Chapter XXII: Front Matter (22)

"The individual freedom which was enjoyed at Athens and which
is extolled by Pericles was plainly an exception to the common
usage of Greece, and is so regarded in the Funeral Speech. The
word 'freedom,' it should be remembered, bore an ambiguous
meaning. It denoted on the one hand political
independence,--the exercise of sovereign power by the State
and of political rights by the citizens. In this sense every
Greek citizen could claim it as his birthright. Even the
Spartans could tell the Persian Hydarnes that he had not, like
them, tasted of freedom, and did not know whether it was sweet
or not. But the word also denoted personal and social
liberty,--freedom from the excessive restraints of law, the
absence of a tyrannous public opinion and of intolerance
between man and man. Pericles claims for Athens 'freedom' in
this double sense. But freedom so far as it implies the
absence of legal interference in the private concerns of life
was but little known except at Athens."

_S. H. Butcher, Some Aspects of Greek Genius,
pages 70-71._

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"To Athens ... we look ... for an answer to the question, What
does history teach in regard to the virtue of a purely
democratic government? And here we may safely say that, under
favourable circumstances, there is no form of government
which, while it lasts, has such a virtue to give scope to a
vigorous growth and luxuriant fruitage of various manhood as a
pure democracy. ... But it does not follow that, though in
this regard it has not been surpassed by any other form of
government, it is therefore absolutely the best of all forms
of government. ... Neither, on the other hand, does it follow
from the shortness of the bright reign of Athenian
democracy--not more than 200 years from Clisthenes to the
Macedonians--that all democracies are short-lived, and must
pay, like dissipated young gentlemen, with premature decay for
the feverish abuse of their vital force. Possible no doubt it
is, that if the power of what we may call a sort of Athenian
Second Chamber, the Areiopagus, instead of being weakened as
it was by Aristides and Pericles, had been built up according
to the idea of Æschylus and the intelligent aristocrats of his
day, such a body, armed, like our House of Lords, with an
effective negative on all outbursts of popular rashness, might
have prevented the ambition of the Athenians from launching on
that famous Syracusan expedition which exhausted their force
and maimed their action for the future. But the lesson taught
by the short-lived glory of Athens, and its subjugation under
the rough foot of the astute Macedonian, is not that
democracies, under the influence of faction, and, it may be,
not free from venality, will sell their liberties to a strong
neighbour--for aristocratic Poland did this in a much more
blushless way than democratic Greece--but that any loose
aggregate of independent States, given more to quarrel amongst
themselves than to unite against a common enemy, whether
democratic, or aristocratic, or monarchical in their form of
government, cannot in the long run maintain their ground
against the firm policy and the well-massed force of a strong
monarchy. Athens was blotted out from the map of free peoples
at Chæronea, not because the Athenian people had too much
freedom, but because the Greek States had too little unity.
They were used by Philip exactly in the same way that Napoleon
used the German States at the commencement of the present
century."

_J. S. Blackie, What does History Teach? pages 28-31._

"In Herodotus you have the beginning of the age of discussion.
... The discourses on democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy,
which he puts into the mouth of the Persian conspirators when
the monarchy was vacant, have justly been called absurd, as
speeches supposed to have been spoken by those persons. No
Asiatic ever thought of such things. You might as well imagine
Saul or David speaking them as those to whom Herodotus
attributes them. They are Greek speeches, full of free Greek
discussions, and suggested by the experience, already
considerable, of the Greeks in the results of discussion. The
age of debate is beginning, and even Herodotus, the least of a
wrangler of any man, and the most of a sweet and simple
narrator, felt the effect. When we come to Thucydides, the
results of discussion are as full as they have ever been; his
light is pure, 'dry light,' free from the 'humours' of habit,
and purged from consecrated usage. As Grote's history often
reads like a report to Parliament, so half Thucydides reads
like a speech, or materials for a speech, in the Athenian
Assembly."

_W. Bagehot, Physics and Politics, pages 170-171._

ATHENS: B. C. 440-437.
New settlements of Klerouchoi.
The founding of Amphipolis.--
Revolt and subjugation of Samos.

