Chapter XLIX (1)

FROM THE BEGINNING OE THE SECOND YEAR DOWN TO THE END OF THE THIRD YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

At the close of one year after the attempted surprise of Platæa by the Thebans, the belligerent parties in Greece remained in an unaltered position as to relative strength. Nothing decisive had been accomplished on either side, either by the invasion of Attica, or by the flying descents round the coast of Peloponnesus: in spite of mutual damage inflicted,—doubtless, in the greatest measure upon Attica,—no progress was yet made towards the fulfilment of those objects which had induced the Peloponnesians to go to war. Especially, the most pressing among all their wishes—the relief of Potidæa—was noway advanced; for the Athenians had not found it necessary to relax the blockade of that city. The result of the first year’s operations had thus been to disappoint the hopes of the Corinthians and the other ardent instigators of war, while it justified the anticipations both of Periklês and of Archidamus.

A second devastation of Attica was resolved upon for the commencement of spring; and measures were taken for carrying it all over that territory, since the settled policy of Athens not to hazard a battle with the invaders was now ascertained. About the end of March, or beginning of April, the entire Peloponnesian force—two-thirds from each confederate city, as before—was assembled under the command of Archidamus, and marched into Attica. This time they carried the work of systematic destruction, not merely over the Thriasian plain and the plain immediately near to Athens, as before; but also to the more southerly portions of Attica, down even as far as the mines of Laurium. They traversed and ravaged both the eastern and the western coast, remaining not less than forty days in the country. They found the territory deserted as before, all the population having retired within the walls.[271]

[271] Thucyd. ii, 47-55.

In regard to this second invasion, Periklês recommended the same defensive policy as he had applied to the first; and, apparently, the citizens had now come to acquiesce in it, if not willingly, at least with a full conviction of its necessity. But a new visitation had now occurred, diverting their attention from the invader, though enormously aggravating their sufferings. A few days after Archidamus entered Attica, a pestilence, or epidemic sickness, broke out unexpectedly at Athens.

It appears that this terrific disorder had been raging for some time throughout the regions round the Mediterranean; having begun, as was believed, in Æthiopia,—thence passing into Egypt and Libya, and overrunning a considerable portion of Asia under the Persian government: about sixteen years before, too, there had been a similar calamity in Rome and in various parts of Italy. Recently, it had been felt in Lemnos and some other islands of the Ægean, yet seemingly not with such intensity as to excite much notice generally in the Grecian world: at length it passed to Athens, and first showed itself in the Peiræus. The progress of the disease was as rapid and destructive as its appearance had been sudden; whilst the extraordinary accumulation of people within the city and long walls, in consequence of the presence of the invaders in the country, was but too favorable to every form of contagion. Families crowded together in close cabins and places of temporary shelter,[272]—throughout a city constructed, like most of those in Greece, with little regard to the conditions of salubrity,—and in a state of mental chagrin from the forced abandonment and sacrifice of their properties in the country, transmitted the disorder with fatal facility from one to the other. Beginning as it did about the middle of April, the increasing heat of summer farther aided the disorder, the symptoms of which, alike violent and sudden, made themselves the more remarked because the year was particularly exempt from maladies of every other description.[273]

[272] Thucyd. ii, 52; Diodor. xii, 45; Plutarch, Periklês, c. 34.
It is to be remarked, that the Athenians, though their persons
and movable property were crowded within the walls, had not
driven in their sheep and cattle also, but had transported them
over to Eubœa and the neighboring islands (Thucyd. ii, 14). Hence
they escaped a serious aggravation of their epidemic: for in the
accounts of the epidemics which desolated Rome under similar
circumstances, we find the accumulation of great numbers of
cattle, along with human beings, specified as a terrible addition
to the calamity (see Livy, iii, 66; Dionys. Hal. Ant. Rom. x, 53:
compare Niebuhr, Römisch. Gesch. vol. ii, p. 90).

[273] Thucyd. ii, 49. Τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἔτος, ὡς ὡμολογεῖτο, ἐκ πάντων
μάλιστα δὴ ἐκεῖνο ἄνοσον ἐς τὰς ἄλλας ἀσθενείας ἐτύγχανεν ὄν.
Hippokratês, in his description of the epidemic fever at Thasos,
makes a similar remark on the absence of all other disorders at
the time (Epidem. i, 8, vol. ii, p. 640, ed. Littré).

Of this plague,—or, more properly, eruptive typhoid fever,[274] distinct from, yet analogous to, the smallpox,—a description no less clear than impressive has been left by the historian Thucydidês, himself not only a spectator but a sufferer. It is not one of the least of his merits, that his notice of the symptoms, given at so early a stage of medical science and observation, is such as to instruct the medical reader of the present age, and to enable the malady to be understood and identified. The observations, with which that notice is ushered in, deserve particular attention. “In respect to this distemper (he says), let every man, physician or not, say what he thinks respecting the source from whence it may probably have arisen, and respecting the causes which he deems sufficiently powerful to have produced so great a revolution. But I, having myself had the distemper, and having seen others suffering under it, will state _what it actually was_, and will indicate, in addition, such other matters, as will furnish any man, who lays them to heart, with knowledge and the means of calculation beforehand, in case the same misfortune should ever again occur.”[275] To record past facts, as a basis for rational prevision in regard to the future,—the same sentiment which Thucydidês mentions in his preface,[276] as having animated him to the composition of his history,—was at that time a duty so little understood, that we have reason to admire not less the manner in which he performs it in practice, than the distinctness with which he conceives it in theory. We may infer from his language that speculation in his day was active respecting the causes of this plague, according to the vague and fanciful physics and scanty stock of ascertained facts, which was all that could then be consulted. By resisting the itch of theorising from one of those loose hypotheses which then appeared plausibly to explain everything, he probably renounced the point of view from which most credit and interest would be derivable at the time: but his simple and precise summary of observed facts carries with it an imperishable value, and even affords grounds for imagining, that he was no stranger to the habits and training of his contemporary, Hippokratês, and the other Asklepiads of Cos.[277]

