Chapter XLIX (2)

It will be seen that the judgment here quoted from Thucydidês contradicts, in the most unqualified manner, the reproaches commonly made against Periklês, of having corrupted the Athenian people by distributions of the public money, and by giving way to their unwise caprices, for the purpose of acquiring and maintaining his own political power. Nay, the historian particularly notes the opposite qualities,—self-judgment, conscious dignity, indifference to immediate popular applause or wrath, when set against what was permanently right and useful,—as the special characteristic of that great statesman. A distinction might indeed be possible, and Plutarch professes to note such distinction, between the earlier and the later part of his long political career: he began, so that biographer says, by corrupting the people in order to acquire power, but having acquired it, he employed it in an independent and patriotic manner, so that the judgment of Thucydidês, true respecting the later part of his life, would not be applicable to the earlier. This distinction may be to a certain degree well founded, inasmuch as the power of opposing a bold and successful resistance to temporary aberrations of the public mind, necessarily implies an established influence, and can hardly ever be exercised even by the firmest politician during his years of commencement: he is at that time necessarily the adjunct of some party or tendency which he finds already in operation, and has to stand forward actively and assiduously before he can create for himself a separate personal influence. But while we admit the distinction to this extent, there is nothing to warrant us in restricting the encomium of Thucydidês exclusively to the later life of Periklês, or in representing the earlier life as something in pointed contrast with that encomium. Construing fairly what the historian says, he evidently did not so conceive the earlier life of Periklês. Either those political changes which are held by Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, and others, to demonstrate the corrupting effect of Periklês and his political ascendency,—such as the limitation of the functions of the Areopagus, as well as of the power of the magistrates, the establishment of the numerous and frequent popular dikasteries with regular pay, and perhaps also the assignment of pay to those who attended the ekklesia, the expenditure for public works, religious edifices and ornaments, the diobely (or distribution of two oboli per head to the poorer citizens at various festivals, in order that they might be able to pay for their places in the theatre), taking it as it then stood, etc.,—did not appear to Thucydidês mischievous and corrupting, as these other writers thought them; or else he did not particularly refer them to Periklês.

Both are true, probably, to some extent. The internal political changes at Athens, respecting the Areopagus and the dikasteries, took place when Periklês was a young man, and when he cannot be supposed to have yet acquired the immense personal ascendency which afterwards belonged to him. Ephialtês in fact seems in those early days to have been a greater man than Periklês, if we may judge by the fact that he was selected by his political adversaries for assassination,—so that they might with greater propriety be ascribed to the party with which Periklês was connected, rather than to that statesman himself. But next, we have no reason to presume that Thucydidês considered these changes as injurious, or as having deteriorated the Athenian character. All that he does say as to the working of Periklês on the sentiment and actions of his countrymen, is eminently favorable. He represents the presidency of that statesman as moderate, cautious, conservative, and successful; he describes him as uniformly keeping back the people from rash enterprises, and from attempts to extend their empire,—as looking forward to the necessity of a war, and maintaining the naval, military, and financial forces of the state in constant condition to stand it,—as calculating, with long-sighted wisdom, the conditions on which ultimate success depended. If we follow the elaborate funeral harangue of Periklês, which Thucydidês, since he produces it at length, probably considered as faithfully illustrating the political point of view of that statesman, we shall discover a conception of democratical equality no less rational than generous; an anxious care for the recreation and comfort of the citizens, but no disposition to emancipate them from active obligation, either public or private,—and least of all, any idea of dispensing with such activity by abusive largesses out of the general revenue. The whole picture, drawn by Periklês, of Athens, “as the schoolmistress of Greece,” implies a prominent development of private industry and commerce, not less than of public citizenship and soldiership,—of letters, arts, and recreative varieties of taste.

Though Thucydidês does not directly canvass the constitutional changes effected in Athens under Periklês, yet everything which he does say leads us to believe that he accounted the working of that statesman, upon the whole, on Athenian power as well as on Athenian character, eminently valuable, and his death as an irreparable loss. And we may thus appeal to the judgment of an historian who is our best witness in every conceivable respect, as a valid reply to the charge against Periklês, of having corrupted the Athenian habits, character, and government. If he spent a large amount of the public treasure upon religious edifices and ornaments, and upon stately works for the city,—yet the sum which he left untouched, ready for use at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, was such as to appear more than sufficient for all purposes of defence, or public safety, or military honor. It cannot be shown of Periklês that he ever sacrificed the greater object to the less,—the permanent and substantially valuable, to the transitory and showy,—assured present possessions, to the lust of new, distant, or uncertain conquests. If his advice had been listened to, the rashness which brought on the defeat of the Athenian Tolmidês, at Korôneia in Bœotia, would have been avoided, and Athens might probably have maintained her ascendency over Megara and Bœotia, which would have protected her territory from invasion, and given a new turn to the subsequent history. Periklês is not to be treated as the author of the Athenian character: he found it with its very marked positive characteristics and susceptibilities, among which, those which he chiefly brought out and improved were the best. The lust of expeditions against the Persians, which Kimon would have pushed into Egypt and Cyprus, he repressed, after it had accomplished all which could be usefully aimed at: the ambition of Athens he moderated rather than encouraged: the democratical movement of Athens he regularized, and worked out into judicial institutions, which became one of the prominent features of Athenian life, and worked, in my judgment, with a very large balance of benefit to the national mind as well as to individual security, in spite of the many defects in their direct character as tribunals. But that point in which there was the greatest difference between Athens, as Periklês found if, and as he left it, is, unquestionably, the pacific and intellectual development,—rhetoric, poetry, arts, philosophical research, and recreative variety. To which if we add, great improvement in the cultivation of the Attic soil,—extension of Athenian trade,—attainment and laborious maintenance of the maximum of maritime skill, attested by the battles of Phormio,—enlargement of the area of complete security by construction of the Long Walls,—lastly, the clothing of Athens in her imperial mantle, by ornaments, architectural and sculptural,—we shall make out a case of genuine progress realized during the political life of Periklês, such as the evils imputed to him, far more imaginary than real, will go but a little way to alloy. How little, comparatively speaking, of the picture drawn by Periklês in his funeral harangue of 431 B.C. would have been correct, if the harangue had been delivered over those warriors who fell at Tanagra, twenty-seven years before!

