Chapter LIII: Eighth Year of the War (1)

The eighth year of the war, on which we now touch, presents events of a more important and decisive character than any of the preceding. In reviewing the preceding years, we observe that though there is much fighting, with hardship and privation inflicted on both sides, yet the operations are mostly of a desultory character, not calculated to determine the event of the war. But the capture of Sphakteria and its prisoners, coupled with the surrender of the whole Lacedæmonian fleet, was an event full of consequences and imposing in the eyes of all Greece. It stimulated the Athenians to a series of operations, larger and more ambitious than anything which they had yet conceived; directed, not merely against Sparta in her own country, but also to the reconquest of that ascendency in Megara and Bœotia which they had lost on or before the thirty years’ truce. On the other hand, it intimidated so much both the Lacedæmonians, the revolted Chalkidic allies of Athens in Thrace, and Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, that between them the expedition of Brasidas, which struck so serious a blow at the Athenian empire, was concerted. This year is thus the turning-point of the war. If the operations of Athens had succeeded, she would have regained nearly as great a power as she enjoyed before the thirty years’ truce: but it happened that Sparta, or rather the Spartan Brasidas, was successful, gaining enough to neutralize all the advantages derived by Athens from the capture of Sphakteria.

The first enterprise undertaken by the Athenians in the course of the spring was against the island of Kythêra, on the southern coast of Laconia. It was inhabited by Lacedæmonian Periœki, and administered by a governor, and garrison of hoplites, annually sent thither. It was the usual point of landing for merchantmen from Libya and Egypt; and as it lay very near to Cape Malea, immediately over against the gulf of Gythium,—the only accessible portion of the generally inhospitable coast of Laconia,—the chance that it might fall into the hands of an enemy was considered as so menacing to Sparta, that some politicians are said to have wished the island at the bottom of the sea.[589] Nikias, in conjunction with Nikostratus and Autoklês, conducted thither a fleet of sixty triremes, with two thousand Athenian hoplites, some few horsemen, and a body of allies, mainly Milesians. There were in the island two towns,—Kythêra and Skandeia: the former having a lower town close to the sea, fronting Cape Malea, and an upper town on the hill above; the latter, seemingly, on the south or west coast. Both were attacked at the same time by order of Nikias; ten triremes and a body of Milesian[590] hoplites disembarked and captured Skandeia; while the Athenians landed at Kythêra, and drove the inhabitants out of the lower town into the upper, where they speedily capitulated. A certain party among them had indeed secretly invited the coming of Nikias, through which intrigue easy terms were obtained for the inhabitants. Some few men, indicated by the Kytherians in intelligence with Nikias, were carried away as prisoners to Athens: but the remainder were left undisturbed, and enrolled among the tributary allies under obligation to pay four talents per annum; an Athenian garrison being placed at Kythêra for the protection of the island. From hence Nikias employed seven days in descents and inroads upon the coast, near Helos, Asinê, Aphrodisia, Kotyrta, and elsewhere. The Lacedæmonian force was disseminated in petty garrisons, which remained each for the defence of its own separate post, without uniting to repel the Athenians, so that there was only one action, and that of little importance, which the Athenians deemed worthy of a trophy.

[589] Thucyd. iv, 54; Herodot. vii, 235. The manner in which
Herodotus alludes to the dangers which would arise to Sparta from
the occupation of Kythêra by an enemy, furnishes one additional
probability tending to show that his history was composed before
the actual occupation of the island by Nikias, in the eighth year
of the Peloponnesian war. Had he been cognizant of this latter
event, he would naturally have made some allusion to it.

The words of Thucydidês in respect to the island of Kythêra are,
the Lacedæmonians πολλὴν ἐπιμέλειαν ἐποιοῦντο· ἦν γὰρ αὐτοῖς
τῶν τε ἀπ᾽ Αἰγύπτου καὶ Λιβύης ὁλκάδων προσβολὴ, καὶ λῃσταὶ ἅμα
τὴν Λακωνικὴν ἧσσον ἐλύπουν ἐκ θαλάσσης, ᾗπερ μόνον οἷον τ᾽ ἦν
κακουργεῖσθαι· ~πᾶσα γὰρ ἀνέχει~ πρὸς τὸ Σικελικὸν καὶ Κρητικὸν
πέλαγος.

I do not understand this passage, with Dr. Arnold and Göller, to
mean, that Laconia was unassailable by land, but very assailable
by sea. It rather means that the only portion of the coast of
Laconia where a maritime invader could do much damage, was in the
interior of the Laconic gulf, near Helos, Gythium, etc., which
is in fact the only plain portion of the coast of Laconia. The
two projecting promontories, which end, the one in Cape Malea,
the other in Cape Tænarus, are high, rocky, harborless, and
afford very little temptation to a disembarking enemy. “The whole
Laconian coast is _high projecting cliff_, where it fronts the
Sicilian and Kretan seas,”—~πᾶσα ἀνέχει~. The island of Kythêra
was particularly favorable for facilitating descents on the
territory near Helos and Gythium. The ἀλιμενότης of Laconia is
noticed in Xenophon, Hellen. iv, 8, 7, where he describes the
occupation of the island by Konon and Pharnabazus.

See Colonel Leake’s description of this coast, and the high
cliffs between Cape Matapan—Tænarus—and Kalamata, which front the
Sicilian sea, as well as those eastward of Cape St. Angelo, or
Malea, which front the Kretan sea (Travels in Morea, vol. i, ch.
vii, p. 261: “tempestuous, rocky, unsheltered coast of Mesamani,”
ch. viii, p. 320; ch. vi, p. 205; Strabo, viii, p. 368; Pausan.
iii, c. xxvi, 2).

[590] Thucyd. iv, 54. δισχιλίοις Μιλησίων ὁπλίταις. It seems
impossible to believe that there could have been so many as
two thousand _Milesian_ hoplites: but we cannot tell where the
mistake lies.