[274] “La description de Thucydide (observes M. Littré, in his
introduction to the works of Hippokratês, tom. i, p. 122),
est tellement bonne qu’elle suffit pleinement pour nous faire
comprendre ce que cette ancienne maladie a été: et il est fort à
regretter que des médecins tels qu’Hippocrate et Galien n’aient
rien écrit sur les grandes épidémies, dont ils ont été les
spectateurs. Hippocrate a été témoin de cette peste racontée par
Thucydide, et il ne nous en a pas laissé la description. Galien
vit également la fièvre éruptive qui désola le monde sous Marc
Aurèle, et qu’il appelle lui-même la longue peste. Cependant
excepté quelques mots épars dans ses volumineux ouvrages, excepté
quelques indications fugitives, il ne nous a rien transmis sur
un événement médical aussi important; à tel point que si nous
n’avions pas le récit de Thucydide, il nous seroit fort difficile
de nous faire une idée de celle qu’a vue Galien, et qui est
la même (comme M. Hecker s’est attaché à le démontrer) que la
maladie connue sous le nom de Peste d’Athènes. C’était une fièvre
éruptive différente de la variole, et éteinte aujourdhui. On a
cru en voir les traces dans les _charbons_ (ἄνθρακες) des livres
Hippocratiques.”

Both Krauss (Disquisitio de naturâ morbi Atheniensium. Stuttgard,
1831, p. 38) and Hæser (Historisch. Patholog. Untersuchungen.
Dresden 1839, p. 50) assimilate the pathological phenomena
specified by Thucydidês to different portions of the Ἐπιδημίαι of
Hippokratês. M. Littré thinks that the resemblance is not close
or precise, so as to admit of the one being identified with the
other. “Le tableau si frappant qu’en a tracé ce grand historien
ne se réproduit pas certainement avec une netteté suffisante dans
les brefs détails donnés par Hippocrate. La maladie d’Athènes
avoit un type si tranché, que tous ceux qui en ont parlé ont du
le réproduire dans ses parties essentielles.” (Argument aux 2me
Livre des Epidémies, Œuvres d’Hippocrate, tom. v. p. 64.) There
appears good reason to believe that the great epidemic which
prevailed in the Roman world under Marcus Aurelius—the Pestis
Antoniniana—was a renewal of what is called the Plague of Athens.

[275] Thucyd. ii, 48. λεγέτω μὲν οὖν περὶ αὐτοῦ, ὡς ἕκαστος
γιγνώσκει, καὶ ἰατρὸς καὶ ἰδιώτης, ἀφ᾽ ὅτου εἰκὸς ἦν γενέσθαι
αὐτὸ, καὶ τὰς αἰτίας ἅστινας νομίζει τοσαύτης μεταβολῆς ἱκανὰς
εἶναι δύναμιν ἐς τὸ μεταστῆσαι σχεῖν· ἐγὼ δὲ οἷόν τε ἐγίγνετο
λέξω, καὶ ἀφ᾽ ὧν ἄν τις σκοπῶν, εἴ ποτε καὶ αὖθις ἐπιπέσοι,
μάλιστ᾽ ἂν ἔχοι τι προειδὼς μὴ ἀγνοεῖν, ταῦτα δηλώσω, αὐτός τε
νοσήσας καὶ αὐτὸς ἰδὼν ἄλλους πάσχοντας.

Demokritus, among others, connected the generation of these
epidemics with his general system of atoms, atmospheric effluvia,
and εἴδωλα: see Plutarch, Symposiac. viii, 9, p. 733; Demokriti
Fragment., ed. Mullach, lib. iv, p. 409.

The causes of the Athenian epidemic as given by Diodorus (xii,
58)—unusual rains, watery quality of grain, absence of the
Etesian winds, etc., may perhaps be true of the revival of the
epidemic in the fifth year of the war, but can hardly be true
of its first appearance; since Thucydidês states that the year
in other respects was unusually healthy, and the epidemic was
evidently brought from foreign parts to Peiræus.

[276] Thucyd. i, 22.

[277] See the words of Thucydidês. ii, 49. καὶ ἀποκαθάρσεις χολῆς
πᾶσαι, ~ὅσαι ὑπὸ ἰατρῶν ὠνομασμέναι εἰσὶν~, ἐπῄεσαν,—which would
seem to indicate a familiarity with the medical terminology:
compare also his allusion to the speculations of the physicians,
cited in the previous note; and c. 51—~τὰ πάσῃ διαίτῃ
θεραπευόμενα~, etc.

In proof how rare the conception was, in ancient times, of the
importance of collecting and registering particular medical
facts, I transcribe the following observations from M. Littré
(Œuvres d’Hippocrate, tom. iv, p. 646, Remarques Retrospectives).

“Toutefois ce qu’il importe ici de constater, ce n’est pas
qu’Hippocrate a observé de telle ou telle manière, mais c’est
qu’il a eu l’idée de recueillir et de consigner des faits
particuliers. En effet, rien, dans l’antiquité, n’a été plus rare
que ce soin: outre Hippocrate, je ne connois qu’Erasistrate qui
se soit occupé de relater sous cette forme les résultats de son
expérience clinique. Ni Galien lui-même, ni Arétée, ni Soranus,
ni les autres qui sont arrivés jusqu’à nous, n’ont suivi un aussi
louable exemple. Les observations consignées dans la collection
Hippocratique constituent la plus grande partie, à beaucoup près,
de ce que l’antiquité a possédé en ce genre: et si, en commentant
le travail d’Hippocrate, on l’avait un peu imité, nous aurions
des matériaux à l’aide desquels nous prendrions une idée bien
plus précise de la pathologie de ces siècles reculés.... Mais
tout en exprimant ce regret et en reconnaissant cette utilité
relative à nous autres modernes et véritablement considérable,
il faut ajouter que l’antiquité avoit dans les faits et la
doctrine Hippocratiques un aliment qui lui a suffi—et qu’une
collection, même étendue, d’histoires particulières n’auroit pas
alors modifié la médecine, du moins la médecine scientifique,
essentiellement et au delà de la limite que comportoit la
physiologie. Je pourrai montrer ailleurs que la doctrine
d’Hippocrate et de l’école de Cos a été la seule solide, la seule
fondée sur un aperçu vrai de la nature organisée; et que les
sectes postérieures, méthodisme et pneumatisme, n’ont bâti leurs
théories que sur des hypothèses sans consistance. Mais ici je me
contente de remarquer, que la pathologie, en tant que science,
ne peut marcher qu’à la suite de la physiologie, dont elle n’est
qu’une des faces: et d’Hippocrate à Galien inclusivement, la
physiologie ne fit pas assez de progrès pour rendre insuffisante
la conception Hippocratique. Il en résulte, nécessairement, que
la pathologie, toujours considérée comme science, n’auroit pu,
par quelque procédé que ce fût, gagner que des corrections et des
augmentations de détail.”

