This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world’s books discoverable online.
It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that’s often difficult to discover.
Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book’s long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you.
Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying.
We also ask that you:
+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individual personal, non-commercial purposes.
and we request that you use these files for
+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google’s system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help.
+ Maintain attribution The Google “watermark” you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it.
+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can’t offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book’s appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe.
About Google Book Search
Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world’s books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web ai[http: //books . google. com/|
HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY
VOL. I.
THUCYDIDES
JOWETT
London
- HENRY FROWDE
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
7 PATERNOSTER ROW
THUCYDIDES
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH
WITH INTRODUCTION, MARGINAL ANALYSIS,
NOTES, AND INDICES
BY
B. JOWETT, M.A.
MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD DOCTOR IN THEOLOGY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I, CONTAINING THE TEXT
@Orford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
1881
| All ‘rights reserved |
HARVARD Ἃ
TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE VISCOUNT SHERBROOKE,
ONE OF THE
BEST GREEK SCHOLARS IN ENGLAND, WHOSE
GENUINE LOVE OF ANCIENT CLASSICAL LITERATURE (THOUGH SOMETIMES DISSEMBLED) IS AS WELL KNOWN TO HIS FRIENDS, AS THE KINDNESS OF HIS HEART,
AND THE CHARM OF HTS CONVERSATION.
INTRODUCTION,
THE text which has been followed in this trans- lation (except where a departure from it is indicated at the foot of the page) is that of the first smaller edition of Poppo (1843-1851), which adheres more closely to the authority of the MSS. than the later edition begun by Poppo and continued by Stahl. It was originally intended that the work should contain a series of essays on subjects connected with Thucydides. But the accomplishment of this part of the design has been unavoidably delayed. The writer hopes to complete what is wanting in the course of a year or two.
He gratefully acknowledges the valuable help of more than one friend; first, and above all, of W. H. Forbes, Fellow of Balliol College, who during several years has been his unwearied and disinterested fellow-labourer in a long and necessarily tedious work. Few persons take as much conscientious pains about their own writings as he has taken _ about those of another. To his admirable scholar- ship is due mainly the degree of accuracy which the translator has been able to attain; and he is indebted to him for many excellent remarks and suggestions. The essay on Inscriptions in the
viii INTRODUCTION.
second volume has been in great measure compiled from data which he has collected and analysed. The translator will always reckon the days which they have passed together in the study of Thucy- dides to have been among the happiest and most useful of his life.
To his friend Professor Campbell of St. Andrews, besides many other obligations, his best thanks are due for the correction of several errors in the notes.
The full and well-arranged index to the text is the work of Mr. Matthew Knight, who has given an amount of thought and care to it rarely bestowed on such ungracious tasks.
The translator has had the advantage of being anticipated by Mr. Crawley, late Fellow of Wor- cester College, and in part by Mr. Wilkins, Fellow of Merton College. He has not refrained from consulting their translations in several passages, and desires to express his gratitude for the assist- ance which he has received from them. He has also occasionally referred to the clear and elegant French translation of Bétant, but much more fre- quently to his invaluable lexicon. The old version of Hobbes, though bearing a famous name, is very rough and inaccurate, and has been sometimes praised a good deal beyond its real merits. An interest would attach to Dr. Smith’s translation, if it could be believed that Lord Chatham (who, it may be remembered, gave special instructions that his son William Pitt should read Thucydides at College) had contributed to the work ‘the Funeral
INTRODUCTION. ix
Oration.’ But the hand of the great Orator is no- where discernible in the performance. The edition of Dr. Arnold has given a powerful stimulus to the study of Thucydides in England. Himself inspired with the love of his author, he inspired the love of him in others. He certainly possessed that quality of a Commentator from which an ancient writer gains so much, the gift of in- telligent appreciation. He first showed how Thucy- dides might be translated with elegance and accuracy. Though not a great philologer ora learned enquirer, and adding little to actual knowledge, he created an interest about geography and archaeology, and even about the interpretation of difficult passages, such as never existed before among his countrymen. His notes are often models of good English and good sense. It is to be regretted that, amid the variety of his pursuits, he never gained an intimate and idiomatic acquaintance with the language of Thucydides, and never formed a sound notion of textual criticism. He is frequently led away by fanciful comparisons of things Biblical and Classical, of Greek and English constructions, and of events ancient and modern. The influence of Niebuhr over him is perceptible in his speculations about ancient Greek races. But he had a true feeling for Greek history and life, and all students of Thucy- dides have reason to be thankful to him. When a great man undertakes the office of an interpreter he throws a light upon the page which the merely verbal critic is incapable of communicating, and it would
a 3
Χ INTRODUCTION.
be ungrateful to scan too closely his deficiencies in scholarship.
A new epoch in the knowledge of Thucy- dides was made by Poppo's edition, beginning in the year 1815 with ‘Commentationes Criticae,’ and ending in the year 1856 with a ‘Commentatio de Historia Thucydidis. The bulk of the work is contained in two volumes of prolegomena, and in eight volumes of text and scholia, and of anno- tations on them. This grand edition may be criti- cised on the grounds of old-fashioned scholarship, of imperfect judgment of the MSS., of deficiency in historical imagination, and of immoderate prolixity. But Poppo has the great merit of being almost always right. There is no trace of the mind and genius of Arnold to be discovered in his pages; they are not written in a form either attractive or suggestive to the student of history. Yet the true scholar will look with respect and admiration on the twelve volumes, not merely as a vast thesaurus in which nearly everything illustrative of Thucydides has been accumulated, but because the editor mani- fests a real insight into the meaning of his author. For Poppo was the first who saw that the language of Thucydides had a law of its own, and was not
merely to be judged of by the precepts of gram- “
marians, whether ancient or modern. Taking the accusations of Dionysius of Halicarnassus as his basis, he proceeds to show that the supposed irre- gularities of Thucydides, the confusions of persons, genders, numbers, voices, moods, tenses, are not
INTRODUCTION. xi
real confusions or irregularities, but are attributable to an imperfect or unfixed state of grammar or language, and have a principle underlying them. Either they follow some analogy or verbal associa- tion; or they obey the sequence of thought rather than the rules of grammar; or they are due to some — attraction of sound er sense; or they blend the language of poetry and prose at a time when the two were not yet accurately distinguished. Of two legitimate usages, that which afterwards fell into disuse, and which therefore appears to be irregular, 15 sometimes preferred. Many of the so-called sole- cisms are at variance, not so much with grammar, as with the practice of later Greek ; or, if they are un- grammatical, we must enlarge our notions of gram- mar that we may be able to embrace them. At the same time it would be maintained by Poppo that Thucydides has rarely, if ever, allowed himself liberties not to be found somewhere in other writers. These principles he bases upon a large induction of examples, and partially succeeds by the help of them in emancipating himself and his author from gram- matical superstitions.
Poppo'’s edition is eminently distinguished by sobriety of judgment. Trained in the school of Hermann (although the Master in later life forgot his own lesson), he had been early warned against the licence of conjectural emendation; and _ his familiar acquaintance with the language of Thucy- dides enabled him to see that conjecture is unne- cessary, where a(scholar of a more general type
Xil INTRODUCTION.
would have pronounced against the genuineness of the text. It must be admitted that he has not the gift of clear exposition or of exhibiting the parts of an argument in their true relation to one another; and in winding through the long notes of the larger edition we have sometimes a difficulty in separating his own view from that of others whom he is con- futing. But though his meaning is not always apparent on the surface, there is to be found at the bottom good sense and true philological tact. The life-time devoted by him to the study of Thucy- dides was by no means wasted, for he restored to a great writer natural principles of interpretation.
Later editors have added comparatively little to him, and would probably have done better if they had followed more closely in his footsteps. The most distinguished of his successors, Classen, while equalling, or perhaps exceeding him, in subtle analysis of the language, falls very far short in soundness of judgment. The translator is never- theless bound to acknowledge that he is under con- siderable obligations to his work, as well as to the useful edition of Béhme. Some valuable contribu- tions to the study of Thucydides have been made by the minute learning of Kriiger: of these he has also availed himself.
The language of Thucydides presents a curious and interesting problem, because it belongs to a period when the uses of words and constructions were not yet fixed, and an original writer had much greater freedom in varying them than was possible
INTRODUCTION. xiil
in the Alexandrjan times. As centuries went on, ‘the individual withered’ and ‘the world’ of lan- guage ‘was more and more. There was no force of mind seeking expression for itself, trying experi- ments, or struggling against the conventionalities which were imposed upon it. The daily practice of oratory, the precepts of a thousand grammarians, reduced the mighty genius of Hellas to the level of a later generation. Men instead of wrestling with language and logic, fell under the dominion of them. No one in the age of Aristotle would have dared to write like Aéschylus or Thucydides; as no one in our own day would attempt to imitate Shakespeare. Poetry sooner submitted to the yoke than prose, which had hitherto been used only in the current εἰρομένη λέξις, and was incapable of expressing the higher thoughts of men, in the age when the heaven of abstractions, ‘Won from the void and formless infinite,’
was just beginning to appear. Thucydides came under the influence of that new intellectual world which broke upon the Greek in the fifth century before Christ, and which is never sufficiently ap- preciated by us because we have inherited it and habitually live in it. But not at once was language adequate to receive or take up into itself the ideas which were asking for expression. The forms of speech and writing were slowly adjusted to the mental movement of the age. Words had to be distinguished from things, arguments from fallacies. The grammatical construction and the logical con-
χὶν INTRODUCTION.
nection of clauses and sentences were still clumsy and irregular, especially in Attic, though the sense of art was not wanting, and the sophist was busy elaborating his new rules and formulas, which had a remarkable fascination for the minds of the Athenians.
Hence we see in the same writer the perfection of art and the greatest want of art, good taste and errors of taste, the meagre and false artificiality of the Sophist combined with an antique beauty and masterly power in the delineation of facts. The speeches of Thucydides everywhere exhibit the an- titheses, the climaxes, the plays of words, the point which is no point, of the rhetorician, yet retain amid these defects of form a weight of thought to which succeeding historians can scarcely show the like. The ᾿ narrative on the other hand is natural and simple, in the highest degree picturesque and dramatic, often deeply pathetic by its very severity, generally intelligible, and only getting into a tangle when at- tempting to express political and philosophical reflections, as in the Corcyraean sedition. He who considers that Thucydides was a great genius writing in an ante-grammatical age, when logic was just be- ginning to be cultivated, who had thoughts far beyond his contemporaries, and who had great difficulty in the arrangement and expression of them, who is anxious but not always able to escape tauto- logy, will not be surprised at his personifications, at his confusion of negatives and affirmatives, of con- sequents and antecedents, at his imperfect antitheses
INTRODUCTION. XV
and involved parentheses, at his employment of the participle to express abstract ideas in the making, at his substitution of one construction for another, at his repetition of a word, or unmeaning alteration of it for the sake of variety, at his over-logical form, at his forgetfulness of the beginning of a sentence be- fore he arrives at the end of it. The solecisms or barbarisms of which he is supposed to be guilty are the natural phenomena of a language in a time of transition ; and though not always, as Poppo main- tains, common to other Greek writers, yet having some analogy by which they may be defended. They are also to be ascribed to a strong individ- uality, which subtilizes, which rationalizes, which concentrates, which crowds the use of words, which thinks more than it can express (ψελλιζομένῳ γὰρ ἔοικε), Dionysius of Halicarnassus is right in attri- buting the obscurity of Thucydides to himself as well as to his age; for his contemporaries Antiphon, Andocides, Lysias, Xenophon are far from obscure. It is a commonplace, but one which cannot be too often repeated, that we must interpret an ancient writer by himself and by his own age, and not by modern notions. We must not add on to him our mysteries and moralities, or translate his confused modes of thought into our more distinct ones (more distinct at least to us). Neither must we measure him by our standards of right and wrong. His range of view may be limited, but we cannot safely enlarge it. Nor can we argue from his inconsistencies or omission of details; nor draw inferences from his
Xvi INTRODUCTION.
precise words, because we cannot expect him to use legal accuracy. The whole manner of ancient writing was different from our own; we do not know whether the words or sentences of Thucydides were written down as soon as they occurred to the mind, or were long preserved in the treasure-house of memory. At what time the successive portions of his history were completed must for ever remain uncertain to us. The sources from which the ancient historian gathered his narrative are very dissimilar to those which are at the disposal of the modern, the first meagre and oral, the latter often overwhelming the compiler by the very mass of
-“ his written and printed materials. A few ancient in-
scriptions at Athens or Delphi, the brief narrative of a writer like Hellanicus (i. 97), whom we can easily believe to have been ‘inaccurate in his chrono- logy, or of Antiochus the Syracusan (though there is no evidence that he was acquainted with the latter), the witness to events which was afforded by statues and buildings, such as the ‘columns taken from sepulchres’ which were inserted in the walls of Athens, the decrees of the senate, people, and magistrates, the best old traditions (i. 9 init.)— these are about all the swészdza which Thucydides had to use. Modern history is gathered out of a multitude of books. Thucydides drew his narrative fresh from the lips of men after hearing the dif- ferent accounts of the contending parties (v. 26 fin.). Whether his views are true or false we can only de- termine by internal evidence; for it is useless to
INTRODUCTION. xvii
balance them against the ever-diminishing truth and ever-increasing fiction of a later generation. Nor can we supplement the one by the other. Thucy- dides may possibly have been unjust to Cleon, but the suspicion is not confirmed by the statement of Marcellinus that Cleon was the proposer of the decree by which he was banished; for such an anecdote is more likely to be invented than not. When, as® in modern histories of ancient Greece, the good cloth of Herodotus or Thucydides or Xenophon is patched with the transparent gauze of Diodorus and Plutarch, the whole garment becomes unequal and ragged. There is a special impropriety in com-" bining the fictions of later writers with the narrative of Thucydides, who stands absolutely alone among the historians, not only of Hellas, but of the world, in his impartiality and love of truth.
We must accept ancient historians as they are, with their limited ideas and restricted means of knowledge, with their Hellenic conceptions of morality and of nature. They are disappointing, like the Elgin marbles, to those who expect to find in them modern sentimentalism or a modern political philosophy. But, like the Elgin marbles, to those who can appreciate their simplicity, their beauty, their originality, they will seem to be worth all the rest.
There have been many commentaries on the Classics both in ancient and modern times; and a kind of commentary on them is furnished by the ideas which the ancients themselves entertained about their great writers. But most of the ancient
XViii INTRODUCTION.
commentaries, and some of the modern, rather in- terpret to us the age in which they were written than the author who is supposed to be illustrated by them. The treatise of Dionysius of Halicar- nassus on the style of Thucydides, except in so far as it confirms the text in a multitude of passages, adds nothing to our knowledge of the book; but it throws a striking light on the narrow and feeble intelligence of the Graeco-Roman rhetorician and historian of the first century B.c., and of the world for which he wrote. Early criticism consists almost entirely in adapting the past to the present, in obtruding the notions of a later age upon an earlier one. And it is only by degrees that man- kind have been able to exclude the subjective element which is always reappearing, and have learned to interpret an author from himself, or in the study of an age to confine themselves to the range of its ideas.
Hitherto each age seems to have required its own interpretation or adaptation of Scripture, or of the Classics, and to have been dissatisfied with that of any other. It may be asked whether, as philology progresses and words are understood to have a fixed meaning—not that ‘ which we bring to them,’ but that which 15 contained in them—the art of interpretation must be always going on, like the labour of the Danaides, pouring into a sieve know- ledge which is perpetually flowing out, and in every generation requiring to be replenished. Must we during every ten or twenty years have new Com-
THUCYDIDES.
BOOK I.
THUCYDIDES, an Athenian, wrote the history of the I. 1. war in which the Peloponnesians and the Athenians fought against one another. He began to write when they first took up arms, believing that it would be great and memorable above any previous war. For he argued Greatness that both states were then at the full height of their war. military power, and he saw the rest of the Hellenes either siding or intending to side with one or other of them. No movement ever stirred Hellas more deeply than this; it was shared by many of the Bar- barians, and might be said even to affect the world at large. The character of the events which preceded, whether immediately or in more remote antiquity, owing to the lapse of time cannot be made out with certainty. ®But, judging from the evidence which I am able to trust after most careful enquiry 8, I should imagine that former ages were not great either in their wars or in anything else.
The country which is now called Hellas was ποῦ 2. regularly settled bin ancient times», The people were Early con- 2 Or, connecting ὧν with μακρότατον : ‘But after carrying the ves A enquiry to the furthest point at which any trustworthy evidence
can be obtained.’
b Or, taking οὐ πάλαι closely together: ‘ until recent times.’
B
2 EARLY INHABITANTS OF HELLAS.
Ι, migratory, and readily Ieft their homes whenever they the ensiy of were overpowered by numbers. There was no com- tribes to merce, and they could not safely hold intercourse with the richer One another either by land or sea. The several tribes districts the cultivated their own soil just enough to obtain a main-
settled ; ° : some ofthe ‘cance from it. But they had no accumulations of
poorer, like wealth, and did not plant the ground; for, being with- reality the Out walls, they were never sure that an invader might perous not come and despoil them. Living in this manner and knowing that they could anywhere obtain a bare sub- sistence, they were always ready to migrate; so that they had neither great cities nor any considerable resources. The richest districts were most constantly changing their inhabitants ; for example, the countries which are now called Thessaly and Boeotia, the greater part of the Peloponnesus with the exception of Arcadia, and all the best parts of Hellas. For the productive- ness of the land *increased the power of individuals ; this in turn was a source of quarrels by which com- munities® were ruined, while at the same time they were more exposed to attacks from without. Certainly Attica, of which the soil was poor and thin, enjoyed a long free- dom from civil strife, and therefore retained its original inhabitants. And a striking confirmation of my argu- ment is afforded by the fact that Attica through im- migration increased in population more than any other region. For the leading men of Hellas®, when driven out of their own country by war or revolution, sought an asylum at Athens; and from the very earliest times, being admitted to rights of citizenship, so greatly increased
® Or, ‘gave to some communities greater power ; this was a source of quarrels, by which they ’ etc.
b Or, taking ἐς τὰ ἄλλα in another sense: ‘that Attica through immigration increased in population quite out of proportion to her increase in other respects;’ or, supplying τὴν Ἑλλάδα and taking μετοικίας in another sense: ‘And here is a striking confirmation of my argument -that the constant migrations were the cause which prevented the rest of Hellas from increasing equally with Attica, The leading men of Hellas,’ etc.
MINOS. 3
the number of inhabitants that Attica became incapable 1, of containing them, and was at last obliged to send out colonies to Ionia.
The feebleness of antiquity is further proved to me 43. by the circumstance that there appears to have been Not unity
the
no common action in Hellas before the Trojan War. early in- And I am inclined to think that the very name was habitants: not as yet given to the whole country, and in fact did fame ΠΡ not exist at all before the time of Hellen, the son of Barbarians ; Deucalion; the different tribes, of which the Pelasgian action in
was the most widely spread, gave their own names to Facllas be- different districts. But when Hellen and ‘his sons be- jf" came powerful in Phthiotis, their aid was invoked by other cities, and those who associated with them gradually began to be called Hellenes, though a long time elapsed before the name prevailed over the whole country. Of this Homer affords the best evidence ; for he, although he lived long after the Trojan War, nowhere uses this name collectively, but confines it to the followers of Achilles from Phthiotis, who were the original Hel- lenes; when speaking of the entire host he calls them Danains, or Argives, or Achaeans. Neither is there any mention of Barbarians in his poems, clearly because there were as yet no Hellenes opposed to them by a common distinctive name. Thus *the several Hellenic tribes (and I mean by the term Hellenes those who, while forming separate communities, had a common language, and were afterwards called by a common name), owing to their weakness and isolation, were never united in any great enterprise before the Trojan War. And they only made the expedition against Troy after they had gained con- siderable experience of the sea.
Minos is the first to whom tradition ascribes the 4. possession of a navy. He made himself master of a Peginnings
tion: Minos
® Or, supplying κληθέντες with both clauses: ‘those who suc- cessively acquired the Hellenic name, which first spread among the several tribes speaking the same language, and afterwards became universal.’
oe
B 2
I. conquers the islands and clears the sea of Pirates,
6.