"The great aim of Perikles was to strengthen the power of
Athens over the whole area occupied by her confederacy. The
establishment of settlers or Klerouchoi [see KLERUCHS]. who
retained their rights as Athenian citizens, had answered so
well in the Lelantian plain of Euboia that it was obviously
good policy to extend the system. The territory of Hestiaia in
the north of Euboia and the islands of Lemnos, Imbros, and
Skyros, were thus occupied; and Perikles himself led a body of
settlers to the Thrakian Chersonesos where he repaired the old
wall at the neck of the peninsula, and even to Sinope which
now became a member of the Athenian alliance. A generation had
passed from the time when Athens lost 10,000 citizens in the
attempt to found a colony at the mouth of the Strymon. The
task was now undertaken successfully by Hagnon, and the city
came into existence which was to be the cause of disaster to
the historian Thucydides and to witness the death of Brasidas
and of Kleon [see AMPHIPOLIS]. ... Two years before the
founding of Amphipolis, Samos revolted from Athens. ... In
this revolt of Samos the overt action comes from the oligarchs
who had seized upon the Ionian town of Priene, and defeated
the Milesians who opposed them. The latter appealed to the
Athenians, and received not only their aid but that of the
Samian demos. The latter now became the ruling body in the
island, fifty men and fifty boys being taken from the
oligarchic families and placed as hostages in Lemnos, which,
as we have seen, was now wholly occupied by Athenian
Klerouchoi. But the Samian exiles (for many had fled rather
than live under a democracy) entered into covenant with
Pissouthnes, the Sardian satrap, crossed over to Samos and
seized the chief men of the demos, then falling on Lemnos
succeeded in stealing away the hostages; and, having handed
over to Pissouthnes the Athenian garrison at Samos, made ready
for an expedition against Miletos. The tidings that Byzantion
had joined in this last revolt left to the Athenians no room
to doubt the gravity of the crisis. A fleet of sixty ships was
dispatched to Samos under Perikles and nine other generals, of
whom the poet Sophokles is said to have been one. Of these
ships sixteen were sent, some to gather the allies, others to
watch for the Phenician fleet which they believed to be off
the Karian coast advancing to the aid of the Samian oligarchs.
With the remainder Perikles did not hesitate to engage the
Samian fleet of seventy ships which he encountered on its
return from Miletos off the island of Tragia. The Athenians
gained the day; and Samos was blockaded by land and sea. But
no sooner had Perikles sailed with sixty ships to meet the
Phenician fleet, than the Samians, making a vigorous sally,
broke the lines of the besiegers and for fourteen days
remained masters of the sea.
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The return of Perikles changed the face of things. Soon after
the resumption of the siege the arrival of sixty fresh ships
from Athens under five Strategoi in two detachments, with
thirty from Chios and Lesbos, damped the energy of the Samian
oligarchs; and an unsuccessful effort at sea was followed by
their submission in the ninth month after the beginning of the
revolt, the terms being that they should raze their walls,
give hostages, surrender their ships, and pay the expenses of
the war. Following their example, the Byzantines also made
their peace with Athens. The Phenician fleet never came. ...
The Athenians escaped at the same time a far greater danger
nearer home. The Samians, like the men of Thasos, had applied
for aid to the Spartans, who, no longer pressed by the Helot
war, summoned a congress of their allies to discuss the
question. For the truce which had still five-and-twenty years
to run Sparta cared nothing: but she encountered an opposition
from the Corinthians which perhaps she now scarcely expected.
... The Spartans were compelled to give way; and there can be
no doubt that when some years later the Corinthians claimed
the gratitude of the Athenians for this decision, they took
credit for an act of good service singularly opportune. Had
they voted as Sparta wished, Athens might by the extension of
revolt amongst her allied cities have been reduced now to the
condition to which, in consequence perhaps of this respite,
she was not brought until the lifetime of a generation had
been spent in desperate warfare."

_G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

ATHENS: B. C. 431.
Beginning of the Peloponnesian War.
Its Causes.

"In B. C. 431 the war broke out between Athens and the
Peloponnesian League, which, after twenty-seven years, ended
in the ruin of the Athenian empire. It began through a quarrel
between Corinth and Kerkyra, in which Athens assisted Kerkyra.
A congress was held at Sparta; Corinth and other States
complained of the conduct of Athens, and war was decided on.
The real cause of the war was that Sparta and its allies were
jealous of the great power that Athens had gained [see GREECE:
B. C. 435-132 and 432-431]. A far greater number of Greek
States were engaged in this war than had ever been engaged in
a single undertaking before. States that had taken no part in
the Persian war were now fighting on one side or the other.
Sparta was an oligarchy, and the friend of the nobles
everywhere; Athens was a democracy, and the friend of the
common people; so that the war was to some extent a struggle
between these classes all over Greece, and often within the
same city walls the nobles and the people attacked one
another, the nobles being for Sparta and the people for
Athens. On the side of Sparta, when the war began, there was
all Peloponnesus except Argos and Achæa, and also the
oligarchical Bœotian League under Thebes besides Phokis,
Lokris, and other States west of them. They were very strong
by land, but the Corinthians alone had a good fleet. Later on
we shall see the powerful State of Syracuse with its navy,
acting with Sparta. On the side of Athens there were almost
all the Ægæan islands, and a great number of the Ægæan coast
towns as well as Kerkyra and certain States in the west of
Greece. The Athenians had also made alliance with Sitalkes,
the barbarian king of the interior of Thrace. Athens was far
stronger by sea than Sparta, but had not such a strong land
army. On the other hand it had a large treasure, and a system
of taxes, while the Spartan League had little or no money."