It is hardly within the province of an historian of Greece to repeat after Thucydidês the painful enumeration of symptoms, violent in the extreme, and pervading every portion of the bodily system, which marked this fearful disorder. Beginning in Peiræus, it quickly passed into the city, and both the one and the other was speedily filled with sickness and suffering, the like of which had never before been known. The seizures were perfectly sudden, and a large proportion of the sufferers perished, after deplorable agonies, on the seventh or on the ninth day: others, whose strength of constitution carried them over this period, found themselves the victims of exhausting and incurable diarrhœa afterwards: with others again, after traversing both these stages, the distemper fixed itself in some particular member, the eyes, the genitals, the hands, or the feet, which were rendered permanently useless, or in some cases amputated, even where the patient himself recovered. There were also some whose recovery was attended with a total loss of memory, so that they no more knew themselves or recognized their friends. No treatment or remedy appearing, except in accidental cases, to produce any beneficial effect, the physicians or surgeons whose aid was invoked became completely at fault; while trying their accustomed means without avail, they soon ended by catching the malady themselves and perishing: nor were the charms and incantations[278] to which the unhappy patient resorted, likely to be more efficacious. While some asserted that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns of water, others referred the visitation to the wrath of the gods, and especially to Apollo, known by hearers of the Iliad as author of pestilence in the Greek host before Troy. It was remembered that this Delphian god had promised the Lacedæmonians, in reply to their application immediately before the war, that he would assist them whether invoked or uninvoked,—and the disorder now raging was ascribed to the intervention of their irresistible ally: while the elderly men farther called to mind an oracular verse sung in the time of their youth: “The Dorian war will come, and pestilence along with it.”[279] Under the distress which suggested, and was reciprocally aggravated by, these gloomy ideas, prophets were consulted, and supplications with solemn procession were held at the temples, to appease the divine wrath.

[278] Compare the story of Thalêtas appeasing an epidemic at
Sparta by his music and song (Plutarch, De Musicâ, p. 1146).

Some of the ancient physicians were firm believers in the
efficacy of these charms and incantations. Alexander of Tralles
says, that having originally treated them with contempt, he had
convinced himself of their value by personal observation, and
altered his opinion (ix, 4)—ἔνιοι γοῦν οἴονται τοῖς τῶν γραῶν
μύθοις ἐοικέναι τὰς ἐπῳδὰς, ὥσπερ κἀγὼ μέχρι πολλοῦ· τῷ χρόνῳ δὲ
ὑπὸ τῶν ἐναργῶς φαινομένων ἐπείσθην εἶναι δύναμιν ἐν αὐταῖς. See
an interesting and valuable dissertation, Origines Contagii, by
Dr. C. F. Marx (Stuttgard, 1824, p. 129).

The suffering Hêraklês, in his agony under the poisoned
tunic, invokes the ἀοιδὸς along with the χειροτέχνης ἰατοριάς
(Sophoklês, Trachin. 1005).

[279] Thucyd. ii, 54.

Φάσκοντες οἱ πρεσβύτεροι πάλαι ᾄδεσθαι—
Ἥξει Δωριακὸς πόλεμος, καὶ λοιμὸς ἅμ᾽ αὐτῷ.

See also the first among the epistles ascribed to the orator
Æschinês, respecting a λοιμὸς in Delos.

It appears that there was a debate whether, in this Hexameter
verse, λιμὸς (famine) or λοιμὸς (pestilence) was the correct
reading: and the probability is, that it had been originally
composed with the word λιμὸς,—for men might well fancy beforehand
that _famine_ would be a sequel of the Dorian war, but they
would not be likely to imagine _pestilence_ as accompanying it.
Yet, says Thucydidês, the reading λοιμὸς was held decidedly
preferable, as best fitting to the actual circumstances (οἱ γὰρ
ἄνθρωποι πρὸς ἃ ἔπασχον τὴν μνήμην ἐποιοῦντο). And “if (he goes
on to say) there should ever hereafter come another Dorian war,
and famine along with it, the oracle will probably be reproduced
with the word λιμὸς as part of it.”

This deserves notice, as illustrating the sort of admitted
license with which men twisted the oracles or prophecies, so as
to hit the feelings of the actual moment.

When it was found that neither the priest nor the physician could retard the spread, or mitigate the intensity, of the disorder, the Athenians abandoned themselves to utter despair, and the space within the walls became a scene of desolating misery. Every man attacked with the malady at once lost his courage,—a state of depression, itself among the worst features of the case, which made him lie down and die, without the least attempt to seek for any preservatives. And though, at first, friends and relatives lent their aid to tend the sick with the usual family sympathies, yet so terrible was the number of these attendants who perished, “like sheep,” from such contact, that at length no man would thus expose himself; while the most generous spirits, who persisted longest in the discharge of their duty, were carried off in the greatest numbers.[280] The patient was thus left to die alone and unheeded: sometimes all the inmates of a house were swept away one after the other, no man being willing to go near it: desertion on one hand, attendance on the other, both tended to aggravate the calamity. There remained only those who, having had the disorder and recovered, were willing to tend the sufferers. These men formed the single exception to the all-pervading misery of the time,—for the disorder seldom attacked any one twice, and when it did, the second attack was never fatal. Elate with their own escape, they deemed themselves out of the reach of all disease, and were full of compassionate kindness for others whose sufferings were just beginning. It was from them, too, that the principal attention to the bodies of deceased victims proceeded: for such was the state of dismay and sorrow, that even the nearest relatives neglected the sepulchral duties, sacred beyond all others in the eyes of a Greek. Nor is there any circumstance which conveys to us so vivid an idea of the prevalent agony and despair, as when we read, in the words of an eye-witness, that the deaths took place among this close-packed crowd without the smallest decencies of attention,[281]—that the dead and the dying lay piled one upon another, not merely in the public roads, but even in the temples, in spite of the understood defilement of the sacred building,—that half-dead sufferers were seen lying round all the springs, from insupportable thirst,—that the numerous corpses thus unburied and exposed, were in such a condition, that the dogs which meddled with them died in consequence, while no vultures or other birds of the like habits ever came near. Those bodies which escaped entire neglect, were burnt or buried[282] without the customary mourning, and with unseemly carelessness. In some cases, the bearers of a body, passing by a funeral pile on which another body was burning, would put their own there to be burnt also;[283] or perhaps, if the pile was prepared ready for a body not yet arrived, would deposit their own upon it, set fire to the pile, and then depart. Such indecent confusion would have been intolerable to the feelings of the Athenians, in any ordinary times.