Old cus- toms whic
4 PIRACY.
great part of what is now termed the Hellenic sea; he conquered the Cyclades, and was the first coloniser of most of them, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons to govern in them. Lastly, it was he who, from a natural desire to protect his growing revenues, sought, as far as he was able, to clear the sea of pirates. For in ancient times both Hellenes and Barbarians, as well the inhabitants of the coast as of the islands, when they began to find their way to one another by sea had recourse to piracy. They were commanded by powerful chiefs, who took this means of increasing their wealth and providing for their poorer followers. They would fall upon the unwalled and straggling towns, or rather villages, which they plundered, and maintained them- selves by the plunder of them; for, as yet, such an occupation was held to be honourable and not disgrace- ful. This is proved by the practice of certain tribes on the mainland who, to the present day, glory in piratical exploits, and by the witness of the ancient poets, in whose verses the question is invariably asked of newly-arrived voyagers, whether they are pirates*; which implies that neither those who are questioned disclaim, nor those who are interested in knowing censure the occupation. The land too was infested by robbers; and there are parts of Hellas in which the old practices still continue, as for example among the Ozolian Locrians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and the adjacent regions of the continent. The fashion of wearing arms among these continental tribes is a relic of their old predatory habits. For in ancient times all Hellenes carried weapons because their
are stillex- homes were undefended and intercourse was unsafe ; like
isting in
some parts
of the coun- try : dress of
Athenians
Spartans,
the Barbarians they went armed in their every-day life. And the continuance of the custom in certain parts of the country proves that it once prevailed everywhere. The Athenians were the first who laid aside arms and adopted an easier and more luxurious, way of life. Quite recently the old-fashioned refinement of dress still
® Od. iii. 73 ff.; ix. 252; Hymn to Apoll. 452 ff.
OTHER ANCIENT CUSTOMS. 5
lingered among the elder men of their richer class, who I, wore under-garments of linen, and bound back their hair in a knot with golden clasps in the form of grasshoppers; and the same customs long survived among the elders of Ionia, having been derived from their Athenian ancestors. On the other hand, the simple dress which is now com- mon was first worn at Sparta; and there, more than any- where else, the life of the rich was assimilated to that of the people. The Lacedaemonians too were the first who in their athletic exercises stripped naked and rubbed themselves over with oil. But this was not the ancient custom; athletes formerly, even when they were con- tending at Olympia, wore girdles about their loins, a. practice which lasted until quite lately, and still prevails among Barbarians, especially those of Asia, where the combatants at boxing and wrestling matches wear girdles. And many other customs which are now confined to the Barbarians might be shown to have existed formerly in Hellas.
In later times, when navigation had become gencral 77. and wealth was beginning to accumulate, cities were Fortified
towns begin built upon the sea-shore and fortified; peninsulas too to be built ; rst iIn-
were occupied and walled-off with a view to commerce jand, after-_
and defence against the neighbouring tribes. But the wards on
older towns both in the islands and on the continent, in shore. order to protect themselves against the piracy which so long prevailed, were built inland; and there they remain
to this day. For the piratical tribes plundered, not only
one another, but all those who, without being sailors, lived on the sea-coast.
The islanders were even more addicted to piracy than 8, the inhabitants of the mainland. They were mostly The pirates Carian or Phoenician settlers. This is proved by the mane of fact that when the Athenians purified Delos* during the 5ar2".or Peloponnesian War and the tombs of the dead were omgin. opened, more than half of them were found to be Carians. They were known by the fashion of their
® Cp. iii, 104 init.
6 THE TROFAN EXPEDITION.
1. arms which were buried with them, and by their mode of burial, the same which is still practised among them. After Minos had established his navy, communication by sea became more general. For, he having expelled the pirates* when he colonised the greater part of the islands, the dwellers on the sea-coast began to grow richer and to live in a more settled manner; and some of them, finding their wealth increase beyond their ex- pectations, surrounded their towns with walls. The love of gain made the weaker willing to serve the stronger, >and the command of wealth enabled the more powerful to subjugate the lesser cities*. This was the state of society which was beginning to prevail at the time of the Trojan War.
9. I am inclined to think that Agamemnon succeeded Rise of the in collecting the expedition, not because the suitors of the, wealth Helen had bound themselves by oath to Tyndareus, ΕΑ but because he was the most powerful king of his time. fremnon in-e Those Peloponnesians who possess the most accurate Atrens and and traditions say that® originally Pelops gained his power
enabled in by the great wealth which he brought with him from teassemble Asia into a. poor country, whereby he was enabled, net although a stranger, to give his name to the Pelo- ponnesus; and that still greater fortune attended his descendants after the death of Eurystheus, king of Mycenae, who was slain in Attica by the Heraclidae.
For Atreus the son of Pelops was the maternal uncle
of Eurystheus, who, when he went on the expedition, naturally committed to his charge the, kingdom of Mycenae. Now Atreus had been banishédvby his father
on account of the murder of Chrysippus. But Eurys-
theus never returned; and the» jaeans, dreading
the Heraclidae, were ready to Atreus, who was considered a powerful man any jgratiated himself
5 ΟΡ. ἵν 4.
> Or, ‘and incited the ἢ
their command, to subju;
© Or, ‘Those who po
the history of Peloponn
10 now had wealth at
te traditions respecting
ἴω ὔ .0
AGAMEMNON. 7
with the multitude. So he succeeded to the throne of 1. Mycenae and the other dominions of Eurystheus. Thus the house of Pelops prevailed over that of Perseus.
And it was, as I believe, because Agamemnon inherited this power and also because he was the greatest naval } potentate of his time that he was able to assemble the expedition ; and the other princes followed him, not from good-will, but from fear. Of the chiefs who came to Troy, he, if the witness of Homer be accepted, brought the greatest number of ships himself, besides supplying the Arcadians with them. In the ‘Handing down of the Sceptre’ he is described as ‘The king of many islands, and of all Argos*.’ But, living on the mainland, he could not have ruled over any except the adjacent islands (which would not be ‘many’) unless he had possessed a considerable navy. From this expedition we must form our conjectures about the character of still earlier times.
When it is said that Mycenae was but a small place, __Io. or that any other city which existed in those days is That the inconsiderable in our own, this argument will hardly greatness of prove that the expedition was not as great as the oro παν poets relate and as is commonly imagined. Suppose other city,
the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but estimated . by present
the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be appear-
very unwilling to belicve that the power of the Lacedae- proved
monians was at all equal to their fame. And yet they Cobarizon
own two-fifths of the Peloponnesus, and are acknow- of Athens
ledged leaders of the whole, as well as of numerous and Sparine
allies in the rest of Hellas. But their city is not
regularly built, and has no splendid temples or other
edifices; it rather resembles a straggling village like
the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make
a poor show. Whereas, if the same fate befell the
Athenians, the ruins of Athens would strike the cye,
and we should infer their power to have been twice
as great as it really is. We ought not then to be unduly
® IJ. ii, 108.
1.
Homer’sac- count of the number of the forces.
TI.
Considera- tions re- specting the Trojan War.
8 - NUMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION.
sceptical. The greatness of cities should be estimated by their real power and not by appearances. And we may fairly suppose the Trojan expedition to have been greater than any which preceded it, although according to Homer, if we may once more appeal to his testimony, not equal to those of our own day. He was a poet, and may therefore be expected to exaggerate; yet, even upon his showing, the expedition was comparatively small. For it numbered, as he tells us, twelve hundred ships, those of the Boeotians* carrying one hundred and twenty men each, those of Philoctetes” fifty ; and by these numbers he may be presumed to indicate the largest and the smallest ships ; else why in the catalogue is nothing said about the size of any others? That the crews were all fighting men as well as rowers he clearly implies when speaking of the ships of Philoctetes; for he tells us that all the oarsmen were likewise archers. And it is not to be supposed that many who were not sailors would accompany the expcdition, except the kings and principal officcrs ; for the troops had to cross the sea, bringing with them the materials of war, in vessels with- out decks, built after the old piratical fashion. Now if we take a mean between the crews, the invading forces will appear not to have been very numerous when we re- member that they were drawn from the whole of Hellas,
The cause of the inferiority was not so much the want of men as the want of money; the invading army was limited by the difficulty of obtaining supplies to such a number as might be expected to live on the country in which they were to fight. After their arrival at Troy, when they had won a battle (as they clearly did, for otherwise they could not have fortified their camp), even then they appear not to have used the whole of their force, but to have been driven by want of provisions to the cultivation of the Chersonese and to pillage. And in consequence of this dispersion of their forces, the Trojans were enabled to hold out against them during the whole
® Il, ii, 509, 510. D Il. ii. 719, 720.
RETURN OF THE HERACLIDAE. 9
ten years, being always a match for those who remained __ I. on the spot. Whereas if the besieging army had brought abundant supplies, and, instead of betaking themselves
to agriculture or pillage, had carried on the war per- sistently with all their forces, they would easily have been masters of the field and have taken the city; since, even divided as they were, and with only a part of their army available at any one time, they held their ground. Or, again, they might have regularly invested Troy, and the place would have been captured in less time and with less trouble. Poverty was the real reason = {y why the achievements of former ages were insignificant,
and why the Trojan War, the most celebrated of them all, when brought to the test of facts, falls short of its fame
and of the prevailing traditions to which the poets have given authority.
Even in the age which followed the Trojan War, 12. Hellas was still in process of ferment and settlement, Southward and had no time for peaceful growth. The return of in Hellas the Hellenes from Troy after their long absence led to Trojan” many changes: quarrels too arose in nearly every city, Wri Boeo-
tians de-
and those who were expelled by them went and founded scend out of
other cities. Thus in the sixtieth year after the fall of Dorian oc- Troy, the Boeotian people, having been expelled from the. ation of Arné by the Thessalians, settled in the country formerly Ponnesus ;
nian and called Cadmeis, but-now Boeotia: a portion of the tribe Dorian
already dwelt there, and some of these had joined in the “me Trojan expedition. In the eightieth year after the war, the Dorians led by the Heraclidae conquered the Pelo- ponnesus. A considerable time elapsed before Hellas became finally settled; after a while, however, she re- covered tranquillity and began to send out colonies, The Athenians colonised Ionia and most of the islands; the Peloponnesians the greater part of Italy and Sicily, and various places in Hellas, These colonies were all founded after the Trojan War.
As Hellas grew more powerful and the acquisition of 15.
. Rise of wealth became more and more rapid, the revenues of her navies in
I 4. Scarcity of triremes. Smallness
of the Athe-
nian and Aeginetan fleets.
IO CORINTHIAN AND OTHER NAVIES.
cities increased, and in most of them tyrannies were
established ; they had hitherto been ruled by hereditary
kings, having fixed prerogatives. The Hellenes likewise
began to build navies and to make the sea their element.
The Corinthians arc said to have first adopted something
like the modern style of ship-building, and the oldest
Hellenic triremes to have been constructed at Corinth.
A Corinthian ship-builder, Amcinocles, appears to have
built four ships for the Samians; he went to Samos
about three hundred years before the end of the Pelo- ΒΟ. 704.
ponnesian War. And the earliest naval engagement on ©" ™
record is that between the Corinthians and Corcyraeans
which occurred about forty years later. Corinth, being B.C. 665.
seated on an isthmus, was naturally from the first a On 29
centre of commerce ; for the Hellenes within and with-
out the Peloponnese in the old days, when they commu-
nicated chiefly by land, had to pass through her territory
in order to reach one another. Her wealth too was a
source of power, as the ancient poets testify, who speak
of ‘Corinth the rich*.’ When navigation grew more com-
mon, the Corinthians, having already acquired a fleet,
were able to put down piracy; they offered a market
both by sea and land, and with the increase of riches
the power of their city increased yet more. Later, in the B.C. ss9-
time of Cyrus, the first Persian king, and of Cambyses δι. 55, ἃ-
his son, the Ionians had a large navy; they fought with os
Cyrus, and were for a time masters of the sea around ar
their own coasts. Polycrates, too, who was tyrant of ἬΝ omy 4-
Samos in the reign of Cambyscs, had a powerful navy B.C. 5.6-
and subducd several of the islands, among them Rhenea, Ol. 58, 3-
which he dedicated to the Delian Apollo». And the 0 3
Phocaeans, when they were colonising Massalia, defeated B.C. 600.
the Carthaginians in a sea-fight. Ol 45: These were the most powerful navies, and even these,
which came into existence many generations after the
Trojan War, appear to have consisted chiefly of fifty-
oared vessels and galleys of war, as in the days of Troy;
® Il. ii. 570. b Cp. iii, 104 init.
WAR BETWEEN CHALCIS AND ERETRIA, 11
as yet triremes were not common. But a little before 1: BC. 485. the Persian War and the death of Darius, who succeeded 73,5 Cambyses, the Sicilian tyrants and the Corcyraeans had them in considerable numbers. No other maritime powers of any consequence arose in Hellas before the expedition of Xerxes. The Aeginetans, Athenians, and a few more had small fleets, and these mostly consisted of fifty-oared galleys. *Even the ships which the Athenians built quite recently at the instigation of Themistocles, when they were at war with the Aegine- tans and in expectation of the Barbarian, even these ships with which they fought at Salamis were not com- pletely decked *. So inconsiderable were the Hellenic navies in recent 15. as well as in more ancient times. And yet those who The chief applied their energies to the sea obtained a great acces- Hellas
sion of strength by the increase of their revenues and Wars by the extension of their_dominion. For they attacked 12nd incon-. siderable.
and subjugated the islands, especially when the pressure of population was felt by them. Whereas by land, no conflict of any kind which brought increase of power ever occurred; what wars they had were mere border feuds. Foreign and distant expeditions of conquest the Hellenes never undertook ; they were not as yet ranged under the command of the great states, nor did they form voluntary leagues or make expeditions on an equal footing. Their wars were only the wars of the several neighbouring tribes with one another. It was in the ancient conflict between the Chalcidians and the Ere- trians that the rest of Hellas was most divided and took the greatest part °.
There were different impediments to the progress of 16. the different states. The Ionians had attained great !mpedi-
Ε . to prosperity when Cyrus and the Persians, having over- progress:
® Or, ‘It was quite at a recent period, when the Athenians were at war with the Aeginetans and in expectation of the Barbarian, that Themistocles persuaded them to build the ships with which they fought at Salamis; and even these were not completcly decked.’
Ὁ Herod. v. 99.
I. (x) The rising power of the Persians.
17.
(2) The petty aims and cau- tious na- tures of the tyrants.
18.
They were at length overthrown by Sparta, which for
12 OVERTHROW OF THE TYRANTS.
thrown Croesus and subdued the countries between the B.C. 546.
river Halys and the sea, made war against them and
Ol. 58, 3.
enslaved the cities on the mainland. Some time after- B.C. 493.
wards, Darius, strong in the possession of the Phoenician fleet, conquered the islands also.
Nor again did the tyrants of the Hellenic cities ex- tend their thoughts beyond their own interest, that is, the security of their persons, and the aggrandisement of themselves and their families. They were extremely cautious in the administration of their government, and nothing considerable was ever effected by them; they only fought with their neighbours, as in Sicily, where their power attained its greatest hcight. Thus for a long time everything conspired to prevent Hellas from uniting in any great action and to paralyse enterprise in the individual states.
Ol. 71, 4.
At length the tyrants of Athens and of the rest of B.C. sro.
Hellas (which had been under their dominion long before Athens), at least the greater number of them, and with
the exception of the Sicilian the last who ever ruled, —
were put down by the Lacedaemonians. For although Lacedaemon, after the conquest* of the country by the Dorians who now inhabit it, remained long unsettled, and indeed longer than any country which we know, nevertheless she obtained good laws at an earlier period than any other, and has never been subject to tyrants ; she has preserved the same form of government for
Ol. 67, 3.
rather more than four hundred years, reckoning to the B.C. 84- end of the Peloponnesian War. It was the excellence of Ol; 9s.
her constitution which gave her power, and thus enabled her to regulate the affairs of other states. Not long after the overthrow of the tyrants by the Lacedaemonians, the
battle of Marathon was fought between the Athenians B.c. 40. and the Persians; ten years later, the Barbarian returned 0! io 3: with the vast armament which was to enslave Hellas, Οἱ. 75.
In the greatness of the impending danger, the Lacedae- monians, who were the most powerful state in Hellas,
® Reading κτῆσιν.
THE PERSIAN WAR. 13
assumed the lead of the confederates. The Athenians, as the Persian host advanced, resolved to forsake their city, broke up their homes, and, taking to their ships, became sailors. The Barbarian was repelled by a com- mon effort ; but soon the Hellenes, *as well those who had revolted from the King as those who formed the original confederacy *, took different sides and became the allies, either of the Athenians or of the Lacedae- monians; for these were now the two leading powers, the one strong by land and the other by sea. The league between them was of short duration; they speedily quarrelled and, with their respective allies, went to war. Any of the other Hellenes who had differences of their own now resorted to one or other of them. So that from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War, the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians were per- petually fighting or making peace, either with one another or with their own revolted allies; thus they attained mili- tary efficiency, and Icarned experience in the school of danger.
The Lacedaemonians did not make tributaries of those who acknowledged their leadership, but took care that they should be governed by oligarchies in the exclusive interest of Sparta. The Athenians, on the other hand, after a time deprived the subject cities of their ships and made all of them pay a fixed tri- bute, except Chios and Lesbos». And the single power ς οὗ Athens® at the beginning of this war was greater than that of Athens and Sparta together at their great- est, while the confederacy remained intact.
Such are the results of my enquiry into the early state of Hellas. They will not readily be believed upon a
® Or, ‘as well those who had revolted from the King, as those who had joined with him.’
b Cp. i. 96, 99; iii. 39 init.; vi. 85 med.3 vii. 57 init.
¢ Or, ‘either of Athens or Sparta.’
ἃ Or (1), ‘They may not obtain entire credit, even when the proofs of them are all set down in order.’ Or (2), taking τεκμηρίῳ immediately after πιστεῦσαι: ‘Such are the results of my enquiries,
I. The Hel- lenes, who had been united in resisting the Persian, soon broke up into two confedera- cies.
y Wa 16. Different character of the Athe- nian and Spartan league.
20.
Vulgar errors.
14 EMENDATIONS OF HISTORY.
I. _ bare recital of all the proofs of them*. Men do not dis- criminate, and are too ready to receive ancient traditions about their own as well as about other countries. For example, most Athenians think that Hipparchus was actually tyrant when he was slain by Harmodius and B.C. sr. Aristogeiton; they are not aware that Hippias was the ᾿ 66, 3, eldest of the sons of Peisistratus, and succeeded him, and that Hipparchus and Thessalus were only his brothers ὃ, At the last moment, Harmodius and Aristogeiton sud- denly suspected that Hippias had been forewarned by some of their accomplices. They therefore abstained from attacking him, but, wishing to do something before they were scized, and not to risk their lives in vain, they slew Hipparchus, with whom they fell in near the temple called Leocorium as he was marshalling the Panathenaic procession. There are many other matters, not obscured by time, but contemporary, about which the other
. Hellenes are equally mistaken. For example, they
_ imagine that the kings of Lacedaemon in their council
have not one but two votcs cach”, and that in the army
of the Lacedacmonians there is a division called the
Pitanate division®; whereas they never had anything of
the sort. So little trouble do men take in the search
after truth; so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand.
21. Yet any one who upon the grounds which I have given Uncertainty arrives at some such conclusion as my own about those of early history. ancient times, would not be far wrong. He must not be 1 est ny misled by the exaggerated fancies of the poets, or by the
mated hy
facts the Pe- . loponnesian tales of chroniclers who seck to please the ear rather
greaterthan than to speak the truth. Their accounts cannot be tested
ing war, “by him ; and most of the facts in the lapse of ages have
passed into the region of romance. At such a distance of time he must make up his mind to be satisfied with
though the early history of Hellas is of a kind which forbids im- plicit reliance on every particular of the evidence.’ Or (3), ‘It is difficult to set down all the proofs in order, so as to make the account credible.’
® Cp. vi. 54 seqq. b Herod. vi. 57. 5 Herod. ix. 53.
TRUTHFULNESS OF HIS OWN NARRATIVE, 15
conclusions resting upon the clearest evidence which can __I. be had. And, though men will always judge any war in which they are actually fighting to be the greatest at the time, but, after it is over, revert to their admiration of some other which has preceded, still the Peloponnesian,
if estimated by the actual facts, will certainly prove to | have been the greatest ever known.