It has been remarked by M. Boeckh,[310] that Periklês sacrificed the landed proprietors of Attica to the maritime interests and empire of Athens. This is of course founded on the destructive invasions of the country during the Peloponnesian war; for down to the commencement of that war the position of Attic cultivators and proprietors was particularly enviable: and the censure of M. Boeckh, therefore, depends upon the question, how far Periklês contributed to produce, or had it in his power to avert, this melancholy war, in its results so fatal, not merely to Athens, but to the entire Grecian race. Now here again, if we follow attentively the narrative of Thucydidês, we shall see that in the judgment of that historian, not only Periklês did not bring on the war, but he could not have averted it without such concession as Athenian prudence, as well as Athenian patriotism peremptorily forbade: moreover, we shall see, that the calculations on which Periklês grounded his hopes of success if driven to war, were, in the opinion of the historian, perfectly sound and safe. We may even go farther, and affirm, that the administration of Periklês during the fourteen years preceding the war, exhibits a “moderation,” to use the words of Thucydidês,[311] dictated especially by anxiety to avoid raising causes of war; though in the months immediately preceding the breaking out of the war, after the conduct of the Corinthians at Potidæa, and the resolutions of the congress at Sparta, he resisted strenuously all compliance with special demands from Sparta,—demands essentially insincere, and in which partial compliance would have lowered the dignity of Athens without insuring peace. The stories about Pheidias, Aspasia, and the Megarians, even if we should grant that there is some truth at the bottom of them, must, if we follow Thucydidês, be looked upon at worst as concomitants and pretexts, rather than as real causes, of the war: though modern authors, in speaking of Periklês, are but too apt to use expressions which tacitly assume these stories to be well founded.

[310] Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. iii, ch. xv. p. 399,
Eng. Trans.

Kutzen, in the second Beylage to his treatise, Periklês als
Staatsmann (pp. 169-200), has collected and inserted a list of
various characters of Periklês, from twenty different authors,
English, French, and German. That of Wachsmuth is the best of the
collection,—though even he appears to think that Periklês is to
blame for having introduced a set of institutions which none but
himself could work well.

[311] Thucyd. ii, 65. ~μετρίως ἐξηγεῖτο~. i, 144. δίκας δὲ ὅτι
ἐθέλομεν δοῦναι κατὰ τὰς ξυνθήκας, πολέμου δὲ οὐκ ἄρξομεν,
ἀρχομένους δὲ ἀμυνούμεθα.

Seeing then that Periklês did not bring on and could not have averted the Peloponnesian war,—that he steered his course in reference to that event with the long-sighted prudence of one who knew that the safety and the dignity of imperial Athens were essentially interwoven,—we have no right to throw upon him the blame of sacrificing the landed proprietors of Attica. These might, indeed, be excused for complaining, where they suffered so ruinously; but the impartial historian, looking at the whole of the case, cannot admit their complaints as a ground for censuring the Athenian statesman.

The relation of Athens to her allies, the weak point of her position, it was beyond the power of Periklês seriously to amend, probably also beyond his will, since the idea of political incorporation, as well as that of providing a common and equal confederate bond, sustained by effective federal authority between different cities, was rarely entertained even by the best Greek minds.[312] We hear that he tried to summon at Athens a congress of deputies from all cities of Greece, the allies of Athens included;[313] but the scheme could not be brought to bear, in consequence of the reluctance, noway surprising, of the Peloponnesians. Practically, the allies were not badly treated during his administration: and if, among the other bad consequences of the prolonged war, they, as well as Athens, and all other Greeks come to suffer more and more, this depends upon causes with which he is not chargeable, and upon proceedings which departed altogether from his wise and sober calculations. Taking him altogether, with his powers of thought, speech, and action,—his competence, civil and military, in the council as well as in the field,—his vigorous and cultivated intellect, and his comprehensive ideas of a community in pacific and many-sided development,—his incorruptible public morality, caution, and firmness, in a country where all those qualities were rare, and the union of them in the same individual of course much rarer,—we shall find him without a parallel throughout the whole course of Grecian history.

[312] Herodotus (1, 170) mentions that previous to the conquest
of the twelve Ionic cities in Asia by Crœsus, Thalês had
advised them to consolidate themselves all into one single city
government at Teos, and to reduce the existing cities to mere
demes or constituent, fractional municipalities,—τὰς δὲ ἄλλας
πόλιας οἰκεομένας μηδὲν ἧσσον νομίζεσθαι κατάπερ εἰ δῆμοι εἶεν.
It is remarkable to observe that Herodotus himself bestows his
unqualified commendation on this idea.

[313] Plutarch, Periklês, c. 17.