_C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (History Primers), page 84._

The Ionian cities, called "allies" of Athens, were subjects in
reality, and held in subjection by tyrannical measures which
made the yoke odious, as is plainly explained by Xenophon, who
says: "Some person might say, that it is a great support to
the Athenians that their allies should be in a condition to
contribute money to them. To the plebeians, however, it seems
to be of much greater advantage that every individual of the
Athenians should get some of the property of the allies, and
that the allies themselves should have only so much as to
enable them to live and to till the ground, so that they may
not be in a condition to form conspiracies. The people of
Athens seem also to have acted injudiciously in this respect,
that they oblige their allies to make voyages to Athens for
the decision of their lawsuits. But the Athenians consider
only, on the other hand, what benefits to the state of Athens
are attendant on this practice; in the first place they
receive their dues throughout the year from the prytaneia; in
the next place, they manage the government of the allied
states while sitting at home, and without sending out ships;
they also support suitors of the lower orders, and ruin those
of an opposite character in their courts of law; but if each
state had its own courts, they would, as being hostile to the
Athenians, be the ruin of those who were most favourable to
the people of Athens. In addition to these advantages, the
Athenian people have the following profits from the courts of
justice for the allies being at Athens; first of all the duty
of the hundredth on what is landed at the Peiræeus affords a
greater revenue to the city; next, whoever has a lodging-house
makes more money by it, as well as whoever has cattle or
slaves for hire; and the heralds, too, are benefited by the
visits of the allies to the city. Besides, if the allies did
not come to Athens for law, they would honour only such of the
Athenians as were sent over the sea to them, as generals, and
captains of vessels, and ambassadors; but now every individual
of the allies is obliged to flatter the people of Athens,
knowing that on going to Athens he must gain or lose his cause
according to the decision, not of other judges, but of the
people, as is the law of Athens; and he is compelled, too, to
use supplication before the court, and, as anyone of the
people enters, to take him by the hand. By these means the
allies are in consequence rendered much more the slaves of the
Athenian people."

_Xenophon, On the Athenian Government (Minor Works,
translated by Reverend J. S. Watson), page 235._

The revolt of these coerced and hostile "allies," upon the
outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, was inevitable.--The
prominent events of the Peloponnesian war, in which most of
the Greek States were involved, are properly narrated in their
connection with Greek history at large (see GREECE: B. C.
431-429, and after). In this place it will only be necessary
to take account of the consequences of the war as they
affected the remarkable city and people whose superiority had
occasioned it by challenging and somewhat offensively
provoking the jealousy of their neighbors.

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ATHENS: B. C. 431.
Peloponnesian invasions of Attica.
Siege of Athens.

"While the Peloponnesians were gathering at the Isthmus, and
were still on their way, but before they entered Attica,
Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, who was one of the ten
Athenian generals, ... repeated [to the Athenians] his
previous advice; they must prepare for war and bring their
property from the country into the city; they must defend
their walls but not go out to battle; they should also equip
for service the fleet in which lay their strength. ... The
citizens were persuaded, and brought into the city their
children and wives, their household goods, and even the
wood-work of their houses, which they took down. Their flocks
and beasts of burden they conveyed to Euboea and the adjacent
islands. The removal of the inhabitants was painful; for the
Athenians had always been accustomed to reside in the country.
Such a life had been characteristic of them more than of any
other Hellenic people, from very early times. ... When they
came to Athens, only a few of them had houses or could find
homes among friends or kindred. The majority took up their
abode in the vacant spaces of the city, and in the temples and
shrines of heroes. ... Many also established themselves in the
turrets of the walls, or in any other place which they could
find; for the city could not contain them when they first came
in. But afterwards they divided among them the Long Walls and
the greater part of the Piraeus. At the same time the
Athenians applied themselves vigorously to the war, summoning
their allies, and preparing an expedition of 100 ships against
the Peloponnese. While they were thus engaged, the
Peloponnesian army was advancing: it arrived first of all at
Oenoe," where Archidamus, the Spartan king, wasted much time
in a fruitless siege and assault. "At last they marched on,
and about the eightieth day after the entry of the Thebans
into Plataea, in the middle of the summer, when the corn was
in full ear, invaded Attica: ... They encamped and ravaged,
first of all, Eleusis and the plain of Thria. ... At Acharnae
they encamped, and remained there a considerable time,
ravaging the country." It was the expectation of Archidamus
that the Athenians would be provoked to come out and meet him
in the open field; and that, indeed, they were eager to do;
but the prudence of their great leader held them back. "The
people were furious with Pericles, and, forgetting all his
previous warnings, they abused him for not leading them to
battle." But he was vindicated by the result. "The
Peloponnesians remained in Attica as long as their provisions
lasted, and then, taking a new route, retired through Boeotia.
... On their return to Peloponnesus the troops dispersed to
their several cities." Meantime the Athenian and allied fleets
were ravaging the Peloponnesian coast. "In the same summer [B.
C. 431] the Athenians expelled the Aeginetans and their
families from Aegina, alleging that they had been the main
cause of the war. ... The Lacedaemonians gave the Aeginetan
exiles the town of Thyrea to occupy and the adjoining country
to cultivate. ... About the end of the summer the entire
Athenian force, including the metics, invaded the territory of
Megara. ... After ravaging the greater part of the country
they retired. They repeated the invasion, sometimes with
cavalry, sometimes with the whole Athenian army, every year
during the war until Nisaea was taken [B. C. 424]."

