Chapter XLIV (1)

FROM THE BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE DOWN TO THE DEATHS OF THEMISTOKLES AND ARISTEIDES.

After having in the last chapter followed the repulse of the Carthaginians by the Sicilian Greeks, we now return to the central Greeks and the Persians,—a case in which the triumph was yet more interesting to the cause of human improvement generally. The disproportion between the immense host assembled by Xerxes, and the little which he accomplished, naturally provokes both contempt for Persian force and an admiration for the comparative handful of men by whom they were so ignominiously beaten. Both these sentiments are just, but both are often exaggerated beyond the point which attentive contemplation of the facts will justify. The Persian mode of making war (which we may liken to that of the modern Turks,[493] now that the period of their energetic fanaticism has passed away) was in a high degree disorderly and inefficient: the men indeed, individually taken, especially the native Persians, were not deficient in the qualities of soldiers, but their arms and their organization were wretched,—and their leaders yet worse. On the other hand, the Greeks, equal, if not superior, in individual bravery, were incomparably superior in soldier-like order as well as in arms: but here too the leadership was defective, and the disunion a constant source of peril. Those who, like Plutarch (or rather the Pseudo-Plutarch) in his treatise on the Malignity of Herodotus, insist on acknowledging nothing but magnanimity and heroism in the proceedings of the Greeks throughout these critical years, are forced to deal very harshly with the inestimable witness on whom our knowledge of the facts depends,—and who intimates plainly that, in spite of the devoted courage displayed, not less by the vanquished at Thermopylæ than by the victors at Salamis, Greece owed her salvation chiefly to the imbecility, cowardice, and credulous rashness, of Xerxes.[494] Had he indeed possessed either the personal energy of Cyrus or the judgment of Artemisia, it may be doubted whether any excellence of management, or any intimacy of union, could have preserved the Greeks against so great a superiority of force; but it is certain that all their courage as soldiers in line would have been unavailing for that purpose, without a higher degree of generalship, and a more hearty spirit of coöperation, than that which they actually manifested.

[493] Mr. Waddington’s Letters from Greece, describing the Greek
revolution of 1821, will convey a good idea of the stupidity of
Turkish warfare: compare also the second volume of the Memoirs of
Baron de Tott, part iii.

[494] Thucyd. i, 69. ἐπιστάμενοι καὶ τὸν βάρβαρον αὐτὸν περὶ αὑτῷ
τὰ πλείω σφαλέντα, etc.: compare Thucyd. vi, 33.

One hundred and fifty years after this eventful period, we shall see the tables turned, and the united forces of Greece under Alexander of Macedon becoming invaders of Persia. We shall find that in Persia no improvement has taken place during this long interval,—that the scheme of defence under Darius Codomannus labors under the same defects as that of attack under Xerxes,—that there is the same blind and exclusive confidence in pitched battles with superior numbers,[495]—that the advice of Mentor the Rhodian, and of Charidemus, is despised like that of Demaratus and Artemisia,—that Darius Codomannus, essentially of the same stamp as Xerxes, is hurried into the battle of Issus by the same ruinous temerity as that which threw away the Persian fleet at Salamis,—and that the Persian native infantry (not the cavalry) even appear to have lost that individual gallantry which they displayed so conspicuously at Platæa. But on the Grecian side, the improvement in every way is very great: the orderly courage of the soldier has been sustained and even augmented, while the generalship and power of military combination has reached a point unexampled in the previous history of mankind. Military science may be esteemed a sort of creation during this interval, and will be found to go through various stages: Demosthenês and Brasidas, the Cyreian army and Xenophon, Agesilaus, Iphikratês, Epaminondas, Philip of Macedon, Alexander:[496] for the Macedonian princes are borrowers of Greek tactics, though extending and applying them with a personal energy peculiar to themselves, and with advantages of position such as no Athenian or Spartan ever enjoyed. In this comparison between the invasion of Xerxes and that of Alexander we contrast the progressive spirit of Greece, serving as herald and stimulus to the like spirit in Europe, with the stationary mind of Asia, occasionally roused by some splendid individual, but never appropriating to itself new social ideas or powers, either for war or for peace.

[495] Thucyd. i, 142. πλήθει τὴν ἀμαθίαν θρασύνοντες, etc.

[496] See a remarkable passage in the third Philippic of
Demosthenês, c. 10, p. 123.

It is out of the invasion of Xerxes that those new powers of combination, political as well as military, which lighten up Grecian history during the next two centuries, take their rise. They are brought into agency through the altered position and character of the Athenians—improvers, to a certain extent, of military operations on land, but the great creators of marine tactics and manœuvring in Greece,—and the earliest of all Greeks who showed themselves capable of organizing and directing the joint action of numerous allies and dependents,—thus uniting the two distinctive qualities of the Homeric Agamemnon,[497]—ability in command, with vigor in execution.

[497]

Ἀμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ’ ἀγαθὸς, κρατερός τ’ αἰχμήτης.
Homer, Iliad, iii, 179.

In the general Hellenic confederacy, which had acted against Persia under the presidency of Sparta, Athens could hardly be said to occupy any ostensible rank above that of an ordinary member: the post of second dignity in the line at Platæa had indeed been adjudged to her, but only after a contending claim from Tegea. But without any difference in ostensible rank, she was in the eye and feeling of Greece no longer the same power as before. She had suffered more, and at sea had certainly done more, than all the other allies put together: even on land at Platæa, her hoplites had manifested a combination of bravery, discipline, and efficiency against the formidable Persian cavalry superior even to the Spartans: nor had any Athenian officer committed so perilous an act of disobedience as the Spartan Amompharetus. After the victory of Mykalê, when the Peloponnesians all hastened home to enjoy their triumph, the Athenian forces did not shrink from prolonged service for the important object of clearing the Hellespont, thus standing forth as the willing and forward champions of the Asiatic Greeks against Persia. Besides these exploits of Athens collectively, the only two individuals gifted with any talents for command, whom this momentous conquest had thrown up, were both of them Athenians: first, Themistoklês; next, Aristeidês. From the beginning to the end of the struggle, Athens had displayed an unreserved Pan-Hellenic patriotism, which had been most ungenerously requited by the Peloponnesians; who had kept within their isthmian walls, and betrayed Attica twice to hostile ravage; the first time, perhaps, unavoidably,—but the second time a culpable neglect, in postponing their outward march against Mardonius. And the Peloponnesians could not but feel, that while they had left Attica unprotected, they owed their own salvation at Salamis altogether to the dexterity of Themistoklês and the imposing Athenian naval force.