As to the speeches which were made either before or 22. during the war, it was hard for me, and for others who The ᾿ reported them to me, to recollect the exact words. I have could not therefore put into the mouth of each speaker the senti- reported.” ments proper to the occasion, expressed as I thought he Gycat pains would be likely to express them, while at the same time ascertain I endeavoured, as nearly as I could, to give the general about purport of what was actually said. Of the events of the ~~ ms. war I have not ventured to speak from any chance infor- mation, nor according to any notion of my own; I have described nothing but what I either saw myself, or learned from others of whom I made the most careful and par- ticular enquiry. The task was a laborious one, because eye-witnesses of the same occurrences gave different accounts of them, as they remembered or were interested in the actions of one side or the other. And very likely the strictly historical character of my narrative may be disappointing to the ear. But if he who desires to have before his eyes a true picture of the events which have happened, and of the like events which may be expected to happen hereafter in the order of human things, shall pronounce what I have written to be useful, then | shall be satisfied. My history is an everlasting possession, not a prize composition which is heard and forgotten.
The greatest achievement of former times was the 23. Persian War; yet even this was speedily decided in two fength of battles by sea and two by land. But the Peloponnesian which was War was a protracted struggle, and attended by calami- arrended by ties such as Hellas had never known within a like period odin of time. Nevcr were so many cities captured and de- and extra-
ord populated—some by Barbarians, others by Hellcnes Among the
I.
16 CAUSES OF THE WAR,
themselves fighting against one another; and several of.
latt ight i atter migt them after their capture were repeopled by strangers.
be en
rated earth- Never were exile and slaughter more frequent, whether
quakes, eclipses,
droughts,
and lastly, the plague.
24.
The story
of Epi-
damnus. Civil strife
and war with the barbaria
ns.
in the war or brought about by civil strife. And rumours, of which the like had often been current before, but rarely verified by fact, now appeared to be well grounded. There were earthquakes unparalleled in their extent and fury, and eclipses of the sun more numerous than are re- corded to have happened in any former age; there were also in some places great droughts causing famines, and lastly the plague which did immense harm and destroyed numbers of the people. All these calamities fell upon Hellas simultaneously with the war, which began when the Athenians and Peloponnesians violated the thirty years’ truce concluded by them after the recapture of Euboea*, Why they broke it and what were the grounds of quarrel I will first set forth, that in time to come no man may be at a loss to know what was the origin of this great war. The real though unavowed cause I believe to have been the growth of the Athenian power, which terrified the Lacedaemonians and forced them into war; but the reasons publicly alleged on either side were as follows.
The city of Epidamnus is situated on the right hand as you sail up the Ionian Gulf. Near it dwelt the Taulantians, a barbarian tribe of the Illyrian race. The place was colonised by the Corcyraeans, but under the leadership of a Corinthian, Phalius, son of Eratocleides, who was of the lineage of Heracles; he was invited, according to ancient custom, from the mother city, and Corinthians and other Dorians Joined in the colony. In process of time Epidamnus became great and populous, but there followed a long period of civil commotion, and the city is said to have been brought low in a war against the neighbouring barbarians, and to have lost her ancient power. At last, shortly before the Peloponnesian War, the notables were overthrown and driven out by the
a Cp. i. 115, 146,
a
|
THE EPIDAMNIANS AT CORINTH. 17
ΟΕ. 435 or people; the exiles went over to the barbarians, and, I. Ἷ 86, 2 or UNiting with them, plundered the remaining inhabitants both by sea and land. These, finding themselves hard The prayer pressed, sent an embassy to the mother-city Corcyra, Gamniane begging the Corcyraeans not to leave them to their [O° heP ΠῚ fate, but to reconcile them to the exiles and put down PY ther-city their barbarian enemies. The ambassadors came, and Corcyra. sitting as suppliants in the temple of Here preferred their request; but the Corcyraeans would not listen to them, and they returned without success. The Epidam- 25. nians, finding that they had no hope of assistance from Corcyra, knew not what to do, and sending to Delphi © enquired of the God whether they should deliver up the city to their original founders, the Corinthians, and en- deavour to obtain aid from them. The God replied that they should, and bade them place themselves under the leadership of the Corinthians. So the Epidam- They place nians went to Corinth, and informing the Corinthians Sader the of the answer which the oracle had given, delivered Protection, up the city to them. They reminded them that the original leader of the colony was a citizen of Corinth; and implored the Corinthians to come and help them, and not leave them to their fate. The Corinthians took up their cause, partly in vindication of their own rights (for they considered that Epidamnus belonged to them quite as much as to the Corcyraeans), partly too because they hated the Corcyraeans, who were their own colony but slighted them. In their common festivals they would not allow them the customary privi- leges of founders, and at their sacrifices denied to a Corinthian the right of receiving first the lock of hair cut from the head of the victim, an honour usually granted by colonies to a representative of the mother-country. In fact they despised the Corinthians, for they were more than a match for them in military strength, and as rich as any state then existing in Hellas. They would often boast that on the sea they were very far superior to them, and would appropriate to themselves the naval ς
18 SIEGE OF EPIDAMNUS.
IJ. renown of the Phaeacians, who were the ancient in- BC. 43 habitants of the island. Such feelings led them more Ol 96, : and more to strengthen their navy, which.was by no > means despicable ; for they had a hundred and twenty triremes when the war broke out.
26. Irritated by these causes of offence, the Corinthians
The Corin- were too happy to assist Epidamnus; accordingly they
thians send |, see troops and invited any one who was willing to settle there, and for
Tpidarmnus, the protection of the colonists dispatched with them Am- The Corey- bracian and Leucadian troops and a force of their own. dismissal ¢ All these they sent by land as far as Apollonia, which on being is a colony of theirs, fearing that if they went by sea refused they . ° besiege the the Corcyraeans might oppose their passage. Great was ny the rage of the Corcyraeans when they discovered that the settlers and the troops had entered Epidamnus and that the colony had been given up to the Corinthians. They immediately set sail with five and twenty ships, followed by a second fleet, and in insulting terms bade the Epidamnians receive the exiled oligarchs, who had gone to Corcyra and implored the Corcyraeans to re- store them, appealing to the tie of kindred and pointing to the sepulchres of their common ancestors*, They also bade them send away the troops and the new settlers. But the Epidamnians would not listen to their demands. Whereupon the Corcyraeans attacked them with forty ships. They were accompanied by the exiles whom they were to restore, and had the assistance of the native 1]- lyrian troops. They sat down before the city, and made proclamation that any Epidamnian who chose, and the foreigners, might depart in safety, but that all who re- mained would be treated as enemies. Being met by a refusal, the Corcyraeans proceeded to invest the city, which is built upon an isthmus.
27. When the news reached the Corinthians that Epi- The | Corin damnus was besieged, they equipped an army and pare for war proclaimed that a colony was to be sent thither; all ami τον who wished might go and enjoy equal rights of citizen-
® Cp. iil. 58 med., 59 init.
EMBASSY FROM CORCYRA TO CORINTH. 19
c. 435 or Ship; but any one who was unwilling to sail at once [[- 96, 20r Might remain at Corinth, and, if he made a deposit of wony to fifty Corinthian drachmae, might still have a share in Megara the colony*. Many sailed, and many deposited the friendly money. The Corinthians also sent and requested the Stes /- Megarians to furnish them with a convoy in case the convoy. Corcyraeans should intercept the colonists on their voyage. The Megarians accordingly provided eight ships, and the Cephallenians of Palé four; the Epi- daurians, of whom they made a similar request, five ; the Hermionians one; the Troezenians two; the Leu- cadians ten; and the Ambraciots eight. Of the Thebans and Phliasians they begged money, and of the Eleans money, and ships without crews. On their own account they equipped thirty ships and three thousand hoplites.
When the Corcyraeans heard of their preparations 28, they came to Corinth, taking with them Lacedaemonian The Cor- and Sicyonian envoys, and summoned the Corinthians Tropose ar- to withdraw the troops and the colonists, telling them offering that they had nothing to do with Epidamnus. If they ὑπ Ως
made any claim to it, the Corcyraeans expressed them- given to
ἝΝ selves willing to refer the cause for arbitration to such their troops Peloponnesian states as both parties should agree upon, thians with. and their decision was to be final; or, they were willing ἄταν thers.
to leave the matter in the hands of the Delphian oracle. both to re-
But they deprecated war, and declared that, if war there Epidamnus must be, they would be compelled by the Corinthians 77,22" in self-defence to discard their present friends and seek
others whom they would rather not, for help they must
have. The Corinthians replied that if the Corcyraeans
would withdraw the ships and the barbarian troops they
would consider the matter, but that it would not do for
them to be litigating while Epidamnus and the colonists
were in a state of siege. The Corcyraeans rejoined that
they would consent to this proposal if the Corinthians on
® Fifty Corinthian drachmae are equivalent to eighty-three Attic drachmae: reckoning the Attic drachma at 93d., the sum would amount to 3/. 75. 64.
C2
20 CAPTURE OF EPIDAMNUS.,
I. their part would withdraw their forces from Epidaninus : BC. 435 ¢ *or again, they were willing that both parties should &'s6, ac remain® on the spot, and that a truce should be made * until the decision was given.
29. The Corinthians turned a deaf ear to all these over- The Corin- tures, and, when their vessels were manned and their
thians re-
fuse, and allies had arrived, they sent a herald before them to declare war.
Sailing to declare war, and set sail for Epidamnus with seventy- theyare five ships and two thousand hoplites, intending to give attacked by Pattle to the Corcyraeans. Their fleet was commanded the Corey. by Aristeus the son of Pellichus, Callicrates the son of
completely Callias, and Timanor the son of Timanthes; the land eat
Onthe forces by Archetimus the son of Eurytimus, and Isarchi- Eprlameus das the son of Isarchus. When they arrived at Actium surrenders. in the territory of Anactorium, at the mouth of the Ambracian gulf, where the temple of Apollo stands, the Corcyraeans sent a herald to them in a small boat forbidding them to come on. Meanwhile their crews got on board; they had previously equipped their fleet, strengthening the old ships with cross-timbers, so as to make them serviceable. The herald brought back no message of peace from the Corinthians. The Corcyraean ships, numbering eighty (for forty out of the hundred and twenty were engaged in the blockade of Epidamnus), were now fully manned; these sailed out against the Corinthians and, forming line, fought and won a complete victory over them, and destroyed fifteen of their ships. On the very same day the forces besieging Epidamnus succeeded in compelling the city to capitulate, the terms being that the Corinthians until their fate was deter-
mined should be imprisoned and the strangers sold. 30. After the sea-fight the Corcyraeans raised a trophy TheCor- on Leucimmé, a promontory of Corcyra, and put to having com- death all their prisoners with the exception of the
mand of t
sea, plunder Corinthians, whom they kept in chains. The defeated Connth: οὗ Corinthians and their allies then returned home, and
® Or, ‘or again, they would agree to arbitration on the condition that both parties should remain’ etc.
CORINTHIAN AND CORCYRAEAN EMBASSIES. 2τ
> 435 or the Corcyraeans (who wefe now masters of the Ionian Γ 86, 2 or 368), Sailing to Leucas, a Corinthian colony, devastated At length Ὁ , the country. They alse ‘burnt Cyllené, where the thians form Eleans had their docks, because they had supplied the protect Corinthians with money and ships. And, during the %™- greater part of the summer after the battle, they retained the command of the sea and sailed about plundering the allies of the Corinthians. But, before the season was over, the Corinthians, perceiving that their allies were suffering, sent: out a fleet and formed a camp at Actium and near the promontory of Cheimerium in Thesprotia; that they might protect Leucas and other friendly places. The Corcyraeans with their fleet and army stationed themselves on the opposite coast at Leucimmé. Neither party attacked the other, but during the remainder of the summer they maintained their respective positions, and at the approach of winter returned home. . 434. For the whole year after the battle, and for a year 3I.- 96, 3 4. after that, the Corinthians, exasperated by their defeat, The Corin-
: a ge , ? thians pre- were busy in building ships. They took the utmost Pare to . new pains to create a great navy: rowers were collected war, and
the Corcy-
from the Peloponnesus and from the rest of Hellas by: jeans in the attraction of pay. The Corcyraeans were alarmed an cmbasey
at the report of their preparations. They reflected that to Athens,
they had not enrolled themselves in the league either of they are the Athenians or of the Lacedaemonians, and that allies Coney in Hellas they had none. They determined to go to °"V°S: Athens, join the Athenian alliance, and get what help they could from them. The Corinthians, hearing of thcir intentions, also sent ambassadors to Athens, fearing lest the combination of the Athenian and Corcyraean navies might prevent them from bringing the war to a satisfac- 433 tory termination. Accordingly an assembly was held at which both parties came forward to plead their respective — causes ; and first the Corcyraeans spoke as follows :— ‘Men of Athens, those who, like ourselves, come to 32. others who are not their allies and to whom they have Speech of
the Corcy- never rendered any considerable service and ask help raeans.
22 SPEECH OF THE CORCYRAEANS.
I. οἵ them, are bound to show, in the first place, that the B.c. 433.
Our iy was granting of their request is expedient, or at any rate
a mistake, not inexpedient, and, secondly, that their gratitude will
us isolated be lasting. If they fulfil neither requirement they have atthemerc¥ no right to complain of a refusal. Now the Corcyraeans, rinthians when they sent us hither to ask for an alliance, were allies. confident that they could establish to your satisfaction both these points. But, unfortunately, we have had a
practice alike inconsistent with the request which we
are about to make and contrary to our own interest
at the present moment :—Inconsistent ; for hitherto we
have never, if we could avoid it, been the allies of others,
and now we come and ask you to enter into an alliance
with us:—Contrary to our interest; for through this practice we find ourselves isolated in our war with the Corinthians. The policy of not making alliances lest
they should endanger us at another’s bidding, instead
of being wisdom, as we once fancied, has now unmis-
takably proved to be weakness and folly. True, in
the last naval engagement we repelled the Corinthians single-handed. But now they are on the point of attacking us with a much greater force which they have
drawn togethcr from the Peloponnesus and from all
Hellas. We know that we are too weak to resist them unaided, and may expect the worst if we fall into their
hands. We are therefore compelled to ask assistance of
you and of all the world; and you must not be hard
upon us if now, renouncing our indolent neutrality which
was an error but not a crime, we dare to be inconsistent.
33- ‘To you at this moment the request which we are We ask ¢ making offers a glorious opportunity. In the first place, Athens,who you will assist the oppressed and not the oppressors ;
will thus
assist the secondly, you will admit us to your alliance at a time and gain’ When our dearest interests are at stake, and will lay up
our undying a treasure of gratitude in our memories which will have
She should the most abiding of all records. Lastly, we have a navy not reject
the offer οἱ of greater than any but your own. Reflect; what good 6
raean navy, fortune can be more extraordinary, what more annoying
Ol. 86, 4.
SPEECH OF THE CORCYRAEANS. 23
B.C. 433. to your enemies than the voluntary accession of a power [,
’* for whose alliance you would have given any amount of money and could never have been too thankful? This power now places herself at your disposal ; you are to incur no danger and no expense, and she brings you a good name in the world, gratitude from those who seek your aid, and an increase of your own strength. Few have ever had all these advantages offered them at once; equally few when they come asking an alliance are able to give in the way of security and honour as much as they hope to receive.
‘And if any one thinks that the war in which our services For war is may be needed will never arrive, he is mistaken. He does ™™e"t- not see that the Lacedaemonians, fearing the growth of your empire, are eager to take up arms, and that the Corinthians, who are your enemies, are all-powerful with them. They begin with us, but they will go on to you, that we may not stand united against them in the bond of a common enmity; they will not miss the chance of weakening us and strengthening themselves. And it is. our business to strike first, we offering and you accepting our alliance, and to forestall their designs instead of waiting to counteract them.
‘If they say that we are their colony and that therefore 34. you have no right to receive us, they should be made to True, we understand that all colonies honour their mother-city i ἴσην of the when she treats them well, but are estranged from her Cony{hians by injustice. For colonists are not meant to be the πὸ reason servants but the equals of those who remain at home, should be And the injustice of their conduct to us is manifest: for theme we proposed an arbitration in the matter of Epidamnus, but they insisted on prosecuting their quarrel by arms and would not hear of a legal trial*. When you see how they treat us who are their own kinsmen, take warning : if they try deception, do not be misled by them; and if they make a direct request of you, refuse. For he passes through life most securely who has least reason to re- proach himself with complaisance to his enemies.
a Cp. i. 29 init.
24 SPEECH OF THE CORCYRAEANS.
I. ‘But again, you will not break the treaty with the Lace-. B.C. 433. 35. daemonians® by receiving us: for we are not allies either 1 86,4 Reasons of you or of them. What says the treaty ?—‘Any Hel-
Aiveriens lenic city which is the ally of no one may join whichever should re league it pleases.’ And how monstrous, that they should Corcyrae- man their ships, not only from their own confederacy, but alliance. from Hellas in general, nay, even from your subjects,
ane wk while they would debar us from the alliance which natu-
the treaty. rally offers and from every other, and will denounce it
as a crime if you accede to our request. With far better
reason shall we complain of you if you refuse. For you
will be thrusting away us who are not your enemies and
are in peril; and, far from restraining the enemy and
the aggressor, you will be allowing him to gather fresh
forces out of your own dominions. How unjust is this!
Surely if you would be impartial you should either
prevent the Corinthians from hiring soldiers in your
dominions, or send to us also such help as you can be
induced to send; but it would be best of all if you would:
openly receive and assist us. Many, as we have already
intimated, are the advantages which we offer. Above
all, our enemies are your enemies, which is the best
guarantee of fidelity in an ally; and they are not weak
but well able to injure those who secede from them.
Again, when the proffered alliance is that of a maritime
and not of an inland power, it is a far more serious
matter to refuse. You should, if possible, allow no one
to have a fleet but yourselves; or, if this is impossible, whoever is strongest at sea, make him your friend.
46. ‘Some one may think that the course which we recom-
They can- mend is expedient, but he may be afraid that if he is
not afford
tobe convinced by our arguments he will break the treaty. Soe te! To him we reply, that if he will only strengthen himself
to Sicily. he may make a present of his fears to the enemy, but
andisone that if he reject the alliance he will be weak, and then
great τ mari his confidence, however reassuring to himself, will be tim
of Hellas. anything but terrifying to enemies who are strong. It: ® Cp. i. 115 init.
SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS. 25
16. 433. is Athens about which he is advising, and not Corcyra: _I. Ἢ 86,4. will he be providing for her best interests if, when war is imminent and almost at the door, he is so anxious about the chances of the hour that he hesitates to attach to him a state which cannot be made a friend or enemy with- out momentous consequences? Corcyra, besides offering many other advantages, is conveniently situated for the coast voyage to Italy and Sicily; it stands in the way of any fleet coming from thence to the Peloponnesus, and can also protect a fleet on its way to Sicily. One word more, which is-the sum of all we have to say, and should convince you that you must not abandon us. Hellas has only three considerable navies :—there is ours, and there is yours, and there is the Corinthian. Now, if the Corinthians get hold of ours, and you allow the two to become one, you will have to fight against the united navies of Corcyra and the Peloponnesus, But, if you make us your allies, you will have our navy in addition to your own ranged at your side in the im- pending conflict.’ | Thus spoke the Corcyraeans: the Corinthians replied as follows:— __ | ‘Since these Corcyraeans have chosen to speak, not 37. only of their reception into your alliance, but of our The neu- - . . . trality of misdoings and of the unjust war which has been forced the Corcy- upon them by us, we too must touch on these two pretence points before we proceed to our main argument, that you DY which
they con- may be better prepared to appreciate our claim upon cea! their
you, and may have a good reason for rejecting their pe- tition. They pretend that they have hitherto refused to make alliances from a wise moderation, but they really adopted this policy from a mean and not from a high motive. They did not want to have an ally who might go and tell of their crimes, and who would put them to the blush whenever they called him in. Their insular position makes them judges of their own offences against others, and they can therefore afford to dispense with judges appointed under treaties; for they hardly ever
39-
26 SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS.
visit their neighbours, but foreign ships are constantly B.C. fos
driven to their shores by stress of weather. And all the time they screen themselves under the specious name of neutrality, making believe that they are unwilling to be the accomplices of other men’s crimes. But the truth is that they wish to keep their own criminal courses to themselves: where they are strong, to oppress; where they cannot be found out, to defraud; and whatever they may contrive to appropriate, never to be ashamed. If they were really upright men, as they profess to be, the greater their immunity from attack the more clearly they might have made their honesty appear by a willingness to submit differences to arbitration.