Under the great mortality and pressure of sickness at Athens, their operations of war naturally languished; while the enemies also, though more active, had but little success. A fleet of one hundred triremes, with one thousand hoplites on board, was sent by the Lacedæmonians under Knêmus to attack Zakynthus, but accomplished nothing beyond devastation of the open parts of the island, and then returned home. And it was shortly after this, towards the month of September, that the Ambrakiots made an attack upon the Amphilochian town called Argos, situated on the southern coast of the gulf of Ambrakia: which town, as has been recounted in the preceding chapter, had been wrested from them two years before by the Athenians, under Phormio, and restored to the Amphilochians and Akarnanians. The Ambrakiots, as colonists and allies of Corinth, were at the same time animated by active enmity to the Athenian influence in Akarnania, and by desire to regain the lost town of Argos. Procuring aid from the Chaonians, and some other Epirotic tribes, they marched against Argos, and after laying waste the territory, endeavored to take the town by assault, but were repulsed, and obliged to retire.[314] This expedition appears to have impressed the Athenians with the necessity of a standing force to protect their interest in those parts; so that in the autumn Phormio was sent with a squadron of twenty triremes to occupy Naupaktus, now inhabited by the Messenians, as a permanent naval station, and to watch the entrance of the Corinthian gulf.[315] We shall find in the events of the succeeding year ample confirmation of this necessity.

[314] Thucyd. ii, 68.

[315] Thucyd. ii, 69.

Though the Peloponnesians were too inferior in maritime force to undertake formal war at sea against Athens, their single privateers, especially the Megarian privateers from the harbor of Nisæa, were active in injuring her commerce,[316]—and not merely the commerce of Athens, but also that of other neutral Greeks, without scruple or discrimination. Several merchantmen and fishing-vessels, with a considerable number of prisoners, were thus captured.[317] Such prisoners as fell into the hands of the Lacedæmonians,—even neutral Greeks as well as Athenians,—were all put to death, and their bodies cast into clefts of the mountains. In regard to the neutrals, this capture was piratical, and the slaughter unwarrantably cruel, judged even by the received practice of the Greeks, deficient as that was on the score of humanity: but to dismiss these neutral prisoners, or to sell them as slaves, would have given publicity to a piratical capture and provoked the neutral towns, so that the prisoners were probably slain as the best way of getting rid of them and thus suppressing evidence.[318]

[316] Thucyd. iii, 51.

[317] Thucyd. ii, 67-69; Herodot. vii, 137. Respecting the
Lacedæmonian privateering during the Peloponnesian war, compare
Thucyd. v, 115: compare also Xenophon, Hellen. v, 1, 29.

[318] Thucyd. ii, 67. Οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὕπηρξαν, τοὺς ἐμπόρους
οὓς ἔλαβον Ἀθηναίων καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων ἐν ὁλκάσι περὶ Πελοπόννησον
πλέοντας ἀποκτείναντες καὶ ἐς φάραγγας ἐσβαλόντες. Πάντας γὰρ
δὴ κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τοῦ πολέμου οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, ὅσους λάβοιεν ἐν
τῇ θαλάσσῃ, ὡς πολεμίους διέφθειρον, καὶ τοὺς μετὰ Ἀθηναίων
ξυμπολεμοῦντας καὶ τοὺς μηδὲ μεθ᾽ ἑτέρων.

The Lacedæmonian admiral Alkidas slew all the prisoners taken on
board merchantmen off the coast of Ionia, in the ensuing year
(Thucyd. iii, 32). Even this was considered extremely rigorous,
and excited strong remonstrance; yet the mariners slain were not
neutrals, but belonged to the subject-allies of Athens: moreover,
Alkidas was in his flight, and obliged to make choice between
killing his prisoners or setting them free.

Some of these Peloponnesian privateers ranged as far as the southwestern coast of Asia Minor, where they found temporary shelter, and interrupted the trading-vessels from Phasêlis and Phenicia to Athens; to protect which, the Athenians despatched, in the course of the autumn, a squadron of six triremes under Melêsander. He was farther directed to insure the collection of the ordinary tribute from Athenian subject-allies, and probably to raise such contributions as he could elsewhere. In the prosecution of this latter duty, he undertook an expedition from the sea-coast against one of the Lykian towns in the interior, but his attack was repelled with loss, and he himself slain.[319]

[319] Thucyd. ii, 69.

An opportunity soon offered itself to the Athenians, of retaliating on Sparta for this cruel treatment of the maritime prisoners. In execution of the idea projected at the commencement of the war, the Lacedæmonians sent Anêristus and two others as envoys to Persia, for the purpose of soliciting from the Great King aids of money and troops against Athens; the dissensions among the Greeks thus gradually paving the way for him to regain his ascendency in the Ægean. Timagoras of Tegea, together with an Argeian named Pollis, without any formal mission from his city, and the Corinthian Aristeus, accompanied them. As the sea was in the power of Athens, they travelled overland through Thrace to the Hellespont; and Aristeus, eager to leave nothing untried for the relief of Potidæa, prevailed upon them to make application to Sitalkês, king of the Odrysian Thracians. That prince was then in alliance with Athens, and his son Sadokus had even received the grant of Athenian citizenship: yet the envoys thought it possible not only to detach him from the Athenian alliance, but even to obtain from him an army to act against the Athenians and raise the blockade of Potidæa,—this being refused, they lastly applied to him for a safe escort to the banks of the Hellespont, in their way towards Persia. But Learchus and Ameiniadês, then Athenian residents near the person of Sitalkês, had influence enough not only to cause rejection of these requests, but also to induce Sadokus, as a testimony of zeal in his new character of Athenian citizen, to assist them in seizing the persons of Aristeus and his companions in their journey through Thrace. Accordingly, the whole party were seized and conducted as prisoners to Athens, where they were forthwith put to death, without trial or permission to speak,—and their bodies cast into rocky chasms, as a reprisal for the captured seamen slain by the Lacedæmonians.[320]

[320] Thucyd. ii. 67. Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Greece, vol. iii,
ch. 20, p. 129) says that “the envoys were sacrificed chiefly
to give a decent color to the baseness” of killing Aristeus,
from whom the Athenians feared subsequent evil, in consequence
of his ability and active spirit. I do not think this is fairly
contained in the words of Thucydidês. He puts in the foreground
of Athenian motive, doubtless, fear from the future energy of
Aristeus; but if that had been the only motive, the Athenians
would probably have slain him singly without the rest: they would
hardly think it necessary to provide themselves with “any decent
color,” in the way that Dr. Thirlwall suggests. Thucydidês names
the special feeling of the Athenians against Aristeus (in my
judgment), chiefly in order to explain the extreme haste of the
Athenian sentence of execution—αὐθήμερον—ἀκρίτους, etc.: they
were under the influence of combined motives,—fear, revenge,
retaliation.