Considering that the Peloponnesians had sustained little or no mischief by the invasion, while the Athenians had lost for the time even their city and country, with a large proportion of their movable property irrecoverably destroyed,—we might naturally expect to find the former, if not lending their grateful and active aid to repair the damage in Attica, at least cordially welcoming the restoration of the ruined city by its former inhabitants. Instead of this, we find the same selfishness again prevalent among them; ill-will and mistrust for the future, aggravated by an admiration which they could not help feeling, overlays all their gratitude and sympathy. The Athenians, on returning from Salamis after the battle of Platæa, found a desolate home to harbor them. Their country was laid waste,—their city burnt or destroyed; so that there remained but a few houses standing, wherein the Persian officers had taken up their quarters,—and their fortifications for the most part razed or overthrown. It was their first task to bring home their families and effects from the temporary places of shelter at Trœzen, Ægina, and Salamis. After providing what was indispensably necessary for immediate wants, they began to rebuild their city and its fortifications on a scale of enlarged size in every direction.[498] But as soon as they were seen to be employed on this indispensable work, without which neither political existence nor personal safety was practicable, the allies took the alarm, preferred complaints to Sparta, and urged her to arrest the work: in the front of these complainants, probably, stood the Æginetans, as the old enemies of Athens, and as having most to apprehend from her might at sea. The Spartans, perfectly sympathizing with the jealousy and uneasiness of their allies, were even disposed, from old association, to carry their dislike of fortifications still farther, so that they would have been pleased to see all the other Grecian cities systematically defenceless like Sparta itself.[499] But while sending an embassy to Athens, to offer a friendly remonstrance against the project of re-fortifying the city, they could not openly and peremptorily forbid the exercise of a right common to every autonomous community,—nor did they even venture, at a moment when the events of the past months were fresh in every one’s remembrance, to divulge their real jealousies as to the future. They affected to offer prudential reasons against the scheme, founded on the chance of a future Persian invasion; in which case it would be a dangerous advantage for the invader to find any fortified city outside of Peloponnesus to further his operations, as Thebes had recently seconded Mardonius. They proposed to the Athenians, therefore, not merely to desist from their own fortifications, but also to assist them in demolishing all fortifications of other cities beyond the limits of Peloponnesus,—promising shelter within the isthmus, in case of need, to all exposed parties.

[498] Thucyd. i. 89.

[499] Thucyd. i, 90. τὰ μὲν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἥδιον ἂν ὁρῶντες μήτε
ἐκείνους μητ’ ἄλλον μηδένα τεῖχος ἔχοντα, τὸ δὲ πλέον, τῶν
ξυμμάχων ἐξοτρυνόντων καὶ φοβουμένων τοῦ τε ναυτικοῦ αὐτῶν τὸ
πλῆθος, ὃ πρὶν οὐχ ὑπῆρχε, καὶ τὴν ἐς τὸν Μηδικὸν πόλεμον τόλμαν
γενομένην.

A statesman like Themistoklês was not likely to be imposed upon by this diplomacy: but he saw that the Spartans had the power of preventing the work if they chose, and that it could only be executed by the help of successful deceit. By his advice, the Athenians dismissed the Spartan envoys, saying that they would themselves send to Sparta and explain their views. Accordingly, Themistoklês himself was presently despatched thither, as one among three envoys instructed to enter into explanations with the Spartan authorities; but his two colleagues, Aristeidês and Abronichus, by previous concert, were tardy in arriving,—and he remained inactive at Sparta, making use of their absence as an excuse for not even demanding an audience, but affecting surprise that their coming was so long delayed. But while Aristeidês and Abronichus, the other two envoys, were thus studiously kept back, the whole population of Athens labored unremittingly at the walls. Men, women, and children, all tasked their strength to the utmost during this precious interval: neither private houses, nor sacred edifices, were spared to furnish materials; and such was their ardor in the enterprise, that, before the three envoys were united at Sparta, the wall had already attained a height sufficient at least to attempt defence. Yet the interval had been long enough to provoke suspicion, even in the slow mind of the Spartans, while the more watchful Æginetans sent them positive intelligence that the wall was rapidly advancing. Themistoklês, on hearing this allegation, peremptorily denied the truth of it; and the personal esteem entertained towards him was at that time so great, that his assurance[500] obtained for some time unqualified credit, until fresh messengers again raised suspicions in the minds of the Spartans. In reply to these, Themistoklês urged the ephors to send envoys of their own to Athens, and thus convince themselves of the state of the facts. They unsuspectingly acted upon his recommendation, while he at the same time transmitted a private communication to Athens, desiring that the envoys might not be suffered to depart until the safe return of himself and his colleagues, which he feared might be denied them when his trick came to be divulged. Aristeidês and Abronichus had now arrived,—the wall was announced to be of a height at least above contempt,—and Themistoklês at once threw off the mask: he avowed the stratagem practised,—told the Spartans that Athens was already fortified sufficiently to insure the safety and free will of its inhabitants,—and warned them that the hour of constraint was now past, the Athenians being in a condition to define and vindicate for themselves their own rights and duties in reference to Sparta and the allies. He reminded them that the Athenians had always been found competent to judge for themselves, whether in joint consultation, or in any separate affair, such as the momentous crisis of abandoning their city and taking to their ships: they had now, in the exercise of this self-judgment, resolved upon fortifying their city, as a step indispensable to themselves and advantageous even to the allies generally. Nor could there be any equal or fair interchange of opinion unless all the allies had equal means of defence: either all must be unfortified, or Athens must be fortified as well as the rest.[501]

[500] Thucyd. i. 91, τῷ μὲν Θεμιστοκλεῖ ἐπείθοντο διὰ φιλίαν
αὐτοῦ.