In returning home from Kythêra, Nikias first ravaged the small strip of cultivated land near Epidaurus Limêra, on the rocky eastern coast of Laconia, and then attacked the Æginetan settlement at Thyrea, the frontier strip between Laconia and Argolis. This town and district had been made over by Sparta to the Æginetans, at the time when they were expelled from their own island by Athens, in the first year of the war. The new inhabitants, finding the town too distant from the sea[591] for their maritime habits, were now employed in constructing a fortification close on the shore; in which work a Lacedæmonian detachment under Tantalus, on guard in that neighborhood, was assisting them. When the Athenians landed, both Æginetans and Lacedæmonians at once abandoned the new fortification. The former, with the commanding officer, Tantalus, occupied the upper town of Thyrea; but the Lacedæmonian troops, not thinking it tenable, refused to take part in the defence, and retired to the neighboring mountains, in spite of urgent entreaty from the Æginetans. The Athenians, immediately after landing, marched up to the town of Thyrea, and carried it by storm, burning or destroying everything within it: all the Æginetans were either killed or made prisoners, and even Tantalus, disabled by his wounds, became prisoner also. From hence the armament returned to Athens, where a vote was taken as to the disposal of the prisoners. The Kytherians brought home were distributed for safe custody among the dependent islands: Tantalus was retained along with the prisoners from Sphakteria; but a harder fate was reserved for the Æginetans; they were all put to death, victims to the long-standing apathy between Athens and Ægina. This cruel act was nothing more than a strict application of admitted customs of war in those days: had the Lacedæmonians been the victors, there can be little doubt that they would have acted with equal rigor.[592]

[591] Thucyd. iv, 56. He states that Thyrea was ten stadia, or
about a mile and one-fifth, distant from the sea. But Colonel
Leake (Travels in the Morea, vol. ii, ch. xxii, p. 492), who has
discovered quite sufficient ruins to identify the spot, affirms
“that it is at least three times that distance from the sea.”

This explains to us the more clearly why the Æginetans thought it
necessary to build their new fort.

[592] Thucyd. iv, 58; Diodor. xii, 65.

The occupation of Kythêra, in addition to Pylus, by an Athenian garrison, following so closely upon the capital disaster in Sphakteria, produced in the minds of the Spartans feelings of alarm and depression such as they had never before experienced. Within the course of a few short months their position had completely changed from superiority and aggression abroad to insult and insecurity at home. They anticipated nothing less than incessant foreign attacks on all their weak points, with every probability of internal defection, from the standing discontent of the Helots: nor was it unknown to them, probably, that even Kythêra itself had been lost partly through betrayal. The capture of Sphakteria had caused peculiar sensations among the Helots, to whom the Lacedæmonians had addressed both appeals and promises of emancipation, in order to procure succor for their hoplites while blockaded in the island; and if the ultimate surrender of these hoplites had abated the terrors of Lacedæmonian prowess throughout all Greece, this effect had been produced to a still greater degree among the oppressed Helots. A refuge at Pylus, and a nucleus which presented some possibility of expanding into regenerated Messenia, were now before their eyes; while the establishment of an Athenian garrison at Kythêra opened a new channel of communication with the enemies of Sparta, so as to tempt all the Helots of daring temper to stand forward as liberators of their enslaved race.[593] The Lacedæmonians, habitually cautious at all times, felt now as if the tide of fortune had turned decidedly against them, and acted with confirmed mistrust and dismay, confining themselves to measures strictly defensive, and organizing a force of four hundred cavalry, together with a body of bowmen, beyond their ordinary establishment.

[593] Thucyd. iv, 41, 55, 56.

But the precaution which they thought it necessary to take in regard to the Helots, affords the best measure of their apprehensions at the moment, and exhibits, indeed, a refinement of fraud and cruelty rarely equalled in history. Wishing to single out from the general body such as were most high-couraged and valiant, the ephors made proclamation, that those Helots, who conceived themselves to have earned their liberty by distinguished services in war, might stand forward to claim it. A considerable number obeyed the call; probably many who had undergone imminent hazards during the preceding summer, in order to convey provisions to the blockaded soldiers in Sphakteria.[594] They were examined by the government, and two thousand of them were selected as fully worthy of emancipation; which was forthwith bestowed upon them in public ceremonial, with garlands, visits to the temples, and the full measure of religious solemnity. The government had now made the selection which it desired; presently every man among these newly-enfranchized Helots was made away with, no one knew how.[595] A stratagem at once so perfidious in the contrivance, so murderous in the purpose, and so complete in the execution, stands without parallel in Grecian history,—we might almost say, without a parallel in any history. It implies a depravity far greater than the rigorous execution of a barbarous customary law against prisoners of war or rebels, even in large numbers. The ephors must have employed numerous instruments, apart from each other, for the performance of this bloody deed; yet it appears that no certain knowledge could be obtained of the details; a striking proof of the mysterious efficiency of this Council of Five, surpassing even that of the Council of Ten at Venice, as well as of the utter absence of public inquiry or discussion.

[594] Thucyd. iv, 80.

[595] Thucyd. iv, 80. Καὶ προκρίναντες ἐς δισχιλίους, οἱ μὲν
ἐστεφανώσαντό τε καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ περιῆλθον ὡς ἠλευθερωμένοι· οἱ δὲ
οὐ πολλῷ ὕστερον ἠφάνισάν τε αὐτοὺς, καὶ οὐδεὶς ᾔσθετο ὅτῳ τρόπῳ
ἕκαστος διεφθάρη: compare Diodor. xii, 67.