‘But such they have not shown themselves either to-. wards us or towards others. Although they are our colony they have always stood aloof from us, and now they are fighting against us on the plea that they were not sent out to be ill used. To which we rejoin that we did not send them out to be insulted by them, but that we might be recognised as their leaders and receive proper respect. At any rate our other colonies honour us; no city is more beloved by her colonies than Corinth. That we are popular with the majority proves that the Corcyraeans have no reason to dislike us; *and, if it seems extraordinary that we should go to war with them, our defence is that the injury which they are doing us is unexampled*. Even if we had been misled by passion, it would have been honourable in them to make allow- ance for us, and dishonourable in us to use violence when they showed moderation. But they have wronged us over and over again in their insolence and pride of wealth; and now there is our colony of Epidamnus which they would not acknowledge in her distress, but when we came to her rescue, they seized and are now holding by force.
‘They pretend that they first offered to have the matter
® Or, ‘and there is nothing extraordinary in our going to war with them, for they are doing us an unexampled injury.’
SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS. 27
BC. 433. decided by arbitration. The appeal to justice might have 1. + some meaning in the mouth of one *who before he had re- The Corcy-
᾿ raeans pro- course to arms acted honourably, as he now talks fairly*, pose arbi-
o, ¢ °° . tion and but not when it is made from a position of security and request your
advantage. Whereas these men began by laying siege when they to Epidamnus, and not until they feared our vengeance camper. dnp My did they put forward their specious offer of arbitration. pd So And as if the wrong which they have themselves done at Epidamnus were not enough, they now come hither and ask you to be, not their allies, but their accomplices in crime, and would have you receive them when they are at enmity with us. But they ought to have come when they were out of all danger, not at a time when we are smarting under an injury and they have good reason to be afraid. You have never derived any benefit from their power, but they will now be benefited by yours, and, although innocent of their crimes, you will equally be held responsible by us. If you -were to have shared the consequences with them, they ought long ago to have shared the power with you”,
‘We have shown that our complaints are justified and 40. that our adversaries are tyrannical and dishonest; we You will will now prove to you that you have no right to receive treaty by them. Admitting that the treaty allows any unenrolled them, and cities to join either league, this provision does not apply sto beyour to those who have in view the injury of others, but only enemies. to him who is in need of protection,—certainly not to one who forsakes his allegiance and who will bring war instead of peace to those who receive him, or rather, if they are wise, will not receive him on such terms. And war the Corcyraeans will bring to you if you listen to
them and not to us. For if you become the allies of the
® Or, ‘whose actions corresponded to his professions, before he entered on the struggle.’
» The last words of the chapter are omitted by Poppo on the authority of several of the best MSS.; they may perhaps be a gloss. If they are retained they may be translated: ‘But you ought not to share all the consequences of their crimes, while in the crimes, and in them alone, you have no part.’
We did not encourage
our rebel-
ious sub- jects, and you should not receive ours.
41.
We lent you twenty ships
28 SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS.
Corcyraeans you will be no longer at peace with us, but B.C. 433.
will be converted into enemies ; and we must, if you take or their part, in defending ourselves against them, defend.
ourselves against you. But you ought in common justice to stand aloof from both; or, if you must join either, you should join us and go to war with them ; to Corinth you are at all events bound by treaty, but with Corcyra you never even entered into a temporary negotiation. And do not set the precedent of receiving the rebellious
86, 4.
subjects of others. At the revolt of Samos*, when the B.c. 440.
other Peloponnesians were divided upon the question o giving aid to the rebels, we voted in your favour and expressly maintained ‘that every one should be allowed to chastise his own allies.’ If you mean to receive and assist evil-doers, we shall assuredly gain as many allies of yours as you will of ours; and you will establish a principle which will tell against yourselves more than against us.
‘Such are the grounds of right which we urge; and they are sufficient according to Hellenic law. And may
in the Aegi- we venture to recall to your minds an obligation of which
netan war.
we claim the repayment in our present need, we and you being not enemies who seek one another’s hurt, nor yet
f Ol. 85.
friends who freely give and take? There was a time B.C. 4or. before the Persian invasion when you were in want of Ol. 72, 2.
ships for the Aeginetan war, and we Corinthians Ient you twenty: the service which we then rendered to you gave you the victory over the Aeginetans ἢ, as the other, which prevented the Peloponnesians from aiding the Samians, enabled you to punish Samos. Both benefits were con- ferred on one of those critical occasions when men in the act of attacking their enemies are utterly regardless of everything but victory, and deem him who assists them a friend though he may have previously been a foe, him who opposes them a foe, even though he may happen to be a friend; nay, they will often neglect their own interests in the excitement of the struggle.
a Cp. i. 115. b Cp. Herod. vi. 89.
SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS. 29
OL 433: ‘Think of these things; let the younger be informed [{ : of them by their elders, and resolve all of you to render 42. like for like. Do not say to yourselves that this is just, but that in the event of war something else is expedient; for the true path of expediency is the path of right. The war with which the Corcyraeans would frighten you into doing wrong is distant, and may never come; is it worth while to be so carried away by the prospect of it, that you bring upon yourselves the hatred of the Corinthians which is both near and certain? Would you not be wiser in seeking to mitigate the ill-feeling which your treatment of the Megarians has already inspired*? The later kindness done in season, though small in comparison, may cancel a greater previous wrong. And do not be Todono attracted by their offer of a great naval alliance; for to wrong ἰς aa do no wrong to a neighbour is a surer source of strength erat naval than to gain a perilous advantage under the influence of a momentary illusion. ‘We are now ourselves in the same situation in which 43+ ‘ you were, when we declared at Sparta that every one so placed should be allowed to chastise his own allies; and we claim to receive the same measure at your hands. You were profited by our vote, and we ought not to be injured by yours. Pay what you owe, knowing that this is our time of need, in which a man’s best friend is he who does him a service, he who opposes him, his worst enemy. Do not receive these Corcyraeans into alliance in despite of us, and do not support them in injustice. In acting thus you will act rightly, and will consult your own true interests.’ Such were the words of the Corinthians. The Athenians heard both sides, and they held two 44. assemblies; in the first of them they were more in- The Athe-
nians after
fluenced by the words of the Corinthians, but in the some hesita- n enter second they changed their minds and inclined towards into a de-
fe - the Corcyraeans. They would not go so far as to make jane,
an alliance both offensive and defensive with them ; for Co™y™- ® Cp. i. 67 fin.
30 ALLIANCE OF ATHENS WITH CORCYRA.
I. then, if the Corcyraeans had required them to join in an B.c. 43s expedition against Corinth, the treaty with the Pelopon- 2 87: nesians would have been broken. But they concluded a defensive league, by which the two states promised to aid each other if an attack were made on the territory or on the allies of either. For they knew that in any case the war with Peloponnesus was inevitable, and they had no mind to let Corcyra and her navy fall into the Motives of hands of the Corinthians. Their plan was to embroil ee them more and more with one another, and then, when the war came, the Corinthians and the other naval powers would be weaker. They also considered that Corcyra was conveniently situated for the coast voyage to Italy and Sicily.
45. Under the influence of these feelings, they received They send the Corcyraeans into alliance; the Corinthians departed ; ten ships to . . Coreyra, and the Athenians now despatched to Corcyra ten ships ales them commanded by Lacedaemonius the son of Cimon, Dio- at on me timus the son of Strombichus, and Proteas the son of
Epicles. The commanders received orders not to engage with the Corinthians unless they sailed against Corcyra or to any place belonging to the Corcyraeans, and at- tempted to land there, in which case they were to resist them to the utmost. These orders were intended to prevent a breach of the treaty δ,
46. The Corinthians, when their preparations were com- The Corin- pleted, sailed against Corcyra with a hundred and thian ficet . . . sails against fifty ships,—ten Elean, twelve Megarian, ten Leucadian, Coreyra. twenty-seven Ambraciot, one from Anactorium, and
ninety of their own. The contingents of the several cities were commanded by their own generals. The Corinthian commander was Xenocleides the son of Eu- thycles, with four others. The fleet sailed from Leucas, and, arriving at the mainland opposite Corcyra, came to anchor at Cheimerium in the country of Thesprotia. >bCheimerium is a harbour"; above it, at some distance
® Cp. i. 40 init.
b Or, ‘Here there is a harbour.’
SEA-FIGHT NEAR CHEIMERIUM., 41
B.C. 432. from the sea, in that part of Thesprotia called Eleatis, I. Ol 87 ties the city of Ephyré, near which the Acherusian lake finds a way into the sea; the river Acheron, whence the name is derived, flows through Thesprotia and falls into the lake. Another river, the Thyamis, forms the boundary of Thesprotia and Cestriné, and the promontory — of Cheimerium runs out between these two rivers. Here the Corinthians anchored and encamped.
The Corcyraeans, observing their approach, manned 47. a hundred and ten ships. These, which were placed Disposition under the command of Meiciades, Aesimides, and Eury- forces. batus, took up a position off one of the islands called Sybota; the ten Athenian ships accompanied them. ° The land forces occupied the promontory of Leucimme, whither a thousand Zacynthians had come to the aid of Corcyra. The Corinthians on their part were sup- ported by a large force of barbarians, which collected on the mainland; for the inhabitants of this region have always been well disposed towards them.
The Corinthians had now made their preparations, and, 48.
taking with them three days’ provisions, put off by night from Cheimerium, intending to give battle: at break of day they descried the Corcyraean fleet, which had also put out to sea and was sailing to meet them. As soon as they saw one another, they ranged themselves in order of battle. On the right Corcyraean wing were the Athe- nian ships. The Corcyraeans themselves occupied the centre and the left wing, and were drawn up in three divisions, each under the command of one of the generals. On the right wing of the Corinthians were the Megarian and Ambraciot ships, in the centre the contingents of their other allies; they themselves with their swiftest vessels formed the left wing, which was opposed to the Athenians and to the right division of the Corcyraeans.
The standards were now raised on both sides, and the 40. two fleets met and fought. The decks of both were Character crowded with heavy infantry, with archers and with jave- oagennent. lin men; for their naval arrangements were still of the
22 SEA-FIGHT NEAR CHEIMERIUM.
Ι. oldclumsy sort. The engagement was obstinate, but more B. C. 433. courage than skill was displayed, and it had almost the » 87. appearance of a battle by land. When two ships once charged one another it was hardly possible to part com- pany, for the throng of vessels was dense, and the hopes of
victory lay chiefly in the heavy-armed, who maintained a steady fight upon the decks, the ships meanwhile remaining motionless. There were no attempts to break the enemy’s line. Brute force and rage made up for the want of tactics. Everywhere the battle was a scene of tumult and confu- sion. At any point where they saw the Corcyraeans distressed, the Athenians appeared and kept the enemy in check; but the generals, who were afraid of disobeying their instructions, would not begin the attack themselves.
Partial suc- The Corinthians suffered most on their right wing. For σας the Corcyraeans with twenty ships routed them, drove ans on the them in disorder to the shore, and sailed right up to their
left wing and their encampment; there landing, they plundered and burnt
defeat on the deserted tents. In this part of the battle the Corin- the right. thians and their allies were worsted, and the Corcyraeans prevailed. But the left wing of the Corinthians, where their own ships were stationed, had greatly the advan- tage, because the Corcyraeans, whose numbers were originally inferior, had now twenty vessels detached in The Athe- the pursuit. When the Athenians saw the distress of the thee Corcyraeans, they began to assist them more openly. Bagement. At first they had abstained from actual collision, but when the Corcyraeans fled outright and the Corinthians pressed them hard, then every man fell to work; all dis- tinctions were forgotten ;—the time had arrived when Corinthian and Athenian were driven to attack one ᾿ς another.
50. The Corinthians, having put to flight their enemies, never stopped to take in tow the hulls of the vessels which they had disabled, but fell upon the men; they rowed up and down and slew them, giving no quarter, and unintentionally killing their own friends ; for they were not aware that their right wing had been defeated.
MORE ATHENIAN VESSELS. 33
5 437- ‘There were so many ships on one side and on the other, _iI.
and they covered so great an extent of water, that, when the engagement had once begun, it was hard among conquerors and conquered to distinguish friend from foe. For never before had two Hellenic navies so numerous met in battle.
When the Corinthians had chased the Corcyraeans to the shore, they turned their attention to their own wrecks and dead bodies. Most of these were recovered by them | and conveyed to Sybota, a desert harbour of Thesprotia, whither their barbarian allies had come to support them. ‘They then formed afresh and once more made a move- ment towards the Corcyraeans, who, taking such vessels as had not been disabled, and any others which they had in their docks, together with the Athenian ships, put out to meet them, dreading a descent upon Corcyra. It was now late in the day and the Paean had been already sounded for the onset, when the Corinthians suddenly began to row astern. They had descried sailing towards Sudden them twenty vessels which the Athenians had sent to of twenty reinforce the former ten, fearing what had actually hap- shine pened, that the Corcyraeans would be defeated, and that the original squadron would be insufficient to protect them.
The Corinthians, who had the first view of these vessels, 51. suspecting that they were Athenian and that there were The two
. ὁ fleets more of them than they saw, were beginning to retreat. separate, The Corcyraeans, owing to their position, could not see them, and they wondered why the Corinthians rowed asfern. At length some one who spied the advancing flect exclaimed, ‘Yonder are ships coming ;’ and then the Corcyraeans, as it was getting dark, likewise retired, and the Corinthians turned about and sailed away. Thus the two fleets separated after a battle which lasted until nightfall. The twenty ships which came from Athens under the command of Glaucon the son of Leagrus, and Andocides the son of Leogoras, made their way through the wrecks and corpses and sailed into the Corcyraean D
34 MESSAGE OF THE CORINTHIANS,
I. station at Leucimmé almost as soon as they were sighted. P.C. 43; At first in the darkness the Corcyraeans feared that they 1.87. were enemies, but they soon recognised them and the Athenian vessels came to anchor.
52- On the next day the thirty Athenian and all the The Corine Corcyraean ships which were fit for service, wanting to to return ascertain whether the Corinthians would fight, sailed to
the harbour at Sybota where their fleet lay. The Corin- thians, putting out into deep water, drew up their ships in line and so remained, but they did not intend to begin the battle. For they saw that fresh ships, which had re- ceived no damage in the action, had arrived from Athens, and their own position was one‘of great difficulty. They had to guard the prisoners in their vessels, and there were no means of refitting in such a desert place. They were more disposed to consider how they should get home than to fight. For they feared that the Athenians, deem- ing the peace, now that blows had been exchanged, to be already broken, would intercept their return.
53. They therefore determined to send a few men in a boat They hold without a flag of truce to the Athenians, and so test their aparley , . . . with the intentions. The men were to deliver the following mes-
" sage: ‘You do wrong, Athenians, to begin war and violate the treaty. We were only chastising our enemies, and you come with a hostile force and place yourselves between us and them. If it is your intention to hinder us from sailing to Corcyra, or whithersoever we choose, and you are going to break the treaty, take us first and deal with us as enemies.’ Whereupon all the Corcyraeans who were within hearing cried out ‘Take and kill tham.’ But the Athenians replied: ‘Men of Peloponnesus, we are not beginning war, and we are not violating the treaty; we are only aiding the Corcyraeans, who are our allies. If you mean to sail against Corcyra or any place belong- ing to the Corcyraeans, we will do our utmost to prevent you, but, if you want to go anywhere else, you may.’
54. Reassured by this reply, the Corinthians prepared to
The Corin- sail home, first setting up a trophy at the Sybota which
THE CORCYRAEAN CAPTIVES. 35
>. 434 is on the mainland. The Corcyraeans took up the wrecks _I.
"7 ~ and dead bodies which were carried towards them, the pt une current and the wind which had risen during the night Anactorium having scattered them in all directions. They then set voyage. up a rival trophy on the island of Sybota. Both parties claimed the victory, but on different grounds. The Corinthians had retained the advantage in the sea-fight until nightfall, and had thus secured a greater number of wrecks and dead bodies; they had taken not less than a thousand prisoners and had disabled about seventy ships. The Corcyraeans, on the other hand, had destroyed some thirty sail, and when reinforced by the Athenians had taken up the wrecks and dead bodies which had drifted in their direction; whereas the enemy on the evening of the battle had rowed astern at sight of the Athenian ships, and after their arrival had not come out against them from Sybota. Upon these grounds both sides raised trophies and claimed the victory. Ontheir 55. homeward voyage the Corinthians took by stratagem Anactorium, a town situated at the mouth of the Am- bracian Gulf, which they and the Corcyraeans held in common; there they placed colonists of their own, and returned to Corinth. Of their Corcyraean captives eight’ hundred who were slaves they sold, but two hundred and fifty they detained in prison, treating them with much consideration, in the hope that, when they returned, they would win over Corcyra to the Corinthian interests*: it so happened that the majority of them were among the most influential men of the state. Thus the war ended to the advantage of Corcyra, and the Athenian fleet re- turned home. This was the first among the causes of the Peloponnesian war, the Corinthians alleging that the Athenian fleet had taken part with the Corcyraeans and had fought against them in defiance of the treaty.
There soon arose another cause of quarrel between the 56. Athenians and Peloponnesians. Potidaea, which is situ- Affair of of ᾿ ated on the isthmus of Pallené, was originally a Corinthian The Athe-
® Cp. iii. 70. D2
46 DEFECTION OF PERDICCAS,
I. colony, although at this time the tributary and ally of B.c. 43 nians com- Athens. Now the Corinthians were forming plans of Ol. 87. Potidaeans yengeance, and the Athenians, who suspected their in-
io ταῖς ἐρεῖς tentions, commanded the Potidaeans to raze their walls
cages, on the side of Pallené and give hostages; also to send away and not to receive for the future the magistrates whom the Corinthians annually sent to them. For they were afraid lest the Potidaeans might be persuaded by the Corinthians and Perdiccas to revolt, and might induce the rest of Chalcidicé to follow their example.
57. These measures of precaution were taken by the Perdiccas Athenians immediately after the sea-fight off Corcyra. with the - The hostility of the Corinthians was no longer doubtful, and triesto and Perdiccas, king of Macedon, the son of Alexander, ἐπε τ Nitherto the friend and ally of Athens, had now become an loponnesus enemy. He had quarrelled with the Athenians because
they had made an alliance with his brother Philip and with Derdas, who were leagued against him. Alarmed by their attitude, he sent envoys to Sparta and did all he could to stir up a war between Athens and the Pelopon- nese. He also sought the alliance of Corinth, for he had an eye to the revolt of Potidaea; and he proposed to ‘the Chalcidians and to the Bottiaeans that they should join in the revolt, thinking, that if he had the assistance of the neighbouring peoples, the difficulties of the war would be diminished. The Athenians became aware of his designs and resolved to forestall the revolt of the cities. They were already intending to send against Perdiccas thirty ships and a thousand hoplites under the command of Archestratus the son of Lycomedes, and ten others, and they told their admirals to take hostages from the Potidaeans and to demolish their wall. They were also to keep a watch over the towns in the neigh- bourhood and prevent any attempt at rebellion.
58. Meanwhile the Potidaeans sent envoys to the Athenians The Poti- in the hope of persuading them to take no strong mea- envoysto sures; but at the same time other envoys of theirs accom-
Sparta and panied a Corinthian embassy to Lacedaemon and exerted
REVOLT OF POTIDAEA. 37
BC. 235) themselves to procure assistance in caseof need. Along _ I, negotiation was carried on at Athens which ended in They re- nothing, and made no difference; the ships destined for mises'of. Macedonia were also sent against Potidaea. But at Lace- 25st" daemon they were promised by the magistrates that if Spat the Athenians attacked Potidaea they would invade At- tica. So they seized the opportunity and revolted: the Chalcidians and Bottiaeans swore alliance with them and joined in the revolt. Perdiccas persuaded the Chalcidians to abandon and pull down their towns on the sea-coast, and settling at Olynthus inland, there to form one strong city. On their removal he gave them part of his own territory of Mygdonia about the lake Bolbé to cultivate while the contest lasted. So, dismantling their cities, they settled up the country and made preparation for war.