[501] Thucyd. i. 91, Οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε εἶναι μὴ ἀπὸ ἀντιπάλου
παρασκευῆς ὁμοῖόν τι ἢ ἴσον ἐς τὸ κοινὸν βουλεύεσθαι. Ἢ πάντας
οὖν ἀτειχίστους ἔφη χρῆναι ξυμμαχεῖν ἢ καὶ τάδε νομίζειν ὀρθῶς
ἔχειν.

Mortified as the Spartans were by a revelation which showed that they had been not only detected in a dishonest purpose, but completely outwitted,—they were at the same time overawed by the decisive tone of Themistoklês, whom they never afterwards forgave. To arrest beforehand erection of the walls would have been practicable, though not perhaps without difficulty; to deal by force with the fact accomplished, was perilous in a high degree: moreover, the inestimable services just rendered by Athens became again predominant in their minds, so that sentiment and prudence for the time coincided. They affected therefore to accept the communication without manifesting any offence, nor had they indeed put forward any pretence which required to be formally retracted. The envoys on both sides returned home, and the Athenians completed their fortifications without obstruction,[502]—yet not without murmurs on the part of the allies, who bitterly reproached Sparta afterwards for having let slip this golden opportunity of arresting the growth of the giant.[503]

[502] We are fortunate enough to possess this narrative,
respecting the rebuilding of the walls of Athens, as recounted by
Thucydidês. It is the first incident which he relates, in that
general sketch of events between the Persian and Peloponnesian
war, which precedes his professed history (i, 89-92). Diodorus
(xi, 39, 40), Plutarch (Themistoklês, c. 19), and Cornelius Nepos
(Themist. c. 6, 7), seem all to have followed Thucydidês, though
Plutarch also notices a statement of Theopompus, to the effect
that Themistoklês accomplished his object by bribing the ephors.
This would not be improbable in itself,—nor is it inconsistent
with the narrative of Thucydidês; but the latter either had not
heard or did not believe it.

[503] Thucyd. i, 69. Καὶ τῶνδε ὑμεῖς αἴτιοι (says the Corinthian
envoy addressing the Lacedæmonians), τό τε πρῶτον ἐάσαντες αὐτοὺς
(the Athenians) τὴν πόλιν μετὰ τὰ Μηδικὰ κρατῦναι, καὶ ὕστερον τὰ
μακρὰ στῆσαι τείχη, etc.

If the allies were apprehensive of Athens before, the mixture of audacity, invention, and deceit, whereby she had just eluded the hindrance opposed to her fortifications, was well calculated to aggravate their uneasiness. On the other hand, to the Athenians, the mere hint of intervention to debar them from that common right of self-defence which was exercised by every autonomous city except Sparta, must have appeared outrageous injustice,—aggravated by the fact that it was brought upon them by their peculiar sufferings in the common cause, and by the very allies who, without their devoted forwardness, would now have been slaves of the Great King. And the intention of the allies to obstruct the fortifications must have been known to every soul in Athens, from the universal press of hands required to hurry the work and escape interference; just as it was proclaimed to after-generations by the shapeless fragments and irregular structure of the wall, in which even sepulchral stones and inscribed columns were seen imbedded.[504] Assuredly, the sentiment connected with this work, performed as it was alike by rich and poor, strong and weak,—men, women, and children,—must have been intense as well as equalizing: all had endured the common miseries of exile, all had contributed to the victory, all were now sharing the same fatigue for the defence of their recovered city, in order to counterwork the ungenerous hindrance of their Peloponnesian allies. We must take notice of these stirring circumstances, peculiar to the Athenians and acting upon a generation which had now been nursed in democracy for a quarter of a century, and had achieved unaided the victory of Marathon,—if we would understand that still stronger burst of aggressive activity, persevering self-confidence, and aptitude as well as thirst for command,—together with that still wider spread of democratical organization,—which marks their character during the age immediately following.

[504] Thucyd. i, 93. Cornelius Nepos (Themist. c. 7) exaggerates
this into a foolish conceit.

The plan of the new fortification was projected on a scale not unworthy of the future grandeur of the city. Its circuit was sixty stadia, or about seven miles, with the acropolis nearly in the centre: but the circuit of the previous walls is unknown, so that we are unable to measure the extent of that enlargement which Thucydidês testifies to have been carried out on every side. It included within the town the three hills of the Areopagus, the Pnyx, and the Museum; while on the south of the town it was carried for a space even on the southern bank of the Ilissus, thus also comprising the fountain Kallirhoê.[505] In spite of the excessive hurry in which it was raised, the structure was thoroughly solid and sufficient against every external enemy: but there is reason to believe that its very large inner area was never filled with buildings. Empty spaces, for the temporary shelter of inhabitants driven in from the country with their property, were eminently useful to a Grecian city-community; to none more useful than to the Athenians, whose principal strength lay in their fleet, and whose citizens habitually resided in large proportion in their separate demes throughout Attica.

[505] For the dimensions and direction of the Themistoklean
walls of Athens, see especially the excellent Treatise of
Forchhammer—Topographie von Athen—published in the Kieler
Philologische Studien. Kiel, 1841.

The plan of Athens, prepared by Kiepert after his own researches
and published among his recent maps, adopts for the most part the
ideas of Forchhammer, as to the course of the walls.

