march, was the protection
of the little territory of Doris against the Phocians, who had recently
invaded it and taken one of its three towns. The mere approach of so
large a force immediately compelled the Phocians to relinquish their
conquest, but it was soon seen that this was only a small part of
the objects of Sparta, and that her main purpose, under instigation
of the Corinthians, was, to arrest the aggrandisement of Athens. It
could not escape the penetration of Corinth, that the Athenians might
presently either enlist or constrain the towns of Bœotia into their
alliance, as they had recently acquired Megara, in addition to their
previous ally Platæa: for the Bœotian federation was at this time much
disorganised, and Thebes, its chief, had never recovered her ascendency
since the discredit of her support lent to the Persian invasion. To
strengthen Thebes and to render her ascendency effective over the
Bœotian cities, was the best way of providing a neighbour at once
powerful and hostile to the Athenians, so as to prevent their further
aggrandisement by land: it was the same policy as Epaminondas pursued
eighty years afterwards, in organising Arcadia and Messene against
Sparta. Accordingly the Peloponnesian force was now employed partly in
enlarging and strengthening the fortifications of Thebes herself, partly
in constraining the other Bœotian cities into effective obedience to
her supremacy; probably by placing their governments in the hands of
citizens of known oligarchical politics, and perhaps banishing suspected
opponents. To this scheme the Thebans lent themselves with earnestness;
promising to keep down for the future their border neighbours, so as to
spare the necessity of armies coming from Sparta.

But there was also a further design, yet more important, in contemplation
by the Spartans and Corinthians. The oligarchical opposition at Athens
was so bitterly hostile to the Long Walls, to Pericles, and to the
democratical movement, that several of them opened a secret negotiation
with the Peloponnesian leaders; inviting them into Attica, and entreating
their aid in an internal rising for the purpose not only of putting
a stop to the Long Walls, but also of subverting the democracy. The
Peloponnesian army, while prosecuting its operations in Bœotia, waited
in hopes of seeing the Athenian malcontents in arms, encamping at
Tanagra on the very borders of Attica for the purpose of immediate
co-operation with them. The juncture was undoubtedly one of much hazard
for Athens, especially as the ostracised Cimon and his remaining friends
in the city were suspected of being implicated in the conspiracy. But
the Athenian leaders, aware of the Lacedæmonian operations in Bœotia,
knew also what was meant by the presence of the army on their immediate
borders--and took decisive measures to avert the danger. Having obtained
a reinforcement of one thousand Argeians and some Thessalian horse, they
marched out to Tanagra, with the full Athenian force then at home; which
must of course have consisted chiefly of the old and the young, the same
who had fought under Myronides at Megara; for the blockade of Ægina was
still going on.

Near Tanagra a bloody battle took place between the two armies, wherein
the Lacedæmonians were victorious, chiefly from the desertion of the
Thessalian horse who passed over to them in the very heat of the
engagement. But though the advantage was on their side, it was not
sufficiently decisive to favour the contemplated rising in Attica. Nor
did the Peloponnesians gain anything by it except an undisturbed retreat
over the high lands of Geranea, after having partially ravaged the
Megarid.


CIMON RECALLED

Though the battle of Tanagra was a defeat, yet there were circumstances
connected with it which rendered its effects highly beneficial to
Athens. The ostracised Cimon presented himself on the field, as soon
as the army had passed over the boundaries of Attica, requesting to
be allowed to occupy his station as a hoplite and fight in the ranks
of his tribe--the Œneis. But such was the belief, entertained by the
members of the senate and by his political enemies present, that he was
an accomplice in the conspiracy known to be on foot, that permission
was refused and he was forced to retire. In departing he conjured his
personal friends, Euthippus (of the deme Anaphlystus) and others, to
behave in such a manner as might wipe away the stain resting upon his
fidelity, and in part also upon theirs. His friends retained his panoply
and assigned to it the station in the ranks which he would himself have
occupied: they then entered the engagement with desperate resolution and
one hundred of them fell side by side in their ranks. Pericles, on his
part, who was present among the hoplites of his own tribe the Acamantii,
aware of this application and repulse of Cimon, thought it incumbent
upon him to display not merely his ordinary personal courage, but an
unusual recklessness of life and safety, though it happened that he
escaped unwounded. All these incidents brought about a generous sympathy
and spirit of compromise among the contending parties at Athens; while
the unshaken patriotism of Cimon and his friends discountenanced and
disarmed those conspirators who had entered into correspondence with the
enemy, at the same time that it roused a repentant admiration towards
the ostracised leader himself. Such was the happy working of this new
sentiment that a decree was shortly proposed and carried--proposed too
by Pericles himself--to abridge the ten years of Cimon’s ostracism, and
permit his immediate return.

We may recollect that under circumstances partly analogous, Themistocles
had himself proposed the restoration of his rival Aristides from
ostracism, a little before the battle of Salamis: and in both cases, the
suspension of enmity between the two leaders was partly the sign, partly
also the auxiliary cause, of reconciliation and renewed fraternity among
the general body of citizens. It was a moment analogous to that salutary
impulse of compromise, and harmony of parties, which followed the
extinction of the oligarchy of Four Hundred, forty-six years afterwards,
and on which Thucydides dwells emphatically as the salvation of Athens in
her distress--a moment rare in free communities generally, not less than
among the jealous competitors for political ascendency at Athens.

So powerful was this burst of fresh patriotism and unanimity after the
battle of Tanagra, which produced the recall of Cimon and appears to have
overlaid the pre-existing conspiracy, that the Athenians were quickly
in a condition to wipe off the stain of their defeat. It was on the
sixty-second day after the battle that they undertook an aggressive march
under Myronides into Bœotia: the extreme precision of this date (being
the single case throughout the summary of events between the Persian and
Peloponnesian Wars wherein Thucydides is thus precise) marks how strong
an impression it made upon the memory of the Athenians. At the battle of
Œnophyta, engaged against the aggregate Theban and Bœotian forces, or,
if Diodorus is to be trusted, in two battles, of which that of Œnophyta
was the last, Myronides was completely victorious. The Athenians became
masters of Thebes as well as of the remaining Bœotian towns; reversing
all the arrangements recently made by Sparta, establishing democratical
governments, and forcing the aristocratical leaders, favourable to Theban
ascendency and Lacedæmonian connection, to become exiles. Nor was it only
Bœotia which the Athenians thus acquired; Phocis and Locris were both
successively added to the list of their dependent allies, the former
being in the main friendly to Athens and not disinclined to the change,
while the latter were so decidedly hostile that one hundred of their
chiefs were detained and sent to Athens as hostages. The Athenians thus
extended their influence, maintained through internal party-management,
backed by the dread of interference from without in case of need, from
the borders of the Corinthian territory, including both Megara and Pegæ,
to the strait of Thermopylæ.

[Sidenote: [457-456 B.C.]]

These important acquisitions were soon crowned by the completion of the
Long Walls and the conquest of Ægina. That island, doubtless starved out
by its protracted blockade, was forced to capitulate on condition of
destroying its fortifications, surrendering all its ships of war, and
submitting to annual tribute as a dependent ally of Athens. The reduction
of this once powerful maritime city marked Athens as mistress of the
sea on the Peloponnesian coast not less than on the Ægean. Her admiral
Tolmides displayed her strength by sailing round Peloponnesus, and
even by the insult of burning the Lacedæmonian ports of Methone and of
Gythium. He took Chalcis, a possession of the Corinthians, and Naupactus
belonging to the Ozolian Locrians, near the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf,
disembarked troops near Sicyon, with some advantage in a battle against
opponents from that town, and either gained or forced into the Athenian
alliance not only Zacynthus and Cephallenia, but also some of the towns
of Achaia; for we afterwards find these latter attached to Athens without
knowing when the connection began. During the ensuing year the Athenians
renewed their attack upon Sicyon, with a force of one thousand hoplites
under Pericles himself, sailing from the Megarian harbour of Pegæ in the
Crissæan Gulf. This eminent man, however, gained no greater advantage
than Tolmides, defeating the Sicyonian forces in the field and driving
them within their walls. He afterwards made an expedition into Acarnania,
taking the Achæan allies in addition to his own forces, but miscarried
in his attack on Œniadæ and accomplished nothing. Nor were the Athenians
more successful in a march undertaken this same year against Thessaly,
for the purpose of restoring Orestes, one of the exiled princes or nobles
of Pharsalus. Though they took with them an imposing force, including
their Bœotian and Phocian allies, the powerful Thessalian cavalry forced
them to keep in a compact body and confined them to the ground actually
occupied by their hoplites; while all their attempts against the city
failed, and their hopes of internal rising were disappointed.

Had the Athenians succeeded in Thessaly, they would have acquired to
their alliance nearly the whole of extra-Peloponnesian Greece. But
even without Thessaly their power was prodigious, and had now attained
a maximum height from which it never varied except to decline. As a
counter-balancing loss against so many successes, we have to reckon
their ruinous defeat in Egypt, after a war of six years against the
Persians (460-455 B.C.). At first they had gained brilliant advantages,
in conjunction with the insurgent prince Inarus; expelling the Persians
from all Memphis except that strongest part called the White Fortress.
And such was the alarm of the Persian king Artaxerxes at the presence
of the Athenians in Egypt, that he sent Megabazus with a large sum of
money to Sparta, in order to induce the Lacedæmonians to invade Attica.
This envoy however failed, and an augmented Persian force, being sent
to Egypt under Megabyzus, son of Zopyrus, drove the Athenians and their
allies, after an obstinate struggle, out of Memphis into the island
of the Nile called Prosopitis. Here they were blocked up for eighteen
months, until at length Megabyzus turned the arm of the river, laid the
channel dry, and stormed the island by land. A very few Athenians escaped
by land to Cyrene: the rest were either slain or made captive, and Inarus
himself was crucified. And the calamity of Athens was farther aggravated
by the arrival of fifty fresh Athenian ships, which, coming after the
defeat, but without being aware of it, sailed into the Mendesian branch
of the Nile, and thus fell unawares into the power of the Persians and
Phœnicians, very few either of the ships or men escaping. The whole
of Egypt became again subject to the Persians, except Amyrtæus, who
contrived by retiring into the inaccessible fens still to maintain his
independence. One of the largest armaments ever sent forth by Athens and
her confederacy was thus utterly ruined.

It was about the time of the destruction of the Athenian army in
Egypt, and of the circumnavigation of Peloponnesus by Tolmides, that
the internal war, carried on by the Lacedæmonians against the helots
or Messenians at Ithome, ended. These besieged men, no longer able to
stand out against a protracted blockade, were forced to abandon this
last fortress of ancient Messenian independence, stipulating for a
safe retreat from the Peloponnesus with their wives and families; with
the proviso that if any one of them ever returned to Peloponnesus, he
should become the slave of the first person who seized him. They were
established by Tolmides at Naupactus (recently taken by the Athenians
from the Ozolian Locrians), where they will be found rendering good
service to Athens in the following wars.


THE FIVE-YEARS’ TRUCE

[Sidenote: [455-448 B.C.]]

After the victory of Tanagra, the Lacedæmonians made no further
expeditions out of Peloponnesus for several succeeding years, not even to
prevent Bœotia and Phocis from being absorbed into the Athenian alliance.
The reason of this remissness lay, partly, in their general character;
partly, in the continuance of the siege of Ithome, which occupied them
at home; but still more perhaps, in the fact that the Athenians, masters
of the Megarid, were in occupation of the road over the high lands of
Geranea, and could therefore obstruct the march of any army out from
Peloponnesus. Even after the surrender of Ithome, the Lacedæmonians
remained inactive for three years, after which time a formal truce was
concluded with Athens by the Peloponnesians generally, for five years
longer. This truce was concluded in a great degree through the influence
of Cimon, who was eager to resume effective operations against the
Persians; while it was not less suitable to the political interest of
Pericles that his most distinguished rival should be absent on foreign
service, so as not to interfere with his influence at home. Accordingly
Cimon, having equipped a fleet of two hundred triremes from Athens and
her confederates, set sail for Cyprus, from whence he despatched sixty
ships to Egypt, at the request of the insurgent prince Amyrtæus, who was
still maintaining himself against the Persians amidst the fens--while
with the remaining armament he laid siege to Citium. In the prosecution
of this siege, he died either of disease or of a wound. The armament,
under his successor Anaxicrates, became so embarrassed for want of
provisions that they abandoned the undertaking altogether, and went to
fight the Phœnician and Cilician fleet near Salamis in Cyprus. They were
here victorious, first on sea and afterwards on land, though probably not
on the same day, as at the Eurymedon; after which they returned home,
followed by the sixty ships which had gone to Egypt for the purpose of
aiding Amyrtæus.

From this time forward no further operations were undertaken by Athens
and her confederacy against the Persians. And it appears that a
convention was concluded between them, whereby the Great King on his part
promised two things: To leave free, undisturbed, and untaxed, the Asiatic
maritime Greeks, not sending troops within a given distance of the coast:
To refrain from sending any ships of war either westward of Phaselis
(others place the boundary at the Chelidonean islands, rather more to the
westward) or within the Cyanean rocks at the confluence of the Thracian
Bosporus with the Euxine. On their side the Athenians agreed to leave him
in undisturbed possession of Cyprus and Egypt. This was called the Peace
of Callias.

We may believe in the reality of this treaty between Athens and Persia,
improperly called the Cimonian Treaty: improperly, since not only was it
concluded after the death of Cimon, but the Athenian victories by which
it was immediately brought on, were gained after his death. Nay more--the
probability is, that if Cimon had lived, it would not have been concluded
at all. For his interest as well as his glory led him to prosecute the
war against Persia, since he was no match for his rival Pericles either
as a statesman or as an orator, and could only maintain his popularity
by the same means whereby he had earned it--victories and plunder at
the cost of the Persians. His death ensured more complete ascendency to
Pericles whose policy and character were of a cast altogether opposite.


THE CONFEDERACY BECOMES AN EMPIRE

Athens was now at peace both abroad and at home, under the administration
of Pericles, with a great empire, a great fleet, and a great accumulated
treasure. The common fund collected from the contributions of the
confederates, and originally deposited at Delos, had before this time
been transferred to the Acropolis at Athens. At what precise time such
transfer took place, we cannot state: nor are we enabled to assign
the successive stages whereby the confederacy, chiefly with the free
will of its own members, became transformed from a body of armed and
active warriors under the guidance of Athens, into disarmed and passive
tribute-payers defended by the military force of Athens: from allies
free, meeting at Delos, and self-determining into subjects isolated,
sending their annual tribute, and awaiting Athenian orders. But it would
appear that the change had been made before this time. Some of the more
resolute of the allies had tried to secede, but Athens had coerced them
by force, and reduced them to the condition of tribute-payers without
ships or defence; and Chios, Lesbos, and Samos were now the only allies
free and armed on the original footing. Every successive change of an
armed ally into a tributary, every subjugation of a seceder, tended of
course to cut down the numbers, and enfeeble the authority of the Delian
synod; and, what was still worse, it materially altered the reciprocal
relation and feelings both of Athens and her allies--exalting the former
into something like a despot, and degrading the latter into mere passive
subjects.

Of course the palpable manifestation of the change must have been
the transfer of the confederate fund from Delos to Athens. The only
circumstance which we know respecting this transfer is, that it was
proposed by the Samians--the second power in the confederacy, inferior
only to Athens, and least of all likely to favour any job or sinister
purpose of the Athenians.

Such transition, arising spontaneously out of the character and
circumstances of the confederates themselves, was thus materially
forwarded by the acquisitions of Athens extraneous to the confederacy.
She was now not merely the first maritime state in Greece, but perhaps
equal to Sparta even in land-power, possessing in her alliance
Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, Locris, together with Achaia and Trœzen in
the Peloponnesus. Large as this aggregate already was, both at sea
and on land, yet the magnitude of the annual tribute, and still more
the character of the Athenians themselves, superior to all Greeks in
that combination of energy and discipline which is the grand cause of
progress, threatened still further increase. Occupying the Megarian
harbour of Pegæ, the Athenians had full means of naval action on both
sides of the Corinthian isthmus: but what was of still greater importance
to them, by their possession of the Megarid and of the high lands of
Geranea, they could restrain any land-force from marching out of the
Peloponnesus, and were thus (considering besides their mastery at sea)
completely unassailable in Attica. Ever since the repulse of Xerxes,
Athens had been advancing in an uninterrupted course of power and
prosperity at home, as well as of victory and ascendency abroad--to which
there was no exception except the ruinous enterprise in Egypt.

[Sidenote: [448-446 B.C.]]

Looking at the position of Greece therefore about 448 B.C.--after the
conclusion of five years’ truce between the Peloponnesians and Athens,
and of the so-called Cimonian Peace between Persia and Athens--a
discerning Greek might well calculate upon further aggrandisement of this
imperial state as the tendency of the age; and accustomed as every Greek
was to the conception of separate town-autonomy as essential to a freeman
and a citizen, such prospect could not but inspire terror and aversion.
The sympathy of the Peloponnesians for the islanders and ultra-maritime
states, who constituted the original confederacy of Athens, was not
considerable. But when the Dorian island of Ægina was subjugated also,
and passed into the condition of a defenceless tributary, they felt the
blow sorely on every ground. The ancient celebrity, and eminent service
rendered at the battle of Salamis, of this memorable island, had not been
able to protect it; while those great Æginetan families, whose victories
at the sacred festival-games Pindar celebrates in a large proportion
of his odes, would spread the language of complaint and indignation
throughout their numerous “guests” in every Hellenic city. Of course,
the same anti-Athenian feeling would pervade those Peloponnesian states
which had been engaged in actual hostility with Athens--Corinth, Sicyon,
Epidaurus, etc., as well as Sparta, the once-recognised head of Hellas,
but now tacitly degraded from her pre-eminence, baffled in her projects
respecting Bœotia, and exposed to the burning of her port at Gythium
without being able even to retaliate upon Attica. Putting all those
circumstances together, we may comprehend the powerful feeling of dislike
and apprehension now diffused so widely over Greece against the upstart
despot-city; whose ascendency, newly acquired, maintained by superior
force, and not recognised as legitimate, threatened nevertheless still
further increase. Sixteen years hence, this same sentiment will be found
exploding into the Peloponnesian War. But it became rooted in the Greek
mind during the period which we have now reached, when Athens was much
more formidable than she had come to be at the commencement of that war:
nor shall we thoroughly appreciate the ideas of that later period, unless
we take them as handed down from the earlier date of the five years’
truce (about 451-446 B.C.).


COMMENCEMENT OF DECLINE

Formidable as the Athenian empire both really was and appeared to be,
however, this widespread feeling of antipathy proved still stronger, so
that instead of the threatened increase, the empire underwent a most
material diminution. This did not arise from the attack of open enemies;
for during the five years’ truce, Sparta undertook only one movement,
and that not against Attica: she sent troops to Delphi, in an expedition
dignified with the name of the Sacred War--expelled the Phocians, who had
assumed to themselves the management of the temple--and restored it to
the native Delphians. To this the Athenians made no direct opposition,
but as soon as the Lacedæmonians were gone, they themselves marched
thither and placed the temple again in the hands of the Phocians, who
were then their allies. The Delphians were members of the Phocian league,
and there was a dispute of old standing as to the administration of
the temple--whether it belonged to them separately or to the Phocians
collectively. The favour of those who administered it counted as an
element of considerable moment in Grecian politics; the sympathies
of the leading Delphians led them to embrace the side of Sparta, but
the Athenians now hoped to counteract this tendency by means of their
preponderance in Phocis. We are not told that the Lacedæmonians took any
ulterior step in consequence of their views being frustrated by Athens--a
significant evidence of the politics of that day.

[Sidenote: [447 B.C.]]

The blow which brought down the Athenian empire from this its greatest
exaltation was struck by the subjects themselves. The Athenian ascendency
over Bœotia, Phocis, Locris, and Eubœa, was maintained, not by means
of garrisons, but through domestic parties favourable to Athens, and a
suitable form of government--just in the same way as Sparta maintained
her influence over her Peloponnesian allies. After the victory of
Œnophyta, the Athenians had broken up the governments in the Bœotian
cities established by Sparta before the battle of Tanagra, and converted
them into democracies at Thebes and elsewhere. Many of the previous
leading men had thus been sent into exile; and as the same process had
taken place in Phocis and Locris, there was at this time a considerable
aggregate body of exiles, Bœotian, Phocian, Locrian, Eubœan, Æginetan,
etc., all bitterly hostile to Athens, and ready to join in any attack
upon her power. We learn further that the democracy established at
Thebes after the battle of Œnophyta was ill conducted and disorderly,
which circumstance laid open Bœotia still further to the schemes of
assailants on the watch for every weak point. These various exiles, all
joining their forces and concerting measures with their partisans in the
interior, succeeded in mastering Orchomenos, Chæronea, and some other
less important places in Bœotia.

The Athenian general Tolmides marched to expel them, with one thousand
Athenian hoplites and an auxiliary body of allies. It appears that this
march was undertaken in haste and rashness. The hoplites of Tolmides
principally youthful volunteers and belonging to the best families
of Athens, disdained the enemy too much to await a larger and more
commanding force: nor would the people listen even to Pericles, when he
admonished them that the march would be full of hazard, and adjured them
not to attempt it without greater numbers as well as greater caution.
Fatally indeed were his predictions justified. Though Tolmides was
successful in his first enterprise--the recapture of Chæronea, wherein he
placed a garrison--yet in his march, probably incautious and disorderly,
when departing from that place, he was surprised and attacked unawares,
near Coronea, by the united body of exiles and their partisans.

No defeat in Grecian history was ever more complete or ruinous. Tolmides
himself was slain, together with many of the Athenian hoplites, while
a large number of them were taken prisoners. In order to recover these
prisoners, who belonged to the best families in the city, the Athenians
submitted to a convention whereby they agreed to evacuate Bœotia
altogether: in all the cities of that country the exiles were restored,
the democratical government overthrown, and Bœotia was transformed from
an ally of Athens into her bitter enemy. Long indeed did the fatal issue
of this action dwell in the memory of the Athenians, and inspire them
with an apprehension of Bœotian superiority in heavy armour on land. But
if the hoplites under Tolmides had been all slain on the field, their
death would probably have been avenged and Bœotia would not have been
lost--whereas in the case of living citizens, the Athenians deemed no
sacrifice too great to redeem them. We shall discover hereafter in the
Lacedæmonians a feeling very similar, respecting their brethren captured
at Sphacteria.

[Sidenote: [447-445 B.C.]]

The calamitous consequences of this defeat came upon Athens in thick
and rapid succession. The united exiles, having carried their point
in Bœotia, proceeded to expel the philo-Athenian government both from
Phocis and Locris, and to carry the flame of revolt into Eubœa. To this
important island Pericles himself proceeded forthwith, at the head of
a powerful force; but before he had time to complete the reconquest,
he was summoned home by news of a still more formidable character. The
Megarians had revolted from Athens. By a conspiracy previously planned,
a division of hoplites from Corinth, Sicyon, and Epidaurus, was already
admitted as garrison into their city: the Athenian soldiers who kept
watch over the Long Walls had been overpowered and slain, except a few
who escaped into the fortified port of Nisæa. As if to make the Athenians
at once sensible how seriously this disaster affected them, by throwing
open the road over Geranea, Plistoanax, king of Sparta, was announced as
already on his march for an invasion of Attica. He did in truth conduct
an army, of mixed Lacedæmonians and Peloponnesian allies, into Attica,
as far as the neighbourhood of Eleusis and the Thriasian plain. He was a
very young man, so that a Spartan of mature years, Cleandridas, had been
attached to him by the ephors as adjutant and counsellor. Pericles, it
is said, persuaded both the one and the other, by means of large bribes,
to evacuate Attica without advancing to Athens. We may fairly doubt
whether they had force enough to adventure so far into the interior, and
we shall hereafter observe the great precautions with which Archidamus
thought it necessary to conduct his invasion, during the first year of
the Peloponnesian War, though at the head of a more commanding force.
Nevertheless, on their return, the Lacedæmonians, believing that they
might have achieved it, found both of them guilty of corruption. Both
were banished: Cleandridas never came back, and Plistoanax himself lived
for a long time in sanctuary near the temple of Athene at Tegea, until
at length he procured his restoration by tampering with the Pythian
priestess, and by bringing her bought admonitions to act upon the
authorities at Sparta.

So soon as the Lacedæmonians had retired from Attica, Pericles returned
with his forces to Eubœa, and reconquered the island completely.
With that caution which always distinguished him as a military man,
so opposite to the fatal rashness of Tolmides, he took with him an
overwhelming force of fifty triremes and five thousand hoplites. He
admitted most of the Eubœan towns to surrender, altering the government
of Chalcis by the expulsion of the wealthy oligarchy called the
_hippobotæ_. But the inhabitants of Histiæa at the north of the island,
who had taken an Athenian merchantman and massacred all the crew, were
more severely dealt with, the free population being all or in great part
expelled, and the land distributed among Athenian cleruchs or out-settled
citizens.

[Sidenote: [445-440 B.C.]]

Yet the reconquest of Eubœa was far from restoring Athens to the position
which she had occupied before the fatal engagement of Coronea. Her
land-empire was irretrievably gone, together with her recently acquired
influence over the Delphian oracle; and she reverted to her former
condition of an exclusively maritime potentate. Moreover, the precarious
hold which she possessed over unwilling allies had been demonstrated in a
manner likely to encourage similar attempts among her maritime subjects;
attempts which would now be seconded by Peloponnesian armies invading
Attica. The fear of such a combination of embarrassments, and especially
of an irresistible enemy carrying ruin over the flourishing territory
round Eleusis and Athens, was at this moment predominant in the Athenian
mind. We shall find Pericles, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War
fourteen years afterwards, exhausting all his persuasive force, and not
succeeding without great difficulty, in prevailing upon his countrymen
to endure the hardship of invasion--even in defence of their maritime
empire, and when events had been gradually so ripening as to render
the prospect of war familiar, if not inevitable. But the late series
of misfortunes had burst upon them so rapidly and unexpectedly, as to
discourage even Athenian confidence, and to render the prospect of
continued war full of gloom and danger. The prudence of Pericles would
doubtless counsel the surrender of their remaining landed possessions or
alliances, which had now become unprofitable, in order to purchase peace;
but we may be sure that nothing short of extreme temporary despondency
could have induced the Athenian assembly to listen to such advice,
and to accept the inglorious peace which followed. A truce for thirty
years was concluded with Sparta and her allies, in the beginning of 445
B.C., whereby Athens surrendered Nisæa, Pegæ, Achaia, and Trœzen--thus
abandoning the Peloponnesus altogether, and leaving the Megarians (with
their full territory and their two ports) to be included among the
Peloponnesian allies of Sparta.

It was to the Megarians, especially, that the altered position of Athens
after this truce was owing: it was their secession from Attica and
junction with the Peloponnesians, which laid open Attica to invasion.
Hence arose the deadly hatred on the part of the Athenians towards
Megara, manifested during the ensuing years--a sentiment the more
natural, as Megara had spontaneously sought the alliance of Athens a
few years before as a protection against the Corinthians, and had then
afterwards, without any known ill-usage on the part of Athens, broken
off from the alliance and become her enemy, with the fatal consequence
of rendering her vulnerable on the land-side. Under such circumstances
we shall not be surprised to find the antipathy of the Athenians against
Megara strongly pronounced, insomuch that the system of exclusion which
they adopted against her was among the most prominent causes of the
Peloponnesian War.[d]


THE GREATNESS OF PERICLES

Athens now rested six years, unengaged in any hostilities; a longer
interval of perfect peace than she had before known in above forty years
elapsed since she rose from her ashes after the Persian invasion. It is
a wonderful and singular phenomenon in the history of mankind, little
accounted for by anything recorded by ancient, or imagined by modern
writers, that, during this period of turbulence, in a commonwealth whose
whole population in free subjects amounted scarcely to thirty thousand
families, art, science, fine taste, and politeness should have risen
to that perfection which has made Athens the mistress of the world
through all succeeding ages. Some sciences indeed have been carried
higher in modern times, and art has put forth new branches, of which
some have given new helps to science: but Athens, in that age, reached
a perfection of taste that no country has since surpassed; but on the
contrary all have looked up to, as a polar star, by which, after sinking
in the deepest barbarism, taste has been guided in its restoration to
splendour, and the observation of which will probably ever be the surest
preservative against its future corruption and decay.

One great point of the policy of Pericles was to keep the people
always either amused or employed. During peace an exercising squadron
of sixty trireme galleys was sent out for eight months in every year.
Nor was this without a further use than merely engaging the attention
of the people, and maintaining the navy in vigour. He sometimes took
the command in person: and, sailing among the distant dependencies of
the empire, settled disputes between them, and confirmed the power
and extended the influence of Athens. The Ægean and the Propontis did
not bound his voyages: he penetrated into the Euxine; and finding the
distant Grecian settlement of Sinope divided between Timesileus, who
affected the tyranny, and an opposing party, he left there Lamachus with
thirteen ships, and a land-force with whose assistance to the popular
side the tyrant and those of his faction were expelled. The justice of
what followed may indeed appear questionable. Their houses and property,
apportioned into six hundred lots, were offered to so many Athenian
citizens; and volunteers were not wanting to accept the offer, and settle
at Sinope. To disburden the government at home, by providing advantageous
establishments, in distant parts, for the poor and discontented among
the sovereign citizens of Athens, was a policy more than once resorted
to by Pericles. It was during his administration, in the year, according
to Diodorus, in which the Thirty Years’ Truce was concluded, that the
deputation came from the Thessalian adventurers who had been expelled
by the Crotoniats from their attempted establishment in the deserted
territory of Sybaris, in consequence of which, under his patronage, the
colony was settled with which the historian Herodotus then, and afterward
the orator Lysias, passing to Thurii, both established themselves there.


A GREEK FEDERATION PLANNED

Plutarch has attributed to Pericles a noble project, unnoticed by any
earlier extant author, but worthy of his capacious mind, and otherwise
also bearing some characters of authenticity and truth. It was no less
than to unite all Greece under one great federal government, of which
Athens should be the capital. But the immediate and direct avowal of such
a purpose would be likely to raise jealousies so numerous and extensive
as to form insuperable obstacles to the execution. The religion of the
nation was that alone in which the Grecian people universally claimed
a clear common interest; and even in this every town and almost every
family claimed something peculiar to itself. In the vehemence of public
alarm, during the Persian invasion, vows had been, in some places, made
to the gods for sacrifices, to an extent beyond what the votaries, when
blessed with deliverance beyond hope, were able to perform; and some
temples, destroyed by the invaders, were not yet restored; probably
because the means of those in whose territories they had stood were
deficient. Taking these circumstances then for his ground, Pericles
proposed that a congress of deputies from every republic of the nation
should be assembled at Athens, for the purpose first of inquiring
concerning vows for the safety of Greece yet unperformed, and temples,
injured by the barbarians, not yet restored; and then of proceeding to
concert measures for the lasting security of navigation in the Grecian
seas, and for the preservation of peace by land also between all the
states composing the Greek nation. The naval question, but still more the
ruin which, in the Persian invasion, had befallen northern Greece, and
especially Attica, while Peloponnesus had felt nothing of its evils, gave
pretensions for Athens to take the lead in the business. On the motion
of Pericles, a decree of the Athenian people directed the appointment of
ministers to invite every Grecian state to send its deputies. Plutarch,
rarely attentive to political information, has not at all indicated what
attention was shown, or what participation proposed, for Lacedæmon. His
prejudices indeed we find very generally adverse to the Lacedæmonian
government, and favouring the Athenian democracy. But, judging from the
friendship which, according to the authentic information of Thucydides,
subsisted between Pericles and Archidamus, king of Lacedæmon, through
life, it is little likely that, in putting forward the project for the
peace of Greece, Pericles would have proposed anything derogatory to the
just weight and dignity of Sparta; which indeed would have been, with
peace the pretence, only putting forward a project of contest.

Pericles, when he formed his coalition with Cimon, seems to have entered
heartily into the enlarged views of that great man; and, with the hope
that, through their coalition, both the oligarchical and the democratical
powers in Athens might be held justly balanced, had early in view to
establish the peace of Greece on a union between Athens and Lacedæmon.
It is however evident, from the narrative of Thucydides, that Archidamus
rarely could direct the measures of the Lacedæmonian government. On a
view of all information, then, it may seem probable that the project of
Pericles was concerted with Archidamus; and that the opposition of those
in Lacedæmon, of an adverse faction concurred with opposition from those
in Athens, who apprehended injury to their interests from a new coalition
with the aristocratical party, to compel the great projector to abandon
his magnificent and beneficent purpose.[f]


FOOTNOTES

[45] Plutarch tells a story--characteristic if not true--of a rude fellow
who, after railing at Pericles all day, as he was transacting business in
public, followed him after dusk with abusive language to his door, when
Pericles ordered one of his servants to take a light, and conduct the man
home.

[Illustration: RUINS OF HALIARTUS]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXV. ATHENS AT WAR


Peace between Lacedæmon and Athens was indispensable towards the quiet
of the rest of the nation, but, in the want of such a union as Pericles
had projected, was unfortunately far from being insured; and, when war
began anywhere, though among the most distant settlements of the Grecian
people, how far it might extend was not to be foreseen. A dispute between
two Asiatic states of the Athenian confederacy led Athens into a war
which greatly endangered the truce made for thirty years, when it had
scarcely lasted six. Miletus and Samos, each claiming the sovereignty of
Priene, originally a free Grecian commonwealth, asserted their respective
pretensions by arms. The Milesians, not till they were suffering under
defeat, applied to Athens for redress, as of a flagrant injury done them.
The usual feuds within every Grecian state furnished assistance to their
clamour; for, the aristocracy prevailing at that time in Samos, the
leaders of the democratical party joined the enemies of their country in
accusing the proceedings of its government before the Athenian people.


THE SAMIAN WAR

[Sidenote: [440-439 B.C.]]

The opposition at Athens maliciously imputed the measures following to
the weak compliance of Pericles with the solicitations of Aspasia in
favour of her native city; but it appears clearly, from Thucydides, that
no such motive was needful: the Athenian government would of course
take cognisance of the cause; and, as might be expected, a requisition
was sent to the Samian administration to answer, by deputies at Athens,
to the charges urged against them. The Samians, unwilling to submit
their claim to the arbitration of those who they knew were always
systematically adverse to the aristocratical interest, refused to send
deputies. A fleet of forty trireme galleys however brought them to
immediate submission; their government was changed to a democracy, in
which those who had headed the opposition of course took the lead; and
to insure permanent acquiescence from the aristocratical party, fifty
men and fifty boys, of the first families of the island, were taken as
hostages, and placed under an Athenian guard in the island of Lemnos.

What Herodotus mentions, as an observation applicable generally, we may
readily believe was on this occasion experienced in Samos, “that the
lower people were most unpleasant associates to the nobles.” A number of
these, unable to support the oppression to which they found themselves
exposed, quitted the island, and applied to Pissuthnes, satrap of Sardis.
The project of conquering Greece by arms appears to have been abandoned
by the Persian government; but the urgency for constantly watching its
politics, and interfering, as occasion might offer, with a view to the
safety, if not to the extension, of the western border of the empire,
was obvious; and it appears that the western satraps were instructed
accordingly. The Samian refugees were favourably received by Pissuthnes.
They corresponded with many of their party yet remaining in the island,
and they engaged in their interest the city of Byzantium, itself a
subject ally of Athens. Collecting then about seven hundred auxiliary
soldiers, they crossed by night the narrow channel which separates Samos
from the continent, and, being joined by their friends, they surprised
and overpowered the new administration. Without delay they proceeded to
Lemnos, and so well conducted their enterprise that they carried off
their hostages, together with the Athenian guard set over them. To win
then more effectually the favour of the satrap, the Athenian prisoners
were presented to him. Assured of assistance from Byzantium, being also
not without hopes from Lacedæmon, they prepared to prosecute their
success by immediately undertaking an expedition against Miletus.

Information of these transactions arriving quickly at Athens, Pericles,
with nine others, according to the ancient military constitution, joined
with him in command, hastened to Samos with a fleet of sixty trireme
galleys. Pericles met the Samian fleet and defeated it. He debarked his
infantry on the island of Samos, and laid siege to the city by land and
sea.

In the ninth month from the commencement of the siege, it capitulated:
the ships of war were surrendered, the fortifications were destroyed, the
Samians bound themselves to the payment of a sum of money by instalment
for the expenses of the war, and gave hostages as pledges of their
fidelity to the sovereign commonwealth of Athens. The Byzantines, not
waiting the approach of the coercing fleet, sent their request to be
readmitted to their former terms of subjection, which was granted.

This rebellion, alarming and troublesome at the time to the
administration of Athens, otherwise little disturbed the internal peace
of the commonwealth; and, in the event, contributed rather to strengthen
its command over its dependencies. Pericles took occasion from it to
acquire fresh popularity. On the return of the armament to Athens the
accustomed solemnities, in honour of those who had fallen in the war,
were performed with new splendour; and, in speaking the funeral oration,
he exerted the powers of his eloquence very highly to the gratification
of the people. As he descended from the _bema_, the stand whence orations
were delivered to the people, the women presented him with chaplets; an
idea derived from the ceremonies of the public games, where the crowning
with a chaplet was the distinction of the victors, and, as something
approaching to divine honour, was held among the highest tokens of
admiration, esteem, and respect.


THE WAR WITH CORCYRA

[Sidenote: [439-435 B.C.]]

The threatened renewal of general war in Greece having been obviated by
the determination of the Peloponnesian congress not to interfere between
the Athenians and their Asiatic allies, peace prevailed during the next
three years after the submission of the Samians; or, if hostilities
occurred anywhere, they were of so little importance that no account of
them remains. A fatal spark then, raising fire in a corner of the country
hitherto little within the notice of history, the blaze rapidly spread
over the whole with inextinguishable fury; insomuch that the further
history of Greece, with some splendid episodes, is chiefly a tale of
calamities, which the nation, in ceaseless exertions of misdirected
valour and genius, brought upon itself.

The island of Corcyra had been occupied, in an early age, by a
colony from Corinth. The political connection of colonies with the
mother-country will always depend upon their respective strength; and the
Grecian colonies, all having been the offspring of very small states, in
many instances acquired more than the parent’s force. Corcyra, already
populous, had not yet entirely broken its connection with Corinth, when
the resolution was taken by its government to settle a colony on the
Illyrian coast. An embassy was therefore sent, in due form, to desire
a Corinthian for the leader. Phaleus, of a family boasting its descent
from Hercules, was accordingly appointed to that honour: some Corinthians
and others of Dorian race accompanied him; and Phaleus thus became
the nominal founder of Epidamnus, which was however considered as a
Corcyræan, not a Corinthian colony.

But in process of time Epidamnus, growing populous and wealthy, followed
the example of its mother-country, asserted independency, and maintained
the claim. Like most other Grecian cities, it was then, during many
years, torn by sedition; and a war supervening with the neighbouring
barbarians, it fell much from its former flourishing state. But the
spirit of faction remaining in spite of misfortune untamed, the
commonalty at length expelled all the higher citizens. These, finding
refuge among the Illyrians, engaged with them in a predatory war, which
was unremittingly carried on against the city by land and sea. Unable
thus to rest, and almost to subsist, the Epidamnians in possession
requested assistance from Corcyra. This humble supplication however being
rejected, they hastened a deputation to Corinth.

Fortunately for their object, though peace had not yet been broken, yet
animosity between Corinth and Corcyra had so risen that the Corcyræans,
who had long refused political dependency, now denied to the Corinthians
all those honours and compliments usually paid by Grecian colonies to
their parent states. Under stimulation thus from affront, and with
encouragement from the oracle, the prospect of an acquisition of dominion
was too tempting, and the proposal of the Epidamnians was accepted. But
Corinth had at this time only thirty ships of war, whereas Corcyra was
able to put to sea near four times the number; being, next to Athens, the
most powerful maritime state of Greece. Application for naval assistance
was therefore made to the republics with which Corinth was most bound in
friendship, and thus more than forty vessels were obtained. It had been
the settled policy of the Corcyræans, islanders and strong at sea, to
engage in no alliances. They had avoided both the Peloponnesian and the
Athenian confederacy; and hitherto with this policy they had prospered.
But, alarmed now at the combination formed against them, and fearing it
might still be extended, they sent ambassadors to Lacedæmon and Sicyon;
who prevailed so far that ministers from those two states accompanied
them to Corinth, as mediators in the existing differences. In presence
of these the Corcyræan ambassadors proposed to submit the matters in
dispute to the arbitration of any Peloponnesian states, or to the
Delphian oracle, which the Corinthians had supposed already favourable
to them. The Corinthians however, now prepared for war, and apparently
persuaded that neither Lacedæmon nor Sicyon would take any active part
against them, refused to treat upon any equal terms, and the Corcyræan
ambassadors departed (435 B.C.).

[Sidenote: [435-433 B.C.]]

The Corinthians then hastened to use the force they had collected. The
Corcyræans had manned those of their ships which were already equipped,
and hastily prepared some of those less in readiness, when their herald
returned, bearing no friendly answer. With eighty galleys then they
quitted their port, met the enemy off Actium, and gained a complete
victory, destroying fifteen ships. Returning to Corcyra, they erected
their trophy on the headland of Leucimme, and they immediately put to
death all their prisoners, except the Corinthians, whom, as pledges, they
kept in bonds. Epidamnus surrendered to their forces on the same day.

The opportunities now open, for both revenge and profit, were not
neglected by the Corcyræans. During that year, unopposed on the sea,
there was scarcely an intermission of their smaller enterprises; by
some of which they gained booty, by others only gave alarm, but by all
together greatly distressed the Corinthians and their allies (434 B.C.).

But since their misfortune off Actium the Corinthians had been
unremittingly assiduous in repairing their loss, and in preparing to
revenge it. Triremes were built, all necessaries for a fleet were largely
collected, rowers were engaged throughout Peloponnesus, and where else
in any part of Greece they could be obtained for hire. The Corcyræans,
informed of these measures, notwithstanding their past success were
uneasy with the consideration that their commonwealth stood single,
while their enemies were members of an extensive confederacy; of which,
though a part only had yet been induced to act, more powerful exertions
were nevertheless to be apprehended. In this state of things it appeared
necessary to abandon their ancient policy, and to seek alliances.
Thucydides gives us to understand that they would have preferred the
Peloponnesian to the Athenian confederacy; induced, apparently, both by
their kindred origin, and their kindred form of government. But they were
precluded by the circumstances of the existing war, Corinth being one of
the most considerable members of the Peloponnesian confederacy; and it
was beyond hope that Lacedæmon could be engaged in measures hostile to
so old and useful an ally. It was therefore finally resolved to send an
embassy to Athens. As soon as the purpose of the Corcyræans was known at
Corinth, ambassadors were sent thence to Athens to remonstrate against it.

The Athenian people were assembled to receive the two embassies, each
of which, in presence of the other, made its proposition in a formal
oration. The point to be determined was highly critical for Athens. A
truce existed, but not a peace, with a confederacy inferior in naval
force, but far superior by land; and Attica, a continental territory, was
open to attack by land. But next to Athens Corcyra was the most powerful
maritime republic; and to prevent the accession of its strength, through
alliance, or through conquest, to the Peloponnesian confederacy, was,
for the Athenian people, highly important. In the articles of the truce
moreover it was expressly stipulated, that any Grecian state, not yet a
member of either confederacy, might at pleasure be admitted to either.
But, notwithstanding this, it was little less than certain that, in the
present circumstances, an alliance with Corcyra must lead to a rupture
with the Peloponnesians; and this consideration occasioned much suspense
in the minds of the Athenians. Twice the assembly was held to debate the
question. On the first day, the arguments of the Corinthian ambassadors
had so far effect that nothing was decided: on the second, the spirit of
ambition, ordinary in democracy, prevailed, and the question was carried
for alliance with Corcyra.

[Sidenote: [433 B.C.]]

Meanwhile the earnestness with which the Corinthians persevered in their
purpose of prosecuting war against the Corcyræans, now to be supported
by the power of Athens, appears to mark confidence in support, on their
side, from the Lacedæmonian confederacy; some members of which indeed
were evidently of ready zeal. The Corinthians increased their own trireme
galleys to ninety. The Eleans, resenting the burning of Cyllene, had
exerted themselves in naval preparation, and sent ten triremes completely
manned to join them. Assistance from Megara, Leucas, and Ambracia made
their whole fleet a hundred and fifty: the crews would hardly be less
than forty thousand men. With this large force they sailed to Chimerium,
a port of Thesprotia, over against Corcyra, where, according to the
practice of the Greeks, they formed their naval camp.

The Athenian government meanwhile, desirous to confirm their new
alliance, yet still anxious to avoid a rupture with the Peloponnesian
confederacy, had sent ten triremes to Corcyra, under the command of
Lacedæmonius, son of Cimon; but with orders not to fight, unless a
descent were made on the island, or any of its towns were attacked. The
Corcyræans, on receiving intelligence that the enemy was approaching, put
to sea with a hundred and ten triremes, exclusive of the Athenian, and
formed their naval camp on one of the small islets called Sybota, the
Sow-leas or Sow-pastures, between their own island and the main. Their
land-forces at the same time, with a thousand auxiliaries from Zacynthus,
encamped on the headland of Leucimme in Corcyra, to be prepared
against invasion; while on the opposite coast of the continent the
barbarians, long since friendly to Corinth, assembled in large number.
The Corinthians however, moving in the night, perceived in the dawn the
Corcyræan fleet approaching. Both prepared immediately to engage.

So great a number of ships had never before met in any action between
Greeks and Greeks. The onset was vigorous; and the battle was maintained,
on either side, with much courage but little skill. Both Corcyræan
and Corinthian ships were equipped in the ancient manner, very
inartificially. The decks were crowded with soldiers, some heavy-armed,
some with missile weapons; and the action, in the eye of the Athenians,
trained in the discipline of Themistocles, resembled a battle of
infantry rather than a sea-fight. Once engaged, the number and throng
of the vessels made free motion impossible: nor was there any attempt
at the rapid evolution of the diecplus, as it was called, for piercing
the enemy’s line and dashing away his oars, the great objects of the
improved naval tactics; but the event depended, as of old, chiefly upon
the heavy-armed soldiers who fought on the decks. Tumult and confusion
thus prevailing everywhere, Lacedæmonius, restrained by his orders from
fighting, gave yet some assistance to the Corcyræans, by showing himself
wherever he saw them particularly pressed, and alarming their enemies.
The Corcyræans were, in the left of their line, successful: twenty of
their ships put to flight the Megarians and Ambracians who were opposed
to them, pursued to the shore, and, debarking, plundered and burnt
the naval camp. But the Corinthians, in the other wing, had meanwhile
been gaining an advantage which became decisive through the imprudent
forwardness of the victorious Corcyræans. The Athenians now endeavoured,
by more effectual assistance to their allies, to prevent a total rout;
but disorder was already too prevalent, and advantage of numbers too
great against them. The Corinthians pressed their success; the Corcyræans
fled, the Athenians became mingled among them; and in the confusion
of a running fight acts of hostility passed between the Athenians and
Corinthians. The defeated however soon reached their own shore, whither
the conquerors did not think proper to follow.

In the action several galleys had been sunk; most by the Corinthians,
but some by the victorious part of the Corcyræan fleet. The crews had
recourse, as usual, to their boats; and it was common for the conquerors,
when they could seize any of these, to take them in tow and make the men
prisoners: but the Corinthians, in the first moment of success, gave
no quarter; and, unaware of the disaster of the right of their fleet,
in the hurry and confusion of the occasion, not easily distinguishing
between Greeks and Greeks, inadvertently destroyed many of their
unfortunate friends. When pursuit ceased, and they had collected whatever
could be recovered of the wrecks and the dead, they carried them to a
desert harbour, not distant, on the Thesprotian coast, called, like
the neighbouring islets, Sybota: and depositing them under the care of
their barbarian allies, who were there encamped, they returned, on the
afternoon of the same day, with the purpose of renewing attack upon the
Corcyræan fleet.

The Corcyræans meanwhile had been considering the probable consequences
of leaving the enemy masters of the sea. They dreaded descents upon
their island, and consequent ravage of their lands. The return of their
victorious squadron gave them new spirits: Lacedæmonius encouraged them
with assurance that, since hostilities had already passed, he would no
longer scruple to afford them his utmost support; and they resolved upon
the bold measure of quitting their port and, though evening was already
approaching, again giving the enemy battle. Instantly they proceeded to
put this in execution. The pæan, the song of battle, was already sung,
when the Corinthians began suddenly to retreat. The Corcyræans were at
a loss immediately to account for this; but presently they discovered
a squadron coming round a headland, which had concealed it longer from
them than from the enemy. Still uncertain whether it might be friendly or
hostile, they also retreated into their port; but shortly, to their great
joy, twenty triremes under Glaucon and Andocides, sent from Attica, in
the apprehension that the small force under Lacedæmonius might be unequal
to the occurring exigencies, took their station by them.

Next day the Corcyræans did not hesitate, with the thirty Athenian
ships, for none of those under Lacedæmonius had suffered materially in
the action, to show themselves off the harbour of Sybota, where the
enemy lay, and offer battle. The Corinthians came out of the harbour,
formed for action, and so rested. They were not desirous of risking an
engagement against the increased strength of the enemy, but they could
not remain conveniently in the station they had occupied, a desert shore,
where they could neither refit their injured ships, nor recruit their
stock of provisions; and they were encumbered with more than a thousand
prisoners; a very inconvenient addition to the crowded complements of
their galleys. Their object therefore was to return home: but they were
apprehensive that the Athenians, holding the truce as broken by the
action of the preceding day, would not allow an unmolested passage. It
was therefore determined to try their disposition by sending a small
vessel with a message to the Athenian commanders, without the formality
of a herald. This was a service not without danger. Those Corcyræans,
who were near enough to observe what passed, exclaimed, in the vehemence
of their animosity, “that the bearers should be put to death;” which,
considering them as enemies, would have been within the law of war of
the Greeks. The Athenian commanders however thought proper to hold a
different conduct. To the message delivered, which accused them of
breaking the truce, by obstructing the passage of Corcyra, they replied
that “it was not their purpose to break the truce, but only to protect
their allies. Wherever else the Corinthians chose to go, they might go
without interruption from them; but any attempt against Corcyra, or any
of its possessions, would be resisted by the Athenians to the utmost of
their power.”

Upon receiving this answer, the Corinthians, after erecting a trophy
at Sybota on the continent, proceeded homeward. In their way they took
by stratagem Anactorium, a town at the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf,
which had formerly been held in common by their commonwealth and the
Corcyræans; and, leaving a garrison there, proceeded to Corinth. Of their
prisoners they found near eight hundred had been slaves, and these they
sold. The remainder, about two hundred and fifty, were strictly guarded,
but otherwise treated with the utmost kindness. Among them were some of
the first men of Corcyra; and through these the Corinthians hoped, at
some future opportunity, to recover their ancient interest and authority
in the island.

The Corcyræans meanwhile had gratified themselves with the erection of
a trophy on the island Sybota, as a claim of victory, in opposition to
the Corinthian trophy on the continent. The Athenian fleet returned
home; and thus ended, without any treaty, that series of actions which
is distinguished among Greek writers by the name of the Corcyræan, or,
sometimes, the Corinthian war.[b]


THE WAR WITH POTIDÆA AND MACEDONIA

[Sidenote: [433-432 B.C.]]

The Corinthians had incurred an immense cost, and taxed all their willing
allies, only to leave their enemy stronger than she was before. From
this time forward they considered the Thirty Years’ Truce as broken, and
conceived a hatred, alike deadly and undisguised, against Athens; so that
the latter gained nothing by the moderation of her admirals in sparing
the Corinthian fleet off the coast of Epirus. An opportunity was not long
wanting for the Corinthians to strike a blow at their enemy, through one
of her widespread dependencies.

On the isthmus of that lesser peninsula called Pallene, which forms
the westernmost of the three prongs of the greater Thracian peninsula
called Chalcidice, between the Thermaic and the Strymonic gulfs, was
situated the Dorian town of Potidæa, one of the tributary allies of
Athens, but originally colonised from Corinth, and still maintaining
a certain metropolitan allegiance towards the latter: insomuch that
every year certain Corinthians were sent thither as magistrates under
the title of Epidemiurgi. On various points of the neighbouring coast,
also, there were several small towns belonging to the Chalcidians and
Bottiæans, enrolled in like manner in the list of Athenian tributaries.
The neighbouring inland territory, Mygdonia and Chalcidice, was held by
the Macedonian king, Perdiccas, son of that Alexander who had taken part,
fifty years before, in the expedition of Xerxes. These two princes appear
gradually to have extended their dominions, after the ruin of Persian
power in Thrace by the exertions of Athens, until at length they acquired
all the territory between the rivers Axius and Strymon. Now Perdiccas had
been for some time the friend and ally of Athens; but there were other
Macedonian princes, his brother Philip, and Derdas, holding independent
principalities in the upper country, apparently on the higher course
of the Axius near the Pæonian tribes, with whom he was in a state of
dispute. These princes having been accepted as the allies of Athens,
Perdiccas from that time became her active enemy, and it was from his
intrigues that all the difficulties of Athens on that coast took their
first origin. The Athenian empire was much less complete and secure over
the seaports on the mainland than over the islands: for the former were
always more or less dependent on any powerful land-neighbour, sometimes
more dependent on him than upon the mistress of the sea; and we shall
find Athens herself cultivating assiduously the favour of Sitalces and
other strong Thracian potentates, as an aid to her dominion over the
seaports. Perdiccas immediately began to incite and aid the Chalcidians
and Bottiæans to revolt from Athens, and the violent enmity against the
latter, kindled in the bosoms of the Corinthians by the recent events at
Corcyra, enabled him to extend the same projects to Potidæa. Not only
did he send envoys to Corinth in order to concert measures for provoking
the revolt of Potidæa, but also to Sparta, instigating the Peloponnesian
league to a general declaration of war against Athens. And he further
prevailed on many of the Chalcidian inhabitants to abandon their separate
small town on the seacoast, for the purpose of joint residence at
Olynthus, which was several stadia from the sea. Thus that town, as well
as the Chalcidian interest, became much strengthened, while Perdiccas
further assigned some territory near Lake Bolbe to contribute to the
temporary maintenance of the concentrated population.

The Athenians were not ignorant either of his hostile preparations or
of the dangers which awaited them from Corinth after the Corcyræan
sea-fight immediately after which they sent to take precautions against
the revolt of Potidæa; requiring the inhabitants to take down their
wall on the side of Pallene, so as to leave the town open on the side
of the peninsula, or on what may be called the sea-side, and fortified
only towards the mainland--requiring them further both to deliver
hostages and to dismiss the annual magistrates who came to them from
Corinth. An Athenian armament of thirty triremes and one thousand
hoplites, under Archestratus and ten others, despatched to act against
Perdiccas in the Thermaic gulf, was directed at the same time to enforce
these requisitions against Potidæa, and to repress any dispositions to
revolt among the neighbouring Chalcidians. Immediately on receiving
the requisitions, the Potidæans sent envoys both to Athens, for the
purpose of evading and gaining time, and to Sparta, in conjunction with
Corinth, in order to determine a Lacedæmonian invasion of Attica, in the
event of Potidæa being attacked by Athens. From the Spartan authorities
they obtained a distinct affirmative promise, in spite of the Thirty
Years’ Truce still subsisting: at Athens they had no success, and they
accordingly openly revolted (seemingly about midsummer 432 B.C.), at the
same time that the armament under Archestratus sailed. The Chalcidians
and Bottiæans revolted also, at the express instigation of Corinth,
accompanied by solemn oaths and promises of assistance. Archestratus with
his fleet, on reaching the Thermaic gulf, found them all in proclaimed
enmity, but was obliged to confine himself to the attack of Perdiccas
in Macedonia, not having numbers enough to admit of a division of his
force. He accordingly laid siege to Therma, in co-operation with the
Macedonian troops from the upper country, under Philip and the brothers
of Derdas; after taking that place, he next proceeded to besiege Pydna.
But it would probably have been wiser had he turned his whole force
instantly to the blockade of Potidæa; for during the period of more than
six weeks that he spent in the operations against Therma, the Corinthians
conveyed to Potidæa a reinforcement of sixteen hundred hoplites and four
hundred light-armed, partly their own citizens, partly Peloponnesians,
hired for the occasion--under Aristeus, son of Adimantus, a man of such
eminent popularity, both at Corinth and at Potidæa, that most of the
soldiers volunteered on his personal account. Potidæa was thus put in a
state of complete defence shortly after the news of its revolt reached
Athens, and long before any second armament could be sent to attack it.
A second armament, however, was speedily sent forth--forty triremes and
two thousand Athenian hoplites under Callias, son of Calliades, with four
other commanders--who on reaching the Thermaic gulf, joined the former
body at the siege of Pydna. After prosecuting the siege in vain for a
short time, they found themselves obliged to patch up an accommodation
on the best terms they could with Perdiccas, from the necessity of
commencing immediate operations against Aristeus and Potidæa. They then
quitted Macedonia, first crossing by sea from Pydna to the eastern coast
of the Thermaic Gulf--next attacking, though without effect, the town of
Berœa--and then marching by land along the eastern coast of the gulf, in
the direction of Potidæa. On the third day of easy march, they reached
the seaport called Gigonus, near which they encamped.

[Sidenote: [432 B.C.]]

In spite of the convention concluded at Pydna, Perdiccas, whose character
for faithlessness we shall have more than one occasion to notice, was
now again on the side of the Chalcidians, and sent two hundred horse to
join them, under the command of Iolaus. Aristeus posted his Corinthians
and Potidæans on the isthmus near Potidæa, providing a market without the
walls, in order that they might not stray in quest of provisions. His
position was on the side towards Olynthus--which was about seven miles
off, but within sight, and in a lofty and conspicuous situation. He here
awaited the approach of the Athenians, calculating that the Chalcidians
from Olynthus would, upon the hoisting of a given signal, assail them in
the rear when they attacked him. But Callias was strong enough to place
in reserve his Macedonian cavalry and other allies as a check against
Olynthus; while with his Athenians and the main force he marched to the
isthmus and took position in front of Aristeus. In the battle which
ensued, Aristeus and the chosen band of Corinthians immediately about
him were completely successful, breaking the troops opposed to them,
and pursuing for a considerable distance; but the remaining Potidæans
and Peloponnesians were routed by the Athenians and driven within the
walls. On returning from pursuit, Aristeus found the victorious Athenians
between him and Potidæa, and was reduced to the alternative either
of cutting his way through them into the latter town, or of making a
retreating march to Olynthus. He chose the former as the least of two
hazards, and forced his way through the flank of the Athenians, wading
into the sea in order to turn the extremity of the Potidæan wall, which
reached entirely across the isthmus with a mole running out at each
end into the water: he effected this daring enterprise and saved his
detachment, though not without considerable difficulty and some loss.
Meanwhile, the auxiliaries from Olynthus, though they had begun their
march on seeing the concerted signal, had been kept in check by the
Macedonian horse, so that the Potidæans had been beaten and the signal
again withdrawn, before they could make any effective diversion: nor did
the cavalry on either side come into action. The defeated Potidæans and
Corinthians, having the town immediately in their rear, lost only three
hundred men, while the Athenians lost one hundred and fifty, together
with the general, Callias.

The victory was, however, quite complete, and the Athenians, after
having erected their trophy and given up the enemy’s dead for burial,
immediately built their blockading wall across the isthmus on the side
of the mainland, so as to cut off Potidæa from all communication with
Olynthus and the Chalcidians. To make the blockade complete, a second
wall across the isthmus was necessary, on the other side towards Pallene:
but they had not force enough to detach a completely separate body for
this purpose, until after some time they were joined by Phormion with
sixteen hundred fresh hoplites from Athens. That general, landing at
Aphytis, in the peninsula of Pallene, marched slowly up to Potidæa,
ravaging the territory in order to draw out the citizens to battle: but
the challenge not being accepted, he undertook, and finished without
obstruction, the blockading wall on the side of Pallene, so that the
town was now completely enclosed and the harbour watched by the Athenian
fleet. The wall once finished, a portion of the force sufficed to guard
it, leaving Phormion at liberty to undertake aggressive operations
against the Chalcidic and Bottiæan townships. The capture of Potidæa
being now only a question of more or less time, Aristeus, in order that
the provisions might last longer, proposed to the citizens to choose
a favourable wind, get on shipboard, and break out suddenly from the
harbour, taking their chance of eluding the Athenian fleet, and leaving
only five hundred defenders behind. Though he offered himself to be among
those left, he could not determine the citizens to so bold an enterprise,
and therefore sallied forth, in the way proposed, with a small
detachment, in order to try and procure relief from without--especially
some aid or diversion from Peloponnesus. But he was able to accomplish
nothing beyond some partial warlike operations among the Chalcidians,
and a successful ambuscade against the citizens of Sermyla, which did
nothing for the relief of the blockaded town: it had, however, been so
well provisioned that it held out for two whole years--a period full of
important events elsewhere.

From these two contests between Athens and Corinth, first indirectly at
Corcyra, next distinctly and avowedly at Potidæa, sprang those important
movements in the Lacedæmonian alliance which will be recounted later.[c]

[Illustration: GREEK TERRA-COTTA FIGURE]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXVI. IMPERIAL ATHENS UNDER PERICLES

    Athens the stately-walled, magnificent!--PINDAR.


[Sidenote: [460-430 B.C.]]

The judicial alterations effected at Athens by Pericles and Ephialtes,
described in a preceding chapter, gave to a large proportion of
the citizens direct jury functions and an active interest in the
constitution, such as they had never before enjoyed; the change being
at once a mark of previous growth of democratical sentiment during the
past, and a cause of its further development during the future. The
Athenian people were at this time ready for any personal exertion. The
naval service especially was prosecuted with a degree of assiduity which
brought about continual improvement in skill and efficiency; while
the poorer citizens, of whom it chiefly consisted, were more exact in
obedience and discipline than any of the more opulent persons from
whom the infantry or the cavalry were drawn. The maritime multitude,
in addition to self-confidence and courage, acquired by this laborious
training an increased skill, which placed the Athenian navy every year
more and more above the rest of Greece: and the perfection of this force
became the more indispensable as the Athenian empire was now again
confined to the sea and seaport towns; the reverses immediately preceding
the Thirty Years’ Truce having broken up all Athenian land ascendency
over Megara, Bœotia, and the other continental territories adjoining to
Attica.

[Illustration: RESTORATION OF THE PARTHENON]

Instead of trying to cherish or restore the feelings of equal alliance,
Pericles formally disclaimed it. He maintained that Athens owed to her
subject allies no account of the money received from them, so long as she
performed her contract by keeping away the Persian enemy, and maintaining
the safety of the Ægean waters. This was, as he represented, the
obligation which Athens had undertaken; and provided it were faithfully
discharged, the allies had no right to ask questions or institute
control. That it was faithfully discharged no one could deny: no ship
of war except those of Athens and her allies was ever seen between the
eastern and western shores of the Ægean. An Athenian fleet of sixty
triremes was kept on duty in these waters, chiefly manned by Athenian
citizens, and beneficial as well from the protection afforded to commerce
as for keeping the seamen in constant pay and training. And such was the
effective superintendence maintained, that in the disastrous period
preceding the Thirty Years’ Truce, when Athens lost Megara and Bœotia,
and with difficulty recovered Eubœa, none of her numerous maritime
subjects took the opportunity to revolt.

The total of these distinct tributary cities is said to have amounted
to one thousand, according to a verse of Aristophanes, which cannot be
under the truth, though it may well be, and probably is, greatly above
the truth. The total annual tribute collected at the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War, and probably also for the years preceding it, is
given by Thucydides at about six hundred talents [£120,000 or $600,000].
Of the sums paid by particular states, however, we have little or no
information. It was placed under the superintendence of the Hellenotamiæ;
originally officers of the confederacy, but now removed from Delos to
Athens, and acting altogether as an Athenian treasury-board. The sum
total of the Athenian revenue, from all sources, including this tribute,
at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War is stated by Xenophon at one
thousand talents: customs, harbour, and market-dues, receipt from the
silver mines at Laurium, rents of public property, fines from judicial
sentences, a tax per head upon slaves, the annual payment made by each
metic, etc., may have made up a larger sum than four hundred talents;
which sum, added to the six hundred talents from tribute, would make the
total named by Xenophon. But a verse of Aristophanes, during the ninth
year of the Peloponnesian War, B.C. 422, gives the general total of
that time as “nearly two thousand talents”: this is in all probability
much above the truth, though we may reasonably imagine that the amount
of tribute money levied upon the allies had been augmented during the
interval. Whatever may have been the actual magnitude of the Athenian
budget, however, prior to the Peloponnesian War, we know that during the
larger part of the administration of Pericles, the revenue including
tribute, was so managed as to leave a large annual surplus; insomuch
that a treasure of coined money was accumulated in the Acropolis during
the years preceding the Peloponnesian War--which treasure when at its
maximum reached the great sum of ninety-seven hundred talents [£1,940,000
or $9,700,000], and was still at six thousand talents, after a serious
drain for various purposes, at the moment when that war began. This
system of public economy, constantly laying by a considerable sum year
after year--in which Athens stood alone, since none of the Peloponnesian
states had any public reserve whatever--goes far of itself to vindicate
Pericles from the charge of having wasted the public money in mischievous
distributions for the purpose of obtaining popularity; and also to
exonerate the Athenian demos from that reproach of a greedy appetite for
living by the public purse which it is common to advance against them.
After the death of Cimon, no further expeditions were undertaken against
the Persians, and even for some years before his death, not much appears
to have been done. The tribute money thus remained unexpended, and kept
in reserve, as the presidential duties of Athens prescribed, against
future attack, which might at any time be renewed.

Though we do not know the exact amount of the other sources of Athenian
revenue, however, we know that tribute received from allies was the
largest item in it. And altogether the exercise of empire abroad became
a prominent feature in Athenian life, and a necessity to Athenian
sentiment, not less than democracy at home. Athens was no longer, as she
had been once, a single city, with Attica for her territory: she was a
capital or imperial city--a despot-city, was the expression used by her
enemies, and even sometimes by her own citizens--with many dependencies
attached to her, and bound to follow her orders. Such was the manner in
which not merely Pericles and the other leading statesmen, but even
the humblest Athenian citizen, conceived the dignity of Athens; and the
sentiment was one which carried with it both personal pride and stimulus
to patriotism.

To establish Athenian interests in the dependent territories, was one
important object in the eyes of Pericles, and while he discountenanced
all distant and rash enterprises, such as invasion of Egypt or Cyprus,
he planted out many cleruchies and colonies of Athenian citizens
intermingled with allies, on islands and parts of the coast. He
conducted one thousand citizens to the Thracian Chersonese, five hundred
to Naxos, and two hundred and fifty to Andros. In the Chersonese, he
further repelled the barbarous Thracian invaders from without, and even
undertook the labour of carrying a wall of defence across the isthmus,
which connected the peninsula with Thrace; since the barbarous Thracian
tribes, though expelled some time before by Cimon, had still continued
to renew their incursions from time to time. Ever since the occupation
of the elder Miltiades, about eighty years before, there had been in
this peninsula many Athenian proprietors, apparently intermingled
with half-civilised Thracians: the settlers now acquired both greater
numerical strength and better protection, though it does not appear that
the cross-wall was permanently maintained. The maritime expeditions of
Pericles even extended into the Euxine Sea, as far as the important Greek
city of Sinope, then governed by a despot named Timesileus, against whom
a large proportion of the citizens were in active discontent.

Lamachus was left with thirteen Athenian triremes to assist in expelling
the despot, who was driven into exile with his friends: the properties
of these exiles were confiscated, and assigned to the maintenance of six
hundred Athenian citizens, admitted to equal fellowship and residence
with the Sinopians. We may presume that on this occasion Sinope became a
member of the Athenian tributary alliance, if it had not been so before:
but we do not know whether Cotyora and Trapezus, dependencies of Sinope
further eastward, which the ten thousand Greeks found on their retreat
fifty years afterwards, existed in the time of Pericles or not. Moreover,
the numerous and well-equipped Athenian fleet, under the command of
Pericles, produced an imposing effect upon the barbarous princes and
tribes along the coast, contributing certainly to the security of Grecian
trade, and probably to the acquisition of new dependent allies.

It was by successive proceedings of this sort that many detachments of
Athenian citizens became settled in various portions of the maritime
empire of the city--some rich, investing their property in the islands as
more secure (from the incontestable superiority of Athens at sea) even
than Attica, which since the loss of the Megarid could not be guarded
against a Peloponnesian land invasion--others poor, and hiring themselves
out as labourers. The islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, as well as
the territory of Histiæa, on the north of Eubœa, were completely occupied
by Athenian proprietors and citizens: other places were partially so
occupied. And it was doubtless advantageous to the islanders to associate
themselves with Athenians in trading enterprises, since they thereby
obtained a better chance of the protection of the Athenian fleet. It
seems that Athens passed regulations occasionally for the commerce of
her dependent allies, as we see by the fact that, shortly before the
Peloponnesian War, she excluded the Megarians from all their ports. The
commercial relations between Piræus and the Ægean reached their maximum
during the interval immediately preceding the Peloponnesian War. Nor were
these relations confined to the country east and north of Attica: they
reached also the western regions. The most important settlements founded
by Athens during this period were, Amphipolis in Thrace and Thurii in
Italy. Amphipolis was planted by a colony of Athenians and other Greeks,
under the conduct of the Athenian Agnon, in 437 B.C. It was situated near
the river Strymon in Thrace, on the eastern bank, and at the spot where
the Strymon resumes its river-course after emerging from the lake above.

The colony of Thurii on the coast of the Gulf of Tarentum in Italy,
near the site and on the territory of the ancient Sybaris, was founded
by Athens about seven years earlier than Amphipolis, not long after the
conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce with Sparta, 443 B.C.

The fourteen years between the Thirty Years’ Truce and the breaking out
of the Peloponnesian War, are a period of full maritime empire on the
part of Athens--partially indeed resisted, but never with success. They
are a period of peace with all cities extraneous to her own empire; and
of splendid decorations to the city itself, emanating from the genius of
Phidias and others, in sculpture as well as in architecture. Since the
death of Cimon, Pericles had become, gradually but entirely, the first
citizen in the commonwealth. His qualities told for more, the longer they
were known, and even the disastrous reverses which preceded the Thirty
Years’ Truce had not overthrown him, since he had protested against that
expedition of Tolmides into Bœotia out of which they first arose. But if
the personal influence of Pericles had increased, the party opposed to
him seems also to have become stronger than before; and to have acquired
a leader in many respects more effective than Cimon--Thucydides, son of
Melesias.

The new chief was a relative of Cimon, but of a character and talents
more analogous to those of Pericles: a statesman and orator rather than
a general, though competent to both functions if occasion demanded, as
every leading man in those days was required to be. Under Thucydides,
the political and parliamentary opposition against Pericles assumed a
constant character and organisation such as Cimon, with his exclusively
military aptitudes, had never been able to establish. The aristocratical
party in the commonwealth--the “honourable and respectable” citizens, as
we find them styled, adopting their own nomenclature--now imposed upon
themselves the obligation of undeviating regularity in their attendance
on the public assembly, sitting together in a particular section, so as
to be conspicuously parted from the demos. In this manner, their applause
and dissent, their mutual encouragement to each other, their distribution
of parts to different speakers, was made more conducive to the party
purposes than it had been before when these distinguished persons were
intermingled with the mass of citizens. Thucydides himself was eminent as
a speaker, inferior only to Pericles--perhaps hardly inferior even to him.

Such an opposition made to Pericles, in all the full license which a
democratical constitution permitted, must have been both efficient and
embarrassing. But the pointed severance of the aristocratical chiefs,
which Thucydides, son of Melesias, introduced, contributed probably at
once to rally the democratical majority round Pericles, and to exasperate
the bitterness of party conflict. As far as we can make out the grounds
of the opposition, it turned partly upon the pacific policy of Pericles
towards the Persians, partly upon his expenditure for home ornament.
Thucydides contended that Athens was disgraced in the eyes of the
Greeks by having drawn the confederate treasure from Delos to her own
Acropolis, under pretence of greater security--and then employing it,
not in prosecuting war against the Persians, but in beautifying Athens
by new temples and costly statues. To this Pericles replied that Athens
had undertaken the obligation, in consideration of the tribute-money, to
protect her allies and keep off from them every foreign enemy,--that she
had accomplished this object completely at the present, and retained a
reserve sufficient to guarantee the like security for the future,--that
under such circumstances she owed no account to her allies of the
expenditure of the surplus, but was at liberty to employ it for purposes
useful and honourable to the city. In this point of view it was an object
of great public importance to render Athens imposing in the eyes both
of the allies and of Hellas generally, by improved fortifications,--by
accumulated embellishment, sculptural and architectural,--and by
religious festivals, frequent, splendid, musical, and poetical.

Such was the answer made by Pericles in defence of his policy against
the opposition headed by Thucydides. And considering the ground of the
debate on both sides, the answer was perfectly satisfactory. For when we
look at the very large sum which Pericles continually kept in reserve in
the treasury, no one could reasonably complain that his expenditure for
ornamental purposes was carried so far as to encroach upon the exigencies
of defence. What Thucydides and his partisans appear to have urged, was
that this common fund should still continue to be spent in aggressive
warfare against the Persian king, in Egypt and elsewhere--conformably to
the projects pursued by Cimon during his life. But Pericles was right in
contending that such outlay would have been simply wasteful; of no use
either to Athens or her allies, though risking all the chances of distant
defeat, such as had been experienced a few years before in Egypt.

So bitter however was the opposition made by Thucydides and his party to
this projected expenditure--so violent and pointed did the scission of
aristocrats and democrats become--that the dispute came after no long
time to that ultimate appeal which the Athenian constitution provided
for the case of two opposite and nearly equal party-leaders--a vote of
ostracism. Of the particular details which preceded this ostracism, we
are not informed; but we see clearly that the general position was such
as the ostracism was intended to meet. Probably the vote was proposed by
the party of Thucydides, in order to procure the banishment of Pericles,
the more powerful person of the two and the most likely to excite popular
jealousy. The challenge was accepted by Pericles and his friends, and the
result of the voting was such that an adequate legal majority condemned
Thucydides to ostracism. And it seems that the majority must have been
very decisive, for the party of Thucydides was completely broken by it:
and we hear of no other single individual equally formidable, as a leader
of opposition, throughout all the remaining life of Pericles.

The ostracism of Thucydides apparently took place about two years after
the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce (443-442 B.C.), and it is to
the period immediately following, that the great Periclean works belong.
The southern wall of the Acropolis had been built out of the spoils
brought by Cimon from his Persian expeditions; but the third of the Long
Walls connecting Athens with the harbour was the proposition of Pericles,
at what precise time we do not know. The Long Walls originally completed
(not long after the battle of Tanagra, as has already been stated)
were two, one from Athens to Piræus, another from Athens to Phalerum:
the space between them was broad, and if in the hands of an enemy, the
communication with Piræus would be interrupted. Accordingly, Pericles now
induced the people to construct a third or intermediate wall, running
parallel with the first wall to Piræus, and within a short distance
(seemingly near one furlong) from it: so that the communication between
the city and the port was placed beyond all possible interruption, even
assuming an enemy to have got within the Phaleric wall. It was seemingly
about this time, too, that the splendid docks and arsenal in Piræus,
alleged by Isocrates to have cost one thousand talents [£200,000 or
$1,000,000] were constructed; while the town itself of Piræus was laid
out anew with straight streets intersecting at right angles. Apparently
this was something new in Greece--the towns generally, and Athens itself
in particular, having been built without any symmetry, or width, or
continuity of streets: and Hippodamus the Milesian, a man of considerable
attainments in the physical philosophy of the age, derived much renown as
the earliest town architect, for having laid out the Piræus on a regular
plan. The market-place, or one of them at least, permanently bore his
name--the Hippodamian agora. At a time when so many great architects
were displaying their genius in the construction of temples, we are not
surprised to hear that the structure of towns began to be regularised
also. Moreover we are told that the new colonial town of Thurii, to which
Hippodamus went as a settler, was also constructed in the same systematic
form as to straight and wide streets.