The Athenians, when the thirty ships arrived in Chal- 59. cidicé, found that Potidaea and the other cities had The Athe
nians under
already revolted. Whereupon the generals, thinking that Archestra- ve in
they were not strong enough without more troops to Chalcidies
act against the rebels as well as against Perdiccas, di- Του frst
rected their attention to Macedonia, which was their ced°/a- original destination, and there carried on a regular cam-
paign in concert with Philip and the brothers of Derdas,
who had invaded the country from the interior.
Now that Potidaea had revolted and the Athenian 60. ships were on the coast of Macedonia, the Corinthians The Corin- grew anxious about the town; they felt that the danger toes on came home to them, and dispatched thither volunteers {pt 34 of of their own and other troops whom they attracted by under the pay from various parts of the Peloponnese, numbering of Aristeus. in all sixteen hundred hoplites and four hundred light- — armed. Their commander was Aristeus the son of Adeimantus, who had always been a great friend of the Potidaeans; it was mainly out of regard for him that most of the Corinthian soldiers volunteercd on the ex- pedition. They arrived in Chalcidice forty days after the revolt of Potidaea.
The news of the revolt in Chalcidicé quickly reached 61.
48 ARRIVAL OF THE ATHENIANS.
I. Atherts, and the Athenians, when they heard that Aris- BC. 43: Athenian teus had come with reinforcements, sent against the re- ' mentsunder volted towns forty ships and two thousand of their own
seas " hoplites under the command of Callias the son of Cal-
Macedonia Jiades, and four others. The expedition, sailing first of ten pony all to Macedonia, found that the former thousand had just with” taken Thermé and were blockading Pydna; they joined in and move the siege themselves; but before long the Athenian army tidaea, Were constrained to come to an understanding and make an alliance with Perdiccas. For Potidaea, now that Aris- teus had arrived, urgently demanded their presence; so they prepared to quit Macedonia. They first marched out of their way to Bcroea, which they attempted to take with- out success. Returning to their route, they moved on by land towards Potidaea with three thousand hoplites of their own and a large force of allies; they had also six hundred Macedonian horse, who fought under Philip and Pausanias; meanwhile their ships, in number seventy, sailed along the coast. Proceeding by slow marches, they arrived on the third day at Gigonus and there encamped. 62. The Potidaeans and the Peloponnesian force under Engage- Aristeus-had now taken up a position at the Isthmus τα ΝΘ on the side towards Olynthus, where they awaited Pallené. - the coming of the Athenians; they held their market outside the walls of Potidaea. The allies had chosen Aristeus gencral of all the infantry, and of the cavalry Perdiccas, for he had no sooner joined than he again deserted the Athenians and was now fighting on the side of the Potidaeans, having appointed Iolaus *to be his licutenant at home*. The plan of Aristeus was as follows :—His own army was to remain on the Isthmus and watch for the approach of the Athenians, while the Chalcidians, their allies from beyond the Isthmus, and the two hundred horse furnished by Perdiccas were stationed at Olynthus; and as soon as the Athenians attacked Aristeus and his army, they were to fall upon them in ® Or, ‘to take his place with the cxpedition ;’ cp. infra, τὴν παρὰ
Tlepdixxov διακοσίαν ἵππον.
ATHENIAN VICTORY. 39
.C. 43a. the rear; thus the enemy would be assailed on both I.
1 87- sides. But Callias the Athenian general and his col- leagues sent the Macedonian horse and a few of the allied troops towards Olynthus that they might check any movement in that quarter, while they themselves, quitting their position, marched against Potidaea. When they had reached the Isthmus and saw the enemy pre- paring for battle, they did the same. The two armies soon closed. The wing led by Aristeus, which was composed of his Corinthian followers and other picked troops, routed their opponents and pursued them far away; but the rest of the army, both Potidaeans and Peloponnesians, were defeated by the Athenians and fled into the city.
Aristeus, when he returned from the pursuit and 63. perceived that the other wing of his army was defeated, The le army hesitated whether he should make for Olynthus or return tS partially to Potidaea. Both courses were hazardous; but at last μείξας, he determined to contract his troops into the smallest in making ἊΝ compass and force his way at full speed into Potidaea, toPotidaea. Harassed by the missiles of the enemy he pushed forward through the water * along the bank in front of the sea-wall, not without loss; but he contrived to save the greater part of his army. When the battle began, the allies of the Potidaeans in Olynthus, which is only about seven miles” distant, and is visible from Potidaea, seeing the standards raised, came out a little way to support their friends ; and the Macedonian horse drew up in order of battle to oppose them. But victory quickly declared for the Athenians; and when the standards were torn down the Olynthian auxiliaries retired within the walls, and the Macedonians rejoined the Athenians: thus on neither side did the cavalry take any part in the action. The Athenians raised a trophy and granted the Potidaeans a truce for the burial of their dead. Of the Potidaecans
® Cp. Herod. viii. 129. b Sixty stadia, the stadium being reckoned at two hundred and two yards.
40 BLOCKADE OF POTIDAEA.
I. and their allies, there fell somewhat less than three ΒΟ. hundred; of the Athenians, a hundred and fifty, and Ol. 8; their general Callias,
64. The Athenians instantly blockaded the town on the
The Athe. side towards the Isthmus, raising a wall, which they ade Poti- guarded; but the side towards Pallené was left open. fist only They were conscious that they were too weak both to onthe side suard the Isthmus and, crossing over to Pallené, there Isthmus ; ἑ to build another wall; they feared that if they divided by the help their forces, they would be attacked by the Potidaeans
οἱ τοῖηίοτοος and their allies. Afterwards, when the Athenians at
Frommio, _ home heard that on the side towards Pallené Potidaea iw: Was not invested, they sent out sixteen hundred hoplites . of their own under the command of Phormio the son of Asopius. On his arrival in Pallené he made Aphytis his head-quarters, and brought his army by slow marches up to Potidaea, wasting the country as he went along. No one came out to meet him, and so he built a wall towards Pallené. Potidaea was now closely invested on both sides, while the Athenian ships, cruising about, cut off
all communication from the sea.
65. Aristeus despaired of saving the place unless aid came Aristeus from Peloponnesus or he was relieved in some unforeseen leaves Po- . . oe tidaea and Manner. Being anxious to husband provisions, he pro- the war cut. posed to the garrison that they should avail themselves side the —_ of the first favourable wind and sail away, leaving be-
hind five hundred men, of whom he offered to be one. But they would not listen to him; so, wanting to do the best he could, and to further the Peloponnesian interests beyond the walls, he sailed out undiscovered by the Athenian guard-ships. He did not leave the country, but assisted the Chalcidians in carrying on the war. He succeeded in cutting off a large force of Sermy- lians by an ambuscade which he laid near their city; he also exerted himself to obtain aid from Peloponnesus. Phormio with his sixteen hundred hoplites, now that Potidaea was invested, ravaged Chalcidicé and Botticé, and captured several places.
B.C. 432.
Ol. 87.
MEETING OF ALLIES AT SPARTA. 41
Such were the causes of ill-feeling which at this time existed between the Athenians and Peloponnesians: the Corinthians complaining that the Athenians were blockading their colony of Potidaea, which was occu- pied by a Corinthian and Peloponnesian garrison; the Athenians rejoining that the Peloponnesians had excited to revolt a state which was an ally and tributary of theirs, and that they had now openly joined the Poti- daeans, and were fighting on their side. The Pelopon- nesian war, however, had not yet broken out; the peace still continued ; for thus far the Corinthians had acted alone.
But now, seeing Potidaea besieged, they bestirred them-
67.
selves in earnest. Corinthian troops were shut up within Exciter :nt
the walls, and they were afraid of losing the town ; so without delay they invited the allies to meet at Sparta.
of the Co- rinthians. Grievances of the Aegi-
There they inveighed against the Athenians, whom they netans and
affirmed to have broken the treaty and to have wronged the Peloponnesians. The Aeginetans did not venture to send envoys openly, but secretly they acted with the Corinthians, and were among the chief instigators of the war, declaring that they had been robbed of the independence which the treaty guaranteed them. The Lacedaemonians themselves then * procceded to summon any of the allies who had similar charges* to bring against the Athenians, and calling their own ordinary assembly told them to speak. Several of them came forward and stated their wrongs. The Megarians alleged, among other grounds of complaint, that they were ex- cluded from all harbours within the Athenian dominion and from the Athenian market, contrary to the treaty. The Corinthians waited until the other allies had stirred up the Lacedaemonians; at length they came forward, and, last of all, spoke as follows :—
‘The spirit of trust, Lacedaemonians, which animates
8. Or, adopting the inferior reading τῶν συμμάχων τε καὶ εἴ τις: ‘proceeded to summon any of their own allies, and any one else, who had similar charges,’ etc.
68.
42 SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS.
I. your own political and social life, *makes you distrust B.C. 432. athe Corin- others who, like ourselves, have something unpleasant ~ “ lans com- . . plain of the to say, and this temper of mind, though favourable to
Spartans moderation, too often leaves you in ignorance of what is going on outside your own country. Time after time we have warned you of the mischief which the Athenians would do to us, but instead of taking our words to heart, you chose to suspect that we only spoke from interested motives. And this is the reason why you have brought the allies to Sparta too late, not before but after the in- jury has been inflicted, and when they are smarting under the sense of it. Which of them all has a better right to speak than ourselves, who have the heaviest accusations to make, outraged as we are by the Athenians, and neg- lected by you?* If the crimes which they are commit- ting against Hellas were being done in a corner, then you might be ignorant, and we should have to inform you of them : but now, what need of many words? Some of us, as you see, have been already enslaved; they are at this moment intriguing against others, notably against allies of ours; and long ago they had made all their pre- parations in expectation of war. Else why did they seduce from her allegiance Corcyra, which they still hold in defiance of us, and why arc they blockading Potidaea, the latter a most advantageous post for the command of the Thracian peninsula, the former a great naval power which might have assisted the Peloponnesians ὃ
69. ‘And the blame of all this rests on you; for you who have Originally allowed them to fortify their city after the
Talne by Persian War”, and afterwards to build their Long Walls®;
venting her and to this hour you have gone on defrauding of liberty
enslave- their unfortunate subjects, and are now beginning to take men it away from your own allies. For the true enslaver of a people is he who can put an end to their slavery but has no care about it; and all the more, if he be reputed the champion of liberty in Hellas—And so we have met
® Or, ‘makes you distrustful of us when we bring a charge against others.’ b Cp. i. go-92. © Cp. i. 107.
SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS. 43
.C. 432. at last, but with what difficulty! and even now we have _ IJ.
- 87- no definite object. By this time we ought to have been considering, not whether we are wronged, but how we are to be revenged. The aggressor is not now threatening, but advancing ; he has made up his mind, while we are resolved about nothing. And we know too well how by slow degrees and with stealthy steps the Athenians en-_ croach upon their neighbours. While they think that you are too dull to observe them, they are more careful, but, ’ a when they know that you wilfully overlook their aggres- ~ sions, they will strike and not spare. Of all Hellenes, Lacedaemonians, you are the only people who never do anything: on the approach of an enemy you are content to defend yourselves against him, not by acts, but by intentions, and seek to overthrow him, not in the infancy but in the fulness of his strength. How came you to be considered safe? That reputation of yours was never justified by facts. We all know that the Persian made his way from the ends of the earth against Peloponnesus before you encountered him in a worthy manner; and now you are blind to the doings of the Athenians, who are not at a distance as he was, but close at hand. Instead of attacking your enemy, you wait to be attacked, and take the chances of a struggle which has been de- ferred until his power is doubled. And you know that the Barbarian miscarried chiefly through his own errors ; and that we have oftener been delivered from these very Athenians by blunders of their own, than by any aid from you. Some have already been ruined by the hopes which you inspired in them; for so entirely did they trust you that they took no precautions themselves. These things we say in no accusing or hostile spirit—let that be understood—but by way of expostulation. For men expostulate with erring fricnds, they bring accusa- tion against enemies who have done them a wrong.
‘And surely we have a right to find fault with our 70.
neighbours, if any one ever had. There are important contrast of
the-
interests at stake to which, as far as we can see, nian and
44 SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS.
you are insensible. And you have never considered B.C. a
what manner of men are these Athenians* with whom you will have to fight, and how utterly unlike your- selves. They are revolutionary, equally quick in the conception and in the execution of every new plan; while you are conservative—careful only to keep what you have, originating nothing, and not acting even when action is most necessary. They are bold beyond their strength; they run risks which prudence would con- demn; and in the midst of misfortune they are full of hope. Whereas it is your nature, though strong, to act feebly; when your plans are most prudent, to distrust them; and when calamities come upon you, to think that you will never be delivered from them. .- They are impetuous, and you are dilatory; they are always abroad, and you are always at home. For they hope to gain something by leaving their homes; but you are afraid that any new enterprise may imperil what you have already. When conqucrors, they pursue their victory to the utmost ; when defeated, they fall back the least. Their bodies they devote to their country as though they belonged to other men; their true self is their mind, which is most truly their own when employed in her service. When they do not carry. out an intention which they have formed, they seem to have sustained a personal bereavement; when an enterprise succeeds, they have gained a mere instalment of what is to come; but if they fail, they at once conceive new hopes and so fill up the void. With them alone to hope is to have, for they lose not a moment in the execution of an idea. This is the life- long task, full of danger and toil, which they are always imposing upon themselves. None enjoy their good things less, because they are always seeking for more. To do their duty is their only holiday, and they deem the quiet of inaction to be as disagreeable as the most tiresome business. Ifa man should say of them, in a word, that
® For descriptions of Athenian character, cp. ii. 37 ff.; iii. 38; 42, 43; Vi. 76 ; 87.
SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS. 45
᾿ς af they were born neither to have peace themselves nor to _—i. allow peace to other men, he would simply speak the truth.
‘In the face of such an enemy, Lacedaemonians, you
persist in doing nothing. You do not see that peace is 71- best secured by those who use their strength justly, but The Lace | *~ whose attitude shows that they have no intention of sub- must lay mitting to wrong. Justice with you seems to consist in policy of giving no annoyance to others and *in defending your-'‘™“"™ selves only against positive injury*. But this policy would hardly be successful, even if your neighbours were like yourselves ; and in the present case, as we pointed out just now, your ways compared with theirs are old- fashioned. And, as in the arts, so also in politics, the new must always prevail over the old. In settled times the traditions of government should be observed: but when circumstances are changing and men are compelled to meet them, much originality is required. The Athe- nians have had a wider experience, and therefore the administration of their state has improved faster than yours. But here let your procrastination end; send an army at once into Attica and assist your allies, espe- cially the Potidaeans, to whom your word is pledged Ὁ, Do not allow friends and kindred to fall into the hands of their worst enemies; or drive us in despair to seek the alliance of others; in taking such a course we should be doing nothing wrong either before the Gods who are the witnesses of our oaths, or before men whose eyes are upon us. For the true breakers of treaties® are not those who, when forsaken, turn to others, but those who forsake allies whom they have sworn to defend. We will remain your friends if you choose to bestir yourselves; for we should be guilty of an impiety if we deserted you without cause; and we shall not easily find allies equally congenial to us. Take heed then: you have inherited from your fathers the leadership of Peloponnesus; see that her greatness suffers no diminution at your hands.’
4 Or, ‘in running no risk even in self-defence.’ Ρ Cp.i.58 med. | © Cp. i. 123 fin.
46 SPEECH OF THE ATHENIANS.
I. Thus spoke the Corinthians. Now there happened to B.c. 432
72, be staying at Lacedaemon an Athenian embassy which OL'87.
Some Athe- had come on other business, and when the envoys heard whohappen What the Corinthians had said, they felt bound to go be- δεῖ. fore the Lacedaemonian assembly, not with the view of sire to ad-_ answering the accusations brought against them by the assembly. cities, but they wanted to put before the Lacedaemonians the whole question, and make them understand that they i~ should take time to deliberate and not be rash. They also desired to set forth the greatness of their city, re- minding the elder men of what they knew, and inform- ing the younger of what lay beyond their experience. They thought that their words would sway the Lace- daemonians in the direction of peace. So they came and said that, if they might be allowed, they too would like to address the people. The Lacedaemonians invited
them to come forward, and they spoke as follows :—
73. ‘We were not sent here to argue with your allies, but on a special mission ; observing, however, that no small outcry has arisen against us, we have come forward, not to answer the accusations which they bring (for you are not judges before whom either we or they have to plead), but to prevent you from lending too ready an ear to their bad advice and so deciding wrongly about a very serious question. We propose also, in reply to the wider charges which are raised against us, to show that what we have acquired we hold rightfully and that our city is | not to be despised.
They recall ‘Of the ancient dceds handed down by tradition and
the memory °
oftheir | Which no eye of any one who hears us ever saw, why
services in should we speak? But of the Persian War, and other
War. events which you yourselves remember, speak we must, *although we have brought them forward so often that the repetition of them is disagreeable to us*. When we faced those perils we did so for the common benefit : in
the solid good you shared, and of the glory, whatever
® Or, ‘although it may be disagreeable to you to hear what we are always bringing forward.’
SPEECH OF THE ATHENIANS. 47
BC. 3 good there may be in that, we would not be wholly de-
prived. Our words are not designed to deprecate hos- tility, but to set forth in evidence the character of the city with which, unless you are very careful, you will soon be involved in war. We tell you that we, first and alone, dared to engage with the Barbarian at Marathon, and that, when he came again, being too weak to defend ourselves by land, we and our whole people embarked on shipboard and shared with the other Hellenes in the victory of Salamis. Thereby he was prevented from sailing to the Peloponnesus and ravaging city after city; for against so mighty a fleet how could you have helped one another? He himself is the best witness of our words; for when he was once defeated at sea, he felt that his power was gone and quickly retreated with the greater part of his army.
‘The event proved undeniably that the fate of Hellas depended on her navy. And the three chief elements of success were contributed by us; namely, the greatest number of ships, the ablest general, the most devoted patriotism. The ships in all numbered four hundred 5, and of these, our own contingent amounted to nearly two-thirds. To the influence of Themistocles our general it was chiefly due that we fought in the strait, which was confessedly our salvation ; and for this service you your- selves honoured him above any stranger who ever visited
you. Thirdly, we displayed the most extraordinary | courage and devotion; there was no one to help us by —
land; for up to our frontier those who lay in the encmy’s path were already slaves ; so we determined to leave our city and sacrifice our homes. Even in that extremity we did not choose to desert the cause of the allies who still resisted, and by dispersing ourselves to become use- less to them; but we embarked and fought, taking no offence at your failure to assist us sooner. We maintain then that we rendered you a service at least as great as you rendered us. The cities from which you came to
® Reading with the great majority of MSS. rerpaxocias.
. 74:
48 SPEECH OF THE ATHENIANS.
I. help us were still inhabited and you might hope to re- B.C. 432. turn to them ; your concern was for yourselves and not ~* “’ for us; at any rate you remained at a distance while we had anything to lose. But we went forth from a city which was no more, and fought for one of which there was small hope; and yet we saved ourselves, and bore our part in saving you. If, in order to preserve our land, like other states, we had gone over to the Persians at first, or afterwards had not ventured to embark because our ruin was already complete, it would have been use- less for you with your weak navy to fight at sea, but everything would have gone quietly just as the Persian desired.
75: ‘Considering, Lacedaemonians, the energy and sagacity
ther be Which we then displayed, do we deserve to be so bitterly
hated for hated by the other Hellenes merely because we have an
saved Hel- empire? That empire was not acquired by force; but
las? Their .
empirewas YOU would not stay and make an end of the Barbarian,
pation, bur 2Nd the allies came of their own accord and asked us to
thegrowth be their leaders. The subsequent development of our
stances. | power was Originally forced upon us by circumstances ; fear was our first motive; afterwards ambition, and then interest stepped in. And when we had incurred the hatred of most of our allies; when some of them had already revolted and been subjugated, and you were no longer the friends to us which you once had been, but suspicious and ill-disposed, how could we without great risk relax our hold? For the cities as fast as they fell away from us would have gone over to you. And no man is to be reproached who seizes every possible ad- vantage when the danger is so great.