_Thucydides, History; translated by B. Jowett,
book 2; section 13-31 (volume 1)._

ATHENS: B. C. 430.
The funeral oration of Pericles.

During the winter of the year B. C. 431-430, "in accordance
with an old national custom, the funeral of those who first
fell in this war was celebrated by the Athenians at the public
charge. The ceremony is as follows: Three days before the
celebration they erect a tent in which the bones of the dead
are laid out, and everyone brings to his own dead any offering
which he pleases. At the time of the funeral the bones are
placed in chests of cypress wood, which are conveyed on
hearses; there is one chest for each tribe. They also carry a
single empty litter decked with a pall for all whose bodies
are missing, and cannot be recovered after the battle. The
procession is accompanied by anyone who chooses, whether
citizen or stranger, and the female relatives of the deceased
are present at the place of interment and make lamentation.
The public sepulchre is situated in the most beautiful spot
outside the walls; there they always bury those who fall in
war; only after the battle of Marathon the dead, in
recognition of their pre-eminent valour, were interred on the
field. When the remains have been laid in the earth, some man
of known ability and high reputation, chosen by the city,
delivers a suitable oration over them; after which the people
depart. Such is the manner of interment; and the ceremony was
repeated from time to time throughout the war. Over those who
were the first buried Pericles was chosen to speak. At the
fitting moment he advanced from the sepulchre to a lofty
stage, which had been erected in order that he might be heard
as far as possible by the multitude, and spoke as
follows:

'Most of those who have spoken here before me have
commended the lawgiver who added this oration to our other
funeral customs; it seemed to them a worthy thing that such
an honour should be given at their burial to the dead who
have fallen on the field of battle. But I should have
preferred that, when men's deeds have been brave, they
should be honoured in deed only, and with such an honour as
this public funeral, which you are now witnessing. Then the
reputation of many would not have been imperilled on the
eloquence or want of eloquence of one, and their virtues
believed or not as he spoke well or ill. For it is
difficult to say neither too little nor too much; and even
moderation is apt not to give the impression of
truthfulness. The friend of the dead who knows the facts is
likely to think that the words of the speaker fall short of
his knowledge and of his wishes; another who is not so well
informed, when he hears of anything which surpasses his own
powers, will be envious and will suspect exaggeration.
Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others so long as
each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well
himself, but, when the speaker rises above him, jealousy is
aroused and he begins to be incredulous. However, since our
ancestors have set the seal of their approval upon the practice,
I must obey, and to the utmost of my power shall endeavour
to satisfy the wishes and beliefs of all who hear me. I
will speak first of our ancestors, for it is right and
becoming that now, when we are lamenting the dead, a
tribute should be paid to their memory. There has never
been a time when they did not inhabit this land, which by
their valour they have handed down from generation to
generation, and we have received from them a free state.
{169}
But if they were worthy of praise, still more were our
fathers who added to their inheritance, and after many a
struggle transmitted to us their sons this great empire.
And we ourselves assembled here to-day, who are still most
of us in the vigour of life, have chiefly done the work of
improvement, and have richly endowed our city with all
things, so that she is sufficient for herself both in peace
and war. Of the military exploits by which our various
possessions were acquired, or of the energy with which we
or our fathers drove back the tide of war, Hellenic or
Barbarian, I will not speak; for the tale would be long and
is familiar to you. But before I praise the dead, I should
like to point out by what principles of action we rose to
power, and under what institutions and through what manner
of life our empire became great. For I conceive, that such
thoughts are not unsuited to the occasion, and that this
numerous assembly of citizens and strangers may profitably
listen to them. Our form of government does not enter into
rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy our
neighbours, but are an example to them. It is true that we
are called a democracy, for the administration is in the
hands of the many and not of the few. But while the law
secures equal justice to all alike in their private
disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognised; and
when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred
to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as
the reward of merit. Neither is poverty a bar, but a man
may benefit his country whatever be the obscurity of his
condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life,
and in our private intercourse we are not suspicious of one
another, nor angry with our neighbour if he does what he
likes; we do not put on sour looks at him which, though
harmless, are not pleasant. While we are thus unconstrained
in our private intercourse, a spirit of reverence pervades
our public acts; we are prevented from doing wrong by
respect for authority and for the laws, having an especial
regard to those which are ordained for the protection of
the injured as well as to those unwritten laws which bring
upon the transgressor of them the reprobation of the
general sentiment. And we have not forgotten to provide for
our weary spirits many relaxations from toil; we have
regular games and sacrifices throughout the year; at home
the style of our life is refined; and the delight which we
daily feel in all these things helps to banish melancholy.
Because of the greatness of our city the fruits of the
whole earth flow in upon us; so that we enjoy the goods of
other countries as freely as of our own. Then, again, our
military training is in many respects superior to that of
our adversaries. Our city is thrown open to the world, and
we never expel a foreigner or prevent him from seeing or
learning anything of which the secret if revealed to an
enemy might profit him. We rely not upon management or
trickery, but upon our own hearts and hands. And in the
matter of education, whereas they from early youth are
always undergoing laborious exercises which are to make
them brave, we live at ease, and yet are equally ready to
face the Lacedaemonians come into Attica not by themselves,
but with their whole confederacy following; we go alone
into a neighbour's country; and although our opponents are
fighting for their homes and we on a foreign soil we have
seldom any difficulty in overcoming them. Our enemies have
never yet felt our united strength; the care of a navy
divides our attention, and on land we are obliged to send
our own citizens everywhere. But they, if they meet and
defeat a part of our army, are as proud as if they had
routed us all, and when defeated they pretend to have been
vanquished by us all. If then we prefer to meet danger with
a light heart but without laborious training, and with a
courage which is gained by habit and not enforced by law,
are we not greatly the gainers? Since we do not anticipate
the pain, although, when the hour comes, we can be as brave
as those who never allow themselves to rest; and thus too
our city is equally admirable in peace and in war. For we
are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and
we cultivate the mind without loss of manliness. Wealth we
employ, not for talk and ostentation, but when there is a
real use for it. To avow poverty with us is no disgrace;
the true disgrace is in doing nothing to avoid it. An
Athenian citizen does not neglect the state because he
takes care of his own household; and even those of us who
are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics.
We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public
affairs, not as a harmless, but as a useless character; and
if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges of a
policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion,
not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is
gained by discussion preparatory to action. For we have a
peculiar power of thinking before we act and of acting too,
whereas other men are courageous from ignorance but
hesitate upon reflection. And they are surely to be
esteemed the bravest spirits who, having the clearest sense
both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that
account shrink from danger. In doing good, again, we are
unlike others; we make our friends by conferring, not by
receiving favours. Now he who confers a favour is the
firmer friend, because he would fain by kindness keep alive
the memory of an obligation; but the recipient is colder in
his feelings, because he knows that in requiting another's
generosity he will not be winning gratitude but only paying
a debt. We alone do good to our neighbours not upon a
calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom
and in a frank and fearless spirit. To sum up; I say that
Athens is the school of Hellas, and that the individual
Athenian in his own person seems to have the power of
adapting himself to the most varied forms of action with