The new scheme upon which the Piræus was laid out, was not without its
value as one visible proof of the naval grandeur of Athens. But the
buildings in Athens and on the Acropolis formed the real glory of the
Periclean age. A new theatre, termed the Odeon, was constructed for
musical and poetical representations at the great Panathenaic solemnity;
next, the splendid temple of Athene, called the Parthenon, with all its
masterpieces of decorative sculpture, friezes, and reliefs; lastly,
the costly portals erected to adorn the entrance of the Acropolis, on
the western side of the hill, through which the solemn processions on
festival days were conducted. It appears that the Odeon and the Parthenon
were both finished between 445 and 437 B.C.: the Propylæa somewhat
later, between 437 and 431 B.C., in which latter year the Peloponnesian
War began. Progress was also made in restoring or reconstructing the
Erechtheion, or ancient temple of Athene Polias, the patron goddess
of the city--which had been burnt in the invasion of Xerxes. But the
breaking out of the Peloponnesian War seems to have prevented the
completion of this, as well as of the great temple of Demeter, at
Eleusis, for the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries--that of Athene,
at Sunium--and that of Nemesis at Rhamnus. Nor was the sculpture less
memorable than the architecture; three statues of Athene, all by the
hand of Phidias, decorated the Acropolis, one colossal, forty-seven feet
high, of ivory, in the Parthenon, a second of bronze, called the Lemnian
Athene, a third of colossal magnitude, also in bronze, called Athene
Promachos, placed between the Propylæa, and the Parthenon, and visible
from afar off, even to the navigator approaching Piræus by sea.

It is not, of course, to Pericles that the renown of these splendid
productions of art belongs; but the great sculptors and architects, by
whom they were conceived and executed, belonged to that same period of
expanding and stimulating Athenian democracy, which likewise called forth
creative genius in oratory, in dramatic poetry, and in philosophical
speculation.

Considering these prodigious achievements in the field of art only as
they bear upon Athenian and Grecian history, they are phenomena of
extraordinary importance. When we learn the profound impression which
they produced upon Grecian spectators of a later age, we may judge how
immense was the effect upon that generation which saw them both begun
and finished. In the year 480 B.C., Athens was ruined by the occupation
of Xerxes: since that period, the Greeks had seen, first, the rebuilding
and fortifying of the city on an enlarged scale; next, the addition of
Piræus with its docks and magazines; thirdly, the junction of the two by
the Long Walls, thus including the most numerous concentrated population,
wealth, arms, ships, etc., in Greece; lastly, the rapid creation of
so many new miracles of art--the sculptures of Phidias as well as the
paintings of the Thasian painter Polygnotus, in the temple of Theseus,
and in the portico called Pœcile.[b]

Plutarch says: “That which was the chief delight of the Athenians and
the wonder of strangers, and which alone serves for a proof that the
boasted power and opulence of ancient Greece is not an idle tale, was
the magnificence of the temples and public edifices. Works were raised
of an astonishing magnitude, and inimitable beauty and perfection, every
architect striving to surpass the magnificence of the design with the
elegance of the execution; yet still the most wonderful circumstance was
the expedition with which they were completed. Phidias was appointed by
Pericles superintendent of all the public edifices.”[f]

It thus appears that the gigantic strides by which Athens had reached her
maritime empire were now immediately succeeded by a series of works which
stamped her as the imperial city of Greece, gave to her an appearance
of power even greater than the reality, and especially put to shame the
old-fashioned simplicity of Sparta. The cost was doubtless prodigious,
and could only have been borne at a time when there was a large treasure
in the Acropolis, as well as a considerable tribute annually coming
in: if we may trust a computation which seems to rest on plausible
grounds, it cannot have been much less than three thousand talents in the
aggregate [£600,000 or $3,000,000].

The expenditure of so large a sum was, of course, a source of revenue and
of great private gain to all manner of contractors, tradesmen, merchants,
artisans of various descriptions, etc., concerned in it: in one way or
another, it distributed itself over a large portion of the whole city.
And it appears that the materials employed for much of the work were
designedly of the most costly description, as being most consistent
with the reverence due to the gods: marble was rejected as too common
for the statue of Athene, and ivory employed in its place; while the
gold with which it was surrounded weighed not less than forty talents
[£8000 or $40,000]. A large expenditure for such purposes, considered as
pious towards the gods, was at the same time imposing in reference to
Grecian feeling, which regarded with admiration every variety of public
show and magnificence, and repaid with grateful deference the rich men
who indulged in it. Pericles knew well that the visible splendour of
the city, so new to all his contemporaries, would cause her great power
to appear greater still, and would thus procure for her a real, though
unacknowledged influence--perhaps even an ascendency--over all cities of
the Grecian name. And it is certain that even among those who most hated
and feared her, at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, there prevailed
a powerful sentiment of involuntary deference.


JUDICIAL REFORMS OF PERICLES

Before Ephialtes advanced his main proposition for abridging the
competence of the senate of Areopagus, he appears to have been
strenuous in repressing the practical abuse of magisterial authority,
by accusations brought against the magistrates at the period of their
regular accountability. After repeated efforts to check the practical
abuse of these magisterial powers, Ephialtes and Pericles were at last
conducted to the proposition of cutting them down permanently, and
introducing an altered system.

It was now that Pericles and Ephialtes carried their important scheme
of judicial reform. The senate of Areopagus was deprived of its
discretionary censorial power, as well as of all its judicial competence,
except that which related to homicide. The individual magistrates, as
well as the senate of Five Hundred, were also stripped of their judicial
attributes (except the power of imposing a small fine), which were
transferred to the newly created panels of salaried dicasts, lotted off
in ten divisions from the aggregate Heliæa. Ephialtes first brought
down the laws of Solon from the Acropolis to the neighbourhood of the
market-place, where the dicasteries sat--a visible proof that the
judicature was now popularised.

In the representation of many authors, the full bearing of this great
constitutional change is very inadequately conceived. What we are
commonly told is, that Pericles was the first to assign a salary to
these numerous dicasteries at Athens. He bribed the people with the
public money (says Plutarch), in order to make head against Cimon, who
bribed them out of his own private purse; as if the pay were the main
feature in the case, and as if all which Pericles did was, to make
himself popular by paying the dicasts for judicial service which they
had before rendered gratuitously. The truth is, that this numerous
army of dicasts, distributed into ten regiments and summoned to act
systematically throughout the year, was now for the first time organised:
the commencement of their pay is also the commencement of their regular
judicial action. What Pericles really did was, to sever for the first
time from the administrative competence of the magistrates that judicial
authority which had originally gone along with it. The great men who had
been accustomed to hold these offices were lowered both in influence
and authority: while on the other hand a new life, habit, and sense of
power, sprung up among the poorer citizens. A plaintiff having cause of
civil action, or an accuser invoking punishment against citizens guilty
of injury either to himself or to the state, had still to address himself
to one or other of the archons, but it was only with a view of ultimately
arriving before the dicastery by whom the cause was to be tried.

While the magistrates individually were thus restricted to simple
administration, they experienced still more serious loss of power in
their capacity of members of the Areopagus, after the year of archonship
was expired. Instead of their previous unmeasured range of supervision
and interference, they were now deprived of all judicial sanction beyond
that small power of fining which was still left both to individual
magistrates, and to the senate of Five Hundred. But the cognisance of
homicide was still expressly reserved to them--for the procedure, in
this latter case religious not less than judicial, was so thoroughly
consecrated by ancient feeling, that no reformer could venture to disturb
or remove it.

It was upon this same ground probably that the stationary party defended
all the prerogatives of the senate of Areopagus--denouncing the
curtailments proposed by Ephialtes as impious and guilty innovations. How
extreme their resentment became, when these reforms were carried,--and
how fierce was the collision of political parties at this moment,--we may
judge by the result. The enemies of Ephialtes caused him to be privately
assassinated, by the hand of a Bœotian of Tanagra named Aristodicus.
Such a crime--rare in the political annals of Athens, for we come to no
known instance of it afterwards until the oligarchy of the Four Hundred
in 411 B.C.--marks at once the gravity of the change now introduced, the
fierceness of the opposition offered, and the unscrupulous character of
the conservative party. Cimon was in exile and had no share in the deed.
Doubtless the assassination of Ephialtes produced an effect unfavourable
in every way to the party who procured it. The popular party in their
resentment must have become still more attached to the judicial reforms
just assured to them, while the hands of Pericles, the superior leader
left behind and now acting singly, must have been materially strengthened.

It is from this point that the administration of that great man may
be said to date: he was now the leading adviser (we might almost say
Prime Minister) of the Athenian people. His first years were marked by
a series of brilliant successes--already mentioned--the acquisition of
Megara as an ally, and the victorious war against Corinth and Ægina. But
when he proposed the great and valuable improvement of the Long Walls,
thus making one city of Athens and Piræus, the same oligarchical party,
which had opposed his judicial changes and assassinated Ephialtes,
again stood forward in vehement resistance. Finding direct opposition
unavailing, they did not scruple to enter into treasonable correspondence
with Sparta--invoking the aid of a foreign force for the overthrow of
the democracy: so odious had it become in their eyes, since the recent
innovations. How serious was the hazard incurred by Athens, near the
time of the battle of Tanagra, has been already recounted; together with
the rapid and unexpected reconciliation of parties after that battle,
principally owing to the generous patriotism of Cimon and his immediate
friends. Cimon was restored from ostracism on this occasion, before
his full time had expired; while the rivalry between him and Pericles
henceforward becomes mitigated, or even converted into a compromise,
whereby the internal affairs of the city were left to the one, and the
conduct of foreign expeditions to the other. The successes of Athens
during the ensuing ten years were more brilliant than ever, and she
attained the maximum of her power: which doubtless had a material effect
in imparting stability to the democracy as well as to the administration
of Pericles--and enabled both the one and the other to stand the shock
of those great public reverses, which deprived the Athenians of their
dependent landed alliances, in the interval between the defeat of Coronea
and the Thirty Years’ Truce.

Along with the important judicial revolution brought about by Pericles,
were introduced other changes belonging to the same scheme and system.

Thus a general power of supervision both over the magistrates and over
the public assembly, was vested in seven magistrates, now named for the
first time, called nomophylaces, or law-guardians, and doubtless changed
every year. These nomophylaces sat alongside of the Proedri or presidents
both in the senate and in the public assembly, and were charged with the
duty of interposing whenever any step was taken or any proposition made
contrary to the existing laws: they were also empowered to constrain the
magistrates to act according to law.

Another important change, which we may with probability refer to
Pericles, is the institution of the _nomothetæ_. These men were in point
of fact dicasts, members of the six thousand citizens annually sworn in
that capacity. But they were not, like the dicasts for trying causes,
distributed into panels or regiments known by a particular letter and
acting together throughout the entire year: they were lotted off to sit
together only on special occasion and as the necessity arose. According
to the reform now introduced, the ecclesia or public assembly, even with
the sanction of the senate of Five Hundred, became incompetent either
to pass a new law or to repeal a law already in existence; it could only
enact a psephism--that is, properly speaking, a decree applicable only
to a particular case; though the word was used at Athens in a very large
sense, sometimes comprehending decrees of general as well as permanent
application. In reference to laws, a peculiar judicial procedure was
established. The _thesmothetæ_ were directed annually to examine the
existing laws, noting any contradictions or double laws on the same
matter; and in the first prytany (tenth part) of the Attic year, on the
eleventh day, an ecclesia was held, in which the first business was to go
through the laws _seriatim_, and submit them for approval or rejection;
first beginning with the laws relating to the senate, next coming to
those of more general import, especially such as determined the functions
and competence of the magistrates. If any law was condemned by the vote
of the public assembly, or if any citizen had a new law to propose,
the third assembly of the prytany was employed, previous to any other
business, in the appointment of nomothetæ and in the provision of means
to pay their salary.

The effect of this institution was to place the making or repealing of
laws under the same solemnities and guarantees as the trying of causes or
accusations in judicature.

As an additional security both to the public assembly and the nomothetæ
against being entrapped into decisions contrary to existing law,
another remarkable provision has yet to be mentioned--a provision
probably introduced by Pericles at the same time as the formalities
of law-making by means of specially delegated nomothetæ. This was the
_Graphe Paranomon_--indictment for informality or illegality--which
might be brought on certain grounds against the proposer of any law or
any psephism, and rendered him liable to punishment by the dicastery. He
was required in bringing forward his new measure to take care that it
should not be in contradiction with any pre-existing law--or if there
were any such contradiction, to give formal notice of it, to propose the
repeal of that which existed, and to write up publicly beforehand what
his proposition was--in order that there might never be two contradictory
laws at the same time in operation, nor any illegal decree passed either
by the senate or by the public assembly. If he neglected this precaution,
he was liable to prosecution under the Graphe Paranomon, which any
Athenian citizen might bring against him before the dicastery, through
the intervention and under the presidency of the thesmothetæ.

That this indictment, as one of the most direct vents for such enmity,
was largely applied and abused at Athens, is certain. But though it
probably deterred unpractised citizens from originating new propositions,
it did not produce the same effect upon those orators who made politics
a regular business, and who could therefore both calculate the temper
of the people, and reckon upon support from a certain knot of friends.
Aristophon, towards the close of his political life, made it a boast that
he had been thus indicted and acquitted seventy-five times. Probably
the worst effect which it produced was that of encouraging the vein
of personality and bitterness which pervades so large a proportion of
Attic oratory, even in its most illustrious manifestations; turning
deliberative into judicial eloquence, and interweaving the discussion of
a law or decree along with a declamatory harangue against the character
of its mover. We may at the same time add that the Graphe Paranomon was
often the most convenient way of getting a law or a psephism repealed, so
that it was used even when the annual period had passed over, and when
the mover was therefore out of danger, the indictment being then brought
only against the law or decree.

Such were the great constitutional innovations of Pericles and
Ephialtes,--changes full of practical results,--the transformation, as
well as the complement, of that democratical system which Clisthenes
had begun and to which the tide of Athenian feeling had been gradually
mounting up during the preceding twenty years. The entire force of these
changes is generally not perceived, because the popular dicasteries and
the nomothetæ are so often represented as institutions of Solon, and as
merely supplied with pay by Pericles. This erroneous supposition prevents
all clear view of the growth of the Athenian democracy by throwing back
its last elaborations to the period of its early and imperfect start.
To strip the magistrates of all their judicial power, except that of
imposing a small fine, and the Areopagus of all its jurisdiction except
in cases of homicide--providing popular, numerous, and salaried dicasts
to decide all the judicial business at Athens as well as to repeal and
enact laws--this was the consummation of the Athenian democracy. No
serious constitutional alteration (excepting the temporary interruptions
of the Four Hundred and the Thirty) was afterwards made until the days
of Macedonian interference. As Pericles made it, so it remained in the
days of Demosthenes--though with a sensible change in the character, and
abatement in the energies, of the people, rich as well as poor.

In appreciating the practical working of these numerous dicasteries at
Athens, in comparison with such justice as might have been expected from
individual magistrates, we have to consider: first, that personal and
pecuniary corruption seems to have been a common vice among the leading
men of Athens and Sparta, when acting individually or in boards of a
few members, and not uncommon even with the kings of Sparta; next, that
in the Grecian cities generally, as we know even from the oligarchical
Xenophon (he particularly excepts Sparta), the rich and great men
were not only insubordinate to the magistrates, but made a parade of
showing that they cared nothing about them. We know also from the same
unsuspected source, that while the poorer Athenian citizens who served on
shipboard were distinguished for the strictest discipline, the hoplites
or middling burghers who formed the infantry were less obedient, and the
rich citizens who served on horseback the most disobedient of all.

To make rich criminals amenable to justice has been found so difficult
everywhere, until a recent period of history, that we should be surprised
if it were otherwise in Greece. When we follow the reckless demeanour of
rich men like Critias, Alcibiades, and Midias, even under the full-grown
democracy of Athens, we may be sure that their predecessors under the
Clisthenean constitution would have been often too formidable to be
punished or kept down by an individual archon of ordinary firmness, even
assuming him to be upright and well-intentioned. Now the dicasteries
established by Pericles were inaccessible both to corruption and
intimidation: their number, their secret suffrage, and the impossibility
of knowing beforehand what individuals would sit in any particular cause,
prevented both the one and the other. And besides that the magnitude of
their number, extravagant according to our ideas of judicial business,
was essential to this tutelary effect--it served further to render
the trial solemn and the verdict imposing on the minds of parties and
spectators, as we may see by the fact that, in important causes the
dicastery was doubled or tripled. Nor was it possible by any other means
than numbers to give dignity to an assembly of citizens, of whom many
were poor, some old, and all were despised individually by rich accused
persons who were brought before them--as Aristophanes and Xenophon
give us plainly to understand. If we except the strict and peculiar
educational discipline of Sparta, these numerous dicasteries afforded
the only organ which Grecian politics could devise, for getting redress
against powerful criminals, public as well as private, and for obtaining
a sincere and uncorrupt verdict.

Taking the general working of the dicasteries, we shall find that they
are nothing but jury-trial applied on a scale broad, systematic, unaided,
and uncontrolled, beyond all other historical experience--and that they
therefore exhibit in exaggerated proportions both the excellences and the
defects characteristic of the jury system, as compared with decision by
trained and professional judges. All the encomiums, which it is customary
to pronounce upon jury-trial, will be found predicable of the Athenian
dicasteries in a still greater degree; all the reproaches, which can be
addressed on good ground to the dicasteries, will apply to modern juries
also, though in a less degree.


RHETORS AND SOPHISTS

The first establishment of the dicasteries is nearly coincident with the
great improvement of Attic tragedy in passing from Æschylus to Sophocles.
The same development of the national genius, now preparing splendid
manifestations both in tragic and comic poetry, was called with redoubled
force into the path of oratory, by the new judicial system. A certain
power of speech now became necessary, not merely for those who intended
to take a prominent part in politics, but also for private citizens to
vindicate their rights or repel accusations, in a court of justice. It
was an accomplishment of the greatest practical utility, even apart from
ambitious purposes; hardly less so than the use of arms or the practice
of the gymnasium. Accordingly, the teachers of grammar and rhetoric,
and the composers of written speeches to be delivered by others, now
began to multiply and to acquire an unprecedented importance--as well at
Athens as under the contemporary democracy of Syracuse, in which also
some form of popular judicature was established. Style and speech began
to be reduced to a system, and so communicated; not always happily, for
several of the early rhetors adopted an artificial, ornate, and conceited
manner, from which Attic good taste afterwards liberated itself. But the
very character of a teacher of rhetoric as an art--a man giving precepts
and putting himself forward in show-lectures as a model for others, is a
feature first belonging to the Periclean age, and indicates a new demand
in the minds of the citizens.

We begin to hear, in the generation now growing up, of the rhetor and the
sophist, as persons of influence and celebrity. These two names denoted
persons of similar moral and intellectual endowments, or often indeed the
same person, considered in different points of view; either as professing
to improve the moral character, or as communicating power and facility
of expression, or as suggesting premises for persuasion, illustrations
on the commonplaces of morals and politics, argumentative abundance on
matters of ordinary experience, dialectical subtlety in confuting an
opponent, etc. Antiphon of the deme Rhamnus in Attica, Thrasymachus of
Chalcedon, Tisias of Syracuse, Gorgias of Leontini, Protagoras of Abdera,
Prodicus of Ceos, Theodorus of Byzantium, Hippias of Elis, Zeno of Elea,
were among the first who distinguished themselves in these departments of
teaching. Antiphon was the author of the earliest composed speech really
spoken in a dicastery and preserved down to the later critics. These
men were mostly not citizens of Athens, though many of them belonged to
towns comprehended in the Athenian empire, at a time when important
judicial causes belonging to these towns were often carried up to be
tried at Athens--while all of them looked to that city as a central point
of action and distinction. The term “sophist,” which Herodotus applies
with sincere respect to men of distinguished wisdom such as Solon,
Anacharsis, Pythagoras, etc., now came to be applied to these teachers of
virtue, rhetoric, conversation, and disputation; many of whom professed
acquaintance with the whole circle of human science, physical as well as
moral (then narrow enough), so far as was necessary to talk about any
portion of it plausibly, and to answer any question proposed to them.

Though they passed from one town to another, partly in the capacity of
envoys from their fellow-citizens, partly as exhibiting their talents
to numerous hearers, with much renown and large gain--they appear
to have been viewed with jealousy and dislike by a large portion of
the public. For at a time when every citizen pleaded his own cause
before the dicastery, they imparted, to those who were rich enough to
purchase it, a peculiar skill in the common weapons, which made them
like fencing-masters or professional swordsmen amidst a society of
untrained duellists. Moreover Socrates--himself a product of the same
age, a disputant on the same subjects, and bearing the same name of a
sophist--but despising political and judicial practice, and looking
to the production of intellectual stimulus and moral impressions upon
his hearers--Socrates or rather Plato, speaking through the person of
Socrates--carried on throughout his life a constant polemical warfare
against the sophists and rhetors in that negative vein in which he was
unrivalled. And as the works of these latter have not remained, it is
chiefly from the observations of their opponents that we know them; so
that they are in a situation such as that in which Socrates himself would
have been if we had been compelled to judge of him only from the _Clouds_
of Aristophanes, or from those unfavourable impressions respecting his
character which we know, even from the _Apologia_ of Plato and Xenophon,
to have been generally prevalent at Athens.

This is not the opportunity, however, for trying to distinguish the good
from the evil in the working of the sophists and rhetors. At present
it is enough that they were the natural product of the age; supplying
those wants, and answering to that stimulus, which arose partly from
the deliberations of the ecclesia, but still more from the contentions
before the dicastery--in which latter a far greater number of citizens
took active part, with or without their own consent. The public and
frequent dicasteries constituted by Pericles opened to the Athenian mind
precisely that career of improvement which was best suited to its natural
aptitude. They were essential to the development of that demand out of
which grew not only Grecian oratory, but also, as secondary products, the
speculative moral and political philosophy, and the didactic analysis of
rhetoric and grammar, which long survived after Grecian creative genius
had passed away. And it was one of the first measures of the oligarchy
of Thirty, to forbid by an express law, any teaching of the art of
speaking. Aristophanes derides the Athenians for their love of talk and
controversy, as if it had enfeebled their military energy; but in his
time, most undoubtedly, that reproach was not true--nor did it become
true, even in part, until the crushing misfortunes which marked the
close of the Peloponnesian War. During the course of that war, restless
and energetic action was the characteristic of Athens even in a greater
degree than oratory or political discussion, though before the time of
Demosthenes a material alteration had taken place.

The establishment of these paid dicasteries at Athens was thus one of
the most important and prolific events in all Grecian history. The
pay helped to furnish a maintenance for old citizens, past the age of
military service. Elderly men were the best persons for such a service,
and were preferred for judicial purposes both at Sparta and, as it seems,
in heroic Greece. Nevertheless, we need not suppose that all the dicasts
were either old or poor, though a considerable proportion of them were
so, and though Aristophanes selects these qualities as among the most
suitable subjects for his ridicule. Pericles has been often censured for
this institution, as if he had been the first to insure pay to dicasts
who before served for nothing, and had thus introduced poor citizens into
courts previously composed of citizens above poverty. But in the first
place, this supposition is not correct in point of fact, inasmuch as
there were no such constant dicasteries previously acting without pay;
next, if it had been true, the habitual exclusion of the poor citizens
would have nullified the popular working of these bodies, and would have
prevented them from answering any longer to the reigning sentiment at
Athens. Nor could it be deemed unreasonable to assign a regular pay to
those who thus rendered regular service. It was indeed an essential item
in the whole scheme and purpose, so that the suppression of the pay of
itself seems to have suspended the dicasteries, while the oligarchy of
Four Hundred was established--and it can only be discussed in that light.
As the fact stands, we may suppose that the six thousand heliasts who
filled the dicasteries were composed of the middling and poorer citizens
indiscriminately; though there was nothing to exclude the richer, if they
chose to serve.[b]


PHIDIAS ACCUSED

The public works which were undertaken through the advice of Pericles
were executed under his inspection; the choice of the artists employed
and of the plans adopted, was probably entrusted in a great measure to
his judgment; and the large sums expended on them passed through his
hands. This was an office which it was scarcely possible to exercise at
Athens without either exciting suspicion or giving a handle for calumny.
We find that Cratinus in one of his comedies threw out some hints as to
the tardiness with which Pericles carried on the third of the Long Walls
which he had persuaded the people to begin. “He had been long professing
to go on with it, but in fact did not stir a step.” Whether the motives
to which this delay was imputed were such as to call his integrity into
question, does not appear; but in time his enemies ventured openly to
attack him on this ground. Yet the first blow was not aimed directly at
himself, but was intended to wound him through the side of a friend.
Phidias, whose genius was the ruling principle which animated and
controlled every design for the ornament of the city, had been brought,
as well by conformity of taste as by the nature of his engagement, into
an intimate relation with Pericles. To ruin Phidias was one of the
readiest means both of hurting the feelings and of shaking the credit
of Pericles. If Phidias could be convicted of a fraud on the public, it
would seem an unavoidable inference that Pericles had shared the profit.
The ivory statue of the goddess in the Parthenon, which was enriched
with massy ornaments of pure gold, appeared to offer a groundwork for
a charge which could not easily be refuted. To give it the greater
weight, a man named Menon, who had been employed by Phidias in some of
the details of the work, was induced to seat himself in the agora with
the ensigns of a suppliant, and to implore pardon of the people as the
condition of revealing an offence in which he had been an accomplice
with Phidias. He accused Phidias of having embezzled a part of the gold
which he had received from the treasury. But this charge immediately
fell to the ground through a contrivance which Pericles had adopted for
a different end. The golden ornaments had been fixed on the statue in
such a manner, that they could be taken off without doing it any injury,
and thus afforded the means of ascertaining their exact weight. Pericles
challenged the accusers of Phidias to use this opportunity of verifying
their charge; but they shrank from the application of this decisive test.

Though however they were thus baffled in this part of their attempt,
they were not abashed or deterred; for they had discovered another
ground, which gave them a surer hold on the public mind. Some keen eye
had observed two figures among those with which Phidias had represented
the battle between Theseus and the Amazons on the shield of the goddess,
in which it detected the portraits of the artist himself, as a bald old
man, and that of Pericles in all the comeliness of his graceful person.
To the religious feelings of the Athenians this mode of perpetuating the
memory of individuals, by connecting their portraits with an object of
public worship, appeared to violate the sanctity of the place; and it was
probably also viewed as an arrogant intrusion, no less offensive to the
majesty of the commonwealth. It seems as if Menon’s evidence was required
even to support this charge. Phidias was committed to prison, and died
there. The informer, who was a foreigner, was rewarded with certain
immunities; and, as one who in the service of the state had provoked a
powerful enemy, was placed by a formal decree under the protection of the
Ten Generals.


ASPASIA AT THE BAR

This success emboldened the enemies of Pericles to proceed. They had
not indeed established any of their accusations; but they had sounded
the disposition of the people, and found that it might be inspired with
distrust and jealousy of its powerful minister, or that it was not
unwilling to see him humbled. They seem now to have concerted a plan for
attacking him, both directly and indirectly, in several quarters at once;
and they began with a person in whose safety he felt as much concern as
in his own, and who could not be ruined without involving him in the like
calamity.

This was the celebrated Aspasia, who had long attracted almost as
much of the public attention at Athens as Pericles himself. She was a
native of Miletus, which was early and long renowned as a school for
the cultivation of female graces. She had come, it would seem, as an
adventurer to Athens, and by the combined charms of her person, manners,
and conversation, won the affections and the esteem of Pericles. Her
station had freed her from the restraints which custom laid on the
education of the Athenian matron: and she had enriched her mind with
accomplishments which were rare even among the men. Her acquaintance with
Pericles seems to have begun while he was still united to a lady of high
birth, before the wife of the wealthy Hipponicus. We can hardly doubt
that it was Aspasia who first disturbed this union, though it is said to
have been dissolved by mutual consent. But after parting from his wife,
who had borne him two sons, Pericles attached himself to Aspasia by the
most intimate relation which the laws permitted him to contract with
a foreign woman; and she acquired an ascendency over him, which soon
became notorious, and furnished the comic poets with an inexhaustible
fund of ridicule, and his enemies with a ground for serious charges. On
the stage she was the Hera of the Athenian Zeus, the Omphale, or the
Dejanira of an enslaved or a faithless Hercules. The Samian War was
ascribed to her interposition on behalf of her birthplace; and rumours
were set afloat which represented her as ministering to the vices of
Pericles by the most odious and degrading of offices. There was perhaps
as little foundation for this report, as for a similar one in which
Phidias was implicated; though among all the imputations brought against
Pericles this is that which it is the most difficult clearly to refute.

But we are inclined to believe that it may have arisen from the peculiar
nature of Aspasia’s private circles, which, with a bold neglect of
established usage, were composed not only of the most intelligent and
accomplished men to be found at Athens, but also of matrons, who it is
said were brought by their husbands, to listen to her conversation; which
must have been highly instructive as well as brilliant, since Plato
did not hesitate to describe her as the preceptress of Socrates, and
to assert that she both formed the rhetoric of Pericles, and composed
one of his most admired harangues. The innovation which drew women of
free birth, and good condition, into her company for such a purpose,
must, even where the truth was understood, have surprised and offended
many; and it was liable to the grossest misconstruction. And if her
female friends were sometimes seen watching the progress of the works of
Phidias, it was easy, through his intimacy with Pericles, to connect this
fact with a calumny of the same kind.

There was another rumour still more dangerous, which grew out of the
character of the persons who were admitted to the society of Pericles and
Aspasia. Athens had become a place of resort for learned and ingenious
men of all pursuits. None were more welcome at the house of Pericles
than such as were distinguished by philosophical studies, and especially
by the profession of new speculative tenets. He himself was never weary
of discussing such subjects; and Aspasia was undoubtedly able to bear
her part in this, as well as in any other kind of conversation. The
mere presence of Anaxagoras, Zeno, Protagoras, and other celebrated
men, who were known to hold doctrines very remote from the religious
conceptions of the vulgar, was sufficient to make a circle in which they
were familiar pass for a school of impiety. Such were the materials
out of which the comic poet Hermippus, laying aside the mask, framed a
criminal prosecution against Aspasia. His indictment included two heads:
an offence against religion, and that of corrupting Athenian women to
gratify the passions of Pericles.


ANAXAGORAS ALSO ASSAILED

This cause seems to have been still pending, when one Diopithes procured
a decree, by which persons who denied the being of the gods, or taught
doctrines concerning the celestial bodies which were inconsistent with
religion, were made liable to a certain criminal process. This stroke
was aimed immediately at Anaxagoras--whose physical speculations had
become famous, and were thought to rob the greatest of the heavenly
beings of their inherent deity--but indirectly at his disciple and
patron Pericles. When the discussion of this decree, and the prosecution
commenced against Aspasia, had disposed the people to listen to other
less probable charges, the main attack was opened, and the accusation
which in the affair of Phidias had been silenced by the force of truth,
was revived in another form. A decree was passed on the motion of one
Dracontides, directing Pericles to give in his accounts to the Prytanis,
to be submitted to a trial, which was to be conducted with extraordinary
solemnity; for it was to be held in the citadel, and the jurors were
to take the balls with which each signified his verdict, from the top
of an altar. But this part of the decree was afterwards modified by an
amendment moved by Agnon, which ordered the cause to be tried in the
ordinary way, but by a body of fifteen hundred jurors. The uncertainty of
the party which managed these proceedings, and their distrust as to the
evidence which they should be able to procure, seem to be strongly marked
by a clause in this decree, which provided that the offence imputed to
Pericles might be described either as embezzlement, or by a more general
name, as coming under the head of public wrong.

Yet all these machinations failed at least of reaching their main object.
The issue of those which were directed against Anaxagoras cannot be
exactly ascertained through the discrepancy of the accounts given of it.
According to some authors he was tried, and condemned either to a fine
and banishment or to death; but in the latter case made his escape from
prison. According to others he was defended by Pericles, and acquitted.
Plutarch says that Pericles, fearing the event of a trial, induced him to
withdraw from Athens; and it seems to have been admitted on all hands,
that he ended his long life in quiet and honour at Lampsacus. The danger
which threatened Aspasia was also averted; but it seems that Pericles,
who pleaded her cause, found need for his most strenuous exertions, and
that in her behalf he descended to tears and entreaties, which no similar
emergency of his own could ever draw from him. It was indeed probably
a trial more of his personal influence than of his eloquence; and his
success, hardly as it was won, may have induced his adversaries to drop
the proceedings instituted against himself, or at least to postpone
them to a fitter season. After weathering this storm he seems to have
recovered his former high and firm position, which to the end of his life
was never again endangered, except by one very transient gust of popular
displeasure. He felt strong enough to resist the wishes, and to rebuke
the impatience of the people. Yet it was a persuasion so widely spread
among the ancients as to have lasted even to modern times, that his dread
of the persecution which hung over him, and his consciousness that his
expenditure of the public money would not bear a scrutiny, were at least
among the motives which induced him to kindle the war which put an end to
the Thirty Years’ Truce.[c]

[Illustration: GREEK TERRA-COTTA HEADS

(In the British Museum)]




[Illustration: GREEK COINS]




CHAPTER XXVII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AGE OF PERICLES

    Hail, Nature’s utmost boast! unrivalled Greece!
    My fairest reign! where every power benign
    Conspired to blow the flower of human kind,
    And lavished all that genius can inspire.

                                             --JAMES THOMSON.


COST OF LIVING AND WAGES

[Illustration: PERICLES]

[Sidenote: [460-410 B.C.]]

Everywhere in the ancient world, but in a higher or less degree in
different countries, the necessaries of life upon the whole were cheaper
than they are at the present day. But with regard to particular articles,
examples enough of the contrary are found. The main causes of this
comparative cheapness were the less amount of money in circulation,
the uncommon fruitfulness of the southern countries which the Greeks
inhabited, or with which they traded; countries which at that time were
cultivated with an extraordinary degree of care, but are at present
neglected; and the impossibility of exportation to the distant regions
which had no intercourse, or but little, with the countries lying on
the Mediterranean Sea. The last is especially the reason of the great
cheapness of wine. The large quantities of the same which were produced
in all southern regions, were not distributed over so considerable an
extent of the earth as at present. Nevertheless in considering the prices
of commodities in ancient times the difference of times and places
must be well weighed. In Rome and Athens wine was not, in the most
flourishing condition of the state, as cheap as it was in Upper Italy
and in Lusitania. In Upper Italy, the Sicilian medimnus of wheat, which
was equal to the Attic medimnus, and considerably less than the Prussian
bushel (or than 1½ English bushels), was worth, even in the times of
Polybius, according to the account of that historian, only four oboli.
This price seems to rest upon an inaccurate comparison of the Roman with
the Greek coin, and particularly upon the supposition that the modius,
one-sixth of the medimnus, was worth two asses, the medimnus, therefore,
worth twelve asses; which, estimating the denarius to be equivalent to
the drachma, would be equal to 4½ oboli. To this last amount four ancient
oboli of the standard of Solon (11.4 cents) may certainly be estimated as
equivalent. The medimnus of barley was worth the half of this price, the
metretes of wine (about ten English gallons), was worth as much as the
medimnus of barley.

In the time of Solon, indeed, an ox was worth only five drachmæ, a sheep
one drachma, and the medimnus of grain the same. But gradually the prices
increased five fold; of several articles seven, ten and twenty fold.
After the examples of modern times this will not appear strange. The
amount of ready money was not only increased, but by the increase of
population, and of intercourse, its circulation was accelerated: so that
already in the age of Socrates, Athens was considered an expensive place
of residence.

The cheapness of commodities, in ancient times, has generally been
exaggerated by some, who supposed the assumption, that prices were on
an average ten times lower than in the eighteenth century, to come the
nearest to the truth. The prices of grain, according to which the prices
of many other articles must be regulated, show the contrary. It is
difficult to designate average prices, however; since so few, and those
only very casual accounts, are extant. Letronne designates the value of
the medimnus of grain at two and a half drachmæ as the average price in
Greece, in particular at the city of Athens, about the year 400 B.C.; and
in accordance with this, he assumes the value of grain, compared with
that of silver, to have been in the relation of 1 to 3146; the same at
Rome, fifty years before the Christian era, to have been in the relation
of 1 to 2681, in France, before the year 1520 in the relation of 1 to
4320, and in the nineteenth century in the relation of 1 to 1050. This
estimation, according to which the present prices of grain are three
times as high as they were during the period of the most flourishing
condition of Greece, appears the most probable.

The most temperate man needed daily, at least, an obolus for his food,
one-fourth of an obolus for a chœnix of grain, according to the price of
barley in the time of Socrates; together, annually, reckoning the year
at 360 days, 75 drachmæ; for clothes and shoes at least 15 drachmæ. A
family, therefore, of four adult persons must have needed at least 360
drachmæ (£12 or $60) for these necessaries of life. The sum requisite,
however, in the time of Demosthenes, must have been 22½ drachmæ higher
for each person; for 4 persons, therefore, 90 drachmæ (£3 or $15) higher.
To this must be added the cost of a habitation, the value of which,
estimated at least at 3 minæ, would involve, according to the common rate
of interest (12 per cent.), an annual expense of 36 drachmæ (£1 or $5).
So that the poorest family of 4 adult free persons, if they did not wish
to live upon bread and water, needed upon an average about £17 or $85
annually.

Socrates did not have, as was falsely reported, two wives at the same
time, but one after the other; Myrto, who was poor when he married her,
and who probably had no dowry, and Xanthippe. He also had three children.
Of these, Lamprocles was already adult at the death of his father, but
Sophroniscus and Menexenus were minors. He prosecuted no manual art
after he had sacrificed the employment of his youth to the never-resting
effort to acquire wisdom. His teaching procured him no income. According
to Xenophon he lived upon his property, which, if it should have found a
good purchaser (ὡνητὴς), the house included, might easily have brought,
altogether, five minæ; and he needed only a small addition from his
friends. From this it has been inferred, that living was extraordinarily
cheap at Athens. It is evident, however, that Socrates with his family
could not live upon the interest of so small an amount of property. For,
however poor the house may have been, its value can scarcely be estimated
at less than three minæ. So that, without taking the furniture into
consideration, the remainder of his property from which interest could
be derived, could have amounted to but two minæ, and the income from it,
according to the common rate of interest, to only twenty-four drachmæ.
With this sum he could not have procured even the amount of barley which
was requisite for himself and his wife, to say nothing of the other
necessaries of life, and of the support of his children.

The history of the ancient sages is so entangled and garnished with
traditions, and the circumstances of their lives are so differently
represented even by contemporary writers, that we can seldom find firm
ground on which to stand. Thus, according to the defence of Socrates
composed by Plato, the former is represented to have affirmed that he
could pay for his liberation only about a mina of silver; and Eubulides
says the same. According to others, he estimated the amount which he
should pay at twenty-five drachmæ, and in the defence ascribed to
Xenophon he is represented as neither having himself estimated any
amount, nor having allowed his friends to do so. Thus the well-informed
Demetrius of Phalerum affirmed, in opposition to Xenophon, that Socrates
had, beside his house, seventy minæ at interest in the possession of
Crito. And Libanius informs us that he had lost eighty minæ, which he
had inherited from his father, by the insolvency of a friend, in whose
hands he had placed it, and who certainly cannot have been, as Schneider
supposed, the wealthy Crito.

But assuming that Xenophon’s account is perfectly correct, we must
suppose that the mother of the young boys supported herself and both
the children, either by labour or from her dowry, and that Lamprocles
supported himself, and that the famed economy of Socrates probably
consisted, among other things, in this also, that he kept them at work.
And then, again, suppose that he always lived upon his twenty-four
drachmæ, with a small additional sum from his friends, yet no one
could live as he did. It is true, that he is said to have frequently
offered sacrifices at home, and upon the public altars. But they were
doubtless only baked dough, shaped into the forms of animals, after the
manner of the poor; properly bread, therefore, a great part of which
was at the same time eaten, and to which his family also contributed.
He lived in the strictest sense upon bread and water, except when
invited to entertainments at the tables of others, and could therefore
be particularly glad, as he is said to have been, on account of the
cheapness of barley, when four chœnices sold for an obolus. He wore
no undergarment; even his outside garment was poor, and the same one
was worn both summer and winter. He generally went barefooted, and his
dress-sandals, which he occasionally wore, may have lasted him his
life-time. His walk for pleasure and exercise before his house served
him instead of a relish for his meal. In short, no slave was so poorly
maintained as was Socrates. The drachma [about 8½d. or 17 cents] which
he gave Prodicus was certainly the largest sum ever spent by him at one
time. And it may boldly be affirmed, without wishing to disparage his
exalted genius, that, in respect to his indigence, and a certain cynicism
in his character, the representation of Aristophanes was not much
exaggerated, but in the essential particulars was delineated from the
life.

If in the time of Socrates four persons lived upon £17 or $85 a year,
they must have been satisfied with but a scanty allowance. He who wished
to live respectably, needed even then, and still more in the time of
Demosthenes, a sum considerably larger. According to the speech against
Phænippus, there were left to the complainant and his brother by their
father, forty-five minæ to each, on which, it is said, one could not
easily live, namely, upon the interest of it, which amounted, according
to the common rate of interest, to 540 drachmæ (£19 or $95).

Mantitheus in Demosthenes asserts that he could have been maintained
and educated upon the interest of his mother’s dowry, which amounted to
a talent; consequently, according to the usual rate of interest, upon
720 drachmæ (£25 or $125), annually. For the maintenance of the young
Demosthenes himself, his sister still younger, and his mother, seven
minæ (£24 or $120) were annually paid, without reckoning anything for
their habitation, since they dwelt in their own house. The cost of the
education of Demosthenes was not included in this sum. For that the
guardians remained in debt. Lysias refers, in one of his speeches, to
the knavish account of the guardian of the children of Diodotus. He had,
for example, charged for clothing, shoes, and hair-cutting over a talent
for a period of less than eight years, and for sacrifices and festivals
more than four thousand drachmæ, and he ultimately would pay a balance of
only two minæ of silver, and thirty Cyzicene staters, whereby his wards
had become impoverished. Lysias remarks, that if he had charged more than
any one in the city had ever done before for two boys, and their sister,
a pedagogue, and a female servant, his account could not have amounted
to more than a thousand drachmæ (£35 or $175) annually. This would be
not much less than three drachmæ daily, and must certainly appear to
have been too much in the time of that orator for three children and two
attendants.

In the time of Solon one must certainly have been able to travel quite a
distance with an obolus, since that lawgiver forbid that a woman should
take with her upon a march, or a journey, a larger quantity of meat
and drink than could be purchased for that sum, and a basket of larger
dimensions than an ell in length. On the contrary, when the citizens of
Trœzen, according to Plutarch, resolved to give to each of the old men,
women, and children who fled from Athens upon the approach of Xerxes,
two oboli daily, it appears to be a large sum for the purpose. In the
most flourishing period of the state, however, even a single person
could maintain himself but indifferently on two or three oboli a day.
Notwithstanding all this, the cheapness and facility of living still
remained very great. In accordance with the noble reverence of the
Greeks for the dead, the death of a man, his interment, and monument,
often occasioned more expense than many years of his life, since private
persons appropriated three, ten, fifty, and even 120 minæ, to that
purpose.

The value of the property of the Athenian people, excluding the property
of the state, and the mines, was according to a probable computation,
at thirty thousand to forty thousand talents. Of these if only twenty
thousand talents be considered productive property, every one of the
twenty thousand citizens would have had, if the property had been
equally divided, the interest of a talent, or, according to the common
rate of interest, 720 drachmæ as an annual income. On this, with the
addition of the profit from their labour, they might all have lived in
a respectable manner. They would in that case have realised what the
ancient sages and statesmen considered the highest prosperity of a state.
But a considerable number of the citizens were poor. Others possessed a
large amount of property, on which they could fare luxuriously on account
of the cheapness of living, and the high rate of interest, and yet at
the same time could increase their means, because property augmented
exceedingly fast.

This inequality corrupted the state, and the manners of the people. Its
most natural consequence was the submissiveness of the poor towards the
rich, although they believed that their rights were equal. The rich
followed the practice, afterwards so notorious and decried at Rome, of
suing for the favour of the people, sometimes in a nobler, sometimes in a
baser manner.

In proportion to the cheapness of the necessaries of life, the wages of
labour must have been less in ancient times than at present. And all
the multitude of those who sought labour as the means of subsistence
must have diminished its price, since competition everywhere produces
this result. In this number, beside the _thetes_ and aliens under the
protection of the state, a great part of the slaves are to be included;
so that the families of slaves belonging to the rich, lessened the profit
of the poorer class of citizens. The Phocians, by whom the keeping
of slaves is said to have been in the earlier periods of their state
prohibited, not unjustly reproached Mnason, who possessed a thousand
slaves and more, for depriving an equal number of poor citizens of the
means of subsistence. After the Peloponnesian War even citizens who
had been accustomed to a higher standing were compelled to support
themselves, whatever it might have cost them to submit to it, as day
labourers, or in some other way, by the labour of their hands. For they
had lost their landed property in foreign states, and on account of the
want of money, and the decrease of the population, rents had depreciated,
and loans were not to be had.

[Illustration: DRESS OF A GREEK LABOURER

(After Hope)]

Nevertheless, we do not find that daily wages were excessively low.
Lucian represents the daily wages of an agricultural labourer or
gardener, on a remote estate lying near the frontiers of Attica, to have
been, in the time of Timon, four oboli (5¾d. or 11.4 cents). The wages
of a porter are the same in Aristophanes, and of a common labourer, who
carried dirt, they were three oboli. When Ptolemy sent to the Rhodians
one hundred house builders, together with 350 labourers, in order to
restore the buildings destroyed by an earthquake, he gave them fourteen
talents annually for their food, three oboli a day for each man. We
know not, however, by what standard the money was estimated. This was,
if they were slaves, for other aliment beside grain; if they were free
men, it was only a part of their wages, since a man needs something
else besides his food. In 408 B.C., a sawyer (πρίστης) who sawed for a
public building, received a drachma a day. A carpenter, who worked on the
same building, received five oboli a day. We find that in the time of
Pericles, as it seems, a drachma, as daily wages, was given to each of a
number of persons working by the day. It is not at all probable that they
were artisans, but only common labourers.

Persons in higher stations, or those who laboured with the pen, were,
according to genuine democratic principles, not better paid. The
architect of the temple of Minerva Polias received no more than a stone
sawyer, or common labourer engaged upon the building, namely, a drachma
(8½d. or 17 cents) daily. The undersecretary (ὑπογραμματεὺς) of the
superintendents of the public buildings received daily five oboli (7¼d.
or 14.25 cents). For particular services, in which a certain deference
is manifested by the labourer to the person served, a high price was
paid in Athens, as is the case in all large cities. When Bacchus in the
_Frogs_ of Aristophanes wishes to have his bundle carried by a porter,
the latter demands two drachmæ. When the god offers the ghost nine oboli,
he replies that before he will do so, he must become alive again. If this
conversation in the realm of departed spirits is not a scene from real
life, it has no point. A living porter at Athens was probably just as
shameless in his demands, and if less were offered, he might have said:
“I must die before I do it.”

The fare for a voyage by sea, particularly for long voyages, was
extraordinarily low. For sailing from Ægina to the Piræus, more than
sixteen miles, two oboli (3d. or 6 cents) were paid in the time of Plato.
For sailing from Egypt, or Pontus, to the Piræus, a man, with his family
and baggage, paid in the same period at the most two drachmæ (1s. 5d.
or 35 cents). This is a proof that commerce was very lucrative, so that
it was not found necessary to take a high fare from passengers. In the
time of Lucian four oboli were given for being conveyed from Athens
to Ægina. The freight of timber seems to have been higher, according
to Demosthenes, who mentions that for transporting a ship-load from
Macedonia to Athens, 1,750 drachmæ were paid. The enormous vessel for
conveying grain named _Isis_, which in the time of the emperors brought
so much grain from Egypt to Italy, that, according to report, the cargo
was sufficient to last the whole of Attica a year, earned in freight at
least twelve talents annually. The freight of a talent in weight from
Ceos, which lay directly opposite Sunium, to Athens, was an obolus.

The price of a bath, although it is not barely a compensation for labour
was two oboli. A delicate little gentleman is represented by Philemon
to have paid four persons each six chalci, as appears from a passage of
Pollux, for plucking out the hair of his body with pitch, that he might
have a feminine skin. Moreover, the rich had their own, and the Athenian
people public baths.

The pay of the soldiers was different in different periods, and according
to circumstances. It fluctuated between two oboli, and, including the
money given for subsistence, two drachmæ for a hoplite and his servant.
The cavalry received from twice to fourfold the pay of the infantry;
officers, commonly twice, generals four fold the same. For, as in respect
to labour performed for daily wages, the higher station had not a
relatively higher estimation in the same degree, as at the present day.
The money given for subsistence was commonly equal in amount to the pay.
For from two to three oboli a day the soldier could maintain himself
quite well, especially since in many places living was much cheaper than
in Athens. His pay was partly as surplus, partly for clothes and weapons,
and if booty were added, he might become rich. This explains the saying
of the comedian Theopompus, that a man could support a wife on two oboli
of pay daily; with four oboli a day his fortune was made. The pay alone
of the soldier is here meant, without the money given him for subsistence.

The pay of the judges, and of those who attended the assemblies of the
people (ἐκκλησιασταί) amounted at least to three oboli a day, and like
the theoricon served only as an additional supply for the subsistence of
the citizens. The heliast in Aristophanes shows clearly how difficult it
was, with that sum, to procure bread, food, and wood for three persons.
He does not include clothing and habitation, because he sustained the
expenses for them out of his own property. The pay of senators and of
ambassadors was higher. Persons engaged in the liberal arts and sciences,
and prostitutes, were paid the highest prices.

The ancient states maintained public, salaried physicians; for example,
Hippocrates is said to have been public physician at Athens. These,
again, had servants, particularly slaves, who attended to their masters’
business among the poorer class, and among the slaves. The celebrated
physician Democedes, of Croton, received, about 540 B.C. notwithstanding
there was little money in circulation at that time, the high salary of a
talent of silver (£211:10 or $1026, since Attic money seems to be meant).
When called to Athens he received one hundred minæ (£350 or $1750), until
Polycrates of Samos gave him two talents. In like manner, no doubt,
practitioners in many other arts were paid by the state; as, for example,
architects at Rhodes and Cyzicus, and certainly in every place of
importance. For it cannot be supposed that all architects, particularly
those invited from foreign countries, would have exercised their art, as
several did at Athens, for daily wages.

The compensation of musicians, and of theatrical performers, was very
high. Amœbeus, a singer of ancient Athens, received every time he sang in
public, an Attic talent. That the players on the flute demanded a high
price for their services, is well known. In a Corcyræan inscription,
a late one indeed, but executed before the dominion of the Romans was
established in that island, fifty Corinthian minæ were designated as
the compensation, beside their expensive maintenance, for the services
of three players on the flute, three tragedians, and three comedians
at the celebration of a festival. The compensation of distinguished
theatrical performers was not less, although, beside the period of
their engagement at Athens, they earned large sums in travelling,
and performing at the various cities and places on their route. For
example, Polus or Aristodemus is said to have earned a talent in two
days, or even in one day, or for performing in a single drama. All these
artists received, in addition, prizes of victory. Also common itinerant
theatrical performers, jugglers, conjurers, fortune-tellers, enjoyed a
competency; although the sum paid by the individual spectator was small,
a few chalci, or oboli, but sometimes even a drachma. The custom of
paying fees for apprenticeship to the trades and arts, and also to the
medical profession, was established even in the time of Socrates. For a
part of the instruction in music, and for athletic exercises, it was the
duty of the tribes in Athens to provide. Each tribe had its own teachers,
whose lessons the youth of the whole tribe attended. In the other schools
each individual paid for his instruction; we know not how much. The
legislation of Charondas, in which the salaries of the teachers are said
to have been permanently established, would have made an exception,
if the laws from which Diodorus derived his information, had not been
fictitious.

The teachers of wisdom and eloquence, or sophists, were not paid by the
state until later times. But in earlier periods, they required large
sums from their scholars. In this they imitated the mercenary lyric
poets, whose inspiration frequently slumbered until incited by gold.
Protagoras of Abdera is said to have been the first who taught for money.
He required from each scholar, for a complete course of instruction,
an hundred minæ (£350 or $1750). Gorgias asked the same price, and yet
his property at his death amounted to only one thousand staters. Zeno
of Elea, in other respects unlike the sophists, required the same
amount. Since the price for teaching wisdom was so high, it was natural
that there should be chaffering about it, and that an agreement upon
reasonable terms should be sought. Hippias earned, while yet a young
man, in connection with Protagoras, in a short time, 150 minæ. Even
from a small city he earned more than twenty minæ, not by long courses
of lessons, as it seems, but by a shorter method of proceeding. But
gradually the increased number of teachers reduced the price. Evenus
of Paros, as early as the time of Socrates, required, to the general
derision, only ten minæ (£35 or $175); while for the same sum Isocrates
taught the whole art of oratory. And this appears to have been in the age
of Lycurgus, the usual honorary of a teacher of eloquence. At length the
Socratic philosophers found it convenient to teach for a compensation.
Aristippus was the first who did so. Moreover, payment was also sometimes
required from each auditor for single discourses, as, for example, by
Prodicus, one, two, four, to fifty drachmæ. Antiphon was the first who
wrote speeches and orations for money. He required high prices for
them.[b]


SCHOOLS, TEACHERS, AND BOOKS

It is remarkable that the frequent notices which occur of schoolmasters
and their schools, supply so little clear information as to the habits
or social position of this important part of the community; nor does it
appear whether they were a distinct class, or merely a lower grade of
sophists or rhetors. They seem, however, to have belonged to the upper
rank of citizens in some states, and to have been received in the best
circles. Such as they were, the lessons they taught were limited to the
Greek tongue. Instruction in foreign languages was never esteemed in
Greece either a necessary or an important branch of general education.
This is a peculiarity which forms also a signal defect of Greek culture
as compared with that of modern times.

In Athens, and probably in other Greek republics, every citizen was
under at least a moral obligation to provide his sons with a competent
knowledge of letters. The discipline of the schools was also under state
control. Yet the government nowhere seems to have provided or maintained
them, or to have appointed or paid the schoolmasters, whose livelihood
depended on the fees of their pupils. The amount of those fees has not
been recorded. But more distinct notices have been transmitted of the
charges made by literary professors of the higher class. The fees said
to have been paid for a course of instruction to some of the earlier and
more distinguished sophists and philosophers are so extravagant as to be
scarcely credible, even when attested, as they are in some instances, by
the best contemporaneous authority. Protagoras is taunted by Plato as
the first professor of the higher branches of learning who taught for
hire. If this imputation be well founded, his older contemporaries, Zeno
and Gorgias, must have been speedily led to follow his example: for Zeno
is said by Plato himself to have been paid 100 minæ, or upwards of £400
[$2000], by each disciple, for a course of lectures; and Gorgias also to
have been richly remunerated by his pupils. The fees of both Protagoras
and Gorgias are rated by other authorities at the same amount as those of
Zeno. This sum, taking into account the high value of the precious metals
in ancient times, would be equal to about £2000, or $10,000. But prices
were afterwards greatly reduced, as the number of professors increased,
and the former blind veneration for their magic powers of communicating
knowledge, or for the value of the knowledge communicated, declined.
Isocrates, the younger contemporary of Protagoras, and probably the
better master of the two, was satisfied with ten minæ [£40 or $200] for
the course; which sum seems afterwards to have remained the ordinary rate
of payment.

No distinct notice occurs of the existence, during the Attic period,
either at Athens or elsewhere, of a public library, in the familiar sense
of a miscellaneous collection of books for the use of the citizens;
although, as in the time of Pisistratus, standard editions of the popular
works recited at public solemnities, and more especially of the dramas
of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, were preserved at Athens under
the charge of the city clerk. Private libraries had, however, already
become sufficiently voluminous or curious to merit being specially
recorded. Such were those of Euripides, the poet, and of Plato, part of
whose collection was purchased at Tarentum, in Italy, from the heirs of
its former proprietor, Philolaus, and another part at Syracuse; those of
Euthydemus mentioned by Xenophon, of Aristotle, of Nicocrates of Cyprus,
and of the Athenian archon, Euclides. The varied character of the works
stored in the library of a literary professor, towards the close of this
period, is illustrated by a scene in a comedy of Alexis, the humour of
which turns on the gluttony of Hercules, a hero habitually burlesqued for
that failing in Greek satirical literature. The youthful demigod, when
directed by his master, the poet Linus, to select the book he preferred
from his preceptor’s collection,--described as containing the poems of
Homer, Orpheus, Hesiod, Chœrilus, Epicharmus, the tragedians, and the
popular prose classics,--makes choice of a cookery book.

That books of all kinds, then commonly in use, abounded during the
greater part of the Attic period appears, not only from the general
familiarity which the educated ranks possessed with the text of the
national classics, but still more from the absence of any allusion to a
scarcity of copies as interposing a serious obstacle to the attainment of
such knowledge. The book trade, as a distinct branch of commerce, seems
indeed to have been still limited, as in truth it was, comparatively, in
every age prior to the invention of printing; and remained, probably in a
great measure, in the hands of professional copyists.

Booksellers, however, and a book mart at Athens, are mentioned by authors
flourishing during the Peloponnesian War; and occasional notices occur of
book scribes or copyists, and of bookbinding. A trade in books or paper
is also mentioned by Xenophon as having been carried on about the same
date, between Greece and the coasts of the Euxine Sea. A considerable
time, however, seems to have been required to bring the works, even of
the most popular authors, into general circulation; and the disciples of
distinguished philosophers, Hermodorus for example, a scholar of Plato,
appear to have made profit by being the first to transport copies of
their masters’ lectures into distant localities.[c]


THE POSITION OF A WIFE IN ATHENS

It was generally the father who chose a wife for his son, looking less
to her person than to her family and dowry. This is one of the respects
in which the historic position of women differed from the heroic. No
longer does the man with splendid gifts win a wife from many suitors; the
father must dower his daughter appropriately in order to place her with
a husband, and so the daughter often appeared as a burden to the family;
so, also, the foundations of petticoat government in marriage were often
laid, since the man was only the usufructuary, not the owner of the
dowry. How much equality of fortune was considered, and how much a poor
family, unable to offer a dowry itself, shrank from the proposals of a
rich man, one may gather from the _Trinummus_ of Plautus, in which the
whole action turns upon this point. Lesbonicus, who is unable to dower
his sister, says to the suitor in the play: “I will not have you think
how you can help my poverty; think, rather, that I, though poor, am not
dishonourable, so people shall not say that I have let you have my own
sister for a mistress, without any dowry like this, rather than for a
wife.”

Very often young men were obliged by their fathers to marry, that they
might at last be reclaimed from a disorderly life, and thereby, also,
discharging their duty to the state. This is what happens, for instance,
to the libertine Lesbonicus in the same play by Plautus. Resignedly he
receives the news that he is betrothed: “I will have her, this one or
that one, any one you like”; whereon the father-in-law comments, “A
hundred wives would not be punishment enough for his sins!” The ancients
themselves felt the unkindness that lay in this treatment of girls. The
feeling is most strongly expressed in a fragment of Sophocles, where
young maidens complain:

“But when, light of heart, we reach the time of maidenhood, we are cast
from the house and sold, far from the home-gods and mother and father;
and yet, when the wedding is over, we must sing praises and believe that
it is right as it is.”

We cannot wonder if in the early days of marriage the atmosphere was
often cold, the heavens clouded. For this reason Plato wished that before
marriage there should be a nearer acquaintance between the interested
persons, so that no one should be deceived; and he proposed the arranging
of special games, in which young men and maidens should perform dances.
The statement, however, that no free-born Athenian ever married from
love and passionate inclination is a gross exaggeration, the outcome of
a one-sided and prejudiced view. In many comedies the plot turns on a
young man’s passion for a maiden who in the end is discovered to be a
citizen, and generally the lost daughter of a rich man. And every one
must remember the glorified love of the prince’s son Hæmon for the heroic
Antigone. It is incredible that in these instances the author presented
situations that never occurred in the actual world. But other indications
are to be found. If we look up the life of Cimon, for instance, in
Plutarch, we shall find the following passages:

[Illustration: GREEK WOMAN

(From a vase)]

“But when Callias came, a rich Athenian who had fallen in love with
Elpinice, and begged that he might pay her father’s fine for him, she
consented, and her brother Cimon gave her to Callias for a wife. So much
is certain that Cimon loved his wife Isodice too passionately and made
himself too unhappy over her death, if one may judge by the elegies
composed for his consolation.”

Only we must not think that such a passion was “romantic” in the modern
sense; its birth was more natural and sensual, and it did not rise to
a transcendent deification of the beloved. Sometimes it may well have
happened that love put in an appearance after marriage, as in _The
Mother-in-law_ of Terence, where Pamphilus, attracted by the noble
qualities of the wife he once despised, gradually becomes untrue to
his mistress. The peculiarly prosaic and cool relations that existed
between man and wife, along with the leading motive for marriage, is most
clearly expressed in a document of the highest interest to the historian
of morals, the speech against the courtesan Neæra, which is attributed
to Demosthenes. “Mistresses,” he says, “are kept for pleasure, and
housekeepers for daily attendance and personal service; but a man marries
a woman that he may beget legitimate children, of the same station on
both sides, and have a faithful guardian in the house.”

Companionable intercourse between man and wife was necessarily hindered
by the sharp division between their occupations, and reduced itself, no
doubt, to very few hours in the day. “Because,” Ischomachus says, “it is
better for a woman to stay in than to be away from home, whereas it is
ignominious for a man to stay at home and not concern himself with what
is going on in the world.” So, in the same piece of Xenophon, Socrates
says to Aristobulus: “Is there any one to whom you talk less than to
your wife?” And the disciple answers, “No one, or at least very few.” We
learn, however, from comedies and other sources, that in reality things
did not wear so sorry an aspect, and that feminine curiosity and jealousy
led to all sorts of questions and talks. On the other hand, there was no
question of any intercourse with other men; in fact a wife withdrew if
her husband, by chance, brought a guest home with him. If the husband
were not at home it would have been reckoned a gross incivility for
another man to enter the house. Indeed, Demosthenes mentions a case where
a friend, who had been summoned by a servant for help, did not venture
into the house because the master was away. So what Cornelius Nepos says
about the Greek woman is true: “She does not appear at dinner except
among relatives; she stays in the inner part of the house where no one is
admitted but her nearest kinsmen.”

Euripides, indeed, went so far as to forbid the visits of women among
themselves, for he writes in the _Andromache_: “Never, never--for I do
not say it only for this one occasion--ought intelligent men, who are
married, to allow other women to visit their wives, for they are the
teachers of wickedness. One corrupts the marriage because she gains
something by it, another wants a companion in sinning.” But things were
not so bad on the whole in this respect either. In the _Regiment of
Women_, by Aristophanes, a neighbour says to Blephyrus, who misses his
wife when he gets up in the morning, “What can it be? Do you think one
of her friends has asked her to breakfast, perhaps?” And the husband
answers, “I think that must be it. After all, she is not so bad as that
comes to, so far as I know.”

Phidias symbolised the solitariness of the home-keeping wife by the
tortoise, on whose back he set the statue of Aphrodite Urania in Elis.
But the acutest note of women’s relations to the outer world is in the
_Thesmophoriazusæ_ of Aristophanes, where the women speak themselves: “If
we are an evil, why do you marry us, and allow us neither to go out, nor
to be caught looking from the windows, and insist on guarding the evil
with so much care? And if a woman goes out and you find her before the
door, you get into a rage, whereas you ought to be pleased and bring a
thank offering, if you were really rid of the evil and did not find her
sitting there any more when you came home. Then when we take a peep out
of the window every man wants to look at the evil, and when one blushes
and draws in one’s head, they all want all the more to see the evil peep
out.” Even on occasions when fear and necessity would break through
conventional restrictions, we find the women going no farther than the
door of the house; and the orator Lycurgus actually complains because
after the battle of Chæronea, the women inquired after the fate of their
own men-folk from their doorways.

Walking in the street was made a very difficult matter even for married
women. Even Solon left directions on this subject; and among other
things he said that no woman, when she went out, must have more than
three pieces of clothing, nor more than one obolus’ worth of food and
drink with her, nor must she carry any basket of more than two feet.
Also she must not travel by night, except in a carriage, and then have a
light carried before her. In the times of the Diadochi, indeed, special
superintendents were appointed in Athens to check the immorality and
extravagance of women, such as were already established in other cities,
Syracuse, for example. Since the husband generally did the marketing
himself, and walks had not yet, it would seem, become fashionable,
although they were recommended by a woman disciple of Pythagoras,
Phintys, there were hardly any other motives left for going out except
the attendance at religious functions and the play.[d]

[Illustration: PRIESTESS OF CERES]




[Illustration: RUINS ON ACROPOLIS AT ATHENS]




CHAPTER XXVIII. ART OF THE PERICLEAN AGE

ARCHITECTURE


[Sidenote: [460-430 B.C.]]

Policy united with natural inclination to induce Pericles to patronise
the arts, and call forth their finest productions for the admiration and
delight of the Athenian people. The Athenian people were the despotic
sovereign; Pericles the favourite and minister, whose business it was to
indulge the sovereign’s caprices that he might direct their measures;
and he had the skill often to direct even their caprices. That fine
taste, which he possessed eminently, was in some degree general among
the Athenians; and the gratification of that fine taste was one means
by which he retained his influence. Works were undertaken, according
to the expression of Plutarch, in whose time they remained still
perfect, of stupendous magnitude, and in form and grace inimitable; all
calculated for the accommodation or in some way for the gratification
of the multitude. Phidias was superintendent of the works: under him
many architects and artists were employed, whose merit entitled them to
fame with posterity, and of whose labours (such is the hardness of the
Attic marble, their principal material, and the mildness of the Attic
atmosphere) relics, which have escaped the violence of men, still, after
the lapse of more than two thousand years, exhibit all the perfection of
design, and even of workmanship, which earned that fame.[c]

But the Greeks had not attained all at once to the architectural
perfection which we admire on the Acropolis. They had assigned their gods
the crest of the mountains or the deep forests for their first abode;
they desired to have them nearer to themselves and, from the earliest
times, they built them dwellings, at first rustic and clumsy, but which
were gradually embellished and attracted other arts with religious pomp;
the poets celebrating the gods and their native country, the philosophers
raising the great problems of nature and of the soul. The temple was the
centre of Hellenic life.

But the gods, like men, have to reckon with time. Before sending out
the radiations of their divine majesty from the midst of the wonders of
art, those destined to become the glorious dwellers on Olympus were at
first obscure and indefinite personalities, inhabiting the trunk of an
oak, then wretched wooden structures, and later on houses of stone and
sometimes of brass, like the Athene Chalciœcus of Sparta. It was only
with the progress of civilised life that their habitation grew in size
and loftiness. The true temples, and the most ancient of them, those of
Corinth, Samos, and Metapontum--date only from the seventh century.

The Greeks were acquainted neither with the pointed arch nor the dome.
Some have thought to find that at Tiryns and Mycenæ, but if some of
the bays and galleries end in a point, it is because the courses draw
closer and closer together and end by meeting at the top. The method is
therefore clumsy and barbarous; it was abandoned for the lintel and the
pediment.

All the Greek temples resemble one another in their general plan of
construction; and yet the architectural combinations might be very
numerous, inasmuch as they all differ in the nature of the material
employed and the ornamentation which decorates them, in the number of
the columns and the size of the intercolumniations, which determine the
proportions of the edifice, above all in the character peculiar to each
of the three orders--the Doric, the Ionic, and the Corinthian. A single
member of the structure, the column with the portion of the entablature
which it supports, determines this character.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE PARTHENON]

The first temples worthy of the name were in the Doric style. The walls
were large and heavy, the columns short and stunted without any base,
like the stake which had been the primitive support, but with flutings,
a capital, and a double pediment stretching above a wide face, like an
eagle with outstretched wings--the expression is Pindar’s. The whole
edifice, built of ordinary stone, was hidden, as in the case of many
of the Egyptian temples, under a coat of stucco which displayed vivid
colours. The remains of this are to be seen at Assus, on the coast of
Asia; at Corinth, Delphi and Ægina in Greece; at Syracuse, Agrigentum and
Selinus in Sicily; at Metapontum and especially at Pæstum in Italy, where
the grandest ruins in the ancient Doric order are to be found. The common
characteristic of these buildings, which nearly all belong to the seventh
or sixth century, was their sturdy but heavy and thick-set appearance.
The columns have a height of only four diameters--four and two-thirds
at most; and the stucco in coming off has displayed the poverty of the
material employed. Even the temple of Olympia was built of a hard and
porous tufa which the stucco had concealed under a brilliant covering.
That of Ægina was also of stone, not marble; there remain of it at least
some beautiful ruins.

We must go to Athens to find Doric architecture in its severe elegance.
Even in the temple of Ægina the column is higher: five and a third
diameters; at the Theseum it is five and a half; at the Parthenon,
six, and this is the proportion which is most pleasing to the eye. Of
these three temples the first, in which we can still find traces of an
archaic character, belongs to the sixth century; the second, which has
better proportions, to the first half of the fifth; the third is the
architectural triumph of the age of Pericles.

The Parthenon, built entirely of Pentelic marble, is not the most vast of
the Greek temples, but its execution is more perfect and it is this which
made it the masterpiece of Hellenic art. A very small detail will show
the finish of the work. It is with difficulty and by the assistance of
eye and hand that one succeeds in discovering the joints of the tambours
forming the colonnade which surrounds the building, so skilfully have
these enormous masses been adjusted. Even in her masons Athens possessed
artists.

The interior of the Parthenon contained two halls: the smaller at the
back, the _opisthodomus_, enclosed the public treasure; the larger, or
_cella_, contained the statue of the goddess born without mother from the
thought of the master of the gods, and who was as the soul of which the
Parthenon was the material casing. Figures in high relief, about twice
life size, adorned the two pediments of the temple. The frieze, which ran
round the _cella_ and _opisthodomus_ at a height of thirteen metres (42
ft., 8 ins.), and to a length of more than one hundred and sixty metres
(525 ft.), represented the procession of the great Panathenæa.

The work was finished in 435 B.C. It is neither the centuries nor the
barbarians that have mutilated it. The Parthenon was still almost intact
in 1687, when on the 27th of September Morosini bombarded the citadel.
One of the projectiles, setting fire to the barrels of powder stored
in the temple, blew up a part of it; then the Venetian desired that
the statues should be taken down from the pediment and he broke them.
Lord Elgin, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, tore down the
bas-reliefs of the frieze and the metopes: this was another disaster.
The Ilissus or Cephisus, the Hercules or Theseus, the Charities, “vernal
goddesses”--called by some the Three Fates, by others Demeter, Core, and
Iris--are still, though somewhat mutilated, the most precious of our
relics of antiquity. In 1812 some other Englishmen carried off the frieze
of the temple of Phigalia (Bassæ), built by Ictinus. All these fragments
of masterpieces were sold for hard cash, and it is under the damp and
gloomy sky of England that we are reduced to admiring the remains of that
which was the imperial mantle which Pericles wrapped about Pallas Athene.
Thus to understand the incomparable magnificence of the Parthenon, we
must render back to it in imagination what men have taken away, then
place it on its lofty rock, one hundred and fifty-six metres (512 ft.)
high, whence a magic panorama is unrolled before the eyes, and surround
it with the buildings of the Acropolis; the Erechtheum, which exhibited
all the graces of art, beside the severe grandeur of the principal
temple; the bronze statue of Athene Promachus, “she who fought in the
front rank,” to which the artist gave a colossal height, so that the
sailors arriving from the high sea steered by the plume on her helmet and
the gold tip of her lance, _maris stella_; and lower down, at the only
place by which the rock was accessible, the wonderful vestibule of the
Propylæa and the temple of Victory which formed one of its wings; but,
above all, it must be seen wrapped in the blazing light of the eastern
sky, compared to which our clearest day is but a twilight.

One thing has been observed in the Parthenon which proves the profound
artistic sense the Greeks possessed and how well they understood how to
correct geometry by taste. In all the Parthenon there is no surface which
is absolutely flat. As the columns owe their full beauty only to the fact
that they exhibit towards their centre a slight outward curve, of which
the eye is not aware, so the entire building, colonnades and walls, is
inclined slightly inwards towards an invisible point which would be lost
in the region of the clouds, and all the horizontal lines are convex. But
all with such delicacy that it is sufficient to allow the eye and the
light to wander gently over the surfaces and to give the monument at once
the grace of art and the solidity of strength; but not enough for it to
assume the compressed and heavy aspect of a truncated pyramid like the
Egyptian temples. On the southern façade the rise of the curve is only
one hundred and twenty-three millimetres (about 4½ inches).

The Propylæa, the masterpiece of civil and military architecture,
belonged, like the Parthenon, to the Doric order, and stood at the only
accessible point of the Acropolis. The architect Mnesicles disposed
its various parts in such a manner as to give an aspect of grandeur to
the entrance to the Holy of Holies of pagan Athens and also to secure
its defence. Epaminondas would have transported it to Thebes to adorn
the Cadmea: six centuries after, Pausanias admired it more than the
Parthenon, and Plutarch said: “These works have preserved a freshness, a
virginity which time cannot wither; they appear still bright with youth
as if a breath would animate them and as if they had an immortal soul.”

Athens had other monuments which were erected at very diverse epochs:
the Anaceum, the temple of Castor and Pollux, where the sale of slaves
took place; the Pantheon or temple of all the gods, the work of the
emperor Hadrian; the octagonal Tower of the Winds, an indifferent work
built about the first century before Christ. On each of its eight sides,
corresponding to the quarters of the principal winds, was sculptured the
figure of one of them. This tower still exists, as well as the choragic
monument erected by the choregus Lysicrates, in 334 B.C., on the occasion
of the victory of the Acamantid tribe in a chorus. The remains of the
theatre of Bacchus are still to be seen on the south-eastern slope of the
citadel, some of the marble seats bearing very beautiful sculptures. But
the Stadium beyond the Ilissus, according to Pausanias one of the wonders
of Athens, has disappeared and the excavations made there produced
nothing remarkable.

Like its capital, Attica too had monuments of victory, of patriotic
pride, and pious gratitude to the gods: and all these monuments were
constructed in the severe style whose principal models we have just
studied. In the sacred city of Eleusis, in sight of Salamis, a vast
religious edifice was built, capable of containing the multitude of
those initiated into the mysteries of Ceres. Rhamnus which overlooks the
plain of Marathon, raised a sanctuary to Nemesis, the goddess of just
vengeance; and on the summit of Cape Sunium, two temples consecrated to
Poseidon and Athene, the tutelary deities of Attica, signalised from
afar, to sailors coming from the isles or the coast of Asia, their
approach to the ground where the Persians had found a tomb and the Greeks
liberty. When on the days of the sacred festivals, the people arrived
in long _theoria_ (embassies) at the promontory now called Cape Colonna,
they saw extending at their feet that sea which had now become their own
domain, and fervently thanked the two divinities for having given them:
for their leaders, political wisdom; for their mariners, favourable
winds. At a later time philosophy was to take its seat near the temple
of the gods, and we, like it, believe that Sunium heard some of the
discourses of Plato.

The school of Athens extended her influence to distant places. It did
not build the temple of Olympia, but Phidias made the statue of Zeus;
Pæonius of Mende and Alcamenes of Lemnos have been credited, without
absolute proof, with the sculptures of the two pediments, on one of which
was represented the combat of Pelops and Œnomaus, and on the other the
contests of the Lapithæ and Centaurs at the nuptials of Pirithous.

[Illustration: RUINS OF TEMPLE OF THE OLYMPIAN JOVE. ATHENS]

Time, barbarians, perhaps fire, destroyed the temple, and the Alpheus,
in overflowing its banks, covered the plain of Altis which Pausanias
had seen in such beauty with eight or ten metres (about 26 or 32 ft.)
of alluvium. Before the _Expédition de Morée_, which brought away some
fragments for the Louvre, even the spot in which so much magnificence
stood was unknown. The successful excavations of the German commission
have brought to light a victory of Pæonius, a Hermes of Praxiteles and
other masterpieces.

The Ionic style is also native to the coast of Asia, where the Doric
had preceded it. It was exhibited there in all its grace in the sixth
century, when the temple of Ephesus was erected. The Cretan Chersiphron
and his son Metagenes began its construction, which was carried on, like
that of our Gothic cathedrals, with a tardiness that extended it over two
or three centuries. Its columns, several of which were given by Crœsus,
had a height of eight diameters, with bases which lacked the Doric
columns and voluted capitals which the ancients compared to the drooping
curls of a woman’s hair. Of the Ionic temple at Samos, burned by the
Persians, a single column remains upright, and according to the diameter
of the base it was sixteen metres (about 52½ ft.) high. This temple
was therefore a colossal structure. At Athens the Erechtheum and the
temple of the Wingless Victory are in the same style, but of very small
dimensions. The first contained the oldest image of Athene: a statue of
olive wood which was said to have fallen from heaven. In the second was
a warlike Minerva; in order to attach her permanently to the fortunes of
Athens, the sculptor had not given her the wings which are the attributes
of the fickle goddess of lucky battles.