76. ‘At all events, Lacedaemonians, we may retort that you, The Lace- in the exercise of your supremacy, manage the cities of venta ie Peloponnesus to suit your own views; and that if you, been they and not we, had persevered in the command of the allies were. long enough to be hated, you would have been quite as
intolerable to them as we are, and would have been com-
pelled, for the sake of your own safety, to rule with a
SPEECH OF THE ATHENIANS. 49
7
432. Strong hand. An empire was offered to us: can you 7” wonder that, acting as human nature always will, we ac- | LS cepted it and refused to give itt up again, constrained by three all-powerful motives, ambition, fear, interest. We are not the first who have aspired to rule ; the world has ever held that the weaker must be kept down by the stronger. And we think that we are worthy of power; and there was a time when you thought so too; but now, when you mean expediency you talk abcut justice. Did Justice ever deter any one from taking by force whatever he could? Men who indulge the natural ambition of empire deserve credit if they are in any degree more careful of justice than they need be. How moderate we are would speedily appear if others took our place; indeed our very moderation, which should be our glory, has been unjustly converted into a reproach. ‘For because in our suits with our allies, regulated by treaty, we do not even stand upon our rights, but have They ver instituted the practice of deciding them at Athens and be litigious, because by Athenian law, we are supposed to be litigious. None they atlow- of our opponents observe why others, who exercise do- cabjents a minion elsewhere and are less moderate than we are in lbw other their dealings with their subjects, escape this reproach. law of the
stronger. Why is it? Because men who practise violence have ποῦν
longer any need of law. But we are in the habit of ". ΝΗ ῃ ὮΝ
meeting our allies on terms of equality, and, therefore, if
through some legal decision of ours, or exercise of our: _...\
imperial power, contrary to their own ideas of right, they suffer ever so little, they are not grateful for our modera- tion in leaving them so much, but are far more offended at their trifling loss than if we had from the first plun- dered them in the face of day, laying aside all thought of law. For then they would themselves have admitted that the weaker must give way to the stronger. Man- kind resent injustice more than violence, because the one seems to be an unfair advantage taken by an equal, the other is the irresistible force of a superior. They were patient under the yoke of the Persian, who inflicted on
Ε
δο SPEECH OF THE ATHENIANS,
I. them far more grievous wrongs; but now our dominion is B. Ὁ. 438 The srler of odious in their eyes. And no wonder: the ruler of the I. 87. always un- Gay is always detested by his subjects. And should your popular. empire supplant ours, may not you lose the good-will
which you owe to the fear of us? Lose it you certainly will, if you mean again to exhibit the temper of which you gave a specimen when, for a short time, you led the con- federacy against the Persian. For the institutions under which you live are incompatible with those of foreign states ; and further, when any of you goes abroad, he respects neither these nor any other Hellenic laws*.
78. ‘Do not then be hasty in deciding a question which is
The Lace- serious; and do not, by listening to the misrepresenta-
Seema not tions and complaints of others, bring trouble upon your-
the instiga- selves. Realise, while there is time, the inscrutable
tion of = =nature of war; and how when protracted it generally
others, . : : ends in becoming a mere matter of chance, over which neither of us can have any control, the event being equally unknown and equally hazardous to both. The misfortune is that in their hurry to go to war, men begin with blows, and when a reverse comes upon them, then have recourse to words. But neither you, nor we, have as yet committed this mistake; and therefore while both of us can still choose the prudent part, we tell you not to break the peace or violate your oaths. Let our differences be determined by arbitration, according to the treaty. If you refuse we call to witness the Gods, by whom you have sworn, that you are the authors of the war; and we will do our best to strike in return.’
79. When the Lacedaemonians had heard the charges brought by the allies against the Athenians, and their rejoinder, they ordered everybody but themselves to withdraw, and deliberated alone. The majority were
JS agreed that there was now a clear case against the Athenians, and that they must fight at once. But Archidamus their king, who was held to be both an
® For the misconduct of Spartan officers abroad, cp. i. 953 i. 1303 lii. 32; iii. 93 fin.; viii. 84 init. Contrast Brasidas, iv. 81.
SPEECH OF ARCHIDAMUS. 51
C432. able and a prudent man, came forward and spoke as I.
follows :—
‘At my age, Lacedaemonians, I have had experience 80. of many wars, and I see several of you who are as old as We are no I am, and who will not, as men too often do, desire war the Athe- because they have never known it, or in the belief that it "“™* is either a good or a safe thing. Any one who calmly reflects will find that the war about which you are now deliberating is likely to be a very great one. When we encounter our neighbours in the Peloponnese, their forces are like our forces, and they are all within a short march, But when we have to do with men whose country is a long way off, and who are most skilful seamen and thoroughly provided with the means of war,—having wealth, private and public, ships, horses, infantry, and a population larger than is to be found in any single Hellenic territory, not to speak of the numerous allies who pay them tribute,—is this a people against whom we can lightly take up arms or plunge into a contest unpre- pared? To what do we trust? To our navy? There we are inferior; and to exercise and train ourselves until we are a match for them, will take time. To our money? Nay, but in that we are weaker still; we have none in our treasury, and we are never willing to contribute out of our private means.
‘Perhaps some one may be encouraged bythe superior 81. quality and numbers of our infantry, which will enable We have us regularly to invade and ravage their lands. But their lites, but empire extends to distant countries, and they will be ‘De empire able to introduce supplies by sea. Or, again, we may Sarat es, try to stir up revolts among their allies. But these are by which —
° . their navy is mostly islanders, and we shall have to employ a fleet in supported ; their defence, as well as in our own. How then shall we vane their carry on the war? For if we can neither defeat them at j2n¢'s use sea, nor deprive them of the revenues by which their navy iS maintained, we shall get the worst of it. And having gone so far, we shall no longer be able even to make peace with honour, especially if we are believed to
E 2
slalegy
52 SPEECH OF ARCHIDAMUS.
I. have begun the quarrel. We must not for one moment B.C. 432 flatter ourselves that if we do but ravage their country the 1 87. war will be at an end. Nay, I fear that we shall bequeath it to our children; for the Athenians with their high spirit will never barter their liberty to save their land, or be terrified like novices at the sight of war.
82. ‘Not that I would have you shut your eyes to their Do not take designs and abstain from unmasking them, or tamely uparmsy<"- suffer them to injure our allies. But do not take up arms
/ yet. Let us first send and remonstrate with them: we need not let them know positively whether we intend to
/ 89 to warornot. In the meantime our own preparations may be going forward; we may seek for allies wherever we can find them, whether in Hellas or among the Bar- barians, who will supply our deficiencies in ships and money. Those who, like ourselves, are exposed to Athenian intrigue cannot be blamed if in self-defence they seek the aid not of Hellenes only, but of Barbarians. And we must develope our own resources to the utmost.
If they listen to our ambassadors, well and good; but, if not, in two or three years’ time we shall be in a stronger position, should we then determine to attack them. Per- haps too when they begin to see that we are getting ready, *and that our words are to be interpreted by our actions *, they may be more likely to yield; for their fields will be still untouched and their goods undespoiled, and it will be in their power to save them by their / decision. Think of their land simply in the light of a hostage, all the more valuable in proportion as it is better cultivated ; you should spare it as long as you can, and not by reducing them to despair make their resistance more obstinate. For if we allow ourselves to be stung into premature action by the reproaches of our allies, and waste their country before we are ready, we shall only involve Peloponnesus in more and more diffi- culty and disgrace. Charges brought by cities or persons against one another can be satisfactorily arranged ; but
8 Or, ‘and that our words too sound a note of war.’
SPEECH OF ARCHIDAMUS. 53
3.C. 432 when a great confederacy, in order to satisfy private
or grudges, undertakes a war of which no man can foresee the issue, it is not easy to terminate it with honour.
And let no one think that there is any want of courage
I.
83.
in cities so numerous hesitating to attack a single one. There 1 is no
owaraice
The allies of the Athenians are not less numerous; they i in hesita-
pay them tribute too; and war is not an affair of arms, but of money which gives to arms their use, and whic
on, weare
fighting h not against Athens, but:
is needed above all things when a continental is fighting eer A the
e
against a maritime power: let us find money first, and nian em-
then we may safely allow our minds to be excited by the Ἦν speeches of our allies. We, on whom the future respon- sibility, whether for good or evil, will chiefly fall, should calmly reflect on the consequences which may follow. ‘Do not be ashamed of the slowness and procrastina-
84.
tion with which they are so fond of charging you ; if you Too much
haste, too
begin the war in haste, you will end it at your leisure, tittle speed.
because you took up arms without sufficient preparation. |;
Our discre- on and
Remember that we have always been citizens of a free discipline and most illustrious state, and that for us the policy cret of our which they condemn may well be the truest good sense Bre must’
and discretion. It is a policy which has saved us from
not under- value our
growing insolent in prosperity or giving way under enemies, adversity, like other men. We are not stimulated by must not
the allurements of flattery into dangerous courses of which we disapprove; nor are we goaded by offensive charges into compliance with any man’s wishes. Our habits of discipline make us both brave and wise; brave, because the spirit of loyalty quickens the sense of honour, and the sense of honour inspires courage; wise, because we are not so highly educated that we have learned to despise the laws, and are too severely trained and of too loyal a spirit to disobey them. We have not acquired that useless over-intelligence which makes a man an excellent critic of an enemy’s plans, but paralyses him in the moment of action. We think that the wits of our enemies are as good as our own, and that the element of fortune cannot be forecast in words. Let us assume that
rely on for- tune.
54 THE SHORT SPEECH OF STHENELAIDAS.
I, they have common prudence, and let our preparations be, ΒΟ. 435 not words, but deeds. Our hopes ought not to rest on ΟἿ 57: the probability of their making mistakes, but on our own caution and foresight. We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who is trained in the severest school.
85. ‘These are principles which our fathers have handed We can af- down to us, and we maintain to our lasting benefit; we
ford towait, and should must not lose sight of them, and when many lives and
by appitra- much wealth, many cities and a great name are at stake, we must not be hasty, or make up our minds in a few short hours; we must take time. We can afford to wait, VA when others cannot, because we are strong. And now, send to the Athenians and remonstrate with them both about Potidaea, and about the other wrongs of which your allies complain. They say that they are willing to have the matter tried; and against one who offers to submit to justice you must not proceed as against a criminal until his cause has been heard. In the meantime prepare for war. This decision will be the best for yourselves and the most formidable to your enemies.’
Thus spoke Archidamus,. Last of all, Sthenelaidas, at that time one of the Ephors, came forward and addressed the Lacedaemonians as follows :—
86. ‘I do not know what the long speeches of the Athenians We must mean. They have been loud in their own praise, but standby our they do not pretend to say that they are dealing honestly
with our allies and with the Peloponnesus. If they be- haved well in the Persian War and are now behaving badly to us they ought to be punished twice over, because they were once good men and have become bad. But we are the same now as we were then, and we shall not do our duty if we allow our allies to be ill-used, and put off helping them, for they cannot put off their troubles. Others may have money and ships and horses, but we have brave allies and we must not betray them to the Athenians, If they were suffering in word only, by words
THE TREATY HAS BEEN BROKEN. 55
BC, 432 and legal processes their wrongs might be redressed; but 1,
~ “" ΠΟΥ there is not a moment to be lost, and we must help them with all our might. Let no one tell us that we J should take time to think when we are suffering injustice. Nay, we reply, those who mean to do injustice should take a long time to think. Wherefore, Lacedaemonians, prepare for war as the honour of Sparta demands. With- stand the advancing power of Athens. Do not let us betray our allies, but, with the Gods on our side, let us attack the evil-doer.’
When Sthenelaidas had thus spoken he, being Ephor, 87, himself put the question to the Lacedaemonian as- The La- sembly. Their custom is to signify their decision by nians, im cries and not by voting. But he professed himself unable chiefly by to tell on which side was the louder cry, and wishing the fear of
. : ; the Athe- to call forth a demonstration which might encourage nians, re-
the warlike spirit, he said, ‘Whoever of you, Lacedae- to wa = monians, thinks that the treaty has been broken and that the Athenians are in the wrong, let him rise and go yonder’ (pointing to a particular spot), ‘and those who think otherwise to the other side.’ So the assembly rose and divided, and it was determined by a large majority that the treaty had been broken. The Lacedaemonians then recalled the allies and told them that in their judg- ment the Athenians were guilty, but that they wished to hold a general assembly of the allies and take a vote from them all; then the war, if they approved of it, might be undertaken by common consent. Having ac- complished their purpose, the Peloponnesians returned home; and the Athenian envoys, when their errand was BC. 44s. done, returned likewise. Thirteen years of the thirty Ol. 83. 4 years’ peace which was concluded after the recovery of Euboea had elapsed and the fourteenth year had begun when the Lacedaemonian assembly decided that the treaty had been broken. In arriving at this decision and resolving to go to war, 88, the Lacedaemonians were influenced, not so much by the speeches of their allies, as by the fear of the Athenians ,
56 RISE OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE.
I: ιν and of their increasing power*. For they saw the greater part of Hellas already subject to them.
89... How the Athenians attained the position in which Th thee they rose to greatness I will now proceed to describe. the retreat. When the Persians, defeated both by sea and land, had re- ofthe , treated from Europe, and the remnant of the fleet, which continue had escaped to Mycalé, had there perished, Leotychides,
the Lacedaemonian king, who had commanded the Hel- lenes in the battle, returned home with the allies from Pe- loponnesus. But the Athenians and their allies from Ionia and the Hellespont, who had recently revolted from the king, persevered and besieged Sestos, at that time still in the hands of the Persians. Remaining there through the winter they took the place, which the Barbarians deserted. The allies then sailed back from the Helles- pont to their respective homes. Meanwhile the Athenian people, now quit of the Barbarians, fetched their wives, their children, and the remains of their property from the places in which they had been deposited, and set to work, rebuilding the city and the walls. Of the old line of wall but a small part was left standing. Most of the houses were in ruins, a few only remaining in which the chief men of the Persians had lodged.
go. The Lacedaemonians knew what would happen and The Lace- sent an embassy to Athens. They would rather them-
mariners selves have seen neither the Athenians nor any one else gation of , protected by a wall; but their main motive was the try to pre- importunity of their allies, who dreaded not only the Athenians Athenian navy, which had until lately been quite small,
building but also the spirit which had animated them in the Per- their walls. sian War. So the Lacedaemonians requested them not to restore their walls, but on the contrary to join with them in razing the fortifications of other towns outside the Peloponnesus which had them standing. They did not reveal their real wishes or the suspicion which they entertained of the Athenians, but argued that the Bar-
barian, if he again attacked them, would then have no ® Cp. i. 23 fin. . » Cp. i. 69 init.
B.C. 479
Ol. 75, 2
8 ἰο
THE ATHENIANS REBUILD THEIR WALLS. 57
C.479- strong place which he could make his head-quarters as 7s 2, 3. he had lately made Thebes. Peloponnesus would be a
sufficient retreat for all Hellas and a good base of opera- tions. To this the-Athenians, by the advice of Themis- tocles, replied, that they would send an embassy of their own to discuss the matter, and so got rid of the Spartan envoys. He then proposed that he should himself start at once for Sparta, and that they should give him col- leagues who were not to go immediately, but were to wait until the wall reached the lowest height which could possibly be defended. The whole people, men, women, and children, should join in the work, and they must spare no building, private or public, which could be of use, but demolish them all. Having given these instructions and intimated that he would manage affairs at Sparta, he de- parted. On his arrival he did not at once present him- self officially to the magistrates, but delayed and made excuses ; and when any of them asked him ‘why he did not appear before the assembly,’ he said ‘that he was waiting for his colleagues, who had been detained by some engagement; he was daily expecting them, and wondered that they had not appeared.’
The friendship of the Lacedaemonian magistrates for Themistocles induced them to believe him; but when everybody who came from Athens declared positively that the wall was building and had already reached a considerable height, they knew not what to think. He, aware of their suspicions, desired them not to be misled by reports, but to send to Athens men whom they could trust out of their own number who would see for them- selves and bring back word. They agreed; and he at the same time privately instructed the Athenians to detain the envoys as quietly as they could, and not let them go until he and his colleagues had got safely home. For by this time Habronichus the son of Lysicles, and Aris- tides the son of Lysimachus, who were joined with him in the embassy, had arrived, bringing the news that the wall was of sufficient height ; and he was afraid that the
9 I. The Lace- daemonians are out- witted by Themisto- cles.
Yo.
58 THEMISTOCLES AT SPARTA,
I. | Lacedaemonians, when they heard the truth, might not B.C. 479- allow them to return. So the Athenians detained the G7. 03 envoys, and Themistocles, coming before the Lacedae- monians, at length declared in so many words that Athens was now provided with walls and could protect her citizens; henceforward, if the Lacedaemonians or their allies wished at any time to negotiate, they must deal with the Athenians as with men who knew quite well what was for their own and the common good. When they boldly resolved to leave their city and go on board ship, they did not first ask the advice of the Lacedae- monians, and, when the two states met in council, their own judgment had been as good as that of any one. And now they had arrived at an independent opinion that it was better far, and would be more advantageous both for themselves and for the whole body of the allies, that their city should have a wall; when any member of a confederacy had not equal military advantages, his counsel could not be of equal weight or worth. Either ' all the allies should pull down their walls, or they should acknowledge that the Athenians were in the right.
92. On hearing these words the Lacedaemonians did not
But appear- openly quarrel with the Athenians; for they professed ssnintained, that the embassy had been designed, not to interfere with
maintained,
no open them, but to offer a suggestion for the public good ; be-
. quarrel. sides at that time the patriotism which the Athenians had displayed in the Persian War had created a warm feeling of friendliness between the two cities. They were annoyed at the failure of their purpose, but they did not show it. And the envoys on either side returned home without any formal complaint.
93. In such hurried fashion did the Athenians rebuild the walls of their city. To this day the structure shows evi- dence of haste. The foundations are made up of all sorts of stones, in some places unwrought, and laid just as each worker brought them; there were many columns too, taken from sepulchres, and many old stones already cut, inserted in the work. The circuit of the city was
COMPLETION OF THE PIRAEUS. 59
-
Cc. 478 or extended in every direction, and the citizens, in their I. "35, 3 or ardour to complete the design, spared nothing.
| 4
Themistocles also persuaded the Athenians to finish Construc- tion o 6
C. 481? the Piraeus, of which he had made a beginning in his Piraeus,
- 74. 4?
year of office as Archon. The situation of the place, and founda-
which had three natural havens, was excellent ; and now capire of that the Athenians had become sailors, he thought that Athens. a good harbour would greatly contribute to the extension of their power. For he first dared to say that ‘they must make the sea their domain,’ and he lost no time in laying the foundations of their empire. By his advice, they built the wall of such a width that two waggons carrying the stones could meet and pass on the top; this width may still be traced at the Piraeus ; inside there was no rubble or mortar, but the whole wall was made up of large stones hewn square, which were clamped on the outer face with iron and lead. The height was not more than half what he had originally intended ; he had hoped by the very dimensions of the wall to paralyse the de- signs of an enemy, and he thought that a handful of the least efficient citizens would suffice for its defence, while the rest might man the fleet. His mind was turned in this direction, as I conceive, from observing that the Persians had met with fewer obstacles by sea than by land. The Piraeus appeared to him to be of more real consequence than the upper city. He was fond of telling the Athenians that if they were hard pressed they should go down to the Piraeus and fight the world at sea.
Thus the Athenians built their walls and restored their city immediately after the retreat of the Persians.
Pausanias the son of Cleombrotus was now sent from 94. Peloponnesus with twenty ships in command of the Hel- Cyprus and lenic forces; thirty Athenian ships and a number of the ken allies sailed with him. They first made an expedition ana fun. against Cyprus, of which they subdued the greater part ; Pppuarity and afterwards against Byzantium, which was in the sanias. hands of the Persians, and was taken while he was still in command.