Dr. Thirlwall (History of Greece, vol. iii. ch. xxiii, p. 244,
2d edit. _note_) thinks that this assassination of Helots by the
Spartans took place at some other time unascertained, and not
at the time here indicated. I cannot concur in this opinion. It
appears to me, that there is the strongest probable reason for
referring the incident to the time immediately following the
disaster in Sphakteria, which Thucydidês so especially marks (iv,
41) by the emphatic words: Οἱ δὲ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ἀμαθεῖς ὄντες ἐν
τῷ πρὶν χρόνῳ λῃστείας καὶ τοῦ τοιούτου πολέμου, τῶν τε Εἱλώτων
αὐτομολούντων καὶ φοβούμενοι μὴ καὶ ἐπὶ μακρότερον σφίσι τι
νεωτερισθῇ τῶν κατὰ τὴν χώραν, οὐ ῥᾳδίως ἔφερον. This was just
after the Messenians were first established at Pylus, and began
their incursions over Laconia, with such temptations as they
could offer to the Helots to desert. And it was naturally just
then that the fear, entertained by the Spartans of their Helots,
became exaggerated to the maximum, leading to the perpetration
of the act mentioned in the text. Dr. Thirlwall observes, “that
the Spartan government would not order the massacre of the Helots
at a time when it could employ them on foreign service.” But
to this it may be replied, that the capture of Sphakteria took
place in July or August, while the expedition under Brasidas was
not organized until the following winter or spring. There was
therefore an interval of some months during which the government
had not yet formed the idea of employing the Helots on foreign
service. And this interval is quite sufficient to give a full and
distinct meaning to the expression καὶ τότε (Thucyd. iv, 80) on
which Dr. Thirlwall insists; without the necessity of going back
to any more remote point of antecedent time.

It was while the Lacedæmonians were in this state of uneasiness at home, that envoys reached them from Perdikkas of Macedonia and the Chalkidians of Thrace, entreating aid against Athens; who was considered likely, in her present tide of success, to resume aggressive measures against them. There were, moreover, other parties, in the neighboring cities[596] subject to Athens, who secretly favored the application, engaging to stand forward in open revolt as soon as any auxiliary force should arrive to warrant their incurring the hazard. Perdikkas (who had on his hands a dispute with his kinsman Arrhibæus, prince of the Lynkestæ-Macedonians, which he was anxious to be enabled to close successfully) and the Chalkidians offered at the same time to provide the pay and maintenance, as well as to facilitate the transit, of the troops who might be sent to them; and what was of still greater importance to the success of the enterprise, they specially requested that Brasidas might be invested with the command.[597] He had now recovered from his wounds received at Pylus, and his reputation for adventurous valor, great as it was from positive desert, stood out still more conspicuously, because not a single other Spartan had as yet distinguished himself. His other great qualities, apart from personal valor, had not yet been shown, for he had never been in any supreme command. But he burned with impatience to undertake the operation destined for him by the envoys; although at this time it must have appeared so replete with difficulty and danger, that probably no other Spartan except himself would have entered upon it with the smallest hopes of success. To raise up embarrassments for Athens, in Thrace, was an object of great consequence to Sparta, while she also obtained an opportunity of sending away another large detachment of her dangerous Helots. Seven hundred of these latter were armed as hoplites and placed under the orders of Brasidas, but the Lacedæmonians would not assign to him any of their own proper forces. With the sanction of the Spartan name, with seven hundred Helot hoplites, and with such other hoplites as he could raise in Peloponnesus by means of the funds furnished from the Chalkidians, Brasidas prepared to undertake this expedition, alike adventurous and important.

[596] Thucyd. iv, 79.

[597] Thucyd. iv, 80. προὐθυμήθησαν δὲ καὶ οἱ Χαλκιδῆς ἄνδρα ἔν
τε τῇ Σπάρτῃ δοκοῦντα δραστήριον εἶναι ἐς τὰ πάντα, etc.

Had the Athenians entertained any suspicion of his design, they could easily have prevented him from ever reaching Thrace. But they knew nothing of it until he had actually joined Perdikkas, nor did they anticipate any serious attack from Sparta, in this moment of her depression, much less an enterprise far bolder than any which she had ever been known to undertake. They were now elate with hopes of conquests to come on their own part, their affairs being so prosperous and promising that parties favorable to their interests began to revive, both in Megara and in Bœotia; while Hippokratês and Demosthenês, the two chief stratêgi for the year, were men of energy, well qualified both to project and execute military achievements.

The first opportunity presented itself in regard to Megara. The inhabitants of that city had been greater sufferers by the war than any other persons in Greece: they had been the chief cause of bringing down the war upon Athens, and the Athenians revenged upon them all the hardships which they themselves endured from the Lacedæmonian invasion. Twice in every year they laid waste the Megarid, which bordered upon their own territory; and that too with such destructive hands throughout its limited extent, that they intercepted all subsistence from the lands near the town, at the same time keeping the harbor of Nisæa closely blocked up. Under such hard conditions the Megarians found much difficulty in supplying even the primary wants of life.[598] But their case had now, within the last few months, become still more intolerable by an intestine commotion in the city, ending in the expulsion of a powerful body of exiles, who seized and held possession of Pegæ, the Megarian port in the gulf of Corinth. Probably imports from Pegæ had been their chief previous resource against the destruction which came on them from the side of Athens; so that it became scarcely possible to sustain themselves, when the exiles in Pegæ not only deprived them of this resource, but took positive part in harassing them. These exiles were oligarchical, and the government in Megara had now become more or less democratical: but the privations in the city presently reached such a height, that several citizens began to labor for a compromise, whereby the exiles in Pegæ might be readmitted. It was evident to the leaders in Megara that the bulk of the citizens could not long sustain the pressure of enemies from both sides, but it was also their feeling that the exiles in Pegæ, their bitter political rivals, were worse enemies than the Athenians, and that the return of these exiles would be a sentence of death to themselves. To prevent this counter-revolution, they opened a secret correspondence with Hippokratês and Demosthenês, engaging to betray both Megara and Nisæa to the Athenians; though Nisæa, the harbor of Megara, about one mile from the city, was a separate fortress occupied by a Peloponnesian garrison, and by them exclusively, as well as the Long Walls, for the purpose of holding Megara fast to the Lacedæmonian confederacy.[599]

[598] The picture drawn by Aristophanês (Acharn. 760) is a
caricature, but of suffering probably but too real.

[599] Thucyd. iv, 66. Strabo (ix, p. 391) gives eighteen stadia
as the distance between Megara and Nisæa; Thucydidês only eight.
There appears sufficient reason to prefer the latter: see
Reinganum, Das alte Megaris, pp. 121-180.