In the time of Pericles the Corinthian style has not yet appeared but is
about to do so. It is related that Callimachus, having seen on a child’s
tomb at Corinth, a basket filled with its playthings and enveloped in
the graceful curves of the leaves of an acanthus, took from it the idea
of the Corinthian capital. The date of his birth is unknown, but since
Ictinus after the plague of Athens, and Scopas in 396 constructed, the
one at Phigalia, the other at Tegea, two temples in which traces have
been found of the new style of architecture, its invention must have
followed very soon after the construction of the Propylæa.

There is a question concerning Greek architecture which has only been
answered in our own day, that of polychromy. In spite of our very decided
preference for bare stone, we have been forced to recognise that the
Greeks had a different taste. Light and colour are the joy of the eyes;
but their rôle is not the same in countries in which the sky often
appears like a shroud suspended above the earth, and in those where that
earth, animated by the sun, sings, with its thousand voices, the poem of
nature. In the north a wan light casts gloom upon the monuments; thus we
are not loath to build them with materials which at first give them a
dazzling whiteness. In the south they are too vividly illuminated, and
the dazzling brightness of the marble would burn the eyes if the sun
did not clothe the stone in a golden tint which rests the gaze. Colour,
unnecessary and somewhat incommoding to the sculptor, whose main concern
is with the form and truth of outline, furnishes the architect on the
contrary with a valuable means of animating the great flat surfaces
which in their nakedness would be cold and lifeless. He does not, like
the polychromic sculptor, seek to create a deceitful illusion; colour
and ornamentation make no false pretence, and are a charm the more when,
in the case of a building standing in the midst of a sacred wood, it
establishes a needful harmony between the work of art and that of nature.

[Illustration: THE ERECHTHEUM]

[Illustration: GREEK HEAD

(In the British Museum)]

Egypt and Asia were prodigal of colour, whether in painting or by the
use of enamelled faiences with which the monuments of Persia are still
covered. The most ancient inhabitants of Hellas passed under their
influence. Colour has been found on the walls of dwellings older than
Homer by ten centuries; it was to be seen at Tiryns, one of the capitals
of the heroic age, and on the prows of the first ships which ventured
into the midst of the waves. This usage continued through the epochs
which succeeded; but, as in every domain of art, the Greeks modified this
legacy of their ancestors and of the peoples which had preceded them in
civilised life, according to the requirements of a delicate taste. Hues
more or less vivid covered the stone of the temple, even the sculptures
of the frieze, the metopes, and the pediment; terra-cottas, whose colours
mixed with a kind of paste were indestructible, decorated the upper parts
of the monument and enlivened these severe structures. But a distinction
must be drawn between the polychromy of Athens in the time of Pericles
and that of other Hellenic countries. In Sicily, in greater Greece,
even in Ægina, where the materials which the architects had to dispose
of were of a coarse description, it may be that the temples received a
brilliant colouring. But at Athens the beautiful Pentelic marble employed
in the construction of the temples was certainly not entirely concealed
under crude and violent colours. The words of Plutarch, quoted above,
on the freshness and youth preserved by the monuments of the Acropolis,
when six centuries had already passed over them, does not allow us to
believe in more than a moderate colouration for the columns and walls.
At one point only of the building there was certainly greater variety.
In all countries women, who are ingenious artists, apply themselves to
adorning their heads, and with reason: it is the stronghold from which
formidable arrows are shot. Ictinus also decorated the upper portions of
the Parthenon with all the graces he could call into play. Ornaments of
gilt bronze fastened to the draperies of the figures, inlaid enamels,
and magnificent carvings running all along the frieze. On festival days
treasures and garlands were added, so that the edifice wore on its brow,
as it were, a crown of flowers and foliage over a circlet of precious
stones.

Antiquity has preserved us no details concerning the artists; we are
ignorant of even the native country of most of them. For centuries their
works spoke for them, but the very ruins of the monuments they raised
have perished. Only the Parthenon still proudly lifts its mutilated head
above the mass of rubbish.

A great poet saw a gloomy vision of Europe dying and Paris vanishing.
Twenty-five centuries before, Thucydides drew a less poetic but more
faithful fantasy for Athens and Lacedæmon. Comparing the sterility of the
one to the fertility of the other, he said: “Let both towns be destroyed
and the mere débris of the monuments and temples of Athens will reveal
a glorious city; the ruins of Lacedæmon will be only those of a large
village.”


SCULPTURE

Art is a natural instinct which is to be found even amongst the last of
the savages who were the prehistoric inhabitants of Gaul, and which the
most intelligent of animals do not possess. This instinct is developed or
arrested, not, as has been said, according to race, but in response to
the social influences to which a people is subjected amidst melancholy
and severe or peaceful and smiling scenes which extinguish or call
forth the creative imagination. These influences, working through the
centuries, predisposed Hellas to change the paths which art had been
pursuing in the East; and habits which were easily acclimatised in
Greece, but which could not have had their birth on the banks of the Nile
and Euphrates, favoured this slow evolution.

Thanks to a good system of education, to long-continued gymnastic
exercises and to a life in the open air, often without clothing and
always without a dress which could hamper the harmonious development of
the body, the Greeks became the most beautiful race under the sun. As
they had always before their eyes the _ephebi_, so agile in the race,
the wrestlers and the athletes, who displayed so much virile grace, the
æsthetic sense developed in them with a strength which, when nature
had given genius to the artists, produced masterpieces. Religion still
further increased this tendency. Their gods having been conceived in the
image of man, as a superior humanity, the sculptors, as the religious
conscience grew more elevated and taste was purified, took their ideal
for the representations of the dwellers on Olympus from human beauty
carried to perfection. The people even looked upon it as a gift of
heaven, and after death men were accorded heroic honours on account of
their beauty.

[Illustration: MINERVA

(From a statue)]

Herodotus has preserved us a fact which exhibits the Greek character:
Philip of Croton was venerated as a hero after his death, in a small
building erected to him because he was the most beautiful man of his
time, and the old historian agrees with the Egestans who had made
this singular kind of god. He does not ask if Xerxes had truly royal
qualities. “In his vast army,” he says, “none was more worthy by his
beauty of the sovereign power.” In one of the choregiæ in which he often
triumphed by his magnificence, Nicias had given the part of Dionysus to
a young slave so perfectly handsome and so nobly attired that on his
appearance the people broke into applause. Nicias liberated him at once,
considering, he said, that it was an impiety to retain in servitude a man
who had been hailed by the Athenians in the character of a god. Nicias
indeed was performing a very popular act; it was the handsome _ephebus_,
not the god, who had excited the admiration of the spectators.

From first to last Greece thought thus. Many a time in the _Odyssey_,
Ulysses and Telemachus fancy that they see a god when they unexpectedly
encounter a tall and beautiful man; and the cold and severe Aristotle
writes: “If amongst mortals any were born resembling the images of the
gods, the rest of mankind would agree in swearing to them an eternal
obedience.” Simonides, without going so far, made beauty the second
of the four conditions necessary to happiness, and Isocrates said:
“Virtue is so honoured only because it is moral beauty.” It was because
he was the most beautiful of the _ephebi_ that Sophocles was charged,
after Salamis, with the task of leading the chorus which sung the hymn
of victory; and it is said Phidias engraved on the finger of Zeus at
Olympia: “Pantarces is beautiful”--a sacrilege which might have exposed
him to great danger. We no longer possess this inscription, but we find
a similar one on a painted vase, where Victory is offering a crown
to a handsome _ephebus_. The gods themselves had the reputation of
being sensible of this advantage, which had procured many mortals the
honour of their love. At Ægium Jupiter desired that his priests should
be chosen from among the young men who had carried off the prize for
beauty; for this merit Ganymede was snatched up to heaven, that he might
serve as cup-bearer to the gods, and Apollo admitted into his sanctuary
the statue of Phryne, the most admired of the courtesans of Greece. It
is notorious how Hyperides saved the beautiful _hetæra_ from a capital
charge, when she was standing before the judges, by simply tearing away
at an appropriate moment the veil which hid her beauty. The recollection
of these facts serves to explain the divine honours paid to Antinoüs by
the most Grecian of the Roman emperors; but they also show how much this
worship of beauty, of which the Greeks had made a religion and from which
Plato was to weave a theory, went to form the artists, and, to a certain
extent, the philosophers of Greece. Did not Plato utter words whence has
been legitimately derived the famous saying that Beauty is the splendour
of goodness? The jurisconsults of the Roman empire called themselves the
priests of law; Phidias and Polyclitus might have styled themselves the
priests of the beautiful; and this trait suffices to mark the difference
between the two civilisations, the Greek and the Roman. Beauty is the
perpetual aspiration of the French spirit which seeks it in everything,
in the great spectacles of nature or in the works of famous writers and
artists.

Amongst the statues of which the ancients were most proud, are some
which amaze us by their colossal height, and others which shock our
taste by the diversity of the colours and materials employed. The
Egyptians treated their Pharaohs and their gods in a similar fashion,
as did the Persians their kings, the Athenians the people or the senate
personified, and we ourselves do the same to translate certain ideas: the
Saint Borromeo of Lake Maggiore and the Liberty of New York are colossi.
Executed to be seen from afar, they strike the eye by their mass, and are
the expression in stone of elevated sentiments: of holiness, patriotism,
or independence. On the promontory where they are placed between
earth and heaven they appear as the very genius of the people which
erected them, a shining witness of their gratitude, and the figurative
representation of their inmost thought.

[Illustration: APOLLO

(From a Statue now in the Museum at Naples)]

The art of colossal sculpture was at the service of the gods, and
was in its place in or near their temples. It was the same with the
chryselephantine sculpture, and for the same reasons. The most celebrated
of these sculptures and those which from ancient descriptions we know the
best, were the Athene of the Parthenon and the Zeus of Olympia.

Reaching with her pedestal to a height of fifteen metres (about 49 ft.),
Minerva stood erect, enveloped in a talaric tunic, the dress of virgins.
In one hand she held a Victory, in the other the spear round which the
serpent Erichthonius was coiled. The draperies were of gold, the naked
parts of ivory, the head of Medusa, on the Ægis, in silver, the eyes
being of precious stones.

How did this Minerva, which was seen by Julian as late as the fourth
century of our era, finally perish? The Christians have been charged with
this, but the accusation should be brought against her wealth. So much
gold could not escape the barbarians, whoever they were, whether invaders
from the north, needy princes, or ordinary thieves. The pillage of the
Parthenon had already begun in the time of Isocrates and the Athene of
Julian must have been only a ruin.

Phidias was also summoned to Olympia. The treasures accumulated in the
temple from the offerings of all Greece, permitted him to execute a
work which surpassed that of the Parthenon. On a throne of cedar wood,
inlaid with gold and ivory, ebony, and precious stones, and covered with
bas-reliefs and paintings, Zeus was majestically seated. His thick hair
and beard were of gold; of gold and ivory was the Victory he carried in
his right hand, in token that his will was always triumphant; of gold,
too, mingled with other metals was the royal sceptre surmounted by an
eagle, which he held in his left hand. On the head was the crown of olive
leaves, which was given to the victors in the games, but, as was fitting,
that of the god was gold, as well as his sandals and his mantle, which
revealed his naked breast in ivory. His visage had the virile beauty
proper to the father of gods and men; his tranquil gaze was indeed that
of the all-powerful whom no passion stirs and behind whose broad forehead
should reside the vast intelligence of the orderer of worlds. Placed at
the back of the _naos_, at the point where the trend of the architectural
lines attracted the gaze, the statue, fifteen or sixteen metres (49 or 52
ft.) high, seemed still more colossal than it was.

[Illustration: MINERVA

(From a Greek vase)]

The Olympian Jupiter shared the fate of the Minerva of the Parthenon;
he was too rich for an age grown too barbarous and beliefs too hostile.
It is said that in 393 Theodosius had it transported to Constantinople,
where it perished some years later in one of the great conflagrations
that so often visited the new capital of the Empire; it is not likely
that it was so long respected. Already in the second century Lucian
laughs at this “honest fellow, the exterminator of giants, who remained
seated so quietly while brigands shaved his golden hair.”

Other towns besides Athens and Olympia had chryselephantine statues.
Costly materials were used for the Juno at Argos, the Æsculapius of
Epidaurus, and others.

Phidias did not confine himself to representing gods, that is to say
to making colossi; with his own hands, or more often through those who
worked under his direction, he lavished less divine sculpture on the
frieze, the metopes, and the double pediment of the temple, the figures
of which, as seen from below, do not appear to be of more than ordinary
height. Those which he chiselled on Minerva’s shield and on her sandals,
were still smaller. The magnificent fragments which remain to us from
the two pediments, Demeter and Core, Iris and Cephisus, the Charities or
Fates, the Hercules or Theseus, are the works of his school and we may
say of his mind. In spite of their mutilations, these marbles, like those
of the Victory untying her sandal, may be ranged beside, if not above,
the most glorious creations of Renaissance sculpture in the purity of
the style and the calm serenity of the figures, which neither have their
limbs twisted in violent action nor their brows overcharged with thought,
as happened when statuary strove to rival painting. What a puissant life
is in these divinities tranquilly seated in the pediments, and how calm
on their fiery horses are the riders in the Panathenaic procession! Later
on the school of grace and voluptuousness will appear, with an Athenian,
Praxiteles, as its chief; still later, passion will agitate the marble:
then the decay of art begins--such a drama as the “Farnese bull”[46]
depicts may not fittingly be presented in stone.

It is to the eternal honour of Phidias that he finally broke with
hieratic art, whose influence is still traceable in the beautiful statues
of Ægina, with their admirably studied but lifeless shapes and grinning
heads exhibiting, even in pain and death, the same idiotic smile. The
great artist sought the beauty which is the spiritual essence of things,
whether it be in the soul seen through the body; or nature contemplated
in her most harmonious expansion; and this ideal beauty he realised
without making the effort visible. This is supreme art; for there is no
grandeur without simplicity.

[Illustration: GREEK LYRES]


PAINTING, MUSIC, ETC.

If the description in the _Iliad_ of the shield of Achilles is a work
of imagination, those of the Athene of the Parthenon and the Zeus of
Olympia, as given by Pausanias after an attentive study of the works
themselves, show that the school of Athens had carried the art of
carving metal and ivory to a high degree of perfection, as well as
that of working hard stones for casts or in relief. Yet this skill was
borrowed from the school of Argos, where work in bronze was held in high
honour.

It was not so with painting, which in Greece had never the perfection of
statuary, whatever may be said on the faith of anecdotes more famous than
veracious. Modern painting seeks to move; that of the ancients was rather
sculptural in its character, in the sense that it sacrificed colouring
to design and the effects of light and shade to form--a stranger to
what might be called, if we have Rembrandt in mind, the drama of light
and shade, or, in referring to the Venetians, the harmonious chant of
colours. Sicyon was the first Greek town which had a school for design.
Athens, Miletus, and subsequently Corinth, followed this example. We
shall see presently that Greece had great painters, and that those of
Athenian origin did not occupy the first rank in this art. But it would
be rash to speak of Greek painting except according to the judgment of
the ancients, since nothing of it remains save painted vases, which
belong to industry rather than art; and the mural decorations at Pompeii
and Herculaneum, which are too often mere conventional productions,
executed hurriedly and probably for small payment by workmen rather than
artists. The Roman mosaics were also made by Greek hands, but there is
not one, except the battle of Issus, which is of a high order of art.

[Illustration: LYRE PLAYER]

The Greeks possessed the merit of realising that the highest intellectual
culture is one of the conditions of greatness in the individual and the
state; and they understood how to utilise every means of attaining it. In
their plan of education, besides the study of poets and philosophers to
form the mind, and gymnastic exercise to develop suppleness and strength,
they included music, which habituates the mind to harmony, and dancing,
which bestows grace. These two secondary arts were the chief ones at
Lacedæmon; they also ranked high among the Athenians, though Athens
did not set her mark on them as she did on architecture and the art of
statuary. They were indispensable auxiliaries at festivals, sacrifices,
and funerals, and played a part in the performance of religious rites.
The marvellous effects of the lyre of Orpheus were universally kept in
mind, and Achilles, the hero who was the ideal type of warlike courage,
was represented celebrating his exploits on the cithara; in the _Iliad_
or the _Odyssey_ there is no feast to which a melodious singer is not
invited. Down to the last days of Greece the beneficent action of music
was believed in: Polybius attributed the misfortunes of the Arcadians to
the neglect among them of the art which calms the passions and which,
by teaching the rules of harmony, trains the learner not to violate
public peace. Damon the musician, a friend of Pericles and of Socrates,
held that musical methods could not be changed without threatening the
foundation of morality and the laws of the city. Plato thinks the same,
and Aristotle calls music “the greatest charm of life.” It is well known
how much importance was attached to it by the school of the Pythagoreans,
who professed to hear the music of the celestial spheres turning
harmoniously through infinite space.

[Illustration: GREEK DANCING GIRL

(Hope)]

The Greeks also conceived of dancing in another fashion from ours, for
they had introduced into it number and measure, which in art are a
manifestation of beauty, but no longer remain so when whirling speed
is substituted for grace. With them the dance formed part of their
religious solemnities and military education. “The ancients,” says Plato
in the Seventh Book of the _Laws_, “have bequeathed us a great number of
beautiful dances.” In the Dorian cities dancing was one of the necessary
rites in the worship of Apollo, and the gravest people participated.
Theseus, returning from Crete, danced the γέρανος in the holy island of
Delos, to celebrate his victory over the Minotaur; and the Spartans, in
annual commemoration of their triumph over the people of Thyrea danced
the γυμνοπαιδια before the images of Apollo, Diana, and Latona, singing
verses of Aleman and the Cretan Thaletas. The Bacchic dances, with thyrsi
and lighted torches, were a mimic representation of the life of Dionysus.

In the neighbourhood of Eleusis was to be seen the fountain of beautiful
dances, Callichorum, where the initiated chanted the invocation to
Iacchus as they danced: “O adored god, approach at our voice. Iacchus!
Iacchus! come and dance the sacred thiasus in this meadow, thy
well-beloved home; strike the ground with a bold foot and mingle in our
free and joyous dances, inspired by the graces who rule our consecrated
chorus.”

Plato, in his treatise on “Law,” which is a kind of commentary on
Athenian legislation and customs, attaches extreme importance, even for
the moral education of youth, to the possession by the _ephebi_ of the
“art of choruses,” which includes song and dance.

We may well believe that demoralising dances existed in Ionia and
elsewhere. At Sparta and Athens the Pyrrhic dance was a military exercise
and a patriotic training. The _ephebi_ danced them at the greater and
lesser Panathenæa, imitating all the movements of a combat for attack,
defence, or the evasion of darts. And was not the heroic circle of the
Suliote women a recollection of these warlike dances? Having taken refuge
on the summit of a mountain to escape a harem or the yataghan of the
Turks, they sang their funeral hymn, joined hands and danced on this
narrow peak, which was surrounded by precipices. Each time that the ring
approached the abyss, the circle was narrowed, for one of their number
detached herself from it to fling herself down; and one after another,
all threw themselves over.


THE ARTISTS OF THE OTHER CITIES OF HELLAS

[Sidenote: [460-410 B.C.]]

The fifth century is the golden age of Greek art. We have told of the
artists whom Athens gave to the world; we shall now see what others the
rest of Hellas produced--such at least whose names have come down to us
with an indication of their works.

Chersiphron and his son Metagenes of Knossos, in Crete, are outside the
period with which we are dealing, for they began the construction of the
great temple of Ephesus in the sixth century.

The domain of statuary had a great artist whom the ancients have compared
to Phidias, Polyclitus of Sicyon or Argos. The artists of the century of
Pericles did not confine themselves to one corner of the regions of art;
they cultivated the whole. Polyclitus was as much a skilful architect
as a great sculptor. At Epidaurus he erected a circular monument, the
Tholus, and a theatre which was much admired by the ancients; at Argos
his Juno was the rival of the Minerva of the Parthenon, though it did
not stand as high, and was less costly. Phidias lived with the gods in
spirit, Polyclitus dwelt more among men. He even wrote on the proportions
of the human body, and applied his knowledge to his Doryphorus, which
was called the “canon,” or the “rule.” The ancients divided the palm
for statuary between the two great artists: giving it to the one for
his gods; to the other for his Canephorus, which Verres stole from the
Sicilians, his Amazon, which triumphed over that of Phidias in the famous
competition at Ephesus, and his statues of successful athletes, such as
the Diadumenus and the two Astragalizontes, or dice-players. Myron, whom
we might have included among the Athenian artists, went farther in his
imitation of nature; his bronze cow was famous, and still more so his
Discobolus, whose attitude must have been very difficult to render.

Polygnotus of Thasos, whom Cimon brought from that town in 463, lived
for a long time on the banks of the Ilissus, and was given the rights
of an Athenian citizen as a reward for his labours in the decoration
of the temple of Theseus, the Anaceum, the Pœcile, and a part of the
Propylæa. There was some stiffness in the designs of Polygnotus; his was
a sculptural painting which, nevertheless, obtained great effects by
very simple means. The ancients lauded the expression and beauty of his
figures, but they have neither the grace nor the dramatic character which
the painters of the period that followed were to give to their works. The
arts of painting and statuary are two sisters who resemble each other,
and both follow the variations of taste: the first with a vivacity at
times imprudent, the second with more reserve. Zeuxis of Heraclea Pontica
and his rival, Parrhasius of Ephesus, were younger than Polygnotus. Their
painting was already more scientific, less ideal, and nearer reality.
Aristotle reproaches Zeuxis with yielding too much to Ionian effeminacy.
If we are to believe anecdotes whose frequent repetition does not make
them more authentic, these painters even succeeded in deceiving the eye:
the one with a bunch of grapes which the birds came to peck at, the other
with a curtain which Zeuxis attempted to draw back, thinking that it
concealed the real picture. These would be triumphs of ingenuity rather
than art. It is to be noted that both men drew freely on the abundant
resources of ancient poetry. Both attained to great fame and opulence.
In spite of the misfortunes of the times, Greece still had gold for her
favourite painters. Archelaus, king of Macedon, paid four hundred minæ
for the painting of Zeuxis in his palace, and Parrhasius never appeared
in public without a robe of purple fringed with gold. He considered
himself “master of the elegancies,” as well as of his art, so we need
not wonder at his having inclined to effeminate gracefulness. “His
Theseus,” said Ephranor, “is fed on roses; mine was fed on meat.” But
it was at a later time, with Lysippus and Pamphilus, that the school of
Sicyon was to have its full splendour.

The sight of the sculptors and painters turning to Homer for their
inspiration, calls forth the remark that the _Iliad_ was the Bible of
Greece, as much for art as for religion. As our churches of the Middle
Ages constituted, by means of their windows, a grand book of religious
instruction, so the walls and pediments of the Greek temples exhibited to
the eye legends which spoke of the divinities and heroes of the Hellenic
race. Thus, while in Rome art was to be merely a foreign importation,
in Greece it came from the very heart of the country; and this was the
secret of its greatness.[b]


FOOTNOTES

[46] A famous group now in the Museum at Naples.

[Illustration: APOLLO MUSAGETES]




[Illustration: SOPHOCLES]




CHAPTER XXIX. GREEK LITERATURE

ORATORY AND LYRIC POETRY


Of all branches of literature there is none more closely interwoven with
political life than oratory. This art could only have been developed
among the Ionians, for no other race had the same innate taste for
vivacious utterance, or the same feeling for fluency, copiousness, and
brilliancy of speech. Nor is there any doubt that the kind of oratory
which aims at influencing the feeling and directing the resolutions of
the civic body was first practised in the cities of Ionia. But it was
at Athens that Greek oratory was brought to its true perfection. There
the public oration developed side by side with freedom of speech and the
duty of speaking which was encumbent on every Attic citizen. It seemed so
intimately connected with the life of Attica that the state of Theseus
was represented as founded by it.

For this reason oratory was not the subject of a special study that could
be conceived of apart from public life, but the simple expression of
practical experience and statesman-like prudence; for at that period men
could not have imagined a popular leader who was not at the same time a
statesman proved in peace and war and had not won by his public career
the right to be listened to by his fellow citizens. And as oratory grew
into a power which dominated the life of the community, so language
itself was advanced to a new stage in development, when Athens became the
centre of the world. What grew out of the local dialect was a new idiom,
in which the power inherent in the Greek language first came to its full
maturity by becoming the vehicle of Attic culture.

The Greek language had undergone a many-sided development in Ionia.
The Ionic dialect was the repository not only of the Homeric and
post-Homeric epics and hymns, but of the whole treasure of elegiac and
iambic poetry. Ionia was the first country to avail herself largely of
the art of writing. This was first put to use in connection with the
art of the country; the epic poems which had been composed without the
aid of writing, and had become the property of the nation, were by its
aid disseminated, cast into permanent form, and continued. Reading
and writing were first introduced into the schools of the Rhapsodists,
which is the reason why Homer himself is represented as a schoolmaster;
and when the later epic poets--Arctinus, Lesches, and others--who sang
in Ionia after the beginning of the Olympiads, made the great epic the
starting-point of their own poems, in which they endeavoured to amplify,
supplement, and connect the substance of the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_,
writing was a common accomplishment among poets, and the rhapsodic art
itself took on more of the character of a science in consequence.

At this point, however, and in Ionia as before, there came into being a
wholly novel method of literary statement, intended, not to rouse the
emotions of a crowded audience, but to spread abroad the results of
scientific research. Philosophers and historians wrote for the public
in prose, and in the sixth century the taste for reading and writing
spread with great rapidity through the whole of Ionia, where Samos, in
particular, became a school for the cultivation of the art of writing.

At this time, however, prose did not develop in contrast to poetry; as
yet no distinction was made between the two classes of composition. The
colloquial language of ordinary life, the lively popular note, was simply
adopted by writers of fables, and from the tales of Æsop the maxims of
homely wit and wisdom passed into literature. Archilochus was fond of
using them, so was Herodotus. Men were so accustomed to learn from the
poets that even speculative philosophers set forth their theories in
poetic garb, like Xenophanes, who wandered about reciting his doctrines
in the form of a rhapsody. The narratives of Herodotus are composed with
a view to stirring the listening crowd, and the poetic character of his
descriptions is unmistakable. His style flows on with the ease of an epic
recitation, his sentences hang together loosely; poet-like he sees around
him the audience which he desires to enchant and thrill with the charm
of his story. Even in philosophy no attempt was made to reproduce the
sequence of ideas in clear and exact terms. The teachings of Heraclitus
bore the character of Sibylline oracles; he delighted in figurative
language which suggested rather than followed up an idea, and apart
from the abstruseness of his thought the construction of his sentences
was so far from plain that it was impossible to determine precisely the
grammatical sequence of his discourse.

Thus, great as was the wealth of Ionian literature, it had as yet
no prose, while other parts of the country were even more backward.
Generally speaking, we may say that the distinction between poetry and
prose as two separate forms of literature was not recognised by the
Greeks till late. We need only recall the hymns of Pindar to see how
phrases and ideas of an entirely prosaic order occur side by side with
the loftiest flights of poetic imagery. It was reserved for Athenian
literature to create a prose style. The language was sufficiently new
and supple to take and reproduce the peculiar impress of the Attic
spirit; and this, as compared with the Ionic spirit, manifests itself in
language, as in garb and manners, by greater simplicity and smoothness of
form.

The dialect spoken in Attica occupied a sort of intermediate position
among the dialects of the various tribes of Greece, and was therefore
admirably fitted to become the medium of communication among all educated
Greeks. For, although closely akin to Ionic, the Attic dialect had
remained free from many Ionic peculiarities developed in the islands and
on the further coast--particularly from the tendency to soften the vowel
sounds.

Side by side with the eloquence which subserved political ends and was
designed to guide the masses, there developed in Athens the speech of
the law courts, which from the outset was more strictly in accordance
with regular rules and bore more likeness to a literary exercise, by
reason of the rise of a class of writers who composed pleas for others.
For it was the law in Attica that every man must conduct his own case,
so that even those who had their speeches composed by counsel were
themselves obliged to deliver them. Accordingly the personality of the
orator, which carried such weight in political speeches, fell completely
into the background; he was a mere writer of orations (_logographos_),
and dealt with public instead of private affairs. This kind of oratory
entered into much closer relations with sophistry, because the latter
aimed at giving the mind such versatility as would enable it to handle
with skill any subject presented to it and to discover in each the
greatest variety of interesting matter.

[Illustration: A GREEK ORATOR]

A peculiar kind of public oration which attained to importance in the
Athens of Pericles was the speech in honour of citizens who had fallen
in battle. By a special statute which dates from the time of Cimon, a
speech of this character was associated with a public funeral; and it was
the custom to commission the most approved orator of the day to deliver
this funeral oration in the name of the community, as an honourable
distinction and acknowledgment of the public services of the deceased.
Wordy and elaborate eulogiums did not suit the taste of the time. At such
moments, when the citizens felt themselves smitten with grievous loss, it
seemed a worthier task to bid them take courage, to turn their mourning
into thanksgiving, their sorrow into joy and pride, by holding up before
them the lofty interests of the public service for which their fellow
citizens had laid down their lives, and to encourage the hearers to the
same joyful self sacrifice.

Considering that all the arts and sciences flourished most vigorously
during the period of the Persian wars, the fruits of which came to
maturity in the years of peace under Pericles, it may well surprise
us that the lyric art, the very one which is wont to be most closely
associated with every spiritual movement, did not keep pace with
the development of the other arts; and that the Wars of Liberation,
so national, so just, and crowned, after grievous trials, with such
amazing success, found no fuller echo in popular minstrelsy. Various
circumstances combine to explain the fact.

The home of Æolian lyric poetry was more remote from the agitations
of the times, and the inspiration which had called forth the poems of
Alcæus and Sappho a hundred years before had burnt low. Choral lyric
poetry, on the other hand, was too completely interwoven with religious
worship and earlier conditions of life, it was too much accustomed to
put its art at the service of the old families whose glories belonged
to the past rather than the present, to find itself at home in these
changed times. The Theban bard, in particular, was too deeply concerned
for his native city--which had reaped nothing but shame and misery
from the Wars of Liberation--and for Delphi--which had from the first
looked with disfavour on the national aspirations after liberty--to
appreciate dispassionately the glories of the new era, though he was
too large hearted and liberal minded to refuse the victorious city of
Athens its meed of admiration and praise in song. The Thebans punished
Pindar for calling Athens “the pillar of Hellas”; the Athenians rewarded
him, rightly esteeming his tribute a triumph of the good cause. In
Sparta nothing was done to celebrate the Wars of Liberation. The Spartan
constitution allowed no freedom of intellectual life, and furnished too
little in the way of comfort and contentment to prove a favourable soil
for poetry.

[Illustration: GREEK COMEDIAN]

In the elegy, the oldest form of Greek lyric--so perfect an expression
of the Ionic spirit in its varied measures and uses--a new form had
been evolved in Ionia itself, side by side with the older one in which
Theognis had expounded his party rancour and Solon his statesman-like
wisdom--a lighter form which touched upon life in accents untinged by
grief, the song of joyous conviviality, giving the gaiety of the banquet
a higher consecration by the introduction of ethical ideas. “To drink,
to jest, to bear a just mind,” sang Ion, and brought public affairs
gracefully into the conversation. Dionysius the Athenian, a statesman of
note in the age of Pericles, associated himself with Ion in this form
of verse, and the lighter kind of elegy so appealed to the intellectual
character of contemporary Athens that even Sophocles and Æschylus
composed elegies of this sort. The fifth century was so rich in life and
movement that these occasional verses were produced in great abundance;
the epigram itself is no more than a subsidiary kind of elegiac verse.
Its concise form was due to its original purpose, which was to serve as
an inscription on some public monument, and it is therefore more closely
connected with the great events of the time than any other kind of
poetry. Simonides of Ceos was esteemed above all other Greeks as a writer
of occasional verse in the best sense of the term, so much so that Sparta
commissioned the Ionian poet to sing the praise of her Leonidas. With
inimitable felicity he immortalised the events of the Wars of Liberation
in brief pregnant epigrams inscribed on monuments of every sort,
sang the praises of the fallen in elegies, and celebrated the days of
Artemisium and Marathon in grand cantatas which were performed by festal
choirs.

The state did what it could to advance the cause of art. It offered poets
brilliant opportunities for distinguishing themselves at the celebrations
held in honour of its victories, and gave prizes for the best
performances. As Themistocles had been assisted by Simonides, so Cimon
was assisted by the genius of Ion, who in like manner laboured to hand
down his fame to posterity. Pericles was led by his own tastes as well
as by political considerations to do all that lay in his power to foster
the art of song in Athens. For this purpose he introduced the musical
competitions at the Panathenæa, and so summoned all men of talent to vie
publicly one with another. He himself was the organiser and lawgiver in
this department, and settled with profound artistic knowledge the manner
in which the singers and cithara-players should appear at the festivals.
If in spite of all these efforts lyric poetry did not take the place we
might have anticipated in the Athens of Pericles, and Simonides found no
worthy successors, the principal reason must be sought in the fact that
another stronger and richer voice of poetry arose, into which the lyric
was merged and so lost its individual importance.

Of all kinds of lyric poetry none was cultivated in Athens so admirably
and successfully as the dithyrambus, the chant in praise of the god
Dionysus, the giver of blessings--the branch of religious poetry which
showed a capacity for development beyond all others. Lasus of Hermione,
the tutor of Pindar, had changed this form of song (originally no more
than the medium of an enthusiastic nature worship) into an artistically
constructed choral chant and invested it with such splendour by bold and
varied measures and the rippling music of flutes, as to cast the fame of
Arion, its original inventor, into the shade. From the Peloponnesus Lasus
brought the new art to the court of the Pisistratidæ at Athens. At that
time everything connected with the worship of Dionysus was regarded with
special favour, the dithyrambus was introduced into state festivals, and
wealthy citizens vied with one another in equipping and training Bacchic
choirs, composed of fifty singers who danced circling the flaming altars
of Dionysus; and no expense was spared to procure new songs for the
Attic Dionysia from the greatest masters, such as Pindar and Simonides.
The latter could boast that he had won no less than fifty dithyrambic
victories at Athens. But the evolution of the dithyrambus did not stop
there.

The dithyrambus not only included every metre and rhythm known to earlier
kinds of lyric poetry, but it contained elements which tended to pass
beyond the limitations of the lyric. For the festal chorus regarded the
god whose praises they, sang as an immanent presence and, as it were,
lived through all that befell him, whether of persecution or victory;
and it was therefore but a short step to pass beyond the assumption that
their audience was acquainted with the events which formed the subject
of their chants, and to call them to mind by narration or set them forth
by spectacular representation. The leaders of the dithyrambic chorus
accordingly interspersed their singing with recitations, and thus epic
and song were combined. The epic recitation was then rendered more
effective by the aid of action and costume, the god himself was made
visible in his suffering and triumph, the leader of the chorus undertook
the part, the dancers were transformed into satyrs--attendants of the
god and partakers of his fortunes; and thus from the union of the old
forms of poetry there sprang a new form, the drama, the richest and most
perfect of all.

The Greeks were by nature gifted with dramatic talent. Their natural
vivacity induced them to clothe every doubt or deliberation in the form
of a dialogue. Thus even in Homer we find the germ of the drama, which
now reaped the benefit of the entire evolution of the older art methods.
For all that dance and song had invented in the way of balanced rhythm,
effective metre, and poetic imagery, was here united, enlivened by
the art of mimicry, which made the person of the actor the instrument
of artistic exposition, and warmed by the joyous fires of the Bacchic
festival.

The cycle of representation could not but be limited so long as the
action was confined by ceremonial considerations to the subjects offered
by the worship of Bacchus. The Greeks therefore went a step farther and
in place of the fortunes of Bacchus took other subjects equally well
calculated to arouse lively sympathy, and thus (when this form of art
had been invented) there flowed in an abundance of materials and fertile
themes, the storehouse of Homeric and post-Homeric epos was flung open,
the national heroes were introduced to the nation in a novel and striking
guise, and a vast field of activity was opened to dramatic art.

This advance had already been made beyond the borders of Attica; for
before the time of Clisthenes the hero Adrastus had been substituted
for Dionysus, and it may be that a similar enlargement of the scope of
dithyrambic poetry had also taken place at Corinth. But it was at Athens
alone that these rudiments of the drama reached their full development.
As the epic had mirrored the heroic days of old, as the lyric kept pace
with the development of the nation for three centuries after the decline
of the epic, so the drama was the form of poetry which began to flower
at the moment when Athens became the pivot of Greek history. Originating
from humble beginnings in the time of Solon, it grew in magnitude and
importance with the growth of the city’s greatness, and is associated
with the history of Athens in every stage of its development.


TRAGEDY

Thespis was the founder of Attic tragedy, for it was he who introduced
the alternation of recitation and song and arranged the stage and
costumes. The story goes that Solon had small liking for the new art,
believing the violent excitement of the emotions by the representation of
imaginary events to be prejudicial, but that the tyrants favoured this
popular diversion, like everything else connected with the democratic
worship of Dionysus, because it suited the purpose of their policy to
provide brilliant entertainments for the population at the expense of
wealthy citizens. About 550 B.C. they summoned the chorus leader from
Icaria to the city, competitions between rival tragic choruses were
introduced, and the stage near the black poplar in the market place
became a centre of Attic festivity.

With the restoration of peace all civic festivals took a higher flight,
the various constituents fell apart, tragedy rejected the baser elements
of Bacchic festivity and assumed greater dignity, it was cast into
definite artistic forms by Pratinas and Chœrilus, and became freer and
freer in its choice of subject. The old element was not abandoned for
all that, the rustic youth would not be deprived of their accustomed
masquerade, and the people were left their satyr choruses. But the
two forms, which could not be combined without mutual detriment, were
separated, and thus the satyr drama grows up side by side with tragedy.
Pratinas, who migrated to Athens from Phlius, gave these plays their
typical form, and they retained their original character of Bacchic
jollity, their rustic and homely features, and the merry rout of the
satyrs with their wild dances and rude jests. Thus these elements were
preserved to literature and yet prevented from molesting or hampering the
further development of tragedy.

The period in which Athens took her place as a great power and sent
her triremes across the sea to support the Ionian revolt, likewise
constituted an epoch in the history of Attic tragedy. About that time the
wooden scaffoldings from which the audience had looked on at the plays
of Pratinas, Chœrilus, Phrynichus, and the youthful Æschylus, gave way;
and the drama had already attained such consequence in Athens that the
building of a magnificent theatre was taken in hand. A permanent stage of
stone was built within the precincts sacred to Dionysus on the southern
declivity of the citadel, and seats for spectators, rising one above the
other in semi-circular rows, were built into the rock of the Acropolis in
such wise that the audience commanded a view of Hymettus and the Ilissus
on the left and of the harbour on the right.

[Illustration: GREEK POET]

Meanwhile the artistic structure of tragedy was steadily advancing
towards perfection. The subject-matter grew more varied, music and the
dance were used in a greater variety of forms, female characters were
added. Nevertheless the lyric element remained predominant down to the
time of the Persian wars; and Phrynichus, the greatest predecessor of
Æschylus, was most admired for his charming choral songs. It was with
the great drama of the War of Liberation that the theatrical drama began
to unfold its full powers, and nowhere do we perceive more clearly
the manifestation of the newly-acquired energy which pervaded every
department of Attic life.

The man destined to give utterance in tragic art to the spirit of the
great age was Æschylus, the son of Euphorion of Eleusis, a scion of an
ancient family, through which he claimed association with one of the
most venerable sanctuaries of the land. This is why he calls himself the
pupil of Demeter, thus testifying that the solemn services of the temple
at Eleusis had not failed to exercise a lasting influence upon his mind.
As a boy he witnessed the fall of the tyrants: when come to man’s estate
he fought at Marathon, being then thirty-five years old, and he himself
declared, in the inscription on his tombstone, that he took pride, not in
his tragedies, but in his share in that great day, though there he had
been but a citizen among citizens, while as a poet he was without peer
among his contemporaries. For it was he whose creative genius laid the
foundations of Attic tragedy, making all previous achievements look like
imperfect attempts.

He introduced a second actor on the stage, and thus made the play a real
drama, by which means lively colloquy first became possible. Dialogue,
for which the Athenians were singularly well qualified by their love of
talking, readiness and acute reasoning faculty, was thus transferred
to the stage, and this gave it a wholly novel interest. The language
of the dialogue was in the main that of ordinary life, while older
phonetic principles prevailed in the chorus, which was thus less familiar
to the ear and produced an impression of solemnity and dignity which
suited well with its character of the oldest element of tragedy and the
religious centre about which it had crystallised. The choruses were
shortened to allow the action to proceed more vigorously, the characters
of the _dramatis personæ_ were more sharply defined, a distinction was
made between leading and secondary parts, and the parts of secondary
characters of lower station bore the stamp of the common people, as
distinguished from the heroic figures of the play. The stage itself was
brought to a higher pitch of perfection. It was effectively fitted up as
an ideal scene by Agatharchus, the son of Eudemus, an artist from Samos,
who cultivated scene painting scientifically as a branch of art, and
mechanism was pressed into the service to raise shades from the depths
of the earth or cause gods to hover in the air by artificial means. The
spectacle as a whole gained in solemn dignity no less than in spiritual
import and moral significance.

The principal aim of the earlier poets had been to express and induce
emotional moods; but the object of the drama was to present the legends
of olden times completely in their general connection, and for this
purpose Attic drama was so arranged that three tragedies were joined
to form a single whole, in order to display upon a harmonious plan
the successive developments of the mythical story, and these three
tragedies, which were so many acts of one great drama, were followed by
a Satyr-drama as afterpiece. This led back from the affecting solemnity
of the tragedies to the popular sphere of the Dionysian festival, where
the diverting adventures witnessed and enacted by the satyrs restored
the minds of the spectators to innocent mirth. It was a healthy trait of
popular sentiment which thus mingled jest and earnest, and one of which
we see other evidences in vase painting and the sculptures of the temples.

Such was the tetralogy of Attic drama, which, if not invented by Æschylus
yet received its artistic consummation at his hands. The dithyrambic
chorus was divided into groups, each consisting of twelve (and later of
fifteen) persons, so that there was a special chorus for each part of the
tetralogy, to follow sympathetically the action of the _dramatis personæ_
and fill up the pauses with dance and song. The _orchestra_, where the
chorus was placed, lay between the stage and the spectators, just as the
chorus itself symbolically occupied an intermediate position between the
audience and the heroes of the drama.

The Greeks were accustomed to look upon the poets as their teachers, and
no man could gain recognition as a poet among them who had only talent,
imagination, and artistic skill to show as proofs of his poetic vocation;
this required a thorough education of heart and mind and clear insight
into things human and divine. Hence the calling of a poet laid claim to
the whole man and the man’s whole life, and none conceived of it more
nobly than Æschylus. Like Pindar he takes his hearers into the very
heart of the myth, drawing out its moral earnestness and illuminating
it with the light of historical experience. Humanity, as represented by
Æschylus in the Titan Prometheus, with its constancy through struggles
and misery, its proud self-respect, its indefatigable inventive genius,
with its tendency, too, to rashness and arrogant boasting, is the
generation of his own contemporaries, with their reckless aspirations;
but no wisdom avails man save that which comes from Zeus, no skill and
intelligence save that which is based on devout morality. Thus, without
petty premeditation the poet becomes a true teacher of the people; in an
age of incipient scepticism he endeavours to uphold the religion of his
forefathers, to purify popular conceptions and to draw forth the kernel
of wholesome truth from the many-hued tinsel of popular fables. It was
the mission of the poet to maintain harmony between popular tradition and
advancing knowledge.

But the poets lived in the midstream of civic life, and it is not to
be supposed that, in a city like Athens, men who at public festivals
set forth the creations of their genius in the public eye, could remain
indifferent to the questions of their own day. They were obliged of
necessity to belong to one party or another, and if they were sincere
and candid, their views as to what was for the good of the commonwealth
could not but appear in their works. Their choice of subject was still
limited in the main to mythology; man’s strength of will, his deeds and
sufferings, the contradiction between laws human and divine, were still
set forth by preference in the characters of the Homeric age of which the
tradition survived in the epos. These were the prototypes of the human
race, their sufferings were the sufferings and entanglements incident
to the whole human race; in contemplating them the spectators were to
be freed from what was personal in their sorrows and cares, the narrow
bounds of their self-consciousness were to be widened, and they were to
receive from the performance not only the highest artistic pleasure, but
a cheering and healing purification of their hearts. These heroes of
olden times were in harmony with the ideal character which the dramatists
were bent on giving to the whole world of the stage; but the impression
was none the less striking because the audience was transported into a
dim and legendary past. We feel the spirit of the warrior of Marathon in
the warlike plays of Æschylus, and the spectator of his _Seven against
Thebes_ glowed with eagerness to strike a blow for his country.

Meanwhile Phrynichus had ventured to put modern events on the stage, and
his _Fall of Miletus_ and _Phœnissæ_ were no doubt fraught with political
intention. Æschylus followed the example of his predecessor in a far
grander style when, four years after the production of the _Phœnissæ_
of Phrynichus, he produced his drama of the _Persæ_. He depicted the
fall of the Great King. But with fine artistic instinct he chose Persia,
not Attica, for the scene of his tragedy. He brings before our eyes the
consequences of the battle, its reaction upon the hostile empire, in its
own capital. Darius is conjured from the grave that in the person of
the pious and prudent ruler may be set forth the glory of the inviolate
Persian empire, while his successor returns from Hellas shorn of all
dignity, a warning example of the ruin which foolish arrogance brings
upon all sovereign power. The whole composition is pervaded by the idea
of retribution, which had been awakened in the Greek mind by the Persian
wars.

In the tragedy of Phrynichus, Themistocles is extolled above all other
men, while Æschylus only alludes to him in passing as the inventor of a
subtle stratagem. On the other hand the latter gives a detailed account
of the fight on Psyttalea, so exalting the fame of Aristides, who
contributed substantially to the victory of Salamis, not by sea, but by
land.

The _Persæ_ was the middle play of a trilogy and comes to no final
conclusion. The shade of Darius hints at other defeats in the future,
and at the struggles of Platæa. From _Glaucus_, the third play of the
trilogy, an allusion to Himera has been preserved. The first part,
_Phineus_, takes its name from the mythical seer who revealed to the
Argonauts their coming voyage to the land of the northern barbarians.
Hence, it is extremely probable that all three plays were linked together
by a single idea, the idea (present to all thinking men of the time) of
the great struggle between barbarian and Greek, between Asia and Europe,
which had its mythical prelude in the voyage of the Argonauts, and came
to its glorious issue on the battlefields of Greece and Sicily. In like
manner Herodotus had conceived of the Persian War as one link in a great
chain of historical development, and Pindar had associated Salamis,
Platæa, and Himera as ranking equally among the glorious days of the
Greeks; and we may be sure that the trilogy of the _Persæ_ would not
have been acted at the court of Hiero unless it had fully satisfied the
tyrant’s love of praise.

Æschylus represented the legendary history of the house of Pelops in the
three plays of the _Oresteia_, and that of the royal house of Thebes
and the Thracian king, Lycurgus, each in a cycle of three dramas; he
worked up the legend of Prometheus so that the conflicts and discords
of the several parts find a satisfactory solution in a larger order of
things; and thus the poet wove legend and history into a single piece.
Prehistoric and present times, East and West, the mother-country and the
colonies, all form parts of a grand picture, of a chain of events linked
together by prophecy and reciprocal reaction. The poet looks forward
and backward, and prophet-like interprets the course of history, seeing
the inner necessity revealed to the eye of the spirit. He uplifts the
hearts of his people by setting forth the waxing power of the Greeks, the
waning might of the barbarians on every side, without a taint of scorn or
malicious triumph to vitiate the moral majesty of his work. At the same
time he moderates the pride of victory, by pointing to the guilt which
brought about the Persian overthrow and to the eternal laws of divine
justice, the observance of which is the inexorable condition of the
prosperity of the Greeks.

In the tragedies on mythical subjects there was no lack of passages which
permitted of or actually challenged application to the events of the
day. Next to Aristides, it was Cimon to whom the muse of Æschylus did
homage. Like Cimon, the poet was the champion of a common Hellenism, of
patriarchal customs, the rule of the best, the discipline of the good
old times, and so when the waves of popular agitation rose higher and
higher till they threatened the very Areopagus, the last bulwark, the
septuagenarian poet led his muse into the strife of conflicting parties
and exerted his utmost powers to impress upon his fellow-citizens the
sacred dignity of the Areopagus as a divine institution and to warn them
of the consequences of sinful license. The _Eumenides_ of Æschylus is
a brilliant example of the way in which a great imaginative work may
be made to serve a special purpose and express a particular tendency
without losing anything of its transparent lucidity or of the sublimity
which stamps it as a masterpiece for all time. But though the Areopagus
remained unmolested as a court of justice (and we should like to fancy
the poem of Æschylus an influential factor in the matter) the poet felt
alien and solitary in the city where democracy had completely gained the
ascendant. This was not the freedom for which he had bled in the field;
the band of those who had fought in the Wars of Liberation dwindled and
dwindled; the _Oresteia_ was the last work he produced in Athens; and
he died in his seventieth year at Gela in Sicily (456 B.C.), after a
residence there of about two years.

The day of the warriors of Marathon was past, and the new age, the age
of Pericles, found exponents in a younger generation, and on the Attic
stage in Sophocles. Like Æschylus he was of noble birth, as is indicated
by his appointment to be a priest of the hero, Halon, but his father
was a craftsman and the head of a great smithy for the manufacture of
weapons. He was born in the metalliferous district of Colonus about
B.C. 496 and grew up amidst the delightful rural scenery of the valley
of the Cephisus, in the shade of the sacred olives that had witnessed
the first beginnings of national history, yet near the capital and near
the sea, which he overlooked from the crags of Colonus, and where he
saw the port grow up during his boyhood years. In the early bloom of
youthful beauty he led the dance at the festival held in honour of the
victory of Salamis; twelve years later he entered the lists as a rival
of the great poet Æschylus, whose inspiring art had attracted him to
follow the same path to poetic fame. It was a day of unwonted excitement
throughout Athens when all men awaited the issue of the contest between
the ambitious young poet and Æschylus, then close upon sixty years of
age and twice already the wearer of the laurel crown. The occasion was
the same Dionysian festival on which Cimon, having brought the Thracian
campaign to a glorious close, came up from the Piræus and offered his
thank-offerings to the gods in the orchestra of the theatre. The people
were in raptures over the relics of Theseus which he had brought back,
and amidst the assenting acclamations of the assembled citizens the
archon Apsephion appointed Cimon and his fellow-generals umpires, as
being the worthiest representatives of the ten tribes. The result was
that the prize was awarded to the _Triptolemus_ trilogy of Sophocles.

[Illustration: REPRESENTATION OF A RECEPTION OF BACCHUS]

There was no opposition between the art of Sophocles and that of his
predecessor. The former looked up reverentially to the man whose
original genius had led the way to the consummation of tragic art. Envy
and jealousy were foreign to his lovable disposition. But he was an
independent-minded pupil of his great master, and a man of very different
endowments. His genius was gentler, simpler, and more tranquil, the
extremes of pathos and pomp were repugnant to his taste. Accordingly
he toned down the force of the theatrical diction which Æschylus had
introduced, and, without degrading his characters to the common level,
tried to make them more human, so that the spectators could feel more
closely akin to them. This method is intimately connected with the
altered treatment of the subjects of tragedy. In the treatment of
tragic legend Æschylus reached the greatest heights to which the genius
of Greece ever soared; in this sphere no man could surpass him. But
Sophocles realised that the legends could not always be presented to the
people with the same breadth of handling without their interest being
gradually exhausted. It was therefore necessary to develop more vital
action within the various tragedies, to conceive the characters more
definitely, and excite a more vivid psychological interest.

Æschylus had already treated the trilogy in such a manner that it was
not bound to the thread of a single myth, and the combination, if not
dissolved by Sophocles, was so far loosened as to make each tragedy of
the three complete in itself, leading up to its appropriate close within
the limits of the action and capable of being judged as a separate
composition. The result was much greater freedom, the motive of each
play could be treated in fuller detail and the poetic picture enhanced
by the prominence given to secondary characters. Thus, in his treatment
of the legend of Orestes, Sophocles suffers the act of matricide and its
perpetrator to fall into the background and gives quite a new turn to
the familiar subject by making Electra the leading character in place of
her brother Orestes, showing the whole course of the action as reflected
in her spirit, and thus securing an opportunity of creating a study of
varied emotion and a type of womanly heroism to which the picture of her
sister’s dissimilar temperament serves as an admirable foil.

In order to take full advantage of the resources of a more refined and
advanced style of art, Sophocles introduced a third actor on the stage
and thus opened the way to incomparably greater vividness of treatment
no less than to much greater variety of colouring and grouping in the
_dramatis personæ_. Moreover, Sophocles, though an adept in the song and
dance, was the first poet to abandon the practice of appearing in the
parts he had created. From that time the professions of poet and actor
were distinct, and the art of the latter acquired greater independent
value. A less active part, outside the scope of the action, was assigned
to the chorus, and the dramatic element became more significantly
prominent as the nucleus of the tragedy. Æschylus himself recognised the
advance, for he not only adopted the improvements in the outward setting
of tragedy thus effected, but spurred on by his younger rival, rose to
the height of a maturer art in his dramas.

To the influence of Sophocles was due the increased fondness for Attic
subjects; his _Triptolemus_ extolled Attica as the home of a superior
civilisation, which spread victoriously from that centre to distant
lands, he brings the legend of Œdipus to an harmonious close on Attic
soil, at Colonus, his own birth-place, and even in the _Electra_ he
manifests the Athenian point of view by taking the overthrow of unlawful
dominion and the successful struggle for liberty as the purpose of the
action.

His tragedies contributed more than any other works to give spiritual
significance, as Pericles strove to do, to the age of Athenian might
and splendour. Like Pericles, Sophocles endeavoured to maintain the
ascendency of the ancient worship and customs of the country, the
unwritten precepts of sacred law, while at the same time mastering
every step of intellectual progress and every enlargement of the bounds
of knowledge. His diction bears the stamp of a trained and powerful
intellect, which often carries terseness to the verge of obscurity; but
with what skill does he preserve the charm of graceful expression, what
a spirit of felicitous harmony pervades all his works! He was a man
after Pericles’ own heart, and his personal intimacy with the latter is
proved by the gay and unaffected manner in which the statesman treats
the poet as his colleague in the camp. Sophocles was never a partisan
or party writer in the same sense as Æschylus, and as Phrynichus seems
to have been, but his art was a mirror of the noblest tendencies of the
time, a glorified version of the Athens of Pericles. We meet with his
clear and sound judgment on civil affairs in every passage in which he
praises prudent counsel as the safeguard of states, and the Attic people
rightly appreciated him as the true poet of his age, for none ever won
so many prizes or enjoyed his fame so unmolested as Sophocles, nor could
Euripides (who though only fifteen or sixteen years his junior belonged
to a totally different era) gain any success as his rival until the age
of Pericles was past. And even to him Sophocles was never obliged to
yield the palm.


COMEDY

Side by side with tragedy, and from the same germ, _i.e._, from the
Bacchic festivities, comedy developed. It is full sister to tragedy, but
grew up longer in rustic freedom and fell much later under the discipline
and training of the city; and for that reason it retained more faithfully
the character of its source. For its origin was the jollity of the
vintage, the merry-making of country folk over the increase of another
year, which is found in all wine-growing districts. Swarms of masked
holiday-makers sang the praises of the genial god and in tipsy merriment
played all kinds of jokes and tricks on every one who met the procession
and gave an opening for pranks and raillery, the events of the day were
freely exploited, and he who hit upon the merriest quips was rewarded by
the hearty laughter and applause of a grateful audience.

Thus the autumnal festival was kept in Attica in its day, and more
particularly in the district of Icaria, not far from Marathon. The
worship of Dionysus as there celebrated made it in a manner the nursery
of the whole body of Athenian drama, for Thespis came from Icaria.
Thither, too, came Susarion of Megara, bringing from his native place
the rude wit of Megarian farce and setting the fashion which remained
in vogue for the time in Attica. From his school arose Mæson, who was
very popular in the time of the Pisistratidæ. The next step was the
transference of the rustic stage to the capital, where it was recognised
by the government as a part of the Dionysian festival and supported out
of the public funds. This took place in the time of Cimon, after the
Persian wars, and the energetic temper which at that time pervaded the
life of Athens proved its vigour by transforming the rude, half-foreign
farce into a well-organised form of art, full of significance and
thoroughly Attic in character, of which we must regard Chionides and
Magnes of Icaria as the founders.

When once the Icarian drama was naturalised in the home of tragedy
many of the concomitants of the tragic drama were transferred to it,
public contests in comedy were instituted by the state, prizes were
adjudicated and awarded, and the cost of the chorus was defrayed from
the public funds; moreover it was similarly arranged in such matters as
the stage, the dialogue, the chorus, and the number of actors, without,
however, forfeiting its peculiar characteristics. For tragedy carried
the spectators into a loftier sphere, and strove by every means at her
command to present figures and conditions on a grander scale than that
of ordinary life, while comedy maintained the closest relations with
contemporary and common life. It remained more unaffected in dance,
versification, and diction no less than in poetic design; nay, to such
an extent did it retain its topical character and its adaptation to the
events of the hour that the poet used the choir to interrupt the course
of the action entirely in order to discuss his personal affairs or the
burning questions of the time with the audience in lengthy _parabases_.

This kind of dramatic composition could only flourish in a democratic
atmosphere, and it was associated with the democracy in every stage
of its development. Occupied from the outset with the preposterous
and ridiculous side of life, it castigated all follies, defects, and
weaknesses, and amidst the variety and publicity of the civic life
of Athens it could never lack either subjects for mirth or a witty,
ingenious, and laughter-loving audience ready to catch at every allusion.
But it also served the purpose of bringing abuses and contradictions
in public life to light. This was the serious side of its calling, for
unless inspired by a serious and patriotic temper its humour would have
grown dull, ineffective, and contemptible. The aim of the comic poets was
to be not mere frivolous provokers of mirth, but teachers of men, and
leaders of the people, even as the tragic poets were; and in an age of
feverish excitement the severest of their censures were directed against
new-fangled ways. Comedy was aristocratic in character, it championed
native custom against foreign ways, it ruthlessly denounced every evil
tendency in life and art, and every instance of misconduct or abuse of
power. It cherished the memory of the heroes of the Wars of Liberation
and encouraged others to emulate their example, and it was fond of
subjects which had some bearing on important contemporary events, as we
see in the _Thracian Women_ of Cratinus, which was associated with the
establishment of colonies in Thrace.

The founders of comedy as an Attic art are Crates and Cratinus. Cratinus
was slightly younger than Æschylus, and like him was endowed with
original creative genius, but his taste for unrestrained freedom and his
inexhaustible fund of humour marked him out as a born comic poet, while
his rude veracity qualified him to make comedy a power in the state.
It became so about the time that Pericles came into power, and though
Cratinus was not the sort of man to commit himself unreservedly to one
or other of the contesting parties, we know that in his _Archilochi_ (a
comedy in which the chorus was composed of scoffers like Archilochus)
he brought an Attic citizen upon the stage immediately after the death
of Cimon and put in his mouth a lament for “the divine man,” “the most
hospitable, the best of all Panhellenes, with whom he had hoped to spend
a serene old age--but now he had passed away before him.” The mighty
Cratinus was succeeded by Aristophanes and Eupolis, both unmistakably
akin to him in mind and feeling, but gentler, more moderate, and stricter
in their adherence to the rules of art. But Aristophanes alone combined
with these qualities a wealth of creative invention in nothing inferior
to the genius of Cratinus.


THE GLORY OF ATHENS

All these men,--philosophers and historians, orators and poets,--each
one of whom marks an epoch in the development of art and science, were
not merely contemporaries, but lived together in the same city, some
born there and nourished from their youth on the glories of their
native place, others attracted thither by the same glory; nor was their
association merely local, they laboured, consciously or unconsciously,
at a common task. For whether they were personally intimate or not with
the great statesman who was the centre of the Attic world, nay, even
if they were numbered among his opponents, they could not but render
him substantial help in his life-work of making Athens the intellectual
capital of Greece.

Here whatever germs of culture were introduced from foreign parts gained
new life, the Ionian study of countries and peoples became history
as soon as Herodotus came into touch with Athens; the Peloponnesian
dithyrambus grew into tragedy at Athens, the farce of Megara into Attic
comedy; here the philosophy of Ionia and Magna Græcia met to supplement
each other’s defects and prepare the way for the development of Attic
philosophy; even sophistry was nowhere turned to such account as at
Athens. In earlier times every district, city, and island had had its
peculiar school and tendencies, but now all vigorous intellectual
movements crowded together at Athens; local and tribal peculiarities of
temperament and dialect were reconciled; and as the drama (the most Attic
of all the arts) absorbed all art-methods into itself, to reproduce them
in organic harmony, so from all the achievements of the genius of Greece
there grew a general culture which was at once the heritage of Attica
and of the Greek nation. Vehemently as other states might oppose the
political predominance of Athens, none could deny that the city where
Æschylus, Sophocles, Herodotus, Zeno, Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Crates, and
Cratinus all laboured together, was the focus of all lofty aspirations,
the heart of the nation, Hellas in Hellas.

[Illustration: HERODOTUS]

Slight as is our knowledge of the personal relations of these great
contemporaries, there are a few traditions from which we can gather some
idea of the intercourse of Pericles with the most eminent among them and
of their intercourse with one another. We know that Pericles equipped
the chorus for a theatrical performance in which Æschylus carried off
the prize. We know of the friendship of Herodotus and Sophocles, and
we actually possess the beginning of some occasional verses addressed
to Herodotus by the poet, then in the fifty-fifth year of his age; a
letter in elegiac metre dating from the time when the historian migrated
to Thurii, and withdrew from the delightful society of the best men of
Athens. Sophocles was before all things sociable, and we hear that he
formed a circle of men skilled in the fine arts and dedicated it to
the Muses, and that it held regular meetings. This reciprocal stimulus
resulted in a steady advance in all directions. In every branch of art
we can trace the epochs of development as surely as in the structure of
the trimetre of the drama. But as, generally speaking, Greek art owed
its unfaltering progress to the fact that the younger artists did not
endeavour to gain a start by rash attempts at originality, but held fast
the good in all things and readily adopted and perfected methods that had
once gained acceptance, so in Athens we see the elder masters gratefully
praised and honoured by their pupils, like Æschylus by Sophocles and
Cratinus by Aristophanes.

It is one of the most notable characteristics of the intellectual
life of Athens that her eminent men, however high a view they took
of their own calling, did not owe their pre-eminence in it to any
narrow-minded restriction of their interest to their own peculiar sphere.
This versatility was rendered possible by the vitality for which the
contemporaries of Pericles were remarkable, and it seems as though the
brilliant prime of the Greek nation manifested itself most plainly in
the frequent combination of extraordinary mental and physical powers. We
cannot but admire the men who retained their vital force unimpaired to
extreme old age and advanced in the practice of their art to the last.

Sophocles, after having composed 113 dramas, is said to have read the
chorus of the _Œdipus at Colonus_ aloud, to disprove the rumour that he
was incapable of managing his own affairs by reason of the infirmities
of old age. Cratinus was ninety-one when he produced _Dame Bottle_, the
saucy comedy with which he defeated Aristophanes, who had looked upon
him as a rival whose day was over. Simonides, Xenophanes, Parmenides,
and Zeno, were likewise examples of healthy and vigorous old age.
Timocreon combined the skill of an athlete with the profession of a poet.
Polus, Sophocles’ favourite actor, was competent to take the leading
part in eight tragedies in four days. Lastly, the sterling capacity
and versatility of the masters of those days is shown by the fact that
though extraordinarily prolific authors of imaginative works, they spared
time to strive after scientific certainty concerning the problems and
resources of their art, and combined absolute self-possession and the
love of theoretical study with the enthusiasm of the artist temperament.
Thus Lasus, the inventor of the perfected form of the dithyrambus, was
at the same time an accomplished critic and one of the first writers on
the theory of music; and Sophocles himself wrote a treatise on the tragic
chorus, to set forth his views as to its place and purpose in tragedy. In
like manner the most distinguished architects wrote scientific treatises
on the principles of their art, Polyclitus worked out the theory of
numbers which lies at the root of plastic symmetry, and Agatharchus the
principles of optics, according to which he had arranged the decoration
of the stage. In so doing he took the first step towards the teaching
of perspective, which was subsequently developed by Democritus and
Anaxagoras.[b]

[Illustration: ARISTOPHANES]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXX. THE OUTBREAK OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR


No admirer of Greek civilisation can turn from the peaceful age of
Pericles and follow the next step in Grecian history without a feeling
of sadness, for he has to see the most cultured people of antiquity torn
by internal dissensions and interstate jealousies; he has to see the
people who represent the acme of culture harassed for a generation by an
imbecile strife, which shall leave it so weakened that it will become an
easy prey to outside foes. In every succeeding generation, when men have
studied the history of classical times, the same feeling of amazement has
prevailed, and has often found expression in contemplating this period
of the Peloponnesian War; but it remained for John Ruskin to invent the
vivid phrase which in three words epitomises the entire story, when he
speaks of this amazing conflict as the “suicide of Greece.” It was in
truth nothing less than that.

There was no great question at issue between the Athenian and Spartan
peoples that must be decided by the arbitrament of arms or otherwise.
There was no reason outside the temperament of the people themselves why
the Athenians on the one hand, and the Spartans on the other, might not
have gone on indefinitely, each people pre-eminent in its own territory,
and each standing aloof from the other; but that interstate jealousy
which was responsible for so many things in Grecian history came as a
determining influence which at last could not longer be controlled.
Persian might, which dared not re-enter Greece, but which longed for the
overthrow of an old enemy, urged on one side or the other, as seemed
for the moment best to serve that end. The remaining Grecian cities
took sides with Athens or Sparta according to their predilections,
or their own personal enmities and jealousies, and there resulted a
war which involved practically all the cities of Greece, and which,
after continuing for a full generation, brought Hellas as a whole to
destruction.


OUR SOURCES

The history of this war has been preserved to posterity in far greater
detail than has the history of any preceding conflict anywhere in the
world. The Athenian general Thucydides, who himself took an active part
in the earlier stages of the war, commanding forces in the field until
finally he suffered the displeasure of the Athenians, determined from
the outset, as he himself tells us, to write a complete history of the
conflict which he believed would be the most memorable of all in the
annals of history. The work which he produced has probably been more
widely celebrated and more universally applauded than any other piece of
historical composition that was ever written. All manner of extravagant
things have been said about it. Every one has heard, for example, of
Macaulay’s saying that he felt he might perhaps equal any other piece of
historical writing that had ever been done except the seventh book of
Thucydides, before which he felt himself helpless. This eulogy is of a
piece with much more that has been said in similar kind by a multitude
of other critics. It has even been alleged that no historian of a later
period has ever dealt out such impartial judgment as is to be found in
the pages of Thucydides. Seemingly forgetful of the meaning of words,
critics have even assured us that no period of like extent of the world’s
history, ancient or modern, is so fully known to us as this period of the
Peloponnesian War through the history of Thucydides.

To any one, who himself will take up the history of Thucydides, either
in the original or in such a translation as the admirable one of Dale,
two things will at once be apparent; in the first place it will not long
be open to doubt, to any one who is familiar with the literature of
antiquity, that this work of Thucydides, considered in relation to the
time in which it was written, is really an extraordinary production; but,
in the second place, it will be equally clear that if we are to consider
the work not in comparison with the writings of ancient authors but as
a part of world-literature, then much that has been said of it must be
regarded as fulsome eulogy.

To say that this work covers the period of the Peloponnesian War as
no modern period of history has been covered; to say that no modern
historian has dealt with his topic with the calm impartiality of
Thucydides; to say that no writer can hope to produce an historical
narrative comparable to the seventh book, or to any other book, of
Thucydides--to say such things as these is to abandon the broad impartial
view from which alone criticism worthy of the name is possible, and to
come under the spell of other minds. _The History of the Peloponnesian
War_ is a great book; as an historical composition it is one of the
greatest ever written: but when one has said that one has said enough.
Its style, by common consent, is not such as to make it a model, and
its matter is very largely the recital of bald facts with evidence of
an insight into the political motives beneath the surface, which seems
extraordinary only because the predecessors of Thucydides and some of
his successors had seemed so woefully to lack such insight. As to the
impartiality of the narrative, we must not overlook the significance of
Professor Mahaffy’s remark, that for most of the period covered in the
history of Thucydides this history itself is our sole authority. That
it does, nevertheless, evince a high degree of impartiality and a broad
sweep of intellect on the part of its author will not be questioned; but
Professor Mahaffy makes an estimate, which no one who is not fully under
the spell of antiquity would think of disputing, when he asserts his
belief that such modern historians as, for example, Thirlwall, must be
accredited with at least as high a degree of impartiality as Thucydides
can claim.

But all this must not be taken as in any sense denying that the work of
Thucydides is a marvellous production. Considering the time when it was
written, and that its author was a participant in many of the events
which he describes, it is astonishing that his work should be measurably
free from partiality. That it is so was, perhaps, at least in some
measure, due to the fact that Thucydides was banished from Athens, and
hence wrote his history not so much from the Athenian standpoint, as
from the standpoint of a man without a country, who was at enmity with
both Spartans and Athenians. But, partial or impartial, the history
of Thucydides remains, and presumably must always remain, the sole
contemporary record open to posterity of that great struggle through
which Greece, as it were, voluntarily threw away her prestige and her
power.

Thucydides, to be sure, did not complete his history of the war, or,
if he did, his later chapters have not been preserved to us. The
former supposition is doubtless the correct one, because the thread of
the narrative, which Thucydides dropped so abruptly, was taken up by
Xenophon, also a contemporary. It was a not unusual custom among the
ancient authors to write important works as explicit continuations of
the works of other writers. Xenophon’s narrative of the events of the
later years of the Peloponnesian War is such a work. Like the history of
Thucydides it is practically our sole authority for the period that it
covers, but, by common consent of critics, it takes a much lower level
than the work which it supplements.

Xenophon was also an exile from Athens; but he differed from Thucydides
in being an ardent friend of Sparta, and his prejudices are well known to
readers of his works. One must suppose, however, that the favourite pupil
of Socrates may be depended upon for reasonable impartiality when he
deals with matters of fact. But, be this as it may, it is Xenophon, and
Xenophon alone, who tells us most that we know at first hand, not alone
of the closing years of the Peloponnesian War, but of many in the period
succeeding. We shall constantly support our narrative of the events of
this period, therefore, by references to the pages of Xenophon, as well
as to those of Thucydides.[a]


THE ORIGIN OF THE WAR

Even before the recent hostilities at Corcyra and Potidæa, it had been
evident to reflecting Greeks that prolonged observance of the Thirty
Years’ Truce was becoming uncertain, and that the mingled hatred, fear,
and admiration which Athens inspired throughout Greece would prompt
Sparta and the Spartan confederacy to seize any favourable opening for
breaking down the Athenian power. That such was the disposition of Sparta
was well understood among the Athenian allies, however considerations
of prudence and general slowness in resolving might postpone the moment
of carrying it into effect. Accordingly not only the Samians when they
revolted had applied to the Spartan confederacy for aid, which they
appear to have been prevented from obtaining chiefly by the pacific
interests then animating the Corinthians--but also the Lesbians had
endeavoured to open negotiations with Sparta for a similar purpose,
though the authorities to whom alone the proposition could have been
communicated, since it long remained secret and was never executed--had
given them no encouragement.

The affairs of Athens had been administered, under the ascendency of
Pericles, without any view to extension of empire or encroachment upon
others, though with constant reference to the probabilities of war, and
with anxiety to keep the city in a condition to meet it. But even the
splendid internal ornaments, which Athens at that time acquired, were
probably not without their effect in provoking jealousy on the part of
other Greeks as to her ultimate views. The only known incident, wherein
Athens had been brought into collision with a member of the Spartan
confederacy prior to the Corcyræan dispute, was her decree passed in
regard to Megara, prohibiting the Megarians, on pain of death, from
all trade or intercourse as well with Athens as with all ports within
the Athenian empire. This prohibition was grounded on the alleged
fact, that the Megarians had harboured runaway slaves from Athens,
and had appropriated and cultivated portions of land upon her border;
partly land, the property of the goddesses of Eleusis; partly a strip
of territory disputed between the two states, and therefore left by
mutual understanding in common pasture without any permanent enclosure.
In reference to this latter point, the Athenian herald Anthemocritus
had been sent to Megara to remonstrate, but had been so rudely dealt
with, that his death shortly afterwards was imputed to the Megarians.
We may reasonably suppose that ever since the revolt of Megara fourteen
years before--which caused to Athens an irreparable mischief--the
feeling prevalent between the two cities had been one of bitter enmity,
manifesting itself in many ways, but so much exasperated by recent events
as to provoke Athens to a signal revenge. Exclusion from Athens and all
the ports in her empire, comprising nearly every island and seaport in
the Ægean, was so ruinous to the Megarians, that they loudly complained
of it at Sparta, representing it as an infraction of the Thirty Years’
Truce; though it was undoubtedly within the legitimate right of Athens
to enforce, and was even less harsh than the systematic expulsion of
foreigners by Sparta, with which Pericles compared it.

[Illustration: ATTENDANT OF A GREEK WARRIOR

(From a vase)]

[Sidenote: [432 B.C.]]

These complaints found increased attention after the war of Corcyra
and the blockade of Potidæa by the Athenians. The sentiments of the
Corinthians towards Athens had now become angry and warlike in the
highest degree. It was not simply resentment for the past which animated
them, but also the anxiety farther to bring upon Athens so strong a
hostile pressure as should preserve Potidæa and its garrison from
capture. Accordingly they lost no time in endeavouring to rouse the
feelings of the Spartans against Athens, and in inducing them to invite
to Sparta all such of the confederates as had any grievances against that
city. Not merely the Megarians, but several other confederates, came
thither as accusers; while the Æginetans, though their insular position
made it perilous for them to appear, made themselves vehemently heard
through the mouths of others, complaining that Athens withheld from them
the autonomy to which they were entitled under the truce.

According to the Lacedæmonian practice, it was necessary first that the
Spartans themselves, apart from their allies, should decide whether there
existed a sufficient case of wrong done by Athens against themselves or
against Peloponnesus--either in violation of the Thirty Years’ Truce,
or in any other way. If the determination of Sparta herself were in the
negative, the case would never even be submitted to the vote of the
allies; but if it were in the affirmative, then the latter would be
convoked to deliver their opinion also: and assuming that the majority
of votes coincided with the previous decision of Sparta, the entire
confederacy stood then pledged to the given line of policy--if the
majority was contrary, the Spartans would stand alone, or with such
only of the confederates as concurred. Even in the oligarchy of Sparta,
such a question as this could only be decided by a general assembly of
Spartan citizens, qualified both by age, by regular contribution to the
public mess, and by obedience to Spartan discipline. To the assembly
so constituted the deputies of the various allied cities addressed
themselves, each setting forth his case against Athens. The Corinthians
chose to reserve themselves to the last, after the assembly had been
inflamed by the previous speakers.

Of this important assembly, on which so much of the future fate of
Greece turned, Thucydides has preserved an account unusually copious.
First, the speech delivered by the Corinthian envoys. Next, that of some
Athenian envoys, who happening to be at the same time in Sparta on some
other matters, and being present in the assembly so as to have heard the
speeches both of the Corinthians and of the other complainants, obtained
permission from the magistrates to address the assembly in their turn.
Thirdly, the address of the Spartan king Archidamus, on the course of
policy proper to be adopted by Sparta. Lastly, the brief, but eminently
characteristic, address of the ephor, Sthenelaidas, on putting the
question for decision. These speeches, the composition of Thucydides
himself, contain substantially the sentiments of the parties to whom they
are ascribed. Neither of them is distinctly a reply to that which has
preceded, but each presents the situation of affairs from a different
point of view.

To dwell much upon specific allegations of wrong, would not have suited
the purpose of the Corinthian envoy; for against such, the Thirty
Years’ Truce expressly provided that recourse should be had to amicable
arbitration--to which recourse he never once alludes. He knew that,
as between Corinth and Athens, war had already begun at Potidæa; and
his business, throughout nearly all of a very emphatic speech, is to
show that the Peloponnesian confederacy, and especially Sparta, is
bound to take instant part in it, not less by prudence than by duty.
He employs the most animated language to depict the ambition, the
unwearied activity, the personal effort abroad as well as at home, the
quick resolves, the sanguine hopes never dashed by failure--of Athens,
as contrasted with the cautious, home-keeping, indolent, scrupulous
routine of Sparta. He reproaches the Spartans with their backwardness
and timidity, in not having repressed the growth of Athens before she
reached this formidable height, especially in having allowed her to
fortify her city after the retreat of Xerxes and afterwards to build the
Long Walls from the city to the sea. The Spartans (he observes) stood
alone among all Greeks in the notable system of keeping down an enemy,
not by acting, but by delaying to act--not arresting his growth, but
putting him down when his force was doubled. Falsely indeed had they
acquired the reputation of being sure, when they were in reality merely
slow. In resisting Xerxes, as in resisting Athens, they had always been
behindhand, disappointing and leaving their friends to ruin; while both
these enemies had only failed of complete success through their own
mistakes.