The first indispensable step, in the renovation of Athens after her temporary extinction, was now happily accomplished: the city was made secure against external enemies. But Themistoklês, to whom the Athenians owed the late successful stratagem, and whose influence must have been much strengthened by its success, had conceived plans of a wider and more ambitious range. He had been the original adviser of the great maritime start taken by his countrymen, as well as of the powerful naval force which they had created during the last few years, and which had so recently proved their salvation. He saw in that force both the only chance of salvation for the future, in case the Persians should renew their attack by sea,—a contingency at that time seemingly probable,—and boundless prospects of future ascendency over the Grecian coasts and islands: it was the great engine of defence, of offence, and of ambition. To continue this movement required much less foresight and genius than to begin it, and Themistoklês, the moment that the walls of the city had been finished, brought back the attention of his countrymen to those wooden walls which had served them as a refuge against the Persian monarch. He prevailed upon them to provide harbor-room at once safe and adequate, by the enlargement end fortification of the Peiræus. This again was only the prosecution of an enterprise previously begun: for he had already, while in office two or three years before,[506] made his countrymen sensible that the open roadstead of Phalêrum was thoroughly insecure, and had prevailed upon them to improve and employ in part the more spacious harbors of Peiræus and Munychia,—three natural basins, all capable of being closed and defended. Something had then been done towards the enlargement of this port, though it had probably been subsequently ruined by the Persian invaders: but Themistoklês now resumed the scheme on a scale far grander than he could then have ventured to propose,—a scale which demonstrates the vast auguries present to his mind respecting the destinies of Athens. Peiræus and Munychia, in his new plan, constituted a fortified space as large as the enlarged Athens, and with a wall far more elaborate and unassailable. The wall which surrounded them, sixty stadia in circuit,[507] was intended by him to be so stupendous, both in height and thickness, as to render assault hopeless, and to enable the whole military population to act on shipboard, leaving only old men and boys as a garrison.[508] We may judge how vast his project was, when we learn that the wall, though in practice always found sufficient, was only carried up to half the height which he had contemplated.[509] In respect to thickness, however, his ideas were exactly followed: two carts meeting one another brought stones which were laid together right and left on the outer side of each, and thus formed two primary parallel walls, between which the interior space—of course, at least as broad as the joint breadth of the two carts—was filled up, “not with rubble, in the usual manner of the Greeks, but constructed, throughout the whole thickness, of squared stones, cramped together with metal.”[510] The result was a solid wall, probably not less than fourteen or fifteen feet thick, since it was intended to carry so very unusual a height. In the exhortations whereby he animated the people to this fatiguing and costly work, he labored to impress upon them that Peiræus was of more value to them than Athens itself, and that it afforded a shelter into which, if their territory should be again overwhelmed by a superior land-force, they might securely retire, with full liberty of that maritime action in which they were a match for all the world.[511] We may even suspect that if Themistoklês could have followed his own feelings, he would have altered the site of the city from Athens to Peiræus: the attachment of the people to their ancient and holy rock doubtless prevented any such proposition. Nor did he at that time, probably, contemplate the possibility of those long walls which in a few years afterwards consolidated the two cities into one.

[506] Thucyd. i. 93. ἔπεισε δὲ καὶ τοῦ Πειραιέως τὰ λοιπὰ ὁ
Θεμιστοκλῆς οἰκοδομεῖν (ὑπῆρκτο δ’ αὐτοῦ πρότερον ἐπὶ τῆς ἐκείνου
ἀρχῆς, ἧς κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν Ἀθηναίοις ἦρξε).

Upon which words the Scholiast observes (Κατ’ ἐνιαυτὸν)—κατά τινα
ἐνιαυτὸν ~ἡγεμὼν~ ἐγένετο· πρὸ δὲ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἦρξε Θεμιστοκλῆς
ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα.

It seems hardly possible, having no fuller evidence to proceed
upon, to determine to which of the preceding years Thucydidês
means to refer this ἀρχὴ of Themistoklês. Mr. Fynes Clinton,
after discussing the opinions of Dodwell and Corsini (see Fasti
Hellenici, ad ann. 481 B. C. and Preface, p. xv), inserts
Themistoklês as archon eponymus in 481 B. C., the year before
the invasion of Xerxes, and supposes the Peiræus to have been
commenced in that year. This is not in itself improbable: but
he cites the Scholiast as having asserted the same thing before
him (πρὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἦρξε Θεμιστοκλῆς ~ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα~), in which
I apprehend that he is not borne out by the analogy of the
language: ἐνιαυτὸν ἕνα, in the accusative case, denotes only
the duration of the ἀρχὴ, not the position of the year (compare
Thucyd. iii, 68).

I do not feel certain that Thucydidês meant to designate
Themistoklês as having been archon eponymus, or as having been
one of the nine archons. He may have meant, “during the year when
Themistoklês was stratêgus (or general),” and the explanation of
the Scholiast, who employs the word ἡγεμὼν, rather implies that
he so understood it. The stratêgi were annual as well as the
archons. Now we know that Themistoklês was one of the generals in
480 B. C., and that he commanded in Thessaly, at Artemisium, and
at Salamis. The Peiræus may have been begun in the early part of
480 B. C., when Xerxes was already on his march, or at least at
Sardis.

[507] Thucyd. ii, 13.

[508] Thucyd. i, 93.

[509] Thucyd. i, 93. Τὸ δὲ ὕψος ἥμισυ μάλιστα ἐτελέσθη οὗ
διενοεῖτο· ἐβούλετο γὰρ τῷ μεγέθει καὶ τῷ πάχει ἀφιστάναι τὰς
τῶν πολεμίων ἐπιβουλάς, ἀνθρώπων δὲ ἐνόμιζεν ὀλίγων καὶ τῶν
ἀχρειοτάτων ἀρκέσειν τὴν φυλακὴν, τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους ἐς τὰς ναῦς
ἐσβήσεσθαι.

[510] Thucyd. i, 93. The expressions are those of Colonel Leake,
derived from inspection of the scanty remnant of these famous
walls still to be seen—Topography of Athens, ch. ix, p. 411: see
edit. p. 293, Germ. transl. Compare Aristophan. Aves, 1127, about
the breadth of the wall of Nephelokokkygia.

[511] Thucyd. i, 93 (compare Cornel. Nepos, Themistok. c. 6) ταῖς
ναυσὶ πρὸς ἅπαντας ἀνθίστασθαι.