[280] Compare Diodor. xiv, 70, who mentions similar distresses
in the Carthaginian army besieging Syracuse, during the terrible
epidemic with which it was attacked in 395 B.C.; and Livy, xxv,
26, respecting the epidemic at Syracuse when it was besieged by
Marcellus and the Romans.

[281] Thucyd. ii, 52. Οἰκιῶν γὰρ οὐχ ὑπαρχουσῶν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν καλύβαις
πνιγηραῖς ὥρᾳ ἔτους διαιτωμένων, ὁ φθόρος ἐγίγνετο οὐδενὶ κόσμῳ,
ἀλλὰ καὶ νεκροὶ ἐπ᾽ ἀλλήλοις ἀποθνήσκοντες ἔκειντο, καὶ ἐν ταῖς
ὁδοῖς ἐκαλινδοῦντο καὶ περὶ τὰς κρήνας ἁπάσας ἡμιθνῆτες, τοῦ
ὕδατος ἐπιθυμίᾳ. Τά τε ἱερὰ ἐν οἷς ἐσκήνηντο, νεκρῶν πλέα ἦν,
αὐτοῦ ἐναποθνῃσκόντων· ὑπερβιαζομένου γὰρ τοῦ κακοῦ οἱ ἄνθρωποι,
οὐκ ἔχοντες, ὅ,τι γένωνται, ἐς ὀλιγωρίαν ἐτράποντο καὶ ἱερῶν καὶ
ὁσίων ὁμοίως.

[282] Thucyd. ii, 50: compare Livy, xli, 21, describing the
epidemic at Rome in 174 B.C. “Cadavera, intacta à canibus et
vulturibus, tabes absumebat: satisque constabat, nec illo, nec
priore anno in tantâ strage boum hominumque vulturium usquam
visum.”

[283] Thucyd. ii, 52. From the language of Thucydidês, we see
that this was regarded at Athens as highly unbecoming. Yet a
passage of Plutarch seems to show that it was very common, in his
time, to burn several bodies on the same funeral pile (Plutarch,
Symposiac. iii, 4, p. 651).

To all these scenes of physical suffering, death, and reckless despair, was superadded another evil, which affected those who were fortunate enough to escape the rest. The bonds both of law and morality became relaxed, amidst such total uncertainty of every man both for his own life, and that of others. Men cared not to abstain from wrong, under circumstances in which punishment was not likely to overtake them,—nor to put a check upon their passions, and endure privations in obedience even to their strongest conviction, when the chance was so small of their living to reap reward or enjoy any future esteem. An interval short and sweet, before their doom was realized—before they became plunged in the wide-spread misery which they witnessed around, and which affected indiscriminately the virtuous and the profligate—was all they looked to enjoy; embracing with avidity the immediate pleasures of sense, as well as such positive gains, however ill-gotten, as could be made the means of procuring them, and throwing aside all thought both of honor or of long-sighted advantage. Life and property were alike ephemeral, nor was there any hope left but to snatch a moment of enjoyment, before the outstretched hand of destiny should fall upon its victims.

The melancholy picture of society under the pressure of a murderous epidemic, with its train of physical torments, wretchedness, and demoralization, has been drawn by more than one eminent author, but by none with more impressive fidelity and conciseness than by Thucydidês,[284] who had no predecessor, and nothing but the reality to copy from. We may remark that, amidst all the melancholy accompaniments of the time, there are no human sacrifices, such as those offered up at Carthage during pestilence to appease the anger of the gods,—there are no cruel persecutions against imaginary authors of the disease, such as those against the Untori (anointers of doors) in the plague of Milan in 1630.[285] Three years altogether did this calamity desolate Athens: continuously, during the entire second and third years of the war,—after which, followed a period of marked abatement for a year and a half: but it then revived again, and lasted for another year, with the same fury as at first. The public loss, over and above the private misery, which this unexpected enemy inflicted upon Athens, was incalculable. Out of twelve hundred horsemen, all among the rich men of the state, three hundred died of the epidemic; besides four thousand and four hundred hoplites out of the roll formerly kept, and a number of the poorer population so great as to defy computation.[286] No efforts of the Peloponnesians could have done so much to ruin Athens, or to bring the war to a termination such as they desired: and the distemper told the more in their favor, as it never spread at all into Peloponnesus, though it passed from Athens to some of the more populous islands.[287] The Lacedæmonian army was withdrawn from Attica somewhat earlier than it would otherwise have been, for fear of taking the contagion.[288]

[284] The description in the sixth book of Lucretius, translated
and expanded from Thucydidês,—that of the plague at Florence in
1348, with which the Decameron of Boccacio opens,—and that of
Defoe, in his History of the Plague in London, are all well known.

[285] “Carthaginienses, cum inter cetera mala etiam peste
laborarent, cruentâ sacrorum religione, et scelere pro remedio,
usi sunt: quippe homines ut victimas immolabant; pacem deorum
sanguine eorum exposcentes, pro quorum vitâ Dii rogari maximè
solent.” (Justin, xviii, 6.)

For the facts respecting the plague of Milan and the Untori,
see the interesting novel of Manzoni, Promessi Sposi, and the
historical work of the same author, Storia della Colonna Infame.

[286] Thucyd. iii, 87. τοῦ δὲ ἄλλου ὄχλου ἀνεξεύρετος ἀριθμός.
Diodorus makes them above 10,000 (xii, 58) freemen and slaves
together, which must be greatly beneath the reality.