60 PAUSANIAS DEPOSED FROM HIS COMMAND.
I. He had already begun to be oppressive, and the allies B.c. 477« 95. were offended with him, especially the Ionians and others Bras, 4
The allies who had been recently emancipated from the king. So 76: transfer
themselves to the Athe-
* nians.
they had recourse to their kinsmen the Athenians and begged them to be their leaders, and to protect them against Pausanias, if he attempted to oppress them. The Athenians took the matter up and prepared to interfere, being fully resolved to manage the confederacy in their own way. In the meantime the Lacedaemonians sum- moned Pausanias to Sparta, intending to investigate certain reports which had reached them; for he was ac- cused of numerous crimes by Hellenes returning from the Hellespont, and appeared to exercise his command more after the fashion of a tyrant than of a general. His recall occurred at the very time when the hatred which he inspired had induced the allies, with the ex- ception of the Peloponnesians, to transfer themselves to the Athenians. On arriving at Lacedaemon he was punished for the wrongs which he had done to particular persons, but he had been also accused of conspiring with the Persians, and of this, which was the principal charge and was generally believed to be proven, he was ac- quitted. The government however did not continue him in his command, but sent in his place Dorcis and certain others with a small force. To these the allies refused allegiance,and Dorcis, seeing the state of affairs, returned home. Henceforth the Lacedaemonians sent out no more commanders, for they were afraid that those whom they appointed would be corrupted, as they had found to be the case with Pausanias; they had had enough of the Persian War; and they thought that the Athenians were fully able to lead, and at that time believed them to be their friends.
Thus the Athenians by the good-will of the allies, who detested Pausanias, obtained the leadership. They im- mediately fixed which of the cities should supply money and which of them ships for the war against the Bar-. barians, the avowed object being to compensate them- selves and the allies for their losses by devastating the
THE ATHENIANS LEAD THE ALLIES. 61
Ὁ. 477 or King’s country. Then was first instituted at Athens Cos, 4 or the office of Hellenic treasurers (Helleno-Tamiai), who - received the tribute, for so the impost was termed. The amount was originally fixed at 460 talents*. The island of Delos was the treasury, and the meetings of the allies
were held in the temple. At first the allies were independent and deliberated in
97.
a common assembly under the leadership of Athens. The inter-
between
But in the interval between the Persian and the Pelo- the Persian
ponnesian Wars, by their military success and by policy po in dealing with the Barbarian, with their own rebellious
Pelo-
nnesian ars omit- ted in most
allies and with the Peloponnesians who came across their bistories.
path from time to time, the Athenians made immense strides in power. I have gone out of my way to speak of this period because the writers who have preceded me treat either of Hellenic affairs previous to the Persian
invasion or of that invasion itself; the intervening portion —
of history has been omitted by all of them, with the ex- ception of Hellanicus; and he, where he has touched upon it in his Attic history, is very brief, and inaccurate in his chronology. The narrative will also serve to ex- plain how the Athenian empire grew up.
B.C. 476- _—- First of all under the leadership of Cimon, the son of
98.
δι γα γϑ, 3. Miltiades, the Athenians besieged and took from the The Athe-
Persians Eion upon the Strymon, and sold the inhabit- ;
nians sub- ject Eion,
ants into slavery. The same fate befell Scyros, an island %9T°.
arystus,
in the Aegean inhabited by Dolopes; this they colonised Naxos.
themselves. They also carried on a war with the Cary- stians of Euboea, who, after a time, capitulated; the other Euboeans took no part in the war. Then the Naxians revolted, and the Athenians made war against them and reduced them by blockade. This was the first of the allied cities which was enslaved contrary to Hellenic law; the turn of the others came later.
The causes which led to the defections of the allies
were of different kinds, the principal being their neglect Most of the ies contri-
99.
to pay the tribute or to furnish ships, and, in some cases, pute money
® About £110,400.
62 WHO BEGIN TO REVOLT.
I. failure of military service. For the Athenians were ex- B.C. 476 instead of acting and oppressive, using coercive measures towards Oi 76-78
ships. . oat: Asthey men who were neither willing nor accustomed to work
growweaker hard. And for various reasons they soon began to prove nians be- _ less agreeable leaders than at first. They no longer fought oppressive. upon an equality with the rest of the confederates, and they had no difficulty in reducing them when they re- volted. Now the allies brought all this upon themselves; for the majority of them disliked military service and absence from home, and so they agreed to contribute a regular sum of money instead of ships. Whereby the Athenian navy was proportionally increased, while they themselves were always untrained and unprepared for
war when they revolted.
100. A little later the Athenians and their allies fought two B.C. 466.
The Athe- battles, one by land and the other by sea, against the querina Persians, at the river Eurymedon in Pamphylia. The
fght at the Athenians, under the command of Cimon the son of
ver ury- Miltiades, on the same day conquered in both, and took
Revolt of and destroyed Phoenician vessels numbering in all two
OL 78, 3.
Attempted hundred. After a while the Thasians revolted; a quarrel B.C. 46s. colonisation bq arisen between them and the Athenians about the Ὁ" 7 +
of Amphi- polis. Thracian market and the mine on the Thracian coast
opposite, of which the Thasians received the profits. The Athenians sailed to Thasos and, gaining a victory at sea, landed upon the island. About the same time they sent ten thousand of their own people and of their allies to the Strymon, intending to colonise the place then called the Nine Ways and now Amphipolis. They gained possession of the Nine Ways, which were inhabited by the Edoni, but, advancing into the interior of Thrace, they *were destroyed at Drabescus in Edonia by the
united Thracians*, whose country was threatened by the ᾿
new settlement. IOI. The Thasians, now defeated and blockaded, had re- course to the Lacedaemonians and entreated them to
® Or, reading σύμπαντες, as Poppo is inclined to do, ‘were de- stroyed to a man by the Thracians.’
B.C. 464. Ol. 79.
B.C. 463. Ol. 79, 2.
B.C. 463- 461. OL 79, 2-4.
THE SIEGE OF THASOS AND ITHOME. 63
invade Attica. Unknown to the Athenians they agreed, _I. and were on the point of setting out when the great Revolt of earthquake occurred and was immediately followed by who seine” the revolt of the Helots and the Perioeci of Thuria and “"°™ Aethaea, who seized Ithomé. These Helots were mostly the descendants of the Messenians who had been en- slaved in ancient times, and hence all the insurgents were called Messenians.
While the Lacedaemonians were thus engaged, the Thasians, who had now been blockaded for more than two years, came to terms with the Athenians; they pulled down their walls and surrendered their ships; they also agreed to pay what was required of them whether in the shape of immediate indemnity or of tribute for the future; and they gave up their claim to the mainland and to the mine.
The siege of Ithomé proved tedious, and the Lacedae- 102. monians called in, among other allies, the Athenians, The Athe-
who sent to their aid a considerable force under Cimon. tothe an ° The Athenians were specially invited because they were ᾿ἰϑίδηςς οὗ reputed to be skilful in siege operations, and the length daemoni-
of the blockade proved to the Lacedaemonians their own being sus-
pected b deficiency in that sort of warfare; else why had they them, they
are dismiss-
not taken the place by assault? This expedition of the eq and go Athenians led to the first open quarrel between them rage na and the Lacedaemonians. For the Lacedaemonians, not = -%,,"" succeeding in storming the place, took alarm at the bold and original spirit of the Athenians. They reflected that they were aliens in race, and fearing that, if they were allowed to remain, they might be tempted by the Helots in Ithome to change sides, they dismissed them, while they retained the other allies. But they concealed their mistrust, and merely said that they no longer needed their services. Now the Athenians saw that their dis- missal was due to some suspicion which had arisen and not to the less offensive reason which was openly avowed; they felt keenly that such a slight ought not to have been offered them by the Lacedaemonians; and so, on their
pa, vw a
¢
Ν ΗΝ δώ
of. ΣἊΝ
‘¢
“
εἴ
ὟΝ
Sus ww
ων
RY an 1
IO 3 . Fall of Ithomé.
The Athe-
nians settle
the exiled
Messenians at Naupac- tus.
Athens gains the
alliance of
104. Egyptian revolt.
ν“
ό4 ATHENIAN EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.
return home, they forthwith abandoned the alliance which B.C. 463-
they had made with them against the Persians and went nt
1. 79, 2
over to their Argive enemies. At the same time both 79. 4-
Argos and Athens bound themselves to Thessaly by a common oath of alliance.
In the tenth year of the siege the defenders of Ithoma B.C. 455. I, 2.
were unable to hold out any longer, and capitulated to the Lacedaemonians. The terms were as follows: They were to leave Peloponnesus under a safe-conduct, and were never again to return; if any of them were taken on Peloponnesian soil, he was to be the slave of his captor. Now an ancient oracle of Delphi was current among the Lacedaemonians, bidding them let the sup- pliant of Ithomaean Zeus go free. So the Messenians left Ithomé with their wives and children; and the Athenians, who were now the avowed enemies of Sparta, gave them a home at Naupactus, a place which they had just taken from the Ozolian Locrians.
The Athenians obtained the alliance of the Megarians, B.c. 46:-
who revolted from the Lacedaemonians because the Co-
or 7, 4-
rinthians were pressing them hard in a war arising out of 89.
a question of frontiers. Thus they gained both Megara and Pegae; and they built for the Megarians the long walls, extending from the city to the port of Nisaea, which they garrisoned themselves. This was the original and the main cause of the intense hatred which the Corinthians entertained towards the Athenians.
Meanwhile Inaros the son of Psammetichus, king of ΒΟ. 8
the Libyans who border on Egypt, had induced the greater part of Egypt to revolt from Artaxerxes the King. He began the rebellion at Mareia. a city opposite the island of Pharos, and, having made himself ruler of the country, called in the Athenians. They were just then carrying on war against Cyprus with two hundred ships of their own and of their allies; and, quitting the island, they went to his aid. They sailed from the sea into the Nile, and, getting possession of two-thirds of Memphis, proceeded to attack the remaining part called
Ol.
VICTORIES OF THE ATHENIANS. 65
B.C. 460- the White Castle, in which the Persians and Medes had 1.
a 80, 1- taken refuge, and with them such Egyptians as had not joined in the revolt.
An Athenian fleet made a descent upon Halieis, where 105. a battle took place against some Corinthian and Epidau- 7 The he Athe- ι rian troops; the Athenians gained the victory. Soon the Aegine afterwards the Athenians fought at sea off Cecryphaleia tar ture seventy with a Peloponnesian fleet, which they defeated. A war ἐς, ἀπ next broke out between the Aeginetans and the Athe- Aegina. | Nians, and a great battle was fought off the coast of thians in- Aegina, in which the allies of both parties joined ; the κατα. ναοῖς Me Athenians were victorious, and captured seventy of the enemy’s ships ; they then landed on Aegina and, under the command of Leocrates the son of Stroebus, besieged the town. Thereupon the Peloponnesians sent over to the assistance of the Aeginetans three hundred hoplites who had previously been assisting the Corinthians and Epidaurians, The Corinthians seized * on the heights of Geraneia, and thence made a descent with their allies into the Megarian territory, thinking that the Athenians, who had so large a force absent in Aegina and in Egypt, would be unable to assist the Megarians ; or, if they did, would be obliged to raise the siege of Aegina. But the Athenians, without moving their army from Aegina, sent to Megara under the command of Myronides a force consisting of their oldest and youngest men, who had remained at home. A battle was fought, which hung equally in the balance; and when the two armies separated, they both thought that they had gained the victory. The Athenians, who did however get rather the better, on the departure of the Corinthians erected atrophy. And then the Corinthians, irritated by the re- proaches of the aged men in the city, after twelve days’ preparation came out again, and, claiming the victory, raised another trophy. Hereupon the Athenians sallied out of Megara, killed those who were erecting the trophy, and charged and defeated the rest of the army. ® Omitting the stop after κατέλαβον.
F
66 LACEDAEMONIANS IN BOEOTIA.
I. The Corinthians now retreated, but a considerable B.c. go 106. number of them were hard pressed, and missing their 77's, 1 They suffer way got into an enclosure belonging to a private person, eraeir which was surrounded by a great ditch and had no exit. retreat. The Athenians, perceiving their situation, closed the entrance in front with heavy-armed troops, and, placing their light troops in a circle round, stoned all who had entered the enclosure. This was a great blow to the Corinthians; but still the main body of their army returned home. 107. About this time the Athenians began to build their The Athe- long walls extending to the sea, one to the harbour of nians build ᾿ : ἐμεῖς long Phalerum, and the other to the Piraeus. The Phocians B.C. 4:7. vate of made an expedition against the Dorians, who’ inhabit Ol. 80, 4 Tanagra. Boeum, Citinium, and Erineum, and are the mother people of the Lacedaemonians ; one of these towns they took. Thereupon the Lacedaemonians under the com- mand of Nicomedes the son of Cleombrotus, who was general in the place of the king Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias (he being at that time a minor), came to the assistance of the Dorians with fifteen hundred hoplites of their own, and, of their allies, ten thousand, and com- pelled the Phocians to make terms and to restore the town. They then thought of returning; but there were difficulties. Either they might go by sea across the Crisaean Gulf, in which case the Athenian fleet would be sure to sail round and intercept them, or they might march over Mount Geraneia; but this seemed dangerous when the Athenians were holding Megara and Pegae. The pass was not easy, and was always guarded by the Athenians, who were obviously intending to stop them by that route also. So they determined to remain in Boeotia and con- sider how they could best get home. They had another motive :—Certain Athenians were privately making over- tures to them, in the hope that they would put an end to the democracy and the building of the long walls. But the Athenians were aware of their embarrassment, and they also suspected their design against the democracy.
BATTLES OF TANAGRA AND OENOPHYTA., 67
.C. 457. So they went out to meet them with their whole force, [, ’* including a thousand Argives and contingents from the other allies; they numbered in all fourteen thousand men. Among them were some Thessalian cavalry, who came to their aid in accordance with the treaty*, but these deserted to the Lacedaemonians during the engagement.
The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia, and the 108. Lacedaemonians and their allies, after great slaughter on Battle of both sides, gained the victory. They then marched into Sunn the Megarian territory, and, cutting down the fruit-trees, of Aegina. returned home by way of Geraneia and the Isthmus.
B.C. 456. But on the sixty-second day after the battle, the Athe-
ol. 81. nians made another expedition into Boeotia under the command of Myronides, and there was a battle at Oeno- phyta, in which they defeated the Boeotians and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They pulled down the walls of Tanagra and took as hostages from the Opuntian Locrians a hundred of their richest citizens. They then completed their own long walls. Soon afterwards the Aeginetans came to terms with the Athenians, dis- mantling their walls, surrendering their ships, and agree-
B.C. 4ss. ing to pay tribute for the future. The Athenians, under
Ol. 81, 2. the command of Tolmides the son of Tolmaeus, sailed round Peloponnesus and burnt the Lacedaemonian dock- yard. They also took the Corinthian town of Chalcis, and, making a descent upon Sicyon, defeated a Sicyonian force.
The Athenians and their allies were still in Egypt, 109. where they carried on the war with varying fortune. At After ter an in- first they were masters of the country. The King sent to attempt to Lacedaemon Megabazus a Persian, who was well supplied 0P'!7. 3 with money, in the hope that he might persuade the from Lace-
daemon,
Peloponnesians to invade Attica, and so draw off the the Persian a
Athenians from Egypt. He had no success; the money leneah suc- was being spent and nothing done; so, with what re- Suising the mained of it, he found his way back to Asia. The King Athenians then sent into Egypt Megabyzus the son of Zopyrus, a Memphis. 8 Cp. i. 102 fin. , b i.e. Gythium. |
F 2
68 END OF THE EGYPTIAN EXPEDITION.
I. Persian, who marched overland with a large army and defeated the Egyptians and their allies. He drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and finally shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he blockaded them during eighteen months. At length he drained the canal and diverted the water, thus leaving their ships high and dry and joining nearly the whole island to the mainland. He then crossed over with a land force, and took the island.
110. Thus, after six years’ fighting, the cause of the Hellenes Nearly the | in Egypt was lost. A few survivors of their great army
expedition found their way through Libya to Cyrené; by far the inchene larger number perished. Egypt again submitted to the a ent of fifty Persian yoke, although Amyrtaeus, the king in the fens, triremes, is still held out. He escaped capture owing to the extent 7 of the fens and the bravery of their inhabitants, who are the most warlike of all the Egyptians. Inarus the king of Libya, the chief author of the revolt, was betrayed and impaled. Fifty additional triremes, which had been sent by the Athenians and their allies to relieve their other forces, in ignorance of what had happened, sailed into the Mendesian mouth of the Nile. But they were at once attacked both from the land and from the sea, and the greater part of them destroyed by the Phoeni- cian fleet, a few ships only escaping. Thus ended the great Egyptian expedition of the Athenians and their allies, | 111. About this time Orestes, the exiled son of the Thes- Attempted salian king Echecratides, persuaded the Athenians to
of Orestes, restore him. Taking with them a force of the Boeo-
the Thessa ~tians and Phocians, who were now their allies, they marched against Pharsalus in Thessaly. They made themselves masters of the country in the neighbourhood of their camp, but the Thessalian cavalry stopped any further advance. They could not take the place, and none of their plans succeeded; so they returned and brought back Orestes.
The Athe- A short time afterwards a thousand Athenians, under nians unaer
B.C. 45: Ol. 8x, 2
FIVE YEARS’ TRUCE. 69
‘ats the command of Pericles the son of Xanthippus, em- I.
"~ barking on board the fleet which they had at Pegae, Pericles now in their possession, coasted along to Sicyon, and Sicyonians, there landing, defeated the Sicyonians who came out to meet them. With the least possible delay taking on board Achaean troops and sailing to the opposite coast, they attacked and besieged Oeniadae, a town of Acar- nania ; but failing to reduce it, they returned home.
.450. After an interval of three years a five years’ truce was 112.
"3: concluded between the Peloponnesians and Athenians. Truce for The Athenians now abstained from war in Hellas itself, ἘΣ ΤΟΝ but made an expedition to Cyprus with two hundred More shige . ships of their own and of their allies, under the com- sent to mand of Cimon. Sixty ships were detached from the Death of armament and sailed to Egypt, at the request of Amyr- ἘΠΊ. κ taeus the king in the fens; the remainder proceeded to Cronus. m
sf blockade Citium. Here Cimon died, and a famine arose
"in the country; so the fleet quitted Citium. Arriving off ' Salamis in Cyprus they fought at sea and also on land with Phoenician and Cilician forces, Gaining a victory in both engagements, they returned home, accompanied by the ships which had gone out with them and had now come back from Egypt. After this the Lacedaemonians engaged in the so-called Sacred War and took posses- sion of the temple of Delphi, which they handed over to the Delphians. But no sooner had they retired than the Athenians sent an expedition and recovered the temple, which they handed over to the Phocians.
=, 47. Some time afterwards the Athenians, under the com- 113.
“+ * mand of Tolmides the son of Tolmacus, with a thousand refeat of hoplites of their own and contingents of their allies, made nians at an expedition against Orchomenus, Chaeronea, and cer- Revolution tain other places in Boeotia which were in the hands 2°oU» of oligarchical exiles from different Boeotian towns, and
still remained hostile to them. They took Chaeronea,
and leaving a garrison there, departed. But while they
were on their march, the exiles who had occupied Orchc-
menus, some Locrians, some Euboean exiles and others
, yy
70 INCREASING DIFFICULTIES OF ATHENS.
I. οἵ the same party, set upon them at Coronea and de- BC. 447 feated them, killing many and taking many prisoners. 83 4 The Athenians then agreed to evacuate Boeotia upon condition that the prisoners should be restored. And so the Boeotian exiles returned to their homes, and all the Boeotians regained their independence.
114. Not long afterwards Euboea revolted from Athens. B.C. 445 Revolt of Pericles had just arrived in the island with an Athenian — 34 Euboea.
Slaughter army when the news came that Megara had likewise re- of he in volted, that the Peloponnesians were on the point of in- Rowan at vading Attica, and that the Megarians had slaughtered Jnvasion of the Athenian garrison, of whom a few only had escaped to Retirement Nisaea. The Megarians had introduced a force of Corin- conneelane thians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians into the city, and by covery of their help had effected the revolt. Pericles in haste with- Euboea. drew his army from Euboea. The Peloponnesians then invaded Attica under the command of Pleistoanax son of Pausanias, the Lacedaemonian king. They advanced as far as Eleusis and Thria but no further, and after ravaging the country, returned home. Thereupon the Athenians under the command of Pericles again crossed over to Euboea and reduced the whole country; the Hestiaeans they ejected from their homes and appropri- ated their territory; the rest of the island they settled by agreement.