After half apologising for the tartness of these reproofs--which however,
as the Spartans were now well disposed to go to war forthwith, would
be well-timed and even agreeable--the Corinthian orator vindicates the
necessity of plain-speaking by the urgent peril of the emergency and
the formidable character of the enemy who threatened them. “You do
not reflect” he says “how thoroughly different the Athenians are from
yourselves. They are innovators by nature, sharp both in devising, and in
executing what they have determined: you are sharp only in keeping what
you have got, in determining on nothing beyond, and in doing even less
than absolute necessity requires. They again dare beyond their means, run
risks beyond their own judgment, and keep alive their hopes in desperate
circumstances: your peculiarity is, that your performance comes short of
your power, you have no faith even in what your judgment guarantees, when
in difficulties you despair of all escape. They never hang back, you are
habitual laggards: they love foreign service, you cannot stir from home:
for they are always under the belief that their movements will lead to
some further gain, while you fancy that new products will endanger what
you already have. When successful, they make the greatest forward march;
when defeated, they fall back the least. Moreover they task their bodies
on behalf of their city as if they were the bodies of others, while their
minds are most of all their own, for exertion in her service. When their
plans for acquisition do not come successfully out, they feel like men
robbed of what belongs to them: yet the acquisitions when realised appear
like trifles compared with what remains to be acquired. If they sometimes
fail in an attempt, new hopes arise in some other direction to supply the
want; for with them alone the possession and the hope of what they aim at
are almost simultaneous, from their habit of quickly executing all that
they have once resolved. And in this manner do they toil throughout all
their lives amidst hardship and peril, disregarding present enjoyment in
the continual thirst for increase, knowing no other festival recreation
except the performance of active duty, and deeming inactive repose a
worse condition than fatiguing occupation. To speak the truth in two
words, such is their inborn temper that they will neither remain at rest
themselves nor allow rest to others.

“Such is the city which stands opposed to you, Lacedæmonians--yet ye
still hang back from action. Your continual scruples and apathy would
hardly be safe, even if ye had neighbours like yourselves in character:
but as to dealings with Athens, your system is antiquated and out of
date. In politics as in art, it is the modern improvements which are sure
to come out victorious; and though unchanged institutions are best, if a
city be not called upon to act, yet multiplicity of active obligations
requires multiplicity and novelty of contrivance. It is through these
numerous trials that the means of Athens have acquired so much more new
development than yours.”

The Corinthians concluded by saying, that if, after so many previous
warnings, now repeated for the last time, Sparta still refused to protect
her allies against Athens, if she delayed to perform her promise made
to the Potidæans of immediately invading Attica, they (the Corinthians)
would forthwith look for safety in some new alliance, which they felt
themselves fully justified in doing. They admonished her to look well to
the case, and to carry forward Peloponnesus, with undiminished dignity,
as it had been transmitted to her from her predecessors.

Such was the memorable picture of Athens and her citizens, as exhibited
by her fiercest enemy before the public assembly at Sparta. It was
calculated to impress the assembly, not by appeal to recent or particular
misdeeds, but by the general system of unprincipled and endless
aggression which was imputed to Athens during the past, and by the
certainty held out that the same system, unless put down by measures of
decisive hostility, would be pushed still farther in future, to the utter
ruin of Peloponnesus. And to this point did the Athenian envoy (staying
in Sparta about some other negotiation and now present in the assembly)
address himself in reply, after having asked and obtained permission from
the magistrates. The empire of Athens was now of such standing that the
younger men present had no personal knowledge of the circumstances under
which it had grown up, and what was needed as information for them would
be impressive as a reminder even to their seniors.

In her position, he asserted, no Grecian power either would or could have
acted otherwise--no Grecian power, certainly not Sparta, would have acted
with so much equity and moderation or given so little ground of complaint
to her subjects. Worse they had suffered, while under Persia; worse they
would suffer, if they came under Sparta, who held her own allies under
the thraldom of an oligarchical party in each city; and if they hated
Athens this was only because subjects always hated the present dominion,
whatever that might be.

Having justified both the origin and the working of the Athenian empire,
the envoy concluded by warning Sparta to consider calmly, without being
hurried away by the passions and invectives of others, before she took
a step from which there was no retreat, and which exposed the future to
chances such as no man on either side could foresee. He called on her
not to break the truce mutually sworn to, but to adjust all differences,
as Athens was prepared to do, by the amicable arbitration which that
truce provided. Should she begin war, the Athenians would follow her
lead and resist her, calling to witness those gods under whose sanction
the oaths were taken. At any time previous to the affair of Corcyra, the
topics insisted upon by the Athenian would probably have been profoundly
listened to at Sparta. But now the mind of the Spartans was made up.
Having cleared the assembly of all “strangers,” and even all allies,
they proceeded to discuss and determine the question among themselves.
Most of their speakers held but one language--expatiating on the wrongs
already done by Athens, and urging the necessity of instant war. There
was however one voice, and that a commanding voice, raised against this
conclusion: the ancient and respected king Archidamus opposed it.

The speech of Archidamus is that of a deliberate Spartan, who, setting
aside both hatred to Athens and blind partiality to allies, looks at
the question with a view to the interests and honour of Sparta only.
He reminded them of the wealth, the population (greater than that of
any other Grecian city), the naval force, the cavalry, the hoplites,
the large foreign dominion of Athens--and then asked by what means
they proposed to put her down. Ships, they had few; trained seamen,
yet fewer; wealth, next to none. They could indeed invade and ravage
Attica, by their superior numbers and land-force. But the Athenians had
possessions abroad sufficient to enable them to dispense with the produce
of Attica, while their great navy would retaliate the like ravages upon
Peloponnesus. To suppose that one or two devastating expeditions into
Attica would bring the war to an end, would be a deplorable error; such
proceedings would merely enrage the Athenians, without impairing their
real strength, and the war would thus be prolonged, perhaps for a whole
generation. Before they determined upon war, it was absolutely necessary
to provide more efficient means for carrying it on; and to multiply their
allies not merely among the Greeks, but among foreigners also. While this
was in process, envoys ought to be sent to Athens to remonstrate and
obtain redress for the grievances of the allies. If the Athenians granted
this--which they very probably would do, when they saw the preparations
going forward, and when the ruin of the highly-cultivated soil of Attica
was held over them _in terrorem_ without being actually consummated--so
much the better: if they refused, in the course of two or three years,
war might be commenced with some hopes of success. Archidamus reminded
his countrymen that their allies would hold them responsible for the
good or bad issue of what was now determined; admonishing them, in the
true spirit of a conservative Spartan, to cling to that cautious policy
which had been ever the characteristic of the state, despising both
taunts on their tardiness and panegyric on their valour.

The speech of Archidamus was not only in itself full of plain reason and
good sense, but delivered altogether from the point of view of a Spartan;
appealing greatly to Spartan conservative feeling and even prejudice. But
in spite of all this, and in spite of the personal esteem entertained for
the speaker, the tide of feeling in the opposite direction was at that
moment irresistible. Sthenelaidas, one of the five ephors to whom it fell
to put the question for voting, closed the debate. His few words mark
at once the character of the man, the temper of the assembly, and the
simplicity of speech, though without the wisdom of judgment, for which
Archidamus had taken credit to his countrymen.

“I don’t understand,” he said, “these long speeches of the Athenians.
They have praised themselves abundantly, but they have never rebutted
what is laid to their charge--that they are guilty of wrong against our
allies and against Peloponnesus. Now if in former days they were good men
against the Persians, and are now evil-doers against us, they deserve
double punishment as having become evil-doers instead of good. But we
are the same now as we were then: we know better than to sit still while
our allies are suffering wrong: we shall not adjourn our aid, while they
cannot adjourn their sufferings. Others have in abundance wealth, ships,
and horses--but we have good allies, whom we are not to abandon to the
mercy of the Athenians: nor are we to trust our redress to arbitration
and to words, when our wrongs are not confined to words. We must help
them speedily and with all our strength. Nor let any one tell us that
we can with honour deliberate when we are actually suffering wrong--it
is rather for those who intend to do the wrong, to deliberate well
beforehand. Resolve upon war then, Lacedæmonians, in a manner worthy of
Sparta. Suffer not the Athenians to become greater than they are: let us
not betray our allies to ruin, but march with the aid of the gods against
the wrong-doers.”

With these few words, so well calculated to defeat the prudential
admonitions of Archidamus, Sthenelaidas put the question for the decision
of the assembly--which at Sparta was usually taken neither by show of
hands, nor by deposit of balls in an urn, but by cries analogous to the
ay or no of the English House of Commons--the presiding ephor declaring
which of the cries predominated. On this occasion the cry for war was
manifestly the stronger. Yet Sthenelaidas affected inability to determine
which of the two was the louder, in order that he might have an excuse
for bringing about a more impressive manifestation of sentiment and
a stronger apparent majority--since a portion of the minority would
probably be afraid to show their real opinions as individuals openly.
He therefore directed a division--like the speaker of the English House
of Commons when his decision in favour of ay or no is questioned by any
member--“Such of you as think that the truce has been violated and that
the Athenians are doing us wrong, go to that side; such as think the
contrary, to the other side.” The assembly accordingly divided, and the
majority was very great on the warlike side of the question.

The first step of the Lacedæmonians, after coming to this important
decision, was to send to Delphi and inquire of the oracle whether it
would be beneficial to them to undertake the war. The answer brought back
(Thucydides seems hardly certain that it was really given) was--that if
they did their best they would be victorious, and that the gods would
help them, invoked or uninvoked. They at the same time convened a general
congress of their allies to Sparta, for the purpose of submitting their
recent resolution to the vote of all.

[Sidenote: [432-431 B.C.]]

If there were any speeches delivered at this congress in opposition to
the war, they were not likely to be successful in a cause wherein even
Archidamus had failed. After the Corinthian had concluded, the question
was put to the deputies of every city, great and small indiscriminately:
and the majority decided for war. This important resolution was adopted
about the end of 432 B.C., or the beginning of January 431 B.C.: the
previous decision of the Spartans separately, may have been taken about
two months earlier, in the preceding October or November 432 B.C.

Reviewing the conduct of the two great Grecian parties at this momentous
juncture, with reference to existing treaties and positive grounds of
complaint, it seems clear that Athens was in the right. She had done
nothing which could fairly be called a violation of the Thirty Years’
Truce: while for such of her acts as were alleged to be such, she
offered to submit them to that amicable arbitration which the truce
itself prescribed. The Peloponnesian confederates were manifestly the
aggressors in the contest; and if Sparta, usually so backward, now came
forward in a spirit so decidedly opposite, we are to ascribe it partly to
her standing fear and jealousy of Athens, partly to the pressure of her
allies, especially of the Corinthians. Thucydides, recognising these two
as the grand determining motives, and indicating the alleged infractions
of truce as simple occasions or pretexts, seems to consider the fear and
hatred of Athens as having contributed more to determine Sparta than
the urgency of her allies. That the extraordinary aggrandisement of
Athens, during the period immediately succeeding the Persian invasion,
was well-calculated to excite alarm and jealousy in Peloponnesus, is
indisputable. But if we take Athens as she stood in 432 _B.C._, it
deserves notice that she had neither made, nor (so far as we know) tried
to make, a single new acquisition during the whole fourteen years which
had elapsed since the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce--and moreover
that that truce marked an epoch of signal humiliation and reduction of
her power. The triumph which Sparta and the Peloponnesians then gained,
though not sufficiently complete to remove all fear of Athens, was yet
great enough to inspire them with the hope that a second combined effort
would subdue her. This mixture of fear and hope was exactly the state of
feeling out of which war was likely to grow.

Moreover the confident hopes of the Peloponnesians were materially
strengthened by the widespread sympathy in favour of their cause,
proclaiming as it did the intended liberation of Greece from a despot
city.

To Athens, on the other hand, the coming war presented itself in a very
different aspect; holding out scarcely any hope of possible gain, and the
certainty of prodigious loss and privation--even granting that at this
heavy cost, her independence and union at home, and her empire abroad,
could be upheld. By Pericles, and by the more long-sighted Athenians, the
chance of unavoidable war was foreseen even before the Corcyræan dispute.
But Pericles was only the first citizen in a democracy, esteemed,
trusted, and listened to, more than any one else by the body of citizens,
but warmly opposed in most of his measures, under the free speech and
latitude of individual action which reigned at Athens--and even bitterly
hated by many active political opponents. The formal determination of the
Lacedæmonians, to declare war, must of course have been made known at
Athens, by those Athenian envoys who had entered an unavailing protest
against it in the Spartan assembly. No steps were taken by Sparta to
carry this determination into effect until after the congress of allies
and their pronounced confirmatory vote. Nor did the Spartans even then
send any herald, or make any formal declaration. They despatched various
propositions to Athens, not at all with a view of trying to obtain
satisfaction, or of providing some escape from the probability of war;
but with the contrary purpose--of multiplying demands, and enlarging
the grounds of quarrel. Meanwhile the deputies retiring home from the
congress to their respective cities carried with them the general
resolution for immediate warlike preparations to be made with as little
delay as possible.

[Illustration: GREEK HELMETS AND STANDARD]


PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONFLICT

The first requisition addressed by the Lacedæmonians to Athens was a
political manœuvre aimed at Pericles, their chief opponent in that city.
His mother Agariste belonged to the great family of the Alemæonids, who
were supposed to be under an inexorable hereditary taint, in consequence
of the sacrilege committed by their ancestor Megacles nearly two
centuries before, in the slaughter of the Cylonian suppliants near the
altar of the Venerable Goddesses. Ancient as this transaction was, it
still had sufficient hold on the mind of the Athenians to serve as the
basis of a political manœuvre: about seventy-seven years before, shortly
after the expulsion of Hippias from Athens, it had been so employed by
the Spartan king Cleomenes, who at that time exacted from the Athenians
a clearance of the ancient sacrilege, to be effected by the banishment
of Clisthenes (the founder of the democracy) and his chief partisans.
This demand, addressed by Cleomenes to the Athenians at the instance of
Isagoras, the rival of Clisthenes, had been then obeyed, and had served
well the purposes of those who sent it. A similar blow was now aimed
by the Lacedæmonians at Pericles (the grand-nephew of Clisthenes), and
doubtless at the instance of his political enemies: religion required,
it was pretended, that “the abomination of the goddess should be driven
out.” If the Athenians complied with this demand, they would deprive
themselves, at this critical moment, of their ablest leader. But the
Lacedæmonians, not expecting compliance, reckoned at all events upon
discrediting Pericles with the people, as being partly the cause of the
war through family taint of impiety; and this impression would doubtless
be loudly proclaimed by his political opponents in the assembly.

The influence of Pericles with the Athenian public had become greater
and greater as their political experience of him was prolonged. But the
bitterness of his enemies appears to have increased along with it; and
not long before this period, he had been indirectly assailed, as we
have seen, through the medium of accusations against three different
persons, all more or less intimate with him--his mistress Aspasia, the
philosopher Anaxagoras, and the sculptor Phidias. It is said also that
Dracontides proposed and carried a decree in the public assembly, that
Pericles should be called on to give an account of the money which he had
expended, and that the dicasts, before whom the account was rendered,
should give their suffrage in the most solemn manner from the altar: this
latter provision was modified by Agnon, who, while proposing that the
dicasts should be fifteen hundred in number, retained the vote by pebbles
in the urn according to ordinary custom.

If Pericles was ever tried on such a charge, there can be no doubt that
he was honourably acquitted: for the language of Thucydides respecting
his pecuniary probity is such as could not have been employed if a
verdict of guilty on a charge of peculation had been publicly pronounced.
But we cannot be certain that he ever was tried; indeed, another
accusation urged by his enemies, and even by Aristophanes in the sixth
year of the Peloponnesian War, implies that no trial took place: for
it was alleged that Pericles, in order to escape this danger, “blew up
the Peloponnesian War,” and involved his country in such confusion and
peril as made his own aid and guidance indispensably necessary to her,
especially that he passed the decree against the Megarians by which the
war was really brought on. We know enough, however, to be certain that
such a supposition is altogether inadmissible. The enemies of Pericles
were far too eager, and too expert in Athenian political warfare, to have
let him escape by such a stratagem. Moreover, we learn from the assurance
of Thucydides that the war depended upon far deeper causes--that the
Megarian decree was in no way the real cause of it; that it was not
Pericles, but the Peloponnesians, who brought it on, by the blow struck
at Potidæa.

All that we can make out, amidst these uncertified allegations, is that,
in a year or two immediately preceding the Peloponnesian War, Pericles
was hard pressed by the accusations of political enemies--perhaps even in
his own person, but certainly in the persons of those who were most in
his confidence and affection. And it was in this turn of his political
position, that the Lacedæmonians sent to Athens the above-mentioned
requisition, that the ancient Cylonian sacrilege might be at length
cleared out; in other words, that Pericles and his family might be
banished. Doubtless his enemies, as well as the partisans of Lacedæmon
at Athens, would strenuously support this proposition. And the party of
Lacedæmon at Athens was always strong, even during the middle of the war;
to act as proxenus to the Lacedæmonians was accounted an honour even by
the greatest Athenian families. On this occasion, however, the manœuvre
did not succeed, nor did the Athenians listen to the requisition for
banishing the sacrilegious Alcmæonids. On the contrary, they replied that
the Spartans too had an account of sacrilege to clear off: for they had
violated the sanctuary of Poseidon at Cape Tænarus, in dragging from it
some helot suppliants; and the sanctuary of Athene Chalciœcus at Sparta,
in blocking up and starving to death the guilty regent Pausanias. To
require that Laconia might be cleared of these two acts of sacrilege,
was the only answer which the Athenians made to the demand sent for the
banishment of Pericles. Probably the actual effect of that demand was to
strengthen him in the public esteem--very different from the effect of
the same manœuvre when practised before by Cleomenes against Clisthenes.

Other Spartan envoys shortly afterwards arrived with fresh demands. The
Athenians were now required: (1) to withdraw their troops from Potidæa;
(2) to replace Ægina in its autonomy; (3) to repeal the bill of exclusion
against the Megarians.

It was upon the latter that the greatest stress was laid; an intimation
being held out that the war might be avoided if such repeal were granted.
We see plainly from this proceeding that the Lacedæmonians acted in
concert with the anti-Periclean leaders at Athens. To Sparta and her
confederacy the decree against the Megarians was of less importance than
the rescue of the Corinthian troops now blocked up in Potidæa; but on
the other hand, the party opposed to Pericles would have much better
chance of getting a vote of the assembly against him on the subject of
the Megarians: and this advantage, if gained, would serve to enfeeble
his influence generally. No concession was obtained however on either
of the three points: even in respect to Megara, the decree of exclusion
was vindicated and upheld against all the force of opposition. At length
the Lacedæmonians--who had already resolved upon war and had sent three
envoys in mere compliance with the exigencies of ordinary practice, not
with any idea of bringing about an accommodation--sent a third batch of
envoys with a proposition which at least had the merit of disclosing
their real purpose without disguise. Rhamphias and two other Spartans
announced to the Athenians the simple injunction: “The Lacedæmonians
wish the peace to stand; and it may stand, if you will leave the Greeks
autonomous.” Upon this demand, so very different from the preceding, the
Athenians resolved to hold a fresh assembly on the subject of war or
peace, to open the whole question anew for discussion, and to determine
once for all on a peremptory answer.

The last demands presented on the part of Sparta, which went to nothing
less than the entire extinction of the Athenian empire--combined with
the character, alike wavering and insincere, of the demands previously
made, and with the knowledge that the Spartan confederacy had pronounced
peremptorily in favour of war--seemed likely to produce unanimity at
Athens, and to bring together this important assembly under the universal
conviction that war was inevitable. Such however was not the fact.

The reluctance to go to war was sincere amidst the majority of the
assembly, while among a considerable portion of them it was so
preponderant, that they even now reverted to the opening which the
Lacedæmonians had before held out about the anti-Megarian decree, as
if that were the chief cause of the war. There was much difference of
opinion among the speakers, several of whom insisted upon the repeal of
this decree, treating it as a matter far too insignificant to go to war
about, and denouncing the obstinacy of Pericles for refusing to concede
such a trifle. Against this opinion Pericles entered his protest, in an
harangue decisive and encouraging, which Dionysius of Halicarnassus ranks
among the best speeches in Thucydides: the latter historian may probably
himself have heard the original speech.

“I continue, Athenians, to adhere to the same conviction, that we must
not yield to the Peloponnesians. Now let none of you believe that we
shall be going to war about a trifle if we refuse to rescind the Megarian
decree--which they chiefly put forward, as if its repeal would avert
the war--let none of you take blame to yourselves as if we had gone to
war about a small matter. For this small matter contains in itself the
whole test and trial of your mettle: if ye yield it, ye will presently
have some other greater exaction put upon you, like men who have already
truckled on one point from fear: whereas if ye hold out stoutly, ye will
make it clear to them that they must deal with you upon a footing of
equality.”

Pericles then examined the relative strength of parties and the chances
of war. The Peloponnesians were a self-working population, with few
slaves, and without wealth, either private or public: they had no means
of carrying on distant or long-continued war: they were ready to expose
their persons, but not at all ready to contribute from their very narrow
means: in a border-war or a single land battle, they were invincible,
but for systematic warfare against a power like Athens, they had neither
competent headship, nor habits of concert and punctuality, nor money
to profit by opportunities, always rare and accidental, for successful
attack. They might perhaps establish a fortified post in Attica, but it
would do little serious mischief; while at sea, their inferiority and
helplessness would be complete, and the irresistible Athenian navy would
take care to keep it so. Nor would they be able to reckon on tempting
away the able foreign seamen from Athenian ships by means of funds
borrowed from Olympia or Delphi. For besides that the mariners of the
dependent islands would find themselves losers even by accepting a higher
pay, with the certainty of Athenian vengeance afterwards, Athens herself
would suffice to man her fleet in case of need, with her own citizens and
metics: she had within her own walls steersmen and mariners better, as
well as more numerous, than all Greece besides. There was but one side on
which Athens was vulnerable: Attica unfortunately was not an island--it
was exposed to invasion and ravage. To this the Athenians must submit,
without committing the imprudence of engaging a land battle to avert it:
they had abundant lands out of Attica, insular as well as continental, to
supply their wants, and they could in their turn, by means of their navy,
ravage the Peloponnesian territories, whose inhabitants had no subsidiary
lands to recur to.

“Mourn not for the loss of land and house,” continued the orator:
“reserve your mourning for men: houses and land acquire not men, but
men acquire them. Nay, if I thought I could prevail upon you, I would
exhort you to march out and ravage them yourselves, and thus show to the
Peloponnesians that for them at least ye will not truckle. And I could
exhibit many further grounds for confidently anticipating success, if
ye will only be willing not to aim at increased dominion when we are in
the midst of war, and not to take upon yourself new self-imposed risks;
for I have ever been more afraid of our own blunders than of the plans
of our enemy. But these are matters for further discussion, when we
come to actual operations: for the present, let us dismiss these envoys
with the answer--That we will permit the Megarians to use our markets
and harbours, if the Lacedæmonians on their side will discontinue their
summary expulsions of ourselves and our allies from their own territory;
for there is nothing in the truce to prevent either one or the other:
That we will leave the Grecian cities autonomous, if we had them as
autonomous at the time when the truce was made; and as soon as the
Lacedæmonians shall grant to their allied cities autonomy such as each
of them shall freely choose, not such as is convenient to Sparta: That
while we are ready to give satisfaction according to the truce, we will
not begin war, but will repel those who do begin it. Such is the reply at
once just and suitable to the dignity of this city. We ought to make up
our minds that war is inevitable: the more cheerfully we accept it, the
less vehement shall we find our enemies in their attack: and where the
danger is greatest, there also is the final honour greatest, both for a
state and for a private citizen. Assuredly our fathers, when they bore up
against the Persians--having no such means as we possess to start from,
and even compelled to abandon all that they did possess--both repelled
the invader and brought matters forward to our actual pitch, more by
advised operation than by good fortune, and by a daring courage greater
than their real power. We ought not to fall short of them: we must keep
off our enemies in every way, and leave an unimpaired power to our
successors.”

These animating encouragements of Pericles carried with them the majority
of the assembly, so that answer was made to the envoys, such as he
recommended, on each of the particular points in debate. It was announced
to them, moreover, on the general question of peace or war, that the
Athenians were prepared to discuss all the grounds of complaint against
them, pursuant to the truce, by equal and amicable arbitration, but that
they would do nothing under authoritative demand. With this answer the
envoys returned to Sparta, and an end was put to negotiation.

It seems evident, from the account of Thucydides, that the Athenian
public was not brought to this resolution without much reluctance, and
great fear of the consequences, especially destruction of property in
Attica; and that a considerable minority took opposition on the Megarian
decree--the ground skilfully laid by Sparta for breaking the unanimity
of her enemy, and strengthening the party opposed to Pericles. But we
may also decidedly infer from the same historian--especially from the
proceedings of Corinth and Sparta as he sets them forth--that Athens
could not have avoided the war without such an abnegation both of dignity
and power as no nation under any government will ever submit to, and
as would have even left her without decent security for her individual
rights. It is common to ascribe the Peloponnesian War to the ambition of
Athens, but this is a partial view of the case.

The aggressive sentiment, partly fear and partly hatred, was on the
side of the Peloponnesians, who were not ignorant that Athens desired
the continuance of peace, but were resolved not to let her stand as she
was at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ Truce. It was their purpose
to attack her and break down her empire, as dangerous, wrongful, and
anti-Hellenic. The war was thus partly a contest of principle, involving
the popular proclamation of the right of every Grecian state to autonomy,
against Athens: partly a contest of power, wherein Spartan and Corinthian
ambition was not less conspicuous, and far more aggressive in the
beginning than Athenian.

[Sidenote: [431 B.C.]]

Conformably to what is here said, the first blow of the war was struck,
not by Athens, but against her. After the decisive answer given to the
Spartan envoys, taken in conjunction with the previous proceedings, and
the preparations actually going on, among the Peloponnesian confederacy,
the truce could hardly be said to be in force, though there was no formal
proclamation of rupture.

A few weeks undoubtedly passed in restricted and mistrustful intercourse;
though individuals who passed the borders did not think it necessary to
take a herald with them, as in time of actual war. Had the excess of
ambition been on the side of Athens compared with her enemies, this was
the time for her to strike the first blow, carrying with it of course
greater probability of success, before their preparations were completed.
But she remained strictly within the limits of the truce, while the
disastrous series of mutual aggressions, destined to tear in pieces the
entrails of Hellas, was opened by her enemy and her neighbour.

The little town of Platæa, still hallowed by the memorable victory over
the Persians as well as by the tutelary consecration received from
Pausanias, was the scene of this unforeseen enterprise which marks the
opening of hostilities in the Peloponnesian war.[b]

[Illustration: GREEK HELMETS]


THE SURPRISE OF PLATÆA

War had been only threatened, not declared; and peaceful intercourse,
though not wholly free from distrust, was still kept up between the
subjects of the two confederacies. But early in the following spring, 431
B.C., in the fifteenth year of the Thirty Years’ Truce, an event took
place which closed all prospects of peace, precipitated the commencement
of war, embittered the animosity of the contending parties, and prepared
some of the most tragical scenes of the ensuing history. In the dead
of night the city of Platæa was surprised by a body of three hundred
Thebans, commanded by two of the great officers called Bœotarchs. They
had been invited by a Platæan named Nauclides, and others of the same
party, who hoped with the aid of the Thebans to rid themselves of their
political opponents, and to break off the relation in which their city
was standing to Athens, and transfer its alliance to Thebes. The Thebans,
foreseeing that a general war was fast approaching, felt the less scruple
in strengthening themselves by this acquisition, while it might be made
with little cost and risk. The gates were unguarded, as in time of peace,
and one of them was secretly opened to the invaders, who advanced without
interruption into the marketplace. Their Platæan friends wished to lead
them at once to the houses of their adversaries, and to glut their hatred
by a massacre. But the Thebans were more anxious to secure the possession
of the city, and feared to provoke resistance by an act of violence.
Having therefore halted in the marketplace, they made a proclamation
inviting all who were willing that Platæa should become again, as it had
been in former times, a member of the Bœotian body, to join them.

The Platæans who were not in the plot, imagined the force by which their
city had been surprised to be much stronger than it really was, and, as
no hostile treatment was offered to them, remained quiet, and entered
into a parley with the Thebans. In the course of these conferences they
gradually discovered that the number of the enemy was small, and might
be easily overpowered; and, as they were in general attached to the
Athenians, or at least strongly averse to an alliance with Thebes, they
resolved to make the attempt, while the darkness might favour them, and
perplex the strangers. To avoid suspicion they met to concert their plan
of operation by means of passages opened through the walls of their
houses; and having barricaded the streets with wagons, and made such
other preparations as they thought necessary, a little before daybreak
they suddenly fell upon the Thebans.

The little band made a vigorous defence, and twice or thrice repulsed the
assailants; but as these still returned to the charge, and were assisted
by the women and slaves, who showered stones and tiles from the houses
on the enemy, all at the same time raising a tumultuous clamour, and a
heavy rain increased the confusion caused by the darkness, they at length
lost their presence of mind, and took to flight. But most were unable
to find their way in the dark through a strange town, and several were
slain as they wandered to and fro in search of an outlet. The gate by
which they were admitted had in the meanwhile been closed, and no other
was open. Some, pressed by their pursuers, mounted the walls, and threw
themselves down on the outside, but for the most part were killed by the
fall. A few were fortunate enough to break open one of the gates in a
lone quarter, with an axe which they obtained from a woman, and to effect
their escape. The main body, which had kept together, entered a large
building adjoining the walls, having mistaken its gates, which they found
open, for those of the town, and were shut in. The Platæans at first
thought of setting fire to the building; but at length the men within, as
well as the rest of the Thebans who were still wandering up and down the
streets, surrendered at discretion.

Before their departure from Thebes it had been concerted that as large
a force as could be raised should march the same night to support them.
The distance between the two places was not quite nine miles, and these
troops were expected to reach the gates of Platæa before the morning;
but the Asopus, which crossed their road, had been swollen by the rain,
and the state of the ground and the weather otherwise retarded them,
so that they were still on their way when they heard of the failure of
the enterprise. Though they did not know the fate of their countrymen,
as it was possible that some might have been taken prisoners, they were
at first inclined to seize as many of the Platæans as they could find
without the walls, and to keep them as hostages. The Platæans anticipated
this design, and were alarmed, for many of their fellow citizens were
living out of the town in the security of peace, and there was much
valuable property in the country. They therefore sent a herald to the
Theban army to complain of their treacherous attack, and call upon them
to abstain from further aggression, and to threaten that, if any was
offered, the prisoners should answer for it with their lives. The Thebans
afterwards alleged that they had received a promise, confirmed by an
oath, that, on condition of their retiring from the Platæan territory,
the prisoners should be released; and Thucydides seems disposed to
believe this statement. The Platæans denied that they had pledged
themselves to spare the lives of the prisoners, unless they should come
to terms on the whole matter with the Thebans; but it does not seem
likely that, after ascertaining the state of the case, the Thebans would
have been satisfied with so slight a security. It is certain however that
they retired, and that the Platæans, as soon as they had transported
their movable property out of the country into the town, put to death all
the prisoners--amounting to 180, and including Eurymachus, the principal
author of the enterprise, and the man who possessed the greatest
influence in Thebes.

On the first entrance of the Thebans into Platæa a messenger had been
despatched to Athens with the intelligence, and the Athenians had
immediately laid all the Bœotians in Attica under arrest; and when
another messenger brought the news of the victory gained by the Platæans,
they sent a herald to request that they would reserve the prisoners for
the disposal of the Athenians. The herald came too late to prevent the
execution: and the Athenians, foreseeing that Platæa would stand in great
need of defence, sent a body of troops to garrison it, supplied it with
provisions, and removed the women and children and all persons unfit for
service in a siege.

After this event it was apparent that the quarrel could only be decided
by arms. Platæa was so intimately united with Athens, that the Athenians
felt the attack which had been made on it as an outrage offered to
themselves, and prepared for immediate hostilities. Sparta, too,
instantly sent notice to all her allies to get their contingents ready
by an appointed day for the invasion of Attica. Two-thirds of the whole
force which each raised were ordered to march, and when the time came
assembled in the isthmus, where King Archidamus put himself at their
head. An army more formidable, both in numbers and spirit, had never
issued from the peninsula; and Archidamus thought it advisable, before
they set out, to call the principal officers together, and to urge the
necessity of proceeding with caution and maintaining exact discipline,
as soon as they should have entered the enemy’s territory; admonishing
them not to be so far elated by their superior numbers as to believe
that the Athenians would certainly remain passive spectators of their
inroads. And though all except himself were impatient to move, he would
not yet take the decisive step, without making one attempt more to avert
its necessity. He still cherished a faint hope, that the resolution of
the Athenians might be shaken by the prospect of the evils of war which
were now so imminent, and he sent Melesippus to sound their disposition.
But the envoy was not able to obtain an audience from the people, nor so
much as to enter the walls. A decree had been made, at the instigation
of Pericles, to receive no embassy from the Spartans while they should
be under arms. Melesippus was informed that if his government wished
to treat with Athens, it must first recall its forces. He himself was
ordered to quit Attica that very day, and persons were appointed to
conduct him to the frontier, to prevent him from holding communication
with any one by the way. On parting with his conductors he exclaimed,
“This day will be the beginning of great evils to Greece.”

Such a prediction might well occur to any one, who reflected on the
nature of the two powers which were now coming into conflict, and on
the great resources of both, which, though totally different in kind,
were so evenly balanced that no human eye could perceive in which scale
victory hung; and the termination of the struggle could seem near only to
one darkened by passion. The strength of Sparta, as was implied in the
observation of Sthenelaidas, lay in the armies which she could collect
from the states of her confederacy. The force which she could thus bring
into the field is admitted by Pericles, in one of the speeches ascribed
to him by Thucydides, to be capable of making head against any that could
be raised by the united efforts of the rest of Greece. Within the isthmus
her allies included all the states of Peloponnesus, except Achaia and
Argos; and the latter was bound to neutrality by a truce which still
wanted several years of its term. Hence the great contest now beginning
was not improperly called the Peloponnesian War. Beyond the isthmus
she was supported by Megara and Thebes, which drew the rest of Bœotia
along with it; and Attica would thus have been completely surrounded
on the land side by hostile territories, if Platæa and Oropus had not
been politically attached to it. The Locrians of Opus, the Dorians of
the mother-country, and the Phocians (though these last were secretly
more inclined to the Athenians, who had always taken their part in their
quarrels with Delphi, the stanch friend of Sparta) were also on her
side. Thessaly, Acarnania, and the Amphilochian Argos, were in alliance
with her enemy; but for this very reason, and more especially from their
hostility to the Messenians of Naupactus, the Ætolians were friendly to
her; and she could also reckon on the Corinthian colonies, Anactorium,
Ambracia, and Leucas.

The power which Sparta exerted over her allies was much more narrowly
limited than that which Athens had assumed over her subjects. The Spartan
influence rested partly on the national affinity by which the head was
united to the Dorian members of the confederacy, but still more on the
conformity, which she established or maintained among all of them, to
her own oligarchical institutions. This was the only point in which she
encroached on the independence of any. Every state had a voice in the
deliberations by which its interests might be affected; and if Sparta
determined the amount of the contributions required by extraordinary
occasions, she was obliged carefully to adjust it to the ability of each
community. So far was she from enriching herself at the expense of the
confederacy, that at the beginning of the war there was, as we have seen,
no common treasure belonging to it, and no regular tribute for common
purposes. But, to compensate for these defects, her power stood on a more
durable basis of goodwill than that of Athens; and though in every state
there was a party attached to the Athenian interest on political grounds,
yet on the whole the Spartan cause was popular throughout Greece; and
while Athens was forced to keep a jealous eye on all her subjects, and
was in continual fear of losing them, Sparta, secure of the loyalty of
her own allies, could calmly watch for opportunities of profiting by the
disaffection of those of her rival.

At home indeed her state was far from sound, and the Athenians were
well aware of her vulnerable side; but abroad, and as chief of the
Peloponnesian confederacy, she presented the majestic and winning aspect
of the champion of liberty against Athenian tyranny and ambition: and
hence she had important advantages to hope from states which were but
remotely connected with her, and were quite beyond the reach of her arms.
Many powerful cities in Italy and Sicily were thus induced to promise
her their aid, and it was on this she founded her chief expectations
of forming a navy, which might face that of Athens. Her allies in this
quarter engaged to furnish her with money and ships, which, it was
calculated, would amount to no less than five hundred, though for the
present it was agreed that they should wear the mask of neutrality, and
admit single Athenian vessels into their ports. But as she was conscious
that she should still be deficient in the sinews of war, she already
began to turn her eyes to the common enemy of Greece, who was able
abundantly to supply this want, and would probably be willing to lavish
his gold for the sake of ruining Athens, the object of his especial
enmity and dread.

The extent of the Athenian empire cannot be so exactly computed. In the
language of the comic stage, it is said to comprehend a thousand cities;
and it is difficult to estimate what abatement ought to be made from this
playful exaggeration. The subjects of Athens were in general more opulent
than the allies of Sparta, and their sovereign disposed of their revenues
at her pleasure. The only states to which she granted more than a nominal
independence were some islands in the western seas, Corcyra, Zacynthus,
and Cephallenia--points of peculiar importance to her operations and
prospects in that quarter, though even there she was more feared than
loved. At the moment of the revolt of Potidæa her empire had reached its
widest range, and her finances were in the most flourishing condition;
and at the outbreak of the war her naval and military strength was at
its greatest height. Pericles, as one of the ten regular generals, or
ministers of war, before the Peloponnesian army had reached the frontier,
held an assembly, in which he gave an exact account of the resources
which the republic had at her disposal.

Her finances, beside the revenue which she drew from a variety of
sources, foreign and domestic, were nourished by the annual tribute
of her allies, which now amounted to six hundred talents [£120,000 or
$600,000]. Six thousand, in money, still remained in the treasury, after
the great expenditure incurred on account of the public buildings, and
the siege of Potidæa, before which the sum had amounted to nearly ten
thousand. But to this, Pericles observed, must be added the gold and
silver which, in various forms of offerings, ornaments, and sacred
utensils, enriched the temples or public places, which he calculated at
five hundred talents, without reckoning the precious materials employed
in the statues of the gods and heroes. The statue of Athene in the
Parthenon alone contained forty talents’ weight of pure gold, in the
ægis, shield, and other appendages. If they should ever be reduced to
the want of such a supply, there could be no doubt that their tutelary
goddess would willingly part with her ornaments for their service, on
condition that they were replaced at the earliest opportunity.

They could muster a force of 13,000 heavy-armed, beside those who were
employed in their various garrisons, and in the defence of the city
itself, with the long walls and the fortifications of its harbours, who
amounted to 16,000 more; made up, indeed, partly of the resident aliens,
and partly of citizens on either verge of the military age. The military
force also included 1200 cavalry and 1600 bowmen, beside some who were
mounted; and they had 300 galleys in sailing condition.


PERICLES’ RECONCENTRATION POLICY

After rousing the confidence of the Athenians by this enumeration,
Pericles urged them without delay to transport their families and all
their movable property out of the enemy’s reach, and, as long as the
war should last, to look upon the capital as their home. To encourage a
patriotic spirit by his example, and at the same time to secure himself
from imputations to which he might be exposed, either by the Spartan
cunning, or by an indiscreet display of private friendship, he publicly
declared, that if Archidamus, who was personally attached to him by the
ties of hospitality, should, either from this motive, or in compliance
with orders which might be given in an opposite intention, exempt his
lands from the ravages of war, they should from that time become the
property of the state.

[Illustration: OFFICERS’ HELMETS]

To many of his hearers that which he required was a very painful
sacrifice. Many had been born, and had passed all their lives, in the
country. They were attached to it, not merely by the profit or the
pleasure of rural pursuits, but by domestic and religious associations.
For though the incorporation of the Attic townships had for ages
extinguished their political independence, it had not interrupted
their religious traditions, or effaced the peculiar features of their
local worship; and hence the Attic countryman clung to his deme with
a fondness which he could not feel for the great city. In the period
of increasing prosperity which had followed the Persian invasion, the
country had been cultivated and adorned more assiduously than ever. All
was now to be left or carried away. Reluctantly they adopted the decree
which Pericles proposed; and, with heavy hearts, as if going into exile,
they quitted their native and hereditary seats. If the rich man sighed
to part from his elegant villa, the husbandman still more deeply felt
the pang of being torn from his home, and of abandoning his beloved
fields, the scenes of his infancy, the holy places where his forefathers
had worshipped, to the ravages of a merciless invader. All however was
removed: the flocks and cattle to Eubœa and other adjacent islands; all
beside that was portable, and even the timber of the houses, into Athens,
to which they themselves migrated with their families.

The city itself was not prepared for the sudden influx of so many new
inhabitants. A few found shelter under the roofs of relatives or friends;
but the greater part, on their arrival, found themselves houseless as
well as homeless. Some took refuge in such temples as were usually open;
others occupied the towers of the walls; others raised temporary hovels
on any vacant ground which they could find in the city, and even resorted
for this purpose to a site which had hitherto been guarded from all such
uses by policy, aided by a religious sanction. It was the place under the
western wall of the citadel, called, from the ancient builders of the
wall, the Pelasgicum: a curse had been pronounced on any one who should
tenant it; and men remembered some words of an oracle, which declared
it _better untrodden_. The real motive for the prohibition was probably
the security of the citadel; but all police seems to have been suspended
by the urgency of the occasion. It was some time before the newcomers
bethought themselves of spreading over the vacant space between the long
walls, or of descending to Piræus. But this foretaste of the evils of
war did not damp the general ardour, especially that of the youthful
spirits, which began at Athens, as elsewhere, to be impatient of repose.
Numberless oracles and predictions were circulated, in which every one
found something that accorded with the tone of his feelings. Even those
who had no definite hopes, fears, or wishes shared the excitement of
men on the eve of a great crisis. The holy island of Delos had been
recently shaken by an earthquake. It was forgotten, or was never known
out of Delos itself, that this had happened already, just before the
first Persian invasion. It was deemed a portent, which signified new and
extraordinary events, and it was soon combined with other prodigies,
which tended to encourage similar forebodings. Such was the state in
which the Athenians awaited the advance of the Peloponnesian army.[c]

Adolf Holm[e] compares the Periclean policy of voluntary reconcentration
with the acts of the Dutch, when in the sixteenth century they let the
Spanish destroy their crops, and then opened the dikes and flooded their
own country. We may compare also the compulsory reconcentration of the
country people in the cities as carried out by General Weyler in Cuba, in
1897, and by Lord Kitchener in South Africa, in 1901.[a]


THE FIRST YEAR’S RAVAGE

Archidamus, as soon as the reception of his last envoy was made known to
him, continued his march from the isthmus into Attica--which territory he
entered by the road of Œnoe, the frontier Athenian fortress of Attica
towards Bœotia. His march, was slow, and he thought it necessary to make
a regular attack on the fort of Œnoe, which had been put in so good a
state of defence that, after all the various modes of assault--in which
the Lacedæmonians were not skilful--had been tried in vain, and after a
delay of several days before the place, he was compelled to renounce the
attempt.

The want of enthusiasm on the part of the Spartan king, his multiplied
delays, first at the isthmus, next in the march, and lastly before Œnoe,
were all offensive to the fiery impatience of the army, who were loud in
their murmurs against him. He acted upon the calculation already laid
down in his discourse at Sparta--that the highly cultivated soil of
Attica was to be looked upon as a hostage for the pacific dispositions of
the Athenians, who would be more likely to yield when devastation, though
not yet inflicted, was nevertheless impending and at their doors. In this
point of view, a little delay at the border was no disadvantage; and
perhaps the partisans of peace at Athens may have encouraged him to hope
that it would enable them to prevail.

After having spent several days before Œnoe without either taking the
fort or receiving any message from the Athenians, Archidamus marched
onward to Eleusis and the Thriasian plain--about the middle of June,
eighty days after the surprise of Platæa. His army was of irresistible
force, not less than sixty thousand hoplites, according to the statement
of Plutarch, or of one hundred thousand, according to others. Considering
the number of constituent allies, the strong feeling by which they were
prompted, and the shortness of the expedition combined with the chance of
plunder, even the largest of these two numbers is not incredibly great,
if we take it to include not hoplites only, but cavalry and light armed
also. But as Thucydides, though comparatively full in his account of this
march, has stated no general total, we may presume that he had heard none
upon which he could rely.

As the Athenians had made no movement towards peace, Archidamus
anticipated that they would come forth to meet him in the fertile plain
of Eleusis and Thria, which was the first portion of territory that he
sat down to ravage. Yet no Athenian force appeared to oppose him, except
a detachment of cavalry, who were repulsed in a skirmish near the small
lakes called Rheiti. Having laid waste this plain without any serious
opposition, Archidamus did not think fit to pursue the straight road
which from Thria conducted directly to Athens across the ridge of Mount
Ægaleos, but turned off to the eastward, leaving that mountain on his
right hand until he came to Cropia, where he crossed a portion of the
line of Ægaleos over to Acharnæ.

He was here about seven miles from Athens, on a declivity sloping down
into the plain which stretches westerly and northwesterly from Athens,
and visible from the city walls; and here he encamped, keeping his army
in perfect order for battle, but at the same time intending to damage
and ruin the place and its neighbourhood. Acharnæ was the largest and
most populous of all the demes in Attica, furnishing no less than three
thousand hoplites to the national line, and flourishing as well by its
corn, vines, and olives, as by its peculiar abundance of charcoal burning
from the forests of ilex on the neighbouring hills. Moreover, if we are
to believe Aristophanes, the Acharnian proprietors were not merely sturdy
“hearts of oak,” but peculiarly vehement and irritable. It illustrates
the condition of a Grecian territory under invasion, when we find this
great deme, which could not have contained less than twelve thousand
free inhabitants of both sexes and all ages, with at least an equal
number of slaves, completely deserted. Archidamus calculated that when
the Athenians actually saw his troops so close to their city, carrying
fire and sword over their wealthiest canton, their indignation would
become uncontrollable, and they would march out forthwith to battle.
The Acharnian proprietors especially (he thought) would be foremost
in inflaming this temper, and insisting upon protection to their own
properties--or if the remaining citizens refused to march out along with
them, they would, after having been thus left undefended to ruin, become
discontented and indifferent to the general weal.

Though his calculation was not realised, it was nevertheless founded
upon most rational grounds. What Archidamus anticipated was on the point
of happening, and nothing prevented it except the personal ascendency
of Pericles, strained to its very utmost. So long as the invading army
was engaged in the Thriasian plain, the Athenians had some faint hope
that it might (like Plistoanax fourteen years before) advance no farther
into the interior. But when it came to Acharnæ within sight of the city
walls--when the ravagers were actually seen destroying buildings, fruit
trees, and crops, in the plain of Athens, a sight strange to every
Athenian eye except to those very old men who recollected the Persian
invasion--the exasperation of the general body of citizens rose to a
pitch never before known. The Acharnians first of all--next the youthful
citizens, generally--became madly clamorous for arming and going forth to
fight. Knowing well their own great strength, but less correctly informed
of the superior strength of the enemy, they felt confident that victory
was within their reach. Groups of citizens were everywhere gathered
together, angrily debating the critical question of the moment; while the
usual concomitants of excited feeling--oracles and prophecies of diverse
tenor, many of them doubtless promising success against the enemy at
Acharnæ--were eagerly caught up and circulated.

In this inflamed temper of the Athenian mind, Pericles was naturally
the great object of complaint and wrath. He was denounced as the
cause of all the existing suffering: he was reviled as a coward for
not leading out the citizens to fight, in his capacity of general:
the rational convictions as to the necessity of the war and the only
practical means of carrying it on, which his repeated speeches had
implanted, seemed to be altogether forgotten. This burst of spontaneous
discontent was of course fomented by the numerous political enemies of
Pericles, and particularly by Cleon,[47] now rising into importance as an
opposition-speaker; whose talent for invective was thus first exercised
under the auspices of the high aristocratical party, as well as of an
excited public.

But no manifestations, however violent, could disturb either the judgment
or the firmness of Pericles. He listened unmoved to all the declarations
made against him, resolutely refusing to convene a public assembly, or
any meeting invested with an authorised character, under the present
irritated temper of the citizens. It appears that he as general, or
rather the board of ten generals among whom he was one, must have been
invested constitutionally with the power not only of calling the ecclesia
when they thought fit, but also of preventing it from meeting, and of
postponing even those regular meetings which commonly took place at
fixed times, four times in the prytany. No assembly accordingly took
place, and the violent exasperation of the people was thus prevented from
realising itself in any rash public resolution. That Pericles should have
held firm against this raging force, is but one among the many honourable
points in his political character; but it is far less wonderful than the
fact that his refusal to call the ecclesia was efficacious to prevent the
ecclesia from being held. The entire body of Athenians were now assembled
within the walls, and if he refused to convoke the ecclesia, they might
easily have met in the Pnyx without him; for which it would not have been
difficult at such a juncture to provide plausible justification. The
inviolable respect which the Athenian people manifested on this occasion
for the forms of their democratical constitution--assisted doubtless by
their long-established esteem for Pericles, yet opposed to an excitement
alike intense and pervading, and to a demand apparently reasonable, in so
far as regarded the calling of an assembly for discussion--is one of the
most memorable incidents in their history.

While Pericles thus decidedly forbade any general march out for battle
he sought to provide as much employment as possible for the compressed
eagerness of the citizens. The cavalry were sent forth, together with
the Thessalian cavalry their allies, for the purpose of restraining the
excursions of the enemy’s light troops, and protecting the lands near the
city from plunder. At the same time he fitted out a powerful expedition,
which sailed forth to ravage Peloponnesus, even while the invaders
were yet in Attica. Archidamus, after having remained engaged in the
devastation of Acharnæ long enough to satisfy himself that the Athenians
would not hazard a battle, turned away from Athens in a northwesterly
direction towards the demes between Mount Brilessus and Mount Parnes,
on the road passing through Decelea. The army continued ravaging these
districts until their provisions were exhausted, and then quitted Attica
by the northwestern road near Oropus, which brought them into Bœotia. As
the Oropians, though not Athenians, were yet dependent upon Athens--the
district of Græa, a portion of their territory, was laid waste; after
which the army dispersed and retired back to their respective homes.
It would seem that they quitted Attica towards the end of July, having
remained in the country between thirty and forty days.

Meanwhile, the Athenian expedition, under Caranus, Proteas, and Socrates,
joined by fifty Corcyræan ships and by some other allies, sailed round
Peloponnesus, landing in various parts to inflict damage, and among
other places at Methone (Modon), on the southwestern peninsula of the
Lacedæmonian territory. The place, neither strong nor well-garrisoned,
would have been carried with little difficulty, had not Brasidas, the
son of Tellis--a gallant Spartan now mentioned for the first time, but
destined to great celebrity afterwards--who happened to be on guard at
a neighbouring post, thrown himself into it with one hundred men by a
rapid movement, before the dispersed Athenian troops could be brought
together to prevent him. He infused such courage into the defenders of
the place that every attack was repelled, and the Athenians were forced
to re-embark--an act of prowess which procured for him the first public
honours bestowed by the Spartans during this war. Sailing northward
along the western coast of Peloponnesus, the Athenians landed again on
the coast of Elis, a little south of the promontory called Cape Ichthys:
they ravaged the territory for two days, defeating both the troops in
the neighbourhood and three hundred chosen men from the central Elean
territory. Strong winds on a harbourless coast now induced the captains
to sail with most of the troops round Cape Ichthys, in order to reach the
harbour of Phea on the northern side of it; while the Messenian hoplites,
marching by land across the promontory, attacked Phea and carried it by
assault. When the fleet arrived, all were re-embarked--the full force
of Elis being under march to attack them. They then sailed northward,
landing on various other spots to commit devastation, until they reached
Sollium, a Corinthian settlement on the coast of Acarnania. They
captured this place, which they handed over to the inhabitants of the
neighbouring Acarnanian town of Palærus, as well as Astacus, from whence
they expelled the despot Euarchus, and enrolled the town as a member of
the Athenian alliance. From hence they passed over to Cephallenia, which
they were fortunate enough also to acquire as an ally of Athens without
any compulsion--with its four distinct towns or districts, Pale, Cranii,
Same, and Proni. These various operations took up near three months from
about the beginning of July, so that they returned to Athens towards
the close of September--the beginning of the winter half of the year,
according to the distribution of Thucydides.

This was not the only maritime expedition of the summer. Thirty more
triremes, under Cleopompus, were sent through the Euripus to the Locrian
coast opposite to the northern part of Eubœa. Some disembarkations were
made, whereby the Locrian towns of Thronium and Alope were sacked, and
further devastation inflicted; while a permanent garrison was planted,
and a fortified post erected, in the uninhabited island of Atalante
opposite to the Locrian coast, in order to restrain privateers from Opus
and the other Locrian towns in their excursions against Eubœa. It was
further determined to expel the Æginetan inhabitants from Ægina, and to
occupy the island with Athenian colonists. This step was partly rendered
prudent by the important position of the island midway between Attica
and Peloponnesus. But a concurrent motive, and probably the stronger
motive, was the gratification of ancient antipathy and revenge against
a people who had been among the foremost in provoking the war and in
inflicting upon Athens so much suffering. The Æginetans, with their wives
and children, were all put on ship-board and landed in Peloponnesus,
where the Spartans permitted them to occupy the maritime district and
town of Thyrea, their last frontier towards Argos; some of them, however,
found shelter in other parts of Greece. The island was made over to a
detachment of Athenian cleruchs, or citizen proprietors, sent hither by
lot.

To the sufferings of the Æginetans, which we shall hereafter find still
more deplorably aggravated, we have to add those of the Megarians. Both
had been most zealous in kindling the war, but upon none did the distress
of war fall so heavily. Both probably shared the premature confidence
felt among the Peloponnesian confederacy, that Athens could never hold
out more than a year or two, and were thus induced to overlook their own
undefended position against her. Towards the close of September, the
full force of Athens, citizens and metics, marched into the Megarid,
under Pericles, and laid waste the greater part of the territory; while
they were in it, the hundred ships which had been circumnavigating
Peloponnesus, having arrived at Ægina on their return, joined their
fellow citizens in the Megarid, instead of going straight home. The
junction of the two formed the largest Athenian force that had ever yet
been seen together; there were ten thousand citizen hoplites (independent
of three thousand others who were engaged in the siege of Potidæa), and
three thousand metic hoplites, besides a large number of light troops.
Against so large a force the Megarians could make no head, so that their
territory was all laid waste, even to the city walls. For several years
of the war, the Athenians inflicted this destruction once, and often
twice in the same year. A decree was proposed in the Athenian ecclesia
by Charinus, though perhaps not carried, to the effect that the strategi
every year should swear, as a portion of their oath of office, that they
would twice invade and ravage the Megarid. As the Athenians at the same
time kept the port of Nisæa blocked up, by means of their superior naval
force and of the neighbouring coast of Salamis, the privations imposed
on the Megarians became extreme and intolerable. Not only their corn
and fruits, but even their garden vegetables were rooted up, and their
situation was that of a besieged city pressed by famine. Even in the time
of Pausanias, many centuries afterward, the miseries of the town during
these years were remembered and communicated to him, being assigned
as the reason why one of their most memorable statues had never been
completed.

To the various military operations of Athens during the course of
this summer, some other measures of moment are to be added. Moreover,
Thucydides notices an eclipse of the sun, which modern astronomical
calculations refer to the third of August; had this eclipse happened
three months earlier, immediately before the entrance of the
Peloponnesians into Attica, it might probably have been construed as an
unfavourable omen, and caused the postponement of the scheme. Expecting
a prolonged struggle, the Athenians now made arrangements for placing
Attica in a permanent state of defence, both by sea and land; what
these arrangements were, we are not told in detail, but one of them was
sufficiently remarkable to be named particularly. They set apart one
thousand talents [£200,000 or $1,000,000] out of the treasure in the
Acropolis as an inviolable reserve, not to be touched except on the
single contingency of a hostile naval force about to assail the city,
with no other means at hand to defend it. They further enacted that if
any citizen should propose, or any magistrate put the question, in the
public assembly, to make any different application of this reserve, he
should be punishable with death. Moreover, they resolved every year to
keep back one hundred of their best triremes, and trierarchs to command
and equip them, for the same special necessity. It may be doubted whether
this latter provision was placed under the same stringent sanction, or
observed with the same rigour, as that concerning the money; which latter
was not departed from until the twentieth year of the war, after all
the disasters of the Sicilian expedition, and on the terrible news of
the revolt of Chios. It was on that occasion that the Athenians first
repealed the sentence of capital punishment against the proposer of
this forbidden change, and next appropriated the money to meet the then
imminent peril of the commonwealth.

The resolution here taken about this sacred reserve, and the rigorous
sentence interdicting contrary propositions, is pronounced by Mitford[48]
to be an evidence of the indelible barbarism of democratical government.
But we must recollect, first, that the sentence of capital punishment
was one which could hardly by possibility come into execution; for no
citizen would be so mad as to make the forbidden proposition while
this law was in force. Whoever desired to make it would first begin
by proposing to repeal the prohibitory law, whereby he would incur no
danger, whether the assembly decided in the affirmative or negative; and
if he obtained an affirmative decision he would then, and then only,
proceed to move the re-appropriation of the fund. To speak the language
of English parliamentary procedure, he would first move the suspension or
abrogation of the standing order whereby the proposition was forbidden;
next, he would move the proposition itself; in fact, such was the mode
actually pursued, when the thing at last came to be done. But though
the capital sentence could hardly come into effect, the proclamation
of it _in terrorem_ had a very distinct meaning. It expressed the deep
and solemn conviction which the people entertained of the importance of
their own resolution about the reserve; it forewarned all assemblies and
all citizens to come of the danger of diverting it to any other purpose;
it surrounded the reserve with an artificial sanctity, which forced
every man who aimed at the re-appropriation to begin with a preliminary
proposition formidable on the very face of it, as removing a guarantee
which previous assemblies had deemed of immense value, and opening the
door to a contingency which they had looked upon as treasonable. The
proclamation of a lighter punishment, or a simple prohibition without
any definite sanction whatever, would neither have announced the same
emphatic conviction, nor produced the same deterring effect. The assembly
of 431 B.C. could not in any way enact laws which subsequent assemblies
could not reverse; but it could so frame its enactments, in cases of
peculiar solemnity, as to make its authority strongly felt upon the
judgment of its successors, and to prevent them from entertaining motions
for repeal except under necessity at once urgent and obvious.

Far from thinking that the law now passed at Athens displayed barbarism,
either in the end or in the means, we consider it principally remarkable
for its cautious and long-sighted view of the future--qualities the exact
reverse of barbarism--and worthy of the general character of Pericles,
who probably suggested it. Athens was just entering into a war which
threatened to be of indefinite length, and was certain to be very costly.
To prevent the people from exhausting all their accumulated fund, and
to place them under a necessity of reserving something against extreme
casualties, was an object of immense importance. Now the particular
casualty, which Pericles (assuming him to be the proposer) named as the
sole condition of touching this one thousand talents, might be considered
as of all others the most improbable, in the year 431 B.C. So immense
was then the superiority of the Athenian naval force, that to suppose
it defeated, and a Peloponnesian fleet in full sail for Piræus, was
a possibility which it required a statesman of extraordinary caution
to look forward to, and which it is truly wonderful that the people
generally could have been induced to contemplate. Once tied up to this
purpose, however, the fund lay ready for any other terrible emergency:
and we shall find the actual employment of it incalculably beneficial
to Athens, at a moment of the gravest peril, when she could hardly have
protected herself without some such special resource. The people would
scarcely have sanctioned so rigorous an economy, had it not been proposed
to them at a period so early in the war that their available reserve
was still much larger. But it will be forever to the credit of their
foresight as well as constancy, that they should first have adopted such
a precautionary measure, and afterwards adhered to it for nineteen years,
under severe pressure for money, until at length a case arose which
rendered further abstinence really, and not constructively, impossible.

To display their force and take revenge by disembarking and ravaging
parts of the Peloponnesus, was doubtless of much importance to Athens
during this first summer of the war: though it might seem that the force
so employed was quite as much needed in the conquest of Potidæa, which
still remained under blockade, and of the neighbouring Chalcidians in
Thrace, still in revolt. It was during the course of this summer that a
prospect opened to Athens of subduing these towns, through the assistance
of Sitalces, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince had married the
sister of Nymphodorus, a citizen of Abdera; who engaged to render him,
and his son Sadocus, allies of Athens. Sent for to Athens and appointed
proxenus of Athens at Abdera, which was one of the Athenian subject
allies, Nymphodorus made this alliance, and promised in the name of
Sitalces that a sufficient Thracian force should be sent to aid Athens in
the reconquest of her revolted towns: the honour of Athenian citizenship
was at the same time conferred upon Sadocus. Nymphodorus further
established a good understanding between Perdiccas II of Macedonia and
the Athenians, who were persuaded to restore to him Therma, which they
had before taken from him. The Athenians had thus the promise of powerful
aid against the Chalcidians and Potidæans: yet the latter still held
out, with little prospect of immediate surrender. Moreover, the town of
Astacus in Acarnania, which the Athenians had captured during the summer,
in the course of their expedition round Peloponnesus, was recovered
during the autumn by the deposed despot Euarchus, assisted by forty
Corinthian triremes and one thousand hoplites. This Corinthian armament,
after restoring Euarchus, made some unsuccessful descents both upon other
parts of Acarnania and upon the island of Cephallenia: in the latter
they were entrapped into an ambuscade and obliged to return home with
considerable loss.[b]


FOOTNOTES

[47] “Cleon,” says Thucydides, “attacked him with great acrimony, making
use of the general resentment against Pericles, as a means to increase
his own popularity, as Hermippus testifies in these verses:

    “‘Sleeps then, thou king of Satyrs, sleeps the spear,
    While thundering words make war? Why boast thy prowess,
    Yet shudder at the sound of sharpened swords,
    Spite of the flaming Cleon?’”


[48] “A measure followed which, taking place at the time when Thucydides
wrote and Pericles spoke, and while Pericles held the principal influence
in the administration, strongly marks,” says Mr. Mitford, “both the
inherent weakness and the indelible barbarism of democratical government.
A decree of the people directed that a thousand talents should be set
apart in the treasury in the citadel, as a deposit, not to be touched
unless the enemy should attack the city by sea; a circumstance which
implied the prior ruin of the Athenian fleet, and the only one, it was
supposed, which could superinduce the ruin of the commonwealth. But
in a decree so important, sanctioned only by the present will of that
giddy tyrant, the multitude of Athens, against whose caprices, since
the depression of the court of Areopagus, no balancing power remained,
confidence so failed that the denunciation of capital punishment was
added against whosoever should propose, and whosoever should concur in,
any decree for the disposal of that money to any other purpose, or in
any other circumstances. It was at the same time ordered, by the same
authority, that a hundred triremes should be yearly selected, the best of
the fleet, to be employed on the same occasion only.”

[Illustration: GREEK TERRA-COTTA

(In the British Museum)]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXXI. THE PLAGUE; AND THE DEATH OF PERICLES


THE ORATION OF PERICLES

It was towards the close of autumn that Pericles, chosen by the people
for the purpose, delivered the funeral oration at the public interment
of those warriors who had fallen during the campaign, on the occasion of
the conquest of Samos. One of the remarkable features in this discourse
is its business-like, impersonal character: it is Athens herself who
undertakes to commend and to decorate her departed sons, as well as to
hearten up and admonish the living.

After a few words on the magnitude of the empire and on the glorious
efforts as well as endurance whereby their forefathers and they
had acquired it--Pericles proceeds to sketch the plan of life, the
constitution, and the manners, under which such achievements were brought
about.

“We live under a constitution such as noway to envy the laws of our
neighbours,--ourselves an example to others, rather than mere imitators.
It is called a democracy, since its permanent aim tends towards the Many
and not towards the Few: in regard to private matters and disputes, the
laws deal equally with every man; while looking to public affairs, and
to claims of individual influence, every man’s chance of advancement
is determined not by party favour but by real worth, according as his
reputation stands in his own particular department: nor does poverty, or
obscure station, keep him back, if he really has the means of benefiting
the city. And our social march is free, not merely in regard to public
affairs, but also in regard to intolerance of each other’s diversity of
daily pursuits. For we are not angry with our neighbour for what he may
do to please himself, nor do we ever put on those sour looks, which,
though they do no positive damage, are not the less sure to offend. Thus
conducting our private social intercourse with reciprocal indulgence, we
are restrained from wrong on public matters by fear and reverence of our
magistrates for the time being and of our laws--especially such laws as
are instituted for the protection of wrongful sufferers, and even such
others as, though not written, are enforced by a common sense of shame.

“Besides this, we have provided for our minds numerous recreations
from toil, partly by our customary solemnities of sacrifice and
festival throughout the year, partly by the elegance of our private
establishments, the daily charm of which banishes the sense of
discomfort. From the magnitude of our city, the products of the whole
earth are brought to us, so that our enjoyment of foreign luxuries is as
much our own and assured as those which we grow at home. In respect to
training for war, we differ from our opponents (the Lacedæmonians) on
several material points. First, we lay open our city as a common resort:
we apply no _xenelasia_ to exclude even an enemy either from any lesson
or any spectacle, the full view of which he may think advantageous to
him; for we trust less to manœuvres and quackery than to our native
bravery, for warlike efficiency. Next, in regard to education, while the
Lacedæmonians even from their earliest youth subject themselves to an
irksome exercise for the attainment of courage, we with our easy habits
of life are not less prepared than they, to encounter all perils within
the measure of our strength. The proof of this is, that the Peloponnesian
confederates do not attack us one by one, but with their whole united
force; while we, when we attack them at home, overpower for the most part
all of them who try to defend their own territory. None of our enemies
has ever met and contended with our entire force; partly in consequence
of our large navy--partly from our dispersion in different simultaneous
land expeditions. But when they chance to be engaged with any part of it,
if victorious, they pretend to have vanquished us all--if defeated, they
pretend to have been vanquished by all.

“Now if we are willing to brave danger, just as much under an indulgent
system as under constant toil, and by spontaneous courage as much as
under force of law--we are gainers in the end by not vexing ourselves
beforehand with sufferings to come, yet still appearing in the hour of
trial not less daring than those who toil without ceasing.

“In other matters, too, as well as in these, our city deserves
admiration. For we combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life,
and we pursue knowledge without being enervated: we employ wealth not
for talking and ostentation, but as a real help in the proper season:
nor is it disgraceful to any one who is poor to confess his poverty,
though he may rather incur reproach for not actually keeping himself
out of poverty. The magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil
their domestic duties also--the private citizen, while engaged in
professional business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we
stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter not
as harmless, but as useless. Moreover, we always hear and pronounce on
public matters, when discussed by our leaders--or perhaps strike out for
ourselves correct reasonings about them: far from accounting discussion
an impediment to action, we complain only if we are not told what is to
be done before it becomes our duty to do it. For in truth we combine
in the most remarkable manner these two qualities--extreme boldness in
execution with full debate beforehand on that which we are going about:
whereas with others, ignorance alone imparts boldness--debate introduces
hesitation. Assuredly those men are properly to be regarded as the
stoutest of heart, who, knowing most precisely both the terrors of war
and the sweets of peace, are still not the less willing to encounter
peril.

“In fine, I affirm that our city, considered as a whole, is the
schoolmistress of Greece; while, viewed individually, we enable the
same man to furnish himself out and suffice to himself in the greatest
variety of ways and with the most complete grace and refinement. This is
no empty boast of the moment, but genuine reality; and the power of the
city, acquired through the dispositions just indicated, exists to prove
it. Athens alone of all cities stands forth in actual trial greater than
her reputation: her enemy when he attacks her will not have his pride
wounded by suffering defeat from feeble hands--her subjects will not
think themselves degraded as if their obedience were paid to an unworthy
superior. Having thus put forth our power, not uncertified, but backed
by the most evident proofs, we shall be admired not less by posterity
than by our contemporaries. Nor do we stand in need either of Homer or of
any other panegyrist, whose words may for the moment please, while the
truth when known would confute their intended meaning. We have compelled
all land and sea to become accessible to our courage, and have planted
everywhere imperishable monuments of our kindness as well as of our
hostility.

“Such is the city on behalf of which these warriors have nobly died in
battle, vindicating her just title to unimpaired rights--and on behalf
of which all of us here left behind must willingly toil. It is for
this reason that I have spoken at length concerning the city, at once
to draw from it the lesson that the conflict is not for equal motives
between us and enemies who possess nothing of the like excellence--and to
demonstrate by proofs the truth of my encomium pronounced upon her.”

Pericles pursues at considerable additional length the same tenor of
mixed exhortation to the living and eulogy of the dead; with many special
and emphatic observations addressed to the relatives of the latter,
who were assembled around and doubtless very near him. But the extract
which we have already made is so long, that no further addition would be
admissible: yet it was impossible to pass over lightly the picture of the
Athenian commonwealth in its glory, as delivered by the ablest citizen of
the age. The effect of the democratical constitution, with its diffused
and equal citizenship, in calling forth not merely strong attachment, but
painful self sacrifice, on the part of all Athenians--is nowhere more
forcibly insisted upon than in the words above cited of Pericles, as
well as in others afterwards. “Contemplating as you do daily before you
the actual power of the state, and becoming passionately attached to it,
when you conceive its full greatness, reflect that it was all acquired by
men daring, acquainted with their duty, and full of an honourable sense
of shame in their actions”--such is the association which he presents
between the greatness of the state as an object of common passion, and
the courage, intelligence, and mutual esteem, of individual citizens,
as its creating and preserving causes; poor as well as rich being alike
interested in the partnership.

But the claims of patriotism, though put forward as essentially and
deservedly paramount, are by no means understood to reign exclusively, or
to absorb the whole of the democratical activity. Subject to these, and
to those laws and sanctions which protect both the public and individuals
against wrong, it is the pride of Athens to exhibit a rich and varied
fund of human impulse--an unrestrained play of fancy and diversity of
private pursuit coupled with a reciprocity of cheerful indulgence between
one individual and another--and an absence even of those “black looks”
which so much embitter life, even if they never pass into enmity of fact.
This portion of the speech of Pericles deserves particular attention,
because it serves to correct an assertion, often far too indiscriminately
made, respecting antiquity as contrasted with modern societies--an
assertion that the ancient societies sacrificed the individual to the
state, and that only in modern times has individual agency been left
free to the proper extent. This is preeminently true of Sparta--it is
also true in a great degree of the ideal societies depicted by Plato and
Aristotle: but it is pointedly untrue of the Athenian democracy, nor
can we with any confidence predicate it of the major part of the Grecian
cities.

Connected with this reciprocal indulgence of individual diversity, was
not only the hospitable reception of all strangers at Athens, which
Pericles contrasts with the _xenelasia_ or jealous expulsion practised
at Sparta--but also the many-sided activity, bodily and mental, visible
in the former, so opposite to that narrow range of thought, exclusive
discipline of the body, and never-ending preparation for war, which
formed the system of the latter. His assertion that Athens was equal
to Sparta even in her own solitary excellence--efficiency on the field
of battle--is doubtless untenable. But not the less impressive is his
sketch of that multitude of concurrent impulses which at this same time
agitated and impelled the Athenian mind--the strength of one not implying
the weakness of the remainder: the relish for all pleasures of art and
elegance, and the appetite for intellectual expansion, coinciding in the
same bosom with energetic promptitude as well as endurance: abundance of
recreative spectacles, yet noway abating the cheerfulness of obedience
even to the hardest calls of patriotic duty: that combination of reason
and courage which encountered danger the more willingly from having
discussed and calculated it beforehand: lastly, an anxious interest, as
well as a competence of judgment, in public discussion and public action,
common to every citizen rich and poor, and combined with every man’s
own private industry. So comprehensive an ideal of many-sided social
development, bringing out the capacities for action and endurance, as
well as those for enjoyment, would be sufficiently remarkable, even if
we supposed it only existing in the imagination of a philosopher: but
it becomes still more so when we recollect that the main features of it
at least were drawn from the fellow citizens of the speaker. It must be
taken however as belonging peculiarly to the Athens of Pericles and his
contemporaries; nor would it have suited either the period of the Persian
War fifty years before, or that of Demosthenes seventy years afterwards.

At the former period, the art, letters, philosophy, adverted to with
pride by Pericles, were as yet backward, while even the active energy and
democratical stimulus, though very powerful, had not been worked up to
the pitch which they afterwards reached: at the latter period, although
the intellectual manifestations of Athens subsist in full or even
increased vigour, we shall find the personal enterprise and energetic
spirit of her citizens materially abated. As the circumstances, which we
have already recounted, go far to explain the previous upward movement,
so those which fill the coming chapters, containing the disasters of the
Peloponnesian War, will be found to explain still more completely the
declining tendency shortly about to commence. Athens was brought to the
brink of entire ruin, from which it is surprising that she recovered
at all--but noway surprising that she recovered at the expense of a
considerable loss of personal energy in the character of her citizens.

And thus the season at which Pericles delivered his discourse lends to
it an additional and peculiar pathos. It was delivered at a time when
Athens was as yet erect and at her maximum: for though her real power
was doubtless much diminished compared with the period before the Thirty
Years’ Truce, yet the great edifices and works of art, achieved since
then, tended to compensate that loss, in so far as the sense of greatness
was concerned; and no one, either citizen or enemy, considered Athens
as having at all declined. It was delivered at the commencement of the
great struggle with the Peloponnesian confederacy, the coming hardships
of which Pericles never disguised either to himself or to his fellow
citizens, though he fully counted upon eventual success. Attica had been
already invaded; it was no longer “the unwasted territory,” as Euripides
had designated it in his tragedy _Medea_, represented three or four
months before the march of Archidamus--and a picture of Athens in her
social glory was well calculated both to arouse the pride and nerve the
courage of those individual citizens, who had been compelled once, and
would be compelled again and again, to abandon their country residences
and fields for a thin tent or confined hole in the city. Such calamities
might indeed be foreseen: but there was one still greater calamity,
which, though actually then impending, could not be foreseen.[b]

[Sidenote: [430 B.C.]]

At the very beginning of the next summer the Peloponnesians and their
allies, with two-thirds of their forces, as on the first occasion,
invaded Attica, under the command of Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus,
king of the Lacedæmonians; and after encamping, they laid waste the
country. When they had not yet been many days in Attica, the plague
first began to show itself among the Athenians; though it was said to
have previously lighted on many places, about Lemnos and elsewhere.
Such a pestilence, however, and loss of life as this, was nowhere
remembered to have happened. For neither were physicians of any avail at
first, treating it as they did, in ignorance of its nature,--nay, they
themselves died most of all, inasmuch as they most visited the sick,--nor
any other art of man. And as to the supplications that they offered in
their temples, or the divinations, and similar means, that they had
recourse to, they were all unavailing; and at last they ceased from them,
being overcome by the pressure of the calamity.


THUCYDIDES’ ACCOUNT OF THE PLAGUE

It is said to have first begun in the part of Ethiopia above Egypt, and
then to have come down into Egypt, and Libya, and the greatest part of
the king’s territory.[49] On the city of Athens it fell suddenly, and
first attacked the men in the Piræus; so that it was even reported by
them that the Peloponnesians had thrown poison into the cisterns; for as
yet there were no fountains there. Afterwards it reached the upper city
also; and then they died much more generally. Now let every one, whether
physician or unprofessional man, speak on the subject according to his
views; from what source it was likely to have arisen, and the causes
which he thinks were sufficient to have produced so great a change from
health to universal sickness. I, however, shall only describe what was
its character; and explain those symptoms by reference to which one might
best be enabled to recognise it through this previous acquaintance, if it
should ever break out again; for I was both attacked by it myself, and
had personal observation of others who were suffering with it.

That year then, as was generally allowed, happened to be of all years the
most free from disease, so far as regards other disorders; and if any
one had any previous sickness, all terminated in this. Others, without
any ostensible cause, but suddenly, while in the enjoyment of health,
were seized at first with violent heats in the head, and redness and
inflammation of the eyes; and the internal parts, both the throat and the
tongue, immediately assumed a bloody tinge, and emitted an unnatural and
fetid breath. Next after these symptoms, sneezing and hoarseness came
on; and in a short time the pain descended to the chest, with a violent
cough. When it settled in the stomach, it caused vomiting; and all the
discharges of bile that have been mentioned by physicians succeeded, and
those accompanied with great suffering. An ineffectual retching also
followed in most cases, producing a violent spasm, which in some cases
ceased soon afterwards, in others not until a long time later.

Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor was it pale;
but reddish, livid, and broken out in small pimples and sores. But the
internal parts were burnt to such a degree that they could not bear
clothing or linen of the very lightest kind to be laid upon them, nor
to be anything else but stark naked; but would most gladly have thrown
themselves into cold water if they could. Indeed many of those who were
not taken care of did so, plunging into cisterns in the agony of their
unquenchable thirst: and it was all the same whether they drank much or
little. Moreover, the misery of restlessness and wakefulness continually
oppressed them. The body did not waste away so long as the disease was at
its height, but resisted it beyond all expectation: so that they either
died in most cases on the ninth or the seventh day, through the internal
burning, while they had still some degree of strength; or if they escaped
that stage of the disorder, then, after it had further descended into the
bowels, and violent ulceration was produced in them, and intense diarrhœa
had come on, the greater part were afterwards carried off through the
weakness occasioned by it. For the disease, which was originally seated
in the head, beginning from above, passed throughout the whole body;
and if any one survived its most fatal consequences, yet it marked
him by laying hold of his extremities; for it settled on the pudenda,
and fingers, and toes, and many escaped with the loss of these, while
some also lost their eyes. Others, again, were seized on their first
recovery with forgetfulness of everything alike, and did not know either
themselves or their friends.

[Illustration: GREEK FUNERAL PYRE]

For the character of the disorder surpassed description; and while in
other respects also it attacked every one in a degree more grievous than
human nature could endure, in the following way, especially, it proved
itself to be something different from any of the diseases familiar to
man.[50] All the birds and beasts that prey on human bodies, either
did not come near them, though there were many lying unburied, or died
after they had tasted them. As a proof of this, there was a marked
disappearance of birds of this kind, and they were not seen either
engaged in this way, or in any other; while the dogs, from their domestic
habits, more clearly afforded opportunity of marking the result I have
mentioned.

The disease, then, to pass over many various points of peculiarity, as
it happened to be different in one case from another, was in its general
nature such as I have described. And no other of those to which they
were accustomed afflicted them besides this at that time; or whatever
there was, it ended in this. And of those who were seized by it some
died in neglect, others in the midst of every attention. And there was
no one settled remedy, so to speak, by applying which they were to
give them relief: for what did good to one, did harm to another. And
no constitution showed itself fortified against it, in point either of
strength or weakness: but it seized on all alike, even those that were
treated with all possible regard to diet. But the most dreadful part of
the whole calamity was the dejection felt whenever any one found himself
sickening (for by immediately falling into a feeling of despair, they
abandoned themselves much more certainly to the disease, and did not
resist it), and the fact of their being charged with infection from
attending on one another, and so dying like sheep. And it was this that
caused the greatest mortality amongst them; for if through fear they were
unwilling to visit each other, they perished from being deserted, and
many houses were emptied for want of some one to attend to the sufferers;
or if they did visit them, they met their death, and especially such as
made any pretensions to goodness; for through a feeling of shame they
were unsparing of themselves, in going into their friends’ houses when
deserted by all others; since even the members of the family were at
length worn out by the very moanings of the dying, and were overcome by
their excessive misery. Still more, however, than even these, did such as
had escaped the disorder show pity for the dying and the suffering, both
from their previous knowledge of what it was, and from their being now in
no fear of it themselves: for it never seized the same person twice, so
as to prove actually fatal. And such persons were felicitated by others;
and themselves, in the excess of their present joy, entertained for the
future also, to a certain degree, a vain hope that they would never now
be carried off even by any other disease.

In addition to the original calamity, what oppressed them still more was
the crowding into the city from the country, especially the newcomers.
For as they had no houses, but lived in stifling cabins at the hot season
of the year, the mortality amongst them spread without restraint; bodies
lying on one another in the death agony, and half-dead creatures rolling
about in the streets and round all the fountains, in their longing for
water. The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves,
were full of the corpses of those that died there in them: for in the
surpassing violence of the calamity, men not knowing what was to become
of them, came to disregard everything, both sacred and profane, alike.
And all the laws were violated which they before observed respecting
burials; and they buried them as each one could. And many from want of
proper means, in consequence of so many of their friends having died,
had recourse to shameless modes of sepulture; for on the piles prepared
for others, some, anticipating those who had raised them, would lay their
own dead relatives and set fire to them; and others, while the body of
a stranger was burning, would throw on the top of it the one they were
carrying, and go away.

In other respects also the plague was the origin of lawless conduct in
the city, to a greater extent than it had before existed. For deeds which
formerly men hid from view, so as not to do them just as they pleased,
they now more readily ventured on; since they saw the change so sudden
in the case of those who were prosperous and quickly perished, and of
those who before had had nothing, and at once came into possession of the
property of the dead. So they resolved to take their enjoyment quickly,
and with a sole view to gratification; regarding their lives and their
riches alike as things of a day. As for taking trouble about what was
thought honourable, no one was forward to do it; deeming it uncertain
whether, before he had attained to it, he would not be cut off; but
everything that was immediately pleasant, and that which was conducive
to it by any means whatever, this was laid down to be both honourable
and expedient. And fear of gods, or law of men, there was none to stop
them; for with regard to the former they esteemed it all the same whether
they worshipped them or not, from seeing all alike perishing; and with
regard to their offences against the latter, no one expected to live till
judgment should be passed on him, and so to pay the penalty of them;
but they thought a far heavier sentence was impending in that which had
already been passed upon them; and that before it fell on them, it was
right to have some enjoyment of life.

Such was the calamity which the Athenians had met with, and by which they
were afflicted, their men dying within the city, and their land being
wasted without. In their misery they remembered this verse amongst other
things, as was natural they should; the old men saying that it had been
uttered long ago:

    “A Dorian war shall come, and plague with it.”

Now there was a dispute amongst them, and some asserted that it was not
“a plague” (_loimos_), that had been mentioned in the verse by the men
of former times, but “a famine” (_limos_): the opinion, however, at the
present time naturally prevailed that “a plague” had been mentioned:
for men adapted their recollections to what they were suffering. But, I
suppose, in case of another Dorian war ever befalling them after this,
and a famine happening to exist, in all probability they will recite the
verse accordingly. Those who were acquainted with it recollected also
the oracle given to the Lacedæmonians, when on their inquiring of the
god whether they should go to war, he answered, “that if they carried it
on with all their might, they would gain the victory; and that he would
himself take part with them in it.” With regard to the oracle then, they
supposed that what was happening answered to it. For the disease had
begun immediately after the Lacedæmonians had made their incursion; and
it did not go into the Peloponnesus, worth even speaking of, but ravaged
Athens most of all, and next to it the most populous of the other towns.
Such were the circumstances that occurred in connection with the plague.

The Peloponnesians, after ravaging the plain, passed into the Paralian
territory, as it is called, as far as Laurium, where the gold mines
of the Athenians are situated. And first they ravaged the side which
looks towards Peloponnesus; afterwards, that which lies towards Eubœa
and Andros. Pericles being general at that time as well as before,
maintained the same opinion as he had in the former invasion, about the
Athenians not marching out against them.

While they were still in the plain, before they went to the Paralian
territory, he was preparing an armament of a hundred ships to sail
against the Peloponnesus; and when all was ready, he put out to sea. On
board the ships he took four thousand heavy-armed of the Athenians, and
three hundred cavalry in horse transports, then for the first time made
out of old vessels: a Chian and Lesbian force also joined the expedition
with fifty ships. When this armament of the Athenians put out to sea,
they left the Peloponnesians in the Paralian territory of Attica. On
arriving at Epidaurus, in the Peloponnesus, they ravaged the greater
part of the land, and having made an assault on the city, entertained
some hope of taking it; but did not, however, succeed. After sailing
from Epidaurus, they ravaged the land belonging to Trœzen, Haliœ,
and Hermione; all which places are on the coast of the Peloponnesus.
Proceeding thence they came to Prasiæ, a maritime town of Laconia, and
ravaged some of the land, and took the town itself, and sacked it.
After performing these achievements, they returned home; and found the
Peloponnesians no longer in Attica, but returned.

Now all the time that the Peloponnesians were in the Athenian territory,
and the Athenians were engaged in the expedition on board their ships,
the plague was carrying them off both in the armament and in the city, so
that it was even said that the Peloponnesians, for fear of the disorder,
when they heard from the deserters that it was in the city, and also
perceived them performing the funeral rites, retired the quicker from
the country. Yet in this invasion they stayed the longest time, and
ravaged the whole country: for they were about forty days in the Athenian
territory.

The same summer Hagnon, son of Nicias, and Cleopompus, son of Clinias,
who were colleagues with Pericles, took the army which he had employed,
and went straightway on an expedition against the Chalcidians
Thrace-ward, and Potidæa, which was still being besieged: and on their
arrival they brought up their engines against Potidæa, and endeavoured to
take it by every means. But they neither succeeded in capturing the city,
nor in their other measures, to any extent worthy of their preparations:
for the plague attacked them, and this indeed utterly overpowered them
there, wasting their force to such a degree, that even the soldiers of
the Athenians who were there before were infected with it by the troops
which came with Hagnon, though previously they had been in good health.
Phormion, however, and his sixteen hundred, were no longer in the
neighbourhood of the Chalcidians (and so escaped its ravages). Hagnon
therefore returned with his ships to Athens, having lost by the plague
fifteen hundred out of four thousand heavy-armed, in about forty days.
The soldiers who were there before still remained in the country, and
continued the siege of Potidæa.

After the second invasion of the Lacedæmonians, the Athenians, when
their land had been again ravaged, and the disease and the war were
afflicting them at the same time, changed their views, and found fault
with Pericles, thinking that he had persuaded them to go to war, and
that it was through him that they had met with their misfortunes; and
they were eager to come to terms with the Lacedæmonians. Indeed they
sent ambassadors to them, but did not succeed in their object. And
their minds being on all sides reduced to despair, they were violent
against Pericles. He therefore, seeing them irritated by their present
circumstances, and doing everything that he himself expected them to do,
called an assembly, (for he was still general) wishing to cheer them,
and by drawing off the irritation of their feelings to lead them to a
calmer and more confident state of mind.

The Lacedæmonians and their allies the same summer made an expedition
with a hundred ships against the island of Zacynthus, which lies over
against Elis. The inhabitants are a colony of the Achæans of the
Peloponnesus, and were in alliance with the Athenians. On board the
fleet were a thousand heavy-armed of the Lacedæmonians, and Cnemus, a
Spartan, as admiral. Having made a descent on the country, they ravaged
the greater part of it; and when they did not surrender, they sailed back
home.

At the end of the same summer, Aristeus, a Corinthian, Aneristus,
Nicolaus, and Stratodemus, ambassadors of the Lacedæmonians, Timagoras,
a Tegean, and Pollis, an Argive in a private capacity, being on their
way to Asia, to obtain an interview with the king, if by any means they
might prevail on him to supply money and join in the war, went first to
Thrace, to Sitalces the son of Teres, wishing to persuade him, if they
could, to withdraw from his alliance with the Athenians. He gave orders
to deliver them up to the Athenian ambassadors; who, having received
them, took them to Athens. On their arrival the Athenians, being afraid
that if Aristeus escaped he might do them still more mischief (for even
before this he had evidently conducted all the measures in Potidæa and
their possessions Thrace-ward) without giving them a trial, though they
requested to say something in their own defence, put them to death that
same day, and threw them into pits; thinking it but just to requite them
in the same way as the Lacedæmonians had begun with; for they had killed
and thrown into pits the merchants, both of the Athenians and their
allies, whom they had taken on board trading vessels about the coast of
the Peloponnesus. Indeed all that the Lacedæmonians took on the sea at
the beginning of the war, they butchered as enemies, both those who were
confederates of the Athenians and those who were neutral.

The following winter, the Athenians sent twenty ships round the
Peloponnese, with Phormion as commander, who, making Naupactus his
station, kept watch that no one either sailed out from Corinth and the
Crissæan Bay, or into it. Another squadron of six they sent towards Caria
and Lycia, with Melesander as commander, to raise money from those parts,
and to hinder the privateers of the Peloponnesians from making that
their rendezvous, and interfering with the navigation of the merchantmen
from Phaselis and Phœnicia, and the continent in that direction. But
Melesander, having gone up the country into Lycia with a force composed
of the Athenians from the ships and the allies, and being defeated in a
battle, was killed, and lost a considerable part of the army.

The same winter, when the Potidæans could no longer hold out against
their besiegers, the inroads of the Peloponnesians into Attica having
had no more effect towards causing the Athenians to withdraw, and their
provisions being exhausted, and many other horrors having befallen them
in their straits for food, and some having even eaten one another; under
these circumstances, they made proposals for a capitulation to the
generals of the Athenians who were in command against them, Xenophon, son
of Euripides, Histiodorus, son of Aristoclides, and Phanomachus, son of
Callimachus; who accepted them, seeing the distress of their army in so
exposed a position, and the state having already expended 2000 talents
[£400,000 or $2,000,000] on the siege. On these terms therefore they came
to an agreement; that themselves, their children, wives, and auxiliaries,
should go out of the place with one dress each--but the women with
two--and with a fixed sum of money for their journey. According to
this treaty, they went out to Chalcidice, or where each could: but the
Athenians blamed the generals for having come to an agreement without
consulting them; for they thought they might have got possession of the
place on their own terms; and afterwards they sent settlers of their own
to Potidæa and colonised it. These were the transactions of the winter;
and so ended the second year of this war.[c]


LAST PUBLIC SPEECH OF PERICLES

In his capacity of strategus, Pericles convoked a formal assembly of
the people, for the purpose of vindicating himself publicly against
the prevailing sentiment, and recommending perseverance in his line
of policy. The speeches made by his opponents, assuredly very bitter,
are not given by Thucydides; but that of Pericles himself is set down
at considerable length, and a memorable discourse it is. It strikingly
brings into relief both the character of the man and the impress of
actual circumstances--an impregnable mind conscious not only of right
purposes but of just and reasonable anticipations, and bearing up
with manliness, or even defiance, against the natural difficulty of
the case, heightened by an extreme of incalculable misfortune. He had
foreseen, while advising the war originally, the probable impatience of
his countrymen under its first hardships, but he could not foresee the
epidemic by which that impatience had been exasperated into madness;
and he now addressed them not merely with unabated adherence to his own
deliberate convictions, but also in a tone of reproachful remonstrance
against their unmerited change of sentiment towards him--seeking at the
same time to combat that uncontrolled despair which, for the moment,
overlaid both their pride and their patriotism. Far from humbling himself
before the present sentiment, it is at this time that he sets forth
his titles to their esteem in the most direct and unqualified manner,
and claims the continuance of that which they had so long accorded, as
something belonging to him by acquired right.

His main object, throughout this discourse, is to fill the minds of his
audience with patriotic sympathy for the weal of the entire city, so as
to counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the collective
city flourishes (he argues), private misfortunes may at least be borne:
but no amount of private prosperity will avail, if the collective
city falls (a proposition literally true in ancient times and under
the circumstances of ancient warfare--though less true at present).
“Distracted by domestic calamity, ye are now angry both with me who
advised you to go to war, and with yourselves who followed the advice.
Ye listened to me, considering me superior to others in judgment, in
speech, in patriotism, and in incorruptible probity--nor ought I now to
be treated as culpable for giving such advice, when in point of fact
the war was unavoidable and there would have been still greater danger
in shrinking from it. I am the same man, still unchanged--but ye in
your misfortunes cannot stand to the convictions which ye adopt when
yet unhurt. Extreme and unforeseen, indeed, are the sorrows which have
fallen upon you: yet inhabiting as ye do a great city and brought up in
dispositions suitable to it, ye must also resolve to bear up against the
utmost pressure of adversity, and never to surrender your dignity. I
have often explained to you that ye have no reason to doubt of eventual
success in the war, but I will now remind you, more emphatically than
before, and even with a degree of ostentation suitable as a stimulus
to your present unnatural depression--that your naval force makes you
masters not only of your allies, but of the entire sea--one-half of the
visible field for action and employment. Compared with so vast a power as
this, the temporary use of your houses and territory is a mere trifle--an
ornamental accessory not worth considering: and this too, if ye preserve
your freedom, ye will quickly recover. It was your fathers who first
gained this empire, without any of the advantages which ye now enjoy; ye
must not disgrace yourselves by losing what they acquired. Delighting
as ye all do in the honour and empire enjoyed by the city, ye must not
shrink from the toils whereby alone that honour is sustained: moreover
ye now fight, not merely for freedom instead of slavery, but for empire
against loss of empire, with all the perils arising out of imperial
unpopularity. It is not safe for you now to abdicate, even if ye chose
to do so; for ye hold your empire like a despotism--unjust perhaps in
the original acquisition, but ruinous to part with when once acquired.
Be not angry with me, whose advice ye followed in going to war, because
the enemy have done such damage as might be expected from them; still
less on account of this unforeseen distemper: I know that this makes me
an object of your special present hatred, though very unjustly, unless
ye will consent to give me credit also of any unexpected good luck which
may occur. Our city derives its particular glory from unshaken bearing
up against misfortune: her power, her name, her empire of Greeks over
Greeks, are such as have never before been seen: and if we choose to be
great, we must take the consequence of that temporary envy and hatred
which is the necessary price of permanent renown. Behave ye now in a
manner worthy of that glory; display that courage which is essential to
protect you against disgrace at present, as well as to guarantee your
honour for the future. Send no further embassy to Sparta, and bear your
misfortunes without showing symptoms of distress.”

The irresistible reason, as well as the proud and resolute bearing of
this discourse, set forth with an eloquence which it was not possible
for Thucydides to reproduce--together with the age and character of
Pericles--carried the assent of the assembled people; who, when in the
Pnyx and engaged according to habit on public matters, would for a
moment forget their private sufferings in considerations of the safety
and grandeur of Athens. Possibly indeed, those sufferings, though still
continuing, might become somewhat alleviated when the invaders quitted
Attica, and when it was no longer indispensable for all the population to
confine itself within the walls. Accordingly, the assembly resolved that
no further propositions should be made for peace, and that the war should
be prosecuted with vigour. But though the public resolution thus adopted
showed the ancient habit of deference to the authority of Pericles, the
sentiments of individuals taken separately were still those of anger
against him as the author of that system which had brought them into so
much distress. His political opponents--Cleon, Simmias, or Lacratidas,
perhaps all three in conjunction--took care to provide an opportunity
for this prevalent irritation to manifest itself in act, by bringing an
accusation against him before the dicastery. The accusation is said to
have been preferred on the ground of pecuniary malversation, and ended by
his being sentenced to pay a considerable fine, fifteen, fifty, or eighty
talents, according to different authors.[51]

The accusing party thus appeared to have carried their point, and to have
disgraced, as well as excluded from re-election, the veteran statesman.
But the event disappointed their expectations. The imposition of the
fine not only satiated all the irritation of the people against him, but
even occasioned a serious reaction in his favour, and brought back as
strongly as ever the ancient sentiment of esteem and admiration. It was
quickly found that those who had succeeded Pericles as generals neither
possessed nor deserved in an equal degree the public confidence and he
was accordingly soon re-elected, with as much power and influence as he
had ever in his life enjoyed.

But that life, long, honourable, and useful, had already been prolonged
considerably beyond the sixtieth year, and there were but too many
circumstances, besides the recent fine, which tended to hasten as well
as to embitter its close. At the very moment when Pericles was preaching
to his countrymen, in a tone almost reproachful, the necessity of manful
and unabated devotion to the common country, in the midst of private
suffering--he was himself among the greatest of sufferers, and most
hardly pressed to set the example of observing his own precepts. The
epidemic carried off not merely his two sons (the only two legitimate,
Xanthippus and Paralus), but also his sister, several other relatives,
and his best and most useful political friends. Amidst this train of
domestic calamities, and in the funeral obsequies of so many of his
dearest friends, he remained master of his grief, and maintained his
habitual self command, until the last misfortune--the death of his
favourite son Paralus, which left his house without any legitimate
representative to maintain the family and the hereditary sacred rites. On
this final blow, though he strove to command himself as before, yet at
the obsequies of the young man, when it became his duty to place a wreath
on the dead body, his grief became uncontrollable, and he burst out, for
the first time in his life, into profuse tears and sobbing.

In the midst of these several personal trials he received the intimation,
through Alcibiades and some other friends, of the restored confidence of
the people towards him, and his re-election to the office of strategus.
But it was not without difficulty that he was persuaded to present
himself again at the public assembly, and resume the direction of
affairs. The regret of the people was formally expressed to him for the
recent sentence--perhaps indeed the fine may have been repaid to him, or
some evasion of it permitted, saving the forms of law--in the present
temper of the city; which was further displayed towards him by the grant
of a remarkable exemption from a law of his own original proposition. He
had himself, some years before, been the author of that law, whereby the
citizenship of Athens was restricted to persons born both of Athenian
fathers and Athenian mothers, under which restriction several thousand
persons, illegitimate on the mother’s side, are said to have been
deprived of the citizenship, on occasion of a public distribution of
corn. Invidious as it appeared to grant, to Pericles singly, an exemption
from a law which had been strictly enforced against so many others, the
people were now moved not less by compassion than by anxiety to redress
their own previous severity. Without a legitimate heir, the house of
Pericles, one branch of the great Alcmæonid gens by his mother’s side,
would be left deserted, and the continuity of the family sacred rites
would be broken--a misfortune painfully felt by every Athenian family,
as calculated to wrong all the deceased members, and provoke their
posthumous displeasure towards the city. Accordingly, permission was
granted to Pericles to legitimise, and to inscribe in his own gens and
phratry, his natural son by Aspasia, who bore his own name.


THE END AND GLORY OF PERICLES

[Sidenote: [430-429 B.C.]]

It was thus that Pericles was reinstated in his post of strategus as
well as in his ascendency over the public counsels--seemingly about
August or September--430 B.C. He lived about one year longer, and seems
to have maintained his influence as long as his health permitted. Yet we
hear nothing of him after this moment, and he fell a victim, not to the
violent symptoms of the epidemic, but to a slow and wearing fever, which
undermined his strength as well as his capacity. To a friend who came to
ask after him when in this disease, Pericles replied by showing a charm
or amulet which his female relations had hung about his neck--a proof how
low he was reduced, and how completely he had become a passive subject
in the hands of others. And according to another anecdote which we read,
yet more interesting and equally illustrative of his character--it was
during his last moments, when he was lying apparently unconscious and
insensible, that the friends around his bed were passing in review the
acts of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different
times for so many victories. He heard what they said, though they fancied
that he was past hearing, and interrupted them by remarking, “What you
praise in my life, belongs partly to good fortune; and is, at best,
common to me with many other generals. But the peculiarity of which I am
most proud, you have not noticed: no Athenian has ever put on mourning
through any action of mine.”

Such a cause of self-gratulation, doubtless more satisfactory to
recall at such a moment than any other, illustrates that long-sighted
calculation, aversion to distant or hazardous enterprise, and economy
of the public force, which marked his entire political career; a career
long, beyond all parallel in the history of Athens--since he maintained a
great influence, gradually swelling into a decisive personal ascendency,
for between thirty and forty years. His character has been presented in
very different lights by different authors, both ancient and modern,
and our materials for striking the balance are not so good as we could
wish. But his immense and long-continued supremacy, as well as his
unparalleled eloquence, are facts attested not less by his enemies than
by his friends--nay, even more forcibly by the former than by the latter.
The comic writers, who hated him, and whose trade it was to deride and
hunt down every leading political character, exhaust their powers of
illustration in setting forth both the one and the other: Telecleides,
Cratinus, Eupolis, Aristophanes, all hearers and all enemies, speak of
him like Olympian Zeus hurling thunder and lightning--like Hercules and
Achilles--as the only speaker on whose lips persuasion sat and who left
his sting in the minds of his audience: while Plato the philosopher, who
disapproved of his political working and of the moral effects which he
produced upon Athens, nevertheless extols his intellectual and oratorical
ascendency--“his majestic intelligence.” There is another point of
eulogy, not less valuable, on which the testimony appears uncontradicted:
throughout his long career, amidst the hottest political animosities, the
conduct of Pericles towards opponents was always mild and liberal.[52]

The conscious self-esteem and arrogance of manner, with which the
contemporary poet Ion reproached him, contrasting it with the
unpretending simplicity of his own patron Cimon, though probably
invidiously exaggerated, is doubtless in substance well founded, and
those who read the last speech just given out of Thucydides will at
once recognise in it this attribute. His natural taste, his love of
philosophical research, and his unwearied application to public affairs,
all contributed to alienate him from ordinary familiarity, and to make
him careless, perhaps improperly careless, of the lesser means of
conciliating public favour.

But admitting this latter reproach to be well founded, as it seems to be,
it helps to negative that greater and graver political crime which has
been imputed to him, of sacrificing the permanent well-being and morality
of the state to the maintenance of his own political power--of corrupting
the people by distributions of the public money. “He gave the reins to
the people.” in Plutarch’s words, “and shaped his administration for
their immediate spectacle or festival or procession, thus nursing up the
city in elegant pleasures--and by sending out every year sixty triremes
manned by citizen-seamen on full pay, who were thus kept in practice and
acquired nautical skill.”

The charge here made against Pericles, and supported by allegations
in themselves honourable rather than otherwise--of a vicious appetite
for immediate popularity, and of improper concessions to the immediate
feelings of the people against their permanent interests--is precisely
that which Thucydides in the most pointed manner denies; and not merely
denies, but contrasts Pericles with his successors in the express
circumstance that they did so, while he did not. The language of the
contemporary historian well deserves to be cited: “Pericles, powerful
from dignity of character as well as from wisdom, and conspicuously above
the least tinge of corruption, held back the people with a free hand,
and was their real leader instead of being led by them. For not being a
seeker of power from unworthy sources, he did not speak with any view to
present favour, but had sufficient sense of dignity to contradict them on
occasion, even braving their displeasure. Thus whenever he perceived them
insolently and unseasonably confident, he shaped his speeches in such
a manner as to alarm and beat them down; when again he saw them unduly
frightened, he tried to counteract it and restore their confidence; so
that the government was in name a democracy, but in reality an empire
exercised by the first citizen in the state. But those who succeeded
after his death, being more equal one with another, and each of them
desiring pre-eminence over the rest, adopted the different course of
courting the favour of the people and sacrificing to that object even
important state interests. From whence arose many other bad measures,
as might be expected in a great and imperial city, and especially the
Sicilian expedition.”

It will be seen that the judgment here quoted from Thucydides
contradicts, in the most unqualified manner, the reproaches commonly
made against Pericles of having corrupted the Athenian people--by
distributions of the public money, and by giving way to their unwise
caprices--for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining his own
political power. Nay, the historian particularly notes the opposite
qualities--self-judgment, conscious dignity, indifference to immediate
popular applause or wrath when set against what was permanently right
and useful--as the special characteristic of that great statesman. A
distinction might indeed be possible, and Plutarch professes to note
such distinction, between the earlier and the later part of his long
political career. Pericles began (so that biographer says) by corrupting
the people in order to acquire power; but having acquired it, he employed
it in an independent and patriotic manner, so that the judgment of
Thucydides, true respecting the later part of his life, would not be
applicable to the earlier.

The internal political changes at Athens, respecting the Areopagus and
the dicasteries, took place when Pericles was a young man, and when he
cannot be supposed to have yet acquired the immense personal weight which
afterwards belonged to him (Ephialtes in fact seems in those early days
to have been a greater man than Pericles, if we may judge by the fact
that he was selected by his political adversaries for assassination)--so
that they might with greater propriety be ascribed to the party with
which Pericles was connected, rather than to that statesman himself.
But next, we have no reason to presume that Thucydides considered these
changes as injurious, or as having deteriorated the Athenian character.
All that he does say as to the working of Pericles on the sentiment and
actions of his countrymen is eminently favourable.

Though Thucydides does not directly canvass the constitutional changes
effected in Athens under Pericles, yet everything which he does say
leads us to believe that he accounted the working of that statesman,
upon the whole, on Athenian power as well as on Athenian character,
eminently valuable, and his death as an irreparable loss. And we may thus
appeal to the judgment of an historian who is our best witness in every
conceivable respect, as a valid reply to the charge against Pericles of
having corrupted the Athenian habits, character, and government. If he
spent a large amount of the public treasure upon religious edifices and
ornaments, and upon stately works for the city--yet the sum which he left
untouched, ready for use at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, was
such as to appear more than sufficient for all purposes of defence, or
public safety, or military honour. It cannot be shown of Pericles that
he ever sacrificed the greater object to the less--the permanent and
substantially valuable, to the transitory and showy--assured present
possessions, to the lust of new, distant, or uncertain conquests. If his
advice had been listened to, the rashness which brought on the defeat
of the Athenian Tolmides at Coronea in Bœotia would have been avoided,
and Athens might probably have maintained her ascendency over Megara and
Bœotia, which would have protected her territory from invasion, and given
a new turn to the subsequent history.

Pericles is not to be treated as the author of the Athenian character:
he found it with its very marked positive characteristics and
susceptibilities, among which, those which he chiefly brought out and
improved were the best. The lust of expeditions against the Persians,
which Cimon would have pushed into Egypt and Cyprus, he repressed, after
it had accomplished all which could be usefully aimed at: the ambition
of Athens he moderated rather than encouraged: the democratical movement
of Athens he regularised, and worked out into judicial institutions
which ranked among the prominent features of Athenian life, and worked
with a very large balance of benefit to the national mind as well as to
the individual security, in spite of the many defects in their direct
character as tribunals. But that point in which there was the greatest
difference between Athens, as Pericles found it and as he left it, is
unquestionably, the pacific and intellectual development--rhetoric,
poetry, arts, philosophical research, and recreative variety. To which,
if we add great improvement in the cultivation of the Attic soil,
extension of Athenian trade, attainment and laborious maintenance of
the maximum of maritime skill (attested by the battles of Phormion),
enlargement of the area of complete security by construction of the
Long Walls, lastly, the clothing of Athens in her imperial mantle, by
ornaments architectural and sculptural--we shall make out a case of
genuine progress realised during the political life of Pericles, such
as the evils imputed to him, far more imaginary than real, will go but
little way to alloy. How little, comparatively speaking, of the picture
drawn by Pericles in his funeral harangue of 431 B.C., would have been
correct, if the harangue had been delivered over those warriors who fell
at Tanagra twenty-seven years before!

Taking him altogether, with his powers of thought, speech, and action,
his competence civil and military, in the council as well as in the
field, his vigorous and cultivated intellect, and his comprehensive ideas
of a community in pacific and many-sided development, his incorruptible
public morality, caution, and firmness, in a country where all those
qualities were rare, and the union of them in the same individual of
course much rarer--we shall find him without a parallel throughout the
whole course of Grecian history.[b]


WILHELM ONCKEN’S ESTIMATE OF PERICLES

Among the important personages of antiquity, there is none on whom
posterity has so fully agreed in its judgment, as on Pericles. When
we meet with this name in modern works, we find but one general voice
acknowledging his greatness, one voice of admiration for the unusual
qualities which distinguished him.

Even the opposers of his political administration were just to him,
even those who, in the great rising of Athenian democracy, saw the
beginning of a splendid misery, did not deny their respect to the man,
who by this development was assigned a place in the first rank. Without
wishing to do so they heaped praise on him, in which we must decline to
join, although we are the last to wish to rob him of his well-deserved
fame. In the political revolution which resulted in the sovereignty of
the constitutional demos, and in checking the ruin which only too soon
followed, they credited him with so much blame and merit, as even had
he divided it with Ephialtes and others, would still have surpassed the
power of any mortal, though he were the greatest of the great.

Such great political events as those here mentioned, are not the work
of individual men, not the act of a party, however great may be the
aggregate of the particular forces it may have at command. They have
their root in the nature of the conditions, in the disposition of the
circumstances, in the requirements of society, in alliance with which the
individual, like Antæus, derives fresh strength out of every defeat, and
without which he is but rolling the stone of Sisyphus.

For such a deeply rooted change in the forms of political life in a
community, whether that change be for good or evil, elementary forces are
necessary which are neither subject to the command nor to the violence
of the individual, which human will can neither loose nor arrest, and in
the present case we have to deal with a revolution to effect which the
agitators employed but a single lever, a single weapon, the convincing
word, the power of oratory, the weight of reason.

Also the advent of the internal decay which, as is supposed, followed so
rapidly on the violent exertion of the power of the Athenian mob at home,
would not, had the times really been ripe for it, have awaited the death
of Pericles, an event usually regarded, in flattering enough recognition
of the greatness of the man, as the thunderbolt which struck and came to
set fire to the heaped-up seeds of corruption.

But the unsought-for praise which springs from this misunderstanding
again strikingly proves how universally spread, how deeply rooted is
the respect of posterity for this one great Athenian. It is remarkable,
however, that his immediate and more remote contemporaries, held an
opinion quite different. In examining their judgments on this statesman,
we see that with all the deplorable incompleteness of tradition an
almost complete unanimity of opinion is found, but this unanimity is
not for, but against, Pericles. To our great surprise we discover that
the most diverse channels which voiced public opinion, the most various
representatives of the universal judgment, seem to have entered into a
regular conspiracy against the memory of this man, against the fame of
his public and of his personal character.

Highly gifted comic poets such as Cratinus and Eupolis, not to mention
others, frivolous anecdote-mongers such as Stesimbrotus of Thasos and
Idomeneus of Lampsacus, rhetorical historians like Ephorus, whom Diodorus
follows, and earnest philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, are unanimous
in repudiating and condemning Pericles. One would understand if they
satisfied themselves with a truly Greek disparagement of his great
qualities, and exaggeration of his defects, although one might wonder at
the unanimity of this proceeding: but they do not stop at this; some at
least even go so far as to stamp Pericles as a criminal.

Idomeneus of Lampsacus reproached him with an assassination of the
worst kind, committed on his true friend and confederate Ephialtes.
Ephorus accused him of embezzling public money and of extensive thefts
of public property entrusted to his administration; and comparatively
speaking Plato’s judgment is mild, when he consigns him to the ranks
of those common demagogues who are not particular as to their means of
fraudulently obtaining the favour of the populace. And Aristotle who had
cleared him of many serious accusations does not admit him among the
statesmen and patriots of the highest rank, but gives preference to such
men as Nicias, Thucydides, and even Theramenes.

The reason of this extraordinary fact lies in the partisan spirit which
though notorious is not always rightly estimated, and by which the
overwhelming majority of the Greek writers whose works have come down to
us were animated against the Athenian democracy, so that the champion of
popular government which they condemned in principle, cannot possibly
find favour in their sight.

On what then does the judgment of posterity repose, a judgment that is
in direct opposition to such an imposing number of authorities? Is it a
conjecture to which a tacit agreement of competent judges gave a legal
authority? Is it the result of an arbitrary process which on grounds of
innate probability and by an undisputed verdict clears the historical
kernel of all the dross with which the hate and envy, mistakes and
calumnies of contemporaries had surrounded it? Or if this judgment is
based on the authentic foundation of evidence, is it surely not merely
commended, by its innate rectitude, but also confirmed by an unequivocal
testimony?

The latter is the case. Our judgment of Pericles is based on the
immovable foundation of a testimony which stands alone, not only in
this respect but also in the whole of Greek literature, the testimony
of Thucydides. It is to Thucydides that his greatest contemporary owes
the honour accorded to his name by posterity. His summing up amounts to
this: Pericles owes the authoritative position which he occupies in the
Athenian state, neither to cunning nor force, but exclusively to the
trust of his fellow citizens: their trust in the tried greatness of his
spirit, the universally recognised purity of his character, the immovable
firmness of his will.

He stood, in truth, above the people, whom he ruled as a prince; raised
even above the suspicion of dishonesty, raised above the reproach of
cringing submissiveness, he stood firm in his superior influence on the
resolution of the multitude, because he had not gained possession of
it by the employment of unseemly means, but through the esteem of the
citizens for his aptitude for government. He did not give way to the
pressure of the changing fancies and moods of the moment. He met the
anger of the multitude with unflinching pride, he brought the insolent to
their senses, and encouraged the faint hearted to self-confidence. It was
a democracy in appearance only, in deed and truth it was the rule of an
individual man, of the greatest of the great, over the people.[e]


FOOTNOTES

[49] At the same time a plague was raging in Rome. The pestilence is
believed to have been carried along the Carthaginian trade routes. It
brought the population of Athens from 100,000 down below 80,000.

[50] According to Grote, “Diodorus mentions similar distresses in the
Carthaginian army besieging Syracuse, during the terrible epidemic with
which it was attacked in 395 B.C.; and Livy, respecting the epidemic at
Syracuse when it was besieged by Marcellus and the Romans.”

[51] Bury[d] says: “He was found guilty of ‘theft’ to the trifling amount
of five talents; the verdict was a virtual acquittal, though he had to
pay a fine of ten times the amount.” But as an Attic talent was equal to
£200 or $1000, the theft of five talents was hardly trifling and a fine
of £10,000 or $50,000 was a rather unsatisfactory “acquittal.”

[52] “Pericles,” says Plutarch,[h] “undoubtedly deserved admiration, not
only for the candour and moderation which he ever retained, amidst the
distractions of business and the rage of his enemies, but for that noble
sentiment which led him to think it his most excellent attainment, never
to have given way to envy or anger, notwithstanding the greatness of his
power, nor to have nourished an implacable hatred against his greatest
foe. In my opinion, this one thing, I mean his mild and dispassionate
behaviour, his unblemished integrity and irreproachable conduct during
his whole administration, makes his appellation of Olympius, which would
otherwise be vain and absurd, no longer exceptionable; nay, gives it a
propriety.”

[Illustration]




[Illustration: GREEK WAR GALLEY]




CHAPTER XXXII. THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR


Among students of Greek history the little town of Platæa takes a large
hold upon the affections. We have seen how its old time devotion to
Athens brought upon it a sudden descent from the arch-enemy Thebes at the
very outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. It was a case of Greek against
Greek, of Theban duplicity versus Platæan wile. The success of Platæa was
so neat and exasperating as to inspire a desperate revenge. Now it was no
longer a playtime for trickery, and on both sides the sterner elements
of human nature were put to test. The siege of Platæa lasted from the
summer of the third year of the war (429 B.C.) to the summer of the fifth
year (427 B.C.) but it seems better to tell it in isolated continuity.
Accordingly three separate portions of Thirlwall’s vivid history are here
brought together.[a]

[Sidenote: [429 B.C.]]

In the beginning of the summer 429 B.C., a Peloponnesian army was again
assembled at the isthmus, under the command of Archidamus. But instead of
invading Attica, which was perhaps thought dangerous on account of the
pestilence, he gratified the wishes of the Thebans, by marching into the
territory of Platæa, where he encamped, and prepared to lay it waste.
But before he had committed any acts of hostility, envoys from Platæa
demanded an audience, and, being admitted, made a solemn remonstrance
against his proceedings in the name of religion. They reminded the
Spartans that, after the glorious battle which secured the liberty of
Greece, Pausanias in the presence of the allied army, and in the public
place of Platæa, where he had just offered a sacrifice in honour of the
victory, formally reinstated the Platæans in the independent possession
of their city and territory, which he placed under the protection of
all the allies, with whom they had shared the common triumph, to defend
them from unjust aggression. They complained that the Spartans were now
about to violate this well-earned privilege, which had been secured to
Platæa by solemn oaths, at the instigation of her bitterest enemies,
the Thebans. And they adjured him, by the gods who had been invoked to
witness the engagement of Pausanias, as well as by those of Sparta, and
of their violated territory, to desist from his enterprise.

Archidamus in reply admitted the claim of the Platæans, but desired
them to reflect that the rights on which they insisted implied some
corresponding duties; that, if the Spartans were pledged to protect their
independence, they were themselves no less bound to assist the Spartans
in delivering those who had once been their allies in the struggle with
Persia, from the tyranny of Athens. Yet Sparta, as she had already
declared, did not wish to force them to take a part in the war which she
was waging for the liberties of Greece, but would be satisfied if they
would remain neutral, and would admit both parties alike to amicable
intercourse, without aiding either. The envoys returned with this answer,
and, after laying it before the people, came back, instructed to reply:
that it was impossible for them to accede to the proposal of Archidamus,
without the consent of the Athenians, who had their wives and children in
their hands; and they should have reason to fear either the resentment of
their present allies, who on the retreat of the Spartans might come and
deprive them of their city; or the treachery of the Thebans, who under
the cover of neutrality, might find another opportunity of surprising
them. But the Spartan, without noticing the ties that bound them to
Athens, met the last objection with a new offer.

“Let them commit their city, houses, and lands, to the custody of the
Spartans, with an exact account of the boundaries, the number of their
trees, and all other things left behind, which it was possible to number.
Let them withdraw, and live elsewhere until the end of the war. The
Spartans would then restore the deposit entrusted to them, and in the
meanwhile would provide for the cultivation of the land, and pay a fair
rent.”

It is possible that this proposal may have been honestly meant; though
it is as likely that it was suggested by the malice of the Thebans. For
it was evident that the Platæans could not accept it without renouncing
the friendship of the Athenians, to whom they had committed their
families, and in the most favourable contingency, which would be the
fall of their old ally, casting themselves upon the honour of an enemy
for their political existence; while nevertheless the speciously liberal
offer, if rejected, would afford a pretext for treating them with the
utmost rigour. This the Platæans probably perceived; and therefore, when
their envoys returned with the proposal of the Spartans, requested an
armistice, that they might lay it before the Athenians, promising to
accept it if they could obtain their consent.

Archidamus granted their request; but the answer brought from Athens put
an end, as might have been expected, to the negotiation. It exhorted
them to keep their faith with their ally, and to depend upon Athenian
protection. Thus urged and emboldened, they resolved, whatever might
befall them, to adhere to the side of Athens, and to break off all parley
with the enemy, by a short answer, delivered not through envoys, but
from the walls: that it was out of their power to do as the Spartans
desired.[53] Archidamus, on receiving this declaration, prepared for
attacking the city. But first, with great solemnity, he called upon
the gods and heroes of the land to witness, that he had not invaded it
without just cause, but after the Platæans had first abandoned their
ancient confederates; and that whatever they might hereafter suffer would
be a merited punishment of the perverseness with which they had rejected
his equitable offers.


THE SPARTANS AND THEBANS ATTACK PLATÆA

His first operation, after ravaging the country, was to invest the
city with a palisade, for which the fruit trees cut down by his troops
furnished materials. This slight inclosure was sufficient for his
purpose, as he hoped that the overwhelming superiority of his numbers
would enable him to take the place by storm. The mode of attack which
he chiefly relied upon, was the same which we have seen employed by the
Persians against the Ionian cities. He attempted to raise a mound to
a level with the walls. It was piled up with earth and rubbish, wood
and stones, and was guarded on either side by a strong lattice-work of
forest timber. For seventy days and seventy nights the troops, divided
into parties which constantly relieved each other, were occupied in this
labour without intermission, urged to their tasks by the Lacedæmonians
who commanded the contingents of the allies. But as the mound rose, the
besieged devised expedients for averting the danger.

First they surmounted the opposite part of their wall with a
superstructure of brick--taken from the adjacent houses which were pulled
down for the purpose--secured in a frame of timber, and shielded from
fiery missiles by a curtain of raw hides and skins, which protected the
workmen and their work. But as the mound still kept rising as fast as
the wall, they set about contriving plans for reducing it. And first,
issuing by night through an opening made in the wall, they scooped out
and carried away large quantities of the earth from the lower part of the
mound. But the Peloponnesians, on discovering this device, counteracted
it, by repairing the breach with layers of stiff clay, pressed down close
on wattles of reed. Thus baffled, the besieged sank a shaft within the
walls, and thence working upon a rough estimate, dug a passage under
ground as far as the mound, which they were thus enabled to undermine.
And against this contrivance the enemy had no remedy, except in the
multitude of hands, which repaired the loss almost as soon as it was felt.

But the garrison, fearing that they should not be able to struggle long
with this disadvantage, and that their wall would at length be carried
by force of numbers, provided against this event, by building a second
wall, in the shape of a half-moon, behind the raised part of the old
wall, which was the chord of the arc. Thus in the worst emergency they
secured themselves a retreat, from which they would be able to assail the
enemy to great advantage, and he would have to recommence his work under
the most unfavourable circumstances. This countermure drove the besiegers
to their last resources. They had already brought battering engines to
play upon the walls. But the spirit and ingenuity of the besieged had
generally baffled these assaults; though one had given an alarming shock
to the superstructure in front of the half-moon. Sometimes the head of an
engine was caught up by means of a noose; sometimes it was broken off by
a heavy beam, suspended by chains from two levers placed on the wall.

Now, however, after the main hope of the Peloponnesians, which rested
on their mound, was completely defeated by the countermure, Archidamus
resolved to try a last extraordinary experiment. He caused the hollow
between the mound and the wall, and all the space which he could reach
on the other side, to be filled up with a pile of faggots, which, when
it had been steeped in pitch and sulphur, was set on fire. The blaze
was such as had perhaps never before been kindled by the art of man;
Thucydides compares it to a burning forest. It penetrated to a great
distance within the city; and if it had been seconded, as the besiegers
hoped, by a favourable wind, would probably have destroyed it. The alarm
and confusion which it caused for a time in the garrison were great; a
large tract of the city was inaccessible. Yet it does not appear that
Archidamus made any attempt to take advantage of their consternation and
disorder. He waited; but the expected breeze did not come to spread the
flames, and--according to a report which the historian mentions, but does
not vouch for--a sudden storm of thunder and rain arose to quench them.

Thus thwarted and disheartened, and perhaps unable to keep the whole of
his army any longer in the camp, he reluctantly determined to convert
the siege to a blockade, which it was foreseen would be tedious and
expensive. A part of the troops were immediately sent home: the remainder
set about the work of circumvallation, which was apportioned to the
contingents of the confederates. Two ditches were dug round the town,
and yielded materials for a double line of walls, which were built
in the intermediate space on the edge of each trench. The walls were
sixteen feet asunder; but the interval was occupied with barracks for
the soldiers, so that the whole might be said to form one wall. At the
distance of ten battlements from each other were large towers, which
covered the whole breadth of the rampart. At the autumnal equinox the
lines were completed, and were left, one-half in the custody of the
Bœotians, the other in that of their allies. The troops who were not
needed for this service were then led back to their homes. The garrison
of the place at this time consisted of four hundred Platæans, and eighty
Athenians; and 110 women who had been retained, when all the useless
hands were sent to Athens, to minister to the wants of the men.


PART OF THE PLATÆANS ESCAPE; THE REST CAPITULATE

Athens could do nothing for the relief of Platæa. The brave garrison had
begun to suffer from the failure of provisions; and, as their condition
grew hopeless, two of their leading men, Theænetus a soothsayer, and
Eupompidas, one of the generals, conceived the project of escaping
across the enemy’s lines. When it was first proposed, it was unanimously
adopted: but as the time for its execution approached, half of the
men shrank from the danger, and not more than 220 adhered to their
resolution. The contrivers of the plan took the lead in the enterprise.
Scaling ladders of a proper height were the first requisite; and
they were made upon a measurement of the enemy’s wall, for which the
besieged had no other basis than the number of layers of brick, which
were sedulously counted over and over again by different persons, until
the amount, and consequently the height of the wall, was sufficiently
ascertained. A dark and stormy night, in the depth of winter, was chosen
for the attempt; it was known that in such nights the sentinels took
shelter in the towers, and left the intervening battlements unguarded;
and it was on this practice that the success of the adventure mainly
depended. It was concerted, that the part of the garrison which remained
behind should make demonstrations of attacking the enemy’s lines on the
side opposite to that by which their comrades attempted to escape. And
first a small party, lightly armed, the right foot bare, to give them
a surer footing in the mud, keeping at such a distance from each other
as to prevent their arms from clashing, crossed the ditch, and planted
their ladders, unseen and unheard; for the noise of their approach was
drowned by the wind. The first who mounted were twelve men armed with
short swords, led by Ammeas son of Corœbus. His followers, six on each
side, proceeded immediately to secure the two nearest towers. Next
came another party with short spears, their shields being carried by
their comrades behind them. But before many more had mounted, the fall
of a tile, broken off from a battlement by one of the Platæans, as he
laid hold of it, alarmed the nearest sentinels, and presently the whole
force of the besiegers was called to the walls. But no one knew what had
happened, and the general confusion was increased by the sally of the
besieged. All therefore remained at their posts; only a body of three
hundred men, who were always in readiness to move toward any quarter
where they might be needed, issued from one of the gates in search of the
place from which the alarm had arisen. In the meanwhile the assailants
had made themselves masters of the two towers between which they scaled
the wall, and, after cutting down the sentinels, guarded the passages
which led through them, while others mounted by ladders to the roofs,
and thence discharged their missiles on all who attempted to approach
the scene of action. The main body of the fugitives now poured through
the opening thus secured, applying more ladders, and knocking away the
battlements: and as they gained the other side of the outer ditch, they
formed upon its edge, and with their arrows and javelins protected their
comrades, who were crossing, from the enemy above. Last of all, and with
some difficulty--for the ditch was deep, the water high, and covered with
a thin crust of ice--the parties which occupied the towers effected their
retreat; and they had scarcely crossed, before the three hundred were
seen coming up with lighted torches. But their lights, which discovered
nothing to them, made them a mark for the missiles of the Platæans, who
were thus enabled to elude their pursuit, and to move away in good order.

All the details of the plan seem to have been concerted with admirable
forethought. On the first alarm fire signals were raised by the besiegers
to convey the intelligence to Thebes. But the Platæans had provided
against this danger, and showed similar signals from their own walls,
so as to render it impossible for the Thebans to interpret those of the
enemy. This precaution afforded additional security to their retreat. For
instead of taking the nearest road to Athens, they first bent their steps
toward Thebes, while they could see their pursuers with their blazing
torches threading the ascent of Cithæron. After they had followed the
Theban road for six or seven furlongs, they struck into that which led by
Erythræ and Hysiæ to the Attic border, and arrived safe at Athens. Out of
the 220 who set out together, one fell into the enemy’s hands, after he
had crossed the outer ditch. Seven turned back panic-struck, and reported
that all their companions had been cut off: and at daybreak a herald was
sent to recover their bodies. The answer revealed the happy issue of the
adventure.

[Sidenote: [427 B.C.]]

By this time the remaining garrison of Platæa was reduced to the last
stage of weakness. The besiegers might probably long before have taken
the town without difficulty by assault. But the Spartans had a motive
of policy for wishing to bring the siege to a different termination.
They looked forward to a peace which they might have to conclude upon
the ordinary terms of a mutual restitution of conquests made in the war.
In this case, if Platæa fell by storm, they would be obliged to restore
it to Athens; but if it capitulated, they might allege that it was no
conquest. With this view their commander protracted the blockade, until
at length he discovered by a feint attack that the garrison was utterly
unable to defend the walls. He then sent a herald to propose that they
should surrender, not to the Thebans, but to the Spartans, on condition
that Spartan judges alone should decide upon their fate. These terms
were accepted, the town delivered up, and the garrison, which was nearly
starved, received a supply of food. In a few days five commissioners came
from Sparta to hold the promised trial. But instead of the usual forms
of accusation and defence, the prisoners found themselves called upon to
answer a single question: Whether in the course of the war they had done
any service to Sparta and her allies. The spirit which dictated such an
interrogatory was clear enough. The prisoners however obtained leave to
plead for themselves without restriction; their defence was conducted by
two of their number, one of whom, Lacon son of Aimnestus, was _proxenus_
of Sparta.

The arguments of the Platæan orators, as reported by Thucydides, are
strong, and the address which he attributes to them is the only specimen
he has left of pathetic eloquence. They could point out the absurdity of
sending five commissioners from Sparta, to inquire whether the garrison
of a besieged town were friends of the besiegers; a question which, if
retorted upon the party which asked it, would equally convict them of a
wanton aggression. They could appeal to their services and sufferings in
the Persian War, when they alone among the Bœotians remained constant
to the cause of Greece, while the Thebans had fought on the side of
the barbarians in the very land which they now hoped to make their own
with the consent of Sparta. They could plead an important obligation
which they had more recently conferred on Sparta herself, whom they
had succoured with a third part of their whole force, when her very
existence was threatened by the revolt of the Messenians after the great
earthquake. They could urge that their alliance with Athens had been
originally formed with the approbation, and even by the advice, of the
Spartans themselves; that justice and honour forbade them to renounce a
connection which they had sought as a favour, and from which they had
derived great advantages; and that, as far as lay in themselves, they had
not broken the last peace, but had been treacherously surprised by the
Thebans, while they thought themselves secure in the faith of treaties.
Even if their former merits were not sufficient to outweigh any later
offence which could be imputed to them, they might insist on the Greek
usage of war, which forbade proceeding to the last extremity with an
enemy who had voluntarily surrendered himself; and as they had proved,
by the patience with which they had endured the torments of hunger, that
they preferred perishing by famine to falling into the hands of the
Thebans, they had a right to demand that they should not be placed in a
worse condition by their own act, but if they were to gain nothing by
their capitulation, should be restored to the state in which they were
when they made it.

But unhappily for the Platæans they had nothing to rely upon but the
mercy or the honour of Sparta: two principles which never appear to
have had the weight of a feather in any of her public transactions; and
though the Spartan commissioners bore the title of judges, they came in
fact only to pronounce a sentence which had been previously dictated
by Thebes. Yet the appeal of the Platæans was so affecting, that the
Thebans distrusted the firmness of their allies, and obtained leave to
reply. They very judiciously and honestly treated the question as one
which lay entirely between the Platæans and themselves. They attributed
the conduct of their ancestors in the Persian War, to the compulsion
of a small, dominant faction, and pleaded the services which they had
themselves since rendered to Sparta. They depreciated the patriotic deeds
of the Platæans, as the result of their attachment to Athens, whom they
had not scrupled to abet in all her undertakings against the liberties of
Greece. They defended the attempt which they had made upon Platæa during
the peace, on the ground that they had been invited by a number of its
wealthiest and noblest citizens, and they charged the Platæans with a
breach of faith in the execution of their Theban prisoners, whose blood
called for vengeance as loudly as they for mercy.

These were indeed reasons which fully explained and perhaps justified
their own enmity to Platæa, and did not need to be aided by so glaring a
falsehood, as the assertion that their enemies were enjoying the benefit
of a fair trial. But the only part of their argument, that bore upon the
real question, was that in which they reminded the Spartans that Thebes
was their most powerful and useful ally. This the Spartans felt; and
they had long determined that no scruples of justice or humanity should
endanger so valuable a connection. But it seems that they still could not
devise any more ingenious mode of reconciling their secret motive with
outward decency, than the original question, which implied that if the
prisoners were their enemies, they might rightfully put them to death;
and in this sophistical abstraction all the claims which arose out of the
capitulation, when construed according to the plainest rules of equity,
were overlooked. The question was again proposed to each separately,
and when the ceremony was finished by his answer or his silence, he was
immediately consigned to the executioner. The Platæans who suffered
amounted to two hundred; their fate was shared by twenty-five Athenians,
who could not have expected or claimed milder treatment, as they might
have been fairly excepted from the benefit of the surrender. The women
were all made slaves. If there had been nothing but inhumanity in the
proceeding of the Spartans, it would have been so much slighter than that
which they had exhibited towards their most unoffending prisoners from
the beginning of the war, as scarcely to deserve notice. All that is very
signal in this transaction is the baseness of their cunning, and perhaps
the dullness of their invention.

The town and its territory were, with better right, ceded to the Thebans.
For a year they permitted the town to be occupied by a body of exiles
from Megara, and by the remnant of the Platæans belonging to the Theban
party. But afterwards--fearing perhaps that it might be wrested from
them--they razed it to the ground, leaving only the temples standing.
But on the site, and with the materials of the demolished buildings,
they erected an edifice 200 feet square, with an upper story, the whole
divided into apartments, for the reception of the pilgrims who might
come to the quinquennial festival, or on other sacred occasions. They
also built a new temple, which together with the brass and the iron
found in the town, which were made into couches, they dedicated to Hera,
the goddess to whom Pausanias was thought to have owed his victory. The
territory was annexed to the Theban state lands, and let for a term of
ten years. So, in the ninety-third year after Platæa had entered into
alliance with Athens, this alliance became the cause of its ruin.[b]


NAVAL AND OTHER COMBATS

[Sidenote: [429 B.C.]]

While Archidamus was holding Platæa by the throat, other enterprises were
meeting with varied success. Athens sent 2000 hoplites and 200 horse to
Chalcidian Thrace under the Xenophon to whom Potidæa had surrendered.
He made an assault on the town of Spartolus, only to lose a desperate
battle, and to be crushed on his retreat; Xenophon and two associated
generals were killed, and with them 430 hoplites, a loss of about 25 per
cent.

In Thrace, Sitalces, king of an immense realm, came to the aid of Athens
against the double-dealing Macedonian king, Perdiccas. He invaded
Macedonia and the Chalcidian territory, and voyaged far and wide until
the severity of winter and the failure of Athenian aid led him to retire.

Meanwhile, the Spartans had tried to wrest the Ionian Sea from Athens.
Their expedition against Cephallenia and Zacynthus in 430 B.C. had
failed, but now a powerful horde was gathered against Acarnania. Sparta
sent a thousand hoplites under the admiral Cnemus. Corinth, Leucadia,
Anactorium, and Ambracia furnished troops, and other bodies came from
barbaric Epirots and Macedonian tribes otherwise obscure, including 1000
Chaonians, 1000 Orestæ besides Thesprotians, Molossians, Atintanes, and
Paravæi. Even the Macedonian king, Perdiccas, a professed ally of Athens,
sent 1000 Macedonians. These arrived, however, too late; fortunately for
them, since the troops, without waiting for the fleet, marched against
the Acarnanian city of Stratus in such disorderly pride that they fell
into ambush, and, after a chaotic retreat, dispersed.

The fleet which was to have collaborated in the campaign hoped to evade
the vigilance of the Athenian fleet as Cnemus had done, but the imperial
fleet was under the command of the great and cunning Phormion, who was
not deterred from attack by inferiority of numbers. Interesting naval
chess-play followed.[a]

Now the fleet from Corinth and the rest of the confederates coming
from the Crissæan Bay, which ought to have joined Cnemus, in order to
prevent the Acarnanians on the coast from succouring their countrymen
in the interior, did not do so; but they were compelled, about the same
time as the battle was fought at Stratus, to come to an engagement with
Phormion and the twenty Athenian vessels that kept guard at Naupactus.
For Phormion kept watching them as they coasted along out of the gulf,
wishing to attack them in the open sea. But the Corinthians and the
allies were not sailing to Acarnania with any intention to fight by
sea, but were equipped more for land service. When, however, they saw
them sailing along opposite to them, as they themselves proceeded along
their own coast, and on attempting to cross over from Patræ in Achaia to
the mainland opposite, on their way to Acarnania observed the Athenians
sailing against them from Chalcis and the river Evenus (for they had
not escaped their observation when they had endeavoured to bring to
secretly during the night); under these circumstances they were compelled
to engage in the mid passage. They had separate commanders for the
contingents of the different states that joined the armament, but those
of the Corinthians were Machaon, Isocrates, and Agatharcidas.

And now the Peloponnesians ranged their ships in a circle, as large as
they could without leaving any opening, with their prows turned outward
and their sterns inward; and placed inside all the small craft that
accompanied them, and their five best sailers, to advance out quickly and
strengthen any point on which the enemy might make his attack.

On the other hand, the Athenians, ranged in a single line, kept sailing
round them, and reducing them into a smaller compass; continually
brushing past them, and making demonstrations of an immediate onset;
though they had previously been commanded by Phormion not to attack them
till he himself gave the signal. For he hoped that their order would not
be maintained like that of a land-force on shore, but that the ships
would fall foul of each other, and that the other craft would cause
confusion; and if the wind should blow from the gulf, in expectation
of which he was sailing round them, and which usually rose towards
morning, that they would not remain steady an instant. He thought, too,
that it rested with him to make the attack, whenever he pleased, as his
ships were the better sailers; and that then would be the best time for
making it. So when the wind came down upon them, and their ships, being
now brought into a narrow compass, were thrown into confusion by the
operation of both causes--the violence of the wind, and the small craft
dashing against them--and when ship was falling foul of ship, and the
crews were pushing them off with poles, and in their shouting, and trying
to keep clear, and abusing each other, did not hear a word either of
their orders or the boatswains’ directions; while, through inexperience,
they could not lift their oars in the swell of the sea, and so rendered
the vessels less obedient to the helmsmen; just then, at that favourable
moment, he gave the signal.

And the Athenians attacked them, and first of all sank one of the
admiral-ships, then destroyed all wherever they went, and reduced them
to such a condition, that owing to their confusion none of them thought
of resistance, but they fled to Patræ and Dyme, in Achaia. The Athenians
having closely pursued them, and taken twelve ships, picking up most of
the men from them, and putting them on board their own vessels, sailed
off to Molycrium; and after erecting a trophy at Rhium, and dedicating
a ship to Neptune, they returned to Naupactus. The Peloponnesians also
immediately coasted along with their remaining ships from Dyme and Patræ
to Cyllene, the arsenal of the Eleans; and Cnemus and the ships that were
at Leucas, which were to have formed a junction with these, came thence,
after the battle of Stratus, to the same port.

Then the Lacedæmonians sent to the fleet, as counsellors to Cnemus,
Timocrates, Brasidas, and Lycophron; commanding him to make preparations
for a second engagement more successful than the former, and not to be
driven off the sea by a few ships. For the result appeared very different
from what they might have expected (particularly as it was the first
sea-fight they had attempted); and they thought that it was not so much
their fleet that was inferior, but that there had been some cowardice;
for they did not weigh the long experience of the Athenians against their
own short practice of naval matters. They despatched them, therefore,
in anger; and on their arrival they sent round, in conjunction with
Cnemus, orders for ships to be furnished by the different states, while
they refitted those they already had, with a view to an engagement.
Phormion, too, on the other hand, sent messengers to Athens to acquaint
them with their preparations, and to tell them of the victory they had
gained; at the same time desiring them to send him quickly the largest
possible number of ships, for he was in daily expectation of an immediate
engagement. They despatched to him twenty; but gave additional orders
to the commander of them to go first to Crete. For Nicias, a Cretan of
Gortyn, who was their _proxenus_, persuaded them to sail against Cydonia,
telling them that he would reduce it under their power; for it was at
present hostile to them. His object, however, in calling them in was,
that he might oblige the Polichnitæ, who bordered on the Cydonians.
The commander, therefore, of the squadron went with it to Crete, and
in conjunction with the Polichnitæ laid waste the territory of the
Cydonians; and wasted no little time in the country, owing to adverse
winds and the impossibility of putting to sea.

During the time that the Athenians were thus detained on the coast of
Crete, the Peloponnesians at Cyllene, having made their preparations for
an engagement, coasted along to Panormus in Achaia, where the land-force
of the Peloponnesians had come to support them. Phormion, too, coasted
along to the Rhium near Molycrium, and dropped anchor outside of it,
with twenty ships, the same as he had before fought with. This Rhium was
friendly to the Athenians; the other, namely, that in the Peloponnesus,
is opposite to it; the distance between the two being about seven stadia
of sea, which forms the mouth of the Crissæan Gulf. At the Rhium in
Achaia, then, being not far from Panormus, where their land-force was,
the Peloponnesians also came to anchor with seventy-seven ships, when
they saw that the Athenians had done the same. And for six or seven days
they lay opposite each other, practising and preparing for the battle;
the Peloponnesians intending not to sail beyond the Rhia into the open
sea, for they were afraid of a disaster like the former; the Athenians,
not to sail into the straits, for they thought that fighting in a
confined space was in favour of the enemy.

Now when the Athenians did not sail into the narrow part of the gulf to
meet them, the Peloponnesians, wishing to lead them on even against their
will, weighed in the morning, and having formed their ships in a column
four abreast, sailed to their own land towards the inner part of the
gulf, with the right wing taking the lead, in which position also they
lay at anchor. In this wing they had placed their twenty best sailers;
that if Phormion, supposing them to be sailing against Naupactus, should
himself also coast along in that direction to relieve the place, the
Athenians might not, by getting outside their wing, escape their advance
against them, but that these ships might shut them in. As they expected,
he was alarmed for the place in its unprotected state; and when he saw
them under weigh, against his will, and in great haste too, he embarked
his crews and sailed along shore; while the land-forces of the Messenians
at the same time came to support him. When the Peloponnesians saw them
coasting along in a single file, and already within the gulf and near
the shore (which was just what they wished), at one signal they suddenly
brought their ships round and sailed in a line, as fast as each could,
against the Athenians, hoping to cut off all their ships. Eleven of
them, however, which were taking the lead, escaped the wing of the
Peloponnesians and their sudden turn into the open gulf; but the rest
they surprised, and drove them on shore, in their attempt to escape, and
destroyed them, killing such of the crews as had not swum out of them.
Some of the ships they lashed to their own and began to tow off empty,
and one they took men and all; while in the case of some others, the
Messenians, coming to their succour, and dashing into the sea with their
armour, and boarding them, fought from the decks, and rescued them when
they were already being towed off.

To this extent then the Peloponnesians had the advantage, and destroyed
the Athenian ships; while their twenty vessels in the right wing were in
pursuit of those eleven of the enemy that had just escaped their turn
into the open gulf. They, with the exception of one ship, got the start
of them and fled for refuge to Naupactus; and facing about, opposite the
temple of Apollo, prepared to defend themselves, in case they should
sail to shore against them. Presently they came up, and were singing
the pæan as they sailed, considering that they had gained the victory;
and the one Athenian vessel that had been left behind was chased by a
single Leucadian far in advance of the rest. Now there happened to be
a merchant vessel moored out at sea, which the Athenian ship had time
to sail round, and struck the Leucadian in pursuit of her amidship,
and sunk her. The Peloponnesians therefore were panic-stricken by this
sudden and unlooked-for achievement; and moreover, as they were pursuing
in disorder, on account of the advantage they had gained, some of the
ships dropped their oars, and stopped in their course, from a wish to
wait for the rest--doing what was unadvisable, considering that they were
observing each other at so short a distance--while others even ran on the
shoals, through their ignorance of the localities.

The Athenians, on seeing this, took courage, and at one word shouted
for battle, and rushed upon them. In consequence of their previous
blunders and their present confusion, they withstood them but a short
time and then fled to Panormus, whence they had put out. The Athenians
pursued them closely, and took six of the ships nearest to them, and
recovered their own, which the enemy had disabled near the shore and
at the beginning of the engagement, and had taken in tow. Of the men,
they put some to death, and made others prisoners. Now on board the
Leucadian ship, which went down off the merchant vessel, was Timocrates
the Lacedæmonian; who, when the ship was destroyed, killed himself, and
falling overboard was floated into the harbour of Naupactus. On their
return, the Athenians erected a trophy at the spot from which they put
out before gaining the victory; and all the dead and the wrecks that were
near their coast they took up, and gave back to the enemy theirs under
truce. The Peloponnesians also erected a trophy, as victors, for the
defeat of the ships they had disabled near the shore; and the ship they
had taken they dedicated at Rhium, in Achaia, by the side of the trophy.
Afterwards, being afraid of the reinforcement from Athens, all but the
Leucadians sailed at the approach of night into the Crissæan Bay and the
port of Corinth. Not long after their retreat, the Athenians from Crete
arrived at Naupactus, with the twenty ships that were to have joined
Phormion before the engagement. And thus ended the summer.

Before, however, the fleet dispersed which had retired to Corinth and
the Crissæan Bay, Cnemus, Brasidas, and the rest of the Peloponnesian
commanders wished, at the suggestion of the Megarians, to make an attempt
upon Piræus, the port of Athens; which, as was natural from their decided
superiority at sea, was left unguarded and open. It was determined,
therefore, that each man should take his oar, and cushion, and
_tropoter_, and go by land from Corinth to the sea on the side of Athens;
and that after proceeding as quickly as possible to Megara, they should
launch from its port, Nisæa, forty vessels that happened to be there,
and sail straightway to Piræus. For there was neither any fleet keeping
guard before it, nor any thought of the enemy ever sailing against it
in so sudden a manner; and as for their venturing to do it openly and
deliberately, they supposed that either they would not think of it, or
themselves would not fail to be aware beforehand, if they should. Having
adopted this resolution, they proceeded immediately to execute it; and
when they had arrived by night, and launched the vessels from Nisæa, they
sailed, not against Athens as they had intended, for they were afraid
of the risk (some wind or other was also said to have prevented them),
but to the headland of Salamis looking towards Megara; where there was a
fort, and a guard of three ships to prevent anything from being taken in
or out of Megara. So they assaulted the fort, and towed off the triremes
empty; and making a sudden attack on the rest of Salamis, they laid it
waste.

Now fire signals of an enemy’s approach were raised towards Athens, and
a consternation was caused by them not exceeded by any during the whole
war. For those in the city imagined that the enemy had already sailed
into Piræus; while those in Piræus thought that Salamis had been taken,
and that they were all but sailing into their harbours: which indeed, if
they would but have not been afraid of it, might easily have been done;
and it was not a wind that would have prevented it. But at daybreak the
Athenians went all in a body to Piræus to resist the enemy; and launched
their ships, and going on board with haste and much uproar, sailed with
the fleet to Salamis, while with their land-forces they mounted guard
at Piræus. When the Peloponnesians saw them coming to the rescue, after
overrunning the greater part of Salamis, and taking both men and booty,
and the three ships from the port of Budorum, they sailed for Nisæa as
quickly as they could; for their vessels too caused them some alarm, as
they had been launched after lying idle a long time, and were not at all
water-tight. On their arrival at Megara they returned again to Corinth by
land. When the Athenians found them no longer on the coast of Salamis,
they also sailed back; and after this alarm they paid more attention in
future to the safety of Piræus, both by closing the harbours, and by all
other precautions.

[Sidenote: [429-428 B.C.]]

During this winter, after the fleet of the Peloponnesians had dispersed,
the Athenians at Naupactus under the command of Phormion, after coasting
along to Astacus, and there disembarking, marched into the interior of
Acarnania, with four hundred heavy-armed of the Athenians from the ships
and four hundred of the Messenians. From Stratus, Coronta, and some
other places, they expelled certain individuals who were thought to be
untrue to them; and having restored Cynes, son of Theolytus, to Coronta,
returned again to their vessels and sailed home to Athens at the return
of spring, taking with them such of the prisoners from the naval battles
as were freemen (who were exchanged man for man), and the ships they had
captured. And so ended this winter, and the third year of the war.[c]

Bury, following Grote, says, that after this, Phormion “silently drops
out of history, and as we find his son Asopius sent out in the following
summer at the request of the Acarnanians, we must conclude that his
career had been cut short by death”: Duruy says he died in 428 B.C., and
that “the city gave him an honourable funeral and placed his tomb beside
that of Pericles.” Asopius after failing in an assault on Œniadæ, was
killed before Leucas.[a]


FOOTNOTES

[53] [In the words of Thucydides,[c] “Never to desert the Athenians, to
bear any devastation of their lands, nay, if such be the case, to behold
it with patience, and to suffer any extremities to which their enemies
might reduce them; that, further, no person should stir out of the city,
but an answer be given from the walls; that it was impossible for them to
accept the terms proposed by the Lacedæmonians.”]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS--AND PEACE


The fourth year of the war, 428 B.C., opened with the third invasion of
Attica by Archidamus, but the Periclean policy of remaining within the
walls was continued. Athens herself remaining impregnable, revolt broke
out among her allies.[a]

One of the most remarkable events in the history of the Peloponnesian
war is the revolt of Mytilene. The island of Lesbos contained five
Æolian towns, which were indeed connected in a certain way, but were
yet perfectly independent of one another; Mytilene, however, by the
advantages of its position and by its excellent harbour, had risen far
above the other four towns. The three smaller ones among them, Pyrrha,
Eresus, and Antissa, had absolutely joined Mytilene, and were guided by
it; but Methymna had not done so, and the relation in which the Lesbians
stood to Athens was still very favourable: their contingent consisted
in ships commanded by Lesbians, and they paid no tribute. But the fate
of Samos had warned the few places standing in the same relation, Chios
and Lesbos, and had rendered them suspicious of the intentions of the
Athenians; and they feared lest the Athenians should treat them as they
had treated the smaller islands, and should reduce them to the same state
of dependence as Samos, by ordering them to deliver up their ships and
pay tribute. But the more such places became aware of their importance,
and the more they felt that by going over to the other side, they would
cast a great weight into the scale, the more they naturally became
inclined to revolt. Thus the Mytileneans were prepared for the step they
took, and the revolt spread thence over the whole of Lesbos, with the
exception of Methymna, which, as is always the case in confederations of
states, from jealousy of Mytilene, sided with the Athenians, and directed
their attention to the fact that treasonable plots were formed in Lesbos,
and that a revolt was near at hand.


THE REVOLT OF MYTILENE

[Sidenote: [428-427 B.C.]]

At first the Athenians, with incredible carelessness, paid little
attention to the information, a neglect which was the consequence of
the strange anarchical condition of Athens, where the government had
in reality no power. There was no magistracy to take the initiative,
or to form a preliminary resolution or _probuleuma_ in such cases. The
people might indeed meet, and did meet every day, and any demagogue might
propose a measure; but when this was not done, there was no authority on
which it was incumbent to introduce such measures, and nothing was done.
At Mytilene, on the other hand, although under the supremacy of Athens
democracy everywhere gained the upper hand, there seems to have been a
powerful aristocratic element, and the government must have been very
strong. Everything was carefully and cautiously prepared, and was kept
profoundly secret. The revolt was determined upon, and public opinion
was in favour of it. But as they wished to proceed safely, and provide
themselves sufficiently with arms and provisions, the undertaking was
delayed, and the Athenians, who at first had neglected everything, at
last fitted out an expedition which was to take Mytilene by surprise.

But on this occasion it became evident how injurious it was to Athens,
down to the end of the war, that at such times of urgent necessity the
government still continued to be as before, and that there had not been
instituted a separate magistrate for war to take such measures in time.
As all proceedings were public, and neither the preparations nor their
object could be kept secret, all the plans were known to everybody, as
they were discussed in the popular assembly. It was indeed resolved there
to surprise Mytilene; but this decree was ludicrous, and its consequences
might be foreseen.

A Mytilenean, who was staying at Athens, or some one else anxious to
do them a service, on hearing of it, went to Eubœa, took a boat, and
informed the Mytileneans of the danger that was threatening them. Had
this not been done, the revolt would have been prevented, and that for
the good of the Mytileneans themselves. The intention of the Athenians
was to surprise the city during the celebration of a festival, which the
Mytileneans solemnised at a considerable distance from their city, in
conjunction with the other Lesbians. Knowing the design of the Athenians,
they did not go out to the festival, and determined to raise the standard
of revolt at once. They quickly applied to the Peloponnesians, with whom
they had, no doubt, been already negotiating, and requested the Spartans
to send them succour of some kind or another. The Spartans sent them a
commander without a force, which was anything but what they would have
liked. He undertook the command in the city, and exhorted them to be
courageous and persevering. They were expected to undergo the hardships
of famine for the sake of the Spartans, but the general did not bring
them any additional strength to repel the Athenians. They had nothing but
their own forces.

[Sidenote: [427 B.C.]]

The Athenian fleet now arrived and blockaded the city; after several
little engagements the Mytileneans were reduced to extremities. Their
envoys had at length prevailed upon the Peloponnesians to send them a
motley fleet to relieve Mytilene. But it set sail with the usual slowness
of the Spartans, and did not arrive until Mytilene, compelled by famine,
had surrendered. Such was the care shown to save Mytilene! The long
endurance of famine, shows how strongly the Mytileneans were bent upon
escaping from the dominion of their enemies. How fearful it must have
been, may be inferred from the fact, that in the end they preferred
surrendering at discretion to an enraged enemy. The courage of the
Mytileneans was like that of the Campanians in the Hannibalic War: they
allowed themselves to be shut up like sheep in a fold, to be starved,
and thus there remained nothing for them in the end, but to surrender.
Many of those who had been most conspicuous, were taken prisoners by
Paches, the Athenian general. The capitulation contained nothing else but
a promise that the Athenian commander would not, on his own authority,
order any one to be put to death, and that he would leave the decision to
the people of Athens.

The war had already assumed the most fearful character: Alcidas, the
Spartan admiral of the Peloponnesian fleet, which went to the relief of
the Mytileneans, had, on his voyage, indulged in the most cruel piracy;
he had captured all the ships he met with, without any regard as to what
place they belonged to, and had thrown into the sea the crews of the
allies and subjects of the Athenians, for whose deliverance the Spartans
pretended to be anxious, as well as those of Athenian vessels. This
barbarous mode of warfare was practised by the Spartans from the very
beginning of the war. They not only captured the Athenian ships which
sailed round Peloponnesus, but mutilated the crews, chopping off the
hands of the sailors, and then drowned them.