Forty-five years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, we shall hear from Periklês, who espoused and carried out the large ideas of Themistoklês, this same language about the capacity of Athens to sustain a great power exclusively or chiefly upon maritime action. But the Athenian empire was then an established reality, whereas in the time of Themistoklês it was yet a dream, and his bold predictions, surpassed as they were by the future reality, mark that extraordinary power of practical divination which Thucydidês so emphatically extols in him. And it proves the exuberant hope which had now passed into the temper of the Athenian people, when we find them, on the faith of these predictions, undertaking a new enterprise of so much toil and expense; and that too when just returned from exile into a desolated country, at a moment of private distress and public impoverishment. However, Peiræus served other purposes besides its direct use as a dockyard for military marine: its secure fortifications and the protection of the Athenian navy, were well calculated to call back those metics, or resident foreigners, who had been driven away by the invasion of Xerxes, and who might feel themselves insecure in returning, unless some new and conspicuous means of protection were exhibited. To invite them back, and to attract new residents of a similar description, Themistoklês proposed to exempt them from the metoikion, or non-freeman’s annual tax:[512] but this exemption can only have lasted for a time, and the great temptation for them to return must have consisted in the new securities and facilities for trade, which Athens, with her fortified ports and navy, now afforded. The presence of numerous metics was profitable to the Athenians, both privately and publicly: much of the trading, professional, and handicraft business was in their hands: and the Athenian legislation, while it excluded them from the political franchise, was in other respects equitable and protective to them. In regard to trading pursuits, the metics had this advantage over the citizens,—that they were less frequently carried away for foreign military service. The great increase of their numbers, from this period forward, while it tended materially to increase the value of property all throughout Attica, but especially in Peiræus and Athens, where they mostly resided, helps us to explain the extraordinary prosperity, together with the excellent cultivation, prevalent throughout the country before the Peloponnesian war. The barley, vegetables, figs, and oil, produced in most parts of the territory,—the charcoal prepared in the flourishing deme of Acharnæ,[513]—and the fish obtained in abundance near the coast,—all found opulent buyers and a constant demand from the augmenting town population.

[512] Diodor. xi, 43.

[513] See the lively picture of the Acharnian demots in the
comedy of Aristophanês so entitled.

Respecting the advantages derived from the residence of metics
and from foreign visitors, compare the observations of Isokratês,
more than a century after this period, Orat. iv, De Pace, p. 163,
and Xenophon, De Vectigalibus, c. iv.

We are farther told that Themistoklês[514] prevailed on the Athenians to build every year twenty new ships of the line,—so we may designate the trireme. Whether this number was always strictly adhered to, it is impossible to say: but to repair the ships, as well as to keep up their numbers, was always regarded among the most indispensable obligations of the executive government.

[514] Diodor. xi, 43.

It does not appear that the Spartans offered any opposition to the fortification of the Peiræus, though it was an enterprise greater, more novel, and more menacing, than that of Athens. But Diodorus tells us, probably enough, that Themistoklês thought it necessary to send an embassy to Sparta,[515] intimating that his scheme was to provide a safe harbor for the collective navy of Greece, in the event of future Persian attack.

[515] Diodor. xi, 41, 42, 43. I mean, that the fact of such an
embassy being sent to Sparta is probable enough,—separating that
fact from the preliminary discussions which Diodorus describes
as having preceded it in the assembly of Athens, and which seem
unmeaning as well as incredible. His story—that Themistoklês
told the assembly that he had a conceived scheme of great
moment to the state, but that it did not admit of being made
public beforehand, upon which the assembly named Aristeidês
and Xanthippus to hear it confidentially and judge of it—seems
to indicate that Diodorus had read the well-known tale of the
project of Themistoklês to burn the Grecian fleet in the harbor
of Pagasæ, and that he jumbled it in his memory with this other
project for enlarging and fortifying the Peiræus.

Works on so vast a scale must have taken a considerable time, and absorbed much of the Athenian force; yet they did not prevent Athens from lending active aid towards the expedition which, in the year after the battle of Platæa (B. C. 478) set sail for Asia under the Spartan Pausanias. Twenty ships from the various cities of Peloponnesus[516] were under his command: the Athenians alone furnished thirty, under the orders of Aristeidês and Kimon: other triremes also came from the Ionian and insular allies. They first sailed to Cyprus, in which island they liberated most of the Grecian cities from the Persian government: next, they turned to the Bosphorus of Thrace, and undertook the siege of Byzantium, which, like Sestus in the Chersonese, was a post of great moment, as well as of great strength,—occupied by a considerable Persian force, with several leading Persians and even kinsmen of the monarch. The place was captured,[517] seemingly after a prolonged siege: it might probably hold out even longer than Sestus, as being taken less unprepared. The line of communication between the Euxine sea and Greece was thus cleared of obstruction.

[516] Thucyd. i, 94; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 23. Diodorus (xi,
44) says that the Peloponnesian ships were fifty in number: his
statement is not to be accepted, in opposition to Thucydidês.

[517] Thucyd. i, 94.

The capture of Byzantium proved the signal for a capital and unexpected change in the relations of the various Grecian cities; a change, of which the proximate cause lay in the misconduct of Pausanias, but towards which other causes, deep-seated as well as various, also tended. In recounting the history of Miltiades,[518] I noticed the deplorable liability of the Grecian leading men to be spoiled by success: this distemper worked with singular rapidity on Pausanias. As conqueror of Platæa, he had acquired a renown unparalleled in Grecian experience, together with a prodigious share of the plunder: the concubines, horses,[519] camels, and gold plate, which had thus passed into his possession, were well calculated to make the sobriety and discipline of Spartan life irksome, while his power also, though great on foreign command, became subordinate to that of the ephors when he returned home. His newly-acquired insolence was manifested immediately after the battle, in the commemorative tripod dedicated by his order at Delphi, which proclaimed himself by name and singly, as commander of the Greeks and destroyer of the Persians: an unseemly boast, of which the Lacedæmonians themselves were the first to mark their disapprobation, by causing the inscription to be erased, and the names of the cities who had taken part in the combat to be all enumerated on the tripod.[520] Nevertheless, he was still sent on the command against Cyprus and Byzantium, and it was on the capture of this latter place that his ambition and discontent first ripened into distinct treason. He entered into correspondence with Gongylus the Eretrian exile (now a subject of Persia, and invested with the property and government of a district in Mysia), to whom he intrusted his new acquisition of Byzantium, and the care of the valuable prisoners taken in it. These prisoners were presently suffered to escape, or rather sent away underhand to Xerxes; together with a letter from the hand of Pausanias himself, to the following effect: “Pausanias, the Spartan commander, having taken these captives, sends them back, in his anxiety to oblige thee. I am minded, if it so please thee, to marry thy daughter, and to bring under thy dominion both Sparta and the rest of Greece: with thy aid, I think myself competent to achieve this. If my proposition be acceptable, send some confidential person down to the seaboard, through whom we may hereafter correspond.” Xerxes, highly pleased with the opening thus held out, immediately sent down Artabazus (the same who had been second in command in Bœotia) to supersede Megabatês in the satrapy of Daskylium; the new satrap, furnished with a letter of reply bearing the regal seal, was instructed to further actively the projects of Pausanias. The letter was to this purport: “Thus saith King Xerxes to Pausanias. Thy name stands forever recorded in my house as a well-doer, on account of the men whom thou hast saved for me beyond sea at Byzantium: and thy propositions now received are acceptable to me. Relax not either night or day in accomplishing that which thou promisest, nor let thyself be held back by cost, either gold or silver, or numbers of men, if thou standest in need of them, but transact in confidence thy business and mine jointly with Artabazus, the good man whom I have now sent, in such manner as may be best for both of us.”[521]

[518] See the volume of this history immediately preceding, ch.
xxxvi, p. 372.