the utmost versatility and grace. This is no passing and
idle word, but truth and fact; and the assertion is
verified by the position to which these qualities have
raised the state. For in the hour of trial Athens alone
among her contemporaries is superior to the report of her.
No enemy who comes against her is indignant at the reverses
which he sustains at the hands of such a city; no subject
complains that his masters are unworthy of him. And we
shall assuredly not be without witnesses; there are mighty
monuments of our power which will make us the wonder of
this and of succeeding ages; we shall not need the praises
of Homer or of any other panegyrist whose poetry may please
for the moment, although his representation of the facts
will not bear the light of day.
{170}
For we have compelled every land and every sea to open a
path for our valour, and have everywhere planted eternal
memorials of our friendship and of our enmity. Such is the
city for whose sake these men nobly fought and died; they
could not bear the thought that she might be taken from
them; and everyone of us who survive should gladly toil on
her behalf. I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens
because I want to show you that we are contending for a
higher prize than those who enjoy none of these privileges,
and to establish by manifest proof the merit of these men
whom I am now commemorating. Their loftiest praise has been
already spoken. For in magnifying the city I have magnified
them, and men like them whose virtues made her glorious.
And of how few Hellenes can it be said as of them, that
their deeds when weighed in the balance have been found
equal to their fame! Methinks that a death such as theirs
has been gives the true measure of a man's worth; it may be
the first revelation of his virtues, but is at any rate
their final seal. For even those who come short in other
ways may justly plead the valour with which they have
fought for their country; they have blotted out the evil
with the good, and have benefited the state more by their
public services than they have injured her by their private
actions. None of these men were enervated by wealth or
hesitated to resign the pleasures of life; none of them put
off the evil day in the hope, natural to poverty, that a
man, though poor, may one day become rich. But, deeming
that the punishment of their enemies was sweeter than any
of these things, and that they could fall in no nobler
cause, they determined at the hazard of their lives to be
honourably avenged, and to leave the rest. They resigned to
hope their unknown chance of happiness; but in the face of
death they resolved to rely upon themselves alone. And when
the moment came they were minded to resist and suffer,
rather than to fly and save their lives; they ran away from
the word of dishonour, but on the battle-field their feet
stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their
fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their
fear, but of their glory. Such was the end of these men;
they were worthy of Athens, and the living need not desire
to have a more heroic spirit although they may pray for a
less fatal issue. The value of such a spirit is not to be
expressed in words. Anyone can discourse to you for ever
about the advantages of a brave defence which you know
already. But instead of listening to him I would have you
day by day fix your eyes upon the greatness of Athens,
until you become filled with the love of her; and when you
are impressed by the spectacle of her glory reflect that
this empire has been acquired by men who knew their duty
and had the courage to do it; who in the hour of conflict
had the fear of dishonour always present to them, and who,
if ever they failed in an enterprize, would not allow their
virtues to be lost to their country, but freely gave their
lives to her as the fairest offering which they could
present at her feast. The sacrifice which they collectively
made was individually repaid to them; for they received
again each one for himself a praise which grows not old,
and the noblest of all sepulchres--I speak not of that in
which their remains are laid, but of that in which their
glory survives, and is proclaimed always and on every
fitting occasion both in word and deed. For the whole earth
is the sepulchre of famous men; not only are they
commemorated by columns and inscriptions in their own
country, but in foreign lands there dwells also an
unwritten memorial of them, graven not on stone but in the
hearts of men. Make them your examples, and esteeming
courage to be freedom and freedom to be happiness, do not
weigh too nicely the perils of war. The unfortunate who has
no hope of a change for the better has less reason to throw
away his life than the prosperous who, if he survive, is
always liable to a change for the worse, and to whom any
accidental fall makes the most serious difference. To a man
of spirit, cowardice and disaster coming together are far
more bitter than death striking him unperceived at a time
when he is full of courage and animated by the general
hope. Wherefore I do not now commiserate the parents of the
dead who stand here; I would rather comfort them. You know
that your life has been passed amid manifold vicissitudes;
and that they may be deemed fortunate who have gained most
honour, whether an honourable death like theirs, or an
honourable sorrow like yours, and whose days have been so
ordered that the term of their happiness is likewise the
term of their life. I know how hard it is to make you feel
this, when the good fortune of others will too often remind
you of the gladness which once lightened your hearts. And
sorrow is felt at the want of those blessings, not which a
man never knew, but which were a part of his life before
they were taken from him. Some of you are of an age at
which they may hope to have other children, and they ought
to bear their sorrow better; not only will the children who
may hereafter be born make them forget their own lost ones,
but the city will be doubly a gainer. She will not be left
desolate, and she will be safer. For a man's counsel cannot
have equal weight or worth, when he alone has no children
to risk in the general danger. To those of you who have
passed their prime I say: "Congratulate yourselves that you
have been happy during the greater part of those days;
remember that your life of sorrow will not last long, and
be comforted by the glory of those who are gone. For the
love of honour alone is ever young, and not riches, as some
say, but honour is the delight of men when they are old and
useless." To you who are the sons and brothers of the
departed, I see that the struggle to emulate them will be
an arduous one. For all men praise the dead, and, however
pre-eminent your virtue may be, hardly will you be thought,
I do not say to equal, but even to approach them. The
living have their rivals and detractors, but when a man is
out of the way, the honour and good-will which he receives
is unalloyed. And, if I am to speak of womanly virtues to
those of you who will henceforth be widows, let me sum them
up in one short admonition: To a woman not to show more
weakness than is natural to her sex is a great glory, and
not to be talked about for good or for evil among men. I
have paid the required tribute, in obedience to the law,
making use of such fitting words as I had. The tribute of
deeds has been paid in part; for the dead have been
honourably interred, and it remains only that their
children should be maintained at the public charge until
they are grown up: this is the solid prize with which, as
with a garland, Athens crowns her sons living and dead,
after a struggle like theirs. For where the rewards of
virtue are greatest, there the noblest citizens are
enlisted in the service of the state. And now, when you
have duly lamented, everyone his own dead, you may depart.'