The envoys here slain were sons of Sperthiês and Bulis, former
Spartan heralds who had gone up to Xerxes at Susa to offer their
heads as atonement for the previous conduct of the Spartans in
killing the heralds of Darius. Xerxes dismissed them unhurt,—so
that the anger of Talthybius (the heroic progenitor of the
family of heralds at Sparta) remained still unsatisfied: it was
only satisfied by the death of their two sons, now slain by the
Athenians. The fact that the two persons now slain were sons of
those two (Sperthiês and Bulis) who had previously gone to Susa
to tender their lives,—is spoken of as a “romantic and tragical
coincidence.” But there surely is very little to wonder at. The
functions of herald at Sparta, were the privilege of a particular
gens, or family: every herald, therefore, was _ex officio_ the
son of a herald. Now when the Lacedæmonians, at the beginning
of this Peloponnesian war, were looking out for two members of
the heraldic gens to send up to Susa, upon whom would they so
naturally fix as upon the sons of those two men who had been to
Susa before? These sons had doubtless heard their fathers talk
a great deal about it,—probably with interest and satisfaction,
since they derived great glory from the unaccepted offer of their
lives in atonement. There was a particular reason why these two
men should be taken, in preference to any other heralds, to
fulfil this dangerous mission: and doubtless when they perished
in it, the religious imagination of the Lacedæmonians would
group all the series of events as consummation of the judgment
inflicted by Talthybius in his anger (Herodot. vii, 135—ὡς
λέγουσι Λακεδαιμόνιοι).

It appears that Anêristus, the herald here slain, had
distinguished himself personally in that capture of fishermen on
the coast of Peloponnesus by the Lacedæmonians, for which the
Athenians were now retaliating (Herodot. vii, 137). Though this
passage of Herodotus is not clear, yet the sense here put upon it
is the natural one,—and clearer (in my judgment) than that which
O. Müller would propose instead of it (Dorians, ii, p. 437).

Such revenge against Aristeus, the instigator of the revolt of Potidæa, relieved the Athenians from a dangerous enemy; and that blockaded city was now left to its fate. About midwinter it capitulated, after a blockade of two years, and after going through the extreme of suffering from famine, to such a degree that some of those who died were even eaten by the survivors. In spite of such intolerable distress, the Athenian generals, Xenophon son of Euripidês and his two colleagues, admitted them to favorable terms of capitulation,—permitting the whole population and the Corinthian allies to retire freely, with a specified sum of money per head, as well as with one garment for each man and two for each woman,—so that they found shelter among the Chalkidic townships in the neighborhood. These terms were singularly favorable, considering the desperate state of the city, which must very soon have surrendered at discretion: but the hardships, even of the army without, in the cold of winter, were very severe, and they had become thoroughly tired both of the duration and the expense of the siege. The cost to Athens had been not less than two thousand talents; since the assailant force had never been lower than three thousand hoplites, during the entire two years of the siege, and for a portion of the time considerably greater,—each hoplite receiving two drachmas _per diem_. The Athenians at home, when they learned the terms of the capitulation, were displeased with the generals for the indulgence shown,—since a little additional patience would have constrained the city to surrender at discretion: in which case the expense would have been partly made good by selling the prisoners as slaves,—and Athenian vengeance probably gratified by putting the warriors to death.[321] A body of one thousand colonists were sent from Athens to occupy Potidæa and its vacant territory.[322]

[321] Thucyd. ii, 70; iii, 17. However, the displeasure of the
Athenians against the commanders cannot have been very serious,
since Xenophon was appointed to command against the Chalkidians
in the ensuing year.

[322] Diodor. xii, 46.

Two full years had now elapsed since the actual commencement of war, by the attack of the Thebans on Platæa; yet the Peloponnesians had accomplished nothing of what they expected. They had not rescued Potidæa, nor had their twice-repeated invasion, although assisted by the unexpected disasters arising from the epidemic, as yet brought Athens to any sufficient humiliation,—though perhaps the envoys which she had sent during the foregoing summer with propositions for peace, contrary to the advice of Periklês, may have produced an impression that she could not hold out long. At the same time, the Peloponnesian allies had on their side suffered little damage, since the ravages inflicted by the Athenian fleet on their coast may have been nearly compensated by the booty which their invading troops gained in Attica. Probably by this time the public opinion in Greece had contracted an unhappy familiarity with the state of war, so that nothing but some decisive loss and humiliation on one side at least, if not on both, would suffice to terminate it. In this third spring, the Peloponnesians did not repeat their annual march into Attica,—deterred, partly, we may suppose, by fear of the epidemic yet raging there,—but still more by the strong desire of the Thebans to take their revenge on Platæa.

To this ill-fated city, Archidamus marched forthwith, at the head of the confederate army. But no sooner had he entered and begun to lay waste the territory, than the Platæan heralds came forth to arrest his hand, and accosted him in the following terms: “Archidamus, and ye men of Lacedæmon, ye act wrong, and in a manner neither worthy of yourselves nor of your fathers, in thus invading the territory of Platæa. For the Lacedæmonian Pausanias, son of Kleombrotus, after he had liberated Greece from the Persians, in conjunction with those Greeks who stood forward to bear their share of the danger, offered sacrifice to Zeus Eleutherius, in the market-place of Platæa; and there, in presence of all the allies, assigned to the Platæans their own city and territory to hold in full autonomy, so that none should invade them wrongfully, or with a view to enslave them: should such invasion occur, the allies present pledged themselves to stand forward with all their force as protectors. While your fathers made to us this grant, in consideration of our valor and forwardness in that perilous emergency, ye are now doing the precise contrary: ye are come along with our worst enemies, the Thebans, to enslave us. And we on our side now adjure you, calling to witness the gods who sanctioned that oath, as well as your paternal and our local gods, not to violate the oath by doing wrong to the Platæan territory, but to let us live on in that autonomy which Pausanias guaranteed.”[323]

[323] Thucyd. ii, 71, 72.