[519] Herodot. ix, 81.

[520] In the Athenian inscriptions on the votive offerings
dedicated after the capture of Eion, as well as after the great
victories near the river Eurymedon, the name of Kimon the
commander is not even mentioned (Plutarch, Kimon, c. 7; Diodor.
xi, 62).

A strong protest, apparently familiar to Grecian feeling, against
singling out the general particularly, to receive the honors of
victory, appears in Euripid. Andromach. 694: striking verses,
which are said to have been indignantly repeated by Kleitus,
during the intoxication of the banquet wherein he was slain by
Alexander (Quint. Curtius, viii, 4, 29 (viii, 4); Plutarch,
Alexand. c. 51).

[521] These letters are given by Thucydidês verbatim (i,
128, 129): he had seen them or obtained copies (ὡς ὕστερον
ἀνευρέθη)—they were, doubtless, communicated along with the
final revelations of the confidential Argilian slave. As they
are autographs, I have translated them literally, retaining that
abrupt transition from the third person to the first, which is
one of their peculiarities. Cornelius Nepos, who translates the
letter of Pausanias, has effaced this peculiarity, and carries
the third person from the beginning to the end (Cornel. Nep.
Pausan. c. 2).

Throughout the whole of this expedition, Pausanias had been insolent and domineering, degrading the allies at quarters and watering-places in the most offensive manner as compared with the Spartans, and treating the whole armament in a manner which Greek warriors could not tolerate, even in a Spartan Herakleid, and a victorious general. But when he received the letter from Xerxes, and found himself in immediate communication with Artabazus, as well as supplied with funds for corruption,[522] his insane hopes knew no bounds, and he already fancied himself son-in-law of the Great King, as well as despot of Hellas. Fortunately for Greece, his treasonable plans were not deliberately laid and veiled until ripe for execution, but manifested with childish impatience. He clothed himself in Persian attire—(a proceeding which the Macedonian army, a century and a half afterwards, could not tolerate,[523] even in Alexander the Great)—he traversed Thrace with a body of Median and Egyptian guards,—he copied the Persian chiefs, both in the luxury of his table and in his conduct towards the free women of Byzantium. Kleonikê, a Byzantine maiden of conspicuous family, having been ravished from her parents by his order, was brought to his chamber at night: he happened to be asleep, and being suddenly awakened, knew not at first who was the person approaching his bed, but seized his sword and slew her.[524] Moreover, his haughty reserve, with uncontrolled bursts of wrath, rendered him unapproachable; and the allies at length came to regard him as a despot rather than a general. The news of such outrageous behavior, and the manifest evidences of his alliance with the Persians, were soon transmitted to the Spartans, who recalled him to answer for his conduct, and seemingly the Spartan vessels along with him.[525]

[522] Diodor. xi, 44.

[523] Arrian. Exp. Alex. iv, 7, 7; vii, 8, 4; Quint. Curt. vi, 6,
10 (vi, 21, 11).

[524] Plutarch, Kimon, c. 6; also Plutarch, De Ser. Numin. Vind.
c. 10, p. 555. Pausanias, iii, 17, 8. It is remarkable that the
latter heard the story of the death of Kleonikê from the lips of
a Byzantine citizen of his own day, and seems to think that it
had never found place in any written work.

[525] Thucyd. i, 95-131: compare Duris and Nymphis apud Athenæum,
xii, p. 535.

In spite of the flagrant conduct of Pausanias, the Lacedæmonians acquitted him on the allegations of positive and individual wrong; yet, mistrusting his conduct in reference to collusion with the enemy, they sent out Dorkis to supersede him as commander. But a revolution, of immense importance for Greece, had taken place in the minds of the allies. The headship, or hegemony, was in the hands of Athens, and Dorkis the Spartan found the allies not disposed to recognize his authority.

Even before the battle of Salamis, the question had been raised,[526] whether Athens was not entitled to the command at sea, in consequence of the preponderance of her naval contingent. The repugnance of the allies to any command except that of Sparta, either on land or water, had induced the Athenians to waive their pretensions at that critical moment. But the subsequent victories had materially exalted the latter in the eyes of Greece: while the armament now serving, differently composed from that which had fought at Salamis, contained a large proportion of the newly-enfranchised Ionic Greeks, who not only had no preference for Spartan command, but were attached to the Athenians on every ground,—as well from kindred race, as from the certainty that Athens with her superior fleet was the only protector upon whom they could rely against the Persians. Moreover, it happened that the Athenian generals on this expedition, Aristeidês and Kimon, were personally just and conciliating, forming a striking contrast with Pausanias. Hence the Ionic Greeks in the fleet, when they found that the behavior of the latter was not only oppressive towards themselves but also revolting to Grecian sentiment generally, addressed themselves to the Athenian commanders for protection and redress, on the plausible ground of kindred race;[527] entreating to be allowed to serve under Athens as leader instead of Sparta. Plutarch tells us that Aristeidês not only tried to remonstrate with Pausanias, who repelled him with arrogance,—which is exceedingly probable,—but that he also required, as a condition of his compliance with the request of the Ionic allies, that they should personally insult Pausanias, so as to make reconciliation impracticable: upon which a Samian and a Chian captain deliberately attacked and damaged the Spartan admiral-ship in the harbor of Byzantium.[528] The historians from whom Plutarch copied this latter statement must have presumed in the Athenians a disposition to provoke that quarrel with Sparta which afterwards sprung up as it were spontaneously: but the Athenians had no interest in doing so, nor can we credit the story,—which is, moreover, unnoticed by Thucydidês. To give the Spartans a just ground of indignation, would have been glaring imprudence on the part of Aristeidês: but he had every motive to entertain the request of the allies, and he began to take his measures for acting as their protector and chief. And his proceedings were much facilitated by the circumstance that the Spartan government about this time recalled Pausanias to undergo an examination, in consequence of the universal complaints against him which had reached them. He seems to have left no Spartan authority behind him,—even the small Spartan squadron accompanied him home: so that the Athenian generals had the best opportunity for insuring to themselves and exercising that command which the allies besought them to undertake. So effectually did they improve the moment, that when Dorkis arrived to replace Pausanias, they were already in full supremacy; while Dorkis, having only a small force, and being in no condition to employ constraint, found himself obliged to return home.[529]

[526] Herodot. viii, 2, 3. Compare the language of the Athenian
envoy, as it stands in Herodotus (vii, 155) addressed to Gelo.