[287] Thucyd. ii, 54. τῶν ἄλλων χωρίων τὰ πολυανθρωπότατα. He
does not specify what places these were: perhaps Chios, but
hardly Lesbos, otherwise the fact would have been noticed when
the revolt of that island occurs.

[288] Thucyd. ii, 57.

But it was while the Lacedæmonians were yet in Attica, and during the first freshness of the terrible malady, that Periklês equipped and conducted from Peiræus an armament of one hundred triremes, and four thousand hoplites to attack the coasts of Peloponnesus: three hundred horsemen were also carried in some horse-transports, prepared for the occasion out of old triremes. To diminish the crowd accumulated in the city, was doubtless of beneficial tendency, and perhaps those who went aboard, might consider it as a chance of escape to quit an infected home. But unhappily they carried the infection along with them, which desolated the fleet not less than the city, and crippled all its efforts. Reinforced by fifty ships of war from Chios and Lesbos, the Athenians first landed near Epidaurus in Peloponnesus, ravaging the territory, and making an unavailing attempt upon the city: next, they made like incursions on the more southerly portions of the Argolic peninsula,—Trœzen, Halieis, and Hermionê; and lastly attacked and captured Prasiæ, on the eastern coast of Laconia. On returning to Athens, the same armament was immediately conducted, under Agnon and Kleopompus, to press the siege of Potidæa, the blockade of which still continued without any visible progress. On arriving there, an attack was made on the walls by battering engines, and by the other aggressive methods then practised; but nothing whatever was achieved. In fact, the armament became incompetent for all serious effort, from the aggravated character which the distemper here assumed, communicated by the soldiers fresh from Athens, even to those who had before been free from it at Potidæa. So frightful was the mortality, that out of the four thousand hoplites under Agnon, no less than ten hundred and fifty died in the short space of forty days. The armament was brought back in this melancholy condition to Athens, while the reduction of Potidæa was left, as before, to the slow course of blockade.[289]

[289] Thucyd. ii, 56-58.

On returning from the expedition against Peloponnesus, Periklês found his countrymen almost distracted[290] with their manifold sufferings. Over and above the raging epidemic, they had just gone over Attica and ascertained the devastations committed by the invaders throughout all the territory—except the Marathonian[291] Tetrapolis and Dekeleia; districts spared, as we are told, through indulgence founded on an ancient legendary sympathy—during their long stay of forty days. The rich had found their comfortable mansions and farms, the poor their modest cottages, in the various demes, torn down and ruined. Death,[292] sickness, loss of property, and despair of the future, now rendered the Athenians angry and intractable to the last degree; and they vented their feelings against Periklês, as the cause, not merely of the war, but also of all that they were now enduring. Either with or without his consent, they sent envoys to Sparta to open negotiations for peace, but the Spartans turned a deaf ear to the proposition. This new disappointment rendered them still more furious against Periklês, whose long-standing political enemies now doubtless found strong sympathy in their denunciations of his character and policy. That unshaken and majestic firmness, which ranked first among his many eminent qualities, was never more imperiously required, and never more effectively manifested. In his capacity of stratêgus, or general, he convoked a formal assembly of the people, for the purpose of vindicating himself publicly against the prevailing sentiment, and recommending perseverance in his line of policy. The speeches made by his opponents, assuredly very bitter, are not given by Thucydidês; but that of Periklês himself is set down at considerable length, and a memorable discourse it is. It strikingly brings into relief both the character of the man and the impress of actual circumstances,—an impregnable mind, conscious not only of right purposes, but of just and reasonable anticipations, and bearing up with manliness, or even defiance, against the natural difficulty of the case, heightened by an extreme of incalculable misfortune. He had foreseen,[293] while advising the war originally, the probable impatience of his countrymen under its first hardships, but he could not foresee the epidemic by which that impatience had been exasperated into madness: and he now addressed them, not merely with unabated adherence to his own deliberate convictions, but also in a tone of reproachful remonstrance against their unmerited change of sentiment towards him,—seeking at the same time to combat that uncontrolled despair which, for the moment, overlaid both their pride and their patriotism. Far from humbling himself before the present sentiment, it is at this time that he sets forth his titles to their esteem in the most direct and unqualified manner, and claims the continuance of that which they had so long accorded, as something belonging to him by acquired right.

[290] Thucyd. ii, 59. ἠλλοίωντο τὰς γνώμας.

[291] Diodor. xii, 45; Ister ap. Schol. ad Soph. Œdip. Colon.
689; Herodot. ix.

[292] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὁ μὲν δῆμος, ὅτι ἀπ᾽ ἐλασσόνων ὁρμώμενος,
ἐστέρητο καὶ τούτων· οἱ δὲ δυνατοὶ, καλὰ κτήματα κατὰ τὴν χώραν
οἰκοδομίαις τε καὶ πολυτελέσι κατασκευαῖς ἀπολωλεκότες.

[293] Thucyd. i, 140.