115. Soon after their return from Euboea they made a truce
The Athe- for thirty years with the Lacedaemonians and their al-
nians agree
to restore lies, restoring Nisaea, Pegae, Troezen and Achaia, which
hed by were the places held by them in Peloponnesus. Six years BC. 44 τορος δ later the Samians and Milesians fell out about the posses- Ol 85. Revolt of sion of Priené, and the Milesians, who were getting worsted
ans, who in the war, came to Athens and complained loudly of the by the Samians. Some private citizens of Samos, who wanted Byzantians. to overthrow the government, supported their complaint. Whereupon the Athenians, sailing to Samos with forty ships, established a democracy, and taking as hostages fifty boys and fifty men whom they deposited at Lemnos,
they returned leaving a garrison. But certain of the
THIRTY YEARS TRUCE. REVOLT OF SAMOS. 71
B.C. 440. Samians who had quitted the island and fled to the main- Ἠεὀ 1.
Ol 8S and entered into an alliance with the principal oligarchs who remained in the city, and with Pissuthnes the son of Hystaspes, then governor of Sardis, and collecting troops to the number of seven hundred they crossed over by night to Samos, First of all they attacked the victorious populace and got most of them into their power; then they stole away the hostages from Lemnos, and finally revolted from Athens. The officers and garrison of the Athenians whom they captured were delivered by them into the hands of Pissuthnes. They at once prepared to ‘make an expedition against Miletus. The Byzantians joined in their revolt.
When the Athenians heard of the insurrection they 116. sailed to Samos with sixty ships. But of this number The Athe-
_nians defeat they sent away sixteen, some towards Caria to keep a theSamians look out for the Phoenician fleet, others to summon aid “ *™ from Chios and Lesbos. With the remaining forty-four ships they fought at sea under the command of Pericles and nine others, near the island of Tragia, against seventy Samian vessels, all sailing from Miletus, of which twenty were transports; the Athenians gained the victory. After receiving a reinforcement of forty ships from Athens and of twenty-five from Chios and Lesbos they disembarked, and having the superiority on shore, invested the city with three walls ; they also blockaded it by sea. At the same time Pericles took sixty ships of the blockading force and sailed hastily towards Caunus in Caria, news having ar- rived that a Phoenician fleet was approaching; Stesagoras and others had already gone with five ships from Samos to fetch it.
Meanwhile the Samians made a sudden sally, and at- 117. tacking the naval station of the Athenians which was Temporary unprotected, destroyed the guard-ships and engaged and final cabjec: defeated the other vessels which put out to mcet them. gon οὔ the During some fourteen days they were masters of the sea about their own coasts, and carricd in and out whatever they pleased. But when Pericles returned, they were
I.
The Byzan- tians also submit.
118.
The history is resumed
from chap.
88. The
having de- cided to go to war, ob- tain the sanction of the Delphian Oracle.
72, CAUSES OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.
again closely blockaded; and there soon arrived from B.C. 439
Athens forty additional ships under Thucydides, Hag- °
non, and Phormio, twenty more under Tlepolemus and Anticles, and thirty from Chios and Lesbos. The Sa- mians made a feeble attempt at a sea-fight, but soon they were unable to resist, and after nine months were forced to surrender. The terms of capitulation were as follows :—They were to raze their walls, give hostages, surrender their ships, and pay a full indemnity by regu- lar instalments. The Byzantians too agreed to return to their allegiance.
Not long afterwards occurred the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea, which have been already narrated, and the various other circumstances which led to the Pelopon- nesian War. Fifty years elapsed between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of the war; during these years took place all those operations of the Hellenes against one another and against the Barbarian which 1 have been describing. The Athenians acquired a firmer hold over their empire and the city itself became a great power. « The Lacedaemonians saw what was going on, but during most of the time they remained inactive and hardly attempted to interfere. They had never been of a temper prompt to make war unless they were com- pelled ; and they were in some degree embarrassed by enemies near home. But the Athenians were growing too great to be ignored and were laying hands on their allies. They could now bear it no longer: they made up their minds that they must put out all their strength and overthrow the Athenian power by force of arms. And therefore they commenced the Peloponnesian War. They had already voted in their own assembly that the treaty had been broken and that the Athenians were guilty *; they now sent to Delphi and asked the god if it would be for their advantage to make war. He is reported to have answered that, if they did their best,
® But cp. vii. 18 med.
L. ‘8s, -2
THE ALLIES AT SPARTA. 73
B.C. 432. they would be conquerors, and that he himself, invited I. OF 87... or uninvited, would take their part.
So they again summoned the allies, intending to put 119. to them the question of war or peace. When their repre- Hetivity of sentatives arrived, an assembly was held; and the allies thians in said what they had to say, most of them complaining the war of the Athenians and demanding that the war should proceed. The Corinthians had already gone the round of the cities and entreated them privately to vote for the war; they were afraid that they would be too late to save Potidaea. At the assembly they came forward last of all and spoke as follows :—
‘Fellow allies, we can no longer find fault with the 120. Lacedaemonians; they have themselves resolved upon No more | war and have brought us hither to confirm their de- found with cision. And they have done well; for the leaders of a Me acedae, confederacy, while they do not neglect the interests of ane Athe-
their own state, should look to the general weal: as they dang jerous 1Ke.
are first in honour, they should be first in the fulfilment Men should of their duties. Now those among us who have ever ts fone had dealings with the Athenians, do not require to be 2nd they warned against them; but such as live inland and nok equally
on any maritime highway should clearly understand that cease from if they do not protect the sea-board, they will not be able f&htns- to carry their produce to the sea, or to receive in retur
the goods which the sea gives to the land. They shoul
not Jend a careless ear to our words, for they nearly concern them; they should remember that, if they de-
sert the cities on the sea-shore, the danger may some
day reach them, and that they are consulting for their
own interests quite as much as for ours. And therefore
let no one hesitate to accept war in exchange for peace.
Wise men refuse to move until they are wronged, but brave men as soon as they are wronged go to war, and when there is a good opportunity make peace again. They are not intoxicated by military success; but neither will they tolerate injustice from a love of peace
and ease. For he whom pleasure makes a coward will
74 SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS.
I. quickly lose, if he continues inactive, the delights of ease Β. .C. 432. which he is so unwilling to renounce; and he whose .- 87. arrogance is stimulated by victory does not see how hollow is the confidence which elates him. Many schemes which were ill-advised have succeeded through the still greater folly which possessed the enemy, and yet more, which seemed to be wisely contrived, have ended in foul disaster. The execution of an enterprise is never equal* to the conception of it in the confident mind of its promoter; for men are safe while they are thinking, but, when the time of action comes, then they lose their presence of mind and fail.
121. ‘We, however, do not make war upon the Athenians Weare su- in a spirit of vain-glory, but from a sense of wrong; Athenians there is ample justification, and when we obtain redress, ἣΝ military” we will put up the sword. For every reason we are skill, inuna- likely to succeed. First, because we are superior in
nimity, and our fleet will numbers and in military skill; secondly, because we all
a evel with obey as one man the orders given to us. If they are
theirs. strong at sea, we too will provide a navy, for which the means can be supplied partly by contributions from each state, partly out of the funds at Delphi and Olympia. A loan will be granted to us, and by the offer of higher pay we can draw away their foreign sailors. The Athenian power consists of mercenaries, and not of their own citizens; but our soldiers are not mercenaries, and therefore cannot so be bought, for we are strong in men if poor in money. Let them be beaten in a single naval engagement and they are probably conquered at once; but suppose they hold out, we shall then have more time in which to practise at sea. As soon as we have brought our skill up to the level of theirs our courage will surely give us the victory. For that is a natural gift which they cannot learn, but their superior skill is a thing acquired, ἢ which we must attain by practice.
Butwe must‘ And the money which is required for the war, we will nd money.
® Reading ὅμοια. b Or, ‘which we must overcome by practice.’
SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS. 75
B.C. 432. provide by a contribution. What! shall their allies never _I. OF 87. fail in paying the tribute which is to enslave them, and
shall we refuse to give freely in order to save ourselves
and be avenged on our enemies, or rather to prevent
the money which we refused to give from being taken
from us by them and used to our destruction?
‘These are some of the means by which the war may 122.
be carried on; but there are others. We may induce By gaining over their
their allies to revolt,—a sure mode of cutting off the allies we
revenues in which the strength of Athens consists; or [μὰν σαὶ οὔ
we may plant a fort in their country; and there are Sorc:
many expedients which will hereafter suggest them-
selves. For war, least of all things, conforms to pre-
scribed rules; it strikes out a path for itself when the
moment comes. And therefore he who has his temper
under control in warfare is safer far, but he who gets
into a passion is, through his own fault, liable to the
greater fall.
‘If this were merely a quarrel between one of us and Ifwe quietly our neighbours about a boundary line it would not S27 u%° matter; but reflect: the truth is that the Athenians Stes to be are a match for us all, and much more than a match for any single city. And if we allow ourselves to be | divided or are not united against them heart and soul —the whole confederacy and every nation and city in it—they will easily overpower us. It may seem a hard saying, but you may be sure that defeat means nothing but downright slavery, and the bare mention of such a possibility is a disgrace to the Peloponnese :—shall so many states suffer at the hands of one? Men will say, some that we deserve our fate, others that we are too cowardly to resist: and we shall seem a degenerate race. For our fathers were the liberators of Hellas, but we cannot secure even our own liberty; and while we make a point of overthrowing the rule of a single man in this or that city, we allow a city which is a tyrant to be set up in the midst of us. Are we not open to one of three most serious charges—folly, cowardice, or
76 SPEECH OF THE CORINTHIANS.
I. carelessness? *For you certainly do not escape such B.C. 432
imputations by wrapping yourselves in that contemp- tuous wisdom which has so often* brought men to ruin,
as in the end to be pronounced contemptible folly. 123. ‘ But why should we dwell reproachfully upon the past, In going to except in the interest of the present? We should rather, havethe looking to the future, devote our energies to the task feline of which we have immediately in hand. By labour to win your side virtuc,—that is the lesson which we” have learnt from and you will our fathers, and which you ought not to unlearn, because
not b oa:
the treaty. you chance to have some trifling advantage over them in wealth and power; for men should not lose in the time of their wealth what was gained by them in their time of want. There are many reasons why you may advance with confidence. The God has spoken and has promised to take our part himself. ΑἹ] Hellas will fight at our side, from motives either of fear or of interest. And you will not break the treaty,—the God in bidding you go to war pronounces it to have been already broken, —but you will avenge the violation of it. For those who attack others, not those who defend themselves, are the real violators of treaties °.
124. ‘On every ground you will be right in going to war: vo on as we it is our united advice ; 4and if you believe community are. the of interests to be the surest ground of strength both to wayto individuals and states, send speedy aid? to the Poti- Peace may daeans, who are Dorians and now besieged by Ionians be the way (for times have changed), and recover the liberties which
the rest of the allics have lost. We cannot go on as we are: for some of us are already suffering, and if it is known that we have met, but do not dare to defend
ourselves, others will soon share their fate. Acknow-
® Or, ‘For we cannot suppose that, having avoided these errors, you have wrapped yourselves in that contemptuous wisdom, which has so often’ etc.
b Reading ἡμῖν. © Cp. i. 71 fin.
d Reading ταὐτά: or, with all the MSS. retaining ταῦτα: ‘And as it is most certain that the policy which we recommend is for our advantage both as states and individuals, send speedy aid’ etc.
EMBASSIES SENT TO AND FRO. 77
BC gf ledging then, allies, that there is no alternative, and I. that we are advising you for the best, vote for war; and be not afraid of the immediate danger, but fix your thoughts on the durable peace which will follow. For by war peace is assured, but to remain at peace when you should be going to war may be often very dangerous. The tyrant city which has been set up in Hellas is a standing menace to all alike; she rules over some of us already, and would fain rule over others, Let us attack and subdue her, that we may ourselves live safely for the future and deliver the Hellenes whom she has enslaved.’
Such were the words of the Corinthians.
The Lacedaemonians, having heard the opinions of all 125. the allies, put the question to them all, one after the other, Nearly a great and small alike, and the majority voted for war. a ae But, although they had come to this decision, they were tion. not ready, and could not take up arms at once; so they determined to make the necessary preparations, each for themselves, with the least possible delay. Still nearly a whole year was passed in preparation before they invaded Attica and commenced open hostilities.
During this year they sent embassies to Athens and 126. made various complaints that their grounds for going The story of to war might be all the stronger in case the Athenians ir explana refused to listen. The first ambassadors desired the Hm οὐ ihe. Athenians to drive out ‘the curse of the Goddess.’ The Goddess.
B.C. 620? curse to which they referred was as follows:—In the Vi 40? days of old there was an Athenian named Cylon, who had been an Olympic victor; he was powerful and of noble birth; and he had married the daughter of The- agenes, a Megarian who was at that time tyrant of Megara. In answer to an enquiry which Cylon made at Delphi, the God told him to seize the Acropolis of Athens at the greatest festival of Zeus. Thereupon he obtained forces from Theagenes, and, persuading his friends to join him, when the time of the Olympic festival in Peloponnesus came round, he took possession
78 THE CURSE OF THE GODDESS.
of the Acropolis, intending to make himself tyrant. He thought that this was the greatest festival of Zeus, and, having been an Olympic victor, he seemed to have an interest in it. But whether the greatest festival spoken of was in Attica or in some other part of Hellas was a question which never entered into his mind, and the oracle said nothing about it. (For the Athenians also have a greatest festival of Zeus—the festival of Zeus* the Gracious, or Diasia, as it is called—this is held outside the city and the whole people sacrifice at it, some, ordinary victims, others, a kind of offering peculiar to the country.) However, Cylon thought that his inter- pretation was right, and made the attempt at the Olym- pic festival. The Athenians, when they saw what had happened, came in a body from the fields and invested the Acropolis. After a time they grew tired of the siege and most of them went away, committing the guard to the nine Archons, and giving them full powers to do what they thought best in the whole matter; for in those days public affairs were chiefly adminis- tered by the nine Archons”. Cylon and his companions were in great distress from want of food and water. So he and his brother made their escape; the rest, being hard pressed, and some of them ready to die of hunger, sat as suppliants at the altar which is in the Acropolis. When the Athenians, to whose charge the guard had been committed, saw them dying in the temple, they bade them rise, promising to do them no harm, and then led them away and put them to death. They even slew some of them in the very presence of the awful Goddesses at whose altars, in passing by, they had sought refuge. The murderers and their descendants are held to be accursed, and offenders against the Goddess. These accursed persons were banished by the Athenians ; and Cleomenes, the Lacedaemonian king, again banished them from Athens in a time of civil
® Placing the comma before instead of after Διάσια. b Cp. Herod. v. 71.
THE CURSE OF TAENARUS. 79
strife by the help of the opposite faction, expelling the 1. living and disinterring and casting forth the bones of the dead*. Nevertheless they afterwards returned, and to this day their race still survives in the city.
The Lacedaemonians desired the Athenians to drive 127. away this curse, as if the honour of the Gods were their This curse
. ς attached to
first object, but in reality because they knew that the Pericles. curse attached to Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, by his mother’s side, and they thought that if he were banished they would find the Athenians more manage- able. They did not really expect that he would be driven into exile, but hoped to discredit him with the citizens and make them believe that his misfortune was to a certain extent the cause of the war. For he was. the leader of the state and the most powerful man of his day, and his policy was utterly opposed to the Lacedaemonians. He would not suffer the Athenians to give way, but was always urging upon them the necessity of war.
The Athenians retaliated by demanding that the Lace- 128. daemonians should drive away the curse of Taenarus. The Athe-
They referred to the murder of certain Helots who had taliate by taken refuge in the temple of Poseidon at Taenarus ; {ing the
these the Lacedaemonians, having first raised by the Ope hand, had then led away and slain. The Lacedae- away other
° e . . curses. monians themselves believe this act of theirs to have The curse
been the cause of the great earthquake which visited ofthe Got
Sparta>®. The Athenians also bade them drive out the Piained to
curse of Athené of the Brazen House. The story 15 murder of certain sup-
. 858 follows:—When Pausanias the Lacedaemonian was pliant
originally summoned by the Spartans to give an account poo. of
of his command at the Hellespont 5, and had been tried #thené of
and acquitted, he was no longer sent out in a public House was . . . . : caused by capacity, but he hired a trireme of Hermioné on his own the death of
account and sailed to the Hellespont, pretending that he in the pre- had gone thither to fight in the cause of the Hellenes. temple
In reality he wanted to prosecute an intrigue with the ® Cp. Herod. v. 70, 72. b Cp. i. ror, 102. © Cp. i. 95.
8o STORY OF PAUSANIAS,
I. King, by which he hoped to obtain the empire of Hellas. He had already taken the first steps after the retreat from Cyprus, when he captured Byzantium. The city Βα 4: was at that time held by the Persians and by certain ὅς, 3. relatives and kinsmen of the King, who were taken + prisoners. These he restored to the King without the knowledge of the allies, to whom he declared that they had made their escape. This act was the beginning of the whole affair, and thereby he originally placed the King under an obligation to him. His accomplice was Gongylus the Eretrian, to whose care he had entrusted Byzantium and the captives. To this same Gongylus he also gave a letter addressed to the King, of which, as
_was afterwards discovered, the terms were as follows :—
‘Pausanias, the Spartan commander, desiring to do you a service, sends you back these captives of his spear. And I propose, if you have no objection, to marry your daughter, and to bring Sparta and the rest of Hellas under your sway. I think that I can accomplish this if you and I take counsel together. Should you approve of my proposal, send a trusty person to the sea and through him we will negotiate.’ Thus far the letter. |
1209. Xerxes was pleased, and sent Artabazus the son of Intrigue of Pharnaces to the sea, commanding him to assume the with government of the satrapy of Dascylium in the room of
“ς΄ _Megabates. An answer was entrusted to him, which he was to send as quickly as possible to Pausanias at Byzan- tium ; he was to show him at the same time the royal seal. If Pausanias gave him any order about his own affairs, he was to execute it with all diligence and fidelity. Artabazus came down to the sea, as he was desired, and transmitted the letter. The answer of the King was as follows :—
‘Thus saith Xerxes, the King, to Pausanias. The bene- fit which thou hast done me in saving the captives who were taken at Byzantium beyond the sea is recorded in my house for ever, and thy words please me. Let neither day nor night hinder thee from fulfilling diligently the
PAUSANIAS SUMMONED TO SPARTA. δι
C477 or promise which thou hast made to me; spare not gold or silver, and take as large an army as thou wilt, where- soever it may be required. I have sent to thee Arta- bazus, a good man; act with him for my honour and welfare, and for thine own, and be of good courage.’ Pausanias received the letter. He had already ac-
- 25. 4 76 τ᾿
130.
quired a high reputation among the Hellenes when in Pausanias, command at Plataea, and now he was so great that he away by
could no longer contain himself or live like other men. Pesce sts As he marched out of Byzantium he wore Persian ap- his am- mous
parel. On his way through Thrace he was attended by designs.
a body-guard of Medes and Egyptians, and he had his table served after the Persian fashion. He could not conceal his ambition, but indicated by little things the greater designs which he was meditating. He made himself difficult of access, and displayed such a violent temper towards everybody that no one could come near him; and this was one of the chief reasons why the confederacy transferred themselves to the Athenians. The news of his behaviour soon reached the Lacedae-
121.
monians : who recalled him in the first instance ori this He is το- ground*. And now, when he had sailed away in the ship Set3._
of Hermione without leave, and was evidently carrying Ὁ
by the
Lacedae-
on the same practices; when he had been forced out of monians and thrown
Byzantium and the gates had been shut against him by into prison,
the Athenians; and when, instead of returning to Sparta, ,
but soon omes out and offers
he settled at Colonae in Troas, and was reported to the ine oles. Ephors to be negotiating with the Barbarians, and to be tial.
staying there for no good purpose, then at last they made up their minds to act. They sent a herald to him with a despatch rolled on a scytalé, commanding him to follow the officer home, and saying that, if he refused, Sparta would declare war against him. He, being desirous as far as he could to avoid suspicion and believing that he could dispose of the accusations by bribery, returned for the second time to Sparta. On his return he was at once thrown into prison by the Ephors, who have the power a Cp. i. 95 init. G
Ι 3 2. Sufficient evidence cannot be obtained. At last his confidential servant
which he was to
to the Persian satrap, and finding an order for
informer.
82 HIS INTRIGUES WITH THE HELOTS.
to imprison the king himself. But after a time he con- trived to come out, and challenged any one who asserted his guilt to bring him to trial.
As yet however neither his enemies among the citizens nor the Spartan government had any trustworthy evi-— dence such as would have justified them in inflicting punishment upon a member of the