Whereunto Archidamus replied: “Ye speak fairly, men of Platæa, if your conduct shall be in harmony with your words. Remain autonomous yourselves, as Pausanias granted, and help us to liberate those other Greeks, who, after having shared in the same dangers and sworn the same oath along with you, have now been enslaved by the Athenians. It is for their liberation and that of the other Greeks that this formidable outfit of war has been brought forth. Pursuant to your oaths, ye ought by rights, and we now invite you, to take active part in this object. But if ye cannot act thus, at least remain quiet, conformably to the summons which we have already sent to you; enjoy your own territory, and remain neutral,—receiving both parties as friends, but neither party for warlike purposes. With this we shall be satisfied.”

The reply of Archidamus discloses by allusion a circumstance which the historian had not before directly mentioned; that the Lacedæmonians had sent a formal summons to the Platæans to renounce their alliance with Athens and remain neutral: at what time this took place,[324] we do not know, but it marks the peculiar sentiment attaching to the town. But the Platæans did not comply with the invitation thus twice repeated. The heralds, having returned for instructions into the city, brought back for answer, that compliance was impossible, without the consent of the Athenians, since their wives and families were now harbored at Athens: besides, if they should profess neutrality, and admit both parties as friends, the Thebans might again make an attempt to surprise their city. In reply to their scruples, Archidamus again addressed them: “Well, then, hand over your city and houses to us Lacedæmonians: mark out the boundaries of your territory: specify the number of your fruit-trees, and all your other property which admits of being numbered; and then retire whithersoever ye choose, as long as the war continues. As soon as it is over, we will restore to you all that we have received,—in the interim, we will hold it in trust, and keep it in cultivation, and pay you such an allowance as shall suffice for your wants.”[325]

[324] This previous summons is again alluded to afterwards, on
occasion of the slaughter of the Platæan prisoners (iii, 68):
διότι ~τόν τε ἄλλον χρόνον~ ἠξίουν δῆθεν, etc.

[325] Thucyd. ii, 73, 74.

The proposition now made was so fair and tempting, that the general body of the Platæans were at first inclined to accept it, provided the Athenians would acquiesce; and they obtained from Archidamus a truce long enough to enable them to send envoys to Athens. After communication with the Athenian assembly, the envoys returned to Platæa, bearing the following answer: “Men of Platæa, the Athenians say they have never yet permitted you to be wronged since the alliance first began,—nor will they now betray you, but will help you to the best of their power. And they adjure you, by the oaths which your fathers swore to them, not to depart in any way from the alliance.”

This message awakened in the bosoms of the Platæans the full force of ancient and tenacious sentiment. They resolved to maintain, at all cost, and even to the extreme of ruin, if necessity should require it, their union with Athens. It was indeed impossible that they could do otherwise, considering the position of their wives and families, without the consent of the Athenians; and though we cannot wonder that the latter refused consent, we may yet remark, that, in their situation, a perfectly generous ally might well have granted it. For the forces of Platæa counted for little as a portion of the aggregate strength of Athens; nor could the Athenians possibly protect it against the superior land-force of their enemies,—in fact, so hopeless was the attempt that they never even tried, throughout the whole course of the long subsequent blockade.

The final refusal of the Platæans was proclaimed to Archidamus, by word of mouth from the walls, since it was not thought safe to send out any messenger. As soon as the Spartan prince heard the answer, he prepared for hostile operations,—apparently with very sincere reluctance, attested in the following invocation, emphatically pronounced:—

“Ye gods and heroes, who hold the Platæan territory, be ye my witnesses, that we have not in the first instance wrongfully—not until these Platæans have first renounced the oaths binding on all of us—invaded this territory, in which our fathers defeated the Persians after prayers to you, and which ye granted as propitious for Greeks to fight in,—nor shall we commit wrong in what we may do farther, for we have taken pains to tender reasonable terms, but without success. Be ye now consenting parties: may those who are beginning the wrong receive punishment for it,—may those who are aiming to inflict penalty righteously, obtain their object.”

It was thus that Archidamus, in language delivered probably under the walls, and within hearing of the citizens who manned them, endeavored to conciliate the gods and heroes of that town which he was about to ruin and depopulate. The whole of this preliminary debate,[326] so strikingly and dramatically set forth by Thucydidês, illustrates forcibly the respectful reluctance with which the Lacedæmonians first brought themselves to assail this scene of the glories of their fathers. What deserves remark is, that their direct sentiment attaches itself, not at all to the Platæan people, but only to the Platæan territory; it is purely local, though it becomes partially transferred to the people, as tenants of this spot, by secondary association. It was, however, nothing but the long-standing antipathy[327] of the Thebans which induced Archidamus to undertake the enterprise; for the conquest of Platæa was of no avail towards the main objects of the war, though its exposed situation caused it to be crushed between the two great contending forces in Greece.

[326] Thucyd. ii, 71-75.

[327] Thucyd. iii, 68.