His main object, throughout this discourse, is to fill the minds of his audience with patriotic sympathy for the weal of the entire city, so as to counterbalance the absorbing sense of private woe. If the collective city flourishes, he argues, private misfortunes may at least be borne: but no amount of private prosperity will avail, if the collective city falls; a proposition literally true in ancient times, and under the circumstances of ancient warfare, though less true at present. “Distracted by domestic calamity, ye are now angry both with me, who advised you to go to war, and with yourselves, who followed the advice. Ye listened to me, considering me superior to others in judgment, in speech, in patriotism, and in incorruptible probity,[294]—nor ought I now to be treated as culpable for giving such advice, when in point of fact the war was unavoidable, and there would have been still greater danger in shrinking from it. I am the same man, still unchanged,—but ye, in your misfortunes, cannot stand to the convictions which ye adopted when yet unhurt. Extreme and unforeseen, indeed, are the sorrows which have fallen upon you: yet, inhabiting as ye do a great city, and brought up in dispositions suitable to it, ye must also resolve to bear up against the utmost pressure of adversity, and never to surrender your dignity. I have often explained to you that ye have no reason to doubt of eventual success in the war, but I will now remind you, more emphatically than before, and even with a degree of ostentation suitable as a stimulus to your present unnatural depression,—that your naval force makes you masters, not only of your allies, but of the entire sea,[295]—one half of the visible field for action and employment. Compared with so vast a power as this, the temporary use of your houses and territory is a mere trifle,—an ornamental accessory not worth considering; and this, too, if ye preserve your freedom, ye will quickly recover. It was your fathers who first gained this empire, without any of the advantages which ye now enjoy; ye must not disgrace yourselves by losing what they acquired. Delighting as ye all do in the honor and empire enjoyed by the city, ye must not shrink from the toils whereby alone that honor is sustained: moreover, ye now fight, not merely for freedom instead of slavery, but for empire against loss of empire, with all the perils arising out of imperial unpopularity. It is not safe for you now to abdicate, even if ye chose to do so; for ye hold your empire like a despotism,—unjust perhaps in the original acquisition, but ruinous to part with when once acquired. Be not angry with me, whose advice ye followed in going to war, because the enemy have done such damage as might be expected from them; still less on account of this unforeseen distemper: I know that this makes me an object of your special present hatred, though very unjustly, unless ye will consent to give me credit also for any unexpected good luck which may occur. Our city derives its particular glory from unshaken bearing up against misfortune: her power, her name, her empire of Greeks over Greeks, are such as have never before been seen: and if we choose to be great, we must take the consequence of that temporary envy and hatred which is the necessary price of permanent renown. Behave ye now in a manner worthy of that glory: display that courage which is essential to protect you against disgrace at present, as well as to guarantee your honor for the future. Send no farther embassy to Sparta, and bear your misfortunes without showing symptoms of distress.”[296]

[294] Thucyd. ii, 60. καίτοι ἐμοὶ τοιούτῳ ἀνδρὶ ὀργίζεσθε, ὃς
οὐδενὸς οἴομαι ἥσσων εἶναι γνῶναί τε τὰ δέοντα, καὶ ἑρμηνεῦσαι
ταῦτα, φιλόπολίς τε καὶ χρημάτων κρείσσων.

[295] Thucyd. ii, 62. δηλώσω δὲ καὶ τόδε, ὅ μοι δοκεῖτε οὔτ᾽
αὐτοὶ πώποτε ἐνθυμηθῆναι ὑπάρχον ὑμῖν μεγέθους πέρι ἐς τὴν ἀρχὴν,
οὔτ᾽ ἐγὼ ἐν τοῖς πρὶν λόγοις· οὐδ᾽ ἂν νῦν ἐχρησάμην κομπωδεστέραν
ἔχοντι τὴν προσποίησιν, εἰ μὴ καταπεπληγμένους ὑμᾶς παρὰ τὸ εἰκὸς
ἑώρων. Οἴεσθε μὲν γὰρ τῶν ξυμμάχων μόνον ἄρχειν—ἐγὼ δὲ ἀποφαίνω
δύο μερῶν τῶν ἐς χρῆσιν φανερῶν, γῆς καὶ θαλάττης, τοῦ ἑτέρου
ὑμᾶς παντὸς κυριωτάτους ὄντας, ἐφ᾽ ὅσον τε νῦν νέμεσθε, καὶ ἢν
ἐπιπλέον βουληθῆτε.

[296] Thucyd. ii, 60-64. I give a general summary of this
memorable speech, without setting forth its full contents, still
less the exact words.

The irresistible reason, as well as the proud and resolute bearing of this discourse, set forth with an eloquence which it was not possible for Thucydidês to reproduce,—together with the age and character of Periklês,—carried the assent of the assembled people; who, when in the Pnyx, and engaged according to habit on public matters, would for a moment forget their private sufferings in considerations of the safety and grandeur of Athens: possibly, indeed, those sufferings, though still continuing, might become somewhat alleviated when the invaders quitted Attica, and when it was no longer indispensable for all the population to confine itself within the walls. Accordingly, the assembly resolved that no farther propositions should be made for peace, and that the war should be prosecuted with vigor. But though the public resolution thus adopted showed the ancient habit of deference to the authority of Periklês, the sentiments of individuals taken separately were still those of anger against him, as the author of that system which had brought them into so much distress. His political opponents—Kleon, Simmias, or Lakratidas, perhaps all three in conjunction—took care to provide an opportunity for this prevalent irritation to manifest itself in act, by bringing an accusation against him before the dikastery. The accusation is said to have been preferred on the ground of pecuniary malversation, and ended by his being sentenced to pay a considerable fine, the amount of which is differently reported,—fifteen, fifty, or eighty talents, by different authors.[297] The accusing party thus appeared to have carried their point, and to have disgraced, as well as excluded from reëlection, the veteran statesman. But the event disappointed their expectations: the imposition of the fine not only satiated all the irritation of the people against him, but even occasioned a serious reaction in his favor, and brought back as strongly as ever the ancient sentiment of esteem and admiration. It was quickly found that those who had succeeded Periklês as generals, neither possessed nor deserved in an equal degree, the public confidence, and he was accordingly soon reëlected, with as much power and influence as he had ever in his life enjoyed.[298]

[297] Thucyd. ii, 65: Plato, Gorgias, p. 515, c. 71: Plutarch,
Periklês, c. 35; Diodor. xii, c. 38-45. About Simmias, as the
vehement enemy of Periklês, see Plutarch, Reipub. Ger. Præcept.
p. 805.

Plutarch and Diodorus both state that Periklês was not only
fined, but also removed from his office of stratêgus. Thucydidês
mentions the fine, but not the removal: and his silence leads me
to doubt the reality of the latter event altogether. For with
such a man as Periklês, a vote of removal would have been a
penalty more marked and cutting than the fine; moreover, removal
from office, though capable of being pronounced by vote of the
public assembly, would hardly be inflicted as penalty by the
dikastery.

I imagine the events to have passed as follows: The stratêgi,
with most other officers of the commonwealth, were changed or
reëlected at the beginning of Hekatombæon, the first month of
the Attic year; that is, somewhere about midsummer. Now the
Peloponnesian army, invading Attica about the end of March or
beginning of April, and remaining forty days, would leave the
country about the first week in May. Periklês returned from his
expedition against Peloponnesus shortly after they left Attica;
that is, about the middle of May (Thucyd. ii, 57): there still
remained, therefore, a month or six weeks before his office of
stratêgus naturally expired, and required renewal. It was during
this interval (which Thucydidês expresses by the words ἔτι δ᾽
ἐστρατήγει, ii, 59) that he convoked the assembly and delivered
the harangue recently mentioned.