The scheme for surprise was concerted, and what is more remarkable, in the extreme publicity of all Athenian affairs, and in a matter to which many persons must have been privy, was kept secret, until the instant of execution. A large Athenian force, four thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry, was appointed to march at night by the high road through Eleusis to Megara: but Hippokratês and Demosthenês themselves went on shipboard from Peiræus to the island of Minôa, which was close against Nisæa, and had been for some time under occupation by an Athenian garrison. Here Hippokratês concealed himself with six hundred hoplites, in a hollow space out of which brick earth had been dug, on the mainland opposite to Minôa, and not far from the gate in the Long Wall which opened near the junction of that wall with the ditch and wall surrounding Nisæa; while Demosthenês, with some light-armed Platæans and a detachment of active young Athenians, called Peripoli, and serving as the movable guard of Attica, in their first or second year of military service, placed himself in ambush in the sacred precinct of Arês, still closer to the same gate.

To procure that the gate should be opened, was the task of the conspirators within. Amidst the shifts to which the Megarians had been reduced in order to obtain supplies, especially since the blockade of Minôa, predatory exit by night was not omitted. Some of these conspirators had been in the habit, before the intrigue with Athens was projected, of carrying out a small sculler-boat by night upon a cart, through this gate, by permission of the Peloponnesian commander of Nisæa and the Long Walls. The boat, when thus brought out, was carried down to the shore along the hollow of the dry ditch which surrounded the wall of Nisæa, then put to sea for some nightly enterprise, and was brought back again along the ditch before daylight in the morning; the gate being opened, by permission, to let it in. This was the only way by which any Megarian vessel could get to sea, since the Athenians at Minôa were complete masters of the harbor. On the night fixed for the surprise, this boat was carried out and brought back at the usual hour. But the moment that the gate in the Long Wall was opened to readmit it, Demosthenês and his comrades sprang forward to force their way in; the Megarians along with the boat at the same time setting upon and killing the guards, in order to facilitate his entrance. This active and determined band were successful in mastering the gate, and keeping it open until the six hundred hoplites under Hippokratês came up, and got into the interior space between the Long Walls. They immediately mounted the walls on each side, every man as he came in, with little thought of order, to drive off or destroy the Peloponnesian guards; who, taken by surprise, and fancying that the Megarians generally were in concert with the enemy against them,—confirmed, too, in such belief by hearing the Athenian herald proclaim aloud that every Megarian who chose might take his post in the line of Athenian hoplites,[600]—made at first some resistance, but were soon discouraged, and fled into Nisæa. By a little after daybreak, the Athenians found themselves masters of all the line of the Long Walls, and under the very gates of Megara,—reinforced by the larger force which, having marched by land through Eleusis, arrived at the concerted moment.

[600] Thucyd. iv, 68. Ξυνέπεσε γὰρ καὶ τὸν τῶν Ἀθηναίων κήρυκα
ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ γνώμης κηρύξαι, τὸν βουλόμενον ἰέναι Μεγαρέων μετὰ
Ἀθηναίων θησόμενον τὰ ὅπλα.

Here we have the phrase τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα employed in a case where
Dr. Arnold’s explanation of it would be eminently unsuitable.
There could be no thought of _piling arms_ at a critical moment
of actual fighting, with result as yet doubtful.

Meanwhile, the Megarians within the city were in the greatest tumult and consternation. But the conspirators, prepared with their plan, had resolved to propose that the gates should be thrown open, and that the whole force of the city should be marched out to fight the Athenians: when once the gates should be open, they themselves intended to take part with the Athenians, and facilitate their entrance,—and they had rubbed their bodies over with oil in order to be visibly distinguished in the eyes of the latter. Their plan was only frustrated the moment before it was about to be put in execution, by the divulgation of one of their own comrades. Their opponents in the city, apprized of what was in contemplation, hastened to the gate, and intercepted the men rubbed with oil as they were about to open it. Without betraying any knowledge of the momentous secret which they had just learned, these opponents loudly protested against opening the gate and going out to fight an enemy for whom they had never conceived themselves, even in moments of greater strength, to be a match in the open field. While insisting only on the public mischiefs of the measure, they at the same time planted themselves in arms against the gate, and declared that they would perish before they would allow it to be opened. For this obstinate resistance the conspirators were not prepared, so that they were forced to abandon their design and leave the gate closed.

The Athenian generals, who were waiting in expectation that it would be opened, soon perceived by the delay that their friends within had been baffled, and immediately resolved to make sure of Nisæa, which lay behind them; an acquisition important not less in itself, than as a probable means for the mastery of Megara. They set about the work with the characteristic rapidity of Athenians. Masons and tools in abundance were forthwith sent for from Athens, and the army distributed among themselves the wall of circumvallation round Nisæa in distinct parts. First, the interior space between the Long Walls themselves was built across, so as to cut off the communication with Megara; next, walls were carried out from the outside of both the Long Walls down to the sea, so as completely to inclose Nisæa, with its fortifications and ditch. The scattered houses which formed a sort of ornamented suburb to Nisæa, furnished bricks for this inclosing circle, or were sometimes even made to form a part of it as they stood, with the parapets on their roofs; while the trees were cut down to supply material wherever palisades were suitable. In a day and a half the work of circumvallation was almost completed, so that the Peloponnesians in Nisæa saw before them nothing but a hopeless state of blockade. Deprived of all communication, they not only fancied that the whole city of Megara had joined the Athenians, but they were moreover without any supply of provisions, which had been always furnished to them in daily rations from the city. Despairing of any speedy relief from Peloponnesus, they accepted easy terms of capitulation offered to them by the Athenian generals.[601] After delivering up their arms, each man among them was to be ransomed for a stipulated price; we are not told how much, but doubtless a moderate sum. The Lacedæmonian commander, and such other Lacedæmonians as might be in Nisæa, were, however, required to surrender themselves as prisoners to the Athenians, to be held at their disposal. On these terms Nisæa was surrendered to the Athenians, who cut off its communication with Megara, by keeping the intermediate space between the Long Walls effectively blocked up,—walls, of which they had themselves, in former days, been the original authors.[602]

[601] Thucyd. iv, 69.

[602] Thucyd. i, 103; iv, 69. Καὶ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι, τὰ μακρὰ τείχη
ἀποῤῥήξαντες ἀπὸ τῆς τῶν Μεγαρέων πόλεως καὶ τὴν Νίσαιαν
παραλαβόντες, τἄλλα παρεσκευάζοντο.