This inhuman cruelty of the Spartans excited in the minds of the
Athenians a desire to make reprisals; and thus it unfortunately became
quite a natural feeling among the Athenians to devise inhuman vengeance
upon the Mytileneans. They felt that Athens had given the Mytileneans no
cause for revolt, that the alliance with them had been left unaltered
as it had been before, and that if the Mytileneans had succeeded in
joining the Spartans, they would have brought Athens into great danger,
partly by their power, and partly by their example. It was, moreover,
thought necessary to terrify Chios by a striking example, in order that
the oligarchical party there might not attempt a similar undertaking.
Those who did not see the necessity for such a measure, at least imagined
that they saw it, for reasons of this kind are never anything else than
an evil pretext. With all enticements of this description, the people
were induced to despatch orders to the general Paches to avenge on the
Mytileneans what the Spartans had done to the Athenians. He was to put to
death all the men capable of bearing arms, and to sell women and children
into slavery.

But the minds of the Athenians were too humane for such a design to be
entertained by them for any length of time; and although it had been
possible to carry out such a decree, through the existing confusion of
ideas about morality, yet the better voice had not yet died away in their
bosoms. The historian need not tell us that thousands could not close
their eyes during the night in consequence of the terrible decree; and
that through fear lest it should be carried into effect, they assembled
early in the morning, even before sunrise. The morning after the day on
which the decree had been passed, all the people met earlier than usual,
and demanded of the prytanes once more to put the question to the vote,
to see whether the decree should be carried into effect or not. This was
done, and although the ferocious Cleon struggled with all fury to obtain
the sanction of the first decree, yet humanity prevailed at this second
voting.[b]

It is in this debate that Cleon first appears in the pages of Thucydides;
he was opposed by Diodotus who, by calm logic rather than impassioned
appeal, won the Athenians over to mercy. It is thus that Thucydides
describes the escape of the Mytileneans:[a]

“And they immediately despatched another trireme with all speed, that
they might not find the city destroyed through the previous arrival of
the first; which had the start by a day and a night. The Mytilenean
ambassadors having provided for the vessel wine and barley-cakes, and
promising great rewards if they should arrive first, there was such haste
in their course, that at the same time as they rowed they ate cakes
kneaded with oil and wine; and some slept in turn while others rowed. And
as there happened to be no wind against them, and the former vessel did
not sail in any haste on so horrible a business, while this hurried on in
the manner described; though the other arrived so much first that Paches
had read the decree, and was on the point of executing the sentence,
the second came to land after it, and prevented the butchery. Into such
imminent peril did Mytilene come.

“The other party, whom Paches had sent off as the chief authors of the
revolt, the Athenians put to death, according to the advice of Cleon,
amounting to rather more than one thousand. They also dismantled the
walls of the Mytileneans, and seized their ships.”[c]

It was resolved that only the leaders of the rebellion should be taken to
account and conveyed to Athens, but that no harm should be done to the
other Mytileneans. The Mytileneans were, of course, obliged to deliver
up all their ships and arms; and their territory, with that of the other
towns, except Methymna, made a cleruchia: that is, it was divided into
equal lots, and given to Athenian citizens as fiefs. But this was, in
point of fact, nothing else than the imposition of a permanent land-tax
upon the former owners; for the Athenians let out their lots to the
ancient proprietors for a small rent. The number of rebels who were
carried to Athens and executed there, was, indeed, very great, sadly
great; but they were real rebels, and their blood did not come upon the
heads of the Athenians.

In the declamations of the sophists, we hear much of the evils of the
Athenian democracy, of the misfortunes of the most distinguished men:
and that of Paches is regarded as one of the most conspicuous cases. The
people, it is said, were ungrateful towards Paches, the conqueror of
Mytilene, who had, even before that conquest, distinguished himself as a
general; and they now took him to account for the manner in which he had
conducted the war; and he, in order to escape condemnation, made away
with himself. This story is believed to have been related by the father
of all sophists and declaimers, Isocrates, and is mentioned also by the
sophists of later times, and by a Roman writer on military affairs. But
the true account may be learnt from a poem of the _Greek Anthology_,
where Paches is said to have abused his power in subduing the island: he
dishonoured two noble ladies of Mytilene, who went to Athens to appeal to
the sense of justice of the Athenian people.

On that occasion the Athenians showed their true humanity, for they
forgot how dangerous enemies the Mytileneans had been to them, and
notwithstanding the victory of Paches, they were inexorable towards him,
and had he not put an end to his life, he would certainly have been
condemned and handed over to the Eleven. Of this deed the friends of
Athens need not be ashamed.

The conduct of the commander of the Spartan fleet, which appeared on
the coast of Ionia, shows the Spartans in the same light in which they
always appear, as immensely awkward and slow in all they undertook. It
was in vain that the Corinthians and other enterprising people advised
them to attack Mytilene, because the Athenians were in a newly-conquered
city, and the appearance of a superior force of Peloponnesians would
be sufficient to create a revolt in the city, and to crush the small
force of the Athenians. But Alcidas, in torpid Spartan laziness, was
immovable, and returned to Peloponnesus without undertaking or having
effected anything, except that he received on board the suppliants who
threw themselves into the sea, and carried on the most cruel piracy. The
Spartans followed the principle of not punishing their generals, which
was the very opposite to that of the Athenians, who often made their
commanders responsible when fortune had been against them; and when they
had neglected an opportunity, or been guilty of any crime, they never
escaped unpunished.[b]

It was shortly after the fate of Mytilene was sealed, that Platæa fell
into the power of ruthless Sparta, as described previously. The affair
of Mytilene was followed by an internal war in the island of Corcyra. In
describing this sedition Thucydides is unwontedly vivid and his final
moralising upon the bloody event, as Grote says, “will ever remain
memorable as the work of an analyst and a philosopher.”[a]


THUCYDIDES’ ACCOUNT OF THE REVOLT OF CORCYRA

Now the forty ships of the Peloponnesians which had gone to the relief of
the Lesbians, (and which were flying, at the time we referred to them,
across the open sea, and were pursued by the Athenians, and caught in a
storm off Crete, and from that point had been dispersed,) on reaching
the Peloponnese, found at Cyllene thirteen ships of the Leucadians
and Ambracians, with Brasidas, son of Tellis, who had lately arrived
as counsellor to Alcidas. For the Lacedæmonians wished, as they had
failed in saving Lesbos, to make their fleet more numerous, and to sail
to Corcyra, which was in a state of sedition; as the Athenians were
stationed at Naupactus with only twelve ships; and in order that they
might have the start of them, before any larger fleet reinforced them
from Athens. So Brasidas and Alcidas proceeded to make preparations for
these measures.

For the Corcyræans began their sedition on the return home of the
prisoners taken in the sea-fights off Epidamnus, who had been sent back
by the Corinthians, nominally on the security of eight hundred talents
given for them by their _proxeni_, but in reality, because they had
consented to bring over Corcyra to the Corinthians. These men then were
intriguing, by visits to each of the citizens, to cause the revolt of
the city from the Athenians. On the arrival of a ship from Athens and
another from Corinth, with envoys on board, and on their meeting for a
conference, the Corcyræans voted to continue allies of the Athenians
according to their agreement, but to be on friendly terms with the
Peloponnesians, as they had formerly been.

Now there was one Pithias, a volunteer _proxenus_ of the Athenians, and
the leader of the popular party; him these men brought to trial, on a
charge of enslaving Corcyra to the Athenians. Having been acquitted, he
brought to trial in return the five richest individuals of their party,
charging them with cutting stakes in the ground sacred to Jupiter, and to
the hero Alcinous; the penalty affixed being a stater for every stake.
When they had been convicted, and, owing to the amount of the penalty,
were sitting as suppliants in the temples, that they might be allowed to
pay it by instalments, Pithias, who was a member of the council also,
persuades that body to enforce the law. So when they were excluded from
all hope by the severity of the law, and at the same time heard that
Pithias was likely, while he was still in the council, to persuade the
populace to hold as friends and foes the same as the Athenians did, they
conspired together, and took daggers, and, having suddenly entered the
council, assassinated Pithias and others, both counsellors and private
persons, to the number of sixty. Some few, however, of the same party as
Pithias, took refuge on board the Athenian trireme, which was still there.

Having perpetrated this deed, and summoned the Corcyræans to an assembly,
they told them that this was the best thing for them, and that so they
would be least in danger of being enslaved by the Athenians; and they
moved, that in future they should receive neither party, except coming in
a quiet manner with a single ship, but should consider a larger force
as hostile. As they moved, so also they compelled them to adopt their
motion. They likewise sent immediately ambassadors to Athens, to show,
respecting what had been done, that it was for their best interests, and
to prevail on the refugees there to adopt no measure prejudicial to them,
that there might not be any reaction.

On their arrival, the Athenians arrested as revolutionists both the
ambassadors and all who were persuaded by them, and lodged them in
custody in Ægina. In the meantime, on the arrival of a Corinthian ship
and some Lacedæmonian envoys, the dominant party of the Corcyræans
attacked the commonalty, and defeated them in battle. When night came on,
the commons took refuge in the citadel, and on the eminences in the city,
and there established themselves in a body, having possession also of the
Hyllaic harbour; while the other party occupied the market-place, where
most of them dwelt, with the harbour adjoining it, looking towards the
mainland.

The next day they had a few skirmishes, and both parties sent about into
the country, inviting the slaves, and offering them freedom. The greater
part of them joined the commons as allies; while the other party was
reinforced by eight hundred auxiliaries from the continent.

After the interval of a day, a battle was again fought, and the commons
gained the victory, having the advantage both in strength of position and
in numbers: the women also boldly assisted them, throwing at the enemy
with the tiling from the houses, and standing the brunt of the mêlée
beyond what could have been expected from their nature. About twilight
the rout of the oligarchical party was effected; and fearing that the
commons might carry the arsenal at the first assault, and put them to
the sword, they fired the houses round about the market-place, and the
lodging-houses, to stop their advance, sparing neither their own nor
other people’s; so that much property belonging to the merchants was
consumed, and the whole city was in danger of being destroyed, if, in
addition to the fire, there had been a wind blowing on it. After ceasing
from the engagement, both sides remained quiet, and kept guard during
the night. On victory declaring for the commons, the Corinthian ship
stole out to sea; while the greater part of the auxiliaries passed over
unobserved to the continent.

The day following, Nicostratus son of Diïtrephes, a general of the
Athenians, came to their assistance from Naupactus with twelve ships
and five hundred heavy-armed, and wished to negotiate a settlement,
persuading them to agree with each other to bring to trial the ten chief
authors of the sedition (who immediately fled), and for the rest to
dwell in peace, having made an arrangement with each other, and with
the Athenians, to have the same foes and friends. After effecting this
he was going to sail away; but the leaders of the commons urged him to
leave them five of his ships, that their adversaries might be less on the
move; and they would themselves man and send with him an equal number
of theirs. He consented to do so, and they proceeded to enlist their
adversaries for the ships. They, fearing that they should be sent off to
Athens, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of the Dioscuri;
while Nicostratus was trying to persuade them to rise, and to encourage
them. When he did not prevail on them, the commons, having armed
themselves on this pretext, alleged that they had no good intentions, as
was evident from their mistrust in not sailing with them; and removed
their arms from their houses, and would have despatched some of them whom
they met with, if Nicostratus had not prevented it. The rest, seeing what
was going on, seated themselves as suppliants in the temple of Juno,
their number amounting to not less than four hundred. But the commons,
being afraid of their making some new attempt, persuaded them to rise,
and transferred them to the island in front of the temple, and provisions
were sent over there for them.

When the sedition was at this point, on the fourth or fifth day after
the transfer of the men to the island, the ships of the Peloponnesians,
three-and-fifty in number, came up from Cyllene, having been stationed
there since their return from Ionia. The commander of them, as before,
was Alcidas, Brasidas sailing with him as counsellor. After coming to
anchor at Sybota, a port on the mainland, as soon as it was morning they
sailed towards Corcyra.

The Corcyræans, being in great confusion, and alarmed both at the state
of things in the city and at the advance of the enemy, at once proceeded
to equip sixty vessels, and to send them out, as they were successively
manned, against the enemy; though the Athenians advised them to let them
sail out first, and afterwards to follow themselves with all their ships
together. On their vessels coming up to the enemy in this scattered
manner, two immediately went over to them, while in others the crews were
fighting amongst themselves, and there was no order in their measures.
The Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, drew up twenty of their ships
against the Corcyræans, and the remainder against the twelve of the
Athenians, amongst which were the two celebrated vessels, _Salaminia_ and
_Paralus_.

The Corcyræans, coming to the attack in bad order, and by few ships
at a time, were distressed through their own arrangements; while
the Athenians, fearing the enemy’s numbers and the chance of their
surrounding them, did not attack their whole fleet, or even the centre
of the division opposed to themselves, but took it in flank, and sank
one ship. After this, when the Peloponnesians had formed in a circle,
they began to sail round them, and endeavoured to throw them into
confusion. The division which was opposed to the Corcyræans perceiving
this, and fearing that the same thing might happen as had at Naupactus,
advanced to their support. Thus the whole united fleet simultaneously
attacked the Athenians, who now began to retire, rowing astern; at the
same time wishing the vessels of the Corcyræans to retreat first, while
they themselves drew off as leisurely as possible, and while the enemy
were still ranged against them. The sea-fight then, having been of this
character, ended at sunset.

The Corcyræans, fearing that the enemy, on the strength of his victory,
might sail against the city, and either rescue the men in the island, or
proceed to some other violent measures, carried the men over again to the
sanctuary of Juno, and kept the city under guard. The Peloponnesians,
however, though victorious in the engagement, did not dare to sail
against the city, but withdrew with thirteen of the Corcyræan vessels
to the continent, whence they had put out. The next day they advanced
none the more against the city, though the inhabitants were in great
confusion, and though Brasidas, it is said, advised Alcidas to do so, but
was not equal to him in authority; but they landed on the promontory of
Leucimne, and ravaged the country.

Meanwhile, the commons of the Corcyræans, being very much alarmed lest
the fleet should sail against them, entered into negotiation with the
suppliants and the rest for the preservation of the city. And some of
them they persuaded to go on board the ships; for, notwithstanding the
general dismay, they still manned thirty, in expectation of the enemy’s
advance against them. But the Peloponnesians, after ravaging the land
till mid-day, sailed away; and at nightfall the approach of sixty
Athenian ships from Leucas was signalled to them, which the Athenians
had sent with Eurymedon son of Thucles, as commander, on hearing of the
sedition, and of the fleet about to go to Corcyra with Alcidas.

The Peloponnesians then immediately proceeded homeward by night with
all haste, passing along shore; and having hauled their ships over the
isthmus of Leucas, that they might not be seen doubling it, they sailed
back. The Corcyræans, on learning the approach of the Athenian fleet and
the retreat of the enemy, took and brought into the city the Messenians,
who before had been without the walls: and having ordered the ships
they had manned to sail round into the Hyllaic harbour, while they were
going round, they put to death any of their opponents they might have
happened to seize; and afterwards despatched, as they landed them from
the ships, all that they had persuaded to go on board. They also went to
the sanctuary of Juno, and persuaded about fifty men to take their trial,
and condemned them all to death. The majority of the suppliants, who had
not been prevailed on by them, when they saw what was being done, slew
one another there on the sacred ground; while some hanged themselves
on the trees, and others destroyed themselves as they severally could.
During seven days that Eurymedon stayed after his arrival with his
sixty ships, the Corcyræans were butchering those of their countrymen
whom they thought hostile to them; bringing their accusations, indeed,
against those only who were for putting down the democracy; but some were
slain for private enmity also, and others for money owed them by those
who had borrowed it. Every mode of death was thus had recourse to; and
whatever ordinarily happens in such a state of things, happened then, and
still more. For father murdered son, and they were dragged out of the
sanctuaries, or slain in them; while in that of Bacchus some were walled
up and perished. So savagely did the sedition proceed; while it appeared
to do so all the more from its being amongst the earliest.[54]

For afterwards, even the whole of Greece, so to say, was convulsed;
struggles being everywhere made by the popular leaders to call in the
Athenians, by the oligarchical party, the Lacedæmonians. Now they would
have had no pretext for calling them in, nor have been prepared to do
so, in time of peace. But when pressed by war, and when an alliance also
was maintained by both parties for the injury of their opponents and for
their own gain therefrom, occasions of inviting them were easily supplied
to such as wished to effect any revolution. And many dreadful things
befell the cities through this sedition, which occur, and will always
do so, as long as human nature is the same, but in a more violent or
milder form, and varying in their phenomena, as the several variations of
circumstances may in each case present themselves.

For in peace and prosperity both communities and individuals had better
feelings, through not falling into urgent needs; whereas war, by taking
away the free supply of daily wants, is a violent master, and assimilates
most men’s tempers to their present condition. The states then were
thus torn by sedition, and the later instances of it in any part, from
having heard what had been done before, exhibited largely an excessive
refinement of ideas, both in the eminent cunning of their plans, and the
monstrous cruelty of their vengeance. The ordinary meaning of words was
changed by them as they thought proper. For reckless daring was regarded
as courage that was true to its friends; prudent delay, as specious
cowardice; moderation, as a cloak for unmanliness; being intelligent in
everything, as being useful for nothing. Frantic violence was assigned to
the manly character; cautious plotting was considered a specious excuse
for declining the contest.

The advocate for cruel measures was always trusted; while his opponent
was suspected. He that plotted against another, if successful, was
reckoned clever; he that suspected a plot, still cleverer; but he that
forecasted for escaping the necessity of all such things, was regarded
as one who broke up his party, and was afraid of his adversaries. In a
word, the man was commended who anticipated one going to do an evil deed,
or who persuaded to it one who had no thought of it. Moreover, kindred
became a tie less close than party, because the latter was more ready
for unscrupulous audacity. For such associations have nothing to do
with any benefit from established laws, but are formed in opposition to
those institutions by a spirit of rapacity. Again, their mutual grounds
of confidence they confirmed not so much by any reference to the divine
law as by fellowship in some act of lawlessness. The fair professions of
their adversaries they received with a cautious eye to their actions, if
they were stronger than themselves, and not with a spirit of generosity.

To be avenged on another was deemed of greater consequence than to escape
being first injured oneself. As for oaths, if in any case exchanged with
a view to a reconciliation, being taken by either party with regard
to their immediate necessity, they only held good so long as they had
no resources from any other quarter; but he that first, when occasion
offered, took courage to break them, if he saw his enemy off his guard,
wreaked his vengeance on him with greater pleasure for his confidence,
than he would have done in an open manner; taking into account both the
safety of the plan, and the fact that by taking a treacherous advantage
of him he also won a prize for cleverness. And the majority of men, when
dishonest, more easily get the name of talented, than, when simple,
that of good; and of the one they are ashamed, while of the other they
are proud. Now the cause of all these things was power pursued for the
gratification of covetousness and ambition, and the consequent violence
of parties when once engaged in contention.

For the leaders in the cities, having a specious profession on each side,
put forward, respectively, the political equality of the people, or a
moderate aristocracy, while in word they served the common interests,
in truth they made them their prizes. And while struggling by every
means to obtain an advantage over each other, they dared and carried out
the most dreadful deeds; heaping on still greater vengeance, not only
so far as was just and expedient for the state, but to the measure of
what was pleasing to either party in each successive case: and whether
by an unjust sentence of condemnation, or on gaining the ascendency by
the strong hand, they were ready to glut the animosity they felt at the
moment. Thus piety was in fashion with neither party; but those who had
the luck to effect some odious purpose under fair pretences were the more
highly spoken of. The neutrals amongst the citizens were destroyed by
both parties; either because they did not join them in their quarrel, or
for envy that they should so escape.

Thus every kind of villainy arose in Greece from these seditions.
Simplicity, which is a very large ingredient in a noble nature, was
laughed down and disappeared; and mutual opposition of feeling, with a
want of confidence, prevailed to a great extent. For there was neither
promise that could be depended on, nor oath that struck them with fear,
to put an end to their strife; but all being in their calculations more
strongly inclined to despair of anything proving trustworthy, they
looked forward to their own escape from suffering more easily than they
could place confidence in arrangements with others. And the men of more
homely wit, generally speaking, had the advantage; for through fearing
their own deficiency and the cleverness of their opponents, lest they
might be worsted in words, and be first plotted against by means of the
versatility of their enemy’s genius, they proceeded boldly to deeds.
Whereas their opponents, arrogantly thinking that they should be aware
beforehand, and that there was no need for their securing by action what
they could by stratagem, were unguarded and more often ruined.

It was in Corcyra then that most of these things were first ventured on;
both the deeds which men who were governed with a spirit of insolence,
rather than of moderation, by those who afterwards afforded them an
opportunity of vengeance, would do as the retaliating party; or which
those who wished to rid themselves of their accustomed poverty, and
passionately desired the possession of their neighbours’ goods, might
unjustly resolve on; or which those who had begun the struggle, not from
covetousness, but on a more equal footing, might savagely and ruthlessly
proceed to, chiefly through being carried away by the rudeness of their
anger. Thus the course of life being at that time thrown into confusion
in the city, human nature, which is wont to do wrong even in spite of the
laws, having then got the mastery of the law, gladly showed itself to be
unrestrained in passion, above regard for justice, and an enemy to all
superiority. They would not else have preferred vengeance to religion,
and gain to innocence; in which state envy would have had no power to
hurt them. And so men presume in their acts of vengeance to be the first
to violate those common laws on such questions, from which all have a
hope secured to them of being themselves rescued from misfortune; and
they will not allow them to remain, in case of any one’s ever being in
danger and in need of some of them.[c]


DEMOSTHENES AND SPHACTERIA

[Sidenote: [426-425 B.C.]]

These massacres at Corcyra, Mytilene, Platæa, and Melos were doubly
disastrous; iniquity always striking back at its perpetrators, thus
making two victims. Through such reversions to the barbarity of former
days the sense of right, of justice will everywhere become enfeebled
until it finally disappears.

As though nature herself had wished to take part in the general disorder,
earthquakes visited Attica, Eubœa, and all of Bœotia, particularly
Orchomenos. Pestilence had never made its appearance in the Peloponnesus:
now for a year it raged among the Athenians with terrible mortality.
Since its outbreak it had carried off forty-three hundred hoplites, three
hundred horsemen, and innumerable victims among the general population.
This was the last blow fate dealt the Athenians. To appease the god to
whom all pollution was an offence, they caused the island of Apollo to be
thoroughly purified as had already been done by the Pisistratidæ. Birth
and death being alike forbidden at Delos, the remains of the dead buried
there were exhumed and sent elsewhere, and the sick were transported to
Rhenea, a neighbouring island. Finally, there were instituted in honour
of Apollo games and horse-races which were to be celebrated every four
years, the Greeks as well as the Romans thinking to gain thus the
protection of a god, whom they caused to be represented by images at
these festivals.

The Ionians, excluded from the Peloponnesian solemnities, flocked to
those of Delos, where Nicias, at the first celebration, made himself
remarkable for the magnificence of his gifts. In one night he caused to
be constructed between Delos and Rhenea a bridge seven hundred metres
long, carpeted and decorated with wreaths, across which was to pass the
procession of the dead exiled in the name of religion from the holy
island (425 B.C.).

It is a proof of the part taken by the people of Athens in the great
things accomplished by Pericles, that in the four years passed without
his enlightened counsel, they had displayed under the double scourge
of plague and war that steadfastness he had particularly enjoined upon
them: no disturbances took place in the city and no pettiness of spirit
was shown in the choice of military chiefs. In vain Cleon thundered from
the tribune. Into the hands of none but tried generals, were they noble,
rich, or friends of peace, like Nicias and Demosthenes, was given the
command of their armies. At Mytilene and Corcyra those who had placed
their trust in Lacedæmon had perished; the destruction of Platæa was the
only check received by Athens. She began to turn her gaze toward Sicily;
soon she sent there twenty galleys to aid the Leontini against Syracuse.
Her pretext was community of origin with the Leontini, but in reality she
wished to prevent the exportation of Sicilian grain into the Peloponnesus.

Demosthenes was a true general, able and bold; to him war was a
science made up of difficult combinations as well as courage. Leaving
to his colleague, Nicias, the seas near Athens he set out for western
waters, to destroy the influence of Corinth even in the gulf that bears
his name. Aided by the Acarnanians he had the preceding year (426)
vanquished in the land-battle of Olpæ, by force of superior tactics, the
Peloponnesians, who lost so many men that the general had three hundred
panoplies, his share of the plunder, consecrated in the temple at Athens.
But this Acarnanian War, related at such length by Thucydides, could
not have very serious results. An audacious enterprise by Demosthenes
seemed, at one moment, to have brought it to a close. Struck, while
navigating around the Peloponnesus, by the advantageous position of Pylos
a promontory on the coast of Messene which commands the present harbour
of Navarino, the best sea-port of the peninsula, left deserted by the
Spartans since the Messenian War, the idea came to him that if he could
occupy it with Messenians he would be “attaching a burning torch to the
flank of the Peloponnesus.” He obtained from the people permission to act
on this idea; but when the fleet which had set out for Corcyra and Italy
arrived at Pylos, the generals commanding it shrank from the project
and refused to execute it. The winds interposed in Demosthenes’ behalf,
by driving the ships on to the coast and forcing the Athenians to land.
Once on shore the soldiers, with that industry that characterised the
Athenians, set to work to construct walls and fortifications, without
either tools for cutting stone or hods for carrying mortar. At the end
of six days the rampart was about finished and Demosthenes, with six
galleys, took up his position on the point (425).

[Sidenote: [425 B.C.]]

Sparta was with reason alarmed at this move, the place chosen by
Demosthenes at the west of the Peloponnesus, forming an excellent station
for hostile fleets, and from Pylos the Athenians would be able to spread
agitation through all Messene, perhaps even to incite the helots to fresh
revolt. The Peloponnesian army was at once recalled from Attica where it
had only arrived two weeks before, and also the fleet from Corcyra with
the end in view of blockading Pylos by land and by sea. At the entrance
to this harbour was an island fifteen stadia [not quite two miles] long
called Sphacteria. The Lacedæmonians landed on this island a force of
four hundred and twenty hoplites, and barred the channel on either side
with vessels having their prows turned outward. Pylos had no other
defence seaward than the difficulty of effecting a landing on her shores,
but it was on this side that the attack began. It lasted two days and
was unsuccessful. Brasidas, who had displayed great valour, was covered
with wounds and lost his shield, which the waters carried over to the
Athenians. There was still hope for the Lacedæmonians; but at this point
forty Athenian galleys arriving from Zacynthus, assailed their fleet and
after a furious combat drove their ships upon the land. Thus Sphacteria
was surrounded by an armed circle that kept close guard about her night
and day.

Sparta was thrown into consternation by the news of this defeat. Her
population that in Lycurgus’ time numbered nine thousand was reduced
in the year of the battle of Platæa to five thousand, which in another
quarter of a century had dwindled to seven hundred; hence she could
not support the loss of the men now held under siege by the Athenians.
The ephors went in person to Pylos to examine the condition of affairs
and saw no other way to preserve the lives of their fellow-citizens
than to conclude an armistice with the Athenian generals. It was agreed
that Laconia should send ambassadors to Athens, and that she should
immediately surrender all the vessels, sixty galleys, that she had in the
port of Pylos; Athens to continue the blockade of Sphacteria but allowing
to pass in daily, two Attic phœnices of flour, two cotyles of wine, and a
portion of meat per soldier, with half that allowance for the menials.

The Lacedæmonian deputies appeared in the assembly at Athens and,
contrary to their usual custom, delivered a long discourse offering peace
in exchange for the Spartan prisoners and adding that the treaty once
made, all other cities would follow their example and lay down arms.
Where now were all the causes of complaint held against Athens at the
commencement of the war? The Spartans deserted their allies and the cause
they had formerly held so just for the sake of some fellow-citizens in
danger. But had they not also the preceding year betrayed the Ambracians
after the defeat at Olpæ? Unfortunately Pericles was no longer there to
urge upon the people a prudent generosity. Cleon exhorted the assembly to
demand the restitution of the towns ceded when the Thirty Years’ Truce
was concluded, and the deputies, unable to accept such terms, retired
without having accomplished anything.

The armistice ceased with their return; but the Athenians, pretending the
violation of certain conditions, refused to give up the Spartan vessels,
which was an entirely gratuitous breach of faith since the ships were no
longer of any use to the Spartans. Famine was the greatest danger the
besieged had to fear; the island, thickly wooded as it was, offering
peril to the enemy that would attempt to take it by force. Freedom was
promised each helot who would carry provisions through the blockade, and
many attempting and succeeding, the four hundred and twenty were enabled
to hold out till the approach of winter.

The Athenians at Pylos had also to fear for themselves the difficulty
of obtaining provisions through the severe season. The army already
suffered, and this fact became known at Athens. Cleon, who had rejected
the overtures of the Lacedæmonians, laid the blame on the generals. It
was because of their lack of resolution, he said, that hostilities were
so prolonged. In this he was right, the Athenians at Pylos numbering ten
thousand men as against four hundred and twenty Spartans. Nicias, in a
constant state of alarm, believed success even with their superior force
impossible, and to silence the demagogue proposed to him to go himself to
Sphacteria.

Cleon hesitated, but the impatient people took the general at his word,
and Cleon was obliged to go; promising that in twenty days all trouble
would be at an end. In truth this was time enough to effect his purpose
when he once seriously set to work. He first prudently requested that
Demosthenes co-operate with him, and was wise enough to take counsel of
this able man at every step. Shortly after his arrival at Pylos a fire
lighted on Sphacteria to cook food and imperfectly extinguished, was
fanned by a violent wind into a blaze that destroyed the whole forest.
This accident removed the principal obstacle in the way of an attack.
Demosthenes made the preparations aided by Cleon, and one night they
fell upon the island with their entire force. Having among their troops
many that were lightly armed, they were able to reach the highest points
and from there sorely harass the Lacedæmonians who were unused to the
methods of attack of an enemy that uttered wild cries and fled as soon
as they had struck. The ashes of the recently consumed forest rose into
the air and blinded the besieged men, and unable longer to distinguish
objects they stood motionless in one place and received from every side
projectiles that their felt cuirasses were ill-fitted to turn aside. To
render the combat a little less unequal they retired in a body to an
elevated fort at the extremity of the island. This position gave them a
decided advantage, and they were beginning to repulse their assailants
when there appeared upon the rocks above them a corps of Messenians who
had outflanked them.

They saw the necessity of surrendering, but named a condition: that they
be allowed to consult with the Lacedæmonians who were stationed on the
neighbouring coast. Their compatriots replied: “You are free to act as
you think best provided you incur no dishonour.” At this they laid down
their arms and surrendered; the course wherein dishonour formerly lay for
Sparta apparently containing it no more. One hundred and twenty-eight
were killed in the engagement: of the two hundred and ninety-two
survivors one hundred and twenty belonged to the noblest families of
Sparta. Some one praised in the hearing of one of the prisoners the
courage of those of his companions who had been slain: “It would be
impossible,” he said, “to esteem the darts too highly if they are capable
of distinguishing a brave man from a coward.” This retort was, for a
Spartan, very Athenian in spirit. The blockade had lasted fifty-two days.

His victory at Sphacteria raised Cleon high in the estimation of the
people. A decree gave him the right to live in the Prytaneum at the cost
of the republic, and to perpetuate the memory of his success a statue of
Victory was erected on the Acropolis. Aristophanes in revenge presented
six months later his comedy of the _Knights_, in which Cleon as the
“Paphlagonian,” the slave who ingratiates himself with Demos for the
purpose of robbing him, causes blows to rain upon the faithful servants
Nicias and Demosthenes, and finally serves up to his master the cake of
Pylos that Demosthenes alone has prepared. We will only say in conclusion
that though all the honour of the affair may go to Demosthenes, Cleon
manifested in it an energy that was not without effect; that even in
the account of Thucydides he does not appear to have borne himself
discreditably as captain or soldier; and lastly, that all that he
promised he performed.

The balance of power was now disturbed, fortune leaned to the side
of the Athenians. Nevertheless, while the Lacedæmonians were taking
their land-forces economically over into Attica from Laconia, Athens
was ruining herself by maintaining fleets in all the seas of Greece,
recruiting at heavy cost the rowers to man them. Her annual expenses
amounted to twenty-five hundred talents. In 425 the reserved funds
amassed by Pericles being exhausted, it became necessary to increase both
the tribute paid her by her allies and the tax laid upon the revenues of
her citizens. One of these measures was to cause disaffection later, and
the other, that which weighed upon the rich, was to give rise to plots
against the popular government, germs of disaster that the future was to
bring to fruition.


FURTHER ATHENIAN SUCCESSES

[Sidenote: [425-424 B.C.]]

The Athenians had as yet no forebodings, but applied rare vigour to the
following up of their success. Nicias, at the head of a considerable
armament, landed on the isthmus and defeated the Corinthians, then he
proceeded to the capture of Methone between Trœzen and Epidaurus on the
peninsula, and extending towards Ægina. A garrison was left behind a wall
that closed the isthmus, and from this post which communicated by fire
signals with Piræus the Athenians made frequent raids into Argolis (425).
The following year Nicias took the island of Cythera which, situated
near the southern coast of the Peloponnesus, offered great facility for
making raids into that district and for waylaying ships bound there. It
commanded, moreover, the seas of Crete and Sicily in both of which Athens
had stationed fleets for the support of the cities at war with Syracuse.

After having ravaged Laconia for seven days with impunity, Nicias
returned to Thyrea in Cynuria, where the Spartans had established the
Æginetans. He took the city despite the proximity of a Lacedæmonian army
which did not venture to aid it, and his prisoners were sent to Athens
and there put to death. This new-born national greatness, if such a
return to savagery can merit the name, increased constantly in power:
the foe was a criminal meriting punishment and his defeat equivalent to
a sentence of death. In just this period occurred a tragedy, the story
of which we would refuse to receive were it not for Thucydides’ direct
affirmation; the massacre of two thousand of the bravest helots for the
sole purpose of weakening the corps and of frightening those of their
companions to whom the success of Athens might have given the idea
of revolt. Overwhelmed by so many reverses and fearful of seeing war
established permanently around Laconia, at Pylos, Cythera, and Cynuria,
the Spartans shrank from further action. Whatever step they took might
lead them into error and having never learned the lessons of misfortune,
they remained irresolute and timid. The Athenians, on the contrary, were
full of confidence in their good fortune. The Greeks in Sicily having
brought their wars to a close by a general reconciliation, the generals
sent to that country by the Athenians allowed themselves to be included
in the treaty. On their return the people condemned two of them to exile
and one to a heavy fine, on the pretext that they had it in their power
to subjugate Sicily but had been bought off by presents. The Athenian
people believed themselves to be irresistible, and in the loftiness of
their aspirations denied to any enterprise, whether practicable or not,
the possibility of defeat. This was the forerunner of the fatal madness
that seized them when Alcibiades planned the unfortunate expedition into
Sicily.

Athens was thus taking everywhere the offensive, and Sparta, paralysed,
had entirely ceased to act; she had recourse again to Darius, begging
aid more insistently than ever, thus betraying the cause of all Greece
and dimming the glory of their deeds at Thermopylæ. The Athenians
intercepted the Persian Artaphernes in Thrace. In the letter this envoy
bore, the king set forth that not being able to grasp the meaning of the
Spartans--no two of their envoys delivering to him the same message--he
had thought best in order to come to a clear understanding, to send them
a deputy. Athens at once took steps to neutralise Sparta’s measures;
perhaps even to supplant her in the favour of the Great King, and sent
Artaphernes back honourably accompanied by ambassadors. From now on
Greece was to witness the shameful spectacle offered by the descendants
of the victors of Salamis and Platæa bowing down to the successors of
Xerxes. At Ephesus the embassy learnt of the death of the Great King and
went no further; but Athens had none the less been false, in intent if
not in deed, to all the traditions of her past, and was to expiate her
sin without delay.


A CHECK TO ATHENS; BRASIDAS BECOMES AGGRESSIVE

[Sidenote: [424 B.C.]]

Demosthenes’ able plan had succeeded; the Peloponnesus was encircled
by hostile posts; there now remained but to shut off the isthmus and
imprison the Spartans in their retreat. One way of doing this was to
occupy Megara, but a still better method would be to obtain an alliance
with Bœotia. The attempt on Megara having failed, Demosthenes turned his
attention to Bœotia. He held secret communication with the inhabitants of
Chæronea, who promised to deliver over the city to a body of Athenians
who were to leave Naupactus unseen, aided by the Phocians, while he
himself was to storm Siphæ on the Gulf of Crissa, the Athenian general
Hippocrates being charged with the capture of Delium, on the Eubœan side.
These three enterprises were to be executed the same day, and if they
succeeded, Bœotia, like the Peloponnesus, would be encircled by a hostile
ring, and Thebes would be separated from Lacedæmon. But too many were in
the secret to allow of its being kept, the enemy was warned and the three
Athenian forces, failing to act in concert, lost the advantage that would
have lain in a simultaneous attack.

The enterprise against Siphæ and Chæronea failed also and Hippocrates,
delayed a few days in his advance, found arrayed against him in one
body all the Bœotian forces that he and his colleagues had plotted to
divide. He succeeded in occupying Delium and fortified the temple of
Apollo found there. To the Bœotians it was profanation to turn a temple
into a fortress, and this scruple was shared by many of the Athenians
who entered but half-heartedly into the combat. A thousand hoplites with
their chief perished in the action; contrary to sacred usage Thebes
let the bodies of the dead lie without sepulture seventeen days, until
the taking of Delium; holding them to be sacrilegious evil-doers whose
wandering souls were to receive punishment in the infernal world.

Socrates had taken part in this battle. In company with his friend Laches
and some others equally brave, he had held his ground to the last,
retreating step by step before the Theban cavalry. Simultaneously with
this display of heroism Aristophanes was writing his comedy, the _Clouds_.

Sparta possessed but one man of ability, Brasidas, who had saved Megara,
menaced Piræus, and almost defeated Demosthenes at Pylos. Clear-sighted
and brave to the point of audacity, he possessed an additional weapon,
one that was capable of inflicting cruel wounds, and that the Spartans
had hitherto known little how to use, eloquence. The sea being closed to
him, he decided that it would be possible to injure Athens seriously both
in fortune and renown without leaving the land. The very policy she had
used against Sparta, Pylos, Cythera, and Methone, could now be turned
against her in Chalcidice and Thrace. At the commencement of the war she
had forced Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, to enter her alliance and had
gained the friendship of Sitalces the powerful king of the Odrysians,
whose territory extended from the Ægean Sea to the Danube, and from
Byzantium to the source of the Strymon, a distance not to be covered
under thirty days’ travel.

At Athens’ instigation Sitalces had in 429 invaded Macedonia, but since
then his zeal had cooled. Perdiccas, on his side, had never lost an
opportunity of secretly injuring the Athenians. Even at this moment he
was urging Sparta to send an expedition to Chalcidice and the coast
of Thrace. To deprive Athens of these regions whence she obtained her
timber was to attack her in her navy, and to carry at the same time the
centre of hostilities towards the north, was to draw her away from the
Peloponnesus which had lately suffered so many ills. Brasidas was charged
with the enterprise, but Sparta refused to engage in it deeply. He raised
a force of seven hundred helots who were armed as hoplites, to which were
added a thousand Peloponnesians attracted by Perdiccas’ promises. This
was little; but Brasidas held in reserve the treacherous but magical
word, Liberty, that was to open for him many gates.

He took possession in this way of Acanthus, Stagira, and Amphipolis
itself fell into his power, he having entered one of its suburbs by
stealth, and won over all the inhabitants by the generosity of his
conditions. Amphipolitans and Athenians alike he permitted to remain with
retention of all their rights and property; he also accorded to those who
wished to leave, five days in which to carry away all their belongings.
Not for an age had war been carried on with such humanity, and it was
a Spartan who was setting the example! We must also note the lack of
eagerness shown by Athens’ allies to cast off her yoke which, viewed in
the light of facts, takes on an aspect much less odious than that in
which it is represented by rhetoricians.


THE BANISHMENT OF THUCYDIDES

The approach of so active an enemy as Brasidas, and the blows he
had dealt, should have led the Athenian generals in that region to
concentrate their forces on the continent not far from Amphipolis, which
was Athens’ principal stronghold on that side. One of these commanders
had gone with seven galleys to Thasos, where there was no need of his
presence, the island being secure from menace. Though too late to save
Amphipolis he arrived in time to save the port, Eion. At the suggestion
of Cleon the people punished this act of negligence by a twenty years’
sentence of exile. It is to this sentence that posterity owes a
masterwork in which vigorous thoughts are expressed in a style of great
conciseness, the exiled one being Thucydides, who employed his leisure
in writing the history of the Peloponnesian War. The real culprit was
Eucles, the commander of Amphipolis, who had allowed himself to be taken
by surprise.

In according liberty to the towns he took, Brasidas deprived Athens of
many subjects without bestowing any on Lacedæmonia who had no desire for
conquest in such distant regions; hence the success of the adventurous
general astonished Greece without arousing great enthusiasm in Sparta;
neither did it cause much vexation at Athens after the first outburst
of anger to which Thucydides fell a victim. Deprived of a few cities of
importance, Athens retained her island empire; the loss of Amphipolis
being her most serious reverse.

King Plistoanax, exiled in 445 from Sparta for having lent ear to the
propositions of Pericles, had taken refuge on Mount Lycæus in Arcadia
near the temple of Zeus, and had dwelt there nineteen years. The
partisans of peace recalled the exile, who returned to his native land
filled with the determination to end the war. Neither was Athens, for the
moment, in a bellicose mood.


A TRUCE DECLARED; TWO TREATIES OF PEACE

[Sidenote: [423-421 B.C.]]

Her desire to reduce expenses and Sparta’s to recover captives that
belonged to her most influential families brought about, in fact, a sort
of union between the two nations. In March, 423, a truce of one year
was declared, the conditions being that each side should retain all
its possessions. The population forming the Peloponnesian league were
authorised to navigate the waters surrounding their own coasts and those
of their allies, but they were forbidden the use of war-galleys. The
signers of the treaty must guarantee to all free access to the temple and
oracle of Pythian Apollo, must harbour no refugees, free or slave, must
protect all heralds and deputies journeying by land or sea, must, in a
word, aid by every means in their power the conclusion of permanent peace.

While the treaty was being concluded at Athens, Brasidas entered Scione,
on the peninsula of Pallene where he was received with open arms, the
inhabitants decreeing him a golden crown, and binding his head with
fillets as though he had been a victorious athlete. This victory being
achieved two days after the conclusion of peace, the conquered territory
ought to have been given back; this Sparta refused to do and hostilities
broke out again. Nicias, arriving with a considerable force, took
Scione, then Mende, which was delivered over to him by the people, and
persuaded Perdiccas to ally himself again with Athens. Brasidas failed
in an enterprise against Potidæa. The following year Cleon was named
general. He urged Athens and with reason to repeat against Potidæa the
vigour of her action at Pylos, it being necessary to check the advance
of Brasidas. He first seized Torone and Galepsus, then established
himself at Eion to await the auxiliaries that were on their way to him
from Thrace and Macedonia. But his soldiers carried him along with them
in a rush to Amphipolis, where Brasidas was stationed. This latter took
advantage of a false move on the part of the Athenians to attack them by
surprise, and won a victory that cost him his life. Cleon also fell in
this action. In the account of Thucydides Cleon was one of the first to
seek flight, but according to Diodorus he died bravely. Brasidas, mourned
by all his allies who took part, fully armed, in his funeral procession,
was interred with the ceremonies accorded to one of the ancient heroes.
His tomb was enclosed within a consecrated circle and in his honour were
instituted annual games and sacrifices (422).

The death of these two men facilitated the conclusion of peace; Brasidas
by his activity and success, Cleon by his discourses having been for
long the chief sustainers of war. Athens, which had experienced a
serious check, lost confidence, as did also Sparta, the victory of
Amphipolis having been gained not by her native troops but by a body
of mercenaries upon whom no reliance could be placed; the war she had
lightly undertaken against Athens had lasted ten years, with the menace
of another contest in the near future; the Thirty Years’ Truce concluded
with the Argives was on the point of expiring, and lastly her naval ports
were still in the hands of the enemy and her citizens were still held
captive. In both cities the balance of influence was on the side of the
peace partisans, prudent Nicias in Athens, and the easy-going Plistoanax
in Lacedæmon. There were two treaties of peace which were finally
concluded in 421.

[Sidenote: [421 B.C.]]

The first treaty guaranteed to the Greeks, according to usage, the right
to offer sacrifices at Delphi, to consult its oracle and to attend its
festivals. It was agreed that each side should restore the cities taken
in war; Thebes alone was to be allowed to retain Platæa, in exchange for
which the Athenians would keep Nisæa in the Megarid, and Anactorium and
Sollium in Acarnania. It was stipulated that “what was decreed for the
majority of the allies should bind them all, unless hindrances should
occur on the part of the gods and heroes.” All the allies save Corinth,
Megara, and the Eleans, accepted these conditions. It was finally decided
that peace should be ratified by an oath renewed each year and inscribed
upon the columns of Olympia and Delphi, of the temple of Poseidon on the
isthmus, in the citadel at Athens, and the Amyclæum at Sparta.

One of the articles of the treaty read that prisoners should be restored
on both sides. When those of Sphacteria arrived, they were degraded from
their rights as citizens, that the stain on Spartan courage might be
removed by showing that Lacedæmon recognised no compromise with duty,
even in the face of death. It is true that shortly after, these same
citizens were reinstated in their former position.

The first of these treaties which brought temporary cessation to the ills
the people had suffered for the last ten years, bore the name of the
honourable man who had been instrumental in having it drawn, Nicias. Who
had profited by all the blood that had been shed? Sparta had increased
neither in strength nor in glory, while Greece simply retained her
original empire, her people not for a moment renouncing the hatred that
had armed them against each other. No side had gained, and civilisation
had lost what ten years of peace would have added to the brilliancy of
the Age of Pericles.[e]


FOOTNOTES

[54] [Over five hundred of the oligarchical party escaped to Mount
Istone, and when the Athenian fleet sailed away proceeded to make
frequent raids upon the democratic strongholds, till in 425 the Athenian
fleet on the way to Sicily paused in Corcyra and aided the people to
storm Istone. The prisoners left to the mob were foully butchered and the
oligarchical party annihilated.]

[Illustration]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXXIV. THE RISE OF ALCIBIADES


Thucydides remarks that after the Peace of Nicias, there was but one of
the predictions current at the commencement of the Peloponnesian War
that was reputed to have received its fulfilment: it was the one which
declared that the war would last three times nine years. There were
indeed three acts in this war; we have seen the first: the second was
the uneasy truce which extends from 421 to 413 when, though there was no
general war, war was everywhere. The last, from 413 to 404, includes the
catastrophe and the train of circumstances which brought it about.

The first period is filled with Pericles; his policy survives him, and
in spite of Cleon his spirit governs Athens; the second and third are
entirely taken up by Alcibiades, his passions, his services, and his
crimes.

[Sidenote: [450-421 B.C.]]

Alcibiades whose descent was derived from Ajax, was connected on his
mother’s side with the Alemæonids. The death of his father Clinias,
killed at Coronea, left him to the guardianship of his relatives,
Pericles and Ariphron, who, on his attaining his majority, handed him
over one of the great fortunes in Athens. With wealth and noble blood, he
joined that beauty which in the estimation of this artist-people added
to the brilliance of talents and virtue on the brows of Sophocles and
Pericles, and always seemed a gift of the gods, even on the features of
an athlete. Parasites, flatterers, all who are attracted by fortune,
grace, and boldness, thronged round the footsteps of this rich and
witty young man, who had become what in Athens was a power, namely the
ruler of fashion. Accustomed in the midst of this train to find himself
applauded for his wild actions, Alcibiades dared everything, and all
with impunity. The force and flexibility of his temperament rendered
him capable of vice and virtue, abstinence and debauchery, according
to the hour, the day, or the place. In the city of Lycurgus there was
no Spartan more harsh towards his body; in Asia he outdid the satraps
in luxury and self-indulgence. But his audacity and his indomitable
petulance compromised the long meditated plans of his ambition for the
sake of a jest or an orgy. Lively and diverse passions carried him now in
one direction, now in another, and always to excess, while in the stormy
versatility of his character he did not find the curb which might have
restrained him, namely, the sense of right and duty.

One day he was to be seen with Socrates, welcoming with avidity the noble
lessons of the philosopher, and weeping with admiration and enthusiasm;
but on the morrow he would be crossing the agora with a trailing robe
and indolent, dissolute mien, and would go with his too complacent
friends to plunge into shameful pleasures. Yet the sage contended for
him, and sometimes with success, against the crowd of his corruptors. In
the early wars they shared the same tent. Socrates saved Alcibiades at
Potidæa, and at Delium Alcibiades protected the retreat of Socrates.

From his childhood he exhibited the half heroic, half savage nature
of his mind. He was playing at dice on the public way when a chariot
approached; he told the charioteer to wait; the latter paid no heed and
continued to advance; Alcibiades flung himself across the road and called
out, “Now pass if you dare.” He was wrestling with one of his comrades
and not being the strongest, he bit the arm of his adversary. “You bite
like a woman.” “No, but like a lion,” he answered. He had caused a Cupid
throwing a thunderbolt to be engraved on his shield.

He had a superb dog which had cost him more than seven thousand drachmæ.
When all the town had admired it he cut off its tail, its finest
ornament, that it might be talked of still more. “Whilst the Athenians
are interested in my dog,” he said, “they will say nothing worse
concerning me.” One day he was passing in the public square; the assembly
was tumultuous and he inquired the cause; he was told that a distribution
of money was on hand; he advanced and threw some himself amid the
applause of the crowd: but according to the fashion among the exquisites
of the day he was carrying a pet quail under his mantle: the terrified
bird escaped and all the people ran, shouting, after it, that they might
bring it back to its master. Alcibiades and the people of Athens were
made to understand one another. “They detest him,” said Aristophanes,
“need him and cannot do without him.”

One day he laid a wager to give a blow in the open street to Hipponicus,
one of the most eminent men in the town; he won his bet, but the next day
he presented himself at the house of the man he had so grossly insulted,
removed his garments and offered himself to receive the chastisement
he had deserved. He had married Hipparete, a woman of much virtue, and
responded to her eager affection only by outrageous conduct. After long
endurance she determined to lay a petition for divorce before the archon.
Alcibiades, hearing this, hurried to the magistrate’s house and under
the eyes of a cheering crowd carried off his wife in his arms across the
public square, she not daring to resist; and brought her back to his
house where she remained, well-pleased with this tender violence.

Alcibiades treated Athens as he did Hipponicus and Hipparete, and Athens,
like Hipparete and Hipponicus, often forgave this medley of faults and
amiable qualities in which there was always something of that wit and
audacity which the Athenians prized above everything. His audacity indeed
made sport alike of justice and religion. He may be excused for beating
a teacher in whose school he had not found the _Iliad_: but at the
_Dionysia_ he struck one of his adversaries, in the very middle of the
spectacle, regardless of the solemnity; and at another time, in order the
better to celebrate a festival, he carried off the sacred vessel which
was required at that very moment for a public and religious service. A
painter having refused to work for him he kept him prisoner until he had
finished decorating his house, but dismissed him loaded with presents.
On one occasion when a poet was pursued by justice, he tore the act of
indictment from the public archives. In a republic these actions were
not very republican. But all Greece had such a weakness for Alcibiades!
At Olympia he had seven chariots competing at once, thus eclipsing the
magnificence of the kings of Syracuse and Cyrene; and he carried off two
prizes in the same race, while another of his chariots came in fourth.
Euripides sang of his victory and cities joined together to celebrate
it. The Ephesians erected him a magnificent pavilion; the men of Chios
fed his horses and provided him with a great number of victims; the
Lesbians gave him wine and the whole assembly of Olympia took their
seats at festive tables to which a private individual had invited them.
Posterity, less indulgent than contemporaries, whilst recognising the
eminent qualities of the man, will condemn the bad policy which made the
expedition to Sicily, and the bad citizen who so many times gave the
scandalous example of violating the laws and who dared to arm against his
own country, to raise his hand against his mother. Alcibiades will remain
the type of the most brilliant, but the most immoral and consequently the
most dangerous citizen of a republic.

[Sidenote: [421-420 B.C.]]

In spite of his birth which classed him among the Eupatrids, Alcibiades,
like Pericles, went over to the side of the people, and made himself the
adversary of a man very different from himself, the superstitious Nicias,
who was also a noble, rich and tried by long services. But Alcibiades had
the advantage of him in audacity, fascination, and eloquence. Demosthenes
regards him as the first orator of his time; not that he had a great
flow of language; on the contrary, as his phrases did not come quickly
enough, he frequently repeated the last words of his sentences; but
the force and elegance of his speech and a certain lisp which was not
displeasing, rendered him irresistible. His first political act was an
unwelcome measure. He suggested an increase of the tribute of the allies,
an imprudence which Pericles would not have committed. But Alcibiades had
different schemes and different doctrines. He believed in the right of
might and he made use of it; he looked forward to gigantic enterprises
and he prepared the necessary means in advance. His inaction began to
weigh on him. He was thirty-one years old and had as yet done nothing; so
he bestirred himself considerably on the occasion of the treaty of 421.
He would have liked to supplant Nicias and win the honour of the peace
for himself. His flatteries to the prisoners of Sphacteria met with no
success; the Spartans relied more on the old general, and Alcibiades bore
them a grudge in consequence.

[Illustration: ALCIBIADES]

There was no lack of men opposed to this treaty. It was signed amidst the
applause of the old, the rich, and the cultivators, but in it Athens,
through Nicias’ fault, had allowed herself to be ignominiously tricked.
The merchants who during the war had seen the sea closed to their rivals
and open to their own vessels, the sailors, the soldiers, and all the
people of the Piræus who lived on their pay or their booty, formed a
numerous party. Alcibiades constituted himself its chief. The warlike
spirit which was to disappear only with Greece itself soon gave him
allies from outside.

What Sparta and Athens were doing on a large scale was being done by
other towns on a small one. Strong or weak, obscure or illustrious, all
had the same ambition: all desired subjects. The Eleans had subdued the
Lepreatæ, Mantinea and the towns in her neighbourhood; Thebes had knocked
down the walls of Thespiæ in order to keep that town at her mercy; and
Argos had transferred within her own walls the inhabitants of several
townships of Argos, though in doing so she granted them civil rights.
Sparta watched with annoyance this movement for the concentration of
lesser cities round more powerful ones. She proclaimed the independence
of the Lepreatæ, and secretly encouraged the defection of the subjects
of Mantinea and the hatred of Epidaurus against Argos. But since
Sphacteria she had lost her prestige. At Corinth, at Megara, in Bœotia,
it was openly said that she had basely sacrificed the interests of her
allies; indignation was especially felt at her alliance with Athens.
The Peloponnesian league was in fact dissolved; one people dreamed of
reconstituting it for their own advantage.

The repose and prosperity of Argos in the midst of the general conflict
had increased her resources and her liberal policy towards the towns
of the district had augmented her strength. But the new-comers were a
powerful reinforcement to the democratic party whose influence impelled
Argos on a line of policy opposed to that of the Spartans. This town
therefore might and wished to become the centre of an anti-Lacedæmonian
league. Mantinea, where the democracy predominated; the Eleans, who had
been offended by Lacedæmon; Corinth, which, by the treaty of Nicias,
lost two important towns in Acarnania, were ready to join their grudges
and their forces. The Argives skilfully seized the opportunity; twelve
deputies were sent to all the Greek cities which desired to form a
confederation from which the two cities which were equally menacing to
the common liberty, namely Sparta and Athens, should be excluded. But
an agreement could not be arrived at. A league of the northern states
was thus rendered abortive; nothing could yet be done without Sparta or
Athens.

Between these two towns there were many grounds for discontent. The lot
had decided that Sparta should be the first to make the restitutions
agreed on at the treaty of 421. For Athens the most valuable of these
restitutions was that of Amphipolis and the towns of Chalcidice. Sparta
withdrew her garrisons but did not restore the towns; and yet Nicias,
deceived by the ephors, led the people to commit the mistake of not
keeping the pledges which they had in their possession until Lacedæmon
should have put an end to her bad faith. Sparta had negotiated for
all her allies; and the most powerful were refusing to observe her
engagements. The Bœotians restored Panactum, but kept the Athenian
prisoners and only agreed to a truce of ten days. Athens, which had
thought to win peace, was, ten days later, again at war with the Bœotians
and uninterruptedly with Chalcidice. As regards the latter she had just
given a terrible example of her anger. The whole male population of
Scione had been put to death as a punishment for its recent revolt, in
virtue of a decree of the people which the generals had carried with them.

All this furnished material which Alcibiades might work up into a war.
First, he prevented the Athenians from evacuating Pylos. The helots and
Messenians were simply withdrawn thence at the instance of Lacedæmon and
were transported to Cephallenia. Then, warned by his friends at Argos
that Sparta was seeking to draw that city into her alliance, he answered
that Athens herself was quite ready to join the Argives. Athens at once
concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with the Argives, the
Mantineans and the Eleans. In the ardour of hatred against Sparta it was
agreed that the alliance should last a hundred years; a long period for
such spirits (420). We here remark a new and important point; it is that
the alliance was concluded on a perfect footing of equality. The command
of the allied troops was to belong to the people which should demand aid
and on whose territory war should be made.

[Sidenote: [420-418 B.C.]]

The neutrality of the Argolid and of the centre of the Peloponnesus had
hitherto preserved Lacedæmon from a continental invasion. War, after
having long hovered on the outskirts of the peninsula, had not ventured,
within the last few years, to do more than lay hold of certain points
on the coasts to the west, south, and east, which were quite remote
from Sparta, at Pylos, Cythera, and Methone. But now the Argives, the
Mantineans and the Eleans were about to introduce it into the heart of
the Peloponnesus, to bring it in the very face of the helots. Sparta
became once more the patient, deliberate city of former days, even to the
point of submitting to outrageous insults. On account of the despatch of
the helots to Lepreum during the sacred truce, the Eleans had condemned
the Lacedæmonians to a fine of two thousand minæ, and on their refusal
to pay had excluded them by decree from the Olympic games. A Spartan of
distinction, named Lichas, had however a chariot competing in the same
race in which Alcibiades had displayed so much magnificence and obtained
wreaths. When the judges learnt his name they had him ignominiously
driven away with blows. Sparta did not avenge this outrage; she had
ceased to believe in herself. At last Alcibiades passed over into the
Peloponnesus with a few troops.

At Argos he persuaded the people to seize a port on the Saronic Gulf from
the Epidaurians; from thence the Argives might the more easily receive
succours from Athens which was in possession of Ægina opposite Epidaurus.
But the Lacedæmonians sent this town three hundred hoplites who arrived
by sea and repelled all attacks. At this news the Athenians wrote at the
base of the column on which the treaty had been engraved, that Sparta had
violated the peace, and the war began (419).

It was in vain that Aristophanes produced about this time his comedy
entitled the _Peace_, resuming the theme he had taken up seven years
before in the _Acharnians_. It was to no purpose that he personified War
as a giant who crushes the towns in a mortar, using the generals for his
pestles, and showed that with the return of Peace, drawn at last from
the cavern in which she has been captive for thirteen years, banquets
and feasts will recommence, the whole town will be given up to joy, and
the armourers only will be in despair; he persuaded no one, not even the
judges of the competition, who refused him the first prize.

The Lacedæmonians, under the command of Agis, entered the Argolid
with the contingents of Bœotia, Megara, Corinth, Phlius, Pellene, and
Tegea. The Argive general, cut off from the town by a clever manœuvre,
proposed a truce which Agis accepted. This was not what was desired by
the Athenians, who arrived shortly after, to the number of a thousand
hoplites and three hundred horsemen; Alcibiades spoke in presence of the
people of Argos and prevailed with them: the truce was broken, a march
was made on Orchomenos and it was taken. The blame of the rupture fell on
Agis. The Spartans, angry at his having given their enemies time to make
this conquest, wished first to demolish his house and condemn him to a
fine of a hundred thousand drachmæ; his prayers won his pardon; but it
was determined that in future the kings of Sparta should be assisted in
the war by a council of ten Spartans.

To repair his mistake, Agis went in search of the allies; he encountered
them near Mantinea. “The two armies,” says Thucydides, “advanced against
each other; the Argives with impetuosity, the Lacedæmonians slowly and,
according to their custom, to the sound of a great number of pipes which
beat time and kept them in line.” The Lacedæmonian left was driven in,
but the right, commanded by the king, retrieved the fight and carried
the day (418). This battle, which cost the allies eleven hundred men and
the Spartans about three hundred, is regarded by Thucydides as the most
important which the Greeks had fought for a long time. It restored the
reputation of Sparta in the Peloponnesus, and in Argos the preponderance
of the wealthy who suppressed the popular commune, put its leaders to
death and made an alliance with Lacedæmon.

[Sidenote: [418-416 B.C.]]

This treaty broke up the confederation recently agreed on with Athens,
Elis, and Mantinea. The last-named town even thought itself sufficiently
endangered by the defection of Argos to consent to descend once more to
the rank of an ally of the Spartans. A treaty, dictated by the latter,
decreed that all the states, great and small, should be free and should
keep their national laws with their independence. Sparta desired nothing
but divisions and weakness round her. To the policy of concentration
advocated by Athens, she opposed the policy of isolation which was to put
all Greece at her feet, but would also afterwards place her, with Sparta
herself, at the feet of Macedonia and of the Romans (417).

The victory of Agis was that of the oligarchy. At Sicyon, in Achaia,
it again raised its head or established itself more firmly. We have
just seen how it resumed power in Argos. But in that town, if we are to
believe Pausanias, a crime analogous to those which founded the liberties
of the people in Rome brought about the fall of the tyrants three months
later. Expelled by an insurrection, the chief citizens retired to Sparta,
whilst the people appealed to the Athenians, and men, women, and children
laboured to join Argos with the sea by means of long walls. Alcibiades
hurried thither with masons and carpenters to aid in the work; but the
Lacedæmonians, under the guidance of the exiles, dispersed the workers.
Argos, exhausted by these cruel discords, did not recover herself; and
with her fell that idea of a league of secondary states which might
perhaps have spared Greece many misfortunes by imposing peace and a
certain caution on the two great states (417).

[Sidenote: [416 B.C.]]

The Athenians, who were acting weakly in Chalcidice, had recently lost
two towns there and had seen the king of Macedon withdraw from their
alliance; they resolved to avenge themselves for all their embarrassments
on the Dorian island of Melos, which was insulting their maritime empire
by its independence. At Naxos and Samos they had shown themselves
merciful, because they were amongst the Ionians where they could reckon
on a democratic party; at Melos, an outpost of the Dorians in the Cretan
Sea, they were implacable because the blow struck at these islanders,
faithful to their metropolis, was to find a mournful echo in Lacedæmon. A
squadron of thirty-eight galleys summoned the town to submit, and on its
refusal an army besieged it, took it, and exterminated all the adult male
population. The women and children were sold (416). Before the attack a
conference had taken place with the Melians.

“In order to obtain the best possible result for our negotiations,” said
the Athenians, “let us start from a principle with which both sides shall
be really satisfied, a principle which we know well and would employ with
people who are as well acquainted with it as we are: it is that business
between men is regulated by the laws of justice when an equal necessity
obliges them to submit to it; but that those who have the advantage in
strength do all that is in their power and that it is the part of the
weak to yield,” and further: “nor do we fear that the divine protection
will forsake us. In our principles and in our actions we neither depart
from the idea which men have conceived of the Divinity nor from the line
of conduct which they preserve amongst themselves. We believe, according
to the received opinion, that the gods, and we know very well that men,
by a necessity of nature, dominate wherever they have force. This is
not a law that we have made; it is not we who have first applied it; we
profit by it and shall transmit it to times to come; you yourselves, with
the power which we enjoy, would follow the same course.”

The theory of force has rarely been so distinctly expressed. The
reputation of the Athenians has suffered by it, without their having
derived the slightest profit from this evil deed. But let us observe,
even while we think with horror of the sanguinary act performed at Melos,
that the practice, if not the theory of this right of the strongest is
a very old one; it is the principle on which the whole of antiquity is
based; it is nothing but the famous law, _salus populi suprema lex_, so
many times evoked to justify odious enterprises or iniquitous cruelties;
and it must be acknowledged with sadness that in all times and in almost
all places men have thought with Euripides, “that wisdom and glory are:
to hold a victorious hand over the head of one’s enemies.” Force is as
old as the world, it is right which emerges slowly: can we believe that
its reign will not come?

The Dorian colonists of Melos had counted on the support of Sparta.
“She will abandon you,” the Athenians had answered; and the prudent
city which, for its part regarded all things from the point of view of
utility, had sent neither ship nor soldier. This inertia inflated the
hopes of Athens: she believed that the moment had come for annexing to
her empire the great island of the West where internal divisions had
roused in several cities the desire for foreign protection.[b]

[Illustration: FROM A GREEK VASE]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXXV. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION


The largest island in the Mediterranean, Sicily has been a stepping-stone
between African, Asiatic, and European nations. Freeman[e] has compared
it with Great Britain in its “geographical and historical position.” Its
original inhabitants seem to have been the Sicans who were invaded first
by the Elymians and then by the Sicels. Relations with Sicily were begun
as early as the Mycenæan age, and jars of Ægean ware have been unearthed
in the tombs of Syracuse. The Phœnicians established factories and
trading places in Sicily, and then came the Greeks overflowing the island
and founding many a city and stronghold. As we have seen in a previous
chapter, Sicily became one of the earliest and most important of the
Greek colonies.


SICILIAN HISTORY

The African city of Carthage, which we think of chiefly along with Roman
history, early took up the grievances of the Phœnicians against the
Greeks. In the sixth century B.C., various settlements had fallen by the
ears with one another. About 580 B.C. the Greek adventurer Pentathlus
threatened the Phœnician settlements, but was defeated and slain.
Carthage, however, was awakened to the danger from Greek land-hunger, and
about 560 B.C. sent an expedition under Malchus, who gave a severe check
to Greek encroachment and an encouragement to Carthaginian ambition.
Finally, by 480 B.C., the Carthaginians were ready to combine with the
Persians against Greek prosperity and independence. While Xerxes assailed
the mother-country, Carthage by agreement sent an enormous expedition
against the Sicilian Greeks. Their general was Hamilcar, and the
magnificence of his host has been as splendidly exaggerated as that of
Xerxes. His success was equal to that of the Persian, except that Xerxes
escaped alive, while Hamilcar perished.

[Sidenote: [481-447 B.C.]]

The chief instruments of the Sicilian victory were the tyrants who had
gathered to themselves supreme power in their own cities or groups of
cities as the tyrants of the mother-country had previously done. In
Sicily there were four powerful masters of four chief cities: Anaxilaus
of Rhegium in Italy, who crossing the straits, took possession of
Zancle; his father-in-law Terillus of Himera; Gelo of Syracuse and his
father-in-law, Theron of Acragas. It was a quarrel between Theron and
Terillus that gave the Carthaginians their immediate excuse for invading
Sicily. Terillus being thwarted by Theron played a treacherous part like
that of Hippias, and begged the Persians to attack Acragas. Terillus
called in Carthage to his aid against Theron. There is a tradition that
the defeat of the Carthaginians happened on the same day as the battle of
Salamis. Such traditions are always subject to scepticism, and yet the
coincidence of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in American history is hardly
more incredible.

Theron had called on Gelo to aid him in expelling the Carthaginians,
and Gelo had won the greater glory. He died two years later leaving
his younger brother Hiero to succeed him. It was Hiero’s privilege to
thwart the ambition of the Etruscans as his elder brother had foiled
Carthage. The naval battle of Cyme was the brilliant victory which led
Pindar to write one of his loftiest songs. He and Simonides, Æschylus,
and Bacchylides, were all received with honour at the opulent court of
Hiero. The glitter of court life, however, was small compensation for
the tyranny of the various despots of Sicily. Their ambitions clashed at
the least pretext, always at the cost of the blood of their subjects.
They had a curious way of deporting the inhabitants of an entire city to
some other place to suit their own whims. And gradually time took its
revenge upon them. Theron left as his heir a weak son, Thrasydæus who
went to battle with Hiero, and, losing the battle, lost also his prestige
and his power, for the cities Himera and Acragas formed themselves into
democracies. Five years later, in 467 B.C., Hiero died, and his tyranny
fell to his brother Thrasybulus whose blood-thirsty and tax-hungry
cruelties aroused a revolution. He was besieged in Syracuse, compelled to
surrender and sent into exile.

Life in Sicily is not to this day so quiet as in certain other portions
of the globe, and it was inevitable in the change from despotism to
democracy that there should be much friction and bloodshed, but the
cities lost none of the prosperity they had acquired under the tyrants.
Syracuse continued to be the principal city and power in the island;
Agrigentum, as the Romans named Acragas, being the second in power.

Now a new source of danger appeared, this time not from a foreign
invasion, or from the ambition of such pretenders as had tried to
re-establish the power of Gelo. The new threat came from a racial
jealousy. The old inhabitants, the Sicels, who had been crowded into the
interior, gave birth to a Napoleonic ambition. A young man named Ducetius
who first appeared in 461, having fed upon certain small successes in
acquiring power, showed his ingenuity in 453 by forming a federation of
Sicel towns with himself as prince. He seized an early opportunity to
assail the Greeks, and justified the fidelity of the Sicels by capturing
the towns of Morgantium, Ætna, and the Acragantine stronghold of Motya,
building a new city--Palice. He now became important enough to merit the
anger of Syracuse, and a large force from Syracuse and Agrigentum marched
against him. The toy Napoleon met his little Waterloo. His partisans
deserted him and he found himself alone. A desperate resolve occurred to
him as the only means of saving his life. He rode by night to the gates
of Syracuse, entered the city secretly, and sat himself down before the
altar in the market place. He was soon surrounded by a crowd who had too
keen a sense of the dramatic not to forgive him and let him off with the
easy exile to Corinth. From this Elba this Napoleon soon emerged. He
violated his parole laying the blame on an oracle, and took a body of
colonists to Sicily where he founded the city of Calacta (or Kale Akte).
He began gradually to reach out for more power, but his death in 440
ended his schemes and left his federation as a prize for Syracuse.

[Sidenote: [440-431 B.C.]]

While Syracuse was beginning to plume itself upon its leadership and
to dream of more definite control, the city of Athens was building an
empire, not over one island but many. It was only natural that she
should wish to stand well with the rich cities of Sicily. At first there
could hardly have been any thought of conquest, and Grote[f] points out
that Plutarch is mistaken and is contradicted by Thucydides, when he
implies that even as late as the quarrel between Corinth and Corcyra, the
Athenians had thought of dominion over Sicily. Professor Bury[d] however
sees a distinct desire to have influence, if not conquest, from a very
early day. He says:

“During the fifth century the eyes of Athenian statesmen often wandered
to western Greece beyond the seas. We can surprise some oblique glances,
as early as the days of Themistocles; and we have seen how under Pericles
a western policy definitely began. An alliance was formed with the
Elymian town of Segesta, and subsequently treaties of alliance (the
stone records are still partly preserved) were concluded with Leontini
and Rhegium. One general object of Athens was to support the Ionian
cities against the Dorian, which were predominant in number and power,
and especially against Syracuse, the daughter and friend of Corinth. The
same purpose of counter-acting the Dorian predominance may be detected
in the foundation of Thurii. But Thurii did not effect this purpose. The
colonists were a mixed body; other than Athenian elements gained the
upper hand; and, in the end, Thurii became rather a Dorian centre and
was no support to Athens. It is to be observed that at the time of the
foundation of Thurii, and for nigh thirty years more, Athens is seeking
merely influence in the west, she has no thought of dominion. The growth
of her connection with Italian and Sicilian affairs was forced upon her
by the conditions of commerce and the rivalry of Corinth.” Adolph Holm[b]
is equally positive in accusing the Athenians of an early desire to
obtain a footing in Sicily.

[Sidenote: [431-425 B.C.]]

The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C. found Sicily in a
high state of prosperity, political equality, and intellectual health.
According as the various cities had been founded by Dorian or Ionian
colonists their family prejudices inclined them towards Sparta or Athens.
The war in fact, according to Müller,[h] was called by the oracles, the
Doric War. The preponderance in Sicily was largely toward Sparta and
Corinth, for Corinth had been the mother-city to Syracuse. Grote[f] thus
discusses the feelings of the various cities at this time:

“In that struggle the Italian and Sicilian Greeks had no direct concern,
nor anything to fear from the ambition of Athens; who, though she had
founded Thurii in 443 B.C., appears never to have aimed at any political
ascendency even over that town--much less anywhere else on the coast.
But the Sicilian Greeks, though forming a system apart in their own
island, from which it suited the dominant policy of Syracuse to exclude
all foreign interference, were yet connected by sympathy, and one side
even by alliances, with the two main streams of Hellenic politics. Among
the allies of Sparta were numbered all or most of the Dorian cities of
Sicily--Syracuse, Camarina, Gela, Agrigentum, Selinus, perhaps Himera
and Messana--together with Locri and Tarentum in Italy; among the allies
of Athens, perhaps, the Chalcidic or Ionic Rhegium in Italy. Whether the
Ionic cities in Sicily--Naxos, Catana, and Leontini--were at this time
united with Athens by any special treaty, is very doubtful. But if we
examine the state of politics prior to the breaking out of the war, it
will be found that the connection of the Sicilian cities on both sides
with central Greece was rather one of sympathy and tendency, than of
pronounced obligation and action. The Dorian Sicilians, though sharing
the antipathy of the Peloponnesian Dorians to Athens, had never been
called upon for any co-operation with Sparta; nor had the Ionic Sicilians
yet learned to look to Athens for protection against Syracuse.”

Sparta counted apparently upon the active assistance of Syracuse, and
demanded that the Dorians in Italy and Sicily should contribute to
her both ships and money. She realised no ships, a little money, and
profuse expressions of interest and sympathy. The awakening of the old
Dorio-Ionic blood feud suggested to the Syracusans, however, that while
the Peloponnesian War was remote from them both geographically and
commercially, it yet furnished a good excuse for attacking such cities in
Sicily as were in any way attached to Athens. Naxos, Catana, and Leontini
were looked upon as the first prizes to be seized. These towns were so
far from being able to send aid to Athens that they were compelled to
ask aid of her. They succeeded in forming an alliance with Camarina,
which was a Dorian city but jealous of Syracuse, and with the town of
Rhegium in Italy. The friendship of Rhegium brought over to Syracuse the
Italian city of Locri. With the aid of Locri and practically all the
Dorian cities, Syracuse was so strong that the Ionic allies were soon in
desperate straits. They sent their eloquent orator Gorgias to implore the
Athenians for aid and to advise them to grant it, lest when Syracuse had
conquered all Sicily she should send her troops and ships to the aid of
the Spartans and Corinthians. The Athenians sent twenty triremes under
Laches, who after various minor successes fell under suspicion as to his
honesty and efficiency, and was called home.

[Sidenote: [425-416 B.C.]]

The Ionians sent another appeal to Athens, and received the promise of
forty more triremes. In the spring of 425 this fleet left Athens under
command of Eurymedon and Sophocles. It was this fleet which, almost
accidentally, paused on the Spartan coast at Pylos with the result that
it gained for Athens the renowned victory of Sphacteria, as previously
described. This victory was very profitable to Athens in its immediate
glory, but was of very gloomy purport in the Sicilian matter, for the
fleet having delayed to take part in the victory, and later pausing at
Corcyra, did not reach Sicily before September. This delay had given the
Syracusan allies time to undo what little had been achieved by Laches. He
had won the friendship of the town of Messana, thus giving Athens command
of the straits. The delay however had weakened the friendship of Messana,
and lost its alliance. Furthermore, the cities which Athens had come to
aid were found to be in a decided humour to put an end to the civil war.
A congress of Sicilian cities was called at Gela.