But when the time for a new election of stratêgi arrived, the
enemies of Periklês opposed his reëlection, and brought a charge
against him, in that trial of accountability to which every
magistrate at Athens was exposed, after his period of office.
They alleged against him some official misconduct in reference
to the public money, and the dikastery visited him with a fine.
His reëlection was thus prevented, and with a man who had been
so often reëlected, this might be loosely called “taking away
the office of general:” so that the language of Plutarch and
Diodorus, as well as the silence of Thucydidês, would, on this
supposition, be justified.

[298] Thucyd. ii, 65.

But that life—long, honorable, and useful—had already been prolonged considerably beyond the sixtieth year, and there were but too many circumstances, besides the recent fine, which tended to hasten as well as to embitter its close. At the very moment when Periklês was preaching to his countrymen, in a tone almost reproachful, the necessity of manful and unabated devotion to the common country, in the midst of private suffering,—he was himself among the greatest of sufferers, and most hardly pressed to set the example of observing his own precepts. The epidemic carried off not merely his two sons, the only two legitimate, Xanthippus and Paralus, but also his sister, several other relatives, and his best and most useful political friends. Amidst this train of domestic calamities, and in the funeral obsequies of so many of his dearest friends, he remained master of his grief, and maintained his habitual self-command, until the last misfortune,—the death of his favorite son Paralus, which left his house without any legitimate representative to maintain the family and the hereditary sacred rites. On this final blow, though he strove to command himself as before, yet, at the obsequies of the young man, when it became his duty to place a garland on the dead body, his grief became uncontrollable, and he burst out, for the first time of his life, into profuse tears and sobbing.[299]

[299] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 36.

In the midst of these several personal trials he received the intimation, through Alkibiadês and some other friends, of the restored confidence of the people towards him, and of his re-election to the office of stratêgus: nor was it without difficulty that he was persuaded to present himself again at the public assembly, and resume the direction of affairs. The regret of the people was formally expressed to him for the recent sentence,—perhaps, indeed, the fine may have been repaid to him, or some evasion of it permitted, saving the forms of law,[300]—in the present temper of the city; which was farther displayed towards him by the grant of a remarkable exemption from a law of his own original proposition. He had himself, some years before, been the author of that law, whereby the citizenship of Athens was restricted to persons born both of Athenian fathers and Athenian mothers, under which restriction several thousand persons, illegitimate on the mother’s side, are said to have been deprived of the citizenship, on occasion of a public distribution of corn. Invidious as it appeared to grant, to Periklês singly, an exemption from a law which had been strictly enforced against so many others, the people were now moved not less by compassion than by anxiety to redress their own previous severity. Without a legitimate heir, the house of Periklês, one branch of the great Alkmæônid gens by his mother’s side, would be left deserted, and the continuity of the family sacred rites would be broken,—a misfortune painfully felt by every Athenian family, as calculated to wrong all the deceased members, and provoke their posthumous displeasure towards the city. Accordingly, permission was granted to Periklês to legitimize, and to inscribe in his own gens and phratry his natural son by Aspasia, who bore his own name.[301]

[300] See Plutarch, Demosthen. c. 27, about the manner of
bringing about such an evasion of a fine: compare also the letter
of M. Boeckh, in Meineke, Fragment. Comic. Græcor. ad Fragm.
Eupolid. ii, 527.

[301] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 37.

It was thus that Periklês was reinstated in his post of stratêgus, as well as in his ascendency over the public counsels,—seemingly about August or September, 430 B.C. He lived about one year longer, and seems to have maintained his influence as long as his health permitted. Yet we hear nothing of him after this moment, and he fell a victim, not to the violent symptoms of the epidemic, but to a slow and wearing fever,[302] which underminded his strength as well as his capacity. To a friend who came to ask after him when in this disease, Periklês replied by showing a charm or amulet which his female relations had hung about his neck,—a proof how low he was reduced, and how completely he had become a passive subject in the hands of others. And according to another anecdote which we read, yet more interesting and equally illustrative of his character,—it was during his last moments, when he was lying apparently unconscious and insensible, that the friends around his bed were passing in review the acts of his life, and the nine trophies which he had erected at different times for so many victories. He heard what they said, though they fancied that he was past hearing, and interrupted them by remarking: “What you praise in my life, belongs partly to good fortune,—and is, at best, common to me with many other generals. But the peculiarity of which I am most proud, you have not noticed,—no Athenian has ever put on mourning on my account.”[303]

[302] Plutarch (Perik. c. 38) treats the slow disorder under
which he suffered as one of the forms of the epidemic: but this
can hardly be correct, when we read the very marked character of
the latter, as described by Thucydidês.

[303] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 38.

Such a cause of self-gratulation, doubtless more satisfactory to recall at such a moment than any other, illustrates that long-sighted calculation, aversion to distant or hazardous enterprise, and economy of the public force, which marked his entire political career; a career long, beyond all parallel, in the history of Athens,—since he maintained a great influence, gradually swelling into a decisive personal ascendency, for between thirty and forty years. His character has been presented in very different lights, by different authors, both ancient and modern, and our materials for striking the balance are not so good as we could wish. But his immense and long-continued ascendency, as well as his unparalleled eloquence, are facts attested not less by his enemies than by his friends,—nay, even more forcibly by the former than by the latter. The comic writers, who hated him, and whose trade it was to deride and hunt down every leading political character, exhaust their powers of illustration in setting forth both the one and the other:[304] Telekleidês, Kratinus, Eupolis, Aristophanês, all hearers and all enemies, speak of him like Olympian Zeus, hurling thunder and lightning,—like Hêraklês and Achilles,—as the only speaker on whose lips persuasion sat, and who left his sting in the minds of his audience: while Plato the philosopher,[305] who disapproved of his political working, and of the moral effects which he produced upon Athens, nevertheless extols his intellectual and oratorical ascendency: “his majestic intelligence,”—in language not less decisive than Thucydidês. There is another point of eulogy, not less valuable, on which the testimony appears uncontradicted: throughout his long career, amidst the hottest political animosities, the conduct of Periklês towards opponents was always mild and liberal.[306] The conscious self-esteem and arrogance of manner with which the contemporary poet Ion reproached him,[307] contrasting it with the unpretending simplicity of his own patron Kimon,—though probably invidiously exaggerated, is doubtless in substance well founded, and those who read the last speech given above out of Thucydidês, will at once recognize in it this attribute. His natural taste, his love of philosophical research, and his unwearied application to public affairs, all contributed to alienate him from ordinary familiarity, and to make him careless, perhaps improperly careless, of the lesser means of conciliating public favor.