I cannot think, with Poppo and Göller, that the participle
ἀποῤῥήξαντες is to be explained as meaning that the Athenians
PULLED DOWN the portion of the Long Walls near Megara. This
may have been done, but it would be an operation of no great
importance; for to pull down a portion of the wall would not
bar the access from the city, which it was the object of the
Athenians to accomplish. “They broke off” the communication
along the road between the Long Walls from the city to Nisæa, by
building across or barricading the space between: similar to what
is said a little above,—~διοικοδομησάμενοι~ τὸ πρὸς Μεγαρέας,
etc. Diodorus (xii, 66) abridges Thucydidês.

Such interruption of communication by the Long Walls indicated in the minds of the Athenian generals a conviction that Megara was now out of their reach. But the town in its present distracted state, would certainly have fallen into their hands,[603] had it not been snatched from them by the accidental neighborhood and energetic intervention of Brasidas. That officer, occupied in the levy of troops for his Thracian expedition, was near Corinth and Sikyon, when he first learned the surprise and capture of the Long Walls. Partly from the alarm which the news excited among these Peloponnesian towns, partly from his own personal influence, he got together a body of two thousand seven hundred Corinthian hoplites, six hundred Sikyonian and four hundred Phliasian, besides his own small army, and marched with this united force to Tripodiskus, in the Megarid, half-way between Megara and Pegæ, on the road over Mount Geraneia; having first despatched a pressing summons to the Bœotians to request that they would meet him at that point with reinforcements. He trusted by a speedy movement to preserve Megara, and perhaps even Nisæa; but on reaching Tripodiskus in the night, he learned that the latter place had already surrendered. Alarmed for the safety of Megara, he proceeded thither by a night-march without delay. Taking with him only a chosen band of three hundred men, he presented himself, without being expected, at the gates of the city; entreating to be admitted, and offering to lend his immediate aid for the recovery of Nisæa. One of the two parties in Megara would have been glad to comply; but the other, knowing well that in that case the exiles in Pegæ would be brought back upon them, was prepared for a strenuous resistance, in which case the Athenian force, still only one mile off, would have been introduced as auxiliaries. Under these circumstances the two parties came to a compromise, and mutually agreed to refuse admittance to Brasidas. They expected that a battle would take place between him and the Athenians, and each calculated that Megara would follow the fortunes of the victor.[604]

[603] Thucyd. iv, 73. εἰ μὲν γὰρ μὴ ὤφθησαν ἐλθόντες (Brasidas
with his troops) οὐκ ἂν ἐν τύχῃ γίγνεσθαι σφίσιν, ἀλλὰ σαφῶς ἂν
ὥσπερ ἡσσηθέντων στερηθῆναι εὐθὺς τῆς πόλεως.

[604] Thucyd. iv, 71.

Returning back without success to Tripodiskus, Brasidas was joined there early in the morning by two thousand Bœotian hoplites and six hundred cavalry; for the Bœotians had been put in motion by the same news as himself, and had even commenced their march, before his messenger arrived, with such celerity as to have already reached Platæa.[605] The total force under Brasidas was thus increased to six thousand hoplites and six hundred cavalry, with whom he marched straight to the neighborhood of Megara. The Athenian light troops, dispersed over the plain, were surprised and driven in by the Bœotian cavalry; but the Athenian cavalry, coming to their aid, maintained a sharp action with the assailants, wherein, after some loss on both sides, a slight advantage remained on the side of the Athenians. They granted a truce for the burial of the Bœotian officer of cavalry, who was slain with some others. After this indecisive cavalry skirmish, Brasidas advanced with his main force into the plain, between Megara and the sea, taking up a position near to the Athenian hoplites, who were drawn up in battle array, hard by Nisæa and the Long Walls. He thus offered them battle if they chose it; but each party expected that the other would attack and each was unwilling to begin the attack on his own side, Brasidas was well aware that, if the Athenians refused to fight, Megara would be preserved from falling into their hands,—which loss it was his main object to prevent, and which had in fact been prevented only by his arrival. If he attacked and was beaten, he would forfeit this advantage,—while, if victorious, he could hardly hope to gain much more. The Athenian generals on their side reflected, that they had already secured a material acquisition in Nisæa, which cut off Megara from their sea; that the army opposed to them was not only superior in number of hoplites, but composed of contingents from many different cities, so that no one city hazarded much in the action; while their own force was all Athenian, and composed of the best hoplites in Athens, which would render a defeat severely ruinous to the city: nor did they think it worth while to encounter this risk, even for the purpose of gaining possession of Megara. With such views in the leaders on both sides, the two armies remained for some time in position, each waiting for the other to attack: at length the Athenians, seeing that no aggressive movement was contemplated by their opponents, were the first to retire into Nisæa. Thus left master of the field, Brasidas retired in triumph to Megara, the gates of which were now opened without reserve to admit him.[606]

[605] Thucyd. iv, 72.

[606] Thucyd. iv, 73.

The army of Brasidas, having gained the chief point for which it was collected, speedily dispersed,—he himself resuming his preparations for Thrace; while the Athenians on their side also returned home, leaving an adequate garrison for the occupation both of Nisæa and of the Long Walls. But the interior of Megara underwent a complete and violent revolution. While the leaders friendly to Athens, not thinking it safe to remain, fled forthwith and sought shelter with the Athenians,[607] the opposite party opened communication with the exiles at Pegæ and readmitted them into the city; binding them however, by the most solemn pledges, to observe absolute amnesty of the past and to study nothing but the welfare of the common city. The new-comers only kept their pledge during the interval which elapsed until they acquired power to violate it with effect. They soon got themselves placed in the chief commands of state, and found means to turn the military force to their own purposes. A review and examination of arms, of the hoplites in the city, having been ordered, the Megarian lochi were so marshalled and tutored as to enable the leaders to single out such victims as they thought expedient. They seized many of their most obnoxious enemies, some of them suspected as accomplices in the recent conspiracy with Athens: the men thus seized were subjected to the forms of a public trial, before that which was called a public assembly; wherein each voter, acting under military terror, was constrained to give his suffrage openly. All were condemned to death and executed, to the number of one hundred.[608] The constitution of Megara was then shaped into an oligarchy of the closest possible kind, a few of the most violent men taking complete possession of the government. But they must probably have conducted it with vigor and prudence for their own purposes, since Thucydidês remarks that it was rare to see a revolution accomplished by so small a party, and yet so durable. How long it lasted, he does not mention. A few months after these incidents, the Megarians regained possession of their Long Walls, by capture from the Athenians,[609] to whom indeed they could have been of no material service, and levelled the whole line of them to the ground: but the Athenians still retained Nisæa. We may remark, as explaining in part the durability of this new government, that the truce concluded at the beginning of the ensuing year must have greatly lightened the difficulties of any government, whether oligarchical or democratical, in Megara.