Archidamus now commenced the siege forthwith, in full hopes that his numerous army, the entire strength of the Peloponnesian confederacy, would soon capture a place of no great size, and probably not very well fortified; yet defended by a resolute garrison of four hundred native citizens, with eighty Athenians: there was no one else in the town except one hundred and ten female slaves for cooking. The fruit-trees, cut down in laying waste the cultivated land, sufficed to form a strong palisade all round the town, so as completely to block up the inhabitants. Next, Archidamus, having abundance of timber near at hand in the forests of Kithæron, began to erect a mound up against a portion of the town wall, so as to be able to march up by an inclined plane, and thus take the place by assault. Wood, stones, and earth, were piled up in a vast heap,—cross palings of wood being carried on each side of it, in parallel lines at right angles to the town wall, for the purpose of keeping the loose mass of materials between them together. For seventy days and as many nights did the army labor at this work, without any intermission, taking turns for food and repose: and through such unremitting assiduity, the mound approached near to the height of the town wall. But as it gradually mounted up, the Platæans were not idle on their side: they constructed an additional wall of wood, which they planted on the top of their own town wall, so as to heighten the part over against the enemy’s mound: sustaining it by brickwork behind, for which the neighboring houses furnished materials: hides, raw as well as dressed, were suspended in front of it, in order to protect their workmen against missiles, and the woodwork against fire-carrying arrows.[328] And as the besiegers still continued heaping up materials, to carry their mound up to the height even of this recent addition, the Platæans met them by breaking a hole in the lower part of their town wall, and pulling in the earth from the lower portion of the mound; which thus gave way at the top and left a vacant space near the wall, until the besiegers filled it up by letting down quantities of stiff clay rolled up in wattled reeds, which could not be pulled away in the same manner. Again, the Platæans dug a subterranean passage from the interior of their town to the ground immediately under the mound, and thus carried away unseen the lower earth belonging to the latter; so that the besiegers saw their mound continually sinking down, in spite of fresh additions at the top,—yet without knowing the reason. Nevertheless, it was plain that these stratagems would be in the end ineffectual, and the Platæans accordingly built a new portion of town wall in the interior, in the shape of a crescent, taking its start from the old town wall on each side of the mound: the besiegers were thus deprived of all benefit from the mound, assuming it to be successfully completed; since when they had marched over it, there stood in front of them a new town wall to be carried in like manner.

[328] Thucyd. ii, 75.

Nor was this the only method of attack employed. Archidamus farther brought up battering engines, one of which greatly shook and endangered the additional height of wall built by the Platæans over against the mound; while others were brought to bear on different portions of the circuit of the town wall. Against these new assailants, various means of defence were used: the defenders on the walls threw down ropes, got hold of the head of the approaching engine, and pulled it by main force out of the right line, either upwards or sideways: or they prepared heavy wooden beams on the wall, each attached to both ends by long iron chains to two poles projecting at right angles from the wall, by means of which poles it was raised up and held aloft: so that at the proper moment, when the battering machine approached the wall, the chain was suddenly let go, and the beam fell down with great violence directly upon the engine and broke off its projecting beak.[329] However rude these defensive processes may seem, they were found effective against the besiegers, who saw themselves, at the close of three months’ unavailing efforts, obliged to renounce the idea of taking the town in any other way than by the process of blockade and famine,—a process alike tedious and costly.[330]

[329] The various processes, such as those here described,
employed both for offence and defence in the ancient sieges, are
noticed and discussed in Æneas Poliorketic. c. 33, _seq._

[330] Thucyd. ii, 76.

Before they would incur so much inconvenience, however, they had recourse to one farther stratagem,—that of trying to set the town on fire. From the height of their mound, they threw down large quantities of fagots, partly into the space between the mound and the newly-built crescent piece of wall,—partly, as far as they could reach, into other parts of the city: pitch and other combustibles were next added, and the whole mass set on fire. The conflagration was tremendous, such as had never been before seen: a large portion of the town became unapproachable, and the whole of it narrowly escaped destruction. Nothing could have preserved it, had the wind been rather more favorable: there was indeed a farther story, of a most opportune thunder-storm coming to extinguish the flames, which Thucydidês does not seem to credit.[331] In spite of much partial damage, the town remained still defensible, and the spirit of the inhabitants unsubdued.

[331] Thucyd. ii, 77.

There now remained no other resource except to build a wall of circumvallation round Platæa, and trust to the slow process of famine. The task was distributed in suitable fractions among the various confederate cities, and completed about the middle of September, a little before the autumnal equinox.[332] Two distinct walls were constructed, with sixteen feet of intermediate space all covered in, so as to look like one very thick wall: there were, moreover, two ditches, out of which the bricks for the wall had been taken,—one on the inside towards Platæa, and the other on the outside against any foreign relieving force. The interior covered space between the walls was intended to serve as permanent quarters for the troops left on guard, consisting half of Bœotians and half of Peloponnesians.[333]

[332] Thucyd. ii, 78. καὶ ἐπειδὴ πᾶν ἐξείργαστο περὶ Ἀρκτούρου
ἐπιτολάς, etc. at the period of the year when the star Arcturus
rises immediately before sunrise,—that is, sometime between the
12th and 17th of September: see Göller’s note on the passage.
Thucydidês does not often give any fixed marks to discriminate
the various periods of the year, as we find it here done. The
Greek months were all lunar months, or nominally so: the names
of months, as well as the practice of intercalation to rectify
the calendar, varied from city to city; so that if Thucydidês
had specified the day of the Attic month Boêdromion (instead
of specifying the rising of Arcturus) on which this work
was finished, many of his readers would not have distinctly
understood him. Hippokratês also, in indications of time for
medical purposes, employs the appearance of Arcturus and other
stars.

[333] Thucyd. ii, 78; iii, 21. From this description of the
double wall and covered quarters provided for what was foreknown
as a long blockade, we may understand the sufferings of the
Athenian troops (who probably had no double wall), in the two
years’ blockade of Potidæa,—and their readiness to grant an easy
capitulation to the besieged: see a few pages above.