This congress at Gela takes on a decided importance in political history
because of the theories brought forward there by a Syracusan orator,
Hermocrates, whose political creed has been compared to the Monroe
Doctrine of the United States. The creed was not successfully carried
out, and as has often happened in the history of the United States,
the promulgators of the doctrine were by no means consistent in their
actions. Hermocrates pleaded for a policy, which in modern phrase would
be called “Sicily for the Sicilians.” He wished Sicily to regard herself
as an entity, considering all foreigners to be outsiders, and all
interference to be meddling. He was not rash enough or un-Grecian enough
to deny the Sicilian cities the luxury of fighting with one another;
but he called for unity against the invader or the intriguer from other
shores. From his speech, as imagined by Thucydides,[i] the peroration is
worth quoting for its cool common sense:

“And I call on you all, of your own free will, to act in the same manner
as myself, and not to be compelled to do it by your enemies. For there is
no disgrace in connections giving way to connections, whether a Dorian to
a Dorian, or a Chalcidian to those of the same race; in a word, all of us
who are neighbours, and live together in one country, and that an island,
and are called by the one name of Sicilians. For we shall go to war
again, I suppose, when it may so happen, and come to terms again amongst
ourselves by means of general conferences; but to foreign invaders we
shall always, if we are wise, offer united resistance, inasmuch as by
our separate losses we are collectively endangered; and we shall never
in future call in any allies or mediators. For by acting thus we shall
at the present time avoid depriving Sicily of two blessings--riddance
both of the Athenians and of civil war--and shall in future enjoy it by
ourselves in freedom, and less exposed to the machinations of others.”

The Athenian expedition having been coldly received by the cities it
came to rescue, returned to Athens, where Eurymedon was fined and
Sophocles banished on a charge of bribery. And now the reservation made
by Hermocrates as to the right of the Sicilian cities to war upon one
another, was soon justified. And to such an extent that the Ionic cities
began to realise that the Syracusans had been chiefly anxious to expel
the foreign invader, in order that the island might be left entirely to
Syracusan ambition. In the city of Leontini the aristocrats crushed the
democrats, and turned the city into a Syracusan fort after destroying the
greater portion of it. The common people appealed to Athens, and received
in reply two triremes under Phæax in B.C. 422. Before he had accomplished
anything the Peace of Nicias put a temporary close to the war.

In 417 B.C. the two Sicilian cities of Selinus and Segesta (or Egesta)
quarrelled over a bit of territory. Syracuse aided Selinus, and Segesta,
after appealing in vain to Agrigentum and to Carthage, sent envoys to
Athens. The Leontine people also reminded Athens that Syracuse, having
destroyed Leontini and assailed Segesta, was planning and accomplishing
the gradual reduction of all Sicilian cities favourable to Athens, and
thus building up an empire which would give Sparta unlimited aid. The
people of Segesta asked only for men and ships, and promised to provide
ample money for expenses.

[Sidenote: [416-415 B.C.]]

The idea of such an armada delighted the fire-brand Alcibiades, who saw
in it a chance to be a leader and to find an abundance of the things
he most desired--adventure, notoriety, and money. The cautious Nicias
opposed the scheme, and secured a delay until ambassadors could be sent
to Segesta to learn if the city were really wealthy enough to pay as it
promised. And now it was a case of Greek meeting Sicilian. The people
of Segesta had sent secret expeditions to all their friendly towns,
Phœnician or Grecian, to borrow all the treasure they could wheedle out
of their prospective allies. When the Athenian envoys appeared, they
were taken to the temple of Venus and shown a great array of gifts,
“bowls, wine ladles, censers, and other articles of furniture in no
small quantity.” These were all silver or of silver gilt, and made a far
greater showing than they merited. Then the Athenians were put through
a round of entertainments. In each case the host displayed all his own
plate, and in addition a large portion of the common fund, which was
passed from house to house surreptitiously. The gullible Athenians were
overwhelmed by the evident opulence of the private citizens of Segesta,
and when sixty talents of uncoined silver (valued at over £12,000 or
$60,000) were handed over to the Athenians for the first month’s expenses
of the fleet, the embassy was thoroughly duped, and returned to Athens
glowing with enthusiasm for an alliance with such a western Golconda.
Then followed a tug of war between Nicias and Alcibiades. Nicias was
to be one of the commanders of the expedition, and he could well claim
that it was no fear of bodily danger that made him averse to it. He
opposed it purely as a piece of folly. Alcibiades replied in favour of
the expedition, and it was so evident that the people were determined to
send the fleet that Nicias in a last effort tried to alarm the city by
magnifying the difficulties of the task and demanding a tremendous force.
To the Athenians, in their drunkenness for empire, and in that frenzy of
“Westward Ho!” which, in the fifteenth century, attacked all Europe, the
opposition of Nicias was only wind on flame. They rejoiced the more at
the magnificence of the problem.

To decide upon sending a fleet of one hundred triremes instead of the
sixty asked for, was folly enough; but to elect Nicias as the commander
of the expedition, and to ally with him his bitter opponent, Alcibiades,
was pure delirium. Still, Athens had just conquered Melos, and no task
was too gigantic for her hopes.[a]

[Illustration: GREEK DOOR KEYS]


THE MUTILATION OF THE HERMÆ

For the two or three months immediately succeeding the final resolution
taken by the Athenians to invade Sicily, the whole city was elate and
bustling with preparation. The prophets, circulators of oracles, and
other accredited religious advisers, announced generally the favourable
dispositions of the gods, and promised a triumphant result. All classes
in the city, rich and poor,--cultivators, traders, and seamen,--old
and young, all embraced the project with ardour; as requiring a great
effort, yet promising unparalleled results, both of public aggrandisement
and individual gain. Each man was anxious to put down his own name for
personal service; so that the three generals, Nicias, Alcibiades, and
Lamachus, when they proceeded to make their selection of hoplites,
instead of being forced to employ constraint or incur ill-will,
as happened when an expedition was adopted reluctantly with many
dissentients, had only to choose the fittest among a throng of eager
volunteers.

Such efforts were much facilitated by the fact that five years had now
elapsed since the Peace of Nicias, without any considerable warlike
operations. While the treasury had become replenished with fresh
accumulations, and the triremes increased in number, the military
population, reinforced by additional numbers of youth, had forgotten both
the hardships of the war and the pressure of epidemic disease. Hence
the fleet now got together, while it surpassed in number all previous
armaments of Athens, except a single one in the second year of the
previous war under Pericles, was incomparably superior even to that, and
still more superior to all the rest in the other ingredients of force,
material as well as moral, in picked men, universal ardour, ships as
well as arms in the best condition, and accessories of every kind in
abundance. Such was the confidence of success, that many Athenians went
prepared for trade as well as for combat; so that the private stock,
thus added to the public outfit and to the sums placed in the hands of
the generals, constituted an unparalleled aggregate of wealth. After
between two and three months of active preparations, the expedition was
almost ready to start, when an event happened which fatally poisoned the
prevalent cheerfulness of the city. This was the mutilation of the Hermæ,
one of the most extraordinary events in all Grecian history.

[Sidenote: [415 B.C.]]

The Hermæ, or half-statues of the god Hermes, were blocks of marble
about the height of the human figure. The upper part was cut into a
head, face, neck, and bust; the lower part was left as a quadrangular
pillar, broad at the base, without arms, body, or legs, but with the
significant mark of the male sex in front. They were distributed in great
numbers throughout Athens, and always in the most conspicuous situations.
The religious feeling of the Greeks considered the god to be planted
or domiciliated where his statue stood, so that the companionship,
sympathy, and guardianship of Hermes became associated with most of the
manifestations of conjunct life at Athens, political, social, commercial,
or gymnastic.

About the end of May 415 B.C., in the course of one and the same night,
all these Hermæ, one of the most peculiar marks of the city, were
mutilated by unknown hands. Their characteristic features were knocked
off or levelled, so that nothing was left except a mass of stone with no
resemblance to humanity or deity. All were thus dealt with in the same
way, save and except very few: nay, Andocides affirms that there was but
one which escaped unharmed. If we take that reasonable pains, which is
incumbent on those who study the history of Greece, to realize in our
minds the religious and political associations of the Athenians,--noted
in ancient times for their superior piety, as well as for their accuracy
and magnificence about the visible monuments embodying that feeling,--we
shall in part comprehend the intensity of mingled dismay, terror, and
wrath, which beset the public mind, on the morning after this nocturnal
sacrilege, alike unforeseen and unparalleled. Amidst all the ruin
and impoverishment which had been inflicted by the Persian invasion
of Attica, there was nothing which was so profoundly felt or so long
remembered as the deliberate burning of the statues and temples of the
gods. If we could imagine the excitement of a Spanish or Italian town,
on finding that all the images of the Virgin had been defaced during the
same night, we should have a parallel, though a very inadequate parallel,
to what was now felt at Athens--where religious associations and persons
were far more intimately allied with all civil acts and with all the
proceedings of every-day life--where, too, the god and his efficiency
were more forcibly localised, as well as identified with the presence
and keeping of the statue. To the Athenians, when they went forth on the
following morning, each man seeing the divine guardian at his doorway
dishonoured and defaced, and each man gradually coming to know that
the devastation was general,--it would seem that the town had become
as it were godless--that the streets, the market-place, the porticoes,
were robbed of their divine protectors; and what was worse still, that
these protectors, having been grossly insulted, carried away with them
alienated sentiments--wrathful and vindictive instead of tutelary and
sympathising.

Such was the mysterious incident which broke in upon the eager and
bustling movement of Athens a few days before the Sicilian expedition
was in condition for starting. In reference to that expedition, it was
taken to heart as a most depressing omen. The mutilation of the Hermæ,
however, was something much more ominous than the worst accident. It
proclaimed itself as the deliberate act of organised conspirators, not
inconsiderable in number, whose names and final purpose were indeed
unknown, but who had begun by committing sacrilege of a character
flagrant and unheard of. For intentional mutilation of a public and
sacred statue, where the material afforded no temptation to plunder,
is a case to which we know no parallel: much more, mutilation by
wholesale--spread by one band and in one night throughout the entire
city. Though neither the parties concerned, nor their purposes, were
ever more than partially made out, the concert and conspiracy itself is
unquestionable.

It seems probable, as far as we can form an opinion, that the
conspirators had two objects, perhaps some of them one and some the
other--to ruin Alcibiades--to frustrate or delay the expedition. Indeed
the two objects were intimately connected with each other; for the
prosecution of the enterprise, while full of prospective conquest to
Athens, was yet more pregnant with future power and wealth to Alcibiades
himself. Such chances would disappear if the expedition could be
prevented; nor was it at all impossible that the Athenians, under the
intense impression of religious terror consequent on the mutilation of
the Hermæ, might throw up the scheme altogether.

Few men in Athens either had, or deserved to have, a greater number of
enemies, political as well as private, than Alcibiades; many of them
being among the highest citizens, whom he offended by his insolence,
and whose liturgies and other customary exhibitions he outshone by his
reckless expenditure. His importance had been already so much increased
and threatened to be so much more increased by the Sicilian enterprise,
that they no longer observed any measures in compassing his ruin. That
which the mutilators of the Hermæ seemed to have deliberately planned,
his other enemies were ready to turn to profit.

While the senate of Five Hundred were invested with full powers
of action, Diognetus, Pisander, Charicles, and others, were named
commissioners for receiving and prosecuting inquiries: and public
assemblies were held nearly every day to receive reports. The first
informations received, however, did not relate to the grave and recent
mutilation of the Hermæ, but to analogous incidents of older date; to
certain defacements of other statues, accomplished in drunken frolic--and
above all, to ludicrous ceremonies celebrated in various houses, by
parties of revellers caricaturing and divulging the Eleusinian mysteries.
It was under this latter head that the first impeachment was preferred
against Alcibiades.

But Alcibiades saw full well the danger of having such charges hanging
over his head, and the peculiar advantage which he derived from his
accidental position at the moment. He implored the people to investigate
the charges at once; proclaiming his anxiety to stand trial and even to
suffer death, if found guilty,--accepting the command only in case he
should be acquitted,--and insisting above all things on the mischief to
the city of sending him on such an expedition with the charge undecided,
as well as on the hardship to himself of being aspersed by calumny during
his absence, without power of defence. Such appeals, just and reasonable
in themselves, and urged with all the vehemence of a man who felt that
the question was one of life or death to his future prospects, were very
near prevailing. His enemies could only defeat them by the trick of
putting up fresh speakers, less notorious for hostility to Alcibiades.
These men affected a tone of candour, deprecated the delay which would
be occasioned in the departure of the expedition, if he were put upon
his trial forthwith; and proposed deferring the trial until a certain
number of days after his return. Such was the determination ultimately
adopted: the supporters of Alcibiades probably not fully appreciating its
consequences, and conceiving that the speedy departure of the expedition
was advisable even for his interest, as well as agreeable to their own
feelings. And thus his enemies, though baffled in their first attempt
to bring on his immediate ruin, carried a postponement which insured to
them leisure for thoroughly poisoning the public mind against him, and
choosing their own time for his trial. They took care to keep back all
farther accusation until he and the armament had departed.


THE FLEET SAILS

The spectacle of its departure was indeed so imposing, and the moment
so full of anxious interest, that it banished even the recollection of
the recent sacrilege. The entire armament was not mustered at Athens;
for it had been judged expedient to order most of the allied contingents
to rendezvous at once at Corcyra. But the Athenian force alone was
astounding to behold. The condition, the equipment, the pomp both of
wealth and force, visible in the armament, were still more impressive
than the number. At day-break on the day appointed, when all the ships
were ready in Piræus for departure, the military force was marched down
in a body from the city and embarked. They were accompanied by nearly the
whole population, metics and foreigners as well as citizens, so that the
appearance was that of a collective emigration like the flight to Salamis
sixty-five years before. While the crowd of foreigners, brought thither
by curiosity, were amazed by the grandeur of the spectacle--the citizens
accompanying were moved by deeper and more stirring anxieties. Their
sons, brothers, relatives, and friends, were just starting on the longest
and largest enterprise which Athens had ever undertaken; against an
island extensive as well as powerful, known to none to them accurately,
and into a sea of undefined possibilities--glory and profit on the one
side, but hazards of unassignable magnitude on the other. At this final
parting, ideas of doubt and danger became far more painfully present
than they had been in any of the preliminary discussions; and in spite
of all the reassuring effect of the unrivalled armament before them, the
relatives now separating at the water’s edge could not banish the dark
presentiment that they were bidding each other farewell for the last time.

The moment immediately succeeding this farewell--when all the soldiers
were already on board and the _celeustes_ was on the point of beginning
his chant to put the rowers in motion--was peculiarly solemn and
touching. Silence having been enjoined and obtained, by sound of trumpet,
the crews in every ship, and the spectators on shore, followed the voice
of the herald in praying to the gods for success, and in singing the
pæan. On every deck were seen bowls of wine prepared, out of which the
officers and the _epibatæ_ made libations, with goblets of silver and
gold. At length the final signal was given, and the whole fleet quitted
Piræus in single file--displaying the exuberance of their yet untried
force by a race of speed as far as Ægina. Never in Grecian history was an
invocation more unanimous, emphatic, and imposing, addressed to the gods;
never was the refusing nod of Zeus more stern or peremptory.[f]

The customary libations were poured out; and, after the triumphant pæan
had been sung, the whole fleet set sail, and contended for the prize of
naval skill and celerity, until they reached the shores of Ægina, from
whence they enjoyed a prosperous voyage to their confederates at Corcyra.

At Corcyra the commanders reviewed the strength of the armament, which
consisted of a hundred and thirty-four ships of war, with a proportional
number of transports and tenders. The heavy-armed troops, exceeding five
thousand, were attended with a sufficient body of slingers and archers.
The army, abundantly provided with every other article, was extremely
deficient in horses, which amounted to no more than thirty. But, at
a moderate computation, we may estimate the whole military and naval
strength, including slaves and servants, at twenty thousand men.[55]

With this powerful host, had the Athenians at once surprised and assailed
the unprepared security of Syracuse, the expedition, however adventurous
and imprudent, might, perhaps, have been crowned with success. But the
timid mariners of Greece would have trembled at the proposal of trusting
such a numerous fleet on the broad expanse of the Ionian Sea. They
determined to cross the narrowest passage between Italy and Sicily, after
coasting along the eastern shores of the former, until they reached the
strait of Messana. That this design might be executed with the greater
safety, they despatched three light vessels to examine the disposition of
the Italian cities, and to solicit admission into their harbours. Neither
the ties of consanguinity, nor the duties acknowledged by colonies
towards their parent state, could prevail on the suspicious Thurians
to open their gates, or even to furnish a market, to their Athenian
ancestors. The towns of Tarentum and Locri prohibited them the use of
their harbours, and refused to supply them with water; and they coasted
the whole extent of the shore, from the promontory of Iapygia to that of
Rhegium, before any one city would allow them to purchase the commodities
for which they had immediate use. The magistrates of Rhegium granted this
favour, but they granted nothing more.

A considerable detachment was sent to examine the preparations and the
strength of Syracuse, and to proclaim liberty, and offer protection, to
all the captives and strangers confined within its walls.

With another detachment Alcibiades sailed to Naxos, and persuaded the
inhabitants to accept the alliance of Athens. The remainder of the
armament proceeded to Catana, which refused to admit the ships into the
harbour, or the troops into the city. But on the arrival of Alcibiades,
the Catanians allowed him to address the assembly, and propose his
demands. The artful Athenian transported the populace, and even the
magistrates themselves, by the charms of his eloquence; the citizens
flocked from every quarter, to hear a discourse which was purposely
protracted for several hours; the soldiers forsook their posts; and the
enemy, who had prepared to avail themselves of this negligence, burst
through the unguarded gates, and became masters of the city. Those of
the Catanians who were most attached to the interests of Syracuse,
fortunately escaped death by the celerity of their flight. The rest
accepted the proffered friendship of the Athenians. This success would
probably have been followed by the surrender of Messana, which Alcibiades
had filled with distrust and sedition. But when the plot was ripe for
execution, the man who had contrived, and who alone could conduct it,
was disqualified from serving his country. The arrival of the Salaminian
galley recalled Alcibiades to Athens, that he might stand trial for his
life.

[Illustration: GREEK CITY SEALS]


ALCIBIADES TAKES FLIGHT

Alcibiades escaped to Thurii, and afterwards to Argos; and when he
understood that the Athenians had set a price on his head, he finally
took refuge in Sparta, where his active genius seized the first
opportunity to advise and promote those fatal measures, which, while they
gratified his private resentment, occasioned the ruin of his country.

The removal of Alcibiades soon appeared in the languid operations of the
Athenian armament. The cautious timidity of Nicias, supported by wealth,
eloquence, and authority, gained an absolute ascendant over the more
warlike and enterprising character of Lamachus, whose poverty exposed him
to contempt. Instead of making a bold impression on Selinus or Syracuse,
Nicias contented himself with taking possession of the inconsiderable
colony of Hyccara. He ravaged, or laid under contribution, some places
of smaller note, and obtained thirty talents from the Segestans, which,
added to the sale of the booty, furnished about thirty thousand pounds
sterling, a sum that might be usefully employed in the prosecution of
an expensive war. But this advantage did not compensate for the courage
inspired into the Syracusans by delay, and for the dishonour sustained
by the Athenian troops, in their unsuccessful attempts against Hybla and
Himera, as well as for their dejection at being confined, during the
greatest part of the summer, in the inactive quarters of Naxos and Catana.

Ancient Syracuse, of which the ruined grandeur still forms an object
of admiration, was situated on a spacious promontory, washed on three
sides by the sea, and defended on the west by abrupt and almost
inaccessible mountains. The town was built in a triangular form, whose
summit may be conceived on the lofty mountain Epipolæ. Adjacent to
these natural fortifications, the western or inland division of the
city was distinguished by the name of Tyche, or Fortune, being adorned
by a magnificent temple of that flattering divinity. The triangle
gradually widening towards the base, comprehended the vast extent of
Achradina, reaching from the northern shore of the promontory to the
southern island, Ortygia. This small island, composing the whole of
modern Syracuse, formed but the third and least extensive division of the
ancient; which was fortified by walls eighteen miles in circuit, enriched
by a triple harbour, and peopled by above two hundred thousand warlike
citizens or industrious slaves.

When the Syracusans heard the first rumours of the Athenian invasion,
they despised, or affected to despise them, as idle lies invented to
amuse the ignorance of the populace. The hostile armament had arrived at
Rhegium before they could be persuaded, by the wisdom of Hermocrates, to
provide against a danger which their presumption painted as imaginary.
But when they received undoubted intelligence that the enemy had reached
the Italian coast, when they beheld their numerous fleet commanding the
sea of Sicily and ready to make a descent on their defenceless island,
they were seized with a degree of just terror and alarm proportional
to their false security. The dilatory operations of the enemy not only
removed the recent terror and trepidation of the Syracusans, but inspired
them with unusual firmness. They requested the generals, whom they had
appointed to the number of fifteen, to lead them to Catana, that they
might attack the hostile camp. Their cavalry harassed the Athenians by
frequent incursions, beat up their quarters, intercepted their convoys,
destroyed their advanced posts, and even proceeded so near to the main
body, that they were distinctly heard demanding, with loud insults,
whether those boasted lords of Greece had left their native country, that
they might form a precarious settlement at the foot of Mount Ætna.


NICIAS TRIES STRATEGY

[Sidenote: [415-414 B.C.]]

Provoked by these indignities, and excited by the impatient resentment of
his own troops, Nicias was still restrained from an open attempt against
Syracuse by the difficulties attending that enterprise. He employed
a stratagem. A citizen of Catana, whose subtile and daring genius,
prepared alike to die or to deceive, ought to have preserved his name
from oblivion, appeared in Syracuse as a deserter from his native city;
the unhappy fate of which, in being subjected to the imperious commands,
or licentious disorder of the Athenians, he lamented with perfidious
tears, and with the plaintive accents of well-dissembled sorrow. “The
Athenians,” he said, “spurned the confinement of the military life; their
posts were forsaken, their ships unguarded, they disdained the duties
of the camp, and indulged in the pleasures of the city. On an appointed
day it would be easy for the Syracusans, assisted by the conspirators of
Catana, to attack them unprepared, to mount their undefended ramparts, to
demolish their encampment, and to burn their fleet.” This daring proposal
well corresponded with the keen sentiments of revenge which animated the
inhabitants of Syracuse. The day was named; the plan of the enterprise
was concerted, and the treacherous Catanian returned home to revive the
hopes, and to confirm the resolution, of his pretended associates.

The success of this intrigue gave the utmost satisfaction to Nicias,
whose armament prepared to sail for Syracuse on the day appointed by the
inhabitants of that city for assaulting, with their whole force, the
Athenian camp. Already had they marched, with this view, to the fertile
plain of Leontini, when, after twelve hours’ sail, the Athenian fleet
arrived in the great harbour, disembarked their troops, and fortified a
camp without the western wall, near to a celebrated temple of Olympian
Jupiter, a situation which had been pointed out by some Syracusan exiles,
and which was well adapted to every purpose of accommodation and defence.
Meanwhile the cavalry of Syracuse, having proceeded to the walls of
Catana, had discovered, to their infinite regret, the departure of the
Athenians. The unwelcome intelligence was conveyed, with the utmost
expedition, to the infantry, who immediately marched back to protect
Syracuse. The rapid return of the war-like youth restored the courage of
the aged Syracusans. They were joined by the forces of Gela, Selinus, and
Camarina; and it was determined to attack the hostile encampment.

The attack was begun with fury, and continued with perseverance for
several hours. Both sides were animated by every principle that can
inspire and urge the utmost vigour of exertion, and victory was still
doubtful, when a tempest suddenly arose, accompanied with unusual peals
of thunder. This event, which little affected the Athenians, confounded
the unexperienced credulity of the enemy, who were broken and put to
flight. The Syracusans escaped to their city, and the Athenians returned
to their camp. In such an obstinate conflict the vanquished lost two
hundred and sixty, the victors only fifty men.

The voyage, the encampment, and the battle, employed the dangerous
activity, and gratified the impetuous ardour of the Athenians, but
did not facilitate the conquest of Syracuse. Without more powerful
preparations, Nicias despaired of taking the place, either by assault,
or by a regular siege. Soon after his victory he returned with the whole
armament to Naxos and Catana. Nicias had reason to expect that his
victory over the Syracusans would procure him respect and assistance
from the inferior states of Sicily. His emissaries were diffused over
that island and the neighbouring coast of Italy. Messengers were sent to
Tuscany, where Pisa and other cities had been founded by Greek colonies.
An embassy was despatched to Carthage, the rival and enemy of Syracuse.
Nicias gave orders to collect materials for circumvallation, iron,
bricks, and all necessary stores. He demanded horses from the Segestans;
and required from Athens reinforcements and a large pecuniary supply; and
neglected nothing that might enable him to open the ensuing campaign with
vigour and effect.

While the Athenians thus prepared for the attack of Syracuse, the
citizens of that capital displayed equal activity in providing for
their own defence. By the advice of Hermocrates, they appointed
himself, Heraclides, and Sicanus; three, instead of fifteen generals.
The commanders newly elected, both in civil and military affairs, were
invested with unlimited power, which was usefully employed to purchase or
prepare arms, daily to exercise the troops, and to strengthen and extend
the fortifications of Syracuse. They likewise despatched ambassadors to
the numerous cities and republics with which they had been connected in
peace, or allied in war, to solicit the continuance of their friendship,
and to counteract the dangerous designs of the Athenians.

Meanwhile the expected reinforcements arrived from Athens. In addition to
his original force, Nicias had likewise collected a body of six hundred
cavalry, and the sum of four hundred talents; and, in the eighteenth
summer of the war, the activity of the troops and workmen had completed
all necessary preparations for undertaking the siege of Syracuse.

The plan which Nicias adopted for conquering the city, was to draw a wall
on either side. When these circumvallations had surrounded the place by
land, he expected, by his numerous fleet, to block up the wide extent
of the Syracusan harbours. The whole strength of the Athenian armament
was employed in the former operations; and as all necessary materials
had been provided with due attention, the works rose with a rapidity
which surprised and terrified the besieged. Their former as well as
their recent defeats deterred them from opposing the enemy in a general
engagement; but the advice of Hermocrates persuaded them to raise walls
which might traverse and interrupt those of the Athenians. The imminent
danger urged the activity of the workmen; the hostile bulwarks approached
each other; frequent skirmishes took place, in one of which the brave
Lamachus unfortunately fell a victim to his rash valour; but the Athenian
troops maintained their usual superiority.

Encouraged by success, Nicias pushed the enemy with vigour. The
Syracusans lost hopes of defending their new works, or of preventing the
complete circumvallation of their city. New generals were named in the
room of Hermocrates and his colleagues; and this injudicious alteration
increased the calamities of Syracuse, which at length prepared to
capitulate.

While the assembly deliberated concerning the execution of a measure,
which, however disgraceful, was declared to be necessary, a Corinthian
galley, commanded by Gongylus, entered the central harbour of Ortygia,
which being strongly fortified, and penetrating into the heart of
the city, served as the principal and most secure station for the
Syracusan fleet. Gongylus announced a speedy and effectual relief to
the besieged city. He acquainted the Syracusans, that the embassy, sent
the preceding year to crave the assistance of Peloponnesus, had been
crowned with success. His own countrymen had warmly embraced the cause
of their kinsmen, and most respectable colony. They had fitted out a
considerable fleet, the arrival of which might be expected every hour.
The Lacedæmonians also had sent a small squadron, and the whole armament
was conducted by the Spartan Gylippus, an officer of tried valour and
ability.

While the desponding citizens of Syracuse listened to this intelligence
with pleasing astonishment, a messenger arrived by land from Gylippus
himself. That experienced commander, instead of pursuing a direct course,
which might have been intercepted by the Athenian fleet, had landed with
four galleys on the western coast of the island. The name of a Spartan
general determined the wavering irresolution of the Sicilians. The troops
of Himera, Selinus, and Gela flocked to his standard; and he approached
Syracuse on the side of Epipolæ, where the line of contravallation was
still unfinished, with a body of several thousand men.

[Illustration: GREEK MEDAL]


SPARTAN AID

The most courageous of the citizens sallied forth to meet this generous
and powerful protector. The junction was happily effected; the ardour of
the troops kindled into enthusiasm; and they distinguished that memorable
day by surprising several important Athenian posts. This first success
reanimated the activity of the soldiers and workmen. The traverse wall
was extended with the utmost diligence, and a vigorous sally deprived
the enemy of the strong castle of Labdalum. Nicias, perceiving that
the interest of the Athenians in Sicily would be continually weakened
by delay, wished to bring the fortune of the war to the decision of a
battle. Nor did Gylippus decline the engagement. The first action was
unfavourable to the Syracusans, who had been imprudently posted in the
defiles between their own and the enemy’s walls, which rendered of no
avail their superiority in cavalry and archers. The magnanimity of
Gylippus acknowledged this error, for which he completely atoned by his
judicious conduct in the succeeding engagements.

The Syracusans soon extended their works beyond the line of
circumvallation, so that it was impossible to block up their city,
without forcing their ramparts. The besiegers, while they maintained the
superiority of their arms, had been abundantly supplied with necessaries
from the neighbouring territory; but every place was alike hostile to
them after their defeat. The soldiers who went out in quest of wood and
water, were unexpectedly attacked and cut off by the enemy’s cavalry, or
by the reinforcements which arrived from every quarter to the assistance
of Syracuse; and they were at length reduced to depend for every
necessary supply on the precarious bounty of the Italian shore.

Nicias, whose sensibility deeply felt the public distress, wrote a most
desponding letter to the Athenians. He honestly described, and lamented,
the misfortunes and disorders of his army. The slaves deserted in great
numbers; the mercenary troops, who fought only for pay and subsistence,
preferred the more secure and lucrative service of Syracuse. He therefore
exhorted the assembly either to call them home without delay, or to send
immediately a second armament, not less powerful than the first.

The principal squadrons of Syracuse lay in the harbour of Ortygia,
separated, by an island of the same name, from the station of the
Athenian fleet. While Hermocrates sailed forth with eighty galleys, to
venture a naval engagement, Gylippus attacked the hostile fortifications
at Plemmyrium, a promontory opposite to Ortygia, which confined the
entrance of the Great Harbour. The defeat of the Syracusans at sea,
whereby they lost fourteen vessels, was balanced by their victory on
land, in which they took three fortresses, containing a large quantity
of military and naval stores, and a considerable sum of money. In some
subsequent actions, which scarcely deserve the name of battles, their
fleet was still unsuccessful; but as they engaged with great caution, and
found everywhere a secure retreat on a friendly shore, their loss was
extremely inconsiderable. The want of success, in their first attempt,
did not abate their resolution to gain the command at sea.

By unexampled assiduity the Syracusans at length prevailed in a general
engagement, which was fought in the Great Harbour. Seven Athenian ships
were sunk, many more were disabled, and Nicias saved the remains of
his shattered and dishonoured armament by retiring behind a line of
merchantmen and transports, from the masts of which had been suspended
huge masses of lead, named dolphins from their form, sufficient to
crush by their falling weight the stoutest galleys of antiquity. This
unexpected obstacle arrested the progress of the victors; but the
advantages already obtained elevated them with the highest hopes, and
reduced the enemy to despair.


ALCIBIADES AGAINST ATHENS

[Sidenote: [414-413 B.C.]]

The Athenian misfortunes in Sicily were attended by misfortunes at home
still more dreadful. In the eighteenth year of the war, Alcibiades
accompanied to Sparta the ambassadors of Corinth and Syracuse, who had
solicited and obtained assistance to the besieged city. On that occasion
the Athenian exile first acquired the confidence of the Spartans, by
condemning, in the strongest terms, the injustice and ambition of his
ungrateful countrymen, “whose cruelty towards himself equalled their
inveterate hostility to the Lacedæmonian republic; but that republic
might, by following his advice, disarm their resentment. The town of
Decelea was situated on the Attic frontier, at an equal distance of
fifteen miles from Thebes and Athens. This place, which commanded an
extensive and fertile plain, might be surprised and fortified by the
Spartans, who, instead of harassing their foes by annual incursions,
might thus infest them by a continual war. The wisdom of Sparta had too
long neglected such a salutary and decisive measure, especially as the
existence of a similar design had often been suggested by the fears of
the enemy, who trembled even at the apprehension of seeing a foreign
garrison in their territory.”

This advice first proposed, and often urged, by Alcibiades, was adopted
in the commencement of the ensuing spring, when the warlike Agis led a
powerful army into Attica. The defenceless inhabitants of the frontier
fled before his irresistible arms; but instead of pursuing them, as
usual, into the heart of the country, he stopped short at Decelea. As all
necessary materials had been provided in great abundance, the place was
speedily fortified on every side, and the walls of Decelea, which might
be distinctly seen across the intermediate plain, bid defiance to those
of Athens.

The latter city was kept in continual alarm by the watchful hostility
of a neighbouring garrison. The open country was entirely laid waste,
and the usual communication with the valuable island of Eubœa was
interrupted, from which, in seasons of scarcity, or during the ravages
of war, the Athenians commonly derived their supplies of corn, wine, and
oil, and whatever is most necessary to life. Harassed by the fatigues of
unremitting service, and deprived of daily bread, the slaves murmured,
complained, and revolted to the enemy; and their defection robbed the
state of twenty thousand useful artisans. Since the latter years of
Pericles, the Athenians had not been involved in such distress.

The domestic calamities of the republic did not, however, prevent the
most vigorous exertions abroad. Twenty galleys, stationed at Naupactus,
watched the motions of the Peloponnesian fleet destined to the assistance
of Syracuse; thirty carried on the war in Macedonia, to reduce the
rebellion of Amphipolis; a considerable squadron collected tribute, and
levied soldiers, in the colonies of Asia; another, still more powerful,
ravaged the coast of Peloponnesus. Never did any kingdom or republic
equal the magnanimity of Athens; never in ancient or modern times did
the courage of any state, entertain an ambition so far superior to its
power, or exert efforts so disproportionate to its strength. Amidst
the difficulties and dangers which encompassed them on every side, the
Athenians persisted in the siege of Syracuse, a city little inferior to
their own; and, undaunted by the actual devastation of their country,
unterrified by the menaced assault of their walls, they sent, without
delay, such a reinforcement into Sicily, as afforded the most promising
hopes of success in their expedition against that island.


ATHENIAN REINFORCEMENTS

[Sidenote: [413 B.C.]]

The Syracusans had scarcely time to rejoice at their victory, or Nicias
to bewail his defeat, when a numerous and formidable armament appeared on
the Sicilian coast. The foremost galleys, their prows adorned with gaudy
streamers, pursued a secure course towards the harbour of Syracuse. The
emulation of the rowers was animated by the mingled sounds of trumpet
and clarion; and the regular decoration, the elegant splendour, which
distinguished every part of the equipment, exhibited a pompous spectacle
of naval triumph. Their appearance, even at a distance, announced the
country to which they belonged; and both the joy of the besiegers and the
terror of the besieged, testified that Athens was the only city in the
world capable of sending to the sea such a beautiful and magnificent
contribution. The Syracusans employed not unavailing efforts to check
the progress, or to hinder the approach, of the hostile armament;
which, besides innumerable foreign vessels and transports, consisted of
seventy-three Athenian galleys, commanded by the experienced valour of
Demosthenes and Eurymedon. The pikemen on board exceeded five thousand;
the light-armed troops were nearly as numerous; and, including the
rowers, workmen, and attendants, the whole strength may be reckoned equal
to that originally sent with Nicias, which amounted to above twenty
thousand men.

The misfortunes hitherto attending the operations in Sicily had
lowered the character of the general; and this circumstance, as well
as the superior abilities of Demosthenes, entitled him to assume the
tone of authority in their conjunct deliberations. After ravaging the
banks of the Anapus, and making some ineffectual attempts against the
fortifications on that side, Demosthenes chose the first hour of a
moonlit night, to proceed with the flower of the army to seize the
fortresses in Epipolæ. The march was performed with successful celerity;
the outposts were surprised, the guards put to the sword; and three
separate encampments, of the Syracusans, the Sicilians, the allies,
formed a feeble opposition to the Athenian ardour. As if their victory
had already been complete, the assailants began to pull down the wooden
battlements, or to urge the pursuit with a rapidity which disordered
their ranks.

Meanwhile, the vigilant activity of Gylippus had assembled the whole
force of Syracuse. At the approach of the enemy his vanguard retired.
The Athenians were decoyed within the intricate windings of the walls,
and their irregular fury was first checked by the firmness of a Theban
phalanx. A resistance so sudden and unexpected might alone have been
decisive; but other circumstances were adverse to the Athenians: their
ignorance of the ground, the alternate obscurity of night, and the
deceitful glare of the moon, which, shining in the front of the Thebans,
illumined the splendour of their arms, and multiplied the terror of
their numbers. The foremost ranks of the pursuers were repelled; and,
as they retreated to the main body, encountered the advancing Argives
and Corcyræans, who, singing the pæan in their Doric dialect and accent,
were unfortunately taken for enemies. Fear, and then rage, seized the
Athenians, who, thinking themselves encompassed on all sides, determined
to force their way, and committed much bloodshed among their allies,
before the mistake could be discovered.

To prevent the repetition of this dreadful error, their scattered bands
were obliged at every moment to demand the watchword, which was at length
betrayed to their adversaries. The consequence of this was doubly fatal.
At every rencounter the silent Athenians were slaughtered without mercy,
while the enemy, who knew their watchword, might at pleasure join, or
decline, the battle, and easily oppress their weakness, or elude their
strength. The terror and confusion increased; the rout became general;
Gylippus pursued in good order with his victorious troops. The vanquished
could not descend in a body with the celerity of fear, by the narrow
passages through which they had mounted. Many abandoned their arms, and
explored the unknown paths of the rocky Epipolæ. Others threw themselves
from precipices, rather than await the pursuers. Several thousands
were left dead or wounded on the scene of action; and in the morning
the greater part of the stragglers were intercepted and cut off by the
Syracusan cavalry.


ATHENIAN DISASTER

This dreadful and unexpected disaster suspended the operations of the
siege. The Athenian generals spent the time in fruitless deliberations
concerning their future measures, while the army lay encamped on the
marshy and unhealthy banks of the Anapus. A general sickness broke out in
the camp. Demosthenes urged this calamity as a new reason for hastening
their departure, while it was yet possible to cross the Ionian Sea,
without risking the danger of a winter’s tempest. But Nicias opposed the
design of leaving Sicily until they should be warranted to take this
important step by the positive authority of the republic. The colleagues
of Nicias were confounded with the firmness of an opposition so unlike
the flexible timidity of his ordinary character, but they submitted to
his opinion, an opinion equally fatal to himself and to them, and to the
armament which they commanded.

Meanwhile the prudence of Gylippus profited by the fame of his victory,
to draw a powerful reinforcement from the Sicilian cities; and the
transports, so long expected from Peloponnesus, finally arrived in the
harbour of Ortygia. This squadron formed the last assistance sent to
either of the contending parties, and nothing further was required to
complete the actors in the scene; for by the accession of the Cyrenians,
Syracuse was either attacked or defended by all the various divisions
of the Grecian name, which formed, in that age, the most civilised
portion of the inhabitants of Asia, Africa, and Europe. The arrival of
such powerful auxiliaries to the besieged, and the increasing force of
the malady, totally disconcerted the Athenians. Even Nicias agreed to
set sail. Every necessary preparation was made for this purpose, and
the cover of night was chosen, as most proper for concealing their own
disgrace, and for eluding the vengeance of the enemy. But the night
appointed for their departure was distinguished by an inauspicious
eclipse of the moon. The voyage was deferred till the mystical number of
thrice nine days. But before the expiration of that time it was no longer
practicable; for the design was soon discovered to the Syracusans, and
this discovery, added to the encouragement derived from the circumstances
of which we have already taken notice, increased their eagerness to
attack the enemy by sea and land. Their attempts failed to destroy, by
fire-ships, the Athenian fleet. They were more successful in employing
superior numbers to divide the strength and to weaken the resistance of
an enfeebled and dejected foe. During three days there was a perpetual
succession of military and naval exploits. On the first day fortune hung
in suspense; the second deprived the Athenians of a considerable squadron
commanded by Eurymedon; and this misfortune was embittered on the third
day, by the loss of eighteen galleys, with their crews.

A design, suggested by the wisdom of Hermocrates, was eagerly adopted
by the active zeal of his fellow-citizens, who strove, with unremitting
ardour, to throw a chain of vessels across the mouth of the Great
Harbour, about a mile in breadth. The labour was complete before
Nicias, totally occupied by other objects, attempted to interrupt it.
After repeated defeats, and although he was so miserably tormented by
the stone, that he had frequently solicited his recall, that virtuous
commander, whose courage rose in adversity, used the utmost diligence to
retrieve the affairs of his country. The shattered galleys were speedily
refitted, and again prepared, to the number of a hundred and ten, to
risk the event of a battle. As they had suffered greatly, on former
occasions, by the hardness and massive solidity of the Syracusan prows,
Nicias provided them with grappling-irons, fitted to prevent the recoil
of their opponents, and the repetition of the hostile stroke. The decks
were crowded with armed men, and the contrivance to which the enemy had
hitherto chiefly owed their success, of introducing the firmness and
stability of a military, into a naval engagement, was adopted in its full
extent by the Athenians. When Gylippus and the Syracusan commanders were
apprised of the designs of the enemy, they hastened to the defence of the
bar which had been thrown across the entrance of the harbour. Even the
Athenian grappling-irons had not been overlooked; to elude the dangerous
grasp of these instruments, the prows of the Syracusan vessels were
covered with wet and slippery hides.

The first impression of the Athenians was irresistible; they burst
through the passage of the bar, and repelled the squadrons on either
side. As the entrance widened, the Syracusans, in their turn, rushed
into the harbour, which was more favourable than the open sea to their
mode of fighting. Thither the foremost of the Athenians returned, either
compelled by superior force, or that they might assist their companions.
The engagement became general in the mouth of the harbour; and in this
narrow space two hundred galleys fought, during the greatest part of
the day, with an obstinate and persevering valour. It would require the
expressive energy of Thucydides, and the imitative, though inimitable,
sounds and expressions of the Grecian tongue, to describe the noise, the
tumult, and the ardour of the contending squadrons. The battle was not
long confined to the shock of adverse prows, and to the distant hostility
of darts and arrows. The nearest vessels grappled, and closed with each
other, and their decks were soon converted into a field of blood. While
the heavy-armed troops boarded the enemy’s ships, they left their own
exposed to a similar misfortune; the fleets were divided into massive
clusters of adhering galleys; and the confusion of their mingled shouts
overpowered the voice of authority. The singular and tremendous spectacle
of an engagement more fierce and obstinate than any that had ever been
beheld in the Grecian seas, totally suspended the powers of the numerous
and adverse battalions which encircled the coast.

Hope, fear, the shouts of victory, the shrieks of despair, the anxious
solicitude of doubtful success, animated the countenances, the voice,
and the gestures of the Athenians, whose whole reliance centred in their
fleet. When at length their galleys evidently gave way on every side,
the contrast of alternate, and the rapid tumult of successive passions,
subsided in a melancholy calm. This dreadful pause of astonishment and
terror was followed by the disordered trepidation of flight and fear;
many escaped to the camp; others ran, uncertain whither to direct their
steps; while Nicias, with a small, but undismayed band, remained on
the shore to protect the landing of their unfortunate galleys. But the
retreat of the Athenians could not probably have been effected, had it
not been favoured by the actual circumstances of the enemy, as well as
by the peculiar prejudices of ancient superstition. In this well-fought
battle, the vanquished had lost fifty and the victors forty vessels. It
was incumbent on the latter to employ their immediate and most strenuous
efforts to recover the dead bodies of their friends, that they might be
honoured with the sacred and indispensable rites of funeral. The day
was far spent; the strength of the sailors had been exhausted by a long
continuance of unremitting labour; and both they and their companions
on shore were more desirous to return to Syracuse to enjoy the fruits
of victory, than to irritate the dangerous despair of the vanquished
Athenians.

It is observed by the Roman orator Cicero, with no less truth than
elegance, that not only the navy of Athens, but the glory and the empire
of that republic, suffered shipwreck in the fatal harbour of Syracuse.
The despondent degeneracy which immediately followed this ever memorable
engagement was testified in the neglect of a duty which the Athenians
had never neglected before, and in denying a part of their national
character, which it had hitherto been their greatest glory to maintain.
They abandoned to insult and indignity the bodies of the slain; and when
it was proposed to them by their commanders to prepare next day for a
second engagement, since their vessels were still more numerous than
those of the enemy, they, who had seldom avoided a superior, and who had
never declined the encounter of an equal force, declared, that no motive
could induce them to withstand the weaker armament of Syracuse. Their
only desire was to escape by land, under cover of the night, from a foe
whom they had not courage to oppose, and from a place where every object
was offensive to their sight, and most painful to their reflection.

The behaviour of the Syracusans might have proved extremely favourable
to this design. The coincidence of a festival and a victory demanded an
accumulated profusion of such objects as soothe the senses and please the
fancy. Amidst these giddy transports, the Syracusans lost all remembrance
of an enemy whom they despised; even the soldiers on guard joined the
dissolute or frivolous amusements of their companions; and, during the
greatest part of the night, Syracuse presented a mixed scene of secure
gayety, of thoughtless jollity, and of mad and dangerous disorder.

The firm and vigilant mind of Hermocrates alone withstood, but was
unable to divert, the general current. It was impossible to rouse to
the fatigues of war men buried in wine and pleasure, and intoxicated
with victory; and, as he could not intercept by force, he determined
to retard by stratagem, the intended retreat of the Athenians, whose
numbers and resentment would still render them formidable to whatever
part of Sicily they might remove their camp. A select band of horsemen,
assuming the character of traitors, fearlessly approached the hostile
ramparts, and warned the Athenians of the danger of departing that night,
as many ambuscades lurked in the way, and all the most important passes
were occupied by the enemy. The frequency of treason gained credit to
the perfidious advice; and the Athenians, having changed their first
resolution, were persuaded by Nicias to wait two days longer, that such
measures might be taken as seemed best adapted to promote the safety and
celerity of their march.

The superior rank of Nicias entitled him to a pre-eminence of toil and
of woe; and he deserves the regard of posterity by his character and
sufferings, and still more by the melancholy firmness of his conduct.[j]

Few pages of history are more eloquent than those wherein Thucydides
describes the epic miseries of the defeated host of Athens. They have
furthermore the merit of great accuracy. The rest of this chapter may
therefore be given over to his vivid and tragic picture of the retreat.[a]


THUCYDIDES’ FAMOUS ACCOUNT OF THE FINAL DISASTERS

When Nicias and Demosthenes thought they were sufficiently prepared, the
removal of the army took place, on the third day after the sea-fight.
It was a wretched scene then, not on account of the single circumstance
alone, that they were retreating after having lost all their ships,
and while both themselves and their country were in danger, instead of
being in high hope; but also because, on leaving their camp, every one
had grievous things both to behold with his eyes and to feel in his
heart. For as the dead lay unburied, and any one saw a friend on the
ground, he was struck at once with grief and fear. And the living who
were being left behind, wounded or sick, were to the living a much more
sorrowful spectacle than the dead, and more piteous than those who had
perished. For having recourse to entreaties and wailings, they reduced
them to utter perplexity, begging to be taken away, and appealing to
each individual friend or relative that any of them might anywhere
see; or hanging on their comrades, as they were now going away; or
following as far as they could, and when in any case the strength of
their body failed, not being left behind without many appeals to heaven
and many lamentations. So that the whole army, being filled with tears
and distress of this kind, did not easily get away, although from an
enemy’s country, and although they had both suffered already miseries too
great for tears to express, and were still afraid for the future, lest
they might suffer more. There was also amongst them much dejection and
depreciation of their own strength. For they resembled nothing but a city
starved out and attempting to escape; and no small one too, for of their
whole multitude there were not less than forty thousand on the march.

[Illustration: SEPULCHRAL STRUCTURES AT ATHENS]

Of these, all the rest took whatever each one could that was useful, and
the heavy-armed and cavalry themselves, contrary to custom, carried their
own food under their arms, some for want of servants, others through
distrusting them; for they had for a long time been deserting, and did so
in greatest numbers at that moment. And even what they carried was not
sufficient; for there was no longer any food in the camp. Nor, again, was
their other misery, and their equal participation in sufferings (though
it affords some alleviation to endure with others), considered even on
that account easy to bear at the present time; especially, when they
reflected from what splendour and boasting at first they had been reduced
to such an abject termination. For this was the greatest reverse that
ever befell a Grecian army; since, in contrast to their having come to
enslave others, they had to depart in fear of undergoing that themselves;
and instead of the prayers and hymns, with which they sailed from home,
they had to start on their return with omens the very contrary; going by
land, instead of by sea, and relying on a military rather than a naval
force. But nevertheless, in consequence of the greatness of the danger
still impending, all these things seemed endurable to them.

Nicias, seeing the army dejected, and greatly changed, passed along the
ranks, and encouraged and cheered them, as well as existing circumstances
allowed; speaking still louder than before, as he severally came opposite
to them, in the earnestness of his feeling, and from wishing to be of
service to them by making himself audible to as many as possible. If he
saw them anywhere straggling, and not marching in order, he collected and
brought them to their post; while Demosthenes also did no less to those
who were near him, addressing them in a similar manner. They marched in
the form of a hollow square, the division under Nicias taking the lead,
and that of Demosthenes following; while the baggage bearers and the main
crowd of camp followers were enclosed within the heavy-armed.

When they had come to the river Anapus, they found drawn up a body of the
Syracusans and allies; but having routed these, and secured the passage,
they proceeded onwards; while the Syracusans pressed them with charges
of horse, as their light-armed did with their missiles. On that day the
Athenians advanced about five miles, and then halted for the night on a
hill. The day following, they commenced their march at an early hour,
and having advanced about two and a half miles, descended into a level
district, and there encamped, wishing to procure some eatables from the
houses (for the place was inhabited), and to carry on with them water
from it, since for many miles before them, in the direction they were
to go, it was not plentiful. The Syracusans, in the meantime, had gone
on before, and were blocking up the pass in advance of them. For there
was there a steep hill, with a precipitous ravine on either side of it,
called the Acræum Lepas. The next day the Athenians advanced, and the
horse and dart-men of the Syracusans and allies, each in great numbers,
impeded their progress, hurling their missiles upon them, and annoying
them with cavalry charges. The Athenians fought for a long time, and then
returned again to the same camp, no longer having provisions as they had
before; and it was no more possible to leave their position, because of
the cavalry.

Starting early, they began their march again, and forced their way to the
hill which had been fortified; where they found before them the enemy’s
infantry drawn up for the defence of the wall many spears deep; for the
pass was but narrow. The Athenians charged and assaulted the wall, but
being annoyed with missiles by a large body from the hill, which was
steep (for those on the heights more easily reached their aim), and
not being able to force a passage, they retreated again, and rested.
There happened also to be at the same time some claps of thunder and
rain, as is generally the case when the year is now verging on autumn;
in consequence of which the Athenians were still more dispirited, and
thought that all these things also were conspiring together for their
ruin. While they were resting, Gylippus and the Syracusans sent a part
of their troops to intercept them again with a wall on their rear, where
they had already passed: but they, on their side also, sent some of
their men against them, and prevented their doing it. After this, the
Athenians returned again with all their army into the more level country,
and there halted for the night. The next day they marched forward, while
the Syracusans discharged their weapons on them, surrounding them on
all sides, and disabled many with wounds; retreating if the Athenians
advanced against them, and pressing on them if they gave way; most
especially attacking their extreme rear, in the hope that by routing
them little by little, they might strike terror into the whole army. The
Athenians resisted this mode of attack for a long time, but then, after
advancing five or six furlongs, halted for rest on the plain; while the
Syracusans went to their camp.

During the night, their troops being in a wretched condition, both from
the want of all provisions which was now felt, and from so many men being
disabled by wounds in the numerous attacks that had been made upon them
by the enemy, Nicias and Demosthenes determined to light as many fires as
possible, and then lead off the army, no longer by the same route as they
had intended, but in the opposite direction to where the Syracusans were
watching for them, namely, to the sea. Now the whole of this road would
lead the armament, not towards Catana, but to the other side of Sicily,
to Camarina, and Gela, and the cities in that direction, whether Grecian
or barbarian. They kindled therefore many fires, and began their march in
the night.

And as all armies, especially the largest, are liable to have terrors and
panics amongst them, particularly when marching at night, and through
an enemy’s country, and with the enemy not far off; so they also were
thrown into alarm; and the division of Nicias, taking the lead as it did,
kept together and got a long way in advance; while that of Demosthenes,
containing about half or more, was separated from the others, and
proceeded in greater disorder. By the morning, nevertheless, they arrived
at the seacoast, and entering on what is called the Helorine road,
continued their march, in order that when they had reached the river
Cacyparis, they might march up along its banks through the interior; for
they hoped also that in this direction the Sicels, to whom they had sent,
would come to meet them. But when they had reached the river, they found
a guard of the Syracusans there too, intercepting the pass with a wall
and a palisade, having carried which, they crossed the river, and marched
on again to another called the Erineus; for this was the route which
their guides directed them to take.


_Demosthenes Surrenders His Detachment_

In the meantime the Syracusans and allies, as soon as it was day, and
they found that the Athenians had departed, most of them charged Gylippus
with having purposely let them escape; and pursuing with all haste by
the route which they had no difficulty in finding they had taken, they
overtook them about dinner-time. When they came up with the troops under
Demosthenes, which were behind the rest, and marching more slowly and
disorderly, ever since they had been thrown into confusion during the
night, at the time we have mentioned, they immediately fell upon and
engaged them; and the Syracusan horse surrounded them with greater ease
from their being divided, and confined them in a narrow space.

The division of Nicias was six miles in advance; for he led them on
more rapidly, thinking that their preservation depended, under such
circumstances, not on staying behind, if they could help it, and on
fighting, but on retreating as quickly as possible, and only fighting
as often as they were compelled. Demosthenes, on the other hand, was,
generally speaking, involved in more incessant labour (because, as he was
retreating in the rear, he was the first that the enemy attacked), and on
that occasion, finding that the Syracusans were in pursuit, he was not so
much inclined to push on, as to form his men for battle; until, through
thus loitering, he was surrounded by them, and both himself and the
Athenians with him were thrown into great confusion. Being driven back
into a certain spot which had a wall all round it, with a road on each
side, and many olive trees growing about, they were annoyed with missiles
in every direction. This kind of attack the Syracusans naturally adopted,
instead of close combat; since risking their lives against men reduced
to despair was no longer for their advantage, so much as for that of
the Athenians. Besides, after success which was now so signal, each man
spared himself in some degree, that he might not be cut off before the
end of the business. They thought too that, even as it was, they should
by this kind of fighting subdue and capture the Athenians.

At any rate, when, after plying the Athenians and their allies with
missiles all day from every quarter, they saw them now distressed by
wounds and other sufferings, Gylippus with the Syracusans and allies
made a proclamation, in the first place, that any of the islanders who
chose should come over to them, on condition of retaining his liberty;
and some few states went over. Afterwards, terms were made with all the
troops under Demosthenes, that they should surrender their arms, and
that no one should be put to death, either by violence or imprisonment,
or want of such nourishment as was most absolutely requisite. Thus there
surrendered, in all, to the number of six thousand; and they laid down
the whole of the money in their possession, throwing it into the hollow
of shields, four of which they filled with it. These they immediately led
back to the city, while Nicias and his division arrived that day on the
banks of the river Erineus; having crossed which, he posted his army on
some high ground.


_Nicias Parleys, Fights, and Surrenders_

The Syracusans, having overtaken him the next day, told him that
Demosthenes and his division had surrendered themselves, and called on
him also to do the same. Being incredulous of the fact, he obtained a
truce to enable him to send a horseman to see. When he had gone, and
brought word back again that they had surrendered, Nicias sent a herald
to Gylippus and the Syracusans, saying that he was ready to agree with
the Syracusans, on behalf of the Athenians, to repay whatever money
the Syracusans had spent on the war, on condition of their letting his
army go; and that until the money was paid, he would give Athenians
as hostages, one for every talent. The Syracusans and Gylippus did
not accede to these proposals, but fell upon this division also, and
surrounded them on all sides, and annoyed them with their missiles until
late in the day. And they too, like the others, were in a wretched
plight for want of food and necessaries. Nevertheless, they watched for
the quiet of the night, and then intended to pursue their march. And
they were now just taking up their arms, when the Syracusans perceived
it and raised their pæan. The Athenians, therefore, finding that they
had not eluded their observation, laid their arms down again; excepting
about three hundred men who forced their way through the sentinels, and
proceeded, during the night, how and where they could.

As soon as it was day, Nicias led his troops forward; while the
Syracusans and allies pressed on them in the same manner, discharging
their missiles at them, and striking them down with their javelins on
every side. The Athenians were hurrying on to reach the river Assinarus,
being urged to this at once by the attack made on every side of them by
the numerous cavalry and the rest of the light-armed multitude (for they
thought they should be more at ease if they were once across the river),
and also by their weariness and craving for drink. When they reached its
banks, they rushed into it without any more regard for order, every man
anxious to be himself the first to cross it; while the attack of the
enemy rendered the passage more difficult. For being compelled to advance
in a dense body, they fell upon and trod down one another; and some of
them died immediately on the javelins and articles of baggage, while
others were entangled together, and floated down the stream. On the
other side of the river, too, the Syracusans lined the bank, which was
precipitous, and from the higher ground discharged their missiles on the
Athenians, while most of them were eagerly drinking in confusion amongst
themselves in the hollow bed of the stream. The Peloponnesians, moreover,
charged them and butchered them, especially those in the river. And thus
the water was immediately spoiled; but nevertheless it was drunk by them,
mud and all, and bloody as it was, it was even fought for by most of them.

At length, when many dead were now heaped one upon another in the
river, and the army was destroyed, either at the river, or, if any part
had escaped, by the cavalry, Nicias surrendered himself to Gylippus,
placing more confidence in him than in the Syracusans; and desired him
and the Lacedæmonians to do what they pleased with himself, but to stop
butchering the rest of the soldiers. After this, Gylippus commanded to
make prisoners; and they collected all that were alive, excepting such as
they concealed for their own benefit (of whom there was a large number).
They also sent a party in pursuit of the three hundred, who had forced
their way through the sentinels during the night, and took them. The part
of the army, then, that was collected as general property, was not large,
but that which was secreted was considerable; and the whole of Sicily
was filled with them, inasmuch as they had not been taken on definite
terms of surrender, like those with Demosthenes. Indeed no small part
was actually put to death; for this was the most extensive slaughter,
and surpassed by none of all that occurred in this Sicilian war. In the
other encounters also, which were frequent on their march, no few had
fallen. But many also escaped; some at the moment, others after serving
as slaves, and running away subsequently. These found a place of refuge
at Catana.


_The Fate of the Captives_

When the Syracusans and allies were assembled together, they took with
them as many prisoners as they could, with the spoils, and returned to
the city. All the rest of the Athenians and the allies that they had
taken, they sent down into the quarries, thinking this the safest way
of keeping them; but Nicias and Demosthenes they executed, against the
wish of Gylippus. For he thought it would be a glorious distinction
for him, in addition to all his other achievements, to take to the
Lacedæmonians the generals who had commanded against them. And it so
happened, that one of these, namely Demosthenes, was regarded by them
as their most inveterate enemy, in consequence of what had occurred on
the island and at Pylos; the other, for the same reasons, as most in
their interest; for Nicias had exerted himself for the release of the
Lacedæmonians taken from the island, by persuading the Athenians to make
a treaty. On this account the Lacedæmonians had friendly feelings towards
him; and indeed it was mainly for the same reasons that he reposed
confidence in Gylippus, and surrendered himself to him. But certain of
the Syracusans (as it was said) were afraid, some of them, since they had
held communication with him, that if put to the torture, he might cause
them trouble on that account in the midst of their success; others, and
especially the Corinthians, lest he might bribe some, as he was rich, and
effect his escape, and so they should again incur mischief through his
agency; and therefore they persuaded the allies, and put him to death.
For this cause then, or something very like it, he was executed, having
least of all the Greeks deserved to meet with such a misfortune, on
account of his devoted attention to the practice of every virtue.

As for those in the quarries, the Syracusans treated them with cruelty
during the first period of their captivity. For as they were in a hollow
place, and many in a small compass, the sun, as well as the suffocating
closeness, distressed them at first, in consequence of their not being
under cover; and then, on the contrary, the nights coming on autumnal and
cold, soon worked in them an alteration from health to disease, by means
of the change. Since, too, in consequence of their want of room, they did
everything in the same place; and the dead, moreover, were piled up on
one another--such as died from their wounds, and from the change they had
experienced, and such like. There were, besides, intolerable stenches;
while at the same time they were tormented with hunger and thirst, for
during eight months they gave each of them daily only a _cotyle_[56]
of water, and two of corn. And of all the other miseries which it was
likely that men thrown into such a place would suffer, there was none
that did not fall to their lot. For some seventy days they thus lived
all together; then the rest of them were sold, except the Athenians, and
whatever Siceliots or Italians had joined them in the expedition.

The total number of those who were taken, though it were difficult to
speak with exactness, was still not less than seven thousand. “And this,”
says Thucydides in conclusion, “was the greatest Grecian exploit of all
that were performed in this war; nay, in my opinion, of all Grecian
achievements that we have heard of also; and was at once most splendid
for the conquerors, and most disastrous for the conquered. For being
altogether vanquished at all points, and having suffered in no slight
degree in any respect, they were destroyed (as the saying is) with utter
destruction, both army, and navy, and everything; and only a few out of
many returned home. Such were the events which occurred in Sicily.”[i]


FOOTNOTES

[55] [Adolph Holm rates it at thirty thousand men.]

[56] The _cotyle_ was a little more than half an English pint; and the
allowance of food here mentioned was only half of that commonly given to
a slave.

[Illustration: THE GROVES OF THE ACADEMY]




[Illustration]




CHAPTER XXXVI. CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR


In the populous and extensive kingdoms of modern Europe, the revolutions
of public affairs seldom disturb the humble obscurity of private life;
but the national transactions of Greece involved the interest of
every family, and deeply affected the fortune and happiness of every
individual. Had the arms of the Athenians proved successful in Sicily,
each citizen would have derived from that event an immediate accession
of wealth, as well as of power, and have felt a proportional increase
of honour and security. But their proud hopes perished forever in the
harbour of Syracuse. The succeeding disasters shook to the foundation the
fabric of their empire.

In one rash enterprise they lost their army, their fleet, the prudence
of their experienced generals, and the flourishing vigour of their manly
youth--irreparable disasters which totally disabled them to resist the
confederacy of Peloponnesus, reinforced by the resentment of a new and
powerful enemy. While a Lacedæmonian army invested their city, they
had reason to dread that a Syracusan fleet should assault the Piræus;
that Athens must finally yield to these combined attacks, and her once
prosperous citizens destroyed by the sword, or dragged into captivity,
atone by their death or disgrace for the cruelties which they had
recently inflicted on the wretched republics of Melos and Scione.


ATHENS AFTER THE SICILIAN DÉBACLE

The dreadful alternative of victory and defeat, renders it little
surprising that the Athenians should have rejected intelligence, which
they must have received with horror. The first messengers of such
sad news were treated with contempt; but it was impossible long to
withhold belief from the miserable fugitives, whose squalid and dejected
countenances too faithfully attested the public calamity. Such evidence
could not be refused; the arrogance of incredulity was abashed, and
the whole republic thrown into consternation, or seized with despair.
The venerable members of the Areopagus expressed the majesty of silent
sorrow; but the piercing cries of woe extended many a mile along the
lofty walls which joined the Piræus to the city; and the licentious
populace raged with unbridled fury against the diviners and orators,
whose blind predictions, and ambitious harangues, had promoted an
expedition eternally fatal to their country.

The Athenian allies, or rather subjects, scattered over so many coasts
and islands, prepared to assert their independence; the confederates of
Sparta, among whom the Syracusans justly assumed the first rank, were
unsatisfied with victory, and longed for revenge: even those communities
which had hitherto declined the danger of a doubtful contest, meanly
solicited to become parties in a war, which they expected must finally
terminate in the destruction of Athens. Should all the efforts of such
a powerful confederacy still prove insufficient to the ruin of the
devoted city, there was yet another enemy behind, from whose strength and
animosity the Athenians had everything to fear.

[Sidenote: [425-413 B.C.]]

The long and peaceful reign of Artaxerxes expired four hundred and
twenty-five years before the Christian era. There followed a rapid
succession of kings, Xerxes, Sogdianus, Ochus; the last of whom assumed
the name of Darius, to which historians have added the epithet of Nothus,
the bastard, to distinguish this effeminate prince from his illustrious
predecessor. But in the ninth year of his reign Darius was roused from
his lethargy by the revolt of Egypt and Lydia. The defection of the
latter threatened to tear from his dominion the valuable provinces of
Asia Minor; a consequence which he determined to prevent by employing
the bravery of Pharnabazus, and the policy of the crafty Tissaphernes,
to govern respectively the northern and southern districts of that
rich and fertile peninsula. The abilities of these generals not only
quelled the rebellion in Lydia, but extended the arms of their master
towards the shores of the Ægean, as well as of the Hellespont and
Propontis; in direct opposition to the treaty which forty years before
had been ratified between the Athenians, then in the height of their
prosperity, and the unwarlike Artaxerxes. But the recent misfortunes of
that ambitious people flattered the Persian commanders with the hope
of restoring the whole Asiatic coast to the Great King, as well as of
inflicting exemplary punishment on the proud city, which had resisted the
power, dismembered the empire, and tarnished the glory of Persia.

The terror of such a formidable combination might have reduced the
Athenians to despair. Their disasters and disgrace in Sicily destroyed
at once the real and the ideal supports of their power; the loss of
one-third of their citizens made it impossible to supply, with fresh
recruits, the exhausted strength of their garrisons in foreign parts; the
terror of their fleet was no more; and their multiplied defeats, before
the walls of Syracuse, had converted into contempt that admiration in
which Athens had been long held by Greeks and barbarians.

But in free governments there are many latent resources which public
calamities alone can bring to light; and adversity, which to individuals
endowed with inborn vigour of mind is the great school of virtue and
of heroism, furnishes also to the enthusiasm of popular assemblies the
noblest field for the display of national honour and magnanimity. Had the
measures of the Athenians depended on one man, or even on a few, it is
probable that the selfish timidity of a prince, and the cautious prudence
of a council, would have sunk under the weight of misfortunes, too heavy
for the unsupported strength of ordinary minds. But the first spark of
generous ardour, which the love of virtue, of glory, and the republic, or
even the meaner motives of ambition and vanity, excited in the assembled
multitude, was diffused and increased by the natural contagion of
sympathy; the patriotic flame was communicated simultaneously to every
breast. With one mind and resolution the Athenians determined to brave
the severity of fortune, and to withstand the assaults of the enemy.

[Sidenote: [412 B.C.]]

In the year following the unfortunate expedition into Sicily, the
Spartans prepared a fleet of a hundred sail, of which twenty-five
galleys were furnished by their own seaports. This armament was destined
to encourage and support the revolt of the Asiatic subjects of the
Athenians. The islands of Chios and Lesbos, as well as the city Erythræ
on the continent, solicited the Spartans to join them with their naval
force. Their request was enforced by Tissaphernes, who promised to pay
the sailors, and to victual the ships. At the same time, an ambassador
from Cyzicus, a populous town situate on an island of the Propontis,
entreated the Lacedæmonian armament to sail to the safe and capacious
harbours which had long formed the wealth and the ornament of that city,
and to expel the Athenian garrisons, to which the Cyzicenes and their
neighbours reluctantly submitted. The Persian Pharnabazus seconded
their proposal; offered the same conditions with Tissaphernes; and so
little harmony subsisted between the lieutenants of the Great King,
that each urged his particular demand with a total unconcern about the
important interests of their common master. The Lacedæmonians held many
consultations amongst themselves, and with their allies; hesitated,
deliberated, resolved, and changed their resolution; and at length were
persuaded by Alcibiades to prefer the overture of Tissaphernes and the
Ionians to that of the Hellespontines and Pharnabazus.

The delay occasioned by this deliberation was the principal, but not the
only cause which hindered the allies from acting expeditiously, at a time
when expedition was of the utmost importance. A variety of private views
diverted them from the general aim of the confederacy; and the season
was far advanced before the Corinthians, who had been distinguished by
excess of antipathy to Athens, were prepared to sail. The Athenians
anticipated the designs of the rebels of Chios, and carried off seven
ships as pledges of their fidelity. The squadron which returned from this
useful enterprise, intercepted the Corinthians as they sailed through
the Saronic Gulf; and having attacked and conquered them, pursued and
blocked them up in their harbours. Meanwhile the Spartans sent to the
Ionian coast such squadrons as were successively ready for sea, under
the conduct of Alcibiades, Chalcideus, and Astyochus. The first of
these commanders sailed to the isle of Chios, which was distracted by
contending factions. The Athenian partisans were surprised and compelled
to submit; and the city, which possessed forty galleys, and yielded in
wealth and populousness to none of the neighbouring colonies, became an
accession to the Peloponnesian confederacy. The strong and rich town
of Miletus followed the example: Erythræ and Clazomenæ surrendered to
Chalcideus; several places of less note were conquered by Astyochus.

When the Athenians received the unwelcome intelligence of these events,
they voted the expenditure of a thousand talents, which in more
prosperous times, they had deposited in the citadel, under the sanction
of a decree of the senate and people, to reserve it for an occasion of
the utmost danger. This seasonable supply enabled them to increase the
fleet, which sailed under Phrynichus and other leaders, to the isle
of Lesbos. Having secured the fidelity of the Lesbians, who were ripe
for rebellion, they endeavoured to recover their authority in Miletus,
anciently regarded as the capital of the Ionic coast. A bloody battle
was fought before the walls of that place, between the Athenians and
Argives on one side, and the Peloponnesians, assisted by the troops of
Tissaphernes and the revolted Milesians, on the other. The Athenian
bravery defeated, on this occasion, the superior number of Greeks and
barbarians to whom they were opposed; but their Argive auxiliaries
were repulsed by the gallant citizens of Miletus so that in both parts
of the engagement, the Ionic race, commonly reckoned the less war-like,
prevailed over their Dorian rivals and enemies. Elevated with the joy
of victory, the Athenians prepared to assault the town, when they were
alarmed by the approach of a fleet of fifty-five sail which advanced
in two divisions, the one commanded by the celebrated Hermocrates, the
other by Theramenes the Spartan. Phrynichus prudently considered, that
his own strength only amounted to forty-eight galleys, and refused to
commit the last hope of the republic to the danger of an unequal combat.
His firmness despised the clamours of the Athenian sailors, who insulted,
under the name of cowardice, the caution of their admiral; and he calmly
retired with his whole force to the isle of Samos, where the popular
faction having lately treated the nobles with shocking injustice and
cruelty, too frequent in Grecian democracies, were ready to receive with
open arms the patrons of that form of government.

The retreat of the Athenian fleet acknowledged the naval superiority of
the enemy; a superiority which was alone sufficient either to acquire
or to maintain the submission of the neighbouring coasts and islands.
In other respects too, the Peloponnesians enjoyed the most decisive
advantages. Their galleys were victualled, their soldiers were paid by
Tissaphernes, and they daily expected a reinforcement of a hundred and
fifty Phœnician ships. But, in this dangerous crisis, fortune seemed
to respect the declining age of Athens, and, by a train of accidents,
singular and almost incredible, enabled Alcibiades, so long the
misfortune and the scourge, to become the defence and the saviour of his
country.

[Illustration: GREEK SANDALS]


ALCIBIADES AGAIN TO THE FORE

[Sidenote: [415-412 B.C.]]

During his long residence in Sparta, Alcibiades assumed the outward
gravity of deportment, and conformed himself to the spare diet, and
laborious exercises, which prevailed in that austere republic; but his
character and his principles remained as licentious as ever. His intrigue
with Timæa, the spouse of king Agis, was discovered by an excess of
female levity. The queen, vain of the attachment of so celebrated a
character, familiarly gave the name of Alcibiades to her son Leotychides;
a name which, first confined to the privacy of her female companions,
was soon spread abroad in the world. Alcibiades punished her folly by
a most mortifying but well-merited declaration, boasting that he had
solicited her favours from no other motive but that he might indulge the
ambitious desire of giving a king to Sparta. The offence itself, and the
shameless avowal, still more provoking than the offence, excited the
keenest resentment in the breast of the injured husband. The magistrates
and generals of Sparta, jealous of the fame, and envious of the merit of
a stranger, readily sympathised with the misfortune, and encouraged the
revenge of Agis; and, as the horrid practice of assassination was still
disgracing the manners of Greece, orders were sent to Astyochus, who
commanded in chief the Peloponnesian forces in Asia, secretly to destroy
Alcibiades, whose power defied those laws which in every Grecian republic
condemned adulterers to death. But the active and subtile Athenian had
secured too faithful domestic intelligence in the principal families of
Sparta to become the victim of this execrable design. With his usual
address he eluded all the snares of Astyochus: his safety, however,
required perpetual vigilance and caution, and he determined to escape
from the situation, which subjected him to such irksome restraint.

Publicly banished from Athens, secretly persecuted by Sparta, he
had recourse to the friendship of Tissaphernes, who admired his
accomplishments, and respected his abilities, which, though far superior
in degree, were similar in kind to his own. Tissaphernes was of a temper
the more readily to serve a friend, in proportion as he less needed
his services. Alcibiades, therefore, carefully concealed from him the
dangerous resentment of the Spartans. In the selfish breast of the
Persian no attachment could be durable unless founded on interest; and
Alcibiades, who had deeply studied his character, began to flatter his
avarice, that he might insure his protection. He informed him, that by
allowing the Peloponnesian sailors a drachma, or sevenpence sterling, of
daily pay, he treated them with a useless and even dangerous liberality:
that the pay given by the Athenians, even in the most flourishing times,
amounted only to three oboli. Should the sailors prove dissatisfied
with this equitable reduction, the Grecian character afforded an easy
expedient for silencing their licentious clamours. It would be sufficient
to bribe the naval commanders and a few mercenary orators, and the
careless and improvident seamen would submit, without suspicion, the rate
of their pay, as well as every other concern, to the influence and the
authority of those who were accustomed to govern them.

Tissaphernes heard this advice with all the attention of an avaricious
man to every proposal for saving his money; and so true a judgment had
Alcibiades formed of the Greeks, that Hermocrates the Syracusan was
the only officer who disdained, meanly and perfidiously, to betray the
interest of the men under his command: yet through the influence of his
colleagues, the plan of economy was universally adopted.

The intrigues of Alcibiades sowed jealousy and distrust in the
Peloponnesian fleet: they alienated the minds of the troops both from
Tissaphernes and from their commanders: the Persian was ready to forsake
those whom he had learned to despise; and Alcibiades profited by this
disposition to insinuate that the alliance of the Lacedæmonians was
equally expensive and inconvenient for the Great King and his lieutenants.

These artful representations produced almost an open breach between
Tissaphernes and his confederates. The advantage which Athens would
derive from this rupture might have paved the way for Alcibiades to
return to his country: but he dreaded to encounter that popular fury,
whose effects he had fatally experienced, and whose mad resentment no
degree of merit could appease; he therefore applied secretly to Pisander,
Theramenes, and other persons of distinction in the Athenian camp. To
them he deplored the desperate state of public affairs, expatiated on
his own credit with Tissaphernes, and insinuated that it might be yet
possible to prevent the Phœnician fleet from sailing to assist the enemy.
Assuming gradually more boldness, he finally declared that the Athenians
might obtain not merely the neutrality, but perhaps the assistance of
Tissaphernes, should they consent to abolish their turbulent democracy,
so odious to the Persians, and to entrust the administration of
government to men worthy to negotiate with so mighty a monarch.

When the illustrious exile proposed this measure, it is uncertain whether
he was acquainted with the secret cabals which had been already formed,
both in the city and in the camp, for executing the design which he
suggested. One man, the personal enemy of Alcibiades, alone opposed the
general current. But this man was Phrynichus. The courage with which he
invited dangers many have equalled, but none ever surpassed the boldness
with which he extricated himself from difficulties. When he perceived
that his colleagues were deaf to every objection against recalling
the friend of Tissaphernes, he secretly informed the Spartan admiral
Astyochus, of the intrigues which were carrying on to the disadvantage of
his country. Daring as this treachery was, Phrynichus addressed a traitor
not less perfidious than himself. Astyochus was become the pensioner
and creature of Tissaphernes, to whom he communicated the intelligence.
The Persian again communicated it to his favourite Alcibiades, who
complained in strong terms to the Athenians of the baseness and villainy
of Phrynichus.

The latter exculpated himself with address; but as the return of
Alcibiades might prove fatal to his safety, he ventured, a second
time, to write to Astyochus, gently reproaching him with his breach of
confidence, and explaining by what means he might surprise the whole
Athenian fleet at Samos; an exploit that must forever establish his fame
and fortune. Astyochus again betrayed the secret to Tissaphernes and
Alcibiades; but before their letters could be conveyed to the Athenian
camp, Phrynichus, who, by some unknown channel, was informed of this
second treachery, anticipated the dangerous discovery, by apprising
the Athenians of their enemy’s design to surprise their fleet. They
had scarcely employed the proper means to counteract that purpose when
messengers came from Alcibiades to announce the horrid perfidy of a
wretch who had basely sacrificed to private resentment the last hope of
his country. But the messengers arrived too late; the prior information
of Phrynichus, as well as the bold and singular wickedness of his design,
which no common degree of evidence was thought sufficient to prove, were
sustained as arguments for his exculpation; and it was believed that
Alcibiades had made use of a stratagem most infamous in itself, but not
unexampled among the Greeks, for destroying a man whom he detested.