[607] We find some of them afterwards in the service of Athens,
employed as light-armed troops in the Sicilian expedition
(Thucyd. vi, 43).

[608] Thucyd. iv, 74. οἱ δὲ ἐπειδὴ ἐν ταῖς ἀρχαῖς ἐγένοντο, καὶ
ἐξέτασιν ὅπλων ἐποιήσαντο, διαστήσαντες τοὺς λόχους, ἐξελέξαντο
τῶν τε ἐχθρῶν καὶ οἵ ἐδόκουν μάλιστα ξυμπρᾶξαι τὰ πρὸς τοὺς
Ἀθηναίους, ἄνδρας ὡς ἑκατόν· καὶ ~τούτων πέρι ἀναγκάσαντες τὸν
δῆμον ψῆφον φανερὰν διενεγκεῖν~, ὡς κατεγνώσθησαν, ἔκτειναν,
καὶ ἐς ὀλιγαρχίαν τὰ μάλιστα κατέστησαν τὴν πόλιν. καὶ πλεῖστον
δὴ χρόνον αὕτη ὑπ᾽ ἐλαχίστων γενομένη ἐκ στάσεως μετάστασις
ξυνέμεινεν.

[609] Thucyd. iv, 109.

The scheme for surprising Megara had been both laid and executed with skill, and only miscarried through an accident to which such schemes are always liable, as well as by the unexpected celerity of Brasidas. It had, moreover, succeeded so far as to enable the Athenians to carry Nisæa,—one of the posts which they had surrendered by the thirty years’ truce, and of considerable positive value to them: so that it counted on the whole as a victory, leaving the generals with increased encouragement to turn their activity elsewhere. Accordingly, very soon after the troops had been brought back from the Megarid,[610] Hippokratês and Demosthenês concerted a still more extensive plan for the invasion of Bœotia, in conjunction with some malcontents in the Bœotian towns, who desired to break down and democratize the oligarchical governments, and especially through the agency of a Theban exile named Ptœodôrus. Demosthenês, with forty triremes, was sent round Peloponnesus to Naupaktus, with instructions to collect an Akarnanian force, to sail into the inmost recess of the Corinthian or Krissæan gulf, and to occupy Siphæ, a maritime town belonging to the Bœotian Thespiæ, where intelligences had been already established. On the same day, determined beforehand, Hippokratês engaged to enter Bœotia, with the main force of Athens, at the southeastern corner of the territory near Tanagra, and to fortify Delium, the temple of Apollo, on the coast of the Eubœan strait: while at the same time it was concerted that some Bœotian and Phocian malcontents should make themselves masters of Chæroneia on the borders of Phocis. Bœotia would thus be assailed on three sides at the same moment, so that the forces of the country would be distracted and unable to coöperate. Internal movements were farther expected to take place in some of the cities, such as perhaps to establish democratical governments and place them at once in alliance with the Athenians.

[610] Thucyd. iv, 76. εὐθὺς μετὰ τὴν ἐκ τῆς Μεγαρίδος ἀναχώρησιν,
etc.

Accordingly, about the month of August, Demosthenês sailed from Athens to Naupaktus, where he collected his Akarnanian allies,—now stronger and more united than ever, since the refractory inhabitants of Œniadæ had been at length compelled to join their Akarnanian brethren: moreover, the neighboring Agræans with their prince Salynthius were also brought into the Athenian alliance. On the appointed day, seemingly about the beginning of October, he sailed with a strong force of these allies up to Siphæ, in full expectation that it would be betrayed to him.[611] But the execution of this enterprise was less happy than that against Megara. In the first place, there was a mistake as to the day understood between Hippokratês and Demosthenês: in the next place, the entire plot was discovered and betrayed by a Phocian of Phanoteus (bordering on Chæroneia) named Nicomachus,—communicated first to the Lacedæmonians and through them to the bœotarchs. Siphæ and Chæroneia were immediately placed in a state of defence, and Demosthenês, on arriving at the former place, found not only no party within it favorable to him, but a formidable Bœotian force which rendered attack unavailing: moreover, Hippokratês had not yet begun his march, so that the defenders had nothing to distract their attention from Siphæ.[612] Under these circumstances, not only was Demosthenês obliged to withdraw without striking a blow, and to content himself with an unsuccessful descent upon the territory of Sikyon,[613] but all the expected internal movements in Bœotia were prevented from breaking out.

[611] Thucyd. iv, 77.

[612] Thucyd. iv, 89.

[613] Thucyd. iv, 101.