[527] Thucyd. i, 95. ἠξίουν αὐτοὺς ἡγεμόνας σφῶν γενέσθαι κατὰ τὸ
ξυγγενὲς καὶ Παυσανίᾳ μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν ἤν που βιάζηται.

[528] 2 Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 23.

[529] Thucyd. i, 95; Diodorus, xi, 44-47.

This incident, though not a declaration of war against Sparta, was the first open renunciation of her authority as presiding state among the Greeks; the first avowed manifestation of a competitor for that dignity, with numerous and willing followers; the first separation of Greece—considered in herself alone and apart from foreign solicitations, such as the Persian invasion—into two distinct organized camps, each with collective interests and projects of its own. In spite of mortified pride, Sparta was constrained, and even in some points of view not indisposed, to patient acquiescence: for she had no means of forcing the dispositions of the Ionic allies, while the war with Persia altogether,—having now become no longer strictly defensive, and being withal maritime as well as distant from her own territory,—had ceased to be in harmony with her home routine and strict discipline. Her grave senators, especially an ancient Herakleid named Hetœmaridas, reproved the impatience of the younger citizens, and discountenanced the idea of permanent maritime command as a dangerous innovation: they even treated it as an advantage, that Athens should take the lead in carrying on the Persian war, since it could not be altogether dropped; nor had the Athenians as yet manifested any sentiments positively hostile, to excite their alarm.[530] Nay, they actually took credit in the eyes of Athens, about a century afterwards, for having themselves advised this separation of command at sea from command on land.[531] Moreover, if the war continued under Spartan guidance, there would be a continued necessity for sending out their kings or chief men to command: and the example of Pausanias showed them the depraving effect of such military power, remote as well as unchecked. The example of their king Leotychidês, too, near about this time, was a second illustration of the same tendency. At the same time, apparently, that Pausanias embarked for Asia to carry on the war against the Persians, Leotychidês was sent with an army into Thessaly to put down the Aleuadæ and those Thessalian parties who had sided with Xerxes and Mardonius. Successful in this expedition, he suffered himself to be bribed, and was even detected with a large sum of money actually on his person: in consequence of which the Lacedæmonians condemned him to banishment, and razed his house to the ground: he died afterwards in exile at Tegea.[532] Two such instances were well calculated to make the Lacedæmonians distrust the conduct of their Herakleid leaders when on foreign service, and this feeling weighed much in inducing them to abandon the Asiatic headship in favor of Athens. It appears that their Peloponnesian allies retired from this contest at the same time as they did, so that the prosecution of the war was thus left to Athens as chief of the newly-emancipated Greeks.[533]

[530] Thucyd. i, 95. Following Thucydidês in his conception of
these events, I have embodied in the narrative as much as seems
consistent with it in Diodorus (xi, 50), who evidently did not
here copy Thucydidês, but probably had Ephorus for his guide.
The name of Hetœmaridas, as an influential Spartan statesman on
this occasion, is probable enough; but his alleged speech on the
mischiefs of maritime empire, which Diodorus seems to have had
before him, composed by Ephorus, would probably have represented
the views and feelings of the year 350 B. C., and not those of
476 B. C. The subject would have been treated in the same manner
as Isokratês, the master of Ephorus, treats it, in his Crat.
viii, De Pace, pp. 179, 180.

[531] Xenophon, Hellen. vi, 5, 34. It was at the moment
when the Spartans were soliciting Athenian aid, after their
defeat at Leuktra. ὑπομιμνήσκοντες μὲν, ὡς τὸν βάρβαρον κοινῇ
ἀπεμαχέσαντο—ἀναμιμνήσκοντες δὲ, ὡς Ἀθηναῖοί τε ὑπὸ τῶν Ἑλλήνων
ᾑρέθησαν ἡγεμόνες τοῦ ναυτικοῦ, καὶ τῶν κοινῶν χρημάτων φύλακες,
τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων ταῦτα συμβουλομένων· αὐτοί τε κατὰ γῆν
ὁμολογουμένως ὑφ’ ἁπάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἡγεμόνες προκριθείησαν,
συμβουλομένων αὖ ταῦτα τῶν Ἀθηναίων.

[532] Herodot. vi, 72; Diodor. xi, 48; Pausanias, iii, 7, 8:
compare Plutarch, De Herodoti Malign. c. 21, p. 859.

Leotychidês died, according to Diodorus, in 476 B. C.: he had
commanded at Mykalê in 479 B. C. The expedition into Thessaly
must therefore have been in one of the two intermediate years,
if the chronology of Diodorus were, in this case, thoroughly
trustworthy. But Mr. Clinton (Fasti Hellenici, Appendix, ch. iii,
p. 210) has shown that Diodorus is contradicted by Plutarch,
about the date of the accession of Archidamus,—and by others,
about the date of the revolt at Sparta. Mr. Clinton places the
accession of Archidamus and the banishment of Leotychidês (of
course, therefore, the expedition into Thessaly) in 469 B. C. I
incline to believe that the expedition of Leotychidês against the
Thessalian Aleuadæ took place in the year or in the second year
following the battle of Platæa, because they had been the ardent
and hearty allies of Mardonius in Bœotia, and because the war
would seem not to have been completed without putting them down
and making the opposite party in Thessaly predominant.