[304] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 4, 8, 13, 16; Eupolis. Δῆμοι,
Fragm. vi. p. 459, ed. Meineke. Cicero (De Orator. iii, 34;
Brutus, 9-11) and Quintilian (ii, 16, 19; x, 1, 82) count only as
witnesses at second-hand.

[305] Plato, Gorgias, c. 71, p. 516; Phædrus, c. 54. p. 270.
Περικλέα, τὸν οὕτω μεγαλοπρεπῶς σοφὸν ἄνδρα. Plato, Mens. p. 94,
B.

[306] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 10-39.

[307] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 5.

But admitting this latter reproach to be well founded, as it seems to be, it helps to negative that greater and graver political crime which has been imputed to him, of sacrificing the permanent well-being and morality of the state to the maintenance of his own political power,—of corrupting the people by distributions of the public money. “He gave the reins to the people (in Plutarch’s words[308]), and shaped his administration for their immediate favor, by always providing at home some public spectacle, or festival, or procession, thus nursing up the city in elegant pleasures,—and by sending out every year sixty triremes, manned by citizen-seamen on full pay, who were thus kept in practice and acquired nautical skill.” Now the charge here made against Periklês, and supported by allegations in themselves honorable rather than otherwise,—of a vicious appetite for immediate popularity, and of improper concessions to the immediate feelings of the people against their permanent interests,—is precisely that which Thucydidês, in the most pointed manner denies; and not merely denies, but contrasts Periklês with his successors in the express circumstances that _they_ did so, while _he_ did not. The language of the contemporary historian[309] well deserves to be cited: “Periklês, powerful from dignity of character as well as from wisdom, and conspicuously above the least tinge of corruption, held back the people with a free hand, and was their real leader instead of being led by them. For not being a seeker of power from unworthy sources, he did not speak with any view to present favor, but had sufficient sense of dignity to contradict them on occasion, even braving their displeasure. Thus, whenever he perceived them insolently and unseasonably confident, he shaped his speeches in such manner as to alarm and beat them down: when again he saw them unduly frightened, he tried to counteract it, and restore them confidence: so that the government was in name a democracy, but in reality an empire exercised by the first citizen in the state. But those who succeeded after his death, being more equal one with another, and each of them desiring preëminence over the rest, adopted the different course of courting the favor of the people, and sacrificing to that object even important state-interests. From whence arose many other bad measures, as might be expected in a great and imperial city, and especially the Sicilian expedition,” etc.

[308] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 11. Διὸ καὶ τότε μάλιστα τῷ δήμῳ τὰς
ἡνίας ἀνεὶς ὁ Περικλῆς ἐπολιτεύετο πρὸς χάριν—ἀεὶ μέν τινα θέαν
πανηγυρικὴν ἢ ἑστίασιν ἢ πομπὴν εἶναι μηχανώμενος ἐν ἄστει, καὶ
διαπαιδαγωγῶν οὐκ ἀμούσοις ἡδοναῖς τὴν πόλιν—ἑξήκοντα δὲ τριήρεις
καθ᾽ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐκπέμπων, ἐν αἷς πολλοὶ τῶν πολιτῶν ἔπλεον
ὀκτὼ μῆνας ἔμμισθοι, μελετῶντες ἅμα καὶ μανθάνοντες τὴν ναυτικὴν
ἐμπειρίαν.

Compare c. 9, where Plutarch states that Periklês, having no
other means of contending against the abundant private largesses
of his rival, Kimon, resorted to the expedient of distributing
the public money among the citizens, in order to gain influence;
acting in this matter upon the advice of his friend, Demonidês,
according to the statement of Aristotle.

[309] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ἐκεῖνος μὲν (Περικλῆς) δυνατὸς ὢν τῷ
~τε ἀξιώματι~ καὶ τῇ γνώμῃ, ~χρημάτων τε διαφανῶς ἀδωρότατος
γενόμενος, κατεῖχε τὸ πλῆθος ἐλευθέρως~, καὶ οὐκ ἤγετο μᾶλλον
ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἢ αὐτὸς ἦγε, διὰ τὸ μὴ κτώμενος ἐξ οὐ προσηκόντων
τὴν δύναμιν πρὸς ἡδονήν τι λέγειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔχων ἐπ᾽ ~ἀξιώσει~ καὶ
πρὸς ὀργήν τι ἀντειπεῖν. Ὁπότε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ
καιρὸν ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ
δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν. Ἐγίγνετο δὲ
λόγῳ μὲν δημοκρατία, ἔργῳ δὲ ὑπὸ τοῦ πρώτου ἀνδρὸς ἀρχή. Οἱ δὲ
ὕστερον ἴσοι μᾶλλον αὐτοὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους ὄντες, καὶ ὀρεγόμενοι τοῦ
πρῶτος ἕκαστος γίγνεσθαι, ἐτράποντο καθ᾽ ἡδονὰς τῷ δήμῳ καὶ τὰ
πράγματα ἐνδιδόναι. Ἐξ ὧν, ἄλλα τε πολλά, ὡς ἐν μεγάλῃ πόλει καὶ
ἀρχὴν ἐχούσῃ, ἡμαρτήθη, καὶ ὁ ἐς Σικελίαν πλοῦς· ὃς οὐ τοσοῦτον
γνώμης ἁμάρτημα ἦν, etc. Compare Plutarch, Nikias, c. 3.

Ἀξίωσις and ἀξίωμα, as used by Thucydidês seem to differ in this
respect: Ἀξίωσις signifies, a man’s dignity, or pretensions to
esteem and influence as felt and measured by himself; _his sense
of dignity_; Ἀξίωμα means his _dignity_, properly so called; as
felt and appreciated by others. See i, 37, 41, 69.