It was not till after the Bœotian troops, having repelled the attack by sea, had retired from Siphæ, that Hippokratês commenced his march from Athens to invade the Bœotian territory near Tanagra. He was probably encouraged by false promises from the Bœotian exiles, otherwise it seems remarkable that he should have persisted in executing his part of the scheme alone, after the known failure of the other part. It was, however, executed in a manner which implies unusual alacrity and confidence. The whole military population of Athens was marched into Bœotia, to the neighborhood of Delium, the eastern coast-extremity of the territory belonging to the Bœotian town of Tanagra; the expedition comprising all classes, not merely citizens, but also metics or resident non-freemen, and even non-resident strangers then by accident at Athens. Of course this statement must be understood with the reserve of ample guards left behind for the city: but besides the really effective force of seven thousand hoplites, and several hundred horsemen, there appear to have been not less than twenty-five thousand light-armed, half-armed, or unarmed attendants accompanying the march.[614] The number of hoplites is here prodigiously great; brought together by general and indiscriminate proclamation, not selected by a special choice of the stratêgi out of the names on the muster-roll, as was usually the case for any distant expedition.[615] As to light-armed, there was at this time no trained force of that description at Athens, except a small body of archers. No pains had been taken to organize either darters or slingers: the hoplites, the horsemen, and the seamen, constituted the whole effective force of the city. Indeed, it appears that the Bœotians also were hardly less destitute than the Athenians of native darters and slingers, since those which they employed in the subsequent siege of Delium were in great part hired from the Malian gulf.[616] To employ at one and the same time heavy-armed and light-armed, was not natural to any Grecian community, but was a practice which grew up with experience and necessity. The Athenian feeling, as manifested in the Persæ of Æschylus a few years after the repulse of Xerxes, proclaims exclusive pride in the spear and shield, with contempt for the bow: and it was only during this very year, when alarmed by the Athenian occupation of Pylus and Kythêra, that the Lacedæmonians, contrary to their previous custom, had begun to organize a regiment of archers.[617] The effective manner in which Demosthenês had employed the light-armed in Sphakteria against the Lacedæmonian hoplites, was well calculated to teach an instructive lesson as to the value of the former description of troops.

[614] Thucyd. iv, 93, 94. He states that the Bœotian ψιλοὶ were
above ten thousand, and that the Athenian ψιλοὶ were πολλαπλάσιοι
τῶν ἐναντίων. We can hardly take this number as less than
twenty-five thousand ψιλῶν καὶ σκευοφόρων (iv, 101).

The hoplites, as well as the horsemen, had their baggage and
provision carried for them by attendants: see Thucyd. iii, 17;
vii, 75.

[615] Thucyd. iv, 90. Ὁ δ᾽ Ἱπποκράτης ἀναστήσας Ἀθηναίους
πανδημεὶ, αὐτοὺς καὶ τοὺς μετοίκους καὶ ξένων ὅσοι παρῆσαν, etc.:
also πανστρατιᾶς (iv, 94).

The meaning of the word πανδημεὶ is well illustrated by Nikias in
his exhortation to the Athenian army near Syracuse, immediately
antecedent to the first battle with the Syracusans,—levy
_en masse_, as opposed to hoplites specially selected (vi,
66-68),—ἄλλως τε καὶ πρὸς ἄνδρας πανδημεί τε ἀμυνομένους, καὶ οὐκ
ἀπολέκτους, ὥσπερ καὶ ἡμᾶς—καὶ προσέτι Σικελιώτας, etc.

When a special selection took place, the names of the hoplites
chosen by the generals to take part in any particular service
were written on boards according to their tribes: each of these
boards was affixed publicly against the statue of the Heros
Eponymus of the tribe to which it referred: Aristophanês,
Equites, 1369; Pac. 1184, with Scholiast; Wachsmuth, Hellen.
Alterthumsk. ii, p. 312.

[616] Thucyd. iv, 100.

[617] Thucyd. iv, 55.

The Bœotian Delium,[618] which Hippokratês now intended to occupy and fortify, was a temple of Apollo, strongly situated and overhanging the sea, about five miles from Tanagra, and somewhat more than a mile from the border territory of Orôpus,—a territory originally Bœotian, but at this time dependent on Athens, and even partly incorporated in the political community of Athens, under the name of the Deme of Græa.[619] Orôpus itself was about a day’s march from Athens, by the road which led through Dekeleia and Sphendalê, between the mountains Parnês and Phelleus: so that as the distance to be traversed was so inconsiderable, and the general feeling of the time was that of confidence, it is probable that men of all ages, arms, and dispositions crowded to join the march, in part from mere curiosity and excitement. Hippokratês reached Delium on the day after he had started from Athens: on the succeeding day he began his work of fortification, which was completed, all hands aiding, and tools as well as workmen having been brought along with the army from Athens, in two days and a half. Having dug a ditch all round the sacred ground, he threw up the earth in a bank alongside of the ditch, planting stakes, throwing in fascines, and adding layers of stone and brick, to keep the work together, and make it into a rampart of tolerable height and firmness. The vines[620] round the temple, together with the stakes which served as supports to them, were cut to obtain wood; the houses adjoining furnished bricks and stone: the outer temple-buildings themselves also, on some of the sides, served as they stood to facilitate and strengthen the defence; but there was one side on which the annexed building, once a portico, had fallen down: and here the Athenians constructed some wooden towers as a help to the defenders. By the middle of the fifth day after leaving Athens, the work was so nearly completed, that the army quitted Delium, and began its march homeward, out of Bœotia; halting, after it had proceeded about a mile and a quarter, within the Athenian territory of Orôpus. It was here that the hoplites awaited the coming of Hippokratês, who still remained at Delium, stationing the garrison, and giving his final orders about future defence; while the greater number of the light-armed and unarmed, separating from the hoplites, and seemingly without any anticipation of the coming danger, continued their return-march to Athens.[621] Their position was probably about the western extremity of the plain of Orôpus, on the verge of the low heights between that plain and Delium.[622]

[618] Thucyd. iv, 90; Livy, xxxv, 51.

[619] Dikæarch. Βίος Ἑλλάδος. Fragm. ed. Fuhr, pp. 142-230;
Pausan. i, 34, 2; Aristotle ap. Stephan. Byz. v, Ὠρωπός. See
also Col. Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica, vol. ii, sect.
iv, p. 123; Mr. Finlay, Oropus and the Diakria, p. 38; Ross, Die
Demen von Attika, p. 6, where the Deme of Græa is verified by an
inscription, and explained for the first time.

The road taken by the army of Hippokratês in the march to Delium,
was the same as that by which the Lacedæmonian army in their
first invasion of Attica had retired from Attica into Bœotia
(Thucyd. ii, 23).

[620] Dikæarchus (Βίος Ἑλλάδος, p. 142, ed. Fuhr) is full of
encomiums on the excellence of the wine drunk at Tanagra, and of
the abundant olive-plantations on the road between Orôpus and
Tanagra.