Such was the order of the funeral celebrated in this winter,
with the end of which ended the first year of the
Peloponnesian War."

_Thucydides, History, translated by B. Jowett,
volume 1, book 2, section 34-47._

{171}

ATHENS: B. C. 130-429.
The Plague in the city.
Death of Pericles.
Capture of Potidæa.

"As soon as the summer returned [B. C. 430] the Peloponnesians
... invaded Attica, where they established themselves and
ravaged the country. They had not been there many days when
the plague broke out at Athens for the first time. ... The
disease is said to have begun south of Egypt in Æthiopia;
thence it descended into Egypt and Libya, and after spreading
over the greater part of the Persian Empire, suddenly fell
upon Athens. It first attacked the inhabitants of the Piæeus,
and it was supposed that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the
cisterns, no conduits having as yet been made there. It
afterwards reached the upper city, and then the mortality
became far greater. As to its probable origin or the causes
which might or could have produced such a disturbance of
nature, every man, whether a physician or not, will give his
own opinion. But I shall describe its actual course, and the
symptoms by which anyone who knows them beforehand may
recognize the disorder should it ever reappear. For I was
myself attacked, and witnessed the sufferings of others. The
season was admitted to have been remarkably free from ordinary
sickness; and if anybody was already ill of any other disease,
it was absorbed in this. Many who were in perfect health, all
in a moment, and without any apparent reason, were seized with
violent heats in the head and with redness and inflammation of
the eyes. Internally the throat and tongue were quickly
suffused with blood and the breath became unnatural and fetid.
There followed sneezing and hoarseness; in a short time the
disorder, accompanied by a violent cough, reached the chest;
then fastening lower down, it would move the stomach and bring
on all the vomits of bile to which physicians have ever given
names; and they were very distressing. ... The body externally
was not so very hot to the touch, nor yet pale; it was a livid
colour inclining to red, and breaking out in pustules and
ulcers. But the internal fever was intense. ... The disorder
which had originally settled in the head passed gradually
through the whole body, and, if a person got over the worst,
would often seize the extremities and leave its mark,
attacking the privy parts and the fingers and toes; and some
escaped with the loss of these, some with the loss of their
eyes. ... The crowding of the people out of the country into
the city aggravated the misery; and the newly-arrived suffered
most. ... The mortality among them was dreadful and they
perished in wild disorder. The dead lay as they had died, one
upon another, while others hardly alive wallowed in the
streets and crawled about every fountain craving for water.
The temples in which they lodged were full of the corpses of
those who died in them; for the violence of the calamity was
such that men, not knowing where to turn, grew reckless of all
law, human and divine. ... The pleasure of the moment and any
sort of thing which conduced to it took the place both of
honour and of expediency. No fear of God or law of man
deterred a criminal." Terrified by the plague, when they
learned of it, the Peloponnesians retreated from Attica, after
ravaging it for forty days; but, in the meantime, their own
coasts had been ravaged, as before, by the Athenian fleet. And
now, being once more relieved from the presence of the enemy,
though still grievously afflicted by the plague, the Athenians
turned upon Pericles with complaints and reproaches, and
imposed a fine upon him. They also sent envoys to Sparta, with
peace proposals which received no encouragement. But Pericles
spoke calmly and wisely to the people, and they acknowledged
their sense of dependence upon him by re-electing him general
and committing again "all their affairs to his charge." But he
was stricken next year with the plague, and, lingering for
some weeks in broken health, he died in the summer of 429 B.
C. By his death the republic was given over to striving
demagogues and factions, at just the time when a capable brain
and hand were needed in its government most. The war went on,
acquiring more ferocity of temper with every campaign. It was
especially embittered in the course of the second summer by
the execution, at Athens, of several Lacedaemonian envoys who
were captured while on their way to solicit help from the
Persian king. One of these unfortunate envoys was Aristeus,
who had organized the defence of Potidaea. That city was still
holding out against the Athenians, who blockaded it obstinately,
although their troops suffered frightfully from the plague.
But in the winter of 430-429 B. C. they succumbed to
starvation and surrendered their town, being permitted to
depart in search of a new home. Potidaea was then peopled
anew, with colonists.

_Thucydides, History,
translated by Jowett, book 2, section 8-70._

ALSO IN:
_E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens,
chapter 13-15._

_W. W. Lloyd, The Age of Pericles, chapter 64 (volume 2)._

_L. Whibley, Political Parties in Athens during the
Peloponnesian War._

_W. Wachsmuth, History Antiquities of the Greeks,
sections 62-64 (volume 2)._

ATHENS: B. C. 429-421.
After Pericles.
The rise of the Demagogues.

"When Pericles rose to power it would have been possible to
frame a Pan-Hellenic union, in which Sparta and Athens would
have been the leading states; and such a dualism would have
been the best guarantee for the rights of the smaller cities.
When he died there was no policy left but war with Sparta, and
conquest in the West. And not only so, but there was no
politician who could adjust the relations of domestic war and
foreign conquest. The Athenians passed from one to the other,
as they were addressed by Cleon or Alcibiades. We cannot
wonder that the men who lived in those days of trouble spoke
bitterly of Pericles, holding him accountable for the miseries
which fell upon Athens. Other statesmen had bequeathed good
laws, as Solon and Clisthenes, or the memory of great
achievements, as Themistocles or Cimon, but the only changes
which Pericles had introduced were thought, not without
reason, to be changes for the worse; and he left his country
involved in a ruinous war.".