At the same time that Archidamus began the siege of Platæa, the Athenians on their side despatched a force of two thousand hoplites and two hundred horsemen, to the Chalkidic peninsula, under Xenophon son of Euripidês (with two colleagues), the same who had granted so recently the capitulation of Potidæa. It was necessary doubtless, to convoy and establish the new colonists who were about to occupy the deserted site of Potidæa: moreover, the general had acquired some knowledge of the position and parties of the Chalkidic towns, and hoped to be able to act against them with effect. They first invaded the territory belonging to the Bottiæan town of Spartôlus, not without hopes that the city itself would be betrayed to them by intelligences within: but this was prevented by the arrival of an additional force from Olynthus, partly hoplites, partly peltasts. These peltasts, a species of troops between heavy-armed and light-armed, furnished with a pelta (or light shield), and short spear, or javelin, appear to have taken their rise among these Chalkidic Greeks, being equipped in a manner half Greek and half Thracian: we shall find them hereafter much improved and turned to account by some of the ablest Grecian generals. The Chalkidic hoplites are generally of inferior merit: on the other hand, their cavalry and their peltasts are very good: in the action which now took place under the walls of Spartôlus, the Athenian hoplites defeated those of the enemy, but their cavalry and their light troops were completely worsted by the Chalkidic. These latter, still farther strengthened by the arrival of fresh peltasts from Olynthus, ventured even to attack the Athenian hoplites, who thought it prudent to fall back upon the two companies left in reserve to guard the baggage. During this retreat they were harassed by the Chalkidic horse and light-armed, who retired when the Athenians turned upon them, but attacked them on all sides when on their march; and employed missiles so effectively that the retreating hoplites could no longer maintain a steady order, but took to flight, and sought refuge at Potidæa. Four hundred and thirty hoplites, near one-fourth of the whole force, together with all three generals, perished in this defeat, and the expedition returned in dishonor to Athens.[334]

[334] Thucyd. ii, 79.

In the western parts of Greece, the arms of Athens and her allies were more successful. The repulse of the Ambrakiots from the Amphilochian Argos, during the preceding year, had only exasperated them and induced them to conceive still larger plans of aggression against both the Akarnanians and Athenians. In concert with their mother-city Corinth, where they obtained warm support, they prevailed upon the Lacedæmonians to take part in a simultaneous attack of Akarnania, by land as well as by sea, which would prevent the Akarnanians from concentrating their forces in any one point, and put each of their townships upon an isolated self-defence; so that all of them might be overpowered in succession, and detached, together with Kephallênia and Zakynthus, from the Athenian alliance. The fleet of Phormio at Naupaktus, consisting only of twenty triremes, was accounted incompetent to cope with a Peloponnesian fleet such as might be fitted out at Corinth. There was even some hope that the important station at Naupaktus might itself be taken, so as to expel the Athenians completely from those parts.

The scheme of operations now projected was far more comprehensive than anything which the war had yet afforded. The land-force of the Ambrakiots, together with their neighbors and fellow-colonists the Leukadians and Anaktorians, assembled near their own city, while their maritime force was collected at Leukas, on the Akarnanian coast. The force at Ambrakia was joined, not only by Knêmus, the Lacedæmonian admiral, with one thousand Peloponnesian hoplites, who found means to cross over from Peloponnesus, eluding the vigilance of Phormio,—but also by a numerous body of Epirotic and Macedonian auxiliaries, collected even from the distant and northernmost tribes. A thousand Chaonians were present, under the command of Photyus and Nikanor, two annual chiefs chosen from the regal gens. Neither this tribe, nor the Thesprotians who came along with them, acknowledged any hereditary king. The Molossians and Atintânes, who also joined the force, were under Sabylinthus, regent on behalf of the young prince Tharypas. There came, besides, the Paranæi, from the banks of the river Aôus under their king Orœdus, together with one thousand Orestæ, a tribe rather Macedonian than Epirot, sent by their king Antiochus. Even king Perdikkas, though then nominally in alliance with Athens, sent one thousand of his Macedonian subjects, who, however, arrived too late to be of any use.[335] This large and diverse body of Epirotic invaders, a new phenomenon in Grecian history, and got together doubtless by the hopes of plunder, proves the extensive relations of the tribes of the interior with the city of Ambrakia,—a city destined to become in later days the capital of the Epirotic king Pyrrhus.

[335] Thucyd. ii, 80.