Since tools and masons were brought from Athens to fortify Nisæa
about three months before (Thucyd. iv, 69), we may be pretty sure
that similar apparatus was carried to Delium, though Thucydidês
does not state it.

[621] Thucyd. iv, 90. That the vines round the temple had
supporting-stakes, which furnished the σταυροὺς used by the
Athenians, we may reasonably presume: the same as those χάρακες
which are spoken of in Korkyra, iii, 70: compare Pollux, i, 162.

[622] “The plain of Oropus (observes Col. Leake) expands from
its upper angle at _Oropó_ towards the mouth of the Asopus, and
stretches about five miles along the shore, from the foot of the
hills of Markópulo on the east to the village of Khalkúki on
the west, where begin some heights extending westward towards
Dhilisi, the ancient Delium.”—“The plain of Oropus is separated
from the more inland plain of Tanagra by rocky gorges through
which the Asopus flows.” (Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica,
vol. ii. sect. iv, p. 112.)

During these five days, however, the forces from all parts of Bœotia had time to muster at Tanagra: and their number was just completed as the Athenians were beginning their march homeward from Delium. Contingents had arrived, not only from Thebes and its dependent townships around, but also from Haliartus, Korôneia, Orchomenus, Kôpæ, and Thespiæ: that of Tanagra joined on the spot. The government of the Bœotian confederacy at this time was vested in eleven bœotarchs,—two chosen from Thebes, the rest in unknown proportion by the other cities, immediate members of the confederacy,—and in four senates, or councils, the constitution of which is not known. Though all the bœotarchs, now assembled at Tanagra, formed a sort of council of war, yet the supreme command was vested in Pagondas and Aranthidês, the bœotarchs from Thebes; either in Pagondas as the senior of the two, or perhaps in both, alternating with each other day by day.[623] As the Athenians were evidently in full retreat, and had already passed the border, all the other bœotarchs, except Pagondas, were unwilling to hazard a battle[624] on soil not Bœotian, and were disposed to let them return home without obstruction. Such reluctance is not surprising, when we reflect that the chances of defeat were considerable, and that probably some of these bœotarchs were afraid of the increased power which a victory would lend to the oppressive tendencies of Thebes. But Pagondas strenuously opposed this proposition, and carried the soldiers of the various cities along with him, even in opposition to the sentiments of their separate leaders, in favor of immediately fighting. He called them apart and addressed them by separate divisions, in order that all might not quit their arms at one and the same moment.[625] He characterized the sentiment of the other bœotarchs as an unworthy manifestation of weakness, which, when properly considered, had not even the recommendation of superior prudence. For the Athenians had just invaded the country, and built a fort for the purpose of continuous devastation; nor were they less enemies on one side of the border than on the other. Moreover, they were the most restless and encroaching of all enemies; and the Bœotians, who had the misfortune to be their neighbors, could only be secure against them by the most resolute promptitude in defending themselves, as well as in returning the blows first given. If they wished to protect their autonomy and their property against the condition of slavery under which their neighbors in Eubœa had long suffered, as well as so many other portions of Greece, their only chance was to march onward and beat these invaders, following the glorious example of their fathers and predecessors in the field of Korôneia. The sacrifices were favorable to an advancing movement, and Apollo, whose temple the Athenians had desecrated by converting it into a fortified place, would lend his cordial aid to the Bœotian defence.[626]

[623] Thucyd. iv, 93; v, 38. Akræphiæ may probably be considered
as either a dependency of Thebes, or included in the general
expression of Thucydidês, after the word Κωπαιῆς—οἱ περὶ τὴν
λίμνην. Anthêdon and Lebadeia, which are recognized as separate
autonomous townships in various Bœotian inscriptions, are not
here named in Thucydidês. But there is no certain evidence
respecting the number of immediate members of the Bœotian
confederacy: compare the various conjectures in Boeckh, ad Corp.
Inscript. tom. i, p. 727; O. Müller, Orchomenus, p. 402; Kruse,
Hellas, tom. ii, p. 548.

[624] Thucyd. iv, 91. τῶν ἄλλων Βοιωταρχῶν, οἵ ~εἰσιν ἕνδεκα~, οὐ
ξυνεπαινούντων μάχεσθαι, etc.

The use of the present tense εἰσιν marks the number eleven as
that of _all the bœotarchs_; at this time, according to Boeckh’s
opinion, ad Corp. Inscript. i, vol. i, p. 729. The number,
however, appears to have been variable.

[625] Thucyd. iv, 91. προσκαλῶν ἑκάστους κατὰ λόχους, ὅπως μὴ
ἁθρόοι ἐκλίποιεν τὰ ὅπλα, ἔπειθε τοὺς Βοιωτοὺς ἰέναι ἐπὶ τοὺς
Ἀθηναίους καὶ τὸν ἀγῶνα ποιεῖσθαι.

Here Dr. Arnold observes: “This confirms and illustrates what
has been said in the note on ii, 2, 5, as to the practice of the
Greek soldiers piling their arms the moment they halted in a
particular part of the camp, and always attending the speeches of
their general without them.”

In the case here before us, it appears that the Bœotians did
come by separate lochi, pursuant to command, to hear the words
of Pagondas, and also that each lochus left its arms to do so;
though even here it is not absolutely certain that τὰ ὅπλα does
not mean _the military station_, as Dukas interprets it. But Dr.
Arnold generalizes too hastily from hence to a customary practice
as between soldiers and their general. The proceeding of the
Athenian general Hippokratês, on this very occasion, near Delium,
to be noticed a page or two forward, exhibits an arrangement
totally different. Moreover, the note on ii, 2, 5, to which Dr.
Arnold refers, has no sort of analogy to the passage here before
us, which does not include the words τίθεσθαι τὰ ὅπλα; whereas
these words are the main matters in chapter ii, 2, 5. Whoever
attentively compares the two, will see that Dr. Arnold, followed
by Poppo and Göller, has stretched an explanation which suits
the passage here before us to other passages where it is no way
applicable.

[626] Thucyd. iv, 92.