Considering how imperfectly we know the Lacedæmonian chronology
of this date, it is very possible that some confusion may
have arisen in the case of Leotychidês, from the difference
between the date of his _banishment_ and that of his _death_.
King Pleistoanax afterwards, having been banished for the same
offence as that committed by Leotychidês, and having lived many
years in banishment, was afterwards restored: and the years
which he had passed in banishment were counted as a part of his
reign (Fast. Hellen. l. c. p. 211). The date of Archidamus may,
perhaps, have been reckoned in one account from the _banishment_
of Leotychidês,—in another, from his _death_; the rather, as
Archidamus must have been very young, since he reigned forty-two
years even after 469 B. C. And the date which Diodorus has given
as that of the death of Leotychidês, may really be only the date
of his banishment, in which he lived until 469 B. C.

[533] Thucyd. i, 18.

It was from these considerations that the Spartans were induced to submit to that loss of command which the misconduct of Pausanias had brought upon them. Their acquiescence facilitated the immense change about to take place in Grecian politics. According to the tendencies in progress prior to the Persian invasion, Sparta had become gradually more and more the president of something like a Pan-Hellenic union, comprising the greater part of the Grecian states. Such at least was the point towards which things seemed to be tending; and if many separate states stood aloof from this union, none of them at least sought to form any counter-union, if we except the obsolete and impotent pretensions of Argos. The preceding volumes of this history have shown that Sparta had risen to such ascendency, not from her superior competence in the management of collective interests, nor even in the main from ambitious efforts on her own part to acquire it,—but from the converging tendencies of Grecian feeling, which required some such presiding state, and from the commanding military power, rigid discipline, and ancient undisturbed constitution, which attracted that feeling towards Sparta. The necessities of common defence against Persia greatly strengthened these tendencies, and the success of the defence, whereby so many Greeks were emancipated who required protection against their former master, seemed destined to have the like effect still more. For an instant, after the battles of Platæa and Mykalê,—when the town of Platæa was set apart as a consecrated neutral spot for an armed confederacy against the Persian, with periodical solemnities and meetings of deputies,—Sparta was exalted to be the chief of a full Pan-Hellenic union, Athens being only one of the principal members: and had Sparta been capable either of comprehensive policy, of self-directed and persevering efforts, or of the requisite flexibility of dealing, embracing distant Greeks as well as near,—her position was now such, that her own ascendency, together with undivided Pan-Hellenic union, might long have been maintained. But she was lamentably deficient in all the requisite qualities, and the larger the union became, the more her deficiency stood manifest. On the other hand, Athens, now entering into rivalry as a sort of leader of opposition, possessed all those qualities in a remarkable degree, over and above that actual maritime force which was the want of the day; so that the opening made by Spartan incompetence and crime, so far as Pausanias was concerned, found her in every respect prepared. But the sympathies of the Peloponnesians still clung to Sparta, while those of the Ionian Greeks had turned to Athens: and thus not only the short-lived symptoms of an established Pan-Hellenic union, but even all tendencies towards it from this time disappear. There now stands out a manifest schism, with two pronounced parties, towards one of which nearly all the constituent atoms of the Grecian world gravitate: the maritime states, newly enfranchised from Persia, towards Athens,—the land-states, which had formed most part of the confederate army at Platæa, towards Sparta.[534] Along with this national schism and called into action by it, appears the internal political schism in each separate city between oligarchy and democracy. Of course, the germ of these parties had already previously existed in the separate states, but the energetic democracy of Athens, and the pronounced tendency of Sparta to rest upon the native oligarchies in each separate city as her chief support, now began to bestow, on the conflict of internal political parties, an Hellenic importance, and an aggravated bitterness, which had never before belonged to it.

[534] Thucyd. i, 18. Καὶ μεγάλου κινδύνου ἐπικρεμασθέντος οἵ
τε Λακεδαιμόνιοι τῶν ξυμπολεμησάντων Ἑλλήνων ἡγήσαντο δυνάμει
προὔχοντες, καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, διανοηθέντες ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν καὶ
ἀνασκευασάμενοι, ἐς τὰς ναῦς ἐμβάντες ναυτικοὶ ἐγένοντο. Κοινῇ
δὲ ἀπωσάμενοι τὸν βάρβαρον, ὕστερον οὐ πολλῷ διεκρίθησαν πρός τε
Ἀθηναίους καὶ Λακεδαιμονίους, οἵ τε ἀποστάντες βασιλέως Ἕλληνες
καὶ οἱ ξυμπολεμήσαντες. Δυνάμει γὰρ ταῦτα μέγιστα διεφάνη·
ἴσχυον γὰρ οἱ μὲν κατὰ γῆν, οἱ δὲ ναυσί. Καὶ ὀλίγον μὲν χρόνον
συνέμεινεν ἡ ~ὁμαιχμία~, ἔπειτα δὲ διενεχθέντες οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι
καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπολέμησαν μετὰ τῶν ξυμμάχων πρὸς ἀλλήλους·
καὶ τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων εἴτινές που διασταῖεν, πρὸς τούτους ἤδη
ἐχώρουν. Ὥστε ~ἀπὸ τῶν Μηδικῶν ἐς τόνδε ἀεὶ τὸν πόλεμον~, etc.

This is a clear and concise statement of the great revolution
in Grecian affairs, comparing the period before and after
the Persian war. Thucydidês goes on to trace briefly the
consequences of this bisection of the Grecian world into two
great leagues,—the growing improvement in military skill, and
the increasing stretch of military effort on both sides from
the Persian invasion down to the Peloponnesian war;—he remarks
also, upon the difference between Sparta and Athens in their
way of dealing with their allies respectively. He then states
the striking fact, that the military force put forth separately
by Athens and her allies on the one side, and by Sparta and her
allies on the other, during the Peloponnesian war, were each of
them greater than the entire force which had been employed by
both together in the most powerful juncture of their confederacy
against the Persian invaders,—Καὶ ἐγένετο ~αὐτοῖς~ ἐς τόνδε τὸν
πόλεμον ~ἡ ἰδία παρασκευὴ~ μείζων ἢ ὡς τὰ κράτιστά ~ποτε μετὰ
ἀκραιφνοῦς τῆς ξυμμαχίας~ ἤνθησαν (i, 19).