The opposition of Phrynichus, though it retarded the designs of
Alcibiades, prevented not the measures of Pisander and his associates for
abolishing the democracy. The soldiers at Samos were induced, by reasons
above mentioned, to acquiesce in the resolution of their generals. But a
more difficult task remained; to deprive the people of Athens of their
liberty which, since the expulsion of the family of Pisistratus, they
had enjoyed a hundred years. Pisander headed the deputation which was
sent from the camp to the city to effect this important revolution. He
acquainted the extraordinary assembly, summoned on that occasion in the
theatre of Bacchus, of the measures which had been adopted by their
soldiers and fellow-citizens at Samos. The compact band of conspirators
warmly approved the example; but loud murmurs of discontent resounded in
different quarters of that spacious theatre. Pisander asked the reason of
this disapprobation. “Had his opponents anything better to propose? If
they had, let them come forward and explain the grounds of their dissent:
but, above all, let them explain how they could save themselves, their
families, and their country, unless they complied with the demand of
Tissaphernes. The imperious voice of necessity was superior to law; and
when the actual danger had ceased, they might re-establish their ancient
constitution.” The opponents of Pisander were unable or afraid to reply:
and the assembly passed a decree, investing ten ambassadors with full
powers to treat with the Persian satrap.

[Sidenote: [412 B.C.]]

Soon after the arrival of the Peloponnesian fleet on the coast of Asia,
the Spartan commanders had concluded, in the name of their republic,
a treaty with Tissaphernes; in which it was stipulated, that the
subsidies should be regularly paid by the king of Persia, and that the
Peloponnesian forces should employ their utmost endeavours to recover,
for that monarch, all the dominions of his ancestors, which had been long
unjustly usurped, and cruelly insulted, by the Athenians. This treaty
seemed so honourable to the Great King, that his lieutenant could not
venture openly to infringe it. Alarmed at the decay of his influence with
the Persians, on which he had built the flattering hopes of returning
to his country, Alcibiades employed all the resources of his genius to
conceal his disgrace. By solicitations, entreaties, and the meanest
compliances, he obtained an audience for his fellow-citizens. As the
agent of Tissaphernes, he then proposed the conditions on which they
might obtain the friendship of the Great King. Several demands were
made, demands most disgraceful to the name of Athens: to all of which
the ambassadors submitted. They even agreed to surrender the whole coast
of Ionia to its ancient sovereign. But when the artful Athenian (fearful
lest they should, on any terms, admit the treaty which Tissaphernes was
resolved on no terms to grant) demanded that the Persian fleets should
be allowed to sail, undisturbed, in the Grecian seas, the ambassadors,
well knowing that should this condition be complied with, no treaty
could hinder Greece from becoming a province of Persia, expressed their
indignation in very unguarded language, and left the assembly in disgust.

This imprudence enabled Alcibiades to affirm, with some appearance
of truth, that their own anger and obstinacy, not the reluctance of
Tissaphernes, had obstructed the negotiation, which was precisely
the issue of the affair most favourable to his views. His artifices
succeeded, but were not attended with the consequences expected from
them. The Athenians, both in the camp and city, perceived, by this
transaction, that his credit with the Persians was less than he
represented it; and the aristocratical faction were glad to get rid of
a man, whose restless ambition rendered him a dangerous associate. They
persisted, however, with great activity, in executing their purpose; of
which Phrynichus, who had opposed them only from hatred of Alcibiades,
became an active abettor. When persuasion was ineffectual, they had
recourse to violence. Androcles, Hyperbolus, and other licentious
demagogues, were assassinated. The people of Athens, ignorant of the
strength of the conspirators, and surprised to find in the number
many whom they least suspected, were restrained by inactive timidity,
or fluctuated in doubtful suspense. The cabal alone acted with union
and with vigour; and difficult as it seemed to subvert the Athenian
democracy, which had subsisted a hundred years with unexampled glory, yet
this design was undertaken and accomplished by the enterprising activity
of Pisander, the artful eloquence of Theramenes, the firm intrepidity of
Phrynichus, and the superintending wisdom of Antiphon.

He it was who formed the plan, and regulated the mode of attack, which
was carried on by his associates. Pisander and his party boldly declared,
that neither the spirit nor the forms of the established constitution
(which had recently subjected them to such a weight of misfortunes)
suited the present dangerous and alarming crisis. That it was necessary
to new-model the whole fabric of government; for which purpose five
persons (whose names he read) ought to be appointed by the people, to
choose a hundred others; each of whom should select three associates;
and the four hundred thus chosen, men of dignity and opulence, who would
serve their country without fee or reward, ought immediately to be
invested with the majesty of the republic. They alone should conduct the
administration uncontrolled, and assemble, as often as seemed proper,
five thousand citizens, whom they judged most worthy of being consulted
in the management of public affairs. This extraordinary proposal was
accepted without opposition: the partisans of democracy dreaded the
strength of the cabal; and the undiscerning multitude, dazzled by the
imposing name of five thousand, a number far exceeding the ordinary
assemblies of Athens, perceived not that they surrendered their liberties
to the artifice of an ambitious faction.[b]


THE OVERTHROW OF THE DEMOCRACY: THE FOUR HUNDRED

[Sidenote: [411 B.C.]]

Full liberty being thus granted to make any motion, however
anti-constitutional, and to dispense with all the established
formalities, such as preliminary authorisation by the senate, Pisander
now came forward with his substantive propositions to the following
effect:

(1) All the existing democratical magistracies were suppressed at once,
and made to cease for the future. (2) No civil functions whatever were
hereafter to be salaried. (3) To constitute a new government, a committee
of five persons were named forthwith, who were to choose a larger body of
one hundred; that is, one hundred including the five choosers themselves.
Each individual out of this body of one hundred, was to choose three
persons. (4) A body of Four Hundred was thus constituted, who were to
take their seat in the senate house, and to carry on the government with
unlimited powers, according to their own discretion. (5) They were to
convene the Five Thousand, whenever they might think fit. All was passed
without a dissentient voice.

The invention and employment of this imaginary aggregate of Five Thousand
was not the least dexterous among the combinations of Antiphon. No one
knew who these Five Thousand were: yet the resolution just adopted
purported--not that such a number of citizens should be singled out and
constituted, either by choice, or by lot, or in some determinate manner
which should exhibit them to the view and knowledge of others--but
that the Four Hundred should convene the Five Thousand, whenever they
thought proper: thus assuming the latter to be a list already made
up and notorious, at least to the Four Hundred themselves. The real
fact was that the Five Thousand existed nowhere except in the talk
and proclamations of the conspirators, as a supplement of fictitious
auxiliaries. They did not even exist as individual names on paper,
but simply as an imposturous nominal aggregate. The Four Hundred, now
installed, formed the entire and exclusive rulers of the state. But the
mere name of the Five Thousand, though it was nothing more than a name,
served two important purposes for Antiphon and his conspiracy. First, it
admitted of being falsely produced, especially to the armament at Samos,
as proof of a tolerably numerous and popular body of equal, qualified,
concurrent citizens, all intended to take their turn by rotation in
exercising the powers of government; thus lightening the odium of
extreme usurpation to the Four Hundred, and passing them off merely as
the earliest section of the Five Thousand, put into office for a few
months, and destined at the end of that period to give place to another
equal section. Next, it immensely augmented the means of intimidation
possessed by the Four Hundred at home, by exaggerating the impression
of their supposed strength. For the citizens generally were made to
believe that there were five thousand real and living partners in the
conspiracy; while the fact that these partners were not known and could
not be individually identified, rather aggravated the reigning terror and
mistrust; since every man, suspecting that his neighbour might possibly
be among them, was afraid to communicate his discontent or propose means
for joint resistance. In both these two ways, the name and assumed
existence of the Five Thousand lent strength to the real Four Hundred
conspirators. It masked their usurpation, while it increased their hold
on the respect and fears of the citizens.

As soon as the public assembly at Colonus had, with such seeming
unanimity, accepted all the propositions of Pisander, they were
dismissed; and the new regiment of Four Hundred were chosen and
constituted in the form prescribed. It now only remained to install
them in the senate house. But this could not be done without force,
since the senators were already within it; having doubtless gone
thither immediately from the assembly, where their presence, at least
the presence of the prytanes, or senators of the presiding tribe, was
essential as legal presidents. They had to deliberate what they would do
under the decree just passed, which divested them of all authority. Nor
was it impossible that they might organise armed resistance; for which
there seemed more than usual facility at the present moment, since the
occupation of Decelea by the Lacedæmonians kept Athens in a condition
like that of a permanent camp, with a large proportion of the citizens
day and night under arms. Against this chance the Four Hundred made
provision. They selected that hour of the day when the greater number of
citizens habitually went home, probably to their morning meal, leaving
the military station, with the arms piled and ready, under comparatively
thin watch. While the general body of hoplites left the station at this
hour, according to the usual practice, the hoplites--Andrian, Tenian, and
others--in the immediate confidence of the Four Hundred, were directed,
by private order, to hold themselves prepared and in arms, at a little
distance off; so that if any symptoms should appear of resistance being
contemplated, they might at once interfere and forestall it.

The Four Hundred then marched to the senate house, each man with a dagger
concealed under his garment, and followed by their special bodyguard
of 120 young men from various Grecian cities, the instruments of the
assassinations ordered by Antiphon and his colleagues. In this array
they marched into the senate house, where the senators were assembled,
and commanded them to depart; at the same time tendering to them their
pay for all the remainder of the year--seemingly about three months
or more down to the beginning of _Hecatombæon_, the month of new
nominations--during which their functions ought to have continued. The
senators were no way prepared to resist the decree just passed under
the forms of legality, with an armed body now arrived to enforce its
execution. They obeyed and departed, each man as he passed the door
receiving the salary tendered to him. That they should yield obedience
to superior force, under the circumstances, can excite neither censure
nor surprise; but that they should accept, from the hands of the
conspirators, this anticipation of an unearned salary, was a meanness
which almost branded them as accomplices, and dishonoured the expiring
hour of the last democratical authority. The Four Hundred now at last
found themselves triumphantly installed in the senate house, without the
least resistance, either from within its walls or even from without, by
any portion of the citizens.

Thus perished, or seemed to perish, the democracy of Athens, after
an uninterrupted existence of nearly one hundred years since the
revolution of Clisthenes. So incredible did it appear that the numerous,
intelligent, and constitutional citizens of Athens should suffer their
liberties to be overthrown by a band of four hundred conspirators, while
the great mass of them not only loved their democracy, but had arms in
their hands to defend it, that even their enemy and neighbour Agis, at
Decelea, could hardly imagine the revolution to be a fact accomplished.

The ulterior success of the conspiracy--when all prospect of Persian
gold, or improved foreign position, was at an end--is due to the
combinations, alike nefarious and skillful, of Antiphon, wielding and
organising the united strength of the aristocratical classes at Athens;
strength always exceedingly great, but under ordinary circumstances
working in fractions disunited and even reciprocally hostile to each
other--restrained by the ascendent democratical institutions--and
reduced to corrupt what it could not overthrow. Antiphon, about to
employ this anti-popular force in one systematic scheme, and for the
accomplishment of a predetermined purpose, keeps still within the same
ostensible constitutional limits. He raises no open mutiny: he maintains
inviolate the cardinal point of Athenian political morality--respect
to the decision of the senate and political assembly, as well as to
constitutional maxims.

He knows, however, that the value of these meetings, depends upon
freedom of speech; and that, if that freedom be suppressed, the assembly
itself becomes a nullity, or rather an instrument of positive imposture
and mischief. Accordingly, he causes all the popular orators to be
successively assassinated, so that no man dares to open his mouth on that
side; while on the other hand, the anti-popular speakers are all loud
and confident, cheering one another on, and seeming to represent all the
feeling of the persons present. By thus silencing each individual leader,
and intimidating every opponent from standing forward as spokesman, he
extorts the formal sanction of the assembly and the senate to measures
which the large majority of the citizens detest. That majority, however,
are bound by their own constitutional forms; and when the decision of
these, by whatever means obtained, is against them, they have neither
the inclination nor the courage to resist. In no part of the world has
this sentiment of constitutional duty, and submission to the vote of
a legal majority, been more keenly and universally felt, than it was
among the citizens of democratical Athens.[57] Antiphon thus finds means
to employ the constitutional sentiment of Athens as a means of killing
the constitution: the mere empty form, after its vital and protective
efficacy has been abstracted, remains simply as a cheat to paralyse
individual patriotism.

As Grecian history has been usually written, we are instructed to believe
that the misfortunes, and the corruption, and the degradation of the
democratical states are brought upon them by the class of demagogues, of
whom Cleon, Hyperbolus, Androcles, etc., stand forth as specimens. These
men are represented as mischief makers and revilers, accusing without
just cause, and converting innocence into treason. Now the history of
this conspiracy of the Four Hundred presents to us the other side of the
picture. It shows that the political enemies, against whom the Athenian
people were protected by their democratical institutions, and by the
demagogues as living organs of those institutions, were not fictitious
but dangerously real. It reveals the continued existence of powerful
anti-popular combinations, ready to come together for treasonable
purposes when the moment appeared safe and tempting. It manifests the
character and morality of the leaders, to whom the direction of the
anti-popular force naturally fell. It proves that these leaders, men of
uncommon ability, required nothing more than the extinction or silence
of the demagogues, to be enabled to subvert the popular securities and
get possession of the government. We need no better proof to teach us
what was the real function and intrinsic necessity of these demagogues in
the Athenian system, taking them as a class, and apart from the manner
in which individuals among them may have performed their duty. They
formed the vital movement of all that was tutelary and public spirited
in democracy. Aggressive in respect to official delinquents, they were
defensive in respect to the public and the constitution.

If that force, which Antiphon found ready made, had not been efficient,
at an earlier period in stifling the democracy, it was because there were
demagogues to cry aloud, as well as assemblies to hear and sustain them.
If Antiphon’s conspiracy was successful, it was because he knew where to
aim his blows, so as to strike down the real enemies of the oligarchy
and the real defenders of the people. We here employ the term demagogue
because it is that commonly used by those who denounce the class of
men here under review: the proper neutral phrase, laying aside odious
associations, would be to call them popular speakers, or opposition
speakers. But, by whatever name they may be called, it is impossible
rightly to conceive their position in Athens, without looking at them
in contrast and antithesis with those anti-popular forces against which
they formed the indispensable barrier, and which come forth into such
manifest and melancholy working under the organising hands of Antiphon
and Phrynichus.[c]

[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]


THE REVOLT FROM THE FOUR HUNDRED

The conduct of the Four Hundred tyrants (for historians have justly
adopted the language of Athenian resentment) soon opened the eyes and
understanding of the most thoughtless. They abolished every vestige
of ancient freedom; employed mercenary troops levied from the small
islands of the Ægean, to overawe the multitude, and to intimidate, in
some instances to destroy, their real or suspected enemies. Instead of
seizing the opportunity of annoying the Peloponnesians, enraged at the
treachery of Tissaphernes, and mutinous for want of pay and subsistence,
they sent ambassadors to solicit peace from the Spartans on the most
dishonourable terms. Their tyranny rendered them odious in the city,
and their cowardice made them contemptible in the camp at Samos. Their
cruelty and injustice were described and exaggerated by the fugitives
who continually arrived in that island. Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, two
officers of high merit and distinction, though not actually entrusted
with a share in the principal command, gave activity and boldness to
the insurgents. The abettors of the new government were attacked by
surprise: thirty of the most criminal were put to death, several others
were banished, democracy was re-established in the camp, and the soldiers
were bound by oath to maintain their hereditary government against the
conspiracy of domestic foes, and to act with vigour against the public
enemy.

Thrasybulus, who headed this successful and meritorious sedition, had a
mind to conceive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute the most
daring designs. He exhorted the soldiers not to despair of effecting
in the capital the same revolution which they had produced in the
camp. Their most immediate concern was to recall Alcibiades, who had
been deceived and disgraced by the tyrants, and who not only felt with
peculiar sensibility, but could resent with becoming dignity, the wrongs
of his country and his own. The advice of Thrasybulus was approved; soon
after he sailed to Magnesia, and returned in company with Alcibiades.

[Illustration: GREEK SEALS]

Though the army immediately saluted him general, Alcibiades left the care
of the troops to his colleagues Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus, and withdrew
himself from the applauses of his admiring countrymen, on pretence of
concerting with Tissaphernes the system of their future operations. But
his principal motive was to show himself to the Persian, in the new and
illustrious character with which he was invested; for having raised
his authority among the Athenians by his influence with the satrap, he
expected to strengthen this influence by the support of that authority.
Before he returned to the camp, ambassadors had been sent by the tyrants,
to attempt a negotiation with the partisans of democracy, who, inflamed
by continual reports of the indignities and cruelties committed in
Athens, prepared to sail thither to protect their friends and take
vengeance on their enemies. Alcibiades judiciously opposed this rash
resolution which must have left the Hellespont, Ionia, and the islands,
at the mercy of the hostile fleet. But he commanded the ambassadors to
deliver to their masters a short but pithy message: “That they must
divest themselves of their illegal power, and restore the ancient
constitution. If they delayed obedience, he would sail to the Piræus, and
deprive them of their authority and their lives.”

When this message was reported at Athens, it added to the disorder and
confusion in which that unhappy city was involved. The Four Hundred who
had acted with unanimity in usurping the government, soon disagreed
about the administration, and split into factions, which persecuted
each other as furiously as both had persecuted the people. Theramenes
and Aristocrates condemned and opposed the tyrannical measures of their
colleagues. The perfidious Phrynichus was slain: both parties prepared
for taking arms; and the horrors of a Corcyrean sedition were ready to
be renewed in Athens, when the old men, the children, the women, and
strangers, interposed for the safety of a city which had long been the
ornament of Greece, the terror of Persia, and the admiration of the world.

Had the public enemy availed themselves of this opportunity to assault
the Piræus, Athens could not have been saved from immediate destruction.
But the Peloponnesian forces at Miletus, long clamorous and discontented,
had broken out into open mutiny, when they heard of the recall of
Alcibiades, and the hostile intentions of Tissaphernes. They destroyed
the Persian fortifications in the neighbourhood of Miletus; they put the
garrisons to the sword; their treacherous commander, Astyochus, saved his
life by flying to an altar; nor was the tumult appeased until the guilty
were removed from their sight, and Mindarus, an officer of approved
valour and fidelity, arrived from Sparta to assume the principal command.

The dreadful consequences which must have resulted to the Athenians,
if, during the fury of their sedition, the enemy had attacked them with
a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, may be conceived by the terror
inspired by a much smaller Peloponnesian squadron of only forty-two
vessels commanded by the Spartan Agesandridas. The friends of the
constitution had assembled in the spacious theatre of Bacchus. The most
important matters were in agitation, when the alarm was given that some
Peloponnesian ships had been seen on the coast. All ranks of men hastened
to the Piræus; and prepared thirty-six vessels for taking the sea. When
Agesandridas perceived the ardent opposition which he must encounter
in attempting to land, he doubled the promontory of Sunium, and sailed
towards the fertile island of Eubœa, from which, since the fortification
of Decelea, the Athenians had derived far more plentiful supplies than
from the desolated territory of Attica. To defend a country which formed
their principal resource, they sailed in pursuit of the enemy, and
observed them next day near the shore of Eretria, the most considerable
town in the island.

The Eubœans, who had long watched an opportunity to revolt, supplied the
Peloponnesian squadron with all necessaries in abundance; but instead
of furnishing a market to the Athenians, they retired from the coast on
their approach. The commanders were obliged to weaken their strength
by despatching several parties into the country to procure provisions;
Agesandridas seized this opportunity to attack them: most of the ships
were taken; the crews swam to land; many were cruelly murdered by the
Eretrians, from whom they expected protection; and such only survived as
took refuge in the Athenian garrisons scattered over the island.

The news of this misfortune were most alarming to the Athenians. Neither
the invasion of Xerxes, nor even the defeat in Sicily, occasioned such
terrible consternation. They dreaded the immediate defection of Eubœa;
they had no more ships to launch; no means of resisting their multiplied
enemies: the city was divided against the camp, and divided against
itself. Yet the magnanimous firmness of Theramenes did not allow the
friends of liberty to despair. He encouraged them to disburden the
republic of its domestic foes, who had summoned, or who were at least
believed to have summoned, the assistance of the Lacedæmonian fleet,
that they might be enabled to enslave their fellow citizens. Antiphon,
Pisander, and the most obnoxious, seasonably escaped; the rest submitted.
A decree was passed, recalling Alcibiades, and approving the conduct of
the troops at Samos. The sedition ceased. The democracy, which had been
interrupted four months, was restored; and such are the resources of a
free government, that even this violent fermentation was not unproductive
of benefit to the state.


THE TRIUMPHS OF ALCIBIADES

[Sidenote: [411-409 B.C.]]

The Spartans, who formerly rejected the friendship, now courted the
protection of Pharnabazus; to whose northern province they sailed with
the principal strength of their armament, proceeded northwards in
pursuit of the enemy; and the important straits, which join the Euxine
and Ægean seas, became, and long continued, the scene of conflict. In
the twenty-first winter of the war, a year already distinguished by the
dissolution and revival of their democracy, the Athenians prevailed in
three successive engagements, including Cynossema, the event of which
became continually more decisive.

The Spartans yielded possession of the sea, which they hoped soon to
recover, and retired to the friendly harbours of Cyzicus, to repair
their shattered fleet; while the Athenians profited by the fame of their
victory, and by the terror of their arms, to demand contributions from
the numerous and wealthy towns in that neighbourhood. It was determined,
chiefly by the advice of Alcibiades, to attack the enemy at Cyzicus; for
which purpose they sailed, with eighty galleys, to the small island of
Proconnesus, near the western extremity of the Propontis, and ten miles
distant from the station of the Peloponnesian fleet. Alcibiades surprised
sixty vessels on a dark and rainy morning, as they were manœuvring at
a distance from the harbour, and skilfully intercepted their retreat.
As the day cleared up, the rest sailed forth to their assistance; the
action became general; the Athenians obtained a complete victory, and
their valour was rewarded by the capture of the whole Peloponnesian
fleet, except the Syracusan ships, which were burned, in the face of a
victorious enemy, by the enterprising Hermocrates. The Peloponnesians
were assisted by Pharnabazus in equipping a new fleet; but were deprived
of the wise counsels of Hermocrates, whose abilities were well fitted
both to prepare and to employ the resources of war. The success of the
Asiatic expedition had not corresponded to the sanguine hopes of his
countrymen; the insolent populace accused their commanders of incapacity;
and a mandate was sent from Syracuse, depriving them of their office, and
punishing them with banishment.

Meanwhile Thrasyllus obtained at Athens the supplies which he had gone to
solicit; supplies far more powerful than he had reason to expect. With
these forces, Thrasyllus sailed to Samos. He took Colophon, with several
places of less note, in Ionia; penetrated into the heart of Lydia,
burning the corn and villages; and returned to the shore, driving before
him a numerous body of slaves, and other valuable booty. His courage was
increased by the want of resistance on the part of Tissaphernes, whose
province he had invaded; of the Peloponnesian forces at Miletus; and of
the revolted colonies of Athens. He resolved, therefore, to attack the
beautiful and flourishing city of Ephesus, which was then the principal
ornament and defence of the Ionic coast. The Athenians were defeated,
with the loss of three hundred men; and retiring from the field of
battle, they sought refuge in their ships, and prepared to sail towards
the Hellespont.

During the voyage thither, they fell in with twenty Sicilian galleys,
of which they took four, and pursued the rest to Ephesus. Having soon
afterwards reached the Hellespont, they found the Athenian armament at
Lampsacus, where Alcibiades thought proper to muster the whole military
and naval forces. They made a conjunct expedition against Abydos.
Pharnabazus defended the place with a numerous body of Persian cavalry.
The disgraced troops of Thrasyllus rejoiced in an opportunity to retrieve
their honour. They attacked, repelled, and routed the enemy.

[Sidenote: [408-407 B.C.]]

For several years the measures of the Athenians had been almost uniformly
successful; but the twenty-fourth campaign was distinguished by peculiar
favours of fortune. The Athenians returned in triumph to attack the
fortified cities, which still declined submission; an undertaking in
which Alcibiades displayed the wonderful resources of his extraordinary
genius. By gradual approaches, by sudden assaults, by surprise, by
treason, or by stratagem, he in a few months became master of Chalcedon,
Selymbria, and at last of Byzantium itself. His naval success was
equally conspicuous. The Athenians again commanded the sea. The small
squadrons fitted out by the enemy successively fell into their power.
It was computed by the partisans of Alcibiades, that, since assuming
the command, he had taken or destroyed two hundred Syracusan and
Peloponnesian galleys; and his superiority of naval strength enabled him
to raise such contributions, both in the Euxine and Mediterranean, as
abundantly supplied his fleet and army with every necessary article of
subsistence and accommodation.

While the Athenian arms were crowned with such glory abroad, the Attic
territory was continually harassed by King Agis, and the Lacedæmonian
troops posted at Decelea. Their bold and sudden incursions frequently
threatened the safety of the city itself; the desolated lands afforded
no advantage to the ruined proprietors; nor could the Athenians
venture without their walls, to celebrate their accustomed festivals.
Alcibiades, animated by his foreign victories, hoped to relieve the
domestic sufferings of his country; and after an absence of many years,
distinguished by such a variety of fortune, eagerly longed to revisit
his native city, and enjoy the rewards and honours usually bestowed by
the Greeks on successful valour. This celebrated voyage, which several
ancient historians studiously decorated with every circumstance of
naval triumph, was performed in the twenty-fifth summer of the war.
Notwithstanding all his services, the cautious son of Clinias, instructed
by adversity, declined to land in the Piræus, until he was informed that
the assembly had repealed the decrees against him, formally revoked
his banishment, and prolonged the term of his command. Even after this
agreeable intelligence he was still unable to conquer his well-founded
distrust of the variable and capricious humours of the people; nor would
he approach the crowded shore, till he observed, in the midst of the
multitude, his principal friends and relations inviting him by their
voice and action. He then landed amidst the universal acclamations of
the spectators, who, unattentive to the naval pomp, and regardless of
the other commanders, fixed their eyes only on Alcibiades. Next day an
extraordinary assembly was summoned, by order of the magistrates, that
he might explain and justify his apparent misconduct, and receive the
rewards due to his acknowledged merit.

Before judges so favourably disposed to hear him, Alcibiades found no
difficulty to make his defence. He was appointed commander-in-chief
by sea and land. A hundred galleys were equipped, and transports were
prepared for fifteen hundred heavy-armed men, with a proportional body of
cavalry.

Several months had passed in these preparations, when the Eleusinian
festival approached; a time destined to commemorate and to diffuse the
temporal and spiritual gifts of the goddess Ceres, originally bestowed on
the Athenians, and by them communicated to the rest of Greece.

Besides the mysterious ceremonies of the temple, the worship of that
bountiful goddess was celebrated by vocal and instrumental music, by
public shows, and exhibitions, which continued during several days, and
above all, by the pompous procession, which marched for ten miles along
the sacred road leading from Athens to Eleusis. This important part of
the solemnity had formerly been intermitted, because the Athenians,
after the loss of Decelea, were no longer masters of the road, and were
compelled, contrary to established custom, to proceed by sea to the
temple of Ceres. Alcibiades determined to wipe off the stain of impiety
which had long adhered to his character, by renewing, in all its lustre,
this venerable procession. After sufficient garrisons had been left to
defend the Athenian walls and fortresses, the whole body of heavy-armed
troops were drawn out to protect the Eleusinian procession, which marched
along the usual road to the temple, and afterwards returned to Athens,
without suffering any molestation from the Lacedæmonians; having united,
on this occasion alone, all the splendour of war with the pomp of
superstition.

[Sidenote: [407 B.C.]]

Soon after this meritorious enterprise, Alcibiades prepared to sail for
Lesser Asia, accompanied by the affectionate admiration of his fellow
citizens, who flattered themselves that the abilities and fortune of
their commander would speedily reduce Chios, Ephesus, Miletus, and the
other revolted cities and islands. The general alacrity, however, was
somewhat abated by the reflection, that the arrival of Alcibiades in
Athens coincided with the anniversary of the _plynteria_, a day condemned
to melancholy idleness, from a superstitious belief that nothing
undertaken on that day could be brought to a prosperous conclusion.

While the superstitious multitude trembled at the imaginary anger of
Minerva, men of reflection and experience dreaded the activity and valour
of Lysander, who, during the residence of Alcibiades at Athens, had taken
the command of the Peloponnesian forces in the East. Years had added
experience to his valour, and enlarged the resources, without abating
the ardour, of his ambitious mind. In his transactions with the world,
he had learned to soften the harsh asperity of his national manners;
to gain by fraud what could not be effected by force; and, in his own
figurative language, to “eke out the lion’s with the fox’s skin.” This
mixed character admirably suited the part which he was called to act.

Since the decisive action at Cyzicus, the Peloponnesians, unable to
resist the enemy, had been employed in preparing ships on the coast of
their own peninsula, as well as in the harbours of their Persian and
Grecian allies. The most considerable squadrons had been equipped in Cos,
Rhodes, Miletus, and Ephesus; in the last of which the whole armament,
amounting to ninety sail, was collected by Lysander. But the assembling
of such a force was a matter of little consequence, unless proper
measures should be taken for holding it together, and for enabling it
to act with vigour. It was necessary, above all, to secure pay for the
seamen; for this purpose, Lysander, accompanied by several Lacedæmonian
ambassadors, repaired to Sardis, to congratulate the happy arrival of
Cyrus, a generous and valiant youth of seventeen, who had been entrusted
by his father Darius with the government of the inland parts of Lesser
Asia. Lysander excited the warmest emotions of friendship in the youthful
breast of Cyrus, who drinking his health after the Persian fashion,
desired him to ask a boon, with full assurance that nothing should be
denied him. Lysander replied, with his usual address, “That he should ask
what it would be no less useful for the prince to give, than for him to
receive: the addition of an obolus a day to the pay of the mariners; an
augmentation which, by inducing the Athenian crews to desert, would not
only increase their own strength, but enfeeble the common enemy.” Struck
with the apparent disinterestedness of this specious proposal, Cyrus
ordered him immediately ten thousand darics (above five thousand pounds
sterling); with which he returned to Ephesus, discharged the arrears due
to his troops, gave them a month’s pay in advance, raised their daily
allowance, and seduced innumerable deserters from the Athenian fleet.

While Lysander was usefully employed in manning his ships, and preparing
them for action, Alcibiades attacked the small island of Andros. The
resistance was more vigorous than he had reason to expect; and the
immediate necessity of procuring pay and subsistence for the fleet,
obliged him to leave his work imperfect. With a small squadron he sailed
to raise contributions on the Ionian or Carian coast, committing the
principal armament to Antiochus, a man totally unworthy of such an
important trust. Even the affectionate partiality of Alcibiades seems
to have discerned the unworthiness of his favourite, since he gave him
strict orders to continue, during his own absence, in the harbour of
Samos, and by no means to risk an engagement. This injunction, as it
could not prevent the rashness, might perhaps provoke the vain levity
of the vice-admiral, who after the departure of his friend, sailed to
Notium near Ephesus, approached Lysander’s ships, and with the most
licentious insults challenged him to battle. The prudent Spartan delayed
the moment of attack, until the presumption of his enemies had thrown
them into scattered disorder. He then commanded the Peloponnesian
squadrons to advance. His manœuvres were judicious, and executed with a
prompt obedience. The battle was not obstinate, as the Athenians, who
scarcely expected any resistance, much less assault, sunk at once from
the insolence of temerity into the despondency of fear. They lost fifteen
vessels, with a considerable part of their crews. The remainder retired
disgracefully to Samos; while the Lacedæmonians profited by their victory
by the taking of Eion and Delphinium. Though fortune thus favoured the
prudence of Lysander, he declined to venture a second engagement with
the superior strength of Alcibiades, who, having resumed the command,
employed every artifice and insult that might procure him an opportunity
to restore the tarnished lustre of the Athenian fleet.

[Illustration: GREEK BUCKLES

(In the British Museum)]


ALCIBIADES IN DISFAVOUR AGAIN

[Sidenote: [407-406 B.C.]]

But such an opportunity he could never again find. The people of Athens,
who expected to hear of nothing but victories and triumphs, were
mortified to the last degree, when they received intelligence of such a
shameful defeat. As they could not suspect the abilities, they distrusted
the fidelity, of their commander. Their suspicions were increased and
confirmed by the arrival of Thrasybulus, who, whether actuated by a
laudable zeal for the interest of the public service, or animated by
a selfish jealousy of the fame and honours that had been so liberally
heaped on a rival, formally impeached Alcibiades in the Athenian
assembly. “His misconduct had totally ruined the affairs of his country.
A talent for low buffoonery was a sure recommendation to his favour. His
friends were, partially, selected from the meanest and most abandoned of
men, who possessed no other merit than that of being subservient to his
passions. To such unworthy instruments the fleet of Athens was entrusted;
while the commander-in-chief revelled in debauchery with the harlots of
Abydos and Ionia, or raised exorbitant contributions on the dependent
cities, that he might defray the expense of a fortress on the coast
of Thrace, in the neighbourhood of Byzantium, which he had erected to
shelter himself against the just vengeance of the republic.”

In the assembly, Alcibiades was accused, and almost unanimously
condemned; and that the affairs of the republic might not again suffer
by the abuse of undivided power, ten commanders were substituted in his
room; among whom were Thrasyllus, Leon, Diomedon; Conon, a character as
yet but little known, but destined, in a future period, to eclipse the
fame of his contemporaries; and Pericles, who inherited the name, the
merit, and the bad fortune, of his illustrious father. The new generals
immediately sailed to Samos; and Alcibiades sought refuge in his Thracian
fortress.

They had scarcely assumed the command, when an important alteration
took place in the Peloponnesian fleet. Lysander’s year had expired,
and Callicratidas, a Spartan of a very opposite character, was sent to
succeed him.

Lysander reluctantly resigned his employment; but determined to render
it painful, and if possible, too weighty for the abilities of his
successor. For this purpose he returned to the court of Cyrus, to whom
he restored a considerable sum of money still unexpended in the service
of the Grecian fleet, and to whom he misrepresented, under the names
of obstinacy, ignorance, and rusticity, the unaffected plainness, the
downright sincerity, and the other manly, but uncomplying, virtues of the
generous Callicratidas. When that commander repaired to Sardis to demand
the stipulated pay, he could not obtain admission to the royal presence.

But Callicratidas could not, with honour or safety, return to the fleet
at Ephesus, without having collected money to supply the immediate
wants of the sailors. He proceeded, therefore, to Miletus and other
friendly towns of Ionia; and having met the principal citizens, in their
respective assemblies, he explained openly and fully the mean jealousy
of Lysander, and the disdainful arrogance of Cyrus. By those judicious
and honourable expedients, Callicratidas, without fraud or violence,
obtained such considerable, yet voluntary contributions, as enabled him
to gratify the importunate demands of the sailors, and to return with
honour to Ephesus, in order to prepare for action. His first operations
were directed against the isle of Lesbos, or rather against the strong
and populous towns of Methymna and Mytilene, which respectively commanded
the northern and southern divisions of that island. Methymna was taken by
storm, and subjected to the depredations of the Peloponnesian troops.


CONON WINS AT ARGINUSÆ

Meanwhile Conon, the most active and enterprising of the Athenian
commanders, had put to sea with a squadron of seventy sail, in order to
protect the coast of Lesbos. But this design was attempted too late; nor,
had it been more early undertaken, was the force of Conon sufficient
to accomplish it. Callicratidas observed his motions, discovered his
strength, and, with a far superior fleet, intercepted his retreat to the
armament of Samos. The Athenians fled towards the coast of Mytilene, but
were prevented from entering the harbour of that place by the resentment
of the inhabitants, who rejoiced in an opportunity to punish those who
had so often conquered, and so long oppressed, their city. In consequence
of this unexpected opposition, the Athenian squadron was overtaken by
the enemy. The engagement was more sharp and obstinate than might have
been expected in such an inequality of strength. Thirty empty ships (for
the most of the men swam to land) were taken by the Peloponnesians. The
remaining forty were hauled up under the walls of Mytilene; Callicratidas
recalled his troops from Methymna, received a reinforcement from Chios,
and blocked up the Athenians by sea and land.

[Sidenote: [406 B.C.]]

The Athenians reinforced their domestic strength with the assistance of
their allies; all able-bodied men were pressed into the service; and, in
a few weeks, they had assembled at Samos a hundred and fifty sail, which
immediately took the sea, with a resolution to encounter the enemy.

Callicratidas did not decline the engagement. Having left fifty ships
to guard the harbour of Mytilene, he proceeded with a hundred and
twenty to Cape Malea, the most southern point of Lesbos. The Athenians
had advanced, the same evening, to the islands or rather rocks, of
Arginusæ, four miles distant from that promontory. The night passed in
bold stratagems for mutual surprise, which were rendered ineffectual by
a violent tempest of rain and thunder. The fight was long and bloody;
passing, successively, through all the different gradations, from
disciplined order and regularity to the most tumultuous confusion.
The Spartan commander was slain charging in the centre of the bravest
enemies. The hostile squadrons fought with various fortune in different
parts of the battle, and promiscuously conquered, pursued, surrendered,
or fled. Thirteen Athenian vessels were taken by the Peloponnesians; but,
at length, the latter gave way on all sides: seventy of their ships were
captured, the rest escaped to Chios and Phocæa.

The Athenian admirals, though justly elated with their good fortune,
cautiously deliberated concerning the best means of improving their
victory. Several advised that the fleet should steer its course to
Mytilene, to surprise the Peloponnesian squadron which blocked up the
harbour of that city. Diomedon recommended it as a more immediate and
essential object of their care to recover the bodies of the slain,
and to save the wreck of twelve vessels which had been disabled
in the engagement. Thrasybulus observed, that by dividing their
strength, both purposes might be effected. His opinion was approved.
The charge of preserving the dying, and collecting the bodies of the
dead, was committed to Theramenes and Thrasybulus. Fifty vessels were
destined to that important service, doubly recommended by humanity and
superstition. The remainder sailed to the isle of Lesbos, in quest of the
Peloponnesians on that coast, who narrowly escaped destruction through
the well-conducted stratagem of Eteonicus, the Spartan vice-admiral.

While the prudent foresight of Eteonicus saved the Peloponnesian
squadron at Mytilene, the violence of a storm prevented Theramenes and
Thrasybulus from saving their unfortunate companions, all of whom,
excepting one of the admirals and a few others who escaped by their
extraordinary dexterity in swimming, were overwhelmed by the waves of a
tempestuous sea; nor could their dead bodies ever be recovered. These
unforeseen circumstances were the more disagreeable and mortifying to
the commanders, because, immediately after the battle, they had sent
an advice-boat to Athens, acquainting the magistrates with the capture
of seventy vessels; mentioning their intended expeditions to Mytilene,
Methymna, and Chios, from which they had reason to hope the most
distinguished success; and particularly taking notice that the important
charge of recovering the bodies of the drowned or slain had been
committed to Theramenes and Thrasybulus, two captains of approved conduct
and fidelity.

The joy with which the Athenians received this flattering intelligence
was converted into disappointment and sorrow, when they understood that
their fleet had returned to Samos, without reaping the expected fruits of
victory. They were afflicted beyond measure with the total loss of the
wreck, by which their brave and victorious countrymen had been deprived
of the sacred rites of funeral; a circumstance viewed with peculiar
horror, because it was supposed, according to a superstition consecrated
by the belief of ages, to subject their melancholy shades to wander a
hundred years on the gloomy banks of the Styx, before they could be
transported to the regions of light and felicity. The relations of the
dead lamented their private misfortunes; the enemies of the admirals
exaggerated the public calamity; both demanded an immediate and serious
examination into the cause of this distressful event, that the guilty
might be discovered and punished.


THE TRIAL OF THE GENERALS

Amidst the ferment of popular discontents, Theramenes sailed to Athens,
with a view to exculpate himself and his colleague, Thrasybulus. The
letter sent thither before them had excited their fear and their
resentment; since it rendered them responsible for a duty which they
found it impossible to perform. Theramenes accused the admirals of having
neglected the favourable moment to save the perishing, and to recover the
bodies of the dead; and, after the opportunity of this important service
was irrecoverably lost, of having devolved the charge on others, in order
to screen their own misconduct. The Athenians greedily listened to the
accusation, and cashiered the absent commanders. Conon, who during the
action remained blocked up at Mytilene, was entrusted with the fleet.
Protomachus and Aristogenes chose a voluntary banishment. The rest
returned home to justify measures which appeared so criminal.

Archedemus, an opulent and powerful citizen, and Callixenus, a seditious
demagogue, partly moved by the entreaties of Theramenes, and partly
excited by personal envy and resentment, denounced the admirals to the
senate. The accusation was supported by the relatives of the deceased,
who appeared in mourning robes, their heads shaved, their arms folded,
their eyes bathed in tears, piteously lamenting the loss and disgrace of
their families, deprived of their protectors, who had been themselves
deprived of those last and solemn duties to which all mankind are
entitled. A false witness swore in court, that he had been saved, almost
by miracle, from the wreck, and that his companions, as they were ready
to be drowned, charged him to acquaint his country how they had fallen
victims to the neglect of their commanders.

An unjust decree, which deprived the commanders of the benefits of a
separate trial, of an impartial hearing, and of the time as well as the
means necessary to prepare a legal defence, was approved by a majority
of the senate, and received with loud acclamations by the people,
whose levity, insolence, pride, and cruelty, all eagerly demanded
the destruction of the admirals. The senators were intimidated into a
reluctant compliance with measures which they disapproved, and by which
they were for ever to be disgraced. Yet the philosophic firmness of
Socrates disdained to submit. He protested against the tameness of his
colleagues, and declared that neither threats, nor danger, nor violence,
could compel him to conspire with injustice for the destruction of the
innocent.

[Illustration: GRECIAN GALLEY]

But what could avail the voice of one virtuous man amidst the licentious
madness of thousands? The commanders were accused, tried, condemned,
and, with the most irregular precipitancy, delivered to the executioner.
Before they were led to death, Diomedon addressed the assembly in a short
but ever-memorable speech: “I am afraid, Athenians, lest the sentence
which you have passed on us, prove hurtful to the republic. Yet I would
exhort you to employ the most proper means to avert the vengeance of
heaven. You must carefully perform the sacrifices which, before giving
battle at Arginusæ, we promised to the gods in behalf of ourselves and
of you. Our misfortunes deprive us of an opportunity to acquit this
just debt, and to pay the sincere tribute of our gratitude. But we are
deeply sensible that the assistance of the gods enabled us to obtain that
glorious and signal victory.” The disinterestedness, the patriotism, and
the magnanimity of this discourse, must have appeased (if anything had
been able to appease) the tumultuous passions of the vulgar. But their
headstrong fury defied every restraint of reason or of sentiment. They
persisted in their bloody purpose, which was executed without pity:
yet their cruelty was followed by a speedy repentance, and punished by
the sharp pangs of remorse, the intolerable pain of which they vainly
attempted to mitigate by inflicting a well-merited vengeance on the
detestable Callixenus.[b]

This complication of injustice and ingratitude seemed to give the
finishing blow to the Athenian state; they struggled for a while, after
their defeat at Syracuse; but from hence they were entirely sunk.

The enemy, after their last defeat, had once more recourse to Lysander,
who had so often led them to conquest: on him they placed their chief
confidence, and ardently solicited his return. The Lacedæmonians, to
gratify their allies, and yet to observe their laws, which forbade
that honour being conferred twice on the same person, sent him with an
inferior title, but with the power of admiral. Thus appointed, Lysander
sailed towards the Hellespont, and laid siege to Lampsacus: the place
was carried by storm, and abandoned by Lysander to the mercy of the
soldiers. The Athenians, who followed him close, upon the news of his
success, steered forward towards Sestus, and from thence, sailing along
the coast, halted over against the enemy at Ægospotami, a place fatal to
the Athenians.


THE BATTLE OF ÆGOSPOTAMI

[Sidenote: [405 B.C.]]

The Hellespont is not above two thousand yards broad in that place.
The two armies seeing themselves so near each other, expected only to
rest the day, and were in hopes of coming to a battle on that next. But
Lysander had another design in view: he commanded the seamen and pilots
to go on board their galleys, as if they were in reality to fight the
next morning at break of day, to hold themselves in readiness, and to
wait his orders in profound silence. He ordered the land army, in like
manner, to draw up in battle upon the coast, and to wait the day without
any noise. On the morning, as soon as the sun was risen, the Athenians
began to row towards them with their whole fleet in one line, and to
bid them defiance. Lysander, though his ships were ranged in order of
battle, with their heads towards the enemy, lay still without making any
movement. In the evening, when the Athenians withdrew, he did not suffer
his soldiers to go ashore, till two or three galleys, which he had sent
out to observe them, were returned with advice that they had seen the
enemy land. The next day passed in the same manner, as did the third and
fourth. Such a conduct, which argued reserve and apprehension, extremely
augmented the security and boldness of the Athenians, and inspired them
with a high contempt for an army, which fear prevented from showing
themselves or attempting anything.

[Illustration: GREEK CANDELABRUM

(After Hope)]

Whilst this passed, Alcibiades, who was near the fleet, took horse,
and came to the Athenian generals, to whom he represented, that they
came upon a very disadvantageous coast, where there were neither ports
nor cities in the neighbourhood; that they were obliged to bring their
provisions from Sestus, with great danger and difficulty; and that they
were very much in the wrong to suffer the soldiers and mariners of the
fleet, as soon as they were ashore, to straggle and disperse themselves
at their pleasure, whilst the enemy’s fleet faced them in view,
accustomed to execute the orders of their general with instant obedience,
and upon the slightest signal.

He offered also to attack the enemy by land, with a strong body of
Thracian troops, and to force a battle. The generals, especially Tydeus
and Menander, jealous of their command, did not content themselves
with refusing his offers, from the opinion, that, if the event proved
unfortunate, the whole blame would fall upon them, and, if favourable,
that Alcibiades would engross the whole honour of it; but rejected also
with insult his wise and salutary counsel: as if a man in disgrace lost
his sense and abilities with the favour of the commonwealth. Alcibiades
withdrew.

The fifth day, the Athenians presented themselves again, and offered
battle, retiring in the evening according to custom, with a more
insulting air than the days before. Lysander, as usual, detached some
galleys to observe them, with orders to return with the utmost diligence
when they saw the Athenians landed, and to put a bright buckler[58] at
each ship’s head, as soon as they reached the middle of the channel.
Himself, in the meantime, ran through the whole line in his galley,
exhorting the pilots and officers to hold the seamen and soldiers in
readiness to row and fight on the first signal.

As soon as the bucklers were put up in the ships’ heads, and the
admiral’s galley had given the signal by the sound of trumpet, the whole
fleet set forwards, in good order. The land army, at the same time, made
all possible haste to the top of the promontory, to see the battle. The
strait that separates the two continents in this place is about fifteen
stadia, or two miles in breadth, which space was presently cleared,
through the activity and diligence of the rowers. Conon, the Athenian
general, was the first who perceived from shore the enemy’s fleet
advancing in good order to attack him, upon which he immediately cried
out for the troops to embark. In the height of sorrow and perplexity,
some he called to by their names, some he conjured, and others he forced
to go on board their galleys: but all his endeavours and emotion were
ineffectual, the soldiers being dispersed on all sides. For they were no
sooner come on shore, than some were run to the sutlers, some to walk in
the country, some to sleep in their tents, and others had begun to dress
their suppers. This proceeded from the want of vigilance and experience
in their generals, who, not suspecting the least danger, indulged
themselves in taking their repose, and gave their soldiers the same
liberty.

The enemy had already fallen on with loud cries, and a great noise of
their oars, when Conon, disengaging himself with nine galleys, of which
number was the sacred ship, stood away for Cyprus, where he took refuge
with Evagoras. The Peloponnesians, falling upon the rest of the fleet,
took immediately the galleys which were empty, and disabled and destroyed
such as began to fill with men. The soldiers, who ran without order or
arms to their relief, were either killed in the endeavour to get on
board, or flying on shore, were cut in pieces by the enemy, who landed
in pursuit of them. Lysander took three thousand prisoners, with all
their generals, and the whole fleet. After having plundered the camp,
and fastened the enemy’s galleys to the sterns of his own, he returned
to Lampsacus, amidst the sounds of flutes and songs of triumph. It was
his glory to have achieved one of the greatest military exploits recorded
in history, with little or no loss, and to have terminated a war, in the
small space of an hour, which had already lasted seven-and-twenty years,
and which perhaps, without him, had been of much longer continuance.
Lysander immediately sent despatches with this agreeable news to Sparta.

The three thousand prisoners taken in this battle having been condemned
to die, Lysander called upon Philocles, one of the Athenian generals, who
had caused all the prisoners taken in two galleys, the one of Andros,
the other of Corinth, to be thrown from the top of a precipice, and had
formerly persuaded the people of Athens to make a decree for cutting off
the thumb of the right hand of all the prisoners of war, in order to
disable them from handling the pike, and that they might be fit only to
serve at the oar. Lysander, therefore, caused him to be brought forth,
and asked him what sentence he would pass upon himself, for having
induced his city to pass that cruel decree. Philocles, without departing
from his haughtiness in the least, notwithstanding the extreme danger he
was in, made answer: “Accuse not people of crimes, who have no judges;
but, as you are victors, use your right, and do by us as we had done by
you, if we had conquered.” At the same instant he went into a bath, put
on afterwards a magnificent robe, and marched foremost to the execution.
All the prisoners were put to the sword, except Adimantus,[59] who had
opposed the decree.[e]


THE FALL OF ATHENS

When he had arranged matters at Lampsacus, Lysander sailed against
Byzantium and Chalcedon; where the inhabitants admitted him, after
sending away the Athenian garrison under treaty. The party that had
betrayed Byzantium to Alcibiades, at that time fled to Pontus, and
afterwards to Athens, and became citizens there. The garrison troops of
the Athenians, and whatever other Athenians he found anywhere, Lysander
sent to Athens, giving them safe conduct so long as they were sailing
to that place alone, and to no other; knowing that the more people were
collected in the city and Piræus, the sooner there would be a want
of provisions. And now, leaving Sthenelaus as Lacedæmonian harmost
of Byzantium and Chalcedon, he himself sailed away to Lampsacus, and
refitted his ships.

[Illustration: GREEK VASE]

At Athens, on the arrival of the _Paralus_ in the night, the tale of
their disaster was told; and the lamentation spread from the Piræus up
the Long Walls into the city, one man passing on the tidings to another:
so that no one went to bed that night, not only through their mourning
for the dead, but much more still because they thought they should
themselves suffer the same things as they had done to the Melians (who
were a colony from Lacedæmon), when they had reduced them by blockade,
and to the Histiæans, Scionæans, Toronæans, Æginetans, and many others of
the Greeks. But the next day they convened an assembly, at which it was
resolved to block up the harbours, with the exception of one, and to put
the walls in order, and mount guard upon them, and in every other way to
prepare the city for a siege.

Lysander, having come with two hundred ships from the Hellespont to
Lesbos, regulated both the other cities in the island, and especially
Mytilene; while he sent Eteonicus with ten ships to the Athenian
possessions Thraceward, who brought over all the places there to the
Lacedæmonians. And all the rest of Greece too revolted from Athens
immediately after the sea-fight, except the Samians; they massacred
the notables amongst them, and kept possession of the city. Afterwards
Lysander sent word to Agis at Decelea, and to Lacedæmon, that he was
sailing up with two hundred ships. And the Lacedæmonians went out to
meet him _en masse_, and all the rest of the Peloponnesians but the
Argives, at the command of the other Spartan king, Pausanias. When they
were all combined, he took them to the city and encamped before it, in
the academy--the gymnasium so called. Then Lysander went to Ægina, and
restored the city to the Æginetans, having collected as many of them as
he could; and so likewise to the Melians, and as many others as had been
deprived of their city. After this, having ravaged Salamis, he came to
anchor off the Piræus, with a hundred and fifty ships, and prevented all
vessels from sailing into it.

The Athenians, being thus besieged by land and by sea, were at a loss
what to do, as they had neither ships, nor allies, nor provisions; and
they thought nothing could save them from suffering what they had done to
others, not in self-defence, but wantonly wronging men of smaller states,
on no other single ground, but their being allies of the Lacedæmonians.
Wherefore they restored to their privileges those who had been degraded
from them, and held out resolutely; and though many in the city were
dying of starvation, they spoke not a word of coming to terms. But when
their corn had now entirely failed, they sent ambassadors to Agis,
wishing to become allies of the Lacedæmonians, while they retained their
walls and the Piræus, and on these conditions to make treaty with them.
He told them to go to Lacedæmon, as he had himself no power to treat.
When the ambassadors delivered this message to the Athenians, they sent
them to Lacedæmon. But when they were at Sellasia, near the Laconian
territory, and the ephors heard what they proposed, which was the same
as they had done to Agis, they bade them return from that very spot, and
if they had any wish at all for peace, to come back after taking better
advice.

When the ambassadors came home, and reported this in the city, dejection
fell on all; for they thought they would be sold into slavery; and that
even while they were sending another embassy, many would die of famine.
But with respect to the demolition of their walls, no one would advise
it: for Archestratus had been thrown into prison for saying in the
council, that it was best to make peace with the Lacedæmonians on the
terms they offered, which were, that they should demolish ten furlongs of
each of the Long Walls; and a decree was then made, that it should not
be allowed to advise on that subject. Such being the case, Theramenes
said in the assembly, that if they would send him to Lysander, he would
come back with full knowledge whether it was from a wish to enslave the
city that the Lacedæmonians held out on the subject of the walls, or to
have a guarantee for their good faith. Having been sent, he remained with
Lysander three months and more, watching to see when the Athenians, from
the failure of all their food, would agree to what any one might say. On
his return in the fourth month, he reported in the assembly that Lysander
had detained him all that time, and then told him to go to Lacedæmon.
After this he was chosen ambassador to Lacedæmon with full powers,
together with nine others. Now Lysander had sent, along with some others
who were Lacedæmonians, Aristoteles, an Athenian exile, to carry word to
the ephors that he had answered Theramenes, that it was they who were
empowered to decide on the question of peace or war. So when Theramenes
and the rest of the ambassadors were at Sellasia, being asked on what
terms they had come, they replied that they had full powers to treat
for peace; the ephors then ordered them to be called onward. Upon their
arrival they convened an assembly, at which the Corinthians and Thebans
contended most strenuously, though many others of the Greeks did so too,
that they should conclude no treaty with the Athenians, but make away
with them.

The Lacedæmonians, however, said they would not reduce to bondage a state
which had done great good at the time of the greatest dangers that had
ever befallen Greece; but they offered to make peace, on condition of
their demolishing the Long Walls and Piræus, giving up all their ships
but twelve, restoring their exiles, having the same friends and foes as
the Lacedæmonians, and following, both by land and by sea, wherever they
might lead. Theramenes and his fellow-ambassadors carried back these
terms to Athens. On their entering the city, a great multitude poured
round them, afraid of their having returned unsuccessful: for it was
no longer possible to delay, owing to the great numbers who were dying
of famine. The next day the ambassadors reported on what conditions
the Lacedæmonians were willing to make peace; and Theramenes, as their
spokesman, said that they should obey the Lacedæmonians, and destroy
the walls. When some had opposed him, but far more agreed with him, it
was resolved to accept the peace. Subsequently Lysander sailed into the
Piræus, and the exiles were restored; and they dug down the walls with
much glee, to the music of women playing the flute, considering that day
to be the beginning of liberty to Greece.

And so ended the year in the middle of which Dionysius the son of
Hermocrates, the Syracusan, became tyrant, after the Carthaginians,
though previously defeated in battle by the Syracusans, had reduced
Agrigentum.[f]


A REVIEW OF THE WAR

[Sidenote: [478-404 B.C.]]

The confederacy of Delos was formed by the free and spontaneous
association of many different towns, all alike independent; towns which
met in synod and deliberated by equal vote--took by their majority
resolutions binding upon all--and chose Athens as their chief to enforce
these resolutions, as well as to superintend generally the war against
the common enemy.

Now the only way by which the confederacy was saved from falling
to pieces, was by being transformed into an Athenian empire. Such
transformation (as Thucydides plainly intimates) did not arise from
the ambition or deep-laid projects of Athens, but from the reluctance
of the larger confederates to discharge the obligations imposed by the
common synod, and from the unwarlike character of the confederates
generally--which made them desirous to commute military service for
money-payment, while Athens on her part was not less anxious to perform
the service and obtain the money. By gradual and unforeseen stages,
Athens thus passed from consulate to empire; in such manner that no one
could point out the precise moment of time when the confederacy of Delos
ceased, and when the empire began.

But the Athenian empire came to include (between 460-446 B.C.) other
cities not parties to the confederacy of Delos. Athens had conquered
her ancient enemy the island of Ægina, and had acquired supremacy over
Megara, Bœotia, Phocis, and Locris, and Achaia in Peloponnesus. Her
empire was now at its maximum; and had she been able to maintain it--or
even to keep possession of the Megarid separately, which gave her the
means of barring out all invasions from the Peloponnesus--the future
course of Grecian history would have been materially altered. But her
empire on land did not rest upon the same footing as her empire at sea.
The exiles in Megara and Bœotia, etc., and the anti-Athenian party
generally in those places--combined with the rashness of her general
Tolmides at Coronea--deprived her of all her land-dependencies near home,
and even threatened her with the loss of Eubœa. The peace concluded in
445 B.C. left her with all her maritime and insular empire (including
Eubœa), but with nothing more; while by the loss of Megara she was now
open to invasion from the Peloponnesus.

On this footing she remained at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War
fourteen years afterwards. That war did not arise (as has been so often
asserted) from aggressive or ambitious schemes on the part of Athens,
but that, on the contrary, the aggression was all on the side of her
enemies, who were full of hopes that they could put her down with little
delay; while she was not merely conservative and defensive, but even
discouraged by the certainty of destructive invasion, and only dissuaded
from concessions, alike imprudent and inglorious, by the extraordinary
influence and resolute wisdom of Pericles. That great man comprehended
well both the conditions and the limits of Athenian empire. Athens
was now understood (especially since the revolt and reconquest of the
powerful island of Samos in 440 B.C.) by her subjects and enemies as well
as by her own citizens, to be mistress of the sea. It was the care of
Pericles to keep that belief within definite boundaries, and to prevent
all waste of the force of the city in making new or distant acquisitions
which could not be permanently maintained. But it was also his care to
enforce upon his countrymen the lesson of maintaining their existing
empire unimpaired, and shrinking from no effort requisite for that end.
Though their whole empire was now staked upon the chances of a perilous
war, he did not hesitate to promise them success, provided that they
adhered to this conservative policy.

[Sidenote: [431-413 B.C.]]

[Illustration: PART OF THE ANCIENT GREEK WALL AT FERENTINUM WITH
SUPERIMPOSED MODERN STRUCTURE]

Following the events of the war, we shall find that Athens did adhere
to it for the first seven years; years of suffering and trial, from the
destructive annual invasion, the yet more destructive pestilence, and the
revolt of Mytilene--but years which still left her empire unimpaired, and
the promises of Pericles in fair chance of being realised. In the seventh
year of the war occurred the unexpected victory at Sphacteria and the
capture of the Lacedæmonian prisoners. This placed in the hands of the
Athenians a capital advantage, imparting to them prodigious confidence
of future success, while their enemies were in a proportional degree
disheartened. It was in this temper that they first departed from the
conservative precept of Pericles.

Down to the expedition against Syracuse the empire of Athens (except
the possessions in Thrace) remained undiminished, and her general power
nearly as great as it had ever been since 445 B.C. That expedition was
the one great and fatal departure from the Periclean policy, bringing
upon Athens an amount of disaster from which she never recovered; and it
was doubtless an error of over-ambition.

After the Syracusan disaster, there is no longer any question about
adhering to, or departing from the Periclean policy. Athens is like
Patroclus in the _Iliad_, after Apollo has stunned him by a blow on the
back and loosened his armour. Nothing but the slackness of her enemies
allowed her time for a partial recovery, so as to make increased heroism
a substitute for impaired force, even against doubled and tripled
difficulties. And the years of struggle which she now went through are
among the most glorious events in her history. These years present many
misfortunes, but no serious misjudgment; not to mention one peculiarly
honourable moment, after the overthrow of the Four Hundred. And after
all, they were on the point of partially recovering themselves in 408
B.C., when the unexpected advent of Cyrus set the seal to their destiny.

The bloodshed after the recapture of Mytilene and Scione, and still
more that which succeeded the capture of Melos, are disgraceful to the
humanity of Athens, and stand in pointed contrast with the treatment of
Samos when reconquered by Pericles. But they did not contribute sensibly
to break down her power; though, being recollected with aversion after
other incidents were forgotten, they are alluded to in later times as
if they had caused the fall of the empire. Her downfall had one great
cause--we may almost say, one single cause--the Sicilian expedition.[60]
The empire of Athens both was, and appeared to be, in exuberant strength
when that expedition was sent forth; strength more than sufficient to
bear up against all moderate faults or moderate misfortunes, such as
no government ever long escapes. But the catastrophe of Syracuse was
something overpassing in terrific calamity all Grecian experience and
all power of foresight. It was like the Russian campaign of 1812 to the
Emperor Napoleon, though by no means imputable, in an equal degree, to
vice in the original project. No Grecian power could bear up against such
a death wound; and the prolonged struggle of Athens after it is not the
least wonderful part of the whole war.


GROTE’S ESTIMATE OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE

[Sidenote: [460-404 B.C.]]

Nothing in the political history of Greece is so remarkable as the
Athenian empire; taking it as it stood in its completeness, from about
460-413 B.C. (the date of the Syracusan catastrophe), or still more, from
460-424 B.C. (the date when Brasidas made his conquests in Thrace). After
the Syracusan catastrophe, the conditions of the empire were altogether
changed; it was irretrievably broken up, though Athens still continued
an energetic struggle to retain some of the fragments. But if we view it
as it had stood before that event, during the period of its integrity,
it is a sight marvellous to contemplate, and its working must be
pronounced, in my judgment, to have been highly beneficial to the Grecian
world. No Grecian state except Athens could have sufficed to organise
such a system, or to hold, in partial, though regulated, continuous
and specific communion, so many little states, each animated with that
force of political repulsion instinctive in the Grecian mind. This was a
mighty task, worthy of Athens, and to which no state except Athens was
competent. We have already seen in part, and we shall see still farther,
how little qualified Sparta was to perform it: and we shall have occasion
hereafter to notice a like fruitless essay on the part of Thebes.

[Illustration: ATHENIAN WOMAN

(After Hope)]

As in regard to the democracy of Athens generally, so in regard to
her empire--it has been customary with historians to take notice of
little except the bad side. But the empire of Athens was not harsh
and oppressive, as it is commonly depicted. Under the circumstances
of her dominion--at a time when the whole transit and commerce of the
Ægean was under one maritime system, which excluded all irregular
force--when Persian ships of war were kept out of the waters, and Persian
tribute-officers away from the seaboard--when the disputes inevitable
among so many little communities could be peaceably redressed by the
mutual right of application to the tribunals at Athens--and when these
tribunals were also such as to present to sufferers a refuge against
wrongs done even by individual citizens of Athens herself (to use the
expression of the oligarchical Phrynichus)--the condition of the maritime
Greeks was materially better than it had been before, or than it will be
seen to become afterwards. Her empire, if it did not inspire attachment,
certainly provoked no antipathy, among the bulk of the citizens of the
subject-communities, as is shown by the party-character of the revolts
against her. If in her imperial character she exacted obedience, she also
fulfilled duties and insured protection--to a degree incomparably greater
than was ever realised by Sparta. And even if she had been ever so much
disposed to cramp the free play of mind and purpose among her subjects--a
disposition which is no way proved--the very circumstances of her own
democracy, with its open antithesis of political parties, universal
liberty of speech, and manifold individual energy, would do much to
prevent the accomplishment of such an end, and would act as a stimulus to
the dependent communities even without her own intention.

Without being insensible either to the faults or to the misdeeds of
imperial Athens, I believe that her empire was a great comparative
benefit, and its extinction a great loss, to her own subjects. But still
more do I believe it to have been a good, looked at with reference to
Panhellenic interests. Its maintenance furnished the only possibility of
keeping out foreign intervention, and leaving the destinies of Greece
to depend upon native, spontaneous, untrammelled Grecian agencies. The
downfall of the Athenian empire is the signal for the arms and corruption
of Persia again to make themselves felt, and for the re-enslavement of
the Asiatic Greeks under her tribute-officers. What is still worse,
it leaves the Grecian world in a state incapable of repelling any
energetic foreign attack, and open to the overruling march of “the man
of Macedon” half a century afterwards. For such was the natural tendency
of the Grecian world to political non-integration or disintegration,
that the rise of the Athenian empire, incorporating so many states
into one system, is to be regarded as a most extraordinary accident.
Nothing but the genius, energy, discipline, and democracy of Athens,
could have brought it about; nor even she, unless favoured and pushed
on by a very peculiar train of antecedent events. But having once got
it, she might perfectly well have kept it; and had she done so, the
Hellenic world would have remained so organised as to be able to repel
foreign intervention, either from Susa or from Pella. When we reflect
how infinitely superior was the Hellenic mind to that of all surrounding
nations and races; how completely its creative agency was stifled as soon
as it came under the Macedonian dictation; and how much more it might
perhaps have achieved, if it had enjoyed another century or half-century
of freedom, under the stimulating headship of the most progressive and
most intellectual of all its separate communities--we shall look with
double regret on the ruin of the Athenian empire, as accelerating,
without remedy, the universal ruin of Grecian independence, political
action, and mental grandeur.[c]


FOOTNOTES

[57] This striking and deep-seated regard of the Athenians for all the
forms of an established constitution, makes itself felt even by Mitford
(History of Greece vol. iv. sect. v. ch. xix. p. 235).

[58] [An early form of heliograph.]

[59] [He, with others, was accused of treachery, not without cause.]

[60] [Manso, in his _Sparta_ is so far from ascribing the downfall of
Athens to the Sicilian fiasco, that he sees no connection between them.
Thirlwall disagrees with this though he thinks the empire was doomed
to disintegration. He says, “Syracuse was their Moscow; but if it had
not been so they would have found one elsewhere.” He imputes the fall
to internal discord. Mitford sees in the war less a civil strife than a
contest between the oligarchical and democratical interests throughout
the Grecian commonwealths, in every one of which was a party friendly to
the public enemy. He says of the fight with Sicily, “Democracy here was
opposed to democracy,” and he credits the fate of Athens to “the ruin,
which such a government hath an eternal tendency to bring upon itself.”
He rejoices that the slaves at least of the various governments had a
little respite from cruelty. Cox, like Grote, sees in the crumbling of
the Athenian empire, in spite of all its crimes, such a cosmic misfortune
as set back the progress of the world beyond our power of estimation.]

[Illustration: GREEK CAVALRY]




[Illustration]




BRIEF REFERENCE-LIST OF AUTHORITIES BY CHAPTERS

[The letter [a] is reserved for Editorial Matter.]


CHAPTER I. LAND AND PEOPLE

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[c] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[d] WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, _The Early Age of Greece_.

[e] GUSTAV F. HERTZBERG, _Geschichte der Griechen im Alterthum_.

[f] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.

[g] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.

[h] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.

[i] HERODOTUS, _History_.


CHAPTER II. THE MYCENÆAN AGE

[b] D. G. HOGARTH, article on “_Mycenæan Civilisation_,” in the New
Volumes of the Ninth Edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[c] HENRY SCHLIEMANN, _Mycenæ_.

[d] C. TSOUNTAS and J. IRVING MANATT, _The Mycenæan Age_.

[e] PERCY GARDNER, _New Chapters of Greek History_.

[f] WOLFGANG HELBIG, _Die Italiker in der Po-Ebene_.

[g] PIGORINI, _In Atti dell’Accademia dei Lincei_.

[h] C. SCHUCHHARDT, _Schliemann’s Excavations_ (translated by E. Sellers).

[i] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.


CHAPTER III. THE HEROIC AGE

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[d] FRIEDRICH C. SCHLOSSER, _Weltgeschichte_.

[f] PLASSMAN, quoted in _Thirlwall’s Notes_.

[h] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[i] L. A. PRÉVOST-PARADOL, _Essai sur l’Histoire Universelle_.

[k] FRIEDRICH AUGUST WOLF, _Prolegomena ad Homerum_.

[l] HENRY SCHLIEMANN, _Troja_.


CHAPTER IV. THE TRANSITION TO SECURE HISTORY

[c] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.


CHAPTER V. THE DORIANS

[b] KARL O. MÜLLER, _The History and Antiquities of the Doric Race_.

[c] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.

[d] EUGAMON, _Telegonia_.

[e] XANTHUS, _Lydiaca_.


CHAPTER VI. SPARTA AND LYCURGUS

[b] W. ASSMANN, _Handbuch der Allgemeinen Geschichte_.

[c] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[d] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[e] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[f] PHILOSTE-PHANUS, TIMÆUS, SOSIBIUS, AND DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS, as quoted
by Plutarch.

[g] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.

[h] PLATO, _Republic_.


CHAPTER VII. THE MESSENIAN WARS OF SPARTA

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.

[d] TYRTÆUS, _Fragments_, 5, 6.

[e] ISOCRATES, _Archidamus_.

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.


CHAPTER VIII. THE IONIANS

[b] GUSTAV F. HERTZBERG, _Geschichte der Griechen im Alterthum_.

[c] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Athens: Its Rise and Fall_.

[d] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[e] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[f] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[g] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.

[h] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.


CHAPTER IX. SOME CHARACTERISTIC INSTITUTIONS

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[c] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[e] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.

[f] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.

[g] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.


CHAPTER X. THE SMALLER CITIES AND STATES

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[c] EUGÈNE LERMINIER, _Histoire des legislatures et des constitutions de
la Grèce ancienne_.

[d] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.

[e] STRABO, _Γεωγραφικά_.

[f] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.

[g] POLYBIUS, _General History_.

[h] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[i] THEOGNIS, _Poems_.

[j] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.


CHAPTER XI. CRETE AND THE COLONIES

[b] EUGÈNE LERMINIER, _Histoire des legislatures et des constitutions de
la Grèce ancienne_.

[c] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.

[d] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.


CHAPTER XII. SOLON THE LAWGIVER

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[d] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[e] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.


CHAPTER XIII. PISISTRATUS THE TYRANT

[b] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Athens: Its Rise and Fall_.

[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[d] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.


CHAPTER XIV. DEMOCRACY ESTABLISHED AT ATHENS

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[d] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Peloponnesian War_.

[e] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[f] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[g] ARISTOTLE, _Politics_.

[h] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.


CHAPTER XV. THE FIRST FOREIGN INVASION

[b] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.

[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[d] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[e] E. G. BULWER-LYTTON, _Athens: Its Rise and Fall_.

[f] G. B. GRUNDY, _The Persian War_.

[g] GEORG BUSOLT, _Griechische Geschichte_.

[h] J. A. R. MUNRO, in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_.

[i] F. C. H. KRUSE, _Hellas_.

[j] JOHN P. MAHAFFY, _Rambles and Studies in Greece_.

[k] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.


CHAPTER XVI. MILTIADES AND THE ALLEGED FICKLENESS OF REPUBLICS

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[d] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[e] CORNELIUS NEPOS, _Lives_.

[f] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.


CHAPTER XVII. THE PLANS OF XERXES

[b] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[c] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_; also his _Moralia_.

[d] P. H. LARCHER, translation of Herodotus into French.

[e] JAMES RENNEL, _The Geographical System of Herodotus_.

[f] WILLIAM BELOE, in his translation of Herodotus.

[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[h] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.


CHAPTER XVIII. PROCEEDINGS IN GREECE FROM MARATHON TO THERMOPYLÆ

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[d] JAMES RENNEL, _The Geographical System of Herodotus_.


CHAPTER XIX. THERMOPYLÆ

[b] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[c] WILLIAM BELOE, in his translation of Herodotus.

[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[e] P. H. LARCHER, translation of Herodotus into French.

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[g] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[h] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[i] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.


CHAPTER XX. THE BATTLES OF ARTEMISIUM AND SALAMIS

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] COLONEL LEAKE, _Topography of Athens_.

[d] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[e] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[f] WILLIAM SMITH, _History of Greece_.

[g] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[h] WILLIAM H. WADDINGTON, _Visit to Greece_.

[i] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.


CHAPTER XXI. FROM SALAMIS TO MYCALE

[b] HERODOTUS, _History_.

[c] WILLIAM BELOE, in his translation of Herodotus.

[d] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[e] P. H. LARCHER, translation of Herodotus into French.

[f] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[g] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.


CHAPTER XXII. THE AFTERMATH OF THE WAR

[b] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[d] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[e] CORNELIUS NEPOS, _Lives_.


CHAPTER XXIII. THE GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE

[b] GEORGE W. COX, _The Athenian Empire_.

[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[d] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[e] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[f] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[g] CORNELIUS NEPOS, _Lives_.

[h] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).


CHAPTER XXIV. THE RISE OF PERICLES

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[c] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[d] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[e] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[f] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[h] HERODOTUS, _History_.


CHAPTER XXV. ATHENS AT WAR

[b] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[d] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[e] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.

[f] HERODOTUS, _History_.


CHAPTER XXVI. IMPERIAL ATHENS UNDER PERICLES

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[d] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[e] XENOPHON, _Hellenics_.


CHAPTER XXVII. MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE AGE OF PERICLES

[b] A. BOEKH, _Public Economy of the Athenians_ (translated by A. Lamb).

[c] WILLIAM MURE, _Grecian Literature_.

[d] H. GOLL, _Kulturbilder aus Hellas und Rom_.


CHAPTER XXVIII. ART OF THE PERICLEAN AGE

[b] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[c] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.


CHAPTER XXIX. GREEK LITERATURE

[b] ERNST CURTIUS, _Griechische Geschichte_.


CHAPTER XXX. THE OUTBREAK OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _History of Greece_.

[d] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[e] ADOLPH HOLM, _History of Greece_.

[f] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[g] JOHN RUSKIN, _Præterita_.

[h] XENOPHON, _Hellenics_.


CHAPTER XXXI. THE PLAGUE; AND THE DEATH OF PERICLES

[b] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[e] WILLIAM ONCKEN, _Athen und Hellas_.

[f] TITUS LIVIUS, _Roman History_.

[g] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.

[h] PLUTARCH, _Lives of Illustrious Men_.


CHAPTER XXXII. THE SECOND AND THIRD YEARS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

[b] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _History of Greece_.

[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[e] PAUSANIAS, _General Description of Greece_.

[f] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.


CHAPTER XXXIII. THE FOURTH TO THE TENTH YEARS

[b] BARTHOLD G. NIEBUHR, _Lectures on Ancient History_.

[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[d] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[e] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[f] DIODORUS SICULUS, _Historical Library_.


CHAPTER XXXIV. THE RISE OF ALCIBIADES

[b] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[c] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).


CHAPTER XXXV. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION

[b] ADOLF HOLM, _History of Greece_.

[c] JULIUS BELOCH, _Griechische Geschichte_.

[d] JOHN B. BURY, _History of Greece_.

[e] EDWARD A. FREEMAN, article on “Sicily” in the Ninth Edition of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_.

[f] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[g] VICTOR DURUY, _Histoire grecque_.

[h] KARL O. MÜLLER, _The Dorians_.

[i] THUCYDIDES, _History of the Grecian War_ (translated by Henry Dale).

[j] JOHN GILLIES, _History of Ancient Greece_.


CHAPTER XXXVI. CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

[b] J. GILLIES, _History of Ancient Greece_.

[c] GEORGE GROTE, _History of Greece_.

[d] WILLIAM MITFORD, _History of Greece_.

[e] OLIVER GOLDSMITH, _History of Greece_.

[f] XENOPHON, _Hellenics_.

[g] JOHANN K. F. MANSO, _Sparta_.

[h] CONNOP THIRLWALL, _The History of Greece_.

[i] GEORGE W. COX, _The Athenian Empire_.

[Illustration: GREECE (Ancient)

Longitude East 22° from Greenwich]

[Illustration: GREECE (Ancient)

Longitude East 27° from Greenwich]