It had been concerted that the Peloponnesian fleet from Corinth should join that already assembled at Leukas, and act upon the coast of Akarnania at the same time that the land-force marched into that territory. But Knêmus finding the land-force united and ready, near Ambrakia, deemed it unnecessary to await the fleet from Corinth, and marched straight into Akarnania, through Limnæa, a frontier village territory belonging to the Amphilochian Argos. He directed his march upon Stratus,—an interior town, and the chief place in Akarnania,—the capture of which would be likely to carry with it the surrender of the rest; especially as the Akarnanians, distracted by the presence of the ships at Leukas, and alarmed by the large body of invaders on their frontier, did not dare to leave their own separate homes, so that Stratus was left altogether to its own citizens. Nor was Phormio, though they sent an urgent message to him, in any condition to help them; since he could not leave Naupaktus unguarded, when the large fleet from Corinth was known to be approaching. Under such circumstances, Knêmus and his army indulged the most confident hopes of overpowering Stratus without difficulty. They marched in three divisions: the Epirots in the centre,—the Leukadians and Anaktorians on the right,—the Peloponnesians and Ambrakiots, together with Knêmus himself, on the left. So little expectation was entertained of resistance, that these three divisions took no pains to keep near or even in sight of each other. Both the Greek divisions, indeed, maintained a good order of march, and kept proper scouts on the look out; but the Epirots advanced without any care or order whatever; especially the Chaonians, who formed the van. These men, accounted the most warlike of all the Epirotic tribes, were so full of conceit and rashness, that when they approached near to Stratus, they would not halt to encamp and assail the place conjointly with the Greeks; but marched along with the other Epirots right forward to the town, intending to attack it single-handed, and confident that they should carry it at the first assault, before the Greeks came up, so that the entire glory would be theirs. The Stratians watched and profited by this imprudence. Planting ambuscades in convenient places, and suffering the Epirots to approach without suspicion near to the gates, they then suddenly sallied out and attacked them, while the troops in ambuscade rose up and assailed them at the same time. The Chaonians who formed the van, thus completely surprised, were routed with great slaughter; while the other Epirots fled, after but little resistance. So much had they hurried forward in advance of their Greek allies, that neither the right nor the left division were at all aware of the battle, until the flying barbarians, hotly pursued by the Akarnanians, made it known to them. The two divisions then joined, protected the fugitives, and restrained farther pursuit,—the Stratians declining to come to hand-combat with them until the other Akarnanians should arrive. They seriously annoyed the forces of Knêmus, however, by distant slinging, in which the Akarnanians were preëminently skilful; nor did Knêmus choose to persist in his attack under such discouraging circumstances. As soon as night arrived, so that there was no longer any fear of slingers, he retreated to the river Anapus, a distance of between nine and ten miles. Well aware that the news of the victory would attract other Akarnanian forces immediately to the aid of Stratus, he took advantage of the arrival of his own Akarnanian allies from Œniadæ (the only town in the country which was attached to the Lacedæmonian interest), and sought shelter near their city. From thence his troops dispersed, and returned to their respective homes.[336]

[336] Thucyd. ii, 82; Diodor. xii, 48.

Meanwhile, the Peloponnesian fleet from Corinth, which had been destined to coöperate with Knêmus off the coast of Akarnania, had found difficulties in its passage, alike unexpected and insuperable. Mustering forty-seven triremes of Corinth, Sikyon, and other places, with a body of soldiers on board, and with accompanying store-vessels,—it departed from the harbor of Corinth, and made its way along the northern coast of Achaia. Its commanders, not intending to meddle with Phormio and his twenty ships at Naupaktus, never for a moment imagined that he would venture to attack a number so greatly superior: the triremes were, accordingly, fitted out more as transports for numerous soldiers than with any view to naval combat,—and with little attention to the choice of skilful rowers.[337]

[337] Thucyd. ii, 83. οὐχ ὡς ἐπὶ ναυμαχίαν, ἀλλὰ στρατιωτικώτερον
παρεσκευασμένοι: compare the speech of Knêmus, c. 87. The
unskilfulness of the rowers is noticed (c. 84).

Except in the combat near Korkyra, and there only partially, the Peloponnesians had never yet made actual trial of Athenian maritime efficiency, at the point of excellence which it had now reached: themselves retaining the old unimproved mode of fighting and of working ships at sea, they had no practical idea of the degree to which it had been superseded by Athenian training. Among the Athenians, on the contrary, not only the seamen generally had a confirmed feeling of their own superiority,—but Phormio especially, the ablest of all their captains, always familiarized his men with the conviction, that no Peloponnesian fleet, be its number ever so great, could possibly contend against them with success.[338] Accordingly, the Corinthian admirals, Machaon and his two colleagues, were surprised to observe that Phormio with his small Athenian squadron, instead of keeping safe in Naupaktus, was moving in parallel line with them and watching their progress until they should get out of the Corinthian gulf into the more open sea. Having advanced along the northern coast of Peloponnesus as far as Patræ in Achaia, they then altered their course, and bore to the northwest in order to cross over towards the Ætolian coast, in their way to Akarnania. In doing this, however, they perceived that Phormio was bearing down upon them from Chalkis and the mouth of the river Euenus, and they now discovered for the first time that he was going to attack them. Disconcerted by this incident, and not inclined for a naval combat in the wide and open sea, they altered their plan of passage, returned to the coast of Peloponnesus, and brought to for the night at some point near to Rhium, the narrowest breadth of the strait. Their bringing to was a mere feint intended to deceive Phormio, and induce him to go back for the night to his own coast: for, during the course of the night, they left their station, and tried to get across the breadth of the gulf, where it was near the strait, and comparatively narrow, before Phormio could come down upon them: and if the Athenian captain had really gone back to take night-station on his own coast, they would probably have got across to the Ætolian or northern coast without any molestation in the wide sea: but he watched their movements closely, kept the sea all night, and was thus enabled to attack them in mid-channel, even during the shorter passage near the strait, at the first dawn of morning.[339] On seeing his approach, the Corinthian admirals ranged their triremes in a circle with the prows outward, like the spokes of a wheel; the circle was made as large as it could be without leaving opportunity to the Athenian assailing ships to practise the manœuvre of the diekplus,[340] and the interior space was sufficient, not merely for the store-vessels, but also for five chosen triremes, who were kept as a reserve, to dart out when required through the intervals between the outer triremes.

[338] Thucyd. ii, 88. πρότερον μὲν γὰρ ~ἀεὶ αὐτοῖς ἔλεγε~
(Phormio) καὶ προπαρεσκεύαζε τὰς γνώμας, ὡς οὐδὲν αὐτοῖς πλῆθος
νεῶν τοσοῦτον, ἢν ἐπιπλέῃ, ὅ,τι οὐχ ὑπομενετέον αὐτοῖς ἐστί·
καὶ οἱ στρατιῶται ἐκ πολλοῦ ἐν σφίσιν αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀξίωσιν ταύτην
εἰλήφεσαν, ~μηδένα ὄχλον Ἀθηναῖοι ὄντες Πελοποννησίων νεῶν
ὑποχωρεῖν~.