_E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens,
pages 362-363._

{172}

"The moral change which had ... befallen the Attic community
had, it is true, even during the lifetime of Pericles,
manifested itself by means of sufficiently clear premonitory
signs; but Pericles had, notwithstanding, up to the days of
his last illness, remained the centre of the state; the people
had again and again returned to him, and by subordinating
themselves to the personal authority of Pericles had succeeded
in recovering the demeanor which befitted them. But now the
voice was hushed, which had been able to sway the unruly
citizens, even against their will. No other authority was in
existence--no aristocracy, no official class, no board of
experienced statesmen--nothing, in fact, to which the citizens
might have looked for guidance and control. The multitude had
recovered absolute independence, and in proportion as, in the
interval, readiness of speech and sophistic versatility had
spread in Athens, the number had increased of those who now
put themselves forward as popular speakers and leaders. But
as, among all these, none was capable of leading the multitude
after the fashion of Pericles, another method of leading the
people, another kind of demagogy, sprung into existence.
Pericles stood above the multitude. ... His successors were
obliged to adopt other means; in order to acquire influence,
they took advantage not so much of the strong as of the weak
points in the character of the citizens, and achieved
popularity by flattering their inclinations, and endeavoring
to satisfy the cravings of their baser nature. ... Now for the
first time, men belonging to the lower class of citizens
thrust themselves forward to play a part in politics,--men of
the trading and artisan class, the culture and wealth of which
had so vigorously increased at Athens. ... The office of
general frequently became a post of martyrdom; and the bravest
men felt that the prospect of being called to account as to
their campaigns by cowardly demagogues, before a capricious
multitude, disturbed the straightforward joyousness of their
activity, and threw obstacles in the way of their successes.
... On the orators' tribune the contrast was more striking.
Here the first prominent successor of Pericles was a certain
Eucrates, a rude and uneducated man, who was ridiculed on the
comic stage as the 'boar' or 'bear of Melite' (the name of the
district to which he belonged), a dealer in tow and
mill-owner, who only for a short space of time took the lead
in the popular assembly. His place was taken by Lysicles, who
had acquired wealth by the cattle-trade. ... It was not until
after Lysicles, that the demagogues attained to power who had
first made themselves a name by their opposition against
Pericles, and, among them, Cleon was the first who was able to
maintain his authority for a longer period of time; so that it
is in his proceedings during the ensuing years of the war that
the whole character of the new demagogy first thoroughly
manifests itself."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, volume 3, chapter 2._

"The characters of the military commander and the political
leader were gradually separated. The first germs of this
division we find in the days of Kimôn and Periklês. Kimôn was
no mean politician; but his real genius clearly called him to
warfare with the Barbarian. Periklês was an able and
successful general; but in him the military character was
quite subordinate to that of the political leader. It was a
wise compromise which entrusted Kimôn with the defence of the
state abroad and Periklês with its management at home. After
Periklês the separation widened. We nowhere hear of
Dêmosthenes and Phormiôn as political leaders; and even in
Nikias the political is subordinate to the military character.
Kleôn, on the other hand, was a politician but not a soldier.
But the old notion of combining military and political
position was not quite lost. It was still deemed that he who
proposed a warlike expedition should himself, if it were
needful, be able to conduct it. Kleôn in an evil hour was
tempted to take on himself military functions; he was forced
into command against Sphaktêria; by the able and loyal help of
Dêmosthenês he acquitted himself with honour. But his head was
turned by success; he aspired to independent command; he
measured himself against the mighty Brasidas; and the fatal
battle of Amphipolis was the result. It now became clear that
the Demagogue and the General must commonly be two distinct
persons. The versatile genius of Alkibiadês again united the
two characters; but he left no successor. ... A Demagogue then
was simply an influential speaker of popular politics.
Dêmosthenês is commonly distinguished as an orator, while
Kleôn is branded as a Demagogue; but the position of the one
was the same as the position of the other. The only question
is as to the wisdom and honesty of the advice given either by
Kleôn or by Dêmosthenês."

_E. A. Freeman, Historical Essays, 2d ser.,
pages 138-140._

ATHENS: B. C. 429-427.
Fate of Platæa.
Phormio's Victories.
Revolt of Lesbos.
Siege of Mitylene.
Cleon's bloody decree and its reversal.

See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

ATHENS: B. C. 425.
Seizure of Pylus by Demosthenes, the general.
Spartans entrapped and captured at Sphacteria.
Peace pleaded for and refused.

See GREECE: B. C. 425.

ATHENS: B. C. 424-406.
Socrates as soldier and citizen.
The trial